After you get over the dissapointment of no ‘meet the’ video, or lament over the fact that Valve didn’t release a new gameplay mode with the update, you’ll find that more that meets the eye has changed.
As we’ve come to expect from the last few updates, there’s the first thing you see when you join a server:
Not only are there tons of scouts jumping around, even the other classes are affected. Engies will not build teleporters and heavies won’t equip their sandviches; after all, who’d want to help the enemy?
Spies had a buff in the form of being able to switch weapons, but nobody is playing that class due to the low chance of getting a kill on a speedy target.
Besides the weapons, the scout has received a ton of new voice files which are quite possibly the best in any TF2 update so far.
The Bonk drink pretty much renders you invulnerable to anything but explosions and melee attacks for a five second period. This means that you can tie up sentries during that time, and your teammates can attack them without getting shot. You don’t seem to go that faster though, and you can still be blocked by enemies, so it’s usefulness in it’s intended situation is debatable.
The force of nature is a double barreled shotgun that deals about the same amount of damage per hit as the scattergun, at twice the rate of fire, but with only two shots per clip. The effect it has on you and on enemies is interesting. No matter where you aim, you always get pushed upwards, and horizontally in the opposite direction of your shot. That’s right, you can aim straight up, and you’ll still get an extra jump! Hitting an enemy either sends them flying or punts them upwards, if they’re running towards you. This is extremely annoying when you’re playing as a pyro! The first shot sends you upwards, leaving you wide open for a follow-up shot. Even glancing blows tend to root you in place.
The sandman is the new bat, which comes with a baseball. You only get one ball, and you always launch it when you attack if you have it in your inventory. The only way to swing the bat with your ball in your hand is to get up point blank to something. After you hit the ball you can either retrieve it by running over it (which is how you can get the Beanball achievement: by picking up another scout’s ball) or just wait 10 seconds to automagically generate a new one.
Now when you hit an enemy he will get stunned and thrown into a third person animation akin to a taunt. Stun time depends on how much the ball travels, or if it’s a critical. Getting hit by a ball in the midst of a firefight pretty much guaratees your death, regardless of how long you’re stunned! However, the ball is hard to aim on moving targets and it doesn’t always stun people for some reason.
On a closing note, Natascha seems to be bugged again. That’s right, one of the greatest counters to scouts just lost it’s main advantage right when it’s needed the most. Sweet timing!
February 26th, 2009 at 4:29 am
Valve broke Natascha again? The real question is how you manage to hose something up twice in a row. Can they not just stop messing with it and leave it alone?
February 26th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I found the Scout to be a much better team player with The Sandman… He can just go around stopping people in their tracks for other teammates to then pick off, *especially* the Sniper. This is especially good against characters like the Pyro, Heavy, Demoman or Soldier, who can damage/kill a big number of people in a small period of time when they infiltrate a base. As soon as you see that Heavy walk up the stairs in Turbine, just bean him and let the Engie critwrench him into oblivion… So sweet.
Also, I haven’t even tried getting any Scout achievements- playing Engie when the entire opposing team is Scouts is just too much fun.
February 26th, 2009 at 6:24 pm
You think getting shot by the FaN is bad as a Pyro? Try getting stunned by the ball. You’re screwed if you’re stunned as a Pyro.
February 27th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Can you airblast the scout’s ball back at him? That would be amazing
February 27th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
@Mentlegen: Yup, it even stuns.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:39 am
I don’t really like this update that much.
The Force-a-Nature is great because of the triple-Jump but it sucks because it does less damage, and 2 rounds of shells.
The Bonk! Radioactive Energy Drink is really bad because it really doesn’t help with anything…wll except escaping but once you use it and its finished, your speed reduces to 75% and which can get you killed easily by Scouts and Pyros.
Now, the Sandman, its a really great weapon for stunning ubers and for lulz. On the other hand, the aiming is terrible, its only good up close range or far range if your good at it.
In the other hand, the Spy backstab has done good and bad, the good news is facestabs cannot be perform, the bad news is INSTANT backstabs. Instant backstab is good because no fail-stabs and its INSTANT.
February 28th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I actually really like this update, the other packs were a little meh, but pwning with the sandman+FaN/pistol is uber fun
February 28th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
[...] to EvilDaed for the [...]
March 1st, 2009 at 1:16 am
I hate this update its hard to push a cart when ur whole team can’t take down a sentry nest.
March 2nd, 2009 at 5:46 am
i play spy a LOT and i must say that the quick-stab and flick-stab are gone and u have to, once again, be closer to there BACK to get the stab, no shoulder stabs as far as ive seen, but the revolver takes care of snipers with there back against the wall
i still hate scouts and pyros
March 2nd, 2009 at 2:57 pm
gotta hate the update.
worst update ever has been released on TF2.
sandman sacrifises double jump to stun enemy.
so what if it stuns ubers?
before update your main mission as scout was to kill uber ready medics.
Force A nature:uselles piece of shit.
tried it one round and throwed it away.
BONK energy drink:keeps you dieng!
no fucking way you can even help your team cause noneone even tries to destroy sentry.
and besides your slow like demoman so your gonna get yourself killed
March 4th, 2009 at 2:42 am
The following is mostly opinion of course but:
Force-A-Nature seems to work best against other scouts who are trying to get into close-range with you (i.e. other scouts using their primaries or bats). It’s also nice for it’s disorienting effect. Trying to kill things with it is hard unless they’re stunned or you have your pistol handy to finish them off though.
Bonk energy drink renders you entirely immune like an ubercharge. I took a crit rocket to the face with bonk up and have been melee’d multiple times and have taken no damage. I’ve also shot a few scouts with rockets and gotten the “miss” effect.
Sandman is o.k. and lends the scout to a more defensive/support role. A successful stun on anything in an open area is near instant death if snipers are paying attention. I’ve noticed that everyone seems to charge at stunned targets. You can get quite a few kills as Demoman laying stickies on paths to friendly players who have been stunned.
The spy portion of the update was a bit disappointing for me. I found the backstab slightly harder to use but that might just be me adjusting to not being able to use older techniques. I’ve been facestabbed three times since the update came out.
Disguising as a friendly seems as though it may be bugged. While I haven’t tested it personally in one game on multiple occasions I was able to see an enemy spy’s name when he was disguising as an enemy pyro (I was playing as a soldier).
lolwalloftext.
March 13th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Yeah, the whole “you have to hit the ball before you can wail on anything” kinda puzzled me. Couldn’t they have Bound the ball hit function to mouse2 or something?
March 13th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I go to this server that limits the ammount of scouts to 3… there was 3 scouts always but now there is only 1 or 2. Heh. I actually can try out the new spy stuff.
March 30th, 2009 at 12:51 am
I find bonk good for captures on 2fort but thats about it >.<
September 10th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
had recently herpes virus found in my blood. what I haveto do??? I’m in panic…
September 27th, 2009 at 10:02 am
I agree with u. I need to imedeatly add it in my RSS