melee

A Caber To The Past: Medieval Demo

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SPUFblog really likes Medieval Mode. You have plenty of evidence. Even if the gamemode itself is not the most popular one, it is still enough popular that it gets played regularly, and you can pretty much always find a good server where to play (I unluckily can’t say the same for Arena…). And this means you pretty much always have a chance to play the subclass we’re talking about today: The Caberdemo! Or the Handgrenade demo. Caberknight? Democaber? It’s not played that often, and thus people usually just refer to it as “That Demo who is just trying to be annoying”. But the Caberdemo… [Continue Reading]

8v8 Highlander Medieval Tournament with Non-Medieval Maps

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THE TIME: Saturday December 14 at 6pm GMT THE PLACE: SPUF Regular server Who doesn’t love Medieval Mode? I love Medieval Mode. I just get tired of DeGrootKeep after a while. So, this tournament is going to involve non-medieval maps played with Medieval mode enabled! (The theme is “Maps ruined by mini-sentries”) Current Map rotation: koth_king, sd_doomsday, and for the tiebreaker/fun round plr_hightower_event (for those of you who’ve wanted to try Medieval with spells ;). After that we’ll be taking requests for other maps the participants might want to play. More information: -There will be 8 players per team -All… [Continue Reading]

Scout melees and you!

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Who wants some-a this? Picture by Gen. DeGroot.
Who wants some-a this? Picture by Gen. DeGroot.

If you had a baseball bat, and you were insane enough to hit random people with it, you wouldn’t really care about its looks. If it’s hard enough to crack some skulls – it’s good. However, you wouldn’t really hit people with wrapping paper, now would you?

That’s just your preference. If you would like to hit people with wrapping paper, but some federal laws and such nonsense forbid you to do so, you have TF2 for that.  Play Scout and you get to hit people with baseball bats if that’s your thing. Unfortunately, you deal less damage (35 base damage per hit). Fortunately, you swing the melee faster. If you fancy some frantic beating while screaming nonsense and double-jumping around, you found your class.

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Why all Melee Unlocks should be Balanced like the Demoman’s

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SPUF enjoys arguing about TF2’s balance. A lot. One of the most common issues to sprout up involves TF2 melee weapons. It’s no secret the vast majority of stock melees are underpowered, except those with utility like knife and wrench. If their only job is to deal damage, then they’re gonna suck because every class has a plethora of primary or secondary weapons that deal more damage at longer ranges more effectively.

So when most competetive TF2 players agree that the bottle is the best Demoman melee weapon, this may seem unusual. How can it really be the best choice for its slot when it has no gimmicks beside emergency damage?

In my opinion, it has to do with the way Valve has handled the unlocks in that slot. Using demoman as an example, here is what I think the golden rules should be for designing melee unlocks.

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Heavy Picnics and Other Amusing Mini-Games

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Friendly Heavies...
Friendly Heavies…

Most people seem to hate friendly Heavies. You know, those Heavies who wander around maps, Sandvich in hand, not actually doing any killing. Free points if they’re on the enemy team, a waste of a slot if they’re on yours. But when everyone on a server is being a friendly Heavy, that means they can be easily swayed by your will. And your voice, particularly if you have one of those deep, gentlemannly, British voices or happen to be obviously female.

But now we have a server full of willing players under our command, what can we do with them? Play games with them, of course!

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Pyro melees and you!

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A Spy's worst nightmare.
A Spy’s worst nightmare.

Another day begins! Many adventures await you and your fellow Pyromaniacs.  You set off to good old 2fort. You take your flamethrower. Pick up the old Shotgun, or perhaps your favorite Flare Gun. Put on a hat or two, maybe three, when you find yourself wondering; Should I set my nemesis on fire and hit him with an axe, or with a garden rake?

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