Hello, eager and curious MvM player! Do you wish to effectively play Scout in MvM and be credit to team? Do you wish to learn something new and expand your capabilities? Do you simply want to be able to be good enough for the 400 tour elitist that kicked you for loosing 5$? Look no further! With my advice, experience, and skill, you will be able to become a better MvM Scout than you thought you could ever be!

Warning: This guide is incredibly biased.

I'm going to assume you played TF2 for more than 10 hours and knows how Scout works. Lets just go over his MvM capabilities.

In MvM, the Scout has a money magnet that allows him to pick up all the money around him. Above or below? Front or back? Left or right? Doesn't matter. As long as it's in the money magnet radius, it will quickly float towards you. Not only that, but money collected provides a health bonus of around 30 HP (I don't know the exact numbers please don't kill me). Both of these abilities combined makes Scout the best and most preferable money collector in MvM. Because of all the money collected, the team can get more upgrades to deal with the later and more harder waves in a mission. This is why Scout is seen as the best and most perferable money collector.

Collecting cash is not all Scout can do. He also has useful unlocks such as the Mad Milk and Fan o' War that can support the team. The Milk douses targets and allows teammates to gain health from shooting them. This makes deadly encounters, such as gaints, a breeze. This goes well with the Fan o' War, which makes targets take more damage, causing them to die faster and be more affected by Milk. This is another key role that you will have to accomplish as Scout.

However, this is where the problem with Scout comes in. People have low expectations for Scouts, and expect him to only do the things listed. They reward you for doing the same redundant tasks every game, but punish experimentation and curiosity. If you want to be a good Scout, you'll have to go past these expectations.

1. Scout needs resistances.
Wrong. Any decent Scout can use overheal and dodging to come out of a situation alive. Any human being can tell whenever or not a situation is too dangerous for them. It's what keeps us from running into a crowd of heavies. Or in some cases, it causes us to.
The only exception with what I said is crit resistance, due to how cheap and effectve it is. Even then, it should only be bought when the first dangerous crit bots show up.

2. Scout must upgrade Mad Milk.
Partially false. Mad Milk recharge is already enough for you to use it effectively and when your team needs it the most. Slowdown is only useful for giant Scouts, and even then, a good team can deal with them easily. Small bots are too weak and die too quickly to even consider slowing them, so you shouldn't bother unless there are pretty much no other threatening bots in the wave to deal with. Slowdown doesn't affect other giants (agian, please don't kill me if i'm wrong), and if it did, it wouldn't matter. Giants are already as slow as a revved up Brass Beast Heavy (they aren't that slow, but they do feel like it).

3. Scout must mark the giants.
Early game, it definately helps. Bosses, of course. Giant medics, please do. Anything else, no.
Mid to late game, you already provided enough upgrades for your team to decimate giants.
Mini-bosses don't have enough health to make a mark worth it. Iron Gauntlets should be treated as giant when it comes to marking.
Your team may only have trouble with multiple giants. And even then, you can only mark one target at a time. And to top it off, there are many mini-crit and crit sources that can make your mark even more useless.

4. Scout shouldn't use his gun.
This is the biggest misconception about Scout. In fact, I think this deserves it's own spot in the guide, simply because of how big of a problem this thinking is.

Now, I can hear you all saying to yourself:
"But Manns! The scattergun is terrible in MvM! You should never use it!"
Well, that's not entirely true. Lets take a look and see why.

I'll use the Soda Popper to determine the power of a scattergun, as it's the cheapest to max out, as well as the strongest in general.
It only takes $3200 to max out the Soda Popper's clip and damage. When maxed out, it outputs 3 200 damage shots per second for two seconds before it reloads for one second. This totals to a DPS of 400. The only things that compares to it is a tap-fire max reload/damage Beggar's Bazooka Soldier and Heavy's minigun
This makes Scout amazing for dealing with high health targets such as giants and tanks. In fact, Scout is the 2nd best tank buster along with a Beggar's Soldier, only falling behind a Phlog Pyro.

However, the scattergun isn't some god-tier weapon that can turn your average Scout into a team carrying machine. The scattergun can only work on one target at a time. You can't decimate a whole crowd of bots like Soilder, Demo or Sniper can. This makes Scout a below average normal bot killer. He is better for single, high health targets. However, this doesn't mean you shouldn't focus regular bots. In fact, this mistake is why I am making this section of the guide. Every Scout, even full Support Scouts, should be using their gun at any moment they can. As long as you don't let it get in the way of your main role, and it doesn't interfere with the jobs of other teammates, there is no reason you shouldn't at least give the team a bit more firepower.

Credits are an essential part of Scout. He is the best money collector, and it's what keeps him alive. Heck, even his role in the Meta is built apon how much the Scout revolves around collecting credits. So it's important to know as much about it as possible.

• Credits will burn after 30 seconds. It is important to know this so you don't neglect it for too long.
  
• Credits will not go directly to you. It will swing around you based on your movement.
  
• Collcecting all credits will yeild a 100$ bonus to all team members. Losing less than 50 will yeild a 50$ bonus to all team members.
  
• There is a yellow tab near the health bar that shows how much credits are currently on the ground. If it is green, it means that no credit has burned up that round. It it is black, it means a credit has burned up.

If you have trouble collecting money, you should focus your playstyle more around it until you are good enough to start multitasking efficiently. Things such as focusing less on shooting and checking money hotspots more often will help, but it will also decrease the amount of time you will be shooting and distracting bots. Don't inevitably become a full Support Scout just to please that one person on the team that didn't like you missing a small amount of credits.

Unlike some people think, your gun choice actually matters alot. Consider the upsides, downsides, and uses of each weapon before choosing.

Stock: Everyone knows about this one. A shotgun with more spread that deals more damage. Very powerful, but requires you to get used to moving fast and getting close to your enemy. Compared to the others, this one has the biggest clip and no downsides. good if you are new, or if you are comfortable with this weapon.

Force o Nature: No. Just no. The only thing this weapon has compared to the others is the knockback, but that can be detrimental to your team. It makes it harder to aim because your target is moving. It screws over Demomen waiting for the bots to step into their traps. It screws over Snipers trying to land a headshot. And it increases damage fall off. If you find yourself in a situation where you need knockback to win, your team is bad and doesn't deserve this crutch. Other than that, it has bad reload speed, bad clip, and is overall a worse scattergun.

Soda Popper: Unlike it's knockback equivilant, this weapon is the best for MvM. Hype can be easily obtained if you just shoot some bots a little. Clip is bad, but that can easily be excused by it's firing speed and reload. It is also very cheap, as you save $1550 on firing and reload speed. Combine that with the fact that it has the highest DPS of any scatttergun, and you've found the best scattergun for MvM.

Baby Face's Blaster: Not really a good option. Getting boost is easy, but you can just as easily lose it. You will be jumping alot to avoid enemy fire, and sometimes you will still get hit. Combine this with the fact that movement speed upgrades make this weapon's main perk useless, and you just got a scattergun with less clip that slows you down. I don't recomend it.

Back Scatter: This scattergun is pretty interesting. You are going to get close to the bots to deal the most damage, so the spread won't hinder you much. The mini-crits, although situational, can help when dealing with distracted giants. However, it does have a reduced clip. I wouldn't use it, but it isn't bad.

Shortstop: This scattergun is also interesting. You can do decent damage without hugging your target. It is most affected by crits and minicrits than any other scattergun. When maxed out, this has the same DPS as the Soda Popper, but it takes more credits to achive this. Before the matchmaking update, this scattergun had an increased healing bonus, which made you get more health and overheal from money. This made it a good alternative to the Soda Popper. However, this has been replaced by a weird knockback mechanic, and I already explained why this is bad. Overall, probably the 2nd best scattergun.

Some of the most important weapons for Scout in MvM are his non-primary weapons. At least if you're a Support Scout. Your weapons and tools are equally important. Since most of the secondaries and melees the Scout can use have no use in MvM, lets talk about the obvious picks.

The secondary of choice is the Mad Milk. This allows your team to gain tons of health back from shooting a target. This is most beneficial for giants, as they require some time to take down and pack a big punch. It's also good for groups of giants, as it works on multiple targets at a time. It can slow down Super Scouts if you buy the cheap upgrade, so that's a neat feature. This is the secondary weapon of choice for MvM, but that doesn't mean there is room for others.

The Fan o' War is the prefered melee for MvM. Compared to the others, this one is the least useless out of the bunch, as it allows your team to take down giants more easily early game, and makes bosses easier to deal with. However, it can't do much more than that. Just use your gun after the first few waves. It will help more than a mark, and it's more reliable as well.

There are some other weapons that can be a good choice as well. The Crit-a-Cola is good if your team doesn't need the healing or slowdown, as it increases your damage output significantly. Just make sure you don't take too much damage. Good for tankier targets. And tanks, of course.

The Sandman can be a substitute for the Fan-o-War. It's a faster and more reliable way to mark targets, but you have to spend $500 to do so, which is pretty expensive. And agian, it becomes less helpful as the mission goes on.

Damage Scouts are Scouts that have decided to focus on using their gun to its greatest potential. With this playstyle, you will be able to have the benefits of amazing damage potential, but at a price.


Good for anything with more than 300 HP. Still good agianst regular bots.

Semi-reliable medic picking if needed.

Higher damage output. Self-explanitory.


As mentioned, you cannot afford resistances. You will alot be taking alot of damage. If you overextend, you will find yourself killed.

The Damage Scout playstyel requires alot of skill, gamesense, practice, and knowledge of your class and gamemode. Only try this if you are completely confident in your ability to do well.

You will find yourself getting kicked more often due to elitists that can't adapt to Scouts that don't go on a treasure hunt for that 1$ that droped somewhere random. Even more so if you have little to no tours. Agian, I reccomend that you gain some experience before trying this out.

How to Play

When the bots are coming, don't immediately go into attack mode. Hide, wait for the money to drop, and collect it all. Now you should have the overheal to sneakily drop some bots on your own without risking your life. If you die, instant respawn has you covered. Try to take out the Snipers when they appear so your team doesn't have to worry about them. You can take out Meds quite easily, although only some at a time. You can do it more reliably once you max out your damage.
Milk and mark giants. Only milk them mid to late game (how many times have I said mid to late game? Jeez). Always mark Giant Meds and bosses. Try to shoot them while they are distracted. If you are good at circle strafing, and there is nothing else to stop you, go for it. If there is a Pyro or Spy trying to kill a giant or even regular bots, let them. Dragging aggro to them will make their job harder and can lead to the bots advancing if you get them killed.
When a Tank appears, hug it and hold M1. It will go down quickly if you do this. As long as you don't get crushed to death like a moron. Ignore everything else. Alot less stressful if you do.

Support Scouts are Scouts that focus on supporting their team. They provide the most reliable money collection out of all Scout playstyles. They can also provide debuffs to deal with tougher enemies, such as milk and marks. They rely on their resistances and overheal to keep them alive.
These Scouts are also the most accepted and most apparant of all playstyles.


Money collection.
Support Scouts highly focus on money collection. That means searching the whole map for that 1$ that your teammate forgot to pick up. If you want the max amount of credits, Support Scout's got it covered.

Debuffs.
Support Scouts also specialize on debuffs. For more threatening targets such as Giants and Bosses, Support Scout can provide a health on hit debuff with his Mad Milk. This will greatly increase your survivability agianst these fearsome foes.
Another tool at their disposal are marks. WIth the Fan o' War or Sandman, you can hit an opponent and mark it for death. That means they will take minicrit damage from all sources. Useful fur decreasing the lifetime of any bot you desire.

Safety
Support Scout survive easily with resistances and money overheal. This means you don't have to worry about not being in the action to provide important debuffs and money collection.

Newb/Noob friendly.
Support Scout is the easiest playstyle. Money collection is automatic, and debuffs are simple. Survival isn't an issue. So if you suck at Scout, don't worry. You can still feel like credit to team.
Not only that, but due to the low expectation for Support Scouts, people will rarely kick you.


Low skill ceiling.
Once you become good at Support Scout, there isn't much room to improve. You can only contribute so much when you only collect money and debuff enemies. WIth other playstyles, you can contribute much more.

Boring.
Support Scout doesn't provide much excitement. Why play the game if you won't have fun?

Bad habits.
Your survivability and reliance on your teammates will detriment you greatly if you ever decide to switch your playstyle.

By the way, if you do decide to be a Support Scout, please put your survivability to use and attract alot of attention from the bots. You will take alot of preasure off your team. Too many Support Scouts don't utilize this ability.

Hyrbid Scouts are Scouts that not only provide debuffs and support, but also provide firepower as well. Although they don't provide the full benefits of each playstyle, it is a good mix of the best aspects of each.


Easier than Damage Scout.
You still shoot stuff, but you also do the easy stuff like focusing the money when neccecary. And debuffing as well.

Kicked less than Damage Scout.
You will get more money, and you will debuff more. Less of a chance to get kicked.


Harder than Support Scout.
You still do the easy stuff, but now you have to aim and get up close.

Kicked more than Support Scout.
If it ain't full Support, you are bound to be kicked more often.

My personal favorite playstyle.

When there are Giant Scouts in the wave, buy milk slowdown. When there are crit bots in the wave that aren't giant crit flamethrower Pyros (like the ones in Baravian Botbash wave 2) or melee bots, max crit resistance. Otherwise, follow this upgrade path.

Damage Scout

• Max movement speed (unless you find that you are aiming more poorly because of this)
  
• Max reload speed (if the gun has the upgrade avaliable)
  
• Firing, clip, and damage should be upgraded based on what you are comfortable on. For example, if you like one shoting bots and taking your time to aim, you should get damage first.
  
• Resistances according to wave composition
  
• Ammo Capacity

Support Scout

• Max movement speed
  
• Resistances according to wave composition
  
• Milk recharge
  
• Gun upgrades

Hybrid Scout
A mix of Damage and Support Scout upgrades. Depends on what you are comfortable with.

Simple enough.

Lets face it, we aren't perfect. Sometimes, we won't get that $100 bonus. It could be the team's fault. It could be yours. Sometimes, we let the medic uber or the Giant Scout get past. That is ok. You can learn from your mistakes. However, there are some people that are not ok with this.

Some MvM players have been playing the game for a very long time, and have gotten used to a certain environment. They kick anyone that doesn't do everything their way. Not marking the giant but instead shooting it? Going for the tank instead of collcecting the money from the bots we JUST killed? Missed that $1 that we droped in a really obscure place and decided not to pick up? KICK.

People like to complain about these types of players. Some might be discouraged because of them. However, I would like you to remember this: these types of players aren't worth playing with. Be thankful that you got kicked.

Congratulations! You are now a good MvM Scout! Or are you?
Nothing can help you more than experience. Put this advice to use are start playing some MvM. Over time, you will find yourself improving as your aim, dodging, and multitasking abilities get better. Hopefully, you won't just be seeing A+'s, but a nice damage score as well.

I would appretiate if this guide gets an actual rating. Upvote it if you think it's good, Downvote if you think otherwise.

Other MvM guides.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=723127660
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=725764994
MvM Demo guide coming 2017. Unless I decide to work on it early.

Other Non-MvM guides.
http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=749116967

I would appretiate if this guide gets an actual rating. Upvote it if you think it's good, Downvote if you think otherwise.

Feedback is appretiated.