The Amputator: Not Really for Amputating

I was looking over my favorite two loadouts in TF2 and realized I’d dedicated articles to every individual weapon except the Amputator. Well, that’s just weird, so let’s just fix that right now. The Amputator is not an unpopular weapon but it’s certainly not the average Medic’s first choice. I know of far more people who main the Ubersaw, and after that I’m pretty sure the Solemn Vow is second place. I totally get that; the Ubersaw’s reward for landing even a single melee hit is incalculable, and if you’re going to sacrifice that you might as well grab a… [Continue Reading]

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Giving the Third Degree the Third Degree

Move over ladies and gunboats, it’s the only straight upgrade in Team Fortress 2! Man, considering it’s the one unlock in the entire game with absolutely no reason not to equip it you would bet it must be the high-rolling undisputed king of its weapon class, right? Right? No. Turns out the Third Degree sucks. Its only upside is pointless on a class that spews penetrating particles that engulf every enemy in melee range. You wanna kill somebody that has a Medic? Airblast them apart and go to town on the poor German sod. Pulling out your melee is only setting yourself up for… [Continue Reading]

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Grappling Hooks would be balanced in Medieval Mode

Grappling hooks would be balanced in Medieval Mode. Seriously. Alright, why are we discussing this? Why bother considering balance in a stupid game mode? Why bother discussing Medieval Mode at all? Because 1. it’s fun and 2. it’s currently a very one-sided game mode because the only classes with mobility are Scout and Demoman, and the only classes with range are Medic and Sniper. Of course, Medieval Mode’s one single official map doesn’t help. It has giant walls. Really high walls. The RED team are locked up safe inside until they venture outside, and once they do, there’s no way… [Continue Reading]

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Spicing Up Medieval Mode

Who remembers Medieval Mode? It’s hard to forget it, what with its unique premise, acceptable breaks from its own premise and a game balance that I don’t think anyone truly understands. But I’ve been having trouble finding populated Medieval servers, and this saddens me because for what its got, I enjoy the balance between the classes. But I think there are definitely some things that could improve the game mode. At the core of things, it could really do with some more content. Right now it suffers from a limited version of Territorial Control-syndrome, where the mode concept is fine… [Continue Reading]

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Four Things You Can’t Do With The Crusader’s Crossbow

The Crusader’s Crossbow is an extremely versatile weapon. It’s one of my favorite in the game because of the potential applications it introduces to the Medic playstyle. It’s also one of the most adjusted weapons in Team Fortress 2; its patch history is long and checkered with changes and alterations, for better or for worse. Under the guise of this confusing title, I thought we could go back into the history of this weapon and look at some things it has lost over the years. 1. You can’t shoot arrows with it. When first added to the game, the Crusader’s… [Continue Reading]

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A Caber To The Past: Medieval Demo

SPUFblog really likes Medieval Mode. You have plenty of evidence. Even if the gamemode itself is not the most popular one, it is still enough popular that it gets played regularly, and you can pretty much always find a good server where to play (I unluckily can’t say the same for Arena…). And this means you pretty much always have a chance to play the subclass we’re talking about today: The Caberdemo! Or the Handgrenade demo. Caberknight? Democaber? It’s not played that often, and thus people usually just refer to it as “That Demo who is just trying to be annoying”. But the Caberdemo… [Continue Reading]

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Medieval Highlander results!

Everyone had a blast during the Medieval Highlander tournament this Saturday! Ultimately, team BLU sweeped the scoreboard, only losing a single round of Helltower when RED scout Davjo drank a Bonk! and jumped his way into the Bombinomicon surrounded by enemies. I’m waiting on several people to send me their demos, and when that happens I’ll have a compilation of the tournament from several points of view, but until then you can watch the event from the eyes of the worst spy in Team Fortress 2: This tournament kicked off our initiative as SPUF community organizers to have a new… [Continue Reading]

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8v8 Highlander Medieval Tournament with Non-Medieval Maps

THE TIME: Saturday December 14 at 6pm GMT THE PLACE: SPUF Regular server Who doesn’t love Medieval Mode? I love Medieval Mode. I just get tired of DeGrootKeep after a while. So, this tournament is going to involve non-medieval maps played with Medieval mode enabled! (The theme is “Maps ruined by mini-sentries”) Current Map rotation: koth_king, sd_doomsday, and for the tiebreaker/fun round plr_hightower_event (for those of you who’ve wanted to try Medieval with spells ;). After that we’ll be taking requests for other maps the participants might want to play. More information: -There will be 8 players per team -All… [Continue Reading]

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Why the Short Circuit should be allowed in Medieval Mode

Remember when I covered Medieval Mode? It’s a great mode. Really fun for eight out of 9 TF2 classes. I’m reasonably certain you can guess which class gets shafted (and not just by arrows). Yes, poor Engineer has had everything he’s ever built stolen from him, and left to fend for himself with a plethora of melee weapons designed to augment nonexistent sentry guns. He basically shouldn’t exist as a choice, and for the most part if you play Medieval Mode, you’ll find that his representation on cp_degrootkeep is sorely lacking. (If there are engies, that’s usually a sign your… [Continue Reading]

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In Defense of Medieval Mode

Medieval Mode. You’ve heard of it. Sounds awesome. The Wiki page makes it look awesome. But is it awesome? … YES! Ignore the haters, this mode is great. I can have a barrel of fun on cp_degrootkeep (and a lot of custom Medieval maps, but those are way harder to find people playing.) As almost any class. Medieval Mode gets a lot of flak from most because it’s considered a “melee spamfest”, “void of all strategy” and “a horrific cluster♥♥♥♥ of arrows and demoknights.” And they may all have a point. But there are ways to play the game mode… [Continue Reading]

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