Sandman

“

Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hitcha. No, wait, yeah I did! Click to listen — The Scout

”

The Sandman is an unlockable melee weapon for the Scout class. It is shown as a wooden bat with a smooth grip, complete with a 'The Sandman' logo imprinted on the side. There is a band on the end holding a cracked section of wood together, presumably from the Scout beating someone a little too enthusiastically on a previous occasion.

In addition to the speed and damage of the normal Bat, right-clicking with the Sandman will cause the Scout to launch a baseball towards the enemy. Successfully hitting a target with the baseball will stun the enemy. Stunning enemies will allow the player to close in on the victim to deliver further punishment. The baseball will also damage them provided that they are a sufficient distance away. The farther the ball flies before hitting the enemy, the longer the victim will be stunned, ranging from 1 – 8 seconds. If they are hit with a baseball from extreme range, the victim will suffer a moonshot and will be completely immobile for the maximum stun duration. The Sandman is able to collect baseballs launched by opposing Scouts, you can also hit them back in mid air which requires good timing.

Scouts carrying The Sandman will have a 15 max health points disadvantage, leaving a maximum of only 110 health points rather than 125. The Scout is also only equipped with one baseball, which will reload after a 15-second interval indicated in the cooldown bar on the HUD. Baseballs can be picked up off the ground, whether owned by the player or an enemy Scout, or by visiting a Resupply Cabinet. Baseballs are not classed as ammunition and thus cannot retrieved by picking up dropped weapons or Ammo packs. A baseball that does not hit an enemy will remain on the ground and disappear after 15 seconds, effectively the time it takes the Scout to gain a new one. After stunning an enemy, it will disappear much more quickly (after about three seconds), but can still be picked up and used again if acquired before it disappears.

With the Sandman equipped, the Scout can perform the Home Run kill taunt.

Damage

See also: Damage

• Base: 35 (32 to 39 damage)
• Mini-Crit: 47
• Critical hit: 105
• Baseball All Ranges: 15 (stuns for n seconds depending on how far the baseball travels)
• Baseball Mini-Crit: 20
• Baseball Critical hit: 45

Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.5 (assumed the same as regular Bat)
• Baseball Hit Interval: 0.25
• Baseball 'Respawn': 15 seconds
• The stun ball travels around 1940 hammer units per second, approximately 83 miles per hour.

All times are in seconds. Times are approximate and determined by community testing.

Related patches

February 25, 2009 Patch:

• Removed the damage reduction against non-stunned enemies on the new bat
• Fixed the BONK! particles appearing in the air when the bat's taunt kill is used on a target.

March 13, 2009 Patch:

• Players who are stunned by a Scout now take 50% less damage
• Increased the minimum distance to stun a player with the Sandman

May 26, 2009 Patch

• Fixed kill descriptions for Force-A-Nature & Sandman, so server logs can distinguish them

August 13, 2009 Patch (The Classless Update):

• A Scout will receive 1 point for stunning an enemy and 2 points for a long range stun
• Stunned players now take 75% of all incoming damage instead of 50%
• ÜberCharged players can no longer be stunned
• Heavies spinning their mini-guns will continue to spin when stunned (whether the left or right mouse button is pressed)
• The minimum distance to stun a target has been reduced
• The negative attribute has changed from "no double jump" to "-30 max health"

December 17, 2009 Patch:

• The Sandman now only stuns on a max range hit (when you hear the cheering)
• All shorter hits now force the enemy into the thirdperson fleeing state (also removed the damage reduction on them)

January 6, 2010 Patch:

• Reduced the health penalty on The Sandman

January 13, 2010 Patch

• Fixed the Sandman being able to bat balls through doors

April 28, 2010 Patch:

• Added a slight speed reduction to stunned players.

Related Achievements

Scout

64px	Beanball Stun a Scout with their own ball.	64px	Brushback Stun 50 enemies while they are capturing a point or pushing the cart.
64px	Foul Territory Cause an environmental death by stunning an enemy.	64px	Moon Shot Stun an enemy for the maximum possible duration by hitting them with a long-range ball.
64px	Strike Zone Kill 50 enemies while they are stunned.	64px	Out of the Park Bat an enemy 25 meters.
64px	The Big Hurt Stun 2 Medics that are ready to deploy an ÜberCharge.

Soldier

The Longest Daze Kill 5 stunned players.

Previous Changes

• Originall, the penalty for using the Sandman was that the Scout was unable to Double jump.

Trivia

• Even though the Sandman is made out of wood, when dropped it still supplies Engineers with 100 points of metal, like the Tribalman's Shiv or the Huntsman.
• In Major League Baseball, only wooden bats are considered regulation. Perhaps this is why the Scout only hits balls with the Sandman.
• The baseball used with the Sandman is an "All Ballers League"-style ball and manufactured by "Ball Fortress."
• The stun will actually shut down a Wrangled Sentry Gun if it hits the Engineer: The Sentry Gun remains Wrangled, but the Engineer cannot fire it.
• The Sandman is named after a folk lore creature who would put people to sleep. Scout uses his bat for similar (albeit more brutal) purposes.
• The Sandman's stun ball is unusable while underwater.
• As of the July 8, 2010 patch, the Backburner, the Blutsauger, and the Sandman are the only unlockable weapons that share a kill icon with their default counterpart.

Gallery

• Sandman 1st person cropped.png

  1st person view.

• Sandman 1st person.png

  Full 1st person view.

• 

  Projectile.

See also

• Sandman strategy
• Stun
• Home Run

External links

• The Scout Update- The Sandman