Crouching

“

Ey, here's something you can invent next time: Duckin'! Click to listen — The Scout

”

Crouching is a feature that reduces the area of your character, making you a smaller and less-visible target. This can make tasks such as defending Sentry Guns, sniping, pushing Payload carts and ambushing easier. Crouch-jumping increases the distance on jumps and also facilitates explosive jumping. Some obstacles require you to crouch-jump on top or over them as crouching in mid-air brings your legs and feet up.

When crouching, the character will move much slower than their default movement speed. But unlike running, you move backwards and forwards at the same speed. The default key for a crouch is Ctrl in the PC version, in the PlayStation 3 version, and in the Xbox 360 version. Crouching can be selected to toggle in the Options menu.

When crouching, your character will move 66% slower except when you are a Sniper who is scoped in (98.67% slower) or aiming an arrow (85% slower) or a Heavy with his Minigun revved (immobile).

Crouching does not increase your accuracy when firing a weapon, unlike in other Source games.

Crouching speeds

Class	Speed
Scout (Baby Face's Blaster at 0% boost) (Baby Face's Blaster at 100% boost)	44.4% 40% 58%	133.33v 120v 174v
Medic (with the Overdose at 100% ÜberCharge) (with any Medi Gun, healing a Scout)	35.5% 39% 44%	106.67v 117.3v 133.33v
Engineer (while hauling a building)	33.3% 30%	100v 90v
Pyro (with Powerjack)	33.3% 38%	100v 115v
Sniper (with rifle zoomed) (with Huntsman drawn)	33.3% 9% 18%	100v 26.67v 53.33v
Spy (disguised as Soldier) (disguised as Demoman) (disguised as Heavy)	33.3% 27% 31% 26%	100v 80v 93.33v 76.67v
Demoman (with weapon slot boots) (with a head-taking melee weapon and 1 head) (with a head-taking melee weapon and 2 heads) (with a head-taking melee weapon and 3 heads) (with a head-taking melee weapon and 4 or more heads) (with weapon slot boots and a head-taking melee weapon and 1 head) (with weapon slot boots and a head-taking melee weapon and 2 heads) (with weapon slot boots and a head-taking melee weapon and 3 heads) (with weapon slot boots and a head-taking melee weapon and 4 or more heads) (with Scotsman's Skullcutter) (with Scotsman's Skullcutter and weapon slot boots)	31.1% 34% 34% 36% 39% 41% 37% 40% 42% 45% 26% 29%	93.33v 102.67v 101v 108v 116v 123v 111v 119v 127v 136v 79v 87v
Soldier Charging the Cow Mangler 5000 (with Escape Plan with over 160 HP) (with Escape Plan with 121-160 HP) (with Escape Plan with 81-120 HP) (with Escape Plan with 41-80 HP) (with Escape Plan with 1-40 HP)	26.6% 9% 27% 29.3% 32% 37.3% 42.7%	80v 26.67v 80v 88v 96v 112v 128v
Heavy (with any Primary weapon spinning) (with G.R.U. drawn) (under effects of Buffalo Steak Sandvich) (with Eviction Notice drawn)	25.5% (Immobile) 0% 33.2% 34.5% 29%	76.67v 0v 99.67v 103.5v 88.2v

• Note: abs = absolute values in velocity units (v) or hammer units per second (HU/s).

Update history

October 2, 2007 Patch

• Fixed headshots not always registering for crouched players.

April 1, 2008 Patch

• Fixed crouch-jump exploit that allowed players to get outside of the world

March 6, 2009 Patch

• You can now duck twice in the air. Scout double jumps reset the in-air jump counts
• Added "tf_clamp_airducks" convar, set to 1 by default
  • Setting it to 0 will remove all constraints on ducking while in the air. Useful for servers running RJ challenge maps

October 14, 2009 Patch

• Added server ConVar "bot_crouch" to make bots crouch

September 15, 2016 Patch

• Fixed a case where crouching was used to see outside of the playable area. This could be exploited to place buildings at invalid locations.

See also

• Speed
• Jumping
• Spycrab