Thanks for adding the guide, Pie21, and to everyone including you: I promise I will make the guide slightly shorter as soon as I have the time and brainpower to do so!
The shots including the sniper are very boring, but its fun seeing him get nice headshots, and people flopping over, maybe a mid air headshot would be cool.
It’s probably a good enough length as it is. Of course if you think it’ll be better then it’s probably worth fixing up.
And you’re right Neoviper, but the problem is always that the sniper shoots at targets far away, so if you take the shot from where the sniper is to get a good look at him, his target is tiny. I’ll think of something though.
No, i mean not having the sniper in the shot, and just showing the results of his work. Would have to have at least one shot of the sniper, but its perfectly well understood that in an article about the sniper, people flopping over with blood coming out of their head, are sniper victims.
Good point. I guess having a tiny sniper in the background could work with that. Problem is you can only have so many shots in a sniper article that barely have a sniper in them.
Don’t forget that the spy can disguise himself as his own team! This can be very useful in a couple of ways:
1. If you disguise as another team member, you generally become less of a target for the other team. Generally, if the other team sees you as a spy, or worse, as a friendly team member within a group of enemies, they will try to eliminate you before you can infiltrate behind their lines. If you disguise as a friendly, they’ll target the medics instead, or the guy firing the big gun at them.
It also gives you the element of surprise, especially useful in sudden death. If the enemy sees you as an enemy pyro or demoman, they won’t be expecting the highly accurate pistol fire you are about to unload on their face.
In any case, the time that you spend with a group of friendlies running towards the front line disguised as someone less annoying, is time spent conserving your cloak.
2. The other good way to use this ability is to spread misinformation at the beginning of the game about the make-up of your team. This is especially valuable on the Attack/Defend map Dustbowl. Disguising as a friendly Heavy/Sniper can often scare people away from the gated exits/entrances.
You can kill the Heavy with the medic, it just takes some doing.
First you need the Heavy to be distracted: In my case, it was a friendly medic going ineffectually kamikaze on him.
Second close the gap, while not being seen.
Third AMPUTATE! After the second hit with the bonesaw, the heavy will probably have noticed you and start spinning around trying to hit you. Keep strafing left and right, and throw in a bit of jumping for good measure. Try to anticipate which way the player is likely to turn and avoid that minigun. Sometimes the player will help you by not having a high enough mouse sensitivity to cope, in which case you should just keep running around the Heavy in one direction. After about 7-8 hits, he will go down.
After taking the Heavy down, I immediately got gibbed by a Soldier. Go figure.
Good Guide. It may be worth noting that your rockets can scatter stickybombs so if a cluster is in your way you can hit them with a rocket and they roll possibly clearing you a path.
Also in 1 on one fights with a slow opponent I try to hit them in the chest rather than rely on splash..just a preference.
Added the sticky scattering, good point. And there is something to be said for direct hits if you’re good enough, but really they have to be slow or very close. It’s also a good point though, in certain situations.
glad you finally mentioned the shot gun. i have plenty of heavy hours and i have my shot gun out constantly unless a situation presents itself for the mini gun. i also run with my shot gun out when i get an uber to dish out damage while i am on the move to my sweet spot then, once i am where i think is a good spot [or 6 shots have been fired], i whip out my ac and lay waste.
one other thing i would like to add is, as a heavy you are at your best when you can lure your enemy to you (since you are slow as a turtle on crutches). i avoid rushing in unless i have a medic backing me up or i am uber’d. when alone i annoy people with my shot gun and get them to come to me. sucks for them usually because once they get to me i am waiting right around the corner with my mini gun spinning. point: play defensive offense and if you have a medic on you it works even better because you suck up damage which builds the uber faster which lets you kill everything.
you also make a good engy buddy assuming he’s smart and has a dispenser there for you. you can just hold down the fire button (you can do this with a pyro too… great spot is last stage on dustbowl first cp… if you stay out of sight as a heavy or pyro with a disp around the corner from the first cp you can stop spies from even thinking about getting past you to sneak to the last cap… assuming you dont die. pryo works from the side of the cp where you drop down from the tunnel from spawn and heavy works either side just make sure if youre on the opposite side that you are always firing ACROSS the gap that leads to the cap… this way you will see the spies flicker and can at least warn your team) which works great for keeping spies off the sg/disp and pretty much makes enemies stay hidden because you are constantly shooting/getting healed and they will surely lose that battle.
one thing that is ALWAYS left out on EVERY medic guide i have seen is if you’re healing a heavy and are attacking in a linear style (meaning your enemies are directly in front of the heavy) you can crouch and actually HIDE BEHIND the heavy. he will take all the oncoming fire which will result in damage which results in a faster uber which will result in you both kicking major ass. the technique is tricky and it doesn’t always work out unless the situation is perfect. to do it correctly the heavy must be firing (so he’s moving slow). you run up behind him and crouch and TAP your forward key fast enough to keep up with his slow fat butt. looks almost like a secret special move if done correctly. only bad thing is he has the potential to run out of ammo. again, this only works in very specific situations.
EXAMPLE: last cap on granary (or any map for that matter) and all the enemies are piling on the cap to save it… crouch behind the heavy you’re healing since the enemies are all in one spot [and probably won't scatter because they're busy saving the cp]. once they turn their attention to you its over because the heavy will soak up so much damage and usually wont die because you’re right up on him [and you heal ever so slightly fast the closer you are to your target]. just keep inching forward, pop your uber and win.
There is one serious drawback of forward defense, though. I was on a team facing an opponent following that strategy onceand we did have a hard time to get through to the last CP becaue of that ( I still don’t know the map names; it was the map with 2 CPs separated by a series of tunnels; the first is on a wooden barn, the second right next to spawn point, in front of a wooden building complex ). The opposing team set up their defences in front of the tunnels, and we just couldn’t get through. So after a while, one of my teammates shouted “spy rush!”. Seconds later 6 of our 8 people changed to spies, while the other two changed to soldiers to give the illusion of a constant attack, spamming rockets. The spy guys cloaked past the defence line, overpoered what little defence there was at the second CP and took it in no-time. Thought it was worth mentioning.
Hah, interesting point there Mr Learning. That would be Dustbowl stage 2, and while I can see it working, I’m guessing you’d have a tough time pulling it off again. One sentry gun with accompanying engineer would give 6 spies a run for their money alone, and a single pyro (which is always nice to have hanging back a bit watching everyone’s backs would compound the problem.
On that note however a forward defence without (backwards) defence, you’re right, will fall to the right attack. I always like to see at least a guarded sentry holding the fort, and of course the forward defenders shouldn’t be pushing so far forward (as a whole, individuals can probe) that they can’t get back to defend if needs be.
Latest info is that the Overhealer was found to be impossible to balance, and that instead we’ll be seeing a version of the medigun that charges a different type of ubercharge – instead of 10 seconds invulnerability for you and your target, you get 10 seconds of 100% critical hits.
Could be rather useful for going on a mad rampage of epic killing, or taking out an engineer nest before you get gunned down by the sentry
Yo Pie… “Cinderblock – Gravel Pit CPC” has the wrong image. It’s the image that was used for the “Cinderblock – Gravel Pit CPA” hint. Thought I’d let you know.
Maybe also good to pay attention to how you scatter stickies. In a control point, when a demo is lacing the doorways, an errant rocket can actually scatter the stickies to the interior of the CP, with disastrous results if the demo notices.
There are two more things I would add to this guide:
1) A Pyro is perfect for causing a Medic too use his Uber-charge too early, due to the panic effect.
2) Always try to attack from above if possible. This disorients the enemy and makes them less likely to hit you, at least in his first and second shots.
“The main reason for defenders losing is a poor class mix. Your team should not have more than 1 sniper or any scouts, and should definitely have at least 1 demoman and heavy and 2 medics.”
It hurts my pride as a scout player to read that A scout on the defense can have similarly huge value as a spy or sniper. While he can’t effectively deal with sentries, he’s good for sneaking around and taking out teleporter enterances ( exits are often guarded by sentries ), and if teh scout player knows what he’s doing, can apply a tremendous pressure on the attacking team by popping up around the corner, quickly taking down a key demoman or medic, disappearing again, coming up from a different angle, getting rid of the spy as he’s just about to disguise himself, disappear again, etc, etc. Especially effective on Dustbowl 2, also somewhat on D1, after the first wave of attackers is dealt with – forcing medics to pop ubers early, and to charge them in the safety of their point, too ( few things are as frustrating as having a scout pop up behind You and blast You to oblivion with two shots, leaving no time to activate the ubercharge).
Also, although it’s true that it’s rather silly to go scout when You see 3 snipers and 4 spies on the team already, there are two things to remember: One, the team is probably doomed anyway, because there are seven other morons on it , two: A skilled scout is better than a rookie demoman. Speaking from experience here; I can’t seem to get the demoman to work for me, and have changed often from scout to demoman or soldier when my team complained. I seldom manage to contribute anything to defense like that.
One ingenious spot which i saw a sentry in, was on the top level of the base, guarding the second cap point, from that little sniper loft. now normally, this would be rocket bait, but if you place it behind the boxes in that area, attacking enemies cant see it, and it will surprise a lot of people.
the only troubles that come up are when they realize what is happening, and send someone through the building to kill it. either another sentry guarding the main entrances, or the stairway room, would solve that problem.
Granted, scouts can be useful. Perhaps “no scouts” is a bit excessive, but I stand by no more than 1 sniper, and more than 1 scout would be eating up valuable defensive class spots. A scout can “have similarly huge value as a spy or sniper”, but that’s not saying much Actually spies can be incredibly effective against unparanoid attackers, but again you CAN have too many.
At the end of the day, going medic is probably going to be more help than going scout or sniper, unless you’re particularly skilled with the above. That’s what I was trying to get at.
your litte tib-bit about scout/spy seems like a nobrainer. (the name has TEAM in it…)
in fact, i seem to think the only teamwork existing in TF2 is the medic + [insert class here]
i always think in 2fort, in the enivitable turtle, it just takes two spies to act as a demo/medic team, get to the intel, then pair up and sap two or more sentries, then have the two walk back up, shooting anyone who comes in their way
but no, my teammates just laugh, and go on their own individual tasks
instead of four spies in sequence, how about this:
the enemy has set up three sentries in far different place, the four spies uncloak right in fron of the sentries at around the same time, spam sap while frantically jumping around, then take care of the engies, regardless of teammates around, this would cause utter pandimonium, and is a good push time.
for the dustbowl setup, try diguising a a friendly heavy, and try and freak’em out a bit by standing at the gates…
friendly disguises are put there for a reason, and that reason is, a blue scout coming out from the blue base drws a lot less attention than a red demo coming from the wrong way…so USE IT!!!
Overall speed of the target is entirely irrelevant when choosing a target. The important factor with regard to movement is transversal (or angular velocity). Transversal is, in layman’s terms, the speed of the target with regards only to the left/right/up/down movement relative to your position. For example, someone running directly towards you has a transversal of 0; they are effectively standing still. Someone running to your right has a transversal of… well its a lot of math but its more than zero, trust me. Because of this a scout running towards you may actually be an easier target than a heavy strafing to your left or right. Choosing targets with low/no transversal is the key to getting headshots consistently. This is the same reason that it is harder to hit targets which are closer even when their overall absolute speed is the same, as transversal takes into account the distance between the observer and the target.
I would also recommend that, when possible, you position yourself near a friendly sentry (dustbowl and goldrush have several good oppurtunities). Spies will be less likely to backstab you with a sentry around, and you can use your powerful machete to take care of any spies which go after the buildings first. Having a dispenser nearby also tops up your health passively. The only downside to this is that the sentry may become a target, exposing you to splash damage. In that event just run away.
[...] we’re getting all this for FREE!), but Valve had to go one further. This is not just a single new weapon, nor is it a more substantial TODO list for the next few weeks, this is something [...]
[...] but Valve had to go one further. This is not just a single new weapon, nor is it a more substantial TODO list for the next few weeks, this is something [...]
To be honest I have no idea either. I think it’s just perfect timing.
For the first shot you aim slightly behind yourself rather than straight down, and then when you’re about to hit the ground again, you time it perfectly and retain all your forward momentum as well as adding the extra launch. Practice, I guess
Couldn’t agree with you more, looking back on it, the original demoman design seems so…..generic. They nailed each character’s personality and nationality perfectly. Well, nearly so, I still have some thoughts on if the medic were japanese or the spy british, but that’s just me probably.
how about a list of rocketjumping practice maps?
I’ve heard about one called “skyscraper”, but wasn’t able to find a download for it or it’s exact name.
There are a few sites / site subsections devoted to this already. How do you feel about a list of recommended links? I’d be happy to gather a few if you wanted to post them as editor’s content.
Good idea! Given that ‘the time being’ until I get around to this section is longer than longcat, I spose I should be pointing people to others in the community whose job it already is. If you wanted to put a few links together, that’d be great!
I don’t know about those specialised custom maps, I tend to just bum around in-game to see where I can and can’t get. Maybe someone else knows? You could ask in the forums, certainly.
[...] that should help intermediate Pyros. Still no unlocks, though. Compression Blast Guide by Pie21 (Youtube Embedded with Article) A pretty well written and descriptive article accompanies this video. If you’ve come back from an [...]
[...] moving down their track. Given the ramps the tracks run up are identical, it suggests to me the “very different new game mode” will be a race to see which team can push their little cart to the end first. If that’s true, [...]
[...] when Valve released the raw .vmf’s for all the TF2 maps a while back, and said they were working on getting the TF2 character animations out there too? [...]
Before you read this, the only reason I Wrote this was because I’m bored, and this sudden death section has nothing in it, so I may as well put something in. Unless you have absolutely no idea what sudden death is, then do not read this.
Sudden death is when the game has gone into overtime and its a draw between both teams. When sudden death begins you will have a short amount of time to select a character,(About 10 seconds I’ve heard)And then you cannot change. In sudden death mode, if you die once, you will stay dead until next round. So don’t die. The smart idea would be to choose a class that can survive, instead of worrying about how many people your going to kill, just make you you stay alive. Choose wisely. like a sniper, for example, (unless confronted by another sniper, or ambassador wielding spy) , will survive for a decent length of time if he keeps his distance from others, as a sniper should. A medic constantly regains health,and can heal teammates, so he is also a good option. And a scout is fast, so it’s harder for a sniper to hit him, and can make a quick retreat if necessary. A spy can also be a good option, becoming invisible and hiding(the Cloak and dagger are good for this), faking his own death(Useful), long range ambassador(For taking out enemys at a distance(again very good for surviving), and a instant kill back stab melee weapon. The heavy, while having his huge amount of health, is slow, cannot retreat as easily if in trouble, and is an easy target for snipers. It all depends on how good you are with a class really, and these are just some obvious tips that everyone knows about, sorry about wasting 5 minutes of your time, but I did warn you
Very good strategies, as for you mr looka_bear; I would laugh at you too, spies are terribly over rated as sentry hard counters, sure they can sap sentrys but any decent engineer will easily kill the spy and save or rebuild his sentry, soldier=sentry hard counter, not spy. Spies are there to take out key members of the enemy team that are camping, i.e. Demomen,snipers, heavys on defense, and to take out key offenders such as soldiers and medic heavy combos.
If the engineer simply sits at his sentry with his back to a wall he becomes nearly invulnerable to spies of all skill, give him one more person to play defense with him and a spy can’t do much against a sentry alone.
“boasting plenty of gameplay variety, huge amounts of personality, and of course a level of developer support that is pretty much unprecedented” Tell that to the ever increasing number of the tf2 gamers on the x box, we’ve been promised an update for over a year now but we have yet to see so much as a single class update, I’ve been waiting for valve to give the x box community what they payed for since the medic update hit the pc, the fact that we may have to pay more for the updates pc gamers got for free isn’t very fair either, we bought the game just like the pc gamers, on top of that we pay a monthly bill for x box live and those of us who don’t care for the half life series(Guilty) are pretty much forced to buy it anyway because we can’t purchase tf2 stand alone like pc gamers.
I understand that valve may not be allowed to put the updates on x box live for free due to microsoft but they better be as cheap as possible. I don’t want to pay for updates on a regular basis either, I.E. when we do finally get the updates and if we have to pay, I don’t want to pay again a year later for the new content pc gamers have gotten for free yet again.
Good point, and I complete understand. I am of course coming from a PC perspective, with a pretty extreme bias
First of all, I can all but guarantee that Valve WANTS to give all Xboxers ALL the updates for free. Whatever price ends up being charged is the best price Valve could get. Their frustrations with the M$ pricing policies are very public and vocal. That they managed to get the L4D Survival Pack out for free at all is a minor miracle.
There are of course other issues to consider if you are Valve; one that would figure prominently is the stupid decision of MS to sell a version of the Xbox with no permanent storage. Assuming they don’t send out an updated disc with all the updates on it to everyone who owns TF2 on Xbox, then they’re going to be alienating customers. Unpatched versions aren’t going to be able to play on patched servers, since there’s stuff going on that they simply can’t understand.
I’m actually quite interested in this issues, though I know little about it. I may shoot a brief email off to Gabe and see what he has to say.
Good guide, I can see why you call the scout an offensive support class; while a scout is very effective a whole team of them can be defeated by a single sentry. On a team without a group of primary assault classes on the front line the scout is pretty much useless.
Nice guide, you should have mentioned that spies have many other jobs besides taking out sentrys, spies are over rated as sentry hard counters, if the sentry is guarded then the spy really can’t do anything but sap it then get killed. You will be much more usefull to your team as a spy if you leave guarded sentry guns alone and go after other targets.
Forward defenses are very vulnerable and I don’t really trust them, I know any team that tries forward defense on me puts themself at a seriouse disadvantage, spy is my main class and I’ve had some epic moments where my entire team could not break through a forward defense on dustbowl and I snuck to the last control point, easily took out the lone engineer, then enjoyed a nice ciggarete taunt as a scout came running to try and stop me.
While I do like having a bit of a forward defensive to slow down and take out some attackers(Heavy+Medic is great for this), Imo it is much better to have most of your team near the point.
“The heavy is perhaps the least dimensional class in Team Fortress 2.” I disagree, you have to be a fan of mmo games like WoW to understand how much fun the heavy can really be, when used for forward defense he plays just like a “Tank” in variouse mmo games, soaking up damage so the rest of the team doesn’t have to die, and single handedly pushing the entie enemy team back and slowing them down make the heavy one of the most fun classes to defend with.
A good guide, covered all the basics and then some. One more thing you should add is that when you ubercharge someone, especially heavys, you need to rush in front of them and jump around drawing the sentry gun’s fire onto you, allowing your buddy to move in closer and do more damage without getting knocked around by rockets.
Good point, I’d say there’s pros and cons for both strategies, unsurprisingly. Maybe we just haven’t wroked very well, but the problem I find with having everyone hanging around near the point is people tend to cluster – partly because there’s only one or two sources of health (usually including a dispenser), partly because people want to stick near other people (which is usually good except when everyone does it in a small space).
This obviously leaves you pretty vulnerable to a) demos, b) kamikaze rushes (i.e. a Pyro jumping into the thick of things followed up by a Solly or two), and especially c) ANY kind of ubercharge. An ubercharge on ANY class will be effective if your whole team is clumped around the point, and it’s too easy for them to just roll in and wreck the joint. One of the key strengths of forward defences is to harass the Medics and not let them get into a position to uber the final point. Best example of this is Dustbowl 2.2 defence: by putting players around the tunnel exits, it prevents the Medics from strolling right up to the final corner before popping the uber, and Pyros can generally cut them off with compression blasts well before they get there.
As you say though, one of the caveats is that you must keep some people home, and one of the FD’s weaknesses is that it can be so effective that the defence just keeps pushing forward once they claim their territory, leaving the point they’re SUPPOSED to defend undefended. Obvious example is Dustbowl 3.2 – how many times has that been Spycapped when the RED team is up defending 3.1!
It all depends really. This is all my humble opinion of course
Good point, but I don’t think I ever said he wasn’t fun, if you’re into that sort of thing. By “dimensions” I’m thinking more about how many roles he can take on, how much variation can be applied to each role, etc. The Pyro for instance can kamikaze rush, ninja ambush, harass and keep enemies at bay, storm bases with an uber, and he’s even extremely effective on defence (where I enjoy using him). His different weapons complement these roles: CB for defence, BB for ambushing, flares + CB for harassing, CB + Axtinguisher for ambushing, etc.
The Heavy on the other hand (again, from my experience) has one, maybe two kind of roles he can fill, and ultimately he tends to get locked into standard patterns due to him being so slow when he’s doing what he’s supposed to (dishing out boolleets). He can defend by standing in an advantageous position and spamming, he can slowly push forward with his team by walking along and spamming, and he can attack by walking around a corner and spamming. He just doesn’t tend to lend himself to experimentation and creative use is what I’m getting at. I’m not suggesting he’s weak or boring or unhelpful, as he’s none of these things, but there’s just not as much creativity involved.
Ah, very true. Edited that briefly into the first bit. Cheers!
Also reordered by preferences for ubers – Demo, Pyro, Soldier, Heavy. No one else is really worth ubering except in the most extreme situations (ubering an Engy and standing in front of his sentry to save it from an ubered Soldier, ubering another Medic for an Ubersaw chain, and so on).
For the first stage, second control point, one of the best defenses I’ve seen is for a Heavy to stand on the point with a dispenser to the right of him. The Heavy is now looking at four exits (both tunnels and 2 grates) and can supply a tremendous amount of cover fire to any enemy approaching the cp from the front and has unlimited ammo from the dispenser (as long as there is a dispenser, the Heavy need not spin down his gun). Ubercharged enemies can still push through so it is important for any Spies on the team to target the Medics; otherwise, its basically an impenetrable defence.
As a Heavy deploying this tactic, be sure to sweep your gun over all four visible exits constantly and make sure your ammo is nearly full at all times (occasionally a demo or soldier will destroy your dispenser). Keep an eye out for cloaked Spies trying to sneak through your fire; and if an Ubered opponent does reach the point TRY TO STAY ALIVE! once their Uber runs out take out the pair and conserve your ammo until your Engie rebuilds the dispenser (remember there is a small health and ammo spawn close by, use it if you have to).
This tactic works best when your team’s Spies are taking out their Medics; having a friendly Medic running back and fourth between you and your AggroDefence (Soldiers, Demos, Pyros trying to push the enemy back) is a good idea – if your Medic doesn’t mind sitting on their UberCharge, have him be able to run to your position to pop the Uber in case a enemy Uber gets to the point. Otherwise, just hold down leftmouse until time runs out.
What about Snipers though? I find they’re a much more common counter to Heavies than Spies are. Either way, putting a sentry or two to the right of the Heavy in that position make it virtually impenetrable from down the stairs, except for an uber.
To add to the soldier tips, I personally find it very useful to keep jumping around while firing rockets (and i don’t mean rocket jumping).
First, it makes you much harder to hit and especially helps you avoid being shot in the head. This is, of course, true for any class, but since the soldier is pretty slow and therefore relatively easy to hit, jumping around as if you were a scout, combined with a high amount of health, makes the soldier very durable (at least for a class that is always on te front).
Second, while in mid-air, it is easier to aim accurately at a certain spot on the ground. This is mostly because the more perpendicular you are to the surface you’re aiming at, the bigger that surface is from your point of view.
Third and last, firing a rocket while in the air, makes you less susceptible to your own explosions. Since your rockets tend to explode on the ground, you will generally be further away from your explosions when you are not on the ground. (This is mostly important in close combat)
Ah yes, all good points Bombatomba. I find myself doing that instinctively having spectated good Soldiers doing it, but I couldn’t sum up why it was such a good idea quite as succinctly. Cheers.
OK, dude, I like the advice and think your awesome and all, but you shouldn’t try to bring math into a video game, it has the similar effect of dividing by zero. That is to say… TEH HOL UNEEVRS WIL XPLOD!!! BOOM!!!
Math? That’s just numbers. Take an engineering course, and thou shalt know math
In English, don’t bother fully charging every shot, because you probably don’t need to. More, weaker shots is likely more effective than less, more powerful shots.
Ah yes, sorry. All this updating at once confuses me
And the Targe still counters explosives, just not as much. I don’t think it’s entirely fair that a Demoman can flee from a Soldier and take 5 roughly direct hits from rockets. That said, I’ve never worn the Targe myself, so I’m not the best man to ask the opinion of.
I disagree with the 1 Sniper argument. Usually, if you have 12 or 16 players (24 or 32 player servers) you can afford having 2 Snipers, and it is actually a very tactical advantage. An example being if I headshot a troublesome soldier with a buff banner, and a kritzkrieg’d heavy comes around the corner, I have to wait for the full charge to be able to kill him. If there are 2 snipers, that means that you have a fully charged bullet every 1.5 seconds. It may not sound like much, but it can make an enemy team think twice about offensive strategy.
Also, know your targets. A scout dosent have much health, and if hes being shot at, a quarter charged chest shot is usually enough to take him down. Pay attention to your charge meter, and pick your targets. Killing 4 hurt enemies or taking 4 shots to kill a 450HP Heavy. Your choice.
I never use the compression blast anyway, so the Backburner is permenantely equipped.
Also, if you notice a lot of enemy pyros on the enemy team, avoid using the flamethrower. The Pyro wears a flame-retardant suit (duh) and the flamethrower will not have the highly dangerous burn effect.
Finally, igniting snipers with the flare gun is also tactically sound and very anoying. The flare gun has the same fire-and-forget style of the rocket and demonade, and if you move fast you will be able to ignite the sniper and send him running for a medkit without being shot, allowing high-priority targets to move up without fear of an unscheduled brain transplant.
There is a certian place in Badwater Basin just in front of the first CP where Engineers LOVE to place their stuff. I have found that getting a medic to buff you, and going around the corner firing the minigun whether you see anything or not will completely decimate anything inside. The reason why this works is that the sentry can be hit at short range without noticing you, as the hitbox can be hit before you enter the Sentrys LOS. The minigun will take off about 3/4 of the sentrys health before it notices you, and the medic will heal any stray bullets you take.
the diffrent ubercharges would work better depending on who your healing. For example a critical hitting heavy would be very effective due to the fact that he has so much health and he has 200 bulletts. where as a invincible soldier would be better because he would need time to fire his slow rockets.
Soldier VS Soldier: GET THE HIGH GROUND! If he has it, take it from him! This is very important as it gives you more room to shoot his feet and it can distract him from other classes on the ground, such as the heavy, or may save a medic.
I hereby reccommend this video, please check it out! It’s about how to be a heavy credit to the team with little/no medic support. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fGZOW5RZdg
When the enemy is capturing a point, it’s good for the defenders to have one person on the point to stall the capture. But I often see the panicked rush to “get on the point!” seriously backfire. You often end up with three or more defenders on the point, but they’re at a very serious disadvantage. They’re on flat exposed ground clustered together, often with additional offense spamming the point from a distance. We’ve all seen it before, when the fight heats up for the point, nothing can survive up there for more than a couple seconds.
The solution to this is obvious: think. Is there currently an ally already on the point stalling it? If so, wait till they die and THEN go onto the point. Is there a medic with an uber up that can fire it off and just stand there? Should a put some heat on those two demos spamming from a distance so that soldier of our on the point can survive?
It’s a balance between slowing down the capture and staying alive because if in the end there’s one more blue guy alive than red, YOU STILL LOSE!
Be aware that your displayed health and actual health are different. A soldier on what looks like 10 hp might be a spy on full hp. I one was (acidentally) healing a danaged ‘friendly’ demoman, but he ran straight for a healthkit, even though it looked like he was overhealed. I simply pulled out my ubersaw and let fly. Whaddya know, enemy spy.
On linear maps like dustbowl, going as a scout or spy and slipping past their lines to the locked cap point is a strategy I dont see often, but it works. Many times I have snuck past using a backdoor and helped my team cap two points in one charge. It can leave the defenders reeling, especially engineers who have no time to build sentries before the final push.
Ah yes, the good ‘ol class rush. It really freaks an attacking team out when they turn a corner and 8 or more sentires simultaneously turn them into finely shred swiss cheese. You’ll want at least 3 pyros if you do this though, as moslt likely they’ll go spy as a counter.
So many times I have seen the clock hit 00:00 on payload maps, go into overtime, and watch the enemy team flounder about like a fish out of water. And when I’m on the wrong end of the clock, telling everyone to abandon class duties and rush the cart gets me flamed, we lose, and the very people standing around doing #%^*&$ all start yelling at people. sigh
I hate imploding teams. I was on two of them myself. We won one against “F7 Lans” which was really just a pub group, then got rolled by a team that was ringing one of the best scouts in NA.
They all disbanded after that
Anyhoo, glad to have another semi-comp person on board. I was beginning to think they were all over at gotfrag
Oh god, not got frag. That site is so bad. Basically all trolls. If you really want a good place to make a looking post, head over to the commft forums. Much less trolls and the conversation in better.
Anyways, if you are a semi comp person as well, keep your eyes out for some new site developments. We’re looking to head in that direction.
Nice to have you back Chipbuster, I’m hoping to get into the comp scene soon, when i get my new internet – vurrently I have massive ping and jitter :/ If you want a server then I’m sure we can provide
Apocalypse Gaming is probably one of the best TF2 communities out there right now. They have one of the best teams out there, an amazingly friendly community, some pretty nice servers, and an entire program dedicated to easing the transition from pubstar to competitive. I wish I’d known more about them when I first picked up comp. Keep it up!
There’s a paragraph on installation in there, but it isn’t too detailed. What part do you find hard? If you have a forum account go ahead and make a thread, and I’ll give you a hand.
umm i need some help when i go to my program files steam tf2 and such, after tf, my old account name shows up. im using my new account and i don’t think it applies. in my tf file, there is only 2 folder and one of them is my old account name and the other idk. what do i do?
Please, update the class guides. Many of us have posted updates ourselves for you to implement (like I did about the pyro) and now so much seems outdated to me that I’m learning by dying a lot. <:l.
The Degreaser is a straight upgrade from the default flamethrower. The -15 afterburn damage is negligible when you can pull off puff n stings before the target even reaches the peak of their airblast or when it allows you to easily mix flares/bullets in between your regular routine.
Rocket Launcher Soldiers
Most “average” soldiers will spam all 4 rockets if they encounter you from close range… if you have some experience with reflecting you can usually “sync” your airblasting to the rate they’re firing rockets… think of it like a rhythm game. Of course the problem with this tactic is that if you get used to it too much bad soldiers will fire their rockets sporadically and good soldiers will know to change their rhythm.
Rifle Snipers
If you start to approach a sniper and he’s failed to kill you from medium to long range and doesn’t visibly have either razorback or dangershield he’ll likely have jarate and once you get within range of it he’ll likely use it. If he pulls behind a corner or simply switches to it while you can still see him get ready for the reflect.
Huntsman Snipers
Reflecting arrows takes a bit of practice. Luckily though you generally have the visual cue of them pulling back/charging their arrows so it makes them slightly more predictable than soldiers once you’ve gotten the timing down. (Unless they’re smart enough to shoot without charging at close range) Another tip for reflecting arrows is if you attack a charged hunstman from close range and you’re either not dead from the arrow or the arrow hasn’t reflected than it’s likely that the sniper let go of m1 while you airblasted meaning the arrow won’t fire until he’s touched the floor again, this means you have a good chance of knowing exactly when the arrow is going to fire.
DR spies
A pyro with airblast is the spy’s worst nightmare. If at any point you catch a DR spy trying to sneak past your lines airblast him in a corner until his DR wears off and finish him off with any weapon at your disposal. The 90% damage reduction while he’s cloaked means you’re unlikely to kill him and following him blindly could easily bring you towards a group of enemy players. The only time you would try to kill him is with crits either from a flag capture or while using the backburner.
Scouts
Most scouts aren’t smart enough to use the double jump after they’re been airblasted. This makes them extremely easy to kill since you’ve taken away one of the main features of the class, mobility. Either use your shotgun or go for the puff n sting if you’re feeling lucky. The opportunity for sandman reflects don’t come often but, at long ranges if the scout pulls out the wooden bat at long range you should expect the ball to come soon.
I disagree with the fact that the degreaser is a straight upgrade from the flamethrower, however, I can see where you are coming from. Personally I think that it depends on the type of pyro you play, if you prefer to play a slightly more intelligent pyro, using all of the weapons in your arsenal then the degreaser is most definitely an upgrade because the time the enemy will be dead before the afterburn has finished. If you aren’t this type of pyro, and instead prefer to rush, and attempt to scatter groups of the enemy then the normal flamethrower, or maybe even the backburner if you can give up the compression blast will better suit you.
Thank you for your additions to the guide, I will look at adding them in as soon as I can. I would say that airblasting Jarate and arrows are the two hardest things to reflect, mainly because you don’t get the chance to do it often, so you don’t have as much practice. AS well as a lack of practice, the arrows are very quick, and although I think they go at the same speed as direct hit rockets (I’m not sure) they are a lot smaller so harder to realise when they are in compression blasting range.
If a sniper is using the razor back, which prevents you from back stabbing him on the first stab, I find it much easier to use the revolver (or your gun of choice). Find your target sniper and then uncloak out of ear shot, or around a corner. Level the pistol at the side of his head, then fire continuously while running towards him. By the time he realizes he’s being shot, you’re closing in on point blank range and he’s dead. This is almost fail safe, and makes them feel silly for using the razor back.
If a pyro lights you on fire here is an aggressive tactic that often works, and is fun to do. As soon as you ignite, take out your equalizer. The more you burn the more powerful the weapon becomes and the faster you move. Start swinging at him. It won’t take many hits to kill him this way. Pyros are often taken off guard by this, and they usually panic and die. After you kill him the equalizer makes it faster for you to run to your resupply or health pack. This move works particularly well if you’re in your own base. This technique is not a fail safe. A pyro who has his wits about him might take out his shot gun, or air blast you. This is an aggressive, and bold attack but I’ve had pretty decent success with it and its gratifying to kill a pyro in this fashion.
This is specifically for taking out a longer range sentry gun with an uber charge. Once you’ve deployed the uber charge, the sentry gun will still target you or your uber buddy. If a level 3 sentry gun is at the right range it can keep your uber buddy back with the force of its fire. This buys the enemy time and if you’re not careful you’ve wasted an uber and the gun still operates. As the ubered medic, run towards the sentry gun, absorb the fire and allow your uber buddy to close the distance to the gun. This is particularly good for a medic heavy pair. Note: A great uber buddy for taking out a sentry gun is the demoman with the sticky launcher (or scottish resistance).
Two uber techniques for a medic and buddy taking the intel in CTF:
1-If you’re healing someone holding the intel, you can not uber charge them. Let’s say your fully charged and healing a heavy who is carrying the intel. You get ambushed. Communicate with the heavy and tell him to drop the intel as soon as things get dangerous. Then you deploy the uber-charge. If all goes right you kill all the enemies and pick up the intel again, or you’ve distracted them enough for a scout or faster class to grab it.
2-Lets say you’re healing someone who has the intel and you’re fully charged. You get ambushed, deploy your uber charge and run away from your buddy. You’re invincible but unable to attack, but you can block the enimies from reaching your friend with the intel. If this goes right, you distract the enemy enough for your friend to advance with the intel. In this case you have a really good chance of dying but if you do it right you might set your team up for a intel capture. Its risky because you’re also leaving your buddy, but I’ve made this work many times in the past. The enemy really does not expect this, and its really annoying and disorienting when it happens to them.
-The gloves of running urgently are a great new item. Use them when you have a medic healing you to cover ground quicker. Also they are great to rush in for an uber attack.
-Check your back a lot so you don’t get back stabbed.
-If you’re using the sandvich, always remember to look out for your medic. If he gets damaged badly take out the sandvich and right click to throw it to him.
-I love the sandvich. If you’re without a medic duck into a corner with your back to the wall to use it, and heal yourself 100%.
-If your team is in high defensive mode, a great weapon is the brass beast. It makes you even slower and spins up really slow, but it kills people really well once you’re firing. Find a dispenser and position yourself by it like a human sentry gun, always spinning. This is for protecting intel or a final cap point ect. A really dangerous combo is a medic with krtizkreig and heavy brass beast. It’s really satisfying mowing the enemy down this way. I do not recommend the brass beast for offensive pushes because you’re too slow and heavies with the faster guns can really get the jump on you.
Another Spy v Sniper technique for if you are blind or dumb and DON’T notice the giant razorback. Stab the razorback, then, since you can’t stab or cloak, hide behind a wall, run away, or just job back and forth and hope he tries to hit you with his Kukri.
I’m going to say don’t hide in places that everyone else camps at because eventually there going to have a pyro spray all day until they get a kill. Just go invis and hide dead center of a room, most people dont think a spy would just stand in the middle of a room all day because its a ridiculous place to hide.(This tip is more effective with the cloak n dagger)
and I agree with Arencey, the only other thing that this guide didn’t mention is that smart engineers whip out there shotgun and shoot you down instead of having there wrench out and getting rid of the sappers one after another. So if you come across a engineer that shoots rather then repairs, look for something to sap at least a few yards away or something directly behind him so he has to turn around. Once he turns around then sap his sentry, garuntee that hes going to wip out his pistel or shotgun but by that time you better have ran so hes distracted with you for at least 2 seconds. After hes done searching for you knife him in the back and go about your business.
I’ll tell you a tip as well, almost 80% of the time, every TF2 player I have played against turn to the left more often then the right, so hide in the right side because you have at least a 1 second window to do anything.
Why do I think people turn to the left more often? If you’re reading this turn to the left, then to the right as you would if you were playing TF2 and look at your mouse as you do the motion. Its a simple and clever tip. (Well, maybe clever) (^-^)
Scouts who steal the intelligence only think about getting out, but thats how it should be. Hide behind a wall or box and wait for him to almost pass and then back-stab him. People usual get cocky when there almost out the door, So they become less
Its funny watching them fail several times at retrieving the intelligence by my backstabbings.
Whenever visiting a server with near-full players, right click on it and check the info first. If it’s empty or full of bot names, you know it’s a fake, and you can blacklist it. Bam, no long loading times.
Maybe post a link to the TF2 wiki’s “Obtaining Scout acheivements” page, or show basic ideas of how to accomplish these. Just telling me what the acheivements are isn’t much help to me.
Maybe, but I’m trying to keep it in-keeping with the rest of the site and seeing as the first few achievements have already been posted, I might as well finish them.
[...] you can claim both Engineer and sentry as victims. For more on dealing with Engineers, check out The Spy, Versus. Secret agents like to live [...]
you can also uber a scout,after all,there is an achievement for medic with scout.but well,it is not something common.the scout being faster than the medic,you well loose him quickly.
In my opinion as a career sniper, the tips here are worthwhile mainly to beginners. Once you really can begin holding your own as a sniper, tips, walkthroughs, tutorials, most of them become irrelevant due to you progressing to where your style of play shadows over everything you do. It can become very harmful to try and change your style because of articles like this. For example, when you say that Soldiers and Demomen are more useful offensively then a sniper, I would have to respectfully disagree. As a sniper who frequently pushes offensively, I have to say that the sniper has more offensive capability against single or small groups of targets than any other class, after all, All classes can be killed with 1 or two quick shots. Average classes that have 200 health can be dispatched by a quickscoping shot to the head, then a noscope to the body, scouts die instantly from any headshot, heavy’s are killed in three, but if it’s a charged shot, they die instantly. A sniper with a keen aim who is focused is the most dangerous class in the game. Bar none. Snipers can be game changing in many ways. One way, is on payload maps from the gates you can often see medics who have an uber ready. Experienced snipers can kill a medic with a single shot when the gates open and rob the team of their healing, and their target of the uber, allowing your team’s uber to dominate. And to say that quantity is better than quality is utter heresy. No sniper ever got good by not aiming. That’s going to be my daily rant today.
Soldier vs. Pyro: Every once in a while you will run across a pyro that makes use of mouse 2; his airblast. An effective airblaster can not only send your own rockets flying back at you and your teammates, but his push forward is unaffected.
What usually works is to get a rocket just under his airblast and hit his feet and send him backwards, or shoot nearby obstacles. Alternatively, you can switch to your shotgun and retreat, seeing as that bullets can’t be airblasted. With either of these tactics it is extremely important to stay away for the fire. Kill him before he can do too much damage to you.
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