Confusing Comms: Health Callouts

An important part of competitive TF2 is communication. Being concise, clear and understandable are vital, especially as the environment you will be speaking in could have anywhere between 3-8 others all speaking at once while each listener is distracted by what is happening onscreen. It is no secret that the SPUF EU 6s and 4s team require improving with their co-op skills, so today I will talk about a simple aspect that is often overlooked: friendly health callouts. Enemy health callouts are well known, and the skills well practised. The term “lit” has entered even the vocabulary of non-competitive TF2… [Continue Reading]

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Fire and Smoke go through the dust, too!

Hey there, fellow people that read The Daily SPUF! As you can probably tell from the name of the article, this one is CS:GO related instead of TF2 related, and today we will be learning some good smokes for the most recognizable map in the Counter-Strike series, Dust2! How I got to like Dust2 is kind of a coincidence, since it was one of my most hated maps (probably due to me liking more CT-sided maps like Nuke instead of balanced ones), but trying out “new” maps I thought that Dust2 is quite OK, and now it’s one of my… [Continue Reading]

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Reworking the Domination System

No one likes being dominated. Well, unless they’re into kinky stuff. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Everyone dislikes it. Even people who are dominating others can get annoyed by it. In its current form, the only good thing dominations are good for are the amusing lines that come with them, and even then, you often only hear part of them or the class you’re playing as lacks them. Maybe now, as we’re moving towards a new, more competitive TF2, we can have a look at a new domination system. Before we begin though, we need to look at… [Continue Reading]

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A Comprehensive 100 Tour Review of Mann vs Machine

$429.84 Over the past 3 months, I’ve spent over $400 on Team Fortress 2: Mann vs. Machine. I want to provide an honest and accurate reflection of Mann vs. Machine, in addition to clearing up some of the misconceptions about the game mode that many of the newer players have. For those of you that are looking to continue or start playing MvM, this guide will lay out the basic details that you’ll need to determine whether or not MvM is right for you. You will not profit A lot of players start playing MvM in hopes of turning a… [Continue Reading]

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Communication makes things easier…

Communication makes the world go round. Actually, that’s a lie, the reason the Earth spins is to do with the conservation of angular momentum and gravity and things like that. But communication does make life a LOT easier in pretty much everything in life. Team Fortress 2 is no exception to that rule. Two things pop into mind when you think about communication in TF2 – heavily community-based servers where everyone knows each other and competitive games. In competitive TF2, communication is a matter of life and death – no matter how good a team is, bad communication will bring… [Continue Reading]

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The 3 Best Payday 2 DLCs

(Updated Janury 8th to reflect changes to the game) Payday 2 has a lot of DLC. A lot of them cost money. One of the first things I had trouble figuring out after I decided that I liked the game was which DLC are worth the five-dollar price tag, and the first conclusion I drew was “none of them.” The base game has all sorts of cool options for the enterprising heister with a perfectly fine arrangement of weapon types, weapon mods, and maps to run around testing out your guns. Even then, you can play DLC maps by joining public… [Continue Reading]

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How to understand your Medic

Occasionally, a really good SPUF thread will pop up out of the blue. It’s up to us to keep these threads safe. One such thread is Understanding Your Medic by chibi_charon. While the thread covers the basics incredibly well, I felt it was worth expanding this concept a bit, especially since the thread is two years old. Although little has happened in that time, it’s always good to refresh people’s minds. Because I’m a sucker for homages, let’s stick to the question and answer thing. Here’s a bunch of ways to better understand your Medic buddies. Q. Why is my… [Continue Reading]

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Leave Impracticality 4 Dead

Every single element in Left 4 Dead 2 is there for a reason. Its features, weapons, zombie types, etc are balanced between each other and have their own role to play. All unnecessary aspects of the setting have been trimmed out, boiling the zombie apocalypse into a polished and nuanced nutshell. It’s a great game for players new and old, as a standard normal-difficulty campaign can throw enough curveballs to keep veterans on their toes while also letting the inexperienced focus on reaching the next safe room and surviving. However, if you limit yourself to only the base game, you’re… [Continue Reading]

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Prof. NiceHeart’s Guide to SMG Sniper

Prof. NiceHeart was a short-lived SPUFer who got himself banned when someone realized he was an alt of Dr. EvilBrain, a prominent user who got himself banned for creating the shortest-lived itsurblog in history following the messy closure of the original. NiceHeart’s other claim to fame was being SPUF’s resident SMG-maining Sniper, and recently he set some time aside to advise others on how to improve at this oft-maligned subclass. One final note: At the time this interview was done, the Cleaner’s Carbine had these stats.  Welcome! Tell us a bit about yourself. I’m Professor NiceHeart and I main Sniper for pubstomping,… [Continue Reading]

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Demoknight classification revisited

Ever since the War! update there have been Demomen who decided to equip a shield instead of their trusty Stickybomb Launcher. Over the years new shields were added, as well as new secondaries and melees designed to be used with shields. New playstyles have developed and some people use shields on a day-to-day basis. Since the addition of shields I’ve seen many Demomen using a shield, often in very different ways. In this article I’ll attempt to provide a classification of shield-using Demomen. The Grenade Knight First of all there’s the Grenade Knight. This is a Demoman who uses their… [Continue Reading]

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