Holy Mackerel

“

Eat it, fatty! Click to listen — The Scout on his delectable weapon

”

The Holy Mackerel is a craftable melee weapon for the Scout class. It appears as a fish wrapped in faded newspaper with a rubber band, shaped for easy handling.

This weapon has a smaller area spread than the default Bat, therefore enabling it to deal more damage. Additionally, being slapped by the fish is considered so humiliating that the kill list displayed in the HUD will record every connecting swipe, displaying the corresponding number of hits dealt. Should an enemy be killed by the Holy Mackerel, the kill feed will proclaim "FISH KILL!". It can apparently register an unlimited number of hits, yet will fade out at around 25 of them. The fish also wobbles side to side as players run left or right. The taunt for the Holy Mackerel is the same as the scouts standard bat.

Damage

See also: Damage

• Base: 35 (32 to 39 damage)
• Mini-Crit: 47
• Critical hit: 105

Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.5

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

Item set

This item is part of the Special Delivery set. When the entire set is worn, the set provides this additional bonus:

• +25 max health

The other set items are:

• Shortstop
• Mad Milk
• Milkman

Blueprint

Sandman		Reclaimed Metal		Holy Mackerel
	+		=

Trivia

• Based on its appearance and the creator's information, the fish is an Atlantic mackerel or Boston Mackerel, a reference to the Scout's heritage.
• The Holy Mackerel is a Level 42 Fish. 42 is a reference to Douglas Adams' book series, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, one of them being So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (there is also a book containing collected fragments of Adam’s work called “The Salmon of Doubt”).
• The Holy Mackerel plays a distinct squish sound when struck against an object, unlike any other weapon.
• The Mackerel has jigglebones, causing it to bend and wobble as it is moved. It moves and wiggles in the first person view, making it look like it's alive; this is, however, a perk of the way jigglebones interact with first person idle animations, coupled with the Scout's constantly moving hand. Looking left or right will twist the upper half of the fish as well.
• The weapon itself is a likely reference to the Monty Python sketch The Fish-Slapping Dance, as well as the proposed method of cutting down a tree by the Knights who say Ni in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
• It may also be a reference to a scene in The Godfather in which a fish wrapped in newspaper is delivered to indicate a character's death (he "sleeps with the fishes").
• It may also be a reference to the Veggie Tales movie Jonah A VeggieTales Movie Where the evil Ninavites slap each-other with fishes.
• This is the first weapon to have a custom kill feed title, as well as a counter showing how many hits it took to kill an opponent.
• Because of the way Holy Mackerel hits are logged, stats systems (such as PsychoStats or HLStatsX) may register every hit as a full kill for the attacker and a death for the victim (though there is now a third party plugin fix).
• Should the Scout hit someone in an arena match with this weapon, he will gain the first blood buff, regardless of whether the enemy dies (possibly due to the fact that it is displayed as the first 'kill' in the kill feed).
• The achievements A Year To Remember and The Cycle will have their kill counter incremented by 1/count a bat kill every time the Holy Mackerel's swing connects.
• The mirrored version of this weapon (enabled with the "Flip viewmodels" tickbox under Multiplayer > Advanced) currently has a bug that makes it look like it has been turned inside out.
• It's possible to achieve Doctoring The Ball by hitting an enemy 3 times with the Holy Mackerel while Übercharged, making the achievement much easier.
• Hitting a disguised or cloaked Spy with the Holy Mackerel will display a hit message.
• When hitting a Dead Ringer Spy, the kill icon does not come up unlike other weapons triggering the Dead Ringer effect.
• When being healed by a Medic, every slap counts as an assist for the Medic.
• Despite being a fish wrapped in paper, when dropped the Holy Mackerel still supplies Engineers with the standard 100 points of metal (much like how the Huntsman and Sandman both do the same, despite being made of wood).
• Although being a dead fish wrapped newspaper it can be crafted from wood and metal.

Gallery

• Holy Mackerel 1st person cropped.png

  1st person view.

• 

  Full 1st person view.

See also

• Bat Strategy