Team Fortress 2 Part 2

And I'm back with the remaining 5 classes for Team Fortress 2, without further ado, let's jump straight in with...

The Pyro

The close-ranged gimp-masked pyromaniac is very dangerous up close, but lacks reliable long ranged weaponry. Has decent 175HP, and average movement speed.

The Pyro's primary weapons are stronger the closer you are to the target, the only problem is getting within range of the victims and not dying in the progress. The flamethrowers are also capable of setting fire to multiple targets (although other Pyros cannot be set on fire), so its possible to deal significant amount of damage to them and let the afterburn burn them to death.

While the Pyros are mostly an offensive class, they're very useful as defensive classes as well, especially when working together with the Engineers. Their primary weapon's alternate attack is a compression blast. This airblast enables them to deflect any incoming projectiles back at their owners: grenades, sticky bombs, rockets, flaregun projectiles, huntsman arrows and even the rockets from Sentry Guns! The airblast can also be used to extinguish multiple burning teammates and push enemies away, disorienting them and make it easier to be taken down by your teammates. The airblast can also be used to perform impromptu rocket jumps: by airblasting the rockets down towards their feet, they can jump and then use the force of the explosion to propel forward. Just like a Soldier.

By far the most important task for Pyros is Spy Checking. With a small puff of flame, disguised or invisible spies will be set on fire, and be revealed to the whole team, keeping an Engineer's buildings safe from their sappers. Defeating Erectile Dispenser Dysfunction before it happens.

My custom loadout:

Mpphhh mphh mphhhh mphhh mhh!

• The Degreaser - Weapon switch speed is increased by 65%, its almost instantaneous. But the afterburn damage is 4 damage per second instead of 6, which makes a rather big difference in getting kills if you were relying on afterburn.
• Detonator - Fires a flare which ignites enemies. If the enemy was already on fire, the detonator will inflict mini-crits (a step down from the Critical hit of the basic Flare Gun), but has an alternate fire which, well, detonates the flare in mid flight, creates a small explosion which ignites nearby enemies.
• Axtinguisher - I feel like Jack Torrance everytime I whip this out. It inflicts Critical Hits on burning enemies, so when coupled with the quick weapon switch, it's a guranteed 2-hit kill on most classes. However, it deals 50% less damage on non-burning targets.
• Party Hat - It's party time!

The Medic

Ze German Doctor with a penchant for assisting in homicide. He's a mad doctor who likes to experiment on human beings, with the healing as the side effect.

The Medic is a primary asset of any team, and experience has taught me that a team without 1 or 2 capable medics are doomed to lose very badly to another team which has a good medic or two. Has 150HP, just slightly above the minimal threshold, and has slightly above average movement speed.

His primary role is, duh, healing his teammates. He can also overheal his targets (unless equipped with the Quick-Fix), leaving them at 150% HP, increasing their hardiness in battle. His special ability is his ÜberCharge, whose activation effect depends on the type of medigun equipped:

• Medi Gun - this weapon's ÜberCharge release grants the Medic and his target 100% invulnerability for 8 seconds, but still susceptible to knockback from explosions and Pyro airblasts. Extremely useful for clearing Sentry Gun nests.
• Kritzkrieg - ÜberCharge release grants the Medic and his target guranteed Critical Hits for 8 seconds. Very useful when paired with a good Soldier, Demoman, Heavy and in certain cases, Pyros. Also charges ÜberCharge 25% faster.
• Quick-Fix - ÜberCharge release grants the Medic and his target a 300% heal rate, and renders them immune to stuns and knockback. The heal rate and ÜberCharge rate is increased by 40% and 25% respectively, but it is unable to overheal. It also enables the Medic to run at the same speed as the target (only if the target is running faster than the Medic's own movespeed).

My custom loadout:

Eins, zwei, drei... Ugh, I do not think we brought enough body bags.

• Syringe Gun - with Strange properties that record the amount of kills, it's the only Medic primary weapon I have which I haven't smelted down into parts yet >_>
• The Kritzkrieg - ÜberCharge release grants the Medic and his target guranteed Critical Hits for 8 seconds. Very useful when paired with a good Soldier, Demoman, Heavy and in certain cases, Pyros. Also charges ÜberCharge 25% faster.
• The Vita-Saw - Lowers health by 10HP, however, I can retain up to 20% of my previous ÜberChargeon death, so the time taken to gain ÜberCharge is significantly reduced in between lives.
• Gentleman's Gatsby - Giving the Medic a sense of elegance while he saws through your bones or assisting in cremating you alive.

The Demoman

The black Scottish cyclops is a master of all thing explode-y, he's another versatile class like the Soldier, with even more extreme firepower, but lacks pinpoint accuracy. His melee attacks are also ridiculously strong, perhaps due to his Highlander ancestry? He has decent health at 175HP, but has below average movement speed.

Unlike the other classes, the Demoman has two equally powerful weapons, the Grenade Launchers and the Stickybomb Launchers. His grenades can be launched over obstacles and bounced around walls to hit their targets; whereas his stickybombs can be placed around in hidden areas, or launched towards enemies to form a cluster of them, and detonated together to create a massive explosion. His stickybombs can also be used to perform Sticky Jumping. It's similar to Rocket Jumping, but can go further and higher at the expense of more HP, giving him mobility similar to the Soldier.

Though classified as a Defensive class, the Demoman is perfectly capable of offensive attacks, but takes more skill as his grenades do not launch fast enough to be pinpoint accurate, but its explosion radius is large enough to deal damage over a wide area. His stickybombs on the other hand are perfect for setting up ambushes and traps, when the enemies walk within KABLOOEY range, they explode in a shower of gibs. The stickybombs are also vital for keeping enemies from capture points and Payloads, either killing them outright or make them waste their time trying to destroy the stickies with bullets (only bullets can destroy stickes, such as miniguns, shotguns and pistols)

My custom loadout:

"Oh, they're goin' ta have to glue you back together...IN HELL!"

• Grenade Launcher - with Strange properties that record the amount of kills, my favorite tactic is to lob grenades at chokeholds, bottlenecks and at sentry encampments. Nothing brings more fear than a rain of 'nades.
• The Scottish Resistance - Compared to the default Stickybomb Launcher, this unlockable weapon can place more stickies, carries more ammo, and the alt-fire detonation only detonates the stickies that you are aiming at, as compared to detonating all of them at once with the default one. However it takes 0.8 seconds longer to arm, making it less effective in direct combat.
• The Ullapool Caber - Its basically a grenade, on a stiiiiiiiiiicccck. The first contact will detonate, dishing out a lot of damage, then leaving its remains, dealing low damage. I only use this as a last resort at close range. Seriously...sane and sober men would THROW it at his enemies...
• Saxton Hale Mask - Because I can. 

The Sniper

The rugged Aussie outdoors man cum assassin. Don't ever mistake him for a serial killer. Just like the snipers from other FPS games, the Sniper excels in hanging back from the rest of the team and picking off other players with Headshots (the only class with this ability). 

At extreme long ranges, a good Sniper will make short work of any class with a fully charged headshot. In fact, a fully charged headshot will kill any enemy that is not invulnerable. But he is very vulnerable when caught in close or medium combat, as his secondary weapons and melee weapons are horribly inefficient for dealing with enemies. He is a favorite target of the Spy as a Sniper will rarely notice a Spy sneaking up on him, and deliver a backstab or being shot to death by his revolvers.

He has 125HP (150HP if equipped with Darwin's Danger Shield), has average movement speed. The movement speed isn't too much of an issue since he is the type of class that usually stands further away from the battlefield anyways.

My custom loadout:

• Machina - A relatively new weapon made when Deus Ex: Human Revolution was released. On a full charge, it does 15% extra damage and can penetrate the first target. So its possible to kill two people with a full charge. However, every shot is a tracer shot, revealing your location to other Snipers and Spies, and you can't shoot when not zoomed in.
• Jarate - with Strange properties that record the amount of people I doused with this. It's a jar of piss. No, really. You can cover multiple enemies with it, and all damage they receive will be mini-crits. It can also put out burning teammates.
• Bushwacka - Crits whenever it normally mini-crits. Good combo with Jarate if you're caught in melee combat. Douse the enemy in Jarate, and whack away. However, it increases fire vulnerability by 20%, which is kinda moot: if you're caught in close range by a Pyro, you're pretty much screwed anyways.
• Larrikin Robin - with unusual property, this one has a sunshine effect on it. 

Why is he Blue and not Red? Obviously its the Red Spy
disguised as the Blue Spy...Or is it the Blue Spy who is
disguised as the Red Spy who is disguised as the Blue Spy...?
Ah crud.

The Spy

The chain-smoking backstabbing bastard from France wears a nice suit is very polite while he backstabs you or shooting you in the face.

Out of all the nine classes, the Spy's playstyle is generally the most difficult and hardest to master. While disguised as the enemy team, he can backstab anyone for an instant kill (bar those who are invulnerable of course), but he loses his disguise in the process; he can also go invisible and hide so for a better killing opportunity.

A good spy is the bane of any team, but particularly so for a few classes: the Heavy is very slow, and while using his minigun, he becomes even slower and is generally focused on the fight in front of him, leaving him open for a backstab; the Medic, also generally focused on his healing target, leaving him open for a backstab as well; the Sniper, while scoped and focused on killing targets far ahead of him, rarely realizes when a Spy is right behind him, stabbing him in the back; and, last but not least, the Engineer, as he can place sappers on his buildings to disable and slowly destroy them, leaving the Engineer vulnerable for a short time. In the worst case scenario, the Spy can take the Teleporter while disguised and telefrag whichever poor sap that was standing on the other end.

But as I have mentioned, the Spy is very difficult to play, as the Spy has baseline health at 125HP. most servers do not have friendly fire on, so everyone will shooting at their own teammates, to see if they're the spy. Furthermore, enemies can't walk through each other, so if the enemy bumps into you, and realise they can't walk through, they will know that you're a Spy. And an invisible Spy will also become slightly more visible if an enemy walks into them or damaged by them, thus giving you away for a short time. Pyros are a Spy's worst enemy, as a small puff of flame from his flamethrower will set a disguised/invisible Spy on fire, blowing his cover to the enemy team.

My custom loadout:

Gentlemen?

• The Diamondback - 15% damage penalty, but stores 1 critical hit for each building destroyed with his sapper attached, doesn't have to be the sapper destroying it, as long as it was destroyed with his sapper attached, it will give 1 critical hit.
• Your Eternal Reward - A unique knife for the Spy, upon a successful backstab, the Spy immediately takes on the disguise of his victim. It is a silent killer: the victim's body won't appear, and his death won't appear on his teammate's killfeed, and there's no backstab sound as well. This is a very strong weapon in that you won't draw attention to yourself like the other weapons. However, the huge drawback is that you can't disguise normally at all. You can only disguise as the one you backstab, making the initial kill harder to procure.
• The Cloak and Dagger - This watch will render the Spy invisible indefinitely as long as he is not moving, but the watch consumes more energy while moving compared to the default watch. However, it has twice the energy regeneration rate, so as long as you're not moving very long distances, it should be fine.
• Fancy Fedora - For the handsome rogue that is the Spy.

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Phew...that was another long article, but I've finally finished covering all nine classes from Team Fortress 2. Of course, this was just a short summary of what the classes can do. In a few months time, new weapons might just render the information here obsolete (I hope not...I spent a lot of time writing these...)

For more detailed information on the game, visit the Team Fortress 2 wiki.

And now please excuse me, I have to start on playing more of Battlefield 3. Hopefully I can write about it in due time.

Adios kids.