Offense Classes | Defense Classes | Support Classes
Non-Player Characters
These classes are tasked with controlling the battlefield and claiming the area for their team, forcing the enemy to think twice before rushing to the other side of the map. Their kits are designed with zone control in mind, having access to powerful area-of-effect weapons.
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The Demoman
The Demoman
Real name: Tavish Finnegan DeGroot
- "What makes me a good Demoman? If I were a bad Demoman, I wouldn't be sittin' here discussin' it with ya, would I?!"
Voiced by: Gary Schwartz (English), Francesc Rocamora (Spanish), Dmitry Polonsky (Russian), Stefan Günther (German)
"Come an' get me, I say! I'll be waitin' on ya with a whiff o' the old brimstone! I'm a grim bloody fable, wit' an unhappy bloody end!"
The Demoman is a black Scotsman wearing an eyepatch, with a knack for explosives and strong alcohol. A Boisterous Bruiser and a cheerful drunkard, Demo enjoys nothing more than blowing everything to bits while chugging on Scrumpy (a harsh cider coming from western England). Abandoned at birth by his parents, his talent with explosives resulted in the deaths of his adoptive parents, and his family welcomed him back in the DeGroot clan. Since then, he's been working as a mercenary. On account of his lack of an eye, and blood heritage, he considers himself something of a Last of His Kind. He shared his class update
with the Soldier, much like the Sniper and Spy. The update revealed the Demoman's lifestyle; along with working three jobs, he lives in a mansion in New Mexico with his blind mother. Meet the Demoman!
With a fairly average 175HP and 93% base speed, the Demoman's true worth lies in his projectile-based weaponry. He primarily uses a grenade launcher which fires its projectiles in a parabolic arc, and whose grenades can bounce against obstacles before exploding; thus, he's the only class capable of indirect fire, dealing explosive damage without even seeing the enemy. His secondary slot is occupied by a stickybomb launcher, allowing him to lay down explosive traps and detonate them on command. Thus, he can defend choke points easily and eliminate his enemies in one massive blast. On the other hand, his projectile-based weapons make him abysmal when fighting at close range. His default melee weapon is a bottle of his precious scrumpy. However, with alternative weapons the Demoman (known in this role as the Demoknight) can specialize in melee combat, donning a protective shield with a unique charge mechanic in place of his sticky launcher, a longsword or other similarly powerful blade (or golf club?), and even a pair of agility-enhancing boots in place of his grenade launcher (though this comes at the cost of leaving him utterly defenseless outside of melee range).
- Achilles' Heel: A truly skilled Demoman is a force to be reckoned with, but even the finest of Demos can still be dealt with if need be:
- Scouts are agile, making Demoman's projectile weapons harder to use and his mid-range superiority difficult to maintain, their scattergun is devastating if they can get close to the Demo where they can easily damage themselves, and despite their low health, their speed allows them to easily skirt around well-placed stickytraps. There's a reason Scout is seen as Demo's hard counter. In competitive and ranked matches, taking out the enemy Demoman to make it safe to push is the Scout's main job.
- Pyros are the soft counter to Demo: a good Pyro can flank and get too close for the Demoman to deal with, much like the Scout, and their close range damage is even more devastating than the Scattergun. However, the Pyro has one tool that the Scout doesn't — the Compression Blast. Since all of the Demoman's non Demoknight-centered weapons (shields and boots, that is) fire projectiles, a competent Pyro with use of the airblast can completely shut down a Demoman's offense by reflecting their fired pipes back into his face, or shut down their defense by airblasting their stickytraps and rendering them useless. In the hands of a skilled player, an enemy Pyro is the scariest thing the Demoman can face on the battlefield. And don't think Demoknight helps much either, considering the Pyro can roast him even with the Chargin' Targe (which itself is meant to counter the Pyro's main advantages) and simply airblast the Demoknight every time they're within the not-inconsiderable range of their melee weapons.
- Since sticky-trapping practically requires the Demoman to tunnel vision, Spy can shut this down by backstabbing him while he's preoccupied (or even when they're busy looking forward to airblast stickies). After the enemy Medic and his principal buddy, Demo is likely one of the most important targets for a Spy to take out if they're even halfway decent. Thankfully, playing as Demoknight can make dealing with Spy a little easier (especially if it's one that relies on their knife), since it's much easier to chase after and whale on them with a BFS.
- Contrary to his usual playstyle, Demoknights are utterly crippled by enemy sentry turrets, especially if you opt for boots instead of a grenade launcher as your primary weapon. None of the shields provide any bullet resistance, and being limited to close range damage means there's almost nothing you can do against a zoning sentry except try to find your way out of its line of sight or wait for your team to destroy it for you.
- Action Bomb: The Ullapool Caber is a stick grenade... that Demo carries around and swings at people. Combine with a shield of choice to become a suicide bomber that runs into a crowd of enemies and critically explodes for massive damage.
- Affably Evil: Most of his in-game behavior can be attributed to his intoxication. When he's seen sober in the comics, he's always shown to actually be quite civil and friendly towards pretty much everybody, ranging from buying a mansion for his mother to live in to jovially sharing the story of how he lost his eye to a group of trick-or-treaters. The implications being that, without the alcohol clouding his mind, this is his true personality, though he still remains an unapologetic mercenary.
- Afro Asskicker: The Demoman's very first cosmetic, "Demoman's Fro", is a small afro (and associated headband) not unlike that of Jimi Hendrix.
- The Alcoholic:
- Notoriously, with a particular liking for scrumpy (a type of fermented apple cider). When he isn't blowing things up or cutting peoples' heads off, he's guzzling alcohol by the gallon. He's just barely a Functional Addict thanks to his job; when he loses his job in the webcomic, he's a miserable drunk.
"Have ye heard aboot the Beer of the Month Club? Well, I joined the Beer All At Once Club."- Enforced with one of his Taunts, the Scotsmann's Stagger, which has the Demoman drunkenly staggering about, chugging on a bottle of alcohol and spouting barely-understandable slurred sentences.
- The Demoman is so dependent on alcohol that his body has developed the ability to ferment it from his own bone marrow in times where he can't get access to anything to drink.note
- Anti-Structure: As what would be implied from being the Demolitions Expert, Demoman is by far the best class at destroying enemy buildings, with his grenades and sticky bombs able to deal incredible burst damage, with his sticky bombs being especially effective given how he can easily set them to instantly light up an immobile building faster than an Engineer can possibly repair it. That his grenades fire in an arc with travel time also means that Demomen can attack from cover or by peeking around corners well and away from sentry guns effective line of sight. The Loch-n-Load in specific has a direct damage buff against enemy buildings.
- Arbitrary Weapon Range: In direct combat, Demoman is most effective at mid range, where his sticky bombs can fly the entire length of their arming time before landing and his grenades can still hit for their full damage on direct hits. At short range, he runs the risk of self-damage and his stickies can't arm fast enough to ward away attackers, while at long range, his grenades don't fly far enough and he needs to slow the rate at which he shoots stickies in order to charge their velocity. Even Demoknight, a subclass viewed as being best in close range, is most deadly at mid range, where his shield can build up a full crit during its charge.
- Ascended Meme: "Demoknight" was (at first) officially the "Close Combat Kit" before the fan nickname stuck. There's even an itemset named "One Thousand and One Demoknights".
- Ask a Stupid Question...: He treats the Directors opening question in Meet the Demoman like this and answers back as such."What makes me a good Demoman…?" If I were a BAD Demoman, I wouldn’t be SITTING here, DISCUSSIN' it with ya, now would I?!
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: The Demoman's various weapons are all offensive-focused; the few that aren't serve as utilities that benefit only the Demoman, helping him fight harder. No support to be found here, just raw damage.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- Demoknights are easily the best at melee combat, but they give up their ranged weaponry and their capability to blow people up at range, which negates his ability defend points with stickies, control crowds, and destroy an engineer’s buildings… the primary roles he fills.
- The Ullapool Caber. As fun as it is to smack someone with a grenade and blow up everyone around him, 9 times out of 10, Demomen are better off using means that DON'T involve themselves blowing up as well. Also, the Caber is a one-time-deal. You hit an enemy with it, he blows up, and if you manage to survive the explosion yourself, you're left with a scrap of a grenade that does pitiful damage and can only be restored by going all the way back to your team's Resupply Cabinet (located next to the spawn point).
- It also has a high chance of knocking you (or your enemy, if they survive it, although it's rare) into the air. Doing so can leave you with barely enough health to survive the fall. If you got an enemy after taking a hit, surviving the Ullapool's explosion, then the only thing you have to worry about is landing. And that's not counting the Shield & Caber combo.
- Not just that, but thanks to this game's wonky hit-boxes, you could hit the enemy, it wouldn't register, and you'd blow up and lose the caber's exploding ability and not hurt anyone but yourself.
- Finally, if combined with a shield or Kritzkreig Medic, the caber can crit, dealing up to 390 damage in one hit. Though almost close to being close to the damage of a fully charged headshot, it deals the most damage out of all melee weapons in the game.
- Ax-Crazy: Played with. He seems completely insane in combat, but that’s only because he’s wasted. When he’s sober, he’s one of the most pleasant people on the team.
- Badass Boast:
- "What makes me a good demoman? Well, if I were a bad demoman, I wouldn't be sittin' here discussing it with ya, now would I!"
- "So... t'all ya fine dandies, so proud, so cocksure, prancin' aboot with yer heads fulla eyeballs... come and get me, I say! I'll be waiting for ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone! I'M A GRIM BLOODY FABLE, WITH AN UNHAPPY BLOODY END!"
- For someone who is extremely sensitive about his missing eye, he gives us pretty good ones:
"I came here to kick ass and have two eyes! And I'm all out of eyes! Well, half out.""Let's give 'em a sportin' chance! Someone, take out me other eye!" - Big Damn Heroes: Played for Laughs. His liver came back, in "The Naked and the Dead", to short-circuit the blood bots with alcohol so he can personally deal with the rest who have his team strangled at the end of "Old Wounds".
- Bilingual Bonus: His family motto is "In regione caecorum, rex est luscus." This is a famous Latin quotation from Desiderius Erasmus. The meaning? "In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." (However, the seal seen on this page misspells "regione" as "regionem".)
- Bizarre Human Biology: Somehow, he managed to create alcohol out of his own body.note
- Boisterous Bruiser: "Oh, they're gonna 'ave to glue yew back togeth'r, IN HELL!"
- Booze Flamethrower: He exaggerates this with his Spent Well Spirits taunt; he downs his skrumpy and the contents of a grenade, blows into a lighter flame, and creates a mini-mushroom cloud.
- Boring, but Practical:
- The Pain Train (a weapon shared with Soldier) is one of Demoman's few melee options that has no real Demoknight application, being identical to his stock bottle in terms of combat ability and having simple upsides and downsides that are strictly passive: in exchange for taking 10% more damage from enemy bullets, Demoman gains an increased capture rate on objectives like payload carts and control points, putting him on par with the Scout. Still, objective capturing is a common gameplay element to allow this benefit to be useful, and since Demoman mostly relies on his projectile weapons and otherwise lacks any other utility-based melee options, it can be worth it keeping the Pain Train in your pocket if the bullet vulnerability is worth risking.
- In terms of Demoknight builds, Demoman can opt to trade out his grenade launchers in exchange for the Ali Baba's Wee Booties/Bootlegger (both reskins of the same, functionally identical weapon), which passively grant Demoman a bit more health, movement speed, turning control, and charge speed for your shield on melee kills. Equipping boots instead of a grenade launcher deprives you of your last remaining ranged option and limits you exclusively to your melee weapon for damage (and in turn, virtually your entire worth as a class pick), but these passive durability and mobility buffs may very well make all the difference with the amount of heads you'll be able to cut off.
- Brave Scot: When he's on your side.
- Close-Range Combatant: If played as a pure Demoknight (Wee Booties, a sword, and a shield), the Demoman forgoes ranged weapons entirely in favor of running at people and chopping their heads off.
- Cluster Bleep-Bomb: "I'm a black Scottish cyclops. They got more (extended bleep) than they got the likes o' me."
- As it turns out, the censored line in "Meet The Demoman" was "They got more feckin' sea monsters in the Great Loch at Ness than they got the likes o' me".
- As it turns out,
- Continuity Nod: The old Demoman model in Team Fortress Classic also had an eyepatch and knit cap.
- Cool Crown: Prince Tavish's Crown is a royal crown he can wear.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Demoknights in general have some amazing potential damage output and can snowball like crazy once you get as little as two heads, but unless you opt for just a partial build with a Grenade Launcher at the handy, you're extremely relegated to melee range, with there almost nothing you can do against Sentries or Heavies except waiting for your team to clear it for you. In MVM, it's arguably even starker a difference since he can chain crit boosts on kill off of low-health robots, but it's nigh-useless against anything that doesn't fall in one hit to a crit sword.
- Dash Attack: With the Chargin' Targe, Splendid Screen, or Tide Turner equipped, the Demoman can gain the ability to charge for a brief period of time. This gives him a temporary speed boost to outrun even a Scout, the ability to ram players head-on, and it crit-boosts his weapons. The latter item can even give him full turning mobility.
- Demonic Possession: This seems to be the relationship between him and the Eyelander, although the few times it's been seen in canon comics after its unveiling in the WAR! Update, they seemed to at the very least tolerate each other's presence, and considering how the voice lines and actions for the Demoman are unchanged even with the Glowing Eyes of Doom and all, it may be less of this and more of a case of Symbiotic Possession.
- Demolitions Expert: He's the resident explosives specialist, with his grenades and sticky bombs being extremely effective at destroying enemy Engineer buildings and pretty solid when used on enemies themselves.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- In public servers, a Demoman can usually get away with just laying some clever traps, and may even fare well in direct combat. In competitive play, Demomen have to learn all the potentially useful sticky jump locations on a map and be able to execute them perfectly (and thus be able to get to the central control point faster than the enemy Scouts), has no hit-scan weapon and so must rely on prediction, and has low mobility without the aid of sticky jumps. When played well, his trap laying and insane damage output make him possibly the most powerful unit on the field because of his area denial abilities — for instance, at mid on Badlands, if a Demoman can arrive fast enough, he can set traps all about the enemy's side and also fire grenades behind the enemy Medic, preventing an escape while the Soldiers jump above to fire down on him. In a game of territorial control, a Scout picking off the enemy Demoman is often the perfect opportunity to push forward and advance.
- The Loose Cannon is a very funky grenade launcher with a few unique stipulations: it fires grenades that explode after a set timer that's much shorter than the others, the grenades don't explode on impact and thus can pass through multiple enemies, the launcher itself comes with a charging mechanic that allows you to control how long it takes for them to explode, and if an enemy is both impacted by the projectile and its resulting explosion, the explosion mini-crits them in what's known as a "Double-Donk". Actually landing that sweet spot requires immense diligence and knowledge of how far you should be standing from your opponent(s) relative to how long you're charging up, but a successful Double-Donk can deal ridiculous levels of burst damage, annihilating entire groups of enemies with only a few seconds of preparation. Even in cases where a Double Donk hit isn’t an instant kill, such as against a particularly healthy player or an Ubered attacker, the sheer knockback of the blast is going to send them either skyward or flying backwards and often with almost no health remaining, effectively neutralizing them as a threat by ringing them out or leaving them open to an easy finishing hit.
- The Scottish Resistance, which can deploy more stickies at once, do so at a faster rate, and the ability to detonate clusters separately, but its sticky mines take 0.8 seconds longer to arm. The fast pace of the game makes it almost unusable for direct confrontation, but players who are able to micromanage their sticky placements, find clever trap locations, know to fight only when it's advantageous, and are able to land direct grenade launcher hits when caught off-guard can become the most fearsome defensive powerhouses in the game, rivaling even the Engineer's fully-upgraded Sentry Gun. The Scottish Resistance can guard multiple entry points to make approaching always unsafe, set up and manage distinct sticky traps, disarm enemy Demomen's stickies, or even just for direct combat if they are very good with predicting their target's movements.
- Hybrid Knights; the practice of equipping a sword and shield like a Demoknight, but instead of equipping boots, the Demoman opts to keep his grenade launcher. This is especially true if they opt to use the Eyelander; this results in a Demoman without access to stickies, the same health as a Medic, and just faster than the Heavy. However, the Eyelander gives the Demoman a boost in health and speed for each kill gotten with it, up to five kills. If played with care, a Hybrid Knight can very quickly landslide into a Demoman who has more health than any class outside the Heavy (which is further boosted by the blast and fire resistance of the shields) and is almost as fast as the Scout, while still having a ranged weapon that can be just as potent as his sticky bomb launcher if the player is good at leading its shots. Skilled hybrid knights can easily tear a server a new one just by themselves, while being incredibly hard to take down without the team working together.
- Trimping involves using a few quirks of the physics engine to allow a Demo-Knight to make incredible jumps by charging at an incline. It's not immediately intuitive, can be tricky, and you'll need some detailed map knowledge of trimping spots, but once you get it down you can make jumps that you can't do with stickies and even cross a map in a few seconds.
- Diminishing Returns for Balance: Subverted, like with Soldiers. While stacking your team with too many of one class usually leaves you open to getting walled by their hard counters, a team filled with Demomen who know how to aim has just enough versatility in their stats and weapons to blow away the opposition in front of them and keep them at bay without the use of an Uber, and many of their usual counters simply don't scale up against massed Demomen. They lose out on range against Snipers big time though, but that then becomes a matter of whether the Demomen have the area cleared enough to close the distance sticky-jump towards a Sniper's perch to try and deal with them personally.
- Disproportionate Reward: Inverted. According to the Demoman's mother, his late father didn't get much for some of the jobs he did."Yer da walked fifteen miles in the rain to blow up the Queen of England for a nickel!"
- Dreadful Musician: With the Bad Pipes taunt equipped, it turns out that he's really bad at playing the bagpipes. note Surprisingly, he can still use the Shred Alert's electric guitar just fine, and seems to play the piano well enough in Expiration Date.
- Dressed to Plunder: The Demoman has an eyepatch by default, but the "Swashbuckler's Swag" outfit adds a peg-leg, a bottle of rum, and a captain's bicorne with piratey Flavor Text.
- Drinking on Duty: Tavish is not only the most cannily competent drunk around, he can also instantaneously sober up when the situation requires it. The man's liver is the stuff of legends.
- Drunken Master: The Demoman is nearly always drunk on the battlefield. He may come across as a boozed-up buffoon, but make no mistake, he is an expert at his craft. After all, if he were a bad Demoman, Meet the Demoman as we know it wouldn't have happened.
- Evil Weapon: The Eyelander appears to be one of these at first glance, although when the sword and its owner is not on the clock, its Ax-Crazy fixation on taking heads gives way to an actually quite personable demeanour.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: He has tea with his blind mother every day in the mansion he bought for her. She nags him a lot about his work, but on the whole, it looks like she loves him just the same.
- Eyepatch of Power: He's a "Black Scottish Cyclops."
- At one point, he gets absolutely furious at the Medic for being able to perform medical miracles (or/and abominations against nature), yet seems to be unable to give him another eye. Medic just sighs and informs him he's already regenerated and implanted a new eye — more than eight times already. Every year, it works normally until it bursts out of his socket on Halloween and grows into a new MONOCULUS!, and every year, the Medic removes the traumatic memories so he never remembers. This also gives Demoman some slight brain damage, triggered by attempting to remember, and which turns him into his cheerful lunatic self.
- Eye Scream: He was originally said to have lost his eye in an explosives accident. He says himself that he lost it to a wizard who removed it to remove the bragging rights of an evil spirit. And on his first day of work as a janitor.
- And look what happens to his other eye in "Meet The Sniper"!
- In "Expiration Date," he gets a fork launched into his eyesocket. Fortunately, it was the one covered by an eyepatch.
- And his possessed eye literally uses slowed-down versions of the Demoman's screams in-game!
- Foe-Tossing Charge: A long enough charge with any of his shields can launch the victim into the air on contact. Follow it up with a crit swing, and the result is often a headless corpse flying off into the distance.
- Foil: He's pretty much the anti-Sniper.
- Story-wise, the opposites are clear. The Stoic Cold Sniper vs. Boisterous Bruiser with a Knightly Sword and Shield. Camper van vs. mansion. A father who engineered inventions of tomorrow such as an Underwater City and rocket ships vs. a family lineage that apparently traces back to medieval times. Estranged from his parents who dislike his profession vs. living with and doting on his aging mother, who approves of his profession to the point of being worried when he's got a day off. The Sniper originates from the blazingly hot Australian outback, whereas the Demoman comes from the chilly Scottish highlands (the British Isles are, moreover, nigh-exactly on the opposite side of the world from Australia). Furthermore, the Über update reveals that while Sniper spent years in the Australian Outback, the Demoman hasn't even been to the beach.
- In-game, the Demoman is a highly versatile class that fares well at close-to-medium range with attacks that deal area of effect damage. By comparison, the Sniper is a highly specialized class that solely focuses on the precise elimination of targets at long-range. Teams can usually do with having lots of Demomen, but having lots of Snipers cripples their ability to fight.
- In "Blood in the Water", the Demoman shows a rather contemptuous attitude towards the Sniper and his parents' lodgings. This is reciprocated by Sniper knocking out Demoman via sedation, and then intending to bury him alive until Miss Pauling talks him out of it.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Defensively-minded Demomen trying to cover multiple chokepoints with Sticky Bombs have to watch their traps and listen carefully, and frequently prone to getting flanked and rushed down. In other words, the class necessitates tunnel vision.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: After taking a head with the Eyelander, Nessie's Nine Iron, or the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker, the Demoman's single eye glows his team's colour and becomes brighter with each additional head.
- Golf Clubbing: The Nessie's Nine Iron.
- Grenade Launcher: Armed with weapons that shoots grenades and sticky bombs.
- Grenade Spam: Demoman is designed to be able to spam a lot of explosives really quickly. With his default loadout alone, you can dismantle an enemy offense alone, given the right positioning: he has 4 grenades and 8 stickies to blast open the enemy team. Just be mindful of his incredibly long reload after.
- Grievous Bottley Harm: Carries a bottle of alcoholic beverage with him at all times, and uses it in melee combat.
- Hidden Depths:
- Seems like nothing but a drunken wreck on the surface, but Demoman greatly puts value on honor. When Miss Pauling lies to him about Soldier's betrayal of their Fire-Forged Friendship, he looks very forlorn as his boss' assistant leaves him to think by himself. In addition, he immediately props up an injured Sniper in the comics despite how Sniper almost went through with killing him just one submarine-trip prior.
- When not drunk, he's also surprisingly polite and competent. He's very well-mannered when Miss Pauling visits him in WAR!, and he's capable enough to simultaneously tackle being a globetrotting mercenary in addition to two other unknown jobs, all for his mum.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: His real parents abandoned him at birth, visiting him only after he had lost an eye and his adoptive parents honing his demolition skills at the Crypt Grammar School for Orphans. It's allegedly "a long-standing, cruel, and wholly unnecessary tradition among the Highland Demolition Men".
- Hypocritical Humor: One of his domination lines toward Snipers is "I hate you bloody campers! EVERYONE bloody hates you!" Yet defensively-minded Demomen note tend to lay stickybombs at crucial chokepoints and then sit there, waiting for a ripe opportunity to detonate them.
- Improbable Use of a Weapon:
- The Ullapool Caber is a "potato masher" hand grenade. It's a melee weapon. "A sober man would throw it."
- Killing someone with a critical strike from a sword results in the target being decapitated by a vertical swing.
- Improbable Weapon User:
- One of the Demo's default weapons is his beloved bottle o' scrumpy, which he holds by the neck and swings around as a bludgeon. It allows him to safely fight at close range, where his grenade and sticky launchers would also hurt him plenty.
- The Nessie's Nine Iron is a golf club that is functionally identical to the Eyelander—a longsword. Thus, it deals as much damage as its basis and can even decapitate his enemies.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: It seems average, until you realize this guy's lack of two eyes means he lacks depth perception; this sort of aim for a guy like him is uncanny.
- That's why he is constantly drunk when on the job.
Since he is seeing doubles, depth perception is regained.
- That's why he is constantly drunk when on the job.
- In a Single Bound:
- Between his and Soldier's rocket jumps, Demoman's fling him a lot further at the cost of dealing more self-damage.
- Can be invoked with the Sticky Jumper, a sticky bomb gun which does absolutely no damage. This weapon is meant for the purpose of practicing sticky-bomb jumping, but since the weapon does no damage, you can fly across the map with little to no harm to yourself for it.
- Even Demoknights can get in on the action by "trimping" (see Super-Speed for more details).
- In-Series Nickname: His name is shortened to "Demo" by the Scout, Soldier, Heavy, Engineer, and Medic, and probably by the rest of his teammates.
- Miss Pauling almost always shortens it, and lampshades how strange it is to call him otherwise.
- Miss Pauling almost always shortens it, and lampshades how strange it is to call him otherwise.
- In the Blood: His affinity for explosives, as explained by his retconned bio.
- In Vino Veritas: The Demoman seems quite reasonable and calm when he's sober, as in his update comic. Presumably he's just drunk during the game itself, then.
- Katanas Are Just Better: The Half-Zatoichi.
- Large Ham: "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!"
- Last of His Kind: Despite still having a mother that's black, Scottish, and alive, he remains of this trope since he has one eye while his parents lost both.
- Leitmotif: Drunken Pipe Bomb.
- Lethal Joke Item: The Sticky Jumper replaces Demo's normal stickybomb launcher, deals no damage whatsoever, and was primarily meant for training... but it's more often used for its sticky-jumping potential, as no damage means no self-damage, and you can abuse this to leap across absurd distances almost instantaneously. Some people have crazily-awesome strategies that send a full-health Demoman armed with other weapons rocketing into the enemy before they even know what happened. In fact, the Sticky Jumper is such a Game-Breaker that Capture the Flag explicitly forbids a Demoman from taking the intelligence if he has it equipped.
- Lightning Bruiser: He's the fourth fastest class, and proper use of stickies to stickyjump can allow him to sail through the air with speeds similar to the Soldier's rocketjump. As for the bruiser part, his area of effect damage is absurd, with both of his default weapons absolutely splashing enemy teams with damage. His normal stickies do 120 damage on direct contact with the explosion radius, meaning two stickies is all it takes to kill every class that isn't the Heavy or overhealed. His 175 health is nothing to sneeze at, either - equal to the Pyro's and surpassed only by the Heavy and the Soldier. All-in-all, the Demoman is probably the highest damaging class in the game if he can successfully get off his traps, and his grenade launcher is no slouch either.
- Demoknights also fit into this archetype. They trade off the main loadout's powerful area of effect damage for increased health, damage reduction, an extremely fast dash attack, and a powerful, long-range melee swipe.
- Lobotomy: Its revealed that Medic scooped out a part of Demomans' brain in order to stop him from pestering Medic into restoring his missing left eye for the ninth time.
- Long-Range Fighter: Demoman excels at mid-range explosive lobbing, but if someone manages to get in his face, he's usually dead from either explosive self-damage or just getting rushed down. He does usually lose out to Sniper, the greater Long-Range Fighter of the roster.
- Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: The Chargin' Targe and Splendid Screen don't actually stop attacks, but they do increase resistance to explosion and fire damage. Charging also removes all debuffs, like fire or Jarate.
- Mad Bomber: He's very proud to shoot his explosives all over the place.
- Major Injury Underreaction: "Oh, that smarts.", a relatively silent voiceline playing whenever Demo is taking damage. Any damage. This could be a reaction to a stray pistol bullet, or to getting blown to bits by a direct rocket blast.
- Man in a Kilt: Not in-game, but the Demoman wears one in his family portrait, and an opposing Soldier may mock him for being "an Englishman in a dress".
- With the advent of Nice Crate 2012, the Demoman can get an in-game kilt.
- Master Swordsman: Demo is not only the Team Demolitions Expert, but also a very effective Multi-Melee Master: combine one of his three shields (including a ship steering wheel) with one of his MANY swords (Claymore or Zweihänder, Battle-Axe, Golf Club, Katana, or Scimitar) and be one hell of a force to be reckoned with.
- Mighty Glacier: Played with; per the official wiki, the Defense Classes possess the highest firepower, but are slow to deploy. His Grenade Launcher is hard to aim and can be easily dodged, his Sticky Bombs have a priming time, and his running speed is below-average (but still a bit faster than the Soldier's). All this allows the speedy Scouts to get up in his face and take him down while dodging his explosives. On the other hand, his explosives deal some of, if not the highest burst damage in the game (the Mighty part), and he can subvert this by Sticky Jumping to become a Lightning Bruiser, albeit at greater health cost than a Soldier's Rocket Jumping.
- Odd Friendship: Per the comics, the RED Demoman has this with the BLU Soldier. Despite being on opposite teams and coming from vastly different backgrounds, the two have formed a strong bond with one another, having gone to baseball games, hunting, eaten whisky and ribs, and fought the police together among other things.
- One-Handed Zweihänder: Averted. The reason Demoknights can use a shield and a two-handed weapon simultaneously is that the shield is attached by an arm brace.
- Organ Autonomy: The comics depict his insides working this way. For whatever reason, they all share his eyepatch, even though none of them have eyes.
- Pimped-Out Cape: The King of Scotland's Cape is a royal cape and a cosmetic of his.
- Pirate Parrot: The Bird-Man of Aberdeen parrot pet and its zombie equivalent that sits on his shoulder. Also, as of Halloween 2013, the Mann-Bird of Aberdeen bird head that changes the Demoman's head into a parrot head that is modeled after his pet parrot (except for having an eyepatch). It's only one of his many pirate-themed cosmetics.
- Post-Mortem One-Liner: From his video, after blowing half the BLU team to smithereens: "They'll have'ta glue ya back together... In Hell!"
- Powerful, but Inaccurate: Demo's weapons deal tremendous splash damage, but he lacks hitscan weapons, requiring prediction and more careful aim. Indeed, in competitive environments, the Scout is considered a Demo's worst enemy in single combat, as they can easily dodge his explosives while closing in and making him eat a face full of lead.
- Pretentious Latin Motto: His family has one, roughly translated as "In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King."
- Punch-Clock Villain: The WAR! Update reveals he's quite reasonable when not working (or drinking).
- Puny Parachute: The B.A.S.E. Jumper (a parachute backpack he shares with Soldier) is relatively small for a parachute.
- Retcon: Tavish's original backstory was implied to be that he lost his missing eye in an explosives accident before meeting his birth parents. Come the third annual Scream Fortress in 2011, this was changed to losing his eye due to Merasmus magically removing it so that he doesn't have to deal with the Bombinomicon's bragging, implied to be after being adopted by his birth parents.
- Savage Spiked Weapons: The Pain Train, a broken wooden handle with thin bent nails and a railroad spike in it.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: "Ka-BOOOM!"
- Scary Black Man: On the enemy team. And besides, a black Scottish cyclops charging at you with an enormous sword while roaring at the top of his lungs is generally enough to give anyone pause.
- See You in Hell:
- One of his more famous quotes, used at the end of Meet the Demoman:"Oh, they're gonna 'ave to glue yew back togeth'r, IN HELL!"
- Also, Double Subverted with another one of his quotes:"Awww... There's a new angel in heaven... IN HELL!"
- One of his more famous quotes, used at the end of Meet the Demoman:
- Self-Made Orphan: As explained on his trading card, but then thoroughly Retconned. The updated bio on the "Meet the Demoman" now states he managed to kill his adoptive parents and that his real parents only took him in when he discovered his love for explosives, reasoning that they decided to abandon him until his abilities finally aired.
- This
Retcon is more like Flip-Flop of God — when "Meet The Demoman" originally came out, he allegedly blew up his first set of adoptive parents in an attempt to destroy the Loch Ness Monster. With the website redesign, the current canon uses this original version.
- This
- Shield Bash: Demoknights end their charges with one of these and an automatic crit from their melee weapons. Sometimes the bash itself is enough to finish an enemy off.
- Signature Headgear: His eyepatch, and to a lesser extent his beanie, which he always seems to wear underneath his optional other hats.
- Skill Gate Characters: A sub-example of this is the Loch-n-Load. Its grenades come out much faster and follow straighter paths, which makes it much easier to aim and wield than the standard grenade launcher. This means it's a common choice for players who struggle to reliably hit their shots. However, a player who can reliably hit their shots with the standard grenade launcher will find the Loch-n-Load to be a strict downgrade for anything aside from sentry-killing. The Loch-n-Load is a bit notorious for its habit of making prospective Demomen worse at the class, since it can be troublesome to unlearn its physics once you want to try a different launcher.
- Stereotype Flip: Well, one generally doesn't expect a black man to be so aggressively Scottish.
- Super-Speed: Demoknights can move at absurd speeds with the help of a Chargin' Targe, outpacing even a Scout, albeit while moving in a straight line. They can also use their charge on a slope to "trimp", sending them flying into the air farther than even sticky jumping can. Combining it with sticky or grenade jumping can have the Demoman cross an entire map in seconds.note
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
- Forms a firm triangle with the Engineer and Scout. Demomen bombard Sentry Nests (and the players repairing them) with indirect splash damage from outside their range, Scouts take advantage of Demos' lack of hitscan weapons and get in close, and Sentries annihilate Scouts before they can get into effective range.
- Demo shares a secondary triangle with Heavies and Pyros. Like above, Demomen can shell slow-moving Heavies from a distance and can take advantage of Heavy's dependence on line-of-sight, Pyros can menace Demos at close range and reflect their explosives back at them, and Heavies shred down Pyros with higher health and damage at flamethrower range.
- Take a Third Option:“If I were to pick up this cowering-plate, I would have to put down my second sword,” a Scotsman thinks. “And surely that is madness.” The Chargin’ Targe solves this riddle by turning the useless shield into a deadly weapon you can run at people with and then bludgeon to death.
- Taking You with Me: Generally speaking, if an enemy gets right in the face of a non-Demoknight Demo, it's light's out even if you pull out your melee weapon. Sometimes the best you can hope for is to fire a pipe directly at them, killing you both.
- This Looks Like a Job for Aquaman: As contentious as his effectiveness as a Demoknight could be, there's little doubt that Medieval Mode is almost exclusively designed for the Demoknight.
- Throw Down the Bomblet: Uses explosive weapons.
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: In "The Naked and the Dead" comic, Australium-extracting robots try to kill him by drawing out his blood. Unbeknownst to the rest of the cast, Demoman's body has started producing its own alcohol, keeping his blood alcohol high even when he hasn't had a drink. The robots malfunction when exposed to the high alcohol levels, allowing Demoman to destroy them.
- Trap Master: His stock stickybomb launcher can lay down traps to cover a wide area, but his unlockable weapon — The Scottish Resistance — is where this truly comes into play. He can place up to 14 bombs and rig multiple locations ready to explode. Around corners, above doorways, hiding them in bushes, trapping health pickups, there isn't a single place safe from stickybombs.
- Tsundere: One of the Demo's 'Thanks' lines, "I didn't need your help, ya know...", which plays if a teammate helps him kill an enemy, hints at a touch of this.
- Twofer Token Minority: "I'm a black Scottish cyclops! They got more &#%$*@!@&#&!#*$ than they got the likes of me!"
- Tyke Bomb: Demomen are abandoned by their biological parents until their bomb-making skills manifest themselves, which somehow work.
- Undiscriminating Addict: He is shown using various substitutes for his typical alcohol: a deleted scene in one of the comics has him willingly inject himself with the Sniper's caustic sedative, one item's description mentions he drinks wood alcohol (something usually added to keep people from drinking chemicals with alcohol in them), and one taunt has him chugging whiskey and the contents of a grenade. The Naked and the Dead also has him swigging fom a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.
- Unorthodox Reload: He reloads his grenade launchers by dropping the grenades into one barrel (even the Loch n Load which loads three grenades in a weapon with only two barrels), in the case of his default grenade launcher, four grenades into one chamber when he has six to work with. Unlike Soldier, whose cartoonish reload was an intentional stylistic choice, Demoman's default reload animation is likely a bug. Similarly to Soldier but unlike his primary weapons, his Stickybomb Launchers reload its massive reserve of over thirty head-sized stickybombs by simply pumping four-to-eight of them into the chamber from who-knows-where.
- Villainous Friendship: The RED Demo formed one with the BLU Soldier at one point, and was sincerely heartbroken when the Administrator tricked him into thinking Soldier betrayed him. That said, even on the battlefield post-friendship he’s got some sincerely forlorn things to say to his former friends, mixed with comically petty taunts that no normal enemy of the Demoman would get.(Unintelligible drunken slurring) I love ya, man… (More unintelligible slurring)''
- Violation of Common Sense: Sticky jumping. Especially considering it's more Difficult, but Awesome than rocket jumping, because more than two bombs will kill you if you aren't overhealed.note
- Another example lies in the Ullapool Caber. To put it simply, you're using a stick grenade as a melee weapon. The flavor text on the item even reads "A sober person would throw it."
- The entire idea of the Demoknight. You take away the Demoman's explosives and give him a sword, shield, and funny shoes to fight against a team of mercenaries wielding rocket launchers, high-powered sniper rifles, and miniguns.note
- The entire idea of the Demoman. When working on explosives, one should preferably have two eyes and be sober. Yet he appears to have enough skill and/or family talent in him to just ignore his disadvantages.
- Another example lies in the Ullapool Caber
- Violent Glaswegian: In the game itself. Lore shows he's surprisingly non-confrontational when not on the battlefield, though.
- Weaksauce Weakness: According to the webcomic, solid food and water. Because he's spent an entire decade consuming nothing but alcohol and aspirin, his body's ill-equipped to handle any normal meals, which causes his nervous system to register normal food as poisonous and knock him comatose.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Despite his seven-figure salary, Demoman's mother disapproves that he 'only' works three jobs, pointing out that his dad had twenty-six jobs. Most people guess that she wants him rich enough to care for both of them even after he goes completely blind. But on the whole, it looks like they love each other a whole lot just the same.Mrs DeGroot: "No Demoman worth his salt ever had an eye in his head past thirty!".
- Workaholic: As mentioned above, a clan trait; he works three jobs, and his own dad was known for working twenty-six at once. Also, according to the "Bombinomicon" comic, he lost his eye at the age of seven when his mother sent him to look for jobs from a ghost on All Hallows' Eve and he wound up having his eye stolen by the titular enchanted tome.
- Wound That Will Not Heal: Demoman's left eye is revealed by Medic to be a case of this in that every time he tried regrowing Demomans' missing eye to replace it in his head again, it functions normally until Halloween night where it comes to life as various monsters to attack the Team. And this has happened at least EIGHT times before Medic resolved to just scoop out the part of Demomans' brain that keeps asking Medic to grow him another eye again.Medic: The point is: in my medical opinion... and as a man of science I do not say this lightly... That eye socket is HAUNTED.
- You Kill It, You Bought It: An unlisted feature of the Eyelander (and equivalent reskins) is that killing an enemy with "heads" in their possession instantly grants you their entire collection plus one for killing the enemy himself. This applies not just to other Demoknights, but oddly enough also works on Snipers using the Bazaar Bargain (which also collects "heads"), as well as Medics using the Vita-Saw and Soldiers using the Air Strike (which respectively collect "organs" and generic kills, which appear to rely on the same stacking counters in the game's code). This can also work the other way around.
- Your Mom: Mentioned as one of his Domination one-liners: "Dominated! An' I've been shagging your wife!"
"Oh, they're going to have to glue you back together...IN HELL!"
The Heavy
The Heavy
Real name: Mikhail (aka Misha)
- "You are dead. Not big surprise."
Voiced by: Gary Schwartz (English), Ricky Coello (Spanish), Maxim Pinsker (Russian), Christian Jungwirth (German)
"Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe... Maybe. I've yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet."
The Heavy Weapons Guy (usually referred to as just the "Heavy") is a towering powerhouse of a man hailing from the arctic regions of Russia, with a Bald Head of Toughness and Perma-Stubble, and who wields a truly massive minigun. Having escaped from the Gulag with his family to the Dzhugdzhur Mountains in Siberia, the Heavy has left the U.S.S.R. to work as a mercenary in America and sends his money to his mother and sisters. His hulking appearance, brutish behavior, and mediocre English make him look unintelligent, but the Heavy is actually smarter than he looks and can be perceptive and calm, having earned a PhD in Russian literature. At the same time, he really enjoys killing people and has dubbed his various miniguns with affectionate names, including "Sasha"note , "Natascha", "Oksana"note , "Svetlana"note and "Sheila"note . The Heavy is perhaps the closest thing to a main character in the game, in how he is often featured "front and center" due to his size in artwork (in one splash screen, in the game's box art, in the selection line-up, and in the promotional team line-up) and him getting the first class-centric video (and appearing first in both trailers and foremost in "Meet the Sandvich"). The Heavy was the third class to be updated with fun new toys. The Heavy's page on the TF2 Wiki, Meet the Heavy!
With a massive 300HP and his primary weapon being a minigun, the Heavy is a Defense character who acts like a mobile meat shield for his team and a shock trooper, who can absorb the bulk of the enemy fire to provide cover for his teammates and dish out massive amounts of damage in return, especially at short-to-mid range. His default secondary is a shotgun — which he can switch with lunch box items that he can chow down on mid-battle to replenish health and buff himself in various ways, or pass to nearby allies to grant them health boosts — and his melee weapons are his own fists. Powerful and quite tanky, the Heavy thrives in the thick of battle when he can mow down waves of enemies uninterrupted; on the other hand, he lumbers around slowly at 77% base speed and his minigun's wind-up time (and his being even slower while winding up, firing, or keeping his minigun revved-up) means that he can be easily outmanoeuvred and ambushed if he isn't careful. Moreover, he is very vulnerable to the Sniper and Spy, who can kill him in one hit note despite his huge amount of health.
Interestingly, The Heavy also makes an appearance along with Max, Strong Bad, and Tycho in Poker Night at the Inventory by Telltale Games.
Now has his own self-demonstrating page.
- Achilles' Heel: The Heavy, being so goddamn slow, is easy pickings for most classes (on his own at least), but three stand out:
- Sniper. Heavies are a Sniper's favorite target after the Medic, since they're not fast enough to move out of sight, their minigun does piss poor damage from afar, and they really struggle to traverse any great distance without getting their head popped like a grape. At close range, though, there's no real contest, unlike...
- Spy. Spies also like Medics, but the Heavy is even easier pickings for him than the Sniper, since it's very easy for the Spy to strike while the Heavy is distracted by all of his duties, and when a Heavy is revved up, they're not likely to hear the decloak of even the most incompetent Spy. Combined with the Heavy's slow speed (which is even slower when they’re revved up), and the fact that the Spy is one of the only two classes that can efficiently take out even an overhealed Heavy with a Medic (even a Sniper can struggle to do that), game-sense is the only weapon in the Heavy's arsenal that can help with this weakness. The Huo-Long Heater can deter Spies (especially if they're using the Spycicle), which generates a ring of fire around the Heavy while he's revved [fire being the Spy's greatest fear outside of Jarate]; the caveat here is that it burns through ammo at a speedy rate [unless pushing the cart, which constantly replenishes ammo] the fact that a good Spy can simply jump over the ring, time their backstab for when the fire is out, or just take the pain and stab you while they're on fire.
- Scout. While a good Heavy can easily shred just about class that's standing right in front of them, Scouts move so fast on their own that they can easily dodge their minigun fire and blast them with their Scattergun before the Heavy even has time to reposition themselves. Many Heavies who truly hate Scouts tend to use the otherwise finicky Natascha to counter them, since Scout's damage is based on his proximity, and Natascha can easily slow them down to a standstill before they get too close.
- In a general sense, Heavies are very vulnerable to being killed by a surprise ambush. In the time an enemy frontline combatant like a Soldier or a Demoman pops up from behind the Heavy and starts wiping out half his health, the Heavy can still be revving his minigun/just starting to fire his shots depending on the primary weapon, which could be for naught depending on how close the enemy is. Compare this to other classes, who can react to the ambush quickly enough to return fire with a better chance of winning. Of course, this goes both ways — a Heavy ambushing pretty much anyone at close range might as well be a death sentence.
- Acrofatic: It's surprisingly easy for him to sneak by an entire team and punch them to death. He's even more agile when he uses the Gloves of Running Urgently, at the cost of having less health.
- Affectionate Nickname: His real first name is Mikhail, but his family calls him "Misha."
- All There in the Manual: Assuming it's all canon, Poker Night at the Inventory sheds a number of details about his personal life (such as him having a doctorate in Russian Literature)
- Angrish: His AAAAAUGH RAAAA DAH!!!!.
- Animal Gender-Bender:
- With the Chicken Kiev equipped, Heavy starts to make some odd threats:
"As promised, Heavy will now lay egg in your mouth." - With the Chicken Kiev
- Animal Motifs: Bears. Scout compares him to a "big shaved bear that hates people", his class bio describes him like a bear, and the diminutive of his name can mean 'bear' (Russia's national animal). Embracing this motif, the Heavy can equip the Warrior's Spirit (two severed bear claws wrapped around his fists) to beat enemies to death with, and an item set called the Hibernating Bear (Brass Beast, Buffalo Steak Sandvich, Warrior's Spirit, and the Big Chief cosmetic). On the cosmetic side, he gets the Bear Necessities (a bear pelt that wraps a bear's head and front arms around his head), the Unshaved Bear (Heavy growing a beard out), and the Little Bear (a pocket plushie version of Giant Heavy robots from Mann vs. Machine). As of Halloween 2022, he can also have an actual bear head as well!
- Armor Is Useless: Averted; the Heavy is one of only two classes to wear any type of armor (in this case, it seems like a black ballistic vest) and he has the highest health out of them (see also the Demoman, who wears a similar vest and has fairly high health).
- Atop a Mountain of Corpses: Gets to do the pose in "Meet The Medic".
- Attack! Attack! Attack!: Heavy's extremely low running speed combined with his utter lack of mobility means that he can't usually run away from a confrontation. If an enemy commits to killing him, one of them isn't walking out of that fight alive.
- Because of all his traits, Heavies are generally fought at the frontlines of any battle, acting like the spearhead of any push, severely punishing enemies who dare get too close and keeping opponents at bay with the roar of their minigun and a constant supply of bullets. Add his high HP and the fact that Medics tend to support Heavies whenever possible and Heavies really wouldn't have any reason to not be constantly inching forward save for overwhelming odds or Snipers.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Brass Beast's 20% damage bonus on top of Heavy's already ridiculous damage output may appear unstoppable on the surface, but it's massive deploy time and movement speed penalty not only make it very easy to avoid its barrage but also makes Heavy an even easier target for Snipers and Spies.
- The Buffalo Steak Sandvich gives Heavy a large damage and speed increase but locks you to melee and gives a massive increase to damage taken. Since Heavy is still extremely slow even with the speed increase and lacks the resistances a Demoknight's shields give him or other class' methods of closing the distance (Scout's speed, Soldier’s rocket jumping, Demo's shield charges and sticky jumping, and Spy's disguises and cloak), it's very unlikely you'll reach anyone before getting killed.
- The Warrior's Spirit. It's the most damaging melee in the game and gives heal on kill but also makes you take more damage, but given that Heavy is the slowest class in the game, using his melee weapons offensively is a terrible idea even without the increase to damage taken.
- The Huo-Long Heater is an intense-looking minigun that projects a constant ring of flames around Heavy while he's revving up, setting anyone near him on fire. The minigun also deals bonus damage to any enemy that's currently on fire, meaning any enemy within that ring of fire will likely be decimated in milliseconds, on top of having general bonus synergy with ally Pyros. However, Heavy's slow speed makes it incredibly unlikely that he'll be able to actively catch someone within that close-range combo unless he has a lot of help or a very sneaky flank, in addition to the fact that Heavy's close-range damage is also incredibly high regardless. This is in addition to the actual downsides of the weapon, including a 10% damage penalty on non-burning targets, as well as consuming ammo while you're revving up, even if you're not firing, meaning that even if one's to use the fire as a deterrent, Heavy is put on a time limit in a way that no other minigun demands from him. It also has a rather embarrassing weakness when it comes to Spies, as while the ring of fire is meant as a deterrent, it's entirely possible for a Spy player to simply jump over it to nail a backstab on the Heavy without getting burned.
- Ax-Crazy: If his crazed laughter while he mows down his enemies is anything to go by.
- Badass Boast: He has several:"Heavy does not need rank to know he is credit to team!""I would be worried, if I was not giant!""Never give up!" (Doubles as a Determinator)"Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe. Maybe. I have yet to meet one that can outsmart boolet."
- Badass Bandolier: Although those shells look too large for his miniguns, it still fits.
- Badass Bookworm: Literally, as, according to Poker Night, he has a doctorate in Russian Literature.
- Badass Family: Barring his kindly and old mother (who still knows how to survive the harsh tundra), all three of his sisters are brawny bear hunters who live in the harsh Siberian wilderness surrounded by constant blizzards, and have easily killed the authorities searching them. His late father, meanwhile, was a counter-revolutionary soldier during the Russian Civil War, whose family takes after his opposition of the new government.
- Bald Head of Toughness: He is a massive bald man with one of the biggest health pool in the game, making him able to effectively fulfill his defensive-role due to his durability.
- Battle Cry: In the Mann vs. Machine trailer, the Heavy roars "YAAAAAAAH!" before running out with the other mercs to fight Gray Mann's robots.
- Bears Are Bad News: As of Halloween 2022, one of the available cosmetic items for the Heavy is a bear head.
- Berserk Button: He doesn't take too kindly to people touching his weapons.Heavy: Oh my God, who touched Sasha? All right... WHO TOUCHED MY GUN?!
- The Berserker: He's a bit gruff and quiet outside of battle, giving him the veneer of being more stable than his overtly churlish teammates. During battle, he's as maniacal and bombastic as the rest.
- BFG: All his primary weapons, no exceptions:
- Minigun: The gun that's most iconic when you see Heavy. Shoots 40 bullets per second (4 bullets per shot, firing 10 times per second.)
- Natascha: Gives Heavy Damage resistance, and slows enemies by 20% when hit.
- Brass Beast: Slow equip time, slower movement speed, and slower revving up by 50%, but does 20% more damage.
- Tomislav: Revving up doesn't make a sound, and is 20% more accurate, but slower fire rate by the same percent.
- Huo-Long Heater: Creates a ring of fire when deployed to deter Spies and other enemies, but chews ammo while active.
- Big Brother Instinct: As revealed by "A Cold Day In Hell", he's very protective of his mother and sisters. He's proud of them when he finds out that they're just as good at protecting themselves, now. He's also extended this towards the Medic.
- Big Eater: "SANDVICH MAKE ME STRONG!" (He even earns an achievement for scarfing down 100 Sandviches, and before it was nerfed, he could eat them one after another without stopping if he felt like it.) He can throw it at his teammates, and one of his responses reveals that he gladly shares it:"Sandvich for everyone! We have earned it!"
- Over half of his secondary weapons are consumables, which means if it's not Sandviches, he's usually chowing down on chocolate bars, steaks, or bananas in a firefight.
- Big Fancy House: Big Fancy Cabin, really. We finally see the interior in "A Cold Day In Hell". It's large enough for a banquet table, although with a family of badasses eating there every night, it'd have to be.
- Big Fun: Despite the website saying that "he's not your big friend and he generally wishes that you would just shut up", he can get pretty jovial at times; whether it's slaughtering enemies or doing the Do-si-do with teammates. It depends on whether or not he's on your side.
- The Big Guy: He's this for Team Fortress, and when he's on your side.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: When he hangs around with the Medic, he's — naturally — the big guy.
- Big "NO!": "OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
- Bilingual Bonus:
- The songs the Heavy sings while pushing the bomb cart are Russian working songs.
- "Dalokoh's" is the Russian word for chocolate (shokolad) backwards.
- He comes off as smarter in the Russian version of his video (link here) ...and even more awesome.
- Unintentionally invoked with his occasional Angrish: "AAAAUGGHHH RAAAA DAH!!!" sounds very much like a Big "NO!" in Japanese.
- Blood Knight: All the mercs seem to love a good scuffle, but Heavy just might be the one among them who is most at home on the field of war. The contrast between his behavior out of combat (as shown in the comics, etc.) and his lines in-game showcases this well; outside of battle, he is usually quiet and reserved, but with Sasha in hand, he turns into the tiny baby-man-slaying Boisterous Bruiser we know him to be.
- Blunt Metaphors Trauma: "Ho, hohoho, oh that slaps me on the knee!"
- Blush Sticker: Not him, but the Pocket Heavy in his likeness.
- Boisterous Bruiser: He's a huge, fun-loving Husky Russkie who can obliterate his enemies with his bare hands and is fiercely protective of his teammates, but has Hidden Depths that are only revealed to those closest to him.
- Boring, but Practical:
- While requiring a degree of skill, compared to other classes, the Heavy is relatively straightforward and has very few all-around viable loadouts to use. His most practical choices are Stock or Tomislav for his primary, Sandvich or Second Banana for the secondary, and the Gloves of Running Urgently or Fists of Steel for melee. As such, he is often regarded as the most "boring" character in the game mechanics-wise. The "practical" part comes into play when you realize he's still a viable asset with a ton of DPS that can make or break a game. And when he's assisted by a Medic or pushing a Payload cart… well, good bloody luck trying to take him down without a headshot or a backstab.
- Within Heavy's general moveset; while your minigun winding up can be a very intimidating thing all on its own and chew through people like nobody's business, having your shotgun ready in addition to having the highest base health in the game can be rather effective for winning one-on-one fights. A playstyle that uses only the shotgun is affectionately referred to as the Fat Scout, which is only somewhat viable by virtue of one detail in particular — a Heavy can get in anything short of an enemy Heavy's face and absorb a large amount of damage while unloading buckshot right into them, something a Scout would normally disintegrate under.
- The Sandvich is a simple full heal for heavy, or a half heal for his teammates when thrown. Compared to his shotguns or his other lunchbox items (aside from the Second Banana) this isn’t particularly flashy but it’s by far his most useful secondary as it makes him or his teammates (especially the Medic) far harder to kill when used properly.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Like other fellow teammates who aren't popular in the Competitive Side (due to his low mobility, Heavy doesn't see much use outside of last point holds), he is aware that he isn't suited for 6v6, but he tries nonetheless.
- "This is not usual job for Heavy. But I will make work!"
"Heavy is credit to 6s!"
- Similarly, if the Heavy is the one to capture the Intelligence, even he will be surprised."Not usually my job, but... eheheheh."
"It was long trip!"
- Breakout Character: While the other mercs' popularity is nothing to sneeze at, it's ultimately Heavy that steals the show for most people. Just look at all the brilliant lines and memes that spawned from him.
- The Brute: He is a Mighty Glacier who is taunting and berating to his enemies. Again, it depends whose side he's on.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: The Heavy, the game's slow but hard-hitting Mighty Glacier, uses a huge underslung gun called Sasha as his primary weapon. It's not a precision tool by any stretch, being instead intended to deal tremendous amounts of damage to whatever's standing in front of him.
- Buffy Speak: He does this a few times. Could be justified due to English only being his second language.
- "I have seen the enemy! And he is us! But itty bitty."
- Cargo Ship: In-Universe, according to the Director update comic, as it shows the Heavy as having bought a bed for his mini-gun, and he sleeps next to it. In game, a dominating enemy Scout will taunt the Heavy about taking Sasha out for a nice steak dinner.Oh my God, who touched Sasha? Alright... WHO TOUCHED MY GUN?
- Character Aged with the Actor: His voice actor is one of the oldest out of the bunch, and his voice has started to sound even deeper as a result. It's even lampshaded in Mann vs. Machine mode, which takes place five years after the main storyline (jumping from 1968 to 1972):Heavy: I am getting too old and giant for this.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Heavy is strong enough to not only lift a 150-kilogram minigunnote but run at about 15 kph (see Lightning Bruiser) and jump with the thing in hand.
- Cigar Chomper: Two different items allow him to be this. One gives him a beard that resembles that of a Banana Republic dictator, the other gives him horns and sideburns resembling Hellboy.
- Close-Range Combatant: His minigun's DPS is almost unmatched at close range, but its bullet spread makes it fall off sharply at medium range and beyond.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: In Poker Night at the Inventory he gives a rather loving description of having choked an enemy Engineer with his own wrench and pulled all his fingers off, and he apparently tortured the guards at the gulag to death before fleeing with his family.
- Commissar Cap: One of his hat cosmetics is an M. Bison-styled hat called the Team Captain, which he shares with Medic and Soldier.
- Companion Cube: He talks to his Minigun and his Sandvich."What was that, Sandvich? 'Kill them all?' GOOD IDEA!"
- Conspicuous Consumption: In terms of the cost of his minigun's ammo, at least. In "Meet the Heavy," he says that it fires 10,000 rounds a minute, with the cartridges costing $200 each."It costs $400,000 to fire this weapon for 12 seconds."
- Consulting Mister Puppet: Some of the stuff (see above) he says in regards to the Sandvich implies this.
- Continuity Nod: Making the Hound Dog hat official might be a reference to the "hair Heavy", a Heavy with wavy black hair, seen in the Heavy's "Soviet Union" achievement portrait, which itself is a reference to the original concept art of Heavy, which had said hairstyle.
- The Heavy Duty Rag bandana helps give him a resemblance to the original Heavy from Team Fortress Classic. The War Goggles are based on those worn by the same Classic character, the Eliminators Safeguard on the earlier Heavy model's helmet, and the Combat Slacks are based on the kneepads worn by both.
- Crack is Cheaper: According to his Meet video, his main gun, Sasha, fires custom cartridges which are so expensive to produce that it costs over $400,000 to fire it for a mere twelve seconds.
- Crutch Character: Because Mann Vs. Machine focuses on wave defense, Heavy's insane DPS and Bottomless Magazines makes it by far the best attacking class without upgrades except when attacking tanks (because Tanks have 75% damage resistance against minigunsnote ). However, he cannot improve his direct damage nearly as much as other classes: most can increase base damage, fire rate, and reload speed, while Heavy can only increase fire rate (and it's at a greater cost per upgrade than anyone else). Because of this, it's common on the harder missions for a few players to play Heavy for a few rounds without spending any money, then spend the money on a class that benefits from it more, like Demoman.
- Dark and Troubled Past:
- "Meet the Director" sees the Director establishing Heavy's backstory, which is confirmed to have occurred in "A Cold Day in Hell": Heavy's father was a counter-revolutionary, and upon his death, Heavy, his mother, and sisters were sent to a North Siberian gulag, and after three months, they all escaped along with all its prisoners after it was destroyed in an attack, burnt completely to the ground. It's all but directly stated that Heavy was involved with at least taking his time to torture all the guards before he left, but any details further than that are sketchy as Heavy really doesn't want to talk about it.
- Some conversations during Poker Night indicate he's haunted by his experiences as a child. Notably, he tells the story of how he buried a sparrow his fellow training camp cadet had killed, and is genuinely sad by it.
- Deadly Upgrade: Transplantation of an Übercharged Mega Baboon heart as seen in "Meet the Medic", which allows him to be invincible.Heavy, after being Übercharged: Ha ha ha! I AM BOOLETPROOF!
- "Meet the Medic" shows that the Heavy's original heart exploded when the Medic slapped the übercharge valve on it and held it into the medigun's beam to charge it. We don't know for certain if that also happened to the hearts of the other mercenaries who received the same upgrade surgery later. But the Medic's comment that this happens often as "most hearts couldn't withstand this voltage" implies that a) the Medic experimented with this before, and b) we can assume that the other mercenaries' hearts also had to be replaced. In the case of the Scout's, probably with the "Loch Ness hamster" heart from the Medic's fridge.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Basically what his primary weapons do. His stock minigun only does a base of 9 damage per bullet, which individually is practically nothing... but it fires 40 bullets per second. That adds up fast.
- Demoted to Extra: Only to a minor degree, but the Heavy is not as overwhelmingly ubiquitous in the multimedia marketing and narrative fluff as he once was. The other classes now get their share of focus in the comics and animations, particularly the likes of Scout, Soldier and Spy. He still has his moments though, such as an epic final showdown against the Classic Heavy to avenge the Medic.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- A bad Heavy is Sniper/Spy bait. A good Heavy has to be able to pick out the sound of decloaking Spies over the roar of his own minigun, sidestep rockets while still at the speed of a snail, gun down rocket/sticky jumping Soldiers/Demomen before they can land, appear behind the enemy team to mow down their non-combat classes, tap out War and Peace in Morse code with their crouch button to avoid headshots, and generally move with a degree of agility above and beyond what their movement speed would be expected to allow.
- Heavy gameplay requires a good bit of prediction and out-thinking, as his short range and lack of tools to get in said range means a good Heavy has to control the fight, instead of simply running in and hoping for the best.
- The Heavy's Miniguns are all about tracking aim, something otherwise given relatively little focus in the game. Rather than reflexive flick shots, a Heavy's damage output is directly controlled by how well he can keep his reticle on the center of an enemy's hitbox. With a steady hand and good predictive skills, a Heavy can completely zone out fast-moving threats like Scouts and jumping Soldiers from his position, enemies that are otherwise only warded off by the presence of immobile Sentries.
- The Brass Beast takes every signature characteristic about Heavy, both good and bad, and cranks it up a notch by increasing damage output and granting some damage resistance, but slowing his speed down even lower while rev'd up. Used improperly and you're a sitting duck for every projectile and Sniper the enemy has to offer, resistances be damned. With proper planning and anticipation on when enemies are approaching, however, and Heavies will find that the damage bonus is absolutely nothing to be scoffed at even outside of close range.
- Diminishing Returns for Balance: While not as bad as other classes, a team full of Heavies is an exceptionally slow force with an "Instant Death" Radius way larger than normal, but is still possible to out-range. A good Sniper with enough cover to block the hailstorm of bullets can have a field day with their huge and slow heads, and past a certain range they're effectively tickling a Sentry Gun so long as at least one Engineer has been properly maintaining it. On the other hand, due to their slow speed, meme factor, and self-sustain, an average pub squad of Heavies are often able to incentivize the rest of their team to join in on the fun, and pile together in a startlingly close approximation of actual teamwork that allows them to bulldoze their typically still entirely uncoordinated enemies who run into the wall of bullets and health piecemeal.
- Dumb Muscle: Subverted. While it doesn't stand out in the game proper, he shows surprising levels of intelligence and sophistication in the comics, promo videos, and Poker Night at the Inventory .
- The Dutiful Son: After his father died and the family was sent to a gulag, Heavy took the responsibility of protecting his family at all costs. He managed to escape and free the prisoners within the gulag and was able to retreat with his family to the mountains. While his family deeply appreciate the sacrifices he made for them, they also admit they're tired of Heavy's overprotectiveness and wish to leave the mountains so they can explore the world.
- Emotional Bruiser: He's the big guy and he's very expressive in battle. He's also surprisingly open to talk about his emotional troubles to people he trusts, best shown through his incredible drive to protect his mother and sisters.
- Eloquent in My Native Tongue:
- How eloquent? He has a PhD in Russian Literature! His Russian is very fluent in the Russian version of his Meet the Team trailer.
- Averted in "A Cold Day In Hell", as Heavy speaks perfectly grammatical English to both his family and the team, though he clearly speaks in a clipped way to the team compared to his family. It's entirely possible that he became more fluent in English during the Time Skip, and deliberately speaks in a stilted way around his fellow mercs because that's what they're used to.
- How eloquent? He has a PhD in Russian Literature! His Russian is very fluent in the Russian version
- Establishing Character Moment: Meet the Heavy puts down everything you need to know about the mans personality. He starts by calmly facing the cameraman with his prized minigun and going on a surprisingly lengthy info dump on the specs of its ammo and fire rate while dropping an estimation for the budget needed to shoot it (for twelve seconds) before humbly admitting that while he might be outsmarted sometimes, his enemies can’t outsmart his bullets, showing that he’s no Dumb Muscle and is remarkably quiet and reserved when not on duty. Then comes the actual battle after the interview where he lets all hell break loose while he laughs maniacally over the roar of his minigun and the bloody carnage unfolding around him, showing that he loves his job and the fights that come with it.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Genuinely loves and takes care of his mother and sisters.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's a little disturbed at Tycho's...obsession with giraffes and hedgehogs.
- Everything Trying to Kill You: One of the highest-priority targets in any given situation (along with the Medic following him around).
- Extreme Omnivore: Heavy is able to eat the Robo and Festive Sandviches, despite them being made of metal and covered in wrapping paper, respectively. One has to wonder why he was so nonchalant about eating his sandvich after learning what happens when you teleport it...
- Fanboy: Poker Night reveals he's a fan of Huey Lewis and the News.
- Fat Bastard: He can take a disturbing amount of joy out of killing. Averted towards his teammates, and Downplayed if he's on your side.
- Fate Worse than Death: Poker Night at the Inventory shows us that the Heavy remembers the respawn system of the game as a series of nightmares...Heavy: Do you ever get the nightmares?Strong Bad: Sometimes I get the Jibblies.Heavy: I am talking about visions of endless suffering. Dead Doctors everywhere. Spy cannot be found.Strong Bad: That sounds like the Jibblies, man.Heavy: I do not like this "Jibblies".
- Fearless Fool: In "Meet the Pyro", he says that he fears no man, but he does admit that the Pyro scares him. To be fair, he doesn't know if Pyro is male or female, so he refers to the Pyro as "that thing".
- Finger Gun: One of the Heavy's taunts, and it can insta-kill anyone unlucky enough to be in his line of fire."POW! HA HA!"
- Flipping the Table: Pressing the taunt button twice during the Table Tantrum and Boiling Point taunts makes Heavy flip the table of food that spawns in front of him.
- Foil: To the Scout. Fragile Speedster vs Mighty Glacier. Energy drink sodas vs simple, healthy sandwiches. Always finding opportunities to chatter vs rarely speaking when not on the job. Competes with his siblings to beat people up vs constantly doting on his sisters under the assumption that they can't fend for themselves. Both have Disappeared Dads, but Heavy's father is known to have been executed by the Kremlin while Scout's dad quite literally disappeared into thin air one day.
- Gameplay and Story Integration: Gameplay-wise, the Heavy is functionally similar to his characterization. From the outside, Heavy gameplay might just seem dumb and simple, with his high HP and raw attack power — just like Heavy himself. Also like the Heavy himself, Heavy gameplay is surprisingly smart; playing well as him means constantly outthinking your opponent, since his slow speed and his Minigun's spinup time means that being caught at a disadvantage will result in a quick death against anyone competent.
- Gatling Good: Might as well be the patron saint of this trope. In fact, he's in the Trope Pantheon for it! His primary weapon is a huge Chainsaw-Grip BFG chaingun which can shred enemies to pieces in seconds at close range and still deals decent damage at mid-range. Its only downsides are that it becomes a peashooter when trying to hit faraway targets, has to be revved up before it can start shooting, and massively decreases Heavy's already very slow walking speed, making him an easy target. However, a Heavy with good gamesense can avoid these pitfalls to obliterate the enemy team by jumping and revving around corners simultaneously and having good tracking to prevent targets from getting close to him.
- Genius Bruiser: The Heavy's blurb for "Meet the Heavy" video series spells it out — "though he speaks simply [...] the Heavy isn't dumb." It's implied that his command of Russian (his native language) is (much) greater than his grasp of English. In Poker Night at the Inventory, he claims to have a PhD in Russian Literature from the Soviet College of Mines, Farms, and Science.
- Gentle Giant:
- Defied in the fluff:Like a hibernating bear, the Heavy appears to be a Gentle Giant. Also like a bear, confusing his deliberate, sleepy demeanor with gentleness will get you ripped limb from limb. Though he speaks simply and moves with an economy of energy that's often confused with napping, the Heavy isn't dumb, he's not your big friend, and he generally wishes you'd just shut up before he has to make you shut up.
- However, one store description does refer to him as "the gentle giant we all know and love". He's very protective of anyone he cares about, especially his mother, his sisters, and his Medic, and he's surprisingly reserved when not angry or out on the battlefield.
- Defied in the fluff:
- Glorious Mother Russia: Just to give you an idea, here are some of his achievements: Lenin a Hand, Pushkin the Cart, Gorky Parked, Soviet Block, Supreme Soviet, Show Trial, Spyalectical Materialism, Stalin the Cart, the Communist Mani-fisto... the list goes on. The comics further establish that Heavy and his family genuinely love Russia, they just hate the Soviet regime that murdered their father and sent them all to a gulag.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Standard for all characters who get ÜberCharged; the Heavy gets to demonstrate it in "Meet the Medic".
- Go-Karting with Bowser: His appearance in Poker Night at the Inventory is rather casual when compared to what he usually does.
- Good Old Fisticuffs: He practiced boxing back in school. It was either that or herding goats. He is not good with goats.
- Gratuitous Russian: Not very prevalent compared to the Medic's Gratuitous German and Spy's Gratuitous French and Gratuitous Spanish, but still noticeable.
- Guest Fighter: One of the opposing players in Poker Night at the Inventory. He is also a playable racer in Sonic & All-Stars Racing: Transformed with the Spy and Pyro.
- The Gulag: He spent three months in one, along with his mother and sisters, after his dad was executed as a counterrevolutionary. And then someone unspecified note killed all the guards, allowing all the prisoners to escape, and burnt down the gulag. He doesn't like to talk about it with just anybody.
- Gun Twirling: Can perform this as a taunt if he has the Shotgun, the Family Business, or the Panic Attack equipped.
- Has a Type: According to Poker Night at the Inventory, Heavy loves women with red hair.
- The Heavy: Not always, despite his moniker. But a good player can definitely turn him into one, properly bringing his Mighty Glacier powers to bear and dominating the battlefield. And if he has a competent Medic backing him up, he needs to be killed ASAP before he mows down your entire team.
- Heavy Equipment Class: Carries around a 150kg Minigun that can quickly decimate enemies with its high firepower. Is also one of the only two classes that wears armor, contributing to the high HP they possess.
- Helpless with Laughter: Heavy can subject his enemies to this with the Holiday Punch, a pair of mittens that forces anyone they critically hit to use the Schadenfreude taunt. Note that taunting prevents enemies from doing anything else.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Medic. The "Meet the Medic" video shows that he trusts the man with his life despite his shady background as a doctor. In-game, he has the most enthusiastic variation of "Thanks, Doctor!", and even says "GET BEHIND ME DOCTOR!" while Ubered or "I love this doctor!" after being healed.
- Hidden Depths:
- Poker Night at the Inventory establishes a lot about his character that goes against his stereotypical Husky Russkie appearance. He's not a Vodka Drunkenski (he prefers peach bellini, and even then the bubbles can give him headaches), he charges a steep assassination fee of $500-grand in cash (suggesting he doesn't particularly care for communist ideals), and he has a PhD in Russian Literature (when asked on if he ever uses it, he simply replies "More than you'd think."). The game also shows he's suffering from nightmares, feels bad about some of the kills he makes, is curious about the college education of the other players, and is a little annoyed that Tycho thinks he likes Tetris because of his heritage.
- He also greatly values his family; his seven-digit paycheck is almost-entirely sent back to his family in rural Russia, and he starts off very reluctant to rejoin the team after he returns home due to his initial belief that they won't be able to protect themselves from Russian government agents. This further extends to his team, where threatening Medic is a good way to piss him off hard, this being indicated in a conversation from the non-canon Poker Night at the Inventory and in the canon comic Naked and the Dead.
- "The Showdown" demonstrates how resourceful he can be and that he doesn't need a gun to solve all of his problems. Tearing off a chain link door to enter the Administrator's secure compound, he prepares to use it to ward off some guard dogs. Once he realizes they're hungry, feeding them sandwiches to befrend them is easier, and makes taking out a group of agents inside the mines much easier. He recognizes a biometric scanner and uses one of the dead agent's hands to bypass it. In order to get into the main bunker where the Administrator is, he simply waits for Miss Pauling to come out, uses his backpack to stop the door from closing, and forces the door the rest of the way back open with his strength. The Administrator is very lucky that he enjoys working for her and has no interest in harming her; he just wants a new gun.
- In Blood in the Water, it's revealed that he put together that someone was helping the Administrator gather Australium due to the fact that despite none of the mercs finding any, she still has acquired almost all of it. It is for this same reason he suspects that the mine at Ayer's Rock is empty. In the same comic, he shows that only is he observant and deductive, his quietness helps him quite a bit in letting others talk and letting him read in between the lines, such as shutting up Scout and going with Saxton's wrong assumption that the Administrator sent them there to give away less and learn more.
Scout: And you got all that [information] from "Go There"?Heavy: You should talk less and listen more. - Human Pincushion: One of his achievements is literally named "Pincushion", requiring him to take and survive three arrows.
- Husky Russkie: He is arguably The Giant and has quite the Stout Strength (lifting 150 kg of Minigun, punches that spark on metal and kill a living person in 2-3 hits, able to wrestle with a giant bear that crushes an aeroplane with ease...). He is even as fast as everyone when wielding the GRU and as a Soldier with the Eviction Notice: he can match the Scout in speed when whipped by the Disciplinary Action with those weapons.
- I Call It "Vera": To all his miniguns. Originally, it only applied to his default Minigun/Iron Curtain "Sasha" and Natascha, but "The Showdown" comic shows that he has names for his other miniguns; "Svetlana" for the Tomislav, "Oksana" for the Brass Beast, and "Sheila" for the Huo-Long Heater.
- I'll Kill You!: Heavy really likes this trope, frequently telling his enemies how he is going to squash them like the tiny baby men that they are.Heavy: I am going to kill you, and kill you, and KILL YOU!
- Immaturity Insult: The Heavy is fond of calling his enemies "babies".
- "Instant Death" Radius: While not technically "instant," at point-blank range with his mini-gun, he does about 500 damage a second (the most health one player can have in a normal, non-MvM game is the 450 health of a fully overhealed Heavy), so even another Heavy will be torn to pieces extremely fast. However, steep damage drop-off means that at medium range and beyond, the minigun's damage becomes modest at best.
- Invulnerable Knuckles: To quote the Heavy himself, "THEY ARE MADE OF STEEL!" When you hit a metal wall, sparks fly, and they do more damage than his brass knuckles. Yes, you read that right: the Heavy can do more damage with his bare hands than he can with brass knuckles.
- Kevlard: Heavy has both the biggest girth and the most hit points of the nine classes.
- Large Ham: The largest on the battlefield, by far.Don't run, it's just HAAAAMMMM!
- Leitmotif: As the most prominent character, his is The Main Theme of the game.
- Lethal Joke Weapon: The Holiday Punch is a melee weapon that makes it so that punching enemies In the Back causes them to laugh (i.e. force them into the Schadenfreude taunt) at the cost of no random damage crits. It's a silly concept, especially since like the rest of Heavy's melee options, they're far outclassed in terms of close range damage by his miniguns, meaning it doesn't even have much value as a flanking option. It still does exactly what it says it does, and forcing the enemy into a taunt animation with no option to cancel out of it almost assuredly remains a death sentence. Not even invulnerable players are safe, giving the weapon a niche in shutting down über pushes. Following the removal of the stunning effect from Scout's Sandman, this remains the only way in a normal PVP scenario to stun an enemy aside from taunt kills.
- Literal Change of Heart: In "Meet the Medic", his heart is accidentally destroyed and replaced with the heart of a "Mega Baboon."
- Lightning Bruiser: Heavy's base speed is 230HU (77%), making him the slowest, but when wielding the Gloves of Running Urgently or Eviction Notice, it increases up to 300HU (100%) and 264.5HU (88%), respectively, at the cost of maximum health getting drained. When whipped, the Heavy moves at 322HU (107%), and at 392HU (130%) with the GRU and at 356.5 with the EN (118%), which is nearly as fast as a Scout with the Baby Face Blaster with 0% boost at 360HU (120%). 230HU is equivalent to 9.3 mph, or 15.7716 kilometers per hour. Heavy can run this speed while carrying a 150kg minugun, without tiring or slowing down. At that speed, Heavy would run a marathon in 2.67 hours, or 2 hours and 40 minutes, which is far above the men's average of 4 hours and 20 mins. While weighted down by a 150kg minigun.
- Lovable Jock: Played with (Jerk Jock if in the enemy team).
- He is constantly boasting about his strength and size (rightfully so!!!), has three taunts related to fitness (Soviet Strongarm = Weight Lifting, Russian Arms Race = One armed push-up for calisthenics, Proletariat Posedown = Bodybuilding Poses) and several cosmetics/weapons related to sports (football, boxing, wrestling, and bodybuilding again).
- Masked Luchador: His Large Luchadore and Cold War Luchador masks. We haven't seen him actually wrestle yet, though. He has, however, been depicted suplexing a bear in the supplemental comics.
- Meaningful Name:
- He named his gun Sasha, which means "defender, helper of mankind". Heavies are a defense class.
- His own name's short form Misha can mean "bear", which he's often compared to. His melee weapon is just his bare (bear?) hands and he hunts to bring home food, which he shares with his family.
- Mighty Glacier: Most base health in the game, slowest base movement speed. Downplayed in that 300 HP isn't quite "glacier" levels of durability — 4 non-crit rocket hits or 3 close-range scattergun shots do the trick. His minigun is also nearly unmatched in damage potency close-up, but will sharply drop off past that range, and using it makes him even slower. He also has great physical strength, apparently being able to punch through metal and match bears with his strength. His Minigun also weighs 150 kilograms and he lifts it with ease.
- Exaggerated with the Brass Beast minigun. It offers a 20% damage bonus (which adds up quick given its fire rate) and damage resistance if Heavy is spinning up and below half health, but at the cost of a MASSIVE increase to spin-up time and decrease to move speed.
- Mini-Me: The Pocket Heavy is a doll cosmetic for the Medic class.
- Mook Horror Show: Interestingly enough, not in his promo, but in Medic's. Those Soldiers really stood no chance against the debut of the Ubercharge.
- More Dakka: A 200-ammunition clip (each one firing four bullets at once) is the base amount, which you can chew through in under a minute. Put a Heavy by a Dispenser and he becomes a bottomless turret with much more health (a strategy encouraged by the Factory Worker and Not So Lonely are the Brave achievements). Mann vs. Machine lets you upgrade to a 500-round clip and increase your fire rate significantly. Valve had to give the tanks (the mini-bosses in Mann vs. Machine mode) a 75% damage resistance to miniguns just to stop Heavies from simply chewing through them in a matter of seconds. With a fully upgraded Brass Beast and a crit canteen, he does literally 2560 damage a second, enough to kill a Giant Robo-Heavy or Medic in roughly two seconds of sustained fire and around one second for any other giant.
- Motivation on a Stick: The Sammy Cap is a headband with a stick and an attached rope holding a sandvich in front view of the Heavy.
- No Full Name Given: Only his first name is revealed.
- Noodle Incident: "Meet the Medic" shows that the Heavy got a nuclear warhead the size of his head stuck inside his abdominal cavity.
- The Not-Love Interest: For Medic. Medic is warm and jovial with Heavy in "Meet the Medic", affectionately pinching Heavy's cheek at one point. In the "End of the Line" video, Medic and Heavy have a platonic, quasi-romantic dynamic. Heavy also rescues Medic from danger in the "End of the Line" video and "The Naked and the Dead" comic. When Classic Heavy kills Medic in "The Naked and the Dead", Heavy goes berserk and delivers a savage beating to his Classic counterpart.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: He has a doctorate in Russian literature. It's about as useful as you'd think in his line of work.
- Not the Intended Use: The "Fat Scout" play style involves Heavy forgoing his primary minigun — in turn, eschewing his constant mid-close range DPS and reliability as a frontline anchor for the team — to instead fight with his shotgun. Heavy obviously lacks the sheer speed and nimble mobility as the Scout, but this approach to the Heavy can be semi-viable since he has much more health to tank with than Scout, and a shotgun is still a reliable source of close-range burst damage, enabling Heavy to do surprisingly well in 1v1 duels.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The only time Heavy sounds legitimately fearful that the other team is not made up of easily squishable tiny baby men is during Mann Vs. Machine, when a giant robot kills one of his teammates.Heavy:[terrified] METAL GIANT IS KILLING US!
- Only Known by Their Nickname: Natascha is the only one of Heavy's primaries that doesn't have a name beyond the nickname Heavy gave it.
- Overshadowed by Awesome: Neither of Heavy’s shotguns are considered bad but nobody uses them because the instant health top-up that the Sandvich and its sidegrades provide is too good to give up for most players.
- Pet the Dog:
- This comic for Halloween sees the Heavy absolutely furious at the audacity of a child asking him for free candy... until the child starts crying, and the Heavy frantically backpedals on his previous remarks (particularly calling the child fat), and then gives him seven thousand dollars.
- He also has a soft spot for small birds, mourning the senseless death of a sparrow in Poker Night at the Inventory, and adopting a baby robin in-game.
- This comic
- Poor, Predictable Rock: The majority of his weapons combined with his slow speed means Heavy can only reliably do one thing - push and hold the frontlines through intense minigun firepower. While he can do this very well when played wisely, it also means that his weaknesses remain the same no matter the loadout, namely Snipers, Spies and surprise ambushes.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Despite appearing fairly erudite in "Meet the Heavy", some of his in-game lines suggest things, especially whenever he starts talking to the Sandvich.What was that, Sandvich? Kill them all? GOOD IDEA!
- Rasputinian Death: One of his achievements, "Rasputin", is earned when he is shot, burned, bludgeoned, and receives explosive damage in a single life. This is not a hard achievement to get if one spends enough time on the frontlines.
- Real Men Eat Meat: The Buffalo Steak Sandvich. Who needs bread?
- Real Men Wear Pink:
- His second Halloween costume (from Scream Fortress 2013) is a pink fairy dress.
Heavy: "I am dressed like little girl. You are still biggest baby!"- Although when wearing a pink pony costume the following year (2013), he alternates between reveling in it and Let Us Never Speak of This Again.
- Red Boxing Gloves: The Heavy unlocks several boxing gloves as Melee weapons, but the Killing Gloves of Boxing and the Gloves of Running Urgently (which have flames painted on them) are both red. At least for the RED Heavy, since the gloves are team-colored.
- This Means Warpaint: He puts on war paint underneath his eyes in one promotional image for the Meet Your Match Update (next to Pyro painting Angry Eyebrows onto their gasmask).
- Russian Guy Suffers Most:
- The BLU Heavy (along with BLU Soldier) is pretty much the Butt-Monkey of all the Meet the Team videos and is the class most often shown getting beat up by the focus character (the Sniper headshots him, the Scout melees him into unconsciousness, the Soldier and Demoman blow him up, the Engineer's sentry mows him down and the Pyro plants a fire axe in his skull). The RED Heavy inverts this; whenever he's taking center stage, everyone else suffers the most. (Although even RED Heavy was victim to having his rib snapped off.)
- His past. See the Dark and Troubled Past entry.
- According to dialogue in Poker Night, if he loses three times, he's sentenced to death.
- Satiating Sandwich: The page image. As the Heavy himself says, it's "MOIST AND DELICIOUS, HAHAHA!"
- Savage Spiked Weapons: The Eviction Notice brass knuckles.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud:
- He sometimes mimics his minigun as he's firing.
- He also goes "NOM! NOM! NOM!" when he eats his Sandvich.
- Scatting: After destroying a building, he may hum a snippet from Sabre Dance.
- Shoot the Mage First: After Medics, he's the second-best target to kill first thanks to his ridiculous damage output and staying power. A Medic without a Heavy is a defenseless Medic, who will either run, die, or pop his Ubercharge early. Obviously, a Sniper or Spy is ideal to oneshot him and make all that healing irrelevant.
- Shoot the Medic First: Ironically and tragically deconstructed in "The Naked and the Dead". As the classic Heavy shrugs off the Medic's remark of unfairnessnote , the Classic concludes the argument by shooting him offhandedly. Much to the modern Heavy's chagrin, he decides to commit a rebuttal to that statement. The Medic got better, though.
- Shouting Shooter: "Waaaaaaaahhh, uwaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!", "Beeeeehhhhh! Uwaaaaaaah!! Wahahahahaha! Cry some more!!"
- Simple, yet Awesome: Heavy's potency simply comes from having notably high health and an almost absurdly high-damage primary weapon.
- Skill Gate Characters: He plays around with holding this mantle next to Pyro, where he really only has one way to be played save for some fun self-imposed challenges. Rev up your minigun, point at the enemy, and watch them die is practically all there is to playing the class at his absolute basics.note Their huge amount of health also makes the class very forgiving to play, especially since Medics naturally flock towards Heavies. That being said, while a Heavy is still a potent threat regardless of the situation, at higher levels of play, inattentive Heavies will find themselves getting backstabbed or headshotted very quickly. The Developer Commentary on how Heavy was designed summarizes his simple but intuitive gameplay best.With its wide field of fire, the Heavy's minigun lets players who don't have great twitch-aiming skills still wade into the thick of combat. To make up for this reduction in the value of the player's aiming skill, we amplified the importance of other skills. For instance, the wind-up time before firing and the Heavy's reduced speed while firing force players to learn to anticipate both the start of combat and incoming enemy attacks.
- Smarter Than You Look: According to Poker Night at the Inventory, The Heavy has multiple lines asking the characters about their respective educations. Tycho plays it off with a lame D&D joke, Max admits he never went to college, and Tiny Heavy... well. Not only that, he chats with Tycho about his favorite book (Tsar Hunger by Leonid Andreyev), because — get this — he has a PhD in Russian Literature. That's Dr. Heavy Weapons Guy to you!
- The comics, especially "Blood in the Water", make him out to be particularly perceptive and savvy, especially compared to The Scout.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: Done with the Finger Gun.
- So Proud of You: In his own stoic and slightly twisted way, he only lets up on protecting his beloved family when they insist that they can take care of themselves from the Soviet men who have been hunting them down their whole lives - and reveal that they've already killed some of them by themselves while he was away in America.(Heavy): You... but you probably did not make them suffer.
(Zhanna): Oh, Misha, we did. I promise you.
(Heavy): You are just saying this.
(Zhanna): No, I swear! We butchered them like hogs, their screams died on their lips.
(Heavy): I see. I guess you are all grown up girls now. Big girls who do not need bossy old Misha anymore. - Sore Loser: Implied. His lines in response to a loss at Rock–Paper–Scissors as him saying he hates losing, threatening to crush his opponent next time and call the game stupid.
- Spent Shells Shower: His various primary weapons leave not only carnage in their wake, but a trail of discarded brass as well.
- Spikes of Villainy: His Eviction Notice brass knuckles are spiked as well. Also, some of his hats are outfitted with some vicious-looking pointy bits.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: One needs to be clever with ambushes in order to get the most damage from the Heavy's minigun. The Tomislav is almost designed for this purpose, letting him spin up silently and slaughter anyone he gets the jump on or passing round a corner he happens to be guarding.
- Strong Flesh, Weak Steel:
- His Eviction Notice brass knuckles cause less damage than his Fists, but make him attack faster.
- Zigzagged with the Fists of Steel, which cause the Heavy to receive more damage from melee attacks, but less from ranged bullets and projectiles.
- Stout Strength:
- His incredible size and girth are matched only by his fearsome strength, and his football helmet references his similarity to an offensive lineman.
- To get an idea of how strong he is, consider that Sasha weighs 150 kilograms (330 pounds to Americans). That he can not only lift the gun up, but run and jump with it for extended periods of time speaks volumes about him.
- Also, in the "A Cold Day in Hell" comic, he defeated an enraged mother brown bear taller than him with his bare hands.
- Superior Successor: Without an Australium power-up among other unfair advantages, the Classic Heavy doesn't stand a chance against his younger Russian counterpart when they finally meet for a one-on-one, hand-to-hand, no-holds-barred fight to the death. TF2 Heavy isn't exactly a spring chicken either, likely being in his '40s or '50s, but even considering that Classic Heavy wasn't in his prime, the strength and size difference between them seems pretty conclusive. A shout-out scene is even played that could give Bane a run for his money.
- Sweet Tooth: He can use the Dalokohs bar to heal himself infinitely.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: Forms a triangle with the Spy and Pyro. Heavies are a favorite high-priority target of backstabs, Pyros torch Spies to exterminate them, and Heavies mow down Pyros with higher health and damage output. note
- To a lesser extent, the Demoman can take the Spy's position here as their explosives have no damage drop off and can easily target the large lumbering Heavy safely from cover while the Pyro's focus on close range and the ability to airblast projectiles back at their attackers can completely shut down a Demoman's offense.
- The Face: Implied to be the leader of The Team. For various reasons, The Team lets the Soldier think otherwise.
- The Quiet One: Initially stated to be part of his personality, but because of how loud and boisterous he gets in-game, it only mostly shows up in supplementary materials (and Poker Night At The Inventory). In the "Blood In The Water" comic, he advises Scout to "Listen more, talk less." It's because of this that he can read between the lines and gather information that isn't explicitly stated. Not bad, for a guy for whom English is his second language.
- Third-Person Person: Seems to be Depending on the Writer. In the 2011 Halloween comic, in his dialogue when battling Merasmus, and when he has the fairy princess set equipped, he plays this trope straight, but not anywhere else.
- This Banana is Armed: His "imaginary" pistol will freaking kill you should you be the one looking at it.
- Trademark Favorite Food: The Sandvich. Don't let him eat it if at all possible, but be ready for serious trouble if you try to keep him away from it.
- Tricked-Out Gloves: The Heavy seems to be a collector of Tricked-Out Gloves. It helps that he's the bruiser of TF2. His Gloves of Running Urgently increases movement speed. His Killing Gloves of Boxing grant him critical hits for a short time if he scores a kill with them. He also has gloves that make people explode, gloves made from bear paws, oversized metal gauntlets that protect him from bullets and pointy brass knuckles that turn him into a Lightning Bruiser. Hell, his default gloves, as well as his Christmas Mittens, allow him to kill people with a Finger Gun!
- Unstoppable Rage: "YOU... KILLED... DOCTOR."
- Visual Pun: Equipping the Warrior's Spirit lets you kill people with your bear hands.
- Vocal Evolution: His Heavy voice in the "Mann vs Machine" event is a bit more guttural and monstrous, possibly as a result of the actor becoming older. His lines in the Merasmus boss fight then essentially became just Demoman without the accent. Luckily, that faded with the following Halloween event, where Heavy's voice started to sound more like his old self again.
- Vodka Drunkenski:
- Averted, as Poker Night at the Inventory reveals that he is very sensitive to both alcohol and carbonation and that his favorite drink is a Peach Bellini.
- Double Subversion found here, in one of several explanations for why he decided to go as a fairy for Halloween.
- Wicked Cultured: Despite being a brawny, bear-like brute, the Heavy has a PhD in classic Russian literature, enjoys "Tsar Hunger" by Leonid Andreyev, and enjoys Peach Bellini over vodka, according to Poker Night at the Inventory.
- Yandere: To his weaponry. DO NOT touch his weaponry, especially his Minigun whom he calls "Sasha".
- You Are Fat: Many domination lines against Heavy note his stoutness.Scout: Nice hustle, tons-o-fun! Next time, eat a salad!
Demoman: Little to much caber-tossing pie down your throat, eh chubby?
Engineer: Gotcha, fat boy!
Sniper: Oi! You're bleedin' gravy, fatso!
Spy: You die as you live. Morbidly obese! - You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He is very visibly unhappy with the news that Soldier is going to be both his brother-in-law and the father of his nephew/niece.
- You No Take Candle: Though it’s not because he’s dumb but rather because he just isn’t very fluent in English."You are dead. Not big surprise."
- Your Mime Makes It Real: Heavy's taunt for his fists is him miming a Finger Gun... and actually killing an enemy with it.
"Oh my god, who touched Sasha?! Alright... WHO TOUCHED MY GUN!?"
The Engineer
The Engineer
Real name: Dell Conagher
- "Hey look, buddy. I'm an engineer, and that means I solve problems. But not problems like "What is beauty?", because that would fall within the purview of your conundrums of philosophy... I solve practical problems."
Voiced by: Grant Goodeve (in-game), Nolan North (Expiration Date) (English), Jose Antequera (Spanish), Alexander Gruzdev (Russian), Dieter Memel (German)
"This button here... builds Teleporters. This button, builds Dispensers. And this little button makes them enemy sum-bitches wish they'd never been born!"
The Engineer is a soft-spoken and amiable cowboy hailing from Bee Cave, Texas, with 11 Ph.Ds and a love for beer, barbecue and higher education. He appears to be the nicest and most well-educated member of the team, to the point where his domination taunts sound more like good-natured ribbing than anything. It has been noted, however, that going by the stereotypes that the game uses for its characters? Those same good-natured southerners are said to be putting on a façade of pleasantries and are ready at any moment to blow a stranger's head off with a shotgun for trespassing, or grab their torches and pitchforks in a display of southern hospitality. Never forget that this is the very same Texan who sawed his own hand off to test the experimental Gunslinger. Never forget he has claimed quite a lot of tech to be his own design when it's actually his grandfather's. And never forget that Mann Co. always hires the lowest bidder. He may seem nice, but the Engineer is a weapons-based Mad Scientist with a penchant for skipping straight to the live testing.
On paper, the Engineer doesn't look like much with 125HP, 100% base speed, and a shotgun as his default weapon. But although the Engineer is ill-suited for direct combat, his strength is his ability to build and position an array of structures to support his team. His sentry guns can mow enemies down with impressive fire in a wide radius, his dispensers will give much-needed health and ammo refills to his teammates, and his often-underestimated teleporters can bring respawning reinforcements quickly to the battlefield, keeping pressure on the enemy; if played with his team to support him, he can make locations of interest nigh-impregnable once he sets up his buildings there. Naturally, Demo with his indirect Grenade Spam, and the Spy with his sapper, are his natural enemies. The Engineer has a pistol and monkey wrench as his backup weapons, and can also use the latter to speed up construction/repair on his buildings by hitting them with it. Meet the Engineer!
The Engineer was the last class to receive new weapons. He is also a promotional Skin for Paladins, complete with a Good Ol' Boy voice pack voiced by Grant Goodeve himself! He can be unlocked by Winning 5 games as Barik (Paladins' Engineer if you will, hence the crossover).
- Achilles' Heel: A good Engineer is a very sizeable roadblock, but he can be countered in various ways:
- The Demoman. Demo's main job, when he isn't using stickies to protect the objective or to slow down a push, is to take out the enemy Engineer's sentry nest. If their buildings are bunched together, even a few stickies can completely decimate the Engineer AND their sentry nests, removing the several minutes and precious resources that were used to build them in the first place. If stickies don't work, a few rollers from the Demo's main Grenade Launchers (with the exception of the Loch-N-Load, which has no rollers and requires you to have line of sight with the Sentry, which can shred any class within seconds if it can see them) can do the job safely from behind cover, and around tricky corners that his Stickies or teammates can't reach. A good Demoman is possibly the most dangerous thing to an Engineer, with a close second being...
- The Spy. A halfway decent Spy can, with one fell swoop, disable/destroy all of the Engineer's buildings with his Electrosapper while disguised (which makes the Sentry a non-threat and can destroy BOTH ends of their Teleporter), backstab/shoot the Engineer to keep him from rebuilding or removing them (sending them back to spawn for a considerable amount of time, giving the team time to push before he can hope to set back up), and vanish without a trace, retreating safely while the enemy team wonders what happened.
- It should be noted that both of these weaknesses have birthed a Pyro build that can turn this trope right around onto the two aforementioned counters, affectionately named the Pybro by Engineer players; a Pyro with an airblast-capable flamethrower and the Homewrecker or Neon Annihilator (the only two weapons in the game besides the Wrenches that can remove sappers), who chooses to guard an Engineer's nest exclusively by Spychecking his teammates with his flames, airblast away projectiles that can harm the Sentry, deal with Sappers when the Engineer is too far away to do it himself, and even airblast an Über push long enough for them to waste their chance to kill the nest in a pinch. With a skilled Pybro backing up a decent Engineer, very few things can take a nest down.
- The Soldier. Soldier is more of a soft counter to the Engineer — only one of his weapons does explosive damage, but with splash damage and a Sentry too close to a corner — or from halfway across the map with the Direct Hit — a good Soldier can easily take out a Sentry nest.
- The Sniper. Because Engineers and their nests are suited for close quarters combat, they're often at the mercy of even the most amateur of Snipers, who can kill an Engineer, and start picking away at their buildings from afar. While it's possible to counter a Sniper with a wrangler, the severe damage falloff will likely only ward them off for a few minutes at most, and takes away valuable time that could be used to deal with closer threats.
- The Medic. When all else fails — when the Demo can't get around the corner, when the Spy is being heckled by the Pyros or can't deal with the Engineer himself, and when the Soldier or Sniper can't get a good line of sight, a well-coordinated Über of the stock Medigun invincibility type can be the last desperate attempt to take down a well dug-in Sentry Nest. Few things are more frightening to an Engineer than seeing an Übered Heavy-Medic combo round a corner, followed by a gaggle of the enemy team. Even if the push fails, it can distract the Engineer's team long enough to let the other counters do their jobs.
- Under the right circumstances, a Pyro-Medic team can completely wipe out a nest, and kill the Engie for good measure. One invincible Übercharge on a Homewrecker-wielding Pyro, and the nest is history. Though, due to Sentry fire having a mild knockback effect, even on invincible targets, this only works if the nest is only a few feet around a corner, or the Über might run out before the Pyro can even reach the Sentry. These require planning and communication between the team, as every second of invincibility is vital.
- Affably Evil: He may be one of the nicer mercenaries but he’s still a ruthless and remorseless killer.
- Angrish: "Dagit nabit, nagit dagit!"
- American Accents: A lazy Texan drawl.
- Americans Are Cowboys: A running theme with the southern-hailing Engineer. Some of his weapon unlocks have Western theme naming like the Frontier Justice and Gunslinger, his cosmetics range from various cowboy, sheriff, and prospector attires, and his version of taunts like the Mannrobics and Square Dance incorporate finger gun gestures in them (and the latter even uses the traditional "revolver ricochet" sound effect).
- Apologetic Attacker: One of his domination lines to the Pyro is an apology. However, since it's "Sorry, ma'am", it's actually a Stealth Insult... probably.
- Arm Cannon: The Short Circuit, an electrical gun mounted where his prosthetic hand usually is, which draws ammo from his metal supply and fires either a short-ranged burst or a slow-moving orb that can destroy most projectiles in its way.
- Artificial Limbs: The Engineer has two weapons that take the form of prosthetics — the Gunslinger and the Short Circuit, both of which replace his right hand. It's a common assumption that the Engineer cut off his own hand in order to install the Gunslinger.
- It's worth noting that even an Engineer who's not using one of these weapons wears the welding glove on his right hand, implying that this could always be the case and he just doesn't make it obvious all the time.
- There's also a Halloween cosmetic for the Engineer's left hand, named the Iron Fist.
- ...and a cosmetic for his left foot, called the Roboot.
- Awesome, but Impractical:
- The Pomson 6000, which can drain Übercharge and Cloak meter from victims, in exchange for lower damage and reduced clip size. Theoretically, it should be a game-changer for Engineer to deprive his two main counters of the resources they need to wreck his buildings, but in practice, the lower damage and slow projectiles of the Pomson make it useless for defending himself, and the short range of the drain effect only really kicks in when you're at a distance when Engineer's normal Shotgun would two-shot kill a victim anyway — ie., drain 100% of a Medic's charge or make Spy unable to sap buildings for longer.
- Sentry Jumping is one option in the Engineer's arsenal that sounds cool on paper: by using a fully-levelled sentry with rockets and The Wrangler, it's possible to allow Engineer to Rocket Jump onto areas he might not normally reach, allowing him to set up in unconventional spots (either by rebuilding them from scratch or by collecting them with the Rescue Ranger), potentially setting up a nest that's very difficult to break and almost unreachable by Spies. Unfortunately, this requires you set up an entire level 3 sentry, work with a very particular loadout, and take a lot of self-damage that you can't shrug off as easily as the Soldier can, costing you a lot of time and resources and makes it hard to realistically do in most games. On top of that, not all areas that the Engineer can access on foot are places where you can put down sentries, almost always specifically because putting your sentries there would be too unfair for the enemy team.
- Bad Future: A future Engineer does this in the non-canon comic Death of a Salesbot, going back from a time where Gray Mann apparently won his battle with the Mercs by tricking them into buying hats from him. He only barely manages to get the message not to open the crates that contain those hats to the Mercs before being sent back... except one of the Mercs in question is the Soldier, who apparently mishears him and opens the crates anyway.
- Badass Boast: In all fairness, one of the biggest pros of the "Meet Your Match" update is that all of the classes (minus the Medic) have a huge load of these:"This button here, builds Teleporters. This button, builds Dispensers. And this little button makes them enemy sum-bitches wish they'd never even been born!""I whipped up a satellite earlier to scan the topography of the area, boys. And guess what? There's plenty of room for us to kick their asses all over it!"
- Badass Bookworm: An Omnidisciplinary Scientist with over 11 PhD's to his name.My eleventh PhD is in Applied Ass-Kicking!
- Balance Buff:
- The Engineer Update gave him the ability to pickup and move his buildings, making his playstyle potentially far less stagnant, and able to move with the objective without needing to destroy his buildings with the Destruction PDA.
- Before Meet Your Match, Level 1 teleporters cost 125 metal to make. The update made them much cheaper at only 50 metal, with the buffed Eureka Effect further reducing this price to a measly 25 metalnote .
- Bald of Evil: He is this if he is on the enemy team, just like the Heavy, but the Engineer's baldness isn't as obvious since Heavy is hatless by default and Engie isn't. Downplayed as he's pretty chill when not killing mercs.
- Balls of Steel: Due to a since-patched-out case of Hitbox Dissonance, Engie spent the first nine years of the game with a bulletproof pelvis.◊
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Don’t let his polite, soft-spoken attitude fool you. Anyone who gets on his bad side or is on the opposite team will usually end up well ventilated from one of his sentries.
- Has this to say when Blutarch Mann reveals that he illegally exhumed the corpse of the Engineer's grandfather just to get a few blueprints while the geezer electrocutes him:
- Big Fun: The Texas Tech-Hand set gives him a pretty noticeable beer gut and chin flab (as ever, trope depends on what side he's on). It's entirely cosmetic and doesn't impact his mobility any, of course — but don't be surprised if you see an Engineer with this particular set spending the entire match Rancho Relaxing with a base built on last.
- Blown Across the Room: Sentry bullets deal intense knockback to their targets. Canny placement on certain maps lets you blast careless enemies off cliffs.
- Boring, but Practical:
- Like the Medic, some players refuse to ever play Engineer. Yet an Engineer's buildings have huge amounts of undeniable utility that can multiply a competent team's efficiency by several-fold. Engineers are absolutely essential on Defense where a given team's ability to hold off an onslaught is effectively measured by "how many sentries do we have?" and also devastate on Offense by teleporting in constant reinforcements, dispensing ammo/health on the front line, establishing hidden forward bases in enemy territory, and preventing the enemy team from pushing back onto claimed territory. Not the most fun role on the team, but good players understand and appreciate how important it is nonetheless.
- Similarly, his default weapon set is the bog-standard shotgun and pistol shared with a number of other classes, including the Soldier, Pyro, and Scout. But the shotgun is a reasonably powerful close-ranged weapon that can gun down Spies and Scouts looking to flank you with surprising frequency. Meanwhile, the Engineer's incredible surplus ammo of 200, combined the the pistol's good accuracy and rate of fire, make it an ideal weapon for peppering approaching or fleeing enemies (it's also pretty much imperative if you plan on using the Widowmaker, as it's your only go-to option for if you run out of metal aside from your wrench). While the Frontier Justice, Widowmaker, and Short Circuit offer new options that can potentially turn fights around, you really can't go wrong with these two weapons.
- The Rescue Ranger has an even worse offensive output, but also vastly improved practicality than the stock shotgun. The fact it fires a single middling-damage projectile per shot will underwhelm Engies that want a say in a direct fight, but its ability to restore health to buildings from a long distance, as well as rescue them from afar at the cost of 100 metal, can be a total lifesaver in keeping him and his team safe.
- After several significant reworks, the Panic Attack presently behaves like a mild rebalance of the stock shotgun, trading out some damage and accuracy of successive shots for more bullets per shot, a fixed bullet spread pattern, and quicker deployment speed. The increased bullets per shot cancels out the damage reduction fairly evenly, leading to what is in practice a slightly more reliable version of the stock shotgun, which — as mentioned above — is still a fairly strong option. Often times, Engie players opt for the Panic Attack over the stock not because it's more "exciting", but because it's objectively more consistent as it has none of the stock's random bullet spread (unless you're playing competitive or are in a server with random bullet spread turned off — in which case, most players go with stock for its higher net damage).
- The Southern Hospitality is a very basic sidegrade compared to the Engineer's other wrenches, where in sacrificing random Critical Hits and some vulnerability to fire, the wrench causes enemies hit by it to take a small bleeding Damage Over Time effect. This effect totals to a pithy 40 bonus damage across five seconds, but the sacrifices are fairly minimal — fire is something an attentive Engineer hanging around his nest should rarely be getting hit with, and the loss of being able to land a potential critical hit on an exclusively close-ranged target with your wrench can be mitigated with the trusty shotgun. The most common way to use the Southern Hospitality is to catch escaping Spies since the bleed effect makes it impossible for them to cloak. It's an incredibly specific niche and often nowhere near as sexy as what other wrenches offer, but it works.
- Bottomless Magazines: The Widowmaker Deus Ex: Human Revolution promotional weapon uses up building metal as ammunition. Each hit on target returns metal according to the damage done to the enemy, so an Engineer that can aim consistently can literally shoot forever without as much as picking ammo crates. Regardless of the method used to recover used-up metal, the Widowmaker has no reload animation nor needs one.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Like the Sniper, in one of his domination lines against a Heavy, the Engineer seems to be aware that he's killing the same person repeatedly:
- Brilliant, but Lazy: He definitely gives off this image, between his calm attitude, his permanent slouch, and his camping-heavy playstyle. The Rancho Relaxo taunt, which shows him take out a collapsible lawn chair and umbrella and kick back with a beer in hand, seems to invoke this even more.
- Cannot Tell a Joke: His vast intelligence clearly doesn't lie in comedy, as demonstrated in his Competitive Mode voice responses:"Don't worry, boys! The Engineer...is Engi-here! [laughs] Yeah... still tinkerin' with that one.""These fellas are gonna be ohm-less if they don't put up more of a resistance! [laughs] Ah, that's an engineering joke."
- Cloud Cuckoolanders Minder: Promotional material shows that out of all the mercenaries, the Engineer is the closest work friend to the Pyro. Though irked and disturbed by Pyro's very apparent insanity, the two are shown to be roommates in "True Meaning" and rather close friends, possibly due to how much he relies on the Pyro to help with defending his buildings from Spies, Soldiers, and Demomen. Ironic that the probably most sane mercenary of the team is friends with the most insane.
- Combat Pragmatist: Arguably the biggest example out of the entire team. Whereas his allies rely upon their own weapons to do damage, he decided it was smarter to find a good choke point from which to deploy a veritable death machine, and, as if that wasn't enough, to back it up with a free health source and a means to quickly teleport team-mates to his position to help defend his stuff from attackers.
- Continuity Nod: A photo from his update reveals that his father was the Engineer from Team Fortress Classic. One of his domination lines towards the Spy is a reference to this."That's what my daddy taught me to do to backstabbers."
- Cornered Rattlesnake: Essentially the whole purpose of the Frontier Justice, a shotgun with its clip cut in half but can gain guaranteed crits for every sentry kill after it's been destroyed, making it less of a weapon for direct combat and more like his ultimate Desperation Attack. Ordinarily, an Engineer without their sentry is hopelessly outgunned against better equipped or faster enemies and is easy pickings for any organized attack, but with the Frontier Justice equipped the Engineer can deal some serious damage as revenge and one-to-two shot anyone who comes after him before he can escape, or take out a group of enemies before dying.
- Crippling Overspecialization:
- While Engineer's ability to support his team is always useful, some teams instead gain the burden of too many Engineers. While three and up Sentries seems like an unstoppable barrier, the truth is that Engineers take time to set up their nests and are very vulnerable when doing so, especially if they're constantly having to rebuild; excessive Engineers also reduces the number of frontline classes who can actually capture objectives or contribute to a larger-scale counterpush against attackers. New Engineers also make the mistake of putting their Sentries right next to each other, thinking they're doubling their firepower when all they've done is make the Sentries a bigger target for a single Übercharge, Demoman, or crafty Spy. Speaking of Spies, the more Engineers there are, the easier it is for a Spy disguised as one of them to go unnoticed. Two Engineers is typically sufficient for a 12-person team, or less if said team is on the offensive.
- In Mann Vs Machine, too many Engineers will leave a team with too much static defense and no support roles or any way to chase down bomb carriers that inevitably slip through when the waves of Sentry Busters open up holes in the line.
- Critical Hit Class: Due to the fact that your odds of a crit increase heavily if you've been doing a lot of damage, and the fact that the Engineer's primary way of dealing damage can't crit, and they're likely to be using a wrench (which has an increased crit chance), many an enemy has tried to flank a sentry and been one-shotted by the wrench.
- Invoked by Engineers who use the Gunslinger/Frontier Justice combo: the Gunslinger replaces the default Sentry gun by a smaller version that is both weaker and cheaper than the regular level 1 Sentry, and the Frontier Justice stores critical hits for every kill/assist the Engineer's sentry gets, with said crits becoming available once the sentry is destroyed. Meaning that a well-hidden mini-sentry is very likely to get a few kills/assists before getting quickly destroyed due to its low health, allowing the Engineer to get one or several kills of his own with his now crit-boosted shotgun.
- Cultured Badass: Has 11 doctorates, a cultured appreciation for the visual arts, and southern hospitality to spare. That said, he is considered one the nine deadliest mercenaries on the planet for a reason.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: The Engineer and the Medic are both explicitly credited with refining and inventing their tech, respectively. Between the two of them, they could turn the world on its ear if they ever started selling their technology, a la Saxton Hale. Instead, they're content to be incredibly well-paid mercenaries.
- Engie owns the patent on his and his grandfather's Sentry Guns, and apparently sold a license to TF Industries, so he probably has some kind of royalties deal from that invention if nothing else.
- Cyborg: A lot of Engineers' Cosmetics give him Artificial Limbs, but equipping the Gunslinger, the Dead'er Alive, the Iron Fist, and the Roboot can turn you into something resembling RoboCop.
- Difficult, but Awesome:
- Bad Engineers place all their Level 3 buildings in a chokepoint, then hold primary fire with their wrench out to continuously repair the sentry before a Demoman comes to destroy everything, the Engineer included. Good Engineers are able to manage their metal supplies and buildings during the thick of battle and will shift their Sentry around the battlefield to always catch the enemy off-guard.
- Two Engineers working together can play like an RTS-style Heavy Weapons Team.note One carries a fully-built Sentry, the other a Dispenser. Plop both in the frontline, one uses The Wrangler to lay down a non-stop suppression fire that ignores damage falloff, the other keeps it restocked with ammunition and keep a watch for Spies.
- In terms of weapon choices, the Widowmaker is both plainly difficult to wield and plainly awesome. While it fires and hurts like a normal shotgun, it consumes 30 metal per shot, but also returns metal based on the damage it deals, and requires no reloading to keep firing. Those who can't land their shots or get in good-enough range to deal more than 30 damage per shot will quickly run dry and find themselves without a primary weapon and the ability to make buildings, but for those who can, its theoretically infinite magazine allows him to put incredible non-stop damage. Put an effective Widowmaker user into a Battle Engie playstyle, and the increased health and low-cost mini-sentries multiply the potential pressure he can impose on enemy teams.
- The Short Circuit's alt-fire allows for Engineers to vaporize enemy projectiles — including explosives, one of his biggest weaknesses — but at a hefty 65 metal cost per shot, giving him up to three shots with full metal supply before he runs dry. Unless they have steady access to metal, players will need to be greatly judicious with when and where to actually use it, but the sheer power of destroying any number of incoming rockets and grenades can be more effective in saving your buildings than swinging your wrench, and can provide valuable windows to make an aggressive push or retaliation.
- Diminishing Returns for Balance: Subverted and played straight depending on the context. On offense, a team made up of mostly Engineers can only afford to stake claim on half the map (their half) and not have much firepower to actually push forward with, letting the enemy team just wait patiently for the round timer to hit zero. On defense though, the sheer amount of Sentry Guns punting even multiple Uber-charged attackers around like paper in the wind can make it a frustratingly effective strategy during a defender's last stand. Doubly so if the Engineers are communicating and helping maintain each other's Sentry Nests and not just looking out for themselves.
- Dissonant Serenity: What's to worry about when all you need is more gun? Designed by him, built by him... "and you best hope... not pointed at you."
- In battle, Engineers can be pretty calm and relaxed just a few feet away from where the rest of their team is getting murdered. But then a Spy comes in...
- In "True Meaning", he stays calm during and in the aftermath of a rocket crash into his living room that barely missed him and the Pyro.
- With the Rancho-Relaxo taunt, he can erect a mechanical chair, grab a beer, and watch the sparks fly while he sits there without a care in the world.
- Similarly, he can play the Banjo while gaining frags if you have the Duelling Banjo.
- Drone Deployer:
- Puts gun-mounted sentries on the field, whether big or small.
- He may also mention in Competitive Mode that he made a satellite to scan the area.
- Eagleland: Pretty much Flavor #1, almost an opposite of the Soldier, and easily the nicest of the bunch (except during his domination quips, of course). The closest thing to Flavor #2 is the redneck elements of his character.
- The Engineer: Obviously. He provides the page quote.
- Equipment Upgrade: He is based around placing and upgrading various buildings to support the team (most notably the sentry gun; an automated gun which goes from a knee high machine gun to a dual minigun/rocket launcher platform).
- Everything Is Big in Texas: The Texas-born Engineer is capable of building the level 3 Sentry Gun, which is the largest weapon in the game. Though ironically, Engineer is the shortest class.
- Evil Laugh: Has a few rather fantastic ones, just pull out his pistol or wrench and taunt.
- Evil Laugh Turned Coughing Fit: Engineer's laugh during the Schadenfreude taunt gets capped off with a coughing fit.
- Eyes Out of Sight: The Engineer is always wearing welding goggles except when the player selects other cosmetics that replace it. There is no in-game option to reveal his eyes — all the cosmetics in that region either change his goggles' lenses or are worn over them.
- The Friendly Texan: Off duty, Dell is shown to be an easy-going cordial Texan. With that said, you wouldn't want to piss him off or stumble upon his Sentry.
- Gadgeteer Genius: Sentries, dispensers, and teleporters, oh my!
- Gathering Steam: The Engineer is the weakest class in the game at face value, having low health, normal base speed, and unimpressive weapons in his default loadout. However, if given enough time to build and upgrade his machines, he becomes the biggest threat on the battlefield and a cornerstone for his team, often requiring several enemies working together to bring him down without a hard counter like Spy or Demoman.
- Geniuses Have Multiple PhDs: The Engineer, the team's Southern-Fried Genius who builds deadly sentries, ammo dispensers, and teleporters, is claimed by the official website to have eleven hard-science PhDs.
- Glass Cannon: At 125 HP, the Engineer has the same health as the Scout, without the benefit of being fast. Luckily, there are a couple primary weapon options that turn him into a hard-hitter.
- The Widowmaker has no need to stop to reload, as it uses Engineer's metal supply. However, it also restocks this ammo upon hitting someone, possibly fully refunding the metal cost. If you can land all your shots at close range, then the Engineer becomes a lead-spewing monstrosity of constant damage.
- An Engineer with the Frontier Justice can also become one if he's gained many crits, which he earns by sentry kills. His crit-boosted shotgun does a maximum of 180 damage, enough to one-hit kill almost any class. Thus, don't assume an Engineer is helpless once his sentry is destroyed. That glowing shotgun might be the last thing you see.Engineer: Start praying, boy.
- Goggles Do Nothing:
- He wears them like regular sunglasses, rather than for welding, and they do nothing for the player.
- This is doubled by the Hotrod. The mask is seen to flip down when the Engineer is going to build something, but in real life, the smoked lenses of both the goggles and mask would render the person unable to see. Funnily enough, The Hotrod is currently one of the few hats in the game with a practical application: Spychecking. Actual Engineers would only flip down the mask when building things and thus would be holding a toolbox as well. Spies disguised as the Engineer would have the mask flipped down to use the Sapper, caused by the Sapper using the same PDA slot as the the Engineer's build PDA. Most people won't notice this, even if you're looking for it, so it's not a huge advantage.
- Good Ol' Boy: Guy from Texas who's polite when he's not in battle. And sometimes even when he is.
- Gun Twirling: If the stock pistol is selected during taunting, Engie twirls it and blows an imaginary plume of smoke away.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: He seems a nice enough guy, but he's got a short fuse when it comes to his machines.
- Hayseed Name: His real name is Dell Conagher.
- Healing Shiv: The Rescue Ranger is a limited form of this, able to restore the health of a building per shot. It doesn't restore ammo nor upgrade them, but it's great for saving you and your friendly Engies' damaged buildings in a pinch if you don't have the time or safe space to hit it with your wrench instead.
- Hero-Tracking Failure: Zig-zagged. Despite what Meet the Scout tells you, no, Sentries have perfect tracking and can easily stop practically anyone who wanders into its firing range unsupported. That being said, it is possible to dodge a Sentry's firing range if you're close and fast enough to circumvent its rotation.
- Hidden Depths: Again, he's probably the nicest of the mercenaries, but he can and will mess you up if you push him. In the comics, this extends even to his boss — Dell calmly quips to Blutarch that, "If you don't take your goddamn hands off me, I will break you in half", even as the later has taken him by the collar in an Australium-fueled rage.
- Hypocritical Humor: While dominating an enemy Sniper, Engie will poke fun at him for being a "camper" and/or a squatter, due to Sniper having to stay in one spot and wait for the right moment to land a headshot. Yet, defensive Engineers tend to do nothing but stay in one area to babysit his own machines, thus making him just as much as a camper as Sniper is.
- In-Series Nickname: He is known as "Engie" by the Soldier, Medic, and fellow Engineers. Scout calls him "hardhat".
- Instrument of Murder: Engineer has the Frontier Justice's "Dischord" taunt, where he pulls out his guitar, plays a chord, and then smashes the area in front of him. If an enemy player is within range, they will get killed and the corpse of said enemy will have their head pounded into their chest.
- It Runs in the Family: According to a picture in the Engineer Update pages, his father was the Engineer from Team Fortress Classic. Supported with one of Engineer's Spy-domination quotes.That's what my daddy taught me to do to back-stabbers.
- Joke Character: In Medieval Mode, where he doesn't get any of his buildings, he's hopelessly underpowered compared to the other classes. Nobody plays as him except if you're goofing around and/or you're trying to complete the Gunslinger contract, which grants a critical hit after three punches on the same person. It is way harder than it sounds to pull off.
- Leitmotif: "More Gun". Interestingly enough, he's the one playing it in "Meet the Engineer".
- Machine Empathy: Engineer is always aware of his deployables' state even without looking at his PDA. And he really, really cares about them.
- Mad Scientist: If the goggles and the laugh don't give him away, the fact that he chopped a hand off For Science! surely does…
- In the Tough Break Update, with the new Mannrobics taunt, Engineer will quip "I don't even need my good hand for this!" Maybe his hand was injured, and he replaced it with the Gunslinger to keep his job.
- In the Tough Break Update, with the new Mannrobics taunt, Engineer will quip "I don't even need my good hand for this!"
- Major Injury Underreaction: His responses from being set on fire aren't quite as understated as the Spy's, but they sound more like he's touching something hot or realizing the ambient temperature is too high rather than being aflame.
- Mechanically Unusual Class: While he can deal a bit of damage, his primary purpose is to build gadgets which can teleport teammates across the map and replenish their ammo (as well as heal and deal damage). The other classes fight in a more direct manner.
- Mighty Glacier: Played with; per the official wiki, the Defense Classes possess the highest firepower, but are slow to deploy. In his case, it takes a while for him to set up a fully-functional Sentry nest (the Glacier part), but once it's up, it can be a nightmare to take down without an Übercharge (the Mighty part) despite his Squishy Wizard status.
- Minored In Ass Kicking: To quote the man himself:"My 11th PhD is in Applied Ass-Kicking!"
- Mini-Me: The Mini-Engy is a toy of the Engineer (modeled after a Mini Mario toy) that clings to the Engineer's power cord. The Pyro also has a doll cosmetic of the Engineer called the "Pocket Pardner".
- More Dakka:
- "How am I gonna stop some big mean Mother Hubbard from tearing me a structurally superfluous new behind? The answer: Use a gun. And if that don't work? Use more gun."
- His Pistol replacement, The Wrangler, doubles the firing rate of the Sentry Gun. This includes the time it takes for the rockets to reload on a Level Three.
- However, he goes back on his own statement with the Combat Mini-Sentry:"Sometimes, you just need a little less gun."
- The Engineer's Pistol may have the same clip size and fire rate as the one carried by the Scout, but while the Scout only has 36 reserve shots (3 clips' worth), the Engineer has 200 (over 16 clips).
- Mr. Fixit: His role is to repair buildings.
- No Experience Points for Medic: Averted. Excluding Sentry Guns (which are more than capable of racking up kills), Engineers can score well from points gained every time a teammate uses a Teleporter, as well as every 600 damage healed by a Dispenser.
- Not the Intended Use: The Eureka Effect was made as a utility tool to allow Engineers to quickly teleport to their spawn room or a teleporter exit in the case of an emergency, without needing to use the teleporter entrance. However, since the exit doesn't have to be active in order for Engies to use the Eureka Effect, it's often used as a stealth tool that players use to secretly appear in places and surprise enemies without the sounds of teleportation giving away their location. Users of this strategy are often nicknamed "Ninjaneers" by the fandom.
- No Sense of Personal Space: In "Expiration Date", he puts his arms around Soldier and Medic when he learns that the team is not afflicted with tumors. Judging by Medic's expression, Medic is uncomfortable.
- Odd Friendship: The down-to-earth genius with 11 doctorates and the child-like, perpetually-disconnected-from-reality pyromaniac are best friends. In-game the Pyro is an Engineer’s biggest ally since he can weed out spies, reflect Soldier and Demoman fire, and is the only class aside from the Engineer himself who can destroy sappers.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Subverted; he's got 11 PhDs, but they're all in various types of mechanical engineering, architecture, and the like. Except the 11th:"My 11th PhD is in Applied Ass-Kicking!"
- Other Me Annoys Me: Downplayed compared to the others, but the Engineer clearly has as little respect for his alternate counterpart as he has for the rest of the enemy team.A real Texan woulda dodged that.
You can always tell a Texan, but you can't tell him much.
You're all hardhat and no cattle. - Out of Focus:
- He was the last class to receive a weapon set, well over two years after weapon sets were introduced, and he didn't receive any new weapons in the Über Update. He's tied with the Medic for having the least amount of weapons out of all the classes. Admittedly, Valve have tried to design and implement some weapons for him, but the Engineer more so than any other class runs the risk of breaking the game in two if his weapons change too much.
- This is also the case in the "Mann Co. No More" comics, where Engie makes absolutely no appearances in the story months after the team is fired. Miss Pauling lampshades this, noting that he's practically fallen off the face of the earth when she tries to contact him. The Naked and the Dead reveals the reason behind his sudden disappearance: The Administrator took him with her when she went into hiding after Gray Mann took over Mann Co., since he's the only person still alive with the technical know-how to build an Australium Life Extender.
- Percussive Maintenance: Even the official Sentry gun manual notes that whacking devices with a wrench makes their deployment faster and repairs and upgrades them.
- Perma-Stubble: On his chin.
- Properly Paranoid: Veteran Engineers are constantly checking for Spies, whether by moving erratically, shooting at corners, or even at any approaching teammates. And for good reason, since they're the biggest target of Spies and one moment of inattentiveness could mean their life and nest.
- Ranged Emergency Weapon: His pistol is implicitly designed to work like this, being a secondary weapon that provides less raw personal firepower than his primary shotgun and especially his sentries. Also, where the Scout's pistol has a limited ammo reserve that only allows for three full clips before he needs to restock, the Engineer's pistol has a whopping 200 reserve ammo, which when combined with his frequency for collecting metal all but ensures in practice he'll never run out of it, suggesting it to be even more of a disposable backup option. It's still perfectly reliable in a pinch, pairs surprisingly well with some unlocks (especially the Widowmaker, which uses metal supply as ammo and can leave you without primary ammo after a few missed shots), and it comes with the added benefit of having better mid-range accuracy than a shotgun.
- Resource Reimbursement: The Widowmaker is a shotgun that — rather than firing bullets from the usual ammo/magazine system — instead fires metal that's normally spent to create buildings, with the upside being that it returns metal based on the damage he deals with each shot. It also doesn't require reloading, meaning that an effective Engineer who can consistently land shots can pump out a non-stop stream of damage (the tradeoff being that missing too many shots leaves you without a primary weapon or the ability to build anything).
- Rockers Smash Guitars: The Engineer's Dischord taunt kill has him strumming his acoustic guitar, then smashing it, possibly on an enemy's head.
- Rocket Jump:
- Equipping the Wrangler and having a Level 3 Sentry at hand allows the Engineer to fire its rockets right at himself, jump at the right time and gain some serious air time. It's devastating to your health pool and you likely won't survive the fall, but on certain maps, you can make a safe landing on rooftops or high ground, sneak your way to spots normally hard or impossible for the Engineer to reach, if while at the brink of death. With the Rescue Ranger in your loadout, you can also haul your buildings along for the ride if you're feeling crafty.
- The Short Circuit — while not advertising it as a feature and appears to simply be an unintended quirk in the physics engine — is also situationally capable of providing this with its secondary fire. The catch is that your energy orb has to catch an enemy within the blast radius, but doing so will cause it to launch you around very similar to how Soldier and Demoman blast-jump around, and can be a surprisingly useful burst of mobility to either escape or reposition onto enemies.
- Rough Overalls: The Engineer, whose role is in construction and defense, wears a set of overalls as his default outfit.
- Savage Spiked Weapons: The Southern Hospitality, a wrench with a spiked blade and handguard.
- Scary Shiny Glasses: Uh, wow.
- Self-Destruct Mechanism: Alongside Engie's trusty Construction PDA is a Destruction PDA, which allows him to instantly destroy any of his active buildings. It's a rather important part of the Engineer's kit, as only one of each building can be built at one time, and new ones can't be made until the old ones are destroyed. Whenever the Engineer must reposition, it can be more time-efficient to manually destroy old buildings and replace them elsewhere, rather than hauling the old ones or waiting for an enemy to wreck them first. The only time he can't use the Destruction PDA on a building is if a Spy is sapping the building in question.
- Sentry Gun: Engineer can build these, and they're his primary kill-earner. It starts out as a single gun, upgrades to double chainguns, and then a further upgrade gives it rockets.
- Shock and Awe: The Short Circuit gives him the power to attack with projectile-destroying lightning bolts.
- Shoot the Medic First:
- He can repair his buildings with ease when alive, so he's a vital target. Especially when they're movin' that gear up, and moreso if the gear they're movin' up is a fully-levelled Sentry.
- On the other hand, Spies may target an Engineer's Sentry before the Engineer himself to keep them from being killed while backstabbing the latter or just to draw the Engineer to them.
- Shorter Means Smarter: He's the shortest member of the team and has the most book smarts and common sense.
- Signature Headgear: His hard hat (usually worn backwards) and goggles, both of which have a lot of cosmetic variations.
- The Smart Guy: Uses his smarts on the battlefield.
- Smoking Barrel Blowout: When taunting with his pistol or Wrangler.
- Soft-Spoken Sadist: He is soft-spoken, gentlemanly, and enjoys killing people as part of his mercenary work.
- Southern-Fried Genius: As his official bio puts it, he loves "barbeque, guns, and higher education".
- Southern Gentleman: He is the friendliest and most well-mannered of the mercenaries.
- Squishy Wizard: Of the tech-wizard variety. Alone, an Engineer is almost completely disadvantaged. With his sentry, he becomes a brick wall.
- With the Frontier Justice, a sentry-less Engineer can be a very nasty Glass Cannon (a crit shotgun can deal up to 180 damage per shot, letting him One-Hit Kill anything weaker than a Soldier, and two hit kill anything weaker than an overhealed Heavy). Even more so with a Gunslinger; the most common plan with that is to drop a mini-sentry, rack up kills, then use the revenge crits with the Frontier Justice to wreck the enemy team.
- The Pomson 6000 gives him a unique ability: the power to drain ÜberCharges and Spy Cloaks. The former can severely cripple an enemy team, especially if the Engie manages to land multiple shots on the Medic. The latter combos well with the Southern Hospitality, resulting in the ability to efficiently Spycheck. Both effects come straight out of left field for an enemy who thinks the Engineer is only good for building stuff.
- The Widowmaker uses metal for ammo but returns metal based on damage dealt, easily allowing accurate Engineers to continue firing their weapon indefinitely. Combine with Medic's Über for eight seconds of mowing every enemy down.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: The Eureka Effect gives the Engineer the on-demand ability to teleport to his spawn room or to a teleporter exit if it's been placed down, which can be used to either quickly get himself out of a jam or reach the frontline faster depending on the scenario, with all that it requires being a fairly short taunt animation. Interactions with the teleporter exit can be especially stealthy as you don't even need a teleporter entrance to be online to teleport to it, which prevents it from appearing "on" and spewing forth obnoxious amounts of light for the enemy team to notice, thus allowing enterprising Engies to place it in much stealthier spots. Teleporting through this method also bypasses the usual storm of particle effects and trail that comes from exiting an active teleporter, meaning Engie's sudden appearances out of nowhere are even less conspicuous.
- Stone Wall: Sentries in general tend to be main contributions to long-term stalemates, as can Dispenser-camping Heavies, when placed in the right chokepoints.
- Super Wrist-Gadget: The Pip-Boy replaces the Engineer's normal PDA with the mentioned wrist-mounted computer.
- Support Party Member: While officially listed as "Defense", Engineer is a vital tool to aid his team if played right. All of his buildings benefit his team in different ways- his teleporters allow for a steady supply of troops to leave the spawn room and be brought to the front instantly, his dispenser is a vital health and ammo supplier, and his sentry gun is a dangerous weapon that can hold choke points with ease. On defense he's a backbone for the team's capabilities, while on offense he's useful for creating "forward operating bases" to make sure the defensive team can't push the offensive team back too far. It's worth nothing he's not completely defenseless, as a number of his weapons are designed to reward aggressive play, like the Frontier Justice or the Widowmaker.
- Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors:
- The Demoman-Scout-Engineer triangle. Engineer's sentries completely deny an area to a Scout with its auto-aimed hitscan weaponry, Scouts hard counter Demoman by dodging his projectile explosives and killing him up close, and Demomen can bombard your Sentry Nest indirectly from a safe distance, either blowing everything up at once with stickies or just killing you first so you can't repair the subsequent damage. It's worth noting a lone Engineer without a deployed sentry is usually screwed if jumped by a Scout, but really good shotgun aim or a melee crit just might save them.
- Forms a second triangle with the Spy and Pyro. Spies can sneak up on Engineer nests to sap and stab, the Engineer's Sentry Gun turns the close-ranged Pyro into Swiss cheese, while diligent Pyros can easily sniff out Spies and light them up. Interestingly, this dynamic also applies to the Soldier and Demoman in addition to the Spy as Pyros can counter them by airblasting their projectiles, while both Soldiers and Demomen can destroy Sentry nests from outside their range.
- Teleportation:
- Teleporters are one of the Engineer's buildings, coming in the form of an entrance and exit pad that players stand on for a free one-way trip. Having a recharge time of only 3 seconds when fully upgraded, teleporters are absolutely imperative for making effective team pushes as they drastically cut down the time needed to run from spawn to the frontline.
- The Eureka Effect is a wrench that gives the Engineer his own on-demand teleport: by using his taunt, he can teleport to either his closest spawn room or any active teleporter exit (note that the exit doesn't need an active entrance for this ability to work; as long as it's plopped down somewhere, it's a valid target). Equipping the wrench also further reduces the already-low metal cost for teleporters (from 50 metal to only 25 to build, from 200 metal to 100 to upgrade per level), so it can come as a very handy tool for Engineers who prefer to jump around the map a lot.
- Temporary Bulk Change: Equipping the Level Three Chin and/or Egghead's Overalls cosmetics turns Engie into a fat guy.
- Token Good Teammate: While he is still a mercenary with no qualms with using his creations to kill people, he is probably the nicest, most well-adjusted, and arguably most sane (he did saw his hand off to test the Gunslinger after all) of his colleagues.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Befitting for a Texan, it's noted in several places (including his official profile) that Dell loves American-style barbecue. He's also very fond of beer; you just have to look at him camping out with a whole crate of the stuff in Meet the Engineer and his Rancho Relaxo taunt to see how much!"I love beer, barbecue, and rankin' up!"
- Tranquil Fury: The Frontier Justice taps into this. No screaming rage, just a pithy one-liner as he prepares to take revenge for the destruction of his machines."Y'all're about to have a real bad day..."
- The Turret Master: His level 1 turret is rather unremarkable, but it builds quickly enough and does enough damage to shoo away enemy Scouts (which can't outrun its tracking, no matter what the "Meet The Scout" video shows). Level 2 puts out a whole lot more lead, and level 3 is where the turret really shines when it can shoot rockets on top of the level 2's bullets.
- Un Evil Laugh: He coughs during his Schadenfreude taunt.
- Weak Turret Gun: The Combat Mini-Sentry is a smaller turret that deals much less damage compared to the default turret, and it can't be upgraded. On the other hand, it builds much quicker, shoots faster, allows the Engineer to attack an enemy from 2 angles, and most dangerously, can easily be used to fill up his Frontier Justice revenge crits. It's also a surprisingly effective tool against Soldiers and Demos who rely on rocket/sticky jumping, as the mini-sentry is a difficult weapon to notice or destroy before it chips away much of your health.
- Wicked Cultured: Dell, to Blutarch Mann's personal care attendant, regarding a painting in Blutarch's mansion: "Say, ain't that an original Kicasso?"
- Wrench Whack: The melee weapon of the Engineer. It is used for hastening building, repairing, and upgrading the Engineer's buildings. Other uses include hurting people — and the wrench is good at it, hitting critically often because Sentries do a lot of damage — especially removing Spies and their sappers from the Engineer's guns' vicinity. Variants include the Southern Hospitality, implemented with a sharp piece of metal and a spiked handguard, which cause the hit enemy to bleed; the Jag, which hastens building even more, but doesn't hurt as much; and the Eureka Effect, which can teleport the Engineer back to his base or teleporter exit at the cost of half the upgrade rate.
- You Have Researched Breathing: The "Texas Slim's Dome Shine" is basically Engineer without his hat.
- You Require More Vespene Gas: Like his Team Fortress Classic granddaddy, he requires metal to erect buildings and to use the Rescue Ranger efficiently.
"Like this heavy caliber, tripod-mounted, little ol' number designed by me... built by me... and you'd best hope... not pointed at you."
