[TF2] The Basics of Scout

Want to Improve as Scout but don't know how? This is where you start

Introduction

Speed. A mechanic that is used to give the player a dopamine rush that will encourage the player to continue playing. Team Fortress 2, has a lot of different options for speed. You got the Soldier's rocket launchers to perform "Rocket Jumps", The Demoman's sticky launchers and shields allow the user to "Sticky Jump" or charge towards his enemies, and many more! But, one of the most reliable sources of speed, is the Scout.

Many new players might pick the Scout out of curiosity, or maybe they saw his "Meet The Team" video and thought he's pretty cool. As cool and interesting as Scout's character and speed is, there's a lot more than just running circles around your enemies. Maybe you want to get better as the class, but don't know where to start.

This guide has been created to help those who want to learn more about Scout and how he's played by most players. Whether your new to the game or want to pick up a new main for a bit, this guide will be going over the basics of the Scout. This will be going over basic aspects of the class, so don't worry about seeing a lot of complicated stuff that most Scout Mains know about. If this guide gets enough positive feedback, I'll consider making a guide going over more advanced tactics and facts a Scout player should know about.

Scout's Stats

Scout is a part of the offense set of classes along with Soldier and Pyro. Although he is very good in offense due to his high damage output and his ability to move in unpredictable patterns, he can be pretty decent as a support class. Some support weapons Scout has include the Mad Milk/Mutated Milk, Bonk! Atomic Punch, and the Fan O'War. More info on these weapons, as well as the rest of scout's weapons, will be explained in different sections of the guide.

The Scout has a total of 125 HP, making him fragile along with Engineer, Sniper, and Spy who all have 125 HP. If you're being healed by a Medic, you max health will now be at 185 HP (158 HP if the medigun the Medic is using is the Quick-Fix) due to the overheal. However, if a Medic stops healing you if you're at full overheal, the overheal health will slowly drain back to 125. This applies to Engineer, Sniper, and Spy as well.

Although Scout is pretty fragile in terms of health, he has a lot of other positives. If Scout is pushing the payload cart of capturing a control point, the Scout will count as 2 people pushing/capturing which speeds up the cart or the progress of capturing a control point. If there are more people pushing payloads or capturing control points, the rate will speed up the more people there are.

Scout also has a 133% movement speed, making him the fastest class in the game, right in front of Medic and Spy. This movement speed can be extremely useful when trying to get out of situations that you can't handle or trying to hurry to the payload or control point before the timer runs out. The movement can also be used to throw off your enemies' aim and tracking. This is one of the most important features when playing Scout, as you can use this to get to places faster, and be more unpredictable.

One more thing that the Scout has that no other class has, is a Double Jump. Jumping in the air will allow you to jump again. This can be useful to get to places on a map that other classes wouldn't normally be able to get to. This is another important aspect for Scout, as this can also be used to throw off your enemies' aim and tracking.

Scout's Arsenal of Weapons: Primaries

Scout has a lot of different weapons in his arsenal, and it would take a long time to go over all of them in deep detail. This section will be talking about the basic functions of all of Scout's weapons, so you can decide on which weapons you think are worth using. Reskins will be mentioned, but not talked about too much, since they function identically the same as an already existing weapon.











The Stock Scattergun is the first weapon that every Scout player gets. You can fire this weapon 6 times before you have to reload. At point blank range, this weapon can do a maximum of 105 damage, if every single pellet manages to connect. This weapon is ideal for point-blank range as it will do the most damage at point-blank range. This is the most common primary you'll see most Scouts using because of it's reliable damage output.






















The Force-a-Nature is the second most common primary you'll see most Scouts using. Although it can do more damage than the stock scattergun (The Force-a-Nature does 113 at most) and that it fires faster than stock, you can only fire it twice before having to reload the entire clip. The most annoying part that most Scout players have with this weapon is this stat: "Knockback on the target and shooter" The main reason why most Scout players dislike it is because the knockback can be pretty annoying at times. Upon the firing the first shot at the enemy, if they get launched into the air, you'll do less damage if you try to hit them a second time while shooting. But, the knockback does have a few bright spots. if you fire towards the ground while jumping into the air, you can propel yourself up into the air to gain more height.


























The Shortstop is one of the least commonly used primaries for the Scout. Why? Because most scouts are most effective at close range, and this weapon was made for long range. A long range weapon may sound interesting for a frontline class like scout, but the damage output is lower than the Stock Scattergun (The shortstop does 72 damage at most), and has 2 less shots than the Stock Scattergun. The Shove mechanic is more or so used for memes. The Shove, which is activated by pressing Alt-fire (aka Right Click), does 1 damage and pushing someone, and pushing someone to death doesn't count as a kill. You can use this shove to push enemies off a ledge or into an environmental hazard like the saws on sawmill, but it's just a weaker airblast (an ability that only the Pyro has with their flamethrower).























The Soda Popper functions identically to the Force-a-Nature. While the weapon does the same amount of damage as stock, and still has 2 shots like the Force-a-Nature, it has a "Hype" Meter and requires the Scout with this weapon to deal 305 damage to fill it up completely. Upon pressing Alt-fire while the meter is full, it allows the Scout to jump 5 times in midair (6 counting the jump off the ground). The "Hype" meter lasts for 10 seconds before going back to zero needing to be filled up to use it again. Unlike the Force-a-Nature, the Soda Popper doesn't cause knockback to the user or anyone that is hit by it. The Soda Popper also has a faster reload time than the Force-a-Nature. This weapon is another primary most Scouts use, not as much as stock or force-a-nature, but more often than weapons like the shortstop.





















The Baby Face's Blaster fires identically to the Stock Scattergun. It does the same amount of damage as stock, and fires at the same rate as stock, however, it has 2 less shots than stock and you will run slower than normal. This weapon contains a "Boost" meter and once it's full, which can be done by dealing a total of 100 damage, Scout will be able to run faster than a Scout with any other primary. Scout will have a 120% movement speed when the meter is at zero (making him slower than normal), and a 173% movement speed when the meter is full which is noticeably faster than normal. However, getting hit or double jumping will cause the boost to drain.




















The Backscatter, also fires identically to the Stock Scattergun. Just like the Baby Face's Blaster, it contains 2 less shots than Stock, same amount of damage as Stock, but in addition to that, this weapon can not do any random critical hits (Critical hits are 3 times normal damage), and the bullet spread is wider than normal. However, this weapon will do mini-crits when hitting an enemy's back. So instead of doing 105 damage (if every pellet manages to connect) when hitting the back of an enemy, this weapon will do a 142 damage hit (again, if ever single pellet manages to connect) if it hits the back of an enemy. As good as this weapon may seem, most Scouts prefer Stock over this because the wider spread can be annoying, and the lower clip size can catch most scouts using it off guard.

Scout's Arsenal of Weapons: Secondaries

The Stock Pistol is Scout's main secondary and is the one that every player starts out with when they first start the game. It's a rapid fire weapon that can fire 12 times before having to reload the entire clip. The pistol has a reserve ammo of 36 and can do 22 damage per pellet. Just like the Scattergun, this is one of the most commonly used secondaries, for the same reason as the Scattergun. It's also a really good finisher tool to use if you've used all of the ammo in your Scattergun's clip. 2 reskins exist for this weapon and images will be shown below:































The Mad Milk replaces the Pistol as a throwable item that can be used in many different situations. When thrown, it travels in an arc and will break open upon contact with any solid surface. Any enemies that are near it upon landing will be covered in the stuff. Upon attacking your enemies that are covered in it, the amount of damage you deal to them will be returned as HP. It's also worth noting that the HP regain also works for your teammates. The second stat it says is that it can be used to extinguish teammates if they're on fire. This will also have a 20 second cooldown timer before it can be used again. It's a pretty good secondary to use if you want to be supportive towards your teammates. 1 reskin exists for this weapon and an image will be shown below:
































The Winger is another pistol available for Scout's secondary. The Weapon is able to do 26 damage per pellet, but can only be fired 5 times before having to reload. The main gimmick of this weapon is that you jump 25% higher if you have it out. The weapon isn't good as a finisher, but it is more useful as a utility item. It can be used to get to places on the map that you wouldn't normally be able to get to if you weren't using any movement-altering items.

















The Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol is the second most commonly used secondary for Scout. You can fire it 9 times before having to reload, but it has a faster firing speed and every hit with this weapon gives you 3 HP in return. This is the second most used pistol for Scout because the HP regain could help with trying to survive from incoming enemy fire while on low health.

















The Flying Guillotine is another throwable item available for Scout's secondary slot. It travels in an arc like the Mad Milk, but if it hits an enemy, it will do 50 damage and will do 8 seconds of bleed damage doing an additional 40 damage. This weapon also has a 5 second cooldown before it can be used again. This weapon is gonna take some time to get used to because you're gonna have to predict where the enemy will be by the time you throw the cleaver.













I'm putting both Bonk! drinks in the same category because they're both Lunch Box items.

• (Left Picture) The Bonk! Atomic Punch is a lunch box item for the Scout. Pressing left click with it out will cause Scout to drink it and gain the ability to be invulnerable 8 seconds. However, you will not be able to use any of your weapons during the duration of the invulnerability. Although you won't take damage during the effects of this, all of the damage taken while invulnerable will cause the Scout to slow down once the effect ends. It also has a 22 second recharge time before it can be used again.
  
• (Right Picture) The Crit-a-Cola is another lunch box item for scout. Like the Bonk, you can drink it by pressing left click. The ability of this weapon is giving the Scout 8 seconds of mini-crits to use on all of his weapons. The downside however is during the duration of the effect, the Scout will be Marked for Death, this means that all damage taken from enemies are mini-crits.Just like the Bonk, it has a 22 second recharge time before it can be used again.

In summary, both lunch box items are very situational.

Scout's Arsenal of Weapons: Melees

The stock bat does a total of 35 damage when hitting an enemy, and has a fast swing speed... That's it. That's all of the stats for this weapon. There isn't that much to talk about other than not a lot of people use the Stock Bat in a serious situation because there are other better unlocks for the melee slots. This weapon has 14 reskins, with most of them being equipable on other classes other than Scout, which are shown below:








































The Sandman is another melee weapon for Scout. Pressing Alt-fire (Right Click) will cause Scout to throw a baseball in an arc, like the Flying Guillotine. If the Baseball hits an enemy, it will do 15 damage and slow the enemy down, depending on how far you threw the ball. The baseball has a 10 second recharge time before it can be used again. The bat itself still does 35 damage when hitting an enemy with it. This weapon also reduces your max health from 125 HP to 110 HP when equipped. This is one of the only few items Scout has that allows him to perform a taunt kill.















The Candy Cane behaves similarly to the stock bat, but only has 2 extra stats. The first one is that upon killing an enemy with this weapon, they will drop a small health pack. The second stat for this weapon is that you take 25% more damage from explosives such as Soldier's rocket launchers and Demoman's grenade pills. Everything else about this weapon is the same to the stock bat.















Just like the Candy Cane, the Boston Basher has 2 stats. When hitting an enemy, you still do 35 damage like the stock bat, but in addition to that, the enemy will bleed for 5 seconds doing an additional 40 seconds. However, if your swing misses, you do 18 damage to yourself and bleed for 5 seconds with an additional 40 seconds. As long as you hit your shots with this weapon, the downside doesn't come into effect that often. This weapon has 1 reskin and is shown below:





























The Sun-on-a-Stick gives the Scout a 25% fire damage resistance while you have it out and does critical hits on enemies who are on fire. However, this weapon has a 25% damage penalty, meaning that instead of the weapon doing 35 damage like the stock bat, it does 26 damage instead. The weapon will do 79 damage when hitting a burning player. Not a lot of Scout players use this weapon seriously because with the Stock Scattergun, you would be able to do more damage than the Sun-on-a-Stick's crits.























The Fan O'War is similar to the Mad Milk in that it can be used as a support tool. Upon hitting an enemy with this weapon, they will be marked for death and all damage they take from you and your teammates will do mini-crits. This weapon will also do Critical Hits when it should normally do mini-crits. However, this weapon has a 75% damage penalty, so instead of this weapon doing 35 damage, it does 9 damage when hitting an enemy. The critical hits that this weapon does is 26 damage, which is the same base damage for the Sun-on-a-Stick. Although the sound of doing 9 damage to your enemies sounds bad, the best way to use this is hit the enemy once to mark them for death, and then start shooting them with your gun.
















The Atomizer has 2 downsides that aren't that punishable. With this weapon, the deploy time is 50% slower and does 30 damage instead of the stock bat's 35. The first upside of this weapon is that while it's out, you can perform a third jump. Like the Winger, this triple jump can help you get to places you couldn't get to before. The second and last upside is that this weapon will do mini-crits while you are airborne. These mini-crits do 40 damage to the enemy while you are ariborne. This is the second weapon available for the Scout that allows you to perform a Taunt Kill.






















The Wrap Assassin functions similarly to the Sandman, in that instead of throwing a baseball, you throw an ornament that causes 5 seconds of bleed damage upon hitting an enemy. The ornament has a 7.5 second recharge time before it can be thrown again. The base weapon does a total of 15 damage when hitting an enemy. The Wrap Assassin, as SoundSmith put it, is basically a "discount-Sandman."

Understanding Your Role: Breaking Bad Habbits

After explaining Scout's stats and his arsenal of weapons, let's talk about what every Scout player needs to know while playing the class.

First, here is a list of the most common mistakes new Scout players make when playing the class for the first time and how you can avoid doing these:

• Taking Level 1 and/or Level 2 Teleporters when other teammates need them more: As a Scout, it can sometimes be hard to resist the urge to take a teleporter to get to the frontlines faster, but at the same time, if it is level 1 or 2, it can be annoying for a teammate to wait for the teleporter to be usable again after you've taken it. If you've just respawned and the telepoter is Level 1 or 2, just run to where you're supposed to be and leave the telepoter for your other teammates.
  
  
• Taking Health Packs when teammates need them more than you: As a Scout, you run fast, you kill players fast, and if you're not careful, you can die pretty fast. Just like teleporters, it's hard to resist taking any health pack you see. Just taking level 1 or 2 teleporters, taking health packs when teammates need them more can be an annoyance. Only take Health packs if you are very close to dying, If you're 60 HP or lower. If you see a teammate that needs it more than you, leave that health pack for them if there is no Medic around to heal them.
  
  
• Constantly calling for Medic, even if they don't need to be healed: This one is pretty straight forward, spamming the Medic key to call for their help can be annoying for Medics. Only call for Medic when you actually need to be healed, preferably when your under 60 HP.
  
  
• Selecting the class when it is either not necessary or there are already enough Scouts on the team: Scout is made to be an offensive class, and Scout on defense isn't the best. Scout is good on offensive maps and gamemodes. Here is a list of Maps and Gamemodes that Scout is most effective on:
  
  • When you are on Offense in Attack/Defend and Payload.
    
  • He's also effective by flanking the enemy team on gamemodes like Control Points and King of the Hill. (In case you don't know, flanking is when you get behind the enemy team and prepare an ambush on the enemy team)
  Sometimes, it is not required to have a Scout on defense, because there are other better high-damage dealing classes like Soldier and Demoman that can sometimes perform better than Scout on Defense. If there are already enough Scouts on the team that you're on, try playing as a different class. Another thing worth noting is, just like classes like Spy and a few other classes, stacking Scouts is not a good idea. It's recommended that there should be no more than 2-3 Scouts on the team, because unless all of the Scouts are very good, some Scout's will be unable to survive in a lot of situations.
  
  
• Equipping weapons that could put them in a disadvantage: There are some weapons that the Scout possesses that, unless you master using those weapons, some weapons will be weaker than some of the other more powerful options. The Sandman for example reduces your max health to 110 HP, The Baby Face's Blaster reduces your max speed unless the boost meter is full, and even then it takes 1 bullet from an enemy's pistol to drain your meter to 0. Make sure the weapons you equip does not make you too weak.

Understanding Your Role: Getting Better

When playing Scout, here are some things that are worth learning to make you better and more unpredictable. Some of these skills will develop overtime the more you play the game:

• Aim: This is something that pretty much every player has to learn when playing the game. There are community made tools that can help improve your aim such as MGE (1v1 lobbies) and tr_walkway.
  
  
• Movement: When playing Scout, your movement is just as important as your aim. Use your Double Jump to trick your enemy's aim, but don't do it too much, otherwise the enemy can predict where you'll double jump to. Using the Soda Popper's "Hype" ability and doing multiple jumps will really fool your enemy. Same thing with the Winger's jump height increase.
  
  
• Position:The more you play on the game's maps, you'll start learn game sense and learn where to attack, what time to attack, and which places are best to hide. Getting behind your enemies is a good thing, just make sure they don't see you doing it though, otherwise they might send a soldier, demoman, or another Scout to kill you. Make sure to plan out when the best time to attack is, which leads us into the next part that's important to know about,
  
  
• Prioritizing your Targets: When looking at the enemy team, try looking at which class is the best one to kill first. Medics are a huge target because killing a Medic will reset their Ubercharge and they'll have to wait to respawn in order to heal their teammates again. Even if you die after you've killed the Medic, it's still a fair trade since the Medic on the enemy team is a high priority class to protect. Snipers are also an important target because they can instakill any class by simply clicking on their heads. Go for the snipers if you don't see any Medics, that way, your teammates won't have to worry about instantly dying by a player that presses one button. Also try killing the class that could be destroying your team, but proceed with caution, as they could sense your presence by either hearing you attacking them or one of their teammates.
  
  
• Awareness: It's very important to be aware of your surroundings. Sometimes, there will be an enemy that will try to kill you while you are fighting someone else, so make sure to turn around every once in a while to make sure you're safe. Some of the most important things to listen to are enemy fire, reved-up miniguns from Heavies, Spies decloaking, and the biggest one being, the sound of an Engineer's Sentry Gun. Most Scouts, both new and average, will sometimes just run into the Engineer's Sentry Gun without knowing it was there to begin with. So if you hear the Sentry's Beeping before you walk around a corner, you might want to find a different route that's out of the Sentry's sight-line.
  
  
• Helping your Teammates and Help from Them: If there's a situation that you can't handle as a Scout, it's best to see if any of your other teammates can handle the situation. However, it's also important to assist your teammates, such as using the Bonk! Atomic Punch to distract a sentry gun for your teammates to take it out, or using the Mad Milk to extinguish any teammates that could be on fire.

Understanding Your Role: Weaknesses and Counters

Scout has a lot of things that either just outright annoy the Scout player/or counters them. I won't go into too much detail about these, but I will give a brief explanation on how to counter these:

• Being ignored by Medics, even if you're at low health: If there is a Medic that is pocketing someone else, or just has a grudge against healing Scouts, just run towards a health pack or the resupply cabinet in spawn to heal yourself.
  
  
• Heavy Players Using the Natasha: For those who do not know, the Natasha minigun for Heavy slows down any targets that are hit by its bullets. To counter this, try unpredictable movement. This has already been explained earlier in the guide.
  
  
• Direct Hit Soldiers: Again, like the Natasha Heavy, use unpredictable movement to throw off the Soldier's aim. This is especially useful since the direct hit has a stat that has a faster projectile speed, and most Soldiers are used to the slower projectile speed of the normal Rocket Launcher.
  
  
• Engineer's Sentry Guns: If you are ever fighting an Engineer that starts to build a Sentry Gun mid-way through the battle, keep shooting the Engineer and don't worry about the sentry until after the Engineer is dead. However, if you are at low health, the Sentry is almost built and you're at a disadvantage in the battle, make a retreat out of the Sentry Gun's sightline before that perfect aimbot assistant for Engi can finish you off.

Summary

Scout wasn't created as a beginner class for people who are new to TF2. There are so many things a Scout player has to remember in order to be effective. "Is this weapon worst than the stock option?" "Is now the best time to flank and kill the enemy team's Medic?" "Are my movements hard to predict for the enemy?" "Should I leave that medkit for one of my teammates?" There is a lot more to Scout than what the average F2P may think. Scout is very hard to master, but the more you practice your aim, the more creative you can get with your movement, the more you prioritize your targets, the more time you spend on the maps, and the more time you start to become more aware of your surroundings, you can become a helpful Scout player.

Information for this guide was gathered off of the Official Team Fortress 2 Wiki and through personal experience with the class.

If this guide was, and only if it was helpful, give it a rating of your choosing. If there are parts of this guide that you don't fully understand, or some of these facts are just completely incorrect, leave a comment on this guide to show that I am bad at teaching players at how to improve as Scout. But, if you guys think that this Guide is not trash and it gets enough positive feedback, I may consider making a Guide for the more advanced tips and tricks for Scout. This is my first Steam Guide I've made, so apologies if this wasn't the guide that you were looking for to get better as Scout, as well as possible errors I made during the making of this guide. But for now, get out there and start running circles around your enemies, and show them who the Scout is in that server!

[Health Insurance]

Banger guide bro!

[unusual tabbycass]

finaly a good guide thanks

[masonmoo14]

I would have just said "Annoying"

[✠INF✠ Delta]

thanks for the guide bro