Strange

This article is about the Strange Weapons themselves. For other uses of the name, see Strange (disambiguation).

 Shotgun
Strange Shotgun - Kills: 0

“

Hey, is somebody keeping track of my heads batted in? Click to listen — The Scout

”

Strange quality is an item quality found on weapons obtained from unlocking Mann Co. Supply Crates of certain series, or on Botkiller weapons earned from Mann Up mode. Introduced in the Über Update on June 23, 2011 Patch, Strange weapons track kills, or other events, such as kill assists (see Notes below for exceptions), and record them as an item attribute, allowing the count to be viewed by players. The weapon is then awarded a rank as the recorded count increases, with the rank affixed to the beginning of the item's name. Additionally, some weapons have a second count to track other associated actions, such as Sentry Gun kills; however, the secondary count does not contribute toward rank progress. Each time the player achieves a new rank, it is announced to all players on the server with a message in the chat box; A notification pop-up also appears only for the player the weapon belongs to.

The Spirit Of Giving is an all-class miscellaneous item with the Strange quality, introduced during the Australian Christmas 2011 event. It tracks and ranks up based on gifts given with the Secret Saxton and Pile o' Gifts items. Uniquely, it has its own list of ranks, with lower thresholds between them. In its initial state, it does not display the Strange prefix, but does retain the text coloring. All players were awarded the Spirit Of Giving along with a Secret Saxton to all premium players at the time of the update. The update also introduced Festive weapons: reskins of a number of weapons, braided with flickering Christmas lights. Festive weapons could be obtained in either Strange or Unique quality.

Strange Parts are tools that can be used to track an additional variable on Strange weapons. A maximum of three parts can be added. Strange Filters can be used to further limit the statistics that are tracked to certain community-made maps.

Trading or using Gift Wrap on a Strange weapon will cause its counter to reset to zero and its prefix to reset to Strange. Using Gift Wrap will present a warning when attempting to use the Gift Wrap on a Strange weapon.

The hexadecimal color code for Strange items is #CF6A32.

Ranks

Rank	Kills	Name
0	0	Strange
1	10	Unremarkable
2	25	Scarcely Lethal
3	45	Mildly Menacing
4	70	Somewhat Threatening
5	100	Uncharitable
6	135	Notably Dangerous
7	175	Sufficiently Lethal
8	225	Truly Feared
9	275	Spectacularly Lethal
10	350	Gore-Spattered
11	500	Wicked Nasty
12	750	Positively Inhumane
13	999	Totally Ordinary
14	1000	Face-Melting
15	1500	Rage-Inducing
16	2500	Server-Clearing
17	5000	Epic
18	7500	Legendary
19	7616	Australian
20	8500	Hale's Own

Notes

• The following Strange items do not track kills, instead:
  • Mad Milk and Jarate track and rank up based on the number of coated enemies, or "Sodden Victims".
  • The Wrench, Gunslinger, and Jag track Sentry Gun kills, whether Wrangled or not, and standard melee kills, and rank up based on Sentry Gun kills.
    • The Southern Hospitality only tracks standard melee kills.
  • The Medi Gun, Quick-Fix, and Kritzkrieg track ÜberCharges and kill assists;
    • The Medi Gun and Quick-Fix rank up based on ÜberCharges deployed.
    • The Kritzkrieg ranks up based on kill assists.
  • The Razorback tracks and ranks up based on the number of Spies shocked by backstabbing it, or "Spies Shocked".
  • The Sapper counts how many buildings have been destroyed by sapping them.
  • The Dead Ringer tracks and ranks up based on number of feigned deaths.
  • The Holiday Punch tracks how many people you have tickled along with amount of kills, and ranks up based on people you have tickled.
  • The Festive Sandvich tracks and ranks up based on food items eaten and will only increase if the Sandvich is used to heal damage.
  • The Festive Buff Banner tracks and ranks up based on banners deployed.
  • The Invis Watch tracks and ranks up based on seconds cloaked upon decloak.
  • The Construction PDA tracks Sentry Gun kills, the amount of health points restored to teammates with a Dispenser and the number of allies Teleported and ranks up based on Sentry Gun Kills.
• The Eyelander levels up only on kills, rather than total heads collected. Therefore killing someone with heads, such as another Demoman with the Eyelander (and all variants) or a Sniper with the Bazaar Bargain will only yield one kill.
• Killing a teammate while friendly fire is enabled will increase your kill total with that weapon by one, as though it were a normal kill.
• The following actions do not increase the total kill count for strange weapons:
  • Activating the Cloak of a Spy who is using the Dead Ringer.
  • Any action involving bots (including Mann vs. Machine bots).
  • Killing yourself with a Strange weapon.
  • Killing an enemy with a compression blast.
  • Killing an enemy with a taunt. The Fencing, Skewer, Spinal Tap, Decapitation and Organ Grinder taunts are exceptions to this.
  • Activating the Dead Ringer via environmental damage, such as fall damage.
• Kills are counted together for classes that share the same Strange weapon.
• Using a Name Tag will change the name of the Strange weapon, but the weapon will still retain its rank and counter. Its current rank is displayed under the name of the weapon in light grey text.
• Resetting a Strange weapon that has one or more Strange Parts applied will reset to 0 the kill counters for both the weapon and any strange parts that may be applied. It is not possible to reset the counter for a Strange weapon's kills without also resetting the counters for any strange parts that may be applied.
• Listing a Botkiller or a Strange Festive Weapon on the Steam Community Market will reset its kill counters.

Update history

June 23, 2011 Patch (Über Update)

• [Undocumented] Added Strange quality.
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Chargin' Targe, Grenade Launcher, Stickybomb Launcher, Eyelander, Rocket Launcher, Pain Train, Shotgun, Direct Hit, Gloves of Running Urgently, Minigun, and Natascha.

June 28, 2011 Patch

• Fixed the problem that was causing Strange Demoman shields to not accumulate kills.

July 12, 2011 Patch [Item schema update]

• Added Strange variants of Sandman, Pistol, Scattergun, Boston Basher, Ambassador, Conniver's Kunai, Knife, Revolver, Flamethrower, Flare Gun, Powerjack, and Backburner.

August 18, 2011 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Syringe Gun, Crusader's Crossbow, Bonesaw, Medi Gun, Sniper Rifle, Sydney Sleeper, Bushwacka, Jarate, Frontier Justice, Jag, and Wrench.

September 2, 2011 Patch

• Updated the Strange quality color from RGB [205, 155, 29] (#CD9B1D) to RGB [207, 106, 50] (#CF6A32).

September 20, 2011 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Axtinguisher, Black Box, and Razorback.
• [Undocumented] Added a "Spies Shocked" attribute for the Strange Razorback.
• [Undocumented] Added a "Heads Taken" attribute for the Strange Eyelander.

October 13, 2011 Patch

• When sorting the backpack, otherwise-equivalent items will sort by strange weapon rank and crate series number if possible.
• When selecting items from loadout, weapons with different kill eater ranks will all show up.
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Ullapool Caber, Kritzkrieg, Holy Mackerel, Gunslinger, Machina, Mad Milk, Half-Zatoichi, Fists, and Degreaser.
• [Undocumented] Strange weapon ranking notifications no longer appear as a toast popup on screen.

October 25, 2011 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Brass Beast, Übersaw, L'Etranger, and Equalizer.

December 1, 2011 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Your Eternal Reward, Family Business, Soda Popper, Amputator, Reserve Shooter, Atomizer, Southern Hospitality, and Scottish Resistance.

December 15, 2011 Patch

• Added Festive weapons with Strange quality attached.
• [Undocumented] Strange weapon level up alerts re-added for the player whose weapon leveled up.

December 21, 2011 Patch

• Spirit Of Giving was added to the game.

January 11, 2012 Patch

• Fixed some cases where strange Ullapool Cabers and Wrenches would fail to correctly count kills.
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Bazaar Bargain, Big Earner, Blutsauger, and Liberty Launcher.

February 2, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of SMG, Killing Gloves of Boxing, Quick-Fix, and Dead Ringer.

February 23, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Loch-n-Load and Overdose.

March 22, 2012 Patch

• Added Strange Part.
• Fixed a bug that would cause chat-text strange weapon rank up notifications to sometimes display player names as "unknown"
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Holiday Punch, Huntsman, Widowmaker, Mantreads, Sapper, Bat, Diamondback, Bottle and Back Scratcher.

April 17, 2012 Patch

• Added the ability to remove Strange parts via the Restore button in the backpack
• Added the ability to reset scores on Strange items via the Restore button in the backpack

April 27, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Tribalman's Shiv, Detonator, and Shortstop.

May 17, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Scotsman's Skullcutter, Persian Persuader, and Market Gardener.

June 27, 2012 Patch (Pyromania Update)

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Escape Plan, Rainblower, and Lollichop.

July 11, 2012 Patch

• Fixed Strange Escape Plans not counting kills.

August 15, 2012 Patch (Mann vs. Machine update)

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Silver and Gold Botkiller weapons.

September 4, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Force-A-Nature and Tomislav.

October 9, 2012 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Shovel and Homewrecker.
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Rust, Blood, Carbonado and Diamond Botkiller weapons.

December 20, 2012 Patch (Mecha Update)

• Added Strange Filter items to the Mann Co. Store to support community map makers.
• Added Strange variants for Festive weapons introduced in the update.
• Added Strange variants of the Silver and Gold Botkiller Mk.II Weapons.
• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Spy-cicle, Wrap Assassin, and Baby Face's Blaster.

January 16, 2013 Patch

• Fixed Strange Buff Banner and Strange Sandvich not always tracking usage.

February 14, 2013 Patch

• Fixed the Strange Sapper's "Buildings Sapped" counter sometimes incrementing when buildings were destroyed without a Sapper attached.

March 12, 2013 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Frying Pan, Construction PDA, Original, Invis Watch, Splendid Screen, Fire Axe, Flying Guillotine, Beggar's Bazooka, Fists of Steel, and Neon Annihilator.

June 19, 2013 Patch

• [Undocumented] Added Strange variants of Kukri, Huo-Long Heater, and Enforcer.

Bugs

• Counters do not update in-game when you inspect another player's Strange weapon on the Deathcam.
• If a Strange weapon goes up a rank, it will appear to have the original rank prefix when switching weapons until the player respawns.
• The Holiday Punch levels up by successfully punching an enemy with a critical hit, regardless of whether laugh was caused.
• Trading a Strange PDA will not reset its "Health dispensed to allies" counter.