It was a unique and awful night playing Expert Mann vs Machine. One of my lesser tour friends always invites me to play, but whenever I jump in, the lobby is full. Its agrivating, but not his fault. So instead I drop in for a quick game on a paid public server. The first server was on the fifth and final wave of Mannworks expert. I was surprised, because teams normally get stuck on the third wave with super scouts and tanks at the same time. Oh no not this one.
They wanted a second pyro, so that’s what I was, two pyros for the four tanks that come out two at a time. Well we quickly lost. So I went heavy and again, we quickly lost. The team couldn’t hold the line. We were overrun before the tanks. Then once the engineer left along with two others, two high toured level 200 players dropped in followed a clueless player. The clueless player didn’t know what to do, so the higher of the 200 tour players suggested a soldier for the tanks, because its all about damage.
Well here’s the problem, the wave has air blast pyros which blow rockets back in our faces. We gave it a go and lost. No one changed from their classes. I was still stuck as engi, which is fine. The team leader with the highest tours went demo. I need to start practicing demo myself, but this isn’t the team to do it.
We always would get pushed back to the point where the robot enemies drop the bomb and we lose. So to compensate, I always put my sentry on the perch above the point. That way it kills enemies about to sink the bomb and enemies before they get to that area.
Well the top tour player had a problem with that. He felt that I should put my sentry closer to the point and not perched up there, because the sentry could fire at enemies that aren’t close to the point while a robot on the point sinks the bomb. Its a logical argument…. if I didn’t know for a fact the sentry prioritizes enemies close to the point higher than enemies away from the point. I have seen my sentry shooting an enemy away from the point, then when an enemy comes into range closer to the point, the sentry will turn and shoot that enemy, then turn to the previous enemy and keep shooting it. The sentry will go back and forth with the only issue being the quick turn time.
Putting a sentry near the point results in the possibility of the engineer dying and a sentry buster will blow up the entire team with the sentry. Not just that, but if they don’t blow up with the sentry, then there is all the smoke and debris from the buster. Its just a disaster waiting to happen.
To keep the peace, that’s what I did put it next to the point, because with the bomb so close to the point, I couldn’t put it on the bomb. That’s just what happened, it blew up, killed the entire team and we lost the round. So the next time I put it on the perch and what did I hear? You may think you’re doing something up there, but you’re not its not defending the point.
Once again, I put the sentry next to the point. I would also like to say that the closer an enemy is to the sentry, the more damage it does to the sentry. So having it far away helps keep the sentry alive. Even if its by the point, it can be far away. The sentry damage has no degradation like everyone else has shots have damage distance degradation. There is another problem with having the sentry at ground level next to the point and that’s collecting explosives from pipe bombs. Robotic demo men shoot pipe bombs and with the sentry on the ground that makes it easy to destroy, but up above the point on the perch, its more difficult for them to lob their bombs up there. That doesn’t mean its impossible, just improvable.
It was a struggle, but we completed that mission only to have a far bigger struggle on the next mission. I’ll save that for next time though.
Games That I Play 