The Lost Art of Flagrunning

This article is going to take the same pensive tone of the similarly-themed “The Art of the Backcap“, except whereas backcapping isn’t completely lost, flagrunning by and large is completely absent from TF2 in the game’s current incarnation. It was largely dead from the getgo. Flagrunning is the act of playing with one objective in mind; reaching the enemy’s flag, grabbing it, and getting it as close as you can to your team’s capture zone before you die. It may sound odd for me to claim such a simplistic act is completely gone from TF2 (after all, matches do end… [Continue Reading]

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A Different Gamechanger

Dedicated healers in games generally get the short end of the stick. Whether it’s having to rely on the skill of your team mates or your inability to keep up, being a healer is generally a thankless job, hence why many games go with the Combat Medic, someone who can heal but can also look after themselves, capable of surviving in a one on one fight just like anyone else. Turning back to the Team Fortress 2 Medic, he seems a tad out of line. A designer at Riot, the company behind League of Legends, once argued that it’s no… [Continue Reading]

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Regenerating Health and not a Medic

I have a thing about regenerating health. I like it. If I’m falling back, I can heal some of that damage I just took before I am even close to a health kit. Regenerating health though is sparse, because it counters all forms of damage over time and generally punishes people for not finishing you off. It always used to be that Medics were the only people with regenerating health, but now we have two more sources of this small but appreciated ability. When it comes to regenerating health, it’s been a bumpy ride. The Blutsauger was the original weapon… [Continue Reading]

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Gunslingers vs. Highlanders: an analysis

There was recently something of an upset when the Highlander team swept the Gunslingers in the recent tournament, and it rightly seems to have attracted something of an interest in the SPUF community. (I notice there hasn’t been a single thread arguing the Gunslinger is OP since the event…) Since I’ve participated in two of these events, playing Medic for Season 2 (the first time the Gunslingers won) and the most recent Season 5, I’ve got a pretty good perspective from which to analyze the two teams. On a fundamental level, the first major reason that Highlanders performed so much better… [Continue Reading]

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My first look into competitive Team Fortress 2

A while back (actually, the day before the Demoknights VS Highlander event), I was asked by Confusion to play Medic for a 4v4 match. After informing him that 1. I was not actually a very good player, 2. I was a mediocre Medic at best and 3. I’d never played an ounce of competitive TF2 before, outside SPUF events, I decided “what the hell” and agreed to play. Honestly, I didn’t even know that the SPUF-based EU 4v4 team was still alive, let alone still competing. It would have been a missed opportunity if I’d declined, and I’d have let… [Continue Reading]

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Ah, Geoff.

Ah Geoff, the Medi Gun for the person who hates building Uber and overhealing and wants to make his life needlessly complicated. I’ll be honest, my relationship with Geoff has been veering towards the bad side of things more and more and more. It wasn’t until I completely and utterly fucked up my binds for the Vaccinator (I forgot that I no longer had reload bound to Mouse5) that I realised why no one else was stupid enough to use this thing against hordes of grenade-knights. I wasn’t even meant to play in that match anyway… Anyway, rants and stuff… [Continue Reading]

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Art Time with Medic – How to make a clay Medi Gun

Why clay? Because I have lots of clay right now. I recommend Paper Clay (I use a combination of FIMO paper clay and cheap paper clay from Thailand that I got in the nearest toystore). This isn’t too hard, but it does require patience as clay is a pain in the ass at times. You will need: Paper Clay – Depends on the size, I got my 500g block for €1.50. That should be plenty for anything small-scale. Modelling tools – Cheap plastic ones are perfectly fine. Something sharp – A box cutter is good, because we’ll need straight lines.… [Continue Reading]

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Straight Upgrades? In my TF2?

Weapons with literally no downside. I’m not talking weapons like the Wrangler, where the downsides exist but are negligible in comparison to the upsides (indeed, sometimes the only downside is “you don’t have the stock weapon it replaces.”) I’m talking weapons that literally just don’t have downsides and are just better then their stock equivalent. Not counting ones caused by bugs or bad coding, there have only ever been three straight upgrades added to TF2, and one has since been rebalanced. The Amputator on release granted the healing taunt for free before being changed (for the better in my opinion)… [Continue Reading]

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Communication 101

Once upon a time, I would have assumed that people knew what was required to work in a team. What an assumption! It’s like some players can’t take the hint from Team Fortress 2. It’s not just that I see comrades ignoring the plight of their injured Medic. Or that I’m always the only Pyro or Engie in a group of six Snipers who refuse to change class. Thing is, I haven’t seen many players who are good at the one thing you need to keep a team together. That thing is communication. You see, the masterminds at Valve knew… [Continue Reading]

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