Introduction:

    The Heavy Weapons Guy is the slowest moving and most heavily armored class. He can wear a limit of 250 red armor. He uses the axe, the shotgun, the super shotgun, and the assault cannon. His grenade types are Hand and Mirv. An almost purely defensive class, the heavy weapons guy can kill any fully armored enemy with a few seconds of concentrated fire from the assault cannon. Mainly effective in open areas, he can be killed by weaker classes if they've got plenty of cover, due to the time taken for the assault cannon to spin up and down.

Assault Cannon:
 
    It takes 4 cells to power up the assault cannon, and when it begins to fire it eats up shotgun ammo at a frightening rate. Due to the weight and kick of the weapon, the heavy weapons guy must have both feet on the ground to fire it, and cannot move while its spinning. Also, the longer the weapon is fired, the more unstable the heavy weapon guy's aim becomes.

Other Notes:

    Due to his size and armor, the heavy weapons guy is not fazed much by injury. He gets knocked around less. There's discription of a hwguy...good but not accurate (note this info comes strait out of the readme.txt provided with TF). First lets fix a few things:

1. He can wear a limit of 300 red armor. (note this is only in version 2.6, he still only has 250 in 2.5)
2. Mainly effective in hall ways or small areas where other classes can not menuver very well, he can be killed by weaker classes if they've got plenty of cover, due to the time taken for the assault cannon to spin up and down.
3. It takes 6 cells to power up the assault cannon, and when it begins to fire it eats up shotgun ammo at a moderate rate.
4. Due to the weight and kick of the weapon, the heavy weapons guy must have both feet on the ground to fire it, and cannot move while its spinning. (this is only true in 2.5, in 2.6 he can move at a slow rate while keeping the barrels spinning untill he stops again)
5. Also, the longer the weapon is fired, the more unstable the heavy weapon guy's aim becomes. (no really true for the heavy any more, 2.15 this happened and it was uncontrolable after extended periods of time, but in 2.5 and up it is preatty much non-exsistant)
6. Due to his size and armor, the heavy weapons guy is not fazed much by injury. He gets knocked around less. (NOPE WRONG AGAIN! He still gets knocked around a bit from the higher calaber rounds (ie. rockets and grenades, also these pushes can be useful but we will get to that in a later section)

    The basic's First off if your reading this I assume you know nothing about the heavy what so ever ;) so dont get offended if you feel like I'm being an asshole. I also want to get one thing completly strait, if you dont like standing around and 'camping' (defending) dont play the hwguy unless you wanna be picked off because your dumb enuff to venture in to the fray of battle.
    The heavy is the back bone of any good defence for a team, most can function with out a heavy but the true masters use heavies and demomen for there Defence. Now as a heavy it is your swarn job to protect the flag at all cost, even death. Now because I want to make this as clear as possable for all you newbies, I will refer to 2fort4 and the defence of its flag's.

            |                                         |
            |                                         |
            |                                         |
            |                                         |
            |                                         |
            |                                         |
            |O                                   O|
______                                          ______
|                                                                 |
|                                                                 |
|                                                                 |
|                               +                                |
|                                                                 |
|                                                                 |
|________________________________ |

    The + is the flag and the O's are where you should stand/strife between, now you know that to get to the flag you have to run down the hall... Now if you know how to put 2 and 2 to geather and not get 5 you will do very good, because the frags come to you. All's you have to do is begain firing you cannon the sec you see someone with a diffrent color try and run down your flag hall.
    The guy comming down the hall will not relish the buck shot your pummeling him with so he will try and avoid your fire by strifing back and forth while firing off his weapon. When he does this you 'trace' him, in other word you keep shooting him and follow his movements with your buckshot. Now this is the most important thing a heavy can posess, acuracy, acracy will keep you on top of your enemy and turn him in to somthing similer to ground beef/cat food in a can. If your able to trace your enemies well you will go far as a heavy. Pratice tracing by loading up quake with the -game teamfortress or where ever you unzipped your tf pak files to. Then go into the game and start up the regular levels of quake, use the GOD command to become well... GOD. Use the monsters for target pratice, or rather tracer pratice I should say. This will help you out more then you know in long run, and it will help you get used to the feel of the cannon, and it provides a good praticing platfrom for later menuvers.
    It may not seem like it takes any brains to stand in one spot and fire, but as mindless as it seems there are still tatic's that you need to know to stay alive. The most important of wich is to find a spot that is good to fire from but does not leave you exposed from another point, and wich does not let your enemies circle strife you to death. Also NEVER EVER forget that you have grenades, to do this is to cost you frags that you other wise would have missed. To forget your grenades also leaves you no way of defending your self when your auto cannon is useless (out of shells/cells). So remember bind 2 keys to +gren1 and +gren2.

Example:

bind x "+gren2"
bind c "+gren1"

You are confronted by 2 players, a soldier and a sniper, you happen to be on there balcony because you took a wrong turn on the way to your flag room (in other words you didnt take my advice and stay in YOUR FUCKING BASE!). The sniper see's you as he rounds the courner comming from his upper resupply and the soldier is comming from behind you. Who do you kill first? If you said the sniper your already on your way to becoming a very good heavy. Plain and simple, you see you can probly stand 2/3 rocket blast before you die, but one sniper bullet to the head and your toast. So take out the weaker target with the stronger gun (the sniper wizard) then kill the soldier (or get blown to hell, wich ever comes first). Also do not kill the sniper, then unwind your cannon, turn around then wind back up again. If you do this you will die for sure, no if's, an's, or but's about it. Dont beleave me? Ok lets do the math 1.5 sec's to wind down the cannon, and 1.5 sec to wind up the cannon, plus the .5 sec to turn, that adds up to 3.5 sec's. Now in that 3.5 sec's the soldier can pump out 3 rockets wich WILL kill you, but if by some freek of nature your not dead you will be damn near it. But if you just whip around and keep the barrel's blazing that 3.5 sec is cut down to .5 sec and you have atleast a fighing chance against the soldier.

If your outside in 2forts, between the 2 bases, your in sniper country and snipers are not very forgiving when it comes to slow targets (ie. YOU!). To a sniper, at long range that is, you are consider'd just an easy a frag, as that sniper is to you when your up close and personal. One well placed head shot will kill you, no questions asked, and if you hit in the chest you will survive for about as long as it takes that sniper to aim and fire again. Or for one of the other classes to blow your weaken'd slow ass away (one rocket when you have 50 armor, an 50 health WILL kill you).

Ramp Room D and You:

    The heavy can to very well on ramp-room D if he knows where to stand, now there are 2 places you can stand that will give you optimum frag rates and hi effency.

1.  Right at the top of the short ramp, this place is good for frag's but you will often get your ass rocked by more skilled player's, now mainly demomen will give you the most trouble if you use this spot. But, from my experances any class that knows where ppl stand, and play's at least haulf way smart will be a threat.
2. The narrow walk way leading to the drop down point. (the big room with the large tunnel and lift, DUH!) This spot is my favorate if I'm on ramp-room D because its (atleast from my point of view) easier to get the jump on incomming enemies, but it does have its hazards. Soldier's become a real problem, its very easy to get knocked off this high perch by a well placed rocket, and pyros with there fire rockets also fall in to the 'most dangerous' of the incomming enemies list.

    I'm not going to metion the grappling hook at all because, lets face it no one that runs a server ever enables it.

Section2: Advanced Tactic's for Battle Harden'd Heavies

Dammage Movement:

    The first, and most important tatic any heavy needs to master to move ahead of the pack is 'Dammage Movement'. Now you thinking to your self, 'wtf does he mean? dammage movement?'. To put it in the simplest terms possable dammage movement is what it says it is, the dammage you take from being shot (no matter what weapon, this includes the axe) is converted in to slight movements that can mean the diffrence between getting a frag, and getting fragged. It breaks down like this, dammage movement is the translation of a force applyed to you into a productive means of moving around (making your self a harder target). Now if your firing your cannon as every one knows you cannot move PERIOD, at least by conventional methods, but you can how ever still jump and fire at the same time. Now if you have ever rocket jumped you know what dammage movement is, but if you havent go on a DM server, or use the TF Soldier, and select the rocket launcher, look directly down at your feet, jump up and hit the fire button at the same time. That should throw you up into the air, congrats you have just experanced dammage movement! Now you know what dammage movement is, it's very clear that if it can be done with a Soldier (or just in reg. DM) it can be done by a heavy. Only it will not be you moving you self it will be your enemy moving you, it makes it so that the more they shoot you the harder they make it on them self'ves to hit you. And all the while you can just keep blasting away at them so long as you can keep cannon lined up on there body, auto aim will take care of the rest. (Note: Because you are moving because they are shooting you, circle strifing on there part becomes a useless activity because of the amout of adjust ment needed to stay in a circle around you as you move along.)

Grenade Popping/Jumping:

    Unbenounced to you is the fact that you are carring potental rocket jumping materials. Your grenades can be used for the same purpose as a soldier's rocket, getting to high places and taking short cuts.
 

1. The first, and easiest, type of Grenade Poping that can be done, is with the regular grenade. The instructions for this highly risky jump are easy: Bind a key to +gren1 Hold that bound key untill the grenade goes off. This may seem crazy, and you know what? It is. Firstly it will cost you big time, a fully armored heavy will end up with 65 health and around 120 armor left. (Note: This is with a full load of 250 red armor, and has not been tested at this time in 2.6 by me with the 300 armor limit, but I can safely say that it really wouldnt make that much of a diffence the extra 50 armor would probly leave you with mabe 150 read armor left.)  This is most use full for getting up on the enemy balcony in 2forts, and is other wise useless in most levels but there are some places that you can get to in other levels, but most are useless. To get up to the loft you will have to go right next to the ramps on the side closest to the 'pill box' that is situated in the center of the fort. (the little room up on the sniper loft) You must squash you self right into that courner next to the ramp, and while you hold the grenade hold your +forward button (ie. the uparrow\mouse 2 or 3) and dont let go untill the grenade has gone off or you wont do any thing but pop up hit the sky, hurt you self, fall down and hurt your self again.
2. This is probly the hardest skill to master, it involves throwing your grenade in to where you want it (see the upper discription on where to stand, and apply that to where you throw the grenade) then run over and stand on it, wait the three sec's that it takes for the grenade to blow, and jumping right as the grenade explodes, this will spare you some armor but is an infinite amout harder then the first grenade pop/jump.
3. The same as #2 only using a mirv grenade as your perpellant, this one is harder still to accomplish because: A. The impact is drasticly less then that of the regular grenade and there for you dont go as high.(for example you can just barely make it onto the snipers loft in 2forts using the mirv) B. If your timing is not perfect you WILL miss the jump and when you comeback down you will be greeted by your own mirv farm. Can we say 'becomes bored with life'?

Using grenades for defence and suprise attacks:

    Phsycological warfare is nearly as deadly as the gun you tote, example: You are in your flag room guarding, there is a demoman/soldier at the door to the hall, hes been down there before so he knows your there. He decided's 'the hell with going down there, ill just blast him from where I'm at and when he dies I'll get the flag', so what does he do? You guessed it, he strifes infront of the door firing rounds at you as he passes the entrance. Now you could waist your ammo trying to kill him as he runs by, but if he didnt die before you ran out of ammo you are dead, and your flag is as good as caputred. But if you give him the illusion that your going to keep on firing untill he dies or you run your self dry, he will get cocky. Mabe even try and run down the hall when you back off with your cannon, but usually not. So what do you do? Well if hes smart enuff not to run down the hall after you back off with the cannon then just wait. Dont do a damn thing, he will start to get nervous wondering if you are out of ammo or if you just stopped firing because you think you can kill him. So the more he sits and stews the more impacent he gets, it will come down to a point where he will just start running down the hall just to find out weather or not you still have rounds left in your gun or not. This inate curiosity will kill him just as it did the cat, because the second he starts down the hall you can just fire up your cannon and rip him a new one.
 
    The alternative to the able tatic is to use your grenades, prefferably a mirv. Back off with your cannon, he will start to wonder weather or not your out of rounds just as before. And while hes wondering you prime that mirv and thow it right out that door into the entrance to the flag hall.(note: aim high so that it will clear the entrance way and go strait in to the entrace room) His first reaction will be the usual one, 'Ohhh shiT!' and zip right out the door an into the ramp hall he will run. Now heavies move slow enuff that if you primed the grenade and fired it at the end of the hall by the time you get to the entrance to the hall it will have exploded and will be gone, the enemy will come charging in full steam for the flag and run right smack dab in to you (this is where "you make a better door then a window" really means somthing) and he will probly be so startled by you that he will fire his weapon killing him self and only hurting you (note: this will only happen if the assulter is a soldier or demoman).
 
    (Note: This same kind of scare tatic where you make the enemy kill them self'ves instead of you killing them can be utalized in many othere places on just about every TF map. Im only out lining this one to give you an example to follow by. And this scare tatic can also be used on other classes to startle them for just long enuff so that you can heat up your cannon and get the jump on them. Works really well on snipers...)

In closing:

    Well I hope this guide has been some kind of a help to all you up and comming heavies, and mabe even some of you old wardog veterains. If you have any other stratigies or tatic's that you would like to see put to use in this guide email me: [email protected] I would love to hear from you. Also visit the SawMill http://www.lockandload.com/sawmill its a great source for new stragities and just general help for heavy weapons guys. And if you get the time visit my new's page at http://www.jorsm.com/~charlie/c_news.htm