How To Play the Ninjaneer

A guide explaining the Ninjaneer, from the fundamental to the advanced. This will cover what the subclass is, how to play it, and how the current Engineer weapons apply to it rather than standard Engineer.

Introduction: What's in a name?

The Ninjaneer, as a subclass, is an interesting one. Most subclasses function independently of other game mechanics or class ideas, or borrow from a limited palette: The Demoknight from the Spy and himself; the Rocket Jumper-using Soldier from the Scout and his own base mechanics; the Gunspy from any Shotgun-toter or the Sniper, depending on who you ask.

But the Ninjaneer - at least, a successful and adaptive one - draws from a vast pool of playstyles. He's got the mobility of a Scout or Soldier, the Demoman's ability to punish opponents when they cluster up, the raw damage of a close-range Heavy, the area denial of a standard Engineer, the ability to beat Snipers at their own game, and the stealth of a Spy - but for the whole team. However, all this versatility isn't without drawbacks. If he's caught out before he's ready and hasn't got a backup plan (more on that later), odds are all of his plans will be laid to waste, and he may not have a second chance. His Teleporters can hurt the team as much as they can help by simultaneously setting up a flank behind the opponents and subtracting from the immediate defense.

In order to be effective as a Ninjaneer, you have to be able to read your opponents so you're never where they are; every encounter must be on your terms. You need to be able to play like a Spy that can't cloak or disguise; like a Soldier with less health and two secondary weapons; like a Pyro or Heavy in terms of raw close-range power when things get rough. You must be able to modify the battlefield to your liking but be able to hold your own on the front.

So what does a Ninjaneer do? A Ninjaneer creates and capitalizes upon opportunities made by his team. He's just as likely to spawn-camp the opposition so his team can cap safely as he is to put a Teleporter above the enemies to create a new flank. He, essentially, defines and starts encounters rather than the normal Engineer, which lets his enemies initiate them. He'll build in unexpected spots, strike at opportunistic - predicted or not - times, and distract rather than (or as well as) traditionally defend.

But, all said - the drawbacks are worth it. It's an incredibly powerful subclass when played at the right time or generally used correctly. So - how do you play it? Let's get started.

The Fundamentals: Movement

In order to function in a first-person shooter, you need to be able to move. That much is readily apparent. But in order to excel, you need to be able to move well. This is an often-ignored point in doing well in Team Fortress 2; most people go straight to the shooting and ignore the power that strong movement can give you. Good movement keeps you alive; good aim keeps your opponents dead. And in a prolonged firefight, you want to be able to help for as long as you can.

So how do you move well? Know where your opponents think you're going to move and go in a different direction. Don't fall into a pattern; you, rather than your opponent, should be dictating your movement. Moving backwards can be just as effective as moving forwards; right as left; jumping as crouching. Anything to keep their bullets off your back.

--

Moving while hauling buildings or getting behind enemy lines, however, is a completely different matter. Good movement normally functions to keep you in a firefight longer and let you distract or kill them. Good movement whilst hauling or sneaking functions to keep you alive or hidden. These are very different end goals, and the approaches for achieving them vary similarly. So, let's talk about hauling and sneaking.

Whilst hauling or sneaking, it's advisable to take lesser-trodden paths. You should be able to read where your enemies are going and react accordingly. If an enemy reaches a pillar, you should be able to completely avoid them by going around it at the same time. Know the maps well; you should have a few holes to hide in along your paths (have more than one, both hole and path), and have backups in case the enemies wise up to your normal spots. Know how to get in and out of them whilst remaining unseen. Watch the scoreboard and killfeed; move once people pass you or die. If you're in front of their spawn when they get a new wave, it's your fault.

Remember, your life is more important than your buildings: Getting more metal is often safer and faster than starting over. Be willing and, if possible, able to run at all times.

Remember that hauling makes noise; the Engineer has voice commands that sometimes activate automatically, and a player with good ears can hear footsteps. If you think any enemies are coming, sometimes the best course of action is to stand perfectly still in a spot they're not likely to look at whilst checking the scoreboard. Once they pass or it's loud enough, move on.

Speaking of sound, you should know when enemies are coming without seeing them. Listen for voice lines, footsteps, bullets, explosions, and reloads. You should avoid fights if you can, especially if you're hauling something. Use your ears; they're too often ignored in favor of eyes. And if you see them, odds are they see you, and odds are you're toast.














Two sample hiding spots: In a bush on Barnblitz's first and perched on Gullywash last, respectively.

Abuse dark corners, perches, rafters, barrels, and bushes. Hide in places that people don't expect an Engineer to be able to get to, if needed. Take advantage of distractions (Ubercharges, Sentry Guns, and similarly eventful encounters) to get past through all the noise and commotion. Try to avoid damaging players unless you know you can kill them. Keep a low profile. Sometimes, the best direction is up: get above your enemies, wait for them to cross, and continue on your way. This can mean a rocket-jump that abandons your buildings and nearly kills you or standing on top of a prop with your fingers crossed.

Just remember: When sneaking, aim to remain unknown - unseen and unheard - as much as possible. But if you've got to, don't be afraid to drop your building and take care of your attacker. There probably won't be teammates around, so it's your job to keep yourself safe.

The other part to sneaking, other than getting in, is getting out. What do you do when you're caught out? You could surf their damage (remember, while in the air, damage propels you, so jump if you want to move a bit faster), outgun them, jump away with advanced mobility (works best with a Mini-Sentry or Dispenser due to their speed of construction), take advantage of nearby distractions by exposing him to your team (through comms or luck), or fake them out. Pretend you're going one way and then go the other, building dropped and Shotgun in hand.




You're not dead when an enemy sees you, after all; you're only dead when you've got no health left. Keep a good head on your shoulders and you'll have much better odds of escaping what seem like death-traps.

The Fundamentals: Aim

The second of the three touchstones of functioning well in Team Fortress 2 is aim. Simply put, you've got to be able to hit your shots. If you can't defend yourself, you won't be able to do nearly as well as you should. So how do you aim well?

Aim for center mass. Heavy (both Minigun and Shotgun) is advised for aim practice due to high health and the tracking required to excel. The Widowmaker is also quite good for practice; it punishes poor aim and rewards good aim - it makes you do well in order to shoot at all, basically. Play around with your sensitivity; change it out of your comfort zone. You may find that the sensitivity you were using was too high or low and you could be doing better. But, for improving aim, generally the best way to get better is to just play. It'll improve over time.

Some people recommend MGE servers; they're pretty good for Ninjaneers because you need to be able to deal with 1v1s more often than you'd expect. Play as a Scout and go against most anything: Scouts, Soldiers, Pyros, Demomen. Learn how to weapon-heckle with the Scattergun and Pistol, and then apply that to the Engineer. SOAP DM (a mod that pits two teams of four players each against eachother in a deathmatch environment) is also quite good, as it puts you in situations that deal with multiple enemies simultaneously while also testing your ability to dodge explosions (as you'll often find Soldiers and Demomen playing SOAP).

A note on Wrangler aim: The Wrangler locks on to the target's center of mass; if they're behind cover you may not be able to hit them. If you're using a Level Three Sentry in this situation, try aiming a bit off of them and firing a rocket. This lets you hit them with splash when nothing else would work.

The Fundamentals: Gamesense

Gamesense is the most ambiguous of the three three Fundamentals we've talked about, and the hardest to teach. Basically, you should know where to be and what to do. If your team is players down and the opposition is coordinated, you should know that they're likely to push and plan accordingly.

A lot of successful movement is gamesense: Knowing where the enemies are going to be before they get there. This applies to building placement later, too: Once an enemy gets killed by your Sentry, they know where it is due to the killcam. Thus, it may be advantageous to move your Sentry to cover the way that they're likely to take to get to it. Reading your opponents, which is intrinsically linked to gamesense, is a very big deal.

The first, and most immediately obvious, way to improve is by simply playing the class more. An important addition to this, though, is to play with players that are on a footing, skill-wise, that's at least equal to yours. Playing against bad players will teach bad habits and keep you from improving as quickly as possible.

Playing competitive Engineer is also very helpful; it's a full-force lesson in building/repair priorities, deathmatch ability, and keeping a nest up. Even if you don't have time for a team, try out a lobby on TF2 Center.[tf2center.com]

Map knowledge is also a very big deal; with it, you can predict with reasonable accuracy when - and if - your opponents will be passing through a given area, where they're likely to look, and where they're likely to not look. Knowing where the health and ammo kits can tell you where their injured players and Spies or Engineers will be headed.

It's very helpful, however, to know what the capabilities of your opponents are. Watching your own POV (point-of-view) demos, from either demos or replays, while asking why you died or failed each time you did, will help you improve. It will help almost as much - or possibly more - to watch high-level POVs from all classes. How fast can a Soldier catch up to you? Can a Demoman or Pyro edge your Sentry without it seeing them? These are valuable things to know, and often it's easier to learn this from a different pair of eyes. Knowing your opposition is, after all, a pretty big deal.

In Highlander, see what the best Engineers do. Do they wait to upgrade until a certain time? Do they prioritize certain buildings in their repair or building orders? Do they look to save a certain one from a dying nest over others? What weapons are they using and when?

In 6v6, the Roaming Soldier and Scouts are good to watch. For the Scouts: When do the Scouts go in to attack the Medic or Demoman? Did they have an opening? How can you take advantage of such openings in your own play? As for the Soldier: Where does he hide? Can you get there with your own rockets or bullets while still having enough health to function? Can you build up there? In 4v4, when does a team run an Engineer? Where does he build, why is he used, and what shuts him down easily? How can you counter this sort of situation in your own play?


You may see a Soldier or Demoman hiding up here on Granary. Can this be applied to Engineer?

The best way to improve is to play; the second-best to improve is to watch yourself play; the third-best is to watch others play; the fourth-best is to talk about playing.

The Basics: Knowing Your Buildings

The part of Engineer that people readily associate with the class is his PDA and buildings. Three other classes have Shotguns; one other has a Pistol. Only the Engineer has the Sentry, Dispenser, or Teleporter. So, knowing these buildings is a very important part of your job. Here we'll go through each type.



The Level One Sentry is primarily useful for jumps and dropping during a fight, treating it as a Mini-Sentry that needs a bit more babysitting. It's good for ambush spots due to its size; it can hide in larger bushes comfortably. Its only advantage over the mini-sentry is that it can be upgraded and repaired - but it'll work in a pinch, and that's not an advantage to be underestimated. This is the least conspicuous Sentry; its beeps are the quietest and fewest. It's also the tallest low-level building, making it good for jumping.



From an offensive standpoint, the Level Two Sentry is arguably the most powerful big sentry. It takes significantly less time to deploy than a Level Three and the health difference isn't very noticable. If the enemy team has a good Pyro and/or you're not using the Wrangler (since the main advantage of a Level Three is its rockets), this is the advised level of big Sentry for offensive purposes. The worst Sentry, however, for mobility. This Sentry beeps twice compared to the Level One's once, and slightly louder.



The Level Three Sentry is mainly useful because of its increased health and rockets, which provide mobility. It takes the longest to deploy, which you should factor into setting up: will the gun get focused before it builds? That's a serious concern when using it. However, the additional health on the gun does make holding an area that much easier. This Sentry beeps thrice rather than the previous levels' once or twice, and is also the loudest of the three; it's quite audible.



The Mini-Sentry is a very powerful Sentry choice. It allows the Engineer to move faster and be more immediately effective on the front lines, but don't underestimate its defensive potential; an Engineer with good deathmatch ability can hold an area just as well with the Gunslinger as with another wrench. It's an effective tool at quick area denial, harassing, and killing. It's the best sentry for bullet-jumping due to rate of fire, cost, additional health (on the Engineer), and time to deploy. You, also, cannot speed up the deployment of a Mini-Sentry.

--

A note about Sentries - if the killfeed claims that they killed someone, but their Kill/Assist counters remain unchanged, they triggered a Spy's Dead Ringer. Keep an eye out for that.

--

Generally, your Dispenser will have three uses. The first is the most basic and, most of the time, the best option for your team: building it where your team is holding to provide an area for them to fall back to in order to resupply. Sometimes, this area happens to be where you're holding. This happens pretty often during Payload defense in particular.

The second option is building it by you and only for you. This is typically frowned upon, but can be better situationally (say, you have a pretty strong spawn-camp going on and they only have one exit). This lets you hold your area for a longer time, but deprives the rest of your team of both the healing and supplies that it provides.

The third, and most situational, use of a dispenser is for mobility. It's a good building for health-free, one-time mobility because of its height and low cost. Before you do this, though, you should consider if getting to your new position is worth sacrificing your current Dispenser, taking into account if it's being used, how far way it is (if you can access it at all), and how much metal is in its reserves.

One other thing to keep in mind is that it can be used to completely block stairwells. This serves as an early warning system for enemies, which we'll cover in more detail later. It's your call to determine if it'll be more useful closer to you or serving as a roadblock.

The Teleporter is arguably the most powerful building in your arsenal, assuming your teammates are up to snuff. Even for solo use, though, you'll find that it serves as a very powerful tool. If behind or above your enemy, a placed Teleporter can later be a boon to stalling the opponents before they reach the front lines or aiding in a push. It's also the easiest building to hide in a dark corner or prop assuming both sides aren't built yet, due to its short and inconspicuous design.

You should keep in mind, however, that a working Teleporter does establish a front by funneling players through it. This can help hold an area, give away your location before you're ready to reveal it, or actively hurt your team and bring about its failure For example, on a 5CP map, a Teleporter that's in a spot that's safe behind your lines but pretty close to the front will, most often, help your team more than a sneaky one on their last point - especially if your team is holding your second point.

A note about the Teleporter: If you're looking to hide the Exit, don't build an Entrance (or destroy the one you already have). The glow and noise give it away quite handily, but teammates moving in from a new flank is just as obvious. Sometimes, though, it may be worth risking its safety it to get a few teammates through. At some point, an enemy is surely going to look for the Exit, though - be prepared for that. It's possible to place your Exit in one area and then set up in another; when the Exit is destroyed the enemies are likely to think that you're not a problem any more. This gives you some breathing room, and then you can set up another Exit if need be.

A note about Teleporters: In addition to blocking enemy's movement, they can block your own team's, as well. Try to avoid placing them at the top of a slope such as a stair, for that reason.

Universal building uses

All of your buildings have a few common uses, but two of them are particularly important to fully understand.

All of them can serve as early warning systems. If you're not using any of your buildings, a Sentry is advised for that role because it deals damage to enemies that it sees - also alerting you with hitsounds. A Dispenser is also good, although its not as good - a Dispenser will help you set up a nest faster than a sentry will and won't alert you quite as well as the hitsounds of a sentry will. Teleporters are the most common if you're holding a last point. They're best placed at the bottom of flanking routes or directly in the path of the enemy - in other words, in places where the enemy can't possibly miss them.

Secondly, they tell the enemy team that your team has an Engineer. This may seem trivial, but this is valuable to keep in mind - especially when setting up behind them, when you may not want to be known, or when playing defense. You can set up, effectively, a decoy nest in a holdable position with a Sentry, Dispenser, and functioning Teleporter. This tells the enemies that there is an engineer on the opposing team - but, more importantly, that he is in a given area. This can funnel them away from certain routes or towards others, as the deterrent of a nest, or lure of destroying it, powerfully influences the paths they'll take. Take advantage of that, either to get predictable kills or to sneak through. In other words, where your sentry is - or where the opposition thinks it is - is an incredibly powerful psychological tool for the Ninjaneer.

The Basics: Managing Your Buildings

When it comes to managing your buildings, there are four very important concepts to understand: Build priorities, repair priorities, hauling, and destruction.

Once again, gamesense comes into play: If you're in it for the long haul, a Dispenser is probably the best choice for a first building, as it supplies metal. If you have a really long time, it may be better to build a Teleporter Exit and suicide. But if you need to suppress them now, dropping your Sentry first and then helping out in the fire may be what you want. Typically, a Dispenser or Teleporter Exit is a good first building to drop, but that's all situation-dependent. However, if you're by a resupply cabinet, it's advised to build whatever you may immediately need, as you've got metal to spare. A Sentry first to protect you is generally recommended.

Repair priorities are slightly different from build priorities: You want to repair things that are taking fire rather than those that are hurt. A Dispenser that's taking fire is probably really important, as it's quite likely to be your only close-by source of metal or health. However, a Sentry that you're actively repairing could finish off the Medic that just got heavily damaged. It's situational; all three of your buildings that you can have on the front lines (Teleporter Entrance excluded here) are valuable to what you do. Remember, though, to take full advantage of your arsenal: you can switch to the Wrangler to put a shield up on your gun so it stays alive while you give another building a whack or two; you could use the Short Circuit to nullify any Stickies or rockets coming your way; you could use the Eureka Effect to just leave. Your life is more important than any of your buildings - most of the time, at least.

Thirdly, hauling is really important. Once an enemy gets killed by you or your Sentry, they'll probably adapt to it. This could be a different weapon, class, angle of attack, or route. Often, a class that's already adept at destroying Sentries (Soldiers, Demomen, Heavies, or Spies) will opt to take a different route. Moving your gun to intercept them can catch them off-guard. Surprise is definitely a crutch for bad Engineers, but a good Engineer can still use it to a powerful advantage. Moving a Sentry even a small distance can confuse the enemy enough to keep their fire off the gun for enough time to kill them; remember and take advantage of this. Especially in a defensive situation, moving your gun between the enemy's pushes is a strong and underused tactic for exactly this reason. You can waste a good chunk of their Über if the gun isn't where they're expecting to find it.


The final one, and the least obvious, is when and why to destroy your buildings. It's good, though, for a few things. First, and most obviously, destroying your buildings covers your tracks. If you use a building to access an area that you otherwise couldn't and are going to be there for a while, you may want to destroy the building - especially if enemies are going to pass through soon. Overall, it makes you less noisy, both audibly and visually - it may be to your advantage to destroy your Teleporter's Entrance once you take it so it's not glowing any more, for example.

Secondly, if you're set up in an area with no metal and need some, destroying one of your buildings could help in the long-term. For example, you may want to destroy your Sentry (depending on its level, effectiveness, and mobility options) or your Teleporter Exit (especially if you won't have time to build an Entrance in a useful spot) in order to build a Dispenser, which will provide metal slowly but surely.

Finally, if a Spy saps something of yours and you know he's on the way to other buildings of yours and you can't deal with him or them in time, it's to your advantage to destroy the other buildings because then you don't have to wait for them to get destroyed by the Sapper. Instead, you're able to start rebuilding instantly.

Building Blocks: Mobility

Mobility is what separates the good Ninjaneer from the great, along with gamesense. A great Ninjaneer knows all the spots Soldiers would hide in and also uses them when the time is right.

But first, let's talk about the more basic forms of mobility.

A Building Jump - jumping on top of a building that you made, most frequently a Dispenser - can lead to new spots. This is mainly good for hiding in the rafters of buildings with lots of props. You can do the same with a sentry but it costs more. If you're trying to be extra sneaky or keep spies from following you, you can destroy the building once you've gotten your height off of it. Using crouch-tapping (C-Tapping), it's possible to jump off a building and pick it up simultaneously:

Teleporting, on the other hand, is the most traditional form of mobility that's completely within the Engineer's control. And still the most consistently useful. Placing Teleporters in sneaky spots (basically, anything outside of where the enemy would normally be looking) is a very large part of getting behind enemies. Placing them forward, similarly, is a very large part of getting you, your buildings, and your allies forward. Keep in mind that a Teleporter does direct the flow of the battle; it may be to your team's advantage to destroy it once you take it.
Placing them behind enemies is a risky proposition, especially if it's outside of their field of view rather than totally out of the way. If the enemy team sees it (by chance or if their attention is drawn to it for whatever reason), odds are it's toast. If a sentry sees it and it's not destroyed, your Teleporter will get destroyed. Know a few sneaky spots per point per map if you're going to rely on them.

Now, let's talk about the exciting stuff. Just a heads-up: All remaining movement options in this section require the Wrangler to work, with the exception of Surfing. The purpose of this section is not to tell you how to do the techniques, but instead what they're good for and what their drawbacks are. Here's a great tutorial on Engineer jumps, made by Problem, that you should check out to learn and practice:

Bullet Jumps are the "cheapest" form of advanced mobility, as well as the fastest in terms of prep (and, if using the Gunslinger, metal). They're quite good for moving vertical distances rapidly and also making diagonal jumps. You move a bit slower with this than rockets, making you an easier target. In addition, you can't haul a building while doing this without the Rescue Ranger. Their main advantage is twofold: Firstly, you have more control over how high/far your jump goes, and thus how much health you lose. Secondly, as previously mentioned, they're faster and fairly cheap in terms of metal.

Rocket Jumps are the more costly form of mobility, in terms of health, time, and metal. There are few spots that rockets can get you that bullets can't, but if you want to haul immediately without the Rescue Ranger or Teleporters this is the only way to do it. You move faster and farther than with bullets (on average), but do a significant amount of self-damage. You really only get one shot at this per 125 health.

Remote Rocket Jumps allow you to access your nest without a Teleporter even if you can't normally get to it: you can, with the Wrangler, jump back up. Also handy for escapes if you have the health and a few seconds to do it, as well as an unobstructed path to the gun (both its line of sight and your flight path). You can pick up a building after firing the rocket, effectively letting you (situationally) circumvent needing the Rescue Ranger's secondary function.

Surfing lets you leave fights that you don't want to deal with by jumping off of the explosions caused by an enemy's rockets, grenades, or sticky bombs. If you have proper air control, it's not unlikely that you'll be able to get to an area where you'll be safe (at least for a moment) and grab some health while you're at it. It's not terribly often that this is used, as you can't orchestrate it, but it's still a very useful thing to know how to do. It's basically the same as remote Sentry jumps, but you don't control the angle, speed, or timing of the explosion.

Building Blocks: Situational Awareness and Timing

Situational awareness is knowing your surroundings; it's knowing that a Spy's around before you hear or see him; it's knowing when to fall back and leave all of your buildings behind. But it's also knowing when to strike which classes.

In general, a Ninjaneer will be able to survive a 1v1 encounter if it's an environment that he has prepared. Sentries work very well for burst damage, and his other weapons aren't to be underestimated either. But in when looking to attack larger groups, you should ask a few things first:

• Do they have access to health (Medics, Dispensers, health kits)?
  
• Did they recently take enough damage to act off of?
  
• Can any of them easily kill me before I act?
  
• Will they be here for long enough for me to act? Where are they going?

Basically, you should play off of their health, awareness, and danger relative to you. Sometimes it's better to let a large group pass if you don't think you'll be able to handle them.

--

Timing is an important thing for any player, but especially Engineer, to understand. Knowing how quickly your buildings will build is really valuable; knowing if you need to Wrench them to make them deploy fast enough is also important. The other aspect of timing is player timing: How fast does each class move? When will they reach where you are from spawn?

The player-based ones are a bit less out of our control, so we'll talk about buildings. As for the players, you'll learn that from experience - with Team Fortress 2 in general, not just as an Engineer.

A note about redeploying buildings: hitting them with your melee weapon does speed up the initial building speed, but does not speed up the upgrade animations.

The following times are approximate but tested multiple times for accuracy:

Building	Time to redeploy (s)	Time if meleeing (s)
MIni-Sentry	1.5	1.5
Level 1 Sentry	5.3	3.0
Level 2 Sentry	7.1	4.8
Level 3 Sentry	8.5	6.2

As you can see, time to redeploy doesn't really get much better, and since the upgrading animations don't speed up if you Wrench them a Level Three takes quite a while. This is why a Level Two Sentry was recommended as the ideal Leveled Sentry for offense instead of a Level Three.

A recommended way to get around this deploy time is to make a Sentry that's got 175/200 metal in its upgrade reserves. Deploying it gets the benefits of a Level One or Two in terms of speed, but when the heat dies down it's really simple to upgrade to the next level.

Become intimately familiar with how long each building takes to build, upgrade, and redeploy. The knowledge will serve you well.

Tools of the Trade: Primary Weapons

The Engineer's primary weapons are his bread and butter. They're the weapons that give him a reasonable level of power when his Sentry isn't around as well as the ones that keep him alive in most 1v1 encounters. They offer utility, in the form of raw deathmatch or protection for either you (Rescue Ranger, Pomson 6000) or your team (once again, Pomson 6000). They're how you're going to stay alive on the battlefield; it's important to understand how they work.



The Shotgun is the most reliable of the Engineer's primaries. If you can aim with the thing, six shots goes a long way. It's good with just about any other weapon in his arsenal and suits pretty much any style of play well. This is the benchmark against which all other primaries are judged, due to how reliable it is.



The Frontier Justice works best with a constant stream of crits. This means that, generally, it works best with the Gunslinger due to the disposable nature of Mini-Sentries. But even then, it's up to the user: would you prefer to have the chip damage and six shots of the Shotgun, or the more patient and burst-damage-oriented Justice?

With any wrench other than the Gunslinger, this becomes a much more nuanced selection. You're gimping yourself assuming you can keep your sentry up, but if things start to look dicey and you see an opening for an exit it can be to your advantage to destroy your gun in order to escape with a bit more power and, thus, ease. It's a great escape tool with poor staying power, in other words, with upgradable sentries.

If you do choose to build behind your enemy, the Justice isn't advised for your trip back there. Instead, you can build a Teleporter and kill yourself, letting you both have the power of a different Shotgun early on and the crits later.

The Justice is very good, though, if you’re sure that you’re going to get a kill or two with your sentry. For example, if setting up a spawn-camping gun, you're likely to get at least a kill or two. In this sort of situation, equipping the Frontier Justice at the start of the ordeal gives you those crits for sure. That lets you use those crits to escape, to distract, or to use on a different part of the battlefield entirely.



The Widowmaker works best if you're very confident in your aim or you're sure you'll have a consistent stream of metal - from packs, dispensers, or weapons. It's advised to choose this weapon, otherwise, if you're going to be in close proximity to enemies and don't plan on using your primary for chip damage.



The most useful part of The Pomson 6000 is the ÜberCharge drain. This weapon is advised if the single biggest danger to your setup is an ÜberCharge and you have a good line-of-sight to where the Medic would be prior to popping. Otherwise, the Rescue Ranger’s healing and hauling will serve you just as well. A situational sidegrade. The cloak drain and infinite ammo of this weapon aren't that significant; you should be able to protect yourself from Spies just fine without it and running out of ammunition isn't that common as an Engineer. Don't underestimate its mid-to-long-range damage, though; it's more than you'd think, especially with its fairly large hitboxes.



The Rescue Ranger is advised if you’re planning to be very mobile or to let your sentry do the work. It synergizes best with leveled Sentries and helps to keep them alive quite handily, but gimps you in combat without a Gun. This gun, in short, is best when you’re going to heavily rely on your Sentry for killing or when where you intend to build is easily spammed.

A note about the gun's repairing powers: It functions independently of your wrench, so it still repairs for a normal amount if you're using the Eureka Effect. In addition, it repairs with a projectile; you may want to fire it as you see a rocket coming for your gun, as doing it after impact may be too late.

Its impacts upon hauling are twofold: Firstly, it's much more dangerous because of you being marked for death whilst carrying buildings. Secondly, it allows you to haul buildings from a distance. Let's talk about that.

As long as you have a direct line-of-sight to any of your buildings, you can haul them by executing your secondary attack while your crosshair is on them. The range on this is, effectively and possibly literally, without restrictions. You can use this to, relatively quickly, move a base quite far across a map or avoid crossing a Sniper sightline multiple times, for example. One very powerful use of the teleportation is stalling opponents: When they Über in to take out your gun, with adequate preparation you can snatch it and put it in a new spot - wasting their charge completely and further stalling them.



The Panic Attack serves a very niche role in the Engineer's arsenal. It's got really powerful burst damage, but also requires you to start each clip without any shots loaded. In addition, once you start firing you can't force your way out of shooting at all; this means that you can't build anything halfway through a clip.

The most obvious use of this weapon is against Heavies, as they take time to rev their weapons and have a large center of mass. The other clear use is preloading your gun; if you know a Soldier is around a corner, you may want to load up four shots and start shooting immediately. This gives you a very quick and somewhat reliable kill.

However, even then, most other primaries will do a better job for you. The Frontier Justice offers you very strong burst damage that doesn't come with an inaccurate gun; the Shotgun offers you reliability through and through, and the Widowmaker lets you actually continually fire. This thing's got its niche, but it's pretty small.

Tools of the Trade: Secondary Weapons

The Engineer's secondaries, effectively, serve to support (rather than carry) him. The Pistol provides fire if out of ammunition or metal while working well at ranges that a Shotgun may falter at; the Wrangler and Short Circuit both improve a nest's surivivability while offering a host of other benefits. You'll be using these extensively, so like the primaries, it's important to become familiar with all of them.



Let's start with the Pistol. It offers an incredibly solid source of backup damage, and, in a pinch, can work as a primary weapon. It synergizes very well with Mini-Sentries and is a situational weapon when using leveled Sentries. If you’re thinking about equipping it, you should ask: Will I be wanting to shoot targets that my Sentry can’t see? Will I be moving independent of my Sentry?



The Wrangler is one of the deepest unlocks for Engineer. It allows the player a whole new set of options for play, all from a relatively simple concept: A player-controlled Sentry with more health. Here, we'll talk about non-mobility benefits; for mobility read "Building Blocks: Mobility". The shield provided by the Wrangler makes it much easier to tank your gun against oncoming damage, but that much is obvious. In addition, a wrangled Sentry does not beep. This lets you be much sneakier with your buildings when setting up behind enemy lines.



The Short Circuit is very good at what it does: Protecting the user from projectiles. It’s good for pushing out of spawn on maps with setup time, and works well as a defensive alternative to both the Wrangler and Pistol. It works equally well with all wrenches, but serves different purposes: With the Gunslinger, you’re less worried about protecting your sentry from spam and instead solely focused on keeping yourself and your teammates alive, while with normal-sized Sentries the focus will shift back to your buildings.

Tools of the Trade: Melee Weapons

The Wrench is, without a doubt, iconic to the Engineer. It defines how he plays and what he does. Every wrench - rather, melee option - that the Engineer has does just that. This is an incredibly important choice to make at the start of a round, as when you switch Wrenches your buildings will all automatically be destroyed, forcing you to start over. At the beginning of a round you should be asking yourself what your plan is. Do you want to run Mini-Sentries, aggressive Level Twos, hold an area with a Level Three and a Shotgun, or something else? It's a choice that's highly situational and dependent on the user making a good one. So, let's make that process a bit easier by understanding each of the tertiary options for the Ninjaneer.



The Wrench is solid for most any form of Ninjaneer due to its drab nature: Its biggest upside is its lack of downsides compared to the other non-Gunslinger wrenches. You still upgrade and repair at a normal rate, you two-hit Spies, and take normal damage from fire. It's the bar against which the other wrenches (barring the Gunslinger) are measured.



The Southern Hospitality is advised if the enemy team has, either literally or effectively due to poor skill, no Pyros. The bleed can help to track Spies and inflict a bit more damage, but - especially if you’re going to be sneaking behind enemy lines or hauling buildings a lot - the additional fire damage can be crippling.



The Jag, along with the stock, is very good for Aggressive play. The increased build speed isn’t much, but it’s there. This weapon is a better choice than the Wrench if you find that you don’t use your melee much; its biggest downside is that you need three melee hits to kill a 125-HP class rather than two. Weigh that against the upgrade boost (About 15%) yourself and decide from there. Neither great nor awful.



The Eureka Effect is very good for Ninjaneering. If you’re going to be placing a sentry and running, the downsides of the weapon are relatively negligible. Even then, though, it’s not always a good choice: just because the downsides don’t impact you doesn’t mean that the other wrenches aren’t going to be a better idea. If the map has several accessible flank routes, this weapon increases your mobility (and slipperiness) by quite a bit. If you’re afraid of getting caught out by the enemy, this weapon allows you to quickly and easily warp to and from your base if you build an exit - and the speed of that isn’t to be underestimated.

An example of when this weapon is very good is attacking on a payload map: You can set up a Level Two Sentry quite easily with this wrench and you don’t have to rely on nearby ammo packs to do it. It’s not as fast as the Gunslinger but not as slow as the other wrenches, depending on where you set it up.

Another prime time to use this is while attacking cp_steel: There are lots of flanks that BLU can access quite easily and several nooks and crannies to place an Exit in. Often, if you’re placing a gun, you’re going to run rather than try to tank it, so the largest downside doesn’t significantly impact you.

For sneaking - when you can't afford to make any noise, remember that its teleportation is near-silent. Take advantage of this.

So - play with it; get a feel for it. It shines when there are lots of flanks or enough team support to set up a gun near the front lines and lets you sneak very effectively.



The Gunslinger is an interesting weapon for Ninjaneering, and an interesting weapon for the Engineer in general. Many players use it to play with their team and a, comparatively speaking, select few know when to use it for defense over the other melee choices.

The Gunslinger’s biggest strength is quick area denial or support. It works well to clear out flankers or deal damage to complement your Shotgun aim, and that alone can help you get past enemy lines by killing your opposition rather than sneaking. A Mini-Sentry in an unexpected spot will, often, work just as well as a Level 3 in terms of killing power if there’s an Engineer around to support it. This wrench works very well for an Offensive style of play, where you’re not building full bases behind, above, or around the enemy but instead creating lots of smaller distractions, getting picks where you can and keeping them from focusing completely on the rest of your team. More on this in a moment.

Execution: Playstyles

There are, generally, three Ninjaneer playstyles. They differ anywhere from slightly to radically, but they all serve the same general purpose. We'll call them Offensive, Passive, and Aggressive.

The Offensive style of Engineer is the closest to a normal Engineer playstyle that most players currently know about: The Gunslinger, or standard offensive, Engineer. With this, you’re basically playing slightly ahead of the front lines, creating another flank and distraction. Your Teleporter isn’t as important, as this playstyle puts a larger emphasis on your deathmatch (DM) abilities than your stealth or pre-planning. Keeping one up will, of course, benefit your team and is advised. Your goal with this is to distract and make a second area for the enemies to keep their eyes on; you may build a Level Two Sentry and drop it right behind them and Shotgun their Demoman while it's building or use a Mini-Sentry instead.

Recommended weapons for this style include:

• The Shotgun, due to its reliability
  
• The Frontier Justice, due to its raw power
  
• The Widowmaker, due to its staying power
  
• The Pistol, due to its backup damage and ammunition
  
• The Wrangler, due to its potential for escapes and sentry-protection, as well as raw damage
  
• The Wrench, due to its melee damage relative to The Jag
  
• The Jag, due to its speed relative to The Wrench
  
• The Eureka Effect, due to the mobility it offers compared to other Wrenches
  
• The Gunslinger, due to its speed and additional health

The Passive Ninjaneer operates at a slower initial pace: typically, he'll set a Teleporter Exit (or Sentry) in a slightly concealed spot, wait for the enemy to pass it (or die), and then strike. This playstyle very much relies upon your stealth and the enemy team not seeing you or your buildings until you're ready. Thus, it's the most luck-dependent; a Sentry may see your building before any opponents do and, if you can't reach it, odds are you're going to need to find a new spot to place your building in and cross your fingers again.

This is the least active subset of the Ninjaneer, and works best when the enemies will move past a given area for sure: it's not as common on KOTH as Payload or other maps with forward spawns. Switching weapons throughout your play is important but not as important as it is with Aggressive or Offensive play; we’ll get to that later.

Recommended weapons for this style include:

• The Shotgun, due to its reliability
  
• The Rescue Ranger, due to the ranged healing and hauling when things get rough
  
• The Wrangler, due to its shield, raw damage, mobility, and ability to selectively focus targets
  
• The Short Circuit, due to its ability to neuter Demomen and Soldiers
  
• The Wrench, due to its melee damage relative to The Jag
  
• The Jag, due to its speed relative to The Wrench
  
• The Southern Hospitality, due to its Spy-tracking abilities

The Aggressive style is what most people think of the Ninjaneer as. Like the Offensive style, you’ll find your way behind enemy lines - but, this time, you’ll keep going. This playstyle is characterized as a mix of sorts of the other two: like a Passive player, you’ll set up a nest behind the enemy; like an Offensive player, you’ll establish a distraction or hold a new area. Switching loadouts is fundamental to both surviving and thriving with this playstyle. Depending on what stage your buildings are in, different weapons are advised, so I won’t go into which to use in general yet.

Recommended weapons for this style include:

• The Shotgun, due to its reliability
  
• The Frontier Justice (once you're set up), due to its escaping power
  
• The Widowmaker, due to its ability to force your way through the front lines
  
• Pomson 6000, due to its Über-draining capabilities
  
• The Rescue Ranger, due to the ranged healing and hauling when things get rough
  
• The Pistol (on the way there), due to its strong backup damage
  
• The Wrangler, due to its shield, raw damage, mobility, and ability to selectively focus targets
  
• The Short Circuit, due to its ability to keep you safe from traps both on the way there and once set up
  
• The Wrench, due to its melee damage relative to The Jag
  
• The Jag, due to its speed relative to The Wrench
  
• The Southern Hospitality, due to its Spy-tracking abilities
  
• The Eureka Effect, due to its speed of setting up a Level Two nest

One thing about using the Southern Hospitality when playing Offensively: It's really dangerous. You'll be seeing a lot more fire on the battlefield when you're actively moving within it, and a critical flare can one-shot you rather than give you a few seconds to look for health. But if Spies are that big of a problem, go for it: Just know what you're getting yourself into.

--

A quick note on recommended weapons: These are strictly recommendations. You may find that a different weapon works better for you; go ahead and use it. Most weapons will work for most styles, as you're still fundamentally doing the same thing: Distracting the opposition and allowing more space for your team to push. So, really, loadouts aren't incredibly important. Knowing when to use which weapon, however, is.

--

Often, you'll use a Fusion of styles through your play. Capture the Flag is a huge example of this: A mix of Aggressive and Offensive will serve you well. Most CTF maps have most fighting in a given area rather than all around, making a high-level sentry a better idea (more firepower, more health) if you have the time. Establishing a base is very valuable for keeping a leveled Sentry up, but your gun will likely create a distraction or new angle of damage for the enemy team. This is the Engineer simultaneously bringing the fight to the enemy - an Aggressive style of play - and helping his team more immediately by creating a new angle of both attack and damage, which is more closely related to playing Offensively. As you play, you’ll find more combinations of these styles, and the most effective Ninjaneer will be able to switch between all three on a whim.

Execution: Examples

Let's talk about loadouts.

First of all, a note: None of these are the definitive ones to use. Play around with them; figure out what works best for you when. Like a lot of the subclass, weapons are a gamesense choice: Do you want to start out with the reliability of the Shotgun, or would you rather count on crits from the get-go with the Frontier Justice? Do you want your Sentry do be your pistol, or would you rather your Pistol serve that role?

Switching weapons is really important; you may want to use the Shotgun and Pistol on your way behind their lines but the Frontier Justice and Wrangler once you've got a Teleporter Exit set up. Play around with everything. Every weapon in the Engineer's arsenal has its niche; the trick is figuring out when you need that role filled.

Anways, on to loadouts.

Offensive Play

• Widowmaker
  
• Pistol/Wrangler
  
• Eureka Effect

The Widowmaker lets you deal lots of damage with a steady hand and the Eureka Effect excels at re-entry. The Wrangler covers up the Eureka's repairing downside to an extent but leaves you vulnerable if you've got less than 30 metal, while the Pistol remains a potent sidearm. Play with both to see which suits you better.

• Shotgun/Frontier Justice/Widowmaker
  
• Pistol
  
• Gunslinger

The Shotgun is reliable and the Justice provides burst damage, while the Widowmaker offers lots of staying power if you hit your shots. The Pistol's a strong backup, especially if you're using the Widowmaker or want to save the crits on your Justice. Mini-Sentries are very powerful as always; while most any Shotgun will go well with them, these three work exceptionally well.

Passive Play

• Rescue Ranger
  
• Wrangler
  
• Wrench/Jag/Southern Hospitality

This loadout is designed around survivability, allowing you to separate yourself from your Sentry by quite a large margin if you so desire. It has many of the same weaknesses as this loadout for a traditional Engineer, though, with the largest one being that you're sacrificing most of your killing power to help your Sentry.

• Shotgun
  
• Short Circuit
  
• Wrench/Jag/Southern Hospitality

The Shotgun lets you deal chip damage to people your Sentry can't reach as well as anyone else you can get your sights on, while the Short Circuit will keep your gun effectively immune to Soldiers and Demomen if you've got the metal. Very good for defending high-up spots, although the Rescue Ranger can be exchanged for the Shotgun at that point if you so desire.

Aggressive Play

• Rescue Ranger
  
• Wrangler
  
• Wrench/Jag/Southern Hospitality

This loadout is good for the same reasons that it's good for a Passive Engineer: Your sentry's powers are enhanced at the cost of much of your own. Make sure to have an escape plan with this setup, though, as you're unlikely to be able to fight your way out once or if your gun goes down. If that turns out to be more problematic than you expected, the Frontier Justice or Widowmaker are good choices instead of the Rescue Ranger.

• Frontier Justice
  
• Short Circuit/Wrangler
  
• Wrench/Jag/Southern Hospitality

The Justice gives you good escaping power once your Sentry goes down and the Short Circuit will keep you safe from Soldiers and Demomen. This loadout thrives on a stream of teammates teleporting in, as they're going to be the main force keeping their fire off your Sentry while it shoots them. The Short Circuit, here, also works well for protecting teammates if you're proactive about it and willing to leave your gun, at least for a bit. On the other hand, the Wrangler offers more offensive power in exchange for slight vulnerabilities to explosives - pick your poison there.

Remember: None of these are set in stone and just because a weapon is good at the start of a setup doesn't mean that it'll be good in the second half. After every death, ask yourself: "Would anything serve me better right now?" Don't be afraid to change any of your slots - even wrenches - if it'll help you out in the long run.

Helping Your Team

Sometimes, it's easy to get lost in the frags that a surprise Sentry or strong nest get and forget that this is a team-based game. You can camp their spawn for as long as you want; if there's another exit or their players simply don't die whilst capping your last point, you still lose. So how do you help your team as much as you can?

Often, simply playing Ninjaneer works: You open up new flanks and let a competent player do some good work from a different angle. Your Sentry provides a distraction; your Dispenser keeps your flankers alive. But sometimes that's not enough. Let's say you're playing Payload defense. The best option may be to have a normal nest with a Teleporter Exit waiting to be capitalized upon. (This video also demonstrates good use of an offensive Leveled Sentry to aid in a push; both clips are pretty valuable.)

But when you set up something in an unexpected spot, they may roll past it and be dangerously close to the objective. Sometimes, this subclass simply doesn't work, in the same way that a Spy isn't always the best idea or a normal Demoman may do better than a Demoknight.

You see, the Engineer, as a general rule, doesn’t carry a team. He supports his team and relies upon his team to support him; if your team doesn’t support you it’ll be very hard to set things up. If you’re trying to get behind the enemy but there’s no distraction from the rest of your team, odds are you won’t make it. If you want to get around the enemy but you need to walk through a Sniper lane, if that Sniper isn’t taken care of you’re putting yourself in quite a bit of danger.

Sometimes, Ninjaneer doesn’t work. You may not have the support to play Engineer in the first place, you may not have time to set up anything, the other team may have the flanks completely covered... A myriad of scenarios make it not quite as viable. Another one to notice is similar to what happens with Spies - once the enemy knows you’re playing it, they’re going to be more careful. Sometimes, the best choice is to make the heat die down a bit by playing something else. Remember, in the end, the goal is to help your team win, not to get frags.

Basically - if it's not working, try again once or twice, but then switch it up, if only for a life or two. Help your team, not your ego.

Recommended Reading

There are a plethora of other very good guides to the Engineer out there, believe it or not. The best, far and away, is pretty much anything The Engineer Apostles put out. And their best work is The Engineer Bible, a fifty-minute long video covering the vast majority of the Engineer's abilities (its most notable exclusion is the Rescue Ranger, as it was released after the video).

Watch that. It covers every weapon (sans the Rescue Ranger) in detail, as well as class matchups, fundamentals, an Engineer's roles, and a heck of a lot more. This video does class matchups better than I ever could, so I'm leaving that to them. It briefly mentions Ninjaneering ("Roaming"), but most of the focus is on traditional Engineer - which is also a very important class to understand; that's just not the focus of this guide.

The next seems a bit left-field, but I promise that it's a very good read: Sun Tzu's The Art Of War[suntzusaid.com]. It helped my movement and stealth more than I can attest to right now, and it's a pretty easy read.

The other videos linked earlier are good to watch as well. They'll improve your mobility a lot and show you the power of aggressive low-level Sentries.

But, remember what was said earlier: There's no substitute for playing when it comes to improving. So get out there and kick some tail already.

[ShellWingsRager]

I ain't reading all that

[JohnKidd]

but like how do i make sure my stupid teammates dont reveal my hiding spot?, i was in mercenary park doing very well against my enemies but a random demoman was chased by a soldier and the demoman came to my ninjaneer spot and ruined everything (i have the wrangler,shotgun and eureka effect)

[antedeguemon447]

of course you gotta hide the teleporters duh you're playing as a ninja

[B.A.]

this is a shit guide. u ignored the most fundamental points. where to hide the tele

[WHEEEEEEEATZERRRRRRRRR4444444]

Shh, im here.

[Arapaima]

Now THIS is a guide!

[elso]

( ͡° ᴥ ͡°)

[Professional Gator Hugger]

#Ninjaneering4Life

[Harmacist]

i'm an aggressive who uses pomson (good for p***ng off meds, dealing with spies, and dealing a decent amount of damage), wrangler (mini-sentry bullet jumping, and i also keep the mini on a high place so it has viewpoints around the main battlefield area) and gunslinger (the 2-hit-then-crit is hilarious)

[RezaTheDwarf]

my brain eploded is that normel