Engineer weapons (competitive)

This article is for competitive play, based on the standard community competitive format.
The community competitive scene changes frequently. Some or all info may be outdated.

The Engineer is a utility class that rarely sees a lot of use in the competitive format. However, when he does it's normally with a level 3 Sentry Gun and Dispenser. Even though he has quite a lot of unlocks the Engineer will normally use the vanilla setup because it accomplishes what he needs to do, area denial.

Primary Weapon

The Engineer's primary weapon is shared by other classes, it isn't as powerful as the primary weapon of the Soldier or Heavy for example, however, this doesn't matter so much because attacking the enemy team with his own weapons is an Engineers secondary concern, firstly they need to get a Sentry Gun up to defend the point and possibly a dispenser and teleporter. That is dependent on the map of course.

The Shotgun

The shotgun is shared by four out of the nine classes, however only the Engineer has it as his primary weapon. It's powerful at close range and not so powerful at medium to long range. It is the Engineers tool against incoming enemies and a good way to deal with Spies as they will be engaging you at close range. It is a good weapon to use when you need to go on the offensive or protect your medic, whilst not as powerful as the Scattergun, it can still two-shot the lighter classes such as: the Medic, Sniper, Engineer, Scout and Spy if you are close enough. Not only that but you can use it to knock back jumping Soldiers and Demomen, denying them the ability to jump right behind you and your team.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Shotgun	Point-Blank: 90 512u: 6/hit, avg 6 hits 1024u+: 3/hit	Critical: 18/hit (max 180) Point-Blank Mini-Crit: 121 512u+ Mini-Crit: 8/hit	Attack: 0.625s Reload Start: 1.0s Reload More: 0.5s	Affected by fixed weapon spread (1 extra pellet at center).

The Frontier Justice

This weapon doesn't see much use because when the Sentry Gun goes down the Engineer normally goes down as well, combined with that, the Sentry Gun normally doesn't get many kills so there wouldn't be many Revenge Crits for the Engineer to use. The smaller clip size also makes it harder for the Engineer to defend his buildings because he has to reload twice as much compared to the regular Shotgun. This can be a problem when you are facing a Soldier who can kill you quickly with either two rockets or by bouncing you into the air and shooting you with his Shotgun.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Frontier Justice	Point-Blank: 90 512u: 6/hit, avg 6 hits 1024u+: 3/hit	Critical: 18/hit (max 180) Point-Blank Mini-Crit: 121 512u+ Mini-Crit: 8/hit	Attack: 0.625s Reload Start: 1.0s Reload More: 0.5s	Affected by fixed weapon spread (1 extra pellet at center). Has half the clip size of the Shotgun. Can fire Revenge Crits upon a Sentry Gun's destruction.

Usage

The Shotgun is the best choice, simply because you don't have to reload as often as you do with the Frontier Justice. As well as the more frequent reloading, it's very unlikely that you will get, or be able to use the Revenge Crits.

Secondary Weapons

The Engineer only has two choices and one of them, The Wrangler is banned in the vast majority of leagues, this leaves the Engineer with the Pistol.

The Pistol

The Pistol is the Engineers default secondary weapon, it has a large amount of ammo and it is good at medium to long range. This means that it complements the Shotguns small range and means that the Engineer has an effective weapon for all ranges. The Pistol is also particularly effective at harassing fleeing enemies; combined with the fact that it fires and reloads quickly, it can do a fair amount of damage assuming that you can aim it.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Pistol	Point-Blank: 22 512u: 15 1024u+: 8	Critical: 45 Point-Blank Mini-Crit: 30 512u+ Mini-Crit: 20	Attack: 0.125s Reload: 1.36s	If unfired in the past 1.25 seconds, shot has perfect accuracy.

The Wrangler

Note: The Wrangler is banned in nearly all of the leagues apart from the UGC Highlander league.

The Wrangler allows the Engineer to take manual control of his Sentry Gun, it also gives the Sentry Gun a protective shield that absorbs a lot of the damage that the Sentry Gun might take. This means that not even eight stickies can take out a wrangled Sentry Gun, this, along with the unlimited range of the Wrangler, is the reason that it's banned in most leagues.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Wrangler	N/A	N/A	Sentry Down Time: 3s	Banned or restricted in most leagues. Allows Engineers to directly control their Sentry Guns. Doubles Sentry Gun rate of fire and improves missile launch rate at Level 3. Shield provides Sentry 66% damage reduction and remains during down time.

Usage

There's not that much to say here, the Pistol is the only secondary weapon that can be used as nearly all leagues have banned the Wrangler. If the Wrangler isn't banned then it's down to your playstyle and your team as to whether you should use the Wrangler or not.

Melee Weapons

The Wrench

As the default melee weapon The Wrench has no advantages or disadvantages, it is used to speed up the construction of buildings and it can also be used to attack nearby enemy Spies.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Wrench	Melee: 65	Critical: 195 Mini-Crit: 88	Attack: 0.8s	Hitting friendly buildings increases build speed by 100%. Damages Sappers, upgrades buildings, and resupplies Sentry Guns.

The Southern Hospitality

This wrench causes enemies to bleed when they are hit with it, consequently it is rather useful against enemy Spies as bleeding temporarily disables their cloak and causes it to flicker whenever they try to use it. It gives the Engineer and his team a better chance of catching the Spy. The downside of The Southern Hospitality is that it gives the player a 20% vulnerability to fire. This isn't that bad because in a competitive game it is vary rare to see an enemy pyro being used at the same time as an engineer is.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Southern Hospitality	Melee: 65 Bleed Hit: 4	Critical Melee: 195 Mini-Crit Melee: 88 Mini-Crit Bleed: 5	Attack: 0.8s Bleed Hit: 0.5s Bleed Duration: 6.0s	Hitting friendly buildings increases build speed by 100%. Damages Sappers, upgrades buildings, and resupplies Sentry Guns. Inflicts Bleeding on hit; total bleed damage 48 (Mini-Crit 60). Increases fire vulnerability by 20% while equipped.

The Jag

The Jag speeds up the construction of buildings, this comes at the cost of reduced melee damage, this isn't too much of a problem because in a competitive game the Engineer doesn't use melee as much, his primary and secondary weapons are a lot better at dealing damage.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
The Jag	Melee: 49	Critical Melee: 146 Mini-Crit Melee: 56-76	Hitting friendly buildings increases build speed by 100%. Damages Sappers, upgrades buildings, and resupplies Sentry Guns. 30% faster construction rate. Melee damage is reduced by 25%.

The Gunslinger

The Gunslinger is an unlock that allows the Engineer to deploy smaller, non-upgradeable Sentry Guns which only cost 100 metal instead of the usual 125 metal that a normal level one Sentry Gun requires. The Mini Sentries fire twice as fast however they cannot be repaired when they are damaged. The Gunslinger sees even less use that the normal Engineer in competitive games because the main idea of using an Engineer is that the Sentry Gun will take the full brunt of the opposing Ubercharge, the Mini Sentry doesn't have the health to do this. Instead it uses a different tactic, it is meant to distract and annoy the enemy, it can excel at this as it is hard for Scouts to kill a Mini Sentry if it is deployed in a smart position. For example the window at Badlands middle.

Weapon	Damage	Critical Damage	Function Times	Special
Gunslinger	Melee: 65	Critical: 195 Mini-Crit: 88	Attack: 0.8s	Hitting friendly buildings increases build speed by 100%. Damages Sappers, upgrades buildings, and resupplies Sentry Guns. Grants the Engineer an additional 25 Max health. Allows the Engineer to build Mini-Sentry Guns instead of normal Sentry Guns. Three consecutive hits results in a guaranteed Critical hit on the third strike.

Usage

The normal Wrench is the most widely used because it doesn't have any disadvantages, the extra construction speed given by the Jag is nice but it isn't really required. Having said that though, all of the other wrenches can be used and it's down to personal preference at the end of the day and also depending on whether it's banned or not.