[Forte]

I figured my Sniper guide went well enough to write a second guide for my second most played class, the Engineer. The Engineer's weapons, thanks to lack of an update, are basic and don't even really need to be covered, but playing a good Engineer isn't always something people seem to be able to do.

First things first, let's go over basic Engineering guidelines.

Your Buildings:

Your buildings are your main source of kills, help, and defense for your team. For some reason, many Engineer players I see will build their buildings by letting them autobuild. Perhaps it's just not generally known, but hitting your buildings or the buildilngs of other Engineers with your wrench will build them twice as fast. The effect stacks, too, so if you're helping a buddy build his building, it'll build twice as fast. As a note, build times are as follows (without wrench):

Sentry: 10 Seconds
Dispenser: 20 Seconds
Teleporter Entrance and Exit: 20 Seconds.

This means that a Sentry with two Engineers at it will build in 3 seconds. Even by yourself, your sentry will build in 5. That's a huge difference.

Now on to discussing the buildings in general. I would discuss the sentry, but it's pretty self explanatory. All of the buildings are self explanatory, really, so instead discussing the buildings themselves, I'll talk about the order in which you should build them. The real big question is: How secure is your location? If you're confident in the location and don't see much of a threat coming your direction, then it's reasonable to build your Dispenser first, as that'll provide you with plenty of metal for your future buildings. If it's looking dangerous, it's almost a necessity to build your Sentry first, in order to protect not only yourself, but your newly built Sentry. Normally, the best course of action is to build your Sentry and collect enough metal to build a Dispenser, then begin to level up your buildings from there, but it's all, once again, a matter of where you're at and how well protected it is.

Helping your fellow Engineers is a big part of being an Engineer, too. If you go to a location where you see one of your fellow Engineers building his Sentry, as long as it's not in a ridiculous or useless place, help them build up the Sentry and level it up if you have the resources instead of building up your own. Two level 1 sentries are nothing compared to one level 2, and especially not a level 3.

Before you even leave your base, it's always a good idea to build a teleporter entrance. If you're playing on a map that allows teleporters to be built inside the base, take advantage of that, as it means no enemy spies popping out of your teleporter. On the same note, if you're able to build teleporters inside of your base, don't build teleporters that lead INTO your base, as that's just asking for spawn killing spies (The only maps I know of that allow buildings to be built in the base are Orange_X, Orange_X3, and Orange_Cross, but I've not played on every map ever made).

So where is it that you should build your buildings? Wherever the objective is at the time - Need to protect the intel? Build a sentry in the intelligence room. Your team capped the point? Build at the point before the other team can cap it back. This leads on to the next thing - Dispensers.

Your dispenser is a strange item. It's extremely helpful to you, and at the same time, it's extremely helpful to your team. So the question comes up - do you build my Dispenser for your team, or do you build my Dispenser for you? The answer isn't always easy, and it isn't really easy to find a middle ground. For the most part, it's a matter of teamwork. Are you the only Engineer? If so, your Dispenser has to be used for everyone, so building it in a place that's easy to get to and from is important. If you're not the only Engineer, it's easier to leave your Dispenser somewhere while you move everything else. It's important to remember that when you move your Dispenser, you should alert your team to its new whereabouts, since in some larger maps, it's easy for people to lose you.

As an Engineer, your worst enemies are Spies and Demomen, and the occasional Medic-Heavy/Soldier team. Unfortunately, aside from Spies, there's not much you can do to pick off your enemies, so you'll have to rely on your team to help you out. Whenever a Spy comes around to sap your buildings, remember to get the sapper off of your Sentry first, since that way, if the Spy succeeds in killing you, at least he dies as well. It's worth a shot to attempt to kill the spy, either with your wrench or shotgun, but don't neglect your buildings. If you can, get backup from teammates to help remove the spy. A good strategy is to ask your teammates to show that they're real by firing their weapon before coming over to your Dispenser. As long as your team does as you asked, you'll be able to pick out Spies extremely easily.

Helpful Hints:

Since the Spy update, your Teleporters are sapped from both ends at once, so if you're at the other end of a fellow Engineer or your own teleporter, you can unsap both of them.
Look for places you can build your Sentry without there being any openings that it could be shot at without it returning fire. The most excellent places for this are in corners behind a door or behind walls near Control Points.
Your Wrench has a high crit rate on Spies. Use that.
When you're not building things or repairing them, scout the area and spycheck.
You can easily get on top of your Sentries and Dispensers by jumping and crouching at the same time. From here, it's harder to be backstabbed.

[user681]

fail
you deserve to be banned..