Gunslinger

“

Ain't that a cute little gun? Click to listen — The Engineer

”

The Gunslinger is an unlockable Wrench replacement for the Engineer. It is part of the Engineer Update and was announced on Day 4.

The Gunslinger appears as a robotic fist. It allows the Engineer to perform a combo attack, in which the third strike with the fist becomes an automatic critical hit. The Gunslinger also gives the Engineer an extra 25 max health, boosting his max up to 150 and making him a considerably more offensive class.

Using the Gunslinger allows the Engineer to build a Combat Mini-Sentry Gun instead of the standard Sentry Gun. A Mini-sentry only take 2.5 seconds to build, and costs only 100 metal, but cannot be upgraded or repaired, and only deals half of a normal level 1 Sentry Gun's damage.

Taunting with the Gunslinger will make the Engineer's robotic hand turn into a spinning cutter that stuns and kills.

Trivia

Radigan Conagher wielding the Gunslinger.

• The Gunslinger, as with the Frontier Justice and the Wrangler, appears to have been designed by Radigan Conagher, the Engineer's ancestor. This is shown by a hidden link in the Engineer Update. It also appears to be placed over the mangled stump of Radigan and the Engineer's arms. Valve's own blog post furthered this.
• The Gunslinger is more or less a reincarnation of the P.D.Q. item from the closed beta, both sharing the ability to build sentries faster, but are unable to upgrade them.
• The Gunslinger is the only melee weapon to gain crits via hit succession.
• The Gunslinger is the only weapon that affects other viewmodels than itself, as the robotic fist can be seen holding all of the Engineer's other weapons.
• When it was first displayed on the Engineer Update page, The Gunslinger was mistakenly shown as occupying the Pistol slot. [1]
• When equipped, The Gunslinger appears to replace the Engineer's entire hand, not be simply worn over it. On the Team Fortress blog it is implied that the Engineer sawed his own hand off to use it.
• The Gunslinger bears a resemblance to the metal glove worn by Ashley J. Williams, who also removed his own right hand, in the movie Evil Dead II.
• Currently, if you build a sentry with the Wrench, upgrade it to Level 2 or 3, then switch to the Gunslinger and move it, it becomes a Mini-Sentry at the same level, which is impossible, since it is the Mini-Sentry which cannot be upgraded, rather than the Gunslinger that cannot do the upgrading. This Mini-Sentry, however, still deals the proportional damage (half damage) that a Mini-Sentry deals, and even its rockets are affected. This is presumed to be a bug, however, because of the nature of the Mini-Sentry, and due to the fact that graphical errors (such as the flashing light effect despite the light itself being absent on the model) occur with the "Level 3" Mini-Sentry model.