As some of you should know, this is a part two to a big guide I'm doing for tf2, explaining classes and giving out my take on how they work. If you haven't seen my first guide (and you have the will to read a ton of unscripted explanations), check out my General guide for tf2 below:

http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=476412540

Another thing you should keep aware of is that the Gun Mettle update if the phrase TF:GO didn't mean anything to you changed up a lot of things, particularly with how certain weapons work. I will take that into consideration as well when I look at the different playstyles.

If you want to see the full changelist of weapons via the TF2 website, go to this link here:

http://www.teamfortress.com/gunmettle/powerhouse.php

Another small disclaimer, of course: loadouts don't change how aggressive or passive a class is; it's all about the playstyle. It's just that some loadouts encourage classes (and you, of course) to change up the way you attack your opponents or assist in an objective.

Now that I've got all that out of the way, let's talk about the alternate playstyles for the Scout:

Bleed Scouts, Guillotine Scouts, and Bonk! Scouts

There's a reason why this thing is all the buzz in the medical field...

Real-world references aside, Bleed scouts are difficult to play as, but with proper aim with projectiles and a dream they can be extremely dangerous. Their primary can be any weapon; as of yet there isn't a scattergun that makes you bleed out like your typical soldier during Chester the Chestburster's awakening. However, the bleed scout's main weapons are the flying guillotine and either the Wrap Assassin or the Boston Basher as melee. How they kill you is simple: they attempt to kill you by stacking up bleed effects (different sources of bleeding can stack up to deal even more damage in a shorter amount of time) and if that fails, they'll try to get meatshots out of you to finish you off.

Of course, this is a bit of a skill-oriented playstyle. You can and probably will encounter a bleed scout that will miss every guillotine/ornament shot he makes. It's the good ones that you might have to worry about. Stay evasive as you would while fighting a Huntsman sniper and you should be alright.

So what if you're the bleed scout? Well, for starters, you should probably use the Boston Basher, as it's way easier grouping up melee attacks rather than one-shot projectiles that take forever to charge. As for how to aim a flying guillotine, it helps to use it when your enemy is moving towards or away from you, because it's a shot that is much easier to line up. For side shots, use the Guillotine the same way you would use a Loch-n-load, which would be to predict where your opponent will be, rather than where he is right now.

Scouts don't really hold more of an advantage than regular scouts, mostly because of the amount of skill or aim you have to consider. You'll be better prepped for higher-healthed classes because of the bleeds, and spies will aslo have trouble running from you, as the bleeding effect will hurt their ability to cloak.

Whew, that's a lot of talking about blood for one day. I think I'm going to take a drink of my punch now.

Guillotine scouts are almost exactly the same as bleed scouts, with the exception being that they sport the Sandman rather than the two essential bats of blewd. They're slightly more dangerous because they do a lot more damage in a smaller amount of time, but they take just as much effort to play properly. The Sandman's stun time depends on how long the ball traveled before hitting the target, so if you plan to play this playstyle, you must be able to make crack-shots at medium to long ranges for your kills to work. Strangely enough, the Guillotine has a stat effect that makes me wonder whether the two weapons were destined for each other; the fact that you can guarantee a crit off the guillotine for stunned players. What I'm trying to say is that guillotine scouts will stun you and then use the guillotine to whip off an instant kill on you.
However, this isn't always the case. When you're stunned, you can still move around very slowly, so you can attempt to outmaneuver the guillotine to distract the scout (at least for a while before help arrives or until he blasts your face off with a scattergun). As I've said before with the Bleed scout, the guillotine scout has just as much an advantage on classes than the normal scout, except the fact that the sandman reduces the Scout's health to 110, rather than 125.

Bonk! Scouts are a "get behind the lines" type of class. They can use either the Force-a-Nature or the Back Scatter for primary, the Bonk! Atomic Punch for secondary, and any melee can be used by this kind of scout. A Bonk scout uses Bonk! Atomic Punch to evade all attacks and get behind the lines, and from there, he can either kill off teleport entries or other players from unexpected angles. If you are playing in a Capture the Flag gamemode, Bonk! scouts also have a nasty habit of nabbing the intel and running out of base before he hits five stars (especially if there isn't a good engineer guarding the intel).
Beware of Bonk! scouts, because if you get ambushed by one, you'll be in danger. The Force-a-Nature can push you off cliffs and can do a lot of damage in two shots. The Back Scatter also does additional damage to you while your back is facing, so if you get caught, you'll take heavy damage and you can't just run away with your back to him, or you'll take more damage. Soldiers can easily deal with these kinds of scouts (and scouts in general) because scouts can be juggled by the blast of the rockets. If you choose this playstyle of scout, always go behind enemy lines (perferably behind the engie's sentry setup) and start making kills. If the engineer placed a teleporter, you'll have to destroy the entrance to force the enemy team to travel on foot. Try to hide yourself a bit so you can take enemies by surprise, and always do as much damage as possible and only run away if you take too much damage.

The Infinite Regen soldier is tanky and very hard to kill. He has equipped the Black Box and the Concheror, and for melee, he can either use any melee or the Half-Zatoichi for increased self-heal possibilities. The Black Box heals the Soldier when he hits an enemy with a rocket, and the concheror provides a constant 2 health regen per second. If the Soldier is using a Half-Zatoichi, then he can kill someone with it and gain all of his lost health instantly. This will make him extremely hard to kill.

But the Infinite Regen soldier isn't all too infuriating to play against. Thanks to the Gun Mettle update, the Black Box now heals up per rocket dependent on damage, rather than whether or not a rocket hit someone. This means that instead of getting a 40 damage shot on someone and heal 15 health regardless, you have to deal a lot more damage to get good health per rocket. (the maximum heals you can get from a Black Box rocket is 20 hp.) In addition, if (and only if) a soldier equips the Half-Zatoichi, he will become honorbound, meaning he can't switch weapons unless he gets a kill with the katana.

So what if you're that guy who does this playstyle? Firstly, you'll have to compensate the fact that you won't regain too much health from rockets anymore prior to the previous version of tf2. On the bright side, though, you still retain some of the advantages a regen soldier has: high health regeneration. You don't really have to adopt any sort of fancy strategies to play as this kind of soldier, as he's similar to every other kind of soldier that tots around buff banners. A little note on the Half-Zatoichi, though.
The Half-Zatoichi should either be used as a last ditch effort to save yourself, or in a scenario where you know that the enemy has to melee fight you and cannot switch to weapons to kite you to death. Always remember that your Black Box in conjunction with your Conch is very effective, and you'll probably be regenerating enough health to handle close quarter combat. Only pull out your katana in a situation where A. the enemy is weak enough to the point where you can swipe his head off, B. You can corner off your enemy to make it more difficult to escape alive, or C. when there aren't teammates around to steal your much needed katana kill.

Since you don't have a shotgun because of this loadout, you may find it more difficult to fight airblast pyros. I'll get into combatting airblast pyros in a second.

http://www.crazy-platoon.de/page/forum/index.php?action=showthread&id=2744

Pretty much the source of all evil.

Similar to their younger brother, the Airstrike Soldier, the Trolldier is a soldier that rocket jumps around the map, scouring the playing field for free picks. Trolldiers use the Rocket Jumper to make their rocket jump damage minimal, and they always use the Market Garden, a shovel that has guaranteed crits whenever the soldier is launched airborne by explosives. As for secondaries, they might carry Mantreads, making it so that if the shovel misses, the boot being lodged into your spinal chord at terminal velocity will. Other Trolldiers can carry the B.A.S.E. Jumper, a parachute that slows their landing (making for an easier market garden kill). Sometimes you'll even find them brandishing shotguns, giving them a fighting chance when they screw up and miss you. However, this might not matter, as the trolldier can just rocket jump out of danger and keep up momentum for another attempt at murder.

This playstyle is very, VERY rare, considering that you have to be insanely good at rocket jumping to effectively "fly" in the air. And since the danger of a trolldier is dependent on skill, not all trolldiers you encounter have a face print on their shovel with your name on it. Some maps even forbid the use of the Trolldier, because it might have a lack of outdoors in some areas. Just remember that if there is a (good) trolldier around, do not stay out for very long, as he'll eventually catch up and break you.

(I really don't hate Muselk, it's just that it irritates me when people go overboard about how powerful something is when they test it on a pub server rather than community, more professional servers. Don't rage me for anything I might say.)
Muselk has given me attention to this particular loadout, ergot I will link here the videos of him playing this type of playstyle.


The Airstrike, a weapon that pretty much does what you think it does, got a huge buff because of the Gun Mettle update. The clip size penalty is gone, damage reduction is reduced, decreased blast radius is decreased, and damage reduction from rocket jumping has been reduced. So, what does this mean? it means that people with too much arrogant bravado like Muselk brag about it like when the Short Circuit got its buff. Secret grudges aside, this loadout is truly killer. With the increased fire rate and the ability to stay in mid air with the B.A.S.E. Jumper, the Airstrike soldier can level out objectives and destroy sentry nests with ease.

However, not every playstyle is without its downsides. Firstly, the Airstrike is well near worthless in indoor areas, making the Airstrike soldier a regular soldier with a fancier name indoors. Secondly, people say that it is impossible to avoid a barrage of rockets. This isn't all that true, because there are actually quite a few things you can do to counter (and at the very least weaken) the overwhelming amount of rockets hurling towards you.
The Engineer's Short Circuit may not be able to destroy objects with a constant stream of fire, but the projectile-destroying fire mode of the weapon (which might i add pierces an infinite amount of times (Muselk proved that himself)) can easily do most of the work. Pyros can (if timed correctly) airblast a good number of the rockets, and any other class that's being attacked from the missiles can easily "surf" the rocket by using the knockback to escape the line of fire. Thirdly, Airstrike soldiers run out of ammo quickly, so in the event that this kind of soldier fights, without good engies or ammo spots to back him up, he will be completely dry by the time he's worked out his "magic fingers".

Finally, the B.A.S.E. Jumper makes you highly vulnerable to enemy fire, because a properly seasoned sniper can make a good headshot off you, and other classes can just fire away at you for the speed in which you're plummeting to the ground. Airstrike soldiers are slightly easy to play, because you don't need too much of an understanding of rocket jumping to get into the air and shoot people. And last but not least, this kind of playstyle isn't all that common (it's just as common as the Trolldier, to make a rough estimate). Only worry about this kind of playstyle when it chooses to show up.

Shame, I couldn't find a cool picture on Google images for this section.
Oh well.

Airblast pyros are just about the borderline between good pyro and REALLY good pyro. A majority of their attacks consist of setting you on fire, and then airblasting you to set you up for a combo. The typical airblast pyro has the Degreaser, the Flare Gun, and the Axetinguisher. Some airblast pyros will use the Reserve Shooter to get mini crits off you as you're sent flying. The Degreaser, despite having lower damage and afterburn damage, gives the pyro faster weapon switch time, allowing him to sap off a crit with his flare gun without you even noticing. Airblast pyros also have a knack for deflecting projectiles and airblasting both regular players and ubercharged players.

So how should I encounter an airblast pyro? Good question, I have no idea. Airblast pyros are a main threat to soldiers, so let me tell you how to outplay a pyro as one. Airblast pyros will do one of either the two: go aggressive and airblast you off for combos, or play passive and reflect projectiles. If an airblast pyro goes aggressive, you can shoot a rocket after he airblasts you, because there's a time between airblasts that you can shoot past. If the pyro's going aggressive and he starts setting you aflame, wait a small second and shoot, because if he's still flaming you, he'll probably be unable to react fast enough to airblast, and if he airblasts you, you can shoot past him as mentioned before. If the pyro goes passive, charge towards him and force him to airblast you or set you on fire. Once airblasted (or blazed), you can then rocket him for more damage. Never apporach an airblast pyro if he has a good player or group of players near him. And never, should you ever, shoot rockets all at once, nor should you shoot your rocket launcher the moment you load up one rocket, because that'll be a pattern that a pyro can use as an advantage.

Airblast pyros cannot deflect bullets, so shotguns and other non-projectile based weapons will be more effective towards this pyro. Pyros also have the weakness of lack of range, so snipers can still pursue this kind of playstyle from a distance.

http://tf2memes.com/post/92914507119/im-a-pybro-with-the-home-wrecker-after-i-rescued

Friendly engies can be so unreliable, amiright?

The Pybro is a friend and a playstyle loved by many people. He focuses more on helping engineers and teammates with their current problems than anything else. Pybros can use any primary and any secondary, but they must use a Neon Annihilator or a Homewrecker, so they can help out engies when a spy wreaks havoc when the engie isn't around. Pybros also use their airblasts to prevent enemy projectiles from hitting friends and to extinguish burning teammates.

Pybros play like normal pyros, with the exception that they do everything in their ability to save teammates and engineers, and focus less on the "for glory" types of feats. Pybros will usually hang out near engineers in urgent situations, preventing spies from getting away with murder and keeping everything else from raiding the base. If you're a spy, the pybro will be your worst nightmare.

Always waiting, always watching.

Pyrosharks are an uncommon playstyle, but also a rather deadly one. They use the neon annihilator and nothing else. Pyrosharks dwell in lakes/watery areas and attack whenever their territory is encroached upon by enemies. They do tons of damage because of the guaranteed critical hit against wet players, so they can easily kill any class with a few swings. If you encounter a pyroshark, you must either use your speed to outrun (or outswim) it, or use your weapons to damage the pyroshark, either killing it or creating knockback against the pyro to make an easier escape.

Don't think you're safe if you aren't in deep water, because a Neon Annihilator can crit when you're in shallow water (and even while you're still wet from exiting the pool).

...And how does this have to do with demoknights, Seemingly?

Hey, don't question the beauty of exacting law and order by detaining someone with the conga taunt.

Anyway, the Demoknight is by far my most favorite playstyle to play, mostly because of the sheer firepower he contains if used properly. As I understand it, the demoknight comes in two forms: the ranger-knight and the true knight. Ranger knights use the Chargin' Targe (or the Spendid Screen) for shields, and they most likely use eyelanders, so that they can overwhelm the enemy with a surplus of health, damage resistance, and speed. These guys are dangerous dependent on how much heads they have, so don't get too close to a demoknight with a glowing green eye (err, eyepatch? I don't even know...) Chargin targe demoknights are more resistant to damage, making them hard to kill, even without much heads. Splendid Screen Demos, however, focus less on survival and more on the ability to have raw firepower on their charge. With enough heads (five being the max number of heads) a demoknight's shield charge can do as much as 170 damage, which is roughly the same damage as a fully charged Machina shot! The bottom line is to end a ranger-demoknight's rein before he gets too powerful, as it will mean bad luck for you on a 1v1...

True knights (they got buffed thanks to the update, hurray!) are the kind of demoknight you usually don't encounter. (Unless you've seen me on a pub server, but anyway...) They use the Bootlegger because they rely more so on their increased speed and shield charge rather than ranged attacks. The best true demoknight loadouts are the ones that i use that allow them to recharge their shield as quickly as possible, namely the Claidheamh Mòr and the Persian Persuader.
I personally perfer the Persian Persuader because it allows me to recharge my shield much quicker, in conjunction with the increased charge per kill and the ability to regain health through ammo. True knights are more likely to use the Tide Turner, allowing them to run away from danger, make crack around-the-corner assassinations, and make chained charges to maximize killing potential. True knights can regain charge per kill (up to 50 percent if using the Bootlegger and one of the two swords mentioned above) and are slightly faster thanks to the speed boost given by the Bootlegger. Another thing about playing as a true demoknight is that you'll rely on surfing explosives to aid in your escapes. True knights can still be dangerously powerful with a Half zatoichi and either of the two shields.

So what are the downsides of a True knight? (not gonna talk about ranger knights, they're similar to regular demomen excepting the fact that they have no sticky launcher.) Well, obviously, you can't use ranged attacks, so pyros and soldiers with good use of knockback can just troll around with you and launch you off a cliff or into a corner where you can burn to death. Also, the damage of the swords (except the Scotsman's Scullcutter) does 195 per crit with the shield charge, so high healthed classes like heavies can easily shrug off demoknight attacks (granted they have the reflexes to stop the attacker).
Demoknights are a combination between front-line combat and ambushing, and anywhere in between demoknights hold disadvantages that can only be countered by closing distance with a charge. If you hear a demoknight screaming, you might want to check your back. A little trick I like to do against demoknights as a soldier is that when they charge me, just as they're about to hit me, I jump and shoot a rocket at them to sort of "jump kick" myself away from the demoknight. (and at the very least you can just jump and crouch when he's about to hit you because the crit can do tons of knockback and 195 damage can be healed off with a friendly medic nearby.)

https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Cosmetic_items

*Insert crap eating demo grin reference here*

Demospams and stickyspams are two completely different things. Both of which are just as annoying and hair-tearing as the other.

Demospams work just like regular demomen; Grenade launcher, sticky launcher, bottle, etc. However, Demospams take every down time as an advantage to put down sticky traps. They make a (rather good) habit of placing stickies down in whatever possible angle to defend themselves. Chances are that if you're chasing a demospam, you'll get bombed the next corner/doorway you pass, because by then the demospam would've had time to set up a trap and outplay you. Demospams are also likely to wire up control points and dropped intel briefcases with stickies to prevent team progress. They'll get notification of a contested control point (or a picked up intelligence) and then they'll wipe away the worries of their team by pressing the one button that changes the game. Familiarize yourself with who the demospam is and, when you encounter him, don't try to chase him. If you're a scout, you might be able to run fast enough to surprise the demospam before his trap is even entirely set up.

Stickyspammers, on the other hand, make abusive use of their sticky launcher and use it as a main weapon rather than a gun made for setting up traps. They will make sure that every sticky launched in your general direction explodes and deal damage no matter how you try to evade it. This is even more apparent when they're being chased, as when that happens, they'll just lay down stickies on the ground ahead of you and kite you off till you die. Do not confront a stickyspammer in close quarter combat, and if you have to, make sure you're as close as possible to the spammer so that if you take damage, your annoying little host will take damage too. If a stickyspammer tries kiting you in the method described above, try to surf the sticky he places down in front of you to get closer faster, or if you're a demoknight, use your charge to close distance regardless of what he does.

Praise Gaben I don't have to say anything about alternate playstyles for heavies.

Eh, better to say something than nothing, right?

These guys are exactly what they think they are; friendly. They sit in a crouching position and will toss sandviches to people regardless of whether or not that person is on his team. Take advantage of this and don't kill friendly hoovies. (They're there for the convenience of everybody, not just to feed your satist little rampage.)

Heavies carrying shotguns. They aren't as terribly dangerous as normal heavies, but keep your distance from them, because they can kill you. They will never use a minigun against you, and some fat scouts will use the GRU to keep up in speed.

Jolly heavies and Brawler heavies both use the Buffalo Steak Sandvich. The only difference is that jolly heavies use the Holiday Punch instead of the Boxing Gloves of Killing, like brawler heavies. They eat their sandvich and then charge at the enemy with mini crits. For jolly heavies, as soon as the victim gets hit with the mini-crit boosted holiday punch, the victim will laugh uncontrolably and then get taunt killed. Brawler heavies will take advantage of the mini crits to get an easy kill off the Killing Gloves of Boxing, and then use the crit boost of the KGB (did i seriously just notice that reference) to make future kills even easier.

There may be more heavy playstyles, but as of yet these are the playstyles I find most common between regular heavies and special heavies.

Battle Engies are really good at confronting enemies head-on rather than setting up a sentry nest and waiting for nothing to happen. Battle Engies usually have more damage-able shotguns, like the Widowmaker or the Frontier Justice, and some engies might even use a Wrangler to take advantage of players over range. They plop down Mini Sentries to create a small, easy to penetrate defense structured purely for area denial and having advantage over tougher classes. Often times you might be able to spot mini sentries in clever spots that give the mini sentry full killing capabilities. (Like a mini sentry in the water under the bridge in 2fort, for example.)

So where is the bad of the Mini Sentry? Well, as the heading here tells you, the mini sentry got nerfed. Mini sentries start at 50 percent health and gain health during buildup, so now you can't plop down a sentry that a soldier has to waste half his clip destroying. Mini Sentries also have a slower base construction speed, and deploy at their regular speedy rate if wrench hit boosted. These debuffs (and more that I don't need to mention) make the battle engie less spammable, and engies don't have a mini sentry that acts as a "100 health reinforced shield" because placing it down in the heat of battle will guarantee its destruction. Rather, it's there for improvised defense in an area (namely teleporter and dispencer locations) where enemies will want to focus their priorities. The only other way these buffs can be reversed would be if the mini sentry was built, then carried for repositioning. Of course, that holds problems of its own deph, as you'll be vulnerable to attacks while carrying that mini sentry, and at the same time you'd move slightly slower than normal.

Not all is bad with this Engie, however. Although a battle engie is less effective with a Frontier Justice, the Widowmaker, paired with decent aim grouping, can deal loads of damage. That, and battle engies are more effective defensively or passive aggressively than they are offensively, because their mini sentry can still be a good weapon, granted you aren't caught building the thing. Another thing to note is that the Gunslinger has a 3 strike kind of system. If you hit your enemy 2 times in a row, the third hit and onwards will be guaranteed crits. This allows battle engies to flank heavies and mow down bunched up groups if not caught while attacking.

Battle medics are not too common in community servers, but its more than likely that you'd run into them on pub servers. Battle medics almost NEVER heal patients and focus more on fighting and getting kills. Traditional battle medics use the Blutsauger, any medigun (maybe the quick fix to do some fast healing if support is needed), and the bonesaw. Battle medics make use of the Blutsauger to sap health from their victims, making them really hard to kill in combat. As mentioned before, battle medics don't ever heal their teammates, but sometimes they'll end up doing it anyway either to help stay close to the front by using meatshields or to provide crit heals to anyone that needs it. (based on context of taking damage.) Finally, the bonesaw is used above all other melees because it doesn't have any penalties in combat. Sure, an amputator can provide more health per second on equip, but it does less damage. And again, it's nice to gain uber per hit, but you're a battle medic, so it's not going to work out for you anyway.

So how do you fight a battle medic? Well, for starters, you should never full on rush a battle medic. They're slightly faster than mostly all of the classes, and they'll be able to kite you with the blutsauger, allowing them to heal more damage than you can deal. Battle medics may also be well-seasoned warriors in melee, so make sure that if you're going to fight up close you can melee properly. A common thing battle medics will do is that they will use their blutsauger as much as possible and only switch to melee when they either A. need to hash damage even when low on ammo, or B. need to land a kill so they can reload. It is very difficult to handle syringe guns, because their arc and travel time requires medics to compensate with their aim. Although battle medics will try to outmaneuver your shots, you should do the same, as moving in one direction specifically will make it easier for the battle medic to aim. Medics are also low on health, so as long as the batle medic isn't careful in picking his fights, you could easily take him on as a soldier or demo.

ArraySeven is a professional medic, and he does plenty of videos on battle medics, so if you're interested in getting info on how to play battle medic, surf his channel for any good tips on how to play.

(I already mentioned him in my previous guide, but it never hurts to be repetitive.)

And because of repetitivity and sake of simplicity, I'm keeping this short.

Vampire spies are going to focus alot on getting behind enemies and backstabbing, as per the norm for regular spies. However, ArraySeven's use for this loadout is more on creeping near the enemy's presence, rather than running an eliptical of death just to get a constant stream of backstabs. I personally perfer the default invis watch rather than the Cloak and dagger, for the most part because i can stay aggressive and spend little time waiting to charge cloak. So long as I am consistent with getting backstabs and harvesting cloak off ammo from dead enemies, I should be able to keep myself as hidden for as long as I need to.

Also, the L'etranger and the Big Earner have good buffs, too. The L'etranger allows me to prolong my time cloaking, and the Big Earner not only makes me regain lost cloak stealthing around, but it also gives a temporary speed boost on kill, allowing me to chain stabs a lot faster and give nearby victims little time for countering me. The only downside that is created by this loadout is the low health. The Big Earner makes the spy very fragile, so as soon as you make your kills, you need to Bop it and stealth out to search for your next victims.

Don, gon, and screwed it up, boy.

Epic spies are basically professional spies. You don't really need to do any fancy classification stuff, the only thing you must know is that if the Spy has an unusual or is wearing hot pink, he's probably an epic spy. The most common loadout you can find an epic spy using is the Dead Ringer, the Spycicle, and the Ambassador (similar to the Survivalist spy, I'll get to that later). Epic spies are good at using the ambassador, so kill off the epic spy as soon as you can. The Dead Ringer makes it difficult (if not impssible) to legitimately kill this spy. Additionally, the Spycicle allows spies to escape pyros, because they can just pop the dead ringer and use the spy-cicle to guarantee an easier escape.

However, the gun mettle update heavily nerfed these two items. The Dead ringer is reduced to 50 percent cloak the moment it's activated, and the heavy damage resistances provided when the watch is activated diminish over time. The dead ringer also has lowered cloak regen time and cannot pick up ammo for cloak when activated. The Spycicle also changed. The fire immunity was changed from 3 seconds to 1 second, and the spycicle gives 7 second afterburn immunity, meaning that you can still take damage from fire, but you won't be revealed by afterburn.

Epic spies are also notorious for trickstabbing, in which they trick you into moving a certain direction and then make unusual backstabs. The most common trick stabs that come to mind are:

Stairstabs: If you are chasing a spy up a staircase, they might turn around, jump over your head, and then backstab you mid-flight. Be careful when you encounter spies near staircases, and when he makes the jump, be preared to airblast or move backwards to block the attack.

Cornerstabs: The spy rounds a corner, and then as you move around the corner, he switches directions and wraps around you for an easy stab. This one's slightly more difficult to pull off, but if you can keep your crosshair trained on where the spy is right now rather than where he "would" be, you could probably block the stab.

Matador stabs: Similar to cornerstabs, only there's no corner. Epic spies will try to trick you into thinking he's going a certain direction, and then he'll switch around and backstab you. Again, the way to counter this is easy. You can probably nullify the effectivity of this trick by keeping a safer distance away from the spy rather than being in close pursuit. This can also apply to cornerstabs.

Leapstab: Not to be mistaken by Assassin's Creed's leap of faith. Spies will pick a high spot where they can jump down on you and backstab you. Since this spot is both high up and away from the common point of view, it may be difficult to spot the spy. However, despite the fact that this backstab is difficult to counter against, it's not all too common, as it requires uncommon map advantages.

Understab: Trolldiers beware. This trickstab is the rarest of them all, but it can happen. If you have the height advantage and/or you are a soldier or demo rocket jumping, the spy will predict where you will land and will move under you, then quickly turn around and backstab you. It's quite literally a butt-stabbing move, and the only way to counter would be if you turned with the spy. But then again, having this being the rarest of trickstabs, I'd say you shouldn't worry about it.

*special thanks to Nate Fox's tutorial on trickstabs. If you want to learn of these trickstabs yourself, check out this video below.

On the flipside of Epic Spies, there is a loadout that allows you to sort of "cheat" allowing you to do some of the things that Epic Spies normally get away with. This loadout I'm thinking of consists of the Diamondback, the Spy-cicle, and any watch. (And a general rule of thumb, NEVER use the Red-tape Recorder. Despite it being a really troll-y sapper, often it's just not that good.) The Diamondback allows you to crit without having to aim headshots, simply by making backstabs or destroying buildings with sappers. On top of that, the Spy-cicle makes for a really good escape when pyros are around, so you can juke away from pyros without using the Dead Ringer.

This kind of loadout for spy is especially dangerous if said spy manages to get multiple crits or multiple successful sapper destructions, as the 102 damage crits stack up in damage. Otherwise, the 15% damage reduction to the revolver can be a hinderance when crits aren't available, and unless you're making ditch-attempts to escape a bad situation, you can't just fire off every shot lightly. If you're going against a Diamondback, hope that the spy doesn't have more than 1 crit and that you can dodge his shots, because if you're below that 102 hp, you'll die instantly. And even if you do survive, you'll be at a HUGE disadvantage fighting the other team in your battered condition.

So what if you are the Wannabe Epic Spy? Well, for starters, backstabs and engie-trolling will be your best friends. Backstabbing an engie and sapping his sentry, dispencer, and both tele entrances and exits (assuming all those "lines of service" are up) will give you a whopping 5 crits all stored up. Consider that with the fact that you can pepper enemies at the front line from behind to aid your teammates and you're a huge threat to anyone that didn't keep an eye behind his back. However, you still need to keep a low profile, as once you die, all those well-deserved crits go to waste. However, you'll be lucky to escape if a pyro shows up, because that's when the Spy-cicle comes in, allowing you to outmaneuver and hopefully hide away from the pyros chasing you.

This playstyle is a relatively balanced one, so there aren't many class-specific advantages you hold. However, you will have an upper hand against low-health/wounded classes, so take your Diamondback shots on people pre-occupied with the fight when push comes to shove.

*This loadout isn't my original idea. Mr. Paladin, youtuber and professional spy, made a video on this loadout and I'd decide to make my take on the loadout.

Survivalist spies are similar to vampire cloak spies (in a sense) where they make use of attacking their enemies and getting out quickly. The loadout consists of the Dead Ringer, the Spy-cicle, and the L'etranger. The L'etranger is used to help with rebuilding cloak in ditch-attempt situations and to prolong the time needed to get out of danger. The synergy of the Spy-cicle and the Dead Ringer helps spies get away from pyros and the Dead Ringer in general is there for making quick getaways. The Dead Ringer still blocks a good amount of damage, but probably not nearly as much as desiriable. Popping a Dead Ringer gives a 3 second speed boost, though, making it easier to run.

There's not a lot to say here, as survivalist spies are like Epic Spies, only with a L'etranger instead of an Ambassador.

This is the end of my two-part guide for tf2! It took a lot of work to get this guide done, but I feel like it was worth the determination. I hope this guide gives you the knowledge and edge you need to understand and counter against the many playstyles of tf2!