Finally It's here, it's been two weeks in the writing, thanks to loads of coursework and P.E lessons, but finally I'll release onto the worl the first part of my two part guide to TF2. I'D like to thank White Road for the feedback on the first part and thankyou in advance for reading this, because it is a really long guide. For an earlier version which is split up go to http://www.teamfortress2fort.com/forums/t/Howtochooseyourclass-13587.aspx?p=4
And it is meant for new peoples, not for the tf2f clan or anything
As we all should know, there are nine classes in TF2 and most people have trouble deciding on which to take as their main or to specialise in. In fact many people when they first start don't even know how to play each class to any degree of skill. (Just a generalization i've seen to many pub servers) So I'll be writing out a guide to each class in my experience, tell you the pros and cons and most importantly whether it is newbie friendly.
Class 1: The scout.
The classic kid from ffice:smarttags" />Boston, the scout is arguably one fo the more specialized classes. Without strong long range firepower or a large amount of health (125hp) this is one of the least played classes. The scouts weapons are the Scattergun, scout pistol and baseball bat.
The Scattergun despite the rumours, does have a corelation between the distance and damage inflicted. With the closer you are, the more shots that are likely to hit your opponent and therfore the more damage you'll do. Sadly though, unless you are extremely lucky, you won't be killing anyone at more than fifty metres with this weapon, which is where the scouts second weapon comes into play.
The scout pistol is often descorbed a peashooter because of the lack of power generated and it is probably the weakest weapon in the game, but it comes in useful for two things. Checking your teamates for spies, because six or seven shots at close range will force the spy out of his hiding place. And long range combat with other scouts or snipers. The scouts speed makes him a difficult target for all but elite snipers and therefore the scout can just pick the snipers health off 20 or 30hp at a time. Finally lets get onto the baseball bat.
As the scouts melee option it is probably my second favourite. The quick attack time couple with the scouts own natural speed makes it devastating if it is allowed nearby. But beware, despite some rumours there is no evidence that the scout will be able to hit the Demo-mans attacks back at him.
So to sum up the scout, he's fast and highly specialised. And definitely not Newbie friendly I wouldn’t advise him as a starter but if you have a talent at this type of game play go for it. I'll give you two bits of advice, apply for a clan, as specialised scouts are in short supply, and here's a doctors number, arrange yourself an appointment
Class 2: The Soldier (Solly)
One of the two "big guns" and a medics friend, the soldier is the most newbie friendly class there is. He doesn't have any special abilities, no new weapons (at the time of posting) all he has is 200hp, a large rocket launcher, a shotgun and a shovel and don't we love him for it.
The rocket launcher is your usual bog-standard weapon, with splash damage added for the sheer pleasure of it, but the rocket launcher does have an extra use besides blowing scouts and spies to smithereens, it allows the soldier to "rocket jump" up to areas previously unreachable by the slow pondering soldier. If you couple this with his ability to fire whilst flying through the air, you can imagine the hilarity, or shock as a soldier rocket jumps ten metres into the air, launches a critical rocket at a group of medics and pyros and sees them all disappear in a cloud of smoke. Here's a warning though, the rocket does deal damage to the soldier himself if the splash damage lands near him, so this makes it dangerous in close combat against scouts and other classes, therefore the soldier needs to use his shotgun.
The shotgun isn't a particularly powerful weapon, nor does it have a fast firing rate and it doesn't have any special abilities attached to it, so why is it in the soldier’s armoury at all? Well it fills in the gap between the soldiers long range rocket, and melee shovel and it does this fine without being too overpowered.
Now then, the soldiers shovel is just like the scouts baseball bat as in it isn't different, but it is slower and more powerful, able to kill a scout with a single devastating hit.
So, If I had to sum up the soldier in a sentence i would say that it is a happy all round class, not exceeding many roles but able to take the fight to the enemy, whilst more specialised classes take out the harder targets.
Class 3: The pyro
Often described as the n00b classs, the pyro is my least favourite class of all, but for the sake of fairness, ill be unbiased in this report. The pyro recieved the second class update giving it access to six weapons although only three of them are accessable at the beginning. The flamethrower, the shotgun and the fireaxe. If equiped with these weapons your tactics should be simple, don't get in the way of sentry guns or Heavy Weapons Guys. In fact his tactic should apply to pyros all of the time, without a medic you are easy pickings for a heavy or a sentry gun, and even with that support you should watch out because a sentry could quite easily take the two of you out in a matter of seconds at level three.
The first two weapons that we will talk about will be the flamethrower and the Backburner. The flamethrower may be a bog standard weapon but it isn't any worse of for it and can easily take down most classes in an instant if givent he opportunity. The major addition to the flamethrower came with the pyro update and was an air compressor. This allowed the pyro to blow away objects such as grenades and rockets for the price of 25 of its 200 ammo for every attempt at blowing objects away. Sadly though this doesnt always work, and when you get a critical rocket land in your face for the third time running it does get a bit tedious. The Backburner meanwhile is the unlockable version of the flamethrower and allows the user to get a larger proportion of critical hits when you attack your opponent from behind. This encourage the pyro to sneak in and take players out with a carefull placed burst of flames rather than running into the fray like a headless chicken spraying fire everywhere.
The next weapons on offer are the shotgun and flaregun. As i mentioned in the shotgun for the soldier it fills up holes in the classes weapons and in this case it is to give the pyro some long range hitting power. Although innacurate the pyros shotgun shoots faster the the soldiers but does slightly less damage, but my favourite pyro weapon has to be the flare gun. The concept sounds simple, the flare gun fires a small ball of flames towards the taget to a low arc making aiming a little trickier than the soldiers straight line rocket. But it allows for a lot of fun with pyros setting near-death enemies alight with the gun from long distance and then running out of firing range. A secret weapon in the pyros arsenal is the haduken, by pressing G whilst you have the flargun or shotgun equipted you will start a fireball taunt. If this fireball touches any enemies then this is an instakill, and most importantly it wont use up any of your precious ammo.
FInally the last two weapons are the fire axe and Axtuingisher. The fire axe plays like any other melee weapon with the same stats (roughly) as the soldiers shovel but the axetinguisher has a special ability that expert pyros can use to devastating effect. For one second imagines that you have set your opponent alight and now you were out of ammo, if you go collect ammo you risk letting your opponent escape and the fireaxe probably won't do enough damage to kill him. The axtinguisher allows you to hit 100% critical hits when your opponents are on fire, allowing you to finish off seriously injured enemies in a humiliating manner.
So, now that i've done way more on the pyro than i intended i will sum him up like this. The pyro is an easy class to play, but a hard one to master, if you can claim to be one of the few masters of this class, then you'll get a place in any competitive team, but sadly most people aren't in that category and therefore must play the pyro as a fun class or to increase your skills in this rather strange feminine class.
Class 4: The Demoman
(After deciding that my original guide to the demoman was completely lacking i decided to re-write it.)
The demoman is the Scottish (or maybe irish if you like) black member of the Team, as the symbol of RED's ideas he is an explosive expert with bombs and grenades making up the majority of his arsenal. Rumour has it that in early experiments with his Stickbomb technology a prototype failed and ended up taking the demoman's eye out, he now wears a distinctive black eyepatch and this gives him an almost pirate like look, which coupled with his heavy drinking makes some of the other classes back off in case things get ugly.
The demomans three weapons are the stickbomb launcher, grenade laucher and a bottle of scottish whiskey. The grenade launcher is weapon number one and normally the one that is neglected as it isn't very powerful in comparison to the stickybomb launcher, though in the sakes of balance i should point out that if a grenade touches an enemy without touching the floor it will explode instantly, causing high damage and extra splash damage to those nearby. If alowed to hit the floor the grenade will rolla round before exploding, doing less damage but still having a splash effect.
Next comes the stickybomb laucher, a very useful wapon because it give the demoman a great defensive weapon, just like the heavy's minigun for example. By launching these bombs at walls/ceiling you can provide a devistating treat. The bombs are remotley detonated by pressing RMB and will damage any enemies (or you) that are caught in the blast, with up to eight bombs at any time on the field, you become a force to be reckoned with.
But maybe the most interesting technique that the demoman has is the act of stickyjumping. Much like the soldier's rocketjump, the demoman places a stickybomb under his feet before jumping and setting the bomb off simultaniously. This result in more damage to the demoman, 40-65 damage in comparison to 20-40, but a lot longer launch and some expert jumpers have been able to find a way through cp_badlands faster as a demoman than a scout using this method.
The whiskey bottle is just your usual melee weapon with the only difference being that if you kill an enemy with it, the glass smashes and you get a razor sharp bottle instead (no damage difference though...sorry)..
SO, if I had to rate the demomans friendlyness to new players i would say it is up there with the soldier and pyro, with an easy learning curve it will be a joy to play at any level. Even up to the level where you've played it for 40-50 hours.
Class 5: The Heavy weapons Guy (Heavy or HWG)
The russian member of the team, the heavy is a moving fortress with a massive 300hp, five weapons and a host of great lines that makes the pyro blush. The Heavy is traditionally the medics best friend, providing good protection to the vunerable doctor whilst still benefiting from the 150% health that the heavy recieves and the charge on the medics weapon (see medic for more info) Now then, the heavys five/six weapons are as follows. The minigun, shotgun and fists. With the unlockables being Natasha (hope i spelt that right), the Sandvich and the Killing gloves of boxing (also known as the K.G.B)
So to start at the beginning, the minigun is the heavy's strongest weapon, this may sound odd since the heavy does have an upgrade but in Natashas stats it says that it isn't as strong as the original minigun. (Note: Members if the forum call the minigun "Sasha" as this pops up in one of the heavys snippets of dialouge) The purpose of the minigun is generally in mid to close range combat, dealing with the "squishy" classes such as sniper and scout with relative ease before ploughing on into the tougher targets that lye beyond. The minigun is also an established sentry gun killer due to its high rate of fire being as fast as a level three sentry gun. (without the benefit of rockets coming out of his mouth) The heavys alternative minigun,
Natasha slightly slows down the firing rate and the damage for the ability to slow down your opponent at random if you hit and also in exchange for a small increase in accuracy, making firefights with snipers not completely one-sided. But as many members of this site will tell you, Natasha is not as good as Sasha (the original minigun) so stay clear if given the option. The next two options are the ever so loveable shotgun and the Sandvich.
The shotgun is back with avengence here, being bigger, meatier and more powerful than any other version but giving away ever more speed and acuracy in exchange. The Sandvich however is the most interesting option available to the heavy, the Sandvich is a healing option for the heavy, which replaces the heavy's shotgun and allows the heavy to heal 120 damage over 3-4 seconds, but this comes at the risk of being unarmed for that time period. This allows the heavy to go without the medics assistance for longer, but doesnt allow him to go to the 150% that the medic gives him.
The final two weapons are the fists and the K.G.B and these two are the two that you'll be having trouble deciding over. The fists are the strongest of the standards melee weapons, and the slowest as well. (Sort of like everything else to do with the heavy) but they allow you to embaress your enemys to death with the "sniper finger". Press g and watch as the heavy shoots at the thing infront of him, which with aiming can end up assassainating your oponent from 6 paces away without the waste of ammo. The K.G.B however offer a stern challenge to this, giving the user 5 seconds of guarenteed critical hits if you kill an opponent with the K.G.B. This critical hit spree applies to all weapons, so if you kill an enemy with the K.G.B you may still pull out your shotgun and let of two or three critical blasts before you go back to the normal.
And so to conclude this lengthy peice on my favourite (yet least played) class, if you want to play a powerhouse class, that many have tried and failed at, be my guest. But if you want to romp around the map yeling I AM GOD!! then i'd advise that you buy CounterStrike :Source or get onto a public server, because all of us at TF2F will just laugh at you and shoot your stupid face off.
Class 6: The engineer
The engineer is the intelligent texan member of the team with an IQ of 300, he will dismiss the ideas of other classes as uneducated and dissapear for hours on end to be with his beloved Sentry gun. The engineer has 3 weapons as well as 2 options for building and destroying buildings. These weapons are the ever lovable shotgun, the engineer pistol and wrench. At current he doesnt have any unlockable weapons and with only 125hp he isn't strong enough to lead an atttack or even come in the second wave. Because of this, the engineers primary role is to defend strategic points and to ferry slow classes such as the soldier and heavy across the map in the blink of an eye. Because the engineer spends a lot of time alone he is the perfect spy target and so any potential engineers should watch their back. Advise on where to build your sentry gun will come later on in the guide near the relevant map (2fort, dustbowl etc).
Considering we've talked about the shotgun 3 times before im not going to go into detail again, but it has roughly the same strength and reload time as the pyros shotgun.
The engineers pistol is a larger capacity and stonger version of the scout's whilst the wrench is your average weapon with the best critical hit rate in the game. Unlike the other melee weapons however the wrench is able to upgrade your sentry gun from a miserly pea shooter to a rocket launching behemoth. (Note: Hitting the dispenser or teleporter with the wrench will not do anything, so stop doing it you idiot)
Pressing 4 will bring up your construction manual and fromt here you can build any of the four buildings but be sure that you are building your teleporter entrance and the exit at the right points, most people dont appreciate being dumped back at bace after just reaching the front line. Dispensers are your average health and ammo providers but also give engineers metal, which is the resource that engineers use to build and upgrade buildings.
So to conclude, the engineer is an easy class to get into, and doesnt rely on skill and instead makes you remember where the best places to build objects. Although just as a note, most clans prefer that engineers is an applicants second class because of the lack of skill required. (Please feel free to comment ont hat conclusion as i know die-har engis will kill me for it)
Class 7: The Medic
Ze German in ze team, (*coughs* I can't keep that up) the medic is a highly specialised class which despite being highly accessable to newcomers can be learned to the point where you can take down heavies with nothing but your melee weapon (see here). The trickto being a good medic is to know exactly when to heal, and when to grab your weapons and fight your fight, (afterall ask me, plyb and teamchuckles). The first class to get updated, the medic has four wepaons and two healing options.
The first two weapons are the Needlegun and Blutslugger, both do the same thing but in different ways, they both fire infected needles at enemies, but the main difference betwen the two is that the blutslugger will give you 3 health for every hit, up tot he limit of 150hp whereas the needlegun gives you.........nothing. Besides that there isn't much else to say about those weapons, they aren't particularly powerful, although they do have a large 40 clip.
The two healing options available are the medi-gun and the Kritzkreig, both again are variations of the same theme, they both hand out health to nearby players by fixing the beam onto them. They will both charge a meter in the bottom right of the screen, they both heal allied players up to 150% health (so the heavy would go up to 450hp for example) the main difference however is what happens once that meter at the bottom has charged up. The medi-gun will take longer to charge up, and so has a better reward. For ten seconds you, and whoever you are healing will be granted invulrnrability. Neither headshot nor backstab will affect you. But things such as airblasts or momentum given by rockets or stickybombs will. The kritzkreig on the otherhand gives your client ten seconds of guarenteed critical hits, though it offers no protection at all, and much to Verden Odelas disgust you can headshot people whilst they are being kritzkreiged (I did it twice in the space of five minutes)
Finally the last two weapons are your melee options, the medisaw and the ubersaw. The medisaw is your usual melee weapon, with power and speed comparable to the pyro's fire axe, but the ubersaw is something else. By giving up 25% speed on your melee attacks you can gain 25% ubercharge for each time you hit an enemy, so if you kill a heavy with three hits, you get almost a full ubercharge, though this isnt a recomended tactic.
So, to sum up the medic..the most accessable class and the one that you can play in a lot of different ways. Probably the hardest to master as your job gets harder with each new update.
Class 8: The Australian (Sniper)
Unlike all the other classes I'm going to start this description with an honest warning, if you're going to try and learn the sniper's class, don't do it on the Tf2f servers, honestly you'll get killed so many times you'll never want to headshot anyone ever again. With a lot of well known snipers practicing daily on the servers (Mr Snuts, Star, Vancrackin, Sometimes willazord) you're going to feel the pressure. Before i started playing on the servers my best spree was 12 kills, and twenty four points. This consisted of ten heashots, two kills and two destructions respectively and at the time i was really smug about my acheivement. Never again, I played sniper for three hours on the servers over the next two weeks and decided to just give it up. Although biased my story does indicate the skill of the guys on the server. So to repeat myself, learn on public servers, then move onto TF2F.
With my career story out of the way it's time to talk about guns. The sniper carries a sniper rifle, SMG and a machete. The sniper rifle is all you'd expect, a headshot machine, shurning out kill after kill and oposing players have nothing to reply with. A headshot on anything else but a heavy will result in insta-death but for the heavy you'll have to wait until your meter has charged on the side of your scope, when that reaches 100% heashot the russian and watch him curse you.
The SMG is my least favourite weapon in the history of Gaming, as a bridging weapon between the long range of the sniper rifle and melee machete it tries to take on the close up opponents and fails, thats why i prefer the machete in those occasions, it is a great kil if you can dodge the incoming fire.
Finally, the sniper is a dog eat dog world, with only the best making it to the level of fame mentioned early on, good luck, god bless and thanks for standng still.
Class 9: The bast......spy
Lets start with my second honest statement in two classes, the spy is not newcomer friendly, no matter how much anyone argues it is just very, very difficult to pick up as your first class. For those who have done it, such as Gman, Dartagnan and Rosendoom, fame and plenty of kills await. For the rest of us meer mortals it is a frustrating head-hit-wall sequence of events.
With four different pieces to his sneaky collection, the spy has a revolver (six shots), a sapper (as many shots as you like) and a knife, along with a disguise kit which is put at number four.
The revolver is in my opinion the most underated weapon in the game, it does more damage than most weapons per shot and is a great weapon for finishing off injured clients. Sadly though it's slow reload time and the spy's squishy health (125hp) makes him a back line candidate, until you realise what RMB does.
The RMB lets you turn invisible, onyl for a short period and you are still vulnareble to stray shots but it does make evryone wonder where you've gone. If you use it wisely you can sneak into the heart of an enemy defense and dismantle it, step by step.
The next weapon of destruction is the electromagnetic sapping device (abbreviated to sapper) which can be used whilst in a disguise. The weapon only works on buildings and will disable them whilst destroying them, although removable by engineers this distraction gives you, or your team two seconds to kill the engineer and you can then kill the sentry gun or whichever building you chose by laying another sapper on it.
Thirdly comes the knife and it's sad 35-55 damage, weaker than all the other melee weapons you would have thought it useless, until you get stabbed in the back by it. The knife is one of the two weapons that can provide an instant-kill (along with the sniper rifle) by attacking an enemy from behind with it you will have a "backstab" and get 2 points for it as well, don't forget that points mean prizes!
Finally the disguise kit, at number 4 will be your tool that is most often used, with the ability to change your appearance to any of the nine classes, although not getting the weapons, you will have the chance to sneak in past sentry guns and enemy players without suspicion. But beware, some classes are beter disguises than others, and disguising as a heavy is a death threat in all honesty.
To sum up the spy, is to repeat what i have already said, he's hard, uncomprimising and sometimes irritating to the point of destroying your screen, but behind the hard exterier is a very good class and a very well resepected and feared class by all that play at the top level.
As my last conclusion I'd like to thank anyone who could be bothered to read this far, after two hours of typing up I'm done and your free to post comments. Good Luck and I will enjoy blowing you up on the servers.