Team Fortress 2 Strategy

Well, today is good day to be giant man! The heavy now has three secondary weapon choices so it seems like a good idea to write a guide on their strengths and weaknesses. This guide is based on my personal experience and how I like to play the heavy.

Overview

A brief summary of the different choices, what they do and general miscellaneous about them. Later on in the guide I will talk about the items specific uses and the strategies that go with them.

The Shotgun

The Heavy’s Shotgun

The shotgun is a weapon that is shared by four of the nine classes, whilst it is strong at close to medium range it is weak at long range, however it does allow the heavy to fire whilst moving which is beneficial. Also the heavy can rely on it when he runs out of ammo for his minigun which will happen a lot if he doesn’t pick up ammo or weapons off the floor.

The Sandvich

Mmmm, tasty Sandvich

The sandvich allows the heavy to go on the offensive without a medic and ensures that he doesn’t have to look out for health kits as much as he has to look out for safe places to eat his sandvich. It is also good for heavies who don’t use their shotgun a lot, having the sandvich means that they can give it to their medic if they are in the red or that they can attack without a medic.

The Dalokah’s Bar

The Dalokah’s Bar

The bar when eaten gives the heavy an overheal of 50 health for a maximum of 30 seconds, this further improves the amount of health that he has, however it doesn’t improve it enough for it to be significantly better than the other two unlocks. Also it does not give the heavy 525 health when a medic overheals him, it is still 450 which means that snipers are still one of the heavies counters.

Strategies

As promised here are some of the strategies for the heavies unlocks, I will cover the more well know strategies but if you know another strategy please feel free to say and it will be added to the guide.

Shotgun Strategies

The shotgun allows the heavy to fire whilst moving, however unlike the minigun he can move at his full speed when he is shooting. Consequently the shotgun is a good weapon to use when you cannot afford to shoot, for example if you are crossing a section of open ground with enemies in it you can use the shotgun and reduce the chance of getting sniped. It’s also good for waddling after fleeing enemies as the extra speed you gain from not being spun up can make all the difference.

The shotgun is also useful when you are avoiding spam such as rockets or pipes but you still want to fire. This way it is harder for the soldier or demo to get three direct hits on you so you will last longer. This will enable you to approach the enemy quicker and get some damage in whilst being harder to hit.

Finally the shotgun can be used as a primary weapon with the minigun only being used when there are multiple enemies nearby or you run out of ammo. Below are two videos which show the shotgun being used to good effect.

Meatvich

Meatvich: Second Serving

Sandvich Strategies

Before I go into strategies an important thing to mention is that you can get rid of the one second delay it takes before you eat the sandvich by taunting with it instead of clicking mouse one, this will reduce the time that you are immobile and could save your life. Another concept to grasp is that before you start eating your tasty snack you should put your back against a wall in order to stop a cheeky spy from insta killing you!

The Sandvich is a good idea if you are on a team with little or no medics, it allows you to fully replenish your health wherever you want, however you lose your limited movement for a couple of seconds. Alternatively you can through your tasty snack down and another member of your team or an enemy can pick it up and regain 50% of their health.

Instead of munching your snack you can through it in front of you to instantly eat it, the advantage of this is that you can get instant health whilst you are being attacked allowing you to carry on fighting for that little bit longer. However you will no longer have a sandvich until you go back to resupply or until you pick up a med kit.

The Dalokahs Bar Strategies

Whilst it only replaces 20% of your health (60 health) it can give you a 50 health overheal for 30 seconds, although this isn’t very good on normal servers as there is more chance of having a dispenser or medic, it is good for eating at the start of an arena match as it will make it more likely for you to survive the opening battle. And as there are no health kits in arena it also allows you to heal yourself to a certain extent.