The Heavy is one of the 3 defense classes in Team Fortress 2, he has the highest health of normally 300 and lowest base speed of all the classes in the game. Heavy's primary goal is to lead a large push, or disrupt an enemy push.

Heavy's primary weapon, his Minigun, is one of the most feared weapons in the entire game and is able to mow down an entire team in mere seconds. And unlike Soldier or Demoman who have similar damage dealing power, Heavy doesn't have to worry about his projectiles being airblasted by Pyros. Heavy's secondaries include either a Shotgun or a food item. The Shotguns work the same as with Pyro, Soldier, and Engineer, but the food items are a utility, giving Heavy an extremely minor support role.

The food items when used take a few seconds to consume, but afterwords give Heavy different effects, such as giving Heavy health, damage boosting temporarily, or increasing his base health for a short period of time. Heavy's melee weapons consist primarily of various boxing gloves. Heavy normally shouldn't use his melee weapons aside from one which will be mentioned. If Heavy runs out of ammo, typically it's better to retreat and find more ammo, than fight the enemy with your melee. The next few sections will discuss Heavy's weapons.

Heavy's primary weapon, the Minigun is a force to be reckoned with on the battle field. It has 200 ammo, and is able to continuously fire for 12 seconds without needing more ammo. The Minigun is best used at short to medium range. Long range isn't a good idea with the minigun, due to damage falloff and bullet spread.

Damage falloff for those who don't know, is the mechanic in TF2 where hitscan weapons (Such as Heavy's Minigun, or Scout's Scattergun) do less damage the farther away they are from their target. For instance, a minigun bullet at melee range could do 25 damage, but that same bullet if traveled sniper range would only do 4 damage. But if you are under the effects of minicrits or normal crits damage falloff is nonexistant. Now, let's get to Heavy's arsenal of Minguns!

Stock Minigun

This minigun is my personal one of choice, and is statistically the best choice, everything I said above applies here and nothing different. I wish I has more to say but there's really not a lot I can say without repeating myself. A majority of minigun reskins are the stock Minigun.

The Brass Beast

The Brass Beast can be obtained via random drop, uncrate, or buying from the Steam Market/Mann Co. Store. The Brass Beast takes Heavy's strenghts and weaknesses and multplies them. While the Brass Beast does do more damage and gives Heavy 20% resistance to all damage, it's downsides heavily outweigh the postives, with a 50% slower spin-up time and 60% slower movement speed while it's spun up. As a Heavy, the last thing you want is a decrease in mobility and this minigun does NOT help with that statement. If you're hellbent on using this minigun, I'd suggest sticking by an Engineer on defense, and sort of act like a second Sentry Gun. While the Brass Beast isn't the worst, it's miles from the best but if you're some kind of wizard you could make it viable.

The Tomislav

The Tomislav can be obtained via random drop, uncrate, or buying from the Steam Market/Mann Co. Store. It is widely considered Heavy's best unlock. It is 20% less bullet spread, and spinup time compared to the stock Minigun, and it has a silent spinup sound, allowing Heavy to flank easier. However, the tradeoff is a 20% slower firerate. The Tomislav is also the only minigun other than stock to recieve a Rare Australium variant. I'd recommend this minigun for a flanking Heavy playstyle, specifically the Surprise Heavy strategy that will be discussed later on in this guide. I choose stock over it because I typically lead the charge and stick with my team as Heavy, thus not really needing the silent spin up. And the slower firing speed is also a real turn off for me. But despite it's flaws it is a great replacement for stock.

The Huo-Long Heater

The Huo-Long Heater can be obtained via random drop, uncrate, or buying from the Steam Market/Mann Co. Store.It is personally my least favorite of the miniguns, which is a real shame too because I think it looks the sexiest out of all of them and it has a unique concept. While spun up or firing, the Huo-Long creates a ring of fire around the Heavy, any enemy that touches the fire ring will recieve damage and afterburn similar to the Pyro's Flamethrower, It also does 25% more damage to burning players. The tradeoff being is you use ammo twice as fast. The Heavy already chews through ammo like an autistic kid through a giant bag of gummy bears so making Heavy eat ammo faster is not good. The fire ring rarely does much, sure it can kind of help with Spies, but any Spy who hasn't just installed TF2 can get away with ease. The burning players thing is kind of neat, but typically if a player is burning they're already being raped by a Pyro and by the time you're shooting at them they're already dead. I wouldn't use this minigun unless maybe you have a pyro friend who can set people on fire and then you kill them, but the other options are just so much more reliable and fun to use that the Huo-Long Heater gets overshadowed by them.

The Natascha

The Natascha can be obtained via random drop, uncrate, or buying from the Steam Market/Mann Co. Store. The Natascha gives 20% damage resistance when spun-up, but only if the player's health is below 50%. As downsides, Natascha's bullets are 25% weaker than those of the stock Minigun and the weapon has a 30% increased spin-up time. This minigun I don't have much experience with but I've always used it for defense. The slowing effect on targets is amazing for killing fast classes like Scout or possibly rocket/sticky jumping Soldiers and Demomen. The damage resistance is also nice for tight situations but the weaker bullets mean this minigun is best used for a more supportive Heavy.

Heavy's Secondary Weapons are a mixed bag, some are good and some are bad. Unfortunately a lot of Heavy's secondary are less than practical but the one's that are good are extremely good!

The Shotgun
The Shotgun is the default secondary for the Heavy, and is also used by the Soldier, Pyro, and Engineer. The shotgun is a hitscan weapon with 6 shots per clip with 32 ammo total. The shotgun works best at close range and only close range as the bullet spread makes it nearly useless at medium to long ranges. Heavy doesn't really benefit from the Shotgun as much as other shotgun wielding classes, mainly because Heavy's miniguns has enough firepower to kill any class in the game alone unlike Soldier who can use the Shotgun to get that extra bit of damage to take out an enemy Heavy or Soldier when his Rocket Launcher needs to reload. The Shotgun is still a viable option.

The Family Buisness
The Family Buisness is an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. The Family Buisness is the only shotgun which can only be equipped by the Heavy. It has 2 more bullets per clip giving it 8 ammo instead of 6, and has a 15% faster firing rate. The tradeoff however is that is has a -15% damage. I've never used The Family Buisness so I can't say anything about it personally, but from what I've seen it is much better than the stock shotgun providing you can land all your shots.

The Panic Attack

The Panic Attack s an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. The Panic Attack is a very unique Shotgun, and is basically a Beggar's Bazooka but a shotgun. For anyone who doesn't know what the Beggar's Bazooka is, you start out with zero bullets in your clip and firing loads them into your clip and when you want to release the bullets, you release the fire button. There is only 4 bullets in your clip instead of 6. Your rate of fire also increases as our health decreases giving this weapon the nickname "The One Health Hero". While I don't think the Heavy benefits from the panic attack as much as say Engineer, but it is still a very viable option.

The Sandvich
The Sandvich is an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. It is the first of Heavy's lunchbox items. Lunchbox items when used make Heavy completely stunned for a couple seconds, but when he's done using them the item needs to recharge for 30 seconds. The Sandvich's effect is fully restoring Heavy's HP upon consumption. This is an awesome tool and my personal favorite Heavy secondary. The Alt fire can be used to drop the Sandvich, making it act as a medium health kit for teammates. The Alt fire is extremely useful for keeping a Medic alive, or healing someone when they're in a pinch. It is also notable that the sandvich is the only weapon to recieve it's own "Meet The Team" video, and has multiple unique reskins. The sandvich has almost no downsides, and in my opinion Heavy's best secondary!

The Buffalo Steak Sandvich
The Buffalo Steak Sandvich is an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. It functions identically to the Sandvich except instead of gaining health upon consumption, you gain minicrits. Now that sounds amazing! Giving Heavy minicrits on command? That sounds OP! Until you realize you can only use melee weapons while minicrits are active. Ok, i'm not gonna beat around the bush, this weapon is trash. The only viable strategy using the Steak, is combining it with the Killing Gloves of Boxing (which will be covered in the melee section of this guide) to chain kill. Not only is this hard to pull off, but not nearly as effective as just using your minigun. But I have used this weapon combined with the Killing Gloves of Boxing before, and while not practical, it is a ton of fun!

The Dalokohs Bar
The Dalokohs Bar is an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. It functions exactly like the Sandvich, but instead of giving Heavy health, it increases his base health by 50 points for 30 seconds and can be eaten continuously without a recharge. I personally like using the Dalokohs bar on Defense, every bit of health counts when soaking up damage. One other noteworthy trait of the Dalokohs bar is that instead of a medium health kit being dropped with alt fire, a small one is dropped. This doesn't bother me to much but I could see how it could bother others.

The Second Bananna
The Dalokohs Bar is an unlock for the Heavy which can be obatined via item drop, uncrate, or can be purchased from the Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. It was added in the Jungle Inferno Update. If we compare it to the Sandvich, it has an additional 50% recharge rate but with a cost of a -33% healing effect. I'd actually say this is a viable alternitive to the Sandvich in certain situations. For instance, if you find you're taking much more poke damage than use the Second Bananna. But if you're taking more burst damage then use The Sandvich.

Heavy's is definitely not a melee class, so his melee weapons are really not the best. Heavy's speed or lack there of doesn't allow him to catch up to any target to actually use his melee without being crafty. And your minigun and/or shotgun are much more efficient to kill people. So a majority of Heavy's melee weapons are good for their passive effects on Heavy.

Fists
The Fists are the default melee weapon for Heavy, and do 65 damage normal hit, and 195 damage for a critical hit. The Fists are unique to other melee weapons, because not only does it have a unique random crit animation, and depending on which mouse button you click, it uses Heavy's left or right Fists. There's not much use for using both Fists that i've noticed but I thought it'd be good to mention.

The Killing Gloves of Boxing (abbreviated as the KGB)
The KGB is an unlock for the Heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co Store. The KGB function identically to the Fists, aside from a -20% slower fire rate. The benefit of the KGB is that whenever one gets a kill with them, they gain 100% critical hits for 5 seconds. The KGB are the only boxing gloves heavy has that are good because they can kill. A common strategy for the KGB is to pair it with the Buffalo Steak Sandvich to get a potential chain of kills. While this is fun, it is not very reliable or practical and is tricky to pull off, but not impossible. if you just wanna mess around, the KGB are a good choice for you!

The Gloves of Running Urgently (GRU)
The GRU is an unlock for the Heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co store. While active the Heavy gains +30% movement speed, but while active he takes minicrits from all damage sources. The GRU should NEVER be used as a weapon unless it is the absolute last resort, the heavy taking minicrits will make 2 point blank scattergun shots kill him, and that's horrible. But the +30% movement speed makes this weapon AMAZING. The GRU should be used for more of a ultility, when you're not fighting and need to get somewhere. The movement speed makes you one of the fastest classes in the game, allowing you to get where you need to be very quickly. Just remember to put them away shortly before you get to the frontlines, as the minicrit effect takes a few seconds to wear off after the GRU is put away.

The Fists of Steel (FoS)

The Fists of Steel is an unlock for the heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co store. The FoS give heavy a 40% damage resistance from all sources, but Heavy takes x2 damage from melee attacks and his weapon switch time is 50% slower. Because of this extra vulnerability against melee attacks means that you'll be a big target against Demoknights. The Fists of Steel in my opinion should only be used on defense while holding a chokepoint, as the damage resistance will make it harder for you to take down, therefore harder for the enemy to reach a payload checkpoint, or capture a control point. But on offense, this is not the best choice as the damage resistance isn't really utilized as much. This is because if you need to break through a choke normally a Medic's Ubercharge is used which makes the damage resistance completely obselete. Overall, the FoS for defense is great! But for offense, look somewhere else.

The Warrior's Spirit

The Warrior's Spirit is an unlock for the heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co store. The Warrior's Spirit allows Heavy's melee attacks to do 30% more damage, making each hit do 85 damage instead of 65, and gives Heavy 50 health for every kill he gets with the Warrior's Spirit. However, Heavy has a +30% damage vulnerability from all sources. On paper, this weapon sounds good, but in practice. Well... J E S U S C H R I S T T H I S T H I N G I S T R A S H . Prior to the Tough Break update, this weapon was okay. Not great but alright because it removed 20 health instead of the damage vulnerability. But post tough break, this weapon is impossible to use. The damage boost is barely noticable, and the 50 hp gained per kill is nearly useless. Say you melee a Scout, most likely unless the Scout just installed the hellzone that is Team Fortress 2, he would've landed 1-2 meatshots on you if you won so you took about 275 damage. With only gaining 50 hp, you are now still only at 75 HP. Stay away from this weapon, literally any other melee is better.

The Eviction Notice

The Eviction Notice is an unlock for the heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co store. The Eviction Notice fires 30% faster than the stock fists, and on hit increases Heavy's movement speed by 20% for 3 seconds. But while active the weapon grants Heavy a 20% damage vulnerability from all sources, not to mention to 60% damage penalty. The Eviction Notice under this damage penalty deals a wimpy 26 damage, and needs a minicrit to deal the same damage as a regular Scout bat with zero buffs in damage output. I have never used the Eviction Notice, nor have I fought many fellow Heavies that use it. But from what I can gather, it's pretty mediocre. Maybe you could do some shenanigans similar to the KGB with help from a Medic, but if you want to use the Killing Gloves, just use the KGB.

The Holiday Punch

The Holiday Punch is an unlock for the heavy that can be obtained by random chance, or by purchasing them in Steam Community Market/Mann.Co store. They are identical to the fists, aside from the feature that critical hits from the Holiday Punch will cause the opponent to do the Schadenfraude taunt, leaving them defenseless. The Holiday Punch is a very unique weapon with it's taunting mechanic, and one strategy used with it is utilizing the stun to leave opponents defenseless, while then using the Holiday Punch's instakill taunt to kill the stunned player. While taunt killing with the holiday isn't effective in anyway it's is a lot of fun to do similar to the KGB + Buffalo Steak. But The Holiday Punch is typically used in the practice known as "Hoovying". A Hoovy is a heavy that refuses to fight in combat. They typically have a cute or innocent looking cosmetic set and have the Sandvich and The Holiday Punch. If you encounter a hoovy, please don't be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ and let them be, and if they want to taunt, taunt with them! Even if you die, it's still good to not be an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥!

Now that you know all of Heavy's toys, now it's time to learn how to use them! But before we learn how to play Heavy, we need to know Heavy's limitations so we can work around them. These next few sections will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Heavy against the other nine classes, including himself.

Here is a chart totally not made in MS Paint of Heavy versus all the classes of TF2, this is a gameplay setting, not a 1v1 scenario. If this was a 1v1 scenario this list would be very different. Classes in the green area of the chart mean that they're easy to kill, yellow means that they are easy and hard to kill depending on the situation, and red classes are difficult to kill before they kill you.

Scout:
Scout is a very easy target for heavy to kill, due to his low hp. Scouts are typically like a house fly. They can be challenging to hit but hit them a couple times and they're dead or have retreated. But more experienced Scouts will try to go all over the place around Heavy. If you encounter one of these Mexican jumping bean Scouts, just don't panic and try to predict where the Scout will go. Keep to your wits and predict and the Scout will be dead in no time.

Pyro:
Pyro is definitely the easiest class for Heavy to kill, and is Pyro's main counter. Novice Pyros and Pyros using the Backburner/Phlogistinator will run at you and circle you while using the Flame Thrower. If you are any good at aim and tracking, it is very easy to kill them but kill them quick as giving them enough time will lower your health to the point where afterburn will kill you. More experienced Pyros will try to set you on fire, and back pedal whilst firing flares to attempt to get crit flare shots. If you run into one of these Pyros, try to gun them down ASAP before they can get in more than one flare shot.

Medic:
A lone Medic to a Heavy is basically a free kill. As Medic doesn't have enough damage output to kill Heavy. While there is Medic chaining, but that is astronomically rare to see 2 Medics Medi-chaining. But typically, Medics are seen with a patient and relying on them to defend the Medic. Depending on how experienced the heal target is or the class they're playing overall, the Medic will be a much harder tagret to strike down. Kill the Medic first, then the heal target. Or if you have an Ubercharge, just rush down the heal target.

Soldier:
Soldier and Heavy are very evenly matched in combat, so it comes down to the skill of the Soldier or Heavy to see who wins. While less-skilled Soldiers are fairly easy to take out, more experienced soldiers will try to get crafty by rocket jumping around or using the Shotgun. But normally in a 1v1 scenario with a Heavy and Soldier, Heavy mostly wins.

Demoman:
Demoman versus Heavy is very similar to Heavy versus Soldier, but Demoman can deal with Heavy much easier than Soldier. Mainly because Demoman can deal a lot more damage in a lot less time than Soldier. NEVER follow a Demoman into another room. Most likely he will have placed a Sticky trap and they'll bury what's left of you in a soup can. Try to be a little more mobile while fighting Demomen, like hopping around or maybe use one of Heavy's shotguns if there's an enemy Demoman who is giving you a lot of trouble.

Heavy:
Heavy fighting another Heavy can only be described in one way: pure luck. The only real way two Heavies fight is to just shoot each other until one of them dies. I don't have anything else to say about this it's literally pretty much luck who wins and who starts shooting first.

Engineer:
Engineer was very close to being a red matchup for Heavy, but there are a few things that make him and heavy sort of evenly matched. Now in a 1v1 scenario as with nearly all the classes, Engineer is victorious due to his Sentry Gun. But, a Heavy + Medic combo can take out a Sentry, and take it out easily if Heavy is being Ubercharged by a Medic. But the second kind of engie, a Gunslinger Engie, is slightly easier to deal with. A Gunslinger Engie is an Engineer using the unlockable melee weapon, the Gunslinger. The Gunslinger gives Engie an additional 25 HP, making his HP 150. And his normal Sentry is replaced by a Mini Sentry. If you've ever fought against one of these, you'll know that these Mini Sentries are NOT just a mediocre peashooter. Heavy is more than capable of taking out one of these
annoying little ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ kind people with ease. Just kill the Engineer to avoid him placing any more Sentry Guns, then take out the Mini Sentry ASAP.

Spy:
The sneaky French assassin that is the Spy is one of Heavy's main counters, but unlike Sniper, you can easily work around Spy. If you've played Heavy at least one to three times, you would know that Heavy is a walking knife magnet. Spy's signature backstab makes Heavy's 300 health just as useful as a solar panel in a rainstorm. Luckily, 90% of all spy players are COD Kiddies who just installed this game, so just turn around every so often, you'll probably find one of these French snakes behind you. And you can then proceed to fill their behinds with bullets. But more skilled Spies strike when least expected. Just have a lot of situational awareness and you'll be golden!

Sniper:
Sniper is Heavy's primary counter. This is because many of the things Heavy is lacking in, Sniper execels in. This includes long range, if a decent Sniper gets a heavy in his sights, that Heavy is dead. Heavy is extremely slow, making it hard for him to dodge Sniper's bullets. NEVER EVER go after an enemy Sniper unless you find yourself in the enemy battlements, then you can proceed to give the sniper a sandwich. A lead sandwich of course. If for some reason you have the brain of the average nine year old COD player, we're telling you to kill the Sniper with your Minigun.

This section will consist of little things you can do that will make you a better heavy player.


This tip is extremely easy to do, when ever you come to a turning point jump and rev up your mingun while turning the corner. This makes Heavy turn the corner much faster, and if you're lucky and catch someone while doing this it makes for a very easy kill! One example of the Surprise Heavy is jumping out from the house window on the second point of pl_upward to ambush unsuspecting opponents.


This should be a no-brainer, basically what this means is stay out of extremely large open areas. As the Heavy, you're more or less a Sniper bullet magnet. An example of such an area is the hill between the first and second capture points of Upward. Although, do not be afraid to rush in with an Ubercharge with a Medic to break through a chokepoint, you are a Heavy after all!

An example of a sniper sightline on the map pl_upward


While this isn't integral to playing Heavy, it definitely helps a bunch! Having a reliable Medic with you is game changing as a Heavy, as you gain an overheal of 450 HP that constantly regenerates while you're being healed by a Medic, making you harder to kill than a cockroach! Sure, Snipers can still OHKO you with a headshot, but 450 HP means the Sniper will have to fully charge their sniper rifle, giving nearby teammates passing by to smash that Australian assassin! And one well-timed, well-executed Ubercharge can mean the difference between prestigious victory and crushing defeat! But make sure you look for a decent human being who just so happens to be a medic main, not the other way around.

Art made by SuperKusoKao on Deviantart

This cannot be stressed enough, if you are using the sandvich as previously stated you can give a medium health kit (Heals 1/2 of the target's full HP) to any teammate. This is an amazing thing that can mean the difference between the life and death of a teammate, especially the Medic. The Sandvich is very helpful at keeping your Medic friend alive. If I had fifty cents for every time I've saved my Medic with the Sandvich, I could eat for a month.

Now you know everything you need to know about playing Heavy! I hope this guide has helped you in some way to become a better Heavy player! Whether you're using the tomislav being healed by a medic, or just messing around with the Buffalo Steak Sandvich + KGB, I hope you have fun playing Heavy. Please rate and comment if you want, I love to get feedback!


NOW GET OUT THERE AND MAKE THOSE BABIES CRY!


Artwork by viewseps on Deviantart