Brand new video game articles, every day!
Arena is a gamemode that came long ago to TF2, back in times of Heavy Update that introduced the horribly broken Natasha (back then it was, it so was…), underpowered sandwich and KGB that no one wanted to put aside for simple fists. The times changed as did the weapons, and so changed Arena.
First order of business, an apology to all you Heavy mains out there.
You are woefully underrepresented in the ratios of articles on this blog. While Demoman and Medic are soaring high in the double digits, and almost everyone else can boast about at least a few articles dedicated to them, Heavies have only one. And it’s about shotgun heavy.
Well, this isn’t 100% our fault, I like to think. Here are the best excuses I can come up with.
So you’re playing Team Fortress 2 and the enemy team is full of potatoes. What class should you pick so as to maximize the amount of fun you can get out of the game before the objectives are finished and the inevitable votescramble passes? Well, you could always go Battle Medic. Whilst a Battle Medic may be somewhat of a liability against a team full of combat classes, he is more than capable of handling himself against a less strong team, and has several unique features that make him a superior choice in the field of sub-par class choice combat.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, lend me your hats! I am about to share with you the best Pyro melee weapon in existence!
Is it the Axetinguisher?
The Powerjack?
Perhaps the Back Scratcher?
Nope. It is none other than the Homewrecker.
“WHAT!” You may exclaim, “The Homewrecker is the most broken Pyro unlock in history. It’s a pain to Spies, and completely worthless otherwise.”
Yep.
And that’s why it’s a perfect side grade.
For everyone who plays Team Fortress 2 and is at least not a potato, it’s clear as day why Battle Medics are never a good idea. Although Medics have that little speed boost and regenerating health, their weaponry simply isn’t built for fighting. This, on top of a lack of heavy-class health and no true, reliable advanced mobility, is a recipe for disaster. Plus, it annoys your team mates, who are probably on fire right now.
But just how bad is a Medic’s weaponry when it comes to fighting? Let’s start with the basics. We’ll concentrate on primary weapons, because Medi Guns obviously can’t do damage, and melee weapons are, well, melee weapons. Only Demoknights and Pyros can really pull off melee-only combat, and even then, that’s due to unlocks. We’ll look at this by pitting an imaginary Battle Medic against the average Scout.
The Team Fortress classes are often listed as “Generalists” or “Specialists”. Generalists, as their name would suggest, are useful in almost any situation, are infinitely adaptable, and are cornerstones of team play. Scout is frequently listed as a generalist, along with Soldier, Medic and Demoman. But after thinking about it, I’m not so sure that’s accurate.
Again, a “Generalist” is supposed to be useful in most situations. That includes offense, defense, different game modes, etc. No matter what’s happening on the field, there is usually a role for a generalist class to play. Then why can I think of several extremely common scenarios where a scout is not welcome on the team?
As I covered a few days ago, Valve recently added “strange cosmetics” to TF2. Fair enough, Valve is doing weird things all the time with their TF2. But I’m curious as to why they chose the method, style, and selection they did, and today I plan to write about my theories regarding this recent update.
In terms of the particle itself, I think Quick-Fix may have the strongest healing beam out of all the other mediguns, with the default Medigun or the Vaccinator having the weakest. Each of the other mediguns builds uber faster than the default Medigun which probably makes them all have much denser particles in them. Inversely the Vaccinator might have a very weak particle beam too being that it overheals incredibly slowly, meaning its particles might require more build-up time in order to accumulate to full overheal. The Quick-Fix on the other hand has particles that heal incredibly quickly, don’t slow… [Continue Reading]
There are two very distinct types of demomen: good ones and dead ones demoknights and demolitions men. Players have to choose between the two types early on, as it’s laughably easy to get your Chargin’ Targe with 5 demoman achievements, and odds are good that your next demoman weapon drop will be a sword. Lord knows pubs can’t seem to stop spitting them out on both teams, so even if you never play the class you’ll be intimately familiar with hearing the least subtle melee class on the battlefield, whose Tarzan-like cry usually precipitates a critical blade beheading you or one of you teammates in the blink of an eye (and there can be only one eye.)
If you’ve visited SPUF, you’ve probably heard the poor demoknight trashed as the weakest possible way to play a TF2 class, that he’s a mediocre midrange picker bested by anyone in any situation, that Valve for some reason continues buffing and releasing unlocks for him despite nobody considering him a valid class. Those people have a lot of clout and their stance is not unreasonable.
You’ve also probably heard SPUF proclaim the demoman as one of (if not the) most powerful and versatile class in TF2, capable of doling out hundreds of DPS, setting lethal traps, rapidly switching from offense to defense, and in general being a golden class that is rightly limited to one per team in any competitive setting. Again, this stance is not unreasonable.
So, when SPUF user “The Pyro King” announced (and later flaked on, forcing myself and thesupremecmdr to pick up his slack) the Demoman Vs. Demoknights fight, everybody on SPUF was quick to predict the event would be an incredibly easy win in favor of the team composed entirely of explosive weapons and bottles. The demoman team filled up almost immediately (including myself initially), and the demoknights became anyone who showed up late and didn’t mind getting curb-stomped if it meant getting to be a part of the event. Anyone who wasn’t in the event loudly questioned why such a one-sided event need bother occur, and there was a large movement demanding that demoknights be allowed to use grenade launchers to give them a fighting chance.
But I stuck to The Pyro King’s original wishes (wherever he disappeared to) and when the first round started (best out of three on badwater), demoknights were restricted to booties, shield, sword/axe.
The end result of Badwater? The demoknights won. Handily. Offense and defense. When round two started (Yukon) the demomen refused to keep playing and the event fizzled out. But it was quite interesting to me why that had happened. (Of course, everyone on SPUF started posting that they knew this was going to happen, and X reason was totally unfair in favor of the demoknights, blah blah blah.) I’d like to spend this post detailing the main reasons why I think the most powerful class in TF2 lost to the least powerful subclass.