MOGS

TF2 – Engineers Gone WILD

Normally I don’t post about non-mmorpg’s in here, generally if it doesn’t relate to a service we offer I try not to talk about it so things aren’t irrelevant, but with the latest World of Warcraft Expansion – Cataclysm on the horizon I know from experience there are a ton of burned out gamers right now looking for something to burn off some raiding steam with. I mean, there’s only so much you can do to keep things fun when you know something amazing is right around the corner. So without further ado I’ll let you guys know how I’ve been killing my time until the new xpac drops. TF MOTHER%*$# 2!

Team Fortress 2, for those unfortunate souls unaware, is a somewhat addictive Multiplayer FPS created by Valve Software, the same guys who created the ever popular Half-Life series and the ridiculously addicting game that could go by no other name than Portal (The cake is a lie!). On July 8th they have graced us with the Engineer update, which if you have been playing the last few days, in my opinion brings out a whole new level of strategy to the game. They have finally given Engineers some new achievements and toys to play with and wreak havoc with, especially my favorite map CTF_2FORT.

To start we have “The Wrangler“, a pistol replacement that allows an Engineer to take control and aim their sentry gun manually. You might be asking yourself “But Jason, the sentry gun automatically targets and destroys anything in it’s path”, and yeah… you would be right. But does your sentry also create a shield that absorbs 66% of all incoming damage? Does your sentry get a doubled firing rate for all levels and an increased missile launch rate at level 3? Can you hide behind you and your friends 3 beautifully shielded sentries and lay waste to any idiot who dares cross their paths? No? I didn’t think so.

Next we have “The Gunslinger“, a wrench replacement that essentially doubles as two weapons in one. Appearing as a Fist clearly stolen from Darth Vader, The Gunslinger will automatically give +25 health to the wearer. When using it as a melee weapon and bashing that enemy spy or pyro in the face trying to take out your friendly sentries, the third punch in a series will ALWAYS hit the enemy as a crit, deserving of a macro to yell out in general “YOU GOT KNOCKED THE *%$& OUT!”. Now as if that wasn’t awesome enough, it get’s slightly better, but not much. The Gunslinger will also allow the Engineer to build a single Combat Mini-Sentry Gun instead of the standard Sentry. A Mini-sentry only takes 2.5 seconds to build, only costs 100 metal, but it cannot be upgraded or repaired and only deals half of a normal level 1 Sentry Gun’s damage. In essence it’s crappy sentry that you can deploy very quickly to deal minor damage. The only thing holding this back at the moment is the fact that you can only build one mini-sentry. Now that all sentries can be packed up and redeployed I personally just can’t see the benefit of using this equip slot over a wrench. While theoretically it could be useful for setting up choke points, or throwing up a quick mini while you help another engineer get his Dispenser and Level 3 Sentry setup , its low damage output and the fact that most any class can kill it with a couple well placed rounds puts it at a severe disadvantage. It’s great for throwing out a quick offense only for the fact that it requires basically nothing to put down and takes almost no time to deploy. Otherwise your better off just setting up a LVL3 with your wrench right outside your spawn and redeploying it down the line when your other engineer gets his dispenser up. I’m sure someone much better at the class will find some great uses for it, but for me it just doesn’t cut the cake, and it especially doesn’t cut the Heavy

And last, but certainly not least, we have “Frontier Justice“, a shotgun replacement that puts fear into the hearts of men. This shotgun has a 50% smaller magazine than the standard shotgun your Engineer starts out with, and it doesn’t get any random crits. However, it does get “Revenge Crits”. What this means is for every kill your sentry racks up, upon that sentries destruction you get two crits, and you get one crit for every kill assist! When your sentry gets destroyed (either by some bastard ubered heavy or a well timed self-destruct, your Engineer receives bonus crits as well. This thing is scary. If you see an engineer running at you covered in lightning… get away fast.

So if your looking for something to do other than continue running heroics for gear thats just going to be replaced, or just need a break from raiding in general, I highly recommend blowing the dust off your steam account and coming to join me for some gold old fashioned TF2 Fun. You can find me on steam inside TF2 (usually playing CTF_2FORT) as Oprah Winfrey. If you ever login to a game and see a big spray of Oprah giving you a thumbs up, feel free to give me some love in chat. I’d love to get a group of people together and actually run some strats, so if any of your moggers out there play shoot me an email over to Jason@MOGS.com and we will see if we can throw a friendly little team together

50% off Star Wars Galaxies until November 26th through Steam!

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http://store.steampowered.com/app/24170/

-Christian