Golden Wrench

“

That there is a gold-plated kill! Click to listen — The Engineer

”

The Golden Wrench is an exclusive melee weapon for the Engineer. It is similar to a regular Wrench, but the majority of it is made of a golden substance.

This weapon is identical to the Wrench in that it deals the same damage, has the same Critical hit chance, and has the same animations. Its only distinguishing feature is that enemies killed by it will turn into motionless golden statues instead of normal ragdolls. This effect applies to jigglebones which freeze in place, but not Hats or Misc. items.

Damage

• Point Blank: 65 (59 to 72 damage)
• Mini-Crit: 88
• Critical hit: 195
• Damage Repaired per Hit: 105
• Upgrade Amount per Hit: 25 (Corresponding loss in metal)
• Metal Cost per Repairing Stroke: 1 + Damage / 5
• Metal Cost for reloading ammo: 1 per bullet, 2 per rocket salvo

Damages are approximate and determined by community testing.

Function times

• Attack Interval: 0.8

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

Related Achievements

Built to Last Help a single building tank over 2000 damage without being destroyed. Circle the Wagons Repair 50,000 damage to friendly buildings constructed by other players. Doc, Stock, and Barrel Repair a sentry gun under fire while being healed by a Medic. Fistful of Sappers Destroy 25 sappers on buildings built by other team members. Get Along! Manage to get to, and then remove, a sapper placed on your building while you were several meters away.

Land Grab Help a teammate construct a building. Quick Draw Kill a Spy and two sappers within 10 seconds. Rio Grind Perform 50 repairs and/or reloads on a Sentry gun being Wrangled by another Engineer. Silent Pardner Upgrade 50 buildings built by other team members. The Wrench Connection Kill a disguised spy with your Wrench.

Community

The TF2 community had some mixed reactions when the item was officially announced during the first days of the Engineer Update. The Steam Forums were buzzing with activity as members debated whether this item was to be cherished or viewed as a curse. The few 100 players who actually received a Golden Wrench were harasses by many others wanting to know secrets or cheats to increase their chances of being given a wrench. The 100 players who were given a wrench were plagued with what was more of a curse then a stroke of luck. Many of the players had to make their profiles and backpacks private from the shear number of players flooding their pages comments. The most notable of the players given a Golden Wrench was Drunken F00l, the creator of Tf2items.com and the Idling Program who was stripped of his glory after Valve got word that he had unfairly increased his chances of receiving a Golden Wrench.

Previous Changes

• It was once possible to craft the Golden Wrench using the 'Fabricate Class Weapons' blueprint. However it was impossible to create an Engineer token to use with the blueprint. This was later fixed.

Trivia

• This weapon was a promotional feature of the Engineer Update. Players were informed that every time a craft was made, there was a chance of a Golden Wrench being made. Only 100 Golden Wrenches were available at the time, and the ability to smelt metal back into scrap metal was suspended during this time to prevent continual crafting. Players who received a Golden Wrench were listed in the Official Wrench Log.
• The Golden Wrench was originally indicated in the material file with an encrypted message that could be translated.
• Sixteen players received the Golden Wrench on 4th July 2010 after a drop was triggered by developer Robin Walker. Later, on August 31 2010 14 Golden Wrenches were destroyed as part of the Golden Charity Event. One was destroyed in honor of the event, and one was part of the initial group but was destroyed early due to technical problems.
• Even though enemies killed with the Golden Wrench turn into golden statues, they can still move their facial muscles and cry upon dying, similar to deaths for normal ragdolls. The sound they make when they hit the ground still sounds like flesh, despite being made of metal.
• The Golden Wrench is a possible reference to King Midas, who gained the ability, or curse, to transform whatever he touched into solid gold. This is further shown with the Engineer referencing to the 'Midas Touch' when a kill is made with the Golden Wrench.
• It is disputed whether the Golden Wrench is plated with gold or Australium, a "transformative" metal mentioned in the comic "Loose Canon" The reference to 100 pounds of Australium collected may correspond to the 100 Golden Wrenches.
• The Golden Wrench uses a kill icon that isn't one of the two normal kill icon colors.
• Engineers killed whilst equipped with this weapon will instead drop a regular Wrench.
• The Sniper's gold statue has a higher chance of remaining upright compared to the other classes. This is because the other classes having disproportionate models.
• If a Spy is killed by the Golden Wrench while he is holding the Dead Ringer, he will see his own death message even though he normally would not.
• When the Golden Wrench receives a Crit boost, it does not shine with the respective team color but merely displays the team colored sparks.
• The process of obtaining the Golden Wrench created much controversy, namely the result of an owner being hacked and their Golden Wrench destroyed, and others being VAC banned for unfairly obtaining the items.
• Erik Johnson said in a PC Gamer interview: "That would have been awesome, if the whole TF2 community had the chance to find the broken pieces of the Golden Wrench and restore them. That whole event is going to carry forward in some way."
• The Golden Wrench is currently one of the only four loadout weapons that can not be crafted. The other three are the Big Kill, the Lugermorph and the Frying Pan.
• Currently, the Golden Wrench cannot be purchased from the Mann Co. Shop. It is unlikely this will be changed, to maintain the rarity of the item.
• In August 2010, the Unofficial Golden Wrench Charity event in support of Child's Play Charity helped raise slightly over $30,000. The event involved several Golden Wrench owners deleting their wrenches one-by-one in a special, invite only, server party to celebrate the end of fundraising. Due to the amount of Wrenches that were deleted, the rarity of the Golden Wrench has increased quite dramatically.

Gallery

• Golden Wrench 1st person cropped.png

  1st person view.

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  Full 1st person view.

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  Pyro statue

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  Demoman statue

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  Engineer statue

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  Heavy statue

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  Medic statue

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  Scout statue

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  Soldier statue

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  Sniper statue

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  Spy statue

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  The message broadcast when a player crafts a Golden Wrench

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  The message broadcast when a player deletes a Golden Wrench

See also

• Engineer Update
• Wrench strategy

External links

• TF2 Backpack Viewer: List of Golden Wrenches