How to be "Credit to Team."

[Milkyway64]

I'd like to add an new engie bullet. On defense, and especially if you're the only engie, put the minisentry away. It's... not gonna help.

Also, a few heavy tips:

Assuming it's unwrangled, you can take out an engie nest fairly easily at mid-close range. You're still inferior to a demo, but in a pinch you'll make a decent target for a nest-busting charge, assuming the medic is smart enough to run out and absorb the knockback. As for sentries that are wrangled, you're SOL. Unless...

Be sneaky! The most effective heavy, bar none, is the one that gets close to the enemy. Despite having the most HP of all the classes, charging up to the battle is NOT the way to go about this. Instead, sneak around. Flank from where they are not looking, wait unrevved around a corner they'd be unlikely to check, use spy routes and learn your limits. It's a good thing to take the enemy team by surprise and get three kills, then fighting the good fight until death, but it's better to take them by surprise, pick off a number of them until they realize what's going on, and retreating to a defensive location, like a corner. If they chase you, they'll likely die on the minigun they run face first into. In regards to wrangler sentries, if you can get close enough without him noticing, you can mow the engie down before he can react, leaving you a harmless, deactivated sentry to wail on.

Learn how to use the sandwich. With it's recent nerf, this is more important than ever. If you throw the sandvich, either to a team mate or yourself, it'll act as a medium medpack that recharges over time. If you eat it, you MUST find a medkit at full health to recover it. Think about whether or not you'll be seeing a lot of combat before nomming, sometimes it's much, much more fruitful to have regular half-heals rather than a one time full heal. Only EAT the sandvich if you're near a medpack or defending when there is a big enough lul in the waves to eat up, and run to a small/medium medkit to get it back (if there's a big medkit, cut out the middle man and just use that, which brings us to...)

WHORE THE HELL OUT OF MEDKITS. If there is one skill I'd say is essential to any and all heavies (aside from jump revving) it's definately this. Medkits (your thrown sandvich counts) heal based on percents (25, 50, 100 in that order) and so heavies always get the most out of them. A small is a whopping 75 HP, which is more than enough to keep you ticking just a while longer. Know the layouts of the maps and where the medkits are, hang around them and consider them havens for yourself. Between them and your sandvich, you can prolong your life by several times that which you could otherwise. If you have a medic, even better, but don't expect them to make you invincible. It's a general note that you should always save medpacks/sandvich for the medics, not all the time. If that 150 HP boost will keep you alive long enough to protect the medic, DO IT.

[DZComposer]

If you eat the sandvich, it resets the charge bar same as throwing it. You don't have to go to a medkit to get it back, you just need to wait a little. Like Jarate.

There's also a bug that if you bind a key to "use tf_weapon_fists" or "use tf_weapon_minigun" and press it before you finish eating, it will fail to set the charge bar to 0. Note that this is an exploit and is likely to get patched...

[Milkyway64]

Really? I thought eating it took the charge bar away and it didn't refill, onlt throwing it did. Unless I'm getting a pretty bad graphical glitch.

[DZComposer]

I don't know, but it works fine for me.

[Kursed]

Nom nom nom.... I never knew you could give the sandvich away.

[DZComposer]

I just read something interesting on the official TF2 Wiki. Apparently ubers can be killed by the telefrag.

EDIT: This vid of some telefrag traps shows an uber getting telefragged:

2haS-3b0xZ0

So, don't stand on enemy tele exits.

[ThePointingMan]

That's it's secondary, But Sadly you loose the weapon if you do. But people keep forgetting is that you can get another one from the supply cabinet in the spawning area.

They changed it, now it has a reload time, like any other food item, aplies when thrown or eaten.

Also may I add a note for scouts, When Fan jumping, to go as high as possible

                      O----- O<- at max hight use your second jump.

                                | <- fly straight up.

                                |

                you ->    O  moving <- that way

where you aim-> /        only less verticle more horizontal

To go as far as possible just shoot straight down.

For 2Fort specifically:

Using this you can go up the whole that goes from enemy spawn down to their room with the 2 doors to enter their base whicht no one ever suspects, shoot dispencer blocking spiral from there, bonk past sentry run back out same way.

when escaping with intel dont run across bridge, jump over the water you can make it with a shot aimed straight down so you go more forward then up. if you use the bridge explosion damage is easy to come by. Only do this if you can get up from the water, just in case you fall, to get up, just outside sewer entrances there is a little peice of land, go in the water to the left or right of this land (it's underwater but you can jump off it) in the corner, run across this strip of land and jump, then when you are out from underneath do the slanted fan shot to shoot straight up, jump to land and crouch in air. Also dont run intel into the sewer if its down there, jump it up to the mainfloor then you can shoot up the hole to spawn room on your side to get down to intel, or fan jump up to the battlements on the top floor from outside your base.

On other maps just try everthing, you can jump over a lot of stuff and it makes alot of great intel escapes.

[DZComposer]

when escaping with intel dont run across bridge, jump over the water you can make it with a shot aimed straight down so you go more forward then up. if you use the bridge explosion damage is easy to come by. Only do this if you can get up from the water, just in case you fall, to get up, just outside sewer entrances there is a little peice of land, go in the water to the left or right of this land (it's underwater but you can jump off it) in the corner, run across this strip of land and jump, then when you are out from underneath do the slanted fan shot to shoot straight up, jump to land and crouch in air. Also dont run intel into the sewer if its down there, jump it up to the mainfloor then you can shoot up the hole to spawn room on your side to get down to intel, or fan jump up to the battlements on the top floor from outside your base.

I wouldn't even try that unless I was damn-sure the enemy didn't have a base or a heavy/medic in my sewer. It's generally a bad idea to take the intel into the water for this very reason, so I wouldn't risk potentially falling into the water unless I was 100% sure I could get through the sewers. I like to go across the top of the bridge and jump to the friendly battlements.

Unless it's 2fort revamp where you can get out of the water without having to go into the sewer.

[ThePointingMan]

I can Force a nature jump up to the entrance of the fort, I never ever take it in the sewer.

Also soldier and demomen, if you crouch in the air before rocket jumping you go super high.

[DZComposer]

Some new things I notice for the engie:

1. DO NOT use the gunslinger (mini sentry) on defense, especially if you're the only engie. You need the power of Lvl 3.

2. The Wrangler is a great crowd control weapon.

3. Help out your fellow engie by keeping his ammo replenished if he is using the Wrangler. If you are part of a multi-engie nest, don't both wrangler at the same time. Help eachother out by keeping eachothers guns reloaded while using it. Also, having a non-wranglered gun around will help keep your base from being flanked, as wrangler sentires are much easier to flank than normal ones.

[Matrilwood]

Spies shouldn't use teleporters at all, it gives them away by leaving a team-colored teleporter trail.

[Xortberg]

Spies shouldn't use teleporters at all, it gives them away by leaving a team-colored teleporter trail.

I believe that was patched so they don't anymore, actually. Don't quote me on it, but I'm almost certain.

[Milkyway64]

With the last few updates bringing about tons of items, new tips are in order. Keep in mind some of these are biased or theorizing, as I do not have all the new weapons.

Scout-

Shortstop

-Works best at midrange

-pairs well with Criticola and mad milk

-pairs awfully with pistol, as the two share ammo reserves

Mad Milk

-Like the Jarate, it's best used to support teamates. Pelt an enemy, let your fellow heavies and soldiers regen valuable health off him.

-Using it with the Shortstop, you stand a good chance at killing heavies.

Holy Mackeral

-It's a bat with lulz, the only thing you gotta be wary of is enemy teamates will know ahead of time you are meleeing.

Boston Basher

-As of now it's unobtainable, but it's useless. Any hit that doesn't nail an enemy will hit YOU instead, complete with bleed effect. Feel free to add it to your troll loadout.

Candy Cane

-Drops small health packs on any kill you were involved in, IIRC. You don't even have to kill them with the cane, merely having it equiped should do it. Very nice weapon.

Soldier-

Black Box

-Personally, I think it's fairly useless. It can still be effective, but the absence of one of your rockets can spell doom more often than people think. 15 health on hit sounds nice until you need to reload, and is outright unneccessary if you got a medic buddy.

Battalion's Backup

-Another fairly useless unlock. Unless you have a medic, don't expect to use it much. Even then, it has such a long startup time that countering a kritz is all but impossible, which is in theory what would make it shine.

Rocket Jumper

-Troll your own medics and be an endless source of comedy to the other team by shooting harmless rockets at them! =D

-Also be sure to spam plenty of equalizer taunts!

Pyro-

Degreaser

-Freakin' use this for god's sake. At the cost of some minor after burn damage, the degreaser will allow you to switch weapons near instantly, making it an amazing partner for the Axtinguisher.

Powerjack

-Powerful melee weapon that can overheal you on kill, what's not to like other than having to give up the axtinguisher/degreaser combo?

Back Scratcher

-Are you a pyro that loves separating from the team for flanks? Annoyed that medics don't give you the attention you deserve? Using any flamethrower other than the degreaser? The back scratcher is for you, allowing you to benefit more from the healthpacks laying around while still packing a nice punch.

-The backscratcher reduces healing from medics and dispensers, so if you call for a doctor, expect it to be a while until he tops you off. This can be used advantageously, however, as the uber meter will still build like normal. Be your medic's best friend by running out there and taking a beating before falling back, delivering 30-50% ubercharge to him in only a few seconds.

Demoman-

Loch and Load

-Sacrifice two grenades and the valuable suppressive fire of the grenade launcher for a high risk, high reward weapon that must direct hit to do any damage at all. While generally a downgrade from the grenade launcher, the loch and load excells at wiping control points crowded with eager enemies, although don't expect to take any engie nests out with this thing.

Ullapool Caber

-A straight upgrade from the bottle, I'd say. Some argue that it's terrible on account of only having one use and mosttimes, killing you along with your target, but think, how often does a bottle demo melee? When you do melee, wouldn't it be nice to have that power for those desperate situations?

-It's a thing of beauty to witness a demo stickyjumping and airstrafing to divebomb a high priority target. However, demos that can pull this off are better known as gods, so don't count on doing this yourself. =P

Claidheamohmor

-Pretty terrible. The only thing it's really good for is making a getaway, which the targe does well enough on it's own. If you use this without the targe, ur doin it wrong or trolling.

Heavy

Brass Beast

-If you use this on offense, stop. Seriously. Brass Beast is godawful if you try to take the fight to your enemies. Use Sasha instead ffs.

-Rather, you should sit your ass down in a nice defensive spot and mow down any tiny cowards stupid or unaware enough to wander in sight. Just be wary of demos, you really don't have a chance against a sticky launcher demo who knows where you are.

-Watch your ammo, most heavies do not know just how often they pick up ammo without thinking about it. Well the Beast insists on you not doing that, as you are next to motionless revved up and the spin up time means that if anyone catches you with your pants down, you are dead. Make sure it's safe before you go ammo scavenging.

-On that note, the shotgun may see a glorious return paired with the brass beast. Not counting melee, if you pack the brass beast you must be totally still to fight. Shotgun remedies this by allowing the heavy to move while not being defenseless.

-You WILL smile when you fire crits with this thing.

-Above all, the number one thing to keep in mind is that the Brass Beast is an area denial tool. Playing it like you would Sasha or Natascha will get you killed unless the enemy team has a bunch of monkeys at the keyboard.

Buffalo Steak Sandvich

-A bug right now (or is it?) will make it so you can throw the steak to have it function like a medium medpack, like the regular sandvich. Use it.

-The speedy minicrit rage will lock you into Melee only. Pair this with the KGB for a jolly good time.

-Pairing it with the GRU is also fun. Your hulking Heavy will be outrunning the Scouts to the front line, just make sure you run over a health pack before you get there!

-Using it with the Warrior's Spirit and Fists of Steel is a bad idea. Your lower HP means with the Warrior's Spirit that each hit against you counts that much more, and the KGB will outperform it offensively anyway. As for the fists, being locked to your melee weapon makes you a sitting duck for anyone smart enough to realize that meleeing YOU will wreck you, and hard.

GRU

-Use these tons. Nothing is sweeter than totally negating the Heavy's speed weakness. The HP drain is no problem if you have a medic or M2 your sandvich/collect healthpacks.

-Don't fight with them. These are a tool, not a weapon. If you wanna punch people out, there's plenty of superior options.

Warrior's Spirit

-Pretty useless. Have fun dominating Fists of Steel heavies, though.

Fists of Steel

-ideal if the other team has a lot of snipers, dumb people, or if you just need to retreat.

-Beware of other people with melee. Especially ubersaws, KGBs, or powerjacks.

-With a medic, you can tank like no one's business. Distract the enemy team by being one hell of a damage sponge while the rest of the team pushes from another angle.

-Make the enemy team rage with this fun mindgame; whip out the steel fists, make a scene by pretending to be a stupid heavy unaware of being vulnerable to other melees. When a single person or ideally a small strike team pulls out their own and charges, pullout Sasha. Slaughter them all shamelessly.

Engineer-

Jag

-Not much to say. As long as you bang on building buildings, they construct incredibly fast. Unless your team fails at spy checking or you want to use the gunslinger, always use this.

Sniper-

Sydney Sleeper

-Downgrade over the rifle, though valued by trolls everywhere. While you will not be killing people, you'll annoy them pretty good.

-It's actually worth using if you're awful at aiming. There's no obligation to hit a tiny head, so just rest easy and at least be a little credit by plugging folks center mass.

Darwin's Danger Shield

-Grand for the sniper who likes hanging out on the mid lines, or likes using the huntsman.

-unfortunately, you lose that wonderful support tool known as Jarate.

Bushwacka

-Always use this if you're carrying Jarate. Otherwise stick with the shiv or kukri depending on your preference.

Medic-

Crusader's Crossbow

-It's a huntsman that heals people!

-While the syringe gun or blutsauger is better for suppressive fire, the crossbow is a dangerous weapon if underestimated.

-It's healing is instant and in sizable bursts. Usually you should stick with the medigun, but you might be more effective shooting them with this if it's, say, a heavy under constant fire from a sentry or opposing heavy-medic combo

Aputator

-Identical to the bonesaw except the taunt potently heals all teamates within a certain radius. Use this behind cover at a choke point and it could potentially devastate even the most rock solid defense.

-It's arguable whether or not this is better than the Ubersaw. I say they are sidegrades amongst eachother.

Spy-

L'etranger

-I really have no opinion on this gun. Use it if you like it, I guess.

Your Eternal Reward

-I again have no opinion on this weapon. I recognize it as a good sidegrade to the knife, but I can't use it for ass.

And finally, set bonuses. Spoilers, most of these aren't worth looking at.

Milkman-

Viable. Shortstop and milk work nicely together, and the fish is amazing. If you use the shortstop at all, consider this.

Tank Buster-

Horrible. Black box with no shotgun is godawful, and the lack of rockets make sentry busting uneccessarily hard even if the set bonus suggests you should be able to take sentries out well.

Gas Jockey-

Pretty nice, actually. The ability to catch up with everything other than scouts is nice. If you use the powerjack over the axtinguisher, look into this ASAP.

Expert's Ordnance-

Pretty worthless because the L&L is bad. Although it may help you suicide bomb a pyro better. Maybe.

Hibernating Bear-

Pretty bad. The Brass Beast doesn't compliment the HP loss of the bear claws very well, and neither does the steak. The set bonus, a slight resistance to crits, is also negated by the HP loss.

Medieval Medic-

Pretty great, actually. Amputator's good, crossbow isn't bad, and any medigun can be used in the set. A decent loadout with the added perk of regening even MORE HP per second, meaning less death, meaning more successful team.

Croc-o-Style-

Bad. No Jarate with Bushwacka? Forced Sleeper use? Dangershield on a long-ranged encouraged loadout? How does this synergize well at all? Oh, and the immunity to headshots also sucks, since you can't headshot back and thus are once more on even grounds.

Saharan Spy-

Decent, but only with deadringer. The YER doesn't work well with the gun, but near silent DR uncloaks can really wreck an unaware team.

Hoo boy, post over.

[ThePointingMan]

Saharan Spy is usefull for more then just dead ringer, my key for finding spy's gonna kill me is listening for that decloak sound, regular watches make a less noticeable sound(it mixes in with other sound effects kinda), but it's still pretty dang loud.

Also, Lock an louds a good to have with the targe I think, when I use the targe, I rely on it, rather then my grenade launcher, the only problem is heavies. Loch and load works pretty good vs heavy cause 2 hits with it come out fast and a charge to the heavy to cut his head off. You can do it pretty fast, so you can pull a "never know what hit 'em" type thingy.

[Robert Monroe]

I disagree on two things, Milk.

1: The Black Box is a roaming soldier's dream. its terrible for pockets, but the healing bonus usually keeps you ahead of the game if your shots are good.

2: The Jag is only good for the engineer who builds one structure at a time, hammering away. Its also great for M2'ing and redeploying on the front lines at a fast speed, but as a whole unless your an OCD engie who hammers everything before building something else, Southern Hospitality should be you primary wrench replacement of choice (unless theres a ton of pyros around).

[Milkyway64]

I disagree on two things, Milk.

1: The Black Box is a roaming soldier's dream. its terrible for pockets, but the healing bonus usually keeps you ahead of the game if your shots are good.

2: The Jag is only good for the engineer who builds one structure at a time, hammering away. Its also great for M2'ing and redeploying on the front lines at a fast speed, but as a whole unless your an OCD engie who hammers everything before building something else, Southern Hospitality should be you primary wrench replacement of choice (unless theres a ton of pyros around).

1. That extra rocket really means more than people give credit for. If you have a black box and encounter another roaming soldier with the Rocket Launcher, that extra 45 HP won't mean much. The black box just doesn't heal enough for the huge decrease in offense to be worth it in most situations.

2. I'm having trouble understanding. Since when was redeploying much faster ever a bad thing for a bit of damage? There's plenty of use for the Jag from that to getting your dispenser up and producing metal faster, while using your wrench in a combat situation is usually better left to your shotgun. Maybe if you pack the Frontier Justice you should use the wrench/southern hospitality, but other than that the general usefulness of the Jag makes it seem to be the top choice.

[ThePointingMan]

Boston basher sucks so much I love it... keep killing myself though.

[Robert Monroe]

1. That extra rocket really means more than people give credit for. If you have a black box and encounter another roaming soldier with the Rocket Launcher, that extra 45 HP won't mean much. The black box just doesn't heal enough for the huge decrease in offense to be worth it in most situations.

2. I'm having trouble understanding. Since when was redeploying much faster ever a bad thing for a bit of damage? There's plenty of use for the Jag from that to getting your dispenser up and producing metal faster, while using your wrench in a combat situation is usually better left to your shotgun. Maybe if you pack the Frontier Justice you should use the wrench/southern hospitality, but other than that the general usefulness of the Jag makes it seem to be the top choice.

Like I said, the Jag is only good if you consciously are hammering your gear as it redeploys or builds, which means you have to stay in one spot as it does so. Admittedly it does this very fast, but if you are moving a lot of gear up and around then the S.H. or Vanilla Wrench is the way to go. The Jag is essentially a Turtling wrench.

Also the bleed mechanic means the SH is nearly garunteed to 2-hit kill most 125HP classes give or take, so its plenty powerful.

[Milkyway64]

Well, if the SH can 2-shot people I think I get it. Maybe the Jag isn't as good as I thought.

And for that matter, the brass beast may not be either. It's got Spy syndrome, where the moment you spin down WILL be the moment someone rounds the corner and wipes your unprepared ass out. Health is also an issue alongside ammo, so you pretty much need a spot on top of pickups (which for the most part aren't the best defensive holds) or a dispensor, which most of the time is going to be by the SG anyway. Even in optimal situations, the minigun kills plenty fast on it's own, so you're really just playing high risk, overkill reward.

It needs a buff, I think. The damage itself is fine if they increased the accuracy of it. A BB heavy picking away with more accurate full auto shots would be a factor, but at 6 HP a shot not really unfair.

[DZComposer]

I find using the jag to be rather beneficial. The Wrangler can make up for its spycheking short comings when used properly.

And I say nonsense when you say building one building at a time. The increased speed means you can get your entire nest up faster. This is great for push maps and payload maps when you have to fall back and get a defense up at the next point quickly. It's also great for choke points and area defense, IE the hay room on 2fort, when you expect your gun to take a lot of hits and may need to rebuild it fast.

Though I will agree that it isn't something you want to use if you are not getting appropriate support from your team. It definitely isn't a tool for the offensive engie.

[Milkyway64]

A few updates, now that I've tried a lot of the new weapons.

The Candy Cane isn't as good as I'd hoped. The medpack that drops can be used by the enemy, too, and soldiers/demos/that stray sentry rocket that seems to always hit you all have a much better chance at instantly gibbing you. Stick with the fish or sandman, unless you think that having a convenient fire-extinguishing bottle dropped from the very pyro who lit you up will make the difference. This all said, I love looking at the thing. It's very shiny.

Boston Basher isn't as terribad as I thought either if you use it solely as a hit and run weapon, although the scattergun does that well enough too. Maybe if you paired it with the FaN- er... that hit/runs well too. Nevermind, still awful.

The steel fists are godly. The steak still has M2 functionality, and no longer stack with the GRU's speed boost, so if you use the steak (carefully) for your getting-to-the-front-lines-quickly needs the steel fists may even be better than the GRU. Nothing feels better than running across sniper territory without fear of instantly dying, except for maybe running from an uber with the same sense of security.

Amputator is alright, especially with the crossbow which is tons of fun. Your regen is enough to nullify the need for healthpacks almost entirely as you heal more per second than most hitscan weapons can do at long range.

The bearclaws, while not something I've used, I've seen put to effective use in countering steel fist heavies, especially if they charge in from a recent steak meal expecting easy kills. Other than that, they seem pretty worthless, or at least compared to the sheer utility of the GRU and FoS.

Since I'm feeling bored and a little ballsy, and also to spark a bit of discussion, I think I'll make a tier list now in a separate thread. Yes, I have sunk that low.

[DZComposer]

Update dropped that fixes some things:

Steak Sandvich speed boost no longer stacks with GRU speed boost, so no more scout-heavies.

If an autobalance plugin swaps you or someone you challenged to a duel to the team your duel opponent is on, the duel does not count against your dueling game count.

[Robert Monroe]

I find using the jag to be rather beneficial. The Wrangler can make up for its spycheking short comings when used properly.

And I say nonsense when you say building one building at a time. The increased speed means you can get your entire nest up faster. This is great for push maps and payload maps when you have to fall back and get a defense up at the next point quickly. It's also great for choke points and area defense, IE the hay room on 2fort, when you expect your gun to take a lot of hits and may need to rebuild it fast.

Though I will agree that it isn't something you want to use if you are not getting appropriate support from your team. It definitely isn't a tool for the offensive engie.

I didn't say the Jag wasn't beneficial, and yes on push maps and turtling its a godsend. However, when trying to build multiple buildings at once, the Jag lacks because its building buff isn't doing you any good if you are running around grabbing metals while letting your Dispenser/Sentry/Teleporter autobuild.