QUICK JUMP
| Vitals | Health | 125 HP | |||
| Primary Weapon | |||||
| Shotgun | 80-90 (180) | 10-30 | 3-10 | ||
| Secondary Weapon | |||||
| Pistol | 20-22 (45) | 10-15 | 8-9 | ||
| Melee Weapon | |||||
| Wrench (aka Spanner) | 45-85 (195) | ||||
Engineer Strategies
The engineer is the definition of a support class; he is meant to supply his team with ammo and health, defend the base or hold down control points with sentry guns, and help the team advance quickly with teleporters.
However, the engineer can hold its own in a battle; but he can't go on mass killing sprees. But in a one on one battle, a skilled Engineer can win most battles.
Let's look at your weapons first.
Shotgun
The primary weapon of the engineer; but it is only deadly at close range. When you are close to your opponent, this is an excellent weapon.
The Pistol
This is the weapon you want to use until you are close to your opponent. Lots of engineers like to stand on the sniper deck and use the pistol to fire at snipers because of the crazy amount of ammo you get for the pistol. I don't really recommend it because any sniper who knows how much damage it does by reading this page or the team fortress weapons page will just let you shoot them from across the map so they can get a headshot because in the end, you will only be doing 8-9 damage; they will kill you in 1 shot.
The Wrench (aka Spanner)
In previous versions of Team Fortress, the wrench was known as a Spanner. So you may here people call it that. This, as always, is excellent at close range. Plus there is always some odd joy in killing someone with a wrench...
Advanced Strategies
Normally, this is where I would tell you some advanced stuff to do with an engineer. But since the engineer is such a detailed class, I'm going to dig in to your toolbox instead. This is going to get really detailed real quickly. There are millions of things to do as an engineer, and I am going to touch on lots of them. And to keep things simple, all references will be for 2fort.
Let's start with the dispenser.
The Dispenser
This costs 100 metal and it... dispenses... metal and health to you, your teammates, and spies.
The most common strategy in Team Fortress is the "padded cell" strategy where an engineer backs himself up against a wall (so a spy can't stab him); he builds a dispenser to one side for metal and health, and a sentry gun in front of him, sealing him in. You can't leave. You just sit there, in your little cell, and wait for the enemies.
But dispensers can be used for so much more. Every now and then, I will see snipers ask for them. That's an excellent place for a dispenser; on the sniper deck. Snipers are constantly taking damage, from rockets, grenades, and other snipers. If they aren't on the deck, they aren't defending the base. A dispenser right out of view will help keep snipers full of health and ammo so they can do what they do best!
Also, if you have a lot of engineers on your team; use your dispenser as an obstacle. Put it in the entrance to the spiral, and build a sentry gun facing the entrance. Scouts can no longer rush from the sniper deck to the spiral; and spies can't sneak into the spiral either.
You can do the same thing in the long staircase. Or put your dispenser in one, and a teleporter in the other. When you are in the enemy base and you pass a teleporter, even if it isn't active; do you let it be, or destroy it? So put a teleporter entrance at the top of the long staircase, and the exit at the top of the spiral. Enemies will likely destroy them out of habit, and this lets you know enemies are headed down one of those points. You can also put the dispenser at the base of the spiral to aid in this warning system.
These aren't new ideas; they were very common in Quake Team Fortress. They have not migrated to Team Fortress 2, though. I really wonder how many people playing TF2 played QWTF. This was very common in QWTF, though. Use your dispenser as more than a dispenser; when an enemy is hurting it, you can detonate it as well.
In QWTF, people would bind keys for exactly that reason; just to get dispenser kills. I haven't seen one dispenser kill in TF2. So go for it; be that person.
Teleporters
These cost 250 metal and, like the name implies; teleport you from one place to another. They have 2 parts; an entrance and an exit, and both have to be built for it to work.
I touched on them above, but if you are teleporting into the enemy base; keep your teleporters out of the "usual" locations. People always put them at the base of the water spiral. Put them in the water itself or in the waters right angle hallway that turns into the area with the ammo and health.
…sentry guns can turn around and shoot behind them…
They are pretty straight forward though; just use your head when placing them. If you look for the enemies' teleporters in certain locations; you aren't the only one looking for them there. So when the tables are turned, remember that.
Now let's dig into the meat of the engineer; the sentry gun.
The Sentry Gun
Sentry guns cost 130 metal to start, and 200 metal to upgrade (there are 3 levels). When you build a sentry gun, you will see an arc showing its "preferred" target area. Place this facing where most of the traffic will be coming from.
Sentry guns can turn completely around and fire behind themselves; but they will react quickest to the targets in the "cone" area.
Also when you start building a sentry gun, you will see a large wall based on your teams color. This is the range of your sentry gun. If you are playing on 2fort, you may not have ever seen it; but this is what it looks like.
As you can see, with your back against the front of one fort, a sentry gun will still shoot to the other side of the moat. Pretty crazy, eh?
Now you know the basics of the sentry gun. Now I'm going to walk you through some basic sentry gun locations for 2fort. You can use these same principles on every other map.
Sentry Gun Locations
This is my favorite sentry gun location for the intelligence room. Most people build the gun directly on top of the intelligence desk, but this lets everyone know that there is a gun there. If you build it here, as you can see, you can't see it from either entrance.
From the "long" entrance, you can't see it at all. From the shorter entrance, you can't see it unless you really stare at it; the bright, spinning intelligence briefcase takes your attention away from the dark gun in the shadows.
With a gun in this location, you don't have to sit there and guard it. Just set it and forget it. If an engineer is there and with a dispenser, it's a red flag that a sentry is there.
This is a good strategy to defend the outside of the intelligence room from scouts. The dispenser blocks the rush into the room and the gun will help keep them from destroying the dispenser.
It's a good 1-2 combo. You just have to be sure you get the gun far enough out of the hallway that it will shoot people around the corner, to the right of the gun.
Otherwise soldiers will be able to hide behind the little radar screen and step out, fire, and step back and destroy the gun in a few shots.
This is a very common sentry gun location. Still a good one, but if you build here, people may expect it.
Still, there is a reason people use it: it works. This isn't so much a set it and forget it gun though, especially if the enemy team is attacking a lot. If they are in your basement a lot, you really should be in there with it.
This is a good way to lock down the entrance to the spiral. Put your dispenser in the spiral tunnel, which blocks scouts rushing through, and build your sentry gun on either side of the door way.
Which side of the door way depends on what kind of traffic you are getting. If you are getting lots of scouts, go for the one pictured here. If you are getting soldiers from the grate, put it on the other side, so they can't shoot at it from the grate. That way, they will have to expose themselves to attack the gun.
This of course leaves the long staircase completely open, so you need another engineer on your team to lock that area down.
This is a similar strategy, but this helps stop them from even entering the spiral entrance.
The negative of this very common position (although most people don't put the dispenser there) is that this gun can be destroyed safely from the long staircase. It is also prime location for the old uber hwguy rush.
Still though, despite the negatives, this is still a pretty solid strategy. Just be prepared to rebuild more than once.
This is a good place to cut scouts off, especially if they are rushing the sniper deck a lot. Drop this on your deck, either side, and they will be dead before they even know what hit them.
It's also fun to make it face out, so it catches them in the air. But this one is meant to help protect against grenades.
You should only use this if you have other engineers holding down the intelligence room and preferably the ramp room as well, though.
Be sure to keep the sentry out of the snipers path, though; wherever you put it. They still need to do their job.
If you have a lot of engineers on your team on a large server, this is a good place to cut off the entrance to your base. It leaves your back completely exposed however.
You will need another sentry gun behind you, or someone watching your back for spies.
But for cutting off traffic through the front door, this is a good spot to do it.
This is another location to hold off the front of your base.
The negative to this one is that once the enemy knows about it, it can be completely bypassed by the long hallway into the ramp room. So you will need another gun in the ramp room and definitely the basement.
However, this location is a pain in the ass to get rid of if the engineer sticks with it. If a medic decides to enter the fray, this location can withstand a ton of firepower.
It is at a location that is hard to hit, and you have to expose yourself to fire at it. Just watch for spies and cover the other areas and this is a solid spot for a sentry gun.
…don't worry about the sentry shooting the dispenser: it won't hurt it…
This is a good location to hold down the ramp room. If you lock yourself behind the dispenser, you can stop most attacks that will come into the ramp room.
Your main problems with this location will be spies and the uber hwguy.
Don't worry about the sentry gun shooting gun shooting the dispenser: it won't hurt it. However, it will hurt you. So watch your footing. If a scout rushes to the side, it can shoot you.
So, what if you only have 1 engineer to defend the "main" part of the base? You've got the basement covered, but can you cover the rest of the area with 1 gun? Yes. And here it is.
This gun will stop all traffic from the sniper deck and all traffic in the ramp room. The only thing it won't stop is the grate.
So if you need one gun to hold off the base, this is that gun. You will definitely need to stay with this gun during attacks, because if they are invading the base it will most definitely take a lot of damage.
Offensive Sentry Guns
So you've decided to take your toolbox on the road, eh? Alright. Well this is one of the best spots to get started.
It's hard to build, but if you can get can capture it, it is solid. It is protected by the bridge so snipers can't pick it off and the poles angled away from it will help block rockets from the entrance.
Don't just blindly build it on the bridge; this is really the best spot to build it. Take advantage of the geometry of the bridge. Use it to protect you.
Once you have your gun up, if you can get another engineer to build a teleporter entrance near you and you can build an exit next to it, you 2 can get a complete chain of transportation from the bridge directly into your base.
That way the other engineer can get more metal instantly and build another sentry further up, inside their base, and other members of your team can advance. This is how you control the map and drive the other team mad.
…remember that by keeping the enemy team from leaving their base, you are making capturing the flag much harder for yourself…
But remember that by keeping the enemy team from leaving their base, you are making capturing the flag much harder for yourself. The whole team will be in one concentrated area that you are trying to break into instead of being spread out.
Keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to build forward bases. Moving on...
Remember earlier when I showed you the range of a sentry gun?
This is one of the more enjoyable sentry gun locations. Combine the range of the sentry gun and the low visibility of the water and you get death from something that you can't even see!
But don't take my word for it, check it out...
As you can see, on the Polaroid on the left you can still see the gun. On the one on the right which is the opposite wall, about the same distance from walking out of the water tunnel; it is completely invisible.
I run TF2 on the highest visual settings, as well.
Be warned though; you will likely only get a few kills with it. Once you kill about 10 people with it, someone will likely get pissed off and switch to demoman and fire a ton of grenades into the water to destroy it.
It's an amusing location though, because you know they didn't see it coming. There's nothing like diving out into the water or jumping into the water to retreat and getting annihilated by a gun you can't even see!
And finally, this is pretty much the key location for locking down the water tunnel.
You can place it at parallel to either wall as well, depending on if you are getting more traffic from one tunnel. Also if 2 engineers are down there with sentry guns, it's better to cover more area.
Watch for spies with this location. I can't stress that enough. Spies use the water tunnels a lot and they will love the opportunity to wreck your setup.
You also need to watch out for soldiers firing from the water spiral. Same for demomen. Keep your guns tucked away and you will be fine.
Advanced Locations
These are locations that I'm not sure you are supposed to be able to build on. However, they are pretty useful.
To build on this location, just select the sentry gun and place it on the lip of the radar screen.
The positives of building here are improved visibility for the gun; it can see around the hallway from the long staircase much better, so that isn't a weak point any more.
Also when it comes to soldiers and demomen, they will fire at the ground to destroy sentry guns. Here, this won't damage it since it is off the ground and protected by the radar screens wall.
This is a ramp room strategy. You build the sentry gun extending over the straight ramp, which does the killing.
Then you build a teleporter on top of the other ramp. This blocks spies because they will sap it on their way, letting you know a spy is there.
And if a spy does sap the sentry gun and the teleporters, before they die; they will still block movement forward because of their location. Usually a spy will rush in and sap the buildings and an attack will rush in; but as they are still standing, the attack can't move into the spiral or long staircase until they are dead. So they are sitting ducks for your team during this time.
This is a very similar ramp room strategy.
This one has 2 teleporters; one at the top of each ramp. Then you build your sentry gun and dispenser at the right angle of the long ramp.
Here it is build extending over the ramp for greater range; it can clearly see both ramp entrances.
When no one is attacking, you can go through the teleporters to get kills as well. Every 2 teleports will give you a kill.
…every 2 teleports will give you a kill…
This is a cool way to hold down the entrance to the long staircase.
This works very well if the intelligence is in the long staircase; for instance, if the enemy made it out of the intelligence room but died in the staircase.
Here's how it works. You build your sentry gun and your dispenser overlapping the stairs.
Then you build 2 teleporters in front of the door. This makes the enemy believe that these are your only defense; they are there to slow the enemy down, or be a warning system.
In reality, we put them there so the scouts jump over them into the long staircase. They will be in mid air when they see the sentry gun and get destroyed. By the time they can conjure up an attack to get rid of the gun, the intelligence should be back in the intelligence room.
This is a simple placement for a gun in the ramp room.
Place the gun on the stairs at the bottom of the straight ramp. Note that this is not on the ground; it is on the stairs.
This improves visibility and helps protect it. It also helps it shoot through the stairs itself.
You see, when you build it on the ground a few steps away from this location, it is blocked by the drums and other items under the stairs. That way it can't see enemies coming through the stairs. This way, it can see through the stairs themselves because of the added height.
The added height also helps catch scouts that are rushing to the long staircase from the sniper deck. It can catch them in mid air when they are jumping to the staircase.
Here is another solid position for the ramp room.
This gun is placed hanging off the staircase on the long ramp in the ramp room. This improves its visibility because it has both ramp room entrances directly in its cone of vision.
You can do the same thing on the other staircase on the angled ramp. The other one helps hit people coming from the sniper deck.