Awesome / Team Fortress 2

I AM BULLETPROOOOOOOOF!!!!!

Hey you, just because it's an Affectionate Parody of James Bond doesn't mean you can't be just as badass as 007 himself every once in a while!

As a Moments subpage, all spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned.

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Meet the Team Videos

• The Meet the Team videos of Team Fortress 2 show off the classes doing something both awesome and hilarious, and end with an awesome one-liner. This ranges from the Engineer playing acoustic guitar while his turrets kill all charging enemies to the Scout beating up the Heavy with his bat for the sandvich he was eating.
  • The very first one shows off The Heavy, who gushes about his gun ("It cost four hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon for twelve seconds!"), and then proceeds to demonstrate how he is not merely the resident Dumb Muscle.
    "Some people think they can outsmart me. Maybe. (sniff) Maybe. (looks directly into camera) I have yet to meet one that can outsmart bullet."
  • The Sniper's video is full of these. He takes the head off the Heavy, the same bullet hitting the whiskey bottle of a Demoman, which shoves into his good eye and causes the panicking Demoman to blindly fire grenades until he topples off the bridge he's on and lands on several Exploding Barrels below and his own grenades, effectively blowing himself up. The Sniper then proceeds to kill a Medic, a Soldier, and a Pyro in as many seconds. And he backstabs a Spy, the blade slicing all the way through to the chest. He even lets the blade linger inside so the moment can sink in.
  • The end of the Demoman's video. He spends the video yelling about how dangerous his job is ("One crossed wire, one wayward pinch of potassium chlorate, one errant twitch! And KABLOOIE!"), getting drunk, and delivering lines like "I'm a black Scottish cyclops!" We see him prepping a bunch of stickybombs for a big team of enemies, while his interview self delivers this line on top of the sequence: "So, t'all you fine dandies so proud, so cocksure, prancin' aboot with yer heads fulla eyeballs! Come and get me I say! I'll be waitin' for ya with a whiff of the ol' brimstone! I'm a grim bloody fable, with an unhappy, bloody end!" *the enemy team passes through the door, and the Heavy sees the bombs as the Demoman waves at him* *mass stickybomb explosion, gibbing the entire enemy team* "Oh, they're goin' ta have to glue yew back together. IN HELL!" And he says this while pieces of the BLU team rain down on his head.
  • Further added to if you realize that, during his rant about the danger of "One wayward pinch of potassium chlorate", he has precariously left a still burning cigarette balancing above a table full of explosives.
    • And that he carelessly knocks a grenade off the table. As soon as he touches it, it becomes armed and blinking.
  • And now we've got the Spy joining the fun, breaking into the BLU base with a literal bang, backstabbing the Sniper in a one-on-one knife fight, breaking the Medic's neck with his bare hands after disguising himself, and finally, finishing off his Magnificent Bastardry by alerting the Heavy and the Soldier to his position split-seconds before he knifes them to death (and in time with the sting, too!). Also, he's screwing the Scout's mom.
    • The BLU spy is pretty awesome here, too. It takes a great deal of magnificent bastardy (in addition to Crazy Preparedness) to research a yo mamma insult.
    • "Who's ready to go find this Spy?""Right behind you." *stabbity stab stab stab*
    • The stabbing is in rhythm with the Team Fortress closing theme music.
    • Doubling as a Crowning Moment of Funny, Valve's response to the leak of the video, which involved telling everyone to act surprised and granting themselves a corporate achievement:
      Welcome to the Internets!
      Fail to understand what 'Private' means on YouTube.
    • The best part of all of this is that, if you look closely, not only is the BLU Spy totally aware that the Scout is actually the RED Spy, but the RED Spy knows he's caught on. The BLU Spy very pointedly hands the knife back to the Scout, as if saying "You dropped this"; he taunts him with the knowledge that he's been researching him; and when the BLU Spy gets Killed Mid-Sentence ("He could be you! He could be me! He could even be-"), the RED Spy finishes said sentence ("-right behind you.").
    • When the "BLU Scout" was fiddling with the knife and "cut" himself, he actually only hit his finger with the BLUNT side of the knife, a neat little foreshadowing detail
  • The Meet the Sandvich video is one big CMOA and CMOF. The view is from the inside of the refrigerator as the Heavy opens the door and grabs the sandvich. You only ever see the inside of the fridge from BLU spy's point of view while all the action takes place.
    The Scout: OhmygodOhmygodOHMYGOD! My blood! He punched out ALL MY BLOOD!
    The Soldier: You call that breaking my spine? You RED team ladies wouldn't know how to break a spine if <CRACK!> AAAAAGGHHHH my spine!!!"
    • Not to mention some of the rejected lines:
    The Scout: "Gimme back my leg bone. <CRUNCH> NO don't hit me with it!"
    The Soldier: "Son, you are writing checks your butt will find uncashable! Are you hearing me?! Your backside will be escorted from the bank! You will find this humiliating!"
    The Scout: He's like a big shaved bear that hates people!
    • The Heavy standing in the middle of a battlefield eating his sandwich (er, sandvich) while there's the usual chaos going on around him.... Just awesome.
    • If you watch closely, it's the EXACT same sequence as the one in Meet the Heavy. The only difference is what the Heavy is doing; everything in the background in the pan-around is the same. This is possible because these movies are done in the Source engine.
  • The Medic outsmarted bullets.
  • Meet the Medic's end scene.
    The Heavy: Doktor! Are you sure this vill vork?!
    The Medic: Ha ha... I have NO IDEA!
  • The Heavy's glorious scene at the end: "AAHAHAHAHA! I AM BOOLLET-PROOOOOF!"
  • "Now? (Evil Laugh) Let's go practice medicine."
    • Followed by what is possibly the greatest Lock-and-Load Montage and Team Power Walk in the history of video games.
• In the outtakes from "Meet The Medic", Medic is tending to Heavy with a IV line. A enemy Spy arrives and shoots the IV line, then runs away. When he returns, he attempts to backstab the Medic, but the Medic grabs his arm, severs his head (which lands in Heavy's hand), then jams the severed IV line into Spy's body and steps on him repeatedly for a makeshift IV.
• Pyro gets one in "Meet the Pyro" by just plain intimidating the Heavy.
  Heavy: I fear no man. But that... thing? It scares me.
  • The whole opening sequence shows that their own entire team is terrified of them.
  • It may be influenced by the fact that the Pyro is so insane that they don't know what they're doing. But you have to admit, Pyro annihilated the BLU team. And scared them good while doing it.
  • There's just something so badass about the Pyro whistling "Do You Believe in Magic?" in minor key as they casually walk off into the sunset, leaving behind the burning wreckage of an entire town littered with the dismembered corpses of the BLU team. Especially so when a nearby building collapses right next to them and they barely even react.
• "Meet The Engineer" has the Engi sitting calmly in front of a campfire made from the burning corpse of a BLU Sniper, strumming a guitar and drinking beer... while his Sentry Guns automatically annihilate an entire crowd of charging enemy Team members so efficiently that the Engineer only needs to worry about dodging the occasional bullet and removing the occasional flying body part that lands near him.
  
  "Like this heavy-caliber tripod-mounted lil' old number! Designed by me, built by me, and you'd best hope... Not pointed at you." A pretty cool Badass Boast. The fact that the background song — that the Engineer is also strumming on his guitar — "More Gun" becomes more sinister as the camera pulls back to showcase the scope of the Sentry Guns' slaughter just increases it.

Comics and Other Supplemental Material

• EVERY SINGLE SECOND OF THE MANN VERSUS MACHINE TRAILER. Seeing the mercs put aside their chromatic differences to kick robot ass, with that AWESOME orchestral score in the background makes you super hyped.
  • Heavy's reaction to the seemingly endless robot horde? A shouting charge!
  • The ending shot. Six men standing back to back, surrounded by scrap of all the robots that have fallen before them.
• This quote from the Comics page:
  TF2 didn't start with a lot of story. There wasn't room for one. But as the updates got more ambitious, we found the perfect way to explore the mercs' world: comics. Over the years, the comics have spawned ancillary characters, then assistants to the ancillary characters. Companies mentioned in passing became global empires three generations old. The game that started as a handful of guys in a desert shooting at each other slowly blossomed into the most labyrinthine story in Valve history.
• Near the end of the Engineer Comic. Engi's been his usual friendly, quiet self up until he is physically threatened, at which point he calmly dishes out the largest amount of badassery yet seen in the canon, in a single sentence:
  Engineer: I appreciate that you're my employer, and an old man besides... but if you don't take your goddamn hands off me, I will break you in HALF.
  • Made even more awesome in that the Engineer is being electrocuted when he's saying this.
• The Smissmas update brings us BLU team vs Old Nick. For once, we see the team actually act as a single unit against a common enemy and succeed. It's not all of the BLUs, either; it's the Soldier, Scout (both with only Christmas items as weapons), and Spy, plus a child. Spy, in particular, deserves credit for notifying the media about what happened, thereby ensuring him and his fellow mercs freedom from their community service when they're hailed as heroes
• This page of Meet the Director reveals that, at a young age, the Heavy and his family were sent to a North Siberian gulag. It's heavily implied that he singlehandedly killed every single guard, freed the prisoners, and burned the place down.
• Valve expected the "Blood Brothers" Alternate Reality Game to take a few weeks to complete; it was instead finished in a mere 12 hours, with Valve giving many props to the community for doing so so quickly.
• The Doom-mates comic, which brings us both the Soldier's gambit to evict Merasmus from his own castle to keep it for himself, and Merasmus' response.
  • As well as that, the ultimate confirmation that Team Fortress 2 is not just set in an alternate 1968, but a World of Badass? A humble cabbie makes Merasmus back down by simply threatening to drive him all the way back to the airport and beating him up there. Yes, a taxi driver made Merasmus pay up — you know, the Halloween boss who was nearly impossible to even kill?
• Some of the Saxton Hale comic covers feature this ridiculously inspiring address box:
  POSTMAN: By God, you will guard this message with your life and see it safely to:◊
• Gray Mann, as usual, gets one in "Ring of Fired": knowing that the mercenaries have put a stop to his robot attacks, he goes up to Saxton Hale himself, and challenges him for control of Mann. Co by Hale's policy of "having the CEO of another company beat him in a fistfight": except he isn't the CEO of Gray Gravel — it's his daughter, Olivia. And even though Olivia couldn't even hope to match Hale in a real battle, Gray successfully predicted that Hale would forfeit the match because he wouldn't get a real fight from beating up a little girl. And just like that, Gray Mann finally got control of Mann Co., all without a fight.
  • And even though Olivia's "fight" doesn't come CLOSE to hurting Hale, she gets a huge one for being a little girl no older than grade school age, and yet legitimately determined to challenge Saxton Freaking HALE to a one-on-one, no-holds-barred, bare-knuckle brawl, and, unlike her father's trickery, would've wanted to win the match by actually PUNCHING OUT SAXTON HALE!!!
    HALE! (snaps on her fingerless gloves) I haven't got all day.
  • And if you thought Gray Mann showed just how far he could take his Manipulative Bastard credentials, the Administrator one-ups him. So Gray Mann has won. The company has become his. So what does she do? Disappear off the face of the earth, steals all of the Australium Gray Mann wanted to get his hands on, and put what seems to have been a years-long contingency plan into effect on the off-chance Gray actually triumphed.
  • Pyro gets an understated Offscreen Moment of Awesome in just their introductory panels. Somehow, they managed to become the CEO of an engineering corporation and make their entire executive board millionaires. In just six months. While still wearing their asbestos suit. Somehow Pyro is even better at being a corporate executive than they are at killing people.
• Soldier's small appearance in the 2013 Halloween Comic isn't in itself so much awesome as it is funny. What counts as an awesome moment, even a relatively small one? The Soldier actually gives us a good reason why the Mann brothers can't exactly win:
  Soldier: Hmm. Well, for starters, neither one of you is dead.
• The Medic gets one in the trailer for the Tale of Two Cities update. Medic's latest project? On-the-spot respawn. Even better, possibly, is that with a single upgrade, he can go from using everyone as a meat shield to leading the front line with a protective shield that absorbs all projectiles and fries the robots the moment they touch it.
  Heavy: (after being revived and staying behind the Medic's deflector shield) Dis vill help.
• "Unhappy Returns":
  • In one panel, an inmate tries to stab Spy in the back with a sharpened toothbrush. In the next, the toothbrush is in the inmate's own back.
  • Miss Pauling manages to stop the hanging in time. While Scout's panel did drop, she was able to save his neck by balancing him on her hands. Can double as Heartwarming (at least in Scout's eyes).
• "A Cold Day In Hell":
  • The cover features the Heavy — now given the first name of Misha — suplexing an enormous bear into a rock, in a homage to Action Comics No.1.
  • The Soldier, while naked and covered in honey, manages to snap a bear's neck. For a character who's portrayed as a complete idiot all the time, this is rather impressive.
  • In the same vein, Scout hits another bear with a femur bone hard enough to break the bone in two and, judging by the scoreboard, kill the bear in a single blow.
  • While Scout and Soldier get quick, clean kills against their bears, Pyro absolutely brutalizes theirs with an axe — after hallucinating it as a Smokey Bear Expy who insults fire to their face — to the point where the bear's head is completely obliterated and Pyro is splattered in gore. It says a lot when Scout and even Soldier are a little freaked out by what they've done to it.
    Soldier: That... that's enough, Pyro. You're launching bone shards everywhere. Some of us are naked, here.
  • HEROES WIN!
  • Heavy's sisters all get an Offscreen Moment of Awesome, too. Heavy had his family hide in a cabin in the woods to make sure the ones who hurt them in the past didn't find them again. When informed that men were able to find them, we get this exchange:
  The Heavy/Misha: I see. You... But you probably did not make them suffer.
  Zhanna: Oh, Misha, we did, I promise you.
  The Heavy/Misha: You are just saying this.
  Zhanna: No, I swear! We butchered them like hogs. Their screams died on their lips.
  • "Then Heavy is BACK, babies!"
  • Sadly for our heroes, the Heavy isn't the only thing that has come back...
• "Expiration Date" is one big CMOA for Source Filmmaker in general. Not only did they make an excellent model of Miss Pauling, they managed to render and animate a gigantic bread monster!
• The entire finale of "Expiration Date" is one for quite a few of the Mercenaries. Scout is the first one into the fight, going in with nothing but a gnarled piece of support beam with a nail in it.
  • Soon after, the rest arrive. Engie sets up his gun while Medic Übers Heavy, who unloads upon it in his usual fashion while Demoman and Soldier support them.
  • After a few of the mercenaries run into trouble, Pyro gets the beast's attention, and waits until it's close enough to torch it.
  • When Scout gets grabbed by one of the monster's tentacles and is being waved around, Sniper shoots the tentacle holding him to free Scout. In case that needs reiteration, Sniper shot down a flailing tentacle holding Scout, using a sniper rifle, without hitting him.
  • After saving Scout, Sniper gets his Sniper Rifle knocked out of his hands and is thrown to the ground by the giant bread monster. He immediately gets up, Kukri drawn, and moves in to hack the damn thing apart, only stopping short to avoid hitting the Payload bomb.
  • And finally, Pauling and Scout manage to cobble together a working timed Payload to take down the monster as they signal everyone else to fall back. After the monster trashes the cart and tosses the bomb in the way of the blast doors leading into the base, they manage to jump into its mouth to shield themselves from the blast.
• "Blood in the Water" gives a retroactive one to Saxton Hale. As revealed in the issue, the Australians lost all the abilities the Australium gave them when the mine was stripped bare, leaving them as normal people, yet Saxton Hale is still himself. In other words, Saxton Hale is just that awesome and never relied on the Australium like all other Australians.
• "The Contract", the comic that came with the Gun Mettle update, has Ms. Pauling stealing Saxton Hale's personal collection of decorated weapons. That's right, Ms. Pauling, of all people, successfully stole from Saxton Hale.
• "Old Wounds" brings several others to the table.
  • The Classic Heavy commandeers the operation the moment he realizes the Australium is worth more to him and his team than any money he'd be getting for it.
  • Zhanna cuts off her own hand to escape her cuffs and kill the Classic Pyro, managing a clean, stealthy kill using an incendiary grenade. All to spare Soldier the pain of his torture.
  • When Miss Pauling finally meets a dying Gray Mann face to face, Gray urges her to stop the Administrator's plans at all costs. In response, Pauling delivers a powerful speech about why she won't follow Gray's demands. The moment is undercut because he dies before she finishes, but only slightly:
    'Stop her?' Why would I stop her? I've worked for her my whole life. I've lied for her. Framed people for her. Killed people for her. Do you think I'd do all that if I didn't know what she is? What she's capable of? Do you think I'm some kind of stupid pawn here? I know exactly what she could do with that kind of power. And I'll be right there with her when she does it, you old...
  • Medic revives a close ally and his pet bird within minutes of each other using methods that had no business working, considering the extent of the injury compared to his methods.
  • Sniper's awesome Badass Boast after he gets revived, sets things straight with Medic, and receives the approval of his deceased adoptive parents to come back from Heaven and stop his killers. He then also disappears right under the nose of Classic Heavy, presumably to wreak havoc the next time he appears.
    Sniper: So it was real, then. Me Mum and Dad, they're... d'yer know what this means?
    Medic: (holds up an IV line as he explains) It means you hallucinated before brain death, mein freund. I injected a blue whale's pineal gland directly into your brain stem.
    Sniper: Nah, mate. (smirks with absolute confidence) It means I'm the most dangerous bloody man on this island. I know what's waitin' for me when I kark it. I ain't afraid to die... 'cept not just yet. Bein' dead's the longest holiday I ever took. Time to get back to work.
• From the 2015 Halloween comic, "Gargoyles & Gravel":
  • The comic opens with Medic and Engineer working together on some project, which turns out to be reanimating a brain to put inside a jack-o-lantern as a Halloween prop. It turns out the brain's last memory was trying to mug a 'nerdy German tourist'. Yeah, the Medic may not be the strongest combatant, but he's still a mercenary trained and ready to kill. A mugger trying to rob him? Just another source of materials. The Medic isn't even angry at the guy, indicating he never felt like he was in danger.
  • The team has now become so used to fighting Merasmus that they aren't even surprised he turned up yet again. They're not willing to engage him this time, but Heavy, feeling bored with the tabletop game he's been playing, rouses them into action with a short, but effective speech. What follows is an epic shot of Team Fortress and Miss Pauling heading out to fight Merasmus.
    Heavy: I do not want to sit at tiny table and pretend I am killing monsters. There are real monsters outside. We have killed them before. We will kill them again. Who is with me?
    Sniper: Ah, why not?
    Spy: Very well.
    Scout: Yeah, sure.
    Soldier: Okay I'm in, but I'm bringing the amulet.
• The Showdown sees Heavy calmly break in and infiltrate the Administrator's underground lair just to ask her for a new gun. She is very fortunate these men actually seem to enjoy working for her.
  • And then there's Pyro, who did the same just ten minutes earlier.
  • And of course, the Administrator's response when she thinks the Heavy wants her dead? Calmly and quietly activate the base's self-destruct.
• In "The Naked and the Dead", everyone across the board seems to get a few.
  • Let's start with the Medic's confrontation with Classic Heavy. After taking Gray's life extender, Classic Heavy finds the Modern Medic and demands that he attach it to him by telling someone else how to. Classic Heavy gets a minor moment of awesome for his awareness that the Modern Medic would likely kill him after putting the Classic Heavy under. The Modern Medic responds by saying that he wouldn't kill him on the operating table... and then stabs the Classic Heavy with his Ubersaw. Twice. Granted, it doesn't end him, but it was amazing to see the Medic repaying Classic Heavy for the abuse he suffered.
    Modern Medic: Please. I am a doctor. You will not die on my table. I'll just kill you here.
    (The Modern Medic slashes Classic Heavy across the face with the Ubersaw)
    Classic Heavy: AGH! What... what the hell... what the hell did you just do?
    Modern Medic: Here. Let me show you. [The Modern Medic then stabs Classic Heavy in the abdomen with his Ubersaw.]
  • The very next thing that happens afterwards is Classic Heavy falling onto the ground, then immediately getting up and pulling the Ubersaw right out. By doing this, he actually scared the Medic!
  • And then there's the Modern Heavy's next scene. After the Classic Heavy overcomes the Modern Medic, Modern Heavy corners his Classic counterpart. The Classic Heavy pretends to surrender, and his Modern counterpart prepares to get into a fisticuffs duel with him. However, Classic Heavy has brought a gun to a fistfight... and promptly uses it to kill the Modern Medic, before throwing the gun so he can properly duel Modern Heavy. Cue a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown courtesy of the Modern Heavy.
    Modern Heavy: You... you killed Doctor. YOU... ...KILLED... ...DOCTOR!
  • Classic Heavy, during the one-sided brawl, tries to bargain with Modern Heavy, reminding the latter how he holds the key to immortality. But this only provided a momentary pause before the brutal beatdown continues, culminating in a backbreaker over Modern Heavy's knee. Even as Classic Heavy tries to crawl for the immortality machine, it is kicked away by Modern Heavy, who makes clear his sheer hatred for Classic Heavy in just a few perfectly crafted sentences:
    Modern Heavy: You killed my friend. I do not need to live forever. Just long enough to sit here... and watch you die.
  • Let's not forget that, in order to come back to life, Modern Medic used loopholes and extra souls to prevent The Devil himself from taking him into Hell!
  • If you think conning Satan himself was the end of the Modern Medic's awesome moments, he's got one last trick up his sleeve. He manages to successfully use a bluff involving Satan's pen and those baboon uteruses he put in the Classic Team to distract an Australium-enhanced Classic Heavy long enough for Modern Heavy to tear Gray's life extender right out of his Classic counterpart. The Medic has some serious brass beasts in this issue.
    Modern Medic: So... who's ready to be a mother?
  • The Pyro's moment is brief, but sweet. They go off on their own, and upon overhearing the Classic Scout and Classic Soldier trying to cut and run with the intention of running an orphanage that harms children, they ambush and slaughter the villainous duo in the dark, complete with an incredibly cool reveal:
    Classic Scout: What would you give right now to go back and do it over? Do it right this time, follow our dream. Think about it. That old safehouse in Newark? We clear those grenade crates out, it'd make one hell of an orphanage, wouldn't it?
    Classic Soldier: Greg, are we doing this?
    Classic Scout: (pats him on the shoulder) Let's do this. We are going to have an endless supply of free kids to... (suddenly realises something) ...Ross, why are you covered in gasoline? (click)
    (the two look up to see the Pyro, flamethrower lit and staring down at them from the rafters above)
  • Don't forget the climax of the comic: The mercs have defeated the robots and the TFC team. Classic Heavy is bleeding out, but not before Ms. Pauling has a chance to give a Pre-Mortem One-Liner capped with a badass shot of the team.
    Miss Pauling: We're Team Fortress. And you're DEAD.
  • Bonus points as well for her exchange with the Spy when Classic Heavy dies immediately after, which doubles as a Call-Back to her giving a speech to the dying Gray Mann in Old Wounds;
    Miss Pauling: (to Spy) Nice. I managed to get the whole speech out before he died, this time.
    Spy: You're getting very good at saying horrible things to dying men, Miss Pauling.
  • And in the beginning, Saxton Hale himself actually fighting alongside the mercenaries with Mags with nothing more than his bare hands and a lot of shouting.
  • Scout dies and Spy confesses to being his father. After a brief few pages of Scout in Heaven, we head back to Earth. Sniper is wondering if they should bury Scout—
    Spy: If you are hiding a shovel, rinse it off and give it to me. I could use a weapon.
  • The Administrator uses up all her remaining Australium in one go. Wow.
    "But you're right. It's over. And if I'm going to call an end to all of it... well... Well. Why not look my best?"
  • There's just something so insanely awesome/funny about Scout's Heaven consisting of a God who happens to be a massive fanboy for him, (at least acting, maybe real, who knows?), to the point where he threatens to destroy the world because Scout is still a virgin, despite literally being God's gift to women. It's the appropriate amount of hilarity and awesomeness we come to expect from Valve, and then some.
• The trailer for the Jungle Inferno update delivers the most awesome thing in the history of awesome things. SAXTON HALE IN A CINEMATIC.
  Saxton Hale: Sssshhhh… it can smell fear. It's close. (…) Ah-HA! THERE YOU ARE!
  (Saxton picks up Scout, smashes his way through a wall, and runs him through the jungle, swinging on vines and hopping across the backs of crocodiles in a river and through a high-voltage fence)
  Saxton Hale: Everybody said; "Don't do it. You can't build a theme park with the deadliest animals on Earth! They'll escape! Nature finds a way". Ha ha! THAT WAS THE WHOLE BLOODY POINT!
  (Saxton leaps off a tall cliff with Scout in tow, nailing a perfect Three-Point Landing in front of the enraged yeti brutalizing Soldier, whom he immediately engages.)
  • How does Saxton Hale fight a yeti? By swinging the Scout around like a weapon, before throwing him, jumping from his body to punch the yeti so hard that it explodes. Holy shit! Immediately after, he is casually alerted that he just rendered the species extinct with that action.
    Scout: (staring at the yeti in horror) Oh dear God, no...!
    Saxton Hale: Don't worry, son. Stick with me! (prepares to brandish Scout as a weapon) You'll be just fine.

Community-Created Content

• This. Some genius user modded one of the unnecessary achievement maps to have a giant cat emerge from the ground screaming and attack all players on the field with lasers and bees. The cat has, to date, proven to be invincible, as the link also shows a barrage of rockets did nothing but leave burn marks. Doubles as a Funny Moment.
  • Doubly so when you realize it was created as punishment for grinding out achievements.
  • It took a while, but some mad genius has managed to one-up this one. Behold achievement_golden_wrench_v2.
    • On a followup note, that mad genius ended up winning a Saxxy for Best Set Design.
• Some servers also use Unreal Tournament-style sound effects: "HEADSHOT!" "DOUBLE KILL!" "TRIPLE KILL!" "HOLY SHIT!" and et cetera.
  • "UNSTOPPABLE!" "M-M-M-MONSTER KILL!"
• And now that the Saxxy Awards are done, we have a bunch more player-made moments of awesome.
• This very daring escape by a lonesome Engineer.
• This. The very definition of "Flawless Victory".
• When Team Fortress and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann combine, amazing things happen.
• The RED Soldier (and the rest of the team) singing a parody of I'll Make A Man Out Of You.
• Heavy's Falcon Punch.
• Rise of the Epic Scout.
  • From the same animator, Meet the Rabid Heavy Taming Engineer.
  • And the twain meet in The Fight for Sawmill. Can you say Cool vs. Awesome?
• The Team Service Announcements are usually a different flavor of brilliant, but sometimes, the good examples can be surprisingly badass, like the BLU Medic in Pop It, Don't Drop It.
• Trading website TF2Warehouse froze the accounts of all scammers on the website according to their terms of service, and after giving them three months to appeal, they converted the credits in their accounts to cash and raised $1000, which they gave to a charity for the support of children with heart problems.
• Justice League + Team Fortress 2 = This video.
• Lil' Guardian Pyro, an amazing entry for the 2013 Saxxy Awards. Engineer needs to leave his sentry alone, and leaves Pyro to guard it. What happens next is something you'd expect from Pixar, both in terms of animation quality and premise. It won Best Overall.
• This music video is nothing short of stunning.
• NISLT's "How To" Videos tend to be about hilarious mishaps that happen during games, but occasionally they highlight someone doing something totally badass.
  • In "How to Save a Round", a Soldier pulls of a ton of difficult Rocket Jumps across the map to stop a Scout from back-capping during his team's final push on Badlands. With Mute City playing in the background.
  • In this video, a Demo blocks a Payload by using the Chargin' Targe to kill half of a Highlander team with his Ullapool Caber.
  • In this one, a Pyro makes a split-second decision after an accidental Rocket Jump and is able to kill the enemy Medic that was about to use the Kritzkreig.
  • In "How to be an American Hero", a Soldier successfully kills 5 players using the Escape Plan taunt. Before the round even starts.
  • In this one, a Demoman is able to successfully airshot (and kill) an enemy Soldier 4 times and successfully capture the point the Soldier was protecting.
  • Here we have a Pyro protecting a critical-condition Medic from (in order): a Pyro's Axetinguisher swing, a Soldier's rocket, and a Spy.
  • In "How to be Braveheart #2", a Soldier equipped with nothing but a Rocket Jumper and a Market Gardener is able to save a Sniper from a persistent Pyro just before succumbing to afterburn damage.
  • In "How to be Rocky Balboa", a Heavy snarfs down a Buffalo Steak Sandvich, then singlehandedly goes on a critical rampage through the other team, taking down the entire push before an implied death from afterburn.
  • In "How to Surprise Enemy Team", a Demo uses the Sticky Jumper to get to the other side of Snakewater and successfully kill the entire enemy team. Except the Sniper, who suicided after seeing what happened.
  • "How to Push Last as Medic": A medic kills his RED counterpart with his ubersaw, filling his uber meter, then finds himself and an enemy soldier as the only ones remaining. He proceeds to use uber, baiting the soldier into injuring himself on his own rockets, then finish him off with a ubersaw and cap the point with a soldier that apears slightly after the nick of time.
  • In "How to trick and own Pyro #2", a Soldier engaged in mortal combat with a superior Pyro at the final control point of Badlands rocket jumps over and around the wall and whacks the Pyro with the Market Gardener. With intense music blaring in the background and a slow-motion montage.
  • "100 Ways to Kill Medic in Team Fortress 2": A compilation of 100 partly hilarious, partly glitchy, entirely awesome clips of people killing Medics.
  • The title of this one, "How to Survive Airblast like a Boss", says it all. On Hightower, a Demoman airblasted off the cliff hits the building that hangs over the edge, giving just enough air to make it to the window and survive.
  • "How to Score a Goal": The most impressive one is where a Demoman launches himself and a Quick-Fix Medic, whom the ball is being passed to, all the way across the Map, landing the Medic right by the enemy. From by their own goal.
  • Both videos titled "How to Falcon Punch". The first features a One-Man Army Heavy who uses the Buffalo Steak Sandvich and Killing Gloves of Boxing to sweep through the whole enemy team, the second turns a kritzed enemy Soldier shooting at him into an opportunity.
  • "How to confuse a sentry": A pair of Scouts versus an Engineer and his level 3 Sentry Gun. Normally a Curb-Stomp Battle in the Engineer's favour, but these two Scouts manage to take out the Engineer and the Sentry with only their scatterguns and impressive teamwork.
  • "How to tryhard" #2 and #3. The former features a Determinator Engineer who pursues the enemy holding the Intelligence into their own base and then manages to Hold the Line for a good amount of time with only a Rescue Ranger and a level 1 sentry, while the latter features a Spy who responds to the payload cart nearing the final point by going on the mother of all stabbing sprees. Both of these eventually end in failure, but that does not detract from the awesomeness one bit.
  • "How to get an instant killing spree": A string of Medics are overhealing the RED Heavy, threatening to keep the BLU team spawn camped for the entire game, so what does the BLU Pyro do? He heads back into the spawn and grabs a Third Degree, while the BLU Medic throws an ubercharge onto him. What follows is the Pyro killing all 5 of the Heavy's Medics in 2 swings. The remaining 6th Medic is eventually picked off as well, allowing the BLU team to begin pushing the cart safely.
  • "How to HamStreak": Exactly What It Says on the Tin. A Sniper decides to go ham on the enemy team backed only by a Medic, racking up nearly twenty kills (and earning a 25-kill streak) with only a Ham Shank.
• Mean Green Menace From Space. The BLU team is attacked by aliens, but luckily for them, someone arrives to help. Let's just say the video gets serious very quickly.
• End of the Line. A long-term, community made, officially-endorsed short film. The creation of it and its production quality is a moment in and of itself. But the climax delivers the glorious sight of Heavy stopping a speeding train with Medic's help.
  • And then, when the BLU Spy finally reveals himself, Heavy bends his pistol barrel, grabs him by the head, and spikes him into the ground like a football, breaking his spine in half.
  • There's one earlier on for Scout and Sniper, Racing the Train in Sniper's wagon, then Scout jumping onto the train to disarm the bombs. While there were too many bombs for him to disarm, it's still something.
  • Even more amazing, an official community update based on the film (with new weapons, outfits and an arena) was released in 2014.
• This humble little video. Basically, Mad Max: Fury Road starring Demoman, Scout, and a whole buncha Snipers. Every bit as awesome as it sounds.
• Way, way back before MvM was released, someone managed to discover and connect all the clues Valve had put before the actual update was released...and they got a lot of it right!
• Turbulence. Unpolished as it may be (it was submitted mere minutes before the deadline, before they could finish certain shots), it earned best overall at the Saxxies, and for good reason. The premise is something along the lines of "Passenger jets full of various classes engage in a massive dogfight", and it brings along Awesome Music and Visual Effects of Awesome for good measure.
• Do No Harm, a comic chronicling the artist's terrible 8-year struggle with a "friend" and how they got rid of that fuckhat as a TF2 tale, featuring what is quite possibly the most karmic autobalance ever.
• The climax of this video has the RED Team fighting the Humanoid Abomination Superpowered Evil Side of Candace from Phineas and Ferb. It has to be seen to believed.
• Burning Through Space is a melancholy little video about a Pyro drifting through space. The sequel, however, is pretty much made of concentrated awesome that really must be seen to be believed. But to wit: RED Team dogfighting against an army of UFOs. With a spaceship, jetpacks, and ray guns. IN SPACE. In fact, the visual effects alone are all kinds of awesome.
  • It really brings out the stuff they're all good at as they singlehandedly prevent an alien invasion in their own way. Spy removing the wiring of one ship while using one sapper to destroy three of them. Heavy helping out Medic by grabbing onto one of them and throwing it into another, and then using Scout as a human bullet to destroy dozens of them in a straight line. A special shoutout goes to the moment where Demoman becomes too drunk to accurately hit his target, after which Engineer takes over, switching places. Engineer then realizes that they're very close to the mothership and they would inevitably crash right now he's unable to get back to the control room so quickly as that would leave the gun unmanned. What does Demoman do? Immediately steer their own ship into a tailspin away, narrowly averting a crisis.
  • A large part of the video also showcases Engineer's own genius, by laying the basis for a spaceship from scratch, that has options for artificial gravity, weak spot detection, and is able to burn through the atmosphere with minimal damage. He also figured out that there was an alien who was controlling Pyro at the end as a first. It really faciliated for the rest to show what they can truly do if they all work together for a single goal - and the alien battle wasn't even planned!
• You know the intro scene to The Giant in Call of Duty: Black Ops III Nazi Zombies? It was pretty cool, wasn't it? Well, an animator going by legotf2freake decided to remake it in SFM, using Team Fortress 2 characters with rather fitting choices^note Soldier as Dempsey, Heavy as Nikolai, Scout as Takeo, and Medic as Richtofen. The last one is especially fitting, seeing as Origins!Richtofen actually resembles Medic without his longcoat. It's well animated, almost scene-for-scene, and has a number of amusing little easter eggs thrown in.
• The community-led Frontline Update, which really makes TF2 seem like an actual war simulator. Special mention goes to the utterly stunning intro video.
• The Saxxy winner for Best Extended 2017, Agent Gunn: Vulcanite. The entire video is amazing, from the musical score, to the animation, from the custom models, to the set design; it blows all the previous entries out of the water. Not to mention, it also serves as almost like a Revisiting the Roots for those who longed for an older TF2, before all the hats changed the 60s spy movie parody theme.
• The Winglet gives us what is perhaps the ULTIMATE CROSSOVER between TF2 and Overwatch! Overall containing equal parts of Awesome and Funny moments.
  • For starters, it begins with RED setting up a defense on a Payload round during the countdown as normal, which then cuts to the Overwatch cast (as BLU) wrecking the spawn room.
  • When the round finally starts, Soldier gets trampled in literally one second by Reinhardt, who is assisted by Bastion, mowing down a large chunk of RED's defense.
  • Genji deflecting a grenade, and then playing tennis with it against Pyro. Until it blows up and takes out both of them. Demoman, who was watching the ping-pong match, just goes "Wha?".
  • RED get one over when Torbjörn attempts to build a Sentry, only to be minced by RED's own Sentry nest.
  • Soldier downing Pharah with the Market Gardener.
  • Widowmaker duelling Sniper. No one manages to hit each other, then Sniper throws Jarate at her.
  • Brigitte stopping a charging Demoknight and scraping him off her shield. And then she gets minced by RED's Sentry nest.
  • Demoman and Junkrat taking time off to drink beer together, then Demo successfully tricks Junkrat into blowing up Reinhardt with a sticky trap.
    • Funnier if you choose to read that as Junkrat really just not caring that it'd blow up his "teammates"... he just wanted to see some stuff explode.
  • Bastion survives the above attack, only to then be approached by an angry Heavy. Unfortunately, said Heavy was using The Brass Beast, which takes a very long time to set up, giving Bastion enough time to transform and kill him.
  • Scout taking out Soldier 76 using the handle of his Scattergun.
  • Spy saving Scout by backstabbing Mei with the Spy-cicle.
  • We finally get a proper fight between Scout and Tracer. Highlights include:
    • Scout being a Badass Normal, in contrast to Tracer.
    • Scout deflecting a Pulse Mine and severing Tracer's arm. Then she shrugs off the damage by performing Recall, which rewinds time.
    • Who wins? Tracer.
      Scout: UNFAIR.
  • After defeating Scout, Tracer blips over to D.Va, ready to get back into the fight. When she waves hi to D.Va, D.va domes her with the Enforcer, revealing herself to be Spy in disguise. And then, when Spy attempts to disguise as Tracer, his disguise kit gets hacked by Sombra, who then follows it up with yelling "Been here all along" in his ear through a megaphone.
  • Mercy and Winston killing a Heavy, then Mercy tries to strike a friendly conversation with Medic. It goes as well as you'd expect.
    Medic: I healed the man who will kill you.
  • SAXTON HALE brawling Winston^note Who had just activated Primal Rage. The former wins, as expected. Even better, Doomfist, having just witnessed that, makes a smart move and quietly slinks away.
  • The final scene has Zarya pushing the payload by herself until near the end, which has an absurdly-large Sentry nest defending the final point. Her response? Demolish the entire thing with a Graviton Surge.
  • Following that, Heavy shows up, but instead of an epic battle, we get a full on Heartwarming Moment, as both Russian combatants instantly take a liking to each other, and ultimately decide to give up on the match, ending it in a draw with the two having a Big Damn Kiss.
  • The Stinger has a Play of the Game segment. Who's featured? Demoman! Who gets it by roller spamming over a hill.
  • Heck, the fact that the entire video didn't pick sides between both games; it instead deals equal amounts of victories and losses between the two. Given the ending, both sides technically won.
• Anyone up for round 2? If so, then The Winglet is more than happy to oblige, with a second episode of Overwatch vs. TF2! Both awesomeness and hilarity are guaranteed here, with the Overwatch players taking on TF2's BLU Team in reversed roles for the Payload round!
  • After a lengthy buildup, the Overwatch squad is... rather confused when a squad of Spycrabs suddenly come out of the main entrance instead of the usual offensive team... only for it to be revealed as a distraction, as the real team comes in from the side entrance, guns blazing!
  • The battle opens up with a quick but cool aerial fight, with Pharah gladly repaying Soldier with some payback for dunking her in the first match, Genji slashing a Scout out of the sky, and Sniper proceeding to snipe both him AND Mercy from the air right after... as the team's Winston and D.Va are more than quick to make short work of him in retaliation.
  • A poor Scout ends up on the receiving end of a full blown team combo, with Junkrat, McCree, Brigitte, Roadhog, Doomfist, Widowmaker, AND Reinhardt all laying it out on him one by one.
  • Meanwhile, Spy, after sapping Zenyatta, attempts to drop a backstab on Brigitte... Only to step on a tin can, quickly getting her attention as she straight up pummels him straight into space!
  • After that, Wrecking Ball proceeds to demolish an entire Sentry nest in one fell swoop, with Lúcio quickly blasting the witnessing Engineer off a cliff, followed by a Pyro airblasting him off a cliff as they then proceed to quickly take down an attacking Mei.
  • Reinhardt and a Demoknight end up clashing in a hammer to sword lock. Who wins? Demoknight, after pulling the Grenade Launcher on him at point blank range. He then proceeds to call in an ARMY of Scouts to rush the opposing team, going to join them... Only for Sombra to hack his gear, quickly leading to him crashing face first into a wall.
  • While Bastion and Orisa put their work into taking on the Scout army, an opposing Medic and Heavy come in... leading to Ganymede and Archimedes taking quick notice of each other, getting into a bird brawl that Archimedes manages to win... before getting stepped on by a rushing Heavy.
  • After Spy managed to sap Orisa, and a humorous Anti-Climax encounter with Reaper, Heavy ends up seeing his Medic pulled away and killed by Roadhog, leading to a brute force brawl between the two that devolves to a full on fist fight. And when it seems that Roadhog is about to win (Albeit losing an edge after Lúcio stole Ashe's support shot meant for him), Heavy manages to turn the tides to his winning favor with a Punch Catch, and outright breaks Roadhog's neck on a cliff, with his own hook and chain no less!
    • Though he doesn't make it a pure victory... as Wrecking Ball proceeds to send Heavy falling from the hook right after Roadhog's defeat.
  • At the end, Ashe and her companion B.O.B. are left remaining... And B.O.B. proceeds to ANNIHILATE the entire BLU team with a Foe-Tossing Charge that takes out EVERYONE in a matter of a few slow-motion seconds. And in response, a Heavy and Medic duo decide to reenact the iconic train-stopping scene from the famous End of the Line animation in order to stop him... And they manage to bring him to a complete halt! ...Until B.O.B. just grabs him, throwing him (And Medic shortly after) away like they're nothing.
  • The battle suddenly seems to be over in BLU Team's favor when Spy (Disguised as Ashe) manages to backstab B.O.B., and shoots Ashe's rifle out of her hand, declaring victory for his team... only for Ashe to remind Spy that during that entire time, the BLU Team forgot to move the Payload with it still being at the start of the map, Spy dropping a Precision F-Strike at the realization BLU Team effectively lost. That's right, Overwatch took the win for Round 2, though not without plenty of respect for both games much like the first episode.
  • Though it's not a total loss for BLU Team, as a BLU Engineer managed to get the Play of the Game for the round. How? After being killed by Junkrat's bear trap, his sentry managed to kill four enemies in a row after his death (Albeit with the camera focusing on his body sliding off the cliff.)
• This Medic gameplay video starts with the YouTuber recalling all the times in his (class-based) series he wished they had a Medic on the team. At the end of the intro, he screams "Please, I can't take it anymore! MEDIC!" as a familiar shining silhouette appears, laughing and holding up the medigun. Makes any Medic main proud.
• In a dearth of official new content, there's the community-created Team Fortress 2 Classic. It's a Game Mod intended to alter the base game from the source code up, based around scrapped concepts in TF2's early stages. Among the new game modes is a 4 team brawl with Yellow and Green teams added, new guns and much, much more.
• Pootispunk 2007. Holy Shit. Exactly based on the E3 Cyber Punk 2077 2018 trailer (and by exactly we mean almost shot-for-shot), there are over hundreds of references based on this game (And all the problems). Examples include Kazotsky Kick, Australium cosmetics, TF2 bots plaguing the game, "Scunt", and many more. You can't deny that a lot of efforts were put into it to make it as similar as possible to the original. Points to the monologue from Soldier, also almost word-for-word from the original trailer.
  Soldier: In 2007, they voted my game the worst thing to play on the Steam. Main issues? Bottom-rock rate of updates and more bots playing on the servers than anywhere else. Can't deny it, it's all true. But everyone still wants to play here. The Valve always promises updates for you. Might be a lie, an illusion. But it's there, just around the corner...and it keeps you going. (...) It's a game of dreams. And I'm a big dreamer! *cackle*
  • Double points for also referencing kitty0706's Team Fabulous 2 in the end.
• TO DEFEAT A MASTER!, a half hour animation by Hoovy Tube, in which three new players find themselves up against an expert P2P(Pay to Play) player. While one of them, a Heavy, rallies the other two up to take down the expert, a Free to Play Sniper on the opposing team supports them by not contributing to the P2P player in their egotistical exploits. After several battles against the expert, the animation culminates in a climax with the trio clashing against the expert who resorted to using an aimbot cheat device to take them down. The trio successfully defeat him, and the enemy team, while they did lose the match, goes to report their own cheating teammate which leads to Gaben himself appearing to banish him.
• Lunar Scythe, a YouTuber well-known for his Merasmus impressions in fan animations and charity prank calls, got to talk to Nolan North himself using his Merasmus voice. Their voices are completely identical to each other, and Nolan himself was utterly gobsmacked at how good his impression was.
  Nolan: I'm hanging up on you, you're too good at that.
• POOTIS ENGAGE // EXTREME is sheer undiluted cool from beginning to end. The short can basically be described as "what if a Guilty Gear fan got into TF2 and spent months meticulously translating its signature animation style into SFM?" and the answer is almost 14 minutes of utter eye candy, especially the fight scenes.
• YouTuber Coolchou Zhao recreated the opening of Guilty Gear -STRIVE- in TF2's style. While taking their own liberties, the result is overall pretty faithful to the original, down to the framerate.

The Game Itself

• Getting ÜberCharged. The Medic seems confident enough in you to either make you invincible, have automatic crits, be permanently overhealed, or ultra-resistant to a type of damage. Your job? Kill as many people and cause as much damage as possible. The enemy team, even those overhealed by the enemy Medic, will often turn tail at the sight of an ubercharged patient. Bonus points if you're a support class who normally wouldn't be a threat in direct combat, like Spies, Engineers, or Snipers.
  • Arguably even more awesome than getting an Über is stopping one dead in its tracks, whether it be by taking the enemy's fire until it ends, blasting the Medic and his patient off a cliff or into a train, or (for anything other than the stock Medigun) just killing the Medic. Particularly ballsy Snipers have even been known to run up to the Übered pair in order to stun them with the Huntsman taunt. One way or another, the enemy went in ready and able to plow through your team, and you just drove them back.
• All three of the Pyro's taunt animations (raising the flamethrower over his head in homage to the Tusken Raiders of Star Wars, throwing a fireball in homage to Street Fighter, and playing air guitar on a fire axe).
  • The fireball taunt can now kill opponents in one hit, with the trade-off that it's actually genuinely hard to reliably land a successful hit on someone in combat. Doing so in a proper match is in itself a Crowning Moment. The downside to this is that getting killed mid-taunt is rather embarrassing.
  • The Pyro axe, Third Degree, actually has a guitar riff when the Pyro taunts with it, which makes it even more awesome. During Halloween and full moon nights, you can even do this while dressed up as the devil.
  • The Soldier's Taunt Kill is especially humiliating, as it can kill multiple targets in one hit.
  • Landing a successful Taunt Kill with the Scout qualifies as this — it has the largest charge-up time, but a successful hit can send the target flying halfway across the map.
  • Pyro's latest taunts with his new weapons are all this, but the alternate Flamethrower/Rainblower taunt takes the cake. He blows bubbles as a rainbow forms above him, the picture of a balloon unicorn right in the center. Suddenly, ominous music plays as the rainbow bursts into flames and a giant ring of fire encircles the Pyro as he laugh demonically, incinerating anyone nearby.
    • Of course, that's only what the Pyro sees... what everyone else sees is the Pyro breathing a jet of flame as an ominous circle of fire gathers around him.
  • You can now be a weirdo in a brightly colored asbestos suit and rubber gas mask who flies through the air on a Jump Jet Pack and cheerfully slaps opponents on the ass before rocketing away. Behold, the true joy of the Jungle Inferno update.
• The game itself naturally develops Crowning Moments of Awesome through the automatic responses from the player characters under certain circumstances. From the Soldier's "If God had wanted you to live, He wouldn't have created me!" to the Demo's "All yah dandies prancin' aboot with ya heads full of eyeballs." right up to the Scout's "Eat it, fatty!" when batting a Heavy to death. Most sound scripts are perfectly designed to be awesome when said or even heard.
  • Here's a collection of the characters' taunts.
  • ...And here's a collection of some lines that the Scout will spout out when Dominating an enemy.
  • Some of the Demoman's Domination lines are definitely this.
  "Go to hell! And tell the Devil I'm coming for him next!"
  "Thus begins my thousand-year reign of blood!"
  "If you were huntin' trouble, lad, ya found it."
  "Lot of good that soldier trainin' did ya; I'm drunk!"
  "Dominated! I feel everything! I know everything!"
  • From the Demoman to the Engineer, there's
    "Go on and build more o' yer little guns. I'll shove every one of them up yer arse!"
    • Because who hasn't wanted to say that to an especially pesky Engy?
    • Heavy has a great line when he wrecks an enemy building:
      "More rubble, less trouble!"
  • When the Heavy captures a control point, there's a defiant
    "Come, take it back!"
    • He's just daring the enemy team to challenge him.
• Thanks to the Polycount Update, the Sniper is implied to have killed a crocodile and made two hats and a functional shield out of its teeth and hide.
• You'll certainly feel plenty awesome should you pull off a seemingly improbable kill and/or help your team to victory.
  • Defeating a Demoman chargin' you with a taunt kill. A Sniper stinging him with his arrow perfectly timed, and then yanking the arrow out of the dead Demo's body.
  • For newer players, the first Intel you successfully bring back could feel like this — particularly if the class you're playing as isn't normally an ideal choice for bringing back enemy Intel, such as the Heavy or Medic. These two may even lampshade it if you manage to pull off such a feat.
    Heavy: Not usually my job, but... eheheh.
    Medic: How embarrassing. Zey let a man of science escape with ze papers!
  • Try airblasting an arrow. It's hard, between the arrow's speed, the game's hit detection, and the tendency of Huntsman snipers to peek around corners and give you very little time to react. Now try airblasting the arrow and actually score a headshot with it on the Sniper that shot it at you. Kick. Ass.
    • That not badass enough for you? How about reflect jumping off an enemy rocket, then flareshotting and axtinguishing the Soldier while in mid-air.
  • Sneaking into the enemy Intel Room as an Engie and setting up shop. You are extremely vulnerable without your buildings, and you need to avoid being seen by anyone in an area that should be swarming with enemies, and hope no one is guarding the Intel Room or shows up when you're busy building. If your luck holds out, and the stars align, you will feel awesome at the sight of the enemy Intel Room filled with your teammates.
  • Getting a penetration kill with a fully-charged Machina. The resulting sound effect just seals the deal. And it's heard server-wide.
• The game itself will also play an impressive James Bond-esque stinger whenever you Dominate an opponent, get revenge on a dominating opponent, or earn a new drop item. A dramatic sting accompanied by applause also greets anyone who completes an achievement, along with a trophy icon and confetti over the player's head.
• This video proves that the Sticky Jumper, a weapon that deals absolutely no damage to anyone, is incredibly awesome in the right hands.
  • His teammates' quotes put it better than we ever can:
    BloodRed: "Oh wow."
    MyNameIsMud: "Damn, Gravy. Leave some for the rest of us."
  • The later exchange works, too.
    Matchgrade: "Shit! I didn't even see anybody!"
    MyNameIsMud: "Gravy got all of them."
    BloodRed: "Good God."
• This thread on the Steam forums tells of one player's complaints of an enemy Sniper using an aimbot hack. Everyone in the server is pissed off at this hacker because he gets perfect headshots every single time, in rapid succession. So what did the player do? Put on his "Croc-O-Style" set, an item set that lets a Sniper survive headshots with one HP left. And since the enemy aimbot can only do headshots, the player is now technically immune to headshots. The player then proceeds to dominate the hacker. The hacker switches to Spy fails horribly, and ragequits. And There Was Much Rejoicing!
  • Sadly, this is no longer possible, but the Vaccinator's ÜberCharge can achieve similar results.
• The Phlogistinator is quite polarising. In return for losing your airblast, after burning enough people, you can activate a "Mmph" feature that gives you a few seconds of critical damage. That's certainly enough to kill everyone in your way, so there's a lot of arguing over whether the high-risk play of the lack of airblast justifies the high reward of the damage. Regardless of your opinion, here is the awesome part. When you activate the "Mmph", Pyro raises the Phlogistinator in the air like the default flamethrower, but with added flashy effects, and lets out a triumphant shout. That may sound suicidal mid-battle, but during the taunt, Pyro both regains all his health and is almost invulnerable. The taunt is only a warning to the other team. And what a warning it is. It's quite a sight and quite common to see an entire enemy offensive spin 180 and flee in terror as you stand in the center of the battlefield with Phlogistinator glowing and raised in defiance, knowing they will be burned to cinders if they stay.
  • Kind of demolished if a Sniper or a Spy takes advantage of that split second, however.
  • To some, that'd be awesome on the part of the Sniper or Spy; especially the Spy, seeing as more often than not, they avoid Pyros like the plague.
  • A Heavy can also, in his own moment of awesome, defeat that Pyro if he plays his cards right and has full hp. Yes, it may scare Heavy and his player, but he'll hold, and either win or at least cripple the Pyro enough that he has to retreat.
  • Phlogistinator no longer heals Pyro when Mmph is activated. On the other hand, the Pyro is completely invulnerable during the taunt, so all you can really do is back the hell away.
  • There is, however, one place where the Phlogistinator is unambiguously awesome: Mann vs. Machine. Many a team has managed to rest easy when a Tank shows up while they're busy with a horde of robots, knowing that a Phlog Pyro can single-handedly reduce it to so much scrap metal, and it's incredibly satisfying to taunt up before instantly deleting a swarm of enemies.
• There is nothing more awesome than getting a team of people who are not only good, but are willing to cooperate. People who alert their teammates to any incoming threats. Pyros who spycheck often around the Engineer nests. Medics who do more than just heal one person. Snipers who take down more than just the enemy Sniper. Spies who sabotage any machinery that is within eyesight. Heavies who take care of their teammates. Demomen who set traps or beat the living hell out of anything that dares look them in the eye. Scouts who cap points, Intel, push bomb-carts, and do all they can to be useful. Soldiers who take out sentry nests, Canadians, 'Commies', 'Nazis', and anyone else who looks at them funny. Engineers who build in strategic places and set up dispensers and teleporters for their teammates. Thank you. You are awesome.
  • With the new Mann vs Machine game mode out, this is heavily enforced, allowing for some generally awesome levels.
• The Scenery Gorn of 2Fort Invasion, horrifying as it is, is an utter masterpiece of modelling and destruction.
• The death of LMAObox on April 29th, 2016 is a moment of awesome for the game in general and the people involved. Prior to this, this hack (more specifically its paid premium version) was immune to VAC detection and included just about everything imaginable from ESP to Aimbot to Wallhacks. It also caused people using it to spam "GET GUD, GET LMAOBOX!" to annoy the 13 players they were dominating, as well as automatically changing names to avoid manual bans. Then a player managed to find the source code (which he did completely by accident, no less), sent it to Valve, and mere hours later, all players who had used the hack within the past year were VAC banned (including, frighteningly enough, over 150 top-level competitive players, proving accusations lobbed against them for years). While over time, LMAObox still continued to surface with modifications that make it undetectable by VAC once again, there has been another series of account bans, showing that Valve is at least keeping up with the hack.
• It turns out the Beggar's Bazooka is the Soldier's design. He had assembled it sometime after Merasmus kicked him out of his castle. Considering who we're talking about here, this is mighty impressive. The item's introduction blurb says it all:
  "What is better than killing a man with a highly explosive high velocity projectile launcher? Killing a man with a highly explosive high velocity projectile launcher that YOU HAVE MADE!"
• After going eighteen days without a word from Valve about Rick May's passing, many feared that Valve weren't going to do any sort of tribute for one of their much-beloved voice actors... Until Valve released the "Salute the Fallen" update on May 1st, adding a new main menu theme of the same name (a version of Taps composed by Valve Studio Orchestra) and statues of the Soldier on almost every official map for the entire duration of May.
• After a content drought outside of seasonal events following the Jungle Inferno update in 2017, and the bot crisis of 2020, many people were pessimistic about the game's future. A spark of hope was given with the announcement of the summer 2023 update, that just as quickly dimmed when Valve retracted how large they intended the update to be. Then the update itself hit. 14 new community maps, including four from the fanmade VS Saxton Hale mode now officially supported, along with many new cosmetics. The game immediately smashed its previous concurrent player record.

Class Specific

• Each class is designed for a specific role on the team, and it is awesome when a player successfully uses the class to its fullest ability, especially in game modes and on maps that are ideally suited for the class' skill set.
  • The Scout is the fastest class in the game, and the best Scout players can rack up more kills in one life than most other classes — even the Heavy. The primary weapons of the Scout are hard-hitting and capable of taking out the bulkier classes in just a few shots at close range. What makes Scouts challenging, however, is how fragile they are. Since Scouts can die from a single rocket or a burst of bullets from a Heavy, you are required to use hit-and-run tactics and exploit escape routes on the map to survive. Scout is probably the most challenging of the combat classes in Team Fortress 2 to get good at.
  • While he might not look like it at first, the Soldier is actually very versatile. A wide variety of rocket launchers for different play-styles, a wide array of secondaries geared towards either an offensive or support style of gameplay, with some unique melee weapons for situational combat. Professional rocket-jumping Soldiers can come in from anywhere and blow apart the opposition, and it is the best class to use to deal with Sentry nests in the line of sight but outside of the Sentry's range.
  • As a close combatant, the strongest class is the Pyro and their Flamethrower. A Pyro is most devastating against a group of enemies, burning the entire group with the spread of their flames and — if they have them — getting crits in with their Flare Guns or the Axtinguisher on flaming opponents, or blasting in from nowhere with the Thermal Thruster to rain fiery death from above. Pyros are the ultimate spy-checkers; a small puff of flame more than enough to expose a disguised Spy, is the only class other than Engineer who can destroy sappers, and Spies tend to flat-out run when they see a Pyro in the vicinity.
  • The Demoman is the most versatile class in the game, able to guard Capture Points or Payloads with the Sticky Bomb Launcher and blow up anyone who tries to cap them or to set up ambushes, going Demoknight with a shield that makes you fire-proof to be the ultimate melee combatant, and using the grenade launcher to blow up your enemies. If you don't have a Spy, the Demoman is the go-to individual for dealing with Sentry nests, acting as a human artillery piece able to take power-house shots at the Sentry nest without having to go into their line of fire to do it.
  • The Heavy, while slower than all of his comrades and mainly used for his offensive power, is labeled a "Defense" class for a reason. His mini-guns are the ideal weapon to set against the enemy in Payload when defending, stopping the payload cold by riddling the players moving the cart with a stream of bullets, no matter their numbers. A skilled Heavy can turn a rout into a victory for the defending players, tear through entire teams within seconds, and bulldoze over sentry guns head-to-head, and any Heavy paired with a competent Medic can be a nigh-invincible attacker.
  • The premier defensive class is the Engineer, and the best Engineers can carry entire games depending on how well they safeguard and maintain their buildings. Teleporters allow for quick transportation to the front lines for allies so there are no breathers in the assault, the Dispenser is a good substitute for the Medic and replenishes the ammo of your allies, and his most powerful tool is the Sentry Gun. An automatic weapon of mass destruction, a well-guarded Sentry can maintain a choke point in the map single-handedly. And multiple Sentry Guns, or one well-placed nest, can turn an assault into defeat after defeat for the opposing team.
  • Praised as The Best Class in Team Fortress 2, the Medic earned this title from the skills of the best who use him. Keeping his teammates alive in the heat of battle while still being able to defend himself in one-on-one scrapes, the Medic's Medi-guns offer a wide variety of offensive styles, from making players indestructible to crit-boosting the weapons of allies and slaughtering the opposition. It is not surprising when the winning team is decided by whether or not they have a Medic supporting the team, especially a Medic-Heavy pair. Stalemates are decided by which team's Medic can charge his Über faster and thus put greater pressure out.
  • The Sniper, like the Spy, is an assassin, not a mercenary. Like the Spy, he has a one-shot kill method via head-shotting enemies with his wide array of Sniper Rifles or the Huntsman. He has the SMG for when he needs to deal with any unwanted company, and Jarate to give his teammates mini-crits against the enemy. A skilled Sniper can dominate the opposing team, and he is the bane of most classes, ideally operating outside the effective range of most other weapons.
  • The Spy is one of the most dangerous classes in the game in the hands of those who know how to use him. You cannot see him coming, you do not know when he might be disguised as one of your allies (unless you liberally spy-check), he is nearly impossible to kill, and his back-stab can one-shot any class in the game. Once he does so, he can immediately go invisible and disguise himself again while he goes on to sap all the Engineer's equipment and pick off enemy Snipers. More important is his ability to see the health of his opponents, allowing him to pick off any weakened foes with his revolver. Entire games can be won or lost depending on the skill level of the one playing the Spy.

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