Know yourself and know your enemy and in a hundred battles you will be victorious. - Sun Tzu

Yes. What the old Chinese said also applies to Team Fortress 2. More specifically if you know what your enemy will fall for, you already have an advantage.
Basicly fooling your enemy helps you win a battle in a dynamic and, sometimes normally otherwise lost, battle. It’s been countless of times I’ve won a nearly lost battle just by knowing that my enemy will chase after me and preparing a fast ambush at a better position for him.
Now straight to the point.

Fooling tactic # 1 – corners

The most efficient, in my opinion, way of giving you the upper hand in a close fight. What you do here is pretend to retreat while gaining a better position to attack your enemy and making him think you’re in a pretty bad shape or out of ammo or both. I’ll give you an example: I’m a RED Pyro running to B to get rid of those pesky BLU’s on point B. I run to B from my spawn through the left entrance when I encounter a BLU Scout heading my way from the direction of the rocks behind B. Now here I shoot a couple of shots at him with my Shotgun to get his attention. When he gets closer and damages me a bit I fall back to the entrance where I was previously running through pretending to retreat. Most likely the Scout WILL chase after me as he wants me really dead (and that kill point too). When I’m sure the Scout won’t see me I stop retreating and prepare for an ambush. Just as the Scout passes me by I flame him with my Flamethrower and finish him off with the Axtinguisher. Simple as that.

Fooling tactic # 2 – fake voice commands

Many people forget about this one but it’s as viable as all other tactics mentioned here. Now you may think most people will not fall for it but surprisingly many people actually get caught with their pants down by doing this. What you do here is really simple – you fool your foe by giving him a fake information which he’ll most likely rely on. For example – hit Z + 5 to say “Go Right” while you go in the exact opposite direction. What it will cause is your enemy going to your left because he heard you saying that. In the meantime you can get on his flank without him even noticing it and giving you a huge advantage in a fight. Really similar thing applies to faking the Ubercharge. Just hit X + 8 and you’ll see enemy reacting to your movements at the very least a little bit different because they think you have that tool of destruction of yours in your hands. What this will this cause is enemies seeking for cover as there’s no direct technique to combat an Ubercharge than to hide behind cover and wait for the Ubercharge to pass. This gives you a more freely movement on the battlefield for about 20 seconds as this is the time for the enemy to know that you actually don’t have that Ubercharge but it’s more than enough to get better positions than you’d get when “normally” coming out on them. Just make sure you don’t make it super obvious yelling “I am charged!” and doing nothing in a middle of a fight.

Fooling tactic # 3 – decoys & distractions

This is a more team oriented tactic as it involves multiple teammates for it to work. I’ll take Gravel Pit as my example map once again (pretty basic one though). You’re BLU and you can not get rid of that pesky Sentry on B and time is running out. What you do here is send a couple of teammates (preferably 3) to the point where enemies defense is weaker and force them to get reinforcements from the second point, in this case A. If your enemy falls for it most likely B is now guarded by an Engineer with his Sentry and an optional other teammate. This is the time when a Spy (or a Soldier/Demoman) comes into action. Now that the Sentry is only guarded by those two people it’s easier for a Spy to get to the Sentry and sap it. As the Spy saps the Sentry, rest of your team should be now running towards B to help your Spy destroy the Sentry (if the Sentry is in a bad position you can optionally spam it to death with rockets/grenades). Your enemy knows now that you’re on B but they can’t send all of their units to help defend it because they still have problems on A (if your decoys are good enough of course). Even if they send all of their units to get rid of the enemies B and eventually kill them all, there’s a high possibility that you’ll capture A as there’s no opposition and the point itself is half captured. So you will either get A or B. Nonetheless you achieved your goal of receiving extra time to capture that second point.
Distracting an enemy from a flanking teammate also works wonders. Sandvich Heavy paired with a Soldier or a Pyro can also wreak some serious havoc if a couple of foes try to kill your Heavy.

Fooling tactic # 4 – luring

There’s nothing more useful than a Scout with a brain which helps his teammates kill their enemies. I’m bringing out the Scout here because apparently he’s the best luring unit out there, especially with the BONK! Yes, I know… Everyone will say BONK! is useless but believe me – it isn’t. It can assure you that someone will follow you after you use it because everyone is aware of the slowdown effect after using it. So use it to your advantage! Locate a nearby friendly Sentry or a Heavy in a tight area and lure a group of enemies into its range of fire. Sure, it will work only once but you have accomplished your goal. You helped your team kill a couple of enemies which could make it possible for them to capture a control point or capture enemy intel. The same can do any other fast class – Pyros, Spies, Medics, Snipers and Engies. Just go out there and get their attention and run like hell to your teammates. They sure will be grateful for your help as the enemy going after a easy kill forgets about his surroundings and easily gets caught in an ambush.

But the most important is…

… teamwork! I haven’t discovered anything new here but with teamwork these tactics can be even more effective than done alone. Fact is that your team can combine all of these four tactics they can assure you a total victory. So pay attention to what your teammates are doing and try to cooperate with them as much as you can. I can assure you that in the game of TEAM Fortress it will help you because these tips alone can’t win you a game and so can’t you alone.

That’s all for the fooling tactics that I know at least. I’m sure there are plenty more of them and plenty more variations of them but these are the most important in my opinion. Make sure to combine them and cooperate with your teammates when using them and surely you will have more successes than loses.

Seriously, I am truly surprised that this piece of pure win has only got 800 odd views.

Dear server admins,

It’s no surprise that many people hate fake player counts.

Clearly, someone at Valve does too.

Yet another reason we love Valve. Click to embiggen.

Hopefully this will serve as a wake-up call to utterly idiotic, terrible server admins, such as you [apologies if I mistakenly labeled you an idiot, but hey, if you take offense, you probably run 32-player servers, so the question of your intelligence is still up in the air]. People don’t like to be fooled, so don’t fool people.

And who knows? Your server might actually be good, though the very fact that you resorted to faking player counts to get people on your server points to only one possible conclusion.

[spoiler]YOUR SERVER SUCKS. THANK YOU.[end spoiler]

Love,

himmelstoss.

Thanks to The Political Gamer for the tip on the forums.

UPDATE: Just talked to Robin Walker about this. This may not be a prank on Valve’s part – it might be because of a legitimate hacker, albeit one with a commendable sense of humor.

Yo what’s up?

Wasn’t expecting me, was youse?

Anyway, take this situation; it’s a lazy Saturday afternoon. All your homework (assuming you get homework) and chores are done, and you don’t enjoy just lazing around. So you fire up TF2, but there’s no one to play “competitively” with; only pubs around. Sure, they’re fun, but you don’t feel like it, plus you’d like to try and get a little better, which ain’t gonna happen there. What’s one to do?

Here’s a couple suggestions for Soldiers. And maybe Demomen.

BBall

Maybe you’ve heard of it, maybe not. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll explain in detail.

ctf_bball is a deathmatch sort of game, meant to be played 2 on 2, but also works with 1 on 1 (gets boring more easily) or 3 on 3 (more spammy). You’re in a basketball court with only moderate-height walls to jump off, and the objective is to land the flag in the enemy net. You run Soldier or Demoman, with a max of one Demoman. Simple no?

But what’s stopping people from playing something other than those two classes? Nothing, but people, which is alright, since most people who look for bball servers are in a similar mindset. It’s that simple really.

Training includes playing with other good sollys and demomen, and it helps airshots (the enemy needs jumping to score). You could also play scout, though only FaN scouts can reach the net, and it’s pretty iffy. It also helps walljumping (based off long jumps rather than height jumps) and airstrafing (scoring).

There’s a few dedicated bball servers that aren’t locked, plus some regular servers have it on the map list; type “ctf_bball” into the map choice for a collection. UC servers #2 and #3 also have it, although you’ll need an admin to start it. Typical etiquette includes no using sticky bombs to attack, and to a lesser extent, the shotgun is discouraged.

On the subject, there are two different maps that follow the style. One is ctf_pro_bball.

It improves over the original in a few, most notably a shoot-through backboard which prevents people from cheaply knocking you off scoring by shooting it. There’s also ctf_ballin, which is about the same as pro_bball, but a little prettier, and doesn’t limit you to 3 captures. Both look much better than plain ctf_bball though. Give ‘em a run.

Ammomod

This is my personal favorite.

Basically, you fight in an arena against one other person, as either Soldier or Demoman. The map can be a plain room, or based on a notable portion of a stock map, like Gravel Pit’s tower, Badlands Spire, Granary’s mid point, etc..
Both are given 1600 health and unlimited ammo. First one to go down loses.

It’s really simple, but the added health and ammo gives you plenty of room to practice without having to respawn after a few shots. There’s a few servers dedicated to it around; for example, in the US:
- Clan Vortex – 67.212.189.186:27093
- Exodus Society – 216.52.148.129:27015

I mostly go to thenoid’s ammomod, which is at 67.202.71.165:27015. You’ll probably run into some really good players if you do run by, so the best advice I can give is don’t go in expecting to do well.

And if you ever run into Solid Snake, do yourself a favor and have a key bound to “explode.”

Spireking

Spireking is like ghetto ammomod for soldiers – like ammomod, it’s 1v1. There’s a badlands spire in the center of the map, and both players battle for control of the top, where there’s a control point. Unlike ammomod, though, you start with 200 health, but you’re continually resupplied with full ammo and health every 4 seconds. That means that to score a kill, you need to deal out 200 damage in 4 seconds. What better way to do that than by nailing some awesome airshots?

Since spireking doesn’t work well for matches bigger than 1v1, you’re unlikely to find any public servers for it. However, since it’s a standalone map, you don’t need a bunch of mods to run it on your server, as you do with ammomod. This makes it great for clan training. If you have a server, or have access to a private server, give this map a go.

Tr_Walkway

Get it. Now.

Ha, but no seriously. Originally an ESG-only beta by wiseguy and washipato (trust me, it wasn’t that great when it was in beta), it’s now available to the general public, and there probably isn’t any better aerial training bar playing against other people. The launcher is a great asset, and a couple hours on this thing I assure you will greatly improve your prediction skills .Unless they’re already maxed, in which you’ve still got a bunch of commands to mess with to make it harder.

And if you’re like me, when your ping rockets because somebody in the dorm is torrenting… stuff… you can always fire up a listen server.

There’s also modifications for stairstab and eagle stab training in there, but honestly, who falls for stairstabs anymore, and who plays Spy anyway?

And while you’re at it, try a couple headshots.

___________________________________________________________________________

That concludes this article for today. Seriously, get a server, or become friends with someone who does, so you can reap the benefits of Spireking and BBall. Until next time, good night and good luck.

Give a big hand to Secret Agent Clank, on his first contribution to the Competitive TF2 Guide. Future installments of the guide are going to be generally shorter and more specific than the first nine. Thanks for the support, readers. -himmelstoss

In a quantity that has not been seen since the appearance of Cuddle Pyro, we now bring to you the cutest personification of a Team Fortress 2 Character into real life. Those are the results when you combine Halloween and gaming parents.

Please be warned, watching this is not recommended if you are somewhere where people will look at you strangely due to a “DAWWWWW” reaction.

You can check out more photos by following the link, even of the 1 year old heavy:

[from Crafster via Kotaku]

Oh, and because it is pretty much obligatory here in Ubercharged.net:

“ENTIRE TEAM IS BABIES!”-Heavy Weapons Guy

Medics.

Murderous tendencies aside, there’s no doubt that medics have one of the most important jobs on a team. While the job isn’t glamorous, a good medic goes a long way toward winning a round. And to encourage people to play Medic, medics are rewarded with points. Lots of points.

Now, obviously a team needs a medic. If a team indeed has a medic, then it’s certainly good that some brave soul decided to step up to the bat (or is it bonesaw?), and play the rather unglamorous support class. Really, that’s great! But it’s not good that many medics take this as a license to whine.

Well, let me quickly run a quick disclaimer. I like playing medic, though I don’t play it very much. If ever I get bored of playing Demoman or Soldier (my favorite two classes), or if my team desperately needs a medic, then I play medic. Something is quite thrilling about staying alive when everyone is gunning for you.

Z-2 is “Thanks”, we know.

OK! Fine! You get the short end of the stick, we know. You don’t get the glamour of playing soldier or demoman or spy. You don’t get many kills. Sure. Fine. Your point?

HEALING IS YOUR JOB. It’s why you’re playing medic. Unless you’re an amazingly good battle medic (and actually, even if you are), you still should heal people who need it. You can’t hold a grudge against someone and refuse to heal them (Healers against Haloes, anyone?). It makes you the most useless player on the server. You’re even depriving yourself of points as a matter of principle. A really, really misguided principle. Congratulations, you.

Z-2 is a matter of courtesy. I always thank my medics, but I don’t need to. Hell, the game automatically thanks my medic for me!

While it’s good that many players take good care to protect their medics, that’s not their primary job. Their primary job is to kill the enemy. It’s the medic’s responsibility to watch their own back and the back of their patient, and to warn the patient of imminent danger – especially true in a competitive setting. The patient is doing the killing here. Let him concentrate on the killing. It’s considerably simpler to keep the medigun beam locked on the patient than to actually gun an enemy down. The medic, having only to hold the LMB down, should have plenty of time to check around and be completely aware of everything.

The Patient’s Responsibility

The patient has one responsibility regarding his medic: keep him alive. In other words, don’t go out of your medic’s healbeam range. Listen to your medic. Love him [sort of NSFW]. Remember, working with your medic will be beneficial to both of you.

Still no excuse to bitch. Medics, do your job, please.

Thank you.

Well guys,this is is, the final part of Thirty Six of Rules, I hope you’ve all enjoyed it, thanks for reading and supporting my guide, see you when my next one is released, I’ll be adapting my defense guide for Ubercharged, in different sections, of course, since it’s 60 pages long o.0.

Until next time, this is EchelonThree, thanks for reading!

31. Backpedal if he’s attacking you, but turn and run forward if he’s out of range

It’s a little known fact that you’re slower when backpedalling. So what does this mean?

It means that if a pyro is rushing you and you turn around and fire, he’ll catch you eventually (if you’re not a scout, medics will get caught). However, if you turn and run, that means that he’ll never catch up to you. A good pyro will pull out the shotgun and pray that he gets you.

If he’s already within range, you won’t escape him, so you might as well fight him.

If he’s out of range, you (as a faster class) are likely to be ill equipped to engage a pyro anyway, since that means you’re either an engineer (shotgun vs. flamethrower), sniper (SMG vs. flamethrower), Medic (you’re better off running anyway, don’t fight if you don’t have to!), or spy (you kidding?).

If you’re slower than a pyro and he’s closing into range, then you should fight him (and you’ll probably beat him), since you won’t get away anyway, and fighting is your only real chance.

But be creative – if you think you can get away with a rocket jump, by all means go for it.

Thanks to TF2F Nullname who points out that it’s faster to backpedal while strafing (i.e. hold down back while strafing) than it is to simply backpedal.

32. Don’t charge a heavy. Ever.

“THIS IS SASHAAAAAAAAA!” – Leonidas Trotsky

You’re a pyro and you see a heavy, gun fully revved, down the corridor. Would you charge him?

A few seconds of thinking will tell you the answer is no, but if this is so, then why do so many pyros wind up going w+m1 at heavies?

Maybe it’s because a flamethrower is a close range weapon? So is the minigun.

Let’s ask this question: if you were a demoman, would you rush a heavy with your grenades?

Once again, no, so if health isn’t the reason (demo and pyro have the same health), then it must be the weapon.

So, why does a flamethrower seem to give someone the feeling that accords him the invincibility of extreme capability of being and having superhuman strength, endurance, and leetawsomeness make benefit glorious pyro to charge a heavy?

I don’t know, but I do know this: Don’t charge a competent heavy, you WILL lose. Your odds are much better if his gun isn’t spinning when you engage him, but still, you’re best off not attacking him head on.

I’ve received a torrent of hate mail regarding this point…. yes I know a soldier can beat a heavy at close range, but he wins by using cover, not by charging the mobile meat shredder.

33. The game is TEAM fortress.

ATTENTION: Halo players, you are NOT the Master Chief, and this is NOT a super soldier game

The enemies are NOT grunts; don’t go charging in yourself unless you’re sure of what you’re doing. This is a team game; no one class is equipped to handle every situation (except the *insert profanity here* overpowered demo).

Unless you’re trying to eliminate a key target like a sentry or a medic, you shouldn’t be charging in without support.

Until then, I’ll be in my bunker, hiding from the flood of hate mail I’ll likely receive.
WARNING: Serious Zone! – Aggression

Aggression is how aggressive you are in battle. (doh!)

Well, that means how much you push out against the opponent. How can you define aggression? Simple.

Usually, in a fight, both sides want to avoid opposing fire by one of two methods – evasion or cover. Evasion involves moving to throw off the guns of the opposing force. Cover is… well… cover – put something behind yourself and the bullet and you’re safe from direct damage. In a fight, cover is generally preferred over evasion.

In any single engagement, the “aggressive” or attacking side is generally the one who is evading, and the defender is seeking cover. It’s an age-old matchup between mobile warfare and a static position.

More importantly, being aggressive means that you enjoy the advantage of the “initiative”. This means that you can determine the pace of the battle by pressing or retreating, you can take your time to reload as you can dodge, and you have the first shot. (There are some people who work well on defense, like myself – I HATE attacking)

Now, being aggressive means that you’re taking a risk, as you will have to leave a safe covered position, maintain pressure on the defender (to prevent him from taking the advantage), and keep yourself safe.

Foolish aggression involves the ancient fighting technique that can best be described as “Frothing mouth, flailing arm” – charging the enemy recklessly with guns blazing.

There is a thin line between that and controlled aggression. Unlike the foolish attacker, the controlled attacker always has a backup plan to fall back and resupply.

End Serious Zone.

34. Fool your enemy

The M1 Garand rifle (not in TF2, what a pity) made a distinctive “ping” sound when an (automatically) ejected rifle clip hit the ground. At that point, everybody and his brother knew you were out of ammunition and had to reload, including an enemy who would be waiting to shoot you when your clip was empty. As such, many marines were killed because of their ping…. (okay that was a REALLY bad joke)

If your enemy is engaging you in direct combat, calling for a doc will signal that you’re “injured” to everyone, including your enemy.

What do the two have in common? Simple: they are both excellent opportunities to turn the fight against your enemy.

In the case of the M1, marines in Vietnam would throw an empty rifle clip on the ground, wait for the enemy to pop his head up, and pop a cap into him. Likewise, by calling out for a medic, you have given him an opening to come at you (while he thinks you are “injured”) and finish you off.

Unnecessarily calling for a medic may cause him to be overaggressive and greedy, and you can use this time to plan the perfect ambush. Oh, and of course, it may help you save your medic.

Of course, tell your medic first that you’re not calling for him via teamchat or the voicecom.

See also point 18. – Don’t count on enemy stupidity

35. Know when to hold ‘em, Know when to fold ‘em

“You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away, and know when to run.” – Kenny Rogers

You’re an engi, and an uber heavy has just emptied a belt or two of ammo into your gun at close range, what do you do?

Most people will keep on whacking the gun in a losing battle. A smart engi will take the time to escape and set up a gun somewhere else.  As you can see here, our other engineers are falling back, leaving the level 2 sentry to distract the ubered demoman. (my gun has just been finished off by a sniper).

In this other picture below, we see another part of the game, our guns have been destroyed but we’ve managed to bleed a significant portion of their time away, they’re down to one minute now.

We won the game without them taking a single point

The same principle can be applied to you as a soldier caught in the open against a heavy at close range, you have to choose between fighting him (and praying that someone gives you an assist or that you get an assist after you die), rocketjumping away and falling back (you’ll take some damage but live to fight again). In this case, running away on foot is not an option, the minigun will cut you into shreds.

Learn to identify times where the best thing to do is simply cut your losses and fall back.

36. Never take anything for granted until that timer hits 0

“You never count your money when you’re sittin’ at the table. There’ll be time enough for countin’ when the dealin’s done.” – Kenny Rogers

Gravelpit point C, 10 seconds left. Red players decide that they’ll win for sure and charge forward to get the kills during the humiliation round; in that time, a blu spy gets onto the point and captures it.

You should stand on the point until the end (watch for overtime!) and make sure that when you’ve won the game, you really have won the game. Even in the last five seconds, we keep a heavy and soldier on the point to prevent any last-second charges.

End

So that’s thirty-six simple rules which should greatly improve your overall combat effectiveness, no frills, just good strategy.

In traditional style, I’ve not gone into aiming techniques, how to do a rocketjump, or any other technicalities of the sort, it’s my belief that any player can become a strong player if they play smart instead of playing hard, that’s what this guide is about.

I really hope you’ve all found it useful, and that you’ve enjoyed reading this guide as much as I have writing it.

So, see you on the servers!

Author Information & License Protection

EchelonThree/Cryo/Rocket Man

Singapore

echelonthreeguides@gmail.com

Control Point, Gamereplays.org, Edgegamers.org, TeamFortress2Fort.com, Ubercharged.net

Writer for Gamereplays.org

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I am one of those people that rants when he keeps getting killed by a pyro. I fully admit to that, and I admit to it without guilt because when I stop playing, I realize that it’s my fault the pyro ever killed me. Unfortunately, some people don’t see that light. They see him as “W+M1! Noob class! RAAAAAAEEEEGGGGG!” but never admit that pyro is a difficult class to play. Let’s take a look, shall we?

What makes a Pyro so easy to hate?

You may recall way back when Clank stated that afterburn from the pyro’s flamethrower does sixty damage alone. This, according to the tf2wiki,, is true, and is one reason that the pyro is hated–the strong afterburn, which goes on for six seconds, and any smart pyro will lay shotgun/flare gun fire on you as you run, so it’s a bit inaccurate to say that 60 damage is all you’ll take in afterburn damage after facing a pyro.

Another thing the Pyro is hated for is his dps (damage per second). The flamethrower fires at 22.5 particles per second, each particle dealing 4 to 6.8 damage per particle, depending on range. That means the flamethrower, at point blank range, deals 153 damage per second. That means that the Pyro can kill five classes in less than a second, and is capable of killing two classes is approximately seven or eight seconds (153 close range + afterburn, assuming the pyro is killed while laying down the initial 153 damage). So basically, the pyro deals a lot of damage really quickly.

Lastly, a pyro could be hated for his stale style of gameplay. Surely, we’re all familiar with the W+M1 method of Pyro, where a Pyro relies entirely on the W and Mouse 1 keys to play. While this can be entertaining for some, this makes the pyro seem less skillful than other classes like the soldier and demoman. Obviously, as with any other class, there are some extremely skillful pyros (such as the well-known Don Newman)

What’s to not hate about the Pyro?

As stated above, the pyro does a lot of damage in a little bit of time. I probably stated those details in a manner that makes the pyro seem OP. But, surprise, he’s not. Let’s take a look.

The Pyro is the close range/ambush class. The only exception to him being close range is his flare gun, and that’s not a good long range weapon, it does 13-15 damage on impact with six seconds afterburn, a total of maximum 75 damage. Most of the time, it’s used to annoy enemies to run to the nearest health pack and annoy snipers. So, the Pyro is almost entirely close range. That means the Pyro has to get really close to you to reach its full potential. If you can’t spot the close range class running towards you, you’re doing something wrong. A good player is fully aware of his surroundings–mostly for ninjaneers and spies.

Afterburn is a tricky subject. It is surprisingly powerful, and it can easily cause a lot of rage due to the potential of dying right before you get to a health pack or resupply. However, there are a couple of things to consider. When the Spy/Sniper update was initiated, the unlockable weapon Jarate was introduced. Jarate, among other things, was capable of extinguishing fire. After that, an update was made that Pyros can extinguish flames with their compression blast. Heavies have the Sandvich, a transportable health kit that can be used to render the afterburn useless in terms of damage dealt. Every decent team hopefully has at least one medic and at least one engineer who has a dispenser at a minimum level two. Both of which heal at a rate faster than afterburn can destroy. Most medics have the mindset that burning “lit” allies deserve healing the most, then lit allies, then burning allies. With all these to get rid of afterburn’s effects, what’s to complain about?

W+M1 is a tricky subject. Most of the time, that is what a pyro does. He runs ahead, spewing fire everywhere. However, that’s an incredibly legit tactic, and I refer to paragraph one to explain why–Pyro’s still have to get really close to you. Besides, W+M1 is pulled by other classes. I’m looking at you, Heavy Weapons Guy. The Heavy does the very definition of W+M1. And what makes it different from when the pyro does it? Nothing, that’s what. You can’t argue that it’s different because the pyro can move at 100% speed when he spams, because the Heavy’s range (as short as it may be) makes up for his lack of mobility when pursuing targets.

In summary…

A lot of people that hate the Pyro are only frustrated because there’s a Pyro killing them, otherwise they’re usually quiet about it. Really, the best thing to do when somebody complains about a Pyro is to just do nothing. When somebody becomes frustrated, they are most likely not going to base their arguments on logic. All you really should do is just keep going on, arguing with them is pointless. I hope that I’ve changed some opinions with this article.

Credit to Toakal for once more helping me when I’m out of pictures. (He made the second one.)

Remember that funny song I put up last time?

We’ve known each other, since last spawn;
Your health’s been droppin but you’re too shy to call me;
The other team has built a sentry farm;
Just one uber and we can break it

I….. really hope the pyro doesn’t spycheck me;
Fire isn’t good for disguise.

We really need a demoman;
I play medic- for the win;
I’ve almost readied my ubercharge
Sentryguns, backstabbing spies
Are all as annoying as flies
I really hate these crit rockets

Way too many crits (Way too many crits)
CRIT ROCKET….
Way too many crits (Way too many crits)
CRIT ROCKET….

critroll’d

25. Don’t turtle

Defensively speaking, sentries are easier to destroy than set up. An uber can bring down a gun and a dispenser; they can then run in and grab your intel before hightailing it out of there.

If you turtle, it’s not a matter of “will you win?” it becomes, “when will they win?”

By the way, don’t get “don’t turtle” confused with “don’t defend.” They’re not the same. Turtling is concentrating all your resources on defending aimlessly without attacking. Defending is smartly allocating your resources taking into account your need to attack. In English, that means to allocate your manpower in such a way that you gain the greatest benefit on defense from the lost manpower on attack

26. Don’t camp

“I see whut you did thar” – Oscar Wilde

You just killed me from that spot. Do you really think I’m going to fall for that trick again when you try to snipe me from the very same spot for the third time in a row?

Short answer: No.

Don’t stand still like a bloody idiot! In the end, you’ll be the dead, bloody idiot.

Nuff said.

I’ve received a bit of feedback on this from people who tell me that that’s the only way they can use the cloak and dagger, my response is that if you’re a spy who crouchwalks with the cloak and dagger, you’re doing it wrong, go home, learn to play, and stop sucking.

There is a difference between the “good” type of camping and the “poor” type of camping, the good types of campers are those who camp with a purpose or stay in an area because of an overwhelming positional advantage it gives them, the poor types are those who aimlessly wait for someone to come into their crosshairs.

Any camping should be done with a purpose, such as to ambush a key target like a medic. If you’re just camping around waiting for your cloak to recharge, at least try to do it in a strategic place where you can report in enemy movements. Camping around with no purpose is pointless.

Back to that picture I mentioned earlier in the guide:

Once again, I’m up there waiting for a target, but this time I’m dumping a load of pipebombs down to force anyone who comes in to my stickytrap. If my team were busy fighting for control of another point, I would be useless to my team.

However, this is a different situation, our team is under pressure, and this passageway is the most direct route from the enemy spawn to our point; my role is not one of camping and ambushing (everybody knows I have stickies there waiting for them) but one of defensive area denial (they know that I’m waiting for them, that forces them to take a long route.

Better still, I cover the shortest route for my team to reach the center point (this room) and stage a counterattack.

Lesson here? If you must camp, camp with a purpose.

27. Use Ubers wisely

An uber lasts for 10 seconds, so please: do NOT give it to a scout or sniper.

Okay, that was obvious, but medics have to observe and coordinate with their Überee. With good scouting, you can work out what the best uber for the situation is.

If your spy reports that there are lots of SGs, pick a demoman to go in, and work with your spy to take out the guns more efficiently. If your spy sees a player based defense in an open area like dustbowl, then a (skilled) soldier or demo would work well. If it’s a close quarters area like the intel room on 2fort, few outperform a pyro or heavy.

If you have to defend a point against another ubered pair on the point, uber heavies win, bar none.

In special situations, such as on Gravelpit, an uber scout can be devastating on the points to block it, and you should always be aware of this lesser-used uber. But something like this should only be used as a last resort.

Above all, it’s down to the medic to pick his uber target and coordinate with the team. If done well, it’s a game changer; if you fail, you won’t get another chance for at least a minute, so make it count.

28. Spycheck everyone

“Would you like spies with that?” – Michael Moore

It doesn’t take that much ammo, so why not?

A spy behind your lines is a major disadvantage, not only because of the fact that he’ll kill all of you, but also because he will likely report back everything you do to his team, and if needed, kill your medic in a suicide attack. Spy checking doesn’t even have to cost you ammo; just run through the suspected spy and root him out.

In clan scrims, not every clan may run a spy. Still, running through allies to check them is simply good economics – it takes low effort and time, but it offers you a huge benefit.

29. Get creative.

How many people look up when they are commuting? The fight is on the ground, so why look directly up?

That’s the weakness you must exploit. Few expect someone to drop down on them, and for the few that do, they usually can’t do anything about it.

Once again, just like in all my guides, a nice conversation on a server. I’m a demoman, and it’s alltalk (so I took advantage of it).

Scene: Dustbowl Stage 2
Location: Tunnel with 1-way gate.
Scenario: Red has taken the tunnel, as a demoman, I’m holding the tunnel by lobbing my nades down, but suspiciously, no stickies have been launched

(enemy)”Alright guys, gogo”
A soldier, engi, and medic run start coming in to take the tunnel from me, in response, I go around the corner and run back
(enemy) “we need a dispenser”
(enemy) “okay, charging uber”
*30 secs later*
(enemy) “oh [censored] look up!”
*boom*
Six kills and four destruction points, whoopee (:
Place bombs behind rocks, under your sentry guns (to blow up spies who sap), inside barrels, on ceilings. Get creative with your traps, and you’ll be well rewarded.

Likewise, take advantage of this by first getting to an obscure vantage point, and then raining death down on an unsuspecting enemy, or picking them off one by one.

WARNING: Serious Zone! – Creativity

Okay, so I’ve just said a lot about getting creative, but what exactly is creativity?

Well, I can’t really say much, except that you shouldn’t let any conventional wisdom hold you back, you can try putting a sentry up smack in the middle of the battlefield, sniping from an otherwise-poor vantage point, and my personal favorite: Laying stickybombs under shallow water…. Many people in 2fort have died while running through the sewers.

End Serious Zone

30. Call your ubers

Why would you uber a soldier who’s out of ammo? You wouldn’t, but yet, many people don’t bother to find out if their Überee is ready to be charged. You don’t want to send out an ubercharge only to find that you aren’t backed up, either.

The simple solution involves telling your team that you are charged and ready to begin a push.

Whenever you are about to be fully charged, tell your team to prepare to push up. At once, everybody in your team, led by the uber, should push forward, swarm the enemy, and win the game.

DISCLAIMER: The writer of this guide advises against telling people when you are fully charged. It tends to have the negative effect of causing every single crit rocket, grenade, arrow, sniper bullet and stray syringe gun needle to teleport and miraculously rematerialize with a flight path directed at you, then proceeding to: (hit/maim/perforate/pulverise,vaporise/bludgeon/detonate/slice/stab/impale/exterminate/gib/execute/decapitate/all of the above) [choose one] you.