aabicus – Page 41 – The Daily SPUF

The Gun that Made a Jarate Master Out of Sniper

January 13, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments sniper, weapon

It was a bizarre trail that led me to picking up the Sydney Sleeper again for the first time in years. First this reddit thread reminded me of my single favorite experience as a TF2 viewer; following STAR_’s team through the 2013 Charity Mixup tournament. Every teammate except STAR_ had never played TF2 before, and through skirmishes and close calls they honed their teamwork and somehow reached the finals to take on Team Mixup with TF2 creator Robin Walker. STAR_’s star performance as a sniper was so inspiring that (exactly like when I first saw it) I immediately switched to maining Sniper and jumped… [Continue Reading]

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Less Sure About Gun Mettle Changes as Time Goes On

January 11, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments criticism, gun mettle, skins

I’ve never exactly had a positive relationship with the new CSGO-style weapon skins in TF2, but at best my opinion was neutral. They weren’t exactly hurting anything, and they were strictly cosmetic. I also supported the new weapon pickup mechanic, as I describe in this article. But as I play more TF2, mainly because my Christmas desktop is badass enough to allow me to do so on high settings, I’m finding that both of these mechanics are annoying me far more than they’re endearing themselves. The new skins are really bothering my weapon recognition. Now, at the moment you can… [Continue Reading]

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The Ullapool got Cabered

January 10, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments demoman, melee, mourning

So I was playing on sd_doomsday, as I am wont to do, attempting to revitalize my old Sticky Jumper spark. For a weapon that hasn’t changed, it’s amazing how different it feels having to play with the new roster of available melee weapons. ‘Head Launcher‘ my beloved Persian Persuader is still deceased and all of the swords have become less attractive with the new draw times. My other favorite the Scotsman’s Skullcutter is still too slow and sets my teeth gnashing every time I die because my Demoman was taking his sweet time switching to it. When you’re switching to your… [Continue Reading]

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The Only Weapon Removed From TF2

January 8, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, criticism, demoknight, melee, nerf, persian, weapon

I know I already wrote an article on this, but the Persian Persuader has become the first weapon removed from Team Fortress 2. I’ve searched my memory banks and the TF2 Wiki and I’m almost positive the Tough Break Persian Persuader is the first weapon ever to have every single one of its stats removed and replaced with new ones. (I’m not counting the generic sword stats that every bladed Demoknight melee shares, those are inherent in the classification.) For comparison, we went from this: +100% increase in charge recharge rate All ammo collected becomes health Cannot pick up ammo To… [Continue Reading]

Featured Now for Something Completely Different

An Advice Article for Academic Aptitude

January 6, 2016 aabicus 0 Comments advice, writing

Recently Medic created a new column called “And Now For Something Completely Different”, and I thought I’d throw my hat into that arena by writing an article composed mainly of tips I gave my brother after making through the American school system. Don’t worry though, this advice is pretty universal and basically deals with tricks I learned to improve my grades in school while putting in as little actual work as possible. 1. If you’re allowed to, take important tests multiple times. I’m talking mainly about aptitude tests where higher scores will look better when you try to attract schools… [Continue Reading]

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The New Vaccinator

January 3, 2016 aabicus 1 Comment complaint, criticism, medic, update, Vaccinator, weapon

During Tough Break, Valve reworked the Vaccinator again. As a Medic main, I felt it was my duty to try the thing out so I can see for myself if the poor thing has finally reached the lofty echelons of the other mediguns, or if it still sucked. I first tried it out on King of The Hill, a game mode that lets me quickly switch from offense to defense. I found that it served its job decently well in both categories. If I were taking on a single enemy with my pocket, I could easily switch to the correct… [Continue Reading]

Community Announcements

A Solution to SPUF’s Gateway Errors

December 31, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments announcement, glitches, SPUF

For the last few days, SPUFers have noticed that it’s almost impossible to view SPUF threads. The main page loads slowly enough, as do miscellaneous pages like User CP, but clicking on actual threads often just leads to this after ten minutes of loading: SPUFers, not letting something silly like a lack of actual threads stop them, proceeded to carry on conversations via thread previews and puzzling out why new threads occasionally work for a little bit before succumbing to the 503s. Gyoku was the first to sum up the problem in a way the rest of us could read: As soon… [Continue Reading]

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aabicus tries to CS:GO Part 2

December 28, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments counter-strike, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, CSGO

(Technically there’s a chance Sham1 himself is going to make a Part II to this article, but it’s been 10 months since he wrote it so I’m going ahead and assuming the slot’s open.) D4mo bought me Counter-Strike:Global Offensive for Christmas! I’m super excited, not only because it’s the largest hole in my Valve collection and I’ve always wanted to try it, but also because I’m currently visiting my parents for Christmas and the only computers they own are Apple. Since Apple TF2 is currently experiencing a bug causing a crash to desktop within seconds of joining a server, I’ve had… [Continue Reading]

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TF2 and Competition

December 24, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments comparison, loadout, overwatch, tf2 is ded

The title’s a double entendre; I plan to discuss two different aspects of Competition in TF2. The first is competition as a league. We had a very interesting conversation on SPUF recently where we discussed the definition of an e-sport and whether TF2 even qualifies. Fundamental aspects like random crits need to be turned off, classes and maps and weapons need to be restricted, even certain cosmetics and sprays need to be blocked in order to balance the playing field. Can TF2 really count as a competitive game when it needs to be so heavily adjusted that it’s almost a different game?… [Continue Reading]

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Tough Break and its Signs of Things to Come

December 21, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments balance, competitive, demoknight, matchmaking, medic, pyro, tough break, update

The Tough Break update rolled out an extremely healthy list of balance changes to Team Fortress 2. Spanning the entirety of its class roster and with a general trend of making each class’ stock role more defined, it provides some very clear insights regarding the direction Valve is hoping to take TF2 in the coming months. SPUF is ablaze right now with questions attempting to make sense of some of the more extreme alterations, and since I’m stuck on a five-hour plane ride without internet I thought I’d take the time to comment on some things I’ve noticed and make… [Continue Reading]