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[mvmadvice]

MvM Bootcamp: Wave 666 Guide to Spies and Tanks

I’ll be referencing this post explaining wave 666′s bot spawn order.

The Tanks and Spies part of wave 666 is arguably the most infamous part of the wave.

During this part (which is nestled very comfortably at exactly halfway through the wave), four tanks will spawn, accompanied by, get this, ninety six spies. As I mentioned in the general wave 666 guide I posted, these spies drop money and can cap the bomb if the bomb doesn’t reset.

Most teams, if they didn’t fail at some point before this part, will fail here. This is the most crucial and most difficult part of the game.

Why, you may ask? Well, there are roughly 96 individual backstabbing reasons why, but I’ll try to summarize it into a neat little list:

1. There are just too many Spies.

2. At least one member of your team will become completely useless. Engie, Medic, Heavy, and Spy are all either useless against tanks or completely countered by the 96 Spies shoving their way through your whole life.

3. Pyros are less effective due to the sheer number of Spies. Flames do not instantly kill spies. Burning Spies can still stab you.

4. Your focus is split because this part of the wave is designed to defy all TF2 logic. People hunt Spies like nobody’s business and you want to defend your defenseless supports from them, thus drawing attention away from the actual objective: the tanks.

Now that I’ve pinpointed the reasons why Tanks and Spies (TaS) is the hardest part of wave 666, I’ll go into some ways you can counter them.

1. PLAY SOLDIER. JUST PLAY SOLDIER. Soldier can 1 shot groups of spies, does tons of tank damage, can support the team, and has high mobility. You should almost never get stabbed while playing Soldier.

2. Stand on top of the tank. Classes like Scout and Soldier can easily get on top of the tank, but the tank also goes by several buildings that you can use to jump on top of the tank. Getting movement speed and jump height will increase the options, since you can start using slopes and stairways to jump on top of the tank. When you’re on top of the tank, you can’t be backstabbed. The downside to this, however, is that you can only effectively fit 2-3 people on top of the tank, not your whole team. Try to leave this space for classes that have lower mobility and need to get up close to the tank to do damage, like Carbine + Bushwaka Sniper or Heavy. 

3. Ignore the Spies. Unless they are in melee range of yourself or your teammates, ignore them. Don’t chase. Focus tank.

4. This one’s for my fellow Medics, Snipers, and Engineers who are sick of dying constantly to butterknives when you’ve backed yourself into a corner: get 1-2 points of health on kill on your melee. This goes especially for Engineer, since you already should have attack speed on your melee. You basically turn into a slightly less powerful Pyro, especially due to the crit rate of most meta Medic, Sniper, and Engie melees. Even if you don’t, you might find that getting that tiny bit of HP back is the difference between living and dying. Even so, this isn’t a guaranteed strategy, and should be used only if you have spare credits.

5. Canteens. Crit canteens are ideal, but if you can’t afford them, get uber canteens. Uber canteens allow you to tank a bunch of backstabs for a short period of time, letting you both distract spies from your teammates and dish out one clip’s worth of damage.

6. Your support classes are useless right now, ABANDON THEM. I cannot emphasize this enough. LEAVE. THE. ENGINEER. ALONE. LEAVE. THE. MEDIC. ALONE. They are both USELESS to you right now. Healing doesn’t matter when every enemy kills your team in 1 shot and you will probably die before you need to refill your ammo. Sentry guns don’t do that much against tanks if they’re constantly getting sapped, and Engineer/Medic don’t offer any tank DPS. They are COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY USELESS. LEAVE THEM TO THEIR FATES AND FOCUS THE TANK. You’d be doing your team a favor in the long run.

7. Kill the tanks early. All tank damage is tank damage. Don’t bother saving your crit canteens, they’ll ultimately all be put towards the same thing anyway; killing the 4 tanks. There is a short grace period when the first tank spawns before the Spies spawn. Take this opportunity to get tons of free damage on the first tank to give yourself a little extra time to allow for Spy killing and respawn timers.

8.  Buy back into the game. This is the one and only time that it’s acceptable to buy back when the bomb isn’t about to be dropped.

Here are some diagrams explaining the Spy spawn mechanics:

When the first tank reaches the staircase circled in red, get ready for the first group of spies to spawn.

The red circles are some of the main places that you’ll see spies spawn/congregate. The main one you need to worry about for the first tank is the staircase shown in the first image. If you’re playing Soldier, position yourself to be able to fire a few rockets in that general direction. If you’re playing any other class, make sure your back is not facing that way when you hear “The Spies are here!” or a similar voice cue from the Administrator.

The spies spawning in the building in the middle and the ones that spawn around the player spawn area are the most annoying, but easiest to spot. If you’re playing Soldier and see an opportunity, shoot a rocket in those directions when you see Spies grouped together. Otherwise, do your best to ignore the masses of robot Frenchmen congregating around you and your teammates. This is a tank killing game, not a Frenchman massacring game.

Anyways, I hope this helps you with the TaS part of your next wave 666 attempt! Next up are some tips and tricks to use on various classes to make your wave 666 experience a little smoother.

[mvmadvice]

MvM Bootcamp: Wave 666, the ultimate wave order guide

THE ULTIMATE MANN VS MACHINE, WAVE 666 GHOST TOWN GUIDE INCOMINGGG

I know it’s been awhile folks, but I’m back (briefly) with a down-and-dirty guide on wave 666.

Wave Order:

1. Crit W+M1 Pyros + Crit Bat Scouts + Crit Giant Demoknights

2. Crit Giant Soldiers + Uber Medics (one medic per soldier)

3. Giant Deflector Heavies + Giant Burst Fire Soldiers + Soldiers + Heavies

4. Tanks + Crit Scattergun Scouts

5. Giant Burst Fire Demomen + Crit Demoknights (small) + 1 Tank

6. Extended Banner Direct Hit Soldiers

7. Giant Heavies + Giant Quick Fix Medics

8. Tanks + 96 fucking Spies <----- HALFWAY POINT!!!!

9. Crit Huntsmen

10. Crit Rapid Fire Soldiers

11. Crit Burst Demomen

12. Crit Airblast Pyros

13. Crit Scattergun Scouts (not to be confused with part 4)

14. 1 Tank + Crit Heavies + Uber Medics

Yes, despite it all being one big waves, the bots still come in a specific order. I’ll organize them as “parts” (part 1, part 2, part 3, etc) since it’s all one big wave. Quick explanation of each part under the cut.

Part 1:

Aka the warm up. Just don’t let them get in close to you, and you’ll be a-okay. The demomen come in groups of four, and the little bots come in groups of I wanna say 10? I’ve never really counted because they’re not that big a threat.

Part 2:

The first time you meet Uber medics in the wave. It’ll be hard for Medic pickers to isolate the medics, since each giant soldier comes attached with one and they come as one messy group, meaning there isn’t a convenient place to put all your stickies/throw your gas to kill all the medics cleanly. Ideally, a good Sniper can take out most--if not all--of the medics. However, since good Snipers are hard to come by, you’re better off popping the medics as fast as possible. If you have a kritzkrieg Medic and a Soldier on your team, it may be worth popping kritz on the Soldier, since Soldier’s crockets can fairly reliably 1 shot Uber medics. 

Part 3:

The Giants will always come as a pair. Ideally, you’ll want to kill the first pair before the second one drops, etc etc. The little bots can be annoying though, since the spam is super crazy during this part. If you have a medic, make sure your projectile shield is ready, because you can literally render all the bots useless for a short period of time. If you’re playing Engineer, move your sentry gun out of the way at the beginning of this part or get ready to wrangle it. If you’re playing Soldier, you can fire a few cheeky rockets early to try to damage the bots right as they hit the ground. Splash damage is your best friend during this part. Soldier, Demoman, and Sniper really shine here.

Part 4:

This is the easiest tank part (and also probably the easiest part of Wave 666 if your team is good at working together). If you have an Engineer, he can singlehandedly hold the bomb for the entire duration of this wave, allowing the other 5 players to focus down the tanks. Alternatively, if you either lack an Engineer or your Engineer doesn’t realize the power he has against a bunch of Scouts, dedicate ONE person to stopping the bomb. Some good classes you’ll see often that are good at watching the bomb are: Soldier, Demoman, Scout, Sniper (if he can aim), Pyro (if they’re not on the tank), and Heavy. Demoknights and Spies can also watch the bomb, but they aren’t nearly as effective. Phlog Pyros, Buff Banner Soldiers, and Carbine + Bushwacka Snipers should always be on the tank, not on the bomb. If you’re really struggling, try seeing if your team has enough tank damage. I’ll talk about tanks and tank damage more extensively in another post.

Pro tip: If you think you might be done with the Scouts and want to stop watching the bomb, press tab and see how many Crit Scouts are left. You’re done with Scouts (for now) if the number is 75.

Part 5: 

The demomen (both the giants and the little ones) will move in groups of five or ten. This means that they’ll be grouped up very nicely with each other, but it also means that you can quickly get overwhelmed by 20+ giant demos all spamming grenades everywhere. They do, however, take a long time to reload, so if you want to get in a few quick Ubersaws, it’s possible with good timing (2-3 depending on how much you wanna push your luck).

This part is also pretty easy, depending on how much AOE (area of effect) damage you have. Basically, if you have a lot, the giant demos go down fast. If you have very little, well, it’s do-able, but you’ll need to be very efficient at rotating between the tank and the bomb. Oh yeah, did I mention that after 10-15 giant demomen drop, a single tank will appear? Yep! This tank has more HP than the tanks you just fought, so be careful. Ideally, your team will split in half and deal with them at the same time. If you have very little tank damage but a lot of bot damage, focus the tank first (I know, but hear me out). Since you know you don’t have a lot of tank damage, starting on the tank early will make sure you have enough time to get rid of the tank before you take on the robots. Most teams with very little tank damage will have a lot of robot damage, so you should be able to take care of the robots fairly quickly. If you have very little of either, I have to genuinely wonder how you got so far into the wave in the first place.

Part 6: 

If you’re playing Engineer, you basically have to hide your sentry around corners to pick off bots before they can react to your gun. If you’re playing any other class, buy crit and blast resistance. Wave 666 is different from other modes in that you can refund your upgrades during the wave. The ending of Part 5 is very slow (a few crit demoknights filter in over a short period of time), so take that chance to get as much crit and blast resistance as you can. Let the sentry gun watch the bomb while your team goes to get upgrades. You’re gonna need it.

This part usually isn’t that hard though, overall, since most people have blast and crit resistance by now anyway.

Part 7:

As soon as the last soldiers spawn, the first Giant Heavy/Medic pair will also spawn. Try to clean up the soldiers before they drop. This is a pretty straightforward part of the wave. Kill the Medic (without letting it pop uber, or else it’ll go back to full hp), then kill the Heavy. Make sure you don’t have more than 2 pairs on the field at any given time, or your life will be hell and the wave will be over.

This part you’ll have relatively little control over, but don’t let the last pair touch the bomb. Usually, the first or second pair will be able to touch it, maybe let the third pair, but absolutely do not let the last pair touch the bomb. If they do, you risk having the bomb still in play during the dreaded part 8.

Part 8: 

The spookiest and hardest part of wave 666 that everyone has told you about. Wave 666 is known for 2 things: being really fucking long and the ninety-six fucking spies that come at the same time to destroy your life.

These spies are NOT your normal support spies, which typically come in groups of two or three. No. These spies will swarm. There will be something like 10 or 20 on the map until you kill them all. They also drop money ($2 or $3, this is the part where even the best scouts will lose that A+ rating). But the most annoying, least known part about these spies is as follows:

They can cap the bomb.

You read that right. It’s extremely rare that they have the opportunity, since the tank usually gives enough time for the bomb to respawn, and the Spies will never spawn with a bomb, but if you do happen to have a bomb? Good luck winning this.

During this part of the wave, buy backs, crit canteens, and uber canteens are your best friends. If you’re a non-explosive class, you can jump on top of the tank. If you’re a Scout, please don’t do that if you already see someone up there. You can dodge spies with pretty good success, let the tank Sniper sit up there. Sincerely: a tank Sniper.

HALFWAY POINT IS OVER, SOMETHING LIKE 7 OF 10 TEAMS FAIL BY THIS POINT, SO IF YOU’RE HERE, CONGRATS! YOU’RE BASICALLY DONE!

Note for parts 9-14: These bots all come in a row, and don’t give you a break in between bot types, so you’ll often get a mix of two bots at the end of one part and beginning of the next. You might also start to lag due to the large number of particle effects now in the game.

Part 9:

Crit huntsmen. They’re pretty easy if you have a Medic and a Soldier. I’d argue they could probably hold the bomb all on their own if they don’t die. Snipers are really weak in the HP department, so they’re easy to burst down in groups. By now you should have more than enough damage.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the last part of Wave 666 that you’ll be useful in until part 13 (since Soldier does your job better).

Part 10-11:

The Crit Soldiers from part 10 are very dangerous. You might want to dodge in and out from behind walls (the ones on either side of the main pathway are good, as well as the wall on top of the building in the middle. If you’re lucky, the bomb bot will go towards the right side (if you are looking from the hatch to the robot spawn), where there is a really good bottleneck corridor. Have a low quality screenshot from a recent game (ignore the icicle sentry buster).

This bottleneck is absolutely amazing vs the bots from part 10-12 because if you can get the bomb placement just right, all the robots will funnel in from the front.

Sometimes, you might get a cheeky flanker, but if you have an Engie or a very aware power class, they aren’t a problem.

The Demomen can be dealt with similarly as the Soldiers.

Part 12:

The Pyros are where your power classes start to falter. The best class against these Pyros is your Engineer. If you don’t have one, good luck. They’ll probably be able to push you all the way to your hatch, but if you have enough people alive (2-3) at any given time, you should be able to prevent the cap.

If you’re at the bottleneck, have one person above and the rest of the team on the ground. Ideally, your soldier(s) are smart enough to figure out that these Pyros know how to reflect and have perfect reflect timing, so they’ll position themselves accordingly. 

Part 13:

The Pyros will soon trickle to a halt and some Scouts will start to mix themselves in. Be careful, these Scouts do a lot more damage than the Scouts from part 4.

Part 14:

A few minutes after the Scout’s start spawning, a tank will spawn. This tank is even tankier than the tank from part 5 and drops very little money when you kill it (but that doesn’t matter, you’re basically done anyway at this point). At the same time, the Heavy/Medic pairs will also start to drop, so it’s just a giant fuckfest of crits and panic.

Be warned: robots can cap while ubercharged. If you do not have a Demoman, Pyro, or another class that can disrupt a bomb drop, make sure to pop the medics’ uber before they reach your base.

If you’re playing Sniper, this is the part of the wave that you get to be useful again, because your charged bodyshots will 1 shot the uber medics, preventing them from popping.

If you beat all of that, then you’re done!

Congratulations!

You get to feel accomplished that you beat wave 666.

Make sure to keep an eye out for some in depth analyses of the harder parts of the wave, along with some class guides for wave 666.

[mvmadvice]

Class Advice: The Medic (upgrades)

Medic is a fun and rewarding class to play as. Whether it’s cross-map crossbows or kritzing the Soldier, Medic is a core member of almost every MvM team comp.

This post assumes that you are using the Crusader’s Crossbow, Kritzkrieg, and Ubersaw, as well as have the Upgrade Canteen already equipped.

Your upgrade priority should be:

1. Shield (max as soon as possible!!)

2. Healing Mastery/Overheal Expert (alternate between)

3. Canteen Specialist (only buy one)

4. Ubercharge duration (as much as you can)

5. Utility: Crit resistance, Bullet resistance, Blast resistance, Movement speed (in that order)

Explanations below:

Your very first upgrade must be your projectile shield. Get at least one level of this. You should have it at max level by Wave 2. Projectile shield will block almost all projectiles. These include: rockets, bullets, arrows, flares, grenades, and baseballs. Be aware: your projectile shield will NOT block flamethrower flames OR Dragon’s Fury projectiles. 

The next upgrade you should prioritize is Healing Mastery. Healing Mastery not only speeds up how quickly you heal (and overheal) people but also helps you heal yourself faster. This is very important, as both you and your teammates will be taking a LOT of damage.

Along with Healing Mastery, you should be upgrading Overheal Expert. Overheal Expert will increase the max overheal of your medigun (this IS affected by overheal debuffs, such as those on the Fists of Steel or the Quick Fix). It also causes overheals to decrease much more slowly over time. This also increase the time you can heal someone while still having regular uber charging rate. Once you hit max overheal, your uber charge rate will be cut in half.

Canteen Specialist is a very good option midway through the game. It allows you to share your canteens with others and decreases the price of buying canteens. This doesn’t make much of a difference if you don’t buy a lot canteens, though. Only get the first upgrade, as the rest don’t work. The more often you buy canteens, the more Canteen Specialist will be worth your often limited amount of money. Most importantly, it lets you share Uber canteens, but you can also use the other canteens to great effect. Crit canteens let you offer crits even when you aren’t charged. Though less efficient, Refill canteens lets you keep your teammates in battle for longer without needing to pause and search for ammo. Teleport to spawn can be useful when shared, because it will bring you and another teammate back. However, Uber canteen is king.

Uber duration is a very good upgrade to buy midway through the game, if you have a few extra credits. This will help Scottish resistance Demomen get crits on all their stickies. Assuming the Demo only has 8 clip size and has maxed out everything else, no Uber duration will only give around 10-12 stickies, 13 if their ping is good. Generally, the longer your Uber lasts the better.

Charge speed is not very important. Get it if you don’t use your ubersaw, but it’s rarely ever worth the credits. If everything else is maxed (except Canteen Specialist), then buy resistances or move speed. The Kritzkrieg already has increased charge rate, and the combination of all your other upgrades should make you charge extremely quickly. As mentioned before, Overheal Expert also increases your charge rate, simply by merit of your teammates offering full charge rate for a longer period of time.

Finally, interspersed between these other upgrades, buy resistances. Crit resistance is the most important, because it gives you resistance to crits from all damage types. As Medic, I tend to like bullet resistance more than blast resistance, especially if there are support snipers. However, if the next wave only has explosive damage (or is primarily explosive damage), I would choose Blast over Bullet.

Your crossbow and your ubersaw are all luxury upgrades. If you’re playing a credit-rich game, feel free to upgrade them. The clip size upgrade on the crossbow does NOT effect the automatic reload (it is still one at a time). 

That’s about it folks! I’ll have a different post for general upgrade advice (this is the first upgrade page, right before your primary weapon, and upgrades your character).

[mvmadvice]

MvM: Which Medigun should I use?

Which medigun should I use? This is a common question coming from Medic mains who want to play MvM. Well, all of them are useful because they provide healing. However, some are more useful than others, and I will explain why.

Below are the Mediguns from most to least commonly used.

1. Kritzkrieg. Kritzkrieg is king. This weapon offers guaranteed critical hits to your uber target for 8 seconds (can be extended with upgrades up to 16 seconds). Medic himself does not offer very much in terms of damage. The projectile shield provides some damage, but otherwise, he is solely dedicated to a healing role. However, by increasing the damage output of your damage classes, you can pick up the slack and take down robots that you otherwise would not have been able to kill. The triple damage stacks with damage upgrades that your teammates can buy, which enormously magnifies your team’s chances of success.

2. Quick Fix. Yes, you just read that. The Quick Fix, like the Kritzkrieg, has increased charge time. However, it also heals incredibly quickly, an effect that transfers to reviving dead teammates. In addition, the more dispensible Quick Fix Charge can be thrown out whenever you need to revive a bunch of dead teammates in a pinch without having to worry about wasting potential damage. In addition, the additional overheal it gives you upon activation lets you heal damage you received while your teamates died and gives you more survivability as you bring your teammates back to life.

3. Vaccinator. A good vaccinator Medic can mean all the world of difference. Often, robots will only come at you with one or two damage types at a time, and of those damage types, usually one is more dominant than the other. Couple this with the automatic crit resistance, it can be a very powerful Medigun in the right hands. For example, in Two Cities, there are often waves of just crit heavies, demomen, or soldiers. A Vaccinator would essentially eliminate the critical damage. Stack that on top of your healing, your teammates’ resistance upgrades, and the existing damage reduction from the Vaccinator ubercharge, and you essentially have a quick, disposable ubercharge that makes you almost invulnerable against a single damage type. In addition, if you find your teammates dying a lot, the Vaccinator can help. With its fast charging, disposable uber, you can revive teammates quickly at any point, since you will most likely have at least one charge at your disposal whenever a teammate goes down.

4. Stock. Although stock does offer Ubercharge, remember you can still uber your teammates by buying uber canteens and canteen specialist. In addition, if you are having trouble surviving, chances are your teammates are simply dying too quickly to serve as effective meat shields. The Quick Fix and Vaccinator both address the problem of teammates dying quickly. Stock does not. It also does not offer any increase in ubercharge rate as a passive stat, and does not help your team’s total damage output. Even in pubs, a Medic’s ubercharge is more often seen as an offensive tool (i.e. pushing into sentry nests or heavily guarded positions), and rarely used as a defensive tool beyond countering an enemy’s push. With the consistent onslaught of robots, you will rarely have an opportunity to truly use the Ubercharge to its greatest effect. In addition, once you buy the projectile shield, you will be essentially immune to almost everything the robots will throw at you. The shield charges faster than your Uber and will protect more teammates over a longer period of time. It’s more useful to have the ability to triple one teammate’s damage output than the ability to make one teammate invulnerable, since the rest of your toolkit already covers it.

All in all: when in doubt, use the Kritzkrieg. It will always be useful and no one will kick you for trying to use it.

[mvmadvice]

The Meta: Why does it exist?

That’s a question a lot of people ask, whether directly or indirectly. Here, I’ll try to shine some light on why certain choices in MvM are more popular than others, and why you will probably be kicked on sight if you try to load into Two Cities with the Gunslinger equipped. 

The current meta classes are everything but Sniper and Spy pretty much. Subclasses such as battle medic, demoknight, and battle engineer are not counted as viable options.

1. Damage. Pure, raw damage. The most chosen classes can output the highest damage, or help their team output the highest damage.

2. Support. MvM’s ‘meta’ classes all support and compliment one another, as well as offer specific counters (more later) to the robots’ abilities. The most obvious support role are Medic and Engineer, but Soldier, Demoman, Heavy, and Scout all offer their own forms of support as well. Soldiers have huge AOE damage and can easily tear apart smaller bots, while also offering a variety of team-wide bonuses in the form of the secondary banners. Demoman also has good AOE, but specializes in upgrading their sticky launchers to kill Medicbots before they pop uber. Heavy is a more mobile sentry gun who can block the paths of giants and consistently soak damage like no other class, especially with a Medic’s support. Scouts, obviously, collect money, but also offer damage and healing buffs.

3. Old mechanics. It used to be a mechanic that once you chose a class in MvM, you would not be able to switch off the class later. You could also not refund upgrades. This is why many older players and tutorials tell you to strictly pick meta classes. Once the wave starts, you’re stuck with whatever you have. If you pick a non-meta class and suck at it, you would cost your team a player.

4. Usefulness. Meta classes, at the very basic level, will always be useful no matter what. Even if you are just starting out, you cannot go wrong while playing any of those classes, regardless of what your loadout is. For example, as long as you put up and maintain your supportive buildings, you can still contribute to your team as an Engineer. In contrast, if you play as Sniper or Spy and miss your shots or are dead all the time, you turn into a waste of a player slot.

5. Defense. At the end of the day, MvM is a tower-defense style game mode in which you are the towers and can move around. You need to defend your objectives against hordes of AI-controlled robots. This is why classes that are good at defense are so important in MvM, Medic and Engineer in particular.

[mvmadvice]

Teleporter Priority

Source: x

I’m sure everyone is familiar with this image. It’s the standard teleporter priority in TF2, and is often a spray used by frustrated Engineers who are tired of Scouts taking the teleporter when their buildings are about to die to yet another pesky Spy.

Here’s a general guideline for MvM teleporter priority:

1. MONEY CLASSES when money is on the ground. This means Scout and Spy, you can saunter up to the teleporter and shove everyone out of the way (it’s been my dream for ages, I’ll be real).

2. Engineer. No brainer here.

3. Medic (when teammates are alive or in need of healing). If your whole team is dead, wait for them to spawn before going to the front lines. If you show up all alone, you’ll be killed in a matter of seconds.

4. Heavy. He has the slowest walking speed, so it makes sense he’s high on the list. I would put him higher than Engineer due to this, but then all the Engie mains would get mad at me so...

5. Pyro. Although fast, Pyro doesn’t have any mobility tools that allow them to make their way to the front lines quickly. However, if they have the Powerjack or have bought movement speed upgrades, they should walk.

6. Soldier/Demo. They should be sticky/rocket jumping, not taking the teleporter, anyway.

7. Spy/Scout. Generally, you won’t have a Spy and a Scout on the same team, but they have roughly the same priority. If someone else is waiting, just walk.

8. Sniper. You generally don’t want to take the teleporter anyway, unless you know where it’s going to take you. Position is king for playing Sniper, and the tele might not take you to a convenient location, forcing you to take a ton of time to relocate.

Generally though, when you respawn, you make a beeline for the teleporter, regardless of class. Why? Because you won’t have a constant stream of people respawning. In MvM, the longest possible line you can have for a tele is 6 people, including yourself. In regular PvP, you can have up to double that number, which is compounded by the fact that people die often and quickly in PvP. In MvM, you won’t have those problems.

Some very specific teleporter tips:

1. If you are Medic, and everyone is dead but you and the DPS, let the DPS take the tele first, since if you went first, you will likely die immediately without being able to revive or heal anyone.

2. If you’re Engineer and your buildings are all safe, let the Medic or DPS go first.

3. If you see someone making a beeline for the tele, you can use the teleporter recharge time to buy a few quick upgrades before going. Make sure this takes no more than a few seconds!

4. If you see someone making a beeline for the upgrade station, take the tele. Don’t walk, and don’t wait for them. The tele will be back up when they are done upgradeing.

5. Tips 3 and 4 only go for when it’s the middle of the wave.

6. Teleporter priority doesn’t matter during setup, except that you should always let the Engineer go first.

All in all, while teleporter priority is rarely a problem in MvM, simply due to the pacing of the gamemode and how it’s typically played. So long as you let the most important classes go first, you’re good. This isn’t as big a deal as it is in Casual servers.

[mvmadvice]

DON’T take the teleporter?

Don’t take the teleporter? What kind of logic is this? Yet this is screamed at many-a-team in MvM matches. Why though? Well, I’ll explain it right now.

There are a couple reasons you don’t want to take the teleporter.

1. You’re going to die. Fast. Usually, when someone says “don’t take the teleporter”, they just died to a swarm of robots.

2. If you try to fight, and you bring a few robots with you to the grave, your Scout may not be able to get the money in time, causing your team to possibly lose more than 50 credits. The less money you make your Scout miss, the less stressed they will be, and the happier the team will be.

3. You’ll be spreading your team’s resources too thin. You are a team of only six people (at most) fighting against a horde of often hundreds of robots. The more closely you stick together, the more solid your defense will be. If any member of the team is cut off from the rest, they won’t be able to effectively work together.

4. There’s an Engie bot set up near the teleporter and will prevent you from going back. You can easily get stuck not knowing what to do. At that point, it’s better to just kill bind and respawn.

5. Your whole team is dead, and you are the first one to spawn. Walk to the front lines. Taking the teleporter may well be a fast track to the respawn room again, because your team was likely wiped for a reason (giant robot showed up, a large horde of crit soldiers spawned, etc). That reason is most likely not dead or dealt with yet, meaning you’ll die a meaningless death if you go rushing back in via teleporter. It’s better to make sure you show up at the front lines as a team than to die again sad and alone. 

6. When your teammate tells you not to. Chances are, they just experienced a terrible death after taking the teleporter.

In general, your teammates will let you know whether or not to take the teleporter. Check the team chat before you spawn, watch the bomb location, and make use of spawning wall hacks to track the location of the teleporter in relation to where you think most of the robots are. Usually, it’s pretty clear whether the teleporter is good to use or not. But in those times when it isn’t, especially in the hectic mess of your defense being broken halfway through the wave, it’s good to have some general rules of thumb to follow when in doubt.

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One last tip (that I forgot to include) is to move your teleporter entrance or destroy your teleporter exit when your team gets pushed back to spawn. This will prevent teammates from teleporting deep behind enemy lines and either dying or killing robots too far for the Scout to pick up the money they drop. Whether this teleporting is intentional or accidental, spreading out your teammates isn’t a good idea when you are pushed back to the hatch. When it’s safe again, replace your exit or move your entrance back to an accessible position.

General Advice: Engineer

Ah, the Engineer, our favorite gunslinging Texan in a hard hat. He’s the backbone of any good team and offers a huge amount of support, utility, and damage.

As an Engineer, your primary job is to support your damage classes, much like in normal TF2. Your job may sound simple, but Engineer is one of the most difficult classes to play well. You need to juggle your buildings, track where the bomb is at, predict where to block giant scouts, avoid sentry busters, keep the sentry busters from busting your team, manage your metal, manage your own health… It feels like a never-ending chore-list that only gets more difficult.

One of the Engineer’s primary uses is providing ammo for your team. Your team is going to be shooting a lot of robots, and each of those robots take ammo to kill. There simply aren’t enough ammo packs for the whole team to share. Therefore, it’s imperative that you have a Dispenser up 90% of the time and have it near your team 90% of the time that it’s up. This is true especially of early waves, because chances are, your teammates didn’t buy ammo upgrades, but did buy reload speed or firing speed, so they’ll be burning through ammo quicker than you can say “yeehaw!”

Another one of Engineer’s important roles is to watch chokepoints. This is very similar to how regular Engineer plays. Just set your sentry gun to a place where it can overlook the bomb or a chokepoint, and let it kill bots. Be careful though: if the robots you killed drop money, but your Scout doesn’t pick it up, that money may disappear forever. Just be aware of your surroundings, make sure to listen for hit sounds, and keep your buildings safe.

One final role that Engineers play is to use their sentry gun as a body blocking tool. Your other buildings (Dispensers and teleporters) get destroyed instantly when a giant walks over it (this includes giant scouts and sentry busters), therefore making most of your buildings not viable for body blocking. However, your sentry gun is not. There are certain areas of some maps that boast areas where you can lock a giant into place, thus preventing it from running past you. This is especially helpful against giant scouts, especially when your own Scout misses their Mad Milk and if your Heavy is not yet in position.

Playing Engineer is fun, at least for people like me who hate ourselves enjoy micromanaging all the different buildings, stats, and mechanics that go into Engineer gameplay.

Some general tips and tricks: Sentry busters can damage small enemy bots. Use that to your advantage if your sentry gets swarmed. Use upgrade canteens carefully. Don’t waste one if there’s only one robot left and it’s nowhere near the hatch. Two way teleporters is one way to counter giant Scouts, since at least one person on your team can instantly teleport back to base to stop it while the rest of your team defends the front or runs to catch up. This also saves the hassle of buying ‘back to base’ canteens. Stay calm and level headed. If your sentry goes down, no worries. Rebuild in a safe spot and move your sentry back into position. For god’s sake, make sure your Dispenser is accessible. Sentry busters will destroy Dispensers, so keep them out of the way. Sometimes, it’s inevitable due to the buster’s pathing, but you can still always rebuild. If you are rebuilding your nest from scratch, don’t build one building to level three before starting the other. I build my sentry first, then my dispenser, up to level 2, then finish my dispenser so I can move it up to help my team. A level 3 sentry gun does not benefit as much as a level 3 dispenser. On some maps, you can collect a bunch of sentry buster pets by destroying your sentry gun, but it requires a console command (more info later).

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Soldier

The most satisfying thing in the world is probably getting a random crit into a group of robots. Even more satisfying? IT’S A RANDOM CROCKET INFUSED WITH THE SPIRIT OF AMERICA (ahem).

Soldier is a great and fun class to play in MvM. He is a flexible class that offers high damage and good utility with his rocket launcher and banners. 

The best thing about Soldier is how mobile he can be and how flexible he is as a class. This is because of his ability to rocket jump, the massive amount of burst and area damage he can output once he gets some upgrades, and the amount of support that he offers his team with the three banners available to him.

To begin with, Soldier is one of the most powerful classes in regular play, both in Casual and Competitive TF2. Not only does he have a high skill ceiling, but he also has a powerful mobility tool as well as great burst damage. Aside from that, Soldier is also very quick and easy for new players to pick up and start dealing good damage with. In MvM, he becomes even more powerful, at least for players with less experience. All he needs to do is press M1 in the general direction of the robots, and you will most likely do a decent amount of damage. There is no need for a fancy rollout, so long as your Engineer’s teleporter is up and viable for use (more later). At the most basic level, Soldier is a class that’s as easy to pick up as Heavy. You can run any rocket launcher (save the Rocket Jumper because it quite literally does zero damage), any secondary, and any melee, yet still be somewhat effective and not drag your team down.

Now, some general tips about Soldier: The Rocket Specialist upgrade is broken beyond the first upgrade. Plus, rockets that fly faster in the air can actually be detrimental for players who are learning how to airshot and for experienced players who have already learned how to airshot. Learn how to at least rocket jump upwards. It’s not very hard, just point the launcher at your feet and jump+crouch. For most small jumps, make sure there is a very tiny delay between jump+crouching and pressing M1 at your feet. MvM is a great place to practice (because it’s usually not life or death if you don’t know how to do it), and it’s where I first realized how important and effective rocket jumping really is. If you’re waiting for more people to join the server, you can switch briefly to your rocket jumping loadout and do some practice. When robots are jumping down, fire your rockets before the bots hit the ground. This lets you kill smaller robots faster. In general, you don’t want to shoot sentry busters, but if your Medic has no uber and is attempting to use the buster to gain some, you can help them by stunning it with direct hits (after buying rocket specialist). You can similarly help a struggling Engineer in this manner. You are the next best Spy-checking class aside from Pyros, and with damage upgrades, even your splash damage can 1-shot spybots. Use that and rocket jumping to your advantage to help your team deal with Spies. You can press and hold M1 to delay your banner’s deployment, so you can hold onto it until the right moment. I always see Soldiers waste their banners when there are no robots around, so this is a way around it! Overall, the best tip for effective Soldier gameplay is to just point and shoot. That’s all you have to do. The rest can come after you learn more about MvM.

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Loadouts: The Engineer

The most common loadout you’ll find MvM Engineers running is as follows:

Primary: Rescue Ranger

Secondary: Wrangler

Melee: Wrench/Jag

This maximizes the Engineer’s potential for damage output and utility, while also making sure that buildings stay up for as long as possible while keeping the Engineer himself at a safe distance from all the splash damage.

The Rescue Ranger is considered the most ‘meta’ Engineer primary in most situations. Without it, Engineer is tied to his buildings, especially in MvM, where bullets, rockets, and grenades will be flying everywhere near constantly. There are far more robots than players in the average server, and it’ll be very difficult for you to stand right next to your buildings at all times to heal them. The Rescue Ranger also allows you to haul long distances very quickly. This is helpful for rescuing your buildings from being overwhelmed. The 100 metal it takes to teleport a building is significantly less than the 400+ you’re going to have to spend on building something from scratch up to level 3. This is extra effective if you’re saving a level 3 Dispenser that is full of metal.

The Wrangler is extremely useful, especially against large hordes of robots. It allows you to ‘tank’ your sentry gun and effectively triple it’s HP. This is helpful both in early waves to ensure your gun stays up longer and in later waves to soak damage from giant robots. Your sentry gun is much less valuable than your teammates’ lives, so if your teammates get pushed back, tank your gun to delay the robots’ push so your team can regroup. If your tanked sentry gun’s HP gets too low, rescue it to safety using your Rescue Ranger, or put a few bolts in it to make it survive longer. Don’t worry if your sentry gets destroyed before you can do that: even though it’s nice to save your gun, you can still rebuild.

The Wrench or the Jag are the most ideal wrenches to buy. The Wrench is easily accessible to everyone since it’s the stock melee for the Engineer. It also has no downsides, which is great for MvM Engineer. The Jag is viable mostly in situations where you have very little money to spend on upgrading your wrench. The upsides of the Jag are that you can build much more quickly without having to spend credits on it. In addition, the ‘Jag always crits’ stereotype is pretty funny when you need to fend for yourself against Spies. In addition, the healing penalty on buildings is in part countered by the Rescue Ranger, which is a more efficient use of metal than both the stock Wrench and the Jag. I personally like using the Jag, but that’s mostly for aesthetic reasons and because I tend to be pretty good about metal conservation.

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Engineer

Ah, the Engineer, our favorite gunslinging Texan in a hard hat. He’s the backbone of any good team and offers a huge amount of support, utility, and damage.

As an Engineer, your primary job is to support your damage classes, much like in normal TF2. Your job may sound simple, but Engineer is one of the most difficult classes to play well. You need to juggle your buildings, track where the bomb is at, predict where to block giant scouts, avoid sentry busters, keep the sentry busters from busting your team, manage your metal, manage your own health... It feels like a never-ending chore-list that only gets more difficult.

One of the Engineer’s primary uses is providing ammo for your team. Your team is going to be shooting a lot of robots, and each of those robots take ammo to kill. There simply aren’t enough ammo packs for the whole team to share. Therefore, it’s imperative that you have a Dispenser up 90% of the time and have it near your team 90% of the time that it’s up. This is true especially of early waves, because chances are, your teammates didn’t buy ammo upgrades, but did buy reload speed or firing speed, so they’ll be burning through ammo quicker than you can say “yeehaw!”

Another one of Engineer’s important roles is to watch chokepoints. This is very similar to how regular Engineer plays. Just set your sentry gun to a place where it can overlook the bomb or a chokepoint, and let it kill bots. Be careful though: if the robots you killed drop money, but your Scout doesn’t pick it up, that money may disappear forever. Just be aware of your surroundings, make sure to listen for hit sounds, and keep your buildings safe.

One final role that Engineers play is to use their sentry gun as a body blocking tool. Your other buildings (Dispensers and teleporters) get destroyed instantly when a giant walks over it (this includes giant scouts and sentry busters), therefore making most of your buildings not viable for body blocking. However, your sentry gun is not. There are certain areas of some maps that boast areas where you can lock a giant into place, thus preventing it from running past you. This is especially helpful against giant scouts, especially when your own Scout misses their Mad Milk and if your Heavy is not yet in position.

Playing Engineer is fun, at least for people like me who hate ourselves enjoy micromanaging all the different buildings, stats, and mechanics that go into Engineer gameplay.

Some general tips and tricks: Sentry busters can damage small enemy bots. Use that to your advantage if your sentry gets swarmed. Use upgrade canteens carefully. Don’t waste one if there’s only one robot left and it’s nowhere near the hatch. Two way teleporters is one way to counter giant Scouts, since at least one person on your team can instantly teleport back to base to stop it while the rest of your team defends the front or runs to catch up. This also saves the hassle of buying ‘back to base’ canteens. Stay calm and level headed. If your sentry goes down, no worries. Rebuild in a safe spot and move your sentry back into position. For god’s sake, make sure your Dispenser is accessible. Sentry busters will destroy Dispensers, so keep them out of the way. Sometimes, it’s inevitable due to the buster’s pathing, but you can still always rebuild. If you are rebuilding your nest from scratch, don’t build one building to level three before starting the other. I build my sentry first, then my dispenser, up to level 2, then finish my dispenser so I can move it up to help my team. A level 3 sentry gun does not benefit as much as a level 3 dispenser. On some maps, you can collect a bunch of sentry buster pets by destroying your sentry gun, but it requires a console command (more info later).

[mvmadvice]

Class Advice: The Scout (upgrades)

Scout is a high speed, high action class with surprising tankiness and survivability. Though you depend on your team to kill robots (who drop money, which gives you overheal) it’s pretty fun to run around with as much health as your overhealed Heavy, but so much faster.

This post assumes that you are playing the meta Scout loadout, which is: any gun that does not have a movement speed or increased damage taken/knockback debuff, Mad Milk, and the Fan o’ War.

Upgrade priority:

1. Movement speed/Jump Height (for larger maps)

2. Slow on mad milk

3. Crit resistance, bullet resistance, blast resistance (depending on what damage types are in the next wave)

4. Milk charge speed

5. Uber canteens

6. Damage, clip size, etc.

Explanations below:

Movement speed and jump height are an absolute must for Scout. You already have extremely fast speed and double jump, but when there are 20 soldier bots staring you down, you better go fast. Movement speed and jump height are important to let you soar over the heads of robots to get the cash in the very back of the horde. It also lets you quickly search the map for any loose credits before they disappear. In addition, you can get through to hard-to-reach places and pick off any straggling robots including sniper bots. Finally, it lets you catch up the fastest to runaway giant Scouts to milk them, which brings me to...

Slow on Milk. This upgrade applies a 20% movement speed slow to all targets affected by it. Especially with giant Scout bots, this upgrade really shines at delaying the movement of robots towards the hatch. Your slow is often times one of the only things preventing a giant Scout from capping (or dropping the bomb down the hatch), and it lets slower classes like Soldiers (at least, the ones who don’t know how to rocket jump) or Demos (same but with sticky jumping) to catch up. I’ll post a more in-depth guide to dealing with giant Scouts later.

Damage resistance. As a Scout, you’ll be running around in the front lines. Although you will have lots of overheal (which is why this upgrade is third on the priority list), damage resistances will let that overheal last longer. It will also help with initial survival, since you will often start a wave with only 125 hp. Some waves are also very money-scarce, which means that you will have to rely on your wits, a bit of luck, and damage resistances to get in and out alive. This also lets you tank more damage for your team, especially if your Heavy is dead or not present.

Milk charge speed. This is not a huge priority, but it allows you to consistently offer healing to your team. If you are very confident in your Scout play, you can buy this before damage resistance or while you are buying damage resistance. You can have a robot consistently covered in milk once you have three out of four upgrades. This is great for bosses or runaway giant scouts.

Uber canteens. This is super important if you die a lot or your team kills things far in the back line of robots. If you want an A+ or if there’s a large amount of cash, Uber canteens are super important. If you have a lot of tanks in a wave (such as wave 666), spam crit canteens. You deal a surprising amount of damage to tanks, so take advantage of it!

Damage, clip size, etc. They aren’t necessary, but they’re fun if you want to run damage Scout. If you are EXTREMELY confident in your gameplay, you can build damage instead of resistances. It’s fun and rewarding, and lets you be another source of DPS for your team. Honestly, at this point, go wild.

[mvmadvice]

Loadouts: the Scout

Source: x

The standard loadout for Scout in MvM is as follows:

Primary: Force of Nature/Soda Popper/Scattergun/Shortstop

Secondary: Mad Milk/Bonk! Atomic Punch

Melee: Fan O’ War/Sandman

The Scout’s job is primarily to support his team by collecting money, providing healing/utility, and giving minicrits. The above loadout will most efficiently accomplish at least two of those things.

Primary: Scout’s primary is one of the less important parts of his loadout, but still necessary nonetheless. The Force of Nature (FON) provides Scout with an extra jump, as well as the ability to stun robots by knocking them up. This allows Scout to delay giant robots as well as gain even more mobility via the third jump. The Soda Popper (my personal go-to) is a solid pick for Scouts who have trouble getting around a large map optimally. Hype stacks very quickly as long as you fire into a large crowd of robots. When activated, Hype does stack with jump height and movement speed, so you can quite literally traverse entire maps without ever touching the floor. This also lets you dodge more rockets and distract giants. The Scattergun is always a solid pick, since it has no drawbacks and offers more consistent damage than the Force of Nature or Soda Popper. Finally, the Shortstop is a fun option with high damage output, but puts you at more risk of losing money due to its debuffs. You can also stun and push robots around with M2, which can be a fun and effective way of delaying giants or pushing the bomb into the pit, thus resetting it.

Secondary: Mad Milk is the standard secondary that most teams will expect you to run/use/have. This is because Mad Milk offers a lot of utility, whether it’s healing your teammates or slowing giant scouts (after you buy the upgrade). However, money is your first priority, not healing your teammates. Other classes exist to do your other jobs: Heavy and Engineer can block giant Scouts. Soldiers with rocket specialist can stun robots. The Concheror, Medics, and Dispensers all provide as much or more healing than you do. Therefore, if you find yourself having trouble staying alive long enough to collect a decent amount of Overheal, or if your team keeps killing things deep in enemy lines, use Bonk. Bonk gives you a small time window during which you can collect cash even if there is a large horde of robots. BE AWARE: you can STILL be blocked, pushed back, etc. You should still utilize your mobility, but you can afford to be a little less careful while under the effects of Bonk. Make sure to get out of combat a little early, due to the slow debuff Bonk applies on you after it expires. With the amount of damage you soak, you will be slowed significantly, which can put you in a lot of danger.

Melee: The Fan O’ War (FOW) is the go-to, because it provides free minicrits on ONE target. You can only mark one target for death at a time. Save this for giants, particularly giant Scouts and giant Medics. Try to mark the one that your team appears to be shooting at first, thus maximizing your teammates’ damage output. If you have trouble getting up close and have money to spare, the Sandman can be another option for you. The mark for death upgrade is very expensive though, and after its nerf, it is less viable than the FOW.

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Scout

To put things very simply, Scout’s job is to run fast and not die. His already high movement speed coupled with his double jump and increased money collection radius make Scout the ideal pick for money collection.

In most situations, as a Scout player, you will want to prioritize collecting money. You gain overheal for money. The larger the money pile, the more Overheal. The more money you collect, the higher your HP goes. There is no ‘cap’ for overheal, but once you reach about 800 or so, the decay will be much faster than you can collect. In addition, Medics cannot prolong your overheal. If they heal you while you are over the Medigun’s max overheal, your overheal decay will actually increase. Money is quite literally your life. 

Aside from money, Scout can also do a variety of other things for your team. Mad Milk with the slow upgrade is one of the best ways to stop giant Scouts from running right through your defenses and dropping the bomb. Often, you and your Mad Milk are the only ones standing between the hatch and a giant Scout. In addition, Mad Milk allows your teammates to heal on hit, which can make for some crazy clutch plays that just barely save your team’s Heavy.

In addition, you have the ability to mark robots for death, which can give your team consistent minicrits against one robot at a time. This is super powerful especially against bosses with a lot of HP.

Finally, just some general advice: MvM is the one gamemode in which YOU HAVE TELEPORTER PRIORITY, ESPECIALLY IF THERE IS MONEY ON THE GROUND. If there isn’t, then just walk, because you run very fast anyway. If you don’t have Mad Milk or if it’s reloading and your Heavy/Engineer aren’t in position, you can still delay giant Scouts by body blocking them. This works best around corners. If no one else is available to one-shot uber Medics, your primary should deal enough damage to kill them without them popping. This is a last resort due to random bullet spread. Most of the time, it’s safer to just wait for your designated Medic picker to respawn/get into position and kill them for you. When there are giant Black Box Soldiers, you can use your mobility to get their attention and dodge their rockets. Giant black boxes will heal to full HP if they hit all of their rockets, so it’s better for them to aim at you rather than your less mobile teammates. If your Medic has used their shield, dart in and out of it to collect money. This saves your overheal for times of need. If you are launched high into the air and haven’t double jumped yet, save it for when you’re just about to hit the ground. If you jump just before you hit the ground, you can save yourself from a lot of fall damage. The Winger’s jump height boost stacks with the jump height upgrade, as does the Atomizer. If you want to have some fun, you can get enormous septuple jump (that means seven-jump) if you use the Soda Popper, Winger, and Atomizer. This is really fun, but not super effective in most MvM matches. With the Winger, you can also double jump easily from the lower robot drop to the higher robot drop on the map Mannhattan. KILL A SPYBOT. SAVE AN ENGINEER. With milk, your gun, and your speed, you can easily help out your Engineer buddy with those pesky Spybots, especially if no one else is helping.

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Getting Started (part 2)

Alright, so now you know a little more about the community as a whole. But how do you actually get started playing MvM?

First of all, you need to decide between Mann Up and Boot Camp. Boot Camp is F2P while Mann Up requires tickets. Tickets are 99 cents each, but you need to buy a new one for each mission you complete.

Boot Camp is good for practice. The goal usually isn’t to win (although that’s part of it!), but to try out new things. Maybe you’ve never played Sniper before and want to try him out. Maybe you want to test different loadouts on Soldier. Go wild! Just be careful, some people take Boot Camp far too seriously and will attempt to vote kick you if you play off-meta.

Mann Up is the P2P version of Boot Camp. They have all of the same maps except for Wave 666 (Ghost Town), which is Boot Camp exclusive. The Mann Up community is full of a wide variety of people, from total beginners to 5k tour pros. The most popular Mann Up map is Two Cities, which is the only map that offers killstreak kits as a reward. The other maps offer botkiller weapons. Note that only the higher tier maps will drop Australiums, if that’s what you want from MvM. Gear Grinder is also a fairly popular map, since they also offer unique rewards that aren’t your standard botkillers.

Okay, so you’ve chosen your game mode. Whether you want to stay F2P or go P2P, it doesn’t matter. You’re now part of the community! So you select the map you want to play on and enter a game. Now what?

Well, you first need to be aware of the hated term: the meta. The accepted “meta” for MvM is as follows: 1 Scout, 1 Soldier, 1 Demoman, 1 Heavy, 1 Engineer, and 1 Medic. To over-over-oversimplify, Scout collects money, Soldier deals damage, Demoman kills uber Medics, Heavy bodyblocks/deals damage, Engineer provides utility, and Medic heals. This ‘meta’ optimizes the capabilities of each of the classes for almost every situation. You can almost never go wrong with this team.

However, there are many, many exceptions. For tanks, Pyros with the Phlog are the best option. In fact, Pyro can often replace Soldier, Heavy, or Demoman, especially after the release of the Gas Passer, which is another great tool for picking Medics with. Even after it’s nerf, the Explode on Ignite upgrade for the gas passer still makes Pyro a very viable alternative to Soldier, Heavy, or Demoman.

The two most-hated upon classes in MvM are Sniper and Spy. Sniper requires the ability to reliably get headshots. This isn’t too difficult on larger robots, but he is a very hit or miss class to pick. Many beginner Snipers don’t understand that playing Sniper in MvM could be a major detriment to the team. However, in the right hands and under the right circumstances, Sniper has indisputably the highest damage output of any class, even without a pocket Medic. Spy also has his niche situations. He is exceptionally good at killing giant Medics, since disguises will always trick robots, as long as you are out of their line of sight before the disguise is active. However, robots have perfect reactions to Spies. Even if you are behind them, they will catch you if you are undisguised and uncloaked. In addition, if you stab a robot, all surrounding robots will be notified of your presence. Finally, if you sap a giant robot, it will turn to face you but not fire. With his disguise and Dead Ringer, Spy can not only pick priority targets, but replace Scout as a cash collector. As long as he does not get caught in crossfire, he can easily collect cash far behind enemy lines without the need to run in with an Ubercharge canteen.

There are also expected meta loadouts for each class. Scouts should equip the Mad Milk and Fan o’ War. Soldiers should have one of the three banners. Demomen should not use the Quickiebomb Launcher. Heavies can pretty much do what they want, so long as they do not use the Tomislav. Medics need the Kritzkrieg. Pyro weapons vary, but the Gas Passer is extremely important. Snipers should have Jarate or equip the Cleaner’s Carbine and Bushwacka for a tank-killer loadout. Spies should always have the Dead Ringer for damage mitigation.

The meta, of course, is subject to change. There was one point before the Gas Passer nerf when two Pyros could beat a mission on their own. Empire Escalation can be beat by a very skilled Medic, Demo, and Scout (and no other players). Bavarian Botbash's meta has four Soldiers, one Scout, and one Engineer (because AMERICA and also because it’s the most effective). The last wave of Hamlet can be easily beat by a team of 6 Pyros. The meta is just a suggestion. It has been tested by tens of thousands of players and deemed the most efficient way of winning. However, if you are new to the game, I suggest following the meta as closely as possible, at least on your end. What your teammates do is not under your control in this regard.

Finally, due to the somewhat strict meta in MvM, you must learn how to acceptably play every single class. This includes Pyro, Sniper, and Spy, who aren’t commonly used. It’s tough, yes, but remember you only have to play them acceptably. If everyone can carry their own weight in the game, winning will be easy. It doesn’t matter if you can’t rocket jump or if you don’t get an A+ on every single wave. As long as you can fire rockets and get the $50 bonus, your team is unlikely to kick you. At the same time, you can still contribute to your team while on an off-role (that is, a class you do not main).

If you want to find out what other classes do, you’ve come to the right place! I’ll be queuing plenty of advice for each class, as well as incorporating Youtube video guides from other players and community guides from Steam.

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Getting Started

Starting MvM is a great idea. No, really, despite what the gif may make you feel, Mann vs Machine is actually a very fun gamemode to play. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have dedicated hundreds of hours to it.

So you’re sitting in the menu screen for tf2, not sure what to do. Competitive is scary, but casual has lost its glam. Maybe you don’t feel confident going up against other players. Maybe you like trading, but you have nothing to offer. Maybe you just aren’t about funky community servers. But then, you see “Mann vs. Machine”, sitting just beneath competitive and click on it. It’s perfect! Just the change of pace you needed from the regular humdrum of pvp gameplay.

Before you go any further, there are some things you need to know about MvM and its community.

MvM offers some great loot. As many of you know, MvM is the only place to get Australiums unless you trade for them. They are also the source of killstreak kits, botkiller weapons, and the legendary Golden Frying Pan. This is why playing MvM is appealing to many traders who want to try their luck on getting their hands on some good items to trade. I’m not a super big trader myself, so look forward to more advice links in the future!

MvM is also fun. I enjoy pve gameplay because it requires you to learn skills that aren’t strictly reaction-based. You can memorize wave patterns, learn which upgrades are good, and play meta. Or, you can have fun and bust out your patented widowmaker Engineer to kick some robot ass.

MvM has a small but very passionate community. From community mapmakers to Discord servers, MvM has got it all! If you would like a fairly active Discord server that grants access to many resources and people, this is Foodie’s MvM Discord server. In addition, there is a large community on Steam called Potato’s MvM Servers. The current event is called Canteen Crasher, which features a wide variety of challenging, community made maps, new robots to face, and even a contract system that will reward you with a unique community medal! Their website is right here. There are also community groups such as TVM that are invite-only, but are full of experienced, friendly players.

However, MvM is not all good. I’m sure all of you have heard the rumors of how toxic this community is. I’m sure many of you have experienced firsthand community members being less than stellar. This is not how MvM always is. Most of the time, you’ll meet a group of individuals who are willing to work with you to achieve a common goal: beating the mission. Sometimes, you’ll even meet a really chill person to become friends with! Don’t let the toxic people scare you away, but if you are unable to manage the toxicity that often crops up in game, please be very careful in the community. Use the mute button often and liberally. Leave the server and find a new one if you must! What you can’t hear can’t hurt you!

Now that you know a little about the MvM community, you can just hit start and go, right? Nope, not yet. That’ll be covered in part 2.

[mvmadvice]

General Advice: Upgrades

Upgrades are arguably the core of MvM gameplay (excluding, obviously, the robots). They can make you OP, or they can make meme strategies sorta viable. All in good fun!

This covers only the first upgrade page, for which most classes have the same stuff (except Engie). This deals with utility such as damage resistance, movement speed, and health regen.

Priority (for most classes):

1. Resistances (crit, bullet/blast)

2. That’s pretty much all you need, spend the rest of your money on your weapons.

Scout functions a little differently, but I’ll cover that in my Scout upgrade advice post.

Damage resistance makes everyone happy, especially crit resistance, since it decreases crit damage from all sources, whether it’s melee, arrows, fire, blast, or bullet. It also affects minicrit damage. This is because most MvM tours have at least one wave of crit robots. If you don’t see crit robots immediately, it may be better to buy a canteen with your extra money (or save it for next round).

Always make sure to check the incoming wave bar at the top of your HUD (this is where it is in most HUDs, including the default HUD). If it’s not, contact the developer of your HUD, get a new HUD, or memorize the waves perfectly. Buy blast and bullet resistance based on which damage type you see the most of. In general, I like buying bullet resistance over crit resistance on classes like Heavy, Medic, and Sniper because you can’t dodge bullets as easily as rockets or grenades. On Soldier and Demo, I like to buy blast resistance because it also applies towards self-inflicted blast resistance. At level 3, it basically gives you Gunboats without replacing your secondary. Bullet resistance is good on classes like Medic because it will decrease the amount of damage taken from Sniper bots, which your team isn’t always going to be good about taking down.

Health regeneration. It’s a touchy topic with a lot of players. Some say it’s useful when your Medic is busy (or nonexistent), others say buy heal on kill instead. In most situations, heal on kill + dispenser (+ Medic) will be enough to keep you alive. If you have a TON of extra credits, health regen is a fun clutch upgrade (I have survived multiple falls from great heights on wave 666 because I had +10 health regen every second). You will be taking too much damage at once for +2 or +4 to make a big difference. In addition, most damage will take you from max to 0 hp before you even have a chance to regenerate. In the end, it’s not useful in as many situations as health on kill on your main weapon. If you’re playing scout, please don’t get this. Money heals you, so you don’t need it as long as your team is killing robots.

Movement speed/jump height. Generally seen as meme upgrades, these can actually be pretty good in the late game (or first wave, for Scouts). For Heavies, it can help you reposition quickly, as well as dodge more effectively while revved up. For Medics, it can help reposition more quickly to dodge more damage or rush faster to a teammate’s help. Engineer has mobility problems, but this can help haul faster to the front lines (unless you’re using the Rescue Ranger, then the difference is negligible). Spies can get around faster to kill more robots, reposition better, and escape harm more easily. Snipers can jump to previously inaccessible positions to avoid damage and get a better line of sight. For Soldier and Demoman, however, most of your mobility come from rocket or sticky/grenade jumping. This is the last upgrade you should prioritize as Soldier or Demoman.

Fire resistance. You don’t need it. Most of the time, you wont’ be up against Pyros, and even when you are, they aren’t nearly as common as every other damage type. Only Pyros can deal consistent fire damage to you, and they aren’t very common. Meanwhile, Scouts, Soldiers, and Heavies are VERY common bots who are generally far more dangerous than Pyros. Unless you are playing Wave 666 and you reached the crit Pyro spam (but by then, you should be swimming in credits anyway), you should forego fire resistance.

Engineer has a unique utility upgrade that allows him metal regeneration. This is a luxury/meme upgrade. Get it very late game if you’re swimming in credits. Otherwise, don’t bother. You’re better off getting movement speed, health regeneration, more canteens, upgrading your primary, or a multitude of other things. It does sometimes come in clutch in very niche situations. The metal doesn’t regen fast enough to be useful. You’re better off scavenging or using your dispenser.

That should cover just about everything!