Team Fortress Classic Soldier and HWGuy

The ultimate migratory classes for TF2 vets who are first trying the game. I don’t know what much to say about them, they play almost identically to their TF2 counterparts, and if you don’t change your playstyle in the slightest you won’t really go wrong.

Here are some generic tips though:

1. Rebind your slot 5 weapon to slot 4. Just a suggestion, it really helped me. In TFC, there are actually 5 weapon slots, but no class uses more than 4 of them. I’ve never really understood the logic by which Valve chose each weapon to link to which slot (or which weapon you spawn holding out, for that matter) but Heavy and Soldier look like this:

Slot 1: Crowbar.

Slot 2: Single-barrel shotgun

Slot 3: Double-barrel shotgun

Slot 4: Empty.

Slot 5: Rocket Launcher/Minigun.

Personally I was constantly hitting 4 when trying to switch to my primary weapon, so finally I just rebound it. (Oddly, I didn’t have this problem with Pyro and Demoman, who have an empty slot 3. Maybe cause the empty slot is right in the middle of their arsenal and I never used 1 or 2 anyway.)

2. Don’t use the Single-Barrel shotgun. It’s the silver one with the brown forend. Use the black shotgun as your secondary. Soldier and HWGuy get both shotguns, and I’ve never really understood why. As I’ve mentioned every review in which it appears, the single-barrel shotgun doesn’t have a damage output worth bothering with if you’ve got anything else at your disposal. Even Demoman, who has no other hitscan weapons, ignores the thing in favor of practicing with pipes and Hand Grenades.

You might think it would come in useful if your primary shotgun runs out of ammo, but in TFC all weapons with identical ammo types share an ammo pool, meaning if you fire the super shotty until it’s dry, your single shotty is out of reserve ammo also. And let’s face it, how often does your secondary weapon run out of ammo anyway?

3. HWGuy has a couple of abilities Misha lost. Most notably, the ability to jump while revved up and/or firing. That stupid tip on the TF2 loading screen about equipping your shotgun for mobility is even less relevant here. He also has an inherent resistance to knockback, which includes self-knockback (grenade-jumping as HWGuy doesn’t work very well), which means hilarious moments like this are far rarer in TFC. He also has the same MIRV grenade as Demoman, which aids him in his role as defensive area denial. Soldier on the other hand is the only class with the versatile Nail Grenade, which shoots nails in 8 directions for a few seconds and then explodes. This lets you take out a sentry with a single grenade via nail stream plus explosion, especially if you help lay down the damage. On the other hand, Misha gained the ability to rev up the minigun without firing, which is an ability I missed constantly for the four lives or so I played HWGuy.

And, uh…that’s all she wrote. These apples didn’t fall far from the tree.