Why Scout?
Playing Scout is not something I get to do much. Most of the time, either I’m needed to heal, or I need someone beefier to to barge through the enemy team. But when my team is heavy enough to go against the opposing team and someone else is on lab coat duty, I am in for a treat.
Scout is the class I play when I want to turn off my brain and just play by ear. That may be why I am such a bad Scout, since I find myself bumbling into the whole enemy team as a lone Scout more times than I can count. If I play Scout the same way I play Pyro, I’ll probably be twice as effective. But I really can’t help it, since I can get away with mistakes a bit easier with my far superior mobility and my Scattergun.
Playing Scout is pretty much the essence of what I enjoy when playing FPSes. Get in close, strafe around enemy attacks, and end them with a few shots. There is something almost serene about doing this. It is thrilling, sure, since with Scout’s abysmal health a slight misstep will kill me, but it’s also oddly soothing. Move, shoot. Move, move, shoot. Move and shoot. Kill, retreat and reload. It’s like playing a 10-second rhythm game with guns; read the patterns of your opponent’s action and react accordingly.
Scout’s natural speed and agility makes him hard to hit and hard to catch. Being able to just run away from a revved-up Heavy while he’s stuck firing at air is great and pretty funny. Not to mention, on the days I actually bothered to flank I can actually catch them when they still don’t expect to see me.
Of course, I don’t always just go around hunting for kills, I did try other stuff too. I have a particular loadout I use for annoying the enemy team, which is my Shortstop – Mad Milk – Wrap Assassin loadout. I sacrifice my close-range lethality for mid-range annoyance and some support ability. I generally just hang around my team and start debuffing the enemy team when a team fight breaks out. After the jar and the bauble landed on some unfortunate sap, I’ll just hang around and take potshots from behind half my team. That or I’ll roam around and distract the enemy team so they won’t be looking at my actually lethal teammates.
Other than that, I have the Soda Popper – Bonk – Atomizer loadout, which I mainly use for CTF. I generally uses the mobility my primary and melee gives me to dash in and out of the flag rooms, and Bonk when I expect trouble ahead. I could use the Force-A-Nature as my primary, sure, but I’m not a big fan of the knockback affecting my shots.
Once, a long time ago, my friend and I had a 2v3 against some random players on 2Fort. My friend used a variation of my loadout, but she used a Baby Face’s Blaster instead. This was before its nerfs, when its boost didn’t decay over time and didn’t get deducted by taking damage. The whole enemy team went Engineer after we took their intel the first time.
For the next two intels, what we did is simple. We burst into the room, one of us will go Bonk and bodyblock the Sentries, the other person will take it down and then kill the Engineers. With this strategy we managed to win the game in less than five minutes. Is it an incredibly lucky win? Duh. But it’s still cool.
Why I like playing Scout is simple: the gunplay. The fact that he is an absolute powerhouse up close makes it even better. Not to mention, due to his speed and agility I get to run away from unfavourable matchups and pick on soft targets. Basically, I just avoid the gangs and the big boys on the enemy team and pick on the little kids.
In other words, I like being a bully. Huh.
