GUIDE: Natural Selection 2 - Alien Commander Guide

To say that Natural Selection 2 has a steep learning curve is a gross understatement. In this world of hand-holding video games that will nudge you in the right direction if you even think about venturing off path, Natural Selection 2 throws you into the deep end of a diving pool with a cement block tied to your shoes.

Today I’d like to jump right in to one of the most overwhelming features of the game: commanding, and more specifically, a feature that is new even to Natural Selection veterans: Alien commanding. A role previously occupied by gorges, Unknown Worlds have decided to even the playing field this time around and allow Alien players to experience the RTS/FPS experience of a live commander that was previously exclusive to marines.

As a new player, the Aliens themselves, with the melee focused hit-and-run tactics, are daunting enough, let alone the concept of commanding the damn things. This guide is by no means an exhaustive list of legitimate strategies, but rather, a guide designed for players eager to try out the system. Simply put, it’ll probably stop your team from raging at you. Probably.

Playing as the Aliens can be pretty daunting for new players

Just like in my Marine commander guide, your first lesson is to buy a microphone. I'm not saying you can't be an effective commander without one, but having one is a huge advantage.

The Alien commander role is both very similar and distinctly different from the Marine commander role. Let's start by looking at the most major distinction  The Alien commander can kind of do his own thing. While the Marine commander relies on his marines to build and repair structures and powernodes, the Alien commander can drop cysts and structures at his own leisure. The role is actually a lot less stressful than the Marine commander, because you don't have a team full of dudes yelling at you to "DROP THE RT IN COMPUTER LABS!" and so I actually recommended that novice commanders try out the Alien commander before the Marine commander.

EARLY GAME:

So now that you've jumped into the hive, you'll find yourself with around 50 starting resources. Your first order of business is to build cysts leading to the nearest two resource towers. A couple of notes on efficiency here: press 'A' in the main build menu to drop cysts without having to manually click them. Also, cysts take a small amount of time to 'spread', so once you've built up to the first tower, instead of sitting around waiting for the cyst to spread so you can drop an RT, built a couple more cysts in the other direction. If your team is asserting dominance of an area, it may be worthwhile to expand to a third resource node, but otherwise, two is fine for now.

Hotkey-building your cysts with the 'A' key saves you a lot of time

Next, you'll want to research an upgrade at your main hive. I have seen the benefits of shade first. I have seen the benefits of crag first. But, I'm going to recommend a shift hive for your first hive for the same reason I recommend  fast phase gates for Marines: It's the most versatile. Celerity and adrenaline are incredibly useful for the Skulk, Gorge and Lerk, the main three early-game life forms. Shifts themselves are also extremely versatile - allowing you to quickly and easily supply an area with re-enforcements, as well as help your Gorges to build new hives by giving them almost endless energy. Once the research is complete, build a spur and get celerity. It should help your Skulks assert some early game dominance.

Shift is the most versatile hive, in my opinion.

Now that your first hive upgrade is complete, it's time to look for your second hive. By now, your teammates should have scouted where the main marine base is. What you will want to do is find the hive location that is closest to your main hive, but furthest away from the Marine base. Build cysts up to the hive, drop a shift, and then drop the hive. Urge a member of your team to go Gorge and heal the hive - it will make it build a lot quicker. A lot of people will tell you "don't bother cysting up to the hive, it's just wasted res as the hive generates infestation when completed." I don't like this argument for several reasons. 1.) You can't get the res node in the area until the hive is finished being completed. 2.) You can't but a shift down to help a Gorge build the hive and also re-enforce it if it's attacked.

MID GAME:

If you've played your cards right, by this point you should have four or five resource towers, two hives, and the celerity upgrade. This is when your build order deviates depending on your team's performance. Do you have a resource tower that is continually being taken down? Consider putting a whip or shift there to help defend it. Are your Gorges begging you for adrenaline? Build a spur and upgrade it to an adrenaline spur. Otherwise, upgrade your second hive to a crag hive. I feel that at mid game, when the shotguns start to come out, the crag is infinitely more useful than a shade. Even if you go shade first, I would probably recommended crag as your second hive.

Now that you have two hives, you can start researching ability upgrades for your team. You can research them by clicking on a hive (in this case, click on your first hive, as your second hive is already busy upgrading to a crag hive) and selecting lifeform evolutions  Leap is a pretty safe bet for your first upgrade, although if you have some pretty gung-ho Gorges, you might consider bile bomb (either way, you should get bile bomb shortly after leap).

Leap is a pretty solid choice for your first ability upgrade

Once your crag hive is upgraded, drop a shell and upgrade it to carapace. Skulks with celerity and carapace are nothing to scoff at, and when you start getting lerks and fades it will be even better. Drop crags in strategic locations, such as behind your hives and resource towers to help defend them. At this stage, you can start making "forward positions" - drop a shift, a crag, and a whip in an area close to a Marine base to help your team siege it.

At this point, you'll want to look for a third hive. On the smaller maps which only have four possible locations, this can be quite difficult, as it means you'd have to have a pretty big map dominance. On larger maps, encourage your team to try and secure a third hive location. If you can't get it, it's not too big a deal, but it does help if you can. By the late mid-game stage, fades will start to come out. If they are good and they specifically request it, get blink. Also consider getting regeneration by building another shell and upgrading it to a regeneration shell. Similarly, if your lerks are kicking ass, get them spores.

Drifters are a cheap way to help support your troops - they can reveal units in an area and spawn an enzyme cloud.

LATE GAME:

Once you have secured your third hive location, or failing that, once the Onoses start coming out, you've hit the late game stage. If you got the third hive, upgrade it to a shade hive and get silence and cloak for your team. You should also research stomp for your Onoses if you can spare the res. Umbra, xenocide and vortex are very, very situational abilities, and you should only really research them if you are swimming in res. If you couldn't secure it, work on getting some of the remaining abilities that you didn't get before. Defend your bases by dropping crags, shifts, whips and shades. If the enemy is using grenade launchers, try to have a whip in pretty much every location you have a base - whips can fling grenades back at their owners.

Whips can be upgraded with the bombard ability, increasing their rather short default range.

When you have three hives, you can drop Onos eggs. Click on a egg and select "Onos egg." A teammate can then evolve to an Onos for free. At the late game stage, Gorges are incredibly vital to winning the game, as they heal your Onoses and bile bomb structures. However, many players don't like, or want to, play Gorge in the late game (everyone wants to be the hero Onos). Fortunately, you can force them into it! Build eggs at a shift, and upgrade the eggs to Gorge eggs. When the next players spawn, they will spawn as a Gorge instead of a Skulk!

FINISHING THE FIGHT:

Aliens have considerably less siege options than Marines. Just like how the Alien commander is a lot more "hands off" than the Marine commander, he also has to rely on his team a lot more to finish off the enemy team. The best you can do is build forward positions close to the enemy's base, and encourage your team to rush in all together. You can send in drifters and use their enzyme cloud to help, but that's about it. Whips can move but are pretty inefficient at taking down a base. You pretty much have to upgrade them with the bile bomb ability, make some cysts within range of the base (and hope the Marines don't kill them instantly), and then move the whips up and have them bombard the base.

Players and structures can only be affected by 3 healing sources, so any more than 3 crags in an area is just a waste.

Try to hold as many tech locations as possible. Marines need at least two command chairs to build jetpacks and exosuits, so if you can corner them in to a single chair, you can drastically cut their offensive power.

Keep this up and you should eventually be able to starve them out. Thanks for reading guys, and try to remember, Natural Selection 2 is a very fluid game. Every match you play is different, and strategies that worked in some matches may completely fail in others. This guide is meant only as a basis - feel free to try out new ideas and strategies as you become a more confident commander.

Liked this guide? Check out my other Natural Selection 2 guides:

• Marine commander guide
• Alien lifeform guide
• Marine quick tips

Subscribe to my Twitter and my YouTube channel to keep up to date on Steve's Game Blog news!

GUIDE: (Video) Diablo III Patch 1.0.7

Hey guys, Patch 1.0.7 recently went live for Diablo III. It brought us PvP in "brawling," as well as a whole bunch of new crafted items. Today, I've made a guide on how to access these new features, enjoy!

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey what up guys, Steve here with a quick video on the two major new features introduced in patch 1.07

First, it's brawling, duelling  arena, whatever you wanna call it. Talk to this guy, Nek the Brawler. He's located here in act 1, here in act 2, and here in act 3. He'll teleport you to a new zone, the ruined chapel and you can fight up to your of your friends in free for all combat.

That's about all there is to it. There's no rewards or even point tracking, it's just a way for you to beat up your friends for e-peen. There's no penalty if you die, your gear doesn't get damaged, and you can leave whenever you want.

Moving on, 1.07 also introduced a new crafting material and some new crafted items. You can grab the recipe for the chest plate off squirt, in act 2 for one and a half million gold. Just like the hellfire ring there is a different flavour for each primary stat, dexterity, intelligence strength and vitality.

The recipes for the gloves, shoulders, wristgaurds and amulets have a chance to drop off any elite pack, BUT, they have an extra chance to drop off mini bosses if you have five stacks of nephalam valour. What do I mean by mini bosses? I mean any boss in an act that isn't the act's end boss, so the skeleton king, maghda and ghom for example.

You'll also need to collect a 'demonic essence' to craft each item. Demonic essences drop randomly from elite packs, but they have a pretty high drop rate, so you should find plenty of them just farming as you normally do.

Once you've taught the recipes to your blacksmith, he can craft the items using one demonic essence, two tomes of secrets and 150,000 gold. These items have a chance to roll a primary stat higher that on ones you can find 'in the wild', so if you've already got some pretty good gear and are looking for upgrades, it's a great alternative to staring at the auction house all day. This is the chest piece I crafted, as you can see it's pretty bitchin.

 Both the crafted items and the demonic essences are bind on account, meaning you can't buy or sell them on the auction house.

Ok that's it for now, please be sure to tell me if I've made a mistake or if you have some more information to add in the comments section.

GUIDE: Natural Selection 2 - Marine Commander Guide

Being the commander in NS2 is a huge responsibility. While a large amount of the playerbase are incredibly helpful and supportive to new commanders, there are always going to be those guys that get frustrated and yell at you for doing a bad job, as a bad commander can negate even the most skilled players. When a new commander experiences this, it shatters his confidence in the role, and he ends up shying away from it even more than before. What I aim to give you today is a solid base to be a successful commander. I'm not guaranteeing that it will stop people from yelling at you, but hopefully, if you follow this guide, players will see that you at least understand how the role works.

Your first lesson is before you even get into the comm. chair. Don't command if you don't have a microphone or are unwilling to talk on it. No exceptions. While you can give your troops orders through the menu, voice commands are about a million times more effective, and can portray subtleties and urgencies that automated menu commands simply cannot.

HINT: Talk to your marines! Be clear in your commands. Ask them their opinion, and ask them what they want. Try to let them know well in advance what you plan to do. Encourage them when they do well and try not to get upset if they make a mistake. You're the coach of this team!

EARLY GAME:

Ok, so now that you're in the chair, you'll find yourself with around 50 starting resources. Rookie commanders are quick to just… build a whole bunch of stuff and waste that res. Don't do that. Start with an armoury  and send two groups of marines to the two closest resource nodes. How many players are on your team? If you are on a big server (24 players) you should consider an extra infantry portal. If not, you can possibly waive it for the time being. By now your armoury should be built and your marines should be awaiting orders at two resource nodes. Build the two resource towers and then an observatory at your main base.

HINT: You can construct power nodes in an area for free! Click on the unbuilt power node and select ‘socket power node'. This is useful if you are waiting for the resources to build something, and your marines are simply standing by.

Research phase tech at the observatory. Phase gates are probably the single most important structure in the marine arsenal. When used correctly, they can grant you near infinite map control. There are a lot of marine build order strategies that apply well in certain situations, but early phase tech is by far the most versatile. Next, you'll want to build an arms lab at your base.

From this point on is when things start to get situational. Are your marines maintaining a strong presence on your so-far captured resource nodes? Try for a forth one. Are your marines dying a lot? Build a second infantry portal. The next thing you want to do is try and secure a second tech point, if you don't already have one (you should not build a second command chair at this stage.) As soon as phase gate research is complete, put a gate in your main base and one at your second tech point. Put an armoury there as well. If you have a resource tower that's kind of far out, consider putting a gate there. Now that you've gotten yourself a foothold in the map, it's time to look at upgrades.

Don't waste your time with the shotgun and advanced armoury  At this stage in the game, the LMG is perfectly fine against the skulks and lerks that the aliens are able to produce. If your resource towers and power nodes are getting hit hard, get welders. Welders are cheap (only cost 5 res) and are a great way to keep these hit and runs at bay. Mines are also a fantastic early-game purchase, but I feel like the arms lab upgrades are more important, and will have a more global effect, as a lot of your troops will be hesitant to spend the 15 res that mines cost (even though it's totally worth it).

HINT: If you have a player that is particularly confident with his shotgun, it may be viable to get shotguns before your first arms lab upgrade.

Again, look at your marines. Are they exercising fierce control of the map? Research weapons 1 to help them extend that dominance. Are they dying a lot? Research armour 1 to give them a bit more survivability.

MID-GAME:

By now, you've laid enough groundwork for your troops. They should have a front to push, footholds to defend, and upgrades in the pipe to keep their res occupied. Here you start to move to more of a fluid support role. If your troops are pushing a hive, consider putting an armoury and a phase gate in a close location to help them siege. Look for undefended resource nodes and try to capture them, or at least deny them to your opponent. Drop health and ammo when needed.

HINT: Pressing spacebar immediately takes you to an alert such as a request for ammo. Press ‘A' and ‘S' while in the support menu to quickly drop ammo and medkits respectively.

Keep your arms lab upgrades rolling. Start with the level 1 upgrade you didn't get earlier, and then just alternate between the two. Ask your team what they prefer, and again try to assess how they are performing in battle and what would help them the most. If you can spare the res, getting shotguns at this stage isn't a bad idea.

Soon, you'll want to get a command chair and an observatory set up at your second tech location. While holding three tech locations can be good strategically, as you can use the observatory to distress beacon marines there, and can deny your enemy of getting their third hive upgrades, marines actually only need to control two tech points in order to access the entirety of their upgrades. When that second comm. chair is going up, you can upgrade your armoury to an advanced armoury, and then start saving for a prototype lab. 

HINT: Is one of your bases being heavily seiged, with all of your marines out and about? Click on the observatory and click 'distress beacon'. It only costs 10 res and it teleports all marines to the command centre closest to the observatory.

LATE GAME:

Once your prototype lab is built, you have officially hit the ‘late' stage of the game, which can be the longest stage if both teams play well. It's time to play with the toys from the lab. Research jetpacks before exosuits. Again, JETPACKS BEFORE EXOS. This is a point that I cannot stress enough. Jetpacks are more useful than exosuits 90% of the time. Jetpacks are also the natural counter to Onos, NOT exosuits! Exosuits are a very late-game siege weapon. Jetpacks are also pretty much required to support your exosuits anyway, and they are so cheap (only 10 res) that marines can pretty much buy one every time they die.

You are now at the point where you are pretty much free to do whatever you want. With all upgrades and jetpacks researched your guys are pretty much self sufficient. You might as well grab grenade launchers and flamethrowers - good weapons for sieging bases - and work on your exosuit research. My personal preference is grenade launchers before flamethrowers, but if the enemy has a lot of whips, it might be worthwhile to reverse that. If you haven't already, a robotics lab is a sound investment. Setting up turrets and mines at your more remote resource towers should help them hold out that little bit longer. Researching ARCs at your robotics factory will also help set you up for those end-game sieges.

FINISHING THE FIGHT:

If you haven't won by the time the Exosuits come out, here are some tips for getting those final sieges down. Don't ever buy the single mini-gun exo, and urge your teammates to do the same. It's just not worth it when the dual min-gun model is only 25 res more and a hell of a lot better. Make sure exos never go alone. For every one exo, you should have at least two support marines with jetpacks and welders. ARCs are great. Make sure they are well defended, and always try to get at least 3 together before sending them out. MACs are a good idea as they can support both your exosuits and your arcs.

HINT: Scan frequently! By this stage of the game, the enemy should have three hives, which means that his bases will be cloaked by shades. Click the support menu to scan an area, temporarily revealing stealthed structures. This technique is particularly important when seiging with ARC cannons, as they can fire through walls as long as the structures are revealed.

Try to hold as many tech locations as possible. On a map with five tech locations, holding three of them means the enemy only has two hives and therefore less upgrades. Be wary of beaconing when you are sieging with exosuits. Ensure that the threat is legitimate - aliens may attempt to 'bait' a beacon to a certain base, as beacons will NOT teleport exosuits, and they can then easily pick off the unsupported exos.  Drop weapons! You'll probably have an abundance of res at this stage, and your marines may be dying frequently. Dropping jetpacks and shotguns is always a safe bet, and dropping mines is an easy way to defend forward bases.

Keep this up and you should eventually be able to starve them out. Thanks for reading guys, and try to remember, Natural Selection 2 is a very fluid game. Every match you play is different, and strategies that worked in some matches may completely fail in others. This guide is meant only as a basis - feel free to try out new ideas and strategies as you become a more confident commander.

HINT: Don't be afraid to hop out of the command chair, to help build/repair structures or fend off an alien attack on your base.

Click here to watch me play through a full game using a similar build order. Check out my twitch.tv stream to see me commanding in action!

Liked this guide? Check out my other Natural Selection 2 guides:

• Alien commander guide
• Alien lifeform guide
• Marine quick tips

Subscribe to my Twitter and my YouTube channel to keep up to date on Steve's Game Blog news!

GUIDE: (Video) In-Depth Look at Team Fortress 2's Spy

As promised, here is the second in my series of nine class guides for Team Fortress 2, this time featuring the Spy! I've also got a special treat for you guys today: I'm giving away a Fancy Fedora to one lucky reader! To enter, send me the following tweet (without the quotes) on twitter:

"@StevenBogos I want a Fancy Fedora! #stevesgameblog"

A winner will be chosen at random and announced on Saturday, the 29th of September. Enjoy the video!

TRANSCRIPT:

So my in-depth heavy guide quickly became my most-viewed video I’ve made since starting my blog, meaning I must have done something right, so I’m doing it again! This time I’m having a look at my second favourite class, and the class that, in contrast to how easy the heavy is to learn, is probably the most complicated for beginners to get the hang of – the Spy.

He does draw some similarities with the heavy though – proper positioning is incredibly important and the element of surprise is your greatest weapon.

Let’s have a look at what the spy keeps in his bag.

We’re going from the bottom up this time, starting with sappers. There are only two spy sappers, the vanilla sapper and the ‘red tape recorder’. Stick with the vanilla sapper. As far as I have seen, the ‘red tape recorders’ gimmick of reversing construction in no way makes up for the damage penalty it receives. The vanilla sapper is better in every situation.

Next up is watches. Watch choice is quite significant in that different watches can completely alter your playstyle. This guide is built around the dead ringer, which even after its numerous, numerous nerfs, Is still the most versatile watch out there. It lets you feign death and become invulnerable for a short time, with the only downside of not being able to cloak at will and making a louder noise when decloaking – both of which are fairly easily remedied. This watch allows you to safely fall behind enemy lines, quickly retreat, and fool your enemies into thinking you are dead. After all, simply evading your foes by hiding and cloaking means you still remain a threat, but if you provide them with a ‘realistic death’ you can drop off their radar.

The cloak and dagger has its uses if you are a much more patient man than I am. I feel it’s better than the vanilla watch in that you can remain cloaked indefinitely, and don’t feel tied to seeking out ammo pickups.

Let’s talk knives. While technically equipped as your ‘secondary,’ they are pretty much your primary weapon. You can’t go wrong with the vanilla knife. It’s remained pretty much unchanged from Team Fortress Classic and most of the unlocks that have come along since pale in comparison. It gets the job done and what I recommend for about 90% of spies. Looking at the other knives, I honestly can’t see a use for the big earner and the connivers kunai. They both have some interesting effects, but the downsides are too drastic to recommend them over the vanilla knife. Your Eternal Reward is an interesting mechanic, but again, not being able to disguise at will is such a huge detriment to the disguise-as-killed-enemy feature.

There is one knife that I can recommend the use of outside of the vanilla knife, and that is the spycicle. It functions pretty much exactly the same as the normal knife, but has ‘silent’ kills that don’t show up in the enemy’s killfeed, and gives you two seconds of fire invulnerability if set on fire. The downside is that if you are attacked by a pyro, it ‘melts’ and takes a full ten seconds to regenerate. Using this knife with the dead ringer is a tad overkill, as getting hit by a pyro will pop BOTH your DR and your knife. I suggest using it in conjunction with the cloak and dagger.

If there is one mistake I see novice spies make time and time again, it’s forgoing the use of their revolver. You revolver is actually quite powerful, it can drop the lighter classes in three hits and can make you a threat even if your cover has been blow. I recommend the vanilla revolver, because it has no drawbacks and will preform the best in most situations. The enforcer used to trump the revolver before its nerf, but these days I see it as pretty much a straight downgrade to the revolver. The ambassador can be better than the vanilla revolver if you are very confident in your aim, but if you can't consistently get that opening headshot it's not worth it. I can see value in the L’tranger. When your cover is blown and your dead ringer is on cooldown, you can use it to quickly fill up your cloak so you can escape.

So, there’s our loadout settled. Used the dead ringer with the vanilla knife, and either the vanilla revolver or the L’tranger, OR, use the cloak and dagger with the spycicle and vanilla revolver. Let’s see what you should know about the spy.

Our first lesson begins before even leaving spawn – what class should I disguise as?

Of all the classes, I feel that The Spy, Sniper, and Scout are the best disguise choices. Of the three, I feel that the spy is the most potent. He doesn’t arouse as much suspicion by preforming ‘strange’ actions, such as running the wrong way or not firing on the enemy team.

Snipers are another good choice because they spend most of their time at the back of the team. They are also less spatially aware of enemies in close proximity, so they are less likely to spot you.

The scout seems like a bad disguise choice, but it’s actually one of the best ones. While people are quick to point out that you can’t double jump and you run slower, players tend not to notice these things because the scout, unlike the sniper, is constantly mobile. He’s more like a buzzing fly in teammates peripheral vision.

A couple of quick disguise tips – constantly change your disguise. If you kill someone, change your disguise. If someone spots you, change your disguise. If someone pops your dead ringer, change your disguise. While I did detail the three most believable disguises, don’t be afraid to use your own judgement on using the other disguises if the situation calls for it. If you know for sure that the enemy team doesn’t have any members of a certain class, DON’T disguise as that class. Lastly, changing disguises gives off an identifiable puff of smoke so try and remain hidden while disguising.

Ok, with that out of the way, we can get down to actual point-and-shoot (and point-and-stab) tactics. First and foremost, the spy is an assassin. That means he specializes in taking out priority targets. Unfortunately, priority targets are usually the most difficult to kill. Let’s have a look.

Your top priorities are:

1.    Medics with full uber

2.    Engineers with a full sentry nest

3.    Demomen with a sticky trap set out.

While the easiest targets to kill are

1.    Snipers

2.    Heavies firing on your team

3.    Engineers without a sentry nest

Being a good spy means keeping these priorities in mind. Use your judgement to determine wether to go after a high priority target, or play it safe and eliminate the easiest targets. For example, while it is tempting to try and take out that medic on full ubercharge ready to turn an enemy heavy into a big glowing red ball of hurt, medics, especially with a full uberchage, are faster than you, constantly moving around, and more that likely actively looking out for spies as they don’t really need to be looking directly at the heavy’s back to heal him. In this case, just kill the damn heavy. Sure, the medic might get away, but best case scenario your teammates pounce on him and worst case scenario you avert an ubercharge your team is unprepared for.

Another tip that I just can’t stress enough is to use you revolver. So many spies forget they even have a gun, yet in reality, anywhere from 25-50% of my kills are from shooting people in the face. If you spot an obvious spy running towards you, shoot him in his dumb face. For whatever stupid reason, most spy vs spy fights involve both spies running in circles trying to desperately backstab the other. Fuck that, blow his head off.

While the general rule of thumb is to not mess with pyros and scouts because they are faster than you and are quite good at killing you, feel free to take pot shots at them when you see them retreating with low health, or are distracted with other targets. Taking out an enemy pyro makes taking out the rest of their team so much easier.

When your cover is blow and they are chasing you out of their base, try to backpedal and fire shots. If your dead ringer is fully charged, looking like you tried to put up a fight before using it makes your ‘death’ a lot more believable than a spy that just dies instantly.

Just like in my heavy guide, to master the spy you really need to know the ambush points of every map. Think about how you would run through a map as any other class, what areas are you likely to skim over. Take this example. As players run over this ledge, they actually fall a little bit ahead of where the lip is. That means, while hiding in this location, most enemies will jump right over your head without even noticing you there.

Once you’ve gotten yourself into an ambush spot, have patience. Players spawn in ‘waves’, so it’s safe to assume that they travel in said waves most of the time. Don’t stab the first person to walk by, give it a few seconds to make sure he doesn’t have any team-mates following him that will notice you slithering out from your hidey-hole. Now that you’re running with the team is the time to strike! Remember your priorty and easy target lists, choose your target, kill him, and most of the time, retreat. Don’t get greedy. Sometimes you can grab two or three kills in quick succession, such as when players are occupied with a payload cart, but most of the time it is much safer to get the one kill and then get out – activate your dead ringer and high-tail it to the closest ammo pack to recharge it.

Oh, quick note on that. NEVER ENGAGE THE ENEMY IF YOUR DEAD RINGER IS NOT CHARGED! This is suicide. Even if it’s a single enemy, he might have an unseen ally in the background that will ruin your day. Remember that you can pick up ammo packs and fallen guns to make the dead ringer charge faster, or extend its cloak duration if it’s already active.

Lastly, a quick note on engineer nests. If the engineer is nearby, but not actively whacking on his gun and there are no other enemies around, sap the gun kill the engineer when he comes to repair it. If the engineer is sitting right behind his gun, you can actually backstab him, and quickly sap the sentry before it turns around to shoot at you. If he’s not really in a position where this is possible, or if there are a lot of enemies around, just try constantly applying sappers to the gun and hopefully your team will notice and push into the nest before you get found out.

I feel that’s about all I can teach you. Let’s recap

1. Use a believable disguise – Spy, Sniper, or Scout

2. Remember your priority and easy target list!

3. Use your revolver. A lot

4. Learn good ambush locations.

5. Make sure to wait for all enemies to pass when attacking

6. Never engage the enemy if your dead ringer is not charged.

Thanks for watching guys, be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel and check out my twitter and blog for more content like this. There are links in the description. I update my blog every Wednesday, and plan on making guides for all nine TF2 classes!

Liked this article? Check out my TF2 heavy guide!

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GUIDE: (Video) In-Depth Look at Team Fortress 2's Heavy

Hey guys! Remember my Team Fortress 2 pubstar guide that I wrote all the way back in July? Well, it got some good feedback and I just love TF2 so much that I've decided to go deeper. Enjoy the first of hopefully all 9 in-depth class guides, featuring the fattest, most iconic TF2 class, and certainly my favourite TF2 class: the Heavy.

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys. My guide on basic tf2 strategy was a huge hit, so today I’ve decided to go a bit in-depth on my favourite TF2 class: The Heavy.

At first glance, the heavy seems like a relatively simple class. You have a crapptone of health and you just point your mini-gun at the enemy and shoot it till it goes click.

While the heavy is pretty easy to learn, its mastery comes in perfecting your movements, and attacking strategically.

Unlike the traditional FPS classes such as scout and soldier, which require precision aim and twitch reflexes, the heavy relies on being in the right place at the right time. Your obvious weakness is your speed, both in movement and setting up your gun. A good heavy knows how to minimize these weaknesses through proper positioning, tactics, and loadout.

But before we get into that, let’s have a look at the heavy’s arsenal. As I mentioned in my brief guide, I can’t recommended the tomislav enough – even with its spin-up-time nerf. It’s real star attribute is that It is completely silent when spun up, giving away the biggest tell that other players will use to discern your location. Simply put, a heavy whose location is known is no major threat. A heavy that pops out of no-where and fills you with more bullets than a John Woo movie is something to be scared of.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. For example, if you have a dedicated medic, or if you are playing on a payload or attack/defend map, you should consider the alternate miniguns. The safest bet is usually the vanilla minigun. It does the second highest damage of all the miniguns, but has no real drawbacks. If you can get a medic to follow you around and watch your back, it’s the best weapon for chewing through enemy teams. The vanilla minigun is also good when you don’t have to, or want to be particularly sneaky, for example, on single-objective based maps like CTF, KOTH or Payload.

I feel that Natascha is a lot more situational than the vanilla gun. It’s particularly useful against a scout-stacked team, or if your team is co-ordinated enough to make use of the slow, but otherwise its reduced damage isn’t worth it. Similarly, the increased damage of the brass beast is not even close to being worth accentuating your already-prevalent movement weakness. It does have a very small niche when you need to protect a stationary objective for a long time, such as in this KOTH map.

The hou-long heater seems overly gimmicky. I’ve used it a couple of times and found that it burns through ammo way too quickly for the small benefit of the fire ring. While the fire ring is great for warding off spies, so is turning around every once in a while…

Secondaries are pretty cut and dry. Even after the nerf, I feel that the sandvich is still an amazing item - especially if your team is medic-less. Just remember that spies and snipers will think all their Christmases have e come at once if they spot you eating in the open, so always get to cover and for god’s sake, put your back up against a wall, when noming your sandvich. With a medic, a shotgun or the family business can be viable, but I still think the sandvich is more versatile.

Melee is even more obvious. The heavy is the slowest class in the game. The heavy also does not really use his melee weapon much, if you run out of ammo with your mini gun and have to switch to melee, you’re pretty much fucked. So, why not fill that useless melee slot with an item that turns you from the slowest class into one of the fastest? The gloves of running urgently, or G.R.U for short, drastically increase your run speed while active, with the drawback of ‘marking you for death’. This mark lasts while you have the gloves out, as well as for a few seconds after switching to another weapon, and it turns all damage done to you into minicrits.

These gloves are amazing. They can get you to the battlefield in due speed or facilitate a hasty retreat – the two things that were previously impossible for a heavy to accomplish. The ‘marked for death’ drawback is something you should be aware of. Whenever possible, switch back to your main weapon a few seconds before arriving at a battlezone, to ensure you’re not taking minicrit damage while trying to fight. Even with a medic, these gloves are worth it as you won’t have to worry about slowing him down as you try to get around the map.

So we've got our loadout set. Tomislav or Vanilla Minigun, Sandvich, and the G.R.U. Now let's have a look at some heavy tactics.

As I mentioned before, the heavy's weakness is his speed and vulnerability while firing. These weaknesses are most prevalent when in large, open areas, so please. Stay out of them. Here's an example of what not to do. I'm playing payload and pushing the cart. Notice that coming up is a very long, open corridor, that is often a popular sniper spot. BAM! I walked right into it. My number one piece of advice? Know your corners. Stay out of the open as much as possible, and try to slink around corners where you can keep out of line-of-sight. It's not just snipers you wanna watch out for, but also soldiers, demomen, and other heavies chipping away at your health. Having good positioning is vital to playing heavy. Note my position in many of these clips, I always keep myself close to cover and close to medpack and ammo spawns, so I can strategically retreat when needed.

Here's a neat little trick that I like to use a lot, jumping around corners. While in the air, you don't suffer from the speed reduction of spinning up your gun. This means you can jump around a corner, and if you are lucky, catch someone completely off guard. I do the jump+m2 at pretty much every corner I come to. You can also use this trick if you have high ground, to jump down at enemies, again, catching them off guard. Drop heavy to the rescue!

Remember that while you are somewhat viable while moving, you are EXTREMELY viable while firing. The best way to combat this? Only fire in short bursts. If you come around a corner and see some enemies in mid to long range, don't sit there trying to chip them away. Shoot a burst at them and then change positions. The longer you stay in one place spraying and praying, the bigger the chance of a sniper picking you off, an explosives class chipping you down, or a spy sticking his knife into your big fat back.

Bloody spies. Spies and snipers are the 'hard counters' to heavies. Snipers are easy enough to deal with - they are all about area control, so you can simply... avoid the area that they control! Spies are a little more tricky. Here's a sound you should memorize. It's the sound of a dead ringer spy de-cloaking. The other spy watches have somewhat less noticeable decloak sounds, but I've noticed, especially in PUB servers, that the dead ringer is by far the most popular. As soon as you hear this sound, do an immediate 180 and fire off a burst. You should spy check at least every ten seconds or so - spin around and shoot anyone who looks suspicious. Remember to look for the obvious spy tells, such as scouts running too slow, teammates who aren't firing their weapons, and seeing teammates who are 'dead'.

I touched on this earlier but I'd like to emphasize it. PUT YOUR BACK TO THE WALL WHEN EATING A SANDVICH. Seriously.

As you may have noticed, the heavy runs dry quite quickly. The heavy is quick to brag that it costs four hundred thousand dollars to fire his gun for twelve seconds, but fails to acknowledge that twelve seconds of continuous firing would use up all the ammo he can carry. As such, you need to be mindful of the ammo placements in the maps. This is not really something I can teach, you have to learn them yourself by playing the maps. I usually back out to look for ammo whenever I have fewer than 100 bullets.

That's about all there is to it. In summary, Use your G.R.U to utilize ambush spots, stay out of the open, fire in bursts, stay in cover when eating a sandvich, and keep an eye on your ammo counter. Good hunting!

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GUIDE: Basic League of Legends Strategy

So, you’ve been playing League of Legends for quite some time now. You’ve hit level thirty, and decided it’s time to start hitting up those ranked matches so your 17/0/20 facerolls as Master Yi will actually mean something.

Before you rush headlong into the solo ranked queue, there are a few things you should know. While this guide is mainly geared towards strategies for max level ranked play, it is also a useful tool for players to use while levelling up, or those who choose to continue to play unranked games at 30, as it covers a lot of basic strategy that every serious LoL player should know.

Our first lesson starts before the game even begins. Consider your team composition. Should you really play Miss Fortune when your team has an AD carry? Do you really want to play Sona when a Janna has already said she will build support? Does your team have someone who can build tanky? A perfect team composition would consist of:

-1 Jungler
-1 Support
-1 Mid (usually a mage)
-1 Carry (Usually a ranged AD)
-1 Solo top (Usually a tanky DPS)
(The jungler is usually a tank, mage or melee DPS)

Try to keep it in mind when picking your champion. If you plan on playing a jungler, ensure that you:
a.) Pick a champion suited for jungling. Warwick is the best for those who are just starting out jungling. Other potential junglers include: Udyr, Shen, Fiddlesticks, Rammus and Nocture. The list goes on but these are good starters.
b.) Have the appropriate jungling masteries/runes. Generally, these should include defensive runes, as well as defensive/support masteries.
c.) Have done the jungling circuit in a practice game with that champion at least once.

There are hundreds of jungling guides out there for all the potential junglers, so I won’t go into this any further and urge you to seek them out.

The next rule is easily the most important one. It is my golden rule of playing League of Legends, and if you only take one thing away from this guide, it should be this. Staying alive is more important than getting a kill. You tried to gank Ashe at mid and she’s escaping with less than a quarter of her health? Bad luck. Let her go. Do not chase her into enemy territory, or worse, her turret range. You might kill her, but if you get killed it’ll just be trading a kill for a kill and if your lanemate gets ganked because you are overextended, then it puts your team at a disadvantage.

Know the lanes. The lanes are usually abbreviated to top, mid and bot.

This may seem like the most basic and obvious thing, but I have seen players not know it, even in level 30 games. Mid is always solo. The sidelanes are usually 2v2, however, if you have a jungler, then top lane becomes 1v2 (or 1v1 if they also have a jungler). The reason this is so is so the bot lane can help the jungler with dragon, if need be. If you are playing support in bot lane, do NOT steal minion kills from your carry! Buy gold-per-ten items and let them take all the kills. If your jungler is starting at the blue golem, it is customary for top/bot lane and mid to cover him from an early gank, as well as leash the camp for him. Leashing refers to a non-jungling champion hitting a creep and then running away, making the creep chase him while the jungler gets some free hits on it.

Know your calls. The most common call is ‘b’. B simply means, go back, as in, either return to base or back away from enemy territory. When an ally tells you to b, you should heed his call, even if you think otherwise, as he will most certainly b shortly afterwards which will skew the odds in the enemy’s favour.

The second most common call is ‘MIA’. MIA means ‘missing in action,’ and is used during the laning phase when a champion is missing from his lane, as a warning to other lanes that said champion may be preparing to gank. You should call champions from your lane as MIA if you haven’t seen them for a good 15 seconds. Be very wary of overextending when any champions are MIA.

Ult, or ulting is a more obvious call, that means that a player is about to use their ultimate. It can be applied to both friendly and hostile ultimates (IE: ‘I will go in there and ult on Teemo,’ or, ‘Watch out! Ashe is ulting!’). Ultimates are sometimes abbreviated to ‘R’ or ‘6’ (IE: ‘My 6 is ready for the next team fight!’)

Overextending refers to when you have extended too far into enemy territory and are in danger of being ganked.

In the laning phase, the most common gank location is this bush

Thus, if you are pushed any further than the red line, you are have overextended. If the enemy team has a jungler, it is strongly advised that you buy a sight ward during your first trip back to base and place it in this bush.

Always remember that overextending does not just apply to the laning phase. When you are pushing as a team through a lane into an enemy’s base (known as sieging) it is still possible to overextend! 

A popular gank location when seiging an enemy base

The only time when it is completely safe to overextend is when you have acquired good map awareness through wards or similar abilities (Shaco puppets, Teemo mushrooms, Hiemerdinger turrets). This brings us to our next point:

Know your wards! Warding refers to the act of placing sight wards in tactical locations in order to be able to keep an eye on enemy champions and their movements. There is no better explanation on the best ways to ward than the following image. Bear in mind that the image is quite large, and may be hard to view on smaller screens:

Know your pings. When someone pings you and then a location, they want you to move there. When someone pings you multiple times, you are in danger. A whole series of pings down the length of the river means that an enemy is possibly coming up the river to gank a lane. Pinging objectives (such as the dragon or a tower) means they wish to attack it as a team. Pinging an enemy champion means that they should be focused in a team fight.

Know when the laning phase is over! Generally, the laning phase lasts from the beginning of the game up until the first tower in that lane is destroyed. Once your lane’s tower is destroyed, you are free to roam the map to either kill neutral creeps in the jungle or help gank/push other lanes. Of course, if the enemy is pushing your lane, you should still try and defend it!

When the laning phase is over, MIA calls become a lot less important. They are usually still used before engaging teamfights, in order to let your teammates know that one or more of the enemy’s team is missing (EG: We shouldn’t engage them, there are 2 MIA).

Know when to get Baron/dragon. These two epic monsters provide benefits to your entire team when killed, so it is imperative that your team kills them as often as possible. If you have a jungler, it is usually his responsibility to kill dragon. He will usually go for it around level 6. If you are in the bottom lane and he needs help, do not make it obvious to your enemy that you are going to help him. Circle around to the dragon from the back. If you don’t have a jungler, it is usually not a good idea to go for dragon unless every enemy is accounted for, or you have just scored a couple of kills. Baron should not be attempted until your whole team is at least level 15, and even then, only when your team has a considerable advantage (such as just after scoring an ace) and only if your whole team participates.

Killing dragon gives enough global gold to equal about 2 champion kills.

Know when to engage. The general rule of thumb is that the tank should engage teamfights, but there are exceptions if you happen to have a great engaging spell (such as Ashe or Pantheon’s ultimate). The trick to engaging is to either wait for an advantage to present itself (such as when one of their players is away from the team or dead), or wait for them to overextend into your turret range. This is more of a general feel that you will acquire as you play games, rather than something that is an exact science. Be sure to clearly let your team know that you are engaging before you do it.

Ashe's crystal arrow has a long range and will stun the champion it hits as well as slow those  in the impact radius.

Know your positioning. This is another one that is a bit hard to teach. It can be very crudely generalized as ‘don’t stand so close together,’ but is much more subtle than that. Be wary of where some champions need to be to best utilize their abilities. Ranged characters should try and stand behind the rest of the team. Assassins should try and flank from the sides or behind. This leads to our next two points.

Know your champion... and every other one. 10% of this game is knowing exactly what your champion is capable of. Do not go into ranked with a champion you have never played in unranked. Get the feel of the champion, and know the boundaries of its abilities. Can I effectively dive a tower as Pantheon? What’s the general range of my ult as Janna? Is it a good idea to harass early game as Shen? The other 90% is knowing your matchups – IE: exactly what all enemy champions are capable of. There are two fantastic resources that can help you with this; the League of Legends wiki will give you a general overview of most champions, while team solomid will give you a plethora of in-depth champion guides.

Team Solomid are a professional League of Legends team

A couple more things to know include the concepts of last hitting, starving and zoning. Last hitting simply refers to getting the last hit on an enemy minion, so you receive the gold from the kill. Some champions (such as those with a very fast attack speed) are better at last hitting than others. This relates back to knowing your champion – you must know exactly how much damage an ability or auto-attack does as well as how quick the animation is in order to last hit effectively. Starving refers to keeping enemy champions from gaining gold or experience, by only last hitting enemy minions to keep the minion wave near your tower, as well as utilizing zoning. Zoning is best explained by this fabulous youtube video by Riot game designer Shurelia:

These basics should give you a good grasp on basic League of Legends play, but the only true way to learn is to take these concepts and practice, practice, practice! I’ll see you all out in the fields of justice!

If you are interested in playing League of Legends, making a free account via my referral link would really help me out a lot!

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GUIDE: So you wanna be a TF2 pubstar?

Team Fortress 2 is one of a few games that I am really, really good at. When I lived back in Australia, I played in a competitive team in ladder and league matches. These days, I still find myself coming back to it every once in a while because it’s just so damn fun. A ‘pubstar’ is a little joke we have in the competitive community, which describes someone who performs well in a public server, IE, the servers publicly available for anyone to join. It’s a joke because the difference between competitive and public TF2 is like night and day. There are skills, items, and play styles that will allow you to dominate a public server but would just be embarrassing if used in a competitive match. Today, I aim to teach you some of these ‘pubstar’ strategies and item combinations, so you too can make free-to-play n00bs suck it down.

The Soldier:

Note: 'I cast magic missile' is a re-named black box

Primary: The Black Box 

Secondary: Shotgun

Melee: The Escape Plan

Why the Black Box? Let me run some (made up but relatively accurate) statistics by you. At least 70% of games you play won’t have a medic. 20% will have a medic that sits behind a single heavy for the entire game and 9% will have just plain terrible medics that don’t understand survivability and will die before building an uber. That means you will have a competent medic in exactly 1% of the games you play. Many of these loadouts include a way to self-heal in order to offset the fact that you probably won’t have a medic. The Black Box is one of the best self-heal items in the game, as it is a passive self heal that happens every time you deal damage. If you are careful and spam a lot, you can easily get yourself back to full health after skirmishes. The vanilla shotgun is necessary as with the smaller clip on the Black Box you really need a quick way to do a bit of extra damage, and the Escape Plan is a no-brainer even after its damage nerf.

Pro-tips:

Never rocket jump without a fully reloaded launcher unless you absolutely have to escape somewhere. If you are in a fight and run out of ammo, 9 times out of 10 it is much more efficient to switch to your shotgun to finish them off than try and reload. Try to keep an eye on your ammo - if you are spamming it can run low pretty fast. Lastly, only ever use your equalizer to ESCAPE. Never try to run in and hit people with it.

The Scout:

Primary: Shortstop
Secondary: Mad Milk

Melee: Vanilla Bat/Holy Mackerel

Poor scout. For whatever reason, a good chunk of his unlockable weapons completely suck. Fortunately, the milk man, an item set released fairly early in TF2’s item lifecycle, is one of the best. The shortstop is slightly more forgiving than the scatter gun as it has a tighter spread meaning you can engage targets from a greater range, and it fires shots in very rapid succession meaning that you’ll probably hit at least one shot per clip. The mad milk is another great little self heal that can also help out your entire team if you manage to soak a big bunch of enemies with it. If you have them, using the holy mackerel and the milk man hat will give you an extra 25 HP. Props to Valve for making completely balanced set bonuses…

Pro-tips: Never stop moving. As a scout, movement is your best weapon. Learn the limits of your double jump. Most maps have many areas built with double jumps in mind. If you learn them, you can get places even faster. Don’t be afraid to disengage. If you come across a heavy that is spinning up his minigun, for the love of god don’t try to fight him. Be exceptionally careful of sentries. Even a mini-sentry can make life extremely difficult for a scout. Listen for their telltale beeps to avoid coming round a corner and getting gibbed.

The Heavy:

Primary: The Tomislav

Secondary: The Sandvich

Melee: The Gloves of Running Urgently

This is what I like to call the ‘stealth mountain’. The heavy’s biggest weaknesses are his immense size, slow speed, and the noise he makes when spinning up his minigun. When you have a competent medic, these aren’t so much of a problem, but playing solo will often see your enemies avoid you, chip away at your HP with hit-and-runs, or ambush you. This build lets you turn the tables and ambush them! First, use the GRU to get to places fast. Make sure you switch them out a few moments before arriving at a battlezone, as they will debuff you to take extra damage while being used and for a few seconds after switching. The tomislav does less damage than the heavy’s other miniguns, but it makes no sound while being ‘spun up’. Use this to your advantage! So many times I have used the GRU to quickly get to a choke point, then spun up my tomislav and absolutely eaten through anyone that came through, as they didn’t expect a heavy to be so close so fast. The sandvich, even after the nerf that stops you from picking up your own sandviches, is still a very viable self-heal.

Pro-tips: Always, ALWAYS eat your sandvich with your back to a wall. A heavy eating a sandvich with his back exposed is a spy’s wet dream. Jump around corners. While in the air, you don’t suffer from the movement speed slowdown of spinning up your gun. This means you can jump around a corner, and have your gun spun up and ready to fire as soon as you land. This is amazing for ambushing.

The Demoknight:

Primary: Grenade Launcher

Secondary: Chargin’ Targe

Melee: Eyelander

This is the perfect example of a loadout that will get you laughed out of a competitive TF2 game, yet can absolutely melt public servers. The problem with most demoknights is they tend to think of their swords as a primary weapon. Don’t do that. Use the grenade launcher as your primary, and only switch to the sword to finish them off. If you are careful, you can easily collect four heads and then be an explosives demon. I still like the Chargin’ Targe better than the Splendid Screen, as it’s a bigger damage reduction versus the Splendid Screen’s extra charge damage, which like I said is not something you should be using too much.

Pro-tips: Scouts will eat you alive. When fighting a scout, it’s incredibly hard to hit them with grenades, so this is the only time I’ll allow you to use your sword as a primary. Don’t be afraid to use your targin’ targe to escape. If you’re low on health, rather than smashing into the enemy in a last ditch attempt to kill them with your sword, consider just charging the fuck out of there, especially if you already have 3-4 heads collected.

The Sniper:

Note: 'The frying pan' is an alternate skin for the kukuri

Primary: The Huntsman

Secondary: Jarate

Melee: Own choice (Bushwhacker/Tribalman’s Shiv/Vanilla Kukuri)

Ahhh, the bow sniper. The bow sniper was the first time many TF2 fans thought ‘what the hell is Valve thinking?’ Nicknamed ‘the lucksman,’ the huntsman is incredibly effective in heavily populated public servers. Try joining a payload/payload race game and just flinging arrows in the direction of their cart. You’ll be top of the scoreboard in no time. Jarate helps you with assists, and also with anyone who tries to engage you in close range. Melee is own choice – I personally prefer the Tribalman’s Shiv as the bleed damage can help with those pesky spies - but the others choices are just as good.

Protips: There are none. Just fling arrows towards where you think your enemies are. This build is as brainless as it is effective. That said, it’s a lot more effective on maps where the teams tend to clump up, like payload and CP. It’s not as good on CTF. If I see you using the razorback I will hunt you down.

The Medic:

Note: 'IDDQD' is a re-named medigun

Primary: The Blutsauger

Secondary: Vanilla Medigun

Melee: The Ubersaw

Hold on, you want to play the MEDIC in a PUB? You’re braver than I thought. The only thing worse than being a competent heal target with a terrible medic, is being a competent medic with a terrible heal target. But if you do come across a server with players that warrant healing, feel free to try this build out. The Blutsauger and ubersaw are there because you don’t trust your heal target to protect you from scouts and spies. Most pub spies are dumb as hell, meaning that they will try and kill you and instead just give you 50% to your ubercharge thanks to your ubersaw. Scouts are pretty easy to take out with the blutsauger, and bad pyros will hilariously try and chase you while you can just backpedal and pummel them with needles. The vanilla medigun is still your safest bet for those ‘oh shit!’ moments, as the kritzkrieg really only shines when you have good communication with your heal target. The quick fix is terrible.

Pro-tips: Ditch everyone at the first sign of danger. Holding onto your ubercharge percent is more important than keeping your target alive 90% of the time. Make sure you constantly switch targets to keep all of your teammates overhealed. When deciding who to pocket, you can actually use hats to tell who warrants it. Avoid pocketing anyone with the Ghastly Gibus or Treasure Hat. Anyone with the Primeval Warrior badge has been playing this game since beta and you should probably throw them a heal.

The Spy:

Note: 'the big kill' is an alternate skin for the revolver

Primary: Vanilla Revolver

Knife: The Spycicle

Watch: The Dead Ringer

This is my ‘stealth is for pussies’ spy build. While the dead ringer has fallen from its super overpowered heyday, it’s still an incredibly viable option for anyone who thinks sitting and waiting in the same spot for the entire game is boring. The Spycicle gives you an additional layer of protection against your greatest foe – the pyro, and the vanilla revolver just plain out performs most other revolver options in a standard fight, with the exception of the ambassador, which is only a possible choice if you have godly aim.

Pro-tips: Try and put some distance between yourself and the enemy team if they pop your dead ringer, even more if they also melt your spycicle. Always wait until your Dead Ringer and spycicle are fully charged before heading back into enemy territory. If discovered buy an overzealous pyro or scout, backpedaling while firing your revolver can be surprisingly effective. When dealing with sentry nests, it’s usually best if you can backstab the engineer first, and then quickly sap his buildings. If you are right behind the sentry you should have enough time to do this before it turns around. While it is tempting to try and stab the medic, it’s usually a lot easier to just go for his heal target – especially if he is healing a soldier or heavy.

The Engineer:

Note: 'the lugermorph' is an alternate skin for the pistol

Primary: Frontier Justice

Secondary: Vanilla Pistol

Melee: The Gunslinger

This is my offensive engineer build. While it’s obviously bad in certain situations (when defending on an attack/defend or a payload map for example) it excels in most others. It’s particularly effective in maps that require you to be constantly moving your gear up, such as 5CP maps and offense on payload. Essentially, you want to put your mini-sentry down and then try and bait people to chase you into it using your pistol. If done right, you can store up a few crits with the Frontier Justice, which you can use to force yourself into more viable sentry positions.

Pro-tips: Don’t forget the teleporter! Even if your team sucks, having the cannon fodder arrive at the front lines in a timely matter means that there will be less fire directed at you. Always have at least 100 metal before attempting to push into an enemy controlled zone, so you can place a mini sentry. If you pick up an existing mini-sentry, when you put it back down it will deploy much faster than a standard deployment.

So there you have it, a set of tips and loadouts for every class that should help you out when playing in public servers. Thanks for reading, feel free to discuss your own TF2 tips and tricks in the comments.

Oh shit, I forgot about the pyro! Uhhhhh

The Pyro:

HUDDA HUDDA HUDDA

Primary: Backburner
Secondary: Whatever
Melee: Whatever

Pro-tips: W+M1














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