Hey all,

So onto a new class for the walkthrough, the Heavy. The biggest, strongest class in the game. As a heavy you will be knee deep in the fighting as much as possible. You are right at home swinging your minigun at 3 or four enemy targets all of whom are focused on you.

As the heavy you enjoy the most starting health per class, you also have the ability to deal huge amounts of damage in a relatively short period of time with your mini gun, You can tangle with short and medium range classes no problem. If a medics around you are close to invincible, only a HUGE amount of damage and focus will bring you down. As such you are the frontlines most of the time, You will be in the action constantly and will be in your enemies crosshairs more then any other class on average.

Have no fear though, like I said above you can suffer incredible amounts of damage before going down, you are slow moving, but that does not matter so much when you are dictating the frontlines, or trying to at least.

Your prey are...well everyone. Anyone stupid enough to be close to you are fair game and easy pickings most of the time, especially if a medic is with you. you will find engineers, soldiers, demomen, pyros go down fast when you point your gun at them. Scouts, spies and medics even faster. Other heavies...well whoever keeps their cursor on the other the most wins, unless one of you is damaged from a previous battle...or has a medic healing.

You will notice I did not mention snipers...they are the bane of heavies everywhere at a distance, your slow movement coupled with their sniper scope means you will go down usually in one hit if they are a decent sniper. Snipers are your arch nemesis and will offer you a lot of aggravation if you do not know how to deal with them. The most obvious method is to find another way around where you are not exposed or can engage them

at closer range. If this is not an option you can wait for a spawn wave and zig zag to cover with your comrades, not always the best solution but sometimes necessary. The best solution out there is a medic healing you to "uber" which is when the medic makes you invulnerable for a short period of time, allowing you to move up on a heavily defended region, or closer to an annoying sniper. I mentioned engineers earlier as your prey...and they are easy pickings when they are not accompanied by a sentry. When they have a third tier sentry set up they can cause you a lot of frustration. You can do quite a bit of damage to them in a head on assault, but its difficult to kill em before they kill you. That's where your better half comes in again, the medic. They can allow you to take out all but the strongest fortified point by head long charge and healing while you reap your damage on the sentries. Better yet get an uber charge from a medic and do it all with little or no damage to you or your medic. Before I finish off this section on your top enemies, I will make small mention of spies, they can kill you one hit with their backstab...but if you are playing your class properly they should have little chances to do so, they would be much wiser to pick off enemies that are not in spawn waves or accompanied by other enemies...which is exactly where you should be

Now I cannot stress this enough, if you don't have a medic you are not maximizing your abilities as a heavy. If you join a server, go heavy and no one is a medic. Ask, some may jump at the chance at the score potential, others may be goaded. Finally, remember your place as a heavy, you are the frontline, others should be following you or supplementing you as you push forward, don't wander off and do some Rambo tactics. you may get a few kills, but your easier to defeat this way and less effective against the enemy.

hope this helps some of you, look for my next article on the walkthrough in the next couple days.

also, happy bday to me :)

cheers,

Z