And the title goes to...

Hahaha, Sonneteer gave me another nickname, and dubbed me "Doctor of the Year." I was apparently highly acclaimed Medic a few nights ago, or at least I got lots of compliments from people. Which always makes my day, because as a kind of a career Medic I like hearing how I'm doing. And a simple "thank you" or "you rock" is something that makes me smile dimwittedly for the rest of the day, because I know that I'm doing my job okay. And I guess I wasn't doing too bad, since I broke my max points record (funny that I just whined about Pyro tieing with Medic in max points and I thought it would take me a while until I break any scores with Medic. Well, first I got 25, and after that 27) and you know what?

You know what?



I cheered when it happened. I've never been as happy about dying as I was then, haha. And it was once again Dustbowl's second stage, my team was defending and I kept healing people near the last point.
And I'm pretty damn proud of that new healing record.

So, Doctor of the Year. I tried some Heavy/Medic combo action with Sonneteer a few nights ago on Dustbowl and that was awesome as hell. Sonneteer insisted on being a horrible Medic buddy, but it turned out that we were topping the scoreboard for the entire match (and I dominated half of the enemy team).
And ftr, Sonneteer, you were doing good. You didn't waste any of my übers and you didn't pull off any crazy-stupid kamikaze stunts, so you're totally ok in my book. WE MAKE GOOD TEAM!
And we have to do that again.
Also, we need to switch, I haven't played as Heavy in forever, haha.

I also noticed how Übersaw is starting to change my Medic tactics drastically. I find myself going strange ambush-oriented combat Medic every now and then, only to gain (or rather trying to gain) some easy übers. I try to sneak behind oblivious enemies and kill them or at least get a few hits in just to return to my team with a brand new übercharge. It also makes me too bold (because whenever I get a melee kill in the heat of a battle, I get so excited and I want to do it more) and I die embarrasingly while trying to bonesaw a Heavy or a Soldier (or in worst cases, a Pyro, although I've killed those as well, usually from the back and when they don't see me coming) to death.
My Übersaw frenzy has come to the point where I automatically tap 3 whenever I need to fight (and I mean normal confrontations, not when I deliberately fuck off to do some killing). I don't even remember the last time I used the Blutsauger. And yes, it gets me killed when there's a Pyro rushing at me and I start retreating with the Übersaw in hand. And then I'm dead before I realise that this is wrong, what the hell am I doing, and try to switch to the Blutsauger. Wtf, Chrome, just wtf.

And against all odds most of the time my ventures from ze healing to ze hurting are surprisingly successful: I'm doing my usual healan gaems, see an oblivious Demo or a Soldier somewhere, ditch my healee (who's usually facing the other way, hence I can almost blame my murderous ways on self-preservation), chase the enemy down from behind, kill him with a few swift strikes, and retun to my healee with a full charge.
And then I engage Heavies in melee and circle-strafe them and oh god, I really seem to have a death wish these days. The worst part is that it succeeds sometimes, which gives me insane battle high, which makes me ingore everything around me, which gets me killed in less than a few seconds. And I don't know if it's worth it to first kill a Heavy in melee and then get gibbed by a passing Easy Mode. While holding a full charge. Eehh.



I also do so much defending it's not even funny. The kills in the screenshot above were people standing near the cart. And yes, it's ruining my respectable Medic image, because dammit there were two Pyros, I could've easily let them kill the enemies while backing them up, but noooo I had to charge in waving the Übersaw around. Sure, I killed the remaining people near the cart and defended successfully, and naturally I almost got my charge full from the killing spree, and that would've helped us immensely were there another enemy rush coming, but it's always Russian Roulette. Then again, almost everything is. And, argh, right after that I healed the Pyros, got the charge and right then a fucking Sniper headshots me. Didn't even get to finish the "I am fully charged!" voiceclip.
I hate Snipers.
So much for the charge and successful killing spree then.
Later on, on Gravel Pit, I was coming from the respawn and heading out to cap B because enemy was trying to cap it (and I was in RED). And there was no one there; I don't know if most of my team was dead, or if the enemy was camping our respawn, or what the fuck was happening, but I was once again facing a bunch of enemies, alone. And instead of waiting, I rush in, kill a Pyro who saw me coming and tried to rush me (that must've hurt, I know I'm pissed if a goddamn lonely Medic bonesaws me to the face when I'm Pyro, because come on), and get another kill and a defense before inevitably buying the farm. So not part of my job description, this defending stuff.

Also, killing Slaverstrike with the Übersaw when he's Soldier is gotta be one of the most awesome things I've done in a while. Haha. Because it's always goddamn impossible for me to kill him, so I'm exceptionally proud of myself if I do it. Thanks for the easy charge, Slaver! <3

But anyway, at some point I had more kills than deaths, and that made me go "umm what" for a good while. Oh dear. Soon I'll be adapting a true combat Medic attitude and start living by the code of "ze healing is not as rewarding as ze hurting" and become a bonesaw-wielding homicidal maniac.
Let's hope that I won't.

I demand more nerfing.

Well well well. Last night I had the best melée only times on a random server with Sonneteer, one of her friends and a bunch of random people (who were awesome and immediately agreed on melee only rules). We melée only-ed our way through several maps and had heaps of fun - well at least I did. Naturally it lead into several interesting records, my max kills as a Medic is 7, and damage dealt about 1,400. My max kills as a Scout is 4, and my max captures as a Pyro is 9 and max points 24, which makes me rage a bit, because it's the same as my Medic record and dammit, I'm trying to keep my "career class" the one with the most points.
Also scored a few achievements, I actually got Sawbones completely out of the blue during a match in CTF Turbine (which sucks, by the way). What's funny is that the enemy players were Scouts at that point, so I got Sawbones by killing Scouts. That's... pretty wtf.
And dammit it feels like such a waste to run around with a full übercharge. And because I kept using the Übersaw (although it's admittedly inferior to the normal bonesaw in melee only matches), I had a full charge nearly all the time. I came pretty damn close to getting Placebo Effect, though (got killed when I was one kill away from it).

And I've actually never heard the "You vant a second opinion? You are also UGLY!" in game before. Couldn't stop laughing after my Medic yelled it after a few bonesaw kills.

I also got lots of progress to Peer Review, since Sonneteer was mostly playing as a Medic, and in the enemy team. She dominated me a few times, though, insane crazy crit streaks, dammit: I get out of respawn, attack her and immediately get critted in the face. So I get out of respawn, striving to kick her ass this time, and again I get critted in the face. And with the annoying fanfare the game informs me that I have a new nemesis.
It was hilarious. Crit magnet, I am.



I also got a few Pyro achievements. OMGWTFBBQ I got completely consciously, and dammit it truly is the most amazing thing EVER to kill someone with a Hadouken. And melee only of course inspires a great deal of taunting, so at some point I got Freezer Burn. And I'm 2/3 through Dance Dance Immolation. Getting Lumberjack goes almost without saying. And all of those lead into this:



Which means that I finally have hands-on impressions about the Backburner's overpowered-ness.
And yeah, I was playing on my own computer for a change, hence the crappy graphics and smaller resolution. Yes, I had the 20 fps handicap. Made the whole melee thing pretty difficult, but at least I got used to it after a few minutes of whining about it (ahaha serious handicap: playing with the Übersaw AND 20 fps, I wonder how well I would've done with the regular bonesaw and on my little brother's computer).

But the Backburner. Is the cutest little thing ever (it has a face!), and also very, very good at one thing: defeating its very purpose. Stick with me. So the Backburner gives 100% crit change from behind. I don't know how flawed the recognition was before the latest batch (which apparently fixed it), but it feels pretty alright: the enemy has to have your back right at you or else it won't work. I didn't even once get crits from the side or from the front, but then again sometimes I didn't get them from the back either. I suppose that could be because of lag, so I won't blame the game being broken. The Backburner also provides the Pyro with a +50 HP increase, and this is where the weapon defeats its purpose.
Valve said, and I quote, "This flamethrower is built for the Pyro who likes to ambush their opponents [...] To aid in survivability, it grants the Pyro an extra fifty health." Which means that the Backburner is supposed to be the ultimate ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits from the back, and the health buff helping in making a getaway after the ambush.
With the health buff the Pyro has 225 HP, which is more than the Soldier has and only falling 75 HP short from the Heavy. Now add a Medic, and the Pyro has 318 HP - more than the Heavy has normally. The Pyro has no reason to ambush his enemies anymore. What with the flamethrower's damage fall-off reduced, the Pyro doesn't even need the crits to be a total killing machine in close range. And the +50 HP really aids with survivability, because you can just hit and run, and remain almost unscathed. Sure you can still ambush enemies, good for you, it's just that with the Backburner you don't have to. It affected my mentality immediately after I noticed that I could get away with almost anything: I just charged head-first at Demomen and Soldiers, even goddamned Heavies, took some damage, set everything afire (or in Heavies' cases circle-strafed them to death), and ran away to get a medkit or find a Medic and ready myself for the next attack. And dammit it worked, and felt so much more useful than waiting silently in ambush just to get a few crits. I don't think the weapon is balanced if it can be "abused" in such a way.
Dammit, the Pyro was good the way he was, I never felt he was underpowered. Backburner would be a good and balanced weapon if you removed the health buff, because then the Pyro would be forced to go back to ambushing, and the Backburner would be the more effective ambushing weapon with the guaranteed crits, while the regular flamethrower would be more suitable for other confrontations because of the ability to deflect projectiles and thus get right at Soldiers' and Demomen's faces. Now the Backburner is a clear upgrade from the regular flamethower instead of an alternative weapon.

I wish Valve would realise this and remove the health buff. And dammit, this comes from a Pyro player who refuses to use the Backburner from now on, simply because it is ridiculously overpowered (and because I like the airburst).



And that's my 2 cents on the matter of the Pyro unlockables. NERF, VALVE. NERF.

I also played as Engineer a bit (because it's the easiest class to play with my low fps), and I've never randomly left my sentry in a more suitable moment: we were attacking in Dustbowl's third stage, and I saw our other Engineer (the team was whining about "too many Engineers" and I agreed, because when you attack you don't need but one Engineer if he can keep his act together) building his own sentry. I was BORED because I had just sat about five minutes behind my sentry, waiting for some action, so I fucked off to help him build the thing. I figured that okay, if he insists on being an Enigneer, at least his sentry should cover our back in case mine gets taken down, so I better help him with it (and I'm all for "All for one and one for all" attitude when I'm an Engineer, I help my comrades as much as I can, and then rage when they don't return the favour. Selfish fuckwit Engineers are the cancer that's killing my will to play the class).
And while I'm there I see a goddamn übered enemy Demo coming around the corner and starting to chuck stickies at my sentry. So what do I do? Upgrade the friendly sentry to second level, watch it massacre the Demo and his Medic, and then just simply return to my dispenser to put my sentry up again.
Damn. If I hadn't left I had probably died, because I'm still stupid enough to stay and hope that the Demo wouldn't kill ME too. And my colleague's poor little first level sentry would've probably been goners as well. I would've lost my dispenser AND my teleporter exit which kept our team pushing mercilessly. And we would've had to fall back.
And this, gentlemen, is why I was an MVP on Dustbowl's third stage, playing as an Engineer in BLU. I've never seen an Engineer being an MVP in the attacking team on third stage. And most of my points? Teleports. The main reason I even build a sentry was to protect the teleporter exit, I didn't really care if I got any kills (didn't, really, I got maybe three or four), as long as the sentry kept enemies from charging at us and destroying the teleporter. And at least we won, so it must've been a successful effort.

I'm thinking of going Strictly Engineer for a day.

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.

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.

FFFFFF.

Oh god what.

So, I was taking a little break from TF2, and when I returned to my usual few-hours-a-night schedule, I found myself sucking. Quite horribly.
Until tonight. Christ. For the record, I've been drinking again. Decided to play a bit, because you've probably noticed how I have almost a habit of getting wasted and then wasting the entire evening just fragging people and being amused at how I'm not that bad of a player when I'm drunk (and yes, I am very aware of the fact that I am indeed a gigantic nerd and have no life).
So yeah, I was playing as Heavy on Gold Rush and being once again surprisingly good at it (especially after last night's failfest. I don't wanna talk about it).

But then I switched servers and found myself on Dustbowl. Stage Two. RED. First point had been capped, so my team had already fell back to the last point. I went Medic, seeing that they didn't have any Medics, and started healing.

Result?

1. Within two minutes I was on top of the scoreboard, above all the players who had been on the server before me.

2. Intern. 500 FUCKING HP AWAY FROM SPECIALIST FFFFF I'M PISSED (Most health healed record is now 9,498 FFFFF I STILL GET PISSED OFF WHEN I LOOK AT IT. SO CLOSE. SO. CLOSE).

3. And most points record, 24, whoo!

And the best (/most fucked-up) part? At some point after I had launched my second über I started getting 1-5 fps. I'm not shitting you. I was getting some serious lag and I don't know if it was the server or my connection. And still I managed to get two more übers and stay alive until BLU capped the point.
I stuck around for a few minutes on third stage, but at that point the lag was getting so ridiculous I had to stop. Much to my chagrin. Stupid lag, I was doing so good!
And at that point half the team was going Medic and stealing my Heavy, so it was completely my cue to leave. What the hell is it with those people: no one wants to be a Medic in the previous round, then I jump in and dominate the scoreboard and then everyone else wants to be Medic too?
I completely understood when few people went Medic after I went all "LOL GUYS I'M GETTING LIKE 1 FPS MAYBE I SHOULD STOP" in chat, though. But I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse.

And here, scoreboard at the start of stage three:



But yeah, it's nice to know that I'm still a fucking kickass Medic even when slightly drunk and with the lowest framerate possible. HA HA HA I really hope that won't happen ever again. I was insane to stick around after I started lagging.

Creative Engineering!

Grand Rounds and Autopsy Report GET! Five more and the Kritzkrieg is mine. I'm also 3/10 through Family Practice and 11/20 through Doctor Assisted Homicide.

And I didn't have to act like an ass to get Autopsy Report, it was Dustbowl, Stage three, and I was attacking. We were holding the line somewhere near the last corner (always the last corner!), but I had to fall back at some point because of an enemy über approaching, and I was holding a full charge and didn't want to die again while holding it (and there was no one there to give the charge to). So I'm waiting behind the second corner, and a Pyro runs around the corner and right at me yelling for Medic. I felt my Spy sense tingling, so I of course whipped out my Blutsauger to see if it indeed was a friendly Pyro in peril or a cheeky enemy Spy trying to trick me. Unsurprisingly it was the latter.
I was pretty damn slow to react after killing the Spy, but I noticed just as I was running over his corpse, that DAMN I could try taunting, and so I did. Got the achievement. Whoo.
I should've bonesawed him, now that I think about it, because he was yelling for Medic. Damn. But I still suck with the bonesaw, with Blutsauger I can actually kill people. Which reminds me, damn glitches, I was playing on Gravel Pit a few nights ago, and had to attack at some point, trying to fall back from just-captured B. And for some reason I didn't have the Blutsauger equipped. Didn't even realise it at first, not until I critted and went WTF the Blutsauger shouldn't cr... oh crap why am I holding the regular syringe gun oh fffff I'm dead, aren't I? Yeah, got killed because of it. I would've probably survived if I had the Blutsauger with me then, Pyros don't really stand a chance against it if I can stay outside the range of their flamethrower. Even if I am in flames.
But yeah, went to equip the Blutsauger during respawn, and actually had it equipped, so it was probably a glitch or something.

Last night I practised something I like to call "Creative Engineering." You know, on certain maps you see the sentries in same places, always, which isn't very clever, considering that the enemy is expecting to see sentries in those places, knows not to get in their line of sight, and prepare an über to take them down. Everyone's starting to know the weak spots of certain sentry locations (well at least I'm starting to know them), which makes those spots liabilities rather than strong defensive measures. So it's actually more effective to have a sentry in a place where no one expects one, even if it gets taken down very easily. So I'm trying to come up with places where no one expects a sentry, and where it can disrupt the enemy offense for a moment or two (maybe buy time for the other Engies to get down their sentries and fortify our base defenses). One of these places, while still a pretty known place for a sentry, is on Dustbowl's stage three's cap A. Usually Engies put their sentries on the ledge that leads out of REDs respawn, and near the stairs next to it. I usually put my sentry on the opposite side, to the right from the cap point, next to the stairs leading to the building. Attackers don't usually expect a sentry to be on that side (because it's more obvious to have the sentries on the other side, plus there are sentries ALWAYS on that side, and not nearly as often on the side I'm building on), and they use their übers trying to take down the sentries on the left, usually ignoring mine. Even if they take down the sentries, mine is going to shoot them in the back, sending them to respawn and buying time for other Engies to get their sentries back up. So the next time they try to take down my sentry, and the other sentries shoot them in the back. The setup can only be defeated with multiple co-ordinated übers (or with a very skilled Demoman chucking pipe bombs or stickies through the tiny windows in the building. With enough skill you can get them land right on top of my sentry. I hate Demomen when they do that). Or Spies.
Defended the point last night with this setup, and I even was an MVP that round.
Creative Engineering is plenty of fun on Gravel Pit, too. On Dustbowl it's pretty hard, but Gravel Pit is perfect for it.

Also, played a lot of offensive Engineer. Because I hate it when on certain maps you never get teleporters to front lines because no one ever plays Engineer when the team's attacking. Sure, offensive Engies are pretty useless on Dustbowl before the first point is capped (except on stage two: a sentry in the dugout can keep those pesky spawncamping-loving Pyros away. Stage three needs a dispenser and a sentry to guard it, because the first point area gets really spammy and as a Soldier I always run out of ammo and I hate to go back to respawn, or risk getting killed trying to scavenge any dropped weapons. Also, it keeps Pyros from spawncamping, and makes approaching enemy übers busy: instead of killing our men, they try to take down the sentry) and with the defense trying to push us back, it's pretty hard to get down a sentry to keep THEM back. It's totally awesome if you DO get a sentry down. Ensured a capture on stage two last night: got a first level sentry down close to the tiny building with ladder leading to its roof, which kept enemies off the point.
Another awesome offensive Engie moment was on Gravel Pit: we were attacking A after getting B, and I managed to get a sentry down just beside the cap point. Very vulnerable spot, but no one expected it, so it killed quite a few defenders before it got taken down, and by then the point was already capped. HA. After that I got buttraped and dominated by a FUCKING SCOUT, and we never got C. Jesus Christ I hate good Scouts. Couldn't even get a teleporter down.
I blame being drunk, but yeah. I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse. Teammates were complaining about the Scouts as well, so at least I wasn't the only one who got dominated by them.
Also went offensive Engineer on Gold Rush (being Engie on Gold Rush is still pretty weird for me since the map is so new), mainly to get those telporters up, because damn they make a difference. And while I was taking care of teleporting people to the front lines, I also experimented and tried to get down some sentries. Offensive sentries are almost always unexpected, which is great, and if they work, they can really stop defense from pushing us back.

But my greatest offensive Engineer moments were on Granary. I haven't played much as Engineer on Granary, because I find it really hard to build a sentry that would LAST for longer than a few minutes. There are no really good sentry locations, which naturally makes it great for some really creative Engineering. So my team is dominating, so I know to put my teleporter entrance down next to our SECOND respawn point instead of the base spawn, because I know we're going to cap the middle point anyhow. After the setup I wait for a moment, and then sneak in and try to get a sentry down right next to the point, to ensure our capture. After that I try to move it right outside the enemy warehouse capture point, to stop enemies from getting out of the warehouse and go capture the middle point back. You have no idea how many kills I got with those sentries. And I probably pissed off the enemy team to no end, he he. Sure, the sentries got taken down not long after the enemy learned about them, but it still makes me happy to get five odd kills with a sentry that no one saw coming. Also, I'm not very invested in those sentries, so once I get them down, I fuck off to do something else (for example, to lure enemies to my sentry, a huge hearty LOL at all the Pyros and Scouts who actually followed me and got shot, ha ha!), because the sentry IS going to die, and there's no use for me to tank it. Besides I usually get killed with my sentry, so if I'm not tanking it, I stay alive, and can get another sentry up somewhere else in a matter of seconds. I also don't upgrade them too much: if there's ammo supply close, I get them to level two and that's it.
Anyway, wherever it is that the sentry is, I put down my teleporter exit somewhere close by. After the warehouse point is capped, I move the teleporters accordingly, and try to put a sentry in the warehouse, to keep the enemies pinned near their base. I don't know how useful I was being, but at least I got a shitload of points from teleports. That's my main function as an offensive Engineer, after all: coming up with obscure sentry locations is just the "for fun" part.
And of course it would work much better if I didn't get shot to death by my own sentry all the time, but what can I say. I was drunk.



But anyway, not playing Engineer like I normally would definitely made it much more fun. Might have to do it more. Preferably while I'm sober and not as prone to dominate myself.

And ha, our little faggotry-filled Circlejerk group has our own server now. The name's MANTRAIN, so I'd really like to see the faces of my "normal" Steam friends once they see THAT on their Friends tab.

More achievement stuff and general ranting

Oh, yeah, I'm just gonna add one little thing to that last entry: the number one reason for why I won't farm any achievements, even if it costs me the Übersaw.

I don't want to screw up my stats. I like looking at my stats and it's great to feel like I've actually got better every time I break my previous record for kills or healing or longest life or something. So if I suddenly have the highest life measuring in hours and max kills of fifty or something... that would suck. Then I would never again feel like I've got any better.
And yeah, I'm a total stats whore (if you haven't noticed!), I stare at my own stats waaay too often. The stats parser is my best friend. So I don't want to ruin that for me.

I know there's a lot of whining going on about the new weapon unlockables being tied to achievements that basically promote "acting like an idiot" and thus ruining the game for others. With that in mind I am kinda starting to resent Valve's decision to handle the unlockables this way... don't get me wrong, I don't mind the weapons being tied to achievements (and I like getting achievements, I think it's fun), it's just that some of the achievements are, face it, pretty stupid.
Yesterday was probably the first time I actually saw a Medic act like a total idiot. He didn't ruin things for the rest of us (we had two capable Medics to balance him out, but still we were basically playing 11 to 12), but it was still kinda annoying trying to yell for a heal and this idiot just kept trying to kill people and taunt.
Note to self: do not try to get Autopsy Report in the heat of a battle.
Then again, I did something that constitutes as "acting like an idiot" yesterday too, but uh, it kinda had nothing to do with the achievements. I was just being an idiot on my own accord. I DID get some progress for Peer Review for it, but now that I think about it, I have no idea what the hell was going through my mind then. So, Gold Rush, first stage, final checkpoint. I was defending, and I get out of the respawn and saw an übered Demo rushing towards me and up the stairs to get on top of our respawn building. So I followed. And bonesawed the Medic. And felt really good about myself, until I heard "the cart is nearing the checkpoint!" and got killed just in time to spectate as BLU wins the round. Ehhhh. So I could've been there to keep our Soldiers and Demos going instead of chasing down a Demo-Medic combo who were apparently trying to take down our Snipers. A horrible miscalculation on my part. This is why I don't go combat Medic on Gold Rush or Dustbowl or Gravel Pit. I always have better things to do than kill someone.

But yeah, I was about to say that sure, some of the achievements basically tell you to fuck teamwork and be a drag to your team, but face it: some of the achievements cause the exact opposite. Some of the achievements actually make you a good Medic.
For example, Grand Rounds. I see far too many Medics sticking to that one Heavy like they're Siamese twins or something, and nothing annoys me more than trying to get a heal and the Medic is basically glued to some other dude. Especially if I'm playing as Medic too.
Infernal Medicine. I got it yesterday (hee, I got it when I extinguished Slaverstrike), and that really didn't take very long to get.
But both of those achievements made me do my job a little bit better: I tried to heal everyone calling for Medic (except when my primary target was under heavy fire and I deemed it would be more useful to keep him alive than to fuck him and go heal the lone Soldier in the other side of the map - besides, another Medic would probably get him before I do), and I also tried to extinguish everyone whenever they were on fire. Especially other Medics.
And oh yeah, I'm 11 heals away from getting Grand Rounds, so consider that one done.
And First Do No Harm promotes being a good Medic and doing your job (and I find it extremely amusing how most of the people who have farmed achievements don't have this. HAR HAR). As well as Trauma Queen and Group Health and Double Blind Trial and Intern and Ubi Concordia, Ibi Victoria, which are just basically doing what Medics are supposed to do. Big Pharma and Specialist are taking it a bit overboard, but at least trying to get them teaches you to survive and stay alive and keep your healing target(s) alive. Which is what I should be practicing.

So stop whining about the achievements. If you can't get some of them by playing normally, I have to think that you're a rotten Medic, and thus should go back to playing Soldier and stop feeling butthurt about not getting everything on a golden platter. What the hell would you do with Medic weapons if you don't even play that much as Medic?! You having the Kritzkrieg would mean just one idiot Medic more who just doesn't know when to use it!
I know I won't be getting any Demoman or Scout unlockables once they come out, and whine about the achievements being hard. Because I don't play as Demo or Scout. I don't care. Why should you? No wonder you whine about the MMORPG grinding aspects, you are the one making it a matter of grinding.

Also I don't know what everyone's whining about "too many Medics on every server," because I'm playing on public servers and only remember having an overabundance of Medics on two or three different occassions (okay, last night we started a 12 on 12 match on Dustbowl with only Soldiers and Medics in our team. THAT was horrible. I was a Soldier, btw, and got the only Medic with the Kritzkrieg, hee hee). Change servers, kthxbai, it's not that hard! Or talk to the admin about restricting the amount of Medics to the max of two or three.

Rant rant rant. Okay. I'm just getting so tired of basement-dwelling fanboys whining about every single thing. Yes, I do get the irony. Except that I'm not a basement-dwelling fanboy. Sry2say.

And what IS it with these jealous Medics?! Okay, I get it, you want in on the fun and our Heavy buddy is on top of the scoreboard, but Jesus Christ why do you stick to the same guy I'm sticking to, while there are people yelling for Medic in the direction from where you came from?! Sure, I don't mind, you can have the Heavy and I'll go heal the others, but WHOA. First come first serve, I think.
(Btw, if it's points you're after, you get so much more from actual healing than those precious assists, just sayin'.)
And for fuck's sake, Medic, don't heal the same guy I'm healing during the setup! Goddamn these noobs (or idiots, whatever) are starting to get to me.

Sorry, I'm talking a lot about Medics these days. I could tell you about how absolutely fucking scared I am of (good) Snipers, and how I should be playing more as Pyro now that there are Medics everywhere (I did it yesterday on Well and HEE HEE burning Medic flesh, everywhere), but I'll save those stories for later. I think I'm coming to a stop with the achievements pretty soon, so I'll have to come up with something else to talk about.

Achievements here, achievements there...

Just updating on my Medic achievements status, because I know you all must be so very interested about it and practically shivering with antici... pation, wanting to hear how I'm slowly inching towards my ultimate goal, ie. getting the Kritzkrieg.
Oh, but what about the Übersaw? Isn't that my ultimate goal?
And the curt answer is "not really, no" because I am NOT going to farm any of the achievements because I detest that sort of action (the only one I MIGHT get with a bit of co-ordinated help from Slaverstrike or someone, is Medical Intervention). And I'm trying NOT to act like a total idiot on any of my regular servers. I'm a respectable Medic, I am, so I'm not going to über boxing Heavies or Scouts or go out trying to kill people with the bonesaw while holding a full charge or anything of the like. Unless I'm drunk and can indeed quote the Demoman: "I'm drunk, you don't have an excuse!"
I'm going to get the achievements needed for the Kritzkrieg, and I'm going to get them fairly, playing Medic like I normally would. And no matter how long it will take. End of story, bye bye Übersaw.

Anyway, 17/39, got House Call today. I joined the server in full intention to über Slaverstrike, but ended up übering one of my OTHER Steam friends who just happened to play on the same server, and it was just another of my panicky OH GOD I'M DYING I HAVE TO ÜBER situations and he just happened to be there right then. I had planned on übering him as well at some point, to get him included in Family Practice, but, well. That works too. Later on I übered Slaverstrike as well, but I still didn't get but one friend included in Family Practice, and now I have no idea which one of them it was. Well damn. I guess I'll have to über them both again at some point in time. Not that I mind, the other friend is one of the kickass Demomen I've been sticking to lately (we were a destructive, carnage-driven combo on Dustbowl the other night).

What else? I'm about 130 through Grand Rounds, and 50 through Infernal Medicine, so I need just another night of intense Medicing, and those two should be taken care of. I have killed three Scouts for Does It Hurt When I Do This? (would be four, but a damned Engineer meddled with his little pea-shooter and finished the Scout I had been killing. Damned Engineers should stay in kitchen? tanking behind their sentries), and I'm not looking forward to finishing this one any time soon. Scouts are ridiculously easy to kill with the Blutsauger, basically they don't stand a chance unless they crit (which they always seem to do when they're shooting at my general direction, stupid Scouts), or unless they really abuse the hell out of the doublejump. Or if they're smart (and/or yellow-bellied) and run away instead of trying to engage me in a deathmatch.
I also have a grand total of ONE MEDIC killed for Peer Review, and that one I am seriously not striving to get, it would count as "acting like an idiot." Unless it's a one-on-one, kill-or-be-killed situation. This one poor Medic got bonesawed to death on Gravel Pit, we were attacking, dominating, and we had pretty much already got C. Most of RED was dead, and I saw this lone Medic trying to charge the last cap in a desperate attempt to thwart our inevitable victory, so I just followed him and bonesawed him before he even knew what was happening.
Doctor Assisted Homicide, 3/20. I don't even notice when it's happening, I'm not paying any attention to revenges my healees are getting. Btw, if you really want this, I'm a very good target when I'm playing Soldier. Haha. If the enemy team is steamrolling, there's a high chance that half of their team is dominating me (well, not HALF of their team, but a few players anyhow), and usually I get those revenges on people sooner or later, because I'm only a half-bad Soldier. I think Slaverstrike got at least two assist for my revenges while healing me today on Hydro, heh.
I still haven't got Second Opinion though I sure as hell am trying! (Whenever things aren't too hectic, that is, and I'm übering someone who's very close to someone else by chance). I hear it's pretty buggy, and near impossible to get. I don't even have auto heal on, and I've been trying everything, but no. Still not getting it.
Another one is Autopsy Report. What the HELL do I have to do? I haven't tried it but few times (my spirits kinda crashed after I got Blutsaugered to death by an enemy Medic while taunting on top of a Scout's corpse. Damn it, sneaky Medic, didn't see you there), but I've started the taunt right after I got the kill, and I've been standing directly on top of the body, but nooo, I just won't get it. Stupid buggy achievements.

And speaking of my dear Blutsauger, it makes me act like a wannabe combat Medic. I find myself attacking like a nutcase with it, even when I wouldn't need to. So much for "not acting like a complete idiot." But I'm clearly getting better! And I do get more kills than I used to, the Blutsauger is just so awesome.
And this happens on regular CP maps, on Dustbowl, Gold Rush and Gravel Pit I find myself attacking very rarely (ie. only when everyone else is dead and it's kill or be killed, or a Spy tries to cause some mischief), if at all. But on those maps I usually have a buddy, on maps like Badlands or Well it's somehow harder to find a buddy to stick to, and thus I found myself going combat Medic. Hmm. I don't know, but there really seems to be a pattern.

And nothing makes me happier than someone I've been healing before remembering me and going all "okay, you've got me, let's go." Aww. <3 I remembered that Heavy too, we were topping the scoreboard on Hydro a few nights ago. Another one who thinks I'm not a bad Medic yay!

Damn the Blutsauger is one sexy weapon. I'm liking it a bit too much right now. It has saved me in situations in which I would've died with the regular syringe gun, Spies don't stand any change against me anymore (the Blutsauger is awesome for spychecking: even when they're in disguise you can leech health from them and SEE IT) and it's just generally the most awesome weapon ever. I even killed a Heavy with it, hee.
And I completely love it when I dominate some poor player (by assists), who then goes Spy and tries to get a revenge on me, just to end up getting killed by me. Again. <3 Honey, if you need to get a revenge on me when I'm Medic, Spy's the one class that can't kill me as unless you know exactly what you're doing (ie. you can't let me see you. At all. A complete surprise is the only way).
And I'm getting closer to Kritzkrieg. I'm hoping I would get it by playing Medic normally, I don't want to start übering Scouts and melée Heavies and disrupting whatever it is that our team is doing. I'm 16/39 through the achievements, so I only need nine.
And I've got Preventive Medicine and Hypocritical Oath since the last I wrote, both by playing just like I would normally play. Hypocritical Oath came as a surprise, it was Goldrush, second stage, last checkpoint, and I was healing everyone in the reigning chaos. Apparently I healed some Spy as well, then heard one of our Engineers exclaiming about a SPAH and I'm apparently really becoming a goddamn Engineer midwife, because I instantly whipped out the Blutsauger and killed the Spy who was trying to sap the buildings. Got the achievement. Didn't even think about it.
So yeah, this far I've got all the achievements by playing Medic like I normally would. Looking forward to getting Big Pharma (I'm positive I can do it in a completely regular game, my assist record is already 19, after all. I'm counting on Slaverstrike), Grand Rounds (already over 100 into that one - damn it, people, now we want you to spam the hell outta E, so why don't you do it?!), Infernal Medicine (about 30 into that), Doctor Assisted Homicide, Intern, maybe Specialist, Second Opinion, Autopsy Report and House Call. Those are the ones I think that I can get by playing normally.

Also, I'm now trying to get the hang of playing the Heavy. I like being a Heavy, it's just that I suck as one. I have my good moments, today I played a couple of minutes without sucking at all! Didn't waste an über, destroyed some buildings, killed a couple of people, and then got wrenched to death by an Engineer, because my Medic had fucked off somewhere. That bitch. Medics hate me when I'm Heavy. Sadness.
And that's what I need: I just need a patient, persistent Medic who will stick to my sorry ass even when I don't get that much kills. It's pretty hard trying to learn to play as Heavy when I can't even stay alive, because people are firing at me from five different directions and the goddamn fatty is so slow that I can't drag my ass to safety before I'm Swiss cheese.
And then I'm trying to be more careful, which just ends in me being a) backstabbed, b) headshot, c) meléed to death by someone who had easily sneaked behind me or d) crouched behind some corner spinning Sasha and being useless because I'm just waiting someone to come to me instead of me going to them.

But Heavy's going to be my next "I'm Learning To Play This Class!" project. Hey, it took me four hours to not suck completely as Soldier, and almost twenty to be any good as one, so I think I'll just have to endure being a horrible, noobish fatty who's hated by Medics. I have to get the hang of it eventually. Right? Right?
And I need more classes to play as, seriously. I only have four: Medic's starting to be my career class because it's the only class I actually feel I'm good at, no matter the situation, and Soldier's my feelgood class (complete love/hate relationship, btw: as Soldier I just CAN'T BE GOOD, whatever it is that I do. I can top the scoreboard and still feel like I suck, and it bothers me SO MUCH. Did that make any sense? No? Love/hate relationship. I wish I knew how to quit you, Soldier, damn you). Engineer's my "there are no Engineers so I'll be one" class. And I've never been a good Pyro on any other map but Hydro. I gave up on Sniper after four hours of playing, because goddamn I hate Snipers. I don't like being a Sniper, because I know how goddamn useless I am when I'm one.
And I'm still chickening out of playing as Spy, I'm an absolutely appalling Scout and a Demo (and I don't think I'll ever bother to learn to play as either of them, I just can't use Scout's abilities to my advantage and I've always been terrible with grenades, I can never predict trajectories right and my timing simply sucks), and Heavy... yeah.
But no, I wasn't good at any class from the get-go, I shouldn't give up on playing a class after an hour of playtime. Of course I'm a relatively good Medic, I have fifty-four hours as Medic. Of course I at least know how to handle the Soldier with the insane sixty-three hours of playtime as one. I've had my fair share of successful Engineering and Spy-owning in thirty hours. I've played as Heavy for an hour and a half, I shouldn't be so surprised that I still suck as one. Same with Spy: I think Spy has the highest learning curve out of all nine classes, and I have one hour of playtime as Spy. Of course I suck as a Spy!
I just hate screwing up our teamwork by being useless.

I'm also starting to love Demomen when I'm Medic. I'm finding myself sticking to them far more often than I stick to Soldiers, for example. Nothing beats good fatties, but damn, good Demomen are serious harbingers of doom. Today was the fourth time within few days that I've been primarily sticking to a Demoman. And if the Demo knows what he's doing when I über him... the destruction! The carnage! Pipe bombs! Gibs! Sentry parts! Everywhere! It's beautiful. Yeah I admit I'm a total assist whore (but just for the record: I get most of my points from healing, not from assists. I've been on top of the scoreboard with over 20 000 healing and less than 15 assists), but I'm starting to notice that good Demomen get any job done way better than good Soldiers do. The only downside is that Demos are pretty much screwed if enemy gets close enough (laying stickies to their feet does kill the enemies, but they often suicide as well by doing that), and if enemy gets close to my healing target, they usually get close to me too, which makes me screwed as well. Except that with the Blutsauger I now have a tiny little chance of making it out alive, but it's still something I'd rather not go through.
But yeah. I love them Scottish cyclops.

So conflicting!

I want the update, and yet I don't, because I'm already sleep-deprived. Please don't come until Friday night (and I'm quite sure it won't come before that. If it comes at all, dammit Valve...). After that I can handle allnighters.
And apparently I have no self-restraint, since I know I have to get up at 7:30 am and yet I still find myself hanging about on the server at 2:00 am. No wonder I'm tired. Damn you Team Fortress 2 for being so much fun to play!

But few nights ago I got I broke my highest score as a Medic. Gravel Pit is starting to be my Medic wonderland, I love being a Medic in the defending team on Gravel Pit.
And yeah I could give ten or so übers with all the healing I do, but like I said, I don't like wasting them. And my new record (18) would've been a point or two higher, but goddamn I got ambushed by an enemy Pyro from behind and died the very second I tried to hit my über (I could blame lag, I'm still playing with a ping of 150 or so). Would've been fourth. And this happened like 30 seconds before the round ended. Was extremely annoyed. I was still an MVP and broke my old record, so that wasn't bad at all.

And I also had some insane combat Medic situations that night. Defended a point on Well by myself against a Demo and a Scout. How the hell do I end up in these situations? (Well, I come out of respawn and go to find someone to heal, and I find no one but enemies, that's how it usually goes). Later on in Granary I was doing the exact same thing, but I was kinda going combat Medic there anyhow. We had a team consisting only of Scouts, Snipers and Spies (and one Pyro, who was extremely suicidal, and I don't like following suicidal Pyros because I get killed so easily), so after trying to heal them for a moment (fucking Scouts, stay still if you want me to heal you! And I don't heal Spies unless they yell for Medic, because I don't want to compromise their disguise by accident) I decided to just fuck it and go combat Medic. Nice to start racking up the kills with Medic, though. I think I killed 10 people yesterday when I was Medic, and that's pretty good. For me.
And I was surprised that we actually won a round with that crazyass team. Four Scouts, three Spies, two Snipers, a suicidal Pyro and a terrible combat Medic. Uhhh, right.
After that round I got a Demoman buddy to follow around. I very rarely stick to Demomen (unless when we're trying to decimate some sentry farms), because they're pretty much screwed when enemies get close to them (and I hate Pyros so fucking much I need a buddy who can take them down before they can get to me, heh), but this time I really didn't have a choice (a Demo or a Scout, hmm...), and he was a pretty kickass Demoman. We took down many defenses together, I liked him.
Just for the record, if you want me to stick to you when I'm Medic, go Heavy. Heavies are my favourites by far. After that I either go for Soldiers or Pyros, usually depending on the situation. I would über a Pyro (or a Demo) for sentry takedowns rather than a Soldier or a Heavy, but I would much rather follow a Soldier around, because they're not nearly as suicidal as Pyros tend to be. And if it's Slaverstrike that I'm healing, I'm quite likely to stick to him exclusively, so you can just piss off if you don't need healing. Because damn we make such a goddamn good team (on top of the scoreboard on Gravel Pit a few nights ago, again).
But whoever it is that I'm exclusively healing, I'll ditch their ass for a fellow Medic in need. Generally I abandon my main healing targets for anyone dying right next to me, unless things are insanely hectic, which is when I take measures and heal those who I think will be the most useful in the situation. Sorry, but I'm thinking about TEAM, not your score. Of course I TRY to heal everyone, but sometimes I can't do that without people dying anyhow.

I'm having too much fun with labels.

Jesus Christ I RAGED last night in Dustbowl.
I was playing in RED, having tons of fun defending and healing people and pushing BLU back into their spawn in Stage Three. And then.
Autobalanced.
I RAGED because, well, I figured I'd end up being pushed back into spawn continuously because that's what RED was doing to BLU. Dominating like whoa. I even thought of going spectator until there's room in RED again, but I didn't want to be a spoilsport, so I just swallowed all the silly rage and started healing people I had been (assisting in) killing before. I'm a good Medic, dammit, I can tip the scales if I really try! We can win this shit!

Except that I don't ever remember having as broken a team. I think we had couple of AFK players, but seriously, I was up there, trying to heal another Medic, an odd Soldier and an Engineer. Those were the only fucking people I saw. And I went back to the spawn to find more people when everyone else died and no, there was no one there. And according to the scoreboard we had a full 12 player team.
Anyway, apparently all the "good" players had left after Stage Two (after all, BLU had got through the first two stages), and, well, I was on top of the scoreboard, and had twice as much points as the next player, 'nuff said.
So I RAGED again. And this time I was so angry that I actually yelled at them. I was just so fucking angry at being switched into such a sorry excuse for a team. Once again I wanted to switch to spectator and go back to my old team, I had friends there and we were doing so well and having fun and...
I don't know if my raging actually made them start working harder or what the hell happened, but suddenly there were a couple of Demos and a Heavy and we pushed the defenders back so that I could build my über without dying and not long after that we capped the first point. We never got the last one, but I actually had fun after the first cap. The team had miraculously pulled itself together! It was great! I felt sorry that I had raged and told the team that they were awesome after all. Because they were, after they regained their composure.
And yeah, I was doing very well for a change, in the end of the round I even had more points than the enemy team's highest scoring player (...and still almost twice as much as the rest of my team...) and yay, I don't actually remember ever being the one with the best score out of all players. I would've got the achievement out of that (except that I think I killed one Spy).
But yeah, this is just one more example how I should never switch back to my old team after autobalance. No matter how bad the things are looking, I can end up having more fun than I otherwise would've had.

I was also steamrolling with Slaverstrike on Well. Again. Look at us, topping the scoreboard.


Was awesome. So awesome. We make good team.

I also Engineered a bit on Dustbowl. Got myself a brand new best score, 18 points, and kills record too. 12 from a sentry, and two shotgun kills, those silly Spies. And I felt like a good person after seeing a comrade being blown into smithereens while his sentry was under über-Heavy fire, and rushing in and keeping the friendly sentry alive.
Also did some experimental engineering on 2fort (because that's what 2fort is for, I hate it so much). And I had this extremely silly Spy trying to cause me grief. Just ended up causing me to giggle uncontrollably. Damn idiot stabbed me TWICE when I was tanking behind my sentry. Well you know how that ended up. Not very well on the poor Spy's part. The first one I understand, because hey, it happens. But after the second time I was having hard time trying to recover from a giggle fit. And later on I dominated the poor sod, and of course did it very gracefully by getting shot to death by my own sentry at the same time. The Spy died from the same goddamn rocket, and I hear the pompous DOMINATION soundclip and see my sentry looking preeetty good (that's my baby <3). What's more, I got a defense out of it, because the Spy was carrying our intel. Nice combo. A kill, a domination, a defense, and yet another deathcam shot of my own sentry.

And actually, right now I'm hoping that the update won't come until the end of the week. Because I have lots of school stuff to do and I don't know if I have the guts to actually sacrifice our project for an insane Goldrush allnighter.
Don't fail me, Valve.

SAWRY!

I could talk about Meet the Scout, but, uh. I liked it, but was kinda disappointed because it wasn't nearly as funny as the other Meet the Team videos (my favourite's probably Meet the Soldier). And I felt sorry for the Heavy, the poor guy just wanted a sammich.
Also my Scout hate is bordering serious nerd RAGE because yesterday I was getting dominated by some badass Scouts. Seriously there's nothing I hate more than a good Scout.
And those fuckers always crit when they shoot me. Even today I was killed three times by a goddamn Scout getting a scattergun crit. Stupid Scouts.


(But I can't help it: he is kinda cute. In some really obnoxious way.)

ANY DAY NOW. The update. Could be today, could be tomorrow, eeee, I'm just hoping it won't take forever.

Anyway, back to our usual schedule of wanton babbling:

I had the most awesome match ever in CTF Well a few days ago. Everyone, and I mean everyone went melée. It's never really happened before in my presence (on the servers I usually play on), some go melée and the rest keep playing normally, and it's really not fair, but that's how it goes. Some people don't have a sense of humour. Anyway, this time everyone went melée. 24 players.
I was Medic because, you know, I'm having the Strictly Medic week. And I was actually doing better than I imagined! Even broke my kills record!
And everyone had fun as far as I know, because after the map changed and we found ourselves in Gravel Pit, everyone agreed to continue playing with melée weapons only. I charged cap A with the bonesaw in hand and still holding onto my über (I was playing in BLU). Felt a bit bad for wasting it completely (ie. never actually using it), but at least I was having so much fun. And we won the round, melée only.
I'm still a rotten combat Medic, though, but that was nice practice.

And we make a good team with Slaverstrike, we were steamrolling in CP Well at some point. He was a Soldier, I was a Medic, and in one life we capped two points, I gave him two übers and we were the round's MVPs. :3
I was also THIS close to übering an Engineer in 2fort, but damn it I died just as I right-clicked. Damn stupid something killed me. It would've been so awesome.

And today something happened that made me grin like an idiot for several minutes. I was playing Medic in Gravel Pit, and we were defending. We had somehow lost B, so I was pretty sure we would lose A too, and then battle it out over C. But as I went over to A, I saw we had a quite solid defense going on there. I was pretty much just running around and healing everyone rather than sticking to one person. And then the time's almost out, there's like 30 seconds left, and then BLU breaks through and goes to cap the point. I try to über someone who dies just before the charge kicks in, and there's NO ONE else around, so I just run away in the protection of the über and go get a medkit. There are about five people standing on the point, I wait for a second for someone to come, and much to my chagrin I notice that my entire team's apparently dead.
So I whip out the bonesaw and charge the goddamn point by myself. Luckily I crit, kill an Engineer before anyone even realises what's happening, and then proceed to waving the bonesaw around and reducing the entire group to half-dead state, and it takes them FOREVER to kill me.
I eventually die, but I'm grinning from ear to ear while waiting to respawn because that was probably the most awesome thing I've ever done. And I watch as my teammates arrive to the point a couple of seconds after my death and decimate the enemies, stopping the capture, and we won the round. If I hadn't been there to prevent the capture for the few seconds, BLU would've probably capped the point. And I was the number one MVP for the round. It really pays off to heal and buff EVERYONE.
The best part? My Medic screamed "MUST I DEFEND ZIS POINT BY MYSELF?!" and laughed like a maniac (I love Medic's laugh) when I charged in and killed the Engineer. AWESOME.
My best combat Medic moment ever.
I've actually never played a game in Gravel Pit so that only B is capped (a shutout I've seen, since I have the achievement). A is such a bitch to defend. But apparently it's possible. We had fuckloads of Engineers, though.

And after that we played in Dustbowl and after capping Stage One, the Heavy I was healing in the previous round tells me that I'm one of the best Medics he's seen on the server (he's a regular, I've been healing him maaany times before. IIRC he was the Heavy I was healing in Gravel Pit when our team was pretty lost and the guy who played the Scout whined that his team sucks). And I start the round by smiling like an idiot.
I'm seriously not THAT good a Medic (not while there are so many better server regular Medics around, even had one in our team), but I'm really happy to hear that at least someone thinks that I don't suck.
Btw, this was after the most risky cap I've ever done, goddamn, I'm hanging around in the tunnel with the one-way door, getting my über up, and the Heavy charges in and immediately out of the doors because the last cap was half-capped, and apparently the defenses were down. I'm THIS close to getting the über, but I decide to follow the Heavy and try to keep him alive, maybe we could cap without the über (besides, points don't cap when you're übered, so while we wait the über to go out, the RED have more time to get on the point and defend). We kill everyone on the point, get on it and cap it. And just as we cap I get the über and naturally I proceed to übering the Heavy for maximum humiliation effect.

I was also practising to stay alive today. There was actually three or four times I stayed alive for three consecutive übers. One of those was an entire Dustbowl round, we defended and won with a shutout (I even joined the game after setup time, so I didn't have the setup charge up when I went to the battle).
But yeah, it seems that three's the magic number, I ALWAYS die after the third über.
And yeah, of course I probably would've gotten six or so übers with all the healing I did in the Gravel Pit match, but I'm not going to waste the charges, that's for sure. And I'm certain that if I use the über to take out an odd Soldier, the REAL attack force comes in right after that and then I don't have the über when we need one. And that's why I also DIE way too often while holding a full charge.

But yeah, I was doing pretty well today, all in all. More of this, and more of melée only Well matches.

I spam. :3

GodDAMN the Übersaw looks badass. Now I'm back to thinking that maybe I should do the insane grinding to get the thing... just because it looks so awesome.
But ehh I'm not going to bother. I'll get the Blutsauger and that's it.

And dammit, Valve, why is it "Critscrieg" (according to the loadout screenshots), that makes no sense! I'm gonna rage if it stays that way. (The Blutsauger was referred to as "Blutsaugher" in one of the articles, but apparently that was just a typo). Critskrieg, Valve, CRITZKRIEG.

And what is this I read about new classes? Do not know if want.

Medic achievements and unlockables

Okay, right, huge news day.

First the final Medic unlockables were revealed. Then there were actual hands-on impressions about the said unlockables and Goldrush.
And just now, the actual Medic achievements were unveiled.

I've been giddy the whole day, first figuring out if I like the sound of the new unlockable weapons and deciding that I really, really like Blutsauger and want to have it as my new best friend. And now I'm despairing over the fact that I'm going to be lucky if I even get the damn weapon. The achievements are sadistic!

Well, anyway. Cue my long-winded thoughts on the unlockables and achievements.

So like I said, the Blutsauger will probably be my new best friend. I won't even look back at the good old syringe gun once I get my eager little hands on the new bloodsucker. I figure it will support my cowardish Medicing playstyle pretty perfectly.
And I'm probably going to hate the Critzkrieg. I have a hard time staying alive as a Medic, so I'll definitely prefer übercharges over a few seconds of continuous crits but being completely vulnerable. And I'm going to hate it whenever an enemy Medic launches his critzkrieg, as if I wasn't a bad enough crit magnet before!
Well at least I don't have to worry about it too much, because I'll probably never even get the weapon. Ha!
The Übersaw is a bit DO WANT, but first of all it's impossible (for me) to get, and I'm not that badass a combat Medic. I'm not a combat Medic at all (I just lost a Medic vs. Medic bonesaw deathmatch in Gravel Pit yesterday, so...), but even I'd venture out to bonesaw people if it meant getting an über faster. But yeah, never gonna get it.

I was also a bit scared if the new unlockables will screw up the class balance (since Medic is the only class to get new weapons for now), but to me it seems that the unlockable weapons will only support different ways of playing the Medic. Combat Medics will surely appreciate the Übersaw, and those who rather heal people than fight and strive to survive, will find Blutsauger perfect. Critzkrieg is an interesting counterpart to the übercharge, that's for sure, and gives more of a tactical twist to playing the Medic (when to have übercharge, and when critzkrieg? I understand you can change weapons during respawn and in resupply? Just like you'd chance a class), although I can't quite figure how I'D use it to my (or rather my team's) advantage.

And what I find great about the achievements, is that a player who only plays combat Medic will NEVER get the Übersaw of their dreams. Achievements are pretty well balanced, there are some geared towards combat Medics, and some geared towards those who actually do what Medics are supposed to (ie. healing). To get all of the achievements and be worthy of the unlockables, you have to be a well-rounded Medic who's both a teamworking healer and a total badass killing machine. That's awesome, I think.
And I don't think having the Übersaw (or Critzkrieg, and definitely not Blutsauger) tips the balance. Only the real hardcore players will get it, and they will probably play with people who are close to their own level of skill. I don't think I'll be seeing any Übersaws on any of my regular servers...
Yeah, sure, I know, of course some people will get the achievements through setup games, or using bots and keybinds on playtest servers.

I'm not too happy about the slight MMORPG GRINDING aspect this is adding to my cheerful little team-based FPS, but I figure the Übersaw doesn't change the gameplay so much that a team is automatically screwed if the enemy Medic has it, so you don't have to get it to be a good Medic. If you really want it, you'll have to grind, that's how it goes.

And now, the achievements. This is gonna be hella annoying to read, but I'll just repost some of the achievements and add my thoughts.

1. First Do No Harm: Play a full round without killing any enemies and score the highest on a team of 6 or more players.
- Easily done. I don't really kill people as Medic anyhow, so it's easy to just hold myself back if I do get assaulted by noobish Spies. And I've been on top of the scoreboard as a Medic before, so this is going to be somewhat of a cakewalk. Definitely not too hard. With lots of Medics around, though...

3. Group Health: Work with 2 other medics to deploy 3 simultaneous uber-charges.
- I suspect servers will be full of Medics for the next few weeks, so probably you don't even have to coordinate this. Sigh.

5. Trauma Queen: Deploy 3 uber-charges in less than 5 minutes, and assist in 5 kills during that time.
- Tricky, because I can't bleeding stay alive for three consecutive übers. 3 übers is actually my record, that's how long I can stay alive. And it's almost always on Dustbowl Stage Three, playing in BLU. Five assists is going to be very easy. And lol at Trauma Queen, awesome name.

7. Play Doctor: In a team with no medics, be first to switch to medic after a teammate calls "Medic!" and then heal 500 health.
- Oh god, I can imagine the whole fucking team going Medic at once. Sheer luck. Also, a team with no Medics? After this update? HAHAHA OH WOW. Dream on. Will take some time, this one, I figure. :D

8. Triage: Deploy an uber-charge on a teammate less than a second before they're hit by a critical explosive.
- I'll probably get this without even realising it. Or then I'll just keep my eyes open for crits whenever I have a full charge. My crit-magnetism should come in handy, har de har har.

10. Consultation: Assist a fellow medic in killing 5 enemies in a single life.
- I've been assisting some bonesawing combat Medics before pretty randomly, but to stick to one? I wonder where I'll find a badass-enough Medic. I wonder if Slaverstrike can pull it off...

11. Does It Hurt When I Do This?: Kill 50 scouts with your syringe gun.
- I heard there was going to be a "kill Scouts with syringes" achievement and my face went ":D!" because I've actually killed quite a lot of Scouts with syringes (I own Scouts better as Medic than as Soldier...). And then my face went "D:!" when I actually saw that it's 50 fucking Scouts. Right. It's gonna take forever. I have 120 kills as a Medic as of now, and maybe 15 of them are Scouts, 'nuff said.

12. Peer Review: Kill 50 medics with your bone saw.
- And I just lost a Medic vs. Medic melée match. Goddamn...

13. Big Pharma: Assist a heavy in killing 30 enemies where neither of you die.
- SLAVERSTRIKE, WE HAVE SOME BUSINESS TO DO. No deaths. Mindless killing only. Final destination.
Oh I only wish it was so easy and I were that good...

14. You'll Feel A Little Prick: Assist in killing 4 enemies with single uber-charge on a scout.
- I COULD DO THIS WHEN I'M DRUNK. Since I seem to be so fond of Scouts under the influence.

16. Blast Assist: Assist in exploding 5 enemies with a single uber-charge on a soldier.
- Only thing I can say is: MEDICS, don't über ME when you want this achievement.

18. Medical Breakthrough: Assist in destroying 8 enemy engineer buildings with a single uber-charge on a Demoman.
- Seriously, where the HELL can you find a sentry nest like that? D: Even the usually so insane sentry nests on Dustbowl's Stage Two's last point are rarely so large! But yeah, Slaverstrike, you're going to help me with this one too at some point, right? :/

19. Midwife Crisis: Heal an engineer as he repairs his sentry while it's under enemy fire.
- Lol at the name. And as far as achievements go, this one should be a cakewalk.

21. Grand Rounds: Heal 200 teammates after they've called for "Medic!"
- People just need to remember to call for Medics (I actually very rarely call for Medic when I play as Soldier or Pyro. I don't know why, maybe I feel a bit embarrassed wanting to take their time. And I'm afraid they'd stick to me and I'd get them killed, but yeah... I usually head for medkits instead. And now as I think of it, that's really stupid of me, and makes absolutely no sense. What kind of Medic WOULDN'T heal me when I call? And from now on I'll definitely always call for Medics! Help them get the achievement, yes!), and this should be fairly easy to get. At least I always heal everyone in need, I don't stick to just one person unless we're charging.

23. Doctor Assisted Homicide: Assist in killing 20 nemesis.
- Dammit, this would've been so much easier to get back in January when people actually dominated me! I don't really get dominated these days, not as Medic anyhow. I die a lot, but apparently not by the same people, at least not without me getting an assist on them before they can dominate me.
EDIT: And I realised only now that it's possibly assisting in other players' revenge kills, not getting your own revenges. And that makes so much more sense, actually. I'm slow. :nyoro~n:

24. Placebo Effect: Kill 5 enemies in a single life while having your uber-charge ready, but undeployed.
- Oh wow. I've never even killed five enemies in a single life (my record's two, ehh). People are gonna hate Medics when they try to get this. "Alright, I have a charge, I'mma go kill some people now!" "CHROME WE NEED TO GET THIS POINT GET YOUR FULLY CHARGED ASS IN HERE PRONTO - CHROME, THAT IS A PYRO WHAT ARE YOU ... OH FFS." "Hay guise I just respawned lol, let's get that über up so I can try to kill some people!"

26. Intern: Accumulate 7000 heal points in a single life.
- This is going to be another somewhat of a cakewalk. Gravel Pit, RED, good-enough team so that we can hold B, and this should be pretty easy.

27. Specialist: Accumulate 10000 heal points health in a single life.
- If only I could stay alive...

28. Chief of Staff: Accumulate 10 million total heal points.
- HAHAHAHA I HAVE ONE MILLION AND A HALF. I really hope those count towards the achievement.

29. Hypocritical Oath: Kill an enemy spy that you have been healing.
- With my Sixth Spy Sense this should be fairly easy. I want to know that do I have to actually overheal them, or does a quick little heal do the trick?

30. Medical Prevention: Save a falling teammate from dying on impact.
- I'mma just have a friend jump down from Gravel Pit Cap C. Hehe. A Soldier or a Demo, you know, they can shoot themselves until they're veeery low on health, and then they'll jump and I'll just catch them. With the medigun beam, that is.

32. Autopsy Report: Provide an enemy with a freezecam shot of you taunting above their ragdoll.
- I've always wanted to do this! I always forget to taunt ater kills. I've done it ONCE. I was chasing a Scout, who ran into his resupply room, and I fired a crit rocket before the doors closed and I just heard the crit hit and saw a message of having killed the Scout. That's when I taunted. Adding insult to injury, I know how much it sucks to die a feet away from the resupply cabinet (not that it would've helped at all, it was a crit after all...). Evil.

33. FYI I Am A Medic: Use your bonesaw to kill 5 enemy spies who have been calling for "Medic!"
- I love the nod to the Youtube video. But yeah, this is my day job anyhow.

34. Family Practice: Uber-charge ten of your steam community friends.
- I don't even have ten friends on Steam (only eight), but that's actually pretty easily fixed. Circlejerk, I'm looking at you.

35. House Call: Join a game that one of your friends is in and then deploy and uber-charge on him.
- And now I'm looking at Slaverstrike, this is gonna be so easy.

That's a lot of reading.

Anyway, Christmas is indeed coming early this year. I'm still refusing to get excited, because VALVE TIME. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the update comes next week - the earlier the better - but I'm still sceptical. It IS Valve after all.

And here, have a quick Engineer drawing I whipped up at TF2Chan's oekaki board.

A quick observation

I've been playing so much fragging-centered offensive classes that I absolutely suck as a Medic these days. Noticed just now, after I spent Gravel Pit and Dustbowl running around and healing people and being generally horrible at it. I was way better Medic back in January when I was starting to play and was still a paranoid little nooblet Medic, hiding behind my meat shield Heavy and getting absolutely raped by Spies. At least I did my work pretty well back then.

So that does it, I'm going Strictly Medic for the rest of the week. I have to be on my best for the new achievements.

And after that I'm going to have a Stricly Engineer week, because I seem to be a horrible Engie too these days.

And after that I'm learning to play Spy. Seriously. I'm going to try Spy on each map, and I won't give up on it, unless my team starts complaining that I'm useless. I want to play Spy, damn it, but I'm terrible at it, and I always chicken out of actually trying it out more.

And okay, I'm forbidding myself of playing Soldier. I can only play as Soldier if I get completely frustrated (completely frustrated = on the verge of ragequitting) at every other class, or my team has no Soldiers and one is seriously needed. I will tell Slaverstrike that he has to yell at me, call me fat, go into the enemy team and dominate my ass mercilessly if he ever sees me going Soldier.

Dr. Feelgood + Medic = good times.

More custom map experiences, and also more gaming while drunk. It's disturbing how I'm not actually much worse player when I am drunk (when I play as my strongest classes, that is). This time I didn't even get shot to death by my own sentry!
And it's always entertaining to look at all the screenshots afterwards, and not remember doing this or that. Oh, I actually KILLED someone when I was a Scout? Oh I capped the intel twice in one life? That's kinda cool. I capped the intel when I was a Heavy, what the shit?! Goddamn I shotgunned a lot of people when I was an Engineer.
So yeah, was drunk, and actually played as classes I don't usually play as. I was Scout for a pretty long time, I think. Then I wanted to be a slow-ass fat Russian, and played some time as Heavy. Then I even went Demo, and that was a disaster because I can't play as Demo even when I'm sober. Oh dear.

Also had to go Medic at one point when Mötley Crue's Dr Feelgood came up on my playlist, and it was a bit too amusing to pass.
That was kinda horrible, though. "Oh, I have an über, didn't even notice! Let's go then, Scout!"

But yes, customs.

Played on 2fort Classic v2, and that was just horrible. I don't know if it's like the real classic version because (like I said) I haven't played TFC, but nevertheless the map was awful. I didn't do the mistake I did with Classic Badlands, though, and actually paid attention that the actual cap area was on battlements (good girl, you get a cookie for that).
Also, the map's ugly as fuck, but I suppose the map version is not final and the textures are eventually going to be replaced. The map is also confusing as hell because the textures look the same everywhere. Took me a minute to get out of my damn base, even though the map's quite similar to the 2fort I know. At least I hope the textures are going to be replaced, because it's gotta be one of the ugliest maps I've ever seen. Uglier than that horrible Ataraxia, for sure.
And what the fuck's up with not being able to get through the water without suffocating?

Another new one was 2fortified v1, which was quite a lot nicer map. It looked very nice (okay, I really like aesthetically pleasant maps, is that a crime?), but it was pretty confusing too. It's always such a blast to just suddenly bump into enemy intel while exploring places, and then have no idea how the hell to get back to your own base. But yeah, it was one of the nicer customs I've played on, would play on it again (hopefully when I'm not drunk as a duck).

I also played another game on Impact2 and apparently on Shock as well. What I remember from Impact2, is that it's much more fun when there's more people playing (no shit!) and healing Scouts while Dr Feelgood played. And getting dominated by some badass assault Medic and Jesus there's nothing I hate more than getting dominated by meléeing Medics.
And what comes to Shock... I really don't remember anything except being a Medic and staying alive for two consecutive übers. I suppose it didn't last for very long? We even had more people playing, so I should've paid some attention, but I seriously can't remember and I don't even have any screenshots of it (which means that some mod changed the map in the middle of the game, because otherwise I would've had the auto screenshot of final scoreboard).

But yeah, I guess that's it.

Guys, guys, I actually rocket jumped on top of the cap B building in Gravel Pit today! It was AWESOME! We even had an Engie who knew how to get there via fucking around with dispensers and teleporters (I wanna do that too some day!), so there was a dispenser to provide ammo and health and it was awesome just camping there and shooting rockets and oh man. Too bad the attacking team never even made it inside the building, I would've LOVED to fire some rockets from the windows, because I know how much I hate it when there's a Soldier or a Demo on top of the building while I'm trying to cap the point.

Look at me standing there, all proud and stuff (wasn't an MVP, not by a long shot, didn't actually do much killing from there, but at least I GOT THERE YAY and kept some Snipers in check):


Did lots of rocket jumping today since I've finally learned how to do it. I even learned to do these huge leaps that are both high and long, makes traveling longer distances oh so much easier. Had to jump over trains in Well just because I CAN and then spend good time screaming for Medic. Yeah, my jumps still botch like 1/4 of the time, but most of the time I get where I'm trying to go!
For the record, the jump that got me on top of the cap B building was maybe fifth or sixth try and I was all fucking hell I can't even have any fun since I'm soon out of ammo. Fortunately there was already an Engie running around and building a dispenser. Lucky me.

Apart from learning to rocket jump I played a lot as Engineer today. Even got to be one in Dustbowl Stage Three when I was in RED! I have always wanted to do that! We didn't have but one Engie when the round started (I had been a Soldier on Stages One and Two), so I was like YES I'M GONNA BE ONE! Got four dominations during that round and kept my sentry alive pretty nicely considering how spammy the last capture point area gets.
And I only get fun out of 2fort by going Engineer and not taking the whole thing very seriously. You can find me there camping the ramp room, dominating Scouts and Spies, running around our base shooting at people (killing Medics) and trying to sneak into enemy territory every once in a while to get down a teleporter exit (I have serious Engineering ADHD: I always build the entrance, and then I just kinda forget about the exit. Most of the time I don't find a good-enough place for one, though: in CTF maps the exits get destroyed pretty fast and I hate doing the stupid long trek every few minutes just to make a teleporter exit. I hate leaving my other building unguarded when I know there are Spies around. I'm a territorial Engie, yes I am).

I was also a train magnet today. Embarrassing.

Today I got transferred from BLU to RED in Dustbowl RIGHT after we had capped Stage Two cap A. Seriously, I even capped the goddamned thing, (nothing's better than capping a point while taunting, take it from me), and then I start advancing towards cap B and bam, I die, and then I'm in RED. Goddamn autobalance. I always get switched to the losing team. Boo hoo.
But it turned out pretty okay after all: capping Stage One had been ridiculously easy, but we really put out a fight on Stage Two cap B. I got a few dominations and was topping the scoreboard - again - and we were doing really well (I was Soldier, btw), until one lucky push from BLU got through. But we managed to stop them completely on Stage Three cap A. I've actually NEVER seen cap A NOT being capped, it was strange. We practically spawn-raped them (I really dislike going into attacking team's spawn, I guess I'm that much of a jovial player. I think it's pretty low to kill someone just when they get out of their spawn, so I find myself NOT going there even though I have the chance. Besides, I like the challenge and hectic battles MORE than getting easy kills, so I much rather let the enemies come out and play where it's room to do so and they except me to attack them. Have I ever mentioned how much I hate spawn campers? It's the single most annoying thing that can happen. I won't do it even if I had the chance. I won't build sentries right outside enemy spawn because I think that's fucking cheap and takes fun out of the game. Because it's always frustrating to others), they couldn't form even a single good push to try to take the point. Yay for us!

And I need to have a Strictly Medic day soon. I rarely ever play as Medic anymore, and I feel bad for deserting Medic for easy frags and camping in one spot all carefree.
I went Medic in CP Well today, though. And had my best melée only Sudden Death yet. Managed to avoid getting killed during the primary brawl close to our second CP (I'm really bad at melée with the bonesaw) and advanced to the third cap with a Heavy. An enemy Spy botched a backstab (btw, I got facestabbed TWICE today, wtf. It's never happened before! I'm all "you're a buncha loonies!" when I read people complaining about facestabs happening, because it's never happened to me, but hey, whaddaya know, it apparently does happen! And it's fucking annoying to stare a Spy in the eye and yet get killed by a backstab) and disappeared somewhere while we capped the point and went to cap the fourth. We capped it and I saw a friendly Engie run in just as I started for the last point. Heard the Heavy scream and went all OHSHI- we're gonna lose, I'm the only one left EVERYONE'S LOOKING AT ME and I can't kill anyone with the bonesaw and the only enemy left is A SPY OH MY GOD IT'S INVISIBLE AND CAN KILL ME WITH ONE HIT OH MY GOD. D:
So I kinda panicked, but kept running for the last point, turning around and checking behind me like a lunatic because OH MY GOD THE SPY. Luckily the Spy was running low on cloak, so he couldn't sneak behind me and I was making it sure he couldn't get behind my back. So we just ran in circles (and I kept falling down from the cap area because I was so goddamn nervous), waving our weapons and trying to kill each other. And he was trying to stand on the point to stop me from capping it.
But because bonesaw is superior to the knife I actually killed the Spy at some point and ensured our victory.


I was SHAKING for minutes after it, it had been INTENSE. :D