History Characters / TeamFortress2Offense

[[center: [-[[Characters/TeamFortress2 Main Character Index]]\\
'''Offense Classes''' ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheScout The Scout]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSoldier The Soldier]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2ThePyro The Pyro]])\\
Defense Classes ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheDemoman The Demoman]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheHeavy The Heavy]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheEngineer The Engineer]])\\
Support Classes ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheMedic The Medic]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSniper The Sniper]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSpy The Spy]])\\
[[Characters/TeamFortress2NonPlayerCharacters Non-Player Characters]]-]]]

These classes are tasked with leading the charge of a fight, whether it be flanking the enemy from the sides or being the first to touch down on an objective. Their kits are designed with DPS in mind, having access to some highly damaging primary weapons and unparalleled movement relative to other classes.

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[[folder:The Scout]]
!!Real name: Jeremy

->Voiced by: Nathan Vetterlein (English), Alexander Fisenko (Russian)
[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/scout_5.png]]
[[caption-width-right:146: ''"You listenin'? Okay -- [[UsefulNotes/MuhammadAli grass grows, birds fly]], sun shines, and brother, [[BreadEggsMilkSquick I hurt people]]."'']]

The Scout (real name Jeremy) is an American hailing from [[{{Southies}} South Boston]], but somehow has a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents Bronx accent]]. A [[ItsAllAboutMe narcissistic]] braggart with an ego the size of Soviet Union, Scout is always ready to hype himself up and trash-talk his enemies. Moreover, he's an obvious baseball fan, given his baseball cap, bat and sports-themed accessories. The Scout is canonically the youngest of eight brothers, son of a single mother, and grew up on the streets trying to pick fights alongside his siblings and thus had to learn to run fast to join the brawls first. He coincidentally looks and sounds exactly like Creator/VinceOffer, and to some extent even has a similar personality. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=scout Everyone, Meet the Scout!]]\\
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The Scout is an Offense character with emphasis on lightning-fast combat. With a piddling 125HP but a staggering 133% base speed and the ability to DoubleJump, he's [[FragileSpeedster a fragile]] [[GlassCannon but fast and powerful class]] who relies on agility and speed to outmaneuver his enemies and weave around their attacks, making him the ideal class for flanking and objective-pushing. Moreover, because he counts as two people when on map objectives such as the Payload cart or a Control Point, taking them is often a Scout's job. The Scout's arsenal includes the Scattergun, a [[CoolGuns lever-action double-barrel shotgun]] with excellent damage for close-up engagements, but must rely on his pistol to do more than ScratchDamage at ranges beyond shoving the barrel up the enemy's nose. Alternatively, the Scout can use a variety of special consumable drinks in his secondary weapon slot to buff himself. His melee weapon is an aluminum baseball bat.\\
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The Scout was the fourth class to receive new equipment.
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[[Characters/TeamFortress2TheScout Click here for tropes on him.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Soldier]]
!!"Real" name: Sergeant-Barrister Mister [[GenderBlenderName Jane]] Doe

->Voiced by: Rick May (2007-2020)[=/=]Nolan North[[note]]For at least one line in ''Expiration Date''.[[/note]] (English), Alexander Novikov (Russian)
[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/soldier.png]]
[[caption-width-right:146:''"[[BadassBoast If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created]] '''''[[BadassBoast me]]!'''''"'']]

The Soldier is an absolutely insane army man-wannabe who talks like a cross between Creator/GeorgeCScott in ''Film/{{Patton}}'' and Creator/RLeeErmey in ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', bringing PatrioticFervor to up and through the roof and hating everything that is un-American. He wanted to "do his bit" in World War II, but was rejected from ''every'' service in the American military after being found [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus too mentally unstable even for national service]] — so he self-financed a one-man rampage across Europe with the intention to kill "Nazis" and "Communists", and not stopping until 1949 when someone managed to track him down in Poland and convince him that the war had ended. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=soldier Meet the Soldier!]]\\
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The Soldier is an Offense character whose selling point is his versatility. With a considerable amount of health (200HP), 80% base speed alleviated by his ability to RocketJump with his powerful rocket launcher (making him the most mobile character in-game), and good explosive damage thanks to the aforementioned rocket launcher, the Soldier will find a place in every team and thrives in the thick of battle. The Soldier's rocket launcher allows him to harass at long range and makes him deadly at mid-range. At close range, however, he can rely on a trusty shotgun, which he can then switch with several backpacks to buff himself and his team. [[ShovelStrike His melee weapon is a shovel]].\\
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He shared his [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/part1/index.htm class update]] alongside the Demoman, similar to the ''Sniper versus Spy'' update. The ''WAR!'' comic conclusively revealed that he was never in the Army (his personal BerserkButton), as well as the Soldier's lifestyle; the BLU Soldier lived in a shabby, windowless apartment filled with weapons and weapon magazines, ready to kill any visitor who wasn't a tomato soup salesman or a roast rib deliveryman. The RED Soldier once shared an apartment with Merasmus the Magician, an actual immortal wizard from Scotland, until Merasmus evicted his lodger for being lazy and stealing Merasmus' belongings.

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[[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSoldier Click here for tropes on him.]]
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Pyro]]
!!Real name: Unknown
->
->Voiced by: Dennis Bateman
[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pyro.png]]
[[caption-width-right:146:''[[TheUnintelligible "Mmmph mmph!"]]'']]

An enigma even amongst their employers and comrades, the Pyro is a mumbling pyromaniac who is never seen without an asbestos-lined fireproof suit complete with a [[TheFaceless face-obscuring gas mask]] [[TheUnintelligible muffling their voice]]. Their (or his, or her or its, or whatever) race, nationality, and ''[[AmbiguousGender gender]]'' are a complete mystery. Through their high-tech goggles, they see the world as a fantastical, idyllic SugarBowl known as Pyroland, where the Pyro is a joyous individual who aims to have fun and bring happiness to everyone. Unfortunately for everyone else (and unbeknownst to the poor Pyro), spreading fun and happiness translates to bringing hell to earth, lighting up people and property alike, bashing skulls with a fire axe and setting the temperature to anywhere upwards 100 degrees. [[http://www.teamfortress.com/classes.php?class=pyro Meet the Pyro!]]\\
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The Pyro is a close-range class specialized in ambushing enemies, with a respectable 175HP and 100% base speed, giving them the most balanced stats in the game. The Pyro's flamethrower allows them to deal continuous damage in a cone in front of them. Enemies that touch the flames are lit on fire, eating away at their health until the fire burns out (or they burn to death). The flamethrower is also capable of emitting a blast of air, which can move enemies, extinguish burning teammates, and reflect projectiles fired by a careless enemy. The Pyro's default secondary is a basic shotgun, suitable mainly as a backup in the event the flamethrower runs out of fuel. This can be swapped for one of several flare guns that can set enemies alight from afar, enhancing the pyromania. The Pyro's melee weapon is a simple fire axe. In terms of their role on the team, the Pyro is kind of an oddball, as while they are almost exclusively a short-range character they do not necessarily excel at any one role. The cloak-revealing capabilities of the flamethrower makes them the bane of Spies, but their air blast ability makes them a soft counter to the projectile-based Soldier and Demoman. Their high close-range damage is useful in a flank or ambush, but can be equally effective when charging at the enemy (especially with the help of an Ubercharge). A variety of unlockable weapons allow them to specialize in any of these scenarios, becoming a flanker, support, front-line damage, or just a hard Spy counter with relative ease.\\
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The Pyro was the second class to receive new achievements and weapons.
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%% NOTE: Please try to use "the Pyro" or "they" instead of "he", "she", or "it". See here for discussion:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13309752130A71400100&page=1#!
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[[Characters/TeamFortress2ThePyro Click here for tropes on them.]]
[[/folder]]
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[[Characters/TeamFortress2Defense Defense Classes]] ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheDemoman The Demoman]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheHeavy The Heavy]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheEngineer The Engineer]])\\
[[Characters/TeamFortress2Support Support Classes]] ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheMedic The Medic]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSniper The Sniper]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSpy The Spy]])\\

The Soldier is an absolutely insane army man-wannabe who talks like a cross between Creator/GeorgeCScott in ''Film/{{Patton}}'' and Creator/RLeeErmey in ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', bringing PatrioticFervor [[UpToEleven to up and through the roof]] and hating everything that is un-American. He wanted to "do his bit" in World War II, but was rejected from ''every'' service in the American military after being found [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus too mentally unstable even for national service]] — so he self-financed a one-man rampage across Europe with the intention to kill "Nazis" and "Communists", and not stopping until 1949 when someone managed to track him down in Poland and convince him that the war had ended. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=soldier Meet the Soldier!]]\\

[[Characters/TeamFortress2Support Support Classes]] ()\\

[[Characters/TeamFortress2Defense Defense Classes]] ()\\

'''Offense Classes''' ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheScout The Scout]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSoldier The Soldier]])\\

* AchillesHeel:
** While a competent Pyro is a terrifying force when you're forced into their range of action, they're one of the worst classes at long range, only having their [[PainfullySlowProjectile easily-dodgeable Flare Gun]] or a ShortRangeShotgun to poke you with. The easiest way to deal with a Pyro is to shoot at them while you run away, and to stay away from tight spaces where they can corner and ambush you.
** Heavies can completely obliterate Pyros. The Heavy has drastically stronger damage output, nearly twice as much health, a longer effective range and can easily come out victorious any fair one-on-one encounter as long as the Heavy isn't caught off-guard, and even then, a Heavy with good reaction times can simply turn around and turn the Pyro into mincemeat. Most Heavies also equip the Sandvich or other lunchbox items, which can help them survive afterburn if their large health pool isn't enough. That being said, the Flare Gun ''can'' work well against Heavies; if Pyros can aim well and use their mobility to stay out the range of the minigun, they can set the Heavy alight, then pepper them with [[CriticalHit crit-inducing shots]] from afar to take off chunks of health.
** Then there's the Engineers. Pyro's primary damage source is a very close-range stream of flames, and the large sphere of influence that a Sentry Gun has can deny Pyros from approaching outright. The rockets of a level 3 sentry can be deflected, but it's not a reliable way to take them out, since by the time the rocket is reflected the Pyro will be dead to the accompanying hail of bullets. An Engineer that's away from his sentry, however, is easy pickings for any class, and the Pyro is no exception.
** The Sniper acts as the polar opposite of the Pyro, dealing tons of precise damage from a long distance in a comfortable defensive position, compared to the Pyro's forgiving close-range damage that tends to put them in harm's way. A skilled Sniper can completely shut down a Pyro, dishing out deadly headshots from well outside flamethrower range and cutting off entire segments of the map from being crossed. Pyros can counter this by using flanking routes to kill the Sniper or outright avoid them, using long-range flare shots to set the relatively immobile Sniper alight and dispupt his aim (a strategy that can itself be countered with an item that makes the Sniper immune to burn damage), or just taking advantage of a distraction. An observant Sniper can reliably spot and counter these tactics, emphasizing the TacticalRockPaperScissors at play.
** A variety of things can put out burning players, including Medics, dispensers, health packs, several liquid-based weapons, and even friendly Pyros. This makes it relatively easy for players to avoid the extra damage unless the Pyro manages to corner them. See KryptoniteIsEverywhere.
* AirGuitar: The Pyro's normal melee weapon taunt has them strum their bludgeons like guitars. In the cases of the Neon Annihilator and Third Degree, they have unique accompanying sound effects that play during their taunts.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Well before "Meet the Pyro", the pink purse found in their closet as well as some of their mannerisms brought speculation on their sexuality, if not gender. Then again, given [[SugarBowl how they]] [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness view the world]], it's entirely possible — nay, ''probable'' — that they believe ''everyone'' owns a pink purse.
* AmbiguouslyHuman: We never get to see for certain what's under that suit. Here are some points for Pyro being a non-human:
** One of the earliest examples is Pyro's publicity blurb, which questions "if he even is a man"; this can be interpreted as either this, or about what Pyro's gender is.
** The Apparition's Aspect, a cosmetic which replaces Pyro's head with a ghostly silhouette of itself, shows that Pyro either doesn't need a head, or doesn't even have one one under the gas mask. While other classes have a few cosmetics that throw their humanity into question (most prominently, the "Voodoo-Cursed Souls", which turn them into zombies), the Apparition's Aspect is unique in that -- unlike many of those aforementioned cosmetics -- it isn't Halloween-restricted, implying that whatever it does lies outside the seasonal magic event of ''[=TF2=]''.
** During the ''True Meaning'' comic, a Grocket crashes into Engineer's house, within which a set of five weapons and a note have been left, said note reading: "Greetings, emissary from another dimension! We have heard your plea." While Engineer interprets Pyro's mumbling as a "no, I did not order extraterrestrial aid", Engie could have been guessing what Pyro was saying.
** The trailer for the official community-made Invasion update shows the empty crop fields outside the barn where the mercs are hosting a sci-fi movie night. Pyro is conspicuously absent… until they appear right outside the barn's doors, just as the flying saucers start attacking the fields. Combined with the above, this suggests some sort of extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional origin for Pyro.
** And then, of course, there's the whole deal about Pyroland.
* AmbiguousGender: WordOfGod is that there is no answer to whether the Pyro is male or female, so this trope gets played around with a lot. A past update would display random challenges on the title screen for the player to perform with the monicker, "Give him a shot!" referring to the class the challenge was about. When a challenge was issued for the Pyro, the pronoun "Him" could randomly change to "Her" or even "It". Heck, this very character page has a commented-out disclaimer in regards of what pronouns to use when describing the Pyro.
** In Meet the Pyro, Heavy says 'I fear no man, but that ''thing''… it scares me.' Scout, on the other hand, refers to the Pyro as 'he' (but the caption for the line is "He's not here, is she?"). %% "Do You Believe In Magic" already has the line "a young girl's heart". It's not a comment on the Pyro's gender, just how the song goes.
** Their storage locker carries a woman's purse, and their Director's Vision taunt flips between male and female poses.
** In "Meet The Spy", we see an alerts board (Intruder Alert, Red Spy, In Base). But under the words "Red Pyro" are two alerts, one labeled "Is A Man" and the other labeled "Is A Woman". And elsewhere on the same board, [[TakeAThirdOption "Is A Robot"]].
** In "A Cold Day In Hell", Bears are approaching Scout, Soldier, and Pyro. Soldier claims two things attract bears; honey and menstruating women, before saying "My God, I knew it! ''Somehow I always knew! '''PYRO!'''''". As it turns out, [[BaitAndSwitch Pyro is blocking the entrance to a crashed plane, full of honey]]. Since it's Soldier, it's impossible to know what he ''did'' suspect.
** In what is a reference to that, "Old Wounds" reveals that the ''Classic'' Pyro is a plump, grandma-like woman (with a [[RuggedScar large scar on her face]]) called Beatrice.
** One of the Engineer's domination taunts to the Pyro is "Sorry, ma'am". However, considering it ''is'' a domination taunt, there's no indication as to whether it's [[ApologeticAttacker a genuine apology]] and indicator of the Pyro's gender, [[FauxAffablyEvil or if it's just the Engineer being a dick]].
* AnAxeToGrind: The base melee weapon of the Pyro is a Fire Axe, and other melee weapons are axes, such as the Axtinguisher or the Third Degree.
* AndCallHimGeorge: Pyro really, ''really'' wants to be friends with the little baby-people around… if only Pyro knew [[KillItWithFire how much harm is really being done to them]].
* AttackReflector: Among other uses, properly-timed [[BlowYouAway compression blasts]] return projectile (rockets, grenades, arrows, jars, flares, and even baseballs) weapons to the sender.
* AxCrazy: ''Absolutely''. Along with [[BloodKnight Soldier,]] Pyro stands out among an already lunatic-filled ensemble as being completely insane to the point where even ''their own'' team is frightened of them. Bonus points for their default melee weapon (and several of their unlockables) being an actual axe.
* BadassDriver: How the Pyro is depicted in ''[[VideoGame/SegaSuperstars Sonic & All Stars Racing Transformed]]'', being the driver of the team's kart. Guess the Pyro is the [[Series/TopGear Stig]]…
** Give the Pyro's [[CloudCuckooLander nature]], this might overlap with DrivesLikeCrazy.
* BalanceBuff: The Pyro was widely derided by competitive players for being a SkillGateCharacter, until he gained the compression blast. This allowed the Pyro to forcefully reposition enemies ([[RingOut into a pit]], for example) and reflect nearly every non-bullet projectile in the game, giving the Pyro a huge advantage against Soldiers and Demomen, since the compression blast allowed them to reflect their rockets and grenades back at them.
** The Pyro's unique traits of inflicting and being immune to afterburn steadily got less relevant by comparison when other classes got Bleed effects, fiery weapons, and ''many ways'' to extinguish afterburn. So, the Pyro's flamethrowers now additionally ''quarter'' any healing/shielding applied to their target, making the Pyro invaluable in killing someone with a Medic in their pocket.
* BarrierWarrior: The Pyro's compression blast generates a small reflective shield in front of the nozzle.
* BerserkButton: Pyro may see the world as a cutesy SugarBowl, but if you diss fire in front of the little firebug, no matter how cute you are, [[http://www.teamfortress.com/tf03_cold_day_in_hell/#f=33 Pyro will go berserk]].
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Never mind the InnocentInaccurate rampages, the comics suggest that Pyro is pretty perceptive of the world while they're outside of battle. And exceptionally deadly.
* BlitheSpirit: At least, that's how ''they'' themselves see it…
* BoringButPractical: The Pyro has a lot of utility apart from the much more fun business of KillItWithFire, like extinguishing teammates and Spy-checking. A good Pyro guarding an Engineer's buildings can easily detect and kill enemy Spies, shoo away invulnerable enemies, reflect projectiles, and even destroy sappers if equipped with the Homewrecker or Neon Annihilator, making them a nigh-unstoppable combo. However, pairing up with an Engineer tends to mean a ''lot'' of waiting around, since you'll usually be far behind the battlefield.
** The Pyro's default secondary weapon is just a simple shotgun. Most players will instead be using one of the flare guns… but in a Pyro vs Pyro situation, the shotgun will win almost every time, as a shotgun-wielding Pyro can stand safely out of flamethrower or melee range, while their opponent's flare guns barely leaves a scratch.
* CatchAndReturn: The compression blast can deflect almost all projectiles, including Jarate, Mad Milk, baseballs, baubles, explosives, arrows, flares, and [[ItMakesSenseInContext eyes]]. A skilled Pyro can reflect them back so they hit enemies, including [[HoistByHisOwnPetard the ones who shot them in the first place]].
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Pyro's voice lines from release aren't entirely understandable, but they can be interpreted as phrases that make sense, portraying Pyro as a mostly sane person with some shades of GenericGuy. Those voice lines have been reused for most of ''[=TF2=]''[='=]s update history, but besides those, over the years, the Pyro has been steadily turned into a loony PsychopathicManchild with an affinity for traditionally feminine or "kiddie" things, an obsession with fire, and (in the comics) being someone who [[TheQuietOne rarely utters a word]] and can be surprisingly friendly, but [[DisproportionateRetribution capable of astonishing brutality when pushed]]. At their most violent, they've even managed to horrify the likes of [[BloodKnight Scout]] and [[SociopathicSoldier Soldier]].
-->'''Soldier''': (''visibly taken aback, in response to Pyro '''obliterating''' a bear's head with an axe'') [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness That... that's enough, Pyro]]. You're launching bone shards everywhere. [[MoodWhiplash Some of us are naked, here]].
* CharacterTics: Flicking a lighter on and off, judging by the waiting room scene in "Meet the Medic". This is a popular stereotype for any pyromaniac… although with the "Meet The Pyro" movie release, who knows what they're seeing?
** According to the "Ring Of Fired" comic, they see fire as rainbows and bright lights. So maybe they just want everyone to taste the rainbow? Then again, at the same time, they ''viciously'' maul a Smokey the Bear {{Expy}} who tells them "''[[BerserkButton fire is nobody's friend!]]''", indicating they at least know what fire is.
* CloudCuckooLander: "Meet the Pyro" shows that their view of the world is… [[SugarBowl odd]]. WordOfGod states that they live in a fantasy world known as Pyroland. It does have a darker, more mundane version which is applied whenever they are ''not'' gleefully burning things… Which is still pretty weird compared to how others view the world.
* CloseRangeCombatant: The Pyro can move fairly quickly and take or give decent amounts of damage, but lacks range.
* {{Combos}}: Multiple playstyles revolve around them. Most of the flare-based secondaries deal extra damage to burning opponents (the original FlareGun deals lethal {{Critical Hit}}s to them), and the Axtinguisher or Panic Attack can be used to similarly take down a burning opponent. The Degreaser benefits weapon swap strategies further, with its fast holster and deploy times. Thus, a tactic forms in igniting an opponent, then using a different weapon to deal heavy burst damage to them.
* CuteAndPsycho: A worrying combination of enthusiastic childish cheerfulness and rampant wanton arson.
* DependingOnTheArtist: The Pyro's fire axe. In the game proper, their axe is painted red, but the comics give it no paint job at all, looking like ordinary steel.
* DifficultButAwesome:
** Many players overlook the "ambush" aspect of playing a Pyro. But the Backburner, mocked by some, always Crits from behind and can kill in seconds with a steady blast. If you run away from a Backburner and you're not a Scout, you're a dead man. And the Axtinguisher always Crits burning enemies. Setting a foe on fire and then sinking the Axtinguisher into them can kill most enemies in one hit.
** Pyros who master the compression blast become AxCrazy pyromancers who can reflect projectiles back at opponents (including arrows fired from Sniper bows, but not the syringes fired by Medics), use opponents' rockets to RocketJump themselves up, relocate sticky bombs to inconvenient locations, block the advancement of Über Charged combos and separate Medics from their teammates, and put out fires on teammates. Just see [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_gJFfKWTzQ this]].
** Pyros with a good grasp of level design, enemy movements, patience, timing, and sheer insane dedication to bringing DeathFromAbove can literally drop down on someone, set them on fire, and kill most of the other classes in a single swing of the [[SituationalSword Axtinguisher]] before they can react. Notably, this allows them to [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRKju1fxFuI single-handedly kill other Pyros instantly with the Axtinguisher]], which is otherwise almost impossible.
** The Flare Gun is this. It does ScratchDamage and a little bit of afterburn normally; however, it does full crits when it hits a burning opponent, meaning a truly good Pyro can use it to finish off fleeing opponents or as a long-range weapon capable of killing half the classes in two hits. However, it fires in an arc and you have to LeadTheTarget, making it difficult to hit players in motion.
** The Flare Gun's alternates, the Scorch Shot and the Detonator, allow Pyro to do a little jumping themselves. Though they only mini-crit instead of crit burning opponents, both shoot an explosive round that, just like Soldier, allow them to "flare jump". This allows Pyro to ambush even better by jumping into spots no one would expect a Pyro to come from.
** The Phlogistinator is harder to use than it appears at first glance, as to build up your "MMPH!" meter, you have to deal a a hefty amount of damage, using a weapon weaker than the stock flamethrower, which also lacks an airblast that allows deflecting projectiles. But get that much damage in, taunt, watch as [[NoSell you turn temporarily invincible and immovable]], then [[OhCrap you're granted 100% critical hits]], and then revel in chasing down the fleeing enemy team.
** The Thermal Thruster takes some practice to use properly due to it initially having a weird time delay of 1.1 seconds when deploying and holstering it, making it a poor choice as an emergency escape option, not to mention the fact that you're forgoing any capability to deal damage outside of Flamethrower range. Use it in the right situations and understand how it handles, and you gain a fantastic mobility option that lets you flank like never before. The March 28th, 2018 patch reduced its holster-time to 0.8 seconds, making it a bit more viable as an escape option than when it was released.
** The Dragon's Fury shoots hitscan projectiles instead of perpetual flames and utilizes a bizarre pressurization mechanic that's shared by its primary fire and the airblast that causes both to come out faster on consecutive hits. ''Without'' scoring hits, Pyro's airblast is actually slower than with their more traditional weapons. This requires the Pyro to properly aim with their weapon, but it's capable of killing enemies at a much faster rate than their other primaries when their aim is true.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: A team with too many Pyros leaves itself vulnerable to just about anything with a range or high ground advantage. While anything within their effective range is going to be turned to ashes, actually achieving that becomes a struggle when the enemy team can start stacking Engineers and Sentries, Heavies and Snipers to out-DPS a horde of Pyros at a distance.
* DisproportionateRetribution: They once cut off one of the Soldier's hands because they were scuffling in the back seat, and mulched a bear's head with an axe because they ''imagined'' it [[BerserkButton insulting fire]].
* DissonantSerenity: In [[http://www.teamfortress.com/truemeaning/ "True Meaning"]], the Pyro doesn't appear to be too shaken by a rocket that crashed into the Engineer's house, barely missing the two.
** In "Meet the Pyro", it's shown that during battle, the Pyro sees themself giving lollipops, bubbles, and happiness to cherubs, skipping around happily in a burning town.
* DramaticGunCock: The Pyro is unique in that unlike other classes that use shotguns, they actually pump its forearm when they first draw it.
* TheDreaded: As shown in "Meet the Pyro", even ''their own team'' is terrified of them. Even the Spy muses on what could fuel such a desire for destruction.
* DropTheHammer: The Homewrecker, one of their unlockable weapons, is a sledgehammer, while the Powerjack is a makeshift hammer they built out of spare parts.
* EdibleBludgeon: The Pyroland counterpart of the Fire Axe is the Lollichop, a giant team-colored lollipop with a white swirl.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: To an even greater extent than the other classes. Even when off duty, the Engineer (Dell Conagher) calls them Pyro.
* ExpressiveMask: Averted in-game, but played straight in the comic where their gas mask deforms with their expressions and the goggles act as EyeGlasses.
* TheFaceless: Nobody knows what's under that mask. In the character model, the Pyro's head ''is'' the mask. Averted in the [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/b/b8/Pyro2.png?t=20111210120729 concept]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/b/b3/Tf2sketches2.png?t=20110423122730 arts]].
* FartsOnFire: Used as an instant-kill taunt in conjunction with the Thermal Thruster jetpack. Pyro lights a match and holds it over their bottom, then uses the jetpack's twin exhausts at the same time, making a total of ''[[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill three]]'' streams of fire.
* FeaturelessProtagonist: Nobody has ever seen what the Pyro looks like under that asbestos suit, and the shapelessness of the suit itself doesn't give you much to work with either.
* {{Fireballs}}: The Dragon's Fury launches them.
* FireBreathingWeapon: The Pyro's primary weapons are all flamethrowers, which deal fire damage in a cone in front of him, and also deal afterburn damage after they are hit. That makes him a short-range fighter with a HerdHittingAttack which can quickly wreck havoc in closed spaces, but can be abused with clueless players (referred to as "W+M1" Pyros) simply charging into the fray hoping to score kills but only getting killed quickly.
* FootPopping: Pyro does this while hugging Saxton Hale, as seen at the bottom of [[http://www.teamfortress.com/jungleinferno/pyro.php this page]].
* FlareGun: Apart from shotguns, the Pyro can use a Flare Gun and other variants such as the Detonator, the Manmelter or the Scorch Shot. With the flare guns, the Pyro acquires a long range option that can set enemies on fire and also deals increased damage to enemies on fire.
* FriendToAllChildren: Seen briefly in the second issue of the ''Team Fortress'' comics. They like to make children happy, and they in turn seem very pleased by their antics — specifically burning all their textbooks so school was cancelled for years.
** This extends further in "The Naked and the Dead", when they [[spoiler:overhear the discussion between the classic Soldier and Scout about having an orphanage, listening to the utter of "an endless supply of free children" immediately made them prey on the debatable sociopaths]].
* FunnySchizophrenia: The "Meet the Pyro" video shows us that they imagine they're playing with cherubs in a SugarBowl, and their flamethrower is a MagiTek rainbow dispenser built out of a music box, a garden hose, and a cluster of trumpet bells. They see their FlareGun, in turn, as a bubble wand, and hears the screams of terror and agony as joyful giggling.
* GasMaskMooks: Gives the appearance of one, especially with more than one of them on the enemy team. Justified, in that it's more than likely they wear it to prevent suffocating on the fumes from their flamethrowers.
* GasolineLastsForever: Strongly inverted with the Gas Passer, whose cloud of gas dissipates after a few seconds.
* HomemadeFlamethrower: For example, the stock flamethrower is made out a long metal pole, connected by a hose to a propane tank. The tank is attached to the pole via fastening bands. The trigger is made out of a team-colored gas pump handle.
* HerdHittingAttack: Flamethrowers pierce through their targets, including Engineer buildings. A Pyro under Übercharge can deal heavy area damage in close quarters, and can inflict a TotalPartyKill using the Phlogistinator.
* HeterosexualLifePartners: With the Engineer — and with a [[AmbiguousGender question]] [[AmbiguouslyGay mark]] on 'Heterosexual'. They apparently live together. When a rocket crashed into their house, the Engineer half-joked that they may have just adopted a super-baby. This [[FridgeBrilliance mirrors their relationship in-game]]; no Engineer is complete without a Pyro.
* HiddenDepths:
** The Pyro took charge of an engineering company for a whole quarter and made everybody on the management board millionaires, somehow. Furthermore, while they're perhaps the nuttiest of the mercs, the [[MacGyvering MacGyvered]] nature of most of their Flame Throwers suggest they're competent at putting together murder weapons.
** They're actually pretty good with kids, likely owing in part to their PsychopathicManchild tendencies; see FriendToAllChildren above.
* HighClassGlass: A monocle is part of the Pyro's miscellaneous item, the "Whiskered Gentleman".
* HitAndRunTactics: Smart Pyro players know when to chase enemies down and when to ambush, set them on fire, then ''get the hell out of there.''
* IdiotSavant: Variously described by the others as a "mutant", a "whack-job", a "mumbling abomination", and a "mental deficient", the Pyro [[InspirationallyDisadvantaged inspirationally]] makes up for whatever they may lack in social skills by being an expert at inflicting burning agony upon others.
* ImmuneToFire: [[DownplayedTrope A Pyro can still receive contact damage from another Pyro's flamethrower]], but under normal circumstances, they are immune to afterburn. However, if a Pyro is soaked in the Gas Passer's gas, anyone can bypass this afterburn immunity; any weapon that hits the Pyro by that point will light them up.
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Pyro has the largest number of improvised weapons of any class. Most of their weapons have been hand-crafted from things you find lying around a gas station or garage. They have the modified [[AnAxeToGrind Axtinguisher]] and the [[DropTheHammer Homewrecker]], but the Pyro also uses things like a [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Back_Scratcher gardening rake]], [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Powerjack a car battery attached to a car jack]], a giant lollipop, a deep fat fryer, and, giving new meaning to the word "hotmail", [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Postal_Pummeler a mailbox.]]
* InnocentInaccurate: Everyone knows that the Pyro spreads fiery death and destruction and is feared by all. Everyone, it seems, except the Pyro themself. Or...so it seems. The "Meet the Pyro" video shows us what the world [[SugarBowl looks like]] from Pyro's side of the mask, but several times in the comic seem to imply that Pyro is well aware of what fire is, and has an affinity for it. Their encounter with the Smokey the Bear expy, as documented above, also indicates that Pyro is also capable of truly malicious intent.
* {{Irony}}: Their stock melee weapon, a fire axe, and three of their cosmetics, the Brigade Helm, Vintage Merryweather, and Trickster's Turnout Gear, the former two being fire helmets and the lattermost being a fireman's jacket. At least in "Meet the Pyro", they're seen using said fire axe to break down doors so they can torch people inside, making them a very literal "fireman".
-->'''Vintage Merryweather Description:''' Pyro wears this in tribute to the many firefighters who have perished trying to quell their flames.
** Despite being the class that thrives on lighting people on fire, the Pyro is also one of the best classes to extinguish teammates thanks to the airblast.
* JackOfAllStats:
** [=MvM=] wise, Pyro is incredibly versatile loadout-wise and can fit pretty much any combat role effectively. Dragon's Fury and Backburner for high damage output, Phlogistinator for tank busting, stock Flame Thrower for airblasting the bomb into a pit, Gas Passer for taking out crowds of robots or medics.
** Even in general gameplay, the Pyro has perfectly respectable speed, health, and damage output. They're faster than the classes with better DPS and health and are tougher and more damaging than the classes with higher speed.
* JokeItem: The Hot Hand, which is a glove that replaces Pyro's melee weapons and allows them to slap people. The damage is pithy on a class that has better close range options and the primary upside of a speed boost on hit is very situational, but slapping your enemies to death is funny and, like the Scout's Holy Mackrel, the game announces that your enemies are getting slapped to the whole server via the killfeed.
* JumpJetPack: The Thermal Thruster, which -- after a short charge jump -- launches the Pyro in the direction they are looking at when used. The Pyro can jump just before using it to propel themselves fairly higher.
* KamehameHadoken: One of the Pyro's taunts, though the actual fireball doesn't reach very far. It is also capable of an [[LethalJokeItem instant kill]] on multiple enemies if you are lucky enough.
* KillItWithFire: The entire point of the class.
* KnightOfCerebus: Of the "Meet The..." videos. They're portrayed with the BLU team showing genuine fear for their lives. They could possibly share this spot with the Spy.
* KryptoniteIsEverywhere: Methods for putting out fire have increased in number by the day, making afterburn not even half as menacing as it used to be. To this date, 5 out of 9 classes can equip items that immediately put out a fire on a teammate or render it irrelevant (the Scout's Mad Milk, the Pyro's airblast and Manmelter alt-fire, the Heavy's lunchbox items, the Medic's Mediguns, and the Sniper's Jarate and Sydney Sleeper's scoped shots). On top of that, the Medic has intrinsic health regeneration that almost neutralizes the afterburn, and activating a normal Über Charge extinguishes fire, the Demoman's shields give him great resistance to fire and remove afterburn on charge, and the Spy's Spy-cicle, Dead Ringer, and Conniver's Kunai each allow the player to remove afterburn on certain conditions. Jungle Inferno also nerfed the afterburn itself to only be applied to a player for however long the Pyro engulfed you in flames for, with a cap of 8 seconds ''instead'' of 8 seconds '''''no matter what'''''. Safe to say, Spy mains the world over were pretty happy about this change.
* LateArrivalSpoiler: Pyroland was a ''huge'' surprise… back when it was first revealed in 2012. Nowadays, it's pretty much common knowledge, with the number of items and voice lines in-game referencing the Pyro's childlike attitude scarcely bothering to keep it a secret anymore.
* LeeroyJenkins: A very simple way to play the Pyro is to charge at the enemy and keep them in range of your flamethrower. This is often the stereotypical "noob" or "W+M1" Pyro, as they lack subtlety and are easily shot down before they get into range, though it can also be surprisingly effective.
* {{Leitmotif}}: In the eyes of [[TheDreaded both their foes]] ''[[TerrorHero and their friends]]'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdXzlV-t8dw Dreams of Cruelty]]. But [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness in their own mind]]… [[Music/TheLovinSpoonful Do You Believe In Magic?]]
* LethalJokeCharacter: The Pyro is the stereotypical noob class, and playing them can result in derision from veteran players. Up until they set you on fire, anyway. They've also been heavily nerfed repeatedly, and other classes surpass them in virtually all areas[[note]]The Spy and Scout are better ambushers, the Demoknight is a better melee combatant, the Heavy has better DPS, etc.[[/note]]. Yet see DifficultButAwesome above for a taste of what a skilled Pyro can do. Additionally, the Pyro is a Spy's worst nightmare, as they can easily cover a large number of players and a wide area with flames with very little effort, easily revealing any Spies caught there.
* LightningBruiser:
** Has the highest health/speed balance of all the classes. 100% of baseline speed, with 175 health; only three other classes meet or exceed the Pyro's health level, and they're all slower than Pyro.[[note]]Though the Soldier's rocket jumps actually make him much more mobile, albeit at the cost of some health.[[/note]] Couple with the major damage that Pyro can do with the flamethrower (albeit at short range, hence the speed), and you have this. Pyros, however, have abysmal range, only some of their secondaries give them any range at all, and those have pitiful damage without the use of follow-up attacks or set-ups. The other three classes on par with the Pyro's health have very high damage rates and can easily shred a Pyro in seconds. So despite having a surprisingly large amount of health, it tends to get eaten up pretty quickly.
** During the Mann-conomy Update, the Pyro gained the Gas Jockey Gear item set, which boosts their speed in lieu of giving them vulnerabilities to hitscan weapons. This makes them teeter on the edge between LightningBruiser and GlassCannon, as Pyros themselves don't stand much of a chance against Heavies in open combat anyways (Heavies having the most damaging and used hitscan weapons). Against Scouts, Engineers, and Spies, the Pyro's survivability is greatly reduced. The set bonus was removed later on, but it still lives on in a way through new attributes given to the melee weapon of the set, the Powerjack, which now gives a 15% speed boost, at the cost of taking 20% more damage, when the Pyro has it drawn.
* LimitedWardrobe: Is never seen without the asbestos suit. Their trading card bio implies they wear it constantly. This is taken to extreme levels when attending board meetings of a company [[ItMakesSenseInContext he's the CEO of]] in the very same asbestos suit.
* MacGyvering: A running theme with the aesthetic to the Pyro's items. A few of the hats are things that aren't really hats ([[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Handyman%27s_Handle a toilet plunger]], [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Birdcage a birdcage]], or an [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Stately_Steel_Toe old boot]]). The Degreaser is a flamethrower made with a gas pump, a car muffler, an exhaust pipe, a fire extinguisher, and a stove top burner, while the Powerjack is a car battery tied to an automobile jack.
* TheMagazineRule: At the end of "Meet the Medic", the Pyro is seen reading [[http://www.sourceop.com/hell-met/TF2/manman.jpg a magazine called "Man Man"]], likely a parody of the masculine magazines published in the 50s. The top two headlines read, "Lust-crazed bikini bordellos of the Badlands" and "Chained nudes in the Dustbowl of the damned".
* MagikarpPower: In Mann vs. Machine, Pyros will likely struggle the most out of the frontline units when first starting out and get wiped out easily against the horde, having little to no money for resistances or meaningful damage for such a close-ranged fighter, pushing them back to chucking the more useful Gas Passer with the 'explosion on ignite' upgrade and tank elimination duties, which they suffer no damage penalty for attacking unlike Heavies. With enough money and wise purchasing however, Pyros can get all the damage resistances they need, flamethrower upgrades and health-on-kill purchases to become close to unkillable as they become capable of quickly wiping out groups of robots in seconds with minimal effort. By this point, the only real concern is getting mowed down by giants and especially Giant Heavies, which is usually a team effort to take out anyways.
* MamaBear[=/=]PapaWolf: Some Pyro mains use this mentality as a playstyle, acting as a support class that supports by protecting their teammates like a parent protects their children. Your team stays alive if your Medic heals them, and your Medic can freely heal them if there's nobody alive to kill your Medic, after all.
* MasterOfNone: With the right unlocks, they can fulfill most roles on a team, but those roles are better performed by more specialized classes. Sure, they can flank like a Spy, deal damage like a Heavy, and hit-and-run like a Scout, but the Spy is better at getting in position, the Heavy has better DPS, and the Scout is faster and better at dealing damage at range. The Pyro's potential resides in versatility and the [[ConfusionFu difficulty for an opponent to figure out their loadout and tactics]] before it's too late.
* MenacingStroll: In "Meet the Pyro," although from their own point of view, they are happily skipping around.
* MechanicallyUnusualClass: The only combat-oriented class whose primary weapon is only usable at close range. They're also the only class with any sort of AttackReflector and the only class able to reliably deal fire damage.
* MrImagination: This is what Pyroland is generally implied to be.
* MysteriousPast: The only character aside from the Spy to have no backstory.
* NiceGuy: If they were a bit more aware of the reality of their actions, they'd be the nicest member of the team. Alas, what they think is spreading joy to the world and playing with cherubs is actually burning people to death and driving axes into their skulls.
* NightmareFuelStationAttendant: They scare the living crap out of everyone on ''both'' teams, yet they're completely unaware of this. Taken to literal extremes with an item set based on the attire of a fuel station attendant.
* NotSoDifferent:
** The Backburner Pyro has to sneak around and punishes enemies from behind. Kind of like a Spy…
** Pyro and Spy are the only two classes to wear face-concealing masks literally 24/7. They are also the only two classes to act annoyed during Humiliation, as opposed to cowering in fear or cringing in surrender.
** Furthermore, both are described as [[EnigmaticMinion enigmatic figures]] with [[MysteriousPast nothing revealed of their past]], [[TheDreaded are thoroughly feared by their enemies and teammates alike]], and have a hidden [[NotSoAboveItAll silly]] [[ObliviouslyEvil side]].
** We know all the hometowns of all the classes, except the Spy, who is from an indeterminate region of France, and the Pyro, who is from an indeterminate... [[TheSpook region]][[note]]and technically the Soldier as well, but his region of origin (Midwestern United States) tells us more than enough as is[[/note]].
** Both the [[http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0060794/ Pyro and the Spy]] have the same voice actor.
** As of "The Naked and the Dead", only two mercs' names remain unknown. Guess which two.
** Both Pyros and Spies are rather ineffective in mirror matches. Pyros primarily deal damage with fire... but they're immune to afterburn. Enemy Spies, meanwhile, are rather unlikely to run into each other in normal gameplay.
* ObliviouslyEvil: As revealed in "Meet the Pyro". To everyone else, the Pyro is a crazed inhuman ''thing'' ready to set the world ablaze. But in the Pyro's mind, they're simply skipping whimsically around a SugarBowl world and making everyone happy by handing out candy and blowing pretty bubbles and rainbows for them.
* OddFriendship: With the generally polite, intelligent, soft-spoken Engineer, who sometimes seems among the sanest of the mercs[[note]] though he did cut off hit own hand to replace it with a robot arm[[/note]].
** An Engineer's biggest problems are explosives, Snipers, Spies, and ubercharges. A Pyro's compression blast can hold off ubers and reflect explosives, their flamethrower can spycheck with ease, and, if they equip the Homewrecker, they can remove a Spy's sappers from friendly buildings.
** The Pyro's biggest weakness is having to choose between using shotguns to deal with mid-ranged threats (such as Scouts and Heavies) and using flare guns to deal with long-ranged threats (such as Snipers). A fully-upgraded sentry gun can easily hold the mid-range, slaughtering Scouts and deterring even Heavies, freeing up the Pyro to harass Snipers with flare guns.
** This means that, together, an Engineer and a Pyro can cover all of each others' weaknesses.
** The ''True Meaning'' comic, among other things, demonstrates that this friendship is also the case in canon, too.
* OneManArmy: In "Meet The Pyro", not only does the Pyro singlehandedly take out the entire BLU team, but he also completely destroys the town they were fighting in and burns it to the ground.
* OrnamentalWeapon: Those napalm grenades are apparently just a style statement. That, or the Pyro really likes bongos.
* PlayingWithFire: While their weapon is the flamethrower, the Hadoken and the Rainblower taunt have some… interesting implications.
* ProudToBeAGeek: The Pyro's hats would suggest this, coupled with the game's time period (the 60s) being a hotbed of sci-fi B-movies and [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] comics.
%%* PyroManiac: Well, obviously.
* PsychoPartyMember: The rest of the Team is convinced that the Pyro is their most insane member for their homicidal actions. Turns out they are RightForTheWrongReasons: they ''are'' the craziest of them, but not in a homicidal way.
* PsychopathicManchild: "Meet The Pyro" is quite definite that this is Pyro's real mental state — but it's WildMassGuessing on how they ended up like that.
** Then there's the scene in "True Meaning" featuring Engineer reading a Christmas story to Pyro, who is sitting crosslegged on the floor and listening closely. Said story describes the "Australian Christmas shootout" between an evil version of Santa and the mafia.
** Adding [[https://youtu.be/kAoXSFNeTwM?t=8m12s Miss Pauling's Rare Contracts in "Gun Mettle"]] to the mix gives the impression that Valve has settled on Pyro being some crazed combination of a pyromaniac, a mercenary, and an 8-year-old in a chem-suit.
--->'''Miss Pauling:''' "Hey buddy! It's Pauling!"\\
'''Miss Pauling:''' "Hi, Pyro! I've got something I need you to do, okay buddy?"\\
'''Miss Pauling:''' "Hey Pyro! You want to do a real big favor for Miss Pauling?"
* RequiredSecondaryPowers: The chemsuit makes Pyro immune to afterburn (though not the initial fire damage), except when doused with the Gas Passer or targeted with the Dragon's Fury. On a meta-gaming level, Pyro players who know the current map, and can find good spots to strike from, do a lot better than the "[=W+M1=]" types who tend to simply be cut down before they actually get into range.
* RiddleForTheAges: Nearly everything about Pyro is a complete mystery -- their gender, their age, their past, their country of origin, what they look like under their mask, and how they became the AxCrazy, [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness delusional]] PyroManiac [[ObliviouslyEvil they]] are today. Hell, whether or not they're even a person is sometimes called into question.
* RummageSaleReject: The Pyro is prone to wearing some of the nuttiest cosmetics in ''[=TF2=]''. These include the Frymaster (a miniature fry cooker that replaces the air tank backpack), the birdcage (with the base sawed out and worn over the head, a bird still inside), and the Prancer's Pride (a single reindeer antler tied to the top of Pyro's head with string).
* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: Makes air-guitar noises when taunting with a melee weapon.
* ShotgunsAreJustBetter: The Pyro's secondary weapon is typically a shotgun and other variants, giving them another option at short range. It's also their most effective weapon against other Pyros.
* SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer: Absent from the Mann VS Machine trailer, along with the Sniper and Spy.
* SituationalDamageAttack: The Dragon's Fury, which quadruples its damage if its victim is burning ''and'' the center of the projectile's hitbox connects.
* SituationalDamageAttack: The Neon Annihilator is unique in the game because it deals crit damage to wet players, which is a status that is quite rare and often ignored. That makes the weapon very useful in wet areas but nearly useless in other stages as it then relies on specific items that the Pyro doesn't even have to work.
* SituationalSword: Is prone to using these. The Backburner can't score random crits, but does 100% critical damage from behind. The Flare Gun has a pretty tame damage output and a slow projectile speed, but it deals devastating 100% criticals to enemies on fire, and its alternate choices, the Detonator and Scorch Shot, are ''even weaker'', but allow Pyro to flare jump. The Neon Annihilator does less damage than the stock Fire Axe, but deals 100% criticals to enemies who are wet from standing in water or being hit by Mad Milk/Jarate. The Axtinguisher deals the half of damage of the stock fire axe, but deals guaranteed mini-crit from the front and critical hit from behind on burning enemies. Combine the melee and secondary weapons with the Degreaser, itself an example which deals less damage but allows faster weapon switch time, and you can build a loadout based entirely around weapon combos.
* SkillGateCharacters: When using the aforementioned [[LeeroyJenkins W+M1]] strategy. A charging Pyro is pretty hard to beat if you can't react fast enough, but it's a minor threat to more skilled/lucky players. They can actually be a lot tougher than people think, especially since Soldiers often forgo their Shotgun in favor of other items. The "Puff 'n Sting" Axtinguisher combo when airblasting requires enemies to be too disoriented in the split second they're in the air to fire and aim at the Pyro, which rarely works against sufficiently skilled players.
** The Pyro is also the most ''forgiving'' character, without magazine size, inability to close gaps, nor self-damage to worry about and an easy-to-aim weapon. A badly-played Pyro may not be a threat, but is more dangerous and harder to out-play than a equally bad Soldier or Heavy that simply runs at you.
* SteamPunk: The [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Phlogistinator Phlogistinator]], which works on archaic chemistry. Basically, it shoots pure phlogiston — the chemical that was thought to react with other things to make fire and released when fuel was exposed to heat, before people figured out that was really oxygen reacting to the fuel when exposed to heat.
* TheSpook: Literally ''nothing'' is known about the Pyro. They have no name. They have no nationality. They seem to fluctuate between genders, if they even have one at all. Their mask makes every word it says incomprehensible gibberish, so you can hardly ask the Pyro what they are. With every inch of their body covered in a flame-retardant suit, it's impossible to even determine their skin or hair color. A few people out there don't even think the Pyro is human. Only two things are known about the Pyro: They like setting things on fire, and they don't speak.
* SugarBowl: How the Pyro views the world, known as "Pyroland" — they think they skip around firing rainbows and lollipops and bubbles at the world, spreading happiness to little cherubs. In-game, there's an all-class item in the form of special goggles, provided by the same company that also made the Pyro's mask, so every class can see the world as happily as the Pyro.
* SuperPersistentPredator: Just about every [[LeeroyJenkins W+M1 Pyro]] will be this, constantly chasing down any enemy they see (including other Pyros) until they're a pile of char.
** Nearly every Pyro player will be this to Spies in almost any situation. Some of the better ones will even use alternate routes to pursue retreating Spies well past the front line.
* SupportPartyMember: Despite being listed as an Offense class, the Pyro is more effective in a supportive role. Their flamethrower's short range makes them relatively unsuitable for direct combat, but the sheer utility a Pyro brings can turn the tide of battle, especially on the defensive. In particular, thier compression blast can be used to reflect rockets back to the enemy, clear a patch of sticky bombs, reposition enemies, and stop [[TheJuggernaut Uber pushes]] dead in their tracks.
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Forms a very firm one with Spy and Engineer. A Pyro is the best counter for a Spy, who is the bane of the Engineer, who can easily dispatch the range-challenged Pyro. The Sniper can also fill the Engineer's role here, as the stationary, long-range-focused, and frequently tunnel-vision-afflicted Sniper is easy pickings for a Spy, while the range-challenged and attention grabbing Pyro is usually at the Sniper's mercy.
** This means that when a Pyro has the patience to stay with an Engineer, the security of the Engineer becomes a ''lot'' better. Even if a Spy does manage to backstab the Engineer and sap a building before being burned to death, a Pyro armed with The Homewrecker can dispatch all sappers in one hit. It also helps that the Pyro can neutralize incoming explosives, meaning only enemy Snipers and Heavies pose a threat under ideal circumstances.
** Forms a secondary one with the Demoman and Heavy. The Heavy's greater health and damage shut down the Pyro, while the Pyro's emphasis on staying close, and ability to deflect projectiles grants the Pyro a significant upper hand over the Demoman, whose larger number of explosives and lack of fall-off let him shell the slow, bulky Heavy more effectively.
* TakingYouWithMe: It's common for dead Pyros to score posthumous kills by afterburn. Two achievements are linked with this; one requiring you to posthumously kill a certain number of players, while another one requires you to kill someone in roughly the same second as they killed you.
* TerrorHero: As revealed in "Meet the Pyro", it's unknown who fears the Pyro more: the other team (sans perhaps the opposing Pyro, who isn't shown), or Pyro's own teammates.
* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: As revealed in "Meet The Pyro".
* TokenGoodTeammate: A ''very'' dark example. While the rest of the team do their jobs in the name of [[OnlyInItForTheMoney money]], the Pyro seems driven by a genuine desire to do good. Unfortunately, they have a ''very'' twisted perception of what "good" entails.
* TheUnintelligible: Although the Pyro can and does talk, their dialogue is heavily muffled by the protective gas mask and is, for the most part, incomprehensible. (Though the Pryo can be heard saying things such as "[[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/0/0f/Pyro_medic01.wav Medic!]]", "[[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/4/47/Pyro_thanks01.wav Thank you]]" and "[[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/e/e8/Pyro_taunt_flip_exert_06.wav Up you go!]]" among others). The asbestos-lined suit has also contributed to the ravaging of the Pyro's lungs. Pyro seems to at least [[http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=8256 know Morse code.]] (Translated, it reads "Monday", the day the Pyromania Update came out.) [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUhOnX8qt3I&feature=player_embedded#t=130s And they can whistle.]]
-->'''Scout (upon dominating a Pyro):''' Yo, if ya didn't want me to kill ya, ''ya shoulda said somethin'!''
* UniquenessDecay: When the game released, the Pyro was the only class capable of dealing damage over time, through afterburn. Then bleeding was introduced and even afterburn was given to more classes. Eventually addressed in the ''Meet your Match'' Update, which gave all Flamethrowers the unique ability to interrupt Medic's healing. While other classes may be able to do gradual damage, the Pyro remains undeterred in harassment aftershocks.
* UnskilledButStrong: Pyros who use the [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Phlogistinator Phlogistinator]] have access to chargeable crits, as well as periods of temporary invincibility. That said, they're basically forced to adhere to the "W+M1" stereotype, because they can't use [[AttackReflector Airblasts]].
* VaderBreath: The Pyro's breathing can be heard menacingly reverberating through its gas mask in "Meet the Pyro".
* TheWonka: As crazy as the Pyro could be, they found an engineering company and made their employees millionaires in a few months of absence after the team got dismantled. While still wearing that complete asbestos suit.
** It's even implied that this was formerly Engineer's company and the entire reason it's a success now is because Engineer ''isn't'' in charge any more.
* YouMonster: The Pyro is viewed even by their own teammates as a horrifically cruel monster. "Meet The Pyro" even shows them viciously slaughtering the BLU team.
** They apparently aren't even aware that they're torturing and murdering people, as shown by their Pyroland delusions. Whether this makes them less or even more of a monster continues to be up for debate.

'''Offense Classes''' ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheScout The Scout]])\\

[[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSoldier Click here for tropes on him.]]

* AchillesHeel: While the Soldier doesn’t suffer from this nearly as much as the other classes, he still has some weaknesses.
** While his rocket launcher is incredibly powerful, much like the Demoman, he can hurt himself with it. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard If he's not careful, he can accidentally kill himself in a close-quarters fight.]] He also needs to inflict damage on himself to rocket jump; add [[FallingDamage fall damage]] into the mix, and it limits how many times he can rocket jump before blowing himself up (though the Gunboats can reduce self-blast damage).
** Scouts. A good Scout can easily avoid a Soldier's slow-moving rockets while raining fire on him with a Scattergun. The Soldier can use a shotgun to counteract this, but it isn't nearly as tough as the scattergun.
** Pyros. A Pyro's airblast can reflect Soldier's rockets, their primary method of damage, and send it right back at him, which can potentially kill himself or his teammates, especially if said rocket is a random crit. That being said good Soldiers have multiple ways to negate a Pyro's influence, such as shooting the ground with irregular timing to make reflects more difficult, ambushing Pyros via rocket jumping before they can react and reflect the rockets, or simply just tote around a shotgun and stay out of Flamethrower range.
* AchievementsInIgnorance: Soldier has built a functional rocket launcher, called the Beggar's Bazooka, and an effective robot disguise out of garbage.
* AdoringThePests: Through reasons comprehensible only to him, he snuck back into Merasmus' home, hid a refrigerator full of spoiled sour cream in the yard, and attracted several rabid raccoons, prone to chewing on everything in their path. Even though one of them has ''Soldier's own arm'' as its meal of choice, he still seems to think it's cute.
-->'''Merasmus:''' Where did all these ''raccoons'' come from? \\
'''Soldier:''' They sniffed out all the sour cream I hid! They ''love'' the stuff. [[CutenessProximity Don't you, Lieutenant Bites? Yeahhh, you do.]] \\
''Soldier holds "Lieutenant Bites" in his arms, scratching his head affectionately. The raccoon growls and digs its teeth into his arm. Several large, bloody gashes are already seeping out from the sleeve of his uniform. Merasmus stares on in shock.''
* AmazonChaser: Zhanna is as tall as he is, just about as buff, and easily as strong as he is, if not stronger. She loves killing things and she throttles with her bare hands. Soldier just adores her.
* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Drill Sergeant style, apparently from the Midwestern states.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: If [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/victory/ this post about Abraham Lincoln]] is part of his interior monologue, as opposed to being part of the genuinely weird world history of the ''[=TF2=]''-verse.
* AwesomeButImpractical: In practice, any strategy heavily relying on the Market Gardener or the Mantreads isn't suited to deal with most situations and is a risky strategy for dealing with medium to large-sized groups. But it's still so satisfying and fun [[DeathFromAbove to come blasting out of nowhere]] and make an enemy go '''CRUNCH'''.
** Unless you're incredibly good at Rocket Jumping (see DifficultButAwesome below), [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTW7hcuJrQY then you will just end up throwing the "Impractical" side out of the window.]]
* AxCrazy: Even compared to the insanity of the other Mercenaries, Soldier is particularly into killing things.
* BadBadActing: When he's trying to coax Merasmus out of hiding.
-->"Oh hello, Merlin, the famous magician! Noooo, I have not seen Merasmus. What's that? Noooo, I can't think of anyone who'd want an autograph."\\
"Oh hello, [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gundorf! Where's Blasbo Babbins? Oh there he is! Everyone's here! Labalos, Gimpy,]] [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs Dumpy, Snoopy...]] um... Man, I wish Merasmus was around to see this magical turn of events!"\\
"Oh look, it's Houdini. What's that Houdini? You looking for a new best friend? Too bad there's no wizards around... get out here, Merasmus!"\\
"What's that, Merasmus's favorite actor, Burt Lancaster? You think people who hide are cowards? Wise words, Burt Lancaster. You've convinced all of us-... damn it Merasmus, get out here!"
* BadassBandolier: Including two semi-cosmetic frag grenades. You can only use one of them in a suicidal explosion if you've got the Equalizer or Escape Plan equipped.
* BadassNormal: Despite having been rejected from every branch of the military and thus having no formal military training, the Soldier apparently went on a "Nazi killing spree" using entirely self-taught techniques. This quote sums it up:
-->"War is hell! My kind of hell!"
* BerserkButton: Do '''not''' call him a [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/soldier/06.htm civilian]]. Even though it's '''''true''''', he still goes absolutely apeshit if someone refers to him as that.
* BlasphemousBoast: "If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created ''me''!"
* BlindingBangs: The Battle Bob promotional hat.
* BoisterousBruiser: "You are not welcome in MY WORLD!"
* BondOneLiner: Many of his killing spree voice notes qualify. "Time to inform YOUR NEXT OF KIN!"
* BootsOfToughness: The Gunboats are quite impressive as they are military boots reinforced with bolted steel plates. They are also useful since they partially protect the Soldier from his own rocket jumping, allowing for a more dynamic playstyle in exchange for less firepower.
* BoringButPractical: The Shotgun, which most Soldiers forgo in favor of the utility or passive buffs that his other, non-weapon secondaries give. Carrying a Shotgun around, however, allows the player to finish off weakened enemies, evenly fight Scouts and Pyros, and allows for a Plan B when an enemy ambushes them while they're out of loaded rockets.
* BookDumb: The ''only'' thing Jane Doe is good at is War and Killing. [[RocketJump Many]] [[StatusBuff of]] [[CriticalStatusBuff his]] [[GoombaStomp battle]] [[ActionBomb tactics]] [[CrazyEnoughToWork defy all logic]].
* BreakingTheFourthWall: As the most played class on 6s, he's giving some lines showing that he is aware of his status:
-->"Which one of us is Pocket?" (A Pocket Soldier is basically a "Bodyguard" for the Medic)
-->"Which one of us is Roamer?" (A Roamer Soldier is a Rocket-Jumping soldier who picks specific enemies)
-->"Mess with the Pocket, get a rocket!"
* CaptainObvious: In "Meet the Spy":
-->'''Administrator:''' ''Intruder Alert! RED Spy is in the base!''\\
'''BLU Soldier:''' A RED SPY IS IN THE BASE?!\\
'''Administrator:''' ''Protect the Briefcase!''\\
'''BLU Soldier:''' WE NEED TO PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!
* CatchPhrase: "HUTTAH!", which he always shouts before breaking someone's neck.
* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Dominating Spies will have the Soldier taunt them while generally mentioning their French nationality. One calls the Spy a "rifle-dropping coward", another has him say, "Your white flag does not stop American bullets". [[BellisariosMaxim Think not of how the latter would be a war crime]], and remember that the Soldier [[AxCrazy isn't too sane]].
** One of his Achievements is "Geneva Contravention", which literally makes you kill 3 unarmed people. Granted, he's not exactly in the army.
* ChekhovsGun: His robot Halloween outfit turns out to be useful in fooling Gray Mann's robots, at least until Gray unveiled the robot Engineer.
* CigarChomper: Seen smoking a cigar in the Mann vs. Machine trailer, and he has one as a cosmetic item. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. And sometimes [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Soldier%27s_Stogie a cigar]] is a foul concoction hand-rolled from garbage bins.
* CloudCuckooLander: Whatever's in Soldier's head would probably not be reciprocated by too many people. For instance, [[MemeticBadass his historical accounts are rather off from what you should know]], though other background material in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' frequently states odd history such as that as well. He also keeps severed heads of his enemies to line up and act DrillSergeantNasty to.
** Taken UpToEleven in "Expiration Date". Everything out of his mouth is pure Cloud Cuckooland craziness that gives you some idea of how he would have been used if the series had come to fruition.
-->'''Spy:''' This... is a bucket. (presents bucket full of "dying wishes")\\
'''Soldier:''' Dear God.\\
'''Spy:''' There's more.\\
'''Soldier:''' [[LittleNo No...]]\\

'''Soldier:''' You did not read [my dying wish]!\\
'''Spy:''' ''*sigh*'' Does it say you want the buc-?\\
'''Soldier:''' Yes!
* ColonelKilgore: His authority is self-imposed (and he's the only one who treats it seriously), but otherwise he fits the trope, what with his obsession with war, killing, explosions, and "military machoism".
* CompanionCube:
** His enemies' severed heads, whom he treats like a squad of fresh conscripts in ''Meet the Soldier''.
** Also the ''[[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Larval_Lid Larval Lid]]'', a Halloween-restricted hat in the form of a giant botfly maggot (which, according to its texture file, is just a latex costume piece) "growing" from his head. Triggers special voice lines of Soldier conversing with his buddy the "brain maggot" when equipped.
** In the ''Dr. Grordbort's Crash Landing'' comic, he's shown to have three army men friends who sit with him around a campfire and smoke together; Salty Pete, Iron Eye, and Pepper Pot Pete. The scene is then shown at a different angle, revealing that they're just wooden cutouts with cigars stuck to their mouths.
* CrazyEnoughToWork: With the Mann Vs. Machine update, he came up with the idea of creating a decoy facility for the robots to attack. ''And it worked'' because the robots were so stupid.
-->'''Soldier:''' "If there's one thing we can do that these machines cannot, it is this: '''we can lie. [[UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill We will lie to them on the beaches! We will lie to them in the beach parking lot! We may even lie to them on non-beach-related property!]] About the quality of our munitions! About the strength of our will! We will even lie about lying! That is how deep this [[AliceAllusion rabbit hole]] goes! But the most important lie we will tell is this: Where the Mann Co. facilities are!"'''
** He then proceeded to infiltrate the robots' meetings by wearing his terrible robot Halloween costume as a disguise. It worked until Gray Mann got suspicious and built a smarter robot (patterned after the Engineer).
* CrazyHomelessPeople: According to the comics, the RED Soldier now lives in a box and there's nothing to suggest the BLU Soldier isn't at best a squatter or travelling deviant himself.
** The Pyromania update gave Soldier a set called the Dumpster Diver, including a helmet lined with tinfoil.
* CrazyJealousGuy: In the "[[http://www.teamfortress.com/tf02_unhappy_returns/ Unhappy Returns]]" comic, Jane tracks down Merasmus to [[spoiler:Tom Jones' house, murdering the singer in cold blood]] when he finds out [[spoiler:Tom Jones]] is Merasmus' new roommate. When Merasmus asks why, Jane says:
-->"I am fully within my legal rights as your old roommate to kill your stupid ''new'' roommate! (...) I was sad, you were happy! So I [[spoiler:killed Tom Jones]]. (...) [[HoYay The heart makes its own rules, Merasmus."]]
* CrazyPrepared: Apparently, he always knew a robot attack would happen, and has taken measures to prepare for this. Then again, one of these measures was staring down a toaster for several months to "get inside its mind", so effectiveness is debatable.
* CrazySurvivalist: The BLU Soldier apparently lives in a [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/soldier/03.htm windowless apartment with a barricaded door, several hundred cans of army surplus soup, and a pile of "Guns and Haircuts" magazines]].
* CreepySouvenir: Has a collection of severed heads taken from the BLU team (which he [[CompanionCube treats like his recruits]] in his ''Meet the Team'' video), and in the comics, his idea of an engagement present to Zhanna is a necklace of severed ears. Luckily for him, she's [[StrangeMindsThinkAlike as crazy as him]].
* TheCuckoolanderWasRight: In ''Expiration Date'', his immediate conclusion upon seeing tumors in the bread is that it means they can't teleport bread anymore. Though [[RightForTheWrongReasons his logic isn't exactly sound]], the conclusion he jumps to is actually exactly right.
* DeathFromAbove: Rocket jumping allows the Soldier to fly to great heights from which he can rain down rockets upon his enemies. The Gunboats greatly reduce the self-damage taken from rocket jumping, allowing Soldiers to perform bombing runs with high frequency, while the Mantreads let him actually ''[[GoombaStomp land on]]'' enemies to damage them. There's an achievement for killing a number of players from above.
** The Market Gardener lets him deliver this with even more efficiency (through a [[SomeDexterityRequired tight timing window]]), as it delivers a guaranteed 195-damage crit if he strikes with it while rocket jumping.
** And now, with the Beggar's Bazooka, Gunboats, and some creativity, he can act as a living airstrike.
** As of the Love and War update, two new weapons have been added for him; A parachute that allows gliding and a rocket launcher literally called "The Air Strike." The latter allows rapid rocket fire from midair.
* {{Determinator}}: No matter how he thinks and acts, the Soldier will NOT give up easily:
-->"A winner knows when to fight and when not to fight! Answer: Never! Stop! Fighting!"
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Subverted. While in most cases, a single-class team will expose themselves to a certain type of weakness (all-Scouts are vulnerable to Sentry Guns, all-Heavies to Spies & Snipers, all-Snipers/Spies just plain won't work), an all-Soldier team can literally blast apart anything short of an Übercharge (or specialized counters, like the Short Circuit) with a salvo of rocket barrage. The only real hurdle would be Snipers, but it's still possible to harass them away before they can cause too much damage. The other class which comes close is the Demoman.
* DirtyCommunists: What he thinks of the enemy Heavy.
** "A Cold Day In Hell" reveals he's not immune to SensualSlavs, though, as he quickly agrees to have sex with Heavy's younger sister, Zhanna.
** "Shadow Boxers" implies that he'd have a problem with his own teammates being non-American (particularly the Heavy being [[DirtyCommunists Russian]] and the Medic being [[AllGermansAreNazis German]]) if he weren't gullible enough to believe them when they say they're also American.
-->'''Soldier:''' Come on guys! Why would I ''lie?'' We're all Americans here!
-->'''Ms. Pauling:''' Well, not ''all'' of us, obviously. I mean, Medic's German and Heavy's from Russ- ''(Heavy nudges her)'' Ow! What? Oh.
-->'''Heavy:''' Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke on Soldier!
-->'''Solder:''' Ha! You got me!
-->'''Heavy:''' [[BlatantLies Ohh, America. It is the place I am from. All the time.]]
* DifficultButAwesome: '''''Rocket jumping.''''' A lot of people see it as just a typical advantage that Soldiers and Demos have, but when you can blast all the way across the map in five seconds ([[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRnw1SV06lk as showcased in the openings to these tutorials]]) and even outpace [[LeParkour the]] [[FragileSpeedster Scout]] with enough practice, it becomes clear how useful it really is when it comes to catching key targets and taking objectives. With a Market Gardener, this trope gets elevated, as you need to also learn the correct timing and position to swing, but when it all works out, you can assassinate Medics and Snipers from behind their teammates.
* DrillSergeantNasty: Very similar to Sergeant Hartman from ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', and the most psychotic member of the team. You could say he's worse than Pyro, since at least Pyro does it because of the goggles.
* DumbMuscle: Generally portrayed as the least intelligent and lowest-ranking member of the team, but it's implied that it's generally easier on the Team to let him believe [[http://store.valvesoftware.com/product.php?i=P3447 whatever won't get the rest of them killed]]:
-->A man whose combat strategies are so complex, so nuanced, that they have never been used on the field of battle, even though Heavy told him they would try them out last week.
* {{Eagleland}}: A poster boy for Flavour #2, being a complete idiot, attempting to solve all problems with violence, and hating pretty much everything non-American — while at the same time believing that everything good either is American or ought to be.
* EmbarrassingFirstName: Mister Jane. That's right, [[ComicallyMissingThePoint not "Captain Jane" or "Corporal Jane" or even "Private Jane". Just MISTER Jane]].
* EskimosArentReal: Invoked to goad his enemies on. The Soldier will declare that Scotland is not a real country, and thus the Scottish Demoman is actually "an Englishman in a dress". At the same time, considering this is [[CloudCuckoolander Soldier]] saying this, though, it's entirely possible he actually ''believes'' this.
* EyeObscuringHat: Has a helmet as his default headwear, and it is tilted in a way that hides his eyes. Engineer even [[LampshadeHanging lampshades]] the trope when dominating a Soldier.
-->'''Engineer:''' [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/1/19/Engineer_dominationsoldier07.wav?t=20100709022313 Next time, lift your lid and you might see it comin']].
* {{Flanderization}}: When introduced in "Meet the Soldier", the Soldier was portrayed as [[CrazyAwesome obsessed with war yet powerful in combat]]. With the in-universe justification of him getting lead poisoning from drinking the contaminated water in [=2Fort=], he's shifted from being crazy about war to being crazy about everything, but still just as dangerous.
* FluffyTamer: Whether it's rabid raccoons, bald eagles, or giant brain-eating maggots, Soldier seems to be genuinely fond of animals. He'd also rather contemplate eating his ''friends'' than some ermines in Siberia.
* FriendToAllChildren: He's tough, but he took three kids trick-or-treating on Halloween, and didn't hesitate to defend the children of Teufort from Old Nick.
* TheFriendNobodyLikes: While the Pyro is merely feared by its team, Soldier is disliked by his peers for the way his sheer stubbornness and ignorance always seem to cause problems.
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Somehow he went from being rejected by every branch of the military, having no training, and being unable to locate Poland on a map to [[OneManArmy personally killing over 6000 people during and after WW2]].
** Mann Co always hires the lowest bidder. Soldier once offered to pay to build the Decoy map and unlike characters like Demoman who lives in a mansion or Medic who is always spending money on animal organs, is generally on the cusp of being homeless.
* FullFrontalAssault: Getting naked and covering himself in honey is apparently his preferred method of close-quarters combat.
* GenderBlenderName: His name is apparently Mister ''Jane'' Doe.
* GeneralRipper: The Soldier is probably the most dangerously unstable, fanatically violent character in the whole team of lunatics - possibly even including the Pyro.
* GeniusDitz: He may look like an American equivalent of a Nazi fanatic whose logic goes beyond reason, but be reminded that he is ''still'' that same guy who beats your face in with a shovel five seconds after a round starts.
** His bio tells how much people he managed to slaughter by [[OneManArmy himself]] despite the fact that World War II already ended.
** Even [[SuperPersistentPredator tracks down the place where Merasmus lives]] before Merasmus ever realizes [[spoiler:Tom Jones was dead]].
** ''Somehow'' [[{{Macgyvering}} made a functioning rocket launcher out of random junk]].
* GratuitousSpanish: "Hasta la vista! Feliz Navidad! Hasta gaspacho!" [[labelnote:note]]Spanish for "Goodbye! Merry Christmas! Until vegetable soup!".[[/labelnote]]
* HiddenDepths: Though he loves war just as much as he despises his enemy, he's completely able to [[FireForgedFriendship forge a friendship with the other team's Demoman]] after finding out they both have common ground. He wouldn't budge on his friendship with the Demo until the Administrator pushed his one BerserkButton. Even after being pitted against Demo as mortal enemies, he sometimes has some kill-lines on enemy Demomen that aren't biting taunts, but instead show ''respect'' to his enemy.
--> ''You were good son, real good. Maybe even the'' '''''best.'''''
* HistoricalCharacterConfusion: In "Meet the Soldier", he attributes the [[Literature/TheBible story of Noah's Ark]] to [[Literature/TheArtOfWarSunTzu Sun Tzu]] instead.
--> '''Soldier:''' "Then he [Sun Tzu] used his fight money to buy two of every animal on Earth, and then he herded them onto a boat, and then he beat the ''crap'' out of every single one!"
* HotBlooded: With this quote as he dominates a Pyro:
--> "You cannot burn me. I am already ablaze with passion '''for war!'''"
* HypocriticalHumor: A Pyro domination line goes, "Fire is for cooking s'mores, son; get a REAL GUN." This coming from the guy whose primary is a rocket launcher (not technically a gun) and whose secondary default is a shotgun (the same as the Pyro).
* ImAHumanitarian: He nearly eats the Scout and his own hands while they and the Pyro are stranded and starving in the frozen wastes of Russia.
* IdiotSavant: Soldier's grip on [[DumbMuscle tactics]], [[{{Malaproper}} language]], [[CrazyEnoughToWork logic]], and [[CloudCuckooLander basic sanity]] is very suspect and [[PhonyVeteran he's never actually been in the military]], but he ''did'' manage to figure out how to use his weaponry without killing himself or getting killed fighting in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII (and then probably many more unfortunate random individuals around Europe who were subject to his attacks four years after the war ended) and now survives working as a mercenary fighting against other mercenaries hardened by possibly (marginally) more legitimate means.
* InexplicablyIdenticalIndividuals: All of the classes are, of course, but his is a particularly poignant case: many of the facts now established for the RED Soldier in the comics (PhonyVeteran status, BerserkButton, BattleCry, GenderBlenderName) were originally portrayed in the ''WAR!'' comic as belonging to the ''BLU Soldier''. This is possible evidence that each team's membership is made of clones.
* InnocentlyInsensitive: Jane's FunnySchizophrenia leaves him unable to comprehend that ''burning Merasmus' body'' just might piss Merasmus off.
* {{Irony}}: The Soldier has made his disdain [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/a/a8/Soldier_robot14.wav towards]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/4/45/Soldier_DominationSoldier05.wav hippies]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/1/1e/Soldier_robot22.wav and]] [[http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=2663 long]] [[http://www.teamfortress.com/asmissmasstory/?p=6 hair]] (read: anything longer than a buzz cut) clear. [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Battle_Bob There's also a promotional hat in the form of unusual-looking long hair for the Soldier]].
* ItsAllAboutMe: Capturing points or intelligence noticeably has him stress in his lines that they're his.
* JackOfAllStats: The Soldier simply isn't included in most counter cycles, and his weapons and stats are fairly straightforward. That, and his weapons make him comfortable to ''VideoGame/{{Quake}}'' Arena players.
** This is not to suggest he's not a valuable player; the Soldier is a vital staple in competitive play once the RocketJump is mastered. In fact, his best strength is that he has no exploitable weaknesses if played correctly, because good Soldier players can maximise mobility or attack power at the drop of a hat. They make a great secondary choice for an Über.
** In fact, Soldiers that have fully mastered the art of rocket jumping and use the Air Strike (which fires faster while rocket jumping), Base Jumper (an item that allows Soldiers to slow their descent after a rocket jump), and Market Gardener (a melee that also crits when used while rocket jumping) together are among some of the most dangerous things in the game, especially on taller maps with lots of jumping points. It's not uncommon to see Soldiers flying in and causing massive damage with this ability.
* JugglingDangerously: His taunts with non-Shotgun secondaries involve him juggling two grenades from his bandolier and a rocket.
* KatanasAreJustBetter: The Soldier can wield the Half-Zatoichi just like the Demoman. It can be useful with its longer melee range and its heal on frag, but the Soldier will suffer from HonorBeforeReason as he wont sheathe it before he's killed someone with it.
* {{Kiai}}: Screams "HUTTAH!" whenever he snaps someone's neck in the supplemental comics.
* LargeHam: He may potentially be one of the hammiest members of the team, especially in the comics.
* LaughingMad: He's already loopy, but in "Expiration Date", [[spoiler:after accidentally creating a giant bread monster]], he descends into maniacal laughter as he gets beaten up.
* LeaderWannabe: The official Soldier is quite convinced that he's in charge, and the team finds it easier to let him think that. Community content often implies a saner Soldier can be the standard "Team leader" figure.
* {{Leitmotif}}: [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Rocket_Jump_Waltz_%28Soundtrack%29 Rocket Jump Waltz]] and [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/The_Art_of_War_%28Soundtrack%29 The Art of War]]. InMemoriam of his voice actor, Rick May, a third one was added, [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Saluting_the_Fallen_%28Soundtrack%29 Saluting the Fallen]].
* LifeDrain: With the Black Box, an alternate Primary Weapon, the Soldier can heal up to 20 health when he deals damage with the rockets. However, it has only 3 rockets in its clip, shaving off the Soldier's damage potential.
* LimitBreak: The Soldier can trade his traditional shotgun with several backpacks that can activate special effects for the Soldier and his teammates nearby once the Soldier has dealt enough damage. The Buff Banner allows the Soldier and teammates nearby to deal mini-crits, the Battalion's Backup grants 35% resistance to damage, 50% resistance to sentries and immunity to critical hits and mini-crits, finally the Concheror grants speed buff and a heal for damage dealt.
* MacrossMissileMassacre:
** The Beggar's Bazooka can fire three highly inaccurate missiles at once. Upgrading it in the Mann Vs. Machine mode allows him to exceed the limits of the normal game mode and literally jam UpToEleven rockets into a weapon that by all rights shouldn't be able to hold them, then unleash them all at once.
** The Air Strike has increased firing speed while rocket jumping, and enjoys an increased clip size with every kill the Soldier scores with it. A full clip of 8 being emptied onto enemy lines demonstrates the trope very accurately.
** An all-Soldier team subverts DiminishingReturnsForBalance thanks to this. A single rocket deals a pitiful 45 at long range? How about 12 of them firing at once? And since buildings are not affected by damage fall-off, not even Sentry nests will last long against that kind of firepower.
* {{Malaproper}}: The supplemental comics have him replacing words with other words that sound similar, for instance, 'pepper-pants' when he had meant to say 'pepper pot' and 'salsa' instead of 'salty.' In the game, he seems unable to correctly pronounce anything related to literature, if his constant mangling of the names of characters from ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' and the Bombinomicon is any indication. He always ''sounds'' like he's close to what he means to say, but it's patently clear he's just spouting gibberish syllables.
* MiseryBuildsCharacter: As the Soldier says, "Pain is weakness leaving the body!"
* MonsterRoommate: RED Soldier's former roommate is an immortal spellcasting wizard!
* MoralMyopia: To the Soldier, it's only a war crime if the enemy team does it.
* NakedPeopleAreFunny: "Scout, I am nude and covered in honey again! Let's wrestle some damn bears!" [[SpeechBubbleCensoring A convenient text bubble]] informs us that the last time he did it was on [[http://www.teamfortress.com/tf03_cold_day_in_hell/#f=30 a double date with Scout]].
** "Old Wounds" has him take off all of his clothes to use a toilet for some reason, especially since the last thing we saw him say was that they were going to use the toilet to clean Zhanna's severed hand.
** He also gets nude and covered in honey with Zhanna in order to wrestle some robots in "The Naked and the Dead", and it is simultaneously hilarious and badass.
* NeckSnap: Practically his SignatureMove in the comics, always accompanied by a yell of "HUTTAH!"
* NeverLearnedToRead: It has been confirmed that four of the Mercenaries are illiterate, and while Valve can be vague about who they are, the Soldier is the first confirmed, having been shown ''attempting'' to read and apparently failing several times.
* NiceJobBreakingItHero: The reason the teams have been fighting otherworldly beings on Halloween for the past two years? This 'genius' decided to tick off an evil wizard both years. Yep, the main reason these characters are fighting for their lives on Halloween is ''entirely the Soldier's fault''.
-->'''Soldier''': "Then I told the mighty ghost wizard, 'Ha! I'd like to see you try!'. And that is why he's killing all of us right now!"
-->'''Scout''': "I gotta admit, that ''DOES'' sorta explain everything."
** In "Expiration Date", he's also [[spoiler:responsible for creating a Bread Monster that nearly kills him, the other members of the RED team, and Miss Pauling. All thanks to doing nothing but teleport bread for 3 days straight. [[note]][[AmbiguousInnocence Even though the Engineer said he could teleport as much bread as he wanted.]][[/note]]]]
* NoIndoorVoice: Soldier almost always talks in a shout, regardless of who he's talking to or what he's talking about. Fandubs of the comic follow this.
* NoodleIncident: As seen in "A Cold Day in Hell", he has apparently been naked and covered in honey many times before.
** Soldier has also mentioned the act of "holding in your best buddy's guts and screaming at the sky" more than once, generally suggesting that this was his specific last attachment to sanity.
* OfficialCouple: As of "A Cold Day In Hell", he's dating Heavy's younger sister Zhanna, not that Heavy is happy about it.
* OneLinerNameOneLiner: When the Tin Soldier set is equipped, upon getting a Revenge Kill, the Soldier may say:
-->"Beep boop, son, beep boop."
* OneManArmy: He was (or, at least, claimed to be) one of these from 1945 to 1949. It's officially stated that his killing spree ended four years after the war ended.
** Also, by his own claim, he spent some time in Guam; knowing him, it was years ''after'' the USA had recaptured Guam in 1944.
* PaperThinDisguise:
** Almost taken literally in that it's his cardboard Halloween costume, which he wore on his successful trips to infiltrate Gray Mann's headquarters.
** The Mann vs Machine map Decoy is Soldier's doing. It's an abandoned town that, for once in the entirety of ''Team Fortress 2'' maps, does not actually hide anything of importance. Of note within the map is the abundance of hastily-applied white paint, the "Mann Co. Hatch of Great Importance" painted on a bunch of wooden boards, and the "Corn" sign on one of the spawn room buildings, with the last two letters crossed out and "Mann" appended to the front to make "Mann Co".
* ParrotExposition: In "Meet the Spy". See CaptainObvious above.
* PatrioticFervor: His pride for America is taken to the extreme for RuleOfFunny.
* PermaStubble: Always sports a coating of stubble on his lower face.
* PetTheDog:
** In [[http://www.teamfortress.com/bombinomicon/?p=1 this Halloween comic]], it's hard to tell how serious the Soldier is about candy — it could just be him on the lam. But he does like kids.
** In an outtake of "Meet the Medic", the BLU Soldier holds a dying teammate in his arms. CrossesTheLineTwice when he gets run over by a train.
** Like the Scout, he saves the kids of Teufort from being kidnapped.
* PhonyVeteran: Contrary to his claims, he has never served in an army, and all those medals he has are self-awarded and self-designed. However, he did acquire a flight to Poland (in 1945!) on his own initiative, though most of the years in Europe were spent killing civilians because he didn't know the war was over. This is his deepest shame, and he guards it intensely; being called out on it is enough to instantly break his loyalty, as shown in the ''WAR!'' comic.
* PitifulWorms: He sure loves to call people maggots and spineless worms.
--> "''You are a spineless worm! You are a mistake of nature! [[RuleOfThree You are walking vomit!]]''"
* PityTheKidnapper: He mentions in "A Cold Day In Hell" that he's spent time in POW Camps ''voluntarily''. And they all broke before he did.
* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: His domination responses contain a number of offensive slurs against the Scottish, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Australians, and even the Canadians (he calls the Engineer a "cow-herdin' Canadian" in one such response). Despite this, he is still considered an indispensably versatile member of the team with a strong, if somewhat misguided good guy ethic.
* PowerfulPick: The once-dreaded Equalizer is this. It was unusually powerful because it granted damage and speed buffs as the Soldier's health was lower. To balance it, the Equalizer's effect was split into it and another pick named the Escape Plan, which kept the speed buff.
* PresentCompanyExcluded: The Larval Lid hat causes Soldier to say a variety of different voice lines, many of which use this trope due to his fondness for [[PitifulWorms mocking people as maggots]].
* PrimalChestPound: His taunt with the Direct Hit and the Beggar's Bazooka.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: He does this quite a bit.
--> "''Stand! On! The! Point! '''Numbnuts!'''''"
--> "''I! Am! On! FIRE!!!''"
* PunyParachute: The [=B.A.S.E.=] Jumper is a backpack that replaces the secondary weapon of the Soldier. The Soldier can deploy a small parachute midair which slows his fall and allow him to better control the direction of his fall.
* RealMenEatMeat: "Digesting ribs" is one of the items on his (very short) list of activities which are acceptable for a man to do.
* RealMenHaveShortHair: By default, the Soldier has a crew cut beneath his helmet. He also speaks derisively of long hair in many of his voice lines, sometimes vowing to give his opponents haircuts. [[HypocriticalHumor Ironically, a handful of his cosmetic items gift him a fuller head of hair]].
-->"Get a haircut, hippie."\\
"Get a haircut, trashcans."\\
"I am a robot! I am programmed to give you a sensible haircut!"\\
"I have returned from the grave to give the living haircuts."
* ReligiousBruiser: In "Grave Matters," he claims he is a priest. [[NoodleIncident In Guam.]]
* TheRemnant: According to his official bio, after being rejected from all branches of the military, Soldier flew to Europe on his own and embarked on a 'Nazi killing spree', which ended when he heard news of the war's end. In 1949.
* RightWingMilitiaFanatic: This is Soldier's basic stereotype.
* RomanticSpoonfeeding: After sleeping with Heavy's younger sister Zhanna, they can be seen feeding each other at the dinner table as a FunnyBackgroundEvent.
* SavageSpikedWeapons: The Pain Train, a broken wooden handle with thin bent nails and a railroad spike in it.
* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: Sometimes, especially when he's on a kill streak, he'll say "Kaboom!" or "Pa-pow!". Also, if he has the Tin Soldier costume set on, he goes "Beep beep boop" and occasionally "Robot noises!" while firing a weapon.
** His first reaction to finding a shipment of space ray guns is to pose dramatically and yell "PEW PEW PEW!"
* TheScourgeOfGod: "[[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/d/de/Soldier_taunts07.wav?t=20100625223634 If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created me!]]"
* SergeantRock: He likes to look this way, but his teammates pay little attention, mostly because they all know he's completely insane.
* SeriousBusiness: Almost to the point of being the team StopHavingFunGuy.
* SexyShirtSwitch: After sleeping with Zhanna, she lends him a frilly pink nightgown, as he doesn't have a spare change of clothes. Of course, him (and the rest of the team) are no stranger to RealMenWearPink (see: 2013's 'Magical Mercenary' hat).
* ShovelStrike: While using either the standard shovel or the Market Gardener.
* SituationDamageAttack: The Reserve Shooter deals mini-crits airborne caused by rocket launcher, explosion or grapple hooks, which makes for an interesting synergy with the Soldier's loadout.
* SkillGateCharacter: While truly mastering Soldier takes months of practice and effort, learning his basics is far from difficult. Soldier's above-average health pool lets him make more mistakes without as much punishment, aiming at the ground with the Rocket launcher gives some leniency to precision shooting, and his [[JackOfAllStats flexibility as a class]] makes him excel in many situations. What makes him a Skill Gate Character is that a new player can do well in a low-level match, but anyone who hasn't learned how to RocketJump as mentioned before will get utterly decimated in high-level play, where a successful rocket jump rollout is crucial to the start of the round.
* SociopathicSoldier: …You really need to ask why he qualifies as this?
* TakingYouWithMe: The Kamikaze taunt has him say, "C'mere, cupcake!" before using a grenade to blow himself up and take any nearby enemies with him.
* TaughtByExperience: Managed to survive learning to fight after getting to Europe alone while untrained and unaffiliated to the U.S. [[EveryoneHasStandards because they wouldn't accept him]] due to being [[AxCrazy a total lunatic/idiot]]. Granted, he "fought" for four years after World War 2 had ended.
* TeamPet: In the Fourth Annual Halloween Special, he adopts a ton of raccoons. Wild ones that bite him and subsist on rancid sour cream he stole from his former roommate's house, but oh well.
* TestosteronePoisoning: According to the Soldier, true men get haircuts, yell, eat ribs, do pushups, and defend hills. Any person who doesn't do these activities every waking moment is a pansy.
* TheyKilledKennyAgain: The BLU Soldier is killed in every Meet the Team video, and the two extra videos; the corpse of a BLU Soldier falls off the Red Bread van in ''Expiration Date'', despite the short not focusing around the RED vs BLU conflict, and a Soldier (he's offscreen, so we don't get to see his team affiliation) is brutalized by Heavy in ''Meet the Sandvich''.
* ThisCannotBe: At times, it doesn't take much to astonish him., like [[http://youtu.be/GLlLQ3LmZWU?t=2m59s in "Expiration Date"]].
-->'''Spy''': This... is a bucket. \\
'''Soldier''': Dear ''God''. \\
'''Spy''': There's more. \\
'''Soldier''': ''No...!''
* TrademarkFavoriteFood: Captain Dan's army surplus soup. And ribs. At least, these are BLU Soldier's favorites according to ''WAR!''; it's unclear if this is one of the areas in which the Soldiers differ.
* UndyingLoyalty: Soldier may be a psychotic lunatic, dumber than a brick-on-bonemeal sandwich and a war fanatic, but as ''WAR!'' shows, he's also incredibly loyal to his friends. The BLU Soldier passionately vows that he would rather die than murder the RED Demoman, especially for something as cheap as new guns; only by hammering on his BerserkButton and making him believe Demoman was mocking him for being a civilian behind his back was the Administrator able to break his loyalty. The RED Soldier is quite up for being tortured endlessly even if only to show his loyalty.
* UnreliableNarrator: It should be noted that anything that comes out the Soldier's mouth should be taken with a grain of salt due to his questionable sanity (unless confirmed by other characters). This includes his many offscreen escapades involving wars he fought when he was [[SuspiciouslySpecificDenial totally a legitimate enlisted soldier in the armed forces]].
* WeAllLiveInAmerica: Sort of. The "Shadow Boxers" comic shows us that [[http://www.teamfortress.com/shadowboxers/#f=13 he thinks all his teammates are American]].
-->'''Heavy''': Ha ha! Germany! Russia! Is big joke! Big American joke! On Soldier!
-->'''Soldier''': Ha! You got me!
-->'''Heavy''': Ohh, America. [[BlatantLies It is the place I am from. All the time.]]
* WhipItGood: The Disciplinary Action is an officer's riding crop that is more suited to support rather than attack. It has a -25% damage penalty but boosts the Soldier and his teammates' speed on hit.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: With Scout.
* WouldHitAGirl: When the Administrator comes with the proposition of killing his best friend, Soldier threatens to [[AssShove shove his boot so far up her ass]], it'll be on the news. Also prepares to threaten the female Apple Store assistant with the same before being interrupted by a pig cooking tool.
* YourBrainWontBeMuchOfAMeal: Says this about ''himself'' when he has the ''Larval Lid'' hat equipped.
* YourMom: In Mann vs. Machine mode, he may use a variant of a well-known insult and may be a reference to ''Full Metal Jacket'':
-->'''Soldier''': The best part of you ran down your motherboard.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Pyro]]
!!Real name: Unknown
->
->Voiced by: Dennis Bateman
[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pyro.png]]
[[caption-width-right:146:''[[TheUnintelligible "Mmmph mmph!"]]'']]

An enigma even amongst their employers and comrades, the Pyro is a mumbling pyromaniac who is never seen without an asbestos-lined fireproof suit complete with a [[TheFaceless face-obscuring gas mask]] [[TheUnintelligible muffling their voice]]. Their (or his, or her or its, or whatever) race, nationality, and ''[[AmbiguousGender gender]]'' are a complete mystery. Through their high-tech goggles, they see the world as a fantastical, idyllic SugarBowl known as Pyroland, where the Pyro is a joyous individual who aims to have fun and bring happiness to everyone. Unfortunately for everyone else (and unbeknownst to the poor Pyro), spreading fun and happiness translates to bringing hell to earth, lighting up people and property alike, bashing skulls with a fire axe and setting the temperature to anywhere upwards 100 degrees. [[http://www.teamfortress.com/classes.php?class=pyro Meet the Pyro!]]\\
\\

'''Offense Classes''' ([[Characters/TeamFortress2TheScout The Scout]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2TheSoldier The Soldier]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2ThePyro The Pyro]])\\

[[center: [-[[Characters/TeamFortress2 Main Character Index]] | '''Offense Classes''' | [[Characters/TeamFortress2Defense Defense Classes]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2Support Support Classes]] | [[Characters/TeamFortress2NonPlayerCharacters Non-Player Characters]]-]]]

* AchillesHeel:
** Engineers. While Scouts might be able to dodge most things the enemy throws at them, an Engineer's sentry gun is ''not'' one of them. Combined with the Scout's small amount of health, sentries can lock onto and melt Scouts in the blink of an eye, even if it's a mini-sentry. Scouts can drink Bonk! Atomic Punch to make themselves briefly immune to a sentry's ammo, but it only lasts for so long before it runs out.
** Tight corridors makes it much more difficult for the Scout to dodge incoming enemy fire, especially blast damage. Thus, classes such as Soldier and Demoman who would normally be easy targets can explode Scouts into chunky kibbles.
** Heavies. Where the other damage classes have slow projectiles which can be dodged, a Heavy's minigun is both hitscan, and has an effective cone of damage, similar to the Scout's own Scattergun. With good tracking skills and a strong position, a Heavy can mow down Scouts by the dozen while laughing at the little baby men. The Scout can however, counteract this with his cooldown-based projectiles like the Sandman.
** Pyros. Scout has to get in close to do any real damage, and getting in close to a Pyro means being set on fire. His low health will cost him his life if he gets even the tiniest bit careless.
* ActuallyPrettyFunny: In ''Expiration Date'', after he botches yet another attempt to ask out Ms. Pauling, Spy snidely remarks that he's "asking out that dial tone again". Scout immediately tells him to go to hell, but can't help chuckling a little at the joke after Spy leaves.
* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: He's supposed to be from Boston, but sounds like he's from Brooklyn (which is [[InvokedTrope intentional]]).
** The simplest explanation for this would be that he was just ''born'' in Boston and ''moved'' to Brooklyn when very young.
* AnimalMotifs: Rabbits, and to a much lesser degree, squirrels. He's fast, superior to most of the classes when it comes to jumping because of his double jump, and he has buck teeth, as well as rabbit-like screaming. The following domination lines support the rabbit motifs:
-->'''Demoman:''' "You're like a little bunny… scurryin' around, eatin' up yer lettuce and berries!"
-->'''Engineer:''' "Just a dead little jackrabbit."
-->'''Spy:''' "Ooh, you were quick as a little bunny, weren't you?"
* AscendedMeme: After the community made jokes about similarities between Scout and WebVideo/Jerma985, [[spoiler:it turns out they share the same first name]].
* AttackAttackAttack: A surprisingly effective strategy for Scouts, just rush at the objective, preferably using the Bonk soda. Works ''extremely well'' in Capture The Flag or Payload. [[ZergRush The Scout can die and get back into the fight faster thanks to his mobility]], and captures things quickly enough that it doesn't have time to reset.
* AttentionWhore: Several of his lines are some variant of "LOOK AT ME!". It says a lot about his personality that in the "Meet the Director" comic, he nattered about himself for so long, said director ''ran out of film.''
* AxCrazy: [[DownplayedTrope He's hardly the craziest of the mercs]], but he still takes a little too much pride in killing people. In the "Bombinomicon" comic, in lieu of Halloween candy, he offers a trick-or-treater someone's molar -- from some poor schmuck he likely batted the brains out of -- and proudly explains how he found it.
* TheBabyOfTheBunch: The youngest out of eight brothers, and probably the youngest member of the team, assuming Pyro is older than him. (Of course, that's assuming Pyro is a human to begin with.)
* BadassBoast: In "Meet the Scout":
--> "Grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brother...I hurt people. I'm a force of nature. If you were from where I'm from, you would be [[SoundEffectBleep f***ing]] dead."
* BatterUp: Being a baseball fan, his default melee weapon is an aluminum bat, and he also has various unlockable bats, which have varying stats. It's even the name of one of the Scout's achievements (Perform 1000 [[DoubleJump double jumps]]).
* BigOMG:
** In "Meet the Sandvich".
** When receiving rare items on Mann vs. Machine mode, he will sometimes say this.
* BloodKnight: He considers using enemies' heads as baseball practice his only purpose ''in his whole existence.''
* BlownAcrossTheRoom: The Force-A-Nature, in addition to slapping fat stacks of damage, also applies a lot of knockback to enemies proportionate to distance, which can potentially send them off cliffs or into hazards.
* BodyHorror: Has a live bird sealed in his chest after surgery, that was ''never removed''. On rare occasions, when he gets reduced to chunky bits, the bird will fly out unharmed.
* BrattyHalfPint: Just listen to his lines for about 5 seconds. It's a fair guess that he's ''meant'' to sound annoying, being the youngest one of the mercs.
** Backstory-wise: he's the runt of eight children (referred to as "his mad-dog brothers"). Apparently, he trained up his speed so he could get into fights before his brothers could join in and take away all the fun.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: Of all the members of the team, he takes the biggest chunks out of the Fourth Wall. Especially on Competitive Mode:
-->"I spec'd these guys earlier. They look ugly. I didn't want to say it, but they do. Their hats are terrible, their faces aren't very good or attractive..."
* BrooklynRage: Even though he's from Boston, it certainly counts.
* BuffySpeak: In his domination lines toward Heavy and Sniper:
-->'''Scout:''' ''(to Heavy)'' I am ''owning'' you, [[ShapedLikeItself you fat bald fatty fat… fat-fat!]]
-->'''Scout:''' ''(to Sniper)'' You'll never hit me! You'll never hit my tiny head! It's so tiny, I've got a fricken'… such a tiny little head!
* ButNotTooForeign: [[spoiler: Since Spy is heavily implied to have an affair with his mom,]] he is [[spoiler: half-French on his father's side.]]
* CaffeineBulletTime: Of a sort. His Bonk! Atomic Punch allows the Scout to evade (read: tanking) all damage for a short period of time, while also being unable to attack or move as fast as usual. After the buff wears off, the Scout gets a slow debuff that varies depending on how much damage was prevented.
* CannotSpitItOut: He's got a hell of a crush on Miss Pauling, but just can't work up the guts to ask her out, much to Spy's amusement.
-->'''Spy:''' Asking out that dial-tone again, I see?\\
'''Scout:''' Go to hell, Spy.
* CantActPervertedTowardALoveInterest: While he's got plenty of one-liners for single mothers and whatever girls he comes across, attempting to ask out Miss Pauling leaves him faltering and stammering.
* CasanovaWannabe: Not so much in-game due to a lack of female characters on the battlefield, but in the comics he hits on nigh-on every woman he sees, with varying success.
** One of the pages for the Halloween 2012 update includes a dating advert that's obviously written by the Scout — the gratuitous amounts of self-praise mean it couldn't have been made by anyone else.
** In "A Cold Day in Hell", he passes up what's probably one of the few chances he'll get to have sex with a decent woman (Heavy's sister, Zhanna) because he's convinced Miss Pauling will like him if he keeps waiting.
** A cutaway in the short "Expiration Date" shows he actually ''can'' score girls, and has before; however, said girls are implied to also not be very… classy girls.
--->'''Scout:''' We both got buckets of chicken. You wan' do it?\\
'''Girl:''' ''[shrugs]'' Eh, okay.
* CharlesAtlasSuperpower: The Scout trained himself to [[SuperSpeed run everywhere and anytime]], originally so he could reach fights in time to have some fun before his seven older brothers got there. By the game's scale, he's running at about 17 miles per hour [[note]]He runs at 400 Hammer Units, each one three-quarters of an inch, per second. This translates to 25 feet per second, or 17.05 MPH.[[/note]] — ''perpetually.'' And that's not taking into account his jumping abilities.
* CharacterizationMarchesOn: Initially, Scout's interest in Miss Pauling was treated as nothing more than macho posturing by him that was ignored by her out of disgust. This was supported by mentions of other attempts by him to pick up chicks, such as on the description for The Fast Learner. Then "A Cold Day In Hell" hinted that Scout's crush on her might actually be sincere, followed by "Expiration Date" recharacterizing their relationship. The end result was that Scout actually likes her as a person but doesn't know any other way to ask her out other than hitting on her like any random stranger, and Miss Pauling isn't against dating him and [[ObliviousToLove merely didn't notice his feeble attempts]] to ask her out.
* TheChewToy: Tends to get smacked around '''A LOT''' in the shorts and comics, especially by his own teammates.
** In "Expiration Date", the Soldier's first reaction upon learning he can't teleport bread anymore is to choke-slam the Scout against a nearby table. The Scout did nothing to provoke this reaction, other than being in the same room. Hell, Soldier's first appearance in the short is pushing his hand into Scout's face.
** In the comics, Soldier has strangled Scout not once, but twice in a court of law in both "A Smissmas Story" and "Unhappy Returns". According to "Ring of Fired", Soldier ''broke BOTH of Scout's arms'' for an unspecified reason (possibly accidental), sometime after the team was laid off.
** In the "Gargoyles and Gravel" comic, Soldier's ''first'' reaction to learning there will be no pizza is to suggest they all eat Scout. [[RunningGag And then he later strangles Scout again]].
** When the mercenaries are set to be executed in Teufort, Scout's the one who came closest to actually being hanged.
** Also from "Expiration Date," Spy gets in a lot of slaps during his date training with Scout.
** ''Most'' of Scout's screen time in "Jungle Inferno" is spent getting dragged and thrown around by Saxton Hale--about half of that time is spent [[GrievousHarmWithABody being used as a human baseball bat]].
** BLU Scout gets in on the action offscreen in "Meet the Sandvich", getting severely beaten to a pulp by Red Heavy.
* TheChosenOne: Apparently, [[spoiler:God chose Scout to ''[[IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow lay]]'' with all of the women on Earth. Scout agrees with this, but he's dead just right before this information got to him. So Scout has a BargainWithHeaven to continue the "commitment" until he's truly dead [[YourDaysAreNumbered in December 4, 1987]]]]. Then again, [[spoiler:that ''could'' be a posthumous hallucination just like Sniper went through; or alternatively, if it ''was'' Heaven, God might have just been playing along with Scout's ego [[FridgeBrilliance because that's exactly what Scout's version of Heaven would entail]]]].
* Myth/ClassicalMythology: Hermes, or Mercury, the god of thieves and a TricksterGod.
** The Scout's symbol is the [[IconicItem winged sandals of Mercury]], and even one of Scout's many cosmetic items is called 'Hermes'.

** He became very attached to the Haunted Hat during the 2013 Scream Fortress event, even talking to it and treating it like a friend and teammate.
--> Just you an' me, scary hat.
** A few of the "Meet Your Match" lines have him talking to his bat.
* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: He's an egotistical, loud-mouthed braggart who also just so happens to be an highly-skilled and dexterous soldier-for-hire that can run at 17 MPH ''constantly'', and kills people with the likes of baseball bats, fish, or a ''dead man's arm''.
* DeadlyDodging: A Scout under the effects of the Bonk! Atomic Punch drink can use his bullet-dodging state to [[HoistByHisOwnPetard kill Engineers with their own Sentry Guns]], and to kill explosive-using classes by forcing them to take self-damage.
* DifficultButAwesome: Unskilled Scouts can often be seen dropping off like flies, but experienced ones can easily rack up the bodies, capture points, and generally posing a serious menace to the enemy team. His playstyle requires quick reflexes, constant movement, and in-depth knowledge of the map, as well as good aim since he has to keep moving while shooting to stay alive. He is hard to control for many FPS players, due to his ludicrous speed, low health and considerable up-close firepower. On the other hand, [[VideoGame/{{DOOM}} truly veteran]] FPS players (especially those who are used to the classic 'run n' gun' shooters) might get a sense of nostalgia from the quick movement and emphasis on dodging attacks rather than soaking them up.
* DisappearedDad: In "Blood in the Water", Scout brings up the fact that Heavy's dad is dead, which he has in common.
--> '''Scout''': Yeah, mine disappeared.\\
'''Heavy''': Yes, your father disappears often.
** This brief dialogue above is foreshadowing to [[spoiler:Spy being confirmed to be Scout's father in the comics]]. Hence the "disappears often" line.
* DoubleJump: One of his special abilities. Certain equipment can improve this skill, giving him a third additional jump [[CastFromHP (which used to come at the cost of some health)]], a RecoilBoost, and increased jump height.
** Soda Popper's Hype meter, when charged by hitting enemies, can grant the Scout a '''''[[UpToEleven quintuple]]'' [[DoubleJump jump]]'''. However, this takes up the same slot as the aforementioned [[RecoilBoost Force-a-Nature]] and doesn't stack with the Atomizer.
* DiminishingReturnsForBalance: Too many Scouts, or an all-Scout team, makes the team a literal seven-men blitzkrieg that can easily punch a hole through undefended chokepoints in the blink of an eye and overwhelm most enemies, but can quickly come a screeching halt in the face of Sentry nests, which Scouts usually struggle to overcome, and Sentry Guns, which Scouts aren't equipped or expected to take out by themselves. An effective response to a Scout swarm is to stack some Engineers to cut a chunk of the map away because of this.
* DumbBlonde: The red shade he's depicted with in the comics is very light, and many people consider lighter reds to be shades of blonde, and as mentioned below his in game models hair could be considered ash blonde.
* EatMyDust: One of his lines.
* EnemyEatsYourLunch: In "Meet the Scout", he kills the enemy Heavy and eats his Sandvich. In-game, he can get an achievement for doing this ("Dodgers 1, Giants 0").
** Picking up a Sandvich as a Scout will also restore 75 points of health, whereas other classes only get 50 HP back from doing so.
* EasilyImpressed: In "Expiration Date", he's impressed by the fact that Ms. Pauling can read.
* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Seems to be fond of his. "Look at me, ma!"
* ExtraExtraReadAllAboutIt: "Extra! Extra! You're frickin' dead!"
* FieryRedhead: Some of the comics depict him with red hair, while his in-game model has mousy brown or ash blonde hair. In-game, on the other hand, his hair cosmetics, when when painted with the Team Spirit paint can, can make him a proper redhead, as well an inversion of ShyBlueHairedGirl.
* FlexingThoseNonBiceps: In "Meet the Scout". "Aw man, that's beautiful," he says. Sure thing, Scout. Sure thing. Unless he counts the natural bicep contraction to be a flex.
* FourthWallObserver: One has to wonder where he picked up the word "[[RageQuit ragequit]]". [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/d/d6/Scout_domination19.wav?t=20100625225833 Yes, he actually does tell his domination victims to ragequit.]]
** He also recognizes that [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/c/c3/Scout_award07.wav?t=20100625223039 he's a class]], and that all the [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/3/39/Scout_dominationsct02.wav?t=20100625232705 "battlegrounds" are maps]].
** He uses the term "cap" at least once in any Control Point match.[[note]]Except that he uses it wrong. While "cap" is short for "capture", i.e. the act of claiming a control point, Scout instead refers to the control points themselves as "caps".[[/note]]
** And he's aware of the existence of {{critical hit}}s as well, [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/b/b8/Scout_dominationsol06.wav?t=20100625232720 as proven when dominating an enemy Soldier]].
** [[PaintingTheMedium Painting The Fourth Wall]]: He pokes the camera in "Meet The Scout", [[CameraAbuse slams into the "camera"]] ([[FourthWallPsych which turns out to be a window]]) in "Meet The Medic", and knocks the camera over again in "Meet The Pyro". Not a canonical Fourth Wall Break, since those cameras do exist in-universe (as shown [[http://www.teamfortress.com/meetthedirector/?p=5 here]]), but still fitting of the RunningGag. [[VisualPun Literally.]]
*** Further, while all the other Meet the Team interviews/sketches seem to take place in actual locations, Scout's interview takes place on the ''title card'' of his own video.
* FragileSpeedster:
** Of the four classes[[note]]Sniper, Spy, and Engineer are the other three[[/note]] with only 125 HP, Scout is the only one made for direct confrontation, but he more than makes up for this with blinding speed and agility. His Scattergun does [[GlassCannon over 100 damage point-blank]] in a game where only one class has more than 200 health.
* GrievousHarmWithABody: He can use the Unarmed Combat, an arm torn off an enemy Spy.
* HandwrapsOfAwesome: Wears white bandages around his wrists and palms.
* HiddenDepths:
** Is the [[BrattyHalfPint brattiest and half-pintiest]] of the bunch, but [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas loves his ma dearly]]. Though he doesn't like talking about it, he wants to find out the nature of his DisappearedDad, and the reveal from Tom Jones[[note]]actually Spy in disguise[[/note]] that he's his father relieves him greatly.
** Some of the Scout's lines hint that he may be smarter than he lets on: He seems to know about the Hippocratic Oath ("Where's ya precious hippo-crates now?") and has at least heard of Creator/HPLovecraft (he calls Merasmus "H. P. Dumb-craft").
** He also seems to be rather decent with a pencil, with his boredom-fueled scrawls showing he has a rather steady hand, and the art itself isn't too bad.
** Despite supposedly possessing a 'fourth grade reading level', his actual reading speed seems to be proportionate to his running speed; during the HardWorkMontage in "Expiration Date", he goes through a large stack of books within 72 hours.
** Despite his often all-pervading selfishness, he is actually aware of how out of his league Ms. Pauling is, and how while he occasionally does score with a girl, he is absolutely hopeless when it comes to well-educated, ''classy'' girls, to the point that he seeks out the help of ''[[SitcomArchnemesis Spy]]'' to win Miss Pauling's heart.
** One of the "Meet Your Match" lines reveals that he considers his teammates as "Best Friends"; coming out of a narcissist, that really means something.
-->"Hey, I'll just say it. Everyone else here is too scared to say it, but I'll just say what everyone's thinkin'! We're all best friends. We are all dear, dear friends! Birthday party at my place this weekend, by the way. Nobody showed up last weekend so I figured, no big whoop, I'll just have it again."
-->"Go team, everybody! Six trained killers, am I right? Best of da best! And best friends. We don't say it a lot, or at all, but we're all feelin' it here. In our hearts, you know? The frien-the friendship."
-->"That is how a team of best friends wins the game!"
** He actually had the foresight to try and invest his earnings instead of blowing it all like one might expect. He invested it ''poorly'' -- the same comic that introduced this quality, "Unhappy Returns," shows that he's been stockpiling not money, but ''Tom Jones memorabilia'' to sell when Jones dies -- but points for trying.
* HitAndRunTactics: An not-moving Scout is a dead Scout. Oftentimes, the best course of action (especially against bulkier enemies) is to run in, get several meat-shots on a target, then get out of there before they can take aim on you. Rinse and repeat.
* HopelessSuitor: For Miss Pauling in "Expiration Date", if one can even consider him a suitor to her at all. Though she seems to turn around to the idea in the end.
* HotBlooded: Has a very fiery attitude and is quick to act without thinking beforehand.
* IFellForHours: One of his responses for falling into the pit in the Halloween version of Lakeside.
--> '''Scout:''' ''[[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/4/41/Scout_sf12_falling03.wav (Overly long scream)]]'' ({{Beat}}) Holy crap, this goes on forever...
* IHaveBrothers: Rare male example. He's the youngest of his family's eight children, all sons. Apparently, according to his bio, he got his talent for speed by learning to be the first into the (many) fights his brothers got into so he wouldn't miss out.
* ILoveNuclearPower: His [[CaffeineBulletTime Bonk! Atomic Punch]] energy drink is described this way in his update:
--> "Bonk! is fulla radiation, which as we all know is pretty great for givin' people superpowers."
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Quite a few Melee weapons:
** The Wrap Assassin is a roll of wrapping paper and a Chri—I mean, Smissmas Ornament that causes the target to bleed.
** The ''Candy Cane'', [[ADogNamedDog a large candy cane]] that causes Scout's victims to drop health packs.
** The Unarmed Combat, which is actually [[GrievousHarmWithABody the Spy's severed arm used as a bludgeon]].
** The Fan O'War, a large Gunbai war fan that deals small amount of damage, but hitting an opponent with it will inflict the Marked For Death debuff, causing all damage they take to be mini-crits.
** And, to top it off, there's the ''[[LethalJokeWeapon Holy Mackerel]]'', which has no special effects, but as the item description puts it, "Getting hit by a fish has got to be humiliating." That is, it keeps a hit counter in the killfeed, and if you get killed by it, the killfeed shows a "FISH KILL!" next to who killed you.
* InherentlyFunnyWords: BONK!
* InkSuitActor: He looks a ''lot'' like his voice actor, [[https://64.media.tumblr.com/61832d063bedcc1ddc5cc4b97f9e1684/tumblr_o6vxnqeMmR1sj0zaio1_1280.png Nathan Vetterlein]]. And with the official comic stating that the Scout is in his mid-to-late 20's, they were even the same age when Vetterlein first recorded his lines back in 2007!
* InTheBack: The Back Scatter. It is especially adapted to ambush and hit-and-run playstyles as the shots deal mini-crits when the Scout shoots an enemy's back.
* {{Irony}}: The Scout is one of the better classes for discovering and killing Spies (besides the Pyro), due to his movement speed, and the character himself has a particular dislike of the Spy. Yet Scouts can make terrifyingly effective assassins themselves by showing up out of nowhere, blowing away key targets with their scattergun, and escaping before anyone can retaliate (and all the better if the target is alone). [[spoiler: Perhaps not so surprising, considering who his father is...]]
* {{Jerkass}}: In his Meet The Team video, he constantly licks his own shoes and generally acts like a gigantic narcissist. The comics show sometimes he's not the nicest guy even to his own teammates either, like when he rats out Soldier in the Smissmas comic or jeers at Heavy for giving [[ICallItVera Sasha]] her own bed.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: See PetTheDog below.
* LadykillerInLove: Towards Miss Pauling, as of "A Cold Day In Hell".
* LeanAndMean: [[NotSoDifferent Like the Spy]], he's thin as a stick and loves to mock, tease and trash-talk his enemies, given the chance.
* {{Leitmotif}}: [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Faster_Than_a_Speeding_Bullet_%28Soundtrack%29 Faster Than a Speeding Bullet]], a fast-paced piece of music with speedy bongos.
* LethalJokeItem: The Fan O'War, a promotional item introduced when VideoGame/TotalWarShogun2 was made available on Steam. Since it's a fan, it has -75% damage penalty, which makes it deal even less damage than the standard Bat (itself already the least-damaging of all primary melee weapons) but marks enemies for death, causing all attacks on the target to be mini-crits. It is somewhat useful if the teamwork is on point but extremely dangerous as the Scout has to go into melee range.
* LifeDrain: The [[AlliterativeName Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol]] heals 3 health every time he hits an enemy with it. It increases the survivability of the Scout especially when he's forced to play far from his Medic, but its smaller clip size make it less-than-ideal in a heated firefight.
* LightningBruiser: In Mann vs. Machine, the Scout gains 20-50 health every time he picks up a pile of money. The limit on how much health this can add is rather absurd; it's not uncommon to see a Scout running around with more health than an overhealed Heavy.
* LikeFatherLikeSon: [[spoiler: Shares some traits with his canonical father, the Spy, including being a good choice for surprising and eliminating key targets and their penchant for biting personal insults when dominating an enemy.]]
* LimitBreak: Some of the Scout's weapons give the Scout a temporary boost once certain conditions are met. With the Baby Face's Blaster, the Scout's speed goes up to 173% once he deals enough damage. The Soda Popper functions similarly as it grants a temporary mini-crit when the Scout runs enough.
* LoonyFan: Of Music/TomJones, at least in the [[Webcomic/TeamFortress2 comics]]. In addition to the usual knickknacks and memorabilia, he has a tattoo of Tom on his chest! [[spoiler:He even believes Tom Jones to be his father, when in reality [[LukeIAmYourFather the Spy is.]]]]
* TheManTheyCouldntHang: He gets subjected to neck trauma a lot in the comics, almost to the point of a RunningGag. It comes to a head in "Unhappy Returns", where the Scout is the closest captured mercenary to being hanged -- his platform had already dropped by the time Ms. Pauling swoops in to save him. He can barely choke out his encouragements for her to keep holding him up.
* MassiveNumberedSiblings: He grew up with ''seven'' older brothers.
* MixedAncestry: [[spoiler:"The Naked and the Dead" confirms once and for all that Spy is his father, making him half-American and half-French.]]
* MotorMouth: Scout almost '''''never''''' stops talking, even when asked to do so. During his interview in "Meet the Director," Scout talks so much about himself, that the titular director ran out of film... ''five hours ago''.
* MustHaveCaffeine: In an early trailer, his motto simply reads "Too. Much. Caffeine." Plus, two of his unlockable weapons are energy drinks.
* {{Narcissist}}: Scout shows lots of arrogance in "Meet the Scout", making himself seem like a bigger deal than he probably is. This trait is very much apparent in-game, where he boasts and shouts about how awesome he is while putting others down.
--> "What did we learn? ''I always win!''"\\
"You knuckleheads ain't even worth the effort."\\
"How's that feel, wimp?"\\
"'Ey, is somebody keepin' track of my heads batted in?"
* NeverLearnedToRead: DependingOnTheWriter. "The Naked and The Dead" has him struggle to read "sub-machine [gun]" on the side of a weapons crate, but in "Expiration Date", he's shown going through a lot of books incredibly quickly — although it's still debated on whether he's reading or faking it. (In the same video, he also acts impressed by the fact that Ms. Pauling can read, possibly implying that he himself cannot.)
* NighInvulnerable: The Bonk! Atomic Punch renders him utterly invulnerable to damage at the cost of being unable to use any weaponry for the duration and being forced to operate from the third person. However, he is still subject to knockback, meaning that skilled Pyros, Demos, and Soldiers will often juggle inexperienced Scouts into corners before finishing them off.
* OhCrap: He utters [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/4/4f/Scout_invinciblenotready03.wav variations]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/2/26/Scout_invinciblenotready05.wav of]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/3/3b/Scout_invinciblenotready06.wav this]] when Crit-A-Cola wears off and if he's being hit while trying to chug Bonk! Atomic Punch when his health is in the red.
* OlderThanTheyLook: Many fans guessed that the Scout was around 16-20. According to the description for the [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Track_Terrorizer Track Terrorizer]] jacket, he's at least 23. In [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/File:TheNakedandtheDead164.png "The Naked and The Dead"]], [[spoiler:his father]] mentions he was conceived twenty-seven years before.
* PastimesProvePersonality: He plays baseball, as reflected by his bat melee weapon and his general theme.
* PetTheDog: Scout's got more than a few cases where he's been unexpectedly nice.
** In the [[http://www.teamfortress.com/bombinomicon/?p=1 2011 Halloween comic]], he kneels down to eye level with one of the kids and gives him a tooth that he beat out of someone with his bat.
-->''Hey'' there, slugger. C'mere. You are gonna ''love'' this. You see this bat? Bam! ''That''… is a human molar. From some dummy with a big mouth that used to be fulla teeth. It's all yours, little talkin' France.
** He's also quick to defend the kids at the mall when Old Nick arrives to kidnap them.
** Additionally, in "The Naked and the Dead", after he dies and ends up in FluffyCloudHeaven, and subsequently finds God upset with the fact that Scout, [[TheCasanova "His gift to women"]], was still a virgin, the big man is ostensibly angry enough to cause an ApocalypseHow. Scout's answer? [[http://www.teamfortress.com/tf06_thenakedandthedead/#f=181 A no-hard-feelings "nah, don't do it", followed by a very succinct summary of]] [[RousseauWasRight a "Humans are good"]] philosophy. It's PlayedForLaughs, but still a heartwarming little moment.
-->'''God:''' Of all the ungrateful... ooo, that does it. I am gonna send a plague, or a flood, or... oh, why even be clever? I'm just going to blow up the Earth.
-->'''Scout:''' (''reassuringly puts a hand on his shoulder'') Aw, come on, God. Don't destroy humanity. They're good people at heart. Just a buncha dum-dums tryin' their best.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: Being the youngest member of the team doesn't stop him from bashing in an enemy merc's head with his Sandman or blowing their brains out with the Scattergun. It helps that he packs some of the most damage up-close.
* PowerUpMagnet: The Auto Innate type in Mann vs Machine, which helps the Scout contribute by collecting credits efficiently, as Scouts don't tend be good on defense.
* PsychoticSmirk: [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/File:Tomorrow.png Chill out, Scout…]]
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: ''[[Film/ThereWillBeBlood "I! EAT! YOUR! SANDVICHES! I EAT 'EM UP!"]]''
* RecoiledAcrossTheRoom: The Force-A-Nature deals a lot of Knockback to enemies shot, but also to the Scout himself, which can hinder precision, but offers a potential mobility bonus because they can shoot downward to give themselves a semblance of triple jump.
* RoadrunnerPC: As mentioned previously, his speed [[InvokedTrope makes his style of combat]] reminiscent of early First-Person Shooters where you're faster than anyone else, except with lower health and fewer-yet-stronger enemies.
* TheRuntAtTheEnd: He's the smallest member of the team, and as the youngest of 8 brothers, he was presumably always the smallest. He's also on the very leftmost end of the character selection screen to emphasize this.
* SanityBall: Scout has to act as the OnlySaneMan to Soldier and Pyro in "A Cold Day in Hell".
* SatisfiedStreetRat: Grew up as the youngest of eight boys, had to learn to run fast to pick fights first, and now serves as a mercenary.
* SavageSpikedWeapons:
** The Boston Basher, a spiked wooden bat that deals bleeding to enemies, but hits and inflicts bleeding to himself with it if he misses.
** The Sun-on-a-Stick, a mace with spikes on a glowing orb that crits enemies who are on fire.
* SayingSoundEffectsOutLoud: '''"Wanananana!"''', ''"Bonk!"'', and a bunch after drinking Bonk! Atomic Punch. He also says ''"Bonk!"'' in one of his taunts.
* SawedOffShotgun: The Scout's primary weapon is a sawed-off shotgun and most of the alternative weapons are also variations on a shotgun. Since ShotgunsAreJustBetter, the Scout can deal tremendous damage, but only at short range.
* ScreamsLikeALittleGirl: In [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_prZ0JrbQrU&feature=channel "Meet The Sandvich"]] and [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/w/images/7/7f/Scout_sf12_scared01.wav one of his responses]] to a ghost. And again in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbOBcHGwWDg "The Sound of Medicine"]].
* SelfDeprecation: One of his responses to getting a rare gun drop in Mann vs. Machine mode:
--> "For the first time in my life, I'm at a loss for words."
* SimpleYetAwesome: His weapon set is comparable to the Engineer's, but while Engineer supplements his weapons by being capable of putting up multiple buildings to set up a defensive hold, Scout has... 33% faster movement and a DoubleJump. As it turns out, though, that increase in mobility promotes Scout to be one of the best classes in the game; using it to get to places faster and reach difficult-to-access areas is obvious, but it also improves Scout's survivability by letting him dodge projectiles and escape dangerous situations, in addition to bolstering his offensive prowess by letting him flank and enter close range easily, where his weapons are most effective.
* ShoutOut: His name, Jeremy, is based off of ex-[=TF2=] streamer WebVideo/Jerma985, who is also named Jeremy. The comparisons go further though, as Jerma is also fast-talking white man from Boston, and the two are noted to [[https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/jerma-lore/images/e/e8/Heaven.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20191115210524 share similar]] [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Scout#/media/File:Merch_Scout_Portrait.png appearances]].
* SirSwearsALot: Curses a lot.
* SituationalDamageAttack: The Sun-on-a-Stick. It has a -25% damage penalty but does crit damage versus burning players. It synergizes quite well with allied Pyros, but is usually too dangerous to use since it requires the Scout to go into melee range.
* [[SkillGateCharacter Skill Gate Strategy]]: Back capping. It's not too difficult to pull off — just sneak and flank your way to the second capture point on a attack/defend map (Bonk! helps in bypassing the first defensive line), hide until the second point becomes available, and then capture it before the enemy can react or fall back. Easily shut down by an Engineer putting a sentry on the second point in advance, or being called out by attentive enemies while he's bum-rushing past them.
** In general, a Scout that flails around on his keyboard becomes a distressingly difficult target for beginners, whereas more experienced players, even those in classes the Scout counters such as Pyro and Demoman, can learn to abuse his predictable trajectory after a double jump, his vulnerability to splash damage, and limited range to take him out more reliably.
* SmallNameBigEgo: The Scout's childhood being filled with nosebleeds and broken bones greatly inflated his pride. And it doesn't seem like it'll ever stop growing, thanks to his bombastic, egocentric personality as an adult. None of his coworkers take him seriously beyond his combat prowess, however. As shown throughout the comics, Pauling takes Scout's advances with a grain of salt at best (or straight-up ignoring them at worst), the Soldier is all too willing to drop everything and choke him, the Heavy is perpetually annoyed by his extroversion, and the Spy barely tolerates him for his mother's sake.
* {{Southies}}: From Boston.
* StreetSmart: The comics and certain Valve-written [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Fast_Learner item]] [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Track_Terrorizer descriptions]] make it clear that the Scout never finished high school and is in general pretty stupid and/or ditzy. He is full of "brilliant ideas" that sometimes turn out to work more out of luck than planning (like using his mercenary money for buying Tom Jones memorabilia). His ego, though, leads him to think he knows ''everything''.
* StoneWall: Scout's playstyle, which is built around one-on-one combat and HitAndRunTactics, doesn't gel well against the vast robot hordes of Mann vs. Machine. Thus, it's common for Scouts to eschew offensive upgrades for ''defensive'' ones, which ensure he can survive long enough to collect cash and apply debuffs that his teammates can better capitalize on.
* SuperSerum: The Crit-a-Cola is a purple soda can which contains an unknown drink that enable the Scout to deal mini-crits. On the other hand, the Scout is marked for death after any attack he deals.
* SupportPartyMember: In Mann vs Machine, Scout is the designated cash grabber of the team, and is often considered mandatory. He has the unique attribute of gaining health whenever he picks up cash, which helps him stay alive while surrounded by bots that would otherwise evaporate him instantly. Scouts often run Mad Milk, which can be upgraded to slow enemies inflicted with it, and can heal him and his team for ''alot'' when they're focusing down a giant, while the Fan O'War drastically increases the damage Scout's team deals to giants when he marks them with it.
* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Forms a triangle with the Demoman and Engineer. Scouts get shredded by sentry guns the second they're in range, but can exploit the Demoman's lack of hitscan weaponry to close the distance and scattergun him (meanwhile, Demomen are far, far better at dealing with sentries by means of indirect burst damage). Although a lone Engineer without a Sentry nearby is dead meat to a Scout, unless he gets lucky with a melee crit or has mini-sentry available.
** Forms a secondary triangle with the Heavy and Sniper. The Heavy's superior effective range, powerful hitscan weapon, and massively greater health allow him to bully the Scout at mid-range and kill him if he presses the issue, but on the other hand, the Sniper's reliance on single precise shots makes hitting a scout closing in on him relatively difficult, and the Scout's ability to get in to point blank range and superior weapon at that distance makes quick work of the Sniper, who of course, counters the Heavy's durability and slow speed with precise headshots from outside the latter's effective range.
* TheAllAmericanBoy: Viciously parodied. Scout loves baseball, [[EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas his ma,]] and bashing people's heads in with assorted blunt objects.
* TooSlow: Some of his lines, usually after drinking Bonk! and going into enemy gunfire, mock the enemy for being too slow.
* TrademarkFavoriteFood:
** That Bonk! Atomic Punch makes him quite hyperactive.
** As of [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLlLQ3LmZWU "Expiration Date"]], the Scout has shown to be fond of fried chicken as well, [[https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Deep_Fried_Desire even using a bucket of fried chicken as a taunt.]]
* WeNeedADistraction: Enemy push too much to handle? Have a Scout start capturing an unguarded point behind them and that'll get someone's attention ''really'' quickly. In competitive, the mere presence of a good Scout is a threat to call out because of how much damage they can do to the Medic or Demo, even if they are deliberately feinting.
* WithFriendsLikeThese: With Soldier.
* YouHaveGotToBeKiddingMe: One of his actual lines in the game.
* YouHaveResearchedBreathing: The "Baseball Bill's Sports Shine" is an item that removes Scout's hat and headset.
* VerbalTic: The words "yo" and "frickin'".
[[/folder]]

[[folder:The Soldier]]
!!"Real" name: Sergeant-Barrister Mister [[GenderBlenderName Jane]] Doe

->Voiced by: Rick May (2007-2020)[=/=]Nolan North[[note]]For at least one line in ''Expiration Date''.[[/note]] (English), Alexander Novikov (Russian)
[[quoteright:146:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/soldier.png]]
[[caption-width-right:146:''"[[BadassBoast If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created]] '''''[[BadassBoast me]]!'''''"'']]

The Soldier is an absolutely insane army man-wannabe who talks like a cross between Creator/GeorgeCScott in ''Film/{{Patton}}'' and Creator/RLeeErmey in ''Film/FullMetalJacket'', bringing PatrioticFervor [[UpToEleven to up and through the roof]] and hating everything that is un-American. He wanted to "do his bit" in World War II, but was rejected from ''every'' service in the American military after being found [[Series/MontyPythonsFlyingCircus too mentally unstable even for national service]] — so he self-financed a one-man rampage across Europe with the intention to kill "Nazis" and "Communists", and not stopping until 1949 when someone managed to track him down in Poland and convince him that the war had ended. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=soldier Meet the Soldier!]]\\
\\
The Soldier is an Offense character whose selling point is his versatility. With a considerable amount of health (200HP), 80% base speed alleviated by his ability to RocketJump with his powerful rocket launcher (making him the most mobile character in-game), and good explosive damage thanks to the aforementioned rocket launcher, the Soldier will find a place in every team and thrives in the thick of battle. The Soldier's rocket launcher allows him to harass at long range and makes him deadly at mid-range. At close range, however, he can rely on a trusty shotgun, which he can then switch with several backpacks to buff himself and his team. [[ShovelStrike His melee weapon is a shovel]].\\
\\
He shared his [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/part1/index.htm class update]] alongside the Demoman, similar to the ''Sniper versus Spy'' update. The ''WAR!'' comic conclusively revealed that he was never in the Army (his personal BerserkButton), as well as the Soldier's lifestyle; the BLU Soldier lived in a shabby, windowless apartment filled with weapons and weapon magazines, ready to kill any visitor who wasn't a tomato soup salesman or a roast rib deliveryman. The RED Soldier once shared an apartment with Merasmus the Magician, an actual immortal wizard from Scotland, until Merasmus evicted his lodger for being lazy and stealing Merasmus' belongings.

----
* AchillesHeel: While the Soldier doesn’t suffer from this nearly as much as the other classes, he still has some weaknesses.
** While his rocket launcher is incredibly powerful, much like the Demoman, he can hurt himself with it. [[HoistByHisOwnPetard If he's not careful, he can accidentally kill himself in a close-quarters fight.]] He also needs to inflict damage on himself to rocket jump; add [[FallingDamage fall damage]] into the mix, and it limits how many times he can rocket jump before blowing himself up (though the Gunboats can reduce self-blast damage).
** Scouts. A good Scout can easily avoid a Soldier's slow-moving rockets while raining fire on him with a Scattergun. The Soldier can use a shotgun to counteract this, but it isn't nearly as tough as the scattergun.
** Pyros. A Pyro's airblast can reflect Soldier's rockets, their primary method of damage, and send it right back at him, which can potentially kill himself or his teammates, especially if said rocket is a random crit. That being said good Soldiers have multiple ways to negate a Pyro's influence, such as shooting the ground with irregular timing to make reflects more difficult, ambushing Pyros via rocket jumping before they can react and reflect the rockets, or simply just tote around a shotgun and stay out of Flamethrower range.
* AchievementsInIgnorance: Soldier has built a functional rocket launcher, called the Beggar's Bazooka, and an effective robot disguise out of garbage.
* AdoringThePests: Through reasons comprehensible only to him, he snuck back into Merasmus' home, hid a refrigerator full of spoiled sour cream in the yard, and attracted several rabid raccoons, prone to chewing on everything in their path. Even though one of them has ''Soldier's own arm'' as its meal of choice, he still seems to think it's cute.
-->'''Merasmus:''' Where did all these ''raccoons'' come from? \\
'''Soldier:''' They sniffed out all the sour cream I hid! They ''love'' the stuff. [[CutenessProximity Don't you, Lieutenant Bites? Yeahhh, you do.]] \\
''Soldier holds "Lieutenant Bites" in his arms, scratching his head affectionately. The raccoon growls and digs its teeth into his arm. Several large, bloody gashes are already seeping out from the sleeve of his uniform. Merasmus stares on in shock.''
* AmazonChaser: Zhanna is as tall as he is, just about as buff, and easily as strong as he is, if not stronger. She loves killing things and she throttles with her bare hands. Soldier just adores her.
* UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents: Drill Sergeant style, apparently from the Midwestern states.
* ArtisticLicenseHistory: If [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/victory/ this post about Abraham Lincoln]] is part of his interior monologue, as opposed to being part of the genuinely weird world history of the ''[=TF2=]''-verse.
* AwesomeButImpractical: In practice, any strategy heavily relying on the Market Gardener or the Mantreads isn't suited to deal with most situations and is a risky strategy for dealing with medium to large-sized groups. But it's still so satisfying and fun [[DeathFromAbove to come blasting out of nowhere]] and make an enemy go '''CRUNCH'''.
** Unless you're incredibly good at Rocket Jumping (see DifficultButAwesome below), [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTW7hcuJrQY then you will just end up throwing the "Impractical" side out of the window.]]
* AxCrazy: Even compared to the insanity of the other Mercenaries, Soldier is particularly into killing things.
* BadBadActing: When he's trying to coax Merasmus out of hiding.
-->"Oh hello, Merlin, the famous magician! Noooo, I have not seen Merasmus. What's that? Noooo, I can't think of anyone who'd want an autograph."\\
"Oh hello, [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gundorf! Where's Blasbo Babbins? Oh there he is! Everyone's here! Labalos, Gimpy,]] [[WesternAnimation/SnowWhiteAndTheSevenDwarfs Dumpy, Snoopy...]] um... Man, I wish Merasmus was around to see this magical turn of events!"\\
"Oh look, it's Houdini. What's that Houdini? You looking for a new best friend? Too bad there's no wizards around... get out here, Merasmus!"\\
"What's that, Merasmus's favorite actor, Burt Lancaster? You think people who hide are cowards? Wise words, Burt Lancaster. You've convinced all of us-... damn it Merasmus, get out here!"
* BadassBandolier: Including two semi-cosmetic frag grenades. You can only use one of them in a suicidal explosion if you've got the Equalizer or Escape Plan equipped.
* BadassNormal: Despite having been rejected from every branch of the military and thus having no formal military training, the Soldier apparently went on a "Nazi killing spree" using entirely self-taught techniques. This quote sums it up:
-->"War is hell! My kind of hell!"
* BerserkButton: Do '''not''' call him a [[http://www.teamfortress.com/war/soldier/06.htm civilian]]. Even though it's '''''true''''', he still goes absolutely apeshit if someone refers to him as that.
* BlasphemousBoast: "If God had wanted you to live, he would not have created ''me''!"
* BlindingBangs: The Battle Bob promotional hat.
* BoisterousBruiser: "You are not welcome in MY WORLD!"
* BondOneLiner: Many of his killing spree voice notes qualify. "Time to inform YOUR NEXT OF KIN!"
* BootsOfToughness: The Gunboats are quite impressive as they are military boots reinforced with bolted steel plates. They are also useful since they partially protect the Soldier from his own rocket jumping, allowing for a more dynamic playstyle in exchange for less firepower.
* BoringButPractical: The Shotgun, which most Soldiers forgo in favor of the utility or passive buffs that his other, non-weapon secondaries give. Carrying a Shotgun around, however, allows the player to finish off weakened enemies, evenly fight Scouts and Pyros, and allows for a Plan B when an enemy ambushes them while they're out of loaded rockets.
* BookDumb: The ''only'' thing Jane Doe is good at is War and Killing. [[RocketJump Many]] [[StatusBuff of]] [[CriticalStatusBuff his]] [[GoombaStomp battle]] [[ActionBomb tactics]] [[CrazyEnoughToWork defy all logic]].
* BreakingTheFourthWall: As the most played class on 6s, he's giving some lines showing that he is aware of his status:
-->"Which one of us is Pocket?" (A Pocket Soldier is basically a "Bodyguard" for the Medic)
-->"Which one of us is Roamer?" (A Roamer Soldier is a Rocket-Jumping soldier who picks specific enemies)
-->"Mess with the Pocket, get a rocket!"
* CaptainObvious: In "Meet the Spy":
-->'''Administrator:''' ''Intruder Alert! RED Spy is in the base!''\\
'''BLU Soldier:''' A RED SPY IS IN THE BASE?!\\
'''Administrator:''' ''Protect the Briefcase!''\\
'''BLU Soldier:''' WE NEED TO PROTECT THE BRIEFCASE!
* CatchPhrase: "HUTTAH!", which he always shouts before breaking someone's neck.
* CheeseEatingSurrenderMonkeys: Dominating Spies will have the Soldier taunt them while generally mentioning their French nationality. One calls the Spy a "rifle-dropping coward", another has him say, "Your white flag does not stop American bullets". [[BellisariosMaxim Think not of how the latter would be a war crime]], and remember that the Soldier [[AxCrazy isn't too sane]].
** One of his Achievements is "Geneva Contravention", which literally makes you kill 3 unarmed people. Granted, he's not exactly in the army.
* ChekhovsGun: His robot Halloween outfit turns out to be useful in fooling Gray Mann's robots, at least until Gray unveiled the robot Engineer.
* CigarChomper: Seen smoking a cigar in the Mann vs. Machine trailer, and he has one as a cosmetic item. Sometimes a cigar is a cigar. And sometimes [[http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Soldier%27s_Stogie a cigar]] is a foul concoction hand-rolled from garbage bins.
* CloudCuckooLander: Whatever's in Soldier's head would probably not be reciprocated by too many people. For instance, [[MemeticBadass his historical accounts are rather off from what you should know]], though other background material in ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' frequently states odd history such as that as well. He also keeps severed heads of his enemies to line up and act DrillSergeantNasty to.
** Taken UpToEleven in "Expiration Date". Everything out of his mouth is pure Cloud Cuckooland craziness that gives you some idea of how he would have been used if the series had come to fruition.
-->'''Spy:''' This... is a bucket. (presents bucket full of "dying wishes")\\
'''Soldier:''' Dear God.\\
'''Spy:''' There's more.\\
'''Soldier:''' [[LittleNo No...]]\\
\\
'''Soldier:''' You did not read [my dying wish]!\\
'''Spy:''' ''*sigh*'' Does it say you want the buc-?\\
'''Soldier:''' Yes!
* ColonelKilgore: His authority is self-imposed (and he's the only one who treats it seriously), but otherwise he fits the trope, what with his obsession with war, killing, explosions, and "military machoism".
* CompanionCube:

The Scout (real name Jeremy) is an American hailing from [[{{Southies}} South Boston]], but somehow has a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents Bronx accent]. A narcissistic braggart with an ego the size of Soviet Union, Scout is always ready to hype himself up and trash-talk his enemies. Moreover, he's an obvious baseball fan, given his baseball cap, bat and sports-themed accessories. The Scout is canonically the youngest of eight brothers, son of a single mother, and grew up on the streets trying to pick fights alongside his siblings and thus had to learn to run fast to join the brawls first. He coincidentally looks and sounds exactly like Creator/VinceOffer, and to some extent even has a similar personality. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=scout Everyone, Meet the Scout!]]\\

The Scout (real name Jeremy) is an American hailing from [[{{Southies}} South Boston]], but somehow has a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents Bronx accent]. A [[ItsAllAboutMe narcissistic]] braggart with an ego the size of Soviet Union, Scout is always ready to hype himself up and trash-talk his enemies. Moreover, he's an obvious baseball fan, given his baseball cap, bat and sports-themed accessories. The Scout is canonically the youngest of eight brothers, son of a single mother, and grew up on the streets trying to pick fights alongside his siblings and thus had to learn to run fast to join the brawls first. He coincidentally looks and sounds exactly like Creator/VinceOffer, and to some extent even has a similar personality. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=scout Everyone, Meet the Scout!]]\\

The Scout (real name Jeremy) is an American hailing from [[{{Southies}} South Boston]], but somehow has a [[UsefulNotes/AmericanAccents Bronx accent]]. He's an overly-confident narcissist with an ego the size of the Soviet Union, always ready to hype himself up and trash-talk his enemies. Moreover, he's an obvious baseball fan, given his baseball cap, bat and sports-themed accessories. The Scout is canonically the youngest of eight brothers, son of a single mother, and grew up on the streets trying to pick fights alongside his siblings and thus had to learn to run fast to join the brawls first. He coincidentally looks and sounds exactly like Creator/VinceOffer, and to some extent even has a similar personality. [[http://www.tf2.com/classes.php?class=scout Everyone, Meet the Scout!]]\\

* DisproportionateRetribution: They once cut off one of the Soldier's hands because they were scuffling in the back seat.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: His domination responses contain a number of offensive slurs against the Scottish, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Australians, and even the Canadians (he calls the Engineer a "cow-heardin' Canadian" in one such response). Despite this, he is still considered an indispensably versatile member of the team.

* PoliticallyIncorrectHero: His domination responses contain a number of offensive slurs against the Scottish, the French, the Germans, the Russians, the Australians, and even the Canadians (he calls the Engineer a "cow-heardin' Canadian" in one such response). Despite this, he is still considered an indispensably versatile member of the team.

* PowerfulPick: The once-dreaded Equalizer is this. It was unusually powerful because it granted damage and speed buffs as the Soldier's health was lower. To balance it, the Equalizer's effect was split into it and another pick named the Escape Plan, which kept the speed buff.

The Scout is an Offense character. With a meager 125HP but a staggering speed of 133% base speed and the ability to DoubleJump, he's [[FragileSpeedster a fragile but fast class]] who relies on agility and speed to outmaneuver enemies and weave around their attacks, making him the ideal class for flanking and objective pushing. Moreover, because he counts as two people when on map objectives such as the Payload cart or a Control Point, he's ideal for taking them. The Scout mainly uses the Scattergun, a [[CoolGuns lever-action double-barrel shotgun]] with excellent damage and for close-range engagements, but must rely on his pistol to do more than ScratchDamage at farther than in the enemy's face. Alternatively, the Scout can put special drinks in his secondary weapon slot to buff himself. His melee weapon is a baseball bat.\\

** Some of the Scout's lines hint that he may be smarter than he lets on: He seems to know about the Hippocratic Oath ("Where's ya precious hippo-crates now?") and has at least heard of Creator/HPLovecraft ("There's some eldritch horror, H. P. Dumb-craft!").

* HopelessSuitor: For Miss Pauling in "Expiration Date",if one can even consider him a suitor to her at all. Though she seems to turn around to the idea in the end.