Comparison of the New and Old Scout Weapons

I know the break was long, consider that I was just gathering information and growing a bonsai.

I don’t claim to be a TF2 guru. But during my time playing, I made a few observations that I would like to share with you. This should become a tradition! Also, I have 3 hats on the Scout, so I am more knowledgeable about the scout theme by default.

Let’s start examining the guy from Boston (and my favorite area is Brooklyn, for example, but the only black guy in TF isn’t rapping, so obviously not from there) and his main weapon.

VS

VS

By the quality of the poster with the FaN, you can notice that once Valve cared about the quality of each individual killing tool, everything was quality, beautiful, interesting, and RARE. And looking at the Shortstop makes it seem like it will fall apart in your hands after a shot and is generally traumatic (although its real prototype is quite a serious thing in its essence and effectiveness). However, who would have thought... Nevertheless, the bonus point for viewer sympathy goes to the FaN.

So, what do we have? A double-barreled six-shot SHOTGUN against a double-barreled two-shot SHOTGUN (there are never too few shotguns in TF) against a four-barreled four-shot pistol... uh... scatter... uh... scatthrough? Pistol? In general, CS "Hornet". Did you notice a tiny inconsistency? Yes, indeed, the number of charges of the last two matches the number of barrels. Originally this was intended to be done for the basic scattergun, but then the idea was rejected because it turned out like this,

"Kill me, every minute of life is agony for me"

and it looked frankly ugly and didn’t fit into the beautiful and harmonious visual style of the game (HELLO, FUTURE UPDATES).

Let’s consider the pros and cons. With the scattergun it’s very important to flutter like a butterfly and sting like a bee (although this is generally the Scout's style).

Brofist!

It’s extremely important to fight with it only in close to medium range combat since the optics for it, as we can see, were not earned, and without optics, what kind of long-range combat is that? And I’m currently talking about the scattergun, not Muhammad Ali. The latter can only be dealt with by snipers and aviation.

The animation of reloading the scattergun looks fantastic, and its impressive clicking sound I like in TF more than the sound of a critical rocket when you fire it from behind a corner at 10 hp against a cart with 5 people around. There’s nothing more pleasant than rushing up close to some heavies and pumping all 6 shots point-blank, and then click, click, click!... to enjoy at least something because that guy survived for some inexplicable reason, turned around, and he’s holding Natasha.

Damn!

In short, I love the scattergun and consider it an extremely effective weapon with which you can run around without worrying about which weapon is better. This is not an equalizer versus a shovel, but more on that later.

Now let’s consider the FaN. A classic sawed-off shotgun with an EXTREMELY long handle. By some strange twist of fate, sawed-off shotguns in games are always more powerful than regular shotguns, just significantly less long-range (long-range shotgun in games, hahahaha). And they are simply shortened for compactness and stealth. In TF, you don't need to hide (stealthy people prefer serious weapons for serious people, as well as watches and cigarettes, a spy with a sawed-off would throw away the knife instantly), so I think they let their handle loose. The poster details all the advantages of this Widowmaker, so not much can be written here. A huge disadvantage of this weapon is that, due to some idiotic laws of physics, which have no place in such a serious esports game, the recoil in flight pushes you back about 2 servers (true story), and your target is thrown into the future, often saving them. So in the case of a close-up shot that didn’t kill outright (yes, that happens), you should jump right after them and finish them off with a second shot, so as not to create a time paradox. And angry enemies. The best targets are medics next to heavies, snipers, spies (it’s very fun to chase and rack them in the air). Remember this simple sequence of actions:

1. Rush up close

2. Shot once NOT IN JUMPING

3. Jump after the medic\engineer\any other enemy who definitely won’t survive

4. Shoot a second time

5. Result - you are on your server, in your time, the enemy is dead, all is well.

Another downside is the mere 2 shots in the barrels, so there’s another added step:

6. Start reloading and pray that no one runs into you in a narrow corridor.

Furthermore, the spread of pellets (and the drop-off damage as a result) is such that from more than 5 meters, you won’t even break a jar of Jarate, so use speed, luck, and the laws of physics to close the distance.

Overall, a simple and reliable weapon, if you master the art of handling and shooting not at the enemy, but under yourself - you’ll be like a leprechaun or a character from the movie "Jumper", blink and you’ve moved SEVERAL METERS to the right, for example. Very disorienting, you know, on the verge of imbalanced. But we lingered on FaN (lalalala, this isn’t bias, lalalala)

So, shortstop. By the way, the predecessor of this device was shot by Lincoln:

Yes, I love notable political assassinations

This strange piece of equipment is quite, ehm, strange. When it was first introduced into the game, it was inexplicably given a slowing effect, because obviously everyone was trying to run away from a Scout with a trauma gun in hand. Or maybe he swiped not only the sandwich from the Heavy but also bullets for Natasha.

Hey, can I borrow some bullets? What if I find some?

Recently, he ran out of bullets and the gun became ordinary and dull. Thus, the shortstop carries 4 rounds, each shot carries 4 pellets (maybe less, I don’t check hundreds of corpses of my enemies to count how many pellets hit them, I move on to kill even more, rrrawr!).

As seen from this very complex graph, for the scout, it’s primarily important to shoot a lot and everything will be just fine, so the huge total number of very quickly flying out of the shortstop (and other his weapons) stuff brings us closer to the coveted pro-level.

The drop-off damage on the shortstop is slightly less than on the other two shotguns (I apologize to all the shotguns I have offended with this comparison), so you can already fight at a whole 7-8 meters and kill not only walls. Additionally, it's extremely effective in combination with another Scout weapon, which I will discuss a little later. And it’s not the pistol, which I actually do not recommend using with the shortstop, because somehow bullets from the pistol and shells from the shortstop are the same kind of munitions, which is frightening. Especially terrifying is the fact that the pistol reloads with a magazine of 12 rounds, while the shortstop gets a magazine of 4. Which then explodes in the barrel into pellets, apparently. A wonder, to put it mildly.

So, the verdict: all 3 weapons have a right to exist, but I personally consider the scattergun the obvious favorite, as it has 6 charges, and you can reload them one at a time, you certainly won’t be left with an empty barrel in combat, and the damage is extremely serious.

On the other hand, I prefer the FaN myself, but I play just for fun, and for that, the FaN is the best candidate, it’s essentially an instant kill in a 1 on 1 encounter up close (and I only search for such encounters with snipers and spies), plus jumping and maneuvering is fun (until you meet a good Soldier =). However, everyone hates scouts with a FaN, just like snipers with bows, so take it at your own risk.

The shortstop holds up admirably in stats, but personally, I don’t really like to use it, I can’t find situations for it, except in combination with crit cola.

Yes, and now we’ve come to the opposition of drinks and firearms! So, 2 cans of energy drink and a bottle of milk compete with a 12-shot pistol... yeah, I wish I were kidding.

VS

AND

VS

VS

Pistol - a complete analogue of the engineer's pistol, except that the scout carries very few bullets. Very good damage at all distances (and this is medium and long-range; at close range we have 10431341235 melee weapons and 2 shotguns... sorry, 2.5). I’d really like to have the ability to shoot with both hands; it would be really cool.

Scout_shoots_at_sniper_with_smg_in_double_jump.jpg

Mad skills, I know.

Moving on, let’s switch from this silly pop gun to serious matters, like milk from a mad cow and isotopes.

Bonk! (it can only be written this way!) gives the scout just an insane amount of sugar with radiation, which in itself is thermonuclear (WORDPLAY!!11), but judging by the effects, there’s also caffeine in it, pure caffeine. There are suspicions that they just spray water over this stuff, and the cans are made of lead.

Provides 100% dodging from everything for 6 seconds but, unfortunately, does not grant passage through enemies, which is often critical. And the recon data are not obtainable either. I’ll not even mention that there’s no possibility of shooting (the tremors are wild, I say it’s the caffeine). Previously, the Scout had a withdrawal syndrome that they later removed (he got used to it and can’t do without it). A thing of average usefulness, helps, for example, to run past turrets and try to get between them and the engineer, with the goal of killing him with his own creation. I’ve only managed it a couple of times, it’s not so easy, the knockback from turrets still works, which, by the way, means that bullets actually hit the scout, he isn’t dodging... that’s frightening, if you think about it. Like painkillers in Max Payne (he doesn’t heal, he just removes the pain), similarly, the Scout just doesn’t feel hits and fractures. Think about it.

And we will move on to Crit-Cola (Crit-o-Cola).

The name is a marketing ploy, because mini-crit cola just doesn’t sound as catchy. A very effective concoction, especially when used with the shortstop, as mini-crits aren’t AFFECTED BY DISTANCE, and then the shots are more or less accurate and each pellet deals more damage than the scattergun. Hence, only shoot it after thoroughly chugging some radiation (or is it correct to say "exposed to radiation"?). The effectiveness is indeed high. However, mini-cola doesn’t have such a cool painkiller effect as BONK!, rather it’s the opposite, so avoid close combat; it’s perilous. In a state of exposure (still that), even an angry look from a medic will kill you. Stealth, speed, accuracy, and sugar are your best friends. Its formulation, by the way, is the same as for Bonk!, though the effects differ.

All the disadvantages are cleared up by Mad Milk AKA Milk. It, and only it, will help you become the equivalent of the greatest character of all time, the Mad Milkman:

Author’s note: in the game Team Fortress 2, milk does not catch fire. Unrealistic, I know.

The only unclear point with milk is why the only potentially useful drink in the scout’s arsenal he doesn’t drink, but throws? Because if he threw a can of Bonk! at the enemy instead, shaking it well beforehand, the effect would be astonishing.

And now imagine that every drop will reward enemies with cancer. If not them, then their children!

But the scout isn’t as clever as we are, and he throws it, so let’s look at the milk. White, tasty. An undocumented ability – reveals funny jokesters among TF players; they love renaming milk to something with "Cum" in the title.

The main effect of the milk is VERY useful and GENERALLY inexplicable - healing damage from enemies soaked in this substance. Helps the entire team and the Scout, very simple to use. Puts out fire on allies without humiliating them in the process (hello, Sniper!). Doesn’t put out enemy fire, as milk is quite smart. Highly recommended. If you want to help the team - definitely take it. Crit cola or Bonk! can sometimes be useless in certain situations, while milk is always useful. When in trouble, milk everything! And the team will thank you.

Groovy!

Verdict - everything has its applications, but I prefer to run around with milk or the pistol (hello, unprotected turrets!). I take Bonk! if the game is utterly terrible or if engineers are everywhere, I take crit cola when everything is boring along with the FaN to quickly rush in and blow away any target in my path (SCOUT THE UNSTOPABLE JUGGERNAUT), although I usually just get a rocket in the face. Yeah, sad.

Now it’s time to move on to the most extensive list of things in the scout’s arsenal - melee weapons. Here Valve went all out.

Let’s go straight through the list:

Aluminum Bat - sturdy, lightweight, fast, with a dent from too many, ehm, beaten balls, for example. Get in my way right now and receive TWO bat strikes at the speed of one! And that’s not all! If you contact us right now, you will get a beautiful fish in a gift box, which has characteristics that are ABSOLUTELY NOTHING different from the bat, except for a built-in face-beating detector that will notify everyone and anyone on the server that somewhere nearby the Scout is going hand-to-hand (and this, as we know, scares everyone more than a nuclear war). A fun fact - in sports shops in Moscow, you can always buy a bat, but you might not find a glove or a baseball anywhere.

Sandman (wooden bat) - practically indistinguishable from its aluminum counterpart, except for a couple of things:

1. It’s wooden

2. It’s cracked from a large amount of, hmmm, beaten balls

3. A stamp with the name so nobody forgets

4. A little rubber band that holds back all the power contained in this bat (in my memory, it only fell off 3 times in all my time playing: the first time the Scout blew up the cart on payload, the second beat the engineer until he dropped a golden wrench, and the third a train came off the rails and rushed through the entire level up to the Blue base)

5. A ball is included. Let’s focus on that.

The ball has the autograph of a famous player and a League stamp. The ball is clearly alive (it always flies towards the head itself, I swear on Odin's beard!) and seems to be a parasitic organism, because otherwise, it’s inexplicable that carrying this bat leads to rivers of blood for the Scout. With this bat and under crit cola, you’ll die even from a Pyro’s airblast.

But the ball has a serious advantage - it can immobilize an enemy if launched from the red base on the dustbowl all the way down to the bottom of the map Nucleus. So, in general, it is hard to truly stun after all the patches. But we can, eh, frighten (stun?) the enemy, which is quite good too (the balance team at Valve made me write this). Remember, Heavy can spin his minigun without hands, just by thinking about it, so don't aim to close the distance to a startled (yeah, right) Heavy.

Moving on to very strange melee weapons, next up we have Candy Cane AKA Confetti AKA this-crap-fell-out-of-the-box-return-my-2-dollars. I’m not joking, this junk has a drop chance from crates of about 98.783%, a friend of mine got 3 in a row. Pros - after every close kill made by Scout with +25% vulnerability to explosives, you will receive 26 hp. Cons - this cute girl

will definitely not meet you, but this psycho will

Dere ain't enough candies da world ta stop him! © possibly, Scout

Look into those eyes, remember his pose well. With the candi-cane, this will be your most frequent death. 26 hp is not worth it. At least, I didn’t value it.

So we’ll move on to the bat that doesn’t limit the scout and doesn’t punish him for mistakes - Boston Basher! The rules are simple; if you hit the enemy - they bleed, if the server lags\the enemy moves a millimeter\you are fighting a person who can simultaneously walk on the keyboard and move the mouse - you bleed. The solution - picture yourself as a Spy with YER and you are cloaked. Any miss when striking = the end, fail, and death. Therefore, strike only accurately, sharply, confidently, precisely, and be sure to aim for a loooong time.

Yeah, just like in golf

But better like this

"Yeah, I'm gonna shove his brains in his stomach!"

And finally, the most ridiculous of possible choices and the thing that I consider the worst of all promotions - Sun-ot-a-Stick. It’s implied, I guess, that you need to run at such a speed that your footprints catch fire, and all enemies around will burst into a bright light of a supernova; after which you start to bravely give everyone crits. Or that you will have a pyromancer who pulls fire from all the guns onto himself. What I can say for sure is that where a pyromancer is roasting someone, there are usually a lot of explosions and bullets, and a class with 125 hp won’t go melee there unless he aims for Valhalla, and Boston residents aren’t taken there. And it looks hideous, ugh. Or maybe I’m just envious of everyone who got it for pre-ordering the lovely game RIFT =(

And the name obliges to be an analogue of the sandman without the rubber band and to incinerate, blind and annihilate entire levels, and in the end, something like Axetinguisher: Scout Edition

It could’ve turned out so cool!

Here we are at the last weapon - Fan'O'War. It doesn’t deal any damage at all (you could run and bump into the enemy, the damage would clearly exceed the damage from a fan strike), but it imposes a highly useful debuff - mini-crits!

I’ve noticed that when Valve doesn’t know what to come up with, they attach mini-crits or bleeding to weapons in some way. BLEEDING SHOULD HAVE BEEN A UNIQUE FEATURE OF THE DAMN SNIPER RAZOR AAAAH! Next up, a hook at anything, otherwise only one class has it.

Scout looks something like this when he’s a battle scout with a fan in disguise

The fan is extremely useful for the team (I love the team, as you might have noticed, and also my favorite class is the Spy). Personally, I prefer kamikaze runs into the thick of the enemy to hit with the fan as many people as possible. Or quickly hit with the fan and switch to the shotgun to send a shot to respawn the enemy. Or go into berserk mode, which again, is sad.

Verdict: the scout rarely should fight in melee; he has much more effective tools at short range. But if you decide to run around with your weapon out, my advice is to take the fish (the same bat but with jibes), sandman (only for good scouts; 15 hp only seems insignificant, and not everyone will befriend the ball) or fan (by sacrificing yourself, you help the team, I recommend it with milk).

I hope it was interesting.