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.

I don't think I'll ever go Demoknight outside of Medieval Mode. I just love Stickies too much.

oh yea that old combo is nasty. On a related note I discovered if you activate uber and while its going switch to the ubersaw, you can keep that uber forever. You aren't invulnerable though since your medigun isnt out, but still

So basically you look like you're ubered which makes people go "oh shit"? That is until the sentry sees you.

nope, it serves absolutely no practical purpose unless you are some medic god that has mastered split second timing to switch between the two weapons. You are only ubered when the medigun is equipped even if the uber is activated. Its just an interesting fact.

All right, I was a bit hasty in saying how much I hate 2Fort. What I really hate is crappy teamwork. I had two runs as an Engie today that went much smoother.

The first was, again, on 2Fort. We ended up with something like 3-4 Engies at one point and I was told to move my sentry into the intel room, so I did. And then after a minute or so I got bored and decided to try something crazy stupid.

I snuck all the way to RED's intel room, planted a teleporter outside of it, and ran into there to scout out the room. Yep, an Engie in there with his own sentry. I got killed... but nobody did a thing about the teleporter. I didn't think anyone even saw it.

So I set up the entrance in our intel room, hopped on over to RED with my own sentry, and set up shop right in one of the hallways. After that I informed my team of what I'd just done.

We had the round won in around thirty seconds after that.

The second good run we lost, but it was freaking hilarious. During the previous round (we're on Turbine now, btw) somebody on our team called for a scramble because we (RED) were dominating. The teams got scrambled... and RED still managed to cap the intel twice in around 1-2 minutes. Despite that, everyone on BLU (myself included, as a Heavy) started working together and pulled off a win.

Then the next round started and I switched to Engie. The round was fairly boring, we had 2-3 Engies, etc, when I got a crazy stupid idea again and moved my sentry right outside the lower entrances to the RED base. Then my Dispenser. Then the other two Engies moved -their- sentries and dispensers there. And then the RED Engies moved their sentries as far down the line as they could, basically turning the match into an Engie war for two minutes.

RED won, though, but the whole thing had me laughing. Seriously, in real life. Kinda freaked out my cousin.

http://www.teamfortress.com/grordborts/

Uh... yeah. Gotta get those mutton chops.

Oh.

More Soldier items.

One of which is basically a sapper given to the Soldier.

Because the Engie needed to be taken down a peg.

You know.

After all that stuff he got in the Über update.

OH FUCKING BOY MORE SOLDIER ITEMS AGHRAGHAFARGHRAGHRA3vtq79nwe rqt8oqe to78wenrowegt nwe4yt

EDIT: Oh, what, no lightsaber highlander reskin for the Demoman? Come on, Valve! You're getting sloppy!

The worst part is, if anybody needed an update, it was the Engie.

And if anybody deserved an update that revolved around 60's space-craze pseudoscience, IT WAS THE ENGIE.

(The Cow Mangler seems to be a lot of fun though, from what I've seen of it.)

a ranged sapper, that you cant disable, you know the only flaws the sapper has

Oh, and what they didn't say about the Cow Mangler is that if you land a charged shot (takes you from 5 on tap to "must reload" immediately), not only does it deal minicrits and pseudosap, but sets everything in the blast radius on fire.

Forget Hat Fortress 2. This is Soldier Fortress Soldier.

Both weapons are slow as hell though. Easy to dodge if you can see them coming.

You can also reflect the Mangler shots with airblasts. Even the charged ones.

see this is what I was worried about, the more stuff they add the harder it is to balance, but valve knows it has to keep releasing new stuff to keep that sweet microtransaction money coming

And come on, Mutton chops.

Well something had to take down the Wrangler...

It's nice that there's another option besides either ubering a soldier/demo or trading with the engineer in control.

Other then three pipes 2 LNL pipes or a smart soldier that shoots the engie first.

Unless the Engie happens to be smart enough to step behind his sentry and periodically repair it.
A well positioned Wrangler sentry is an uphill battle for any class, especially if the engineer has an idea of what he's doing. Add his team support into the formula and you're pretty damn sure that thing won't fall without a heavy push by the attacker.

No matter what the Engie is still a nice squishy target even when they are huddled behind a sentry. Infact its the reason why the demo and solder are so massively effective against him. If he has a tight nest (which majority of engies do) or he is humping it like you so state you'll damage everything. including the yellow hatted texan. if you do it fast enough you can take out the engie in 3 shots of most primary weapons Two shots with the LNL and Pretty much win the fight. That's Kinda the GOD DAMN POINT of the fucking thing. It removes the Completely binary reactions to the sentry and Yet renforces the Engie's dependence on the gun. IT ALSO REENFORCES THE "GOD DAMN SHOOT ENGIE FIRST" IDEA.

or you can just cloak and dagger to avoid engie spy checking and back stab him with plenty of time to sap it. Heck a good scout can usually get around it too. With scouts speed and the slight delay of sentry movement plus human error its hard to hit such a fast target

wrangler is a good side-grade. It allowed alternative to usual strategy but has faults, lack of auto aim, limited ammo, unable to repair. But is more sturdy with infinite range, plus ability to prioritize targets. Wranglers are only truly deadly if you got engineers working together, this is something we should support not punish

Son, you have no idea. Its alternate fire is pretty much the Detonator on five different kind of steroids at the same time. Sure it uses all your ammo/charge, requires impact for the blast radius instead of manual detonation (not that it matters, the timing with detonator is a bitch anyhow) and has a three-ish second ramp up time..but yeah. Lots of burning and damage over a pretty damn wide area. Looks like Pyro ain't the king of long range burnin anymore. Projectile is slow but get the timing right and you can pop around a corner and unleash the mufuggin pain before hopping away again.

The Righteous Bison is also damn awesome. People hidin behind Mr. Heavy and Mr. Medic's uber? shoot through 'em! Fun thing is if someone is running in the same direction of the projectile it'll repeatedly hurt 'em.

This update needs a cheesy sci-fi map to go along with it.

It needs more than just a soldier update. I want my pyro to get a sci fi update. Hell the Engie could have used ONE of those weapons...

Where I reveal I've been playing TF2 again for several weeks now.
 

Huh, you'd honestly think the Engie would get a sci-fi pew pew lazor pistol.

But really, doesn't the soldier have about 5 rocket launchers now?

I really hope there's more to this than what we've seen.

I'm well aware that's the point, Doc, but this:

Said to me that you were under the impression the wrangler was already easily defeated, which isn't the case.

Nope.
You Wrangle the sentry, stand a few steps behind it and keep your dispenser behind that position. Step in with the wrench for a repair and then step back out and either back to wrangler or shotgun the demo. Ideally he'll duck back to reload and you'll be able to hunt him down, or the song and dance repeats. If you're destroying the nest all at once the Engineer has done something terribly wrong with his positioning.

If you mean rolling the grenades past the sentry then a skilled engineer will probably move out of the way, since rollers are slow and hard to accurately place. All the while this engineer will be shooting back at you with far more firepower than you can pump out in a moment.

With the splash damage a roller will at most do 60 or so. A wrangled level three has 600 health, a level three dispenser has 200 and will be healing whatever damage you do to the engineer all the while. if you do the absolute maximum damage with every rolling grenade, then according to the TF2 wiki's stats the dispenser will heal that damage away every 3 seconds. If you aim straight for him, he'll duck behind the sentry which is again 600 damage to burn through with at most 120 damage per shot.

I'm not saying it's impossible or especially tough for a skilled player, but a skilled engineer will hold a wrangler sentry against a single enemy. Primarily because he won't be in the kind of position required for the tactics that usually take them out.

I've held engie nests on dustbowl part 3 before, and it's basically the ultimate suppression strategy as long as you have a pyro hanging around and an engineer reloading for you.

My only real difficulties with Wranglers is dealing with ubered demos and soldiers who can rape the sentry from a distance when given enough time to do so. Also snipers can get lucky and snipe you (I think they can still get you if you're behind the shield). The most turtling I've ever been a part of as an engie would be the same situation, but with three other engies having wrangle sentries behind the final point right next to me (not even spies can do much about it unless they start sapping right at the beginning of an uber rush.

It is the case Anyone with the equal ammount of skill as the engie can kill a wrangler just as much as they could kill a heavy.


Like how you change the situation twice, what a great debate tactic. really shows your confidence in your stuff. Anyway if He was in that position he puts himself in a very open area or risks creating massive blind spots (not mentioning that it puts him at a better angle to be directly shot at). Blind spots that the player can increase if they manipulate their movement with rockets or "Rollers" (they are called PIPES btw). also the target is NOT THE SENTRY GOD DAMN IT! Think about it for a second THE ENGIE is a nice 125 healthed target with no weapon the sentry is "600" health. And even if he hids behind it The engie is STILL in splash damage unless he is more then 6-8 feet back (then AGAIN you can shoot directly at him) worst case senario you damage him for 80 with a 20% damage reduction for the solder or the demos rediculous 104 with a 20% damage reduction or the LNL's 120 with a 20% damage reduction. meaning that it takes 3 shots Even with a dispenser on the engie's ass to take out.

and again Any equaly skilled player will be able to take it out with tactics. It is Made as a deterrent and so it should be doing it's job. No fucking Solder should be able to sap it from a fucking distance.

The great thing is that Engie Buddy pyros can now perform double duty by airblasting charged Mangler shots.

All right, so running around last night against armies of lazor-wielding soldiers, I can safely say that they aren't really all that great even though they do add to the already overly-inflated number of armaments available to the soldier.

Also, there are two more grockets to find that should have new items for a couple other classes, quite possibly including the Goliathon Centrinel for the much-overlooked engies.

Having crafted myself both new weapons (bearing in mind I rarely play as Mr Doe so I'm no expert on how well they work)

The mangler's biggest difference for me is that is has 5 shots instead of 4. It seems to do less damage as a whole but I can't quite tell, but being able to rocket jump (it can still rocket jump like the regular launcher) and still have four shots in reserve is handy.

The other gun is kinda jarring in how slow it is. The shotgun as a switch-to weapon works because it's hitscan, while the pistol obviously isn't- hitting with a rocket/mangler then switching to the pistol just doesn't work the same. Its damage output seems kinda low but it's enough to put the hurt on a medic hiding behind his buddy, and the shot is quite wide so it doesn't have to hit directly.

Haven't had much chance to play with the charge function of the mangler, though paired with a heavy or demo I think sentries might realistically be taken out without ubers now. Even with engie repairing it four seconds is enough time for a focused assault to take a sentry down and the only thing preventing that before was the knockback from the sentry itself. Kinda seems like it diminishes the role of the uber a bit but medics are more open to play with the other mediguns now so it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Also- don't rocket jump with the charge shot. It doesn't work and you just set yourself alight. :D

I fear though that we may be done with Grockets already. The Grodobort (spelled right?) website already has a link to the Victory pack, which almost makes me think that may be it.

Personally, I'm not ticked by the weapons themselves: they don't seem all that overpowered, and they're actually pretty damn cool. It's just that it just smacks of Soldier-favoritism, especially a month after his double-update in the Über update. That's all.

In other news: Can you imagine if the Demoman got laser bombs that required no ammo? And if he paired them with the Persian Persuader?

I can't imagine the Demoman getting anything other than melee weapons ever again, actually.

Demolishing Things Very Slowly By Hitting Them With Pieces Of Metalman

How long until they release a spy item that causes your disguise to switch usernames whenever you get close to the person you're disguised as?

I just find it really stupid how many times I'm running down my own doppleganger as a demoknight. Of course the disguise will fool the person you're disguised as.

Can one ever truly be sure of his own identity?

It is the Spy killing us gradually from within via a crippling sense of ennui.

If I made myself unclear I'm sorry, but I was trying to talk about multiple situations.

Blind spots are almost entirely a given. That's one of the Wranglers primary weaknesses. As I've said, skilled placement involves choosing a location that mitigates such a thing. You choose entryways and chokepoints that don't permit the enemy to flank you easily for this exact reason. If you can't find a location that won't get flanked continually you're probably not in the right map to be using the Wrangler anyway.

The projectiles are "Pipes", pipes that are launched low and roll along the ground are sometimes called rollers. I used the word to distinguish that the pipes I was referencing are fired low and will roll along the ground to detonate next to or behind the engineer rather than in his sentries face.

If the engineer picks one place and stands there till the end of time, sure. This scenario works entirely well.
I however prefer to play Engineer with some movement keys bound, so I move back forth this way and that and generally act like a twit to make sure the enemy isn't getting a bead on me. If he fires high to get me when I'm standing back, I move forward. If he fires toward the ground to bounce it toward me, I move to the side. And in my experience most demomen simply can't get the full four shots with their grenade launcher in before the sentry finishes them off. The worst case for him is that he backs off, in which case short of a medic he has no way to regain the health I've chipped off, while I'm free to repair my sentry and take a spot of tea on the dispenser.

Are you...what?
Really, I've never seen an engineer take that much damage from behind his sentry. Even the ones that sit as close as they can physically get or stand on top of their dispensers.
I think you're grossly overestimating the splash you take from behind a sentry.

Obviously. But the problem is that in some cases it proves to become less a deterrent and more an unstoppable wall of bullets and death the likes of which has never been seen on the field of battle. An abhorrent monstrosity which has changed the face of war as we know it forever.

Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck.

Okay this thread is far too much of a shitstorm now, let us change the subject.

There are 2 more rockets left, who will get items, one of them BETTER be the engie, this is right up his ally.

If this were a just and caring world, it would be the engie and pyro.

Since this is reality, it will be demoknight and soldier 2: rocket boogaloo.

I actually would not mind some sort of laser sword demoknight.

But yes pyro would be awesome if he got some sort of different flamethrower....maybe it shoots laser flames.

Engineer seems to be an easy one, laser turret. Maybe add a new gunslinger-like hand deal. Maybe replace his hand with a laser sword.

I just want the game to have a laser sword now that I think about it.

If he gets a laser turret, then manno would be proud

Anyone else got a Megaman vibe from that?

No updates to the update today. Seems like the Soldier really is the only one getting rayguns.

Friggin'...

Chances are they are coming out at different times, my guess is that WETA workshop wanted to have one pack out by comic-con so they could pimp their shit out there.

Depends on what you consider to be part of the mailbox. Wooden posts burn pretty well.

But why would a mailbox act like the Axtinguisher?

What are you talking about?

There's a Pyro weapon that is basically the Axtinguisher reskinned to look like a mailbox.

For a pun.

TIME TO CHECK HOTMAIL.COM

I was always thinking it's about going postal...

though wouldn't that better fit soldier or demoman?

No...

Going postal is what a W+M1 Pyro is all about. That's what the mailbox would reflect.

going postal means snapping and going on a violent rampage. This shows the unstable behavior of soldier and demoman characters more. Even with playstyle that doesn't work because W+M1 pyro is basically doing what a pyro is meant to do.

...

The Demoman is just drunk.

The Soldier, is nuts, yes, but he doesn't have the serial streak that the Pyro exemplifies in dropping into a group of people, setting them on fire then cleaning up. And if you really want to get fancy in the postal service, think about how he puffs, degreases and sends people flying over the map with the axetinguisher, special delivery.

Lets face it, only Pyro is crazy enough to do this and still have it make sense in a strange way.

I learned something today.

Bonk + Atomizer is amazing for pestering the enemy team, running into their base, and basically fatally splitting their attention with guerrilla tactics. That is all.

this is the guy whose the kind of nuts that involves killing "nazis" in germany several years after the war ended, oh and keeping severed heads as decorations.

I dont see how that doesn't sound like the kind of person to dress up in military gear and fire a rocket in your face because yesterday you ate his lunch
[edit]
doesn't help that the pyro is the one we know next to nothing about. All we really know is the pyro is, well an actual pyro, and enjoys air guitaring.

oh and for some reason or other owns a purse

That's not serial...

The Pyro is a stalker. That takes some serious thinking skills that the soldier is not known for.

Well, maybe not exactly a serial killer. Mass-muderer might be more of a proper term for the Soldier.

Though the Spy is the most serial killer of all of them.

You are all forgetting that pretty much everyone in tf2 is insane.

They all take pleasure from mass murder, as well as having their own brands of insanity each. Sniper is maybe an exception, as he at least sees it more as a job then anyone else in the game.

He throws jars of his own urine at people and considers it to be an effective combat technique. Even though it really is, I think that says enough about the man.

Or just how far TF2 has gotten from what it originally was. I don't know.

Naw, he's just efficient.

That urine is going to be produced no matter what he does. Might as well put it to good use.

You've just realized this? That's pretty much all I do as scout - if you can avoid the sentries, Pyros and Snipers, it's fun to just run around.

I only started playing Scout in earnest recently. And I only got the Atomizer in a drop yesterday. Never getting rid of it now, though. I do believe that it's now a question of Soda Popper or Force A Nature. Both have their merits.

I still prefer ordinary Scatter over everything else on the infrequent occasion I go Scout, but Soda Popper is very useful for the minicrits.

And I don't mean the minicrits you'd get on the SP itself... no, I switch to the Pistol and enjoy my 45 damage plibs while it's in effect. Great for any situation bar extremely close combat, where you'd use the SP anyway.

combine the minicrits of that with the winger and you get some good power out of it.

Crikey, apparently the cow-mangler never does critical hits- not even when crit-boosted. It also does 10% less damage than the normal rocket launcher, which is less devastating but is important to know. In short, don't pocket a mangler soldier, especially not with the kritz!

Hm...

Direct Hit + Mantreads + Medic with the vanilla medigun = dead sentry nests.

So, today I played in a server where the medic was 12 and only knew how to heal one guy, everyone was oblivious to spies and I got critkilled by a sniper with a kukri thrice in a row. I got auto-balanced and found out that the other team was also terrible, spies trying to facestab medics right in front of an enemy lvl 3 sentry were a common sight.

At one point, I saw a spy decloak behind a soldier, I shot a flare at the spy, the soldier switched to shotgun and got backstabbed. I'm not sure how he didn't hear the decloak sound nor the spy yelling right behind him about being on fire.

Going free to play was the best thing that ever happened to TF2.

The playerbase has trippled (and for a while there had quadrupled) since before hand. And while yes, many of them don't know their medigun from a dildo, quit after not getting frustrated with the game, or hack/grief/what have you, most will go on to become as competent a player as you are ever likely to get.

And I'm am so, so very thankful for the plethora of official valve servers. No longer will I have to sift through admins who think they know how to tweak the game better than Valve. Seriously, finding a truly Vanilla server only got harder as time went on in the past two years and a half years I've played. Not to mention the general shrinking of the playerbase as time went on.

Going Free 2 Play breathed second life into Team Fortress 2.

I get the feeling the game wants me to play as a Demoknight. Why?
-First random item I ever got was a Persian Persuader.
-I also ended up getting both a Claim... cl... the other sword that's not the Eyelander *and* a Skullcutter.
-The only achievement item I've gotten for the Demoman thus far was the Chargin' Targe.

That said, I'm laughably bad at it. Practice, I know, but eh... it just seems like a waste to give up sticky bombs for this.

Also managed to finally get in some quality Spy time. I've now tried out every class for at least an hour each. And now I'm actually torn about which class is my favorite to play—I think it's actually the Medic now.