The Team Fortress 2 Gamer Syndrome Guide – Primary 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. Please note that all opinions in this article are that of Patrick Panebianco, and does not reflect that of anybody else.

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 primary weapon, and gives his own opinion on how each one fairs on the battle field.

The Scattergun

Ammunition: 6 loaded, 32 spare

Max Damage (no crit): 105 HP

Time between shots: 0.625s (approximately)

Time to reload full clip: 3.56s (approximately)

Special feature: None

The Scattergun is the stock weapon for the scout, and by far my personal favourite. I’ve had to use one of these for my entire competitive TF2 career, and it grew on me. The power that it can potentially deliver in a close-ranged shot is staggering, and you still have five more shots to boot. With the ability to quickly take down nearly every class, the Scattergun is the go-to gun whenever you want to go on huge killing sprees.

The Force-A-Nature

Ammunition: 2 loaded, 32 spare

Max Damage (no crit): 113 HP

Time between shots: 0.315s (approximately)

Time to reload full clip: 1.652s (approximately)

Special feature: Pushback

In terms of statistics, the Force-A-Nature is better than the scattergun. It shoots faster and it does more damage – and that’s what we want a gun to do, right? With its push-back ability, this gun is best for a good hit and run, not constant engagement. To use this effectively, run in, push a few enemies about, and call for your friends to clean up.

The Shortstop

Ammunition: 4 loaded, 36 spare

Max Damage (no crit): 72 HP

Time between shots: 0.36s (approximately)

Time to reload full clip: 1.52s (approximately)

Special feature: None

The Shortstop is a fun little gun with the potential to be destructive. With four quick firing, low damaging shots, you need to make sure your accuracy is up to scratch when equipping this bad boy. Be careful though – it uses the same ammunition as your pistol, so make sure to always keep an eye on how many bullets you have left. The best way to use this is to get your four shots off as quickly as possible and get out of there!

The Soda Popper

Ammunition: 2 loaded, 32 spare

Max Damage (no crit): 105 HP

Time between shots: 0.315s (approximately)

Time to reload full clip: 1.23s (approximately)

Special feature: A chargeable meter that grants eight seconds of mini-crits

Max Damage (minicrit): 142 HP (approximately)

Even with the obvious functional advantage of mini-crits, I don’t rank the Soda Popper too highly – it only packs two shots, and doesn’t have the advantage of the push-back that the low ammunition FaN does. The gun is great for its short bursts of minicrits, but that’s about it.

Baby Face’s Blaster

Ammunition: 6 loaded, 32 spare

Max Damage (no crit): 73.5 HP

Time between shots: 0.0.625s (approximately)

Time to reload full clip: 3.56s (approximately)

Special feature: Movement speed increases as damage is inflicted

The main setback of the Baby Face’s Blaster is that you start with only 86% of the normal movement speed (default scout speed is 133%). However, start hitting targets, and you can be whizzing around at 173% the normal movement speed. If you’re looking to utilise your movement more than your aim, this gun is definitely the one you should be equipping.

Patrick’s ranks:

1. The Scattergun
2. Baby Face’s Blaster
3. The Shortstop
4. The Force-A-Nature
5. The Soda Popper

In the next installment of the Team Fortress 2 Gamer Syndrome Guide, Patrick takes you through the Scouts secondary weapons.