Whether you are playing for loot or not, Mann-up should be a fun gamemode.

Unfortunately, every now and then, you may find yourself wandering in your worst nightmare, where you have to bang your head against a wall in front of a herd of Oblivion NPCs. Yeah you know the ones. And sometimes, you just have to go with it. Maybe it’s already wave 4. Maybe this is the first server you've managed to join after 30 minutes of matchmaking.

Well then it's time to push your class to its limits.

A class’ potential in MvM falls into 3 categories: BOT DAMAGE, TANK BUSTING & SUPPORT.

Bot damage is the raw capability to directly and reliably* deal damage to an ENDLESS stream of robots. Why endless? Because we're considering worst case scenario here. Back against the wall, one man army. Not some scripted 30 min spawn camp with crit ScoRes on Mannhattan where everything go according to plan.

Tank busting is, well, dps against tanks. Granted with refund one can just go phlog pyro on tank waves as a cheap solution, but everyone else on the team can pitch in as well, some more than others.

Support is everything else that doesn’t deal damage but still reliably* contributes to it, for both teammates and yourself, such as: damage boosting, sustain, credits, ammo, etc.

A team will need an adequate and balanced amount of all 3(sometimes 2) to succeed on more advanced missions.
*Unreliable abilities, such as sniper collecting credits on headshot, or medic reviving for ammo, are inconsistent, and relying on them as the only method will often produce results far worse than expected due to their unpredictability (i.e. you cannot solely rely on a sniper in lieu of a scout to collect credits).

Classes can show varying effectiveness during different periods of a mission. Some are particularly powerful in early game, but decay quickly in later waves, some the other way around, while some continue to impress throughout the mission.

Unique and strong abilities a class have that are shared by few or no other classes.

I will rate a class’ (including subclasses) damage and support ability on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being nigh non-existent. Scores are given out based on previous test and countless tours on advanced and expert mann-up missions.

I will also draw out the class’ abilities’ effective periods on a bar containing 12 squares, where the bold italic areas signify when the class is most effective. You can think of the bars as the amount of money available for upgrades as well, which makes every half a square roughly the equivalent of 400 credits.

Bot damage: 3/10;
Tank damage: 3/10;
Support: 8/10;
Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][];
Specialty: Credit collecting, aggro drawing, milking, marking, bodyblocking
Summary: Now what most mvm players have come to expect out of the scout class is to "just collect credits". I've seen my fair share or players with decent tours handing out said "tips" upon detecting a scattergun being fired. But a scout can do so much more without even firing his primary.

Normally the first few waves he will focus on upgrading resistance, mobility and milk. The mad milk (combined with the fan) can be a great item for softening up giants in starting waves, especially for heavy as he can easily solo a milked and marked giant with a few ticks in damage resistance. Milk slowdown is also a decent counter against super scouts, while the scout can also draw aggro and bodyblock with ease using his mobility, resistance, and constant 500+ health. A meta scout may choose to upgrade his primary in later waves, but the damage output is incomparable with his more aggressive kin.


AdvancedspacespacespacespacespacespacespaExpert (Wasn't using crit-a-cola, point still stands)

Damage: 8.5/10;
Tank damage: 9/10;
Support: 5/10;
Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][];
Specialty: Credit collecting, giant/ tank killing
Summary: Despite being a very unpopular subclass among even experienced players, a dps scout can often top damage on unbiased maps (not mannhattan), especially tank damage (again, not mannhattan). With one of the highest damaging weapon in MvM (soda popper), and even getting an extra tick in firing speed (which you're normally not supposed to have), the dps scout can do massive damage onto tanks & tight clusters of slow, bulky robots (heavies, giants). In union with the scout's money magnet and health from money abilities, this makes scout an ideal all-around class for carrying underwhelming teams.

This subclass does require decent aim and is probably one of the hardest subclasses to be effective with, since you won’t be upgrading resistance until maxing out your primary, and will often have to banzai charge into mobs of enemies hoping to kill them quickly enough.

With all that being said, you're still a scout, and you have to collect credits, so don't stay too long on tanks.

Running with the fan'o'war/ sandman glued to your hand: For starters, they can only mark 1 target at a time, so even if you whack the ♥♥♥♥ out of every robot, only one will take minicrit in the end. Second, you have a primary, which is far more impressive than smacking away at giants for whopping 39 damage swings. Thirdly, the soldier already has a much more effective buff banner.

Damage: 7/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 6.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Crowd control, (team) damage boosting, range
Summary: The stock RL and its variants don’t really bring much to the table. With its splash radius, the stock RL is great for taking out groups of regular robots, while the rocket specialist upgrade gives it unlimited range and makes it a hard counter against super scouts, but the absence of raw dps makes it only effective on a few maps/ missions.
The buff banner, on the other hand, is a blessing for demo and heavy, since both are high dps classes that suffer from damage fall-off.


Advanced with 300+ pingwooooow great formattingExpert

Damage: 10/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 8/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Crowd control, giant/ tank killing, (team) healing, one man army
Summary: Embrace THE unrivalled king in MvM. The beggar’s bazooka has the 3rd highest single target dps, following miniguns and knives, highest tank damage, deals splash damage, and does so by outputting a consistent stream of damage instead of short bursts like the stock RL. On top of that, it also has the potential to deal unmatched burst damage by fully loading its clips, making it highly versatile.
To follow up, the conch is a superior version of the mad milk, since it heals anyone dealing any damage (except for engi) nearby, recharges almost instantly, and cannot be healed off by enemies (which makes it insanely powerful against giant medic combos, especially when paired up with a heavy). The extra speed boost can also be helpful, especially when it comes to circle strafing around giants.
Unite the two and you have the best carry class in MvM.

Between the two of the most powerful support items in MvM, it depends on the context, as the two encourage very different playstyles. The buff bannner pushes the beggar's raw damage to its limits, and can output more damage than the conch when the team has decent support, especially with a capable medic. The conch allows the player and teammates to take much more aggresive positions, especially in the absence of a competent medic, and is the go-to weapon in a 'last man standing' scenario, and spam-hard waves where the team needs to soak up a lot more damage than their resistance allows for.

It has its moments, but its more situational than the other 2. The crit immunity and extra resistance can be a game changer on early waves with a lot of crit/minicrit spam (e.g. hamlet wave 1, mannslaughter wave 2), but as resistance builds up later on, it will make much less of a difference.

Fully loading the beggar's: Don't do that. Tap fire.
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=424077241

Staying passive when the team has a strong defense: This is bad for all classes but the soldier suffers from this playstyle the most. Too often do I see soldiers standing on this spot on mannhattan and staring into oblivion. Well, replace my sniper with a soldier. Not only are they giving up accuracy and damage, chances are their team also won't receive any support from their banners.




Overdoing rocket specialist & health on kill upgrades: 1 for each is enough.

Damage: 6.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 4/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Airblasting bomb carrier, reflect, tank killing
Summary: The two-cities update rendered this support-oriented playstyle mostly obsolete, and under most circumstances I find it much more painless to kill the bomb carrier compared to airblasting it over and over to let it get all the buffs.



Damage: 10/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 2/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Giant/ tank killing, bodyblocking
Summary: Pure dps class, most money efficient tank killer, what more do I have to say? You can use the backburner more aggressively to output huge damage, but overall I’d say the phlog is the go-to weapon with how easy it can be charged.

Airblasting everything: It achieves nothing, messes up everyone's aim, and will earn you a guaranteed votekick in 5 minutes.

Scorch Shot There has been a recent influx of half witted pyros using a god-forsaken weapon called the 'scorch shot', which is essentially a worse version of the airblast that deals slightly more damage than a short circuit. Squash these pests without any mercy.

Overdoing resistance: Early game tanks are a pyro's top priority. You don't need resistance for that.

Neglecting resistance: Late game bot damage benefit immensely from tankiness, especially with the phlog. You should be playing as a mobile heavy with no penalty on tanks.

Damage: 9.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 4/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Crowd control, uber medics
Summary: Sticky demo is a very typical early-game class, where his sticky traps can deal unmatched burst damage in the first wave. Unfortunately it gets completely outclassed by the beggar’s & minigun in terms of dps when the credits hit ~3600. Demo’s support ability goes as far as taking out uber medics (and occasionally giant meds), which is crucial in the first few waves, but can be easily substituted in later waves as firepower and resistance builds up. Scottish Resistance (ScoRes) extend both the stock's strengths and weaknesses, with better damage without upgrades, bigger and more controllable traps, but worse late game dps and spam ability.



Damage: 9/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 0/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Crown control
Summary: Pipes feel like a weird mix among explosive weapons. Statistically, it’s a beggar’s with less dps but better accuracy, a sticky launcher with no burst damage but better range, and an RL with higher dps. It doesn’t look like much on paper, but it feels so natural and satisfying to use on every terrain, making it arguably the best weapon for crowd control. Absolutely no support from this guy though.


Damage: 6.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 2.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: lol
Summary: In all seriousness, the closest thing I can relate a demoknight to is a mixture of dps scout and sniper. He runs from target to target and kills them at close range, runs fast, tanky as hell, collects money (all scout), and need groups of robots nearby to sustain high dps (sniper). Despite that, I still consider him as a joke class, as he’s too squishy in early game, and falls short on dps later on.

Planting stickies under tanks instead of next to them: As demonstrated in the following guide, stickies do full damage (225) when they're right next to tanks, but only 76% damage (171) when directly beneath. Sticky demo still has a lot of potential for tank damage.
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=426921713
Spamming stickies from far away: Given stickybombs' limited range and damage fall-off, you're giving up both firing rate & damage per shot by doing so.

Damage: 10/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 2.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Giant killing, damage tanking/ bodyblocking, bosses
Summary: Say what you want about demos and snipers carrying on advanced bigrock & mannhattan, the heavy is still the best class at taking out groups of giants at a chokepoint, where high, consistent dps is demanded. A beggar’s soldier may challenge his superiority depending on the context, but you can never go wrong with the minigun. Speaking of chokepoints, the heavy is exceptional at sealing off a tight choke or corner on his own with heals and ammo, which is his main method of support.

I never used to like the brass beast, as the reduced mobility makes it really hard to close in distance towards enemies, and it makes be feel like a sitting duck when I know it's a losing fight. But the damage resistance buff from the update gave it a boost in viability, as the brass beast now enhances both raw damage and resistance, although still quite unable to justify the mobility of a crippled sloth while spinning up. Having decent amounts of mobility can be just as important, if not more, as raw damage. In my opinion it comes down to playstyle, if you are a human sentry, go with the beast; if you like actively moving around and engaging robots, go with stock.

Heavy is the easiest class to play and requires no brain:
One of my friends chose heavy on his first tour on Hamlet Hospitality. He's an excellent PvP player but has nil experience in MvM, turns out he dominated on the scoreboard. All he had to learn were the upgrades.
I guess the takeaway point is, heavy is the most straightforward class to play. He just needs to block off chokepoints/corners, stay alive, and do high damage at close range. It only a handful of seemingly simple things, but none are easy to master.

On an alt account

Damage: 7/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 10/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Ammo, heals, early-game damage, sentry blocking/ damage tanking, cleanup
Summary: The engi is the center of an MvM team’s defence:
1.The majority of damage classes will need to stick around his dispenser;
2.The sentry is the team’s safety net as well as one of the highest damaging weapons with little to no upgrades;
3.Teleporters can save precious time for respawners, or even provide easy mid-wave upgrades.

Moreover, the sentry’s health, when combined with wrangler (R.I.P Sigafoo Save), allows it to lock down chokepoints when the heavy is too squishy with no upgrades. Even though the sentry will get out damaged by most other weapons halfway throughout the mission, the engi continues to be an essential class with his support utilities.

There's not a whole lot of ways to ♥♥♥♥ up as an engi once you know the 'meta': max out dispenser range, put buildings where the heavy is spamming 'pootis', yank your sentry away when busters come. But there's still a great deal of differences between an OK engi and a great one.
There are tons of cool stuff to do as engi instead of crouching and whacking your sentry, and they definitely make engi one of the most exhilarating classes in MvM. I won't be able to cover them all, as there're a lot of tiny details that come down to quick thinking, but here are the general concepts to avoid.

Putting dispenser far back when your team is far up: Your dispenser is the center of a team's defense, similar to medic in competitive. Pulling your dispenser back in meta spots when your team is aggressing forward is clearly limiting their firepower.

Putting sentry far forward when robots have pushed through: not only does this make life harder for the scout, this also contradicts with the sentry's role as a team's safety net.

Ignoring sentry tanking: Unlike Empire Escalation's sweet gentle waves with literally no soldier bots, where robots come in short bursts and allows the demo to take care of everything, a lot of other advanced and expert missions require the sentry to be constantly moved to block off corners/chokes and eat up a lot of damage in early game.

lolololololol

Damage: 6/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 10/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Damage blocking (shield), damage boosting (kritzkrieg), healing/ overhealing, reviving, aggro drawing (uber+spy teammate)
Summary:
The medic is one of the most complex classes to play, as it requires good knowledge of every other class, as well as making a lot of micro decisions, like:
Who should I crit for the tank? The top damaging scout or the phlog? And the giants?
Should I shield the sniper, or the heavy who is trying to be a sniper?
Should I revive the scout, or save the demo who's clinging onto a few hp?
Who should I heal to charge my shield/ uber in time and when should I use it?
Etc.

Since medic is pretty much the only class I played before tour 100, I'll elaborate a bit more and go over different mediguns as each encourages different playsyles.
Probably the least used in MvM, as the projectile shield upgrade has made the ubercharge mostly obsolete, and the not-so-new meta explicitly states that 'the kritz-demo is the only combo that deals damage'. However, for classes that can benefit vastly from avoiding aggro, such as spy & pyro, there's no better option than having an uber medic, as an ubercharge (not the canteen effect) draw the most amount of aggro in MvM, even more than backstabs.

Stick this gun up your demo's or soldier's bum. Other dps classes like scout & heavy won't benefit from it as much since their damage ramp-up, combined with minicrits, already grants them 2x+ damage. Pyro and demoknight can easily generate their own crits, while sniper and spy obviously don't need it.

Works best with point blank dps classes: heavy and scout. The extra healing speed grants a much faster shield building rate, especially when combined with maximum overheal, and allows for much more aggressive positioning where other mediguns would fail. This makes it really easy for heavy & scout to move in and fully utilize their high raw damage, and having three pocket heavies can annihilate tankless missions like metro malice.
The quick-fix also has a lot of gimmicks that make it superb. The megaheal allows the combo, or even just the medic himself, to easily tank the damage from most giants, without the use of a shield. It also grants immunity to knockbacks, making it even easier for the patient to bodyblock. It can even keep the scouts overheal from decaying, while the speed effect makes it much easier to follow a scout around, and considering a crit-a-cola scout can already do 236% damage with minicrits at point blank, this is easily the best medigun for a pocket dps scout.


The projectile shield has easily one of the highest single target dps in early game (132 dps). At a cost of mere 600 to fully upgrade, along with the ability to output damage in a wide fan shape, and given its ability to block bullets, projectiles, or even enemy medibeam, it is arguably one of the most versatile weapons/upgrades in MvM.

I hardly see this upgrade in Mann Up. Probably because the meta forbid medics to upgrade primaries. Regardless, this is a seriously powerful upgrade on first waves with a lot of incoming damage and giants (mannslaughter wave 1), but its effectiveness decreases significantly in later waves since everyone should be overhealed with a medic on the team.

Only healing one player: This is obviously a horrible idea unless your pocket is a god, but let me entertain you. The projectile shield is built based on both healing done (including overheal), and damage done by the patient, but largely dependant on the former. Ubercharge builds faster on injured teammates than fully healed ones. So buffing everyone up will make you charge shield and uber faster, while also having a sturdier meatshield for you.

Not prioritising overheal upgrade: See above.

Holding on to an ubercharge for too long: It takes as little as 50 seconds to build an ubercharge, which can be halved with upgrades, and let's not forget that there are sentry busters.

(Using hitman's heatmaker)

Damage: 9.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 4/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: Crowd control (heavy targets), uber medics, steel gauntlets, range
Summary: The sniper is one of the most effective classes in terms of crowd control when there are heavy, slow targets inside the group, be it steel gauntlets, giants, or just any fat robots in general, since the heatmaker can do massive consistent damage with no effort when there’re free filling up the focus bar constantly.

However, when facing multiple giants and no regular bots to keep the focus bar filled, the heatmaker really comes up short on dps compared to a lot of other weapons, especially considering headshots are already crit damage and cannot be (mini)crit boosted (although explosive headshot damage can be minicrit boosted). As such, the sniper is a very situational class choice, and his support ability goes as far as picking out uber medics, same as the sticky demo. yes i know he has a jar of urine, but the cozy camper has so much more viability after its recent buff

You need to be a very high level sniper in PvP to do good in MvM: Contrary to what some xXxn0sc0persxXx claim, sniping in MvM doesn’t require a lot of skill, much less so compared to target choosing. Picking easy targets to hit is a must, and that means don’t try and headshot that lone melee scout, when there is clearly a cluster of heavies elsewhere.
Also, giants are the best targets to land headshots on, for one: they’re slow, have big heads, and are probably shooting at your teammates instead of you; and two: explosive headshot damage don’t increase with the damage per shot upgrade, so chances are direct headshots will do more damage than explosive headshots.I'm an absolutely horrendous sniper in PvP with my 1 inch/360 sens, but look at the screenshot above.

Getting damage per shot upgrades first instead of reload speed: Sniper's damage relies heavily on explosive headshots, which aren't affected by damage per shot at all (as stated above).

Damage: 9.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Support: 3.5/10; Effective period: [][][][][][][][][][][][]
Specialty: giant medics, lone giants, steel gauntlets, money collecting
Summary: Backstabs have the 2nd highest damage in MvM, topped only by a crit brass beast, but since it’s guaranteed to draw aggro after 1 stab, it’s normally impossible to get more than 4 stabs in a row without the target turning (except for giant meds), forcing spy into a burst damage class.
This is hardly an issue as 4 max-damage stabs can kill most giants or bring them down to <1000 hp, except for a giant heavy, but when faced with groups of giants, the spy will have a hard time keeping up with a heavy's or even soldier's more consistent dps. Using the "stab -> dead-ringer -> redisguise & wait -> stab" cycle halves the spy's damage at best, while other class can deal consistent damage to multiple targets.

It's been confirmed than an uber medic can completely draw aggro away from spies, so the 'Captain Punch' can work consistently everywhere. The spy can retake aggro after the uber so that the medic can get a few ubersaw swings, then rinse and repeat. While doing a nearly constant 2000 dps might sound painfully overpowered, it actually isn't. The main issues I've encountered were the medic getting juggled away, and deaf, dumb, and blind gibus scouts playing ring around the rosie and taking cover behind my back. Still, its completely viable if both the spy and the medic know what they're doing, and potentially a better replacement for a heavy.
Of course, this strategy has a lot of drawbacks, and while regular robots can be saved for your teammates, the spy can do nothing against tanks, as knives can do an astounding double digit dps on tanks.

As for support, its goes as far as credit collecting for spy, but since he's has no money magnet ability, nor scout's mobility, it's both painful and counterproductive to put to much attention into it. Feel free to mock the heavy who hasn't used his WASD keys once when he asks "where's my bonus?" Relying on a spy to take out groups of uber medics isn't the best option. That, and occasionally drawing aggro away from your dying heavy.

Sapping: Sapping giants achieves nothing other than giving them a show. Sapping regular robots will only disable them temporarily, while a soldier or demo can take them down within seconds, and sappers take an eternity to recharge. Would you like to spend 1050 credits on this?

Prioritising swing speed before armor penetration: The spy is a giant killer first and foremost. 800 credits on armor penetration will triple his giant damage, while if spent on swing speed, won't even double it.

The scoreboard screenshots shown above are all examples of players carrying in an MvM team, some were necessary due to lack of experience and skill from the rest of the team, some 'just happened'.
Regardless, whether you have to carry or are doing it for fun, there are a few simple required elements the team has to have in order for you to succeed.
They include: Damage (including tank damage), ammo, healing, credit collecting, clean-up.
And if we boil them down to minimum number of required classes:

Always. Ammo, clean-up, and early-game damage are too important. Unless you're just gonna spend every penny from the first round on canteens and buybacks.

And one of the following combos:
A meta scout can hand out a ridiculous amount of heals, along with money and various types of support. A high dps class needs no explanation.

or

A heavy may pass when there are no tanks as his tankiness and resistance improves his dps as well as survivability, but a beggar's + conch soldier or a phlog pyro are still better choices. Demo and sniper will have a much harder time due to the lack of support.

I personally prefer the dps scout + beggar's/conch soldier combo, as both are highly independent, well-rounded classes where having one man down doesn't affect the other in the slightest, yet in the meantime the two synergises with each other so well in terms of aggro drawing.

It's not uncommon at all to hear meatheads from server to server crying out: we don't need two demos! Let me tell you why you should swat them away like mosquitos.

Class variety?


CLASS VARIETY????


You wish. There won't be enough money to heal everyone.
2 might work.


"We need a medic"




Class variety and not having duped classes is just some hogwash used by mentally incapable nerds to enforce their meta belief. As long as you get every required element covered, feel free to mess around at your own pleasure.

You may have noticed that I've shown a strong bias towards the beggar's bazooka soldier throughout this guide. Is the beggar's really the all-around champion in MvM?

Both excel at crowd control, but the beggar's soldier has a HUGE advantage on multiple giants and tanks, possesses burst damage potential, and is able to be crit boosted, while the sniper has only an edge against heavy bots and steel gauntlets.
Meanwhile the soldier has the options to use banners: he can either increase his raw damage with the buff banner, or adopt a more aggressive playstyle with the conch (which also increases damage), or even save the team from early game crits with the battalion. All of which can be shared with the team, while the sniper only has a jar of piss.
The heatmaker does have a quicker start than the beggar's. Maxing out explosive headshot and reload speed (1800 credits) basically caps its crowd control ability, and can take out uber medics reliably at this point, while the soldier needs to max out damage + reload, with 1 tick in rocket specialist (2650 credits).
Also since rockets are projectiles, he will be far less effective against deflector heavies and reflect pyros, as well as with high latency (ping). The sniper trades the extra damage for better range, no penalty from latency, and also no worries when facing deflectors and reflects.
With that being said, a smart soldier can always find ways to reduce distance from enemies, knows how to compensate for lag, while deflectors and reflectors are quite uncommon in most missions.
Ergo, a beggar's soldier has the upper hand against a heatmaker sniper. Not necessarily always better in a real game, but definitely greater potential and more powerful in the hands of a skilled player in MOST situations.

This guide does a great job at explaining how sniper's explosive headshot damage works:
http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482414878

Stickies, especially the ScoRes, are stronger than the beggar's (and pretty much every other weapon in MvM) in the following scenarios: early waves with a lot of uber medics, and waves where robots come in short, tight packs with plenty of time in-between (Mannhattan, some Bigrock waves). Other than that they are pretty much outclassed by the beggar's in every way, including DPS, upgrade cost, lacking stun ability, as well as giving up a banner. Well, pyros bots won't reflect stickies intentionally so I guess that's one more point for demo.

Quite an interesting match here, as these are the two weapons with the top 2 highest consistent dps. The beggar's favors tight clusters of robots more than the minigun, while the latter works better on lined up enemies as it reduces the need for aiming and bullet penetration will show its power. The minigun has very limited potential against tanks, but its raw damage allows the heavy to take on giants easily in early waves, while bullets cannot be reflected/deflected either. The minigun's raw damage may make it seem like a favored choice for mowing down giants, but chances are, with little to no resistance, one won't be able to move into position to deal effective damage. On the flip side, the beggar's soldier's range and versatility more than makes up for his lack of raw dps.
Both show superiority to the other in different situations, but overall I'd say they break even, when used correctly. Unfortunately the heavy's own tankiness will rarely be enough to compete with the flexibility of a banner.

The Phlog has so much potential against multiple giants. By simply holding down w+m1+m2, it can hit 520 dps by burning 1 enemy; 610 on 2 enemies; and 650 on 3. That's far greater than the beggar's bazooka with a buff banner, and this can be extremely powerful when holding a chokepoint/corner. Sadly the pyro's severely limited range really hurts its effectiveness on wide open maps, which makes the effectiveness of a pyro more situational.

Not necessarily. As I've mention in the "Terminologies" section, the 'damage' rating is the equivalent of the maximum dps output on an endless stream of enemies without special properties. Numbers from this rating are more fitting in scenarios when fighting against: tanks and steady/ prolonged waves of steel gauntlet/ giants. These are more often found on expert and advanced missions, and they're typically parts of a wave that challenge the team's ability the most. Hence I think it would be appropriate to use it to represent the damage ability of a class.

"But the damage numbers seems to offer a different story!", says you, bragging over your pitiful 200k damage as a ScoRes demo on Empire Escalation.

Well, besides raw damage capability, another factor that greatly affects damage capability is how robots spawn (which is also something I keep mentioning). To break that down, it's how quick do each pack of robots spawn, how many robots/ hp are there in the packs, & how much time there are between packs. Missions like Empire Escalation are mostly made of quick, large, high hp waves with a lot of breaks in between, and with how easy it is to ubersaw sentry busters on this map due to its structure, it should be a cakewalk to put down crit traps for everything.
This type of damage relies heavily on burst damage, and the ScoRes is the undebatable king of it. Stickies are better for raw damage, but cannot match the former in burst damage. Spy isn't half bad at it either, but it's only against lone giants and giant medics. The beggar's bazooka can deal burst damage with clip size upgrade, but since it's one of the last upgrades to get, it's pretty much irrelevant until then. The rest of the classes/ subclasses are just mediocre at best.

Another component that contributes to the numbers is the types of robots:
Scout and heavy favor slow, tanky robots, soldier is bad against reflect pyros and deflect heavies, pyro is good at everything (but its range is a deadful disadvantage), demo is bad against fast-moving, high hp robots, engi is bad against large packs of robots, sniper is good at giants/heavies with regular robots around, spy is good at giants/steel gauntlets.

Map terrain can also be a factor, especially for pyros, as they have the worst range and rely the most on covers.

The damage rating represent raw average dps, but it doesn't always reflect in-game damage numbers. Wave composition and map terrain are also contributing factors.

Update 2024: corrected grammars. Updated guide to 2024 standards(wip)