aabicus – Page 38 – The Daily SPUF

The Righteous Pomson

March 23, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments engineer, pomson, soldier, update

I’d been meaning to talk about this for a while, but back when Tough Break came out, there was an unintended side effect caused by the Flamethrower tweaks, and it doesn’t even refer to the Pyro. Tough Break’s patch notes mentioned that “The base Flamethrower’s damage fall off over distance has been decreased, resulting in higher damage output at range” and I could write a whole article about how all of these stock flamethrower buffs have elevated the weapon back to a surprising level of viability. But this affected more than just the flamethrowers; the Righteous Bison and Pomson 6000 mimic ‘lasers’… [Continue Reading]

The SPUF of Legend

Regenerating Health – The Concheror, Cozy Camper, and Amputator

March 20, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments health, medic, sniper, soldier, weapon

Today I want to go over a trio of related weapons that were all affected by a change made to the Medic’s base regen during the Tough Break Update. As you can see, the description to the Concheror claims “+4 hp regenerated per second” but what actually happens is that you start regenerating at 1 hp and that number gradually increases to 4 the longer you go without taking damage. The Cozy Camper and the Amputator are identical, except that the Amputator stops at 3. I thought I’d talk about what this means for each weapon, because it’s interesting to… [Continue Reading]

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The Black Box

March 19, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, soldier, weapon

So the other day I tried out the Black Box for the first time in ages. Never thought I’d use that gun again. It used to be my go-to; an everpresent mainstay in my Soldier arsenal that I adapted each and every loadout around. I’d use it with Gunboats to dominate close-range combat, I’d use it with shotgun for all-purpose versatility, I’d use it in all-crit servers with the Battalion’s Backup to negate crits while firing healing crockets, heck I’d even use it in the early waves of MvM to regenerate health until I had the credits to deck out… [Continue Reading]

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Low Bow – My current favorite Payday 2 playstyle

March 19, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments loadout, Not TF2, payday 2

Ever since Overkill rebalanced the weapons in Payday 2, secondaries have overtaken the metagame as the primary weapons of choice. Pistols are ludicrously powerful and accurate, and most SMGs are just souped-up versions of the assault rifles rather than the other way around. This means that I often can’t find a real rationale to bring a traditional primary weapon when I can easily play the entire heist relying wholly on my Bronco revolver to kill anything that gets in my way. So my primary slot has almost always been filled with a utility weapon, and the weapon I’ve found that brings… [Continue Reading]

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Five Things Valve Didn’t Intend for the Sandman to Do

March 17, 2016 aabicus 2 Comments Exploit, glitches, melee, pass time, scout

When the Sandman debuted during the Scout Update, Valve broke new ground regarding ranged melee weapons. Not since the Direct Hit has Team Fortress 2 been given a more spammable immediate-range weapon that crits like crazy, since the Sandman’s baseball shares the bat’s increased melee crit chance. However, perhaps because of its unusual design, there have been a number of bizarre exploits associated with this weapon over the years and a few of these are still in the game today. 5. Hitting the ball through thin walls. Setup gates, windows, just random walls that happen to be narrow enough; the scout… [Continue Reading]

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My Favorite Moments in TF2 History

March 16, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments a week of Love and Hate, Classic Mixup, comics, love, medic, meet the team, MvM, TFC

TF2 was the first game I really immersed myself into, meaning that a lot of my earliest internet memories come from this game. And through all the years, all the updates, all the thousands of hours of playing this game, there are a few memories that stand out to me the most. In the spirit of Love and War Part 2, I thought I’d take an article to recall my fondest memories as a TF2 fan. Especially since my more traditional “what I love most” article already exists. In no particular order: 5. STAR_ wins Mixup 2013. It was possible for you to… [Continue Reading]

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Thoughts on Matchmaking

March 4, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments 6v6, competitive, Highlander, matchmaking

While I missed the first matchmaking stress test, I was awake and ready for the second one! Sorry EU fans, maybe one day Valve will have one at a time that’s not horrible for you guys. I don’t have enough to do commentary on 16 minutes of footage, so I’m just making an article. I loved how easy it was to queue up; just click the button and you’re off to the races. I played 6 matches and won 5 of them, so the players seem really competent for the most part. There were usually 2-3 people with mics on our… [Continue Reading]

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Practical Advantages You Can Gain With Taunts

February 29, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments heavy, spy, strategy, taunt, taunts

Taunts are a silly yet fun addition to TF2 that have have grown more and more pernicious as time goes on. Nowadays they’re hard to avoid with very attention-drawing musical jingles, unusual effects, and contagious dances. But like everything other seemingly-pointless just-for-fun game mechanic, I’m here to nitpick the hell out of the entire concept, wringing out every possible competitive advantage. 1. Generic all-purpose third person. The first and most obvious, taunts give you an ability to look around corners and get a more broad screenshot of the map around you, with the only downside being the few seconds of… [Continue Reading]

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CS:GO’s New Coop Game Mode

February 24, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments co-op, CSGO, fun, non-tf2, video

I know I said it’d be a while before I made a new CS:GO article, but I forgot to mention probably my favorite new addition from Operation Wildfire: co-op mode! Yes, CS:GO is getting some sort of game mode revolving around fighting NPC enemies with your friends, and a lot of the coming maps haven’t been seen yet since people with the Wildfire coin have to get far enough along to unlock them. At 2:18 in the video the videographer clearly winds up in the apartments from Left 4 Dead 2‘s Dead Center while Payday the Heist menu music plays in the… [Continue Reading]

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aabicus tries to CS:GO, part 4

February 19, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments counter-strike, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CSGO

Big milestones today! Most of what I describe in this article I recorded on video, but after recording, when I try to open said video I get this: So RIP a little bit of aabicus’ CS:GO history. Because this included a few big milestones; my rank up to Silver 3, my very first competitive match, my purchasing of the Wildfire coin, my first game of Deathmatch, and my first time on a bunch of the new maps. Part of me is a little glad my last Silver 2 matches weren’t saved, because they were downright abysmal. I basically did nothing… [Continue Reading]