Team Fortress 2 beta impressions part 2

If you’ve missed Part 1 you should go and read it first. I talk about the history and general impressions on Valve as well as the details of the sniper and the spy. Part 2 will continue with dissecting the rest of the classes.

Soldier :

-Great news, they kept the rocket jumping. Although a bit less powerful than the TFC version. You don’t jump as high and it’s easier to get injured in TF2.

-The rocket’s blast radius and strength is reduced, perhaps as a counter balance to the increased damage of the rocket itself. Also, I don’t know what’s been changed, but it seems that it’s easier for the rocket to do a direct hit on another player compared to TFC. You can no longer kill the lesser classes by just shooting the ground, most classes will survive after 4 shots, except for the scout.

-Out of all the classes, I can say that the soldier is the one that changed the least

-Beware of spies soldiers are very easily stabbed from behind by a cloaked spy.

HWguy:

-The mini-gun is less accurate at longer range. A scout with a shotgun that’s outside of the effective range of the mini-gun will kill you.

-HWguy’s shotgun is the same as everyone else’s in this version. No super shotgun for him.

Pyro:

-Same pyro but with reduced speed and less range on the flame thrower. Say if a soldier is backing away from you, you have a fat chance of killing him.

-Pyro no longer have the fire rocket launcher.

Scout:

-Has double jump to replace the concussion grenade jump

-Scout’s shotgun is as strong as everyone else’s. Probably making the scout the best sniper killer. I noticed that the shotgun’s damage does not decrease as the range increases and is counted as an instant hit. Making a scout with a shotgun a very scary foe.

-Scout’s baseball bat is very powerful. Haven’t measured it scientifically yet, but enough to force you to run away.

Medic:

-Complete overhaul to become a pure healing class.

-The invulnerable ability is very effective against choke points. I can see some great dual player action emerging from this.

Engineer:

-Same sentry gun, same dispenser. The dispenser’s self destruct is no longer strong enough to kill anyone.

-Since the grenades are no longer around, I haven’t seen any team beat 3 engineers with 3 sentry guns together. Even with the spy’s special tool to disable sentry guns.

-Fully charged sniper shot can no longer blow up the sentry gun.

Demo man:

-Very strong grenade launcher. Able to one shot kill a soldier on direct hit. I obviously couldn’t use it very well, but a veteran with expert knowledge of the grenade’s arc can kill almost anything.

That’s it for tonight, I will talk about some game play next time in part 3. In the mean time, if you haven’t already done so, check out part 1.