Heavy Weapons Guide Courtesy of Crovax

This guide will take you through your baby steps as a heavy weapons guy and will turn you into a mean lean killing machine.

Before you even start thinking about playing heavy, you need to realize the role that the heavy plays in Team Fortress. Personally I have started viewing TF2 as an MMO, where every character fullfills a role. If you are looking to zip accros the map, backstabbing and robbing people of their lifes then the heavy weapons guy is not your class. If you like taking crit rockets to the face and live, move around like a slow lumbering giant that destroys anything that comes close, then the heavy is the class for you. Lets not forget that when you go onto a massive rattatatata spree the heavy will shout all sorts of nonsense that will crack you up the first few times you hear it and will never be boring. In general people think that the heavy is quite an easy class to play, this is true but it is also a class that will take some time to master.

Anyhow, if we are to compare the heavy weapons guy with a term from an MMO, we would call him the tank. The heavy starts with a base health of 300, and if you manage to get a medic with you that amount of health rises to 450. It sounds like a lot, but remember you are big, slow and well... heavy.

Lets take a look at the arsenal of the heavy, before we go into any tactics:

1. Sasha, aka the Minigun
   Aah the bread and butter of the heavy, riff this baby up to full speed and anything at close to moderate range will get cut up into ribbons pretty fast. So what are the statistics on this baby?
   You'll get a clipsize of 200, this might sound like quite a bit, but if you keep constantly firing your Sasha you'll find yourself out of ammo in approximately 20 seconds. Thats not a long time, on the bright side if you manage to hit your opponents with all bullets at pointblank range you will do over 500 damage per second! One bullet does 50 damage, but you'll fire around 10 per second. Remember that these statistics are measured from pointblank range. A critstreak with Sasha will up your damage to over 1000 damage per second, if anything manages to survive that, they are ubered and you shouldn't have been firing at them.
2. The Shotgun
   Well, fairly standard shotgun, you share this baby with the soldier, pyro and engineer. Its a decent weapon, but I say that that its use is very limited, since the minigun is flat out better in most situations. The shotgun comes with 6 rounds loaded and a supply of 32 slugs. A pointblank hit will do around 80 to 90 damage and a critical hit will double that.
3. Your fists<
   The heavy is the only class that actually gets to use his own fists in battle, its the only class that will allow you to relive the greatest moments of Rocky. A leftclick will swing the left fist, a right click will swing the right fist. A crit will deliver a powerfull undercut that will basically launch your opponents teeth through his brain. Too bad you are slow, else you wouldn't need to use your guns because lets face it Rocky is just soo much cooler. A jab with either of your fists will deal between 45 and 85 damage, an uppercut will deal 195 damage which will kill just about any class.

How to actually play the heavy
Well first up, play a spy and go find a heavy to stab. I think this will be the fastest way for you to get used to the idea of having a large back and moving slow. By playing spy and trying to backstab heavies you'll learn when to pay attention as a heavy and it will also make sure you will become paranoid since you have some experience as a spy. The spy is one of the classes that is well equipped to take down a poorly played heavy. You'll probably still die to spies every now and then, but you can cut the amount of deaths due to them down by a lot with a simple bit of experience. Okay, so now we have selected the heavy class and want to cut people down. Here is a couple of golden rules you will want to abide.

• Rule #1
  Get a medic
  I swear, a good medic can turn the heavy in a truly nearly indestructable wall. Remember how I said the heavy is the tank off TF2? Well we all know that tanks need healers to keep the hurt coming to them. 450 health is a lot, and you will be able to take a crit and laugh. A good medic will most likely stick to you anyhow. The heavy deserves a medic, he is the biggest baddest guy on the team and the biggest baddest guy always gets what he wants. I mean, would you like to tank ragnaros in WoW while the healer goes heal the rogue? Ofcourse not, so get a medic. If you really can't get a medic and insist on playing the heavy, stay around chokepoints and make sure everyone else moves in before you do. That way they can take the brunt of the force for you.
• Rule #2
  Look around you A LOT.
  Many of the faster classes will try and ambush your medic, specifically the scout, spy and pyro will try to kill your medic. They don't care if they die, since a heavy without a medic is a good as dead heavy. Look around, see if the medic is okay, even when you are firing guns ablaze at enemies in front of you it will never hurt do a quick flick around so you see if there is anything coming up behind you. You can do this because you have massive health and the enemy will take a while to take you down. Well longer then it would normally anyhow.
• Rule #3
  Use your ears
  If you hear the medic cry like a little baby, that will probably mean he just got backstabbed by a spy and your next on the list. Turn around and check it out.
• Rule #4
  Learn the maps
  This goes for any class, learn where the snipers are. Learn where the points of entry are. Learn where the chokepoints are, you'll love chokepoints as a heavy by the way.
• Rule #5
  For the love of god jump!
  Okay here is a trick that will instantly improve your play as a heavy, if you know its likely that there will be enemies around the corner don't spin up your gun and slowly round the corner. You can jump around the corner and while in the air you spin up your gun, this will allow you to almost instantly fire at opponents around the corner and they wouldn't have heard and seen you coming for ages. The forward or sideward momentum you gain by jumping should be enough to jump right into the open with a little practice.
• Rule #6
  Patience is a virtue with the heavy.
  There is no point in rushing into a battle if the enemy is at a largish distance. Your minigun will not do much damage. If the rest of your team is pushing up, follow them but don't fire up your gun everytime you see an enemy. You might want to switch to a shotgun at this point but usually I don't even bother since it will do crap damage. When you get to a reasonably close range you can start firing at your opponent, if he hasn't died by the hands of your teammates.

  If you are alone with your medic, try and stay around an enclosed area. You'll have the advantage on other classes here, because your minigun will rip them into ribbons and you can't get sniped by snipers. When your medic gets the uber ready you can try and run out and go for a point, otherwise just stay put because our friendly rogues ehm... dps classes... ehm assualt classes will be there soon.

• Rule #7
  OMG WHERE DID THE SCOUT GO!?
  He is on top of your head slapping you with his bat dummy. As a heavy you are a slow moving platform when your gun is firing, scouts can use your head as a platform to sit on and bat you into the ground.
• Rule#8
  Use the bomb
  On goldrush, you can increase your movement speed by quite a lot when your gun is firing. Simply stand infront of the cart, when there are around 3 people pushing the cart it will go faster then you could move by firing your gun. Basically you turn the bomb into a minecart with minigun in front.
• Rule #9
  Check your ammo
  No action? Replenish your ammo. You don't want to run out while in a gun fight. In action? Still check your ammo when the enemy retreats you'll want to head for the nearest ammobox so you can hold them off on their next push.
• Rule #10
  He who runs away lives to fight another day.
  Sometimes its better to fall back to a position thats easier to defend. You are the person who decides where the frontline is, and most likely the enemy will hang around you to try and kill you. You are buying your team time the longer you are a live, so go find a good spot that you can hold down for a while. The enemy should actually ignore you and your medic and find a different route so they can assualt the lower health classes, but somehow people refuse to give up. I've seen plenty of scouts annoy the shit out of a team and drag away valuable firepower from the frontline, the heavy does the same but he makes sure that his own team gets a chance to push up again.
• Rule #11
  A headset will make you awesome
  You can tell what is going on, you can call out spies, you can tell people you are going to get ammo, you can tell your medic to fire up the uber. It will simply make the game easier.

The heavy and other classes
Okay, so since its a bit silly to go into a heavy vs discussion I'll just give a last few pointers on the tactics the enemy will try to use against you.
• Pyro and Scout
  They will try to run circles around you at point blank while bunnyhopping like crazy. There are two solutions to this problem, increase your mouse sensitivity so you can keep up with them. Or shoot them before they get point blank. Either way if you manage to hit them you will take them down.
• Demoman
  Oh god, I hate these sticky abusing whores. They will launch stickies at your feet and blow you up. easiest way to make them fail is to stop firing and run for a bit. Hell you could even try and hunt them down with the shotgun. Someday I will ban all sticky abusing demoman anyhow.
• Soldier
  CRIT RAWKITS! They won't kill you in 1 shot, but they are still bloody well annoying. Other then that the soldier has 200 health and won't die as fast as other classes. Still he shouldn't be too much of a threath to you, since it will be hard for him to juggle a big guy like the heavy. You'll probably only loose from a soldier if he fires crit rockets at you. Else he will have to make a run for a medpack before he can even come close to killing you. (Since you should have a medic)
• Spy
  Well the only way to stop these buggers is to be a paranoid heavy. Look around you, learn where the spy can hide and where he will strike from (tip behind). I don't die as much to spies anymore, usually only once or twice since once I know they are there I will keep looking behind me A LOT.
• Heavy
  If he has no medic you can take him, if he has a medic and you know you are the better heavy you can still take him. The better heavy always has a better chance on crits. I've won plenty of fights against heavies because of those lovely babies.
• Medic
  He will run away, if he is any good. Else you will cut him into ribbons, and show your medic he should be happy he is on your team.
• Sniper
  Well I can only say avoid open areas. Usually when I know the CP is in an open area and their are snipers I will wait till the medic has an uber. Then I will rush out jumping and doing all other crazy stuff while heading towards the point. When we get near the point the medic will deploy uber and I will rip the sniper a new one, or rip anyone else a new one.
• Engineer
  He will hide behind his turret. You can't kill his turret unless you are at near pointblank range. If you can shoot the engineer aim for him instead, if you can kill him you can easily kill the turret afterwards. If the engineer has no turret he will usually try to run away from you.