What Weapons did you use in your early days of TF2 that you believed were good but you soon realized they weren’t as good as you thought?
Aabicus: When I first started playing TF2, I didn’t have the patience for regular Pyro, and I was well aware that I sucked at the airblast. So when the Pyro Grordbort set came out, I had my first experience trying to craft with tokens, as they didn’t have proper blueprints and I thought they never would. Several refined metals worth of drops later, and I had enough flare guns and backburners to equip an angry mob.
I finally got my Phlogistinator and Manmelter once the normal blueprint came out, and rocked it with my Homewrecker, because I never got melee kills so I figured removing sappers was a free utility. And I played that for a really, really long time…
Another loadout I really liked was Loch-N-Load/Chargin’ Targe/Persian Persuader, because I’d seen this video by STAR_ but had a deathly fear of lowered base health. I remember was a randomizer server that gave me Spy with Black Box, Sticky Jumper, and Spycicle, that I fell in love with the Sticky Jumper. Honestly, the very last demoman secondary I tried was the Stickybomb Launcher.
Medic: Being someone who had no idea what they were doing when they first started playing Team Fortress 2, imagine the look on my face when I first find a Kritzkrieg. With all that positive blue text, I didn’t realise at first that the Kritzkrieg DIDN’T make you invulnerable. Thankfully, I learned what the Kritzkrieg actually did after the third Uber. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn the downsides of the Blutsauger and the uselessness of the Bonesaw until waaaaaay later. The Blutsauger in particular followed the trend of “Oh! It’s new! It MUST be a better weapon!” that I went through for a few weeks. Eventually, when I realised that I was dying much more often to Pyros, I switched back to the Syringe Gun.
The other weapon that has always convinced me was amazing was the Direct Hit. Considering that, in the beginning, I couldn’t hit people standing right in front of me with the shotgun, it’s weird that I was so fond of the one rocket launcher aimed at highly skilled players and Sniper wannabes. These days though, I know I still can’t aim, so I use the Original.
Sad thing is, I still have my Achievement items.
Degreaser+Flaregun+Axtinguisher.
Back in December 2012, I thought I was so noble for using this loadout. My KD was worse than horrible back then, that’s how bad I was. So naturally I starting maining Pyro and using the most infamous loadout ever, and I thought the meta was that Detonator was the main secondary and was oblivious to the ridiculousness of the Degreaser and Axtinguisher. My KD rose from horrifying to one.
Oh man, that remark about the untradeable Manmelter reminds me of the untradable Black Box I made because I didn’t want to trade for it.
I almost have nostalgia for those days when I didn’t have most of the weapons and I used what I did have and thought I was good. Boy, I sure was attached to that Sharpened Volcano Fragment and that Short Circuit when I got them as random drops…
Force-A-Nature. Definitely the Force-A-Nature. I remember not being able to aim hardly as well as I can now, so I’d miss both my shots or get 60 damage max with the enemy still in my face. When I decided to give Stock Scattergun another spin, I was amazed how I could actually manage to kill people, albiet with one or two clips spent.
I don’t have much memory of my early days on TF2, but it was probably the Phlog. I hardly even acknowledged airblast for its full potential, and crits were, well…crits!