@@davidhong1934 Spy getting caught is not really a middle finger, more like a minor annoyance for whoever killing him. Scout running up to you and marking you for death whilst near his teammate, now that's a 'Fuck this guy in particular as I die stupidly' as his teammate fired at the guy that being marked and dying soon after.
@@depsydawn9206Pairing bonk with the fan o war is a fun meme strategy that can be quite annoying because the millisecond the bonk wears off you swing and then either try to shoot them or die. In highly-competitive matches where some guy is getting a little too cocky and moving forward, you can use this strategy on them to scare them away or take them out of the battle for a little bit if they're mini-critted.
You have completely missed the two reason I personally will swap to the Fan - Snowballing demoknights and kunai spy’s. Both are fast, have a ton of health, and are difficult to take down for a scout solo, but once they’re marked for death (which is easy for a scout to do, considering they’re both melee play styles) both of these play styles are invalidated by a bit of focus fire. If there’s a demoknight or kunai stomping the server you’re on because of clueless teammates, this can shut them down swiftly.
And if you use the baby face's blaster and the flying guillotine, you can outrun demoknights, and spies will have a harder time stabbing you. All while inflicting mini crit bleed damage.
One of my friends used to constantly torment us with the Fan O' War. He has a Strange Professional Killstreak one named "Buenos Dias Fuckboy". You'd be minding your own business, then suddenly, you'd be marked, and dead
Honestly if you could just mark multiple people for death it'd be way better. If Sniper gets to mark a medic and his pocket for death by tossing a projectile that recharges every 10 seconds, scout should be able to do the same if he runs in and manages to make his melee work.
@@Luksed12He didn’t say Scout should get to use Jarate, lmao. Giving the Fan O War the ability to mark more than one person wouldn’t even put it on Jarate’s level, or even close to it anyway.
and scout has a lot of problems with range, so maybe they should make a scattergun that has really tight spread, and a scope, and it can hit headshots.
@@Epic_Peter-rm1whwell duh It is a fan and technically uber is made with jarate in deleted medic scenes. So marking multiple people isnt too far fetched but it needs A BUFF. marked for death is redundant when CRIT A COLA exists.
8:56 People tend to ignore bonk scouts? Half the time I use it the entire enemy team flies into a rage and hunts me down until it wears off. Which is useful as well, as it makes for a good distraction, but yeah we have different experiences with the weapon.
On the Bonk video, there was a guy in the comments who would do nothing but taunt at enemies while high on Bonk before retreating to repeat the process I think that's where the rage is coming from
I swear, the bonk is like the quintessential salt weapon. Just successfully retreating behind the enemy lines with it once and killing someone will make them hunt you down afterwards and wait for the slow effect to come in so they can kill you easily, and half the time they will taunt you afterwards. The slow effect was WAY overkill. I still can't get over the fact they nerfed the BONK of all weapons, which was a fun weapon designed to encourage Scouts to a flank-oriented playstyle. Now you get punished for being hit while bonked, while the entire purpose of the weapon was to take damage that would otherwise cripple or kill you, allowing any half-assed attempt by the enemy to follow you and wait until you're as slow as a slug to finish you off. All of the Jungle Inferno nerfs for Scout except for the crit o cola were stupid honestly.
@@JeffarryLounder this is because Jungle Inferno balance changes were informed by the competitive community, and scout is borderline broken in competitive play
There is no TF2 player i've heard of that would ignore an enemy player running at you, not attacking you, making super obvious VFX, that they know is going to be slowed to a crawl and potentially try put a shotgun into your back. Not to mention how prone a lot of players are to doing something such as spending several minutes to hunt down a spy in their spawn area even if they're getting sieged in the frontline.
@@milsharkie And yet it is stupid how they made competitive-oriented balance changes and applied them to Casual when the issue was in competitive. All they had to do was go through with weapon bans in Valve competitive matchmaking (although matchmaking in general was a stupid idea), but instead they decide that's impossible for some reason, and nerf weapons into the ground to "bridge" the two totally-different communities. And the nerfs in question were so half-assed and badly-implemented I genuinely have zero clue what they were thinking when they did them. If they REALLY wanted to nerf the bonk for whatever stupid reason, they could've made it deal minicrits upon wearing off or something, which would have still kept the initial design philosophy in mind and not made it totally redundant by straight up slowing you down so the enemies you ran past could catch up to you anyway! It was such a pathetic, shoddy attempt on Valve's part and I'm still salty they left us on that note for all these years afterwards. All it did was kill a lot of fun playstyle options Scout players had in Casual when he already lacked a lot of variety, especially in his melee slot.
On top of FoW in MvM: Sandman's "death mark on ball hit" upgrade will ALSO apply to regular hits. So you've got a better Fan'o'War with projectiles that can completely stun giants if thrown correctly. Yes, it costs 500 bucks, but as a Scout what else you can dump your money in anyway
Uh maybe resistances milk upgrades or scatter gun upgrades Especially the scatter gun upgrades that are by far the thing you should upgrade the most and it's also really expensive
Milk costs 1k to upgrade, speed and jump is another 900, relevant resistances are 900 each too and it's way more important than ranged fan o war that requires 500 bucks and has 0 benefit as scout already is fastest class in the game and has 600+ hp at all times and resistances make him unkillable even if you are braindead and can't dodge anything for a single melee hit on a giant robot. Oh yeah, there's also soda popper upgrades... It's really infuriating when scout is braindead and doesn't realize that he makes soldier and medic irrelevant just by existing. Heavy can solo tank any giant in the game if he has resistances and scout keeps applying milk with mark for death but nooo I'm a braindead scout I must be worthless and do literally everything but that... But sure, you can get sandman if your projectile aim is perfect, then, in exchange of buying resistances, you upgrade your scattergun earlier, never saw a scout intelligent enough to do such a thing however.
@@shinobuoshino5066 yeah and isn't it also the fact that why get a ranged fan o war when scout is anyways meant to be up close and collect money so why do it at range when you can do it up close anyways since that's the point where scout is the most effective
I think the idea of hitting someone unaware of you to reward you with an easy fight is neat, but if you're behind someone and initiate with a scattergun shot in melee range instead of setting up marked for death, you'd probably win the duel anyway. Still, I'd call it an upgrade over stock bat outside of rare situations where you actually are fully out of ammo and NEED to kill with the bat now or you lose the fight.
I feel like the main draw is that even if you ended up losing the duel, the rest of the team can still help you clean up the target. It kinda has to be awkwardly limiting because otherwise the ability to supply team-wide minicrits on command would just break the game in half. Jarate was already stupid enough and now imagine getting the equivalent on a class as mobile as scout
@@darkness74185 tbf if you could mark an unlimited amount of targets with the Fan of War, it would still be fairly balanced considering that as strong as scout is at practically melee range, he needs the scattergun to make getting to that range worth it. the FoW requires you to get into the biggest 50/50 in a fight for scout just to mark them and deal a smidgen of damage, letting you mark as many people as you can means scout makes his trip worthwhile since that means everyone is now ready to be sweeped out by you or by your team
The only use case I can see for it is a situation where there's an extremely important and durable target (such as an engineer holding a point your snipers can't pin down, or a heavy with a pocket medic who is blocking an important route) and your team can't muster a kritz or buff banner in enough time. In that case, moving in to give them a swing so the others can clear out is an option (though in the first case using Bonk to distract the sentry would be a way more beneficial play depending on team coordination)
The FoW is also a straight upgrade over stock bat in a no-crit server. No 100 crits, so... Also a straight upgrade in an instant-respawn server, make them afraid of respawning. Also if someone has a killstreak or is dominating you, there you go. 8:20 Or you can jump over your target, so they look away from where you're about to be.
Something Valve should add (because it would be fun(ny), not because it would be good) is “getting a FoW hit causes damage to not reduce your Babyface’s meter for a couple of seconds “.
Both scenarios are really funny and helpful No chase = time to play fast spy Chase = distract enemies the more the better. Kill or damsge a few and watch enemies chase you down like their life depended on it.
Honestly for a while now force-cleaver-fan has been my favorite way to run scout especially in hightower-style deathmatch scenarios. It has enough meme-status to feel like a fair fight, but I love how the force just kills people marked for death (how a sawn-off shotgun SHOULD feel tbh), even heavies become a reasonable target if you can get that first hit off.
You can kill most classes with two close-range soda popper shots anyway, but there are some niche uses for the combination such as when there's a more powerful opponent like a Soldier or Heavy that you're not sure you'll be able to kill in time before they turn around.
I really like the idea of the fan because it makes sense for a scout. Just give someone a “screw this guy in particular” mark, and now he’s easier to kill no matter who is going after him.
Which is pretty bad as a scout you should be flabking on sides snipers medics or behind lines. Unless your team is pushing that marked for death will go to waste. Outside of heavies or say spies medics (which if you can reach em theyre pretty much dead) every other class can get pretty roughed up even without the fan unless pot shots at mid range or chip damage at longer ranges.
I use this thing RELIGIOUSLY. It’s an excellent equalizer for combos making a fight with overhealed classes way easier to take, often taking a whole shot less. Or making a twitchy and slippery enemy that much easier to hit and it makes the pistols ammo cap much less punishing to use as more than a finisher. Of course don’t test your luck, running at people still gets you killed, but you’d be surprised how many people have died to my Mark or have been forced to retreat lest that get beamed by no damage falloff bullets. I’m already teying to get in their face and if they manage to kill me first then they’re marked and super vulnerable to my team. IMO its one of scouts best melee options where the downsides of most aren’t worth the benefit(aside from batting Christmas ornaments for free).
limited use case weapons wouldn't be bad if you didn't have to give up other choices for them. but scout has atomizer, wrap and basher, and pyro has literally any other secondary. that's why fan and gas are bad.
I'm absolutely cracking up at you saying "After a.. short break" at 0:37. I forgot exactly HOW DAMN LONG IT HAD BEEN XD, good to see the series back though, love ya Fish
I wanna add that in Vs Saxton Hale, fan of war is pretty decent. Especially in a game mode where teamwork is needed to beat the 30K health tank. Mark for death is so good, also you don’t need to worry about other enemies since…there’s only one
The fish is seriously underrated. I once gave a medic lifelong trauma by random critting them with a fish… right before they were about to pop uber for a push.
Honestly I love the fan, just because sometimes it's really fun. That cleaver combo is just so so delicious. Also it can genuinely be the best for slapping a pocketed heavy since it really helps the team beam them down
One thing about MvM: The Fan can actually prove to be really effective, since snipers are usually perched far away from the drop zone and the META Soldier loadout includes the Concherer.
This is what I was gonna say, plus even if the solider is running buff banner hitting an enemy with the fan is a lot quicker then tooting a buff banner horn and it frees up the solider to use the buff banner for things other then giant slaying
If I recall correctly the fan of war used to last for quite a bit longer than 15 seconds. One of my first killstreak weapons was the fan so I used it a lot and now I like it quite a bit. Situational but fun.
Hey FishStickOnAStick! Good work showcasing your personal experience and opinion with the Fan-O-War. Regarding your ‘Bad Weapon Academy’ videos however, I’m not really convinced that this is a bad (or at least was considered bad) weapon. One question I have for example is: Why should I not use this to support my team in contrast to Scout’s other melee options?
@@bootlegdagut Thanks for your feedback. I am aware that the video well explained the issue of your team following up with the debuff, and that's why I'm wondering specifically why some of scout's other melee options are better for support.
@@musicboy8153 I don't think Scout has any other "support" melees other the Candy Cane but what makes it "better" than the Fan of War is because Scout benefits a lot more from healthpack on kill than dealing slightly more damage to a single enemy, but the Candy Cane still has the downsides of being oneshot by explosives, the enemies can take your health packs and your teammates might not even notice the healthpacks.
@@musicboy8153 The only others that support your team are the candy cane, sandman and the wrap assassin. The benefit of the sandman and wrap assassin over the fan of war are that their support capabilities use a ranged projectile so they dont put you in danger trying to apply their respective debuffs. The candy cane's health packs are a passive benefit as they do not require you to switch to the candy cane itself for enemies to drop the health packs, you just need to equip it. Whether they are better for support is up to your own judgement
There was a part somewhere at the start which sounded like he's really only focused on the Scout's ability to duel enemies with it equipped instead of switching up the playstyle to get in through a flank, fan someone, and get the hell out. Feels like it's such a "me first" way of thinking, as if you can't have a weapon that helps your teammate focus on one highlighted enemy better.
5:26 with an important enemy mark him for death leave the jarate for the rest of the enemies or even on the same enemie as the marked for death effects ends
Thanks for the video fish stick! I know you probably won’t see this but you and the rest of the tf2 community really helped me out of my depression! I can’t wait for future videos
I usually use the FOW with the madmilk and FAN in vsh as a support scout. It's very easy to get all of your debuffs in since hale is most often focused on the bigger classes and groups, so you can easily catch him by surprise. and on most maps a FAN shot afterwards will just send him flying.
Probably the easiest way to make the fan better would be removing the 1 target limit for the marking... So a Scout can try to sneak up on and tap an entire group to set them up. Probably should shorten the mark from 15 to like 10 seconds with that though.
Honestly, I’ve gotten a lot of use out of this melee in conjunction with the Pistol and Babyface. Getting a cheeky bonk in gives me the opportunity to get more boost when I can land my shots, and it helps with juking out the enemy and chipping them down as well.
I love Fan O' War because I am a fan of humiliating my enemy and announcing their defeat to the entire server. No wonder strange for this weapon costs so much, what an intimidating power
Something to mention for MvM Scout, it's that as the waves progresses and credits pile up, the Sandman becomes a better version of the FoW because of the (500 credit) upgrade allowing the balls to mark the target they hit for death. So you basically have a ranged FoW that also slows robots.
I believe fan o' war is a great weapon for teamplay. This weapon is not for uh, it's user's benefit. It allows you to let your team focus a specific enemy you marked for death, and deal with other enemies by yourself at the same time. Sure it's easier and more effective to shoot enemies right away instead of first marking them for death and only then shooting, but that's not how this weapon should be used. As teamplay mostly lacks in casual tf2, and despite that i'm not a competitive player and never played it, so i might have a wrong picture about it, but i think that fan o' war may be the best melee weapon for scout in a competitive setting, where you and all of your teammates have a voice communication. You flank enemy team, mark one target with fan o war, tell your team who you've marked, and while your team deals with the marked enemy, you can deal with others. Damage bonus and lack of damage fall off for mini crits makes it a lot easier to focus a specific enemy and so much faster too.
I used to run the Fan o War with Baby Face in a flank heavy playstyle where I would use the boosted movement speed to tag people that are currently fighting my teammates, was honestly pretty fun.
Another thing to remember is that this isn't the only melee that turns minicrits into crits. Meaning the bushwacca will crit marked enemies. Got a friend as sniper with me a few times to do this. It's not as good as jarate most of the time, but we have had someone accuse cheating.
Best support melee for Scout, run this with the BFB and do hit and runs in the heat of battle. Pair with milk for further support or hatchet for big damage and regain speed buff.
I hate to admit it but your videos are one of the only ones I can actually watch in one sitting with my exponentially decreasing attention span. Good job.
Speaking of the disciplinary action, maybe the Fan o' War could provide Scout with a speed boost on melee hit. To reward you for connecting the hit with the opportunity to get away and let your team get the opponent, or give you the much needed juke potential to reload and win the 1v1
Honestly don't think this one, the Huo Long, or the Sydney Sleeper are that bad. I use the Huo Long more than all other miniguns and it's nowhere near as bad as people think tbh
I think my favorite use for this weapon is kind of situational but something I love doing. Just flanking an enemy group, slaping their medic and running away like an annoying distraction. It is so funny seeing the enemy medic panic sometimes.
One thing I like with the long duration of the debuff, and everyone's full understanding of the danger it presents to them, is in cases where you land the hit but flop the kill, the marked target has little recourse but to retreat, or fight while under life support. Nailing a medic or his pocket with this is especially good, even if the move is undeniably the most riskiest one; it'll force them to make a decision that effectively lasts the duration of a respawn. I've seen far too many players have to retreat from the frontline because they got marked; it's a great way to take someone out of the fight.
Also, I find the mark for death one at a time thing completely ludricrous if Jarate can completely mark a whole group for death in nearly the same time as the Fan O War. With the Fan O War, it's a melee weapon that costs risk and skill to hit a group since your range is limited. Meanwhile, Jarate can do the same thing in just one click depending on aiming of the arc.
From what I get from these clips, you can end the engagement at medium range rather than close-range, allowing you to dodge, juke, and retreat from your late target’s teammates with ease. Heck, with a good enough juke during the start of the fight, you could hit your target as you’re passing by. It would make them look in the wrong direction.
One idea I had was to allow the Guillotine to Crit when it would normally mini crit. Add the Mark For Death to the Sandman Ball and suddenly you have three great combos
This weapon is so cool. The concept of a weapon where you are an absolute rat tagging people with melee to make them take more damage is super fun. Unfortunately it is very much high risk and very inconsistent reward.
It is a cool weapon in concept but thats about it, I do like the speed boost on kill on rebalance, however with sandman also giving mini crits it doesnt feel very rewarding, especially when you only get the boost on kill so its not guaranteed. I feel like the range increase would make it better, but do I want to get myself in danger to get, still quite helpful, but not insanely helpful boost? The 25% faster holster speed is nice I'll say that. It just gets outclassed easily. It is fun when it works tho. Oh and the sandman also has a mark for death upgrade in mvm so even there it falls off later.
I think with the fan of war shortstop combo that the fan can also be used as a “get off me”, threatening to hit anyone who gets out of your ideal midrange with shortstop mini crits
Almost wrote a comment before getting to the mvm part of the video. In general, it only lasts long enough to be useful against bosses or early game giants, such as in expert low cash, you're almost always doing more for your team by just upgrading your gun and shooting.
I think a fun change for this weapon could be making it a Sandman-style projectile melee, with slow recharge not assisted by ammo packs. Then, it could apply the Marked effect at range, allowing for longer range single-target work and another option other than the scattergun for eliminating light classes at distance with a cleaver combo, while requiring significant skill
The funny thing is that I tend to meme MvM with the sandman. Yeah sure using 500 for M4D is stupid, but as someone who’s trying things to spice it up while also dropping back to “ok reliable when shit didn’t work” meant I should have done something later about it.
I think the idea of marked kills giving a speed boost is a good idea but I also think allowing that to extend to teammates along with the Scout could act as a solid extension of the it’s small support Scout niche
11:10 The amount of butthurt the old Sandman has caused to TF2 meta sweats even after it's been dead for years will always be glorious. Rent free as the kids would say.
the only thing i got from this video is to use it with the cleaver and taunt before your enemy dies. this weapon became like a solid 7/10 for that meme potential alone. im off to clown on some snipers now
Having a good melee is incredibly viable when you use the force a nature. If they survive two shots and they're pushed against a wall or stationary, you have a guarunteed melee hit. I use the boston basher and run away lmao.
I've been using a combination of the baby face's blaster and the fan o war, with the increase in speed I'm able to both close the gap quicker and back up to avoid damage, while the reduced mag size of the bfb isn't as detrimental since it takes many less shots to kill, especially at a slight range. Only downside is if they see you coming for them your gonna get slowed down and killed, but on alot of maps you can move so fast around the flank that you can just coordinate with your team to have them distract and then hit the high value target and dip away, it's very effective in casual with my flank heavy spy-like playstyle
One thing that I feel like is a good combo is crit-a-cola and shortstop because as vorobey has proved it can turn Scout into a diet sniper who is extremely fast and can change positions really easily.
Hey if I remember, you did The Sand Man that the thing can relatively outdo the Fan of War in MVM when it has the M4D upgrade, right? Especially as the way it was implemented can cause not just balls, but the bat swings to do the marking.
Ok so... Next Scout weapon video on Force-a-Nature perhaps? Not a bad weapon academy video necessarily but I feel like it needs to be talked about, mostly how it can be something of a noob trap given the fact that it's the only Scout primary that has a higher base damage than Stock
![[TF2] Bad Weapon Academy: Neon Annihilator](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/rA5jA9GENTU/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] Bad Weapon Academy: Red Tape Recorder](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/v5JaFTnT2DQ/mqdefault.jpg)
![[TF2] The Vita-Saw: Medic's Worst Melee?](/img/n.gif)
The Fan O' War, also known as "One Last Fuck You Before I Go"
Isn't that just the average Spy?
@@davidhong1934 Spy getting caught is not really a middle finger, more like a minor annoyance for whoever killing him. Scout running up to you and marking you for death whilst near his teammate, now that's a 'Fuck this guy in particular as I die stupidly' as his teammate fired at the guy that being marked and dying soon after.
@@depsydawn9206 spy getting caught: he has crits in diamonback
@@depsydawn9206Pairing bonk with the fan o war is a fun meme strategy that can be quite annoying because the millisecond the bonk wears off you swing and then either try to shoot them or die. In highly-competitive matches where some guy is getting a little too cocky and moving forward, you can use this strategy on them to scare them away or take them out of the battle for a little bit if they're mini-critted.
I like using the Fan in combo with Mad Milk and specifically the shortstop's shove to bully snipers on instant respawn servers.
Based
mvm loadout based
Mannpilled
Total
Sniper
Death
Mvmpilled
One step closer to the hothand getting covered. Although admittedly I don't know what there is to say about it
It slaps
It’s a weapon that exists
"Eviction notice but worse"
The slap boxer
🖐
You have completely missed the two reason I personally will swap to the Fan - Snowballing demoknights and kunai spy’s. Both are fast, have a ton of health, and are difficult to take down for a scout solo, but once they’re marked for death (which is easy for a scout to do, considering they’re both melee play styles) both of these play styles are invalidated by a bit of focus fire. If there’s a demoknight or kunai stomping the server you’re on because of clueless teammates, this can shut them down swiftly.
And if you use the baby face's blaster and the flying guillotine, you can outrun demoknights, and spies will have a harder time stabbing you.
All while inflicting mini crit bleed damage.
Unless the spy is interp abusing or fake lagging
Honestly, if there is a an annoying Demoknight on the server, just switches to Soldier or Natasha Heavy. The Fan o War tradeoff is not worth it
One of my friends used to constantly torment us with the Fan O' War. He has a Strange Professional Killstreak one named "Buenos Dias Fuckboy". You'd be minding your own business, then suddenly, you'd be marked, and dead
Honestly if you could just mark multiple people for death it'd be way better. If Sniper gets to mark a medic and his pocket for death by tossing a projectile that recharges every 10 seconds, scout should be able to do the same if he runs in and manages to make his melee work.
Sniper shouldn't be able to do that and neither should scout.
I think this says more about how the jarate is too strong than how the fan is too weak.
@@Luksed12He didn’t say Scout should get to use Jarate, lmao. Giving the Fan O War the ability to mark more than one person wouldn’t even put it on Jarate’s level, or even close to it anyway.
and scout has a lot of problems with range, so maybe they should make a scattergun that has really tight spread, and a scope, and it can hit headshots.
@@Epic_Peter-rm1whwell duh
It is a fan and technically uber is made with jarate in deleted medic scenes.
So marking multiple people isnt too far fetched but it needs A BUFF.
marked for death is redundant when CRIT A COLA exists.
Shout-out to that medic who ubered you as a Scout holding this thing.
Dude; for a second I thought you said Scout out. Now I really wish you did.
8:56 People tend to ignore bonk scouts? Half the time I use it the entire enemy team flies into a rage and hunts me down until it wears off. Which is useful as well, as it makes for a good distraction, but yeah we have different experiences with the weapon.
On the Bonk video, there was a guy in the comments who would do nothing but taunt at enemies while high on Bonk before retreating to repeat the process
I think that's where the rage is coming from
I swear, the bonk is like the quintessential salt weapon. Just successfully retreating behind the enemy lines with it once and killing someone will make them hunt you down afterwards and wait for the slow effect to come in so they can kill you easily, and half the time they will taunt you afterwards.
The slow effect was WAY overkill. I still can't get over the fact they nerfed the BONK of all weapons, which was a fun weapon designed to encourage Scouts to a flank-oriented playstyle. Now you get punished for being hit while bonked, while the entire purpose of the weapon was to take damage that would otherwise cripple or kill you, allowing any half-assed attempt by the enemy to follow you and wait until you're as slow as a slug to finish you off. All of the Jungle Inferno nerfs for Scout except for the crit o cola were stupid honestly.
@@JeffarryLounder this is because Jungle Inferno balance changes were informed by the competitive community, and scout is borderline broken in competitive play
There is no TF2 player i've heard of that would ignore an enemy player running at you, not attacking you, making super obvious VFX, that they know is going to be slowed to a crawl and potentially try put a shotgun into your back. Not to mention how prone a lot of players are to doing something such as spending several minutes to hunt down a spy in their spawn area even if they're getting sieged in the frontline.
@@milsharkie And yet it is stupid how they made competitive-oriented balance changes and applied them to Casual when the issue was in competitive. All they had to do was go through with weapon bans in Valve competitive matchmaking (although matchmaking in general was a stupid idea), but instead they decide that's impossible for some reason, and nerf weapons into the ground to "bridge" the two totally-different communities. And the nerfs in question were so half-assed and badly-implemented I genuinely have zero clue what they were thinking when they did them. If they REALLY wanted to nerf the bonk for whatever stupid reason, they could've made it deal minicrits upon wearing off or something, which would have still kept the initial design philosophy in mind and not made it totally redundant by straight up slowing you down so the enemies you ran past could catch up to you anyway! It was such a pathetic, shoddy attempt on Valve's part and I'm still salty they left us on that note for all these years afterwards. All it did was kill a lot of fun playstyle options Scout players had in Casual when he already lacked a lot of variety, especially in his melee slot.
Wait the Last TF2 BWA episode was 8 months ago? Where does time go
DOWN THE SHITTER.
We're going back to the era of FSoaS's first BWA videos haha
I ate it
haha ikr
spongebob ah line
10:56 I laughed when you dance taunt at the sniper when he was dying at his mercy from bleeding mini crits.
On top of FoW in MvM: Sandman's "death mark on ball hit" upgrade will ALSO apply to regular hits. So you've got a better Fan'o'War with projectiles that can completely stun giants if thrown correctly. Yes, it costs 500 bucks, but as a Scout what else you can dump your money in anyway
It is always my first purchase after max resistances
Uh maybe resistances milk upgrades or scatter gun upgrades
Especially the scatter gun upgrades that are by far the thing you should upgrade the most and it's also really expensive
You can use the fan on the first waves then switch to the sandman after getting some money.
Milk costs 1k to upgrade, speed and jump is another 900, relevant resistances are 900 each too and it's way more important than ranged fan o war that requires 500 bucks and has 0 benefit as scout already is fastest class in the game and has 600+ hp at all times and resistances make him unkillable even if you are braindead and can't dodge anything for a single melee hit on a giant robot.
Oh yeah, there's also soda popper upgrades...
It's really infuriating when scout is braindead and doesn't realize that he makes soldier and medic irrelevant just by existing. Heavy can solo tank any giant in the game if he has resistances and scout keeps applying milk with mark for death but nooo I'm a braindead scout I must be worthless and do literally everything but that...
But sure, you can get sandman if your projectile aim is perfect, then, in exchange of buying resistances, you upgrade your scattergun earlier, never saw a scout intelligent enough to do such a thing however.
@@shinobuoshino5066 yeah and isn't it also the fact that why get a ranged fan o war when scout is anyways meant to be up close and collect money so why do it at range when you can do it up close anyways since that's the point where scout is the most effective
I do like the visual of it getting an increased range in the form of it blowing the wind of war at a fucker.
Now I know what it feels like seeing one of the weapons of your loadout being in a Bad Weapon Academy video
Same
I think the idea of hitting someone unaware of you to reward you with an easy fight is neat, but if you're behind someone and initiate with a scattergun shot in melee range instead of setting up marked for death, you'd probably win the duel anyway.
Still, I'd call it an upgrade over stock bat outside of rare situations where you actually are fully out of ammo and NEED to kill with the bat now or you lose the fight.
I feel like the main draw is that even if you ended up losing the duel, the rest of the team can still help you clean up the target. It kinda has to be awkwardly limiting because otherwise the ability to supply team-wide minicrits on command would just break the game in half. Jarate was already stupid enough and now imagine getting the equivalent on a class as mobile as scout
@@darkness74185 tbf if you could mark an unlimited amount of targets with the Fan of War, it would still be fairly balanced considering that as strong as scout is at practically melee range, he needs the scattergun to make getting to that range worth it.
the FoW requires you to get into the biggest 50/50 in a fight for scout just to mark them and deal a smidgen of damage, letting you mark as many people as you can means scout makes his trip worthwhile since that means everyone is now ready to be sweeped out by you or by your team
The only use case I can see for it is a situation where there's an extremely important and durable target (such as an engineer holding a point your snipers can't pin down, or a heavy with a pocket medic who is blocking an important route) and your team can't muster a kritz or buff banner in enough time. In that case, moving in to give them a swing so the others can clear out is an option (though in the first case using Bonk to distract the sentry would be a way more beneficial play depending on team coordination)
The FoW is also a straight upgrade over stock bat in a no-crit server. No 100 crits, so...
Also a straight upgrade in an instant-respawn server, make them afraid of respawning.
Also if someone has a killstreak or is dominating you, there you go.
8:20 Or you can jump over your target, so they look away from where you're about to be.
Pistols cleaver and uber in a can: am i a joke to you?
Something Valve should add (because it would be fun(ny), not because it would be good) is “getting a FoW hit causes damage to not reduce your Babyface’s meter for a couple of seconds “.
9:04 Bonk scouts are either completely ignored or subject to intense pursuit from 90% of the enemy team, no in between
Both scenarios are really funny and helpful
No chase = time to play fast spy
Chase = distract enemies the more the better. Kill or damsge a few and watch enemies chase you down like their life depended on it.
spoilers for [TF2] Bad Weapon Academy: Fan O' War
he is going to talk about the Fan 'O War
How dare you spoil the video
I am simply appalled at this blatant buffoonery
Honestly for a while now force-cleaver-fan has been my favorite way to run scout especially in hightower-style deathmatch scenarios. It has enough meme-status to feel like a fair fight, but I love how the force just kills people marked for death (how a sawn-off shotgun SHOULD feel tbh), even heavies become a reasonable target if you can get that first hit off.
Crit a cola to deal extra damage with the fan and really weaken em lol
Fan O’ War + Soda Popper
Is one of the most underrated combos.
I always use the Fan o War with the Baby Face's Blaster
@@zombiecat7777 same
Japanese warriros:Feel The Power of Wind
Fan O War Force a Nature is pretty fun
You can kill most classes with two close-range soda popper shots anyway, but there are some niche uses for the combination such as when there's a more powerful opponent like a Soldier or Heavy that you're not sure you'll be able to kill in time before they turn around.
Timestamps:
0:00 Intro
1:00 Stats Breakdown
2:38 The problems with this weapon
4:36 MvM
6:34 Primaries
8:30 Secondaries
11:17 Conclusion
12:20 Potential rebalances
13:30 Outro
14:12 Bonus clip
I really like the idea of the fan because it makes sense for a scout. Just give someone a “screw this guy in particular” mark, and now he’s easier to kill no matter who is going after him.
Which is pretty bad as a scout you should be flabking on sides snipers medics or behind lines.
Unless your team is pushing that marked for death will go to waste.
Outside of heavies or say spies medics (which if you can reach em theyre pretty much dead) every other class can get pretty roughed up even without the fan unless pot shots at mid range or chip damage at longer ranges.
@@newturtle3 obviously you don’t play scout.. have you ever seen a scout who only flanks the entire game?
Hey look ma, my name’s in the video!
Huh
Huh
Hello bad weapon :)
Huh
Huh
I use this thing RELIGIOUSLY. It’s an excellent equalizer for combos making a fight with overhealed classes way easier to take, often taking a whole shot less. Or making a twitchy and slippery enemy that much easier to hit and it makes the pistols ammo cap much less punishing to use as more than a finisher.
Of course don’t test your luck, running at people still gets you killed, but you’d be surprised how many people have died to my Mark or have been forced to retreat lest that get beamed by no damage falloff bullets. I’m already teying to get in their face and if they manage to kill me first then they’re marked and super vulnerable to my team. IMO its one of scouts best melee options where the downsides of most aren’t worth the benefit(aside from batting Christmas ornaments for free).
I don’t use this weapon enough to call it bad, just “limited use cases” like the gas passer
You just accidentally explained why these weapons are bad.
limited use case weapons wouldn't be bad if you didn't have to give up other choices for them. but scout has atomizer, wrap and basher, and pyro has literally any other secondary. that's why fan and gas are bad.
I'm absolutely cracking up at you saying "After a.. short break" at 0:37. I forgot exactly HOW DAMN LONG IT HAD BEEN XD, good to see the series back though, love ya Fish
I never knew the fan only marked one target at a time
2:43 Is that Yukon? That might be the first time I've ever seen a TF2tuber play it, its an obscure map.
I wanna add that in Vs Saxton Hale, fan of war is pretty decent. Especially in a game mode where teamwork is needed to beat the 30K health tank. Mark for death is so good, also you don’t need to worry about other enemies since…there’s only one
It's good to have you back fish
Another glorious Bad Weapon Academy video, and I can imagine your pain at the sight of the last scene.
The fish is seriously underrated. I once gave a medic lifelong trauma by random critting them with a fish… right before they were about to pop uber for a push.
Honestly I love the fan, just because sometimes it's really fun. That cleaver combo is just so so delicious. Also it can genuinely be the best for slapping a pocketed heavy since it really helps the team beam them down
One thing about MvM:
The Fan can actually prove to be really effective, since snipers are usually perched far away from the drop zone and the META Soldier loadout includes the Concherer.
This is what I was gonna say, plus even if the solider is running buff banner hitting an enemy with the fan is a lot quicker then tooting a buff banner horn and it frees up the solider to use the buff banner for things other then giant slaying
I personally realy like the fan o war, the concept of hitting someone with your melee and then your propper guns(or viceversa) its really fun.
Shortstop Guillotine and Fan is already my favourite loadout in the game so it's nice to see I'm not alone in enjoying it
If I recall correctly the fan of war used to last for quite a bit longer than 15 seconds. One of my first killstreak weapons was the fan so I used it a lot and now I like it quite a bit. Situational but fun.
No i remember
Then they "reworked it"
Hey FishStickOnAStick! Good work showcasing your personal experience and opinion with the Fan-O-War.
Regarding your ‘Bad Weapon Academy’ videos however, I’m not really convinced that this is a bad (or at least was considered bad) weapon. One question I have for example is: Why should I not use this to support my team in contrast to Scout’s other melee options?
I think it's because relying on your team to follow up with your fan of war debuff is inconsistent without communication
@@bootlegdagut Thanks for your feedback. I am aware that the video well explained the issue of your team following up with the debuff, and that's why I'm wondering specifically why some of scout's other melee options are better for support.
@@musicboy8153 I don't think Scout has any other "support" melees other the Candy Cane but what makes it "better" than the Fan of War is because Scout benefits a lot more from healthpack on kill than dealing slightly more damage to a single enemy, but the Candy Cane still has the downsides of being oneshot by explosives, the enemies can take your health packs and your teammates might not even notice the healthpacks.
@@musicboy8153 The only others that support your team are the candy cane, sandman and the wrap assassin. The benefit of the sandman and wrap assassin over the fan of war are that their support capabilities use a ranged projectile so they dont put you in danger trying to apply their respective debuffs. The candy cane's health packs are a passive benefit as they do not require you to switch to the candy cane itself for enemies to drop the health packs, you just need to equip it. Whether they are better for support is up to your own judgement
There was a part somewhere at the start which sounded like he's really only focused on the Scout's ability to duel enemies with it equipped instead of switching up the playstyle to get in through a flank, fan someone, and get the hell out. Feels like it's such a "me first" way of thinking, as if you can't have a weapon that helps your teammate focus on one highlighted enemy better.
8:25 hey hey hey! Don't expect me to gloss over that, say it right!
5:26 with an important enemy mark him for death leave the jarate for the rest of the enemies or even on the same enemie as the marked for death effects ends
Thanks for the video fish stick! I know you probably won’t see this but you and the rest of the tf2 community really helped me out of my depression! I can’t wait for future videos
Great video man, was fiending more tf2 bad weapon academy and this delivered!
The poor man has found his stereotypes series, may your viewers love and support you through all your creative choices in the future for your channel.
5:48 also if you have 500 extra credits, you can just use the Sandmann and mark enemies with your melee, but also have a ranged option for marking.
I usually use the FOW with the madmilk and FAN in vsh as a support scout. It's very easy to get all of your debuffs in since hale is most often focused on the bigger classes and groups, so you can easily catch him by surprise. and on most maps a FAN shot afterwards will just send him flying.
Probably the easiest way to make the fan better would be removing the 1 target limit for the marking... So a Scout can try to sneak up on and tap an entire group to set them up. Probably should shorten the mark from 15 to like 10 seconds with that though.
Fan o war is by far my favorite scout weapon :3. I use it in every loadout. Mostly with shortstop. Playing a mid range ambush status scout is great
Honestly, I’ve gotten a lot of use out of this melee in conjunction with the Pistol and Babyface. Getting a cheeky bonk in gives me the opportunity to get more boost when I can land my shots, and it helps with juking out the enemy and chipping them down as well.
I love Fan O' War because I am a fan of humiliating my enemy and announcing their defeat to the entire server. No wonder strange for this weapon costs so much, what an intimidating power
I know I'm 2 weeks late but actually strange variants are rare because this is a promotional item-
Something to mention for MvM Scout, it's that as the waves progresses and credits pile up, the Sandman becomes a better version of the FoW because of the (500 credit) upgrade allowing the balls to mark the target they hit for death.
So you basically have a ranged FoW that also slows robots.
I believe fan o' war is a great weapon for teamplay. This weapon is not for uh, it's user's benefit. It allows you to let your team focus a specific enemy you marked for death, and deal with other enemies by yourself at the same time. Sure it's easier and more effective to shoot enemies right away instead of first marking them for death and only then shooting, but that's not how this weapon should be used.
As teamplay mostly lacks in casual tf2, and despite that i'm not a competitive player and never played it, so i might have a wrong picture about it, but i think that fan o' war may be the best melee weapon for scout in a competitive setting, where you and all of your teammates have a voice communication. You flank enemy team, mark one target with fan o war, tell your team who you've marked, and while your team deals with the marked enemy, you can deal with others. Damage bonus and lack of damage fall off for mini crits makes it a lot easier to focus a specific enemy and so much faster too.
This
Thanks for continuing to do these!
I used to run the Fan o War with Baby Face in a flank heavy playstyle where I would use the boosted movement speed to tag people that are currently fighting my teammates, was honestly pretty fun.
i just got it like 30min ago and then i see youtube recommened me this .Dam THANK YOU youtube
11:00 scorch shot but bleed
Gotta love how bad weapons sometimes help each-other out
Another thing to remember is that this isn't the only melee that turns minicrits into crits. Meaning the bushwacca will crit marked enemies. Got a friend as sniper with me a few times to do this. It's not as good as jarate most of the time, but we have had someone accuse cheating.
Best support melee for Scout, run this with the BFB and do hit and runs in the heat of battle. Pair with milk for further support or hatchet for big damage and regain speed buff.
I hate to admit it but your videos are one of the only ones I can actually watch in one sitting with my exponentially decreasing attention span. Good job.
I can watch a entire 1H to 2H videos about history when They are interesting
8:57 I'm Pingu the Ping Pirate :)
Speaking of the disciplinary action, maybe the Fan o' War could provide Scout with a speed boost on melee hit.
To reward you for connecting the hit with the opportunity to get away and let your team get the opponent, or give you the much needed juke potential to reload and win the 1v1
It forces full health players to suffer a respawn timer lol
I had to repeat the clip at 12:27 cuz lol no way you ACCIDENTALLY killed that medic XD
I was hoping a "I Defense of" of the Fan O' War, now it will relegated into Bad Weapon Territory, Thanks Fish
Honestly don't think this one, the Huo Long, or the Sydney Sleeper are that bad. I use the Huo Long more than all other miniguns and it's nowhere near as bad as people think tbh
I just binged bad weapon academy last night. Love this timing
3:34 that demo was 100% cheating
I think my favorite use for this weapon is kind of situational but something I love doing. Just flanking an enemy group, slaping their medic and running away like an annoying distraction. It is so funny seeing the enemy medic panic sometimes.
I love the ORAS music!
One thing I like with the long duration of the debuff, and everyone's full understanding of the danger it presents to them, is in cases where you land the hit but flop the kill, the marked target has little recourse but to retreat, or fight while under life support. Nailing a medic or his pocket with this is especially good, even if the move is undeniably the most riskiest one; it'll force them to make a decision that effectively lasts the duration of a respawn. I've seen far too many players have to retreat from the frontline because they got marked; it's a great way to take someone out of the fight.
Also, I find the mark for death one at a time thing completely ludricrous if Jarate can completely mark a whole group for death in nearly the same time as the Fan O War. With the Fan O War, it's a melee weapon that costs risk and skill to hit a group since your range is limited. Meanwhile, Jarate can do the same thing in just one click depending on aiming of the arc.
I finished watching all the TF2 Bad Weapon Academy videos so far now! (though I watched this one at release)
From what I get from these clips, you can end the engagement at medium range rather than close-range, allowing you to dodge, juke, and retreat from your late target’s teammates with ease.
Heck, with a good enough juke during the start of the fight, you could hit your target as you’re passing by. It would make them look in the wrong direction.
One idea I had was to allow the Guillotine to Crit when it would normally mini crit.
Add the Mark For Death to the Sandman Ball and suddenly you have three great combos
This weapon is so cool. The concept of a weapon where you are an absolute rat tagging people with melee to make them take more damage is super fun. Unfortunately it is very much high risk and very inconsistent reward.
SO GLAD YOU'RE BACK MAN
It is a cool weapon in concept but thats about it, I do like the speed boost on kill on rebalance, however with sandman also giving mini crits it doesnt feel very rewarding, especially when you only get the boost on kill so its not guaranteed. I feel like the range increase would make it better, but do I want to get myself in danger to get, still quite helpful, but not insanely helpful boost? The 25% faster holster speed is nice I'll say that. It just gets outclassed easily. It is fun when it works tho. Oh and the sandman also has a mark for death upgrade in mvm so even there it falls off later.
Idk why i was so incredibly hyped for this video
Using this weapon, it also allows you to finish the marked enemies with a pistol from a longer distance since mini crits have no faloff
I think with the fan of war shortstop combo that the fan can also be used as a “get off me”, threatening to hit anyone who gets out of your ideal midrange with shortstop mini crits
This is my "fuck you in particular" weapon of choice.
And I love it.
Its been a long shot since the last episode huh
Almost wrote a comment before getting to the mvm part of the video. In general, it only lasts long enough to be useful against bosses or early game giants, such as in expert low cash, you're almost always doing more for your team by just upgrading your gun and shooting.
I think a fun change for this weapon could be making it a Sandman-style projectile melee, with slow recharge not assisted by ammo packs. Then, it could apply the Marked effect at range, allowing for longer range single-target work and another option other than the scattergun for eliminating light classes at distance with a cleaver combo, while requiring significant skill
IT HAPPENED! FAN’S O WAR UNITE
You’re doing great Fish!
The funny thing is that I tend to meme MvM with the sandman. Yeah sure using 500 for M4D is stupid, but as someone who’s trying things to spice it up while also dropping back to “ok reliable when shit didn’t work” meant I should have done something later about it.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, BAD WEAPON ACADEMY MY BELOVED (please dont make us wait 8 months im begging you)
I think the idea of marked kills giving a speed boost is a good idea but I also think allowing that to extend to teammates along with the Scout could act as a solid extension of the it’s small support Scout niche
Man the more I see the bomb carrier paint the more I like it
11:10
The amount of butthurt the old Sandman has caused to TF2 meta sweats even after it's been dead for years will always be glorious. Rent free as the kids would say.
the only thing i got from this video is to use it with the cleaver and taunt before your enemy dies. this weapon became like a solid 7/10 for that meme potential alone. im off to clown on some snipers now
it's actually quite good on medieval mode (defending last becomes a walk in the park together with the mad milk)
Having a good melee is incredibly viable when you use the force a nature. If they survive two shots and they're pushed against a wall or stationary, you have a guarunteed melee hit. I use the boston basher and run away lmao.
One other thing you didn't mention about the Fan O War is its hit sound, specifically to the enemy. It's freaking scary.
I've been using a combination of the baby face's blaster and the fan o war, with the increase in speed I'm able to both close the gap quicker and back up to avoid damage, while the reduced mag size of the bfb isn't as detrimental since it takes many less shots to kill, especially at a slight range. Only downside is if they see you coming for them your gonna get slowed down and killed, but on alot of maps you can move so fast around the flank that you can just coordinate with your team to have them distract and then hit the high value target and dip away, it's very effective in casual with my flank heavy spy-like playstyle
7:38 is the blu soldier using silent aimbot? His rocket was heading towards fish before the soldier turned to his rocket's direction.
One thing that I feel like is a good combo is crit-a-cola and shortstop because as vorobey has proved it can turn Scout into a diet sniper who is extremely fast and can change positions really easily.
Hey if I remember, you did The Sand Man that the thing can relatively outdo the Fan of War in MVM when it has the M4D upgrade, right?
Especially as the way it was implemented can cause not just balls, but the bat swings to do the marking.
What in the hell is the pp scout?? I’m afraid to look it up
Ok so... Next Scout weapon video on Force-a-Nature perhaps? Not a bad weapon academy video necessarily but I feel like it needs to be talked about, mostly how it can be something of a noob trap given the fact that it's the only Scout primary that has a higher base damage than Stock