The Team Fortress 2 Gamer Syndrome Guide – Scout loadouts

Team Fortress 2 is one of the most popular free-to-play first person shooters available on the market today. Released in 2007, it has achieved a huge amount of praise, managing to score a whopping 92/100 on Metacritic and manages to be the second most played game on Steam daily. After the huge success of their first major ‘item update’ back in 2009, Valve has constantly been updating the game with more, free content for everybody.

The Team Fortress 2 Gamer Syndrome Guide is your one-stop shop to learn all about your favourite classes from the game: possible load-outs, not-so-obvious tactics and great advice from ex-professional player Patrick “Shintaz” Panebianco. Every week, he’ll be giving you a rundown of a specific aspect of a class, from weapons to class-specific tactics. Possibly even giving some great in-game fashion tips.

The first series of guides will be all about Shintaz’s main (and personal favourite) class: The Scout, the fastest of the nine classes, and is widely regarded as one of the most annoying to play against! In this article, he tells you his favourite loadouts for the Scout for different situations – from high-level competitive play, to just messing around on public.

Load-out 1 – Competing

Primary: Scattergun

Secondary: Pistol

Melee: Boston Basher

Much of this load-out is self-explanatory to the competitors out there, but to those who are ill-informed, you should know that many weapons are banned in Team Fortress 2 competitive matches. Even if they weren’t I still believe this loadout would be the number one choice for all competitive scouts. The scattergun offers you six extremely lethal close-ranged shots – lethal enough to kill the opposing team’s medic on only two shells. The pistol offers a great way to chip damage off of far opponents, as well as make the pick on something that has been called as low. The Boston Basher has many uses, the most important one being that, when you hit yourself, you can build Uber for your team.

Load-out 2 – Semi-Serious Public Player

Primary: Scattergun

Secondary: Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol

Melee: Atomizer

This is my favourite public load-out – the lethalness of the Scattergun is still existent, only this time, you have +15HP to run around with, meaning that you’d get even more time to use the Scattergun. The Pretty Boy’s Pocket Pistol is equipped to grant that +15HP, and the avoid fall damage – the setback of less fire resistance isn’t too much of a problem if you avoid pyros. The Atomizer works hand-in-hand with the extra HP you’ve got, and gives you extra manoeuvrability, helping you escape panicky situations.

Load-out 3 – Pubber, Through and Through

Primary: Baby Face’s Blaster

Secondary: Mad Milk

Melee: The Candy Cane

The reason I love this load-out so much is that you’re never short for health – get a kill, and you’re rewarded with a mini health-kit. Douse some enemies with Mad Milk and shoot them to regain health. The reason I’ve chosen the Baby Face’s Blaster with this load-out is simply because it’s great fun to run around at the fastest speed you can in TF2. Using this speed well allows you to use the other two weapons perfectly: a drive-by soaking of milk, or a speedy killing and pick-up of a health kid.

Bonus: Favourite Hat/Misc Load-out

White Ye Olde Baker Boy

Boston Boom-Bringer

White Flip-Flops

 

In the next series of TF2 guides, Patrick moves on to the Soldier class.