Ya can't hit what ain't dere!

Ah the Scout.
This is one of those classes that can be either the strongest of the team, or the weakest, deppending on how well you master him.

As a Scout you must know your strengths and weaknesses like no other.
A Scout should also know his primary objective on the battlefield and shouldn't take unnecesairy risks if they can be avoided easily.

The Scout should mainly focus on:

• Capturing the inteligence and capture points.
• Weakening enemies.
• Cause madness and confusion.
• Covering the frontline as fast as possible on the start of a round.

What a scout should NEVER do on his own is:

• Pursuit groups of enemies larger then 2.
• Try to take down sentry nests by himself.
• Mindlessly running around.

Now that we've focussed on the Scouts objectives, let's take a close look at the Scout itself.

Pros:

• First of all, the Scout is the fastest class in the game and can easily outrun most classes with some exceptions in certain situations.
• Second of all, the Scout can use a double jump, which can help him not only to jump the furthest, but also the highest, thus making the Scout the most mobile class out of all.
• The Scout obtains a 2 times faster caption rate on capture points, allowing him to capture areas twice as fast then any other class.

Cons:

• The Scout has only 125 Health units, making it one of the weakest classes in the game in health, which can even be taken down to 110 Health units if you're wielding the Sandman.
• The Scout is pretty bad at long range because of his weapons' bullet spread, he's most effective at close range, which is quite risky.

As a Scout your basic strategy would be: Attack, do damage, fall back when the enemy notices you, restore your health and come back to finish your target off before he can restore his health and repeat the process.

As long as the enemy doesn't see you coming this strategy is fairly solid and will work in most cases.
Just make sure you fall back before they can kill you.

Now let's talk about weapons shall we?

First off all, let's talk about the primary weapons.
The Scout has three primary weapons: The Scattergun, the Force-A-Nature and the Shortstop.
All of them are quite good in combat but have significant ups and downs.


The Scattergun is a pretty well ballanced primary weapon.
It has a nice clip, enough ammo and does a fair amount of damage, you really can't go wrong with this one.


Next is the Force-A-Nature.
This weapon is fairly strong yet has two mayor downsides.
It's the strongest out of the three but only has 2 shots, which is why you should make every shot count.
Not only that, but it also reloads very slow, so watch out with this thing.
Also something to note is that the Force-A-Nature has knockback, with this you can propel both yourself and targets a fair distance away, you can use this to your advantage to escape or use a Force-Jump.


Finally there's the Shortstop, this thing really can be a beast at short range, but is otherwise not that great.
It has a faster firing speed then the other guns and has a fast reload time, ontop of that, it does twice the damage per pellet compared to the other guns, in other words, this is a great weapon to use at close range.
Most people say it's overpowered, but there's one thing they often don't realise which is a big drawback for this weapon, which is the fact that it shares it's ammo with the pistol, meaning that using a pistol with this thing is virually useless.
So I'd say that if you're going to use this weapon it'd be wise to stick to a bonk or something to not waste your secondary slot.

So that pretty much covers the primary weapons, out of all I'd say the Scattergun and the Shortstop are the best, if you use them well that is.
Let's move on to the secondary weapons: The pistol/Lugermorph, Bonk! Atomic Punch, Crit-a-cola and the Mad milk.


First of all is the standard pistol (or the Lugermorph if you have Poker night at the inventory), which is a fairly good weapon, and the Scout's only Lethal secondary weapon.
It has a nice firing rate and is pretty accurate.
But I'd only use this if you use the Scattergun or the Force-A-Nature since that would be the most logical choice, since you only switch over if you're out of ammo or don't want to reload.
And since the reload time is so fast there's no point switching to this if you have the Shortstop.


Next up is the Bonk.
This is more of an invincibility powerup then a weapon, but meh.
The Bonk is truely handy to use if you're low on health and need to get to a medkit or you must bypass a sentry nest.
Bonk gives you a 6 second invincibility time and has to recharge for about 24 seconds, so be carefull when using this, and make sure you know you can passby certain points within those 6 seconds.


Next up is the Crit-a-cola.
This is the offensive counter part of the Bonk, which gives you mini-crits for 6 seconds and also takes about 24 seconds to recharge.
This may sound nice and all, especially since a Scout can be truly devastating with crits.
But there's a downside, which is that you will take mini-crits as well, and this is a mayor drawback since you are already on low health, but do make sure you know what you are doing when using this, since you will be both lethal and mortal at the same time.


Finally, the Mad milk this weapon can be truly good in almost any situation, basicly you throw it at enemies and every time that enemy get's damage you'll obtain 75% of the damage they took.
Which can obviously be a life saviour in almost any situation.
This weapon can also be used to null a Spy's cloak and extinguishes fire's on both you and your team mates.
Also the Mad milk has a 24 second recharge meter.


Now that we've covered all the primary and secondary weapons, let's talk about the melee weapons.
The Scout has 7 melee weapons, all of which are pretty decent but most are pretty gimmicky.
They are: The bat, the Sandman, the Holy Markerel, the Candy-Cane, the Boston Basher, the Sun-on-a-Stick and the Fan O' War.


First of all there's the basic bat's the Normal Bat, and the Holy-Markerel, which do 35 damage each which is pretty decent.



Next up is the Sandman.
This is like the bat and the markerel, but it also has a ball that comes with it.
You can throw this ball by pressing the Alt-Fire key, this will stun players and can even kill them on low health.
The stun can range from 1 to 8 seconds, the ball can be picked up afterwards or can recharge for 15 seconds.
This weapons will lower the Scouts health with 15 Health units, leaving him with only 110, which is this weapons only drawback.


The Candy-Cane is a very good tool to help Scout endure for a longer time, since it droppes a small health pak on each kill if you have this weapon equiped, it's downside however, is that you'll have 25% less explosive resistance which will make almost every explosive hit a 1-hit KO.


Ohhh, the Boston Basher, this thing is LETHAL!
And if I say lethal I mean for you.
This weapon is the same as the bat, but it has another effect, when you hit an enemy, he will suffer from a 5 second bleeding effect, which does 8 damage each hit for a total of 40.
However, if you miss, it will hurt yourself, stacking both the hit of the bat and the bleeding effect for a grand total of 75 damage to yourself.
This weapon is risky to use, but if you manage to land hit it can be quite good.
Also something to note is that you're able to Boston-Jump while using this, which can help you reach even high with your jumps.


Next up, is the Sun-on-a-Stick.
This weapons effect is simple, it will do twice the damage against burning players, in exchange for -15% damage done, so if you stick with a pyro while using this you'll be fine.


Lastly, there's the Fan O' War.
This weapon is a monster if you use it well enough.
Basicly, it does -90% damage, but if you hit someone every hit after that will be a minicrit.
So see it as a Crit-a-cola mixed with the bat.
Just make sure you switch to your primary weapon after you land the first hit.




That end's the weapons I can talk about.
A few Combos I've thought to be helpfull as Scout are:

• Shortstop, Mad milk and Candy Cane.
• Force-A-Nature, Bonk! and Boston Basher.
• Scattergun, Mad milk and Fan O' War.

Lastly the Scout receives a bonus for wearing the Shortstop, Mad milk, Holy Markerel and the Milkman at the same time, which gives the Scout 25 more Health units, resulting into a whopping total of 150 Health units.

I hope this first entry will be of use for some people and untill next time,

See ya