When I was still fairly new to the game, I only had a loose idea of what maps did what. Badlands and Badwater Basin got lumped in with Dustbowl in my mind, and I often paid the price in headshots for my ignorance. How then, I thought, would I learn the maps without getting killed? Hopping from server to server hoping to join in a curb-stomping was a haphazard solution, often resulting in meeting the wrong side of some Birkenstock Bacon. My only option was improving my survivability in a map with clearly defined sight lines. In browsing the “simplified list” (Realize that, at the time, I had no idea how to find or connect to a specific server) I found a map simply called “Orange_3x”, proclaiming “100% CRITS”. It was something new, and would most certainly be entertaining for a few minutes, at least.

The next hour was one of the most frenzied of my gaming career.

I was on the RED team, rolling Medic. I had not developed any aiming skills as of yet, TF2 being my first authentic online experience. The appearance of a Medic on such a map was apparently most unusual, but my team welcomed the assist. BLU had captured all but the final point, barely held off by a constant barrage of explosions, with the kill-counter zooming by too quickly to be of use. I held back, charging an Uber, while enterprising Demomen took advantage of the overheal to jump to the monolithic mid-cap that dominated the map. I can only assume that they were successful, as the Sniper fire and sticky bombs began to thin out. Eventually the second CP was ours once more, and I had to force myself into the line of fire. Time after time, I was shot, bombed, fragged, and occasionally stabbed. The omniscient fear of critical shots turned the round into another game entirely, where rocket jumps and massed charges gave way to ambush and feints. The Ubercharge signified the arrival of Hell on Earth, often denying even the option of retreat to our foes.

Servers with ubiquitous criticals are infuriating to most players. Any class with rapid-fire capability can dominate the field, save the Heavy Weapons Guy. Most classes slower than average are killed almost immediately, denied the advantages of durability. Despite the obvious issues of class balance and mapping problems, servers with 100% criticals provide vital advantages in survivability training and forward planning. These are particularly helpful as a Medic, but all classes can take advantage of such advice.

Be alert

Firstly, players quickly learn to judge events happening all over the screen. While a player on a vanilla server would learn to spot counter-classes and enemy support classes, 100% critical servers taught me the importance of the background. If there is a pitched battle at the middle CP, instinct and camaraderie tell the player to join the dog-pile. I have often found that it is a better tactical move to move past the mosh pit to strike enemy reinforcements focused on the mob ahead of them. In PLR_Pipeline, for instance, the tunnel where the bomb tracks meet hold stairways that allow access to the opponents’ staging area. Attacking the informal conga line has a more lasting effect, and it’s harder for opponents to target the flanking team and hold the tunnel effectively.

Be surprising

Secondly, players learn common ambush techniques. Certain pieces of map geography imprint into the player’s mind, developing a much-needed knack for feints, workarounds, and counter-ambushes. Take, for example, the second CP on Dustbowl, phase 1. While the corridor leading to the point (to the right and up, from the CP) provides ample cover and workspace for enterprising Engineers, it is just as easy for the defending team to prepare for an onslaught from that corridor, preparing a counter-ambush on the platform just outside. With a bit of warning, a defender could jam the gate open long enough for a sweeper team to clean out the corridor. Speaking more generally, maps that have one or two grand entrances to each area (such as 2Fort, the opening points on Gravel Pit, and in certain cases Doublecross) have players that use the same set of ambush points. Such static thinking can be ruthlessly punished by sacrificing default tactical options for play that is tailored to the trap itself. In 2Fort, for example, the small aperture just beside the sewer entrance is a classic spy hideout, frequently purged by alert defenders. Knowing where a player will look grants knowledge of where they will not, allowing for unusual sticky traps and ambush points.

Heavies, Pyros and other common ambushers are less able to abuse these habits due to the difficulty of slipping such obvious threats under the radar. Such players should instead abuse blind spots in the enemy’s routes of advance. In CTF_Doublecross, for example, enterprising Heavies noting heavy traffic on the bridge may make a career out of “H-Bombing runs”, dropping from the upper bridge to the catwalks below to ambush the cowards that seek the safety of sewage. The new-found mobility of sentries allows for a fairly dynamic response to defensive needs, as popular routes of advance can be shut down as needed, channeling enemy flankers into more accessible fields.

Be creative

Thirdly, 100% critical servers teach the player to take whatever path is offered in order to advance. It was quite a feat in Orange_3x to advance from point to point, and the wide-open nature of the map forced me to look to my teammates for more esoteric forms of cover. If several friendly attackers broke to the right, then focus would be off of the left side of the field. Taking account of the enemy’s perception of the field and where they commonly hit allow other options to make themselves known. Once again, 2Fort provides an excellent example: there are two general routes of advance, barring the air. Players may attempt to charge the bridge itself, or go underneath and attempt to convert the sewers into a forward base. Such tactics often result in stalemates due to poor distribution of effort. A forward base in the sewer is bad, yes, but it is containable. It is preferable to an Engineer pod in front of one’s own base. If I, as a Soldier in 2Fort, held down TAB to see how many players were on each team, I could make a good guess at the ratio of “sewer workers” to total players. Light traffic would warrant a sweeper team to clean out the sewer, but if half the server is underground then taking to the air is a clever, safe way to infiltrate the enemy base. Likewise, if a single route of advance in Dustbowl was being used by the attackers, the defenders would be well-served to use the other routes as staging areas and ambush points.

Critical servers were designed with the intent to unbalance the game, tilting the odds in favor of the team that adapted to a game that prized fluid response and excellent awareness of the battlefield. In one sense it can be used to develop empathy, learning how an enemy would respond to several common strategies and what it would take to break a stubborn hardpoint. The lack of teamwork common to such maps can be profited from as well. Chaotic attempts to advance tend to repeat themselves, allowing a vital testing ground for ambush techniques. Lastly, the lethal nature of 100% critical servers forces the player to scan unusual places for threats, translating into an opportunistic zeal for shortcuts and distractions in a more team-oriented environment. So next time you leave a server after a loss, consider joining a crit-happy server, and learn from that which cannot be taught: chaos.

Special thanks goes to Tygrys for the picture making, and to the Orange_X “community” for being obtuse.

On CTF_Convoy, I was rolling as a Direct Hit soldier due to my recent drop in ping time. Upon crossing the gantry leading to the enemy missile platform, I saw a Demoman, Scout and Sniper on the upper gantry near the front of the RED platform. The Demo fell in a single shot, and the Sniper followed shortly after. The Scout, oddly, stood still. Shock at his teammates’ demise paralyzed him for the second it took to ready his detonation. My thoughts drifted to Operation Desert Storm, where the US Army, foregoing a textbook war of attrition, initiated several smaller strikes affecting several different functions of Kuwait’s military, political, and intelligence capability. Much like that poor Scout, the remaining fighters could do little more than watch as the Coalition Forces took command of the state infrastructure.

Rapid Dominance, the guiding theory behind Shock and Awe, focuses on affecting the perceptions of the opponent, sapping their will to fight. Rapid Dominance requires decent knowledge of the map one is on and some manner of teamwork, but when done right, turns formerly difficult or impossible objectives into realistic goals. In order to establish Rapid Dominance, the team needs coordination and technique more than sheer twitch aim and low ping time, something that can take time and effort to prepare.

Let’s take Gravel Pit as our first example. The two control points available at the start afford attackers with opportunities for misdirection unheard of on most maps. We will assume that RED team (the defending team) knows that Point B is easier to defend than Point A, and so concentrates their defenses on Point A. The RED team assumes that once Point B falls, a concentrated assault on A is inbound. Rapid Dominance seeks to paralyze the enemy by defying its expectations. The first and most obvious expectation is that every attacker will head for Point A when spawned, heading through the spawn hallway. This can be subverted by setting up an offensive base in an unusual but defensive location near the point. The valley under Point B and the surrounding environs provide ample build space for Engineers. Hidden teleporters, preferably more than one, will give flankers opportunities to attack. At best, however, it will panic the defenders, rendering them unable to choose priority targets and distracting them from the high and holy duty of spy checking. If the Engineers note that their teleporters are consistently being attacked, building a single exit can draw off defenders before a major push.

This strategy carries over to other maps as well. In Granary, sentry placement acts as much as a rally flag as it does a defensive tool. A level 3 sentry is a symbol of team dominance in an area, and assassinating that building, even if no one else died, disheartens the defense. In that instant, the offense has a chance to attack with redoubled ferocity. Kamikaze attacks on Engineers will at the very least delay the defenders’ recovery until the cavalry arrives. With their sentries down, masses of attackers pouring into the area firing rockets in every direction, only the most steel-jawed or inexperienced of players would retreat.

Rapid Dominance depends on altering the enemy’s perception of the battlefield, destroying their symbols and leaders instead of fighting a war of attrition. If there is a level 3 sentry controlling an area, destroying it will dishearten the enemy. If one or two players are coordinating the enemy’s efforts, counter-classes should be sent in with the aim of scoring a domination. Domination, like sentry destruction, alters the player’s sense of the battlefield. Revenge enters into their equations, and the resulting priority change can be taken advantage of.

Take 2fort as an example. As a Direct Hit soldier, one could repeatedly rocket jump up to the battlements and blow the Super Samurai Sniper Squad to hell. Once dominations are accrued, the designated Aussie-troller can then draw fire on the bridge, distracting the average Weighted Companion Sniper not only from his own kind across the field, but from Medics, Demomen, and Engineers looking to lock down the entrance to the fort.

Payload is perhaps the most difficult game mode in which to assert rapid dominance. The defense knows with certainty where you are, where you came from, and where you will go. In Badwater Basin, a heavily defended rooftop above Checkpoint 2 could hold up the bomb for more than five minutes. In this case, only altering the method of advance can unnerve the enemy. A consistent influx of Spies, preferably with the Dead Ringer, will confuse, frustrate, and distract the Engineers. What if, suddenly, five or six Spies, sappers and pocket watches in hand, ambushed the Engineers with no other objective but to sap? They would all die at the hands of a competent Pyro, but by that time a Soldier or a Demoman would have arrived, courtesy of the Spies distracting the pyromaniacal doorwarden. From a pure gameplay perspective this strategy is ridiculous, but human error and panic is the core of Rapid Dominance. Subverting enemy expectations and exploiting the resulting confusion can yield extraordinary success.

To review, rapid dominance uses speed, coordination, and map knowledge to subvert the enemy’s expectations, then exploits the resulting confusion to destroy key targets, such as sentries, coordinating players, or support classes. The enemy, disheartened, confused, and at a serious tactical disadvantage, has no other option but defeat.

Special thanks to this article go to Tygrys, for his GMod mastery, and to confused Scouts everywhere for donating Dominations.

Ok, to begin with, I strongly recommend that you take some deep, calming breaths. The picture you are about to see (Or has caught your eye already) can invoke massive amounts of terror and disgust, and therefore being in a calm state of mind is recommended. I strongly urge you to suppress any desire to smash things or stab your eyes out, despite the untold horrors that you may consider to lie below. Right, are you ready? Here goes…

Yes, that’s me playing Team Fortress 2. With a joypad.

Allow me to explain. To start with, no, I’m not going to try and argue that a joypad is far superior to a mouse and keyboard when it comes to methods of control. I’d be wrong if I tried to, because a mouse and keyboard does allow for a greater deal of precision, allows for faster reactions and responses, and generally can do more than a joypad ever could. Sure, I consider joypads to be precise and effective to an extent, but they aren’t in the same league as the trusty mouse and keyboard combination. So, no to that… What this is really about is certain other factors that are important, to me especially; Familiarity, comfort, and fun.

You see, I’ve never been the biggest PC gamer. I’ve dabbled in it over the years, for sure, but when it came to playing games I just always picked the consoles for no other reason than… Well, I just did. So over the years my skill with a joypad has risen, whilst the skill and ability in using a mouse and keyboard passed me by. It’s only really with Team Fortress 2 that I’ve really started playing PC games, and with this event came situations whereupon people destroyed me by deftly flicking their fingers over the keys, whilst I wondered why I couldn’t find the letter “R” all of a sudden. And whilst I’ve learnt over time to master the system, and continue to do so, I still remain at the point where I’m more comfortable with a joypad in my sweaty palms… Years of experience will do that to you.

The fact the computer I play TF2 is also placed on a desk which is just cluttered by nature meant I often found myself constantly shifting things about, just to give the mouse some space to try and kick ass with. So recently, after dying yet again to a guy with his hands fused to his keyboard and mouse after years of use, I thought “Screw this” and plugged the joypad in. Now, I laze about on my bed, know exactly what button is where and what it does, and are having more fun with the game than I have in a long while. Yes, I still tend to die a lot to the PC elite – just last night a medic bobbed and weaved right in front of my soldier and shot him with relative ease – but in some ways my joypad experience in comparison to my M+K experience means I’m actually doing better. I even got a few dominations last night, which in my world is a rare and wondrous thing. Besides, who cares about dying if the fun is there? It certainly was for me.

The choice is yours…

Anyway, enough of a personal monologue from me, I think. You may be asking why I’m putting up such a defence for the joypad anyway, and why I suggested at the start of this article that people might be trying to kill me. Indeed, you may be one of those future murderers yourself, and wondering why you feel that way. Well, you see, there’s a ton of hate towards joypads in comparison to the keyboard and mouse, because the latter is considered just to be better. I came across some of this hate when trying to get the joypad working, and asked myself – Why? Why are you even trying to press your method of control onto myself and others? It’s clear the people asking in those threads want to use joypads, whatever their reason may be – Fun, comfort, whatever. Smashing them down for not using the “Pro” choice seems pointless, and if anything, you should encourage it if you believe the joypad user will become easy pickings in a fight. Yet despite these facts, people have (And always will) try to press their choices on to others, and that’s a shame.

So come on, people. Give joypads a break. We may not be as cool as you, but perhaps that’s just the way we like it.

Some of you may have heard that CEVO is banning the Sandman, Natascha, and the Wrangler for the upcoming season, a decision that’s met with a lot of controversy. The arguments against banning them are rather obvious, but between CEVO’s forum and a topic on our own forum, a few excellent explanations have popped up to explain why they’ve chosen to ban these weapons

Starting off general with a theme that covers two of these bans, from Ubercharged forum member ibuprofen:

Didn’t the competitive scene say that Scouts are borderline overpowered?

The quote was that Scout is the only “borderline overpowered” class. This means that if a player can hit every meatshot, He is overpowered compared to any other class that can get every shot, i.e a Sniper getting headshots with every shot will not be as effective as a Scout hitting every shot.

Also, for those who don’t agree with Natascha being banned, think of it like this. There are 5 combat classes on a team of 6. One of them is running Natascha. This player has begun to attack an enemy. This enemy’s mobility is now non-existent. Not only can they not escape, but they are a piss easy target for the 4 other players on a team. Competitive players aren’t like your usual pub player; we hit our shots. Therefore, imagine being the enemy when a single bullet begins a cycle of helplessness.

TF2 is a game of momentum and mobility. If one player can destroy the mobility of every class on the enemy team, that team will probably take mid and gain major momentum. This is a major game breaker. Note how every class (not Medic obviously) that is standard in comp play is extremely maneuverable or has a method of gaining instant mobility.

A response to “Well, can’t the enemy just use a Sniper and easily counter the Heavy using Natascha?” again from ibuprofen.

OK, I’ll break it down for you to understand it better.

The Sniper’s advantage is that he can eliminate targets from range. His damage does not amplify depending on distance. He is able to get “picks;” kills that allow the pushing team an advantage of having a player over them. The best “pick” is a medic pick, where a medic is eliminated from the enemy team. Snipers can do this at a range, which is why they are favorable. However, this is the only thing they are able to do; frag. Scouts can frag as well. However, Scouts move extremely fast, have a double jump, are able to outmaneuverer explosives classes and fight through spam. They can also avoid a Soldier juggle. Scouts can insert themselves into a battle, complete their objective, and remove themselves just as easily and quickly. Scouts capture at 2x the regular rate. A Sniper can do none of these things.

The mid fight is very important in competitive play, because the game is about momentum, as I mentioned. However, problematically, the Sniper is always late to the mid fight, which means the team’s Scout has a 1v2 fight at mid against the other team’s scouts. He also has to protect the team’s Demo and flank the enemy Demo, both of which are at mid. If you just don’t run scouts at all, first of all, your team’s Demo is dead instantly. Second, by the time your powerhouse gets to the fight, the point is already half capped. Thirdly, the enemy Demo will have stickies up the exits, trapping the combo. The enemy scouts will also have an advantage on the flank, etc.. etc… the list goes on. So, the team’s Scout is fucked at mid when you’re running a Sniper, jeopardizing the mid fight. That’s point #1.

The Sniper must be protected at all times. If a Soldier knocks him up in the air with a rocket, there is literally NOTHING the Sniper can do, as he cannot scope in nor outstrafe the extremely easily second rocket to complete the juggle. If the Sniper is ambushed from a blind spot by a Scout, he is dead before he came humanly react. Before you say, NO NO I’M A 1337 SNIPER I GET ALL THE SHOTS, keep in mind it takes 200ms for your shots to register as 150dmg headshots and not as null 50dmg bodyshots regardless. Add reaction time and lag (avg on central servers is 70ms) and you begin to realize how weak the Sniper is. The enemy team has TWO of these flanking classes, so if they ambush you at the same time, which they often do, you are dead before you can kill either. So essentially, you’re playing two classes down when you run a Sniper, since one has to babysit him. That is point #2.

The Sniper can do 150dmg a pop with a quickscope. This takes out unbuffed Scouts and Medics. In less time than it takes to do this, a Scout can deal two meatshots. Therefore, in the same time, the Scout could have killed any Scout (Buffed or otherwise), a Medic, an unbuffed Soldier, an unbuffed Demo, and put a buffed Demo in red to be pistoled easily. The Sniper can charge up, however, for 450 dmg. However, this takes four seconds. In these four seconds, the Scout can have popped out much more than 450 dmg. This is point #3.

Moving on to the Wrangler, here again from ibuprofen

This is just typical competitive crap. Why would a competitive clan/league or whatever ban weapons that provide a TACTICAL ADVANTAGE. Nat Heavies can be damn useful in a defense. The Sandman was damn useful before it got nerfed to oblivion and The Wrangler opened up a new skillset for the Engie.

This is what I don’t understand about competitive teams, they’re always banging on about skill yet when a weapon comes along that gives less experienced players an advantage over them, they’re quick to call for nerfs and bans as opposed to – oh I dunno… avoiding them?

I talked about the Natascha early on, but on the Wrangler, it makes a lot of sense. I’m not going to go to far into it, but in competitive play, sentries exist only to make enemies pop their uber early. Picture the Badlands choke when the offensive team is pushing out from yard after losing the mid fight. They have to fight uphill (THE worst position you could ever be in) and it is a back and forth struggle to peak out and get a pick so that their team could move in. Players flank from the house and scouts sneak in from the back side to ninja cap.

Now, what the team that has middle can do is they can run an Engineer and set up a level 3 sentry on the train car and wrangle it. This effectively shuts down both chokes and makes it impossible for the other team to push out. If they push out of the usual choke, they will get spammed in by a Sentry with a 66% damage reduction shield (seven stickybombs to frag) and double fire rate. If they try to push out house, the Sentry can just turn to the left and cover that too. So really, their only option is to push from valley (the area under the bridge), and this is a SEVERE disadvantage. Remember what I said about uphill fights behind the worst possible obstacle you could face? The valley is ten times more steep than the choke. Even when pushing out from here, the Sentry can still target you if you pop out. It will take literally the entire length of an ubercharge to kill a sentry. Which is not fair considering how fast the Engineer can build and maintain a sentry.

Like I said, I won’t go too far into it (there are loads of other problems), but to summarize, the Wrangler makes chokes impossible to push through and the entire game becomes a steamroll for whatever team wins mid.

Bellsprout, also from the UC forums, outlines the main reasons behind all three bans.

The only strategies that these weapons are good for are that of stalemating the game. The game revolves around Ubers, right? The Sandman is able to stun the Medic before he can Uber meaning he’ll be die. Or it can be used to stun the Soldier while he’s building Uber leaving the Medic defenceless. I should mention that by stun in those sentences I mean the speed nerf/unable to use weapons state.

The Natascha means that that an Ubered pair will go in and HAVE to focus that Heavy with 450 health, else he’ll stop any retreat. If there’s two of them then you’re just being stalemated as it is pretty much impossible to kill the two – especially if there’s a Medic with Uber. However because the team has two heavies it’s very difficult to push second. meaning stalemate.

The Wrangler means that an Uber is necessary to JUST kill the sentry. If there’s another engineer with another Wrangled sentry then you will lose. Simple. Once again, pushing to second is very difficult.

French Toast, one of our authors particularly well known for being part of the comp guide adds a side note about why guaranteeing that someone will die is so taboo.

The issue stems from the size difference between the average pub game and the average competitive game. When I stress to say “every little thing matters 10x more in a game with half the players”, I literally mean everything. It’s hard for a player used to comparatively large games to wrap their minds around because losing one or two guys in a pub only means another filling his place. If you’re down a man in 6s, that one man you just lost means a lot more in terms of fire power and coverage.

Laerin from our forums explains the “cannot move hence death” aspect a little more clearly

It’s been mentioned time and time again how the Natascha’s slowdown leaves players completely at the mercy of others. The scout, soldier and demoman are used instead of say two heavies becuase of their speed and versatility. The heavy is meant to be a tank with a high DPS and large amount of health but by trading off it’s speed. But the Natascha robs other classes of their speed and manueverability; the most important thing they have over the heavy. A soldier cannot rocket jump away. A scout cannot run away – or even get close to him. In one-on-one situations, unless you are right beside a means of escape, your two options are either to kill the heavy (the class with the higher DPS and health) or die. In most cases however, you will be a sitting duck to the other classes and your set of options will have dwindled by one.

This last one is from Sigma, over the CEVO forums

Quote: Originally Posted by Hawkeye
The Natascha ban is simply idiotic. It’s been around for a few seasons, used, no one had issues with it, it is not over-powered otherwise we would’ve seen the Heavy/Natascha a whole lot more then on maps to fend off scouts and more teams winning maps running Natascha heavies.
Natascha heavies came out on every map this season in invite (and almost every match of the lan, often doubled up). It’s to the point that even mid fights, where the heavy is traditionally terrible due to his speed, would see a heavy showing up. The increased speed + reduced spin time turned heavy from situational to crazy good. I don’t know about open or other leagues, but if players there aren’t using it it’s a result of not trying it and seeing how broken it is. Scouts pretty much cannot make any plays once a natascha heavy is spun up. They get hit by 1 bullet, are totally frozen + get directed + die. Soldiers and demomen can’t peek corners, because the bullet stream will cause them to be too slow to escape from the return spam. As a medic, you pretty much have to treat the natascha heavy as a sniper — once he slows you, you take damage from almost every rocket, so you have to stay out of LoS. If you suggest getting a heavy of your own or a sniper to counter it, sure, that works, but the game slows to a crawl and is no longer fun.

On the other hand, heavies are extremely effective for creating a health advantage through sandvich use and following up pushes with the huge 450hp buff. This remains unchanged with the regular minigun (and is in fact more exciting, because the heavy exchange happens much faster). The heavy can still hold the flank 1v2, but only if he has good tracking — as opposed to the natascha version, where he can sit spun up on a corner and get a guaranteed kill on any scout that peeks it.

AG used natascha heavies as much or more than the other invite teams, and all of us agree that the weapon is way too strong. By the end of the season Otter refused to use it in scrims because it was so lame, and it was so easy to use that there was no point in practicing it.

Quote:Originally Posted by Bodknocks
Banning Wrangler just seems really odd. I feel like it’s a huge knee-jerk reaction to the item. I don’t really know what else to say other than that, did people honestly think Engie would start being main classed and that Wrangler was going to dominate the scene? I just don’t really understand why this is supposedly overpowered in 6v6 environment, it’s definitely an upgrade from the pistol (lol) but that’s not a good reason to have it banned.
It only takes a couple scrims on gpit to see what’s wrong with it. Sentries have no damage falloff. This is fine if they have limited range, but when you can put a gun in a sniper’s position and spam huge damage from long range, then pick up said gun and hide it once it (eventually) gets damaged, the attacking team has no counter. The engy can sit at spawn with his gun, get free damage on any team that decides to push through C, then pick it up, teleport to B, and put it super far away from the doors to spam more long-range damage. You can try things like double-DHing it, but you still need 6 or more rockets to bring it down (thanks to the ridiculous shield), and the engy can easily just pick it up and hide it, the shield will let it live long enough. Heck, you could even rocket jump a teleporter to the roof and teleport your gun (and team) up there (without having to deal with the old problems of taking a long time to get up and being vulnerable to snipers). Who wants to push B with a heavy, level 3 infinite range sentry, sniper, demo, med, soldier all sitting on the roof? I know I don’t.

Hopefully, this helps you better understand CEVO’s decision. If not, however, let me just close with a couple of choice comments from French Toast

The minute people stop thinking of competitive player as this separate group of completely foreign players, the sooner you realize that everyone plays the same game. It’s the same thing as some people liking 32 man, roll the dice servers, or other people preferring 18 man 24/7 arena servers. Competitive players are just another bunch that like to play the game the way they like, and it happens that the leagues agree that it’s the most competitive way to play, so they host tournaments for that style.

It’s our little corner of the world, and the actions the leagues take are our concerns. If you can’t accept our reasoning, which has been rather beautifully laid out before you in this thread, for following certain rules, and banning the use of certain weapons, we don’t care. Why? It doesn’t affect you, it’s our little corner of the TF2 world and we enjoy it the way we have it.

I’m a very inconstant TF2 player when it comes to choosing classes. While I do have certain favorites, such as Engineer, I tend to play a different class every week or so, usually with a changing weapon load out that mixes in the weapons that I tend to ignore. The Soldier is the class that I’ve been getting practice with recently. At the moment of this writing, the Soldier is my 5th most played class. I’ve never been drawn to playing the Soldier that often and I’m not sure why; he’s a powerful and very well rounded class. Since I decided to give the Soldier a shot this week, I figured I’d try something different for his load out: the Direct Hit.

I’d never given the Direct Hit much a chance. Like other players, I found it to be inferior to the Rocket Launcher. The last time I used this weapon, I was not pleased. I couldn’t hit the broad side of a Heavy, and he only has broad sides. The whole ordeal was a waste of time and I even crafted away my Direct Hit, and I never craft anything unless I have duplicates. I eventually did find another Direct Hit later on through the random drop system, but had never planned on using it again.

Until now that is. I gave the Direct Hit another shot, but I found it to be oddly weak at range, even when directly striking the target. So I headed down to the ol’ training grounds of tr_walkway and did a bit of practice and I’ll say right now, that was one of the best times I had training. During the next real game I played, I was much better at fighting than before, and while I still had trouble with some enemies, I had learned some things that I think will help others interested in using the Direct Hit.

The Specs

Let’s start by looking at the Direct Hit when compared to the Rocket Launcher. The rockets fired by the Direct Hit move 80% faster and deal 25% more damage; the drawback is that the splash radius is 70% smaller. For those of you who like to air juggle with rockets, hitting an enemy that you launched into the air with another rocket will result in a mini-crit. The Direct Hit trades splash damage for more speed and power.

Hitting Hard, Hitting Fast

That added 25% damage makes the Direct Hit a force to be reckoned with. At close range it can one-hit kill Scouts, Engineers, Snipers and Spies while leaving all other classes besides Heavies extremely damaged. Successful juggle combos (blast into air + mini-crit rocket) are even deadlier, as the mini-crit will do 151 damage; enough to kill a non-overhealed Medic in one shot. The Direct Hit also deals the most damage with a critical hit, dealing over 300 points of damage; enough to kill all but overhealed Heavies. If have good aim, a well used Kritzkrieg can leave the enemy team in shambles.

The average destructon of a successful Direct Hit

Ok, not really.

The Direct Hit can make you the bane of Engineers everywhere, as two rockets will destroy any Engineer building no matter the level. Use the quick speed of your rockets and the extra damage to destroy sentries from out of range, the quick speed of the rockets can easily destroy it before the Engineer notices (if he is not constantly repairing it of course) or is away from his equipment. The lack of splash area means you will likely only be able to hit one thing at a time, so make sure to take down the most critical components first.

Juggling / Airshots

Juggling enemies in the air is what the Direct Hit was made for. Successful juggles will grant mini-crit damage, and this weapon already packs a punch as is. Juggling is the term for launching an enemy into the air, then hitting them while they are still in the air and unable to avoid the attack (unless they’re Scouts of course).

The basic premise to this tactic is simple: you need to hit your targets feet so that they will pop up into the air, and then hit them again during the flight. Easier said than done I’m afraid. While the quick speed and power offer a good launch, the small explosion radius makes it difficult to hit your targets, especially if they are jumping around quickly. If they are jumping, try to aim for where they are going to land, so they have less chance of jumping over your next rocket.

Airshotting enemies you’ve juggled is a great feeling

The quickness of the rockets makes it easier to hit your target before they hit the ground, but you must be able to predict when your rocket will reach them. When practicing airshots at medium range, I found that aiming at their legs while they were at the peak of their flight would almost always result in hit. Where you aim for the second shot depends on range of course, aim higher for closer targets and lower for targets that are farther away.

Common Challenges

There are a few challenges you often encounter when learning to use the Direct Hit, firstly is the annoying speedster himself, the Scout. Trying to fight a Scout with the Direct Hit can be a pain. He’s fast, his double jump makes him very evasive and he is very powerful up close. Unless you know you can hit his feet, try not to go for setting him up for an airshot; his double jump and speed make him really difficult to juggle unless you catch him on his landing. If you have too much trouble hitting the little twerp, try to get him when he runs up close, or switch to a different weapon.

Pyros, while not as big of a threat to you as the Scout is, can still be annoying if they know what they are doing when it comes to reflecting projectiles. While your rockets are harder to reflect with their speed, they are harder for you to dodge if reflected because of your slow movement. What makes it even worse is that the reflected rocket will be a mini-crit, and will put a massive hurt on you or your teammates if hit.

The last challenge you need to overcome is the biggest, the reduced splash radius. There have been times where I will fire my rockets and they would explode inches from the enemy leaving them undamaged and unfazed. It was as if to them that rocket was a gust of air or someone sneezing. So when it comes to the Direct Hit, aiming is everything.

Let me remind you readers that I’m not a master with the Direct Hit and I’m definatly not an expert Solider. I’m a person who is new to using the Direct Hit and feel that I can pass on some of the things I learned in my experience so far with this weapon and hope that it can help others who may wish to learn to use it as well. Now get out there and kill some maggots!

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week or so, you will know that the Heavy has received significant buffs to spinup time and movement speed while revved. These have made several players very upset, and they are now adamant that the Heavy is overpowered and Team Fortress 2 is, for the 119th time, ruined forever.

The problem, in fact, is that what with everyone playing Heavies because they’re oh so fresh, people are neglecting their one true counter: the Civilian. The Civilian has always been something of an “evil opposite” to the Heavy, having a mere 1/6 of Heavy’s health, and no weapons, animations or even voice acting, compared to the Heavy’s high damage weapons, which are second only to Demomen, and his distinctive Russian outbursts. The Civilian, however, has one main advantage: speed. Even with the Heavy’s buff in speed while revved, he cannot keep up with the veritable speed demon that is the Civilian, in fact, only Scouts and Medics could hope to beat a Civilian in a foot race, and over long distances, even a Chargin’ Targe Demoman’s speed boosts will not be enough.

“But,” you may be saying in disbelief around about now “speed alone cannot defeat a Heavy! Especially not with the reduced spinup time!” Well, that’s where the element of surprise comes in. Civilians typically use the Scout model, and as any experienced Spy will tell you, Scouts have smaller profiles than any other class and thus are harder to spot. This, combined with the Civilian’s total lack of voice acting or distinctive sounds makes them the stealthiest class in the game, more so than the Spy because his cloak makes a rather easy to notice sound. Those Civilians who do not use the Scout’s model have it just as easy, though they need to employ different tactics: no-one expects that “Pyro” to actually be able to counter their Heavy. They expect him to charge and die horribly, whereas the truth is much more dangerous: he is a Civilian.

So, we’ve gone from what seems like a one-sided battle with the Heavy coming out on top every time to something a little more complex. The Heavy has more damage capability and more health, but the Civilian has the advantage in Speed and in Stealth. Ubercharges, perhaps, are the decider. As anyone who has been assaulted by an Uber Spycrab will tell you, part of the power of Ubercharges is their unexpectedness. Everyone hears the Medic shout “I am fully charged!” and starts to prepare for a Soldier, Demoman, Heavy or perhaps a Pyro to come rampaging in and brutally murder everyone. How many people expect an invincible Civilian? None. Speed, again, is paramount. You only get ten seconds to play with, and half that time will be spent getting there with the Heavy. Furthermore, even fewer classes are expected to be Kritz targets, generally it is reserved for Soldiers and Demomen, so it’s even more of a surprise when a Civilian, charged with amazing power enters the scene, dealing a whopping x3 damage with every single shot. Clearly then, in the realm of Ubercharges, the Civilian comes out on top.

Yet another advantage the Civilian has over the Heavy is that he will never run out of ammo, doubly so against a Heavy that has the Sandvich or Dalokoh’s Bar rather than the Shotgun. This makes an already strong class even stronger: hit the Heavy when he has run out of ammo and is retreating and restricted to melee range, and you can finish him off without there being a chance of retaliation. If he has a Medic buddy, don’t fret, just work on the Heavy once you’ve taken down the Medic and victory will be all the sweeter. Just make sure that during this attack that the Heavy doesn’t manage to refill his ammo, because although it’s easy to dodge a Heavy, while you’re busy dealing with his Medic, he might be able to hit you once or twice, dealing around 6 damage, which is just an inconvenience.

A mistake that many newbie Medics make when choosing who to pocket is going for classes like Heavy and Soldier, or occasionally Demoman, who are all slower than the Medic and just hold him up when he’s trying to reach the frontlines. Around halfway to the front, a Medic will begin to outrun a Heavy or Soldier, and he will no longer be able to charge uber on them on his way to battle, thus depriving his team of that ubercharge, which just five seconds earlier, could win them the game. Of course, the Civilian is still a little slower than the Medic, with 100% speed compared to the Medic’s 107%, but this difference is negligible unless you are playing a map with an incredibly long path from spawn to the frontlines: a well known design flaw in maps. Of course, this small difference in speed is not ideal, but the Civilian’s ability to defend a Medic against Heavies, where all other potential pockets fail is well worth it.

Then what should we make of all this? Is the Heavy buff too much? Perhaps it is. Can we still cope? Of course. We just need to stop neglecting that so often neglected class, the Civilian, and start to play counters to enemy team composition rather than play such obviously countered classes like the Spy, Sniper and Demoman. Memorise the above graphs, they will come in handy when you are told to “play something useful”. Perhaps you may want to set one as your spray.

To conclude:
Civilian is OP. Nerf Civilian.

I ragequit. I rage team-switch. I rage class-switch. The only type of rage I don’t do is throw my controller/keyboard/otherwise damage things, because by then I’ve already ragequit. I like to play late at night (if you’re wondering why you don’t see me on the servers, I’m a console n00b), and I’m pretty chill by then. Others, however, are not so chill. Initially, everybody else is either quiet or telling the rager to lighten up and calm down. But now, is raging really that bad? There’s multiple types of rages with different advantages and disadvantages.

The Smart Rage

First off is, as made evident by the heading, the smart type of rage. People that experience “smart rage” are capable of keeping their head clear but still be angry. They don’t rage switch anything, they just quickly adjust their strategy with a specific goal in mind. For example, picture yourself as a Demoman somewhere in Dustbowl. Not far up ahead, there’s an Engineer stopping your team. He’s dominating you and three other people, and Spies can touch him–he’s good. On the sixth time he kills you, you start getting angry. But rather than rage-spectate/etc., you stop taking the same path each time. Instead, you learn to apply some trigonometry and take that sonuvagun out. Before you know it, you and your team are golden.

There’s a couple ways that this is beneficial. Number one, if a smart-rager goes undetected, he will eventually accomplish his goal, and smart-ragers are typically pretty bright, so the goal is nothing small. It’s rather self explanatory why this is beneficial. On the other hand, if somebody picks up a smart-rager, they can, with some degree of effort, navigate the smart-rager’s goal to something else. They can turn a Demoman’s focus from killing an Engineer to killing a Soldier/Sniper/etc. The main way of doing this is just killing the smart-rager, but it’s also possible to persuade them through conversation. This one has no set difficulty to accomplish–it all depends on the smart-rager’s focus, the goal, and the navigator’s (for lack of a better term) persistence.

As made evident by the graph, as the Rager’s Focus decreases and the Navigator’s Persistence increases, the goal becomes easier to navigate.

Dumb-rage

This rage is the most well-known, most obvious. This is the rage that the really angry go through. This evil thing possesses the otherwise intellectual to play counter-classes so that they have one less nemesis. There’s not much explanation needed for this–we’ve all done it, some of us still do it. I know I still do every now and then.

This is slightly more beneficial than smart-rage. Dumb-rage is much easier to navigate, although dumb-ragers typically have more or less focus than smart-ragers. It’s possible to change a pesky player to another class if they’re a dumb-rager. Using 2fort as an example, put yourself in the shoes of a Spy. You’re going around the battlements picking off weighted companion snipers (for those new to Ubercharged terminology, a weighted companion sniper is a Sniper that goes around picking off enemy snipers). Eventually, the Sniper you’re dominating switches to a Pyro and hunts you and other Spies down so he can get rid of that bothersome nemesis symbol. We all know the rest from there.

The previous paragraph explains how a dumb-rager is beneficial to the aforementioned rager’s enemies. In some cases, it is beneficial to the team, as well. With the appropriate (read: varying) amount of persuasive effort, a dumb-rager can either calm down, be incredibly deadly, or change targets entirely. I’ve seen some dumb-ragers turn into massive killing machines because they were told how to accomplish their goal.

Lastly…

There will be times where you’ll have to scale navigating a rager to another goal. If you’re split between navigating that Demoman from your Engineer or stopping that Heavy Medic combo, you’ll have to take certain variables into consideration. Does that Medic have an uber (which you might not know)? How good is the Heavy, the Medic, and the Demoman? How important is your Engineer as a whole? In the grand scheme of things, it’s all about instantaneous calculations of importance and personal opinion.

Team Fortress 2 (beyond all the “TEAM Fortress 2″ and other strategies) is largely based on psychological warfare, as well as strategic thinking. Convincing your opponent (and in some cases, your team) where to go and how to go there is important. Dominations, as it was explained in the Heavy tutorial video from Druss’s article, are not only bragging rights, but “deadly psychological weapons”. Remember that there will be people that you can’t navigate, and there will be people that won’t even give you the opportunity. There will also be situations where it just isn’t worth the effort to navigate. And even if it is worth it, it might not always work out! The only thing you can do when your plan doesn’t work out is focus and keep your mind cooled. Raging has it’s ups and downs, but a man raging has less ups than a man who isn’t raging. Well, I’m signing out, and I hope you enjoyed this article. Happy gaming! (Thanks to Tygrys for the image and Xharn for the graph.)

Great title, right? Don’t worry. I’m not going to be talking down at anyone during this guide. If anyone is a dunderhead at sniping of any kind, it’s me. So how does a D-head like myself go about telling anyone else how to do their job? Simple: I’m not going to.

I said “effective” huntsmanning, not “pr0″ or “1337″ or any other superior-sounding, number-infused adjective. Once you read my guide, you’ll know how to make yourself felt on the battlefield, and maybe get a kill or two.

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Point Numero Uno: The Huntsman is… different.

The first and most important thing you can do as a huntsmanning Sniper is to Lead Your Targets. In fact, I could just copy those three words until they were big enough to fill an article and you would know roughly 90 percent of what you need to know to function with a bow. It’s that important.

And the very fact that you’re using a projectile weapon leads to some very different methods of execution. As a general rule of thumb, if you see a Sniper-prone target (Heavy, Medic, Engineer, etc) and a bit of cover, aiming between the two will give you an almost certain hit.

Also, the Huntsman has a much wider hitbox, and thus can be spammed much easier than the Rifle can. Not to the extent of any sort of explosive, but generally you only have to aim in the direction of anything colored different to you. You’ll hit something. I promise.

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Point X+1: Get in close.

Not melee range, lord no. I mean around the effective range of the SMG. You remember that tiny number, don’t you? Keep it in the back of your brain. We’ll talk about it later.

Closing the gap gives you a few advantages over everyone else in the field. Rifle-using Snipers (the pansies) don’t react well to an invasion of their personal space, and tend to swing their machete wildly at anything that intrudes on their personal bubble. Panic, of course, leads to disorganization, and while he’s beating the crap out of an imaginary Spy and looking the other way, you can bow and arrow him to death.

While no one else will be quite as discomfited at having a Sniper getting up-close-and-personal, it does help you in a way that kind of negates Act I of my first point: you don’t have to lead as much. So we’re back to the classic Monkey Island formula: Point, hold, and click. Of course, don’t hold too long, or some Scout with half a brain will bring you up-to-date on modern technology. Violently.

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Point Number the Next: Know how you’re going to kill them.

While a long stick with a pointy bit on the end is no doubt impressive, sometimes it’s just not enough. Sometimes, you need to use your secondary weapon to augment the murder a bit. Ignoring the Razorback for a minute (because that’s only for Rifle-users who willingly give themselves tunnel vision), you have two very good choices.

S.M.G.: The Finishing Move

Similar to a hunter in the wild, you use your tradition-laden longbow to tag the brute you’re aiming at, and then end him with a bullet (or 25) to the brainpan. The trick here is to start far, and then move in for some better shooting. This works better on larger, isolated prey, such as a straggler Heavy or Soldier. Just make sure to approach from a direction different from the one you shot him in. An arrow in the liver is a quick attention-grabber.

Jarate: The Boosted Attack

This one’s sort of the opposite to the SMG philosophy. To pull this off, you need to start close and Jarate all over your quarry, then backpedal and snap a shot at him while he pursues you for showing him who truly is the boss. As with the strategy, you also should target the opposite kind of class. This one works best on the lighter enemies who you can’t be asked to get a headshot on, like Pyros and Medics.

Of course, Scouts are a variable in all of this. In any case, the buggers don’t warrant either of the secondaries, because a snapshot will either randomly hit their head, ending the threat, or impale them so bad that they run all the way back to the resupply room, crying for mommy. Unless they’re not sissies or have been drinking extract of Saxton Hale, in which case you should head straight for your own lines posthaste, only turning around to try and nail the little squirt again.

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Point Second-From-the-Last: Huntsmen’s advantages and why the Razorback is rubbish.

Let’s count out the myriad ways The Huntsman is better, shall we?

• It lets you move faster, which anyone who’s ever died by Pyro will appreciate.
• You keep that wide field-of-view your dad paid so much for.
• It gives you limited indirect fire.

Now let’s see the Rifle’s pros.

• It flat-out does more damage, always a plus.
• You don’t have to lead, because nothing slow enough to be hit at that distance would need to be.
• It’s way more accurate.
• People won’t accuse you of being a “huntspam noob” if you use it; instead, you’ll be “a f*king hax0r, admin ban nao plzz.”
• You know what, that’s all I can really think of.

And all joking aside, that may be enough to give both of these a good niche on the battlefield. But that’s not what we’re here for, so let’s focus on using the Huntsman’s boons to their booniest.

The most obvious is to constantly check your flank and never let a second pass without either killing someone or knowing everything about your surroundings, all the time. If a Spy cloaks in the corner of your vision while you’re lining up a shot, just swivel your view down to him and take him out. You’re doing everyone on your team a favor.

The Razorback was made for traditionally thinking (yes, thinking) Snipers who can’t be asked to move from their designated campgrounds to check for spies. Since you’re a Hunterman, you’ll be on the move and constantly aware. Therefore, it’s worth little to you.

There’s one last thing, although not an advantage, that you really need to know. Nocking the arrow and charging your shot slows you down, though not as much as scoping in with the rifle.

Charge shots have a few advantages: besides the higher damage, the arrows also move faster. A caveat: if you keep the huntsman charged for too long, the accuracy decreases (when this happens, the sniper’s arms shake slightly from the exertion of holding the drawn bow). Fear not, though! Instead of wasting the shot, you can de-nock the arrow by pressing the right mouse button.

Charging a shot is analogous to spinning up as a Heavy, and as such, you need to know when to pack it up and head for them there hills. If you’re faced with more than one fast mover, or a boatload of high-health classes, you’re probably better off living to fight again than holding your ground. It wasn’t terribly nice ground, anyway.

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Point Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Practice.

No amount of me telling you what to do will make up for not going out there and doing it. Believe me, I read up on the latest in TF2ology before I even bought the game, and I was still a newbie, come Day One. You’re going to get out there, you’re going to kill, and you’re going to get good at it. On that day, you’ll look back at this Complete Dunderhead’s Guide and remember how far you’ve come. And on that day, I hope you’ll write in and thank me.

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In conclusion, and without a moment to spare:

1. The Huntsman is inherently different from the Rifle. Embrace that, and you’re a step closer to victory.
2. You’re better off being closer to the target than normal Snipers need to be.
3. Your secondary weapons have their place. Use them.
4. Keep moving, keep alert, and keep away from the Razorback.
5. Get out there and play!

A special thank you goes to Tygrys for the illustrations.

A long while ago in March 2009, I remember reading a rant about how useless the Heavy is, how easily attacks are countered and how he fancies himself as a sentry with legs. “What utter rubbish” I thought – and went back to playing as a Heavy on my clan’s pub, or to dominate the hell out of a insta-respawn 2fort server; depending on my mood…

Here’s the thing: a lot of players that play the Heavy are new to the game. Look at the packaging and look at the store page on Steam and what do you see? Naturally, your attention is drawn to the Heavy. So new players will play him, get owned hard and never touch him again.

If you’re sitting there thinking “I’m skilled with another class so why would I be interested in playing the Heavy?” Well here’s my answer – most people don’t fully understand the importance of strategy and teamwork. Strategy plays an important role in Heavy gameplay; every decision you make has to be criticized to achieve the best outcomes. The other thing that plays an important role in Heavy gameplay is communication and not just with a Medic. Theoretically, learning how to play a Heavy well should improve your overall understanding of this game’s logic and strategy – no matter what class you’re playing. Yeah, cool ‘eh? Now let’s get cracking, there’s a lot of stuff to cover.

1. Think before you shoot

How many times have you heard a whirring noise followed by the cries of a slain Heavy? For me, loads of times. Those players make the most fatal mistake any Heavy can make: Revving in the wrong place. I know you’ve done it before – you’ll wind up your gun and walk to defend or attack whatever it is you’re attacking or defending.

The reason this is such a bad idea is obvious – every enemy and his dog will prepare for a Heavy encounter if they hear you revving your gun in the distance and will make detours to avoid/kill you. Never alert enemies of your presence until they’re in range.

So where is the right place to rev? If at least one of these is true, you know you’re in a good place:

• You are in the open and as close as you can get to your foes
• You are in (or at the end of) a corridor with enemies that can be killed before they can fall back into cover
• You are in a blindspot (e.g. a place where a cursory glance won’t reveal your location)
• You are above unaware enemies (e.g. on a bridge or the opening of a tunnel)
• You are near Health and Ammo supplies (e.g. the centre hut on Dustbowl, Level 2-CP 2)

Before you fight the enemy, weigh up the chances of you winning the battle. These can be varied by the number of hostiles in the area, whether you have a medic, the skill of the enemy/enemies you’re fighting, whether you have your gun spinning, how much Health you have and so on. If you know you can’t win, retreat or approach from another angle – don’t bite off more than you can chew or you’ll be eating “Crocket & Winbomb Stew a la Facestab” for dinner.

Medium range is the most ideal place to be, but nothing trumps close range combat more than a volley of point blank minigun rounds. Think it’s hard to get at close range with the big guy? Think again! Say you were overlooking the tunnel exit on Badwater Basin – you can jump down while revving and you’ll be ready to fire before you land. Overhealed Soldiers and Heavies will be shredded in seconds, but be warned that most classes will find it easier to hit you due to your huge frame and poor manoeuvrability – and will wise up after the initial chaos dies down.

2. Pay attention to your surroundings

Pay close attention to the sights, sounds and things around you – for example, memorize the locations of health and ammo so you can fall back on them when you need to, learn the locations of Snipers just by peering out from an opening then move around them, listen out for the decloak sound on a Spy’s watch. This information should already be second nature to the more seasoned players, but is all the more important for a Heavy.

Take each death as a lesson of the things you did wrong and learn from them. Here’s a typical scenario you’ll face as a Heavy: Think back to a time when a Spy seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, now think about how he got there. Was he waiting around the corner waiting for you to go past? Was he crouching on top of some crates out of the way where you would normally fire your gun? Did he convince you with a cunning disguise? You’re a 300 pound mountain of Russian who eats forty cakes a day so how did a skinny dork in a monkey-suit top you? Now you have an idea on how he did it, take steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

The other thing you need to pay attention to are your hit indicators – they show up on your HUD in the direction the impact came from; the larger the indicator, the greater the damage.

3. Befriending a Buddy

Before you shoot off a comment about the Heavy always needing a Medic, don’t – allow me to explain. The Heavy is a defensive class by nature, therefore it is his main job to defend – period. However, when a Heavy is on the offensive he can quickly become a sitting duck by every Tom, Dick and Harry on the other team. Very quickly, your concerns shift towards getting enough health and ammo to survive. When a Medic works with a Heavy he takes away the a lot of the Health concerns, leaving you to just worry about getting enough ammo to do your job – and since you’ll kill plenty of enemies you’ll be up to your knees in ammo. (and bodies)

One essential tool you’ll need when playing Medic buddy is the microphone – you need to efficiently impart enemy locations in order to keep you, your Medic and the rest of your team safe. I personally use Mumble because it’s free and most clans and communities host servers for them, it has an overlay which displays who is talking and it’s customizable. Otherwise, there’s nothing wrong with using the in-game VOIP.

Your Medic should never stay glued to you the entire time, so bring him to the frontline and let the Medic heal your pals – remember that everyone wins in the end, they get their health and the Medic gets his uber much quicker. Spread the love, don’t hog it all. And don’t hog the health if your Medic is in desperate need of it, the Medigun won’t heal its user.

Most players will attempt to kill your Medic if you’re not paying attention, so if your gun is spinning and the Medic’s health starts dropping, turn round and kill whoever it is attempting to plug your mate. Have your Medic spot threats to both of you instead of having him sit there like a goofy German duck gawking at you until either of you die.

Pay attention to your own health too – if you see your health going down quickly retreat into cover and let the Medic heal you. Don’t pick up health packs if you can help it, you’ll help your Medic build the Uber much quicker and he’ll be able to fall back on it if he needs it.

4. Ubercharges and Kritzkriegs

Whichever Medigun your Medics are carrying into battle will come with two very different game-plans. With an Uber, you can charge straight into the fray and tear up a defensive team, taking out Sentries and high priority targets such as Demomen, Pyros, Heavies and Soldiers – provided they don’t quickly run away or use an uber to counter-attack.

Kritz on the other hand require you to protect your Medic even after he activates the charge. The 10 seconds of non-stop critical hits from your minigun will still be effective at long range since falloff doesn’t affect their trajectory.

Usually, I’ll ask the Medic to equip whatever floats his boat, but when a situation starts to rear its ugly head I won’t hesitate to ask them to switch.

5. Going solo

A Medic can be useful, but sometimes you will be faced with the task of coping without him. This video demonstrates Heavy gameplay with rare assistance from a Medic who didn’t know how to ubercharge, I highly recommend it.

Here’s the gist of the video for the benefit of the guide:

• Without a Medic, stay on defence (that doesn’t mean sitting at a dispenser shooting at nothing)
• Stay somewhere where health and ammo is in plentiful supply and deter enemies from taking the route you’re covering
• Offensives on your own are suicide, use the prescience of attacking units to push forward to compensate for the lack of a Medic

6. Your secondary and melee weapons

The Heavy loves his Sandvich, in fact he loved it so much when it was announced as a weapon he would often die eating his last meal. Now witnessing a large Russian stopping in the middle of a battlefield to eat a ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich on white bread with no concern for the danger around him is no longer a joke – provided he pulls it off.

You now have the option to drop the snack to the life of your Medic or another near-death comrade, aim using the crosshairs and drop it so the target walks into it. Just remember to stop by another health pack at full HP to get your lunch back. It’s also useful if you’re being chased by enemies if you’re low on health – just equip the Sandvich, drop it, nom it and equip your gun. The Sandvich is one heck of a lifeline, as well as tasty.

If you would prefer to have something other than your fists to defend yourself with when you run out of ammo, or need to shoot enemies when you don’t have time to rev up – bring your shotgun. It usually catches people unaware whilst you are moving as they expect you to just rev your minigun. It is also handy for retreating while laying down suppressive fire.

The gloves are risky, but if you can pull off a punch you have a limited time to rain hell on the other team. If you’re planning on taking the gloves, equip the shotgun and not the Sandvich – you’ll waste three seconds equipping and revving up the minigun, as opposed to equipping the shotgun which gets you more bang for your buck (unless you happen to kill two guys with the KGB of course). Likewise, use the fists if you’re planning on taking the Sandvich – people will do their best to gank you if they see you eating, the fists swing quicker which gives you more of a fighting chance.

7. Class Matchups

Knowing how the enemy will attack you will make a big difference. So here I’ve listed all the classes and how they usually attack you, and how best to deal with them. To quote Sun Tzu: “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”

Scout

Scouts are the polar-opposite of the Heavy. They will attempt to flank you when the opportunity arises and will gun for your Medic. They will also attempt to irritate you by jumping around your head like a maniac or just strafing around you at point blank plugging you in the guts or allowing other classes to take pot-shots at you while you’re distracted.

The best way to kill Scouts is to get them in the open and mow them down at medium range before they attempt to do anything. If a Scout is abusing cover with the FaN, just don’t challenge them. They’ll simply push you away from where you want to go every time. Just wait until they’re in the open and he’ll wish he had the other gun once you rip him to shreds.

Scouts with the Sandman will have less health, so do your best to avoid his stun balls and mow him down when he realises his tactic didn’t work.

Soldier

The Solly is big and slow just like you, but he makes up for this with his agility and his ability to fire from cover. A full volley of four direct hits will kill a Heavy without a Medic, so do your best to avoid them and kill him at medium range.

Soldiers are usual culprits for abusing cover since their stock rocket launcher can hit you with splash damage while they’re around a corner. Not only that but Stock and Direct Hit Soldiers give anyone a hard time in corridors, but you especially because of your huge physique and slow speed. Plan ahead to avoid situations like this.

Soldiers will try to gain a height advantage by rocket jumping, if he gets to higher ground you become an easier target to hit and you will have trouble hitting him back. Put a stop to this by shooting them while they’re airborne – with luck he won’t be able to make the connection with the higher ground due to the knockback and either way he’ll lose ammo and health. If he does make the connection, try to finish him off or call to your teammates to do it for you. Alternatively, you can occupy the higher ground he’s trying to reach so you can kill him while he’s weakened. Just be ready for him and don’t take too long about it.

Pyro

Obviously the typical W+M1 strategy employed by noob Pyros will be of no concern to you as long as you’re prepared and even when you aren’t you’ll probably trump him if you’re at full health. You’ll need to be worried when he tries to flank you and use his Backburner.

Smarter Pyros will airblast you away from key areas or when you’re Ubered, or even use the airblast sting combo (ignite, AB, Axtinguish), so just tear into them with the minigun at mid-range before they have a chance to puff you around like a meaty-or.

Demomen

Besides Snipers and Spies, these guys will be giving you the most trouble. They’re very similar to Soldiers but have the benefits of indirect fire. The Demoman can fire four grenades and a full volley of four direct hits will kill a Heavy without a Medic. Deal with them like you would with Soldiers. Kill at close to medium range and quickly. If you’re dealing with a charge swordsman, he doesn’t pose more of a threat but keep both eyes out for him. Similarly if he tries to gain a height advantage rev up and shoot them while they’re airborne and weakened.

Watch out for sticky carpets, if you see a Demoman laying a sticky carpet at your feet, unrev and get out of there. Even with a Medic helping you, you will not survive the damage. If you jump on your way out, it might soften the blow and propel yourself to safety.

Don’t get lured into a sticky trap. If you see him retreating into a tunnel or a corridor (even when he’s spent his pipe ammo), assume he’s luring you into a trap. Keep in mind your minigun is suitable for nullifying the threat of sticky bombs if you ignore this. Alternatively, you can go back and approach the situation another way.

Heavy

A simple head on battle between two Heavies produces mixed results every time. It all depends on certain factors such as who winds up first, who has more health, who has more backup and so on.

If you come across a Natasha wielding Heavy, wind up and kill them if they’re in range, otherwise just get in cover. Their bullets can render you almost immobile Also, don’t try and wind up if a nearby enemy Heavy is revving his gun in your direction, just get into cover. If you can, wait until he unrevs and kill him then.

Engineer

Engineers are silly men with silly hats and even sillier guns, so they often rely on their sentries to do all the work for them.

On its own a Sentry is not too much a problem if you have Medic, but it’s a bigger problem if an Engie is repairing the sentry from behind. Ideally, you want to be as close as possible to the gun so you can destroy it. If you have a Medic with an uber ready, tell him to use it and run towards the sentry while you’re linked. Since the Sentry is programmed to target the nearest threat, you’ll find it easier to walk up as close as you need to get, rev and kill the sentry.

Note: A Kritz charge will not kill sentries or other buildings faster.

Once their sentries are down, they have a few options. First, they can run away really fast; just mow them down. Second, they can stand there and get shredded while sitting there fixing nothing. And finally third (and this never gets old) discover new-found superhuman powers and decide to charge you with the plan of braining you with a lucky wrench crit… In any case you won’t have problems with the silly suicidal super-hero engies.

Medic

Medics don’t usually attack other people; they are often helping others to stay alive. This makes your job harder, so they should be prime targets.

When he Ubercharges, you have little chance of evading his target’s path of destruction. While it is possible to escape, your most likely option is to either slow the enemy down by getting in their way, giving them less time to cause havoc, or simply get your Medic to Uber you too. This usually results in the Ubered pair to retreat… AT SPEED!

The only other thing he can do to annoy you is running around you at melee range using the Ubersaw. Don’t bother getting your fists out – the Medic is much quicker than you and will avoid your punches with relative ease. Just rev up for the two seconds because the Ubersaw has its own swing delay.

Sniper

Snipers are almost always present at battlements where they have optimal view of area to cover, and will be too far away for the minigun to do any good damage. So never attack from his range – it’s a stupid idea. Just avoid their line of sight and you should be fine, learn about their movements and compensate. You don’t have to fight every battle to win a war.

If you really have a burning desire to kill Snipers, the best way to do this is to plan a route to them while they’re busy sniping. It can’t be done on open planned maps like Badwater, but it works wonders in 2Fort and incites torrents of rage.

Spy

Spies will always cloak around you and attack from behind, that is unless the Spy is played by an idiot.

Spies love attacking from blindspots, and most love slow, easy targets like Heavies. Be wary of these places and come prepared. Regularly check behind you or have people report sightings of Spies. They will be less likely to attack you and everyone else appears to know what’s going on behind you. Then again, just appearing to know doesn’t make it 100% safe, so listen out for decloaks and footfalls when you know people aren’t around.

Oh yeah, class by class analyses are only good for dealing with individual battles so if you engage more foes than one think about who poses more of a threat and take them out.

Conclusion

The Heavy is an easy target to bash by careless players because of how supposedly “useless” he is, despite the huge contribution he makes to his team. He is underplayed, underrated, and underestimated. In the right hands however…

He becomes the underdog…
The dark horse…
The Heavy Weapons Guy!

Probably the first thing you think of when you hear “The War Update” is a legion of flailing Highlanders touring around for your head. Many uprisings popped up with angry plebeians proclaiming that the Demoman should be demolishing things rather than cutting up his fellow man. The truth is that the Demoman was already just fine at demolishing, just like the Soldier was doing his job properly. More power for the demolishing demoman would’ve led to mass engineers on strike, and more ammo for the homely trap-setter would’ve been too boring. The solution was something entirely unheard of; turning the class into something entirely unrelated to its premise. Valve could’ve elected either the Soldier or the Demoman as the embodiment of this new tenth class, and I suspect they went with the Demoman because claymores.

However, just like with the Razorback, traditionally thinking (yes, thinking) demomen have been given a new toy to play with: the Scottish Resistance. Although the Resistance doesn’t contain catastrophic amounts of boring like the Razorback, it’s still not as potent as it could be. The main problem is that Resistin’ Demos just end up feeling less efficient than if they were using the regular Sticky Launcher and paying taxes like good citizens. That’s why I’m taking the time to describe, in detail, six things the Scottish Resistance is better at than the Winbomb Launcher.

Trap-Spotting

“Stop sitting around and do something!” – Berrito Mussolini

This is the capital (and most boring) purpose the Resistance has been advertised for. You put bombs around multiple doorways, pick a corner and wait. Wait until an unfortunate sod comes in, at which point you twitch in his direction and detonate all over him. More controlled twitchers (likely ex-CSS players) will rig a door on both sides, always keeping one set of stickies at hand in case a second poofter shows up. The big dilemma here is that you can’t place yourself too inclined with the doorway, or selective detonation becomes impossible (the crosshair isn’t adjusted to the cone of detonation); stand too much in front and your prey will see you before coming through. You could make use of this, though. Trick the enemy into taking an alternate route that has also been rigged, then feel bad as he denotes your trickery as ’spam’.

One thing I like to do to mess with people is to set up a trap, then throw a bunch of stickies at the enemy. Ever since the game’s initial release in 2007, players have been taught that one detonated sticky means a completely defenseless demoman. Sure, the Resistance stickies are visually distinct, but no sod is going to suspect you of planning ahead of time until it’s too late.

Another fun anecdote: on our UK-based server, Laharl concealed all fourteen stickies behind the intelligence in ctf_sawmill. I thought he was doin’ it wrong until I saw him blow up the medic+targelander combo that was running amok.

Carpet Weaving

“A fancy carpet for me to shit on.” – Diogenes

I believe this is where the true potential of the weapon lies. Dot a corridor with any number of stickies between eight and fourteen, and the enemy isn’t going to advance. Your entire creation won’t be ruined anymore by a single scout’s (no longer as spectacular) acrobatics, as you can choose to devote only part of your stickies to his combustion. After putting your carpet in place, you can proceed to spam the enemy team like you usually would. So you see, you’ll have not one, not two, but two and a half primary weapons. You’re like a bagpiper with three hands!

Just make sure you NEVER stand on your carpet. While it should sound awesome to fend off attackers from atop your own handiwork, Valve implemented a ‘buff’ to detonate stickies directly under you, supposedly for sticky jumping. Why do that when you have your own base to rig? To make matters worse, the detonation range is shorter than the distance one would use for horizontal jumping. Initially, the stickies’ whole prime time was ignored for point blank stickies. This led to:

Sticky-Punching

“A scout in your face is better than a spy in your back.” – Oscar Wilde

The non-existent prime time allowed you to detonate stickies before they were even properly fired, turning the Resistance into some manner of twisted, self-mutilating Scattergun. The Scouts, Pyros and Spies would either burst in tears due to nostalgia or think nothing is off because they’re used to being exploded by things they can’t see. It was a blast punishing those cocky ne’er-do-wells for their hubris, even if it had me blow up too in the process. Particularly devestating is an ubered ’sploder; the enemy would think nothing dangerous of a Demoman running idly into a bunch of enemies, allowing me to project eight point blank blasts into their face. It was like being a suicide bomber who can’t die. The kritzkrieg, however, is an entirely different story.

One other quirk of sticky-punching was sticky-punch-jumping. Aiming downward while jumping projected you perfectly forward (not useful on Orange X) with the power of three stickies and the damage of only two. Trying to aim your jumps apart from this method is More often than not, you’ll end up ramming yourself into the ground, dying from fall damage. So it really was nothing like this.

Alas, the prime time has been re-added in a recent patch, making sticky jumping with the Resistance even more clunky. Complete removal of the tweak will likely make the following tactic more viable:

Suicide Bombing

“I invade your country in the name of liberty!” – George W. Bush

Here’s what you do. Go to an enemy control point and get your stickies all over it.  As you’re capping, the enemy will likely send flimsy scouts and pyros your way, followed by seasoned but slower soldiers and heavies. Before, all you could do was try and dispatch the scout with scrumpy or blow up the both of you in the name of honour and scout-killing. With the Resistance, you can ensure his destruction while you continue towards capture. Especially effective on A/D maps; the stickies’ longer prime time won’t matter because by the time the enemy gets to you, their point will have been impurified. You can also try confounding attackers on the final point of cp_badlands (you know, when you jump up and get stuck somewhere in the silo).

Use this tactic and you’re almost certain to capture the final point. Well, if Valve changes the weapon. Until then, the Resistance is still most efficient at…

Spawncamping

“The classes must be evened out at regular intervals.” – Leon Trotski

Okay, you may not want to hear it and you probably already know, but on unmoderated servers, the Scottish Resistance can effectively lock down a team. The main drawback of spawncamping with the regular Sticky Launcher is that your entire collection of stickies is wasted with each smelly unfortunate killed. With the resistance, you can add layers of spam in front of the spawn door, or if that’s not subtle enough, try rigging all four sides of the door! You’ll have plenty of time to patch up after each detonation. Like with Trap-Spotting, many fools will think the coast is clear when the first of your victims blows up.

In case you don’t like 32-man instant respawn 2fort/cp_orange_william, you can try doing this at the BLU exits in Gravelpit. Not even UC2’s admins will slay you (I think).

Distinguished Destruction

(hain)

“A Targelander is to a Resistance user what a Hoplite is to a Belgian falling out of a tree.” – Gaius Julius Ceasar

Okay, I admit it. The Resistance feels like a nerfed sticky launcher. But because of that, it’s so much more immersing and fun! Plus, the kill icon is stylish, and says “I have just outwitted you in a way not typical of your preconceptions of a demoman!” Eventually I switched back to the Sticky Launcher because the point blank detonations were annoying me, and when I did, it made the Demoman seem such a boring class. Even though I could do this again, the gratification was lost. This happens when you try doing things the easy way, rather than the sexy way.

Remember when the weapon was first revealed? The CQC kit had stepped on many a demoman’s toes. Now a particularly awesome weapon was revealed, and already the Poor and Irish couldn’t bear with the thought of having to deal with fourteen stickies. When the update hit us, the Targelanders rose to power en masse and the Resistance was dismissed as awkward and disappointing just because it can’t be spammed with as easily. In my days of Resisting, I made many cretins call me a ’spammer’ regardless. I used to entrench myself in the enemy’s vents on ctf_turbine and blow up a team’s worth of players, much to the amusement of my vent-mates. For this alone do I find it worthwhile to use the Scottish Resistance.