Are there actually any advantages to the Red Tape Recorder?

[crispy noodle cup boy]

Surely destroying a building is more effective than, say, taking it down a level? Does it work any faster than the stock Sapper?

[clementine]

The idea is that it gives you a window of time to deal with the Engineer. If you tried to use the stock sapper on a Sentry while the Engy was near, he'd unsap the Sentry and it would kill you. Now, if you used the Red Tape Recorder on a Sentry near the Engineer, even if he unsaps it soon there is a few seconds of time you have before the Sentry shoots you, since it's upgrading. Obviously, this weapon is meant to be used with the Your Eternal Reward.
It's also pretty damn annoying if you're the Engy, which is always fun for the Spy. :P

[Crunch Wrap Supreme]

Isn't the whole purpose to annoy Engies? I know that I go insane after upgrading my teleporters 9 times in a single life!

[Aleco247]

The best use for it is to use it one a level 3 sentry. Then once it gets back down to level one, the engie would probably removed the sapper, BUT its a level 1. A soldier or heavy can easily take it out. So what im saying is its good if you use it while wroking with your team.

[clementine]

Originally posted by Aleco247:

The best use for it is to use it one a level 3 sentry. Then once it gets back down to level one, the engie would probably removed the sapper, BUT its a level 1. A soldier or heavy can easily take it out. So what im saying is its good if you use it while wroking with your team.

Yeah. I guess it's just if you don't trust your sapper will survive the whole sapping trip. And the thing I mentioned above, too.

[Tiomasta]

The whole point of it is that you downgrade the buildings even if the sapper gets removed early, whereas the regular sapper would've done essentially nothing. The thing is, it downgrades buildings ridiculously quickly. I put it on your level 3 sentry, you have 3 seconds to knock it off or it's down to level 1. Two wrench swings taking roughly one and a half second on their own. You won't have time to remove the sapper quickly enough if you try to kill me, but if you don't try to kill me, I can obviously replace the sapper instantly or just try to backstab you, or 2-shot you with the Enforcer or Ambassador, which can happen even if you try to kill me, actually.

Now imagine I go to your building nest while disguised, and I sap every single one of your buildings at the same time. You could even instantly kill me with a random crit, or just have some Pyro kill me for you, and you still wouldn't have enough time to save all your buildings from getting back to level 1.
Now imagine I sap the buildings, but don't even do anything against you; I could just run away, or even easier, Dead Ringer away. Result: I downgraded every building of yours to level 1 FOR FREE.

And if the sapper gets broken during the downgrade animation, it has to replay through it, meaning it takes an extra moment for the sentry to be able to shoot again. And because it doesn't technically destroy the building, they don't show up in the killfeed, meaning silent killer sapper, and also, taking off a sentry with this will avoid giving the Engineer Frontier Justice revenge crits.

The only downside of it is that it takes longer to destroy a building from the sapper alone. While even the regular sapper isn't fast enough for a lot of stuff. The Redtape Recorder still does everything the other sapper does, stab-and-saps and everything will still work. And since it takes longer, it actually makes it better for sapping minisentries, because usually they'd just wait for the mini to get destroyed and build another one after that; the Engineer can't even self-destroy a building if it's being sapped.

[Mike]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.