The description of the guide pretty much says it all; all classes will be described and will also be given a recommended loadout that would help the most for new players. There are also alternate playstyles that change the way certain classes work, so I will talk about those in a seperate guide, including how to play as such playstyle (if it can be played by new players). There is also a recent update (The Gun Mettle update, as you all know) that buffed and de-buffed a whole lot of things in the game, so my stats and views on the weapons are changed according to the recent update.

If you want to look at the full changelist of the update, check out this link below.

http://www.teamfortress.com/gunmettle/powerhouse.php

With that all out of the way, let's get started!

(also i'm relatively new to guide making, so ignore any citing i do for any images and please rate fairly :o )

http://www.teamfortress.com/images/posts/crazylegs.jpg

The Scout is a very fast class with low health. He can double jump and cap/push objectives faster than any other class. The best way to play as a scout is to use your speed to your advantage and double jump to dodge attacks. When beginning as a scout, you need to have good aim with your scattergun in order to deal massive damage up close. I have found that the best way to aim properly is to have your crosshair pointed in the general direction of the enemy, and then strafe left and right to line yourself up with the enemy to get a shot. Whenever the enemy shoots back (mostly with soldiers and demomen), I like to jump towards them and then use my double jump to veer over to the left or right side, changing directions in mid-air. Most soldiers try to aim towards the ground to guarantee damage on his enemy, so this method works fairly well.

The scout is an aggressive ambush class. Often times the best way to kill your enemy is to get a nice and close meatshot before they even notice you (and sometimes it's better to just do as much damage you can do before you die or start taking damage). You should especially do this with heavies, as they can be able to kill you with ease if you aren't dealing damage fast enough. Classes you should target would be the other low-healthed classes (i.e. sniper, spy, medic). You can handle other classes just fine with proper dodging and aim, but always avoid pyros. They can easily exploit your advantage in close range and set you on fire, so either pick them off farther away from you with a pistol, or just ignore them entirely. Good snipers can still get a headshot out of you if you don't stay evasive, so don't just go in a straight line for too long in the midst of a sniper.

Scouts also have a huge advantage over demomen. Since demomen have projectiles that have to hit on contact, so long as you keep evasive, you'll be more likely to win the fight. However, if the demo is stickyspamming, you might be in trouble.

I don't have a recommended loadout for the Scout because his default scattergun is very effective (with a base damage of 60 (6 per pellet of 10). As for secondaries, you can use Bonk! atomic punch to escape danger in hairy, close quarter situations, or you could stick with the regular pistol. I The winger isn't that good because you still do the same damage per second with the smaller clip, despite the damage. (While it's active it give you a jump boost, though, so it can be useful for dodging or making jumps easier.)

Alternate playstyles:
Bleed/guillotine scout
Bonk scout

Soldiers are fairly slow, but they can be very deadly. Soldiers have the second highest amount of health by default (200) and experienced soldiers can use rocket jumps to get to the front at high speeds. Soldiers can also equip Buff Banners that, when activated, gives soldiers and all nearby allies a selected buff (depending on the type of banner).

The best way to play soldier is to aim towards the ground and walls with the rocket launcher to attack enemies. It is significantly easier to shoot a rocket near someone's feet than it is to get a direct hit with a rocket (however, direct hits do the most damage. Smoke 'em if you got 'em.) As for rocket jumping, you don't have to be a pro at it; it is a secondary skill that the more advanced soldiers practice. The only rocket jumping that you need to know is that you can blast yourself to high heights or you can shoot the rocket at an angle so you get a mid air "speed boost" to get you places. To rocket jump, you need to jump and crouch in mid air before launching a rocket. This must be done in a very quick matter, and its best to do rocket jumps by flicking your mouse to the position where you're shooting the rocket to propel yourself.

Soldiers are very well-rounded when it comes to reliability; they can easily kill low health classes with two rockets, and so long as there is a good distance between you and the target, you can peek around the corner to deal damage to heavies and take minimal damage. The only classes you should worry about are spies and snipers, as you are a slow class and you are vulnerable to headshots and backstabs if you don't check your surroundings often. This issue can be countered with rocket jumping, of course, but it can set you up for bodyshots from snipers. You also have a big weakness to pyros because of their airblasts, but I'll talk about that later about Airblast Pyros.

My recommended loadout for starter soldiers would be:
The Cow Mangler 5000 (use default rocket launcher if you don't fancy the cow mangler)
The Concheror
Any melee, perferably the disciplinary action or the escape plan.

The cow mangler 5000 has unlimited ammo, so you don't have to be conservative with rockets. It also comes with a charged shot that mini crits and sets fire to enemies, as well as disable all sentries caught in the blast for up to 4 seconds. The only drawback to this weapon is that it can't be crit boosted (making a regular buff banner or (heaven forbid) a kritsgreig ubering you useless) and it alone does only 20 percent damage to buildings. Rely on other teammates to destroy sentries, because your 4 second disable with the charge shot could be all that is needed for a successful push. The Concheror makes you recover 2 health per second and its banner effect gives everyone near you a speed boost and the ability to recover health from damage dealt on enemies. This improves your chances of survival and negates any damage you take from rocket jumping.

Alternate playstyles:
Infinite Regen Soldier
Trolldier (advanced)
Airstrike Soldier

I even had to go to a private server with no bots to prove how bad i am with pyro. Info ahead is common wisdom. You have been warned.

The pyro is a good close-range class, but takes some skill to properly handle. The pyro does really heavy damage up close and can easily put down whoever dares to get close enough. Even more, the afterburn does tons of damage if it isn't treated, dealing 6 damage per second (totalling up to 60 damage for the total 10 seconds it takes for afterburn to wear off). A good pyro also makes use of airblasting. Right click (MOUSE2) allows you to airblast, which can be used to deflect projectiles, extinguish teammates, and push enemies back. Airblasting is basically your "omni-tool", because it can be used to help you get close to soldiers without risking damage, save dying medics (and other teammates, mind) from afterburn, and waste enemy ubercharges by walling off the push. (pyros are literally the push force that can make certain scenarios impossible to overcome.) Pyros also have access to flare guns. A default flare gun can be used to set enemies ablaze from a distance, but can also be used in conjunction with other afterburn-inflicting items to give crits. If you shoot a flare gun at a burning target, you will deal 90 damage to them.

With good practice and use of airblast, Pyros are more effective towards soldiers and demos, as most of their attacks are projectile based and can be deflected. In addition to that, any airblasted projectile (excluding demoman stickybombs) get charged with mini crits, making the return damage even more catastrophic. Other classes don't have much advantage over pyros in close range, and most spies will avoid you if you check your back and spycheck anyone suspicious. Avoid Snipers and Scouts, as snipers can headshot you and scouts can use speed to their advantage to kite you until you die to a pistol. Heavies can also take you down easily, so if you come across one, try avoiding him or setting him up with a burn-flare gun combo.

My recommended (favorite) loadout is:
The phlogistinator (a.k.a. the phlog)
The Manmelter (doesn't crit burning enemies with shots unlike other flare guns)
Any melee, maybe a Powerjack so you can run faster or a Neon Annihilator for helping engies (and punishing people underwater)

The phlog forces you to play in a way that is appropriate to the pyro's nature; hit-and-run geurilla tactics. With low damage and no airblasting, you need to take advantage of any close range hits you can make with that phlog to boost your Mmph meter. With a full Mmph meter, you can dominate the front with crits for a short time, completely washing away the defences (but you can still die while you are critted, so don't go too crazy).
What if I can't get close enough to the enemy to deal damage? That's when the manmelter comes in. The manmelter gives you unlimited ammo, so you can harass enemies from a distance with a few shots. The maximum potential for any flare gun's damage is up to 90 damage (30 from base damage and 60 from full afterburn. This applies with other flare guns that don't have damage reduction). The damage also fills up your mmph meter, so a few good shots with the manmelter can charge up your phlog very easily. Finally, you can store crits inside your manmelter by holding right click to extinguish burning teammates. You get to save your medic and give the enemy team a taste of their own medicine! Sweet~!

Alternate playstyles:
Airblast Pyro (Advanced-- You must be very good with airblasting in order to be successful)
PyroShark (dwell in pools of water with the Neon Annihilator and attack enemies)
Pybro

The Demoman is the first class in the defense bracket. Like the pyro, the demo has 175 health, but as a downside, he's slightly slower than all of the normal-speeded classes. He has a grenade launcher that can guarantee 100 damage for a direct hit. As soon as it bounces off a wall or platform, though, the damage drops off to about 22-64 base damage. The launched grenades make it difficult for enemies to run away, too, because they might be too slow and have to wait for the grenade to explode before escaping.

The stickylauncher is an extremely important weapon for the more defensive demoman playstyles. Whether they're used for placing traps, guarding objectives or just to use as a secondary (in a last ditch attempt to survive), the stickylauncher is very helpful. They do a lot of base damage per bomb, so 3 or 4 bombs should be enough to take down any class. You can also use stickies to stickyjump. Stickyjumping is relatively easy to do and one bomb can get you on your way, but in my experience it can hurt you a lot more than rocket jumping as a soldier, so flag a medic for overheals or mind the damage.

Demomen are really good at melee. They have a wide variety of weapons to choose from, all of which encourage use of a shield or using melee only (known as the demoknight). Shields are used to give damage resistance buffs and grant the demoman the ability to charge towards the enemy. Charging is very useful because if you use a melee with the charge, you'll get crits and mini crits toward the end of your charge.

Like the soldier, the demoman is very reliable, as few classes have an advantage over him. He's still victim to snipers and spies, like everyone else, but aside from that, the demoman can do tons of damage to high health classes with proper aim, and scouts don't have too much of an advantage because you can probably use the stickybomb launcher to compensate for a lack of proper accuracy when fighting a scout. Probably the only true weaknesses the demoman has with classes is when he is a demoknight, but I'll get to that later on in my other guide.

Although the default loadout for demoman is just fine, I like using the loose cannon because it does knockback and if you "cook" the shots long enough, you can do a double donk which can deal lots of damage.

Alternate playstyles:
Demoknight (fear him)
Demospam
Stickyspammer

The Heavy is a slow but tanky class. His minigun does tons of damage up close and can mow down higher healthed classes that don't have cover. He has the most health in the game and is usually pocketed by new medics. Sad. Anyway, thanks to the recent update, the heavy has become more tanky and is a more playable class now. The Brass Beast and Natascha give him a 20% damage resistance while spinning up the gun. The Tomislav is quick to prep, has no barrel spin noise, and has 20% tighter spread compared to the other miniguns. Some of the Heavy's melee weapons also got buffed, too. The Eviction Notice now gives you a speed boost upon hitting an enemy and the warrior's spirit also gives 10 health for each successful hit.

Heavies have an alternative item for their secondaries; sandviches. A sandvich will heal you full health when you use it and can be dropped for other teammates as a medium size health kit (it will heal 50% of your friend's health). The buffalo steak sandvich, when eaten, will make you move faster and mini crit. However, you will be forced to use your melee while this effect is active and you will also take more damage than normal. Finally there is the Dalokohs bar, which will heal less than a sandvich (100 instead of 300), but give you increased max health for 30 seconds, giving you a whopping 350 health (paired with a medic giving you full overheal, you won't instantly die to a fully charged sniper headshot. Neat!) The Dalokohs bar, when dropped, doesn't provide as much health as a sandvich to other players, because it acts like a small health kit rather than a medium one. (One important tip; you can regenerate your sandvich with medkits! If you see a medkit and your sandvich is available, eat the sandvich and then pick up the medkit to get your sandvich back. That way, you'll heal a full 300 and still have a spare sandvich to eat for a more immediate situation.)

Heavies are best played in an ambush/defensive style. Jumping around the corner and spinning the barrel the second you jump gives you more opportunity to surprise your enemies around corners. Another thing is that the minigun can run out of ammo, so be conservative. Know that your minigun doesn't work well at longer ranges and don't waste ammo at something you can't reach. Never approach a soldier that can shoot you by peeking out of a corner and popping back in, because your disadvantage from the range makes it easy to get picked off.

As a heavy, you might not want to target any classes, because you're going to rely more on positioning and having the enemy come to you. You do, however, have a slight advantage over Engineers, as their sentries have reduced bullet resistance to your minigun (thanks to the Gun Mettle update). There are also other kinds of attributes that make it difficult for an engineer to defend against you, but I'll talk about them later on in the Engineer section of this guide. Aside from targeting sentries, you'll want to avoid long range combat because you can easily be picked off from any class, so long as you don't try to evade attacks or close distance with some Gloves of Running Urgently (GRU). Be especially careful of spies, because to them you're just a convenient inch of plywood for their knives to run through. Always check your back and feed your medic sandviches.

For a recommended loadout, use the default minigun with the sandvich and the GRU. Use the tactics mentioned above and move quicker with the GRU (either to run or to get to the front faster.)

There are no good alternate playstyles to mention, because the only playstyles that exist for heavy are either sit and do nothing but give sandviches or use melee only with a buffalo steak sandvich. Both playstyles don't sound very helpful, so I'm just gonna skimp on those two.

This isn't me trying to advertise for Uncle Dane's channel. He just made this video and I felt that it would really help in explaining engineer.

Uncle Dane the Engineer Main did a really good job explaining the Gun Mettle update concerning Engineer, as most of the statistics i looked up on the Gun Mettle update were a bit confusing. Check out his channel if you want more advice on playing engineer!

The Engineer is the most important class for creating defensive footholds and area denial. The engineer not only excels in defense, but he also does extremely well as a supportive class, placing down dispencers to heal and provide ammo, as well as deploying teleporters, which can really help with the objective. Thanks to the update, the engineer is also quicker in setting up (for reasons mentioned in the video above), so aggressive-defensive play is encouraged of engineers.
The engineer can replace his pistol with the Wrangler, a controller that allows you to take manual control of your sentry. (It also puts a shield on your sentry, making it more difficult to destroy, but makes it more difficult to repair it and give it ammo.) The Engineer also has plenty of shotguns, the most popular one being the widowmaker, a shotgun that uses metal for ammo and never has to reload. As for wrenches, the most "special" one of them all is the Eureka Effect, which allows you to teleport to your spawn and to the area of your teleporter exit, with the penalties being that your construction speed boost with the wrench is decreased and the amount of metal you recieve from dispencers and ammo is reduced.

It is very important that you know about base positioning. Think strategically when it comes to sentry placement and use of your other buildings. Your sentry should cover most, if not, all entries to the area near an objective, or be standing in a place where it would be difficult to push the payload.

Engineers are relatively weak without the support of their sentry. Although a shotgun and some proper aim can do you well, you won't be too dangerous or annoying without a "safe zone" you can pop in and out of. If you're inside of your base, watch out for spies. Put yourself in a position where it would be difficult for a spy to backstab you. That means putting your back to the corner and sitting on top of your buildings while you upgrade them (when not being attacked, of course. You'll have to crouch jump in order to get on your buildings.)

For a beginner's loadout, I'd recommend using the Rescue Ranger and the Jag. The Rescue Ranger helps keep your sentry alive and the Jag drastically increases the rate in which you deploy and upgrade buildings. (Also, in the video, the reduced repair-per-hit is only barely compensated for with faster swing speed, so if it weren't for the damage reduction, the Jag is almost a direct upgrade to the wrench.) Another downside to this loadout is that the Rescue Ranger isn't much of an ideal weapon against enemies. However, if you're beginning as an engineer, you're probably going to hold down the territory you control and not step outside your little "safety circle".

Alternate playstyles:
Battle Engie (The mini sentry has been nerfed, therefore it would be best to be passive aggressive rather than all-out aggressive. More on that later.)

The Medic is very highly based on support. His primary isn't ideal for killing enemies, but he does sport a Medigun that can heal wounded teammates and also provide overheal for those untouched by the merits of battle (yet). He can also build up ubercharges while healing his friends to make effective pushes that can almost never be countered. Medics have 150 health and can regenerate 3 health per second if hurt. His other syringe guns are the Blutsauger, the Overdose, and the Crusader's Crossbow. The Blutsauger heals you when you hurt enemies with it, but reduces your health regen rate. The Overdose, when equipped, increases your speed based on the amount of ubercharge stored up, but does less damage. (Very unlikely that anyone would use this, but it's there.) Then, there's the Crusader's crossbow, a weapon that shoots a giant syringe that heals friends and hurts enemies.

One of the mediguns you might learn to enjoy is the Quick Fix. It heals patients faster, builds uber faster, and if your friend is rocket jumping, charging, or is under any circumstance where your patient is running faster than you, you will adjust to their speed. The downsides are that you overheal patients less, and your invincibility from ubercharging is replaced with extremely fast healing rates. The different uber might make it harder to push sentries, but it sure can help keep the team alive as you only need to heal someone for 1 second to get them to max.

You're a huge target to the enemy team, and usually the enemies may target you first rather than your patient. Ergot, the solution would be to stay as far away from your healing target as possible, because that way you aren't affected by splash damage (or any type of damage given that you're hiding around a wall or corner) and you'll be more able to "notice" other wounded teammates in need of a band-aid. Check your back often, as you'll be victim to spies if you aren't aware of your surroundings. Always switch to a melee/primary and defend yourself against immediate threats that are attacking you or other friends.

The medigun has a thing called "crit heals". If a target is wounded and doesn't recieve health for more than 10-13 seconds, the medigun will heal way more health per second. With this in context, you should try to keep the more beefy classes healed up during combat and work on the more supportive classes after the fight dies down for a little.

Medics aren't very suited for fighting because of the firepower (err, lack thereof) they possess. In fact, I've found it easier to use the Crusader's Crossbow, because it's one easy-to-land shot, rather than a bunch of syringes that only work short-mid ranges. A medic relies heavily on the patient they're healing more than anything else. Because of the Medic's reliability of other classes, the Medic doesn't have any advantages or disadvantages over any classes. It mainly depends on the class/classes the medic is trying to keep alive.

My favorite loadout when playing medic is:
Crusader's Crossbow
Default Medigun
Ubersaw

The Crusader's Crossbow is a bit of a two-edged knife; It's reliable when it comes to suppressing or softening baddies, and at the same time it allows you to heal a lot of health for other classes that need a lot of health back immediately. The default medigun is a good choice because unlike the other mediguns, it has the best type of ubercharge that'll really tip the favors if you use it properly. The ubersaw is also very useful for the medigun because it helps build uber fast. So long as you can handle melee-ranged encounters, you can guarantee at least 50 percent of your uber charged up from 125 healthed classes like spies.

Alternate playstyles:
Battle Medic (all appeal and no heal)

The Sniper takes a lot of skill and accuracy to use properly. The Sniper has a sniper rifle that does damage dependant on how long he is scoped (50 damage when unscoped or at 0% charge and 150 at 100% charge). However, headshots do much more damage. A quickscoped shot in the face does 150 damage, while a fully charged headshot does 450 damage, which is capable of killing a heavy with overheal from a medic. Should the enemy get close, the sniper is equipped with an smg (which also takes good accuracy to properly spray) that can deal 8 damage per shot (firing at 10 rounds a second, so with good grouping you can do 80 damage a second on your enemy). An alternative to the sniper rifle would be the Huntsman, a bow that does less damage at maximum charge (120 body; 360 head), but it can make close encounters easier to come by.

In addition, the sniper can replace his smg with Jarate, a jar of #1 (from your #1 fan the sniper) that, when doused upon enemies, makes all incoming damage turn into mini-crits. The Sniper also has "backpacks" like the Razorback, which saves you from a single backstab attempt, the Darwin's Danger Shield (bullet resistance and increased health with the drawback of explosive vulnerability) and the Cozy Camper (thankfully rescued by the Gun Mettle update makes you somehow more accurate).

Of course, Snipers don't have to be snipers. It isn't expected of you all the time to make headshots of every bullet you load in, but often times, a headshot is crucial to weakening or killing tough enemies. As a matter of fact, you can use the Machina rather than going for headshots because you deal more damage on a charged shot than you would a regular rifle (to compare, the max damage a default sniper rifle does is 150 on a bodyshot, while the machina does 173. That's enough to kill 5 of the nine classes and severely wound the other 3 (with the exception of the heavy.)) If you don't plan to use the Machina, (and you probably should for sake of gaining experience,) you should always target headshots on slower classes. As for the faster classes, you can do a body shot on them because they are mostly low-health classes and at the very least you'd make those still alive panic and run for a medkit. If you plan to use the Huntsman, the best way to set up for an easy kill would be to stick a fully drawn arrow, and then finish off the remaining health with an smg.

The sniper is very skill based. Your skill level with aim and headshots will most likely determine which classes you have advantages over. If anyone gets up close to you, you're in big trouble, so be mindful of your surroundings (and of enemy snipers) and get ready to run when they come in. Spies and other snipers are a huge trouble to you, so try to snipe out of the line of sight of other snipers and keep in-tune to your surroundings to watch out for spies. If a spy keeps on killing you, equip a razorback so you won't get much of a headache.

(also, how come all of the tf2 Five Nights at Freddy's fanart stuff feature the Scout being the security guard? I personally think the sniper would be more fitting considering that he has to watch his back so much. Anyway...)

Alternate playstyles:
Huntsman Sniper (I mentioned the Huntsman already, so I'll go deeper into that later)

The spy is also a class that got major changes via the Gun Mettle update. In a nutshell, he got an overall buff, but the Spycicle and the Dead Ringer got nerfed. The spy is a very passive-aggressive class. He gets most of all of his kills from backstabs. Spies are the main lead-up to a good team push, as his sappers can disable buildings and make it easier to break through defenses (although by himself, and with proper execution, he can take out engie nests single-handedly).

Usually, as a spy, your roles involve either playing aggressively and killing players, or playing support, in which you disable engineer buildings and stunt attempts to rebuild them.

Let's talk about aggressive spy play. If you decide to go aggressive, you'll most likely target players more than sentry positions. You'll have to wrap yourself behind the enemy lines and sieze every opportunity to backstab someone, be it a medic pocketing a heavy around the corner, or maybe just the heavy or a soldier to weaken a defensive push. Stealth is very important, because you need to get in towards your target whilst making yourself as least visible as possible, hence why you need to disguise yourself to have a bit of a wet paper towel to make sure you don't get completely floored. Another thing you must do is be vigilant for any buildings engineers place down to defend the objective. The person you're backstabbing (unless you have a dead ringer) must be away from the sentry's firing range, because you'll go down with the person you just killed if you aren't aware of your surroundings.

Also keep in mind that despite the fact that cloak sounds vary with the dead ringer and other watches, chances are are that someone MIGHT hear you decloak. The best way to make sure this doesn't happen is to decloak as soon as possible or while you're chasing down your target.

Of course, while you are about in the enemy's midst, you might come across engineers and their buildings, and you'll have to play support. You'll probably be focusing more on taking care of engineers and stopping their attempts to help the team than attacking important targets. Often times, when you are fighting engies, it is easier to get them killed while they are upgrading buildings, because you can stab them in the back and (very quickly) switch to a sapper and disable the sentry. The only surefire way to force an engie to the upgrade "phase" would be to use the Red Tape Recorder. While he re-upgrades his stuff, you can then take the initiative and stab him in the back. The Cloak and Dagger is also an excellent tool for stealthing near engie bases, as you'll be able to sit, position, and wait for the perfect moment to strike. It is also very well near impossible to kill an engineer's nest near enemy spawn or with the presence of an enemy pyro, so chances are you can't win every fight with engies.

Of course, loadouts are all to personal preference and playstyle. Since your main source of kills comes from backstabs, it doesn't really matter much with what equipment you bring. Use what you're most comfortable with.

Since I'm getting really text heavy here, look at this here video of professional tf2 player ArraySeven about my favorite loadout for spy.
(although instead of the cloak and dagger, i like to use the regular invis watch, allowing me to move faster and play more aggressively.)

Also, avoid pyros. No need to explain on that one, I'm pretty sure you know what'll happen.

Alternate playstyles:
Cloak Vampire Spy (see video)
Epic Spies (the secret weapon-- one simply can't play as an Epic Spy without a very high skill level)
Survivalist spies (A loadout invented by Mr. Paladin, a professional spy. Epic Spies tend to use this kind of loadout with some exceptions.)

Thank you so much for giving me your attention for this guide. I appreciate that I'm helping people out (and at the very least giving somebody time to read while they're quing up for the next match of Slender Fortress). I have a "part two" guide about the various playstyles you might need to look out for, and how to play as them if you can. Please comment and give me feedback about this guide, and tell me about any important playstyles you might come across that I forgot to mention in this guide!

http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=491186021