Bot Fighting Guide

This guide will teach you how to fight the weaponized toasters that are infesting our servers, aswell as teach you how they work.

Please, keep in mind that this guide is still a work in progress! I work on it very often! I value your feedback over everything! Please, keep that in mind and enjoy!

1) This guide will be mostly covering how a bot works and how to bust its ass if it's playing as a sniper. It will not be covering how to identify one or how to kick them etc. For that, you can read the guide that I linked at the end.

2) I am not a hacker or bot user, I have done a lot of research on this topic and contacted many bot users.

3) If this guide is getting bombed by negative reviews and humbs downs it is probs because bot users are using their bot accounts to rate this guide badly.

The sniper bots that you probably already met infesting Valve servers are heavily updated catbots. There is a lot of false but mostly old information going around about them, so I will try to clear up most of the major misconceptions that I see below, as well as telling you some basic info about them that the average TF2 player doesn't know.

• Bots can play as all classes, this guide is covering the sniper ones.
  
• Bots are professional cheats with preset configuration.
  
• Bots are highly customizable.
  
• It requires quite a lot of memory to run them (700MB-1GB per bot)
  
• They do not have preset walk routes, they have their own pathfinding, that the host can edit. This means that they will avoid sentries etc. By using navmeshes.
  
• Bots have installed all hacks that will help them. This includes speed hack, (or what is left of it) etc.
  
• One PC can run up to 32 bots.
  
• A mid-range CPU and 32GB-64GB of RAM is required to run 32 bots.
  
• Bots do not stick together if there is a "herd" of them it is because they walked to the same part of the map.
  
• Some bots will charge their shots until they can kill you, some will quickscope. It depends on their settings.
  
• Bots do not prefer certain game modes over other, the host does.

There are generally a few things that you should keep in mind when you find bots on your server. Below, ill have a list of them.

• Move from cover to cover - do not expose yourself until you are close enough to have a chance against it. You can see a simulation that I made for this below. The blue circle is your starting point, the yellow triangle is the bot. The green arrows show a path that you should take, the red show a path that you should not. The red circle represents your death, while the green circle represents the point where you might have a chance against it.
  
  
  
• Teamwork makes the dreamwork - most teams have at least a few competent players, so team up!
  
• They are bots - insulting them or attacking them through chat will not do anything.
  
• Try to kick them first, before you start fighting them. If the bot is spamming the chat with spacebars, you can bind a message like "Kick the spamming bot!" to a key and spam it back. I have seen a lot of people doing this and I must say that it is very useful.

Naturaly, if you do not have a friend with you on a discord call or a skilled and communicative teammate, beating bots can be a tough job. That said, from my own experience I can say that it is NOT impossible and if you know how it can be very easy.

1) Damage sponge heavy

This is a really, really good way to beat a bot. For this, you will need to equip:
1) The Tomislav
2) The Dalokohs Bar
3) Fists of Steel
As you spawn, you need to munch up the Dalokohs Bar in order to have a larger health pool, then take out the Fists of Steel. This will make you only take 60% damage from the bots shots and you will have a large health pool. Stick to cover and advance towards where you think/know the bot is. When you get close to him, you have to jump out of cover, switch to The Tomislav (The +20% faster spin-up time will come in handy) And shoot the living ♥♥♥♥ out of it. This is the best stunt that you can pull on them if you are going solo.

2) Sentry/stickybomb area denial

You can stop bots from coming through an area by building a sentry there or by covering it up by stickybombs, they will not walk through a place where a sentry or stickybombs are, as you can see in the code on the right. they may shoot the stickybombs, but that depends on how they are configurated. Bots are generally not good at killing sentries (Since they don't have heads to pop) and building them is a semi-decent way to push forward in a map. Unfortunately, normal players can help the bots out by destroying the stickybombs or the sentry.

Disclaimer: I got the code from a hacker and bot user.

1) Demo and Medic duo

This is a really effective tactic against bots, (In my opinion the most effective.) but you will have to have certain items equipped in order for it to work.

Medic:

1) Crusader's Crossbow (Not required)
2) The Vaccinator
3) The Ubersaw (Not required)
This loadout will the medic give you bullet resistance, which is extremely effective against hackers.

Demoman:

1) Loch-n-Load
2) Scottish Resistance
3) Scotsman's Skullcutter
The reason why I chose the Loch-n-Load for this loadout is, that you have to kill the bot as fast as possible so it can not get another shot on you. The Loch-n-Load has faster pills, so you will manage to take the bot out faster.
The Scottish Resistance lets you lock many chokepoints up, making sure that the bots will not flank you. Bots will not get close to stickybombs, you can see this in the code in the "How to beat them single" section. The Scotsman's Skullcutter is good for fighting against sniper bots if you ran out of ammo since it does 20% more damage. The bots do not move fast so you will not have a problem with the speed downside.

How to use this duo:

You should stay in spawn for a little while, at least until your first small uber loads. After that, get out of spawn, stay in cover and advance towards where the bot is. Once you are close, the medic should pop the uber, the demoman should get out of cover and try to take the bot out. the medic should stay in cover if it is possible, but he should not let the demoman run in alone if he can't.

Fun fact: If you get a quickscoped headshot, while you have the Fists of Steel equipped, while you are ubered by a Vaccinator medic with bullet resistance and a Battalion's Backup soldier pops nearby, the headshot will deal only 7.5 damage!

Below, there are questions with 3 possible answers. Below the possible answers, there is the right answer. You can reveal it by clicking on the black line. This quiz should check your knowledge of bots.

What is the best heavy melee weapon against bots?

1) The Warrior's Spirit
2) Fists of Steel
3) Holiday Punch

Answer: The correct answer is 2. They provide you with a 40% damage resistance from ranged weapons, which comes in handy when fighting bots.

What is the best way to prevent a bot from coming through an area?

1) Sticky bombs
2) Get a heavy to guard it
3) block it with dispensers

Answer: The correct answer is 1. Bots will avoid sentries and stickybombs at all costs, but they might try shooting at stickybombs.

What is the best medigun to use against bots?

1) The Kritzkrieg
2) The Vaccinator
3) The Quickfix

Answer: The correct answer is 2. As you can select bullet resistance on The Vaccinator it is hands down the best weapon to use against sniper bots. It builds up small ubers fast that makes you almost invincible against bullets.

Do bots have preset paths?

1) Yes. They follow them at all times.
2) Bots do not move.
3) No. They use navmeshes like Valve bots.

Answer: The correct answer is 3. Bots choose where to go, depending on many variables, like if the path is safe or if there are pickups there. They do not use preset paths.

I have put all my knowledge in this guide and I hope that it will help you fight bots the next time you encounter one! Please remember to follow me so you know the next time I release a guide, as you can see below!

Also, please check these out!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1941972826

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1944467501

And here is the other bot guide about how to identify one and more!

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1935994199&searchtext=bot

[I_am_steve]

I’ll have to remember this guide

[FoxYin_11♥♣•]

as a demoman, i kept on placing stickies on a payload cart and bots kept on falling for it, so they don't always evade stickies, at least thats how it was for me

[The friendly gentleman]

i was here at the begining :D

[SchwerMaik]

One helluva way is Fist of Steel and panic attack, bots have now always crits with melee, just get close with fist, and use the faster weapon switch of panic attack to get the bots on vurnerbale times, always worked and works best with a Quick fix Medic, as you still get shot once with the bullet.

[poop sock]

brilliant guide mate, cheers for the link! you should've let me known, i'll link yours!

[WillOrMight]

thanks but i feel it could use an update

[NK]

1/10 no wizards

[Meem]

Thx, but need RUS vers.

[The friendly gentleman]

me too

[Yung Dave]

I had no idea "bots" like these were in TF2. I was hearing a lot about them but never really fully understood it until I read this guide.