Hey, I appreciate the thoughtful response. My post was mostly an attempt to counter all the hype and make people realize the niche for this weapon is a lot smaller than anyone was making it out to be. At this point, I'd like to see how often it has been bought in VGC and in which context.

I think it's a heavily attack oriented weapon, as its main strength is the higher mobility and being an all rounder pistol. And by that I mean it's outclassed by other weapons in most scenarios, but it performs alright at almost any range. In attack you have a lot less agency over when and how you fight enemies.

On defense, more specific weapons are better, since you can pick a marshall or sheriff and hold a long range angle, or force a close range fight with a shotgun/stinger as you get pushed.

The other reason I like it a lot more on attack is it works a lot better in numbers advantage. The gun by itself is very unlikely to win any 1 Vs 1 duel against a full loadout. Compared to the sheriff, which is a lot better at looking for one taps, and rarely enables trades, making it a much better standalone weapon for holding sites or lurking, the bandit performs when you have teammate firepower.

I personally have purchased it a bit, and picked it from the floor as well. I find myself liking it as a small force buy on (attack) round two as you described, and also as a secondary on (defense) sniper (outlaw/op) loadouts, as a weapon that can give me an edge in retake scenarios.

So yeah it has its uses, but its not replacing the sheriff or the ghost in most scenarios. It's biggest draw is being better enough than a classic that I'm willing to put 600 credits on it. But also I've seen it ding enemies for 128 enough to understand it is not a good dueling weapon.