The Team Fortress 2 Gamer Syndrome Guide – Melee Scout Weapons

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 briefly outlines the important statistics of each melee weapon, and gives his own opinion on how each one fairs on the battle field.

The Bat (and all re-skins of it)

Max Damage (no crit): 35 HP

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: None

Being the stock melee, it’s obvious that The Bat is the simplest melee weapon. With nothing too special about it specifically, The Bat is the fastest swinging stock melee in the whole of TF2. Great for humiliation, or if you’re unsure you’re going to hit that 20HP guy with your other guns.

The Sandman

Max Damage (no crit): 35 HP

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: Can launch a ball that stuns opponents (-15 health on user)

The Sandman is a great little weapon to really annoy your opponents with – hitting someone with your ball renders them useless for a few seconds, as they run around with their arms flailing. If you manage to do it from a long distance, they’ll be rendered COMPLETELY useless, as they stand on the spot, dazed. However, the -15 health means that you’re open to die to a single shot of multiple weapons (without the use of crits).

The Candy Cane

Max Damage (no crit): 35 HP

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: When someone is killed, they drop a small health pack (25% more explosive damage on the wearer)

If you’re confident with dodging explosive projectiles, the Candy Cane is a nice toy to have. It encourages you to finish a fight that you’ve started – if you win the fight, you can claim your small health kit reward.

The Boston Basher (and the Three-Rune Blade)

Max Damage (no crit): 35 (75 including bleeding)

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: When you hit someone, they bleed for five seconds. If you miss, you bleed for five seconds.

The Boston Basher has two main uses: building Uber with a medic and jumping to higher places you couldn’t reach with a simple double jump. In my opinion, using it in combat is a silly idea – missing somebody with this could mean the death of you, and melee misses a lot (even in high level play!)

Sun-on-a-Stick

Max Damage (no crit): 26 HP (79 with crit)

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: When you hit a burning enemy, you’re guaranteed a crit

There’s nothing much to say about the Sun-on-a-Stick – unless you’re directly working with a pyro on your team, it’s fairly useless.

Fan O’War

Max Damage (no crit): 4 HP

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: When you hit an enemy, they are ‘marked for death’ – every hit on them for 15 seconds will be a mini-crit

The Fan O’War is one of those weapons to use when you’re not feeling great about your aim and you want to help your team out. You swoop in, hit someone and swoop back out, allowing your team to easily finish them off. The Scouts speed gives him a major advantage with a weapon like this.

The Atomizer

Max Damage (no crit): 28 HP

Time between swings: 0.65s (approximately)

Special feature: Player is granted a triple jump that takes away 10HP when used

My personal favourite to use on a public, The Atomizer allows the scout to manoeuvre in an even more un-predictable manner. When jumping around, many people can very easily predict where the Scout will land after a double jump. However, they’ll never expect the third! It’s also great for getting to places you can’t reach with a double jump.

Wrap Assassin

Max Damage (no crit): 11 HP (40 bleeding)

Time between swings: 0.5s (approximately)

Special feature: Can launch a bauble that makes opponents bleed

If you feel your scout needs some form of ranged weapon, the Wrap Assassin is definitely for you. There’s nothing more satisfying then hitting a full-map shot with the Wrap Assassin and waiting for a few seconds before the kill is confirmed.

Patrick’s ranks:

1. The Atomizer
2. The Candy Cane
3. The Bat
4. The Boston Basher
5. Wrap Assassin
6. Fan O’War
7. The Sandman
8. Sun-on-a-Stick

 

In the next guide, Patrick takes you through his favourite Scout load-outs