TF2 engy update

[Malakili]

OMFG, fuck that wrangler. I expect the shielding effect to get nerfed promptly.

Remember, the engy can't repair the gun while the wrangler is active.  If not for the shield the gun would be gone in two rocket hits.

Yeah, a shield + repair is going to be well nigh invulnerable though unfortunately.  A full compliment of demo stickies might do it in one shot but it'll be close.   Of course, sappers will just be even more key here, as I have to imagine it will disable the shield. (That thinks operational! Spy will get that shield down, we just have to give him more time!)

[Musashi]

Plus, the Engy with that Wrangler thing is going to be a sitting duck for snipers and spies.

[Triforcer]

Yeah, a Wrangler Engineer SG will be MUST easier to kill than a normal SG- stab the engy, sap the gun in the 3 sec window.

I suspect some engineers will just sit in the spawn to control, so that can't happen.  But that allows a free sap anyway.


What will end up happening is two engies in the spawn while one guards the nest and chases out spies. 

[Musashi]

Hah.  Everybody on that wrench list has changed his/her name to 'So and So Gold Wrench."

[NowhereMan]

What will end up happening is two engies in the spawn while one guards the nest and chases out spies. 

You're assuming it'll work from any distance, it's probably got a range that ensure the engy will be vulnerable. I've got visions of getting backstabbed within 20 seconds of trying to use this. You also forget that it means sentry guns now rely on humans to target them, for the majority of engineers this means they'll probably be nowhere near as accurate.

[Malakili]

What will end up happening is two engies in the spawn while one guards the nest and chases out spies. 

You're assuming it'll work from any distance, it's probably got a range that ensure the engy will be vulnerable. I've got visions of getting backstabbed within 20 seconds of trying to use this. You also forget that it means sentry guns now rely on humans to target them, for the majority of engineers this means they'll probably be nowhere near as accurate.

Judging from the blueprint picture, I assumed you'd have to aim at it.

[Yoshimaru]

So, movable sentries.

If this is legit then this could get very, very interesting. Build up a level 3 sentry outside of spawn and then transport it wherever you want.

[Samwise]

I'm betting the tradeoff for a movable sentry is that you can only build it to level 2.  (Note that the sentry in the picture is level 2.)  It will still be incredibly useful for offensive engies who are constantly wanting to push their lines forward.

Looking forward to the cheese that will result from this.  Spawncamping with sentries and that sort of thing.   

[Malakili]

I'm betting the tradeoff for a movable sentry is that you can only build it to level 2.  (Note that the sentry in the picture is level 2.)  It will still be incredibly useful for offensive engies who are constantly wanting to push their lines forward.

Looking forward to the cheese that will result from this.  Spawncamping with sentries and that sort of thing.   

I'm actually not all that intrigued by the idea of a moveable sentry.  I do think the use would be bigger on defense than offense though.  If the enemy never knows where its going to be it makes it a little trickier to take down (but not much).  Offensive engineers don't build guns past level 1 generally anyway, so its not that big a deal to just rebuild a million times.   

I view it as a little trick engineers can use to gain a slight upper hand (because lets be realistic, sentry guns are effectively worthless against a player that knows what they are doing).  There are only a handful of gun placements I can think of that even require an uber to kill, and this is just going to keep people on their toes a little bit, which I think is a good thing.  Gimmicks like the sentry gun and spy have the somewhat odd property of becoming less good the longer the game has been out, so they've got to give those classes lots of extras to stay even.  I mean, a soldier with his vanilla weapons is still a beast.  A spy with his normal watch is ok, but there is a reason not many people use it anymore.   Or, think of it another way: Imagine how overpowered the watch that lets you stay invis while not moving would have been at launch.

Anyway, back to Engy, this is just keeping up the jonses for Engineer, and they've needed a buff for quite some time to be viable again (heck without level 3 teleports and dispensers, I feel like engineers would be VASTLY underpowered right now), so hopefully these tweaks will help.

[Samwise]

It's out!

I am severely underwhelmed by the mini-sentry thing, unless we get to build like five of them at once.  At half the stopping power of a level 1 sentry it seems like a scout could run up and bat it to death.

Very excited for the 3 new payload maps.  They have to be better than Hoodoo, right?

And there's a new wrench(?) called the Southern Comfort about which I have not seen any information other than the name in the patch notes.

[Ingmar]

The biggest thing for me is 3 new payload maps, yeah, I like payload the best out of all the formats.

EDIT: I think the new wrench is just a reskin?

[Samwise]

They almost never just do reskins.  I heard a rumor that it's a bleed weapon like the sniper's shiv.  (Which got a needed nerf this update.)

[Ingmar]

Could be. I think they said it came out of the community project, do those items typically still have different stats?

[Prospero]

Always. Here's the full list

[Ingmar]

Gotcha, I hadn't been playing for a while and I guess I missed most of that stuff going in.

[Sjofn]

yaaaaaaaaaaaaay new payload maps yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay

[Malakili]

Hmmm, mini sentry is an interesting choice.  Its less likely to get kills, but probably similarly likely to get assists.  Both worth taking into account when using the Frontier justice.  The build time is worth more than the 30 metal in my opinion.    The +25 hp is interesting as well.

I had to assume it would be an offensive choice, though I think whether or not its truly better than a normal level 1 sentry I'm not sure.  The total package is enticing though.   

One current wild card: can the mechanical hands thing repair other people's equipment?

[Samwise]

If the gunslinger can't repair or upgrade across the board, the lack of upgradable dispenser and teleporter makes it a complete joke.  I'll try to reserve judgement on the mini-sentry but I can't fathom it being that useful.

[Malakili]

Ugh, what a miserable fucking night, I had forgotten how much I hate release days for this stupid class updates.  I always get excited until I realize I have to do all this stupid bullshit to unlock things.

[Prospero]

Movable sentries may be the best thing ever.

[eldaec]

I'm a little shocked, none of those unlocks are batshit retarded.

I can see most engineers carrying the wrangler, but only activating it to cover long range attacks or spy nonsense. Maybe a wrangler/gunslinger combo will be worthwhile for the fire rate increase.

But these unlocks all appear both balanced and class relevant. Wtf is going on?

[Megrim]

Well, they DID playtest this for a very long time. It's good to see outright positive changes.

[Samwise]

I always get excited until I realize I have to do all this stupid bullshit to unlock things.

I barely even looked at the achievements, played engy "normally" (as normally as one can on a team of six engies), and got the first milestone in about an hour.  Plus the new wrench as a random drop about five minutes after I logged in.  I would have all the weapons by now if I hadn't taken a break from engy to have fun blowing shit up instead of having fun building it.

Whenever someone whinges about how tedious it is to unlock the new weapons any more, I can only come to the conclusion that they just really hate playing as that class.  

[bhodi]

What... what happened to movable level 2 sentries? :(

[HaemishM]

Played a bit last night. I have never seen more than 3 engies on a team, had six on the team last night. Played as pyro/soldier/sniper before logging. Teleports were no problem.  Shit there were sentries EVERYWHERE.

I will say that Payload Thunder Mountain is a fucking awesome map, especially the last stage with the twists and turns up to the final column. I expect once the engy craze has died down, this will be a spy and sniper wet dream map.

[Jobu]

My record was 9 engineers and 3 misc. It's especially frustrating for how infrequently I run across genuinely good engineers while playing normally. Where were all those 9 assholes last month when our team needed an extra teleporter?

[Prospero]

You can move them Bhodi. Heck, I was running around with a level 3 in my pocket for a bit last night.

[Musashi]

My record was 9 engineers and 3 misc. It's especially frustrating for how infrequently I run across genuinely good engineers while playing normally. Where were all those 9 assholes last month when our team needed an extra teleporter?

They were playing spies, ganking heavies on the cart for top score of course.

[Malakili]

I'm looking forward to a return to sensible class balance.  I was having more fun playing offensive engineer BEFORE the patch.

[kildorn]

The mini sentries seem.. lame. I could stand and duke it out with one on a scout using a pistol pretty easily.

All the payload maps with 10 engies per side, however, is both hilarious and depressing. Watching people PUSH KART while laying down a suppression team of level 1 sentries is hilarious.

[Malakili]

The mini sentries seem.. lame. I could stand and duke it out with one on a scout using a pistol pretty easily.

All the payload maps with 10 engies per side, however, is both hilarious and depressing. Watching people PUSH KART while laying down a suppression team of level 1 sentries is hilarious.

The find mini sentries incredibly easy to deal with so far, because most people don't seem to know how to play offensive engineer.  Free kills!

[Samwise]

What... what happened to movable level 2 sentries? :(

You can move ANY building now.  Automatically.  Walk up to one of your buildings, right-click, and it goes into a box in your hands.  You're then in the "placing a building" mode with the blueprint/wireframe.  When you place it, it takes about the normal amount of time to build, but when it finishes rebuilding has whatever attributes it had when you picked it up (level, kill counts, ammo amount, times used, whatever).  Carrying a built building slows you down a bit.  You can teleport while carrying a building.

It's pretty awesome.  As I suspected, it makes pushing an offensive (or defensive) line up MUCH easier.  I didn't even really notice the new weapons last night because the movable building thing on its own is such an engy game-changer.

[Musashi]

It also allows you to build your sentry up to level three right by your spawn, and then deploy it on the front line all ready to go.

[Samwise]

Yeah, I see a lot of people doing that, but I don't think it's quite as useful.  Having a level 1 sentry now and a level 3 sentry later is better than just having a level 3 sentry later.  But that's assuming you have a good supply of metal and decent protection at the front line -- on maps with a scarcity of metal at the front lines the "build at spawn" trick is pretty handy.  

What I did a couple of times on those maps was drop an entrance, sentry, and dispenser at spawn, run out, drop an exit just behind the front lines, run back, upgrade the sentry and dispenser, and then teleport to the front lines with them.  Pretty nice little pipeline since as each piece is building I'm out putting the next piece in place.

[Malakili]

Yeah, I think the moving buildings is probably the biggest change so far.  My favorite thing so far: Uh oh, uber incoming, pick up my sentry, run away, come back 10 seconds later, redeploy.

The Wrangler seems pretty bad so far, I think it'll end up being good for those who are willing to spend the time getting good at shooting it, but its hard to aim, and I don't think its more effective for a single engineer than gun + shotgun if doing max damage is really your concern.  Toss in a second engy to repair/resupply it, and its starting to be pretty scary, but thats literally 1/6 of your team devoted to just that.

The Frontier Justice is good, but I'm not sold on it, having 1/2 the clip size is a pretty big deal.  I think it could do with a 4 shot clip instead of 3.  I haven't had a chance to really test on the offensive engineer combo on a 5 point capture map though, which is where it should excel, so I'll reserve judgement on the FJ/mini sentry until I can give it a good shot.