How to Win at TF2

WARNING: This post is extremely long, verbose, nerdy, and niche. Not recommended for the faint of heart (or anyone that doesn’t really care about my hobbies).

Continue at ye own peril…

I recently turned 22, and alongside other phenomenal birthday gifts I received my brother got me a Professional Killstreak Australium Medi Gun.

What is that, you ask? Well, let me enlighten you. The Medi Gun is a weapon from one of the most masterfully-crafted video games to ever grace humanity with its presence: Team Fortress 2 (and an Australium one is simply a cool-looking and expensive golden version of the same weapon). I have played Team Fortress 2 (TF2) since I was in middle school, and this game has somehow found a foothold in my life no matter the circumstances I find myself in. As a child, its casual appeal gave me hours of sitting around laughing at funny-looking taunts and gamemodes. As an adolescent, its trade economy gave me a way to try and make a little bit of money and barter for better and better items. Finally, when I was a bit older and gaming became a more competitive and serious hobby, it functioned as a fantastic platform for competition with an extremely competent and experienced playerbase. After 3000 hours of this game, I consider myself somewhat well-prepared to speak on the strategies that players utilize (this isn’t me being modest: some people I play with have tens of thousands of hours of experience). As I am currently in one of the inevitable phases where TF2 recaptures my attention and pulls me towards the competitive scene for a few months, I wanted to provide a rundown of exactly what is behind a competitive TF2 match, and, by extension, why I love this game so much.

The History of TF2

TF2 was originally released for PC in 2007 by Valve. It was developed as a sequel to Team Fortress Classic, a mod for the popular first-person shooter game Quake. TF2 comprises 9 classes (or mercenaries) that the player can play as, each containing their own playstyle alongside individual strengths and weaknesses.

The nine classes of TF2

Players join one of TF2’s two teams, RED or BLU, and try to defeat the other team. Pretty self-explanatory, right? This basic premise underscores the entirety of competitive TF2: defeat the other team. Despite appearing very simple, however, the complexities involved behind the strategic decisions of an individual team are almost endless. Let’s first dive into the classes used in a competitive match to gain a slightly more comprehensive framework.

TF2’s Classes

TF2’s competitive scene has always been unofficial, as Valve only released an in-game competitive mode in 2016 (nine years after the game’s original release). As such, it is driven by passionate community members who formulate the type of game that they want to partake in. There are two main modes of competitive TF2: Sixes and Highlander. Remember how I mentioned there was a total of nine classes in the game? Well, the majority of these classes are generally less powerful/useful/ubiquitious than a select few, and players were quick to realize this. As such, in Sixes (which is the main format of competitive), only four different classes are used. The other mode, Highlander, is played between teams of nine players, one of each class. However, this mode is generally less popular than Sixes and viewed as less competitive (albeit possibly more true to the nature of TF2). Let’s dive into the classes used in a traditional Sixes match.

Scout

The scout class is generally considered to be the duelist class, with a sort of glass cannon playstyle. Scouts have 125 health, the lowest of any class. However, they possess the fastest move speed of any class, and can double-jump in midair. The main weapon they use is a scattergun, which is a 6-shot close range shotgun. They are unique in that they are the only class in Sixes to primarily rely on a hitscan (where bullets do not have an in-game travel time) weapon: the other 3 classes in a Sixes match use weapons with a projectile delay. Combined with their double-jump, this gives scouts an edge in any 1v1 scenario, as they have the damage and mobility to outclass most other mercenaries. A typical Sixes team contains two scouts.

Soldier

Soldier is probably the most versatile class in the game. Depending on the playstyle, soldier can range from a high-mobility disruption class to a damage-outputting tank. The main weapon for soldiers is a 4-shot rocket launcher, a projectile weapon that does very high damage at close range. Soldiers have 200 health and walk slowly; however, they get mobility through other means. The most critically-important facet of the rocket launcher is the ability to rocket jump with it: a technique where a soldier shoots at the ground near their own feet and uses the knockback to propel them through the air. Rocket jumping is one of the most important movement techniques in gaming history, and allows players to reach unbelievable levels of mobility. The high-damage capabilities of soldier combined with his map-wide mobility allow him to function as an assassin class that can quickly jump in and assassinate a select target. Sixes teams run 2 soldiers at almost all times.

Demoman

Demoman is the heavy-hitter of the bunch. He uses 2 main weapons: the grenade launcher and the stickybomb launcher. Grenades are very difficult to hit, but do massive damage regardless of range. Stickybombs are much easier to hit, and do damage in a wide range. Both weapons are extremely useful for controlling specific areas, making it very difficult to advance on the enemy team while a demoman is alive. Demoman has 175 health and a slightly slower movement speed than average, but he can also jump with his stickybomb launcher, giving him additional mobility.

The stickybomb launcher warrants closer inspection. This weapon is probably the singularly most important weapon in a Sixes game, and for good reason. Stickybombs (or stickies) do not detonate on hit; rather, they are detonated by the player. This allows for a demoman to place “traps” where the stickies are hidden and detonated when a player walks over them, killing them instantly. When the weapon isn’t being used for traps, stickies can be detonated in the air, dealing damage in a wide range. The weapon has a clip of 8 stickies, and shoots projectiles in an arc-shaped pattern. By holding down the fire button, a demoman can adjust how far they want to shoot a sticky. This gives them potency at an extremely large breadth of ranges: something that the other classes fail to accomplish. Demoman is the reason why mobility is so important for the other classes: if you’re just walking around aimlessly, a good demoman will obliterate you. Sixes teams are restricted to only one demoman at a time.

Medic

The final Sixes class is medic. Medic plays the role of healing the rest of the team with his Medi Gun and healing crossbow. He has 150 health and a fast move-speed, albeit not as fast as a scout.

It would be an understatement to call medic powerful. Without a medic, a team is effectively crippled. Scouts and demoman can do chip damage at far range, meaning that the un-healed team is prevented from even reaching the fight at full power. Additionally, medic possesses 2 abilities that change the flow of an entire game:

• Overheal. When healing a target at full health, medics can give them extra health equal to 50% of their total maximum health. So, a fully-overhealed soldier goes from 200 health to 300. Needless to say, overhealing a player gives them a massive advantage in any 1v1 or fight they might be in. A fully overhealed team engaging with a non-overhealed team should win every time.
• ÜberCharge (I will not be using the umlaut for the rest of this post, but I wanted to use it at least once). Ubercharge (or Uber) is medic’s special ability that allows him to make his heal target invincible for 8 seconds. In a fast-paced game such as TF2, invincibility is nothing to sneeze at. An invincible demoman jumping straight into your team is an unconditional recipe for destruction. Each medic possesses an Uber meter that charges by healing players. When the meter reaches 100%, they will be able to use their Ubercharge. It takes around a minute to build an Uber, and this rate is influenced by how consistently the medic is healing (additionally, healing injured players builds uber quicker, which leads to a strategy where players will intentionally hurt themselves to let their medic get uber faster: known as building).

These two abilities of medic mean that the entire meta of competitive TF2 revolves around keeping your medic alive. If you have Uber and the enemy team doesn’t, you are almost guaranteed to win the fight, and vice versa. At the macro level, team strategy is structured around maintaining Uber advantage above the enemy team, but I will discuss this later. Sixes only allows one medic per team, for obvious reasons.

Duel Micro-strategy

Scout, soldier, and demo compose the classes that do most of the fighting in a match. While TF2 is a team-based game, there are moments throughout the course of the match where two players might find themselves engaged in a duel (one player fighting one other player). If they are performed between the last two players in a fight, or executed in certain other criteria, duels can be pivotal in swinging the tide of a match. Before we address the roles that each class plays in a team fight, let’s first delve into the strategies that are invoked if each class finds themself engaged in a 1-on-1 duel with each of the other classes.

Scout vs. Scout

A scout duel is where we first get a peek into how important one’s movement is (arguably more important than aiming skill). Scout’s scattergun does up to 110 damage from a point-blank meatshot (a shot where all bullets hit the enemy), and so a scout duel can be decided by one well-placed shot. Because of this, there are a plethora of different movement-based strategies and techniques that revolve around making it difficult for your opponent to line up that perfect shot. In TF2, individual movement to the left and right is known as strafing. Generally, you want to move with intent behind each strafe you make, and utilizing strafing properly can make you harder to hit while simultaneously making it easier to hit your opponent. Here are a few of the common techniques used in a scout duel:

• Mirroring: strafing to the left when your opponent strafes to the left, and strafing to the right when your opponent strafes to the right. Perfectly-executed mirror strafing makes it so that, from your frame of reference, your opponent is technically not moving at all. This makes it much easier to line up shots, allowing for an easier kill. However, this does come with the downside of also giving your opponent the same advantage. If your opponent is unaware you are mirror strafing, and attempting to line up shots by predicting extraneous movement, they are likely to miss, but if they are aware you are mirror strafing, it eliminates your advantage in the duel.
• Anti-mirroring: strafing to the left when your opponent strafes to the right, and vice versa. This pattern of strafing increases the angle between you and your opponent, making aiming more difficult, and in turn makes you more difficult to hit. On an extremely micro level, the player prepared for anti-mirroring can use it to assist their aim by positioning their crosshair on the side of the opponent they expect them to move into. Thus, when their opponent strafes to one side and the player strafes to the side opposite, their crosshair will be pulled into their opponent, as they are moving contrary to each other. This makes the mechanical movement of aiming require less effort, and their shots line up automatically.
• Dodging: moving in a manner that completely prioritizes avoidability without regard for hitting shots oneself. By utilizing visual cues and erratic patterns of movement, a skilled scout can make it likely that their opponent will miss. Dodging also contains a visual element, as hitscan weapons in TF2 have visual bullet tracers that players can use to see where their opponent is shooting. Scouts can use this information to determine the best way to move to make aiming difficult for their opponent. If you can see that their aim is trailing behind your strafe, continue your strafe to maximize the amount of time that their crosshair is off you. If their shots are hitting you, change your strafe direction to force them to readjust their mouse movement.

Knowing when and how to utilize a combination of these tactics can make a good scout an absolute monster to face in a 1v1. For a good example of dodging using these tactics, check out this clip from a guide on scout deathmatch theory I recently watched. The scout that has the best movement will typically win the 1v1.

Scout vs. Soldier

This duel is where we can see the importance of positioning really come into play. In a vacuum, scout has the clear advantage. Scout’s double-jump becomes a critical dodging tool in this fight, as it allows him to change course mid-air to avoid a soldier’s rockets. Soldier’s one tool to consistently hit the scout is splash damage: when he hits the floor, the explosion radius of the rocket can often catch scouts who are attempting to dodge. However, by maximizing the time in the air, scouts make it more difficult for soldiers to rely on splash damage. However, if soldier has the positioning advantage, this whole story changes.

Having the high ground is important for all classes, but soldier feels the advantages the most. Consider the following example from the perspective of a soldier:

From this angle, projectiles become much easier to hit, and splash damage becomes much more important in catching enemies. When a scout jumps up to avoid splash damage, it brings him closer to the soldier, making it easier for the soldier to line up his next shot. Similarly, it becomes impossible for a soldier to miss a rocket by firing it “past” the opponent. In a normal duel, scouts can avoid rockets by jumping closer to the soldier to make the splash damage hit the ground behind them. When the soldier has the high ground, however, the rockets will all impact the ground at the level of the scout.

The player on the low ground is also disadvantaged in that it becomes harder to hit their opponent. In this example, the hitbox of the player on the high ground is only half-visible, making them a smaller target. Additionally, the player on the high ground can utilize dodging “behind” the cover of the high ground whenever they wish, giving them the ability to choose when they want to open themselves up to damage.

The scout vs. soldier duel is a strategic one, with each class attempting to move the duel into an environment that most benefits them.

Scout vs. Demoman

This is probably the most one-sided duel in a Sixes match. Unlike the soldier, demoman does not have any splash damage for his grenades, so he has to hit the scout directly for them to be effective. Stickies are similarly problematic, as their charge-up time before detonation makes them predictable for a skilled scout to avoid. The task of a demoman is to use his explosive capabilities to wall out the scout before the scout can close the gap between them. If the scout gets in close proximity, the demo is usually dead.

Other Duels

Most of the other duels contain variations of the strategies found in the previously listed matchups. Soldier vs. soldier is determined by who hits the most accurate rockets, demo vs. demo is determined by who hits the most accurate stickies. If either of them has the high ground, they typically win. Soldier vs. demo is interesting in that it is decided similarly to scout vs. demoman. If the soldier can use his high mobility to close the gap between him and the demoman, he can usually use his high burst damage to outmatch his opponent. These duels highlight an important fact about demoman: despite being the best class at controlling choke points in a map, demo is the worst class for dueling.

It almost goes without saying that any damage class will demolish medic in a 1v1. This is an intentional part of game balance and adds an additional layer of strategy to the game. If you, as a lone scout, encounter a medic and a soldier, what should you do? Killing the medic is the most important part of the engagement, but do you risk trying to pick him off before the soldier gets you? Or do you attempt to defeat an overhealed soldier so that you can finish off the medic? Questions such as these arise frequently throughout the course of a match, adding strategy to arena-style duels.

Team Composition and Roles

I’ve danced around the composition of a Sixes team throughout the post, but here it is in its entirety: 2 scouts, 2 soldiers, 1 demoman, and 1 medic.

As I’ve mentioned previously, these classes stand above the other 5 in terms of power level, and so they form the basis for competitive strategy. What makes them powerful? Well, in TF2, mobility is king. The other 5 classes lack the movement abilities of scout’s double-jump and run speed alongside the explosion jumping of soldier and demo. Mobility allows a class to choose when they want to engage in a duel: if they find themself in a disadvantageous situation, they have the option of attempting to escape. The other classes, on the other hand, are sitting ducks. Similarly, speedy classes make a speedy team. The ability to mobilize your team to whatever part of the battlefield is best for the fight you find yourselves in is incredibly helpful.

Let’s take a closer look into the specific roles that the classes play on a team.

Each team is composed of 2 parts: the combo and the flank. Generally, the combo comprises the medic, the demo, a scout, and sometimes a soldier. Each competitive TF2 map contains a main pathway to each point, known as “choke,” and a flank route. The combo’s job is to watch the choke and prevent the enemy combo from pushing through; or, if the enemy team rotates to flank, their job is to rotate with them in order to prevent them from pushing. Each team’s flank, which is 1 scout and 1 soldier, is tasked with information-spotting and guarding the entrance that the combo is not watching.

Under this framework, despite teams having 2 scouts and 2 soldiers, each player performs an individual role. The scout that sticks with the combo is known as the pocket scout, and the scout that stays on the flank is called the flank scout. Similarly, the combo soldier is known as the pocket (no soldier in the name), while the flank soldier gets a special title: the roamer.

I’ll provide a brief overview of the different responsibilities each role performs for a team:

Pocket scout

• Protects the medic from enemy soldiers
• Builds uber with the medic with the use of a melee weapon that hurts the user
• Provides movement speed to the medic (when a medic heals a scout, the medic gains movement speed equal to the scout)
• Participates in the uber push alongside the demoman
• Maincalls: verbally commands the positioning and strategy of the rest of the team

Flank scout

• Patrols the flank alongside the roamer
• Picks off out-of-position enemies
• Captures control points
• Cleans up kills during teamfights

Pocket

• Protects the medic
• Spams fire at chokepoints alongside the demoman to prevent enemy team pushes
• Outputs consistent damage on called targets
• Assists the roamer in “bombing” (rocket-jumping directly onto the enemy team to deal massive damage and eliminate key targets such as the medic)

Roamer

• Suicide-bombs the enemy team to attempt to kill the medic or get him to use uber prematurely to save his life
• Watches the flank alongside the flank scout
• Makes space and distracts by rocket-jumping through and behind the enemy team
• Generally act as an assassin

Demoman

• Spams chokepoints to prevent the enemy from pushing
• Deals huge amount of damage in a wide area
• Arrives first at most team fights
• Primary target for ubercharge
• Lays sticky traps in key areas for point denial

Medic

• Heals teammates
• Overheals key targets for bombing / survivability
• Builds and uses ubercharge
• Maincalls alongside the pocket scout
• Tracks the enemy uber percentage

In analyzing the responsibilities of each role, we can see how critical the medic is for each team. A large percentage of the responsibilities for each role (and almost an entire role itself in roamer) are dedicated simply to either killing the enemy medic or ensuring the survivability of one’s own.

Macro-level strategies

Now might be a good time to describe exactly how a match is won. Each Sixes match is played on TF2 maps that contain a total of 5 control points. Each match is divided into rounds normally played as first to 5 wins, and each round is won when one team captures all 5 points. When the round starts, each team has 2 points already captured, and the control point in the middle is up for grabs. Thus, the first fight in the round occurs on this middle point.

Mid

This first fight, known as “Mid,” is critically important for determining the flow of the rest of the game. If team A wipes the entire enemy team B on mid without suffering any losses of their own, team A normally has enough time to capture the 2nd point before the enemy team respawns as well as build uber before the enemy medic can prevent their push into last. If such a catastrophic mid is allowed to happen, the round is usually over. Conversely, if a team loses the mid fight but manages to escape with the majority of their players and their medic alive, they are now in a position of playing defense on their 2nd point, which is a much more advantageous state to be in. If a fight is lost on 2nd while both teams use uber, the losing team normally has time to respawn and hold their last point (known as “last”) while building uber at the same rate as the enemy team.

To better illustrate these strategies, consider the following chart:

cp_process, one of my favorite maps

At the beginning of the round, each team spawns in their respective spawn point, labeled ‘10’ on the map (technically the hashed-out region behind them). They make their way past their 2nd point, labled ‘6,’ and eventually arrive at mid, the area and point encompassed by ‘1’ and ‘2.’

One of the reasons why holding last and holding 2nd after a lost mid fight are considered to be reasonable and successful positions for your team to be in relates to the concept of defender’s advantage. When a team is defending a point rather than attacking, there are multiple factors that swing the fight in their favor. For example, the attacking team must first close the gap between themselves and the defending team in order to initiate a fight, either by pushing through a chokepoint or jumping players in. Because of this, the attacking team is much more susceptible to spam damage, leading to the attacking team needing to use uber first in an even exchange. Additionally, TF2 map geometry is such that a defending team can normally set up on the high ground to have the positional advantage before the fight even begins. These advantages are not massive, but they are sizable enough that it is considered a strategic blunder for an attacking team to initiate a fight if all other variables (alive player count, uber percentages, flank position, etc.) are all equal.

These ideas display why getting to mid first in a round is so important: it gives you defender’s advantage in an otherwise even fight. If, at the beginning of a round, your team arrives at mid a few seconds before the opposing team, you have already strategically won the fight by obtaining highground positioning and shoehorning their team into a smaller effective range. Afraid of being wiped and losing on uber percentage as previously mentioned, the opposing team would be forced to retreat to their 2nd point, effectively winning you the fight for free.

Rollouts

This pressure to arrive at mid quickly creates an entire subset of gameplay centered around traversing through the map at round start as quickly as possible. Scouts and medics have an easy job of this: simply run in a straight line as quickly as possible to mid. Soldiers and demos, however, need to plan their routes of explosive-jumping ahead of time. Throughout the years, certain routes have been proven to be either the fastest or most effective ways of arriving at mid for these two classes, and I have highlighted a few below.

A consideration that makes rollouts more interesting is that you don’t simply want to arrive at mid the fastest, you also want to arrive the healthiest. For example, only the roamer performs the above cp_process rollout. The pocket, on the other hand, utilizes a melee weapon called the Escape Plan to run there. The Escape Plan is a weapon that, when active, allows the user to run faster the lower their health is. So, the pocket rollout consists of damaging himself with a couple rocket jumps at the beginning of the round and then running to mid with his melee weapon, where he is healed by the medic before engaging in the fight.

The roamer is overhealed at the beginning of the round by the medic so that he can rocket jump to mid and still be healthy. Why is this not the case for the pocket? Well, two main factors play into this decision. The first is that each round starts with a brief period of an initial countdown of a few seconds wherein each team cannot move. This small pause allows the medic just enough time to overheal approximately two targets, one of which is necessarily the demoman. Demo rollouts take much more health than soldier rollouts and the demoman is a more important class in general, so making sure the demo arrives healthy to mid is very important for a team. Thus, the medic only has time to overheal one soldier before the scouts start moving and medic has to heal them to keep up with their movement speed to mid. Additionally, this decision also hinges on a mechanic known as “crit-heals.” Crit-heals, short for critical heals, are a mechanic where players are healed quicker by a medigun the longer it’s been since they last took damage. If a soldier performs the roamer rollout, damaging themselves right before mid, and asks for healing, they would be healed much slower than a soldier who hadn’t taken damage since the start of the round. Players spawn with crit-heals at the beginning of each round; as such, it is most time-efficient for the medic to overheal the roamer before his damaging rollout, and use crit-heals to heal the pocket after his non-damaging rollout. The rollout POV of a medic is shown below for clarity.

Uber (tracking, sacking, and hacking)

As extensively mentioned, Uberchage is singularly the most important part of a match. When a medic uses uber, it allows him to both become invincible and make invincible any target he heals for a short period of time. In Sixes, a typical ubercharge looks something like this: the medic, demoman, and a scout run in. Uber is first popped (used) on the demo, who jumps in and lands on the enemy team before his invincibility wears off. The scout is then ubered, and runs into the enemy team alongside the medic. The medic flashes (heals during uber) the demo again, resetting his invincibility. During this time, the pocket soldier (as well as the flank) trails the rest of the team, and jumps into the fray around this time. If any are in danger of dying, the medic can flash them as well. We can see from this example how important the explosive mobility is of the demoman and soldier. It allows them to make the most of their ubercharge and immediately places them into close proximity with the enemy team for maximal destruction. If needed, they can even jump behind the enemy team to prevent their escape. Even though an uber is only around 8 seconds long, it is more than enough time for a skilled team to decimate an opposing team without an uber of their own.

As a round progresses, uber is built and used at different rates by the opposing teams. If one’s medic has a higher uber percentage than the enemy medic, it is known as advantage, or “ad.” Conversely, if your medic has less uber than the enemy medic, you say you are at disadvantage, or “disad.” It is common to hear phrases such as “we have 30% ad” or “we’re at 50% disad” during the course of a round. Typically, it’s the medic’s job to track the estimated uber percentage of the enemy team, in order to alert his team to potential uber advantages or disadvantages. If your team has advantage, it’s important to position your team in a way such that you can push in immediately as soon as you get uber, so that you can attempt to catch the enemy team in the open and hopefully eliminate their medic. Similarly, if you have disad, it’s important to position your team passively so that if the enemy team ubers in, you can try and escape to the next point where you can reset with advantage.

When two teams both have uber, a stalemate occurs. Due to the strength of the defender’s advantage, neither team wants to be the one to push in and take offense. If your team jumps in with uber yet fails to force their medic to use his uber in a reasonable amount of time, your team’s own uber will run out while theirs is still active, allowing for them to capitalize on your new position in the middle of their team and presumably win the fight. Thus, both teams in a stalemate typically adopt a passive strategy, waiting back for the other team to make a move. During stalemates of this kind, the roamer normally attempts a maneuver known as a “sack,” which is where he bombs into the enemy team and tries to force their medic to use uber to save his life. Successful sacks are normally performed in tandem with the rest of the team increasing their pressure from a distance or distracting by spamming rockets and bullets at the enemy team, allowing the roamer to jump without disruption from the enemy scouts.

Interestingly, if a sack fails (the roamer dies without getting a force), the proper response is typically not to push in to capitalize on the 6v5 player advantage. With even ubers, the defender’s advantage is typically worth even more than an entire player of value, and the enemy team has too much at stake to risk a fight simply based on having a single extra player. Thus, a sack from one team is usually quickly followed by a sack from the opposing team, attempting the exact same thing. If both roamers die without accomplishing anything, they will both respawn at approximately the same time, and repeat the process again. Stalemates are a controversial part of TF2 competitive: many players see them as strategical and exciting, while other players see them as boring and a break from action. Personally, I quite like them. As I see it, stalemates are a litmus test of a team’s strategic competence. There are many ways to misplay a stalemate, and navigating them correctly is critical to a team’s success.

One additional part of the uber metagame that bears mentioning is the concept of building uber. As previously mentioned, medics build uber more quickly if they are healing a damaged target. Thus, when teams have approximately equal uber percentages, each team is strategically forced to be building uber as quickly as possible: if they build quicker than you, they will be able to push in before you can get uber. Building is normally done with the pocket scout using an item called the Boston Basher. The Boston Basher is a melee weapon that damages the user if you swing and don’t hit a target. Building with the boston basher is typically more precise and ammo-efficient than building with a demo or soldier that is hurting themselves with explosives (such classes are much more useful spamming out chokepoints). For this reason, it is very common to see a medic running back to his team either from a lost mid or from spawn accompanied by a scout hurting himself.

Uber, in my opinion, is what makes TF2 unique among competitive shooter games. Some people love it, some people hate it, but competitive TF2 is synonymous with understanding and strategizing around uber advantage.

Control point complexities

Control points are captured by players standing on them for a certain length of time. The more players standing on a point, the quicker it gets captured. If there is an enemy on the point with you, the capture is blocked.

However, not even capturing a point is allowed to be simple in this game. One important mechanic concerning capturing a point is that when you capture a point, the spawn point changes for both teams. Consider the aforementioned map cp_process:

On this map, teams initially spawn in the areas labeled ‘10.’ If a team successfully captures mid, their spawn moves forward to near the area labeled ‘6.’ IF they successfully capture 2nd, their spawn moves to the area near ‘1.’ This idea is incredibly important when considering the fact that players in TF2 respawn in waves: instead of respawning a set length of time from when you die, your respawn time is added and synchronized to a cycle every 5 seconds or so that allows for players to respawn. Thus, if 4 players all die on a team within around 5 seconds of each other, they will all respawn at the same time. This creates some interesting situations: for example, if a team is attempting to capture mid from an opposing team that currently has it, and they win the fight, they should stack all of their remaining players on the mid control point to try and capture it before the enemy team can get their spawn wave. If they do so successfully, the enemy spawn will move from their 2nd point back to their last point, allowing the attacking team to capture 2nd much easier. Conversely, if a team wins a mid fight where the enemy team didn’t already have mid, it is common practice to just leave the flank scout to cap while the rest of the team advances, because there is no spawn advantage from capping quicker.

An additional important mechanic around control points is that they get captured much quicker the closer they are to last. For example, a team’s 2nd point gets captured much quicker than mid. This creates an interesting strategy known as “back-capping,” where a team sends a player behind the enemy team during a losing fight to try and capture their previous point before the other team can win the fight, forcing them to turn around. As an example, consider the following situation: after a team fight on mid, there are 2 soldiers alive on one team and a scout alive on the other team. If the two soldiers are standing on mid capturing it, the scout on the other team should attempt to run behind and backcap their 2nd point if he can do so, because he will capture it much quicker than the soldiers can capture mid (as a reminder, scouts capture control points at twice the speed of other classes). Backcapping adds a unique strategy to team fights, as simply securing kills is unimportant if you don’t end up capturing the point.

It is important in competitive Sixes to understand when to stack your whole team on a control point and when to just leave a scout to cap. With experience, these decisions become easy, but understanding how to implement them is difficult.

Communication

Good communication is the basis for effective teamwork. It’s important for each role to be able to quickly convey what they see, as well as express important information such as where the enemy flank is playing or where their combo is located. As such, all competitive matches are played with voice communication between team members. To facilitate speed and clarity of communication, each TF2 map contains “callouts,” or specific labels given to specific areas of the map. Again, consider cp_process.

Each different area on this map has its own title (and there are probably around 20-30 other small areas that are missing from this chart). For example, 7, 8, and 9 on this chart are called “lobby,” “rollout,” and “shutter,” respectively (or “lower,” “2,” and “1.” Most areas have multiple names). 5 is known as “I.T.,” while 3 is known as “sewer.” Most naming schemes either come from the area’s location or use (such as rollout) or from the decoration in the area (sewer contains pipes while I.T. contains computer monitors). In order to effectively communicate with your team in Sixes, it is important to learn the various callouts for all the maps you will be playing. Don’t worry - you pick them up quicker than you’d expect.

One additional part of effective team communication is the concept of a maincaller. Maincallers in TF2 are players on the team that assimilate all the information being given by their teammates and command the team on how they should position themselves. Maincallers are usually either the pocket soldier or pocket scout, as they are a part of the combo and play closely with the medic. A good maincaller is crucial for a good team, as a bad maincaller can cripple a team with poor calls. Maincalling takes an incredible amount of experience and skill: the player doing it requires a huge amount of match and map experience to know the best strategy for the team to perform at any given time. However, a good maincaller can carry a team, by giving them proper strategic knowledge.

If you’re curious: I’m not very good at maincalling. I’m simply just not experienced enough.

Offclassing

Remember earlier how I said that only 4 classes were used in Sixes? Well, that’s not strictly true. At any point, a team member may switch to a class different from the proper aforementioned roles, and this is known as offclassing. Offclassing is useful in a few specific circumstances, the most prominent of which is when a team is defending last.

On last (a team’s last point), the lack of mobility from the other five classes is much less impactful than in typical gameplay. When holding last, you almost never want to push back out into the enemy team: you run into the defender’s advantage and losing the fight is equivalent to losing the round. Thus, teams holding last have the luxury of simply waiting until the enemy team pushes into them. To help facilitate this push, there is a 5-minute timer each point that, if no points are captured before it ends, restarts the round. A team who has captured 4 of the enemy team’s points has an incentive to not reset the round, as even if they lose their next fight they will still have the advantage at 3 points to 2. Thus, it is common for teams to push into last despite the defender’s advantage because they don’t want the round to reset.

In short, the team holding last never really has to be the aggressor. As such, they have the option of using heavy-hitting classes with low mobility because the enemy team is forced into them. For example, teams holding last often run a Heavy - a class with 300 total health (450 with overheal) and an extremely powerful minigun. Heavy has the slowest movement speed of any character and a disadvantageous rev-up time on his minigun, but if a Heavy is just sitting on the final point, gun revved up, with no reason to move, the impact of his disadvantages is minimized.

Similarly, teams often run an Engineer on last. Engineer can build an immobile sentry gun - relatively useless during the fast-paced combat of normal Sixes, but helpful during the stalwart hold of last. Scouts are normally the role that offclasses on last - demoman and medic are too powerful to not run, especially when considering the utility of stickybombs for defending a point. Soldiers can additionally spam chokepoints much more effectively than scouts can, and it’s helpful to have a soldier available for revenge sacking potential if the other team fails a sack.

When a team is attacking last during a stalemate, on the other hand, it is common to have one your scouts spawn up on sniper. Sniper, in close-quarters combat, is relatively weak, but he has the ability to hitscan one-shot a medic from a long range. When an attacking team runs a sniper, they will often pressure a specific choke or entrance to make room for their sniper in an attempt to let him line up a shot. The defending team, on the other hand, typically plays much more passively to prevent their medic from ever entering the sightline of the sniper. Sniper is risky, as if he doesn’t get the pick, then he remains relatively useless if the enemy team starts pushing out from their last. Still, his potential to immediately win the push by eliminating the medic makes him an offclass to be feared.

Closing remarks

Although extensive, this guide barely scratches the surface of the complexities behind a Sixes match. I barely covered any of the individual specific strategies for each role on the team, and mainly focused on overall team strategy. Many aspects and facets of the game I omitted or skipped over for brevity, and many ideas that were discussed are probably more contextual than I made them out to be.

The code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules. - Captain Barbossa, Pirates of the Caribbean

Many players also probably disagree with some of the strategies I outlined, but that’s alright. That’s what makes a game a game: everyone approaches it differently. The only way to figure this stuff out for yourself is to get out there and immerse yourself in a match.

And hey, at the end of the day, TF2 is a shooter game. And what better to highlight in a shooter game than some shots.