Sentry Blocking: A quick Engineer MvM guide

To be a great engineer in MvM, you must know how to sentry-block when needed. This guide will teach you how

Intro

A good MvM engineer knows where to place his buildings, how to deal with sentry busters safely, can keep his buildings up and repaired, and cover the bomb properly. He should also have the ability to sentry block bomb carriers when applicable. Super Scouts in particular can be problematic due to their fast movement speed while carrying the bomb. Sentryblocking is one effective way of dealing with them.

So what is Sentry Blocking?

The bots advance on a pre-determined path to the bomb hatch. When obstructions present themselves in their path, the bots have a difficult time getting passed said obstruction. On chokepoints or corners, the bomb carrier may even not be able to pass for a few seconds before the bot tries to jump over the obstruction.

When the obstruction is the engineer's sentry....this is called sentry blocking.
If it is a player...it is referred to as body blocking.

Sentry Placement

In order to sentry block, you must become familiar with the bomb route. Next you have to find choke points and areas where bomb carriers turn a corner tightly. These choke points and corners are the optimal places to sentryblock.

Note that the sentry should not be flush with corners. Instead, it should be slightly off the corner, maybe 1 sentry-width distance. This way, giants wedge themselves between your sentry and the corner and will not be able to move to the sides in order to get around. A quick way to check is to place your sentry and then run into the sentry as if you were the giant bot. If you get wedged in and can't move...then you're doing it right :)


For now, here are a few examples:

Mannhattan - Sentry Placement

Two Cities - Mannhattan

Location 1


This is the first sentryblock area and is necessary to know if you're going to play engineer in Manhattan. The waves of Manhattan have plenty of giant scouts that spawn from the top spawn and can pose a problem because your teammates may be pre-occupied killing bots at the lower spawn. Without the sentry to impede the scout's path, they will run right passed everyone and make a break towards the hatch.

Location 2


This will sentryblock the Super Scouts that spawn from the top side. Although not as reliable. It seems scouts will jump over it pretty quickly

Location 3


When there are Super Scouts that come from the top and are programmed to run straight to Gate-A (yellow hats), this is a very reliable blocking spot. It also blocks Super Scouts that have the bomb and are running towards the hatch. BAM - Double Block!

Location 4


This is for sentryblocking the last 8 bonk scouts...or for sentryblocking the mini-bosses of the wave.


The big guy just can't seem to figure out how to get around this sentry. He'll finally jump up and over it.

Location 5


This is a good blocking spot for mini-bosses. They will try to jump over it, but will be impeded by the overhead.

Location 6
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=505565403

Screenshot courtesy of CL4P-TRAP

Location 7


Sometimes the bomb carriers will pass underneath the containers. This is a great place to sentryblock them from advancing

Location 8


This corner is a possible block spot as well
Thanks for the tip, Lunarwarrior Shouen!

Rottenburg - Sentry Placement

Two Cities - Rottenburg

Location 1


This is the more standard spot to sentryblock giant scouts as they turn this corner tightly.

Location 2


When the bots go the low bombroute, they come up the stairwell and turn the corner tightly. They can be sentryblocked here

Location 3


They also turn this corner tightly.

Location 4


Last-ditch effort. Can really save the wave when giants break through.

Location 5


This corner at the huge rock can be used to sentryblock as well. However, it is a dangerous place to have a sentry as it can be killed rather easily.

Location 6


This is the most aggressive place to try to sentryblock as the sentry will undoubtedly draw a lot of fire, but in certain waves with Giant Scouts, it works beautifully. If you stand back near the tunnel and rescue ranger the sentry when it's almost dead, you can place the sentry at Location 1 if you need to.

Decoy - Sentry Placement

Location 1


This is for the right side route. This chokepoint is great for catching super scouts. Because Decoy is a very small map, super scouts can wreck havoc on teams that don't know how to deal with them.

Location 2


When the bomb route is left-side going up the large hill, this is the first place to sentryblock. It works great against giant scouts.

Location 3


Alternate location if you don't like location 2. Some people prefer it because it does not draw a lot of fire and will not draw out sentry busters as quick as location 1.

Location 4


Continuing up the hill, this is the next choke point to sentryblock. It allows you cover behind the rocks and there is an ammo pack nearby as well.

Location 5


This is at the top of the stairs that is leading down to the hatch. I like this spot as well because sometimes the scout will try to go around your sentry and fall into the pit by themselves. Idiots

Location 6


And yet another spot on that same path.

Location 7


Use this spot for Disintegration Wave 4. This will block the Super Scouts regardless of which path they are going. Semi-reliable

Coaltown - Sentry Placement

Location 1


Right-side bomb route.

Location 2


Right side high

Location 3


Left side Sentryblock. Reliable for Super Scouts in Cataclysm

Location 4


You can catch giants right at this railing.

Location 5


Same thing for the other side

Mannworks - Sentry Placement

Location 1


This is for the right-side bomb route. The giants wedge themselves between the house and sentry.

Location 2


This is for the left-side bomb route. The sentry is a bit harder to keep alive as it is all the way up in the front and draws a lot of fire, but it still works well.

Location 3


Another possible spot for the left-side bomb route, but I don't think it works too well. Not nearly as well as Location 2

Big Rock - Sentry Placement

Location 1


This is the most common place to sentry block. In Big Rock, the bomb carrier should stay inside the cave as long as possible...otherwise the wave starts to get hectic.

Location 2


Aggressive Sentryblocking up front. You can use this for Wave 2 Broken Parts to block the first 3 Super Scouts. This can also used for your starting position for Wave 3 Bone Shaker. This spot is hard to keep up normally since it draws a lot of fire

Location 3


Really Aggressive Sentryblock. This is used for the later half of Wave 3 Bone Shaker when you want to block the Super Scouts when they first exit spawn. I also use it to block the 3 Super Scouts that appear in the first half of Wave 2 Broken Parts. This spot is quite hard to keep up

Location 4


Tunnel Sentryblock. This can be used to block a giant from exiting into the tunnel. Sometimes this is great on Wave 6 Broken Parts if you have lost the front a little bit.

Location 5


Mid-map Sentryblock on the left

Location 6


Mid-map Sentryblock on the left v2

Location 7


This is for the left-side bomb route. This is the left house near the hatch. Sorry I didn't take the picture further back to gain reference. This doorway works very well. Because it is in the house, the giant are also unable to jump over it as the ceiling also impedes on them. This means, that as long as your sentry is alive, the giant carrying the bomb will be unable to advance.

Location 8


This is just 1 doorway back from Location 7. This is actually my favorite spot to sentryblock. I'll give you an awesome pro-tip; Since the giant cannot advance as long as your sentry is alive, it is best if your teammates are nearby to rain damage on the giant. The giant will most likely be targeting your sentry. With max sentry health and your wrangler out, the sentry will last quite a long time. If you have the rescue ranger, I suggest switching to it and healing your sentry with your bolts before quickly switching back to the wrangler so that the shield is always up. When the sentry is about to die, use an Upgrade Buildings Canteen to instantly bring the sentry back to full health. If you're really desperate you can use all 3 canteens to keep it alive. You can also be standing right near the spawn so when you run out of canteens you can buy 3 more before the sentry dies. I've carried a wave because the bots were just unable to destroy my sentry at this spot...thus not able to advance the bomb to the hatch.
Location 9


Mid-map Sentryblock on the right. Very reliable and nice to know

Location 10


This is for the right-side bomb route. You can catch them at this choke point.

Location 11


This is the last-ditch area. This will sentryblock bots that come over the middle bridge and turn the corner at this railing. Also applies to the left railing

I made a mistake trying to place the block again. This is how to block the left house in a pinch

Outro

Certainly these are not the only places to sentryblock. I'm sure there are a few that I missed.
However, these are the most common. The idea is always the same - to catch giants at places where they cannot move freely.

Sentryblocking is the bane of Giant Scouts and the most reliable since sentries are immobile. They also work very well against bosses and mini-bosses.

Now, go out and find your own.

--------------------

Also here's a tip:

Lets say that giant scouts are about to show up. However, the announcer just stated that a sentry buster is on it's way. Valve is sneaky ands makes sentry busters come at the same time as giant scouts. So...what do you do?

1. You can deal with the sentry buster like you would normally. Hope that your teammates handle the giant scouts.

2. You can leave the sentry there, tell your teammates to get away and perhaps the sentry buster exploding will actually kill the giant scouts

Or, what I like to do:

3. Move the sentry away from the team quickly and destroy it manually (Press 5, then 1). Now rebuild your sentryblock and use your upgrade canteen. The sentry buster will go to the spot where you manually destroyed the sentry. The new sentry will be up and able to block the scouts.

=====

Now go out there and Block!

[TM64G]

"We need to build a Sentry Wall to keep the Giant Robots out." -Ronald Dump

[pub_rob]

thanks mate needed this

[Luc1818]

nice

[Softshine798]

I might have another Blocking location
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=508321923
for Hamlet Wave 4 (When the Super Scouts take the Right Path)

[itsgalf]

Yeah I have a short clip of that block spot in the Manhattan video, but I didn't have a seperate screenshot for it. I'll add your screenshot in. Thanks

[Softshine798]

I might have a Sentry Blocking Location for Mannhattan:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=505565403

[itsgalf]

Sometimes position #2 can cover blocking that bomb path. Otherwise it's very hard to block Super Scouts reliably if they're going that way. Sometimes the most reliable block for that is back at the last corner at the bomb hatch. There's another good spot specifically for Disintegration Wave 4 (Eight Super Scouts) that I saw 'Headache AKA Gail the Snail' use not too long ago. It was an 'Ahhhhhhhh clever' moments. I'll try to update the guide with it

[Softshine798]

for Decoy,
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=451594999
Wait, does Decoy 2 cover that?

[Girl Queen Pussy Boss]

I may be late to this party but this was a good read, thanks mate.

[StarfishAtLarge]

Thank you; more Engies need to know about this!