User:Lolimsogreat21/Sandbox2/Scout

Class-Specific ("Old" version)

This section explains how to deal with a Scout as each individual class and which classes and loadouts are best for defeating enemy Scouts.

Classes which excel at beating Scouts

Engineer

“

"Y'all gotta run a lot faster than that." Click to listen — The Engineer to the Scout trying to outrun Sentry's bullets.

”

• Main advantage: The reason why the Engineer is considered the best class for fighting Scouts is because of his Sentry Gun. You see, Scout is a very fragile class duo to his low Health pool of only 125 health, this means that just a few good shots is all what it needs to take him out. Unfortunately, Scout also posses the best mobility in the game, meaning that landing those few necessary shots which are required to kill him is usually very hard, if not impossible if the Scout your fighting is very skilled and competent in his dodging ability. Now this is where the Sentry Gun comes in. A Sentry is a very accurate machine, in fact, a Sentry Gun is so accurate, to the point where it can hit a 100% of its shots, all the time. As a result of its incredible accuracy, if a Scout were to stumble upon a Sentry Gun, it wouldn't matter how much the Scout: dodges, jumps, waves or strafes, he is practically guaranteed to get hit. This is why many Scouts fear Sentry Guns, they completely invalidate Scout's main, an quit frankly, only strength. Its also important to remember that a Scout has no viable weaponry for defeating Sentry Guns solidifying Scout's weakness against them even further.

• Strategy: Without his Sentry Gun, an Engineer is pretty weak, especially against Scouts. Compared to the Scout, an Engineer has worse mobility, worse Damage and the same health. Duo to your own weakness and fragility, its important to always have a Sentry nearby in order to deter/kill any wandering Scouts, because without your Sentry Gun, a Scout can rather easily kill you.
  • Sentry placement: By simply choosing to play as an Engineer and constructing a Sentry in a random location, you already create a big enough problem for the enemy Scout thus ensuring that he won't be bothering you for the remainder of the match. But if your intentionally trying to ruin the enemy Scout's day, here are a few ways to position your Sentry Gun so that you can maximize your Scout-killing potential. Scouts love to seek out flanking paths which they can use to flank you and your team. If your aware of these "flank paths", you can place your Sentry Guns right on top of those routes in order to act as a roadblock for any Scouts who may wish to pass through there. Since you will be positioning your Sentry in these low traffic areas where only Scouts occasionally go, you won't have to worry about constantly repaired your Sentry since it will miss out on the majority of the action and won't encounter many Demomen or Soldiers which are Sentry Guns natural counters. However, consequently you won't have your Sentry to support you in your fight against other classes.

• Optimal loadout: This is the best loadout for defeating Scouts: A Shotgun or the Panic Attack for your primary slot, Pistol or the Short Circuit for your secondary and a Gunslinger as your melee.
  • Panic Attack/Shotgun: it doesn't matter whether you choose the Shotgun or the Panic Attack, that choice comes down to preference. But it is important that you choose at least one of these two weapons when trying to battle enemy Scouts. By using the Gunslinger, its just mandatory that you pick one of the three shotguns. And since you Sentry will be sitting in areas where it will only encounter Scouts, you won't be racking up a load of kills for your Frontier Justice rendering it almost useless (This is assuming your strictly going for this "anti-Scout" play style). This just leaves the two aforementioned shotguns as your only viable choice. This two shotguns have a great use in situations where we don't have a Sentry close by and a Scout catches us exposed. With some sort of an damage dealer equipped, a lone Engineer can at least stand a chance against a Scout.
  • Pistol/Short Circuit: Either one of these two weapons provide a great boost in your damage and act as an excellent finish-off weapons when trying to land that last Shotgun shot on the Scout seems to hard.
  • Gunslinger: The Gunslinger replaces your regular Sentry Guns with Mini Sentry Guns. These Mini-Sentry Guns construct 150% faster then your standard Sentry Guns, this advantage is really useful in one of those situations where you stumble upon a Scout while your Sentry Gun isn't near you. You can use the 150% quicker construction time bonus to almost instantaneously place down a Mini-Sentry Gun and have it complete and ready to fire upon that Scout in no-time. The big disadvantage of the Mini-Sentry is its reduced damage, but in the context of fighting Scouts, this downsides isn't that particularly big when considering the fact that the Scout is an already fragile class, meaning that even with reduced damage, he will still die rather quick to a Mini-Sentry Gun. The last big upside of the Gunslinger is its passive 25 more max health. With this health boost, you can now more confidently engage Scouts even without your precious Sentry Gun nearby, since you will have an edge over the Scout in at least one thing, and that is survivability.

Scout

“

"I am the Scout here!" Click to listen — The Scout to his rival losing a duel.

”

• Main advantage: Assuming that both of you are running stock or nearly stock loadout, noone of you will have any significant advantage over the other. This duel between the two opposing Scouts will come down to pure skill and practice.

• Strategy: When you engage an opposing Scout, factor which usually determines which one you will exit the duel alive is usually one's skill and competence. The things you need to keep in mind when dueling other Scouts is movement and aim. As said earlier, in order to perfect these two things, your going to need to put in a lot of practice, but if you aren't very skillful as a Scout, here are some basics you can immediately learn.
  • Movement: One of the most important thing to learn when fighting another Scout is to never jump. Contrary to the popular belief, jumping does not make you a harder target to hit, it only makes you an easier one. This is duo to the fact that when your in the air, you aren't capable of controlling your movement, your simply moving in a straight line towards the direction you've jump, you only regain the control of your movement once you finally touch the ground. While your airborne for that brief period of time, your following an extremely predictable trajectory, thus making you an easy target to hit. So for that matter, you shouldn't jump when dueling a Scout, it usually doesn't end good for you. Instead of jumping, you should try strafing. Strafing, in the this context at least, is the act of quickly moving from right to left. Basically, the only keys you should be using when fighting another Scout are the A and D keys. The other important thing to do would be to try and mirror the enemy Scouts movement, if he strafes to the left, you go to the left (your right), if he strafes to the right, you too should head to the right (your left).
  • Aiming: There are two ways you can "aim", they are called: tracking and predicting. Tracking is when you put your crosshair over someone and follow them with it. Wherever they go, you always keep your crosshair over them. Predicting is when you place your crosshair in position where you expect that enemy player will go and then fire when the enemy players "walks" into your crosshair, hence, the name predicting. Tracking a Scout is exceptionally hard duo to Scouts amazing mobility, for that reason, instead of tracking the Scout with your crosshair, you should try and predict the enemy Scouts movement and place you Crosshair in a position where he will appear next. This is why strafing and trying to mirror the enemy Scouts movement is the right thing to do, it allows you to predict better. Mimicking your enemy makes it so much more easier to both predict and even track his movement thus making it easier to win the duel.
• Optimal loadout: If your planning on engaging another Scout in a duel, here are the weapons you should bring: Scattergun for your primary slot, Pistol or the Mad Milk for your secondary and maybe the Wrap Assassin for your for your melee.
  • Scattergun: Scattergun is the preferable weapon in a Scout vs Scout fight simply because of its large clip of 6 shots, thus giving you plenty of room for error. In a typical Scout duel, missing a lot of your shots is fairly common, remember, Scouts are very fast and hard to hit, so for that reason by the time you actually start landing some hits on the enemy Scout you would have probably burned through quit a lot of Ammo already. Any other one of your primary weapons comes with some sort of a clip-reduction penalty, while bringing no significant advantage to show for it (No significant advantage when it comes to fighting Scouts at least).
  • Pistol/Mad Milk: Pistol is a very useful weapon when dueling other Scouts, it has decent damage and high fire rate which makes it a great finish-off tool when landing that last final Scattergun shot seem just too difficult. And this is the important thing to keep in mind, the Pistol should only be used as a finish-off tool. When you are dueling the enemy Scout, you want to do damage to him by using your Scattergun, only when you have done enough damage and have brought your opponent to low enough health, only then you can use the Pistol to quickly and easily finish them off. Mad Milk is also quit useful, if you manage to hit the enemy Scout with it, he will be at a significant disadvantage for the rest of the fight, just remember that by equipping the Mad Milk you won't have access to your Pistol.
  • Wrap Assassin: Using melee in a Scout duel is a very bad idea. Any experienced Scout won't let you get anywhere close enough to him, in order for you to hit him with your melee weapon which does pitiful damage. But the Wrap Assassin doesn't need to be used as an melee weapon only, by pressing the alternate fire button (default key: MOUSE2), the Scout will launch a projectile which on impact will cause bleeding. You can use this ability, to quickly launch and hit the enemy Scout with this projectile causing him to be brought down to low enough health at which point he will be in one-shot territory for your Scattergun. Important thing to keep in mind is that you want to use the Wrap Assassin exactly opposite of the way you would use the Pistol. You use the Pistol to finish-off opponents at the end of a fight, meanwhile, you use the Wrap Assassin as a initiator weapon, meaning that you use it at the start of the fight to try and soften up your enemy before the real duel begins.

Classes which are mediocre at fighting against Scouts

Soldier

“

"Got anything funny to say about that, funny man?" Click to listen — The Soldier after blowing Scout to Giblets.

”

• Main advantage: Soldier's biggest advantage over the Scout is his incredible close range performance. Scout is a class which depends on his incredible mobility to survive, if you take that away from him by dueling with him in tight, claustrophobic spaces where he won't be able to use his wide array of movement options to dodge incoming damage, he becomes a lot less of a threat. But even in these small, enclosed rooms, a Scout can still pose quit a significant threat duo to his immensely powerful Scattergun, a type of a Shotgun which can two-shot 8 out of 9 classes from close range. Duo to his powerful weapon, a Scout can still go "toe to toe" with the majority of the classes, even in environments where his movement is severely limited, except with Soldiers. In a close range engagement, a Soldier will almost, if not always beat a Scout. When fighting a Scout in a location where he can't dodge as successfully, hitting him with your powerful, but slow moving rockets, becomes very easy. Basically, Soldier's main disadvantage of having slow-moving and hard to hit projectiles becomes irrelevant when he engages his opponents in close-quarters combat. Consequently, a Soldier fighting a Scout in a wide open location is at a disadvantage duo to the Scout regaining his mobility.

• Strategy: As we've seen above, the Soldier performs best against Scouts when engaging him in some kind of an enclosed environment, where hitting a Scout becomes a multitude of times easier. For that reason, you often want to hang around these kind of environments, where you have the upper hand and can consistently beat even the best Scouts. You also never want to head out to wide open areas when there is a Scout nearby. In these, spacious locations, Scouts can easily dodge your rockets and kill you with ease. So remember to know better and choose your battles, a Scout trapped in a hallways is an easy kill, but once he's outside he becomes a force to be reckoned with.

• Optimal loadout: Soldier is one of those classes which with a stock loadout can't do much against Scouts, except to try and lure them to a close-quarters fight. But there are certain weapons which can be used in great effect against Scouts, those would be: Direct Hit for your primary, Shotgun of choice for your secondary slot, and an the Escape Plan as your melee weapons.
  • Direct Hit: The first important upside of this weapon is its 25% higher damage bonus, this is a very important advantage considering that with the 25% damage bonus, you can now consistently one-shot enemy Scouts at close range. The second useful upside is the Direct Hit's 80% faster projectiles, this too is a powerful ability which can provide you with a big upper hand when dealing with a Scout. As we already mentioned earlier, your limited to engaging Scouts only in close-quarters situation where your rockets are guaranteed to hit duo to the Scout's restricted mobility. But once you head outside, Scout regains his freedom of movement allowing him to easily dodge your slow moving projectiles thus beating you. However, now that your rockets are moving 80% faster then the stock Rocket Launcher's rockets, you can more confidently; and consistently, hit those Scouts even when their mobility isn't significantly reduced. This allows you to not only duel Scouts in cramped environments, but also in open area where you otherwise wouldn't stand a chance against them. Its also helpful that the only downside of the Direct Hit, doesn't play a significant role when fighting Scouts.
  • Shotgun of choice: If the Scout your fighting is so good that he manages to dodge all four of the rockets you had in store for him, then it would be a good time to pull out one of the Soldier's shotguns. The shotguns are excellent, as they provide another source of damage and are a good choice when hitting a Scout with a projectile seems just a bit too hard to pull off. Any kind of an Shotgun can work, but the Panic Attack might be slightly better choice, considering the fact that it has a 50% faster deploy time, allowing you to start dishing out bullets quicker. Shotgun's should be used as an either finish-off weapons or when you've run out of rockets.
  • Escape Plan: You usually never want to use a melee weapon against a Scout. He's just to fast compared to the majority classes meaning that there is very little chance of you catching up to him and smacking him with a melee. But if you insist on doing that, then the Escape Plan is a perfect weapon for you. The Escape Plan increases your speed the more you're hurt, this means that when you've expended all the Ammunition in your primary and secondary weapons and are quit hurt, you can try and finish of the Scout harassing you by charging at him with your Escape Plan. If your lucky enough, you might just score the finishing hit.

Heavy

“

"Go ahead and cry, baby." Click to listen — The Heavy to Scouts who complain about him using the Natascha.

”

• Main (dis)advantage: At first glance, Heavy has a lot of advantages when fighting Scouts. The biggest health pool in the game (About 300 health) and an insanely high damage output (Your Minigun can do more then 500 damage per second, meaning that you can kill a Scout in under a half a second). But there is a big drawback which significantly negates all of the aforementioned advantages, this drawback of the Heavy can be especially well exploited by a good Scout. The big downside in question is the fact, that the Heavy first needs to rev up his Minigun before he can start firing. This massive disadvantage can be utilized by a Scout, who can use his phenomenal mobility in order to flank around the Heavy and surprise him while his Minigun is un-revved. Duo to the fact that it takes 0.87 second for the Heavy to rev up his gun, a Scout can shoot the Heavy up to two times , thus dealing more then 200 damage, and that's before the Heavy can even fire a single bullet. Scout can achieve this duo to the Scouts's Scattergun attack interval being every 0.62 seconds, allowing him to squeeze those two shots before the Heavy is revved up. And after finally winding up his weapon, Heavy will now have to face another Minigun's hidden drawback, and that is the 50% damage penalty which lasts for 1 full second after the gun has managed to spin up. This drawback acts as the "final nail in the coffin" for the poor Heavy, who now certainly won't be able to do enough damage in time, before the annoying Scout manages to get his third and final shot of, killing him horribly.

• Strategy: As you can see in the example above, you certainly don't want to get ambushed as a Heavy, especially by a Scout. For that reason, you will want to position yourself in a location where its very hard for a Scout to sneak up on you. Such desirable locations certainly don't include small, enclosed rooms where its impossible to tell who will come in to the room and when. That desirable location against a Scout is in fact, a wide open area, where you can see anyone coming at you from miles away, giving you precious time to rev up your Minigun and greet the attacker (In this case the Scout) with an onslaught of bullets. Seeking out this kind of positions is crucial against a Scout. If you were to try and traverse any claustrophobic and tight locations were you can't see a Scout coming to you until he's right up your face, make sure to do that while revved up.

• Optimal loadout: The best loadout for fighting Scouts as a Heavy consists of: Natascha as your primary weapon, Shotgun of choice for your secondary and a melee of choice.
  • Natascha: The main upside of this weapon is its ability to slow down opponents on hit. This usually isn't that meaningful when fighting other classes, but its very useful when your battling a Scout, who's mobility is his lifeblood. By hitting the Scout with Natacha's bullets, you not only deal damage to him but also greatly impair his ability to dodge your next salvo of bullets, thus leaving him vulnerable to even more damage. However, this weapon does come with a set of downsides, luckily for the Heavy, both of these downside are not quit important when in a battle against a Scout. First downside, the 25% damage penalty, is neglectable considering the already low Scout's Health. The other drawback of the Natascha, that 30% slower spin-up time is also quit unimportant simply because the disadvantage of having to rev up is already so great, that increasing it even further leaves almost no significant changes. If you get ambushed by a Scout while un-revved, it doesn't matter what Minigun you're holding in your hands, your going to die.
  • Shotgun of choice: You can't always stay on the open ground, sometimes your going to traverse certain spaces where you won't be able to see opponents coming towards you until they're to close for comfort. As we already discussed earlier, trying to rev up your Minigun in this situations does no good at all, as there is certainly not enough time to start doing meaningful damage before a Scout kills you. For that reason, equipping any kind of a Shotgun you have at your disposal is a very good idea. Now, you might be tempted to give up one of your Lunchbox items for a simple Shotgun which many professional Heavies regard as a bad weapon, but in a fight against Scouts, shotguns are an excellent choice to pick as your secondary armament. If you ever happen to stumble upon a Scout who surprised you, instead of just dying duo to the fact that there is no chance of you managing to rev up your gun before the enemy Scout gets you, you can just simply pull out any of the 3 shotguns you have equipped, two-shot the Scout harassing you and be done with it. Obviously, you still want to use the Natascha or any other Minigun as your primary source of damage, both against the Scouts and other classes, but a Shotgun is a really simple and an effective solution to a situation in which you would otherwise die.
  • Melee of choice: Duo to the Heavies incredible lack of mobility, chances of you catching up to an enemy Scout so that you can punch them in the face is very small. Don't even bother using melee against a Scout.

Classes which are relatively incapable of dealing with Scouts

Pyro

“

"Happy Laughter" Click to listen — The Pyro when a Scout enters his Airblast range.

”

• Main (dis)advantage: The biggest advantage a Pyro can have over Scout (excluding Pyro's 50 more max heath) is the Pyro's Airblast ability. You see, Scout lives and dies by his mobility, his wide array of movement options (One of them being the Double Jump) are the precise reason why a Scout can be such a tough class to deal with despite his low health pool. Because of its importance, if the Scout's amazing mobility was to be taken away from him, he would be in serious trouble. Duo to these reasons, the Airblast is a very devastating ability to the Scout. In general, having the option to completely alter the movement of other players is already pretty powerful, but doing this to the Scout (A class which depends so much on its movement capabilities) is immensely destructive. There is, however, a big downside to Airblast, it has limited range. In fact, the drawback of having "limited range" is a recurring theme in almost all of Pyro's weapons. From his primaries to his secondaries, from his Flamethrowers to his collection of shotguns, basically all of Pyro's weapons either have short range, or have medium range but inadvertently depend on his close ranged weapons to deal meaningful damage. This is what holds Pyro back from truly being a Scout counter, he simply gets out ranged by the Scout who doesn't even need to step into Pyro's airblast range in order to do meaningful damage to him.

• Strategy: As it was above said, Airblast is the key to winning battles against a Scout, so you obviously want to use it as much as you can, and you want to use it correctly too. If a Scout gets within your Airblast range, you want to, preferably, Airblast the Scout into a wall or an corner in order to achieve three things: 1. You close off the Scouts escape option thus forcing him to deal with you if he wishes to get out alive. 2. You severely mess up his aim, preventing him from just two-shooting you with his Scattergun. 3. You also turn him into a sitting duck. When you airblast someone against a wall, you will lock them in place turning the Scout from a nearly "un-hittable" class to a stationary target, just waiting to be shot. Now that the Scout is stunned and unable to move, you quickly pull out one of you secondary weapons in order to finish the Scout off before he "un-stuns" himself. You want to do this in order to kill the Scout as fast as possible before he kills you, remember, his primary weapon (The Scattergun) does more burst damage then your's Flame Thrower, so using your Shotgun or the Flare Gun is better then simply trying to kill a Scout with fire. If there is no wall or corner nearby to Airblast the Scout into, simply Airblasting the Scout in a random direction will also accomplish a few things: 1. You will send the Scout flying while following a predictable trajectory, thus making him an easy target yet again. 2. And you increase the distance from him, rendering his Scattergun useless while still keeping your Flare Gun capable of dealing significant damage (Assuming you light the Scout on fire beforehand).

• Optimal loadout: The optimal loadout for dealing with Scouts as a Pyro is: Flame Thrower or the Degreaser for your primary, Panic Attack or the Flare Gun for your secondary slot and the Axtinguisher for your melee.
  • Flame Thrower/Degreaser: Airblast is invaluable when fighting Scouts, so any Flamethowers which doesn't have or severely limits the use of Airblast is immediately out of the question, this just leaves the Flamethrower or the Degreaser as viable options against enemy Scouts. Flame Thrower has more afterburn damage, although afterburn isn't the Pyro's strongest ability, especially against other classes which can use their large health pool to easily brush of the effects of afterburn. Scout, on the other hand, can't do the same thing because of his low max health. Duo to this, afterbrun can be particularly effective against Scouts. Flame Thrower's Airblast also costs less then the Degreaser's ones, (20 ammo required for the Flame Thrower to use Airblast compared to the Degreaser's requirement of 25 ammo). This is quit damaging to the Degreaser, because when fighting an opponent who you can only beat by Airblast, having a limited amount of it is crucial. However, the Degreaser makes up for its two disadvantages by having a 60% faster weapons switch bonus. With the faster weapon switch, you can now more easily take advantage of that limited amount of time you have while the Scout is stunned by your Airblast, in order to use one of your secondary weapons to quickly finish him off. While it usually comes down to preference when considering which Flamethrower you'll choose, it can be useful to know which of the two secondaries you are going to bring to battle as they can influence you decision greatly. If your going to equip the Flare Gun as your secondary, then the Deagreaser might be the better bet, considering that the Degreaser's downside of having almost no afterburn damage, can be negated by the fact that the Flare Gun can also set people on fire. However, if you want to bring the the Panic Attack to battle, then the Flame Thrower can be a preferable choice as the Flame Throwers drawback of having no switch speed bonus is partially negated by the Panic Attack's 50% faster deploy time. But in general, which of the two Flamethrowers you choose as your main anti-Scout weapon is simply up to your personal liking.
  • Flare Gun/Panic Attack: As was already mentioned before, your supposed to combo these two weapons in order to quickly dispose of enemy Scouts while they're stunned by your Airblast. Flare Gun is more useful when your fighting in more open areas while the Panic Attack performs the best when fighting a close-quarters battle.
  • Axtinguisher: Although using melee on a Scout is a bad idea, considering the fact that a Scout can just run away from you using his superior speed, if you however manage to Airblast the Scout into a wall and lock him in place...some interesting opportunities can open up. While trying to score an Axtinguisher requires some skill to pull of, it is possible to execute. And if done right, it can one-one shot an enemy Scout instantly.

Sniper

“

"That'll slow ya down, ya twitchy hooligan!" Click to listen — The Sniper when he Headshot's the fastest class in the game.

”

• Main (dis)advantage: Your biggest advantage is the fact that you can potentially one-shot a Scout. This is a very big advantage, one-shoting a Scout can only be achieved by a few other weapons which are mostly Projectiles. While this enormous power over Scouts is certainly good in theory, in practice, landing a headshot on a fast moving target which such as a Scout is not easy, especially when considering the fact that the Sniper Rifle also reduces your field of view making it even harder to land that necessary hit on Scout and take him out.

• Strategy: The strategy is simple, stay away as much as you can in order to make the Scouts life as difficult as it can be. While this strategy is applicable to dealing with any other class in general, its even more true when it comes to fighting Scouts. Scouts are one of the best close range classes, and you are one of the worst. So if you accidentally bump into a Scout, prepare to die, or have to put every single on of your skills on the test in order to score a successful headshot on a fast moving target at close range. Its also helpful to learn how aim at Scouts. There are two main types of aiming: tracking and predicting. Tracking is when you put your crosshair "onto" an enemy player and move the crosshair with him, basically following him with your crosshair. Meanwhile, predicting is when you place your Crosshair where you expect the enemy to come, then you keep the crosshair in that position and wait for an enemy to come right "into it" before pulling the trigger. Both of these "ways to aim" have their own set of advantages and drawback, but in this case, predicting is the best way when it comes to targeting Scouts. Tracking a Scout is very hard, they're very fast and have a wide variety of movement options, this combined with your small field of vision makes tracking Scouts quit hard, especially in a close-ranged engagement. For that reason, predicting should be your main way of targeting Scouts.

• Optimal loadout: The best loadout to choose when fighting Scouts is to simply pick whatever you like the most. Sniper has virtually infinite potential for improvement, if your good enough at Sniper, you'll make anything work, even against a class such as the Scout. But if you aren't the best Sniper, here is the most desirable combination of weapons to take with you when engaging an enemy Scout. They are as following: Huntsman for your primary weapon, SMG for the secondary, and a melee of choice.
  • Huntsman: A big upside of the Huntsman is that it doesn't require you to scope in so that you can start charging a shot. This is helpful as it doesn't limit your field of view making predicting the Scout much easier, especially at closer ranges. The other positive things about the Huntsman is its very quick charge rate (Requiring only 1 second to fully charge). With this super fast charge rate, you can more often go for; much easier to hit "bodyshots" then headshot's. The Projectiles (Which are fired by the Huntsman) have a bigger hitbox then Hitscan weapons, thus making hitting Scouts even easier.

• • SMG: SMG is greatly used as a "finish-off" tool. You see, a fully charged Huntsman body-shot will only do 120 damage. This means that a healthy Scout with 125 health won't be immediately killed and will need just a tiny bit more of damage in order to kill. This is where the SMG comes in, with a high rate of fire and decent DPS, you can quickly use this tool to dispose of those Scouts who managed to survive an arrow to their chest with just a sliver of there health remaining. Even if your a bad gunner, hitting that one single bullet required with n SMG won't be too hard.
  • Melee of choice: The melee you use play's almost no factor in fighting Scouts, choose what you're comfortable with.

Medic

“

"Come over here. I promise I vill heal you!" Click to listen — The Medic just before showering a poor Scout with Needles.

”

• Main (dis)advantage: The only advantage you have over Scout is that you have slightly more health then him and that you also have an automatic health-regeneration. Excluding those things, your in most cases completely defenseless against a Scout. If he manages to catch you alone (Which he will since he is a flank class) you better not expect a fair fight, because your going to be in for a disappointment. Things are made worse by the fact that Scouts are really good at going around your team unnoticed and looking for high value targets in your team's backline, which is unfortunately, you.

• Strategy: Since Medic is nearly defenseless against a Scout, majority of his strategy will revolve around trying to help his teammates beat the Scout for him, ensuring his own safety in the process.
  • Communication: First order of business when you wish to defeat an enemy Scout is to: Establish a good communication with your team. Your teammates will (Hopefully) try and protect you, but they aren't able to spot every single thing, considering that they will probably be preoccupied with fighting enemies. So if they happen to not notice a Scout sneaking behind them in order to try and kill you, well notify them! Use either the text chat or the voice chat to alert your team members about a hostile Scout's presence so that they can (Hopefully) take care of him. Of course, communication only works if your team can speak semi-decently English, something which is out of your control,
  • Overheal friendly Scouts: Other thing to you can do to help your team in dealing with Scouts (And consequently, help yourself) is to heal your own, friendly Scouts. Scouts often run into each other when trying to flank each others team, they are also the second best class when it comes to fighting and defeating Scout, so overheal Scouts! When you overheal someone, you buff there max health up to 150% of they're normal health. This can be useful for every class, but in the context of anti-Scout action, overhealing a Scout is your best decision, as now with almost 185 health compared to their usual 125 health, your Scouts can confidently duel and kill opposing Scouts next time they engage them thus eliminating a huge danger to you. On top of that, now with the flank cleared of his rival, your Scout can go and flank the enemy Medic. If he manages to kill him, you'll gain an ÜberCharge advantage, which is always a good thing.
  • Keep note of friendly Sentry Gun's location: If you didn't already know, Engineer's, or more specifically their Sentry Guns, are the best "anti-Scout tool" in the world. Sentry Guns are Scout's worst nightmare, so being close to them gives you an immunity against Scouts. Now, your don't want to sit right atop of your Engineer's Sentry Gun, you do have a job to do and can't just sit on a single location whole day. But its still useful to keep in mind where the closest friendly Sentry is positioned, so that you know where to run if a Scout were to start chasing you.

• Optimal Loadout: Although the Medic has very little self-defense options against any class; including the Scout. However, there are certain weapons which are quit useful against Scouts and can give you a small fighting chance if you were to try and engage a Scout in direct combat with them. This loadout is most useful when your team is plain bad and completely incompetent at fighting of blood-thirsty Scouts of your back, thus forcing you to take matters in your own hands if you wish to not constantly get killed by those pesky flankers. Be aware though, this loadout is only useful against Scouts of lower skill level then yours, against Scouts of similar of higher amount of skill, only your team can help you. This loadout is: Any kind of a Needle gun for the primary slot, Vaccinator as your secondary and it honestly it doesn't even matter what melee option do you choose for your third slot.

• • The Needle Guns (The Syringe Gun, Blutsauger and the Overdose): Despite what many Professional Medics say about the Needle Guns, against a low health target such as the Scout, Needle Guns are actually useful, and all three have they're own specific use against a Scout.
    • The Syringe Gun is a deceptively good weapon, especially against a Scout. Its projectiles don't do much damage (only 12 at close range), but the Syringe Gun has a very good fire-rate and a high clip size meaning, that those relatively harmless projectiles can quickly swarm a Scout engulfing him with needles. Overall, the Syringe Gun is a good weapon for dealing with Scouts, in theory at least. In practice, hitting all needles required to kill a Scout is an almost impossible task considering that your needles have an extremely low velocity and the Scout has incredible mobility.
    • The Blutsauger is basically indentical to the Syringe Gun, only difference is that upon hitting someone with its needles, you get 3 health returned to you in return of you having lower passive health regeneration. This is a slightly better weapon option when it comes to fighting Scouts as the "returned health on hit" can boost your combat effectiveness while inheriting all the good parts about the Syringe Gun, just be aware that it still has a very slow projectile speed meaning that hitting anything, especially Scouts is hard and frustrating.
    • The Overdoes is for people who are bad at aiming their needles and just want a weapon which gives the a good escape option. The Overdoes gives you a speed boost the more ÜberCharge you have. At its maximum, the Overdose can grant you a 20% increase in speed which doesn't quit make you faster then a Scout but it does make you almost fast as one. This weapon can be greatly used to outrun an enemy Scouts trying to chase you, although the Scout can still catch up to you since he will be just slightly more faster, he will have to run in a straight line towards you in order to do so, thus making him quit vulnerable to Overdose's needles.
  • Vaccinator: The Vaccinator is an excellent Medi Gun to choose and is probably your best bet when it comes to beating Scouts, if there is a competent Scout on the enemy team targeting you while your teammates are incapable of protecting you, the Vaccinator will be your best friend. The Scout only has one way of dealing damage, with bullets. This makes the Vaccinator a good counter to him since you only need to worry about resisting one damage type. Plus, the Vaccinator has a 67% faster Übercharge build speed, this means that whenever a Scout tries to attack you, you will almost always be ready and have an Über to spare for your protection, thus ensuring that your never get "caught with your pants down". The Vaccinator also pairs nicely with the Overdose, duo to the Vaccinator's 67% faster build rate, you will almost always have an increased movement speed from the Overdose.
  • Melee of choice: It doesn't matter what you choose for your third weapon slot, noone of the Melee option really increase or decrease you chances of beating Scouts, either directly or indirectly.

Classes which are immensely inefficient at battling with Scout

Demoman

“

"Grow some hair on yer face, and come and try me again, lad." Click to listen — The Demoman to an inexperienced Scout who falsely thinks that he is an easy kill.

”

• Main disadvantage: The Demoman's main problem is the fact that it doesn't matter in what situation the Demoman engages a Scout, he is always handicapped, one way or another. In close-quarters combat, the Stickybomb Launcher is nearly worthless since the Stickies have no chance of arming in time before the Scout simply gets right up in the Demo's face. It also doesn't help that the Grenade Launcher also won't be of much help in these short-ranged situations, considering the fact that at this ranges, the Scout's Scattergun can do more damage then a Grenade Launcher, plus the Scout doesn't have to worry damaging himself when firing upon a target right in his face. In middle-ranged combat things aren't much brighter either. Your secondary weapons (The Stickybomb Launcher) is a bit more usable since the distances are larger giving the Stickies more time to arm, but your primary is almost useless. Hitting a fast moving target with plenty of movement options such as the Scout, with grenades which have low velocity and are subject to gravity is a very difficult task to do (Unless you are a Pipe Jesus). You will also need to go for direct hits only, simply because the grenades don't allow you to settle with hitting in-direct shots like a Soldier's Rockets would. On top of all of that, you will need to hit a Scout two times with your Grenade Launcher in order to guarantee a kill, keep in mind that hitting a good Scout once can already be considered an achievement.

• Strategy: Beating enemy Scouts as a Demoman simply boils down to pure skill, but there are certain strategies you can employ in order to beat Scouts more successfully.
  • Staying at range: While Demoman isn't particularly effective against Scouts at either ranges (As we've seen above), fighting a Scout at a distance is still better then fighting him when his all over your face since: You don't have to worry about damaging yourself, you can actually give your Stickies time to arm themselves thus allowing you to use them, and to top that off, you don't have to worry about Scout two-shooting you while you can still two-shot him thanks to your weapons not having any damage fall off.
  • Denying Scouts: Unfortunately, any competent or a skilled Scout will also quickly recognize that he doesn't have as big of a chances against you when your a range, so he will try to quickly close the distance in order to force you in a close-quarters duel instead of a ranged one. For that reason, you obviously want to keep the Scout at bay and not allow him to close that distance, luckily for us, the Demoman is equipped with just the right tool necessary in doing that task. You can use the Stickybomb Launcher to place a bunch of Stickies (Usually a single Sticky is completely fine) on the ground right in front of you, thus creating a sort of a barrier which the Scout cannot pass. Now that you ensured yourself from Scouts closing the distance on you and creating all sorts of problems, you may now comfortably sit behind you "mine field" and take your precious time dealing with enemy Scouts. Usually, the Scout will simply run away as soon as he sees the barrier you created in front of him and won't even bother attacking you.

• Optimal loadout: *'Optimal loadout: There are a few items which can make your life a whole lot easier when it comes to fighting Scouts. They are the following: Grenade Launcher of choice for your primary, Quickiebomb Launcher for your secondary, and anything for your melee option except the Pain Train.
  • Grenade Launcher: It doesn't matter what kind of a Grenade Launcher you choose, neither of them make it easier or harder to fight Scouts. But you can expect one thing from all of them, and that is the fact that using any of them against a Scout is rather tricky and hard.
  • Quickiebomb Launcher: The main reason why you should use this weapons instead of your reliable Stickybomb Launcher is simply duo to the fact that the stickies fired by the Quickiebomb Launcher arm 0.2 seconds faster then the ones launcher by the Stickybomb Launcher. This can greatly aid you in your fight against the Scout since you can set up that "barrier" of your's a lot more quicker hence make it even harder for an Scout to rush you. The main downside of the Quickiebomb Launcher is its -15% damage penalty. Although this might seem like a big downside it really isn't considering the fact that a Scout already has a relatively low healthpool which means that even with that 15% less damage downside, you will still be able to take him out with only two Stickies
  • Melee of choice (Except the Pain Train): Any melee can work as a last-resort style weapon against a Scout, but whatever you do, do not use the Pain Train against a Scout. With the Pain Train you'll take 10% more bullet damage, which is terrible against a bullet using class such as the Scout.

Spy

“

"Hard to stab a guy in the back when he's beatin' your frickin' head in, huh?" Click to listen — The Scout explaining to a Spy the reason why using melee against him doesn't really work.

”

• Main disadvantage: Spy's main way of dealing damage and his preferred way of attacking comes from his Knife, which can be used to backstab his opponents for an instant kill. As you can see, the Spy's Knife (Which is a melee weapon) is his primary damage output, and this is where we run into some problems concerning Spy's ability to beat Scouts. Using melee against a Scout is a terrible idea, simply because a Scout can use his superior speed to just outrun anyone trying to smack him with his melee and stay out of their range. Of course, for other classes, the fact that you can't engage a Scout in melee combat is not a big problem, all other classes don't use their melee weapon as a main source of damage, for they have other means of dealing with Scouts. But when you have a class which completely revolves around a melee weapon (Such as the Spy), then you'll get quit a few problems when a Scout comes around. Because of all the previous reasons, Spy is a terrible class to fight a Scout with, his primary and sometimes only source of damage is entirely thrown out of the window by the Scout. This leaves the Revolver as your only real option for disposing of enemy Scouts, and even that is quit questionable.

• Strategy: It isn't looking good for the Spy, it would seem that no matter what he does, he just losses out to the Scout. And that would be the unfortunate truth, after all, there is a good reason why the Spy is ranked as the worst class for fighting Scouts. The best advice would to simply avoid Scouts and focus on other, more important targets (Such as Medics and Snipers) But if you really do insist on trying to beat a Scout as a Spy, here's a simple advice: Use your Revolver!. As if already wasn't clear, the Revolver is your only weapon which can help you stand a chance against the Scout.

• Optimal loadout: Any kind of a Revolver, except the L'Etranger, Sapper of choice, knife of choice and the Dead Ringer.
  • Revolver of choice (Except the L'Etranger): Anyone of your revolvers is useful against the Scout.
    • Stock Revolver is a trusty and a consistent source of damage, like we said earlier, your going to need three shots to kill a Scout with it from close range.
    • Enforcer can actually be better then the Stock Revolver. If you manage to hit a Scout with the Enforcer while disguised and at close range, you will do about 70 damage. This will bring the Scout to low enough health at which point only another shot will be necessary. And even when undisguised its still a pretty good Revolver duo to its downside not being to important to a Scout duel.
    • Ambassador is even better then the Enforcer (In theory at least). If you manage to score a Headshot on the enemy, you won't one shot him but you'll be able to also two-shot him, and that is without needing to be disguised. However, as if simply hitting a Scout wasn't already hard enough, scoring a headshot on him might be damm near impossible. So use the Ambassador only if you are very skilled
    • L'Etranger is bad for the reason of doing low damage and its upside not being important to a Scout duel.
  • Sapper of choice: You obviously can't use place a Sapper on a Scout so it doesn't matter what your bring into battle.
  • Knife of choice: You are rarely going to be given the opportunity of backstabbing a Scout, so you might as well take whatever you like.
  • Dead Ringer: The Dead Ringer can help you get you of out Scout duels easily if things were to go south.

Class specific ("Improved version")

Classes which excel at beating Scouts

Engineer

• Main advantage: The Engineer's Sentry Gun makes him the best class for defending an area against the Scout. The Sentry Gun never misses, making the Scout's mobility completely useless, and quickly chews through the Scout's low 125 health. The Scout's weapons are not powerful enough to handle a Sentry Gun directly; the best he can do is phase through with Bonk! Atomic Punch or simply avoid them.

• Strategy: While the Sentry Gun is powerful against Scouts, the Engineer himself is not. This is because of his lower firepower, slower speed and the same health compared to his counter. For such a reason, an Engineer wants to always hang around his Sentry, keeping it close by in order to kill or deter any wandering Scouts who may wish to infringe upon his peace.
  • Sentry placement: Constructing a Sentry in any location already creates quit a big problems for an enemy Scout, who will now be forced to avoid that place at all cost. However, an Engineer can take this a step further, and start placing his Sentry Guns right on top of different flanking routes, were it will actively hinder the Scout's main job of flanking behind his enemies. Putting a Sentry in such positions also ensures that it will only meet enemy Scouts, since other classes aren't as interested in choosing to go down various flank routes like Scouts are.

• Optimal loadout: The Stock loadout already provides all the necessary tools required to deal with a Scout, but if the Engineer were to adopt a completely anti-Scout oriented play style, he should take the following weapons in order to stand a chance against a Scout even without his Sentry: Shotgun or the Panic Attack for his primary slot, standard Pistol or a Short Circuit for his secondary, and the Gunslinger as a melee option.
  • Shotgun/Panic Attack: The choice between these two weapons comes down to preference, but it is important to pick at least one of them. The Gunslinger already limits your choice to only four of your shotguns (Stock Shotgun, Panic Attack, Frontier Justice and the Widowmaker). The optimal "anti-Scout" sentry placement means that you won't be racking up a lot of kills for your Frontier Justice, and the difficulty to hit a Scout means that you'll probably burn through quit a lot of ammo before you start landing some decent hits, making the Widowmaker a subpar choice too. This leaves the two aforementioned weapons as your only options in a fight against a Scout.
  • Pistol/Short Circuit: Both of these weapons act as a great finish off tools, which can be used when you've used one of your shotguns to score a decent hit on a Scout, and now only need a quick and easy way to finish them off.
  • Gunslinger: The Gunslinger replaces the Engineer's standard Sentry Guns with Mini Sentry Guns. These "Mini-Sentries" construct 150% faster then their counterparst, allowing the Engineer to quickly put one down if an enemy Scout were to surprise him while he didn't have a Sentry close by. Gunslinger's 25 more max health bonus also greatly aides the Engineer when he tries to duel a Scout without his Sentry Gun in the near vicinity. Since with 150 health now, an Engineer has an edge over a Scout in one thing at least, and that's survivability.

Scout

• Main advantage: Assuming that both Scouts which engage in a 1 vs 1 are using the stock loadout, noone of them will have any advantage over the other. Skill is the main factor which decides the outcome of this fight.

• Strategy: There are two, key things both Scouts need to keep in mind when dueling one another, those are: movement and aim. Who will come out alive from a Scout duel is largely determined by one's aiming precision and movement competence.
  • Movement: Movement is critical in a Scout duel, the Scout who has mastered it will be able to reliably dodge, while dishing out consistent damage in return. For starters, skilled Scouts will almost never jump, as that will send them flying while following a predictable trajectory. Instead, experienced duelers will try and constantly strafe from right to left, keeping their head pointed towards their opponent in the process. Scouts also attempt to mimic each other's maneuvers, if their rival strafes to the left, then they too will strafe to the left (Their right).
  • Aim: By constantly strafing and mirroring one another, two Scouts will begin moving in such a way, that they'll start crossing and intersecting each others paths. When that happens, all the Scout needs to do is to simply point his crosshair towards the general direction of his opponent, and pull the trigger when he and his rival cross paths once again. This is duo to the fact that Scouts are a very hard-to-hit target, which means that trying to constantly track them with your crosshair will usually result in a failure, as that is simply not possible. Instead, experienced Scouts will minimize the movement of their crosshair, and use their mobility in order to get the rivaling Scout to just "walk straight" into their aiming reticle, making one's job of aiming much easier.

• Optimal loadout: If a Scout is planning on encountering enemy Scouts, this would be the loadout he takes: Scattergun for his primary, Pistol or the Mad Milk as a secondary, and possibly a [[Wrap Assassing] in the melee slot.
  • Scattergun: The main selling point of this weapon is its high clip size of 6, compared to every other alternative primary. This gives the Scout plenty of room for error, which is a good thing since missing the same Scout multiple times in a row is a common occurrence. The high clip size and good damage also mean that the Scattetgun has a relatively high sustained DPS (Damage per second), a good advantage to have in a Scout duel which are known to drag on for some time.
  • Pistol/Mad Milk: Pistol offers an excellent way to quickly, and reliably finish of an enemy Scout. An important thing to keep in mind i that the Pistol should only be used as a finish-off tool. This means that it is used at the end of a fight, when the enemy Scout has already been brought down to low enough health via the Scattergun. On the other hand, Mad Milk is used as an "initiator" weapon. Meaning that its thrown at a Scout just before the real duel has begun, in order to soften him up for your primary weapon, and put him in a disadvantage for the remainder of the fight.
  • Wrap Assassin: While trying to use a melee weapon on a Scout is never advisable, simply duo to the fact that catching up to the said Scout is quit hard, the Wrap Assassin offers more then just a melee utility. Wrap Assassin is also capable of throwing bleed inducing baubles, which on hit can bring a Scout down to one-shot territory for the Scattergun. Just like the Mad Milk, Wrap Assassin's baubles should be used as an initiator weapon, one which is used against the enemy Scout at the beginning of an battle.

Classes which are mediocre at fighting against Scouts

Soldier

• Main advantage: Soldier's superiority against a Scout stems from his incredible close-quarters performance. In an enclosed environments, Soldier can use his high health pool and powerful Rocket Launcher in order to completely wreck the Scout, who in such environments can't dodge Soldier's slow-moving projectiles, out-damage his devastating rockets, or outlive him duo to the Scouts low max health. Consequently, just as the Soldier beats Scouts in tight, claustrophobic surroundings, where their mobility is greatly reduced, once the battle shifts outside; in more open and spacious area, things change dramatically. In these locations, Soldier's weaknesses start to show, because now with his mobility regained, a Scout can easily dodge the slow-moving rockets fired by the Soldier, hence making his primary nearly worthless.