Hello there. This is not a class guide describing the role you should play in an MvM team. There's already way too many repeat guides saying all the same thing. This guide is a follow-up guide once you learn what your role should be and you at least have a decent amount of experience in the mode.

This guide is about one basic thing: How aggro affects you and how to use aggro to your advantage. It will include how a map's layout is used to stay alive. In this case, I will be using the map Big Rock

So what is aggro?
When you draw the attention of a bot, you're said to have drawn it's aggro. Robots are simple creatures, they spawn and try to carry the bomb all the way into a little hole in the ground - and they'll kill whatever gets in their way. They don't have any advanced tactics, they're dumb....but they cheat with aimbots. So if you're just a team of 6, you need to know what makes them tick if you're going to win.

Why should you care about aggro?
If you're drawing the majority of the bots aggro, you'll have a very hard time surviving...and what good are you to your team if you're dead? But there are times when you will want to draw aggro towards yourself and away from your teammates. I will discuss that later on.

You take advantage of fighting bots while they are busy trying to kill one of your teammates.

Here's a scenario:
You die, then a few seconds later a teammate dies, then a few seconds later another teammates dies, etc. So you respawn first, you run straight into the action and since your teammates are dead all bots are aggro'd on you. You die in 1 second. Your next teammate respawns shortly after, runs into the fray, dies in 1 second. It's a vicious cycle. Fighting individually is not a winning strategy.

Now, if you all jump into the fight together, maybe 1 teammate dies while he takes all of the bot aggro, but while he's getting shot at the rest of the team can take down the bots.

Of course that's the way to go. Fighting as a team. Taking advantage that the bots are distracted while you shoot them easily.


There are 3 classes that need to understand aggro the most:

Scout
Pyro
Spy

Why these 3 classes?

These 3 classes will draw a lot of aggro naturally. Although when your teammates are also around, the scout does not draw aggro easily and the bots won't even look at you. These 3 classes are also fragile. If you want to be good at these 3 classes, you need to learn how to survive.

So lets start with some basic rules:

- For the most part, bots just spawning will aggro on the closest enemy that is in their Line of Sight (LOS).

- You can lose bots' aggro if you hide behind a corner / duck behind cover.

- Bots do not instantly have their aggro on you when you appear. It usually takes them a split second before they start targeting you. This is most obvious when you play around with heavy bots. You can tell when you have their aggro because they spin up their minigun. When you lose their aggro, they stop their spin up. It's these split second delays that you will be taking advantage of.

- If you don't hide, bots are aggro'd on you until someone draws it away from you or you back away outside of a certain range. I don't know the exact mechanics on who bots focus on. In general, undisguised spies draw the most aggro, while pyros seem to draw a lot since they're always up close to the bots.

The Scout - a staple of any MvM team. The Scout is used for his ability to run collect cash, milk robots, and mark enemies for death. Standard meta scout.

Some scouts are much better than others. A good scout can A+ a map even when a wave doesn't go smoothly. Occasionally credits will fall behind enemy lines while the rest of the team is dead. So how does a good scout still get an A+? Well, he mostly understands how to use the map to his advantage.

For one, a good scout is almost NEVER running straight at bots. He should be running and jumping at angles to the horde. Let the cash magnet do the work. Not only this, he should be ducking behind cover every few seconds before dashing out for another pass for cash. Because you're always on the front lines, you will be drawing a lot of bot attention. However, since you are fast and changing elevation a lot, you should be able to dodge most of the fire. You won't be able to survive forever like that though. At some point, you'll need to drop the aggro by finding cover, let the bots pass, and then go for another cash dash.

So is the scout's only contribution to the team collecting cash, milking, and marking? Nope, the unsung contribution of a good scout is his ability to draw attention toward himself while the rest of the team is free to kill distracted bots.



Sometimes giants can be duped into shooting at you even when there is no chance of them hitting you because of a barrier. He might be able to see you over a fence because he's so tall, but when he tries to shoot at you, all of his bullets hit the fence instead. This is an example of using aggro to your advantage.


UPDATE:

Some more Scout drawing aggro away from teammates

A pyro is a great addition to a team. He can deal tons of damage to a huge number of bots due to the natural penetration of the flamethrower. On Big Rock, he is invaluable for his ability to solo tanks using the phlogistinator.

However, there's only one problem with the pyro - he normally draws a lot of aggro and is very fragile. If you don't know how to play him properly, you will constantly die and therefore will be of no use to your team.

The pyro is a fragile creature:

Pyro's always die in the "open field". What I mean by that is when a pyro is out in the open and has no terrain to protect him, he'll die within a few seconds. A pyro's best tactic is to kill bots before they even get a chance to target him. This is why camping a corner is very important. The bots are programmed to advance - so they HAVE to walk around the corner.

The trick is:
You're either fighting the bots when they're distracted OR
You're fighting the bots when they turn a corner and are up-close next to you



When a phlog pyro enters 'mmmph' mode, it's a terrifying thing. I know the bots surely don't like it. You only build up the bar to max by staying alive and dealing damage. This is why you need to learn when you fight and when it's futile to stay and fight. With experience, you'll learn when it's best to run and hide and wait for another chance.


Here is how powerful a pyro is in 'mmmph' mode with max flamethrower damge + health on kill. The Health on Kill upgrade is crucial. It's me vs 11 Heavy bots. I am drawing all of the aggro since my teammates are somewhere else. While you watch, pay attention to my health bar going down and up...and my killstreak


Entering mmmph mode is like entering into God mode for 10 seconds. It's when the pyro is an agent of death. So the most effective way to be a phlog pyro is to constantly build up your mmmph bar...and you can only do that by learning how to stay alive.



The tank is your friend as a pyro. The tank acts like a moving shield. Bullets and explosives don't penetrate through the tank, but your flames can. You will want to use it to your advantage whenever you can



Now, lets put it all together. Here's an example from wave 6/7 of Broken Parts - without a doubt the hardest wave of Mecha Engine

TIP: Get comfortable with the health and ammo pack locations. Grab health packs and ammo packs whenever you can.


Some points:
- You'll notice that when the heavy is aggro'd on me I seek cover IMMEDIATELY. If I stay up close to him, I'm dead in 1 second.
- I don't attempt to solo Giant Infinite Fire Soldiers. I can't beat them 1 on 1 as a phlog pyro without the use of canteens - I just know that from experience. The only giants I can dominate 1 on 1 are Giant Demoman because I move too fast for them to target
- I hide behind the tank and use the penetration of the flamethrower to deal with the soldiers behind it.

Playing as spy is actually what helped me become a better pyro. When you play spy, you have to understand how to run and hide once you draw aggro. An uncloaked spy basically ALWAYS draws all of the aggro. Now, you can help your teammates out with that fact as you can maintain the aggro of a Giant rapid fire soldier even though you are far away from him and can dodge rockets easily.

UPDATE:

Another fact to take advantage of is that bots turn and look towards you after you use your sapper. They won't fire at you if you're still disguised, but they will look at you for a few seconds. If bots are advancing toward a corner where you know your team is waiting, use your sapper on the bots in the back when they're near the corner. The bots that just turn the corner will turn around towards you and your teammates are free to fire away.

UPDATE:

A lot of the movements of the spy are similar to that of the pyro, running and jumping behind cover once you've drawn all of the bot aggro. The dead ringer is the safety net, but you don't always need to wait for it be charged before you undisguise.

This section will be short because other guides that teach you how to play spy in MvM already talk about how to deal with aggro

The engineer's sentry is great for its autoaim especially when dealing with waves of small scouts.

However, a sentry gun can have fully upgraded building health (+300%). This puts a Lvl 3 Sentry's health at 864 (which is 216 x 4). When you use your wrangler, the sentry only takes 33% damage. So the effective health of your sentry is 2592 (which is 864 x 3). That's quite the tank. Not only this, the sentry doesn't suffer from knockback and it negates crit damage.

Giants seem to love targeting sentries. So your Lvl 3 can draw all of the aggro of the giants and tank all of the damage.

The sentry can also be INSTANTLY HEALED to full health if you use an Building Upgrade canteen. This is why I will sometimes place my sentry all the way up forward to draw all bot aggro


The spy is waiting to backstab the Giant Medic, but he can easily die by 1 rapid fired crocket. So the sentry is up forward to make the giant unload his clip before he has to reload. During the reload, the spy can kill the giant medic easily.

Medics are nice additions to teams. They work best in teams that are mediocre but still learning, while they're not as useful on teams that are very experienced. Merely healing cannot justify the class by itself. You're normally replacing an extra damage class with a class that is almost pure support. Only healing is not enough. You need to increase teammates' damage, increase survivability with healing and overheal...and more importantly draw aggro towards yourself while you have your Projectile Shield up. The easiest way to do this is to go up close to the bots with your shield up

When you're up close to bots, they tend to target you. Because you're basically invulnerable while the Projectile Shield is up, go up close and become an aggro dump. Have all of the bots waste their time shooting something they can't kill.

The other reason you want to get up close is so that your shield can deal damage. The shield does an over-powered amount of damage for something that also makes you invulnerable. It's surprisingly great small bot crowd control. In addition, this allows other teammates to move in closer confidently, where they can benefit from extra ramp-up damage. But those are seperate subjects. You should just know that the medic's shield should be used aggressively to draw fire away from your teammates.

Pro Tip: An exploitation of the aggro mechanic.
Normally a Spy will draw all aggro when he's undisguised and nearby robots. This means, he can get 3-4 backstabs on a Giant before said Giant turns around. However, if a spy starts his backstabs while a medic is healing him, the Giants will maintain aggro on the medic instead of turning around towards the spy. You see this mostly used against Captain Punch from the mission 'Bone Shaker'. Most people believe that it's the uber that is preventing Captain Punch from turning around. It's actually the healbeam that is doing it. People use standard medigun uber in this combination because they can survive the aggro while healing the spy.

It works for more than Captain Punch and can be exploited accordingly.

In this video, you can see me healing the spy who backstabs the Giant Medic 5 times. The Giant Heavy never looks back behind him and the spy continues on to backstab the Giant Heavy until he's killed. I maintain my healbeam on the spy the entire time and use my uber canteen to survive the bullets.

[insert future videos]

If you want to become a great MvM player, you will have to understand how to manipulate aggro and use it to your advantage. I originally had the inspiration for this guide when I thought about how bad some pyros are even though they're using the right loadout. You may be able to tell that this guide was really written for the pyro since that section has the most effort put into it.

However, understanding aggro is important for all classes - not just the 3 main classes I listed. If you see a teammate drawing all of the bot's aggro, don't be afraid to go up close to the bot and deal major damage.

The words in this guide may not make sense until you watch the gameplay videos. The videos are the most important portion of this guide - so make sure you watch them.

I will probably touch up this guide over time. I'm open to suggestion

Check out my other guides:

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=230713208

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=213792138