TF2: The Official Scout Weapons Tier List 

By the way, fun fact, If you're in water the atomizer will always mini crit because swimming counts as being in the air :) Forget pyro shark Piranha scout

Reasons I use the Sandman: A) It looks cool B) The taunt kill if I feel like using it C) Another projectile weapon I can practice with And most importantly D) "Hey I found my ball..!"

I personally believe the SOAS should get a ball like the Sandman and Wrap Assassin. Some kind of fire ball that hits someone and burns enemies. Would make more use of the other upside and you get the resistance with it out when you fire the ball.

Are you still going to spin the wheel even when there's only the Engie left?

Fun fact: the sandman's slow down effect sets a class's speed to that of about the same walking speed of a heavy and it slows every class to that speed. It's most effective on scout and is 99% useless on heavy (given the heavy isn't being given a speed boost, have the GRU/EN out, or under the effect of the steak's extra speed)

As a wielder of a Collector's Sun on a Stick, I can assure you that you're incredibly wrong on my dear sir. (Pushes up glasses, rubs hands together, and calls your mom on Facebook) On paper, the sun's stats do look odd, but the actual effectiveness in pubs is quite high. While yes, a Pyro or... Cowmangler, on occasion, is necessary for this weapon to be fully realized, the amount of times I have outlived a Pyro's flames from either his thrower OR his arsenal of flares thanks to the 3 tick to 4, is actually quite surprising. As a class where every HP point counts in whether you live or die, being able to travel further on fire is an immensely useful benefit. Additionally, pyros are in every casual game. There is almost never a time where a Pyro is not present somewhere on a map that is somewhat populated. But what REALLY makes this weapon stand out to me is that it's a crit-mechanic weapon WITH random crits enabled. And because the Scattergun is basically Scout's melee, the Sun takes up a very useful slot when you're not doing a gimmick- and frankly has more effectiveness than fish, wrap, cane (because you don't take more damage), FoW. Is it his best in slot? No, Meta dictates the Boston or Atom, but it's not an E tier weapon. Killing someone with this mechanic is rare, but it feels SO satisfying. I've beaten down Heavy's on fire because their health can't regen as fast with a medic, and see Medic's run in horror as their big friend is brutally beaten. At worst, it's an alternative stock bat, but at its best its easily busted with its output.

The Sandman had the biggest fall from grace, used to be great and justified the -15 health now the only people who use it are either veterans going on a nostalgia trip or new players who've seen old combo videos

back scatter is still my guilty pleasure, it's just like the backburner, the less you actively try to get behind someone the more often it'll happen

Can't believe Zesty didn't even talk about recoil jumping in the Force-a-Nature segment

babe wake up, new zesty tier list

I occassionally use the Sandman to annoy people on Degroot Keep (where I'm already going to die in one random crit swing anyway), this is basically the only use I've ever been able to come up for it.

Pocket Pistol should have been above stock. The health back on hit, like you said, is meh, but that faster firing rate is useful in any situation, and the lower clip size means nothing since the faster firing rate makes you hit more shots.

59:20 For the Shortstop the wiki says... "40% faster fire rate and 40% tighter spread, 20% more knockback from damage, 60% less pellets but each pellet does twice the damage as stock so roughly a 20% damage penalty at base damage, and it's ramp up only goes up to 150% compared to the usual 175%." It should also be noted that crits work differently with this weapon. Instead of 1 shot being a crit... when the random crit get activated you get 2 seconds of guaranteed crits. Enough time to pump out the entire clip btw.

SOAS but, passively, while you're on fire you move faster. Kinda like an Escape Plan for Scout but you just go like Baby Face speed while on fire. Every scout experiences the pain of burning to death in front of a health pack, and this could make for a funny gimmuck weapon.

The stun glitch shouldn’t be an instant “Terrible weapon” label for weapons that slow opponents because, at least in my experience, the vast majority of players don’t think to channel the soul of a scout main and spam A and D really fast when they get stunned. Even people who know about the glitch rarely think to do so in the heat of the moment. I can assure you, the sandman is a terrible weapon for reasons other than that.

I wish Zesty didn’t feel the need to instinctively assume people freak out when he places an item in a tier and felt the need to do that voice thing to acknowledge counter arguments. It happens a lot and it’s just very exhausting. I enjoy when Zest is just enjoying whatever he’s talking about instead, or is a little more restrained in his scripted videos.

Ive literally just been waiting Engi lmfao, the odds are not in my favor

My idea for the sandman is to give it its mvm upgrade of mark for death. Having the duration based on the distance it was thrown and adding back the sandman cleaver combo but without any help from slowing effects.

Scout had to be one of the most heavily adjusted character in this game and he’s still busted, it’s crazy

I think this series is actually important in the TF2 sphere. A lot of your views on balance and design runs contrary to the wider discussion. I don't personally agree with a lot of what you say, but your dissenting voice is refreshing

I wish the sandman wasn’t nerfed so hard, I love the voicelines for it but I just can’t use it

I missed the stream, but my personal fix for the Sandman is to make it stun people if it headshots them. They can still move but can’t shoot. Therefore it takes skill and aim, and you can keep the slow effect on a body shot, I feel that would be fine. And a headshot wouldn’t slow either, it’d be a whole new effect.

Thank god the FaN is super good and has the best rush of dopamine when you land that second shot that never gets old. I hope to god that the comp players don’t make this weapon have a nerf because it’s truly the best weapon

Backscatter is pointless. The number of times I die instantly from a random crit from a scout's scattergun....

I could probably buy tf2 from valve if I have a dollar for everytime zesty says the word "hideously" or "competitive" in his videos.

"Is a balancing mechanic for single fire weapons" Proceeds to list 3 autofire weapons

Sandman is good, because you can crouch or be really close to a wall, then hold down m2. You can hear rapid crack sounds all across the map, and its funny annoying the enemy team.

If there's something I will always be proud is to be the one caused Zesty the breakdown about the milky jokes

Hey man, really enjoy these videos, been getting some amazing sleep while listening to the chill discussions. + algorithm juice.

4:08 should still stun after a certain distance, say 60% of moonshot distance causes shoot stun, and moonshots completely stun. Then it would have a use as an anti-sniper tool, which this game desperately needs more of.

Can’t wait to see you review on the new tf2 Halloween skins

Nice list my dude! :D

I think the sandman could reflect projectiles but slower swing speed and be an inverse of its current state. Instead of being more squishy, reflecting rockets and pills while traveling could make him survive more

Commenting because I'm a simp for your channel Also, c\/m.

Hey zesty, thank you. I have been going through a lot and your content plus tf2 has really helped me.

I think I remember you saying something about being a geologist or something, so i have a question: Does soapstone taste like Dawn or Ivory?

Nice content man, keep it up

Man I can’t wait to see what the next tier list will be!

Why is the first comment just Boston?did I miss something?

I never use the backscatter because I think it’s superior, but I do use it to sharpen up my aim, the -20% accuracy helps you adapt and hit your shots more, especially after switching back to stock. I used it starting out and I definitely recommend to anyone trying to get good as scout

Thank you for the video, Zesty (and editor)

1:00:00 Since it uses the T-shape, it effectively has a tighter spread by sqrt2, because it's missing the further-out corner pellets.

You can actually get an exact spread value from the CTX files. You need a decompiler, but the shortstop has a spread value of 0.04, and the scattergun has a spread value of 0.0675 (~1.7x tighter spread.) The shortstop has the exact same spread value as the pistol.

Hi, thank you for recommending the baby face's blaster, it was actually really fun to use. From my short experience with it I learned that: (I'm probably unoriginal here but…) - The gun is best paired with the flying guillotine, since one hit with this gives you the full boost, which gives you the speed advantage from afar. - Even though you are nearly forces to stay on the ground, don't be afraid to waste your boost in order to dodge a rocket, if you already hit 1 or 2 shots, you can refill your boost with the finishing one. You can also simply use the high ground more often. - The boost can sometimes compensate for your risky double jump in long distance jumps where height doesn't matter much. - You better recycle boost rather than keep your one if you want to get more value, the boost makes you more flexible: you pick your fights, you run away to health packs much faster and the enemy has hard time tracking you down or shooting you before your first shot… Again, I really thank you for "opening my mind" and making me notice how fun scout's variety of weapons can be, this refers to the other tier lists as well. (What do you think? I will be happy to know :)

zesty is probably the most straightforward tf-tuber i seen in quite some time, and i’m here for it.

Genuinely my most looked forward to videos right now. I'm super burned out with university and this helps

Yes lord zesty blessing us with god like content

Potential Rework Idea for The Sandman: + Launches A ball that Inflicts afterburn on whoever it hits for a duration that depends on how far the ball traveled (like in cartoons how a fast moving projectile is on fire. Maybe it could have a little particle effect) - No Random Crits - 25% slower firing speed I feel like this could combo really well with the cleaver (yes ik sandman cleaver combo) since you could get stacking after burn and bleed damage that you could finish them off with your scattergun

Idea for a sandman; what if the stun duration was reversed - the closer you are, the longer the stun will lust. In that situation it would be more like "I have half health, and need to reload. I can't win this battle, have a ball in the face, and don't chase me while I run". So, more like a panic attack in the functionality

i think that the sandman should be given some form of interruption mechanic, for the duration of the slow, it could disable/postpone your ability to: use banners/keep banner effects, use uber/stay ubered (if you arent using stock uber), cloak, charge/keep charging (if you hit a charging demo it will stop them), keep a minigun revved (it would forcefully unrev the heavy and force him to rev again), unscope a sniper, etc you could hit a buff banner soldier during a push and cut like 3 seconds off of his ability to mini crit, you could make a vacc medic uninstall the game, you could hit a building to disable it for a few seconds, cowmangler style, catch a spy lackin and take his ability to cloak away, screw up a heavy's push by unrevving him, put an end to the 50 head demoknight's killstreak by cucking his charge, make a sniper unable to quickscope you when you approach, screw up a kritz uber etc also uber building aside, the BB is literally a direct upgrade if you can land your hits

Having used the pretty boys for almost all my hours on scout you’re completely correct, the health back is sub par but its nice to have a easy way to top your health back off after being chipped

I like the color progression you are going with in the tier list backgrounds. I bet sniper is going to be red!

I find the Wrap Assasin is also good when paired with the Mad Milk. If you can hit a milked enemy with the bulb you get a nice little trickle of health that acts as a small damage buffer.

55:21 At this part where he got to the shortstop, I braced myself for him to tear it apart... But what came next warmed my heart.

Like your dedicated video about the Dragon Fury, I overlooked one weapon. And this is the Shortstop. So I played with it and I was really surprised, but I still think this one and 2 others primary weapons should be lowered on this Tier List. *Shortstop:* Like I just say, I don't think this weapon deserves to be on Tier A, it should be on Tier B at best or lower. It really depends of 3 main factors to me, such as: 1- The gamemode you're playing. Personnally I mainly play on Payload Mode and it can be tricky to use efficiently in general if you really want to top score. Scattergun will be a no brainer here if you want to be reliable in any scenarios. 2 - The level design of a map or a particular section of it, because with the Shortstop it's like you play with a pistol instead of a shotgun, so you can't press 'forward" that much especially in narrow corridors/choke points (compared to the best primary weapons) and if you do so, you're going to take more risks if the enemy is too close to you and probably die more often. You need to really keep your distance to make the most out of it, and it make you automatically backpedal a lot more than you think so it's kinda counter intuitive for that class (Scout by nature is the definition of fat burst damage). 3 - The level of players against you. You can have some tough times against experienced players with more powerful weapons. If you're too close to them, you'll probably die. Like I just said above, my opinion will be based on Payload Mode for the most part. This weapon is useful for scouting and support your team, if for exemple others power classes (mainly soldier and demoman) struggle to focus a nest or shut down a teleporter to cut enemy reinforcements quickly. Due to my tests, I think it works the best when you're in BLU Team, because you can use the cart to heal yourself quite often (and doing X2 on the cart at the same time, which is also important as Scout) while also destroy buildings from far/safe distance quite easily if the engineer isn't near it or when he's busy to build on the next point. So here you use it quite efficiently, since this weapon works the best in these situations. I think the Crit-A-Cola is the best secondary to use with the Shortstop for what I've experienced, because you can pick some busy targets at mid range+, in like 2 shots ! Once again here, these mini crits amplify/enhance the power and strenght of this gun, and reward you with some kills at an unusual distance for that class (compared with others primary, and most people doesn't expect that in the first place). I think this combo is underrated. Nothing is more satisfying and useful than killing a Medic and drop his uber while he think he's safe. And this alone is bonkers ! Last thing about it, the shove and his ridiculous range, I don't know what Valve was thinking about this feature, but it doesn't make any sense since you need to keep your distance with that weapon in the first place. You can push someone from a cliff or into an active sentry gun but chances here are insanely low and risky for you. No really you can forget it. But in general, I think it's better to have a shotgun and a pistol (or any other secondary item), and be almost fine from close range to mid range. With the Shortstop it's like you've 1 pistol instead of a shotgun, or 2 pistol if you pair it with a secondary gun, make you kinda weak at point blank/close range. Losing your ability to land devastating meatshots in close/mid range combat are something to not neglect (and it's quite frequent in TF2 to get caught off guard at the next corner). So in that regard the Shortshop can't be in the top Tier with the best primary weapons. It's a decent weapon but not a weapon I'll use everywhere or everytime. But not gonna lie it's fun to use (especially with Crit-A-Cola). -------------------------------------------- *Baby Face Blaster:* I think I will also lower this weapon to tier C, because you can do well with it but you can also doing bad. This weapon is good if you can choose your fight but in Payload it's rarely the case and anything that hit you (just 1 bullet sometimes) will really hurt your speed boost significantly in most situations. This weapon is pretty good if can you isolate a target on a safe area for a 1v1. I only use it in Red Team, because you've less sentries gun in BLU Team in general. -------------------------------------------- *Backscatter:* That one should be lowered to D. Worst primary weapon imo. 4 shots is a big drawback. When the only upside requires to pass behind someone to crit him. Once you know there's a Backscatter Scout behind you, he's pretty much fucked, you just have to never give him your back to counter his best strength. -------------------------------------------- The End. Other than that great video, you really changed my opinion about the Shortstop. I can't wait for Engineer and Sniper episodes !

25:19 Intentionally or not, Zesty actually made a good Waluigi impersonation there!

I've said it before and will say it again: please keep being a scholar geophysicist, Z. Changing your life to revolve around a fickle social media heat algorithm that panders to the lowest common denominator of watchers, as you said, is a _shitty_ idea.

I really like how your opinions are different than the hundreds of pyro joe clones that make tf2 content

FINALLY!! someone else who loves the shortstop. I didn't like it when I first tried but eventually it just clicked and i started doing REALLY GOOD with it.

Simple change for the sandman: instead of making the ball give a slow effect, have it give marked for death. Essentially, make this weapon a ranged fan of war. You don’t even need to change the downside.

will you mack a video review/rant about the new warpaints from Scream Fortress XIII like the your other warpaint video ?

"Boston basher helps medic build uber" Fist of Steel heavies: Obesrve

*When Zesty Jesus posts a video:* "Say goodbye to your brain cells, chucklhead!"

I really love the playstyle that Spoopybler have with his Force-A-Nature, using it also like added mobility tool with the first shot.

70k subs LESGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO CONGRATS

i have about 120 hours on scout and i never even considered using the Soda-Popper. thanks for educating us scout mains Zesty

Can't wait for you to spin the wheel for the next episode! I wonder what class it'll be.

One thing worth mentioning is how great the Wrap Assassin and the Guillotine pair with the Baby Face, as the initial damage of the cleaver and ornament, along with the bleed damage afterwards, counts as boost. A successful cleaver and full bleed out equal 90% of your boost.

I actually found one use for the sandman that it's actually pretty good at. Hitting a demo knight with the ball while they are mid charge will basically cancel the charge since it changes the charge speed to the speed of a heavy. Once they have no charge, they are basically a free kill. Possible rework idea for the sandman: the ball should have an extra effect on top of the slowdown such as making the person marked for death. The duration of them being marked for death depends on how far the ball has traveled. Remove the -health downside and replace it with something like reduced melee damage. This rework would make the sandman a weapon that is meant for making it easier to get picks off on enemy medics or scouts. Designed for hitting them with the ball then running in to finish them off with your primary weapon.

Those Bionicles are quite possibly the coolest backdrop I've seen from any youtuber.

I’m making notes for how I’d re-balance many unlocks in TF2 (maybe for a mod or something) Perhaps the Sandman could have a Mark for Death effect with the same cooldown as the Wrap Assassin's Bauble, instead of the buggy, hard-to-balance stun. The Backscatter would have Full crits from behind instead on mini-crits, so it does 180 damage on a meatshot from behind Additionally, the accuracy penalty may be replaced with a damage ramp-up penalty (150% instead of 175%, therefore 90 damage on a head-on meatshot, as opposed to 105) Baby Face's Blaster might have a more forgiving boost (Perhaps taking 75 damage would be enough to empty it, and dealing 150 damage would be enough to fill it, and perhaps double-jumping would only take away 25-50% of your boost) Sun on a Stick would provide afterburn immunity instead of fire damage resistance, and more importantly, it would light all nearby players on fire so the crits on burning players would actually matter (It may even ignite teammates, so you could use this to help your pyro heal with Airblast or gain crits with the Manmelter) Force-a-Nature would only deal its boosted knockback on the second shot (So the first shot doesn't push the enemy outside your effective range), but if that ends up being overpowered, I might also lower its rate of fire. Pretty Boy's Pocket Pistol might have more healing (5 per shot, instead of 3), at the cost of damage (10 instead of 15) and ammo capacity (you can only carry ~20 shots with it) Bonk! Atomic Punch would boost your speed like as if you had a fully boosted Baby Face's Blaster while it's active and it would have a shorter cooldown (16 seconds instead of 22) Mad Milk might apply its effects to all players in the area (you could accidentally Mad Milk your teammates or extinguish your enemies). Additionally, if Pyros couldn't reflect Mad Milk in vanilla TF2, they would be able to with this balance mod. The Winger might have greater damage to get more people using it. Crit-a-cola might have the Mark for Death moved to after the duration of the mini-crits, but it's now paired with a 25% speed penalty. Wrap Assassin might be buffed so it's equivalent to the Flying Guillotine Shortstop would have greater fire rate, (Equivalent to Soda Popper/Force-a-Nature), fire 5 shots at once instead of 4, and it would have a stronger shove (equivalent to Force-a-Nature's blast), at the cost of damage ramp-up (No longer has and damage ramp up or fall off)

i luv that intro

Pairing the Cleaver and Wrap Assassin with the BFB is legitimately fun. Even if you're moderately good at landing shots with either weapon, it's enough to get your BFB boost back up even if you get shot

I like how at the end he turns the video into a Mythbusters episode

The bonk can actually be really fun to use for creating some funny scenarios. Like blocking one of the enemy spawn doors on harvest, then watching as 3 or more people flood out the gates and blow you to pieces, or bullying a heavy by body blocking him and using any taunt of choice for added memery, (I have a clip where I used the schadenfreude to body a block a heavy while invulerable right before a soldier blew him up, perfectly re creating the “THINK FAST CHUCKLE NUTS! *FLASHBANG*” meme. You can even body block Ubers at the start of a round on defense, preventing them from pushing up and because it’s so unexpected and they’ve just been ubered, they’ll just stay body blocked for a few seconds before they know what’s going on, and even then you can still keep blocking them with your superior movement speed. Scout has way better alternatives for secondaries, but if you’re playing for fun the bonk has a lot to offer if you think outside the box.

As someone who uses Pretty Boy regularly, it’s really not useful for recovering health so much as it’s used to extend your life as you try to stay in the fight a little longer or try to get away.

I want a playlist of all the different music used in these intros

i love that scout cosmetic and i love how its not halloween restricted

1:00:31 did you or any one else add this or update the wiki? Please do I have not played this game since I got it on the Orange Box and got all the achievements for me and my 2 of my friends I loved this game but I never had the money for a PC but I got one and I got TF2 but I don't know how to play PC games but I've been playing Xbox can I use my controller?

Honestly I think the PBPP is BETTER than the stock pistol. The extra speed for the unnoticable mag reduction is so good for the gun's uses and the health on hit is just a cherry on top. You'd be surprised how far 20+ hp will get you in a fight: it greatly extends your combat effectiveness alone because you keep yourself topped up.

Shortstop random spread is probably the same as all shotguns, it's just that it lacks the pellets that make the pattern wider overall for other shotguns. As you showed with the fixed pattern, the pellets that are there are at the same distance from eachother as the same pellets in another shotgun pattern.

Finally my main Ill comment on your OFFICIAL list once im done

The backscatter technically has 3 downsides: -minicrits only apply at close range -2 less clips(it says 34% less clip when it should say 33%) -minus 20% spread

Is there a website where I can see what stats a weapon USED TO have? I remember things like the PBPP canceling fall damage, but I wanna see all the weapon's old stats.

I like the difference between the soda popper and the stock. The soda popper always felt like a more versatile version of the backscatter, with it killing most enemies in two meatshots which come out nearly as fast as a heavy fires. It's got a faster reload speed so it's less punishing and instead more fun, and it's 'niche' of letting you jump a whole ton is just incredibly fun to use especially in battle. The only reason I ever want stock over soda popper is in 1v1 scenarios where the second soda popper shot is harder to hit making the extra availible shot from stock much more valuable. It's especially good of a weapon when paired with the sustain of the stock pistol or even just stock melee since usually scouts can't be so bad they miss their primary and secondary.

For the sandman, I always thought it would be cool if you could charge it and if it is fully charged it stuns them and prevents shooting like it used to, for a flat 1.25 seconds and replace the -15 hp with 20% slower holster speed.

As someone who's recently used the backscatter quite a bit recently just to give myself a bit of variety, honestly the bullet spread isn't the thing that hurts it much, if you're close enough to the enemy you don't really notice it. Those 4 shots make it basically impossible to go from one enemy to the next and you have to be way more careful where you run in

For some reason when you said the bit about Atomizer's aerial minicrits it sounds like Mrs. Pauling saying "And you were having a prom for some reason?"

What if you remove the baseball from the sandman, but let it able to reflect other projectiles? Maybe give it a meter and it can hold up to 2 charges? Have the downside be a slower swing speed?

Man I love the Force of Nature because of the added movement, but rarely used it because I always heard the Scattergun was leagues better for damage, but now after learning about where the extra bullets are located for the firing pattern I may have to try playing it more.

Hey @Zesty Jesus, I had an idea of how to bring back the old sandman cleaver combo and not make it hideously unfair so I’d like your opinion. To bring back the one two punch I’d say make the ball Mark someone for Death with the duration scaling with distance, and then give the cleaver a Crits whenever it would Minicrit stat. That way scouts get to have a skillful combo and the opponent is still able to fight back and retaliate.

As a fellow FaN enjoyer, I resonate with Zesty. That knockback you take from firing the FaN in the air is just extra mobility if you know how to use it properly. Forget the Winger or the Atomizer, this thing can launch you further than the two of them combined.

I’m convinced the zesty man does that community online voice as a form of therapy with how much he does it lmao

have 2 ideas for the sandman. 1st. When the ball hits an enemy, they are given a vulnerability which scales with how far away they are from the scout and moonshots mark for death. This effect would last for say 5 seconds and it would put an arrow above the player you marked so your team can target that person and help you keep track of them. 2nd idea. The ball's damage is based on how long it's been in the air. Say it starts at 15 but increases to say 50 with moonshots.

my argument for random bullet spread on shotguns: shotguns are by definition random bullet spread. it's a gun that spews buckshot from a large tube that go in a random pattern in that cone. if you want fixed pattern you have the panic attack. the backscatter sounds good on paper but suffers the hitbox spaghetti curse. just make the spread regular or hell maybe tighter and boom problem fixed. sun on a stick is good for the scorch spammer. melee scout, i want scoutknight. get a set that replaces the primary that gives better melee stats. no shotgun primary would definitely balance that out. candy cane is fun to scout knight with as you just sponge damage with the milk but if there's more than one explosive class you're screwed. FaN jumping is fun too.

35:42 You’re half right, comp players cried about it because if a scout overextended, he could duck around a corner, drink, and run away back to his team.

Loving all the videos you are putting out lad, i dont know how mich one comment helps the algorithm but im happy to help just by typing

I think the candy cane works really well with the shortstop and the mad milk for a sort of supportive, long range scout

Perhaps the Sandman ball can mark people for death? Bit like a Fan-o-War but from a distance