analysis – Page 15 – The Daily SPUF

Poor Unloved TFC Pyro

May 10, 2014 aabicus 5 Comments analysis, criticism, pyro, TFC

So what if every weapon in Pyro’s arsenal is rubbish. So what if TFC afterburn deals 2 ticks of damage for 4 ticks, a grand total of EIGHT damage before extinguishing itself. So what if napalm grenades are the only explosive grenades in TFC with lower damage output than regular hand grenades. You know what the pyro has that nobody else has? Personality. TFC Pyro is the only class in the game with idle animations! Occasionally, he’ll sweep his hand lovingly across the top of his flamethrower, or fiddle with the sighting reticule of his Incendiary cannon. He clearly loves… [Continue Reading]

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5 Things you Might Not Know were from Team Fortress Classic

April 29, 2014 aabicus 1 Comment analysis, comparison, history, maps, TFC

TFC is a simple game, especially compared to its predecessor. Two teams of nine mercenaries grab flags and kill each other, and that’s pretty much it. Contrast that to Team Fortress 2, where I’m hard-pressed to think of anything that hasn’t made it into the game in some fashion. But dig under the surface and there are a couple of things that actually debuted in TFC which you might not know about. Things like: 1) A bunch of popular TF2 maps. This one’s pretty common knowledge, but if you have no experience with TFC you may not know that a… [Continue Reading]

Community Announcements The Competitive Corner

An Engineer’s Guide to Engineering

April 7, 2014 Gamemaster1379 0 Comments advice, analysis, engineer, guide, Highlander

As an Engineer main who has several seasons of competitive under his belt, I am often approached by numerous newcomer Engineer players with various questions such as “What loadout should I use?” or “Where should I build in the map X?”. I would love to say I know all the answers after all my time of playing, but the reality of it is–Engineering is dynamic. It can differ from Engineer to Engineer as well as their playstyle strengths and weaknesses. It can also differ from team support and team dynamics. When it comes down to it, between variables of the… [Continue Reading]

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Second. Worst. Spy. Ever.

April 6, 2014 Medic 0 Comments analysis, spy

Unlike most people who write articles here, I’m very much a one trick pony. I play Medic well, I play Soldier at a mediocre level and that’s pretty much it. Occasionally, I’ll grab a flamethrower or maybe a gunslinger if I’m feeling depressed. So when I’m forced to play a non-Medic, non-Soldier class, I flail like a lunatic. And after Sniper, who I have gone on about way too often, I flail most as Spy. But why? First off, a hint of honesty. I’m normally good at being stealthy and stuff. I sneak my way though Portal, avoiding turrets like… [Continue Reading]

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Sniping for those who hate scopes, part two!

March 27, 2014 Medic 0 Comments analysis, sniper, weapon

Since my last article, I still haven’t recovered from Vlepsophobia, the fear of scopes. It’s just so dark and scary, like a tunnel of light when someone dies! It’s horrible! Thankfully, the nice people behind all our weapons made loads of alternatives to these scopes, one of which allows you to remain as a Sniper. But silly me, I forgot a couple of weapons…

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Why the Heavy Failed

March 19, 2014 Xcam901 0 Comments analysis, balance, heavy, theory

The Heavy arguably represents the most argued aspect of TF2, perhaps only next to the mutilated pile of animal bones that may have once been the random critical horse. From Xxx360tommy420 to ESEA invite players, Heavy has been called overpowered, boring, painful to fight against, painful to play, and many more terms that may not pass the pink hearts filter. So why is heavy so, for the lack of better terms, broken? At the stock level, Heavy appears to be a kind of anti-scout. Sustained rather than burst damage, cripplingly slow speed rather than mobility, track rather than twitch, the… [Continue Reading]

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Analysis of the Persian Persuader’s Health Regen

March 15, 2014 aabicus 1 Comment analysis, demoman, Filler, loadout, melee, weapon

If I’m not using the Ullapool Caber or Pain Train, I’m using the Persian Persuader. Health regen is a great thing to have on the Demoman, and the Sticky Jumper synergies surprisingly well with the Persian because it doubles the health return you get from ammo. (I’ve mentioned this before). But I never really understood why. Finally, I got around to doing some testing to figure it out, and I learned that the Persian derives its health return from the amount of primary and secondary ammo on the wearer. (For these purposes, the Booties are considered a stock grenade launcher… [Continue Reading]

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In Between – Hybrid Weapons?

March 14, 2014 Medic 0 Comments analysis, theory, weapon

The other day, I was browsing the Team Fortress wiki when I stumbled across the Short Stop. To me, the Short Stop has always been one of those ‘in between’ weapons. It’s a scatter gun and it’s a pistol. It’s a good idea and I used to use it quite a lot in the Milkman set, but the poor hybrid gun is rather sickly, due to all the changes it has endured. Then it occurred to me, what if we had in between weapons for other classes?

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Stranges: Dota 2 and Us

March 11, 2014 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, comparison, Dota 2, stranges

A lot of games show you your killing stats by default. Originally Team Fortress 2 wasn’t one of them. Then Valve decided they’d like to try making some money and in the Uber Update placed a single key between you and the stat-tracking weapon of your dreams. Like it or not, this was amazingly successful. They followed up on this by adding stranges (and most of the other item qualities) into Dota 2 when that totally-not-a-sequel-to-anything-owned-by-Blizzard became a thing. However, while I don’t play Dota 2 myself (I tried it once but I didn’t inhale) I’ve heard from my friends that… [Continue Reading]

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Of Pistols, and the Engineer, I Sing

March 3, 2014 Tarrynot 2 Comments analysis, comparison, engineer, weapon

The Wrangler has long been plagued by regular accusations of being overpowered. The Short Circuit was massively buffed during the Smissmas 2013 update, to immediate or nigh-immediate bans from all Highlander leagues; subsequent nerfs have failed to placate them (or angry Soldiers and Demos). So where does that leave the Engineer’s third secondary option — the humble Pistol? Many insist that in the face of such strong unlocks, there is no reason for Engineers to use the Pistol — to use considerably less colorful language than a typical comment along those lines. In fact, the Daily SPUF’s own aabicus ran… [Continue Reading]