As an engineer, you are not typically going to be charging the front lines with the soldiers, demomen, and heavies. Engineer is not a power class. His main function is to support his team with a strategic assortment of teleports, healing stations, and bullets. Lots and lots of bullets.

I see too many novice engineers that are too timid to leave spawn, because they're afraid that their stuff is going to get sapped, shot, and blown to pieces. But by building everything in the safe zones, they're failing to support their team. Your number one job is to help your team. If you can help them most by building a dispenser to keep them in the fight, then you need to build that dispenser. I don't care if you don't have a sentry set up; if your team is going to benefit more from the health and ammo than it would from cover fire from a sentry, you need to set up that dispenser. Reading the situation is a key part of being an effective engineer.

For some maps (particularly payload and attack/defend), a teleporter is a godsend to your team, and should be your top priority. For other maps, (particularly when defending) having a dispenser to fall back to is incredible. It can keep your team in the game, and trust me, it is far better to have two heavies, a soldier, and a pyro guarding a cart or a point than it is to have one level three sentry gun. And in other maps (notably king of the hill), a sentry gun is probably the top priority. Sometimes you just need more gun. (did I steal that line from somewhere? eh, nobody'll notice)

The engineer is part medic, part ammo pack, part teleporting god, part heavy, part scout, and part soldier, all wrapped up in one tiny Texan ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (and people say he's not a versitile class!). Sometimes you need the medic part more than you need the heavy part. Sometimes the teleporter is more important than the ammo. It's up to you to decide what comes first.

But for the love of Pootis, whatever you do, put it in a spot that actually helps the team.

You are an engineer. You are a slow, underpowered, double jump-challenged scout. This would be a bad thing if it wasn't for your sentry gun.

Sentry guns are incredibly powerful, automatic killing machines. Once you plop one down, it swiftly builds into something to be feared. These things never miss, and they hit hard. With all that, you'd think that the engineer would be the overpowered incarnation of death itself, wouldn't you? Well.... you certainly can be, but you need to know what you're doing.

The first thing that any novice engineer learns is that the level three sentry gun is insanely powerful (probably first learned when walking into one built by the other team). The second thing that they learn is that when people see a sentry getting built, they tend to shoot it at. That means that the first lesson they take to heart will inevitably be that sentry guns are hard to build up.

And that means that, obviously, the best place to level up your gun is right in front of your spawn, right? And it's even better because there's a resupply cabinet within 10 feet, so you have unlimited metal! Once it's built all the way, I can just carry it to the front lines and be that overpowered incarnation of death we were talking about, right? ....... Right?

WRONG.

For the love of Pootis, do NOT build your gun in front of spawn. Unless you are getting spawn camped like crazy, you are not going to be helping your team at all (and if you do get spawn camped, your gun is going to go down faster than you can say "mah sentry!") So all the time that you are wasting building your gun to level three, you could have been out in the field contributing to your team's success. And if you thought that people shot at guns while they are building, you haven't seen anything yet. When they see you trying to haul your unwieldly level three sentry gun halfway across the map, they are going to light you up so hard, so fast, that no matter what you do, you and your gun are going down. A level three has more health, but it also takes way longer to rebuild. The other team can take you down and laugh at your corpse as it sits awkwardly against the wall and still have time to beat your gun to death with a frying pan.

Another mistake I see novice engineers is camping by their gun. You set it down, pull out your wrench and start hitting it. And you stand completely still, hitting it. Over. And over. And over. And ov- Oh wait you just got shot in the head by a sniper. Or you got backstabbed. Or you got hit by a Loch'n'load demoman. "Standing around like a bloody idiot!" -Sniper

Don't do this. Yes, you will probably want to stay near your gun, especially if there are a few spies on the other team that are eyeing your sentry gun with a malicious smile and readied sapper. But you don't need to stand directly next to it at all times. In fact, it might even be a good thing to set it down and walk a distance away while it's building (maybe looking for metal to upgrade?). I have found that setting down a sentry in the corner doesn't always attract very much attention because you can do it quickly, and sentries aren't that noticable while they're building. But the big, colorful man swinging a wrench crouching next to the sentry is very, very noticable. You are most vulnerable while your sentry is building. Unless you're using the jag (and even then, you might still be better off sometimes), put your sentry down and keep moving. When you stand still, you're dead, and so is your sentry. You can't really repair it while it's building, and odds are you're probably getting hit, too. If your sentry comes under fire while it's building, abandon it. Even if you manage to keep it alive (probably killing yourself in the process), a minisentry or a level one isn't going to come alive and destroy the attackers. 99.9% of the time it will simply be destroyed before it can shoot more than 2 or 3 bullets. The only exception would be if you have a lot of team support pushing the enemy back, in which case you might be able to save your gun and yourself. But never prioritize your gun over your own life.

The most important decision you make as an engineer is where to put your buildings down. It makes all the difference in the world, and a few inches to either side could be the difference between overwhelming success and humiliating failure. There are a lot of things that go into a good sentry location, but the most important ones are attack angles, traffic, and surprise.

The first thing you need to think about if you're considering a sentry spot is, "If I was an enemy soldier/demoman/sniper, how would I go about destroying this sentry?" Chances are, there will always be a way that one of these three classes could take down the sentry without taking damage, whether it be by sniping it from beyond the sentry's range, or laying stickybombs from around the corner. But you need to size up the area around the sentry to figure out where your gun will be covered from attack, and where the assault is most likely to come from. In this picture, I know that my gun is pretty well protected from sniper fire because of the walls around me. But a demoman could hide around the corner and place stickies to destroy it, so I need to be prepared to deal with that.



Also important to consider is your sentry's attack range. You might find a spot that is virtually impossible for the other team to defeat your sentry without an ubercharge push, but that won't matter if it never sees an enemy. When placing your sentry, make sure to note which parts of the map are going to be covered by it. Remember where the enemy is going to come into view, and where they are going to get under cover or out of range, and plan accordingly. When possible, try to put your gun where it will have a height advantage over players. When your gun is looking down on the battlefield, it will probably see the enemy before he or she sees the gun, and that buys you even more time to kill them. It is also harder to destroy with projectiles and stickybombs if the sentry is above ground level, although you will have to be careful that snipers don't have an easy shot at it.

The second thing you need to consider is the level of traffic you are expecting. In 30 seconds, how many members of the enemy team do you expect to pass your gun? One? Three? Fifty-two? This is important to know. If nobody is going to come this way, then don't put your gun there. It will be more helpful somewhere busier. But if you're expecting to deal with two soldiers and a scout at any given second, you may want to reconsider building your gun right there. It most likely won't last through the building time unless you use your body as a distraction, and even then a mini or a level one isn't going to be able to take on three people at once. A happy medium is what you're striving for. You want one or two people to pass by every ten to fifteen seconds, so that your gun can take them out one at a time.

Something that most engineers forget when placing their guns is that where the sentry gun is placed is going to not only discourage the enemy from using that path, but also encourage their team to use it. Any player will be more likely to use that flanking route or hallway if they know that a friendly sentry gun is there to deal with any fierce counterattack. This also goes for where you put your dispenser and teleports. As an engineer, you control the flow of battle. Where do you want your team to have the advantage? The main path to the objective? Or do you want to lock down the flanking routes and force the enemy into a choke? It depends on the situation, the map, and the composition of the teams. But as the engineer, it is your call to make.

The last thing you need to consider is the surprise factor. There are places (especially on attack/defend and payload) where there will be at least one level three sentry gun set up 90% of the time. As effective as these spots may be, they are also predictable in the extreme. If you've played the map for any length of time, you know to check the top left balcony on the last point of upward. There's going to be a nest up there, guaranteed. Lob some grenades up there and take it out before pushing on, no big deal. People know how to counter the most popular spots.

But if you throw down a mini or a level one sentry in an unexpected, unorthodox location, people don't know what to do. It doesn't even have to be in a very defensive location so long as it is surprising. The sentry in the screenshot above is a good example. People will come around the corner heading toward the other side of the map, and the sentry shoots them in the back. Even with a level one, most players fail to react in time to save themselves (unless they're playing as soldier or heavy), and by the time they turn around or run for cover, they're already dead. Surprise is the biggest weapon in the engineer's arsenal, not the sentry gun itself. I can't stress that enough. Give me a level one in a completely unexpected ambush over a level three in the most predictable spot any day of the week.

Finally, keeping in line with the surprise idea, move your placement around. Most of the time, unless you pick a particularly defensive position (or the other team is full of idiots, which can certainly happen in pubs), your gun is probably going to get taken out not long after the first wave of victims respawns. People killed by sentry guns tend to go after them rather than avoid them. When you go to build another gun, choose a different location. Unless you got a dozen kills with the last location, mix it up. I try to have at least three solid, unorthodox locations for each section of each map, and I typically use at least two of them in each game I play. If you've been covering the main path for a while, switch it up and surprise the other team with a random sentry guarding a flanking route. Within a few minutes and a couple of guns, the other team will be afraid to go anywhere on the map, and you've done your job. Above all, never be predictable.

Let's say you're an engineer, and you have a level one sentry gun hidden in a corner. A heavy walks in the room and gets targeted by your gun. He turns around and opens fire on it, and your sentry's health starts dropping. What happens next?

...... Well, ideally, by this point you're behind the heavy, shooting him in the back and killing him while he's distracted. You might even do it fast enough that he doesn't kill your gun, but even if your gun goes down, you're still alive, and between the metal from your old gun's remains and the heavy's weapon, you'll have enough metal to put another gun up immediately.

The point that I want to get across is that you, as an engineer, are not powerless. Even without a sentry gun, you are more than capable of killing just about any class. Granted, you'll be hard pressed to kill a decent soldier or heavy one-on-one without a sentry gun, but you should never underestimate the mobile, intelligent weapon that is you. You have a shotgun (or other primary weapons), so don't be afraid to use it. If your gun is shooting at something, you should be doing the same from a different angle. Unless you're fighting three or four people, or they get the jump on you, a level one sentry and your shotgun should be more than enough firepower to overcome whatever comes your way.

Of course, this is assuming that you can aim. That's important. As amazing as your sentry gun can be, it is also very, very limited in what it can adapt to. It is stationary, and only attacks. It can't defend itself, so when you notice a demoman getting ready to corner your gun, or a sniper lining up a long shot, you as the engineer need to press the attack. Most players tunnel in when they're trying to take out a sentry gun and won't recognize the Texan Fury you're unleashing on them until it's too late. But you still need to be able to land those meatshots, and that comes with practice. Try playing scout for a while, and then switching to engineer will feel like you're playing on slo-mo. As I've said before, you're essentially a lazy scout without your buildings, but even a lazy scout can still hurt if he shoves his shotgun in your back.

On average, for every kill I get with my sentry gun, I've gotten another one with my shotgun within about 30-40 feet of my gun. I try to stay close enough that I can get back if it gets sapped or gets attacked, but there are times when I let my gun die so that I can immediately put another one down on the other side of the map. This all falls under the basic tip of continually moving around. Don't camp by your gun, but wander around the general area. It makes you far less predictable. You'll pick up ammo, metal, health, contribute to the general offense, cover a much greater area, get a feel for the flow of the match, and snatch some extra kills while you're out there. And if you get into a tight spot, just lead the enemy through the room or hall where your gun is set up. Trust me, when an engineer turns tail and runs, players get this weird tunnel vision and forget that he probably has a gun set up until it's waaaaay too late to save themselves. Very little feels better than luring somebody right in the path of your gun. Make them not only fear your sentry gun, but also you, personally.

Of course, if you find that you've set up in a position that is really difficult for the enemy team to push through, then you may want to switch to a more defensive mindset. You can deal a lot of damage on your own, but a level 2 or 3 sentry gun is still going to do more, and sometimes it's better to hang back and defend/repair your sentry and let it do all the talking. I'm not saying you should always go on the offensive. Sometimes it's far better to stick to your nest and keep it up as long as you can. Above all, you should be focusing on doing whatever you can to limit the mobility and progress of the enemy team. If that means sitting back and keeping your sentry alive, then focus on that. If it means risking your gun to roam around and cover a wider range, then you'd better start roaming.

The Level One
This is my bread-and-butter. Never underestimate the power of a level one sentry gun when nobody expects it. With 150 health and 64 DPS, this thing will take out most classes in roughly 2 seconds. Soldiers, Demos, and Heavies will have time to react, but just about everybody else is going to drop, especially if you're also on hand to take a few potshots. If a pyro knows it's there, then he'll probably be able to take it down if he started with full health. It isn't strong enough to handle groups unless they're all focused completely on you and you're good at dodging, but one-on-one it isn't too shabby.

80% of my sentry gun kills have been by a level one sentry gun. Often with the roaming around and generally staying alive, my gun stays at level one for a solid 30 seconds or so before I am able to get around to upgrading it, if I even decide to invest the metal to upgrade it in the first place. You would be surprised at what a well-placed level one is capable of. It is small, quiet, and often attracts no attention until players start seeing it on their killcam. It's funny how often people fear a minisentry more than a level one. Just don't rely on it to annihilate everything; it's still a level one, after all.



The Level Two
This thing packs a serious punch. It has 180 health and 128 DPS, so while it isn't significantly healthier than the level one, it does double damage. Think about it: most classes will die in about a second when standing in front of this thing. This is a stationary heavy on aimbot, and you won't even get VAC banned for using it! It isn't too difficult to upgrade your gun to level two if you've placed it in a good position; all the dropped weapons from your initial kills should supply you with enough metal without having to go searching too far for ammo packs.

This thing is pretty capable of handling whatever comes at you. Very rarely will anything survive getting lured into range, even if it's a group of 2-3 demos or soldiers. At medium range, this thing is just about the match for a heavy, even if he was ready for the sentry. If you're taking shots at him while he's distracted, then you're almost guaranteed to win that fight. If you've got a level two up, then the enemy team had better watch their steps.



The Level Three
BOOM. Let's just add rockets to the mix, shall we? With 216 health, it's healthier than a soldier and way harder to kill. The bullets don't come out any faster, so you're still doing a solid 128 DPS, but every 3 or so seconds, it also shoots out a pack of missiles that deals between 50 and 150 damage, depending on how close the sentry gun is to the target. That heavy we were talking about with the level two? Yeah, he's dead. And so is the medic that was overhealing him. And the demo that ran in afterwards. All dead.

Put simply, this is insane damage output. The other team is going to need a spy, an ubercharge, or a sneaky trick like sticky cornering to take this thing down. Levels one and two could potentially be overpowered by numbers or strength, but this beast really isn't going to take that. Boom, rat-a-tat-a-tat, boom. Dead. No big surprise.




The Mini
Ah, yes, there's also the mini sentry, isn't there? Allow me to sum up my feelings towards this particular gun.

............... Meh?

I don't really like to use this gun very much in public servers, personally. It has 100 health and 48 DPS, but it builds in only a few seconds and only costs 100 metal. It has 50 health when you put it down, which means it can potentially survive a weaker attack at the beginning of construction, but, again, if your sentry comes under fire while it's building, it's probably going to die. It can be very useful, but when I use it, it just seems like the damage output isn't great enough. Don't get me wrong, 48 DPS isn't anything to sneeze at, especially to a class like scout, but when I'm playing engineer, it just isn't enough. I mean, it'll take about 3 seconds to kill most classes, which is plenty of time for them to react and get under cover or take out the gun entirely. I feel like I always have to mop up the mess with my shotgun. And all this is to make it quicker and cheaper to deploy? I understand the appeal, but I don't usually have too much issue with building sentries because of the tactics I've already outlined. The lower metal cost and the quick building leads many engineers to simply drop the sentries wherever they happen to be standing, because, hell, why not? It takes away the whole location decision-making that is so important for the engineer, and just leads to spamming minisentries.

But this gun isn't without some merit. It's small, so it's actually pretty easy to hide at times. And the quick build is certainly helpful in a pinch, because whoever is chasing you is going to have to choose between shooting at you and shooting at the turret that's about to open fire. By equipping the gunslinger, you also have an extra 25 health, so your general survivability is increased. It encourages engineers to get out and be active, which is always a good thing. The best part about this gun is that it only costs 100 metal, so you can throw down a second minisentry almost instantly if your first one comes under too much fire. I just don't think that giving up the DPS and the ability to upgrade your gun if it's in a great spot is worth what the mini sentry has to offer. But that's my personal opinion, and there are a lot of engineers who would disagree with me. It is most definitely a viable alternative to the regular sentry gun.

One technique that can be a lot of fun (and really, really irritating to fight against) is to use these to get past the front line by running straight through and dropping the minisentry behind you to discourage pursuit. It doesn't work every time, but if the enemy team doesn't have sentries set up, you'll manage to get through pretty often. Then you're free to set up teleporters and minisentries behind the enemy team, where they won't expect you. If you're spawncamping with a minisentry and forcing half of red team to deal with you at their spawn, then you're definitely doing your job, even if you can't get a kill because they keep healing at the resupply cabinet. Every enemy that you distract and keep away from the cart or the point is an enemy that the rest of your team does not have to deal with.

I tend to use this gun much more often in competitive settings, because teams that are communicating and coordinating are much more effective against the standard level three sentry gun. In those cases, using the mini sentry is a lot more useful, because it's easier to keep rebuilding the guns to sustain annoyance fire. But in public servers, I find the standard sentry guns to be more effective and more fun.

The Dispenser
Ahhhh, the dispenser. You'd be surprised at how handy this thing can be, especially if you're playing on an attack/defend or payload map. It has the same health as the sentry gun (150, 180, and 216), but instead of mowing down attackers with bullets and rockets, it heals your team and gives you ammo and metal. This can be an indispensible (heh.... heh....) advantage for your team, especially if it is well placed. The location of your dispenser is just as important as the location of your sentry gun, but different rules apply for it.

First, it needs to be by the front lines, but not in a place where the enemy is likely to come in force. It needs to be close enough that your teammates will actually retreat to it when they're injured, but not so close that the other team is going to see it and take it out. Second, it needs to be well covered. The sentry gun has to find a balance between minimizing the area that it's exposed to but maximizing its attacking area. The dispenser doesn't have that issue. Pack that thing in a tight corner to protect it from all but a concentrated push. Finally, make sure it's in an area that's accessable to your teammates. I see a lot of engineers setting up their dispensers on the bridge and ridge of Viaduct, but that doesn't help the teammates who are down fighting for the point. A better location would be in the building with the stairs leading up to the bridge, or on the other side of the map, where there is a little dead end right next to the point that is shielded from attackers.

Another thing to keep in mind is the flow of battle. Every building the engineer sets up is going to affect how all of the other players in the game move around. Just like the sentry gun reinforces your team's position, the dispenser strengthens your team's hold. The instant you put down a dispenser, you establish a (hopefully) safe base on the battlefield, where everybody can come back to get restocked and healed. It provides a critical launching point for future pushes. It also helps to draw your team to the areas of the map that you want to use. Remember: you are controlling the flow of the battle. You think that we should use more flanking routes at this point? Set up your dispenser near the entrance to one of the side tunnels. Boom, people are going to go that way now.

The main point with the dispenser is that it is not solely for your use. Do not hog your dispenser, because you will only be hurting yourself and your team. If your teammates don't get the healing and ammo from the dispenser, then they are going to die, and you're going to have to take on the entire opposing team without their support. That is not a situation you want to find yourself in. The dispenser is a very useful building for your team, and you should not neglect it.

The Teleporter
Please, please, please, please don't forget about your teleporter. There is nothing more frustrating than seeing a team with 4 engineers and not a teleport to be found. You may not realize how crucial it is, but a well-placed teleporter can be the difference between a win and a loss. You want to be credit to team? Build a teleporter.

Teleporters also have the same health as sentry guns and dispensers (150, 180, 216), but their health isn't really the priority here. With proper placement, your teleporter won't ever come under attack unless the other team has a very successful push. The main benefit for leveling up your teleporter (and I highly suggest you do) is the time it takes to recharge the teleport. A level one teleporter can take one player every 10 seconds. Level two cuts that time in half and will take a player every 5 seconds, and level three drops that all the way down to a teleport every 3 seconds. A level three teleporter will ususally be enough for the entire team to use without having very much waiting, but in a pinch, a level two will probably be enough for the whole team. A level one teleporter will probably service half of your team, and the rest will simply run to the fight like normal rather than wait the extra ten seconds. But it's far, far better to have a level one teleporter ready than to have none at all.

When you start a match, toss down an entrance right outside of your spawn and run back to the resupply cabinet to recharge your metal (unless you know there will be plenty of ammo packs on the way to the fight). This way, you will have an entrance already set up when you decide it's safe to build a teleporter. It is highly frustrating to say to yourself, "Okay, I need to set up a teleporter now," only to remember that you don't have an entrance already made. Running back to spawn to set it up is not only boring and slightly humiliating, but it also leaves your team without an engineer to guard your sentry and dispenser. Far better to just drop an entrance as you're running out of spawn, even if you never actually use it.

As with everything the engineer does, where you place your teleporter is one of the most important decisions you will make. You obviously want it to be close to the front line, because otherwise your teleporter doesn't really help your team. But, just like the dispenser, you don't want to put it so close to the firefight that you risk the enemy team noticing it and taking it out. Ideally, you also want to put it within sight of your dispenser, so that when your team comes out of the teleporter, they see your dispenser and know where to fall back to for health and ammo. You also want to keep in mind where you want your teammates to be on the battlefield. We've already talked about how the sentry gun and dispenser will help you to determine where your team is going to spend most of its time, but the teleporter will literally place your teammates wherever you want them. The other bulidings encourage your team and discourage the enemy, but the teleporter forces the issue. So keep in mind the flow of the battle when you start setting up teleporters.

Something that I have neglected to mention up to this point is that you can turn buildings around so that they face different directions. Clicking M2 before setting a building down will turn it 90 degrees. For dispensers, this doesn't really make that much of a difference. But sentry guns definitely shouldn't be built facing the wall, and teleporters should NEVER be built facing the wall. There's an arrow on the blueprint that shows which direction the player will be facing when they come through the teleporter; make sure that it is facing open space. Nothing is more disorienting than going through a teleporter only to find that a very finely detailed plank of wood is suddenly filling your entire field of view. At best, that's just annoying. At worst, it could confuse them long enough for an enemy to come in and take them out before they recover. Just turn it around so that your teammates immediately can tell where they are and what is going on around them.

You can also get creative and put a teleporter in an unusual spot. Say you are defending, and you know that the first point is easy for the other team to capture. If you build a teleporter in an unusual spot behind the first point, and the attacking team does not notice it, then your teammates can create a lot of confusion and destruction when they start slipping behind the front line and ambushing people. If you do this, just remember to let your team know through the team chat that the teleporter is in one of those places so they know to take full advantage of their position.

As a side note, if a spy is sapping your teleporter, be sure that you don't stand directly on top of it. Spies can go through your teleporter, and if you're standing on the exit when they go through, you will instantly die. Avoid that.

As amazing as teleporters are, there are some maps that just aren't well suited for teleporters. Nucleus, for example, is a map on which you should never really take the time to build a teleporter. If the enemy team is going to have easy access to your entrance, or the distance between spawn and the front line is almost nonexistant, then a teleporter really isn't worth your time. Most king of the hill maps (with the exception of Viaduct, because of an awesome nest location) are probably not teleporter-friendly maps. But there are not very many maps like that, and a teleporter is usually a great aid to your team, whether you are attacking or defending.

A lot of people like to put up their sentry gun, dispenser, and teleporters all in one little engineer nest. It makes sense in one respect: an engineer could have the offensive firepower of the sentry, the support of healing and metal from the dispenser, and the teleporter to bring in reinforcements. It seems like a wonderful idea, and sometimes it works well. But I would recommend against putting everything in one location. If you get taken out by, say, a sniper, then a spy could come in and sap everything in under a second. Everything goes down. Or a demoman gets ubercharged and pushes in with stickies. He doesn't just take out your gun, but also your dispenser and teleporter (and probably you). Now you're dead, and you aren't providing any of your many services to your team while you respawn and rebuild your nest.

I would advise against setting up a true nest. For one, this leads to the predictability problem that I've hopefully drilled into you already. Above all, never be predictable. People know how to deal with sentry nests. Instead, let your gun be nearby but closer to the front lines, where it will do more good and not attract attention to your dispenser and teleporter. Those buildings you should place in a corner, or side room, preferably within running distance of your gun. An ideal situation is one where you can quickly get from your dispenser/teleporter to your gun in case it gets sapped. Even if your gun goes down, you can quickly move to one of several good sentry locations, set it up again, and get back to business, all while your teleporter and dispenser have been doing work behind the front line. Sentry guns are quick to build compared to dispensers and teleporters, and losing your gun isn't really that big of a setback, especially while attacking. But losing your teleporter or dispenser can seriously hurt your team, and you should avoid that, even at the cost of losing your gun. If a spy gets back to your teleporter/dispenser, and somebody is shooting at your gun, you should probably prioritize your teleporter/dispenser.

Now, on to the tools of the trade!

The Shotgun
God, I love this thing. It's possible I love it too much, honestly. Six shots, quick firing and quick reloading.... This is a reliable, powerful source of offensive firepower. Sure, you don't really want to go toe-to-toe with a brass beast heavy with this thing, but you would be surprised what steady aim and a series of meatshots can do. Like I said before, I typically get one kill with this weapon for every kill I get with my sentry gun, and that's not just finishing off other people's fights. The shotgun has the potential to win fights, if your aim is good.

When you fire, the shotgun shoots 10 pellets with a small bullet spread effect. One pellet will always go down the middle, exactly where you were aiming, and the others will hit an area around it. At long range, you're not going to do much good, because only one or two pellets are going to hit and deal any damage. At medium range, you can expect at least half of the pellets to hit, dealing anywhere from 30 to 60 damage. But right up close, you can deal up to 80 or 90 damage per shot, and 180 with a crit. And when you're shooting once every 0.6 seconds, that means you could (potentially) take out a soldier in two seconds. That's not very likely, since he's probably going to be blowing you up, but that's the damage output you're capable of. A more likely scenario would be that a soldier is getting shot at by your minisentry or level one, and you come up from behind and land a solid meatshot while he's distracted. With the combined DPS of your sentry and your shotgun, you can take out that soldier in under two seconds, far too quickly for him to react and kill your sentry or you.

If you use this weapon, most of your fights will probably take place at medium range, so you can expect to land 3-5 decent shots before your target falls. Against really skilled players, you probably won't last more than a few seconds, but you can certainly deal enough damage to make them sweat. Don't get overconfident, but if your aim is good, then don't be afraid to take some shots.



The Frontier Justice
This gun holds a special place in so many engineers' hearts, especially those who tend to use the minisentry. This is identical to the standard shotgun, except that it has half the clip size, and gives you revenge crits once your sentry gun falls (assuming it has racked up a few kills). You get two crits for every kill, and one for every assist, with a max of 35. This thing can be devastating in the right situation.

The typical strategy with the frontier justice is to place a sentry (typically a minisentry) in a very agressive location, let it kill a player or three while it has the element of surprise, and then the engineer lets it get destroyed so he can get the revenge crits. While this strategy does work fairly well, it still relies on a particular set of circumstances. It assumes:

• that you are not going to get attacked before the sentry has been built or destroyed
  
• that the sentry is going to get at least one kill/assist before it is taken out
• you are going to survive until your gun goes down

Assuming that you are going to get kills with your sentry gun (always a good thing to assume), and that you are going to survive the destruction of your gun, this weapon is amazing. But aside from that specific scenario, you are handicapping yourself. If you get attacked while your gun is building, or still alive and shooting people, then you are left with only three shots in your clip. Unless your attacker is low on health, you have help from your teammates/your gun, or you happen to get some really solid meatshots at point blank range, you're probably not going to take them out with only three shots. That reduces your survivability greatly.

In short, the frontier justice is a situational weapon. If you think you are going to get into a situation where you are going to get the revenge crits and be able to use them, then by all means equip this gun. It excels when that happens. But in most cases, I would use the stock shotgun over this, just for the extra firepower in general situations.



The Widowmaker
This weapon is functionally identical to the shotgun, with one major change: it doesn't use ammo. Instead, firing this weapon draws from your metal reserve, costing 30 metal per shot. When you hit with this weapon, the damage you deal is returned to you as metal. So, for example, if you shoot somebody for 50 damage, you lose 30 for shooting, but you gain 50 because you caused that much damage.

This means that if you are hitting for at least 30 damage on every shot, you will never run out of ammo in this gun. The widowmaker essentially becomes a bottomless clip shotgun, because whatever metal you spend to shoot the gun gets returned when you deal enough damage. If your aim is good, then this gun is extremely powerful. If you miss your shots, then you are going to find yourself in a world of hurt. It's a high-risk, high-reward play style. Having a dispenser set up might take some of the pressure off of hitting every shot, so keep that in mind when using this gun. I find that this gun works especially well on offense for payload maps, since the cart acts like a perpetual source of metal.

I haven't experimented with the widowmaker nearly as much as I would have liked to, but I did run into the problem of upgrading my sentry gun. You see, normally when I upgrade my gun (or any of my other buildings, for that matter), I use almost all of the metal in my reserve, leaving maybe a swing or two in case they get damaged before I can get more metal. But with the widowmaker, I can't do that. Instead, I have to leave myself 60 to 90 metal in reserve in case I need to defend myself, and upgrading becomes slower as a result.

To counter this example, I have also had matches where I was able to build my gun rapidly because I ran into several enemy players and landed enough solid shots that I had plenty of metal to spare. So, again, if your aim is good, and you're shooting a lot, metal shouldn't be that much of an issue. It might even be easier to manage with this gun. You could also use the minisentry to great effect with the widowmaker (in fact, I would recommend this gun over the Frontier Justice with the minisentry, given that upgrading and repairing aren't an issue). Definitely give it a shot if you're confident in your aim.

The Pomson 6000
Boy, isn't this a weird weapon for the engineer to use? It's somewhat difficult for me to talk about it, because it's rarely used. It isn't a shotgun like the primary weapons before it; it functions more like the righteous bison for the soldier. It shoots a slow, team-colored laser projectile across the map that, on hit, removes 10% ubercharge from medics and 20% cloak from spies. It also does about 50 damage at medium range, going up to 60 at point blank and down to 36 at long range. The projectile it shoots is difficult to see at times, and its hitbox is hard to anticipate. It also does not require ammo, although it only has 4 shots in its clip. Finally, it does almost no damage whatsoever to enemy buildings.

There's a lot to unpack about this gun, so let's talk about damage first. Lined up next to the shotguns, this weapon is not nearly as powerful. At point blank range, it does only 2/3 of the damage of a shotgun, and that is significant. On the other hand, at extreme ranges, the shotgun is only going to do 3 damage because of the bullet spread. The pomson can still do 36 damage, which is nothing to sneeze at if you are able to hit with it. This, coupled with the fact that it does not require any ammo, leads to a lot of spam on open maps. It allows for a unique defense against sniper fire on your buildings, and may allow you to steal a few kills on retreating enemies.

But the most significant feature of the gun is the uber/cloak removal. This is what enfuriates competitive players the most, because most of competitive play is based around the medic and ubercharges. In public servers, this is usually not as big of an advantage, because the teams are rarely coordinated to the same degree, and medics are not considered to be as important. However, the cloak removal is much more important in pubs, because it makes it that much harder for spies to sap your buildings. Take the dead ringer, for example. You can only feign your death if you have full cloak. But if you get spy checked by an engineer using the pomson, the cloak removal sound will alert the engineer that you are, in fact, a spy, and it will also prevent you from feigning your death in the next second or two. This is a huge advantage for the engineer.

Finally, we should mention the projectile itself. It is small, but it has a large hitbox, much like the huntsman arrows. It also does not really stand out visually, like, for example, a grenade or rocket. It is therefore not very easy to dodge this weapon if you get into a one-on-one fight. Unlike the shotgun, the slight delay caused by the projectile speed can throw off your aim if you are using the pomson. On the other hand, if you have practiced with it, the projectile can be extremely difficult for your opponent to evade or predict. I have met some skilled players who use the pomson to great effect, but it does take significant practice to use it well.



The Rescue Ranger
I have mixed feelings about this gun. I used it for a long time, and I loved it for what it does for my sentry gun, but it makes it difficult to fight on your own. Rather then a spread of bullets like the shotguns, the rescue ranger shoots a projectile much like the crusader's crossbow for the medic, or like the huntsman. At point blank, this projectile does 60 damage, and the damage drops to 40 at mid range and 20 at extreme range. If you shoot this projectile at your gun, it will actually heal it for 60 health. Even though it will heal the building, it will not remove sappers or restock a sentry gun's ammo. Also, at a cost of 100 metal, the alternate fire (M2) will allow you to pick up any of your buildings from any distance, so long as you have a direct line of sight to them. As a downside, you only have 4 shots in your clip, and only 16 ammo in reserve instead of the usual 32. You also will be marked for death whenever you are carrying a building, meaning you will take minicrits instead of normal damage.

Like the pomson, there's a lot to unpack about this weapon. The ability to heal your buildings from afar is incredible. It keeps you out of harms way and lets your buildings survive longer than they would otherwise. A sentry gun under attack? Shoot it a few times and the heavy that was attacking it will probably die first. A teleporter? Heal it from a distance, and you might save it long enough for reinforcements to come through. And if you have the metal and decide that you need to save the building, you can instantly teleport it right into your hands at a safe distance. That is a wonderful function, and it can be incredibly useful. You could also build your gun up to level three at a safe distance from the fight and use the ability to instantly bring your gun to the front lines. This is the only time that building your gun up at spawn is a decent idea, because you won't really be vulnerable in transition.

However, there are several downsides to this gun. First and foremost, your offensive potential drops to almost nothing with this gun. Unlike the pomson, this projectile's hitbox is much more strict, and you have to have a lot of practice to be able to hit a close range shot if your enemy is dodging around. If a scout comes after you, you had better start praying. The rescue ranger makes it much easier to maintain and protect your sentry, but it also makes it so that your sentry is your only real offense. Without a sentry up, you're at a severe disadvantage.

Also, the minicrits you will take when moving buildings can be a problem. Typically, if you are carrying a building and get attacked, you're probably not going to survive the experience. But if you are also taking an extra 33% damage at the time, I can pretty much guarantee that only incompetence on the part of your enemy is going to save you. It makes it just that much more dangerous to reposition your buildings, unless you're using the long-distance teleport ability that costs metal.

Finally, it is a gun that seems to contradict itself. The main feature that draws people to this gun is the ability to heal their gun from a distance, but it encourages you to stay close to your gun because that is the main way you will deal any damage. If you try to wander off so you can take advantage of the distance healing, then you will find yourself at a disadvantage because you have lost so much offensive power. But if you stay close to the sentry so that you will be able to better defend yourself, then there is no reason to have the distance healing.

Having said all of that, I do enjoy this gun quite a bit. I just find that when you gain one thing, you have to lose something equally important. Competitive play sees a lot of this gun when paired with level three guns, since extra healing is more important than offensive power when you have teammates dedicated to protecting you. Where this gun really shines is in MvM, but that's a completely different guide that I am not writing.

The Pistol
A lot of people overlook this weapon, but it can surprise you. It has a clip of 12 bullets, and you can pull off every shot in the clip in just over 2 seconds. Since it does 22 damage up close and 8 at a distance, you could (theoretically) deal around 120 DPS with this thing. That's never going to happen in an actual match, but it sounds good. It functions much like the smg and the spy's revolver in that it shoots one bullet perfectly straight before initiating a random bullet spread that makes every shot afterwards go ever so slightly off target. If you're pushing the pistol into an enemy's back, you're going to hit every shot, but you probably aren't going to get into that situation. If you're at point-blank range, your shotgun is a much stronger option. It has a higher DPS, you'll have the time to actually line up each shot, and you can go another second of battle before you have to reload.

Where the pistol shines is at mid-range combat. After a certain distance, your shotgun ceases to be a reliable option, but your pistol bullets are much, much more accurate than your shotgun. You're probably not going to land more than a third of your shots, even if you're pointing the crosshairs right at your target, but hitting 3-4 shots at a decent range for 10-15 damage each isn't too bad. Couple that with the fact that most of the times you pull out your pistol is because one of you is running away with low health, and you may manage to pick off a few scouts scrambling out of sentry range (or discouraging anybody coming after you after taking down your gun). You shouldn't be running into combat with this thing, as the shotgun is a much more reliable knockout punch, but if you need to deal just a little bit more damage as they're running away, pull out this baby and see if you can get in a few more choice words.

(And it's nice to have a little friend to help you if for some reason you just can't seem to hit with your shotgun. It happens to the best of us at the worst of times, don't worry.)



The Wrangler
Isn't this a fun little toy? Rather than give you another pistol varient, Valve decided to let you take over your sentry gun and aim it at whatever you want. And boy, does it open up some interesting possibilities... Most notably, the idea of sentry jumping, but we'll cover that in a moment. When you use this item, your sentry stops firing automatically and begins pointing wherever you are currently looking. A team-colored shield covers the sentry, and a lazer points at whatever direction the sentry is currently facing. You then press fire and the gun will shoot, even if there's nothing there. This allows you to shoot your gun at enemies that would have been outside of the sentry gun's range, or at disguised or cloaked spies that you notice.

While you are using the wrangler, your gun actually fires at twice the initial speed, and rockets from a level 3 come out slightly faster than before. This leads to some pretty insane DPS. If you were ready for him, you could take out a heavy in just over a second with a level 2 or 3 sentry. Also, when the wrangler is active and the shield covers the sentry, your gun takes 66% less damage, essentially tripling its health while the wrangler is active. This is a massive advantage in defensive situations, when the other team is trying to push in to your nest. An ubered demoman with stickies usually spells the end of any sort of nest you may have been building, but throwing up the wrangler could give your gun the extra strength it needs to survive the uber and the stickies, saving your nest and spoiling the push. Even better, if it's a level three, you can point the gun at the stickies and fire rockets to blow them away. But keep in mind that once you deactivate the wrangler, there is a 3 second period where the gun is deactivated and will not fire. The shield will remain, so it will still continue to absorb damage, but the autotarget won't kick back on for another three seconds. Also, any repairs or ammo restocking with your wrench or rescue ranger is also reduced by 66% while the shield is up.

And now we're going to cover sentry jumping. You could theoretically do it with any sentry gun, but you'll only survive the process if you use a minisentry or a level three, and ironically the level three is the safer and more reliable of the two. For a level three sentry, what you want to do is wrangle it, point it at the ground beneath your feet, and press the secondary fire button to fire a rocket at your feet. At that point, it's much like normal rocket jumping. You jump and crouch, and you'll go flying across the map. With the minisentry it is a bit tougher to accomplish, and the jumps are less impressive. You build the minisentry, stand on top of it, and point straight up. Jump, shoot, and the bullets will knock you into the air in the direction you are pointing.

You can get to some very, very interesting places using the wrangler to sentry jump. And if there's one thing you can always, always count on, it's that TF2 players never, ever look up. Imagine if you had the rescue ranger and could then instantly teleport your sentry to the top of the map, or set up a teleporter and let a sniper or two up there? The possibilities are..... extreme, and you'd be surprised at what some people come up with.

(This man is a champion among engineers.)


The Short Circuit
[/previewimg]Finally, we have the short circuit. This is another weird one, but it can come in handy in certain situations. Rather than shoot bullets like the pistol, this item creates short-range electrical bursts that deal slight damage to enemies in front of the engineer and destroys hostile projectiles in a 75 degree radius. It costs 15 metal per shot, and does not need to be reloaded. It does not work underwater, cannot hit cloaked spies, and prevents the engineer from gaining metal from dispensers and payload carts while it is active.

The purpose of the short circuit is to defend your bulidings from projectiles like rockets, grenades, and stickybombs. And while it can certainly be nice if your nest is getting spammed like crazy, you're still probably not going to be able to do very much to defend it. More than likely you won't get in a situation where only projectiles are coming at you, and even then you're not going to be able to keep up the defensive spray for as long as the enemy is going to be able to spam at you. If there's one demoman or one soldier on the other team that is giving you absolute hell, then you may consider slipping this item on instead of the wrangler or pistol, but otherwise, I wouldn't recommend it. It just isn't useful enough to replace the wrangler's versitility, or the pistol's range.

(The wrangler's shield is probably going to be way more effective at keeping your gun alive under fire, as it protects against damage from projectiles as well as bullets and flamethrowers. The short circuit is more of a defense for you, personally, than it is for your gun.)

EDIT: I've heard from a number of players that I'm short-changing the short circuit (hehehe). And they do have a few valid points. It is by far the best defense against an ubercharged demoman or soldier, and in general it can provide a rock-solid defense for you and your gun. One of the reasons I don't use the wrangler as much as the pistol is that I don't want to switch off the sentry's automatic aim just to bring out the shield, so if you don't want to use the wrangler to give your gun the extra health, and it's projectiles you're worried about, then the short circuit is a decent alternative.

The Wrench
Much like the shotgun, the stock wrench is the standard by which all other wrenches are judged. It functions like any other melee weapon (aside from scout and spy) in that it deals 65 damage per hit, with a higher critical chance than non-melee weapons. Hitting a building with your wrench will repair it for 105 damage, and while setting up, hitting the building will cut the construction time in half. When upgrading, one hit will use 25 metal, and the weapon swings once every 0.8 seconds. That leads to roughly 6.4 seconds needed to upgrade a building an entire level, assuming you had enough metal when you started.

I rarely use the wrench as an actual weapon (largely because I have an unhealthy love for my shotgun, and I'm not the best melee combatant out there), but if you've ever played spy you know that it has a habit of grabbing random crits like crazy. That's because of how the critical hit chance system works in tf2. The more damage that a person has dealt in the past 20 seconds, the greater the chance of a critical hit. The base chance for a melee weapon is 15%, and that can max out at 60% if the person has dished out over 800 damage in 20 seconds. The reason that engineers (and medics) seem to get so many random crits is because damage from sentries (or people healed, in the medic's case) counts towards that damage in the past 20 seconds. So if the sentry gun has seen action recently, the engineer's wrench has a really, really good chance of getting a crit at least once in the fight. That's a good thing to keep in mind if a spy or another fighter gets a little too close to you or your buildings.

The Southern Hospitality
This is functionally identical to the wrench, with three changes. On hit, in addition to dealing the standard 65 damage, the southern hospitality also causes bleeding damage for 5 seconds. At 8 damage per second, this adds an extra 40 damage per hit. To compensate for this, the southern hospitality cannot get random crits, and it adds a 20% vulnerability to fire.

Since the wrench tends to crit a lot, giving up random critical hits is a pretty major blow. The fire vulnerability isn't much of an issue, since you're probably already in a really bad spot if a pyro is close enough to light you on fire. But losing the random crit is a big step backwards. The benefit is increased damage over time, but you're still going to have to hit any enemy twice to kill him, since one swing will do a maximum of 105 damage. Two swings with the stock wrench will deal 130 damage (even without a random crit), which is enough to kill a spy or any of the weaker classes even without the bleeding damage. The only practical benefit to using this wrench is in spy-checking, particularly with dead ringer spies. The bleeding damage will give them away if they try to cloak or feign death, letting you easily mop up with further swings of your wrench or a couple of well-placed meatshots with your shotgun. But you'll have to decide if it's worth giving up the all-to-frequent random crits for that.

The Jag
The jag is a popular alternative to the stock wrench, and it's not hard to see why. It deals less damage, heals less damage per metal, and takes an extra hit to remove a sapper, but it speeds up initial construction by 30% and swings 15% faster than a normal wrench. The downsides are all significant, but the upsides are equally significant. The swing speed increase lets you attack once every 0.68 seconds rather than every .8 seconds, and while that might not seem like much of a difference, I guarantee that you will notice the improvement. With the construction boost, you can have a sentry fully built from scratch in roughly 4 seconds, and with the swing speed increase you can upgrade it to level 2 in 5.5 seconds, a full second faster than with any other wrench. That second may easily be the difference between life and death.

However, the downsides are nothing to sneeze at, either. The building healing penalty isn't really noticable because the swing speed is also increased, so the total healing over time comes out to be almost even. The damage penalty, however, can be an issue, especially if you're using the rescue ranger and wrangler combo, because this leaves you with no consistent weapon to deal with spies except for the jag. The jag is ill equipped to deal with spies, because it takes 3 hits to kill a 125 health spy and 3 hits to remove a sapper. This leaves you quite vulnerable to those sneaky frenchmen. The jag is capable of dealing random crits, and a random crit will one-shot a spy, but you really don't want to have to rely on that to win the day. My suggestion is to be careful to make sure that you have a way to defend yourself besides your sentry gun if you're going to run with this weapon.

Personally, I've been using the jag for most situations in pubs. I find that the quicker build and upgrade rates are worth the extra vulnerability, but if spies are getting to be an issue, you may want to switch off to the southern hospitality or the stock wrench.

The Eureka Effect
And then there's the eureka effect, which is a very strange weapon indeed. By pressing the reload button, you can choose to teleport yourself via a short taunt animation to either the respawn room or your teleporter exit, assuming you have one fully built somewhere. The respawn room teleport fully heals you, fully reloads all ammo, removes any negative effect you may have had, and allows you to change your loadout. The teleporter option does not require that you have an entrance, and does not take a charge from your teleporter in case your team is using it at the time, and you can still telefrag enemies too close to your teleporter while using the eureka effect.

Sounds pretty good, right? You could jump back and forth between your teleporter and spawn, and that would open up all sorts of new options for the engineer, right?

Heh..... Yeah.... Except that it is 50% less effective at speeding up construction, and reduces the metal gained from ammo packs and dispensers by 50%.

These downsides severely limit the potential of this weapon, particularly the reduced metal gains. It makes it much more difficult to upgrade and maintain your buildings. The idea is to encourage teleporting back to spawn and then teleporting back to your gun, but in practice, forcing you to constantly teleport back and forth is both annoying and dangerous. If the enemy should find your teleporter, then you have no way to return to defend your other buildings. It also takes an annoyingly long time to set up anything, since the first thing you have to do is hide your teleporter, then tele for ammo, then set up your gun, tele for ammo, upgrade it once, tele for ammo..... you get the idea.

You can certainly have fun with this weapon, and it's a whole lot better than it used to be, but it still remains a very gimmicky weapon. I wouldn't recommend it for serious play, but if you're just messing around, then knock yourself out.

The Gunslinger
I've already stated my views on the minisentry, so I won't go into that again. Simply put, the main reason you equip the gunslinger is so that you can use the minisentry instead of the regular sentry gun. Instead, let's focus on what makes the gunslinger itself different from the stock wrench. The main change is that the gunslinger increases the engineer's health by 25, giving him a maximum of 150 health. The gunslinger also has an interesting critical hit mechanic. It cannot get random critical hits, but if the attack button is held down and it strikes an enemy three times, the third hit is a guaranteed critical hit. It does not have to hit the same enemy, but all three have to land one somebody for the guaranteed crit to happen.

Obviously, the biggest change is the minisentry, and that will fundamentally change your playstyle when using this "wrench." The increased health helps you stay more active and aggressive, which is what the minisentry is supposed to enable you to do. The critical hit mechanic is pretty unimportant, because you probably won't be worrying too much about spies and their sappers, and with most other enemies you will probably try to avoid getting into melee range. All in all, the gunslinger fits the mini sentry quite well, and will serve its purpose just fine if you choose to go that route.

The Scout
The scout is actually very similar to the engineer, except that everything he does is faster and stronger. In a one-on-one battle with a scout, you are at a severe disadvantage, as the engineer is simply an underpowered, slow, lazy scout. But when you have a sentry gun up, there's no contest. You'll win every single time. If you have a sentry gun set up close by, you should try to lure him into its range. Even if it's only a level one or a mini, if you can get him in the room, he's probably going to drop.

The only way a scout can really take down your sentry gun is to pistol it from long range. This can be surprisingly (and frustratingly) effective if you aren't there to repair your buildings. But other than that, you shouldn't have to worry about your sentry gun. Your teleporter is another matter. Scouts, being the flanking class that they are, have a nasty habit of getting back to your spawn and shooting up your teleporter entrance, and that is frustrating, because you won't have a chance to fix that until you die.

If you're facing a scout without the backup of a sentry gun, then you're going to have to trust that your aim is a lot better than his. You'll be at a disadvantage, but try to fight him as if you were having a scout-vs-scout battle, and you'd be surprised at how many times you might end up winning. He has the advantage of mobility, as well as the option to run away, but it still only takes 2 solid meatshots to put him away.

If the fight turns sour, and you think he's going to win, never try to run away. That's the best way to ensure that he kills you, because then you're A) not shooting at him, and B) moving in a predictable manner. Unless your sentry gun, spawn, or teammates are in the room behind you, you shouldn't ever turn your back on an opposing scout. They'll just run you down.


The Soldier
The soldier is one of the classes that you're going to have to worry about, particularly with your sentry gun. They have enough health to survive an ambush from a level one or a mini sentry, and the firepower to turn and take it out. They also have the mobility to get into odd positions that you might not have planned for, and they have the range to ruin your nest without risking return fire. In short, these guys are a pain to deal with at times.

Fortunately, there are things you can do to help minimize the damage they can deal. First, avoid placing all of your buildings too close together. The only thing worse than having your sentry gun blown up by a rocket is having your sentry gun, dispenser, and teleporter getting blown up by a rocket. Spread it out so that some of your buildings will survive the initial attack.

Secondly, don't forget what I said about moving without your buildings. If a soldier has a good position on your gun, sitting next to it and hitting it with a wrench is probably just delaying the inevitable. Also, you're more than likely going to get hit by those rockets going towards your sentry, and you should prioritize your survival if you can. A level one will probably only take 2 direct rockets before it goes down, but that should be enough time for you to get up in the soldier's face. It seems counter-intuitive to get closer to the soldier, but you actually have a better chance of killing him when you're closer, especially if he doesn't expect you to come charging at him rather than repairing your gun. Remember: above all, never be predictable. At point blank range, his rockets can do 90 damage, but he's still going to have to hit twice to kill you. Your shotgun also does about 90 damage at that range, so your DPS is pretty even. Add the fact that his rockets will also damage him as he shoots at you, and the chip damage that your sentry has already dealt, and you could very well end up taking him out. At the very least, you're going to take him down with you, or leave him so close to death that he'll run off to get healed rather than continue assaulting your nest. I don't recommend running at him if he's shooting at you to begin with, but if he's focusing on your gun, then consider getting in there to put him away before he switches targets. You'll force him to choose, and most likely he won't be able to take on both of you at the same time.

If you're fighting a soldier without the aid of your sentry gun, claim the high ground or run. This goes for any class going up against a soldier, actually. If a soldier claims the high ground, then he is more than likely going to win the fight. It is far, far easier to hit with the rocket launcher when you are firing down on an enemy than it would be if you were shooting up at them. If you can't gain a height advantage, and the soldier isn't a complete noob, you're probably best getting out of there. After all, you can run faster than he can. Try to pick a path that doesn't allow for easy rocket jumping, like a tunnel or inside of a building.


The Pyro
The pyro is interesting to fight against. Depending on his loadout, fighting one-on-one can be relatively simple or quite frustrating. If they're using the homewrecker (which is pretty rare, but it does happen), they can knock out your sentry in 1-2 hits. They only really perform at close range, so the position of your sentry (and yourself) is especially important when dealing with a pyro. If you put your sentry around a corner or behind some cover, then a pyro could come from behind that cover and quickly take down a level one or a mini sentry (or even a level 2, if it was turned the other direction initially). But if your sentry is more out in the open, it will carve these psychopaths up like mincemeat because they have to get close to hurt it.

If a pyro is chasing you, and your sentry is nearby, you should definitely lead him into it. It'll probably be your best hope, since he can't attack both you and the gun at the same time. If it's a weak gun, then bring him into range and then turn and shoot once or twice, as it's likely that the pyro will survive destroying the gun. If you're dying of afterburn, you'll have to make the decision of staying to finish off the pyro, or making a mad dash to the healthkit/dispenser. Beware of this enemy if you're using the southern hospitality.

In a one-on-one fight, range is your friend. It will take longer to kill the pyro from mid range, but you won't last long enough if you're in the range of that flamethrower. Pyros seem to walk just a little bit faster than you, so don't try to flat out-run him unless you know that help is nearby. Just calmly hit the S key while taking shots with your shotgun, and you'd be surprised at how many pyros will just walk into your bullets until they die. If they switch to their shotgun or flare gun, start dodging more while still retreating. And if you see a crit-charged phlog, RUN.

The Demoman
Some engineers think that spies are their worst enemies, but they're wrong. It's the demos that you have to watch out for (spies come in second). A sapper you can remove before smacking that spy with a crit wrench, but a trio of stickybombs? You're already too late.

The demoman has two ways to take out your gun, the grenade launcher and the stickybomb launcher. Defending against grenades is similar to defending against the soldier's rockets, except that the grenades might be taking odd bounces off of walls and ceilings, making them less predictable. You can either try repairing your gun to save it, or rush the demo once he starts firing. The demoman is particularly susceptable to a charge with your shotgun, since he's probably lobbed a few grenades already and won't have more than one or two in reserve, and it can be really hard for him to land those airshots when he's under sudden pressure. Unless he's a particularly skilled (or lucky) demoman, you'll probably be able to take him out pretty quickly once you're up in his face.

If he goes for the stickybomb option, then things get trickier. While you can repair your gun from rockets or grenades, there is no repairing a stickybomb explosion done right. If he gets three or four stickies by your gun, then it will be destroyed instantly, with no chance to repair damage. Theoretically you can shoot the stickybombs to destroy them, but I've found that your reaction time is too short and their hitboxes are too strange for that to be much of a defense. If your gun is level three, and you're using the wrangler, you can fire rockets at the ground next to the stickies to knock them away. Just don't knock them towards yourself! If you're not in that particular situation, you have 3 options when a demoman starts doing this: try to shoot the stickies, grab your gun and run, or leave your gun and rush him.

I wouldn't recommend trying to shoot the stickies, because it probably won't work, and you're going to keep both yourself and your gun in danger while you try it. If you pick up your gun and run, make sure that the demo either doesn't see you do it (because he's avoiding line of sight to be safe from the sentry), or he only has one sticky on the ground, because otherwise he'll probably blow you up as you pick up the sentry. You'd also better have a safe spot in mind to retreat to, because you are incredibly vulnerable when you're moving a buliding. The other option - rushing the demoman with your shotgun - is still probably the best option. A demoman with the stickybomb launcher out is even more vulnerable to close-range combat than one with the grenade launcher, and you're almost guaranteed to win that exchange if your aim is good. He might panic and blow up your gun, or you might make him forget to detonate until it's too late for him, and you just might end up saving your gun in the end. I personally prefer this option in most scenarios, unless he's surrounded by friends. Sometimes it's best to simply bail on a location and live to set up another one.

If you run into a regular demo away from your gun, I would recommend engaging so long as he doesn't pull out his stickybomb launcher. Grenades are pretty hard to hit with, and unless he's shown himself to be a great shot, you have an advantage with your shotgun. Grenades may do more damage at mid range, but the shotgun is a lot more reliable.

If you happen to run into a demoknight away from your gun, be careful. If you can make him miss with that initial charge, or you catch him at a point when he doesn't have his charge, then stay at mid range and pepper him with your shotgun as you retreat. The shields give nice damage reduction benefits to the demoknight, but he's just as weak to bullets as he always is. Light him up.

And if a demoknight comes after your sentry.......... That's always fun for the sentry.


The Heavy
Much like my shotgun, I have a strange love for the heavy. He's not sneaky, he's not clever, he's just big, and he carries a bigger gun. Maybe that's why it's so rewarding to kill them, I don't know. I just love it so.

You should exercise caution when a heavy shows up, and not just because he's 178% more likely to have a pocket medic in a pub than any other class. His health and DPS is insane, and should not be taken lightly. Let's run a few numbers real quick.

A mini sentry will take over 6 seconds to kill a heavy.
A level one will take 4.7 seconds
A level two will take 2.3 seconds
A shotgun will take 2.4 seconds (assuming full-power, point-blank meatshots)

There's no way (aside from random crits) to take out a heavy without giving him a chance to react. Best-case scenario is a level 3 sentry with rockets ready, which could get the job done in 1 second, which is plenty fast enough. But that's a best-case scenario, and you're not going to run into those very often. So to take down a heavy, it's best to have multiple things shooting at him at once. Whether that be you and your shotgun teaming up with another teammate, or your sentry and your shotgun, it's just a good idea to stick with double or triple-teaming this brute.

If he gets close to your gun and is already revved up and ready for it, you might have some issues keeping it alive (especially if it's a level one). At mid range, the heavy is pretty powerful, dishing out a DPS of anywhere from 50 to 300, but at point-blank he has a DPS of around 500. Anything standing directly next to the heavy's minigun is going to get utterly annihilated, so make sure that there's no way that the heavy can get that close to your buildings.

If you run into a heavy one-on-one (and you're not suicidal like I tend to be when fighting these guys), I would suggest running. The biggest disadvantage to the heavy is his complete and utter lack of mobility, so exploit that whenever possible. If you can find a teammate to distract the heavy (or if you ever find one who is distracted and doesn't notice you), then you might be brave enough to run up and stick your shotgun into his lower back and put a couple rounds into him. A distracted heavy is totally killable, even by an engineer without a sentry gun. Just know that if he has unusually fast reflexes, you're toast.

The Engineer
The engineer is probably one of the simplest classes to deal with as a fellow engineer, simply because you're probably not going to run into too many of them. By nature, you're probably going to stick slightly behind the front lines, maybe running a flank route or two, but you'll probably leave most of the offensive pushes to the other classes, so you won't see too many of the opposing engineers unless one of you is unusually aggressive.

You do need to be aware of what the other engineers are doing on the other team, however. Particularly if you notice an enemy with the tell-tale teleporter particle effect, because that's something that your team's demomen and spies need to be aware of. Remember all that I said about controlling the flow of battle; if you can do it, other engineers can, too. You probably won't run into too many sentries, and if any engineers run into yours, they're already dead. On the off chance that you see a minisentry on the ground, try to avoid its line of sight and look for the engineer that set it down. People tend to underestimate an engineer's offensive capability, as you may have noticed, and you might be able to ambush the gunslinger engineer as he sticks his neck out too far. If not, just pistol the mini or signal to your team and have them deal with it.

Should you get into a one-on-one fight with an engineer, you're probably pretty even (unless one of you is using a primary like the rescue ranger). Just dodge like you're playing scout and try to land those meatshots, or retreat to a position where your team has the upper hand.


The Medic
On his own, the medic is nothing to worry about. He has relatively low health, very little offensive capabilities, and no real way to defend himself. Unfortunately, he's almost never alone. The medic usually has somebody to heal, and that's the person you're going to have to worry about. Finally, his ubercharge is the death knell for sentries, teleports, and nests of all kinds. The medic is not your friend.

Let's break down how to deal with each of his likely patients, starting with the soldier. An overhealed soldier is terrifying, because he has the health of a heavy while sacrificing none of the mobility, and his firepower is nothing to sneeze at. If you happen to have a level 2 or 3 sentry gun up at mid-range, then you might consider trying to rush him from the side or repairing your gun. But a minisentry or a level one won't do the job, and you're better off abandoning your nest and surviving to rebuild somewhere else. If you've got a few teammates to help you, or you're using the frontier justice and will have some revenge crits available, then it might be worth your while to stick around, but otherwise your best option is to cut tail and run.

If a pyro comes around with the medibeam on him, you should also probably run unless you have a level 2 or better. Level 2 sentry guns can still take out an overhealed pyro in 2-3 seconds, so repairing or flanking is a viable option, but, again, a minisentry or a level one won't have a chance. You might be able to get away with it if you're using the wrangler and you have quick reflexes, but I wouldn't want to stake my life on your chances. The only difference between the pyro and the soldier is that with a pyro, you might consider trying to flank and kill the medic with a few meatshots or a lucky crit wrench. The medic is the most important class in the game, and you should always try to kill the medic first if you have the opportunity. If the pyro tunnels in on your sentry gun and you have ample room to move around, then by all means take the shot.

If a medic comes around with a demo, then you have options. More likely than not, unless you immediately grab your gun and run away to your side of the base, you are going to lose your nest. But demomen are still very susceptable to a frontal assault with your shotgun, even with a medic on them. Most of the time, even when confronting a sentry gun, people with medics are less careful not to take damage. If the demo is standing where he can get hit by your gun rather than trying to corner it, then you're probably going to be able to take him out with a frontal charge. You may lose your gun, or you could startle the demoman into wasting what few shots he has in his launcher. Worst case scenario is you get hit by two stray grenades in a row, and he has to contend with your gun. But best case scenario is you take him out, and suddenly the medic has nobody near him to protect him.

If a heavy goes after you and your gun with a medic tailing behind him, then you've got issues. Unless your gun is level three, you probably aren't going to last long enough to take him down. A level two could take out an overhealed heavy in just under 4 seconds, but with the medic healing him it's going to be more like 5 seconds. This is a situation where the wrangler would really come in handy. If the heavy is at mid-range, and you've got a level 2 gun, you could wrangle it to triple its health and double its damage output, giving you a fighting shot at taking him down. If you don't have the wrangler, no teammates are around, and you don't have a level 3 sentry, then I'd suggest abandoning ship. There's a reason that the heavy/medic combo is so popular.

Finally, there's the matter of the medic's ubercharge. A standard ubercharge is an engineer's worst nightmare, especially if it's with a soldier or a demo. It completely negates both you and your sentry gun's offensive capabilities, and leaves you with no defense whatsoever. If a medic pops uber on your nest, then you'd better get out of there immediately. There's nothing you can do about it except try to survive and build another nest.

If the medic is using the kritzkrieg, then it's a slightly different story. 100% crits is a terrifying thing, but buildings are immune to the extra damage of critical hits, so they're unaffected by the ubercharge and take normal damage. If a medic pops the kritzkrieg, he's gunning for you, personally. In pubs, you may see a medic trying to use the kritzkrieg to clear out sentry nests, but that's just because he probably doesn't know better. If you see a crit sticky flying towards you, get out of there. Your gun will be okay, especially if you manage to wrangle it, but at least it's better than a full ubercharge because your sentry will still be able to attack the medic combo.

The quick fix isn't too much to worry about as far as ubercharges go. It's just a more troublesome version of the basic medic combo (which is enough on its own, but still better to deal with than an ubercharge). Just act as if they have double their normal health, and act accordingly.

The vaccinator can be troublesome if the medic knows how to operate the medigun. If your sentry is level 3, it helps a ton, because then the combo is being attacked by both bullets and explosions, and the vaccinator can't resist both at the same time. If you don't have a level 3, then it becomes a more vulnerable version of a standard ubercharge. You'll deal 75% less damage than normal, which means that if you don't have backup from a soldier, pyro, or demo, things are probably not going to go your way.

Of course, the best way to counter a bunch of medics is to spam the pomson at them. If they're being a major issue and rolling your team, it might pay to switch over to that weapon, as its ubercharge draining feature can be really, really handy for you (and impossibly frustrating for them).

The Sniper
The sniper usually shouldn't be much of an issue for you, assuming that you're listening to me and not standing around in one spot all the time. As long as you keep moving and stay relatively unpredictable, you shouldn't have too much to worry about from these guys. The main exception is if your gun is exposed. Gunslinger engineers probably have the biggest issue with snipers, as they are pretty good at picking off mini sentries left on the ground. If you keep your gun in locations that are shielded from most sniper fire, it shouldn't be too difficult to keep them from ruining your day.

If you do happen to get a gun out in the open, and there are snipers firing at it from a distance, you might decide to use the wrangler to pick them off. I personally have never really done this, as I try to avoid situations where I'm standing in the open, looking at a sniper who is scoped in at me from across the map. Such situations rarely pan out in my favor. But still, it is an option, and a surprisingly effective one if you end up using it. I just prefer to stay out of sight if possible.

Should you get in a one-on-one fight with a sniper (which won't happen too often unless one of you is particularly aggressive), you'll probably come out on top. Most snipers can't quickscope worth a dern, and even if they try no-scoping you or pulling out their smg, your shotgun is way more reliable and powerful at mid to close range. A lot of snipers like to try to pull out their melee weapon, but just maintain a bit of distance between you two and unload your primary into their torso and it shouldn't make much of a difference.

Of course, if the sniper is using the huntsman, you need to be a lot more careful. That thing has a wonky hitbox, and you could end up with an arrow in your head pretty easily if the sniper is any sort of shot, no matter how close you are. In fact, it's often easier to hit those snap-shots up close than it is to land a mid-range shot. If the sniper is good with the huntsman, and he knows you're there, then I'd advise against charging at him. Better to leave him to one of the more powerful classes, just in case. If he's not sure which part of the arrow is the pointy part, then go get him. Just be sure to dodge left and right a bit when you do, because that hitbox can be really wacky sometimes.


The Spy
The spy is definitely one of the engineer's banes, but there's actually a lot you can do to counter him. First and foremost, spycheck everybody. It's best to spycheck without getting into melee range, because you never know when the game is going to freak out and give the spy a shoulder or facestab. Spy-checking at mid-range is the best way to go about it, either spamming your pistol or your primary. The stock shotgun is good at this, since it has plenty in the clip, but the pomson is by far the most efficient spy-checker. Its hitbox is all over the place, it has no ammo, and it makes an unmistakable sound when it hits a spy, cloaked or otherwise. Plus, if it is a dead ringer spy, it won't be able to feign death after being hit (assuming that he didn't have it out to begin with). This is the situation where the pomson really shines.

EDIT: Dragonmeister Meisterdragon brought up an excellent tactic, one that I use frequently but forgot to mention originally. "When you kill a spy, try picking up the ammo pack he drops. If you pick it up successfully, that specific spy is dead. If your metal or ammo count does not go up, then the spy used his dead ringer to get away. If you know the spy is dead, you can spend less time looking for the man who is already dead and more time shooting and maintaining your buildings." Thanks for the tip!

Obviously, the main issue with spies is that they will try to sap your buildings. There are a few ways to counter this, other than spy-checking to ensure that they don't even get close. First, stay close enough to your buildings that you can always run back to save them in time. The sapper does 25 DPS to your buildings, so even with level 1 buildings you'll have 6 seconds to save them. Since it takes 2 swings to remove a sapper (or 3 if you're using the Jag), that gives you a minimum of 5 seconds to react and run back. Higher level buildings will give you an extra second or two, but it still won't take too long.

You can also spread your buildings out a bit so that the spy takes longer to sap them all. This gives you more time to react if, say, the spy saps your sentry first, and you want to ensure that your teleporter stays up. Remember, sometimes that's far more important than the cover fire from a sentry gun. I will often set up a dispenser for the sole purpose of an early warning system for this very reason. There are other benefits from doing this, as well. The longer it takes for a spy to sap your bulidings, the longer he's taking to run around looking extremely suspicious, and the more likely he is to run into one of your teammates and die. And, finally, there's always the chance that if your buildings aren't crammed right next to each other, the spy might not even see your teleporter or dispenser because he never went that way.

When you run back to your nest to remove the sappers, always always always expect the spy to try to come around and backstab you while you repair everything. A good spy will probably sap your bulidings, and then wait for you to come around to repair them and take you out, too. Keep your back to a wall if you can, and always check your back. I never take more than one or two swings at any of my buildings without twitching around to check behind me, whether I'm upgrading or repairing. You can even do it without missing a swing or slowing down if you're quick.

You may have to decide whether or not it is worth running back to save your buildings. Sometimes it isn't possible, and you need to be able to judge whether or not you're going to be able to make it in time. If you decide it isn't worth it, then stay where you are, and immediately plop down your buildings in a new location. Sometimes having a spy sap my previous nest is what forces me to move to a new, far more effective location. But whether to go back or not is a judgement call that you have to make in a split second, as every fraction of a second counts when the sapper is on your buildings.

Should you find a spy on his own away from your buildings, stay out of melee range. Most novice spies will probably try to rush you and butterknife you, which normally isn't an issue as the knife does horrible damage. But we've all had those moments where a spy gets one of those backstabs that never, ever should have happened, and it's just best not to tempt fate. Stay at mid range and use your guns to kill him while he tries to whittle your health down with that tiny knife of his.

If a spy pulls his gun on you, then you're dealing with a more experienced spy, and you should be cautious. The revolver is not easy to kill with, especially in a duel, but a good spy could potentially beat you if his aim is better than yours. If he has the ambassador and knows how to use it, then you might be in trouble. Focus on the basics; dodging and landing solid shots. Most spies won't be able to handle you if you can aim decently. Just watch out for any that seem to fall too easily, as they're probably faking their deaths to get away. They'll be back.

If something is wrong with this guide, or you have anything you think I should add, please let me know in the comments. There's always room for improvement, and I confess that I don't have thousands of hours of experience with every weapon, so there may be a strategy or a detail that I've missed. Hey, I'm certainly not perfect! (I've tried to update it after the changes to Gun Mettle and Tough Break, but I probably missed something somewhere in here. It's a long guide to try to update).

Being an engineer can be a lot of fun. There's a lot of things you can do with the class, and almost any team will be better off with one or two on their team. But the engineer has to be intelligent to do his job. More than just about any class (maybe except for the spy), the engineer relies more on strategic planning than pure skill. It is my hope that something in this guide will improve your game, and make you think in new and surprising ways. Grab some kills, help your team, and, most of all, play a beautiful game.

"I am trying to make you understand the game. The entire game, not just the fiddling about with the pieces. The point is not to play as tight as you can. The point is to be bold, to be dangerous, to be elegent. No one wins a dance, boy. The point of dancing is the motion that a body makes. A well-played game reveals the moving of a mind. There is a beauty to these things for those with eyes to see it. The point isn't to win. The point is to play a beautiful game. Why would I want to win anything other than a beautiful game?" - from The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss


.............. Just please don't build any more minisentries on the last point of snakewater? Please?