In Between – Hybrid Weapons?

The other day, I was browsing the Team Fortress wiki when I stumbled across the Short Stop. To me, the Short Stop has always been one of those  ‘in between’ weapons. It’s a scatter gun and it’s a pistol. It’s a good idea and I used to use it quite a lot in the Milkman set, but the poor hybrid gun is rather sickly, due to all the changes it has endured. Then it occurred to me, what if we had in between weapons for other classes?

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Tweaking the Vaccinator

In my previous article I went through the basics of the Vaccinator, about how and when to use it. Since then, I’ve been using it more – in the niche area I’ve talked about: with a buddy on Steamchat and on a King of the Hill map – and I remain convinced that this medigun is severely underused. Nonetheless, I found a few things that need to be adressed to fully flesh out the medigun that emphazises team communication the most in Team Fortress. Because right now, the Vaccinator is suffering from some quirks that make it less effective than it… [Continue Reading]

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Of Pistols, and the Engineer, I Sing

The Wrangler has long been plagued by regular accusations of being overpowered. The Short Circuit was massively buffed during the Smissmas 2013 update, to immediate or nigh-immediate bans from all Highlander leagues; subsequent nerfs have failed to placate them (or angry Soldiers and Demos). So where does that leave the Engineer’s third secondary option — the humble Pistol? Many insist that in the face of such strong unlocks, there is no reason for Engineers to use the Pistol — to use considerably less colorful language than a typical comment along those lines. In fact, the Daily SPUF’s own aabicus ran… [Continue Reading]

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Heavy melees and you!

Do you like boxing? Even if you don’t, you might’ve heard of Muhammad Ali. A damn good fighter who is responsible for the phrase “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”. To fight like that is to be efficient – strike only when the enemy opens up and meanwhile dodge his attacks. Draw a parallel to TF2 and you will see how melee attacks should really be used – with a certain goal in mind, focused on avoiding the opponent’s swings and determined to win. Ali also kicked quite a lot of people, repeatedly, in their heads to prevent… [Continue Reading]

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Vaccinator 101

Ah, Geoff. It’s about time someone dusted you off. Since the Quick Fix’s fix in the Move That Gear Update, the Vaccinator has been widely regarded as the worst of all Mediguns- it does not have the powerful stopping power of stock and the Quick-Fix, nor the incredible offensive power the Kritzkrieg can dish out. Gathering dust in backpacks everywhere, the Vaccinator is largely unappreciated and almost never used. Use it, and get yelled at. And I’ll have to admit, the Vaccinator is not at all made to be an all-round solid medigun. While every medigun has its place, it’s… [Continue Reading]

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Who is balancing this game anyway?!

  Recently, Team Fortress 2 had an update  delivered to the game that changed some content, including changing how Quickplay is used, however something that really interested me was the weapon changes, or rather the change to the Short Circuit. Now reading this somewhat confused me. Wasn’t the entire point of the Engineer’s beloved Short Circuit to make him more effective at safe-guarding his nest by more actively partaking in the defensive process? Why implement a downside that seems to discourage the Engineer playing defense? I then started to think back to the Short Circuit’s use after recent reiterations, back… [Continue Reading]

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Countering the Gunslinger

SPUF has pretty much agreed: we hate the gunslinger. I am not going into a rant about whether it is overpowered or not – check any page of SPUF for that. Regardless of whether or not it is OP, it is still no fun to play against. But it can be countered by most classes without too much effort. Of course, you can always call a friend over to help you take it out, but sometimes you just have to do it yourself. The mini-sentry has 100 health and 48 DPS, which is formidable considering it is such a small… [Continue Reading]

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