Unbelievable.

Guys, guys, you are not going to believe this. (I had hard time believing it myself last night.)

I have a new favourite class.

For the moment, at least. And you will never guess what it is. Never. Well, I guess you could since there are only nine classes and it's obviously not one of my top four, because, uh, they are my favourite classes already.
I said from the beginning, before I actually started playing Team Fortress 2, that there are two classes that I will probably never play as, because they seem way too... well, difficult. One of them was Engineer, but we all know how that turned out, and the other is this class. And well would you look at how that one turned out:



Well, putting the embarrassing (self-ironic?) screenshot aside, yeah, it's my former least played class, the one I thought I'd never bother to learn to play as because, and I quote, "I'm an absolutely appalling Demo [...] I've always been terrible with grenades, I can never predict trajectories right and my timing simply sucks."
WELL WHADDAYA KNOW.
I already have 3,5 hours as Demo (my playtime as a Demo was about 20 minutes before last night, haha), and, well, turns out that I'm not a completely horrible Demo, and it's so much fun! Yeah, sure, I still don't do trajectories, and I freely admit that most of the time I'm just spamming grenades at where enemies are without thinking about it much more than that (I know some people call Soldier the "Easy Mode," but I beg to differ. To me? Demoman's the ultimate easy mode. Most of my pipe bomb kills are sheer luck, and at least with Soldier you'll have to AIM. As a Demo... dammit, I chuck pipe bombs behind a corner just in case someone's there. And if I can do it, I believe anyone can do it).

Anyway, my sudden demolitions enthusiasm began when I was playing on our (TF2Chan's) Mantrain server. There were only six players, and we were fighting it out on Hall of Death, which, in case you're not familiar with it, is a custom CTF map. Pretty fun, at that, totally crazy and fast-paced, perfect for just fooling around with small teams. So indeed I was fooling around: I got totally sick of being dominated by the enemies, so I went Demo and always started the game by putting stickies underneath the intel, waiting for the enemies to approach and KABOOM! Into giblets (or balloons and stuff, since birthday mode was on) they exploded. Repeat ad nauseum. I dominated the entire enemy team two times over, and then they probably got sick of my sticky strategy and all of them went Pyro, which indeed proved to be my downfall. Fffff damn Pyros.
But at some point I got a new max points record for Demo and everything, and I had a really good time. Maybe even learned a thing or two about stickies and the regular grenades.
So eventually I changed servers and ended up on Badlands. And decided that okay, right, I'm not a very good Demo and sure it's easy to be at least somewhat successful on a small map with a few players and just guarding the intel with stickies, but let's try it out in "real" game (since the Hall of Death skirmish had mostly been fooling around with 3v3 teams), and let's see how it goes from there.

It went pretty well if I do say so myself! Better than I had ever imagined! Mostly I just kept stickying the control points and being a defensive Demo and then chucking pipe bombs at approaching enemies, but at least I was good at that! I got lots of defenses (and now I know that I'm not the only idiot who always just trods over sticky bombs thinking that the Demoman who put them down isn't watching. Oh ha ha ha wow, I'm never going near stickies again, because what kind of Demo isn't looking after his stickies?! I know I'm keeping my eye on them, no matter the situation). I don't know what the hell happened, but apparently all it took was a few more minutes with the Demo and I had the basics down. (Or then all the times I've been spectating Slaverstrike while waiting to respawn and following a Demoman as a Medic paid off and I just did things I've seen them do).

And stickies... oh, how I love stickies. Because of stickies I like being Demo on defense (I played both defensive and offensive Demo last night, and I like defense far far more), because I like taking care of the capture points or the bomb cart. Or intel. It's easy, and important business, and even a newbie Demo like me can do it! On Dustbowl I first covered whichever point it was that we were defending, and then started minding my own business. And it's awesome because all I have to do is check out the indicators on my HUD and if there are people on the point or near the bombcart, I just right click and get a few kills and defenses even if I'm in the other side of the bleeding map.



I totally dig that. In the screenshot I'm just coming from the respawn (got assaulted by a Pyro and had to fall back to heal myself), and well whaddaya know, two kills and a defense, all thanks to careful stickying. And lol at the Spy, I remember he got gibbed by that rocket just as I had pulled out my bottle.

What I hate about stickies, is that sometimes I fire them just... somewhere, and forget about them. And then I start firing more at enemies, maybe trying to take down a sentry or an approaching Heavy or just simply trying to lay a sticky carpet somewhere, and then I back off and detonate them and KABLOOIE! I suicide, because I forgot a stray sticky that I had somewhere. Haha. It's happened so many times it's not even FUNNY. It was funny the first few times, then it started getting a bit annoying. I'm a dementic Demoman.
And yeah, sometimes someone scatters my carefully places sticky carpets and I don't notice until it's too late. I also have a tendency to first lay stickies somewhere close to me, then see an enemy approaching, shoot a sticky at him and detonate. Well, whoops. I guess with time I'll learn not to do that.
What sucks about laying all your stickies at the CP or near the cart, is that I like using stickies way more than the pipe bombs, even in regular face-offs with enemies. It's easier to just chuck some stickies at people, see them land somewhere near them, and detonate them immediately for maximum carnage. And I love detonating them mid-flight right when they're at someone's face. Oh, love.
But I can't do that if I have stickies somewhere else, without losing the defensive hold I have of the point/cart/intel. And I hate going back and putting them down again. Of course it adds a bit to the strategic side of the Demo: to know when to defend the point and when to push forward.

There were also some great moments when I was attacking. Never mind being an MVP as a Heavy, THIS is just absurd:



And taking down sentries is surprisingly easy, even for a Demo noob like me (and now I know for sure that I am never übering anything but Demos for sentry takedowns. They are the best at it, no doubt about it)! There was a round in Dustbowl when I was in BLU and we had fought our way to the third stage. I had a Medic stick to me during the setup and he told me that he's going to über me and we'll take down the sentries.
I was like "D: OH GOD" because, yeah, you probably know how nervous I get when I'm übered (and at that point I hadn't even faced any big sentry farms - like the ones that you usually see on Dustbowl), so I told the Medic that okay, we can try it if you really want to, but I can't promise that it will succeed (I was the highest scoring Demo in our team at that point - no, really, I was - so maybe I WAS the best bet for taking down the sentries... I just wasn't so sure about myself). So we rush out, the Medic übers me, and I actually fucking take down a level one sentry, a level three sentry and its Engineer during the charge, and we cap the point immediately. The Medic was pleased and complimented me, and I had to go all "Wow I actually did it!" and I felt really proud of myself.
Yeah, pretty good from someone who had only been a Demo for about hour and a half.

My scores as a Demoman are still very modest, max kills is 9, max destructions 5, and most points only 11, but I'm still a pretty surprised that I'm actually not a completely godawful Demoman! And I was an MVP on few rounds, which is... pretty awesome. Here, probably my best run last night:



So. I really, REALLY liked being a Demo (...I even forgot about the time and realised what time is it when Slaver told me that he's calling it quits for the night. It was 11:30 pm. Sure, it wouldn't be so bad, if I didn't have to get up at 5:30 am to go to work. Whoops?), and you'll probably see me playing nothing but Demo until I get bored of it. I'm itching to play this very moment! I wanna learn all the tricks to it so that I would become a bit better at it! Now I get slaughtered by anything that gets too close to me (seriously, it doesn't matter which class it is, if it gets close to me, I'm goners. Yeah, I suicide a lot, no surprises there).

And fuck, Demos, I'm sorry. I didn't know that Demomen take full damage from their own stickies and grenades! I foung it out in a pretty gruesome way while trying out sticky jumping and plummeting straight to my death (and damn sticky jumps seem so much more potent than rocketjumping. Too bad that I'm left with measly 80 HP after one, so I probably won't be doing it a whole lot). I thought that Demos too had the damage reduction Soldiers have.

And now I kinda want to get drunk on scotch and play nothing but Demo for the entire evening. For added realism. Ehh. I wish I wasn't such a huge nerd.

Oh, Soldier...

Forget everything I whined about the Soldier, turns out I can still play as one, and do pretty good. Yeah, sure, I suicide more often than not if a Pyro charges right at me, and it pisses me off, but... oh well. At least I'm somewhat more conscious about Pyros now.
Also did probably the most awesome kill I've ever done on Badlands. There was an enemy Demo trying to cap their spire back, and I was just getting out of respawn. So just before the point was capped, I rocketjumped from the ledge, fired a rocket at the Demo while I was still airborne, and landed right in the middle of the cap point just as the Demo exploded into gibs. And I got a domination out of it, because I had killed the player before while he was still playing as a Spy. I'd love to show you a screenshot, but my F5-fu was too slow and I only got a screenshot in which I've already landed and there are giblets everywhere. Besides, the said screenshot is on my little brother's computer. But I'll show it to you once I get my hands on it.
Anyway, I just couldn't stop grinning after that. And a mere moment later the round ended, we won, and I was the number one MVP.
So much about not being able to play as Soldier anymore. Sorry about whining, Soldier, I think I still love you, even with all the nerfing and everything.
I should learn to use the shotgun, though. I don't know why I can use the shotgun as a Pyro, no problem, but as a Soldier I use the shotgun very rarely, if ever.
And godDAMN I hate skilled Pyros who can already use the airburst like it's always been there.

I also got the Flare Gun for Pyro (I got Weenie Roast, Fire and Forget, Spontaneous Combustion and Firewatch since the last time I wrote), but it doesn't really matter because I like the shotgun so much more, and I'm not going to give it up. Besides, I have a horrible aim, I'm laggy, and I have hard time hitting distant moving targets even as a Soldier, so I probably wouldn't even hit anything with the Flare Gun.

And finally I have hands-on impressions about the Kritzkrieg and the Übersaw.
Kritzkrieg is... well, I'll just have to learn to use it. And find people who I can give the charge to without them just rushing out guns blazing and thinking that they're still invulnerable (which is what I usually do when I'm kritzkrieged...). And I felt pretty stupid kritzkrieging a Backburner-equipped Pyro, but at least the havoc we caused was formidable.
And naturally there was some Heavy player yelling for Medic and after seeing that I was holding the Kritzkrieg, he started whining how Kritzkrieg is completely useless, hey Medic change it to normal medigun, and goddamn I raged. "Your ass is useless," I wanted to say. Don't fucking question what I'm doing. I think I'm a pretty good Medic (and at least the stats don't argue against me: yesterday, whenever I was a Medic, I was on top of the scoreboard. No exceptions.), and I dare to claim that I know what our team needs and when we need it. We were in Granary, pushing for the last point (oh I wonder how we managed to get to the last point with just the "useless" Kritzkrieg! Shut the fuck up if you don't know what I can do, and you weren't there to see how me and a Pyro cleared the entire warehouse a couple of times and capped the point), and yes, there was a sentry, but everyone knows that all it takes is a Demoman or a Soldier to take down any sentries near the last point (if I can do it, any Soldier with half a skill can do it!). There is no need for the regular über: the Kritzkrieg, if used well, can make more of a difference by killing every single player guarding the point, after which the sentry is left unattended.
So if you get killed just because I didn't have the über to give to you, fuck off. What makes you think I would've übered you anyhow? Heavies are useless against tanked sentries in the distance, I would've much rather picked a Demoman to do the job.

But yeah, I totally admit that Kritzkrieg is useless in some situations. When there are a lot of sentries (I wouldn't use the Kritzkrieg if we're attacking on Dustbowl - at least), sure, I'd pick the regular medigun. You just have to know when and how to use it. Which I'm planning to learn. And it's not that I can't change weapons during respawn if the situation changes so that it isn't favourable to use the Kritzkrieg anymore. And I think a team with two Medics one of which is holding the Kritzkrieg and the other the regular medigun, can be extremely successful.

And the Übersaw? Less-than-three. I tend to forget all the time that hitting with it once charges the übercharge meter by 25%, so I was mighty surprised after killing a Spy with it and then sporting a full charge, even after I had just übered a mere moment ago. Lolwut. I might have to learn to melée a bit better, I usually attack with the Blutsauger. Which keeps even those monstrous Pyros at bay and it's wonderful. <3

I even got a max übercharges record yesterday; managed to stay alive during an entire Gravel Pit round (if my team can hold B, I can usually stay alive for the entire round - and keep most of my team alive as well) and launched five übers during that time. I have to thank our Engineers for that, though, a dispenser on the point saved my life so many times (since I was the only Medic in the team). Damn flame damage drop-off removal. Nothing's more awesome than seeing your life drop close to zero and reaching a dispenser when it's down to six or so. Ehh.

And people, if you got headshot yesterday by me and I was doing the kukri taunt in the deathcam, it was not me. Little brother was on a roll in Granary, and taunted after every single kill he got. He even had the nerve to do it while in flames and about to die. I know I'd be raging my head off: I hate good Snipers, and I hate it when people taunt after they've killed me.
But seeing someone else ("me") do it, was priceless. I was laughing my ass off. And the kukri taunt is so priceless, oh god... I hope people at least got nice deathcam shots outta those taunts.
The only thing I'm trying to stop my little brother from doing, is using teleporters. He seems to be a compulsive teleport-user, whenever he sees one, he just gets on it and I try to stop him because for fuck's sake, Snipers don't use teleporters. D:
And since no one knows that Sniper-Chrome is not me, well... everyone must think that I'm an asshole Sniper. Yay? Maybe I should get him to change his nick when he's playing (I would've made him do it already, but I can't remember the console command, and I never remember to look it up). To avoid confusion. And to stop people from thinking that I'm a complete asshole and actually a pretty good Sniper (he was called a "monster" a few days ago and told to GTFO of the "newbie" server. The whiner probably wasn't a regular...).

Whoo-hoo!

HOORAY! Who cares about being a stupid overpowered Pyro or a suicidal Soldier, I'm back to being a Medic! Because I finally have the Kritzkrieg and the Übersaw!

Valve ILU.

Oh wtf again...

My final word on the Pyro update is that Pyro is so overpowered that it's not even funny anymore.

Because this is so wrong, on so many levels:



And I don't even have any of the unlockables yet (and I'll never even use the Flare Gun: I love the shotgun too much)! Needless to say, I also made a new max points record for Pyro. It's 21 now. Used to be 11.

Yes, I am actually whining about being good at something. That's a new one.

Pyros! Every-fucking-where!

Okay, the only way to stay alive on TF2 now is to be a Pyro. At least that's the only way I can stay alive right now. Fight fire with fire, you know.

And I can't believe how much I actually nerd RAGE'd after realizing what Valve had done to the Soldier. I read the update message, "Removed Soldier's 40% damage reduction from his own rockets. Does not affect rocket jumps." but I didn't even realise (or think about) what it actually meant until I connected to the server today, saw the amount of Pyros and went Soldier. Because hey, at least before the update I was learning to kill them.
And guess what?
Nearly all my deaths? Suicides. If it wasn't some Pyro chucking my rockets back at my face (thank god nearly everyone is using the Backburner already, but more on that later), it was just me, playing like I've used to, and getting owned. Fuck, I'm so used to just shooting at my feet when a Pyro or a Scout or anything gets too close for comfort, and taking some damage but walking out alive. Now if I do that, I die. Not even mentioning the times my aim is a bit off and I shoot the goddamn wall in front of me and get a crit rocket in the face. Now such mistakes are an instant kill. It will probably take me forever to learn to jump whenever I shoot a rocket close enough to get damaged by it too (it apparently counts as a rocket jump then, I had to do some testing by shooting a wall in front of me while jumping, and I got the same old 40% reduction instead of the full damage of about 80 HP).
And imagine how much that must suck from the viewpoint of the player who was chasing me? They get NO points from chasing me down and actually making me suicide - which is not even their fault, but my own. I think that's kinda horrible. I know, because later on I was playing as a Pyro and a friend was a Soldier in the enemy team, and he was mercilessly dominating me. And after I had tried to kill him a dozen times, always getting owned, I finally managed to kill his Medic and chase him down and fuck me dead: he suicided. And I almost banged my head against the keyboard, because so much for my long-pursued revenge.
So at least Valve needs to do something about that, because it's downright unfair.
And if Demomen don't get the same fucking nerf I'm going to rage some more. Fucking unfair.

Okay, yeah, no one's going to agree with me on this, seeing how everyone else thinks that the Soldier is overpowered, the easy class that doesn't need any skill to be good at, and that it needs to be nerfed hardcore. It took me actually ages to learn to play as Soldier. Maybe it's easy to pick up by someone who has years and years of FPS experience, and be good at it, but I had to learn. And I've had fucking great times playing as Soldier. And it's not the easy class for me.
But yeah, Chrome vs. rest of the TF2 community. Valve did what they thought is for the best, and I want to understand, but it's pretty hard when one of my favourite classes is now nearly unplayable for me. And yeah, I feel quite horrible for whining about this, especially since I've been all "I wish I knew how to quit you!" with Soldier for the longest time. But yeah, it's a complete love/hate relationship. And it doesn't matter what I say, I have over 80 hours as a Soldier, I find myself going Soldier even when I think I shouldn't, so on some level I really must like playing as Soldier.
So I can still feel upset because of it, can't I?

But yeah, Pyros.
I'll just come out and say that Backburner is overpowered as hell. I mean ffs guaranteed crits from the back and +50 HP increase?! I know the tradeoff is supposed to be the lack of the airburst (which, I admit, is fucking awesome, and makes me think twice about starting to use the Backburner), but because the airburst is new and I rarely even remember to use it, Backburner just seems like an upgraded OLD flamethrower that has no drawbacks.
They could do without the +50 HP increase, for real. Both Slaverstrike and my little brother who played as Snipers today noticed that Pyros are fucking impossible to kill if they have the Backburner equipped. 225 HP is just insane. And when I did play Soldier, I am so used to juggling them into the air once, and the second rocket usually killed them. Backburner-equipped Pyros? Fucking unstoppable. Add a Medic and they're seriously invincible. So I needed to juggle them twice, which meant shooting at my freaking feet twice, which usually meant a suicide.
Flare gun seemed to correspond better as an alternative to the shotgun, and I actually didn't have anyone kill me with the Axtinguisher, so I can't really say anything about that. Only the Backburner seems a bit unbalanced, but, uh, I'll probably love it once I get my greedy little hands on it. Maybe I'll become a career Pyro. I mean, I was doing pretty fine without the changes (was I the only one? I never really thought the Pyro was underpowered, even against Soldiers. I died a lot, but once I adapted the kamikaze mentality - that I ambush and I might die, but it's okay - I came by pretty well as a Pyro. Maybe I was the only one.)

At least I was doing pretty well as a Pyro today.



And that was the first time in ages I actually had some fun on CP Well. (Oh! That reminds me, I need to talk about CTF Well once I've said everything I need to about this Pyro stuff!)
I even got some achievements. I have Camp Fire, I Fry (and here I was thinking that there would be no Spies around, what with Pyros having a field day...), Burn Ward, Next of Kindling, Hot on Your Heels and Second Degree Burn. I'm also 13/15 through Fire and Forget, 8/10 through Spontaneous Combustion and Trailblazer, 15/50 through Makin' Bacon (and here I was thinking it would take forever... I would have at least 20 Heavies in this, but more on that in a moment...), about 25/50 through Arsonist (ahihi I dominated one Engineer, and he provided me with at least eight destructions: poor thing had always put a teleporter, dispenser and a level one sentry down when I came around the corner, and the whole little nest succumbed to my flames like a house made of paper), 250 through Firefighter/Fire Chief (...I was on a roll), and some others, but they're not yet worth a mention.
I also spent SO LONG on CTF Well trying to sneak behind enemy Snipers and use the Hadouken taunt on them (whoops! Chrome, acting like an idiot? On YOUR server? It's apparently more likely than you think!), but stupid friendly Snipers always managed to kill them right when I was behind them, readying my shotgun. Damn stupid Snipers!
And in one evening, I learned to use the shotgun. Seriously, I probably killed more people with the shotgun today than I've killed in those 30 hours I had as a Pyro. No, really. Too bad that most of those were fellow Pyros (which I used to be very weak against), so I don't have much progress on Combined Fire yet.
And yeah, about Makin' Bacon... I was kinda going crazy on Badlands. I think I killed about eight Heavies with the axe. I imagine them being beyond pissed: one crazy Pyro kept just ambushing them from behind and axing them to death. I even critted ridiculously often against them. But damn it, Heavies are so much easier to kill with the axe than the flamethrower! Usually they don't even have time to turn around before they're dead meat.
And then I realised that the achievement is named "Makin' Bacon" because I have to kill 50 Heavies with the flamethrower, and went aww dammit. At least I had lots of fun. And I imagine my Medic was having fun as well, following me around while I melée-killed Heavies (Medics liked me today).
Too bad that my axe kills record remained as two, I didn't get Lumberjack.

And finally, the regular flamethrower's new airburst. The best thing ever. It took me ages to remember even trying to use it, and luckily I remembered it just when an übered enemy Pyro was rushing at me. One poof, and flying they went. Another poof, and flying they went again. Goddamn, who seriously even needs Soldiers anymore: Pyros do juggling too these days.
Then I once again forgot to entire thing until I saw a crit rocket heading towards me. One poof, and the rocket chenged colours and I couldn't stop going FUCK YEAH THIS IS THE MOST AWESOME THING EVER! when I saw the crit hit someone in the distance. Ahihihi. I didn't actually kill anyone with returned rockets although I did it a few times after that (I even started to remember using it after a while), but it's always a blast to see the crit rocket changing colours and directions and at least hitting something. I blasted people away from control points and the bombcart in Gold Rush. I saw a Medic/anyone combo approaching and blasted them once before hightailing and trying to get behind them.
I got killed once with a bounced grenade, though. It sucked, haha.

Oh! Yeah! CTF Well! Is actually fun now! I was really surprised when I saw the changes to it, and I was having a blast playing there! The new central area of the map is AWESOME, and the reduced size makes it easier to defend AND attack. I have to say that it's easily much more fun than 2fort has ever been, seeing that 2fort turns into an insane turtling fest nearly always and on Well there was this INSANE battling going on near the central area nearly all the time, because both teams tried to get control of it in order to get easier access to the enemy base.
Or then I'm just so happy that it's almost a whole new map and you probably know how much I love those.

That's about it for now, I think.
And yeah, I'll be playing as Pyro until there won't be as many around as there are now. And until I get over the Soldier nerf, pick it up again and learn to jump whenever I fire a rocket. Dammit, Valve...

Oh yeah! I also wish they would change the Medic achievements to correspond to the Pyro pack, and the Milestones would come at 10, 15 and 20. Because I'm slowly getting pretty sick of still being two achievements away from the Kritzkrieg, and I still refuse to farm any of them. My pride, it is my downfall.
Seeing that the Medic achievements are so much harder than the Pyro ones. Besides, everyone has the Kritzkrieg and Übersaw already, so it would be just me, har har.

And I fucking hope Soldier gets the next unlockables and achievements. Soldier needs some love after all that nerfing.

Random tales~

No, I haven't played at all after the update hit my Steam. Same old story, time zones. And that I'm playing on my little brother's terms. I'm waiting him to wake up, maybe I could get a few hours in before I have to join my friends in a delicious Midsummer barbeque fest.

Aaanyway, now I bring some screenshots of my recent awesomeness. And some random tales.

So I played for, I think, almost ten hours yesterday. My little brother is appalled by the high ping I always play with (what can I do, my favourite servers are all on the east coast of the US, which means at least 150 ping for me), so he talked me over to try playing on some other server with not quite as high ping.
So I just randomly chose some Multiplay.co.uk server from the list. Okay, so, I didn't notice any change whatsoever although my ping was only about 60, but I was once again reminded of the fact that the "newbies" on the Newbies Only servers? Are not newbies by long shot.
The skill level is higher on Newbies Only servers than it has been on any other server that I've played on.

Because it went something like this (and I loved that Medic. Good thing he loved me back. Kritzkrieg mmmm...):



And this (although this has got nothing to do with skill, I just got three insane crits in a row: first one missed, second one killed the first guy and the third got two. I think the enemy team started whining, and even I had to admit that it was pretty fucking ridiculous):



And ended up in this (insane amount of deaths because the highest-scoring Heavy in the enemy team was ridiculously good. I freaking cheered the first time I managed to separate his little Medic bitch from him by juggling him into the air, and then assault him ferociously until nothing was left of him but a pile of gibs. I loved the challenge, maybe I even learned something):



But the most important thing I learned from that server, was that I indeed hate instant respawn and that it completely destroys the game balance. Instant fucking respawn should be mentioned in the server description, dammit.
I've never before played with instant respawn, but I've always figured that it can't be good. How could BLU ever win for example Dustbowl if RED had instant respawn? If the teams are even, there's no way.
Instant respawn is just plain stupid. And if you think it's not, I think you should slowly step away from Team Fortress 2 and go back to playing the deathmatch style game of your choice. I hear UT3 is pretty good.
Because yeah, sure, I was having buckets of fun playing on Gold Rush's first stage only. I was in BLU, we pushed and pushed but never fucking got the last checkpoint because whenever we killed the Soldier trying to stop us, it only took a couple of seconds and the same Soldier was back trying to stop us. And if we died, we had to travel all the way back to the final checkpoint, while RED had all the time in the world to fortify their defenses.
When I was in RED, we just ran out of respawn without any worries, even if BLU had almost reached the final checkpoint. We always made it there in time. Besides, it just felt bloody stupid dying, and immediately being back in the game, just to die again after few seconds. I like the little cooldown longer respawn times provide.
And instant respawn promotes hardcore spawncamping.
The most annoying thing was to get killed three fucking times during humiliation. First near the checkpoint, then in my respawn by some spawncamping fucker and then AGAIN by the rest of the enemy team who had ran to our respawn with their guns blazing. AARGH.

So yeah, I know 30-second respawn can be fucking tedious to wait out on the last stages of Dustbowl and Gold Rush, but it's the game balance. It's the way the game was meant to be played: to offer both teams equal opportunity to win the map, so that it only comes down to teamwork and skill.

What else? I got bored of the instant-respawn-provided endless fragging pretty fast, so I went back to playing on my regular servers and the good ol' 150 ping. Mostly played as Soldier and Heavy.
But then:



YES. I ACTUALLY WENT SPY.
AND I SUCKED!
All because my little brother wanted to know how Spy does the disguising stuff, so I showed him. And then I was standing in the respawn, as a Spy, disguised and cloaked, and decided to fuck it, I'll play Spy.
It took me maybe three tries to even kill anyone, I was so nervous and my hands were shaking and I kept running into people and oh god it was terrible. Then I finally backstabbed someone, felt less nervous, and actually had pretty much fun while trying to be inconspicuous and kill Medics and Heavies, but I'm still a goddamn rotten Spy.
And I facestabbed someone - damn lag.

Also the most embarrassing death ever: I was hanging around on the upstairs of the warehouse cap, undisguised, and trying to remember which was the "last disguise used" shortcut key. And I accidentally pressed G.
And while the taunt animations played through, I saw a friendly Pyro passing me by. And because I have a sixth sense for Spies, I immediately went OH GOD THIS IS NOT HAPPENING, and naturally got backstabbed by the goddamn enemy Spy while taunting. He of course proceeded to taunting right back and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

After Granary I tried some Spying on Dustbowl, but missed the first stage entirely because my team just steamrolled right through, and at the second stage I started concentrating on taking down sentries.
And I'm the worst at sapping stuff. Haha. I can't understand how Spies DO IT, I just do drive-by-sapping. I run past the buildings, cloaked, tapping left-click like a maniac and then beeline straight towards some safe place to hide and stop my heart from beating hard enough to hurt, haha. I kill a lot of dispensers! Once I got a level three sentry! Although I started to think that the Engie must've let me just sap the thing, first watching for half a round how I fail enormously at sappin' and stabbin' and then feeling kinda bad for the little newbie Spy and letting me have the sentry. Because I can't imagine why an Engineer wouldn't save his sentry, on Dustbowl's stage two's last point, no less. And I am sure I saw him standing around when I ran past. Grrrr, that Engineer!
And I can't imagine how anyone could sap AND stab, my mind and hands are completely full just trying to sap anything and get out alive.
And there was one server regular playing with me and going all what the hell Chrome, I thought you hated the Spy. Haha. I have no idea why he would think that, maybe because I never play as Spy. I told him that I kinda like the Spy, I just suck as one so I don't play it that often. I'm trying to learn, though.
And fuck yeah, I wanna learn. So more Spying in the future.
I got sick of being a bad sapping-deficient Spy by the end of stage two, though, so I went back to being Soldier. As usually happens.

And I was training for the Pyro achievements:



I have no idea. I saw a completely unaware Sniper, and because axe kills are so much more fun than flamethrower kills, I killed the Sniper with the axe. And then I turned around to see a Demoman, and charged right at him, waving the axe. I love it how some Demomen go into total panic if an enemy gets too close for comfort. Heee. Skilled ones of course pull out the bottle, and the kamikaze ones lay stickies at their feet while backing away, not really caring if they die as long as they take me with them. This one panicked and just started backing away chucking grenades past me. So he got ax'd.
And after that I ran out, still on battle high from the awesome axe kills, saw million Medics and racked four kills within few seconds and the fifth after I was already dead, making it one of the most successful Pyro runs I've had in a while. It was awesome. Even my little brother was pretty impressed.

I guess that wraps it up. Next post, Pyro stuff! I hope.

A quick edit: OH SNAP, did Robin Walker just refer to Pyro as her? Oh u, stop playing with our heads. <3

"Dad? Dad, put mum on the phone."

Yeah, I'm late to blogging about this, so without further ado, some extremely amazing things are heading this way some time tomorrow.
I've been following the news about the update ever since Steam told me it would be coming this week, but for a change I'm being a lazy blogger.

Also, Meet the Sniper, which immediately became my favourite yet (Meet the Soldier used to be my fav). Extremely well-done, seems like Valve kicked it up a notch after Meet the Scout, which was, in my opinion, a bit of a let-down. Demoman's little slapstick act was priceless (nooo, his good eye!), I lol'd at FOAD and the "I think his mate saw me. Yes, yes he did," (bit of Steve Irwin, eh?) and the whole parents thing was hilarious. I also always kinda imagined Sniper as an enormous prick, but whaddaya know, he's a really laid-back (resisted the urge to write "mellow") fellow. He's even pretty charismatic! Outrageous!
And noticing Pyro wielding a new flare-gun-like bright blue weapon that later turned out to be the Flare Gun was a source of much speculation and anticipation. Sneaky, so sneaky, Valve.



Jars of piss!

But! The Pyro update. I'm actually really looking forward to it, especially now after seeing what the unlockables are. Pyro is my fourth most played class with 30 hours, I like playing as one (although I don't play it that often on any other map but Hydro and sometimes CP Well), and I like to think that I'm not entirely horrible at it.
So Backburner is a massive DO WANT for me, since I'm always doing everything I can to get behind enemies' backs whenever I am playing as Pyro. Flare Gun sounds awesome indeed for teasing Snipers and Engineers, and Axtinguisher... well, sure, I want to have one, but I'm more afraid of what it will do to ME when I'm not Pyro. Guaranteed crit when you are on fire sounds... terrible. As if good circle-strafers don't kill me well enough when I'm playing as Heavy!

And sure, as a Pyro player I am really liking the sound of the changes to the regular flamethrower. Being able to deflect projectiles definitely helps a bit with the long range disability that Pyros have been suffering from day one. I mean, Pyro is supposed to be THE close range combat class whose defect IS the fact that they can't fight worth shit over long range, forcing players to seek ways to ambush enemies. Which made especially Soldiers somewhat overpowered against Pyros. Pyros still can't attack over long range (the new Flare Gun being the exception, but the tradeoff with that is the inability to finish off burning enemies), but they can defend theirselves, which improves their chances to survive. Which has been the number one turn-off at playing a Pyro: they generally don't live for very long.
So, excellent.
I also suppose there's gotta be some drawback to using the alt-fire (a few seconds between blows?). Without it all the Pyros would be just running around tapping alt-fire and being basically invulnerable.
/end a Captain Obvious moment.
What doesn't make me happy about the new change is naturally the fact that I play a lot as a Soldier.

Story time: I've told many times how I'm extremely weak against Pyros as a Soldier. I get owned by the BAD Pyros, those who charge right at me from distance rather than try ambushing me. I am never able to actually hit them and a confrontation with a Pyro ended in my death nine times out of ten.
That's how it used to be. Now that I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20 (more on that later), Pyros don't actually stand a chance against me. Ever since I started playing with good framerate I can't remember a single Pyro actually killing me by charging right at me (when I'm on full health), and even if they DID kill me (afterburn is a bitch), at least they didn't walk out of it alive.
So I was actually never weak against Pyros, it was my low framerate handicap all along (I never even realised how much the bad framerate actually affected my playing). Now I just hit their feet with a rocket, send them flying, and aim another at where they land, and BOOM. So much for that.
(Btw, juggling enemies is awesome, I was never able to do it before.)
But now they're able to deflect my rockets, so, umm, I'm afraid I'll start getting owned by Pyros (and my own rockets...) again.
And the question is: if a deflected rocket kills the Soldier that had fired it, does the Pyro get a kill or a finish, or is it marked off as a suicide? We'll see.

But back to the Pyro update. It would also seem that Valve learned something from the impossible Medic achievements ("impossible" standing for "impossible to get during normal gameplay without acting like a total dick"), and all the Pyro achievements seem like something that anyone would be able to get while playing normally and doing just what Pyros do. I know it won't stop people from farming the achievements, but at least any achievement-seeking Pyros won't probably ruin gameplay for others.
I figure it will take quite a while to get Makin' Bacon, though, ha ha.

I am also wondering if achievements like Firefighter, Fire Chief and Pyromancer will take your existing stats to account, like Intern, Specialist and Chief of Staff did. Because it would seem that I'll be getting both Firefighter and Fire Chief right away, since I have 1,339 kills as a Pyro. I'm far away from Pyromancer, though, my damage dealt is only at 365,998. Ehh. That guarantees that it will take a good while until I get to enjoy from the Axtinguisher (yes, all the other achievements seem like something that I will and can get sooner or later).

Also OMGWTFBBQ raises an interesting question: does the Hadouken taunt actually do damage from now on?! If, it will be the most awesome thing ever.



And I'm so happy of getting two community-made custom maps wrapped in an official package. <3 I've been playing basically nothing but Dustbowl and Gold Rush for the last month or so (still not getting tired of them), because, you know. All other maps bore the hell out of me. I'd rather watch grass grow than play even a single game on 2fort.
I wonder if Turbine will make CTF fun.

I guess that wraps it up. I don't know if I'll be able to get to play the moment the update comes out (since I believe Valve hasn't given any specific ETA for the update - maybe they're actually learning...), but I am trying to. I don't think I'll be playing as Pyro (and add to the inevitable influx of gasmask-clad, gimp-suit-wearing, flamethrower-wielding pyromaniacs), but I certainly want to try out the new maps. I am itching to start getting the achievements and trying out the new flamethrower, but I think I will wait for the initial excitement to die out, just like I did with the Medic update.

So, "I'm only playing with good framerate instead of the sucky 20." That's right. I've been playing on my little brother's computer the last few weeks. He moved out two weeks ago (I am staying at my parents' house for the summer), so I thought I wouldn't get to play on his computer any more. So I sucked it up and tried playing on my own.
And I found it impossible. All the killing I did as a Soldier was out of luck. Playing as Medic was also nigh impossible with all the twitching: locking onto new targets was a total bitch. Playing as Heavy was completely out of question. The whole thing only made me angry.
So luckily my little brother is the most awesome little brother in the history of ever, and doesn't mind at all if I come over and spend a few hours playing TF2. I thought he wouldn't want his big sis hanging around his new pad (despite the fact that we're kinda close as siblings), but whaddaya know, I was wrong.
Of course there's something in it for him: I let him play Sniper every once in a while, and he doesn't have to buy the game just for snipan gaems. So from now, whenever you see me as a Sniper, it's my little brother.
I naturally can't play quite as often as I'm used to playing, but I'm happy if I can play few times a week with a good freaking framerate, until I get paid enough to buy myself a brand spanking new computer.

I also noticed it's not just my imagination that I'm a much better player with good framerate. I've been playing mostly on a 24/7 Dustbowl/Gold Rush server lately, so I went to check the server's stats at its Gametracker page, and much to my joy I noticed that my points per minute average was 0.75. Yeah, I know, not that good when you think about it, but stick with me. I've been checking my stats on my regular servers every now and then (because I'm a stats whore, you should know this by now) and they've mostly been around 0.4. In fact, my score/min average was around 0.5 on that server the last time I checked (before starting to play on my little brother's computer), so I really did get better. A lot better, in fact.
I'd provide screenshots of my recent awesomeness, but I'm afraid all the screenshots are on my little brothers' computer. Duh. Will show some at a later date.

And now for something completely different:
I've also been playing some Metal Gear Solid 4, but more on that later (this entry is long enough as it is). Long story short: it's made of awesome, I love it, and I'm dying to play it more. I have to play it on my friend's terms (the friend owns the PS3, see), so I've only had a massive eight hours of playtime as of now.

Same old story, again and again and again

Okay.
I'm getting a new computer.

Played two nights on my little brother's brand new computer (turns out he was pulling my leg: Crysis didn't run on the highest graphics settings possible. It was only on high. Same difference, if you ask me), and my framerate was over 60 nearly all the time, even in crazy-ass firefights it mostly stayed on green. I wasn't running the game on highest graphics settings, but it was still looking so much better than on my computer. I'll post a screenshot in a minute, so you can see for yourselves.
Anyway, naturally I felt the difference. And indeed I was doing better: I owned everyone even as much as trying to circlestrafe when I played as Heavy, aiming wasn't a complete pain in the ass when I was a Soldier and botching rocketjumps was history, circlestrafing was easier as a Pyro, and as a Medic I was able to switch between targets so fast I was almost surprised (do I even need to say that I got Second Opinion immediately when I tried it?), and keeping an eye on my surroundings was so much easier.
All of these are naturally worth a good old "WELL, DUH."



I was keeping that team together, for real. We didn't need another Medic. Look at that amount of healing, fifty-freaking-thousand, just what the hell. There were times I was keeping two Demomen, three Soldiers and one Heavy going, and healing all the Snipers and Scouts whenever they fell back screaming for Medic. I was having a ball, for real. And seven kills? As a Medic? Pretty hardcore for me.
I also had another epic long match in Gold Rush, when I was most of the time playing as Heavy. Result? 177 points. Insanity.

I honestly want to cry thinking about going back to playing the game on my own computer and its shitty framerate and ugly graphics... this is serious business. So I might buy myself a new computer, come autumn. Until then I'm still forced to play with the crazy handicap of 20 fps. I mean, I've been doing pretty well until now, surely I can continue playing like I always have. It's just... now I know what it feels like to have it better. And it's sweet.

Anyway, since I've been playing a lot as Medic, I finally have something to report about the status of my Medic achievements.
Mostly, RAGE.
If you've been reading this blog, you probably remember how Head of the Class was a serious thorn in my side, the progress count going back to zero or not including classes even though I played full rounds as them.
Now I'm having the same thing. All the Medic achievements that had any progress went back to zero. Family Practice, Peer Review, Doctor Assisted Homicide... all of them. Back to square one with each and every one of them. Thank GOD I hadn't been killing Scouts or Medics religiously, I would've gone postal. It should be easy as hell to start again on Family Practice (especially since I made a new friend last night), but I was already 13/20 through Doctor Assisted Homicide and I'm kinda pissed off about that.
I was thinking that it must be because I switched computers, but WHAT THE FUCK, STEAM. Also, I've been trying to read Steam's forums but I haven't yet seen anyone having the same problem.
Shit sucks.

But in the end losing some of my achievement progress isn't that big of a deal: after all I got two new achievements. I already told you I got Second Opinion: Dustbowl stage one, first point, juggled the charge between a Soldier and a Heavy, mainly because I was being attacked from both sides and they were there.
And tonight I got one of the achievements I was not trying to get, at all. One of the ones I thought would be impossible to get in normal gameplay or without acting like a complete idiot. Dare to wager a guess?



I admit we were kinda being total dicks there, but hey, no harm done! Actually the scoreboard screenshot earlier is from this very game, now that I think about it, and this was the last round, we were defending on Gold Rush's first stage. I was the only Medic, healing everyone near the last checkpoint. I got über, glued myself to this Heavy, and he started towards the building that the BLU had already invaded. Great, I thought, he's thinking the same that I am: we need to clean that building, and so we went. But he ran out of minigun ammo immediately, shooting at some Pyro in the distance, before we even got inside the building (we were still on the cart tracks, I think). And instead of turning around and going to get more ammo he drew out his fists and continued towards the building. I went AHAHA OKAY THEN and followed him.
So I was totally thinking that right, the building is swarming with BLU people, I might even get the achievement out of it, and the outlook of the match is looking good, we're probably not risking too much and hey! We might even clean up the building. Maybe they don't have any sentries up yet!
Positive thinking!
The Heavy was probably thinking the same (we didn't communicate at all: I'm still chickening out of using my mic), so we rush in, I über him and watch, nearly frozen solid, as the Heavy starts punching people. Of course there was a goddamn Soldier on his way and those bitches take million hits until they die, but somehow he really GOT the two kills and I got the achievement. Unfortunately the charge ran out immediately after the second kill, I saw that there were still people there (incidentally I didn't even see the sentry: went all OH GOD I HAD NO IDEA when I looked at the screenshots after the match. I just thought there were still too many people around), so I did what every self-respecting Medic does in a situation like that, and hightailed out of there (just jumped down over the railing).
Okay, so I totally hate leaving my healing targets to die like that (especially when the said healing target was nice enough to do something completely silly probably just for me), but since I know that I'm the only Medic in my team and BLU has control of that building (which often means that they will win), I know that if I die our chances of winning the match become slim to none. I don't do suicide attacks.
I thanked the Heavy for helping me with the achievement, of course, and I hope he doesn't hate me forever because I ditched him. I am sorry, Kyle, don't hate me! You were awesome.

I also came really close to getting Sawbones! I was defending on Dustbowl, healing people on first point when I saw a Medic/Soldier combo disappearing behind the building on the left side of the first point, apparently trying to get behind our players, or sneak to second point. And because it's easy to follow people there and shoot them in the back, and I wasn't doing anything too important, I jumped down, drew my bonesaw and followed them. I killed the wonderfully oblivious Medic (took three hits) and then proceeded to bonesawing the Soldier, and missed after my fourth hit. DAMN. So close. I've been overlooking Sawbones completely as one of the achievements I might get to get closer to the Kritzkrieg, but now that I think of it, all I need is one tunnel Heavy and it's in the bag.
I think I've given two Medics their Sawbones, because most of the time I'm truly very oblivious to what's happening behind my back when I'm Heavy.

And now I'm three achievements away from the Kritzkrieg and yay! I have no idea what those three achievements will be, what with all my progress for Family Practice and Doctor Assisted Homicide reverting back to zero, but we'll see. Sawbones, I'm thinking.
SPECIALIST, FFFFF.

And, uh, if you're looking at my stats, I'll just have to come clean and tell you that the Sniper stats are actually not mine. I don't mind, really, because I don't play as Sniper, and probably never will, but I don't want anyone thinking that I could be a good Sniper. Too bad that everyone who was playing on server tonight probably thinks that I am. Some of them probably hate me now. FFFF CHROME YOU FUCKER NEVER PLAY AS SNIPER AGAIN SERIOUSLY. The 19 Sniper points are not mine! They are my little brother's.
So, I let my brother play. He asked if he could try Sniper out, and of course I let him. He was on top of the scoreboard all the time (except on Badlands: he was confused about the layout of the map, and never really got to take part in any action. On Hydro and Gravel Pit he was owning), and probably one of THOSE Snipers (the ones I hate). He was really good, I give him that, he also outplayed enemy Snipers most of the time (and because he's a "newbie" he didn't really know any of the usual Sniper positions, so I suppose some of the more experienced Snipers didn't even see him coming when he kept sniping from pretty obscure locations). And yeah, because he has some FPS experience (like 10 years of Action Quake...), he was pretty good at shooting the goddamn rifle from the hip. Which is annoying as heck. He had some epic runs on Gravel Pit, like getting two damn kills within few seconds with the rifle while running.
And then 2fort came up. And I told him he doesn't want to be Sniper on 2fort, that he would be spending the entire match glued on battlements and shooting at enemy Snipers, battling over who has the bigger Sniper penis, and he said that screw that, he's going to be an attack Sniper, he's going to go get the intel. Well good luck with that, I told him.
He did end up in the enemy base at first, he even got to the basement, where an enemy Medic bonesawed him in the back. Then he tried sniping from the bridge and all that, and after that, about ten minutes into the game, he was on the battlements, shooting at enemy Snipers and forming a serious rivalry with them. It was pretty humorous to watch, I admit: he was fuming whenever the enemy Sniper actually managed to shoot him, and cheering intensely whenever he owned him right back. And when the enemy Sniper took longer than usual to drag his ass out of respawn, he was getting worried that maybe he switched classes or quit, he can't do that. And then he left the battlements, jumped down and headed to the enemy base, and once he had got over the bridge he glanced up at the battlements, saw the enemy Sniper, went completely ":D!" and promptly headshot him into oblivion. I figure the enemy Sniper was pretty pissed at that point, damn, at least I would be: getting headshot from the bridge would be unnervingly annoying.
Anyway, their rivalry was horribly cute.
And I was thrilled to get my brother to play TF2.
Too bad he won't probably ever actually get the game: he says he's just interested in playing the Sniper. I loved watching him play (I've never watched anyone play TF2 before!), and as you probably know, I also love talking about this game and I like it when people know what I'm talking about. So I could babble about the game and my brother could actually contribute to the conversation. And my little bro is totally cool and I love having things in common with him, this being just one of them.

Like, he just got me to play Frets on Fire, which, if you didn't know, is a freeware rhythm game for PC that pays its homage to Guitar Hero itself. Instead of a plastic guitar, you just use the keyboard. I've been watching my brother play it for a few years but I never got around to playing it myself, but as I finally got my Guitar Hero virginity taken away last week, I decided to get Frets on Fire because it's the next best thing and I don't have money to get Guitar Hero right now.
I still suck gloriously at it: I can play some songs on Easy mode (Medium in Guitar Hero), but mostly I'm just sticking with Supaeasy (Guitar Hero's Easy). FOR THE TIME BEING. I'm pretty good in rhythm games (I play StepMania/DDR/Dancing Stage/what-have-you on expert) and I play guitar irl, so it's probably only a matter of time.

What else? I still need to post the pros and cons list, but it's still not done yet. And if I post it with this monster of an entry, no one's going to read this. Haha.