Bonk v. 2

What the hell.

So, a few months ago I told you how I picked up the Demoman one night, after half a year of going all "oh I'm a terrible Demo, I can't play as Demo, it's so difficult," and finding myself sucking NOT as badly as I thought I would suck, and actually thinking that it's lots of fun.
And Demoman's been my most played class during these couple of months (I've clocked over 30 hours as a Demo since July), and sometimes I think I'm not even half-bad at it. At least I've learned the tips and tricks to it.
And after finally picking up the Demo, there were only two classes that I simply don't play as. Because I suck so bad. And those classes were Spy and Scout.

And you know what?

Tonight the exact same thing that happened with Demo back then, happened with Scout. My team was getting our collective ass handed to us in Gravel Pit, I decided to fuck it and go Scout (which is what I usually do when I get annoyed enough, for some strange masochistic reason).
And despite getting our asses kicked and being in a goddamn horrible team, I was actually having fun. As a Scout. Playing seriously instead of just running around the bat in hand and trying to bat some heads in. And doing what a BLU Scout should do in Gravel Pit: cap.
And I wasn't doing as bad as I usually do as a Scout. I got at least one kill in one life, which is of course bad, but way more than I usually get, and I was there when we capped A and B. I even dominated some poor Spy, and that's definitely something I've NEVER done as a Scout before. And like I told you, our team was kinda bad, and we were losing hard (and if I can accomplish more as a Scout than I did as a Soldier or Demo - and I did play as those before going Scout - no one can possibly say that it was my fault we sucked).

I was surprised, and decided to try playing as Scout on some other map. Which happened to be Gold Rush. And I actually played an entire match in Gold Rush as a Scout. And... well.



Lol at having a Medic.
It definitely could've been worse! Sure it was lots of hanging back, taking potshots at enemies in the distance, and waiting for everyone else to take down sentries, but it was still pretty fun, and I did lots of capping. I even got a new most points record for Scout. It used to be a measly 6, now it's 10! Whoo! And not all of the points were captures!
Later on I tried playing as Scout on Steel as well, because I wanted to try and go to E at the start of the match. I didn't really accomplish much, but at least it works a bit as a distraction while rest of the team tries to cap A or B or whatever.
And still, I had fun. I'm really, really liking Scout's speed.

So, um, I think I might even start playing as a Scout, if it's of any use to my team. Sure I suck ass, but hey, same old song: you can't expect to get better at something if you never actually do it.

And now I'm just waiting when this shit happens with Spy. It would be awesome to be actually able to play ALL the classes.

Last night was also a strange achievement night. I got two Medic achievements (Doctor Assisted Homicide, which I would've gotten ages ago if all of my achievement progress bars hadn't gone back to zero at one point, and Medical Intervention), and three Pyro achievements (Makin' Bacon, Hot Potato and Pyrotechnics). Not that they would even count towards anything since I have all the unlockables already, but I would've finally got the Kritzkrieg if the Medic Milestones were still where they used to be.
And dammit, all I want are some Heavy achievements, I still don't have the Natascha.
And I came close to breaking my Medic point record on Dustbowl's first stage: I had 27 points (hadn't died even once during the round, so it was pretty easy to just check to scoreboard) and then I got headshot. Stupid fucking Snipers. If I had managed to stay alive for the minute and half that was still left of the round, I would've probably gotten at least 30. RRRRAGE.

And in other news, I finally clocked 100 hours as a Soldier. Yeah, damn you, Easy Mode. I was trying to hold back and play more as a Medic, but I just can't seem to quit Soldier.
Also my hours are fucking ridiculous (about 300 altogether?), I probably need a life.

Not again...

Why is my Team Fortress 2 playing always overshadowed with continuous raging?

Although this time it's more of a Steam woe than anything else, but last night I broke a record I had deemed impossible for me to break, based on research done during the 37.5 hours of time played as an Engineer.



I chimed in 16 sentry kills, with one sentry, during one life. Three dominations. 22 points total, with all the assists and teleports and one wrench-whacked Spy, and several minutes of pretty decent defending. Would've gotten more, but apparently half of the enemy team went Spy at that point (I can stand up to Spies myself if they're not very good), and it was kinda impossible trying to keep myself OR my buildings alive when I had Spies coming out of my ass and a Demoman got close enough to blow everything into oblivion while I was busy with sappers.
And I thought it would be impossible to get that many sentry kills in one life, because I always get only twelve. Whenever the counter hits twelve kills, my sentry's goners. Always. And I get twelve kills pretty often, it's very usual on Dustbowl where sentries tend to live longer.
So I was kinda expecting to get twelve kills, and then get backstabbed, but for once it didn't happen.

So where's all the rage? I broke a record, I should be celebrating, not raging, right?

Yeah, sure, if Steam had only registered the new record. My Engineer records remain as they were, max kills 14, max sentry kills 12, max points 18. No sign of the should-be record of max kills 17, max sentry kills 16, max points 22.
So, RAGE. At least I got the screenshot to show you that I indeed got 16 sentry kills.

I also went back to the Soldier like I told you I would, and had some great times last night. Dammit, Easy Mode, I missed your slow-as-hell ass and your ridiculous crit streaks.
It took a while getting used to it again, since I've been playing so much as a Demo lately. But at least Demo has taught me something: as a Soldier I was used to shooting at enemies' feet rather than bothering trying to get straight hits, but with Demo's bombs that's not very effective unless the target is standing still (and I'm still not that good at taking movement into account and calculating trajectories accordingly), so as a Demo I'm trying to actually hit people in the face with the regular bombs. Especially since they explode at contact and with weaker classes that's an instakill. And I'm getting gradually better and better at that (if I hit you in the face with a bomb, most of the time it's indeed because I aimed, not because you just happened to be there. And that's why bad Scouts who run right at me are dead. They are so fast that their movements are very easy to anticipate, if they run in straight line). So now that's seeping through to my Soldier tactics and I'm actually starting to aim rather than always trying to just rely on splash damage and juggling.
Also, I am suddenly the master at rocket jumping, because it took me this long to realise to crouch-jump. Now there isn't a place I can't get to, I kept camping on top of point B on Gravel Pit, and I did couple of pretty impressive defenses by jumping on top of C and raining doom on enemies standing on it. O ho ho.
And I finally learned to sticky jump as a Demoman! Whenever I jumped before, I just went straight up, and I don't know what I do differently now, but I actually go forward as well. I just don't like doing sticky jumps unless I'm backed by a Medic (which never happens because Medics hate me. Except yesterday I was apparently a good-enough Soldier to get a Medic sticking to me. Too bad I'm a horrible Medic buddy and get them killed. Their own fault for not knowing better and following me on my one-man suicide missions!) because they eat up so much health and I'm still not very accurate with them, so I might spring into any given direction and miss my target by a mile.