MvM Guide for Begineers

Welcome to my guide on Mann vs. Machine where you can learn basics of MvM and how everything works, tips and tricks. This guide should be for less experienced players who want's to start playing MvM. Let's start...

Basic Info

Mann vs. Machine (MvM) is a mode for 6 players. In this mode, the RED team will stand against a robot hordes whose task is to detonate a bomb at your base. You must prevent them from doing so. Robots are coming in pre-prepared waves and sometimes a giant robot or tank appears. This mode allows you to upgrade your weapons and use Canteens for certain buff.

MvM Menu

In Mann vs. Machine menu, you can queue for two types of games, Boot Camp which is entirely free and Mann Up, which is paid mode.
Both have the SAME content.

Boot Camp

Boot Camp is free way how to play MvM. The diffrence between Boot Camp and Mann Up is that you won't get any sweet loot for completing Boot Camp, not even a badge.
There are 29 missions in total

• 4 Normal missions
  
• 8 Intermediate missions
  
• 13 Advanced missions
  
• 3 Expert missions
  
• 1 Nightmare mission

I recomend to start with the Normal missions (or Intermediate) and go on Advanced after you'll understand how everything works.

Mann Up

Play on Mann Co. servers to earn Tour of Duty loot and bragging rights!

You need Tour of Duty ticket, which can be bought in Mann Co. Store for 0.90€ for entering the Mann Up. You can also buy Squad Surplus Voucher for 1.75€. This item works as regular Tour of Duty ticket but after completing the mission, it can grant an extra item (which is usually just a single weapon) for you and your team. These Voulchers can also stack.
Each Tour of duty ticket will gain you access to the one mission. For completing 1 operation (tour), you'll need as many tickets as there are missions in each operation.

List of all tours

• Operation Oil Spill
  Intermediate difficulty operation contains 6 missions. Complete this tour for reciving Rust Botkiller or rare Blood Botkiller.
  
• Operation Steel Trap
  Advanced difficulty operation contains 6 missions. Complete this tour for reciving Silver Botkiller or rare Gold Botkiller.
  
• Operation Mecha Engine
  Advanced difficulty operation contains 3 missions. Complete this tour for reciving Silver Engie Botkiller or rare Gold Engie Botkiller.
  
• Operation Two Cities
  Advanced difficulty operation contains 4 missions. Complete this tour for reciving random Killstreak Kits or rare Specialized Killstreak Kits / Professional Killstreak fabricators.
  
• Operation Gear Grinder
  Expert difficulty operation contains 3 missions. Complete this tour for reciving Carbonado Botkiller or rare Diamond Botkiller.

Mann Up loots

For each mission you've completed, you'll recive a Badge which will level up with your tours completed. For each tour (except Two Cities), you'll recive guaranteed Botkiller Weapon or even better Botkiller.




Botkiller Weapons are Strange so they can count your kills.
You can also get original robo-hats from Mann Up.
For completing any Advanced and Expert tour, there's chance to earn a extremly rare Australium weapon.













These are also Strange quality and can drop with a killstreak on.

Maps & Missions

Missions

There are several mission difficulties such as Normal, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert. They all are seperated to two types.

• Invasion
  More, but shorter waves of robots.
  
• Endurance
  Less, but longer waves. Players starts with a lot of money. Bomb resets itself for a certain amout of time.

Each mission has it's specific waves of robots.
If you are curious about all missions, you can check TF2 wiki or clik here.

Maps

Decoy











Desert map, it's a fake Mann Co. headquarters designed and built by Soldier to confuse robots.
Missions: Doe's Drill, Doe's Doom, Day of Wreckening, Disk Deletion, Data Demolition, Disintegration, Desperation

Coal Town










Desert map, museum of history of coal mining, closely associated with the Hale family.
Missions: Crash Course, Cave-In, Quarry, Ctrl+Alt+Destruction, CPU Slaughter, Cataclysm

Coal Town has a special Halloween version called Ghost Town with 1 massive wave called wave 666. The mission itself is named Caliginous Caper with a zombies instead of robots. It can be played only in Boot Camp so no rewards for completing.

Mannworks











Rainy map in Mountains, true headquarters of Mann Co.
Missions: Mann-euvers, Mean Machines, Mann Hunt, Machine Massacre, Mech Mutilation, Mannslaughter

Bigrock








Largest map in middle of nowhere.
Mecha Engineer were introduced on this map.
Missions: Benign Infiltration, Broken Parts, Bone Shaker

Mannhattan









Dockyard map in a city.
Robots can move their spawn positions by capturing the gates. Each capture will shut down robots for a while. It's the only map where Tanks doesn't appears
Missions: Big Apple Barricade, Empire Escolation, Metro Malice

Rottenburg











Bavarian town located in Germany near mountains.
Missions: Village Vanguard, Hamlet Hostility, Bavarian Botlash

Mann vs. Machine Game

After you join a server, you'll spawn in front of the Upgrade Station, when you upgrade yourself or your weapons, press F4 for "ready". When all your teammates are ready, robots will finally come.
Before the attack begins, it is advisable to get as close as possible to where the robots come from. Initially, your six-member team will defend itself there.

Credits will drop out of dead robots, do not forget to collect them all. The less you've missed, the bigger will be the bonus. The collected money divides equally between the players. Between waves, get back to Upgrade Station and upgrade again for credits.
If you die, you can bought back yourself for a certain number of credits, so you can immediately respawn (scouts have this feature as their free ability).

Robot Attack

After the robot attack begins, your primary goal is to eliminate a robot with small but powerful bomb on his back. Robots walk along the path marked with blue holographic arrows and their goal is your base.
Take down bomb-carrying robots quickly, though, because the longer they’re holding one, the more powerful they get. Worse yet, these upgrades stack.

First stage
Defensive buff, sharded will all nearby robots.

Second stage
Health regeneration.

Final stage
Full crits all the time.

Giant robots

Giant robots can be identified by the fact that they are giant, covered in thick, damage absorbing armor. They have a ton of heath, they have big guns, they are big, but they are slow.
Not everyone of them are slow, for example Giant Robo-Scout is 2x faster than regular tiny Scout.

Sentry Busters

Essentially a bomb on legs, the Sentry Buster will detect any sentry that’s dealing sustained damage to the Robot Horde, then initiate its deviously complicated protocol: run at the offending sentry and explode. Thanks to a design flaw, it takes the Sentry Buster a couple of seconds to arm itself—giving quick-thinking Engineers a brief opportunity to hustle themselves and their belongings out of range.

Tanks

It does not attack at all, it is possible for players to blur an object. Slowly moves to the center of your base where, if not stopped, places the bomb.

Upgrading & Strategy

Previously mentioned Upgrading can be done at Upgrade Station for credits.
Choose your Upgrades wisely though beacuse it can really affect your abilities and powers.
Better list of loadouts and weapons for MvM

Here are few tips and loadouts for each class and what to upgrade:

Scout

Loadout:
Scattergun
Mad Milk
Fan 'o' War

Upgrades:

• Upgrade your movement speed (and jump height) to maximum.
  
• Upgrade your Mad Milk to slow down robots.
  
• Upgrade your resistances to blasts and bullets + crit resistances.

Strategy: You are the credit guy. Try at max to don't lose any dollar, it will help you and all your team (don't forget that your health will increase when you grab the credits). Milk hordes and when giants show up mark them with your Fan O'War.

Soldier

Loadout:
Rocket Launcher / Beggar's Bazooka
Buff Banner
Escape Plan

• Upgrade your reload speed, clip size, damage, firing speed and rocket specialist.
  
• Upgrade your Buff Banner duration at max.
  
• You can rocket jump, but better upgrade movement speed and resistances too.

Strategy:Kill as much as you can. Use your Buff Banner when things gets serious. Buy Crit Canteens before hard waves.

Pyro

Loadout:
Flame Thrower / Phlogistinator
Gas Passer
Powerjack

• Upgrade your airblast force
  
• Upgrade explosive Gas Passer
  
• Upgrade your ammo capacity at least twice (or max it)

Strategy: Burn all you can, you're main damage dealer to Tanks. Airblast Giants to the pits, reset bombs, get rid of uber medics with gas passer or just airblast them away. Use gas passer on large groups of smaller robots.

Demoman

Loadout:
Grenade Launcher
Sticky Launcher / Scottish Resistance
Bottle

• Upgrade your firing speed, reload speed, clip size and damage on your secondary
  
• Upgrade resistances

Strategy: Place your stickies before the wave starts. Try to kill übercharge robot Medics before they activate it. If there is a Medic with Kritzkrieg make him use his übercharge to shot crit stickies. If there isn't a Medic, buy crit cantees for hard waves / tanks.

Heavy

Loadout:
Minigun / Brass Beast
Sandwich
G.R.U / Fists of Steel / K.G.B

• Upgrade your primary so it can destroy projectiles (2 points)
  
• Upgrade ammo capacity, HP on kill, penetration and firing speed
  
• Upgrade your RAGE to slow / stun giants
  
• Upgrade your resistances and mainly movement speed

Strategy: Kill all the robots you can and protect the sentries from rockets / pipes. When a Tank shows up focus in destroying it. Defend the bomb. Hard waves buy crit canteens.

Engineer

Loadout:
Rescue Ranger
Wrangler
Wrench

• Upgrade Dispenser Range, Metal Capacity and Building heath
  
• Upgrade your Wrench swing speed
  
• Always buy Upgrade Canteens
  
• NEVER buy disposable mini sentry

Strategy: Keep your Dispenser near your Heavy. Learn how to deal with Sentry Busters, Move your Sentry to shoot the Tanks. Choose Wrangler to take down bigger targets, Upgrade Canteens are your best friends.

Medic

Loadout:
Blutsauger
Kritzkrieg
Ubersaw

• Upgrade your Projectile Shield
  
• Upgrade your Healing Mastery
  
• Upgrade your Overheal Expert and Canteen Specialist
  
• Upgrade your milked syringes, your teammates will heal themselves

Strategy: Heal, overheal, revive, get down big robots with ubercharges. Pop shields when there are a lot of damage flying trough the air.

Sniper

Loadout:
Hitman's Heatmaker
Jarate
Bushwacka

• Upgrade explosive headshots, reload speed, penetration
  
• Upgrade your jarate to slow targets
  
• Upgrade your speed so you can react quickly when there's a spy creepin' around here

Strategy: Click on heads, especially on giant ones. Kill medics with explosive headshots. Use jarate.

Spy

Loadout:
Revolver / Diamondback
Kunai
Dead Ringer

• Upgrade your sapper
  
• Upgrade your knife
  
• RESISTANCES AND SPEED

Strategy: When a wave has übercharge Medics sap them before they activate it. Backstab the giants when you are with the upgrades.

Canteens

After your first mission, you'll recive Power Up Canteen of your own. You can fill the Canteen three times of one type of buff. Buff are personal and lasts for 5 seconds.

Crit Canteen
Gain full criticals for 5 seconds. Costs 100 credits.
Use them on harder waves or against Giants / Tanks.
This canteen is very powerfull with Minigun, Flamethrower or even Beggar's Bazooka








Übercharge Canteen
Gain personal invulerability for 5 seconds. Costs 75 credits.
When playing Medic and you have Kritzkrieg, purchase Übercharge Canteens along side with Canteen Specialist upgrade. Otherwise, Über is very rewarding when playing Scout or Spy.







Upgrade Canteen
Only for Engineers. When activated, upgrade your buildings to a level 3 instantly. Costs 50 credits.
I can really reccomend using this Canteen when playing Engineer. If oyur Sentry goes down, just build another one and press "H". Also be sure you'll have one at any time.







Ammo Refill Canteen
Refills all your ammo capacity and clips. Costs 25 credits.
Playing Heavy and your team doesn't have a Dispenser? Use ammo refill Canteen. These are useful for Heavies, Pyros, Soldiers and Demomans. Yes, this canteen also refill Engineer's metal but you'd be better just using the Upgrade Canteen.








Return to base Canteen
Instantly teleports you to the base and gain a little bit of speed boost. Costs 10 credits.
These have pretty little use. They were designed to help your team if Giant Scout pass with the bomb. Otherwise it's practically useless.

End

Thanks for reading and I hope you learned something new.
Please rate this guide and leave comment. If you disagree or have any issues, write it also in comments.

Also you can join my steam group called ≫︎Engineer Saloon≪︎

[Sergeant Slutshame]

A beginner shouldn't be making an mvm guide for "beginners."

[Lyra]

MvM guide for *BEGINNERS*. That means it's for those players who have no clue what to do in Mann vs. Machine. Also Mann Up should not be and will never be the only-meta mode so if something works, why not use it.

[Sergeant Slutshame]

Please do not listen to this person if you plan on queuing for mann up. I don't want to waste my time explaining why the guide you got your gameplan from was written by a windowlicking brainlet.

[Hmoorkin]

Ok I was just typing about not going for tank as heavy

[cool-ass skull with choccy milk]

This guide's pretty good though, so good job, pardner

[cool-ass skull with choccy milk]

Just a small thing
don't focus on tank as heavy, tanks have 75% bullet resistance. Even with the brass beast, you're better off attacking the robots instead of the tank unless there's nothing else to focus on or every other enemy is far from the hatch/an optional enemy.

[Bemosbrub]

Mini sentry with Frontier Justice can be slighty usefull if the sentry manages to get kills.

[red⋆mits]

excellent beginners guide! gj !!

[Lyra]

You're right that Mini-sentry is useless on first few waves but still, you can increase DPS of your Sentry with Sentry firing speed upgrade. If you have money to spare, better upgrade rescue ranger firing speed, clip or reload speed (or resistances / speed). Of course, everyone have diffrent playstyles, I found disposable mini useless in any way.

[-=[G44]=- | Bold]

For the mini-sentry upgrade.
When to purchase: you already have everything you need maxed and still have spare money. Usually last wave.
How to use:
1. Case 1 - behind the main lines to kill a robot who smuggled thorough your defences and your team missed him. Useful in Rottenburg in Mannhattan.
2. Case 2 - put close to your main sentry to increase your damage. Useful in Mannhattan when engi sits on the top and has access to his own dispenser.
3. Case 3 - increase your damage to tanks to kill them quicker. Useful in Rottenburg, obviously.

I only play Two Cities so I can't really suggest anything for other maps but recomendations should be somilar.
And there is NO EXCUSE to purchase mini-sentry first waves.