The Benefits of Sharking

Sharking is an old but solid technique that shows up a lot in Valve games. Anyone can do it, and it can really give you a legup in some unprofitable situations. Originating from the original GoldSrc engine and surviving even to today, ‘sharking’ involves keeping the jump button (probably space bar) held down while landing in or entering deep water. The character will ‘surf’ along the top of the water maintaining their momentum, instead of sinking and blimping along underwater. Great for avoiding the dreaded slowdown of swimming. As an avid sticky-jumper I love sharking, its one of my favorite mechanics… [Continue Reading]

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Why your first round should be on 2fort

I’m serious. I know 2fort is like the least-respected map in TF2, and a haven of bad map design and stalemates to end all stalemates. Where a single Engineer can indefinitely keep an entire team of demo-medics at bay thanks to the spawn points and chokeholds all favoring the defensive team to a horrific degree. But you know what? That’s not what you notice on your first round of TF2. You care about figuring out what this gun is you’re holding. How movement works. Why anyone plays people other than the giant Russian. And 2fort does a great job of… [Continue Reading]

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Some other spots to get to (that aren’t that hard!)

This article’s existence is more of the culmination of a running gag than a legitimate article. It’s the Frankensteinian surgery of two articles that both sat laboriously in my Drafts folder for ages, silently judging me every time I opened up WordPress and viewed my dashboard. The earlier article began its life as “Good Offensive Teleporter Spots on Non-Payload Maps”, intended to be a sequel of sorts to this article. It’s only candidate was the first spot on this list, I added it and then continued playing TF2, confident that more would present themselves to me in time. Now here we are… [Continue Reading]

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Which Way Does the Wind Blow on Your Favorite Map?

Cause there is wind. You may not have known that, but now you can see for yourself. That there is the Buy a Life taunt, added during the Love & War Update. Spy, being the cocky dick he is, pulls out a wad of cash and flings it derisively while taunting his poor & Irish foes. It was the subject of the highest-rated screenshot I ever posted to Steam. But what’s important is that the money always blows in the same direction! No matter what direction you’re facing, no matter how many times you crank the map up. It’s not randomized in… [Continue Reading]

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The Stupidest Item Ever Added to TF2

The term “stupidest item ever added to TF2” is obviously one of the more subjective terms one could use to describe a thing. It’s so heavily dependent on personal experience, opinion, and bias that no item could truly just qualify without question as “the stupidest item ever added to TF2”. Which is why you may be surprised that there actually is an item that indisputably qualifies as the stupidest item ever added to TF2, and it’s not the one you’re thinking of. It’s not something overpowered. Overpowered weapons fill a role in TF2 by letting players who equip them perform better and thus… [Continue Reading]

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TF2vOW: Scout versus Tracer

Welcome to the first-ever edition of the “TEAM FORTRESS 2 VERSUS OVERWATCH” series.  Inspired by the ongoing flamewars between the two fandoms and Screwattacks own “Death Battle” series on Youtube, TF2 vs OW is where I theoretically pit one or more of your favorite TF2 classes against their counterparts from Blizzard’s upcoming TF2 rip-off (and revenge for Valve stealing DOTA): Overwatch! We’re probably never going to be able to see this in this reality, so doing it here will be the next best thing!  I will try to go through each characters weapons and abilities as objectively as possible in order to decide who would win… [Continue Reading]

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April 1st – April 8th

The first week of April has always been a busy one in Azeroth! Blizzard traditionally spends at least one day each week rolling out some bug fixes, or “hot fixes” as they like to call them, to separate them from traditional updates. April 3rd, 2007 was focused on fixing some pathing exploits. No longer could players exit the bubble in Eye of the Storm before triggering the match and gaining an unfair advantage. They also fixed an exploit where a player could use the Auto-unstuck feature as basically a Eureka effect. Now there’s a 1-hour cooldown for using the feature. Likewise, the gate… [Continue Reading]

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Pretending to be someone else…

Human beings like to copy each other. It’s a herd mentality sort of thing, we crave to be like others and to be accepted by them. So many people turn to adopting fashions and trends, in order to be more like everyone else. Then you have roleplaying, where you assume the role of someone or something else. Occasionally, this is taken to extreme levels. Other times it’s just a bit of fun. But it’s a thing. As I’ve mentioned before, the reason I’m called the Medic is because I was in a phase at the time, having just picked up… [Continue Reading]

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CTF, a fun gamemode or the paradise of engineers, snipers and scouts

Okay, now I am gonna talk about CTF. CTF AKA Capture-the-flag is one of the most frequently criticized gamemodes in this game. But I try to argue that it actually is quite fun. Some arguments I hear about CTF not being fun: 1. It is either an steamroll or a camp-fest: Well that is a point I can’t really argue against, as it really depends whether the enemy team fortified their intel room with sentries or not. But for the steamroll argument I just have to say no. I do not understand why people say that steamroll-ability is bad. Yeah, I… [Continue Reading]

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What if Pyro could Double Jump?

Pyro was always supposed to be the ambush class. He/she/it was supposed to sneak around, much like the Spy, then burn anyone he/she/it comes across, while a Spy aims for high priority targets like Medics and Snipers. That’s fine and all that, but Pyro lacks in multiple departments and often finds him/her/itself being nothing more than an Uber Stopper. Why? Because Pyro lacks mobility and a good, reliable way of getting around. So, what if Pyro could double jump? Why Pyro of all people? Surely Spy could do with a double jump? Well, I’d love to give Spy some form… [Continue Reading]

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