analysis – Page 6 – The Daily SPUF

Carpet-bombing with the Iron Bomber

January 9, 2016 Medic 0 Comments analysis, balance, boom, demoman, explosions, weapon

Demoman for the longest time was my least-played class, and for good reason. While classes like Soldier and Heavy do tons of damage even at low skill levels, good luck actually ever hitting anything if you intend to do the same as Demoman. He is an unusual class, with a deceptively high skill ceiling. The days of Left-Click-Right-Click-BOOM are a thing of the past. And since I already play one intense, deceptively hard class that everyone relies on, I never really fancied taking on another. That has changed. I’ve been edging towards playing more Demoman for ages, sick and tired… [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]

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Mind of a Very Mad Man (And an Analysis of Learning)

December 17, 2015 Night 0 Comments analysis, sniper

In the last twenty minutes or so I’ve ragequit four separate servers, died a grand total of four times and, to top it all off, closed TF2 once (thus far.) It’s probably apparent that I do not deal well with anger, even more so without an outlet. It’s probably why each death resulted in a ragequit, culminating in closing the game, while the last fifteen minutes during which I’ve written about three sentences of this draft have been me running 11 headshots to 6 deaths on Borneo defense, which while mediocre at best by most standards (especially for a Valve… [Continue Reading]

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Shotgun heavy is an odd beast

December 13, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, heavy, shotgun

Shotgun heavy is an odd beast. While he’s a valid and viable subclass, he’s also decidedly a joke because he’s forgoing his ultra-powerful minigun. Not to mention his signature weapon, the Family Business, is completely unremarkable, serving only as another basic shotgun with one of the few examples in TF2 of boring stat alterations. But really, because of this Valve is free to do more of the same just because it couldn’t possibly hurt. No heavy shotgun’s coming anywhere near the Sandvich in terms of viability, even if it were a Widowmaker that also healed Heavy for the amount of… [Continue Reading]

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Skins, Skins, Skins!

December 3, 2015 DapperApples 0 Comments analysis, comparison, trading

I told you about the crates, bro, I told you. It just keeps happening. Now, its even oozing into non-Valve games. As you may know, Payday has recently implemented a crate system, full of colorful (and gaudy) gun skins, and Killing Floor 2 now has cases to open as well. Although those only have hats, how unfortunate. Let’s take a look. Counter Strike: Global Offensive was the first game to implement these gun skins. These skins serve as the only thing to find in the crates, indeed they are the only way to personalize your particular character, unlike TF2 and… [Continue Reading]

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Random Crit Balance

November 27, 2015 Yert 1 Comment analysis, balance, class, crit, critical, crits, melee, pyro, random crits, spy, suggestion

Random crits favor not just the people already doing well, but also certain classes, or more accurately, they don’t favor certain classes. It will never feel fair to drop a hype bar, banner, mmmph, heads, ubercharge, while moving a sentry, while being spychecked, or just die in general to a random crit in general, but some classes get more use out of random crits than others. Information on crits in this article come from the 2009 TF2 Blog Post on the same, and the TF2 Official Wiki entry on crits. Random crits scale from 2% to 12% as a function… [Continue Reading]

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On Crits

November 22, 2015 Odoroki 0 Comments analysis, annoying, critical, crits, random

Yes. That thing that’s the sparkling rocket. That thing that’s the Sniper (or the Spy’s) headshot. That thing that comes from a Flare Gun or the prenerf Axtinguisher. That thing an Engineer gets on a Frontier Justice when his minisentry dies. Today, we will talk about the crit. Crits tend to be very annoying, random or not. It feels very aggravating to die to one. It does not help if it’s completely random and could not have been one, ending up with you cursing your luck for the rocket that manages to take off 360 of your health. Crits were… [Continue Reading]

The Competitive Corner

Gun Mettle Alchemist

November 16, 2015 Gamemaster1379 0 Comments analysis, competitive, engineer, guide, information, strategy

Cross-post from my site at and SteamCommunity Guides – Gun Mettle Alchemist A fair amount of time has passed since the release of Gun Mettle. With it came a series of core mechanical changes that made the Engineer dynamic much different than it was in years past. Many of the changes reflect the modern state of the PvP meta–in which speed and mobility are emphasized above all else. Engineer was not alone in these changes. Speed and mobility based changes were also present for the Spy–namely the Dead Ringer & Big Earner. However, that is another article entirely. For now,… [Continue Reading]

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The Amputator: Not Really for Amputating

October 24, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, medic, medieval, melee

I was looking over my favorite two loadouts in TF2 and realized I’d dedicated articles to every individual weapon except the Amputator. Well, that’s just weird, so let’s just fix that right now. The Amputator is not an unpopular weapon but it’s certainly not the average Medic’s first choice. I know of far more people who main the Ubersaw, and after that I’m pretty sure the Solemn Vow is second place. I totally get that; the Ubersaw’s reward for landing even a single melee hit is incalculable, and if you’re going to sacrifice that you might as well grab a… [Continue Reading]

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The Wrap Assassin: Christmas at 70 MPH

October 21, 2015 aabicus 0 Comments analysis, melee, pass time, scout

Yeah, I know it’s not meta but I happen to really like the Wrap Assassin. Most of the people who complain about this weapon either find it annoying or point out that it doesn’t really fill any niches. The Sandman shoots a much more powerful projectile, the Boston Basher deals more consistent bleed damage while serving as a mobility tool, and if you want to go full utility nothing’s going to beat the Atomizer. There’s just not really a reason to use the paper tube. But there’s also no reason not to use it. It’s downside-free. You gain a projectile bleed attack… [Continue Reading]