• You will usually be kicked.
  
• It is more skill-demanding than a regular engineer.
  
• The playstyle is different than both a regular engineer and a gunslinger in normal TF2.

The Gunslinger in MVM is a very fun playstyle, and is viable up to and including Intermediate missions, and with friends can be used at even higher difficulties.

Yes, even with the recent nerf, I have still pubbed an Intermediate mission with one friend and had success.

The general idea is you are now a secondary field unit. You should generally be further back than the higher health classes such as Soldier or Demoman, but notably closer to the front than usual. That +25 HP does not make you invincible, but can be put to great use.

Your sentries will give medium firepower, destroying weaker bots and drawing aggro away from your allies. Your dispenser will tend to go down less often, as now there is only 1 building for you to manage instead of 2. Teleporter strategies mostly remain the same, except for when there are multiple Engineers, which will be covered later.

One key aspect of this build is that you are no longer tied down to your buildings. While a normal Engi, and particularly skilled Engies may be able to run on short errands, the basic fact of the matter is that if you get further away than 6 seconds from your Sentry, you are out of place. The Gunslinger Engi has no such limitation, and may freely move about the front lines, slaying robots and having a jolly good time.

My own preferred loadout:

• Frontier Justice
  
• Pistol
  
• Gunslinger

The Frontier Justice may be swapped out for the Widowmaker if one so desires, as the more forward position the Gunslinger Engi takes puts them in a much better position to get damage metal.

The Pistol may be replaced with a Short Circuit for destroying enemy projectiles.

A Wrangler could be used, but in my own experience it has defeated the purpose of not being bound to your sentry.

The Gunslinger Engi does sometimes have first wave issues, and so it might be a good idea to go with a plain Wrench the first wave, then switching when a little bit more cash is available. More information on this strategy will be available later.



Overall, you run around shooting things, slapping down Sentries, and tying up loose ends with your mobility and Revenge Crits from your Frontier Justice.

This is your boomstick.
This is your crit blaster.
This is your crowd masher.
This is a hilariously OP gun if used correctly.
This is a terrible gun if used wrong.

Only use this weapon if you have revenge crits stored.
Try to maintain 8-12 crits at all times.
If you have more than that, odds are your internet will cut out for 5 seconds and you'll get spied during the lag. See also: Murphy's Law.

This is your PDW.
You should constantly be shooting robots with this.
If you need to get to someplace, shoot robots with this while walking there.
If you're attacked by spies and don't have any revenge crits, shoot the spies with this then continue shooting other robots.
If you aren't doing anything else, shoot robots with this.

This is both the point of this guide, and the least used weapon. The only thing you'll be doing with the Gunslinger is punching buildings that aren't your sentries. Allied level 3 sentries are fine.

Teleporter placement is the same as normal engineers.

• About 2/3rds of the way to the front.
  
• In a sheltered corner, facing AWAY from the wall. Right mouse button, please.
  
• Not visible from the bomb path in the direction the bots walk.
  
• Not where allies tend to be, so it doesn't take stray bullets or pipebombs.
  
• Within a few seconds walk of where allies are, such as around a corner or on a ledge.

Dispenser placement is somewhat different. You do not have to be by it at all times, as mentioned earlier. You also do not usually have to worry about your Dispenser being sentry busted, though it must still be accessible so you can repair it. It can be placed in rather small areas now, as you don't have to fit both a Sentry and Dispenser into your nest.

Sentry placement is rather different. As with regular Sentries, do not place it smack dab in the front where bots have spawn protection until they are standing directly on it, something I have seen far too often, and unfortunately, occasionally literally until the bots are standing on it.

Good sentry placement for this style is further forwards than for level 3 sentries, but behind some sort of cover, or at least in a spot where they won't get shredded immediately.

When I am playing with this build, this is the main upgrade path, depending on how much cash happens to be available during any given Setup period.

3* Dispenser Range - $300

This is key to the health of your Dispenser, and your team. Having large range on your Dispenser means it can be placed further in cover. Also, your team does not necessarily have to break line of sight with enemies to heal & ammo up, enabling them to continue shooting them.

In particular, this makes it possible to place the Dispenser on the large red fuel tank in Mannhattan and heal everyone around, while generally being ignored by enemies, and also being difficult for robot spies to sap.

1* Building Health - $400

This helps your Sentries stay alive for long enough that they can feed you crits, and also keeps your Dispenser up long enough to be repaired.

Frontier Justice: Projectile Penetration - $200

This upgrade can easily double or triple the damage output of your FJ's crit blasts when used on mobs of enemies.

1* Health Regen - $200

Similar to the +25 HP granted by the Gunslinger, this will not make you immortal, but it has saved my sorry bum quite a few times from a stray rocket or grenade, and +2 health per second is a world of different from +0 health per second.

2* Max Metal - $400

Not only does this upgrade increase the number of Sentries you can place without an ammo pack, it also increases the amount of metal you recieve from those packs.

This upgrade does tend to drain your Dispenser of metal very quickly, causing the odd situation where you actually tend to avoid your Dispenser and go for ammo elsewhere to avoid draining it, despite the healing it provides, which is another part of the reason why I often buy a single level of Health Regen.

Disposable Sentry - $500

Ah, yes, the hated Disposable Sentry upgrade. Considered useless by many, and honestly most Engineers can't really put it to good use, so it often is useless.

With the recent nerf to the Gunslinger, causing the Minisentry to spawn at half health, and then regenerate to full, this upgrade is more critical to this build than when this guide was originally written. Why? Because the Disposable Sentry still spawns at full health!

Having a second sentry to throw down will not only double the DPS you get from your Sentries, it also enables you to defend more area, gives you a second source of crits, essentially doubles your sentry health, and is just a general good idea for a Gunslinger.

1* Building Health - $400

More health, yay.

1* Run Speed - $200

This Engineer needs to be mobile, and Run Speed is good for both running to buildings to repair, and running in and out of sticky situations.

3* Jump Height - $300

Besides being really fun, this can open up some new travel routes that were previously impossible or took much longer. Some examples:

• You can jump on top of the big red fuel tank in Mannhattan I mentioned earlier
  
• You can jump over the wooden spikes in Rottenburg
  
• Back in Mannhattan, you can jump on top of the truck and then to the center walkway
  
• There are many small ridges of rock and short fences that can be leaped over in Bigrock
  
• In Decoy, you can jump on the side attachment of the center building and then the top.

In addition, it is now much easier to leap over your own buildings, and even over robots for a quick getaway.

Frontier Justice: 2* Magazine Clip Size - $400

The primary weakness of the Frontier Justice is that it only fires 3 shots. Buying 2 levels of this will raise you to the standard shotgun amount of 6.

I would not recommend only purchasing 1 level, as that only raises you to 4, buy something else and save up for 2 levels.

1* Max Metal - $200

With this third Max Metal upgrade, you now have 500 metal storage, and the medium ammo packs give you 250. No more metal starvation for you.

2* Run Speed - $400

gotta go fast

1* Building Health - $400

The final Building Health upgrade, not much to say about it.

Total Cost = $4300

And that constitutes the core of the Gunslinger Engi build.

Due to the fact that you don't have to babysit your own sentry, you are in a unique position to cooperate and assist other Engineers in ways that regular Engineers cannot, although some of the ideas given here do still apply to most.

As you now don't generally have to worry about your own buildings, you can now help maintain your allies buildings, and keep them Spy and Sapper-free.

Sentries can no longer be repaired during the Wrangler cooldown, meaning that despite the Wrangler also reducing repair rates, it is still quite helpful to extend an ally's Wrangler burst by punching their Sentry a few times.

Unless you want to set up multiple destination points for outbound teleports, it is possible to set up a poor man's 2-way tele by placing your exit at their entrance and vice versa, meaning that the only reason you should ever buy 2-way tele now is if even the Scout is doing the Rancho Relaxo during the round, and you're still getting full credits.

On a side note, that's usually how things turn out when I'm playing with my friends...

These are further upgrades for this build that take place in parallel with the core upgrades, but are optional.

Buy resistances as needed. They can help you keep your stockpile of Revenge Crits. More Health Regen can also help sustain you until the next health pack or Dispenser.



The Pistol is a handy little gun, and with the massive secondary ammo reserve the Engineer has for it, can be very useful indeed. The upgrade path shown here gives you a gun with enough damage per clip to kill any non-giant bot with ease, and the DPS of a basic flamethrower without afterburn.

Projectile Penetration - $200
2* Fire Rate - $200
2* Clip Size - $400
2* Fire Rate - $200
1* Max Ammo - $125
1* Clip Size - $200

Total Price = $1325

With the 3rd Clip Size upgrade, this gives us 150 DPS, 30 mag size, and 300 in reserve, and I rarely upgrade past this point.

Wait a second.
3rd Clip Size. 30 mag, and 300 side.
3, 30, 300
333
3 threes
Half-Life TEAM FORTRESS 3 CONFIRMED!!!



The core upgrades for the Frontier Justice are quite good, but sometimes you need a little bit more after the fact.

1* Clip Size - $200
3* Reload Speed - $750

Total Price = $950

I rarely buy Health on Kill in general, and given that you should usually only fire this weapon when loaded with Revenge Crits, and that you can only get 35 of them, it doesn't make any particular sense to purchase Max Ammo or Firing Rate for this weapon.



Occasionally, I will buy Firing Rate for Sentries, but I rarely have needed it, and it costs $1050 for a mere 42% increase in DPS, and that is the maximum amount.

Yes, I said 42%. +30% firing rate is +42% DPS because of how TF2 handles such statistics. Internally, the firing rate statistic is actually called "postfire delay", or the length of time after firing until it can fire again. What that +30% firing rate actually means is that this length of time is decreased by 30%, or to *0.7.

DPS is inversely proportional to this postfire delay length, giving us the following.
1 / 0.7 = 1.42ish, which is where I got that 42% increase from.

As an example, +50% firing rate is actually +100% firing rate in normal terms, because +50% firing rate gives us a postfire delay of *0.5, which means that it takes half the time between shots, which is twice the speed.

TF2 math is confusing. Moving on,



These are the final upgrades I would recommend, outside of maxing out your upgrades for everything.

1* Max Metal - $200
Gunslinger: 4* Firing Rate - $800

This will maximise your ability to assist other Engineers, or to reconstruct any buildings that get destroyed mid-match without a canteen.

The Gunslinger, contrary to popular belief, can be very effective in MvM.

It does not have the same straight-up DPS, but gives a wide variety of options, and is just plain more fun in my experience.