The (Brief) GM Guide to the Classes of TF2

The (Brief) GM Guide to the Classes of TF2

Within this topic various members of the clan will post brief guides on how to use each of the 9 classes played in TF2. The topics will go into some detail on how to use the basics of the class in question and also give an overview of various tricks and methods to use which will improve your skills as an individual and a team player. Within the posts the most important points will be highlighted in different colours so if you do not have the paitence to deal with the whole text you may still gain something of value from our efforts. However please try to read the whole post as a courtesy to those who have put their time and effort into creating this tool for the Community

This topic is locked to allow to allow the guides to come together without interruption, but a separate topic exists where you can post observations or questions about any of the material contained here

 

Re: The (Brief) GM Guide to the Classes of TF2

[center:py08g804]THE MEDIC[/center:py08g804]

You are tactics

You win battles: You are the focus and key to your team’s tactics. Given a situation where two teams of equal skill are playing each other, the team who is most successful at killing the enemy medic, or the team whose medic is most successful at staying alive, will win. A team deprived of its medic has its tactical options immediately limited given the relative lack of health packs on most maps and will usually be forced to defend until the medic re-spawns. By contrast the other team, with its medic still alive, will push the attack, make ground and kill other members of the opposition, with the potential result that when the medic re-spawns there are either no heavy classes left alive or the team is scattered and the medic is immediately vulnerable again. As such if a situation looks hopeless then get out, do not sacrifice yourself to block a capture or delay the enemy, get back to spawn and co-ordinate a counter-attack. Remember that only the scout can run faster than you and that the heavier classes are there to protect you and, if necessary, sacrifice themselves so that you can escape. Having mentioned scouts...

Scouts are your enemies: KILL SCOUTS – Scouts represent the biggest threat to the medic short of unavoidable spam or stupidity. Scouts hit fast and they hit hard – if they take you by surprise then you will be dead before you realise they are there, and if your team does not communicate then they will take you by surprise each and every time. Consider it this way: if your first indication that a scout is behind you is the sudden disappearance of 75 hit points then you do not even have time to switch weapons before that scout has taken at least 1 more shot at you – if both scouts work well together then you are dead before you can finish the sentence ‘Scouts behind’.

The most important tactical weapon the medic can deploy is his ubercharge or kritzkrieg – this presents the medic’s team with a brief and, if used effectively, overwhelming advantage on a local scale that will either blunt an enemy’s attack or act as the focus of the medic’s teams own attack. As such it is your job to communicate to your team the progress of your charge and how you intend to use it – remember that it is YOUR charge, not anyone else’s, and this counts for both public and competitive play. Just because you are being healed by someone at 100% charge does not mean that you take control of that charge – it is the medic’s to deploy as and when he sees fit. Be aware of the importance of your charge but do not die with it unused, losing an uber is better than losing your life – this is a difficult skill to acquire and it is hard to always err on the side of caution, but remember your importance to the team as a whole, they will thank you for it. Equally if an attack using your ubercharge fails then do not be afraid to use the last few seconds of invulnerability to get out – it will take a lot longer to re-spawn, run back to the point in question and re-charge the uber than it will to simply regroup and recharge.

You are tactics and you win battles – STAY ALIVE, use YOUR charge when YOU judge it best and do not be afraid to RUN when you need to.

You are pride, you are power, You are a bad-ass mother who don't take NO crap off of nobody

When you do get to shine and deploy your ubercharge there are a number of ways you can increase its effectiveness: first of all inform your team that you are going to use it and then address your chosen target by name to prevent confusion. If you are attacking a sentry then run towards it and strafe around it – by taking the kick-back from its weapons you ensure your ubered friend will be able to aim to the best of his ability. Also you must strike a fine line with the distance you keep between you and your target – close enough to maximise the chances of keeping the charge on him if a demo/soldier tries to use the knock-back of his weapons to split you apart yet far enough away to ensure your ubered friend has the room he needs to make the most his time in the spotlight. To this end you can help by getting in the face of any enemies that are not being targeted but are interfering with your work – block their movements, their shots and their line of sight with your body and your uber-partner will get round to them eventually. Remember that it is possible to switch the uber between people who are taking fire; do not pick a target and keep that target when others around you are dying – shift the uber between targets and the brief second of invulnerability will be enough to convince the enemy to shift their target, then simply repeat the process and the enemy’s fire is rendered almost completely useless. A word of warning though, in your enthusiasm to keep your team members alive do not shift the uber to anyone capping a point – it will block the capture and could cost you the round. Finally the uber can be used to aid your heavy classes in rocket/sticky jumping onto a point – they will be invincible for a second or so which is enough to make and land the jump, while you are able to use the remainder of the charge to either follow up with a slower class or pass the enemy front lines to try and link up with your jumpers on the point – Gravel Pit point C is the classic example of this.

The kritzkrieg calls for a different approach however – always remember that you are still mortal when using the kritzkrieg and you should still aim to survive, on the other hard the primary target of a kritz-attack is the enemy medic – he has to die first and die fast or he may well have time to use his uber and then your attack is immediately turned against you. The kritz is a weapon of surprise, so do not show yourself to the enemy before you have the charge as if they are observant they will notice, but it should not surprise your own team, so make sure you tell your target you have the charge and it is going to be used on them – kritzkrieging a soldier who has no rockets left is a waste. On that note your chosen patients for the ktitzkrieg should be soldiers and demomen in most situations - using it on a heavy requires a detailed knowledge of the map and the enemy's movements while also denying you the advantage of splash damage. Most importantly your team must follow up once the kritzkrieg has been used to polish off the scattered remnants of the enemy – equally if you find the enemy dropping a kritzkrieg on you before you have uber then run, get behind your teammates and run until it has finished. The kritzkrieg represents a dangerous trade off of safety for firepower as the medic is no longer able to save himself with his charge, but it is worth remembering that the kritzkrieg will reach 100% charge 25% faster than an uber, and so can result in a devastating blow to the enemy a mere 30 seconds into the round.

You have the power to change the entire game, but the two charges have different implications for you and your team – be aware of them, learn the strengths and weaknesses of each and your ubercharges/kritzkriegs will become even more effective.

You are Strategy

You win wars: The medic’s primary ability is not the ubercharge or kritzkrieg, it is the healing ability and, most importantly, the overhealing ability: a soldier’s full health is not 200hp, it is 300 hp. As such the worst thing a medic can do is only heal one person: the medic must be constantly healing all classes around him, including the scouts when they are close. The main point to remember here is heal everyone – this will keep your team fully buffed, charge your uber/kritz faster and ensure your team is better able to protect you. You also need to heal effectively – if members of your team are taking fire then they need your healing sooner than those who are not directly involved with the action. This may seem obvious but there will be situations when you need to make decisions about who to heal, how much to heal them and in what order – if possible then heal only one person to full health before turning to the next as there is a relationship between the rate of your healing and the amount of time since your target was last hurt, hence it is actually faster to deal with one at a time than to heal each a little at a time before all are full. However if presented with 3 people aflame on 10 hp then do that – give each a little squirt of heals at a time to prevent them dying and then deal with getting them back to full health. Remember, and remind your team, that all health packs in close proximity are yours by default and that their use by anyone else is in your gift but not assured, if the shit hits the fan and you cannot heal everyone then declare open season on health packs, but you cannot turn your medigun on yourself and as such should ensure your team are aware of your need for the packs. Also remind your scouts that stealing enemy health packs is a highly effective means of crippling the enemy medic. Having mentioned scouts...

Scouts are your friends: HEAL SCOUTS – True, they are not a ‘heavy’ class, but that has no bearing on how deadly they are. Indeed, the scout is probably the most powerful class in the game and will cap the majority of points/capture the majority of the intelligence in any one game - as such the scout is at least as deserving of your healing as the classes whose abilities and weapons present a more obvious advantage to the immediate situation as you see it. A fully buffed scout has 185 hit points – exceeded (unbuffed) only by the heavy and the soldier, and a point rush by 2 buffed scouts is not something to be taken lightly. It is also important to bear in mind that the main enemy of your scouts are their scouts and to this end 2 fully buffed scouts represent the greatest chance of winning the scout encounters which itself has an impact on your chances of killing the enemy medic, capping points and winning the round.

You are strategy and you win wars – heal constantly and effectively and your team will always be fully buffed and there is nothing more depressing than encountering a team of un-ubercharged yet seemingly invincible people.

You are Life

You give life to your team: Think this will be a repeat of your healing abilities? Think again. You give life to your team by acting as a focus for teamwork – as medic you are in the best position to call the shots about when to push a point, when to retreat and where to move. You should constantly be watching everything that is going on around you, including the information that is presented to you in the top right-hand corner of your screen, i.e. who is killing who and how. By keeping your eye on this information and by binding a handy key to ‘Display multiplayer scores’ you can keep your team constantly updated about the number of enemy currently dead and use that information to decide when to push a point or when to retreat. The key to all of this is communication: you must communicate with your team otherwise you will end up with a team of individual heroes on their way to a rapid demise and stuck with only one other player or running alone, and ‘medic is alone’ comes a close second to ‘medic is dead’, indeed the two are often heard very soon after each other. Keep your team moving together, keep your scouts communicating with you and constantly keep a sharp eye out for enemy movements – your heavy classes may miss them if they are involved in the fighting.

You are life and you bind your team – communicate often and effectively, give as much information to your team as possible and call the shots when required.

You are Death

You are death: Never forget that you are a KILLING MACHINE. Although you are not a primary combat class you have weapons and must not be afraid to use them when cornered, desperate or the change to opportunistically finish off a critically wounded enemy arises. In 99% of situations your goal must still be to escape though; whip out the blutsauger and back away while shooting streams of infected hospital waste at them. Use the terrain to your advantage at all times and act in response to the class that is attacking you - if it's a soldier then concentrate on avoiding the rockets instead of trying to kill him while using your needles to recover health and encourage him to go bother someone else, if it's a scout then focus more on shredding the little bastard than on evasion as his weapon cannot be dodged like a solly's rocket can. Flight is not always an option for you, and when that situation occurs you must fight; get in the enemy’s face, dish out some alternative medicine and then tell your team that it’s okay, you can do all the work for them. Indeed the Blutsauger is one of the most epic weapons in the game and will save your life time and again if you can master its trajectory, as well as being a useful weapon to go nuts on final points (where the enemy are likely to be badly damaged and tightly packed) with. You are also physically strong; you move faster than all classes apart from the scout and your starting health of 150 will constantly regenerate when you take damage.

You are death, so pull on your gloves, get out your gun and, through gritted teeth, snarl at the enemy “Ich werde Sie beenden”