Offensive Widowmaker Engineer

[Mostly Harmless]

So I just tried an interesting build, I thought I would share.

Offensive Widowmaker Engineer
Primary Weapon - Widowmaker (uses metal as ammo)

Max out Windowmaker firing speed
Max out dispenser range
Buy some max metal

One great thing is that this is cheap - you can purchase most of the required upgrades after the first wave, allowing you to buy your normal sentry upgrades in later rounds.

You basically get an shotgun style weapon with infinite ammo and no reload, and a fire rate that is something around 3 shots every 2 seconds. Imagine, that rather than a Heavy sitting by a dispenser holding down M1 for 5 minutes, you can do it yourself. And best of all you sound like a flak cannon.

With this build the Engineer can become offensive, letting his Sentry do it's job on it's own (no wrangling) while the Engie uses the Widowmaker to join in the fight himself. The dispenser is kept close enough to the action (a help to everyone), and with the long dispensing range should allow the Engie to keep his metal full even if he wanders a bit.

This build doesn't do as well on waves where there you have to babysit your sentry, repairing damage from soldiers and demos. This puts you at a long range, which the widowmaker is poor at.

I also recommend the Upgrade Building canteen (which you should do anyway). This so that you can blast away all of your metal/ammo and still rebuild your stuff. Having to rebuild is more frequent because you are not constantly repairing damage.


The only downside to the Widowmaker is that it seems the damage done at medium/long range is less than the shotgun, which is borne out by these pages. That means that if you hang around your sentry, which is typically further from the action, your widowmaker damage potential isn't great.
http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Widowmaker
http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Shotgun

[Start_Running]

Actually thw widowmaker does the same amount of damage. . Base damage of 6/pellet and firing 10 pellets at a time. So it's identical to the shotgun in terms of damage.

But yeah. the WM is a bloody jack hammer and with penetration you will practically never run out of ammo since it effectively doubles the metal return per hit. A full damage blast will return 60 metal normall, but with penetration you can get up to 120 metal per shot. YOu'll be able to refil your metal by shooting this gun.

[Badass Engie]

I test it, It's a bug or we don't get metal on tank hit ? (My main goal was to compare DPS againt tank and compare it with pyro)

[Frau Jules]

Originally posted by DTC Zmx:

I test it, It's a bug or we don't get metal on tank hit ? (My main goal was to compare DPS againt tank and compare it with pyro)

Not a bug (or so I assume). Similar to the concept that you don't get things like uber charge from ubersaw, it would be too OP to get metal on hit with WM against a giant box that's almost impossible to miss.

You can however fire 20 continuous shots which is good, and if you can pick up ammo packs or get in dispenser range during this, even better. Probably not the best tank buster, but decent.

[euler]

Do you go gunslinger with it or jsut stock?
Its fun and it can work,ive tried it
but man losing that RR hurts
still a fun thing, may try later

[Badass Engie]

Originally posted by Brocking the way:

Do you go gunslinger with it or jsut stock?
Its fun and it can work,ive tried it
but man losing that RR hurts
still a fun thing, may try later

On my test, I'm running without sentries to be sure which part of the damage I do (and not add the "bonus" of the sentries)

This is definitevely a build for Gunslinger in my mind as we can't protect the sentries.
By the way, this is not something to replace the engie, but to replace heavy/pyro/something like this

[euler]

Can you post how much damage you do?
because idk if i can replac something like a soldier or a heavy.

[Badass Engie]

Only test I done yet (and be surprise to not get metal back on tank) was on easy map.

I done 28K dommage on all 8 stage, when the regular engie do 29.6K (that was on pub, so I'm not sure how this engie worked).

I was second in term of total damage dealing, and first on the tank.

[euler]

So what class can the engineer with this replace?
Can he be a scout with movement speed upgrades maybe?
or just replace pyro or soldier in damage

[Hacked Exhale]

It can't "replace" anything. It is a ♥♥♥♥ around thing. He could be money collector but it is not reliable early game.

[gimmethegepgun]

Depending on how difficult the mission is a widowmaker might just be an improvement on a regular engineer. It basically just depends on how much babysitting your sentry needs. If it doesn't need a whole lot then the engy running around shooting things is going to increase damage output.

[Quenquent the babysitter]

I did tested this tactic with a Gunslinger and I want to say this is pretty fun. I did not test it yet on Advanced to be sure how does it works at this point. But about raw damages, it just mow down bigger robots and Giants. I even planned on making a guide about Widowmaker + Gunslinger Engie on Mvm.

I think you might want to upgrade resistances too : at 125hp (150 for Gunslinger Engies), you are not going to last long in the front lines.

I also want to say that I'm happy to see other players trying to find others tactics to change how you play or even remake the Meta.

Originally posted by Brocking the way:

So what class can the engineer with this replace?
Can he be a scout with movement speed upgrades maybe?
or just replace pyro or soldier in damage

As Hacked Exhale said, you don't remplace classes. You actually remplace roles. A classic Engie moslty do damages and crowd control, by giving the Engie a WM you also increase his damaging role. For Gunslinger Engie however, you are mostly doing a Big Robots/Giants damaging role and, if you upgrade resistances, a tanking role.

[itsgalf]

I'm sure the OP is happy to finally get responses to this thread...even 2.5 years after the fact

[Quenquent the babysitter]

Oh ♥♥♥♥ you're right, I did not see the necrobump

[Badass Engie]

I don't trust any wave where a sentry don't need baby sitting to ba a good example.

If you can do the wave just by placing a sentry, who care you use WM or Rancho Relaxo.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by itsgalf:

I'm sure the OP is happy to finally get responses to this thread...even 2.5 years after the fact

Oh ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ didn't even notice that.