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“Useless.” This is a harsh, harsh word. I hear it thrown around a whole lot when I’m playing TF2, (usually alongside the incessant whining of “my team, my team”) and it gets thrown around very lightly.

Some players use it to describe people who are giving it their best and failing, while others reserve it for people who are literally not moving and doing nothing. When you think about it, to actually be useless, that is, not assisting your team in any way, you have to do some spectacular things. Now, I’m not saying that anyone that has done these things is a bad player; I’ve done a good deal of these in my time. We were all new once, that’s no reason to curse oneself and pound one’s chest in regret. We must learn from our mistakes as a value-free team member. But what does it take for someone to have no value to a team, whatsoever? Or hell, even negative value? Let’s take a look.

First off, to put a preemptive stop to the inevitable “what if they just stand still” or “they could be running into walls and not doing anything”, I plan on covering instances in which players can be attempting to help, and failing spectacularly.

Scout:

It’d be very easy to just up and say “Scouts that use bats only,” but I have known some players that are absolutely horrifying with a bat. There are, however, Scout players that make a living by constantly and zealously trying to do what their class is (ostensibly) designed for, that is, pushing the cart, nabbing the intel, and capping points. These Tunnel Vision Scouts blindly charge into battle for the glory of their respective corporation. However, blind pursuit of this goal is no more helpful to your team than someone who practices their aim on their own teammates as they leave the spawn. Sure, Valve may have touted the Scout as someone perfect for such goals, what with the double cap speed and being so fleet of foot, but it’s hard to accomplish said goals when all you’re throwing at the enemy is a finely shredded medley of messenger bags and meat cubes. A single sentry can turn this well-meaning player into nothing more than another point for the Red Engineer. Moreover, you could argue that the Tunnel Vision Scout is hampering your team by allowing some lucky Red Soldier to increase his recent damage done, thereby cranking up his crit chance. Nasty.

I’ve heard a few people try to defend the Tunnel Vision Scouts, citing the idea that even pushing the cap timer an inch or keeping their team ‘guessing’ is worth all the deaths and humiliation in the world. On a capture point map, this is moot; any progress gained on the capture timer is automatically reset in mere moments. I can almost see the merit of this on payload maps, as this stops the cart from moving backwards, and on capture the flag maps, where touching the intel resets the timer, but that assumes that the Scout lives long enough to reach these items, which, in the case of a good defense, rarely happens. As for ‘keeping the enemy guessing,’ after two gibbed scouts, the pattern emerges and there isn’t any more ‘guesswork’ involved. This Scout would be more useful by merely zig-zagging back and forth in the middle of the field and bumping into cloaked Spies. Sure, that’s a long shot, but jumping headlong into a spun-up Heavy or a level 3 sentry isn’t any better.

Soldier:

The useless Soldier is rarely seen. Here we have a class that can assist its teammates by merely throwing rockets in the general direction of the other team and hoping for the best. However, I have encountered a special breed of Soldier, indeed, a fairly useless one; the Vertically-Obsessed Soldier. This is the guy who, upon spawning (namely, on Blu team) will automatically start rocket jumping forward to the objective. If there’s a health pack on the way, a good Soldier will stop and pick it up before continuing, or at least call for a Medic. However, the Vertically-Obsessed Soldier will continue on rocket jumping until he’s reached the front lines, probably in some ill-begotten blood lust. The problem is, that once he’s on the front lines, he has maybe thirty hit points and an empty clip of rockets. Sure, he got there before even the Scout that spawned with him, but he is now merely a free point for a roving Engineer to claim with his pistol.

Even worse are the Soldiers that rocket jump right into battle and immediately fire a rocket point-blank at a Heavy or jump on top of a dispenser to fire at it from above. This, of course, ends in nothing more than a shower of blood and bits for the target. Suddenly, the Blu offensive has lost its first man to the fight, and the Red team is now on full alert. The ubercharged Demoman that follows close behind has the Vertically-Obsessed Soldier to thank for the two airblasting Pyros now ready to fight after being awoken by the Soldier’s failed attack.

Pyro:

Pyro isn’t an easy class to play well; most Pyros resort to suicidal charges to confuse and ignite. However, even this is helpful, as a suicidal Pyro can stop a rush dead in its tracks while the opposing Medics scramble to extinguish their comrades. However, with last year’s addition of the compression blast, a new breed of Pyro has emerged; the Hot Shot. To be a Hot Shot means to rely entirely on your airblast and ignore the fact that the flamethrower can actually throw flames. I’ve seen it a million times. The Hot Shot is so infatuated with the airblast that he actually refrains from burning anything, as if he does, he removes one of the eight airblast shots he has upon spawning. This guy will charge headlong at a Soldier, spamming Mouse 2 and hoping for a crit so he can live up to his namesake achievement. However, as anyone who has played Pyro in any amount knows, the airblast’s delay is out of sync with the rocket launcher’s delay, and while one can reflect the first rocket, it’s hard to reflect the next.

Usually, all the Hot Shot ends up accomplishing is wasting ammo (for both him and his target) and getting shredded by the bullet-based classes that he ignores (you can’t reflect bullets, after all). Sure, he may get lucky once in a while, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. In the meantime, he is running to his death, not setting anyone on fire, and denying his team an invaluable ubercharge defense. For the defense, the final point on the final stage of Dustbowl needs Pyros, but this one is busy watching that respawn timer tick down. Too bad; he could have been extremely useful.

Demoman:

Here we have another class with a fairly steep learning curve. Again, any Demo can just throw grenades at the enemy team and be marginally useful, but it’s when Demomen try to be clever that they pass into the realm of true uselessness. There is a Demoman, the Spiderweb Demoman, that thinks he’s beaten the system. He thinks that he has figured out how to beat the scouts that are giving him so much trouble. You find this Spiderweb Demoman chiefly on CTF maps, although he can be found on CP maps as well. He surrounds the intelligence with a perimeter of mines about two meters away in every direction, counting on the speed of the intel carrier to match up exactly with the delay of his reaction time. In his mind, he’s a genius; he’s got the perfect trap set up to foil any would-be thieves. Thinking this, he leaves the intelligence room completely, perhaps to run to the battlements and lob grenades aimlessly into the air. If he doesn’t get sniped or backstabbed, he lies in wait, sweating and stroking his right mouse button, daring someone to touch his intel.

Finally, the moment arrives; the Announcer’s voice rings in his ears that some dastardly fiend has saw fit to lay their grubby hands on the intel. Grinning to himself, the Demoman detonates, expecting to get credit for not only a kill, but a defense. However, nothing comes through. The mines detonate harmlessly, and the Scout is now halfway out of the base. You see, the Demoman’s sticky mines are giant red pieces of candy that even a Tunnel Vision Scout can see lying on the floor. All it takes is a double jump over them, or a moment’s hesitation on the intel spawn to avoid damage. However, this doesn’t deter the Spiderweb Demoman. While the rest of his team is in a panic, chasing down the offender carrying the intelligence, he’s back in the intel room, merrily spinning a new web, waiting for the next fly to land on it.

Heavy:

As with Scouts, I know some Heavies that are deadly with their melee weapons, so I think you’ll be disappointed if you scrolled through to this point hoping for me to bash the punchy fatties. No, there is an entirely different sect of the Heavy clan that has made a point to be particularly unhelpful. I am talking, of course, about the King Heavy. Once in a while you’ll see a defensive Heavy on Badwater trying to climb the rock pillars that overlook the tunnel; he, of course, is looking for a good spot to sit and spin up, one that will give him a clear shot of everyone and a view of the entire battlefield. However, in doing this, he conveniently forgets that not only is his fat head a magnet for sniper bullets, but the $200 bullets he fires are woefully inaccurate. This King Heavy has succeeded in establishing a place far above the rest of the competitors from which he can laugh maniacally and shower death down upon his subjects, but his will is done only if he gets a lucky crit streak. Otherwise, he is merely something to shrug at, a minor inconvenience to the Blu team that will deal with him at their leisure.

This is apparent on other maps, as well. On Steel, often times you’ll see a defensive heavy sitting in the window that overlooks the final point from the initial point, waiting for a tricky Blu scout to attempt capture. If someone sneaks through and manages to land on the point, the heavy opens fire from his high perch overlooking the action. In the meantime, the offending Scout sits on the point, twiddling his thumbs, only vaguely aware of the peas trickling down from the window. The King Heavy has got it into his head that from a high perch, he can end the lives of any of his opponents, safe from Spies and Pyros, but all he is doing is inviting a Sniper’s bullet and removing a valuable asset to his team that is tied up elsewhere, getting harassed by Scouts.

Engineer:

Yes, yes, an Engineer that refuses to build any buildings is definitely not helping much, but the shotgun is lethal, and it never hurts to have another set of munition flying forward towards the squishy flesh of the opposing team. There are certain Engineers, however, who have adopted a wonderfully horrid tactic. The Lonely Engineer is a pessimistic type who doesn’t have any faith in his team’s ability to win. On 5 point push-pull maps, you’ll find this Engineer right outside the initial spawn, creating a death zone, complete with a poorly placed level 3 sentry, a teleporter that takes him back to the spawn from his nest (for more metal) and a level 1 dispenser that he used to initially climb up to the perch he is now inhabiting. This might actually be useful, if his team were losing. However, the Lonely Engineer only shows his face when he’s part of a particularly coordinated team that is, if they’re not pushing forward, at least holding their own.

So, here he sits, alone on the final capture point, eyes darting side to side with paranoia and distrust, firing at every teammate that strolls into the room. He is, at least, in the right there. Any teammate that strolls into the room is most certainly a Spy, as his highly productive team is off on the other side of the map, fighting, winning, celebrating. No matter how far they progress, however, the Lonely Engineer sits on his 0 kills sentry, content in the knowledge that his team will slip up, they will be pushed back to the final point, and when they do, he’ll be ready. He’ll be ready, and they will thank him. Any time now.

Medic:

To clear things up, the two Medics that are chain-ubering each other using the ubersaw are not useless. In many situations, skilled double-uber medics can actually stop an entire team’s offensive as they try to stop the medic team in a blind rage. However, the Assistant Medic is useless. This Medic sits in back, healing the Sniper, because he’s the only reliable guy on the team, the only person who is consistently getting kills and not dying. Because of this, the Assistant Medic attaches to him (commonly seen on the battlements of 2fort) and doesn’t let go, racking up the free kills and getting points for healing. When his uber is full, he cleverly ubers the Sniper, allowing him to become invulnerable to other Snipers for a short time and go on a rampage.

This medic can also be seen attached to camping Demomen, the ones that aren’t even in any real danger, as they’re only waiting at obscure chokepoints for Spies and Scouts to roll through. The Demoman detonates, and the Medic gets an assist, having never been put in danger. The Medic may think that he’s being helpful by keeping an important combat class buffed and fully healed, but the Heavy slowly burning to death across the map as his body falls limp on an empty health pack spawn point might disagree.

Sniper:

The Sniper is pretty much universally useless.

Naaaah, I’m just messing with you. It’s no secret that I’m a terrible Sniper, and whenever I press “comma 8” I’m pretty much hampering my team, but there is a special place in my heart for the Anti-Sniper (also known as the Weighted Companion Sniper). You know the one. The self-proclaimed *~HEADSHOT MASTER~* that sits on top of the battlements, in the bunker, in the top window, and so forth, only aiming to take out the other Anti-Sniper that’s currently sitting directly across from him. Soldiers and Heavies move around too much, so the Anti-Sniper can’t be bothered to waste one of his precious twenty-five shots on them. He instead saves his ammo for the other Snipers that are aiming to do the same thing he is; rack up their headshot percentage. It is true that eliminating other Snipers is a noble goal, in most situations, but this Sniper lacks the skill to take out the diversified Sniper. They’re the good ones, the ones that pop Medics off of Heavies and take out Spies that are about to make their move. These Snipers make short work of the Anti-Sniper, so he avoids conflict with them, choosing only to target the weak Snipers that pose no threat to his team.

Now, I can get behind a Sniper that is actively trying to improve his skill by practicing, because one day, in the distant future, he might just land the Heavy headshot that he so desperately covets. These, however, seem to be few and far between compared to the ones that slowly strafe back and forth, dragging their dot across the enemy Sniper nest, hoping that the lag works out in their favor and they net two points from the experience. However, they usually just get a bullet in the head or a knife in the back. Sometimes both. I like those times.

Spy:

Our venture into the realm of uselessness comes to a close with the Sapping Spy. “Now, hold on, just a minute! I happen to know that sapping sentries is a primary goal of all Spies!” Yeah, you’re right. It is! And a Spy that is sap-happy is okay in my book. However, that sap-happy Spy had better be prepared to back up his saps with a few well-placed stabs. There are too many Spies out there that are content to sap everything in sight and then take off like a bat out of hell. The Sapping Spy feels like his only job is to sap, and that his team will pick up the slack and rush in the moment they hear the Engineer’s pained cries. This isn’t how it works out, however, and the Sapping Spy ends up looking ridiculous. He gives the Engineer a bit of a job, what with having to run around wrenching his buildings, but since the Sapping Spy works alone, the sentry nest was in no real danger to begin with.

I sometimes wonder what goes through the head of the Sapping Spy as he’s about to decloak and make his move. Does he think that sappers cannot be removed? Does he think that his team is constantly ready just behind the gate, waiting for his signal to attack? Is he even paying attention to the game? Alas, extensive testing has been halted many times. Each Spy that I’ve attempted to interview has merely sapped my computer and run away.

As I mentioned at the start, people filling these roles aren’t necessarily bad people or griefers; they may just be new, they may not know any better. Make sure, then, if you come across a specimen of pure uselessness, to point out their errors and offer them advice to better themselves. In most cases, they’ll happily accept and work to better themselves, which is fantastic! If they don’t, however, beg the server’s admin to turn on friendly fire. Just for a second.