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Engineer, Spy, Heavy, Sniper, Scout, Soldier, The official group picture from Valve, featuring the (from left to right): Pyro Demoman , and the Medic

“

— The Heavy Are you dangerous like Heavy, or coward like Scout? ”

There are nine official classes that can be played in Team Fortress 2; they are as follows:



Official classes

Class roles

All nine classes are grouped into three specific combat types, offensive, defensive, and support but all can be played outside their assigned role depending on the player's choice of strategy.

Offensive

Offensive classes (Scout, Soldier, and Pyro) are the main attack force of the team. Whether it's assaulting Control Points or grabbing the Intelligence, these classes focus on mobility. Scouts have the ability to capture points twice as fast as any other class and can get there with their top-tier speed and double jumps. Soldiers pack a punch with their devastating Rocket Launchers, and can attack from unexpected directions by rocket jumping. Pyros can wreak fiery havoc in enemy ranks with a well timed ambush or extinguish their own burning friends, and offer the highest speed/health ratio of all classes (barring buffs or nonstandard equipment).

Defensive

Defensive classes (Demoman, Heavy, and Engineer) serve to inhibit enemy access and to hold enemies back from vital points on the map. Overall, the defensive group has the most firepower of all the groups. Demomen can safeguard areas with stickybombs that they can detonate when enemies come by. Heavies are great for mowing down incoming troops and pushing back forces. Heavies can also keep enemies in an area while whittling their health for teammates to finish off. Engineers can build Sentry Guns for effective area defense, as well as build Teleporters and Dispensers for logistical support of the team.

Support

Support classes (Medic, Sniper, and Spy) cannot hold the fight on their own, but their specialized abilities can tip the balance in their team's favor. They offer the offensive and defensive classes an extra edge in battle and can help turn the tide of the game. Whether crippling the enemy advance from behind or keeping teammates healed, the support classes are always handy to have around. Medics offer a mobile means of healing for teammates, capable of overhealing them to 150% of their maximum health, and can provide a range of buffs such as invincibility, 100% critical hit rate, 300% healing rate as well as immunity to movement impairing effects, or 75% resistance to bullets, explosions, or fire. Snipers can eliminate key targets from a distance and use Jarate to extinguish teammates on fire and increase the damage dealt to the enemy. Spies can infiltrate enemy lines undetected, disable and deconstruct buildings, and assassinate critical menaces.

Random

The Random role randomly selects one of the nine classes for you, it can be used when you're not sure who to play, it's a great way to get familiar with the characters.

Health points

Class health points comparison

The "All class" portrait, featuring one of each class type.

A Medic with the Medi Gun, Kritzkrieg, or Vaccinator may overheal a teammate to 150% of their normal health maximum. The Quick-Fix can overheal up to only 125% of a teammate's health, but can still maintain fully overhealed health created by the Medi Gun, Vaccinator, or Kritzkrieg. If hurt, a player can refill their health through a number of ways.

Speed

Escape Plan speed values vs. health

Speed is measured in-game using the command cl_showpos 1 , measuring in velocity units (v.) The standard movement speed is 100% (that of the Engineer, Pyro, and Sniper). Note that forward speed is obtained by pressing the forward, left, or right keys, the backward speed is obtained by pressing the backward key, while crouching speed is found by pressing the crouch button. Backward speed is generally calculated by 90% of the class's forward speed, while crouching is at 33%. Forward and backward speeds are the same when crouching or charging/zooming as a Sniper. During humiliation, all classes on the winning team will move 10% faster and all on the losing team will move 10% slower.

All normal forward speeds are capped at 520v or 173%; backwards-capped at 468v or 156%; crouched at 173.33v, or 58%; swimming at 416v, or 139%.

For Spies, disguising as a slower class (Soldier, Pyro, Engineer, Sniper, Demoman, or Heavy) will accurately reduce the Spy's speed to the appropriate speed of the class he is disguised as, e.g. the Spy disguised as the Heavy will move to the speed of Heavy, and remain at that speed unless he breaks disguise or cloaks. Disguising as a faster class (Scout), however, will not make the Spy move faster and he will continue to move at 107% speed (Spy`s default speed). Disguising as a player wielding a weapon that increases move speed (eg Powerjack or Overdose) will show the disguised Spy as carrying the weapon, but will not actually increase speed.

A Demoman wielding the Eyelander, Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker, or Nessie's Nine Iron will gain approximately 7% of his base speed with every kill or "head" taken with it. While charging with the Chargin' Targe or Splendid Screen equipped, he moves at 250% of the standard movement speed. The Soldier's speed while wielding the Escape Plan increases by 10% with every loss of 40 health below 200.

A Soldier who has activated the effects of the Concheror nearby their teammate, or has hit a teammate within the last 4 seconds with the Disciplinary Action, will allow the teammate and the Soldier himself to move up to 140% of the speed they normally would.

A Medic who has any secondary weapon equipped will be able to match the speed of any faster-moving teammate while they are connected by the healing beam.

Class speed comparison

Size

A height chart for all the classes.

All classes have varying height, with the Engineer being the shortest and the Heavy being the tallest of the classes for the purposes of tracing Hitscan weapons. Classes also have various builds and general body sizes; each class has their own individual set of shaped hitboxes used for bullet-based attacks.

However, for the purposes of collisions with objects, players, melee attacks, and projectiles, all classes are considered to be the same width and height. This also means that no class has an advantage or disadvantage when it comes to navigating corners or tight spaces.

May 21, 2008 Patch

Improved prediction of Spy's speed changes when disguising.

January 6, 2011 Patch (Beta)

Player health increased 100%.

January 13, 2011 Patch (Beta)

Player health increased 25%. (over normal – not the previous 100% increase)

February 11, 2011 Patch (Beta)

Restored player health to normal values.

June 27, 2012 Patch (Pyromania Update)

[Undocumented] Increased the running speed cap from 450HU/s to 520HU/s.

July 7, 2016 Patch (Meet Your Match Update)

Spy max speed increased to 320 (from 300).

Unused content

In 2017, Drew Wolf, a former Valve design artist, updated his personal website and uploaded some concept art of the female version of the classes created by him.[1] According to the note made by Drew Wolf, there used to be "an internal pitch project" made by Valve "to bring female characters to the cast of Team Fortress 2", and "the goal of the project was to dive deep into possibilities and facilitate creative discussion". However, Drew's artwork does not include the Pyro class, as its gender is still unknown.

A console variable named tf_player_use_female_models was found in the game's source code that is related to the female classes. The console variable would haved modified the loading of player models to append _female to end of the player model filename, for example scout_female.mdl .[2] This is supported by the console variable's description; "For testing. Appends '_female' to the model filename loaded"[3] The only known existing official model of any female class is that of the Soldier. The model was created in 2009 and nothing else came of it.

Gallery

Concept art of female Scout.

Concept art of female Demoman.

Concept art of female Engineer.

Concept art of female Soldier.

Concept art of female Heavy, Scout, Soldier and Medic.

Concept art of female Demoman, Heavy, Spy, Engineer and Medic.

Concept art of female Demoman, Scout and Engineer.