Exploits

“

I have considered an appropriate punishment for the good-for-nothings responsible for this horrendous breach of conduct. Death, of course—but death is too good for disappointments such as these.

— The Administrator

”

An exploit is a bug or unintended feature of gameplay that is deliberately and knowingly used by the player to gain an advantage. For example, if a bug enables a player to be immune to damage and a player knowingly uses it, it is an exploit. In contrast, bugs or problems which either do not affect gameplay that are not intentionally triggered are classified under glitch.

NOTE: An exploit is said to be broken if it is unintentional to the game's developers, because it is a broken feature of the game.

General Exploits

By Class

Scout Exploits

Moving towards a wall then hitting the Sandman ball right before hitting the wall may send the ball through it, hitting unsuspecting players on the other side. (PC/Mac version only)
Splashing Mad Milk on the ground outside a setup gate will sometimes cause players on the other side next to the gate to be Mad Milked. (PC/Mac version only) (Broken)
Because the invulnerability timer for Bonk! Atomic Punch is client-side, freezing or slowing down the game after drinking it will prolong the effects. This also applies to temporarily losing connection to the server.
If you shoot the ball of the Sandman at a Soldier using the Kamikaze taunt, you can effectively knock the grenade out of his hand, rendering the taunt useless.

Soldier Exploits

After gaining a full rage meter for any banner item, equipping a different banner and blowing the horn while touching a resupply locker will transfer the rage to that banner.
Taking damage from staying underwater for too long will fill the rage meter for the Battalion's Backup. This can be exploited to gain free buffs for any of the horns using the banner switch exploit.
RED Soldiers can blow and hold the Buff Banner, allowing them to blow before entering a battle, then deploy the crits in a firefight without the moment of vulnerability.

Pyro Exploits

Using any of the flamethrowers and firing in a downwards position will sometimes cause flame particles to go through walls, such as setup gates, and set players on the other side on fire. (Broken)

Engineer Exploits

Building Exploits

An Engineer can constantly use their Teleporter to farm points, as they are awarded one half-point for every time someone takes their Teleporter. (Fixed in PC/Mac version, broken in Xbox 360 and PS3 versions)

Medic Exploits

"Needle Boosting" involves a player standing over a Medic, who then proceeds to shoot their Syringe Gun upward as the player jumps. Due to a physics error, the Medic's Syringe Gun needles propel the target upward. (Fixed in PC/Mac version, broken in Xbox 360 and PS3 versions)

Sniper Exploits

Splashing Jarate on the ground outside a setup gate will sometimes cause players on the other side next to the gate to be Jarated. (PC/Mac version only) (Broken)
Switching weapons quickly after taking a shot with the Sniper Rifle will result in a faster rate of fire, since the reload animation will not occur.(PC/Mac version fixed, others unknown)
Switching weapons quickly when charging the Huntsman will prepare it for another shot faster than cancelling with alt-fire.

Spy Exploits

Spies can place Sappers through thin walls, sapping buildings on the other side. (Fixed in PC/Mac and Xbox 360 versions, broken in PS3 version)
If a Spy backstabs an enemy and picks up the Intelligence at roughly the same time, the Spy can still use the Disguise Kit while holding the Intelligence. (Present in the PC version)
- If a Spy backstabs an enemy and picks up the intelligence at the same time with Your Eternal Reward, the Spy will disguise as the target while holding intelligence. (Present in the PC version)

Map Specific Exploits

2Fort

Entering Enemy's Spawn 2 A hole in the lower, right side of the No Enter symbol for BLU's base (the one next to the haystacks) can be used by RED players to get into the BLU spawn room. (Present in the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions.)

Holding Enemy Spawn Doors Open - Both teams can hold open the enemies spawn door at the hay room by running into it while it is open. While this works well for the BLU team (as they can potentially spawn camp), it's not so easy for the RED team. Should a member of the RED team attempt this, there is a chance for the player to get stuck in the door, unable to move, and end up getting dragged up and down with the door as the BLU team enters and leaves the spawn area.

Pointless Room - There is a spot in each Intelligence room, where a player can get other players stuck. This a dead-end, because players cannot escape, unless they suicide. By building a Dispenser on the left wall of the left corridor (the one facing the Intelligence) and then by using the "jump through roofs" exploits to build a Teleporter exit, a player can trap other players on their team. There is no tactical advantage to getting in here (Sentry Guns don't work here either), you can't be shot or shoot anybody. It is mostly used by people who are griefing as they will set up a Teleporter entrance somewhere in your base and an exit in the roof. This then traps your team-mates and forces them to commit suicide. (Fixed in PC/Mac version, broken in 360 and PS3 versions)

Roof Holes - A hole in the roof of the BLU team's 'upstairs' room (above and behind the balcony) allows arcing projectiles (grenades and needles) to be fired into the 'upstairs' room just outside the BLU team's main respawn room. It can be used for taking out Sentry Guns placed in the corner of the 'upstairs' room. This looks intentional; however the same cannot be used on the RED team's base as chicken wire covers the hole. (Fixed in PC/Mac version, broken in 360 and PS3 versions)

Badlands

The RED Spawn - The RED team's initial spawn room has misplaced no-entry blocks allowing members of the BLU team to sneak in.

Dustbowl

Stage 1

Building Inside Spawn - In the BLU team's spawn area an Engineer can build right in front of the gate on the left, and in a corner off by the gate on the right.

Stage 2

Healing Through Walls - By building your Dispenser inside the small house next to the first capture point you are able to get metal and heal yourself. To do this, a player simply builds a Dispenser as close as possible to the wall with the telephone, and must then go onto the other side to see if they have built it close enough.

Teleporters Above Ground - To do this, go to the small house that is next to the first capture point of stage 2. Then go to the sections with either a telephone on the desk, or a coffee machine on the desk. By standing on this, you are able to build your Teleporters on top of the desk. You might have to shift around or jump to get this to work.

Stage 3

Teleporter Inside BLU Spawn - By crouching, while next to the side of the walls, you are able to build your teleporter, Sentry Gun, or Dispenser in your spawn or the enemies spawn.

Hiding Stickies - Cap 1: If you are a RED Demoman and go to the blue exit gate on your left side, aim about a foot off the ground, count 3 cobblestones back towards the capture point, and you can shoot stickies into the wall. Here they cannot be seen aside from a mute red light which goes away.

Gold Rush

Stage 1 - Engineers can build on the balcony just before the final cap point.

Stage 1 - Certain projectiles can be fired through the start-up gates.

Stage 3 Teleporter in Spawn - When starting in the spawn closer to the first cap points of the track (The spawn with the large staircase), you are able to build your Teleporter inside your spawn by standing sideways to the gate.

Granary

RED 2nd Respawn -A ledge on the edge of the respawn room can be accessed by Soldiers, Demomen and Engineers by jumping towards the opening in the top of the spawn from outside. It is possible for BLU players to spawn-kill from there. Engineers can sentry jump into this spot and then place Teleporters into the small area over the air near the grain chute. Players will be skywalking in this small area and can directly enter the RED spawn as any class by dropping down. Sentry Guns can be built here to target REDs as soon as they spawn. RED Soldiers and Demomen can also jump into the area from inside the spawn.
- The small roof above the grain chute next to the spawn can also be accessed and built on
- In the yard near the spawn there are tall, round structures and a small shack. Demomen can sticky jump to the top of these tall buildings and stand on the edges.

Gravel Pit

Spawn Building - RED Engineers can build inside their spawn area by crouching on the office chair and facing the computer panel to its right. Once the vertical position of the blueprint changes to match the visible height of the panel (which only occurs in a particular spot), the Engineer can place their construction at a specific mid-air point (this essentially means repeatedly jumping while spamming the keys bound to Crouch and Primary Fire).

Hydro

Skywalking is possible in one spot with the help of someone from the other team. To do this, simply have a Spy or Scout on the other team crouch jump on to your Dispenser, and then have them move over to one side of it, while you get on it. Then while they are crouched, crouch jump on top of them. Then have them stand up, and both of you crouch jump to get yourself on top of the lamp next to the door. Then try to crouch jump over to the spot where the teleporter was built, and try to build it there while you are jumping. Another way would be to have a Demoman or Soldier shoot at your feet to boost you up to the top of the lamp.

Steel

BLU Spawn - Jumping above the BLU teams exit door to B before the round starts can cause the door to get stuck, making BLU team not able to leave through the B exit door.
It is possible for a Pyro using the Backburner to attack any enemies that are sitting on point A from behind the sliding steel door.
RED Engineers can build Teleporters inside the first spawn in the corners of the door to Point A
There is a tiny ledge at the very back of the small wooden balcony at Point B that can be stood on. The rest of the balcony is not solid and will not hold players, however it provides cover for Demomen and Soldiers that can still shoot through it without being seen.

Viaduct

There is a way to place a teleporter inside the respawn. An Engineer should build a sentry near to the respawn and upgrade it to third level. When it is ready, an another player should be holding the door. Engineer should rocketjump using a Wrangler to the upper platform of the room. There he can easily place a teleporter, and make his respawn easily accessed by enemy Spies.

Well

Glitched Area - Backroom (Final Control points in CP_Well and Intelligence room in CTF_Well) - Allows Soldiers, Demomen, and Engineers to get into the roof area and on the beams. It is unconfirmed if this is an exploit or not as both teams can use it, higher areas are blocked by invisible walls and this hasn't been fixed by Valve even though it's been around a while.
Demomen can sticky jump over the invisible walls in the middle of ctf_well to get out of the map or skywalk

Patched Exploits

Backstab Not Breaking Disguise - Whereby a Spy could backstab while retaining their disguise (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions, broken in PS3 version).

Bunny Hopping (Patched October 31, 2007 Patch) - A jumping technique that allowed players to move faster than they should by bypassing the velocity cap. (Fixed in PC/Mac versions, unknown in 360 and PS3 versions)

Reference Pose Heavy - Whereby a Heavy could go into a reference pose by spinning the Minigun in spawn and switching class to Heavy. This is still performable, but another method is required. (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions, unknown in PS3 version).

Cloaked Backstab - Whereby a Spy could backstab while remaining Cloaked (Fixed in the PC and 360 versions; broken in PS3 version).

Critical Hit Storing - Whereby players are able to store Critical hits in their weapon. (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions; broken in PS3 Version).

Crouch Jump - Whereby players are able to build Teleporters in places that they should not be able to, such as spawn rooms. (Fixed in PC/Mac version, broken in 360 and PS3 versions)

Game-play Demo Achievements - Whereby players could complete achievements by spectating other players who earned them. (Fixed; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Door Block Exploit - Allowed Engineer players to block spawn doors with the help of Teleporters. (Fixed in PC/Mac and Xbox 360 versions; broken in PS3 version).

Heavy Minigun Exploit - Whereby a Heavy was able to run and simultaneously rev up or fire their Minigun (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions; broken in PS3 version).

Intelligence Teleportation - An exploit that allowed a player to teleport with the intelligence by dropping it next to the Teleporter, then picking it up as they were teleported. (Fixed in PC/Mac versions; broken in 360 and PS3 versions)

Melee Weapon Switching Exploits - Whereby players could attack and then instantly switch to another weapon and back again, making the next attack with the melee weapon land instantly, and stack on the attack they were already making. (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions; broken in PS3 version).

Needle Boosting - Whereby players could be boosted by the Medic's Syringe Gun needles. (Fixed in PC/Mac version; broken in 360 and PS3 versions).

Occlusion Visualization Cheat (cvar) - Allowed players to make use of the built-in Performance UI to enable visible occluders which would let you then see through walls (Fixed in PC version).

Permanent ÜberCharge

Whereby a disconnected Medic could continue to ÜberCharge his target indefinitely.
Whereby a Medic is able to give himself an ever-lasting ÜberCharge for the rest of the round. It requires a player to have unlocked the Kritzkrieg, and is done by switching to the Kritzkrieg whilst deploying the Über in the team respawn room. This can also be done the opposite way around - by switching to the Medi Gun, giving the player infinite Critical hits for the rest of the round. Standing near a Dispenser (or Payload while attacking), healing a team-mate, or being healed by a team-mate will however end the charge.

Permanent Bonk - Where a Scout becomes permanently under the effect of Bonk! Atomic Punch by drinking the item while moving into a supply cabinet. (Fixed; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Teleporter Exploit - Whereby an Engineer could earn himself large amounts of points by using his own teleporter repeatedly. (Fixed in PC/Mac version; broken in 360 and PS3 versions).

Wall Sap - Whereby a Spy could attach an Electro Sapper to enemy buildings through thin walls. (Fixed in PC/Mac and 360 versions; broken in PS3 version).

Cart Upgrading - Where BLU Engineers could "upgrade" the Dispenser on the cart by hitting where the blue stream comes out of the pipe on the cart, allowing it to dispense health faster than normal.^[1] (Fixed; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Level 3 Combat Mini-Sentry Exploit - Whereby an Engineer could build a Combat Mini-Sentry that fires rockets by building a Level 3 Sentry Gun, switching to Gunslinger (either by respawning or using resupply lockers), then re-deploying the Sentry Gun. The resulted Sentry Gun would take only 2.5 seconds to build like a Combat Mini-Sentry, but fired rockets like a normal Sentry Gun. (Fixed; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Multiple Buildings Exploit - Several methods where the Engineer (or in some cases the Spy) could build multiple copies of all his buildings.

Whereby an Engineer can build an unlimited number of buildings by using the commands, "build 0 x", "build 1 x", and "build 2 x" (where x is the number of the building), and a Spy can build an unlimited number of Dispensers using "build 0 x" (where x is the number of the building). (Fixed April 30, 2010 Patch; existed in PC/Mac version only)

An Engineer could pick up a building with the "Automatically respawn after loadout changes in respawn zones" option and change their loadout hereby glitching them into having a building being "carried" and allowing the Engineer to build multiple buildings using the "build x" commands. (Fixed October 18, 2010 Patch; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Invisible Buildings Exploit - Any Engineer picking up a building and immediately taunting would would be able to use the weapon they taunted with whilst holding this building. If placed back down with the "build x" commands, these buildings would be invisible, leaving only the sentry shadow, Dispenser screen or teleporter effect. (Fixed October 18, 2010 Patch; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Infinite Crit Exploit - An Engineer that had revenge Crits on the Frontier Justice could abuse a loadout-related glitch to gain infinite Crits for all weapons, including ones that don't normally Crit (such as the Southern Hospitality). (Fixed November 19, 2010 Patch; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Powerjack Heal Exploit A Pyro could switch to the Powerjack before an ignited enemy dies from afterburn and still get the +75 health. (Fixed; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Permanent Regen Exploit By disconnecting from the server mid-taunt with the Amputator, the healing effect would stay on all in the healing radius (through death and class change), until they disconnected or the map changed. (Fixed in the January 3, 2011 Patch; existed in PC/Mac version only)

Surviving Kamikaze Exploit Performing the Kamikaze taunt with the Rocket Jumper equipped to the primary slot will allow the Soldier to survive the taunt with no blast damage. (PC/Mac version only)

Update history

October 5, 2007 Patch

Fixed teleporter/spawn doorway exploit.

November 7, 2007 Patch

Fixed exploit that allowed players to teleport with the intelligence

November 20, 2007 Patch

Fixed jump/taunt exploit

March 20, 2008 Patch

Plugged an exploit where the server could send executable code to the client

April 29, 2008 Patch (Gold Rush Update)

Fixed exploit where clients could start benchmark mode on servers
Fixed drowning exploit that allowed players to regenerate health
Fixed reload exploit that allowed plays to fire instantly after switching weapons
Minor fix to stat gathering to prevent players using sv_cheats to easily garner achievements
Fixed a clip brush exploit outside blue Sniper deck on 2Fort

April 30, 2008 Patch

Fixed potential "nuke" exploit in rcon subsystem

May 2, 2008 Patch

Fixed exploit where players could drop weapons onto the ground for other players to pickup

February 18, 2009 Patch

Fixed loadout exploit

July 14, 2009 Patch

Fixed setinfo exploit that allowed restricted convars to be set while connected to a server
Fixed "jointeam unassigned" exploit
Fixed being able to respawn during the chat time before a level change
Prevented some exploits based on mat_dxlevel being changed in-game

December 7, 2009 Patch

Fixed Spies being able to disguise while performing a taunt.

April 30, 2010 Patch

Fixed the Engineer being able to build more than 1 of each type of building.

July 9, 2010 Patch

Fixed a bug that allowed sapped buildings to be picked up by the Engineer

July 19, 2010 Patch

Fixed a bug where Teleporters could be given more than their normal amount of health.

July 21, 2010 Patch

Fixed a speed exploit related to benchmarks

October 18, 2010 Patch

Fixed a sentry gun exploit that let Engineers build multiple sentries
(Supposedly) Fixed Engineers being able to build level 3 mini-sentries using The Wrangler

October 19, 2010 Patch

Fixed another sentry gun exploit that let Engineers build multiple sentries
Fixed Engineers being able to build level 3 mini-sentries using The Wrangler for real this time

December 2, 2010 Patch