Go to options, there's an option to keep the heal gun on someone if you only have one person to heal. That should alleviate some of that problem.

Also, Pyro is basically a spy without the cloak. There's a subtle nuance to the Spy that I feel makes him have a very high learning curve compared to the W+M2 Pyro. Pyroes are actually easy to learn, difficult to master in comparison.

Both take the same routes, depending on similar tactics. Once you get very good at Pyro, the Spy, with his cloaking abilities will seem a lot easier.

Since we're discussing maps, what's everyone's opinion of tc_hydro? I love the idea of it and some of the map combinations (the generator room and dam in particular) but it gets some hate. Matches can last forever and I really hate each team's final room. Blue's ramp thing in particular seems terrible to deal with from either side.

I love hydro, because it adds variety. Yes you can get eternal stalemates, but unlike 2fort, the map keeps changing so it feels like another round rather then another part of an unending round

That's more like a backburner pyro, where the real incentive is to maximize critpocalypse.

But yeah, that's a good summarization. Same concept can be applied to pure demoknight as well, really. Only having an exit strategy is tantemout to survival. Rush in->decapitate straggler->run off->pick off straggler again!->revel in complaints of OP demoknight. Great for cramped areas and hallways where sidestepping the charge is not an option.

Tonight on Unsolved Mysteries
 

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/c...7-18_00002.jpg

What could it meeeaaaaan?

Hydro would be better if taking the entire map wasn't defined as one point so whatever server ends up getting stuck on it for a million billion years.

So tonight I decided to branch out into Engineer. Things went rough at first on Doublecross—the server went low pop for a while, which meant enemies had free access to our base to harass me as much as they wanted. Eventually I settled into the swing of things though.

And then it came time to switch maps, and given that this is one of Valve's own CTF servers, that meant 2Fort. And now I understand exactly why everyone hates 2Fort so much. There's just something about that map that turns a group that's barely managing to coordinate itself into a big flaming wreck. Everyone wants to be a Sniper. The Demoman already thinks he's a Sniper. The Spies stand around in the middle of well tread walkways and bump into everyone like they're drunk. Somehow nobody manages to notice a soldier and medic waltzing right into the intel room, because they did so right after a period wherein nobody got any kills whatsoever. And then they went uber and nuked my little sentry nest to high hell.

Hell, the whole thing went so poorly and I was so frustrated over how ridiculously poorly my team was playing that when I gave up and switched to Soldier, I couldn't even play him right. There's a particular jump right inside the first floor of each team's base—you can rocket jump right up through the opening in that metal grate and it leads you straight to the slow route to the enemy's intel.

It's an easy jump. I've done it so often that it's second nature. And yet out of ten tries in that match, I only made the jump twice. The other eight times, I just... I don't even know.

tl;dr: I like Engie, Engie is okay to play, but ****ing hell in a handbasket I do not ever want to see ****ing 2Fort again.

Wow, I think my aim is improving quite a bit with the Demoman. Today, I was grenading people right left and center, and a fair number of these were direct hits, as in the kind that the Loch-N-Load requires. I've never done this well with his grenades before, so this was a welcome change of pace.

Though I'm still kind of hit-and-miss with the Scottish Resistance. Half the time, I manage to lay huge carpets and right click at just the right moment, so that the kill counter suddenly erupts in white reports. The other half the time, my mines get routed, pushed, shot, or simply sidestepped while a Pyro I did not see charges me. And I'm thinking it's probably not the best method to set mines on a point I'm trying to physically capture.

And the Persian Persuader is very nice. Being able to gain health from dropped weapons keeps me alive in the heat of battle way more often than I thought it would.

Meanwhile, I found that, for Heavy, Tomislav + Sandvich/Buffalo Steak Sandvich + Fists of Steel makes for a very nice chokepoint defense setup.

And I'm trying more Scout. It seems that my main "strategy" is to use Bonk! to run past the thick of battle, then try to make a U-turn and distract people with shots from the Shortstop or Soda Popper. Still haven't gotten the hang of "actually killing people with him", but I like to imagine that my distractions win games.

The Loch and Load is awesome. Once I started using it with Demoman, I had a ton more fun. I'm using Loch and Load and Chargin' Targe now, since I've given up on using stickies well.

That is all.

I recently got both shields and the two worthwhile weapons in my opinion (Persuader and Eyelander) and holy shit it is so fun to break a heavy medic combo by charging past the heavy into the medic. Not too optimal for certain maps (Doublecross is too open and grants a lot of sentry coverage to those who take it) but with maps where you're defense on CP it is amazing. Oh yeah, demoman has a shitload of achievements related to murdering people with a sword.