The REAL winner of the war – Scout
Congratulations go out to Team Soldier, for their recent victory over Team Demoman. Our games have now updated and both classes been issued with a surplus of shiny new toys just in time for Christmas.
No sooner than after we’d been having fun with our new toys, another war began. I am of course referring to the war on the Steam Forums; wherein debate over why each and every new unlockable is overpowered/underpowered continues even now, soaked in bilious vulgarity and contempt.
Let’s get down to the crunch of the matter; I’m not here to discuss the new unlocks, or complain about why they’re not fair. I’m here to talk to you about the class that benefits the most from this update (at least as far as decently sized public servers are concerned); the Scout, and more precisely to tell you WHY, and HOW my fellow scouts can easily turn this update in their favour, by discussing the two updated classes and their unlocks. And I’m going to do it with a level of arrogance and cock-certainty that only a scout player could truly understand. Don’t listen to that Paper fellow, winning all the time is a great thing.
The Bugle Brigade – Soldiers
Let’s face it, most Soldiers have never really been good for much. When they’re not busy yelling for a Medic, or injuring themselves, they spend most of their time hopping about throwing rockets in the general direction of combat, hoping perhaps they might hit something before proclaiming themselves heroes and awarding themselves medals.
The words ‘Direct’ and ‘Hit’ are two words that before now, probably weren’t even in your average Soldier’s vocabulary, and such occurrences could be chalked down to luck. Perhaps your more porcine team-mates might have call to fear this new device, but it should be of little threat to you. Laugh gleefully as these huntsman-quick rockets whiz past you, the Soldier now aiming for you instead of your general vicinity, let him waste his ammo and then move in for the kill.
It’s here that the typical soldier, should he somehow have managed to survive this long, would reach for his shotgun and attempt to fend you off with that. No dice, he’s traded that in for a pair of ‘magic’ boots, or maybe even a musical instrument. Laugh some more as he slowly attempts to reload his new gun, and then maybe consider putting him out of his misery.
In this near death state, he might now resort to bringing out the last, gleaming piece of hope that he has in his backpack; the Equaliser. And moves at you with a speed that would almost rival your own. Perhaps he expects you to draw your own melee weapon, and fight him with some ‘honour’. Or maybe he just intends to dig his own grave with the damn thing. Either way, don’t wait around to find out, shoot him dead now. And remember, if you see a soldier sprinting towards you with his Equaliser drawn, it means his health is low enough that you can one-shot him. He’s practically asking for it.
The Drunken Duelists – Demomen
Demomen were never really much of a threat anyway. Their explosive spam has always been much easier to avoid than the Soldier’s, and he’s always had much more of it to avoid than the tin hatted meathead. Well now, perhaps as part of some drunken bet, he’s traded most of his stockpile away for some close combat gear. Close combat is of course, your forte, so why not show him how it’s done.
Shields are an antiquated weapon, and have no place on the modern battlefield; the Chargin’ Targe is no different. Back in the day, bold Scotsmen would charge headlong against their enemy’s line of explosive & incendiary firearms, using their shields to protect them from incoming fire. A technique that is completely ineffective against modern tactics, such as moving out of the way as he runs at you and shooting holes through the shield with a real man’s gun. Or, if you don’t have a real man’s gun, the Force-A-Nature; not only will it knock him back and cause him to fall short, but it’ll line him up nicely for a second, killing shot.
If the Demoman thinks he’s bringing something new to the fight with the Eyelander, he’s very wrong. Here’s the inside-scoop; The Sniper has always had a blade with an inconceivably large melee range (heck, more recently he picked up his own shield too), and he’s always had enough sense to stay as far away from you as possible. This from a man who thinks throwing jars of his own piss constitutes a martial art.
The Demoman hopes that by circling around you and swinging his own blade wildly, he’ll score two successive hits on you and decapitate you, granting him some kind of demonic power. This won’t happen of course, for two reasons; Firstly, you can move faster than even a fully eviled up demoman and hence out of his range whilst you shoot him. Secondly, it only takes 2 shots from your own weapon (3 at most) to put him down, whilst yours has a wide spread and a bit more range. No prizes for guessing who’ll win this showdown then.
Eventually, the Demoman might learn that he can’t fight up close, and go back to his old tactics of hiding behind his bombs. The Scottish Resistance offers him more sticky bombs than ever, but whereas previously he would just stick them near an objective, drink himself into a stupor, and detonate them if any sort of loud noise roused him; this new sticky launcher requires him to be looking at the bombs he wants to explode. Consider this, the demoman is a one-eyed drunkard; looking at things is at least twice as challenging to him as it is to you. Moreover, these things aren’t quite as good for just chucking around you in hope you’ll accidentally trip over one, so once you get up close to him he’ll be as easy a nut to crack than ever.
And that is how you sum up that; Scouts enjoy your new update. Don’t rage at me too hard when the occasional competent player figures out how to use those weapons properly either; that’s not my fault – they’re probably just hacking. Oh and have a Merry Christmas now the war is over.
Once again, thanks go to Tygrys for the Gmod images. You can find the full wallpaper sized pics here.
TeslaTank on December 24th 2009 in game classes, scout, team fortress 2, the funny
Stumble it!
hain responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 5:16 am #
What a lovely article and such lovely works of gmod. I bit my tongue viciously in magnanimous envy.
-=Pvt. Gomer Pyle=- responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 6:05 am #
This is why I love the scout.
Also, on Gorge (thats the new ctf map right?) you can use the scout to jump from bridge to sniper ledge, or even better, above them to the roof.
Speaking of wallpapers, check my link.
Brainiac27 responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 6:06 am #
I certainly have been feeling this effect. With half or more of team members rolling demos or soldiers, I have been topping scoreboards with scout all day long. Doesn’t hurt that scouts are a blast to play.
namegenerator responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 6:10 am #
Funny, and very accurate article. Thanks!
HelisPoe responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 6:37 am #
Don’t forget the Spy! With all the Demos and Soldiers around it basically multiplies the usefulness of the disguise kit ten fold.
Man, I love post-update TF2.
Schizoid responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 7:50 am #
How do you get the models from the update in Gmod?None of the models from updates show up on my props list.
Tygrys responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 8:27 am #
Search for them in the Browser. They won’t show up in the props list unless you have proper spawnlists.
Lord Zurkov responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 8:52 am #
I lol’d when you didn’t even mention the grenade launcher… most Demomen are absolutely terrible with it, though, so you were justified in ignoring it completely.
The Scout really did get a great deal out of this update (unless you’re fighting competent Soldiers/Demomen, in which case they do more damage with faster projectiles or have more health and speed than before…)
TeslaTank responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 10:03 am #
Pipebombs weren’t mentioned because they’re nothing new. Most demomen still don’t use them, anyway. Despite them being the scouts biggest threat when faced with a demo.
Alex responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 10:24 am #
The soldier is one of the more prominent classes in a team, and I find they’re by far the most versatile class. And as proved by hundreds of videos in YouTube, plenty of soldiers are perfectly adept at making airshot after airshot, which is where the direct hit comes in.
Metal_Link responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 10:25 am #
Finally something well written and worthwhile.
In the first two days, I found myself constantly in the top 3 as a Heavy. Too many emo (as in hurting themselves) soldiers running around with their pickaxes and Demos that still can’t aim with their own swords and shields. It was all just fun anyway. I’d laugh my ass off at the other team when I killed three demos in a row that tried charging at me with my gun already spun up.
Ah, good times. But I can’t wait for the return of normal game flow so I can be a Soldier again with little bother of 4 additional Soldiers.
Paper Shadow responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 10:46 am #
Hey Tesla, remember Badlands, where DuckDuckMOO was a Melee Demoman?
Your double jump didn’t save you then, ya wanker!
TeslaTank responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 10:47 am #
He was hacking, duh.
Paper Shadow responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 12:00 pm #
Then why didn’t you ban him?
C²/TMP responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 12:40 pm #
I would have said the pyro benefitted more but that’s my though.
Axe Murderer responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 2:24 pm #
yup. my complete list of things to do (as demo) when a scoot comes my way:
RUN. FOR. COVER.
at least they nerfed the sandman out of existence. I squirreled away my last sandman for some scrap metal as soon as people could just run away.
Corodan responded on 24 Dec 2009 at 5:08 pm #
I never had so much fun as a Scout in my entire career of it.
Thanks so much for pointing this out, Tesla.
People need to udnerstand the fun…
ScabbySid responded on 25 Dec 2009 at 1:21 am #
awesome article, now thinking i should start playing more scout again…
also love the GMod work, now using the image with the scout flying towards the demo with a bat in his hands as my background
Jeremy responded on 25 Dec 2009 at 9:09 am #
Good advice, but it seems to me that most scouts do not listen to it. I’ve been playing demo a lot recently, and I’ve found that despite having a shotgun, scouts love to nestle right up against me. All I have to do is aim in his general direction while swinging, and I have a scout’s head rolling around rather soon.
gelugon2105 responded on 26 Dec 2009 at 8:40 pm #
To Tesla Tank:
You said: “Shields are an antiquated weapon, and have no place on the modern battlefield.”
Maybe you do not know much about Modern Warfare 2.
Rogoho responded on 29 Dec 2009 at 7:34 am #
Amusingly, that’s not the game we’re playing.
duckduckMOO responded on 29 Dec 2009 at 7:43 pm #
amusingly, “modern warfare 2″ is a simulation of the “modern battlefield.” There is a riot shield in modern warfare 2 as a replacement for your primary weapon. ill leave you to figure the rest out.
Spike Himself responded on 07 Jan 2010 at 3:18 am #
Good read. Shame about the FaN comment though; that was a bit lame.