Team Fortress 2/Tropes Q to Z

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

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Tropes A-G HERE!
Tropes H-P HERE!

  • Ragdoll Physics: Starting with the Spy vs Sniper update, certain characters in certain situations can die with a combination of this and animation.
  • Rage Quit:

Scout: Yeah I dare ya, ragequit! C'mon, make us both happy!

Spy: "Here's what I have that you don't! A functioning liver, depth perception, and A PULSE!"

    • Every Domination quote, basically. Especially entertaining are the ones from a member of one class to a member of the same class.
  • Recoil Boost: Rocket Launchers, the Detonator, the Force-A-Nature, grenades, stickybombs, Sentry Gun rockets, and pumpkin bombs can aid in a jump, though all of the except the Force-A-Nature will damaged the player.
  • Recurring Riff: Several of the songs on the title screen, which are taken from the "Meet the Team" trailers, use the bass line from the game's original theme. It's changed up quite a bit, ranging from obvious (as in "Intruder Alert," where it's played clearly on brass) to difficult enough to spot that you only realize it's there later (as with "More Gun," where it's played during the minor key portion of the song, but very slowly and in 3/4 time, giving it a totally different feel from the other versions).
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: ÜberCharged BLU team members whose eyes are visible will have glowing red eyes and be invulnerable until the charge wears off. To quote the Heavy: "Is good time to RUN, cowards!"
    • Also MONOCULUS! from the 2011 Halloween update, when he's pissed off.
  • RED Oni BLU Oni: The names and primary colors of the teams. RED is a demolition company, BLU is a construction company.
    • The Spy can equip an Oni mask, which is, appropriately enough, red or blue depending on which team he's on.
    • Strangely enough, the general roles are reversed. On Attack/Defense maps, RED is the defender, and is more likely to dig in and build machines to defend them, while BLU are the attackers, more likely to bomb everything in sight to advance.
  • Red Shirt: Ironically, the BLU Team, at least in the "Meet The Class" videos. If they reversed the colors, a lot of color-based tropes would be doubly funny.
  • Redshirt Army: and Blueshirt Army.
  • Required Secondary Powers: The Pyro is fireproof. Without this, the Pyro would not be able to run forward and fire at the same time without getting damaged.
    • The Sniper (in the comic advertising Jarate) specifically says "Those Saxton Hale Jarate pills tripled the size of my kidneys, and thanks to my Saxton Hale Pain Tonic, I can barely even feel my organs shutting down! He thought of everything!"
  • Respawn Point: Barring Arena mode, killed players later respawn in the locker rooms.
  • Resurrective Immortality:
    • Redmond and Blutarch, CEOs for RED and BLU, respectively. In an attempt to try to outlive the other brother, both have a machine built for them to prevent them from dying, with obvious results. It does not grant immortality in the normal sense, but it does resurrect them immediately after dying.
    • In a related vein, respawning in-game appears to be part of canon and not just a gameplay mechanic, given that some classes comment on it.

Sniper: How many times have you died? I'm actually getting impressed.
Sniper: Kill ya again soon, mate.
Heavy: I am coming for you, again!
Scout: I will never... stop... killing you.

    • The very existence of Domination and the Vita-Saw suggest that respawn is canonical.
    • Lampshaded with the Meet the Medic video, where several dozen identical (minus the hats) Soldiers are seen, implying they're probably re-cloned every time they die.
  • Retraux: Gang Garrison, a 2D "demake" of Team Fortress 2.
    • Team Fortress 2 itself is retraux compared to Team Fortress Classic, being set in a cartoony 60's style.
    • Team Fortress Arcade, a demake that puts the characters in a retro arcade-style beat-em-up.
  • Revenue Enhancing Devices:
    • The "Mann Co. Emporium" allows players to buy in-game items with real money that can also be found for free by playing enough. Many of these are hats.
    • Additionally, cross-promotional items become being wanted for rarity's sake, but not for actual gameplay value.
  • Rewarding Inactivity: The game (currently) has no way of telling if the player is actually, well, playing. One can join an "idling" server or play offline, then minimize the game and do whatever else he wants while still enjoying the same chance to get drops every week as an active player.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Territorial Control, Ornament Armament, Cold War Luchador, Fruit Shoot, and Brundle Bundle.
  • Risk-Style Map: Territorial Control, definitely, but maps like Granary also could count.
  • Roof Hopping: Any class can do this, but usually those with special jumps (rocket jump, sentry jump, etc.) can run on roofs more often.
  • Rousing Speech: Parodied on the World War Wednesday page of the Über Update:

"Men! This is a speech! If you are hearing it then we are at WAR! You will most likely DIE in that war! This speech will make you feel better about that! Remember! We will fight them on the BEACH! We will fight them on the SEAS! We will fight them in a MOAT! We will fight them on a BOAT! WE WILL NOT EAT GREEN EGGS AND HAM! Do you maggots remember the speech from Braveheart? Start thinking about it now! MISTER GARPABARP, TEAR DOWN THIS WALL! Dismissed."

  • RPG Elements: More than normal even for an FPS: Critical Hits, optional damage count displays, (cosmetic) weapon levels, Item Crafting, Standard Status Effects.
  • Rule of Fun: The realization of the insane premise that presupposed the game's fundamental elements caused a shift from the original concept of a serious military-styled action game toward the game's exaggerated and unrealistic theme and presentation.
  • Run, Don't Walk: The characters cannot walk unless they're crouching or using certain weapons.
  • Schmuck Bait: Sprays can have surprising uses. One of their uses? Fan Service sprays placed by Spies (and maybe Demomen with carefully placed stickies) as a trap for anyone who is stupid enough to stop in their tracks to look at the boobies, allowing the Spy to easily backstab them.
    • One of the more creative variants. A disguised Spy tricks an enemy Medic into healing him and sprays "FYI I am a spy" on the wall. While the Medic reads the spray, the Spy backstabs him.
    • Sprays do backfire on occasion, since eventually when the opposing team see the spray, they may start whaling wildly, as if they know there's a Spy hidden.
    • There also have been attempts at creating distraction sprays showing a sentry or player. Since it's possible to make sprays that change based on proximity, this can be fairly effective in the right place.
    • Clever Heavies can use their Sandviches as Schmuck Bait. Simply throw the Sandvich somewhere where an enemy is likely to notice it, wait for the schmuck to take the bait, then pump 'em full of minigun lead. Works especially well with the Tomislav. And God help the little schmuck if a Pyro or another Heavy are in on the act.
    • Another excellent Schmuck Bait-based tactic is to have a Sniper stand somewhere obvious, and a Pyro hiding nearby, and then to light up the incoming stream of Spies.
  • Score Screen: After each round, there's a list of the top three most valued players. After the map timer runs out and the server is about to switch to another map, the screen will show the scoreboard, which displays player information, server name, team scores, etc. Information about each player is shown, including Steam ID, team affiliation, points, and class. This scoreboard can also be accessed by pressing Tab on the PC while playing in a round, though it won't show much information about the enemy team, of course.
  • Scoring Points: Points are used to determine who the most valuable players in a particular round are and otherwise don't do anything unless the server settings are such that it determines the winning side based on points under certain circumstances. Other servers have a separate ranking system that's just there for the bragging rights.
  • Scout Out: The Saxtonettes. Originally, the comic was called Boy's Adventure with Saxton Hale, but the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency complained that it taught boys moral turpitude, arson, vandalism, hippie assault, tax fraud, the Heimlich Maneuver, etc. Mann Co. changed the name to Girl's Adventure With Saxton Hale, as it was commonly thought that girls couldn't do anything, so any lessons taught to them would be harmless.
  • Screams Like a Little Girl: Getting scared by either Zepheniah Mann's ghost or the Horseless Headless Horsemann results in a very unmanly scream.
  • Secondary Fire: Some weapons.
  • See the Invisible: A cloaked enemy Spy can be revealed by bumping into him, igniting him, covering him in Jarate or Mad Milk, or hitting him with a weapon that inflicts bleed damage.
  • See You in Hell:
    • "Meet the Demoman" has a slightly modified version, after the eponymous explosives expert blows several enemies to bloody chunks:

Demoman: Ooh, they're goin' to have to glue you back together... IN HELL!

    • It also appears in several domination lines. Among others:

Spy: I'll see you in Hell... You handsome rogue!
Spy: Go to Hell and take your cheap suit with you!
Demoman: Go to Hell, and tell the Devil I'm coming for him next!

  • Sequel Escalation: The original game (as Team Fortress Classic) had nine basic models with one voice, weapons mostly shared with Half-Life and Quake, and a text-heavy interface. TF2 gave each class its own silhouette, voice, nationality, personality, game mechanic, personal HUD elements, and weapons (only one stock weapon is shared between four classes) fitting into an all-encompassing art style.
  • Serrated Blade of Pain: The Medic's standard melee weapon is a bonesaw, and another, the Amputator, has serrated edges as well. In addition, one of the Sniper's alternative weapons is a rusty serrated knife which does less damage than his kukri but causes bleeding.
  • Set Bonus: The Polycount contest item sets. The cause of much uproar in the fanbase since the gameplay bonus depended on the ultra-rare hats (before it was possible to craft them).
  • Shoddy Knockoff Product: A Chinese game title Final Combat neatly plagiarizes TF2 (and Battlefield Heroes) down to some of the character models. They even swiped Ellen McLain's voice clips!
  • Shoot the Bullet: Although it does not involve fighting bullets with bullets, the Pyro's flamethrower's alternate fire shoots out a gust of air that can deflect a projectile, bouncing it right back where it came from. Critical projectiles and arrows destroy other projectiles. Flares can destroy enemy flares.
  • Shoot the Medic First: Origin of trope namer.
    • Also goes for Engineers. It's hard to destroy a sentry when it's constantly getting repaired.
    • Snipers tend to go for enemy Snipers first, even if there are other ways of taking out said Sniper.
  • Short-Range Shotgun: The various shotguns in the game do heavy damage up close, but are practically useless against targets at a distance.
  • Shout-Out: Has its own page
  • Shows Damage: Blood decals appear on players who are shot or bludgeoned, and their expressions become increasingly worried as they take damage. Buildings will smoke, then ignite the more they are damaged.
  • Sickening Crunch: When you take fall damage.
  • Sigmund Freud: He appears to be the original BLU Medic.
  • Silliness Switch: tf_birthday (for bleeding balloons and exploding into presents), or -sillygibs (for normal blood, but exploding into cheeseburgers, balloon puppies, clocks, boots, gears, unicycles...).
  • Silly Reason for War: All of the game modes. You're not given any motivation other than "kill the guy colored differently from you before they kill you and/or achieve your side's objectives before they can achieve theirs". We also have the Soldier-Demo war over an unlockable pair of boots, with the story reason being that RED and BLU do not tolerate friendships.
  • Similar Squad: Identical except for uniform color.
  • Single Palette Town: Each team's area of the map will be colored to match. Maps as a whole also tend to have very limited palettes.
  • The Sixties: Takes place during the late sixties - there's a heavy 60s espionage/industrial motif.
  • Skybox
  • Slow Doors: The doors between points A, B, and C on Steel and the spawn point doors on Egypt.
  • Socialization Bonus: There are some achievements for playing with your Steam friends.
  • Soft Glass: The Demoman's bottle can break on a hit with a target, though whether it's broken or not makes no difference to damage output. The Sniper's Jarate always breaks on contact with something but never does any damage.
  • Soft Water: Falling from a distance that would normally damage you into deep water negates the damage.
  • Solo Class: Some of the classes can do their job on their own (for example an Engineer can set up a sentry nest and a Sniper can find a good vantage point, while a Spy can infiltrate on their own). Of course the game is deliberately designed so that having a team mate back them up always helps (e.g. a Pyro to guard an Engineer or Sniper from a Spy, or a group of offensive classes to rush the enemy when the Spy begins sapping their sentries).
  • Southern-Fried Genius: The Engineer is a brilliant inventor from Bee Cave, Texas.

"Ah solve practical problems. Fer instance, how am ah gonna stop some big, mean mother-hubbard from tearin' me a structurally superfluous new bee-hind? The answer? Use a gun. And if that don't work, use ore gun."

  • Spinventory: While choosing an item on the loadout screen, you can spin the character model to see how he looks.
  • Splash Damage: Rockets, grenades, and stickybombs.
  • Spot the Imposter: A gameplay usage. A team who has difficulty identifying a Spy among them is going to find their buildings sapped and their critical players backstabbed.
  • Spread Shot: A lot of hitscan weapons that would make contact via a bullet-based hitbox (guns) work like this, which is why weapons like shotguns do less damage at a range. The pellets don't all hit the target.
  • Sprint Meter: There are various meters, depending on weapons in one's loadout.
  • Sprint Shoes: A few items and an item set can increase the speed of a class:
    • As a Soldier's health decreases, if he's holding the Equalizer, his speed increases. At 1-40 HP, he can almost keep up with a Scout.
    • A Pyro with the Gas Jockey's Gear set (Degreaser, Powerjack, and Attendant) gets a 10% speed boost.
    • The Heavy gets the Gloves of Running Urgently, which give a speed boost when wielded at the cost of 6 health per second. He also gets a speed boost for 15 seconds after eating a Buffalo Steak Sandvich.
    • The Demoman's Chargin' Targe or Splendid Screen allows him to charge forward for a few seconds, which can be used as either a mobility boost or an attack buff (or both). Having heads on an Eyelander, Horseless Headless Horsemann's Headtaker or Nessie's Nine-Iron increases his running speed, but not his charge.
    • The Medic with the Quick-Fix can run at Scout speed as he heals a Scout with it. With the Overdose, his speed also increases to 10% faster than his usual speed if he has 100% ÜberCharge.
  • Spy-Versus-Spy: Both the general term and a more literal fashion. In fact, it may even remind some people of Spy vs. Spy.
  • Spy From Weights and Measures: RED and BLU are supposedly demolitions and building companies respectively, but it's just a front. Even some of the townsfolk near the maps the mercenaries fight at know they're fighting over a spy base.
  • Standard Snippet: The Heavy will sometimes sing The Volga Boatmen's Song while pushing the cart, and Sabre Dance while mowing down enemies. ("Kaaaa-BOOOOM! Kaaaa-BOOOOM!")
  • Standard Status Effects (many of them can stack):
    • Fire (Pyro's Flamethrowers, Flare Gun, Detonator, Manmelter, and Sharpened Volcano Fragment): causes about 60 damage over a 10 seconds, 40 for the Degreaser. Reveals cloaked and disguised Spies. Can be extinguished in a variety of ways.
    • Full stun (The Scout's Sandman at long range and the first moments of some Taunt Kills): rendered immobile.
      • Partial stun (Sandman at closer ranges): halves the victim's speed and puts them in third-person Humiliation stance, and prevents them from attacking (with the exception of taunts), crouching, and jumping.
      • Scared (Ghost/Headless Horsemann on Halloween maps): same as partial stun, with different special effects. The game counts this as a stun towards achievements.
    • Attack disabled (The Razorback temporarily disables the Spy from attacking, cloaking, or switching weapons when stabbed, and the whole losing team loses their weapons during Humiliation).
    • Covered in Piss (Sniper, with Jarate or Sydney Sleeper): Incoming damage to the victim is registered as mini-crits. Reveals cloaked and disguised Spies. Can also extinguish teammates. Can be removed by going underwater or being healed for some time.
    • Bleeding (Sniper's Tribalman's Shiv, Scout's Boston Basher and Three-Rune Blade, Engineer's Southern Hospitality, alternate fire on the Scout's Wrap Assassin): Similar to being on fire, but only lasts for 6 seconds. Small health packs, Dispensers and Mediguns heal the victim, but will not stop the bleeding. Reveals disguised and cloaked Spies.
    • Covered in Milk (Scout's Mad Milk): After hitting an enemy with it, all allies that attack the victim will receive 60% of the damage back as healing. Can be removed by going underwater or being healed for some time. Reveals disguised and cloaked Spies.
    • Marked for Death (Scout's Fan O'War): After getting by the fan, victims are marked with a floating skull and crossbones and all damage taken from the Scout's teammates register as mini-crits. Goes away after around fifteen seconds, by death, or if the Scout marks someone else for death. The mark can be concealed by cloaking or disguising as the Spy.
  • Stat-O-Vision: Players can see their allies' health, the health of allied buildings, and the charge level of allied Medics. Medics always see the health of their healing target, and charge level if the teammate's a Medic. Spies can see the names and health of enemy players and buildings. A Medic with the Solemn Vow equipped can also see enemy names and health.
  • Status Buff: Like the status effects, these also stack.
    • Overhealed: Medics can heal teammates to 150% of their starting health. The Dalokohs Bar increases the eater's HP by 50.
    • Critbuffed:
      • When a Medic activates an ÜberCharge with a Kritzkreg.
      • When the intelligence is captured in a CTF map.
      • Granted in Arena mode to the player that scores the first kill.
      • One of the Scout's secondary-slot unlockables is an energy drink that grants him mini-crits against all enemies. It also causes any attacks against him to mini-crit, so it's a rather risky buff.
      • The Heavy's Buffalo Steak Sandvich (Bread not included) does the same thing and makes him run faster, with the added risk-factor of only being able to use melee weapons. So, it can turn the Mighty Glacier into somewhat of a Glass Cannon or, with the Warrior's Spirit (that increase your strength by 30% BEFORE the mini-crits), a Glass Cannon Lightning Bruiser.
      • The Soldier can cause allies within range to have mini-crits for a short while with his unlockable Buff Banner.
      • Escaping the Underworld on Eyeaduct grants the player critical hits, as well as a speed boost, 200% overheal, and invulnerability.
      • Finally, being on the winning team during Humiliation grants the player critical hits until the period ends.
    • Invulnerable: the standard medigun's ÜberCharge, and escape from the Underworld.
    • Damage resistance: when the Soldier has the Battalion's Backup active, nearby allies take reduced damage from attacks and suffer no extra damage from crits or mini-crits.
    • Healing Factor:
      • The Quick-Fix gives a 300% to health regen and as an added bonus, prevents all movement debuffs and knockback.
      • A Soldier's activated Concheror heals him and nearby teammates 35% of the damage they deal.
  • Stealth Expert: The Spy in particular, but any class can be played in a sneaky fashion (yes, even the Heavy Weapons Guy).
  • Stealth Pun: The briefcase in CTF probably contains very bureaucratic documents. Of course it has a paper trail.
  • Stock Control Settings: They can be changed.
  • Stop Poking Me: Looking at bots during Setup Time for a few seconds will make them taunt at you.
  • Strange Secret Entrance: Some Rocket Jump, sticky jump, dispenser jump, etc. locations.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Soldier rockets, Demoman grenades, Engineer buildings, Payloads, the player characters...
  • Stylistic Suck: Why the accents and foreign grammar are sometimes incorrect--the game was modeled on American World War-era propaganda posters, or the view Americans have of other countries in the 60s.
  • Sudden Death: If a round ends with neither side winning, servers have the option to go to Sudden Death, where all health packs are removed from the map and respawn is disabled. Teams can win either by accomplishing the objective or eliminating the other team.
  • Super Not-Drowning Skills: Since drowning is resolved in the game mechanics as taking persistent damage until the player dies or goes up for air, one can invoke this by being in the range of a friendly Medic or Dispenser.
  • Supervillain Lair: Word of God states that the RED and BLU bases were designed with this idea in mind: a seemingly innocuous facade on the surface to hide the true sinister purpose of these buildings. This is even lampshaded in the description of the map Double Cross.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: During the WAR! update, it's revealed that American Monkeynaut Poopy Joe was given the Eyelander, Buff Banner, and Equalizer before his journey into space. Mann Co. claims they were nowhere near the launch site of Poopy Joe's aircraft and had nothing to do with the explosion that occurred moments later, and those three items were obtained in entirely innocent circumstances. Also, the company's seemingly rushed sale of a high-precision rocket launcher was not in any way connected with Poopy Joe's tragic death.
  • Swiss Cheese Security: Many of the capture-the-flag maps are basically military outposts disguised as something innocuous, minus the multitude of mercenaries, they have the worst security measures ever. Besides having all the doors left wide open and the intelligence just sitting in an empty room, there are lit-up signs pointing towards the intelligence.
  • Sword and Sorcerer: (Insert Class Here) + Medic, Heavies being designed as the priority Medic-buddy, though individual Medic players will have different preferences. (For example, Kritz Medics tend to favor Demomen.)
  • Symbol Swearing: There is a custom Attack/Defend map where the BLU team has to try to capture 4 points in a fort. A wall in the BLU spawn that references the way the Steam Powered User Forums censor profanity reads "ATTACK THAT ♥♥♥♥ING FORT".
  • Tactical Rock-Paper-Scissors: Sentries giving you trouble? Get a Spy to sap them. Spy sappin' your stuff? Use Pyros to weed them out. Incoming Pyro? Deploy a Sentry.
    • There's even an achievement for backstabbing somebody who then switches to Pyro before they respawn.
  • Take That: Two of the Soldier's Domination lines towards the Sniper has him mocking the Australian censorship of Left 4 Dead 2.

The Soldier: Aw, am I too violent for ya, cupcake?
The Soldier: Your country did not prepare you for the level of violence you will meet on MY battlefield!

    • In a Saxton Hale comic after the Mann-co uptate, Saxton's butler comes in concerning their customers, to which he responds, "What are those sniveling babies crying about now?" a take that towards the complaints about the Mann-co store.
  • Taking You with Me: One of the Soldier's taunts has him suicide bombing himself with a grenade. An achievement requires using this taunt to kill another player.
    • A few Soldier and Demoman players partake in this when something suddenly pops in from around corners.
    • The most favored Pyro playstyle is to rush into a group of people and set them all on fire. Even if the Pyro dies, the afterburn can do enough damage to kill (earning the Pyro an achievement) or at least severely cripple the enemy.
  • Tap on the Head: Getting hit with a baseball from the Scout's Sandman will temporarily stun an enemy, rendering them unable to defend themselves and slowing their movement speed. The effect increases the further away the enemy is, up to the point where the victim is completely immobilized for about 7 seconds.
  • Taunt Button: The "taunt" key, obviously. You can even kill with some of them (and doing so earns you an achievement).
    • The characters will also taunt each other via voice clips after dominations and high Kill Streaks.
  • Team Shot: Notably at the end of the "Meet The Team" movies and general promotional artwork.
  • Team Spirit: There's a reason this game is called Team Fortress 2. There's also a color of paint called "Team Spirit".
  • Technicolor Fire: Depending on the player's team affiliation, when set on fire, he'll glow red or blue.
  • Technology Porn: A Sentry going from toolbox to level 3 is a pretty awesome sight. The two other buildings also build themselves once deployed.
  • Teleporters and Transporters: The Engineer's teleporter pair. Too bad its only transports one way.
    • Tele Frag: What happens if an enemy stands on a teleporter as someone uses it.
  • Tennis Boss: In an update, the Pyro was given the ability to reflect most projectiles. Crazy Awesome tactics and playstyles have been generated since.
  • That Poor Cat: The 2010 Halloween Update included noisemakers you can set off that play Halloween-themed sounds to the entire map. One of them is "Black Cat". In theory, it's supposed to be creepy. In practice, considering all the offscreen gunshots and explosions that occur during any given round, it devolves into this trope very quickly.
  • There Can Be Only One: The mp_highlander 1 console command on any game mode restricts 9 players to each team, and only one of each class per team.
    • There are also two sound clips for the Demoman, where he may say just that when getting a kill with a melee weapon such as the Eyelander. One of them is used when decapitating an enemy Demoman.
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: A successful backstab deals twice the victim's current health. Furthermore, since the backstab is a Critical Hit, this number is further multiplied by three, resulting in six times the victim's health.
    • Fully charged headshot: 450 damage, (only ranged weapon that can one-shot a Heavy with full Overheal). Backstab: Anywhere from 750 (Scouts, Snipers, Engineers, other Spies) to 1800 health (Heavy). Truly, there is not kill like overkill.
  • Toilet Humour:
    • One of the Sniper unlocks is Jarate, a jar of pee he can use to throw at enemies. It also extinguishes teammates that are on fire from an enemy Pyro.
    • A few days before and during the Über Update, the website was updated to have Medic's pigeons perched on the logo banner, with pigeon poop splattered all over it.
  • Trail of Bread Crumbs: Exiting a teleporter makes the player leave a glowing team-colored trail for a while, so the enemy may find out the location of the teleporter. A player holding the intelligence has a shorter team-colored glow in the air, while the briefcase leaves a paper trail.
  • Trial by Friendly Fire: Spy-checking via attacking one's teammates is a good tactic to have, since everyone on the same side is Friendly Fireproof.
  • Trigger Happy: In-Universe, the Heavy and the Demoman; in-game, any class depending on the player, but especially the Pyro.
    • Snipers who can manage to pull this off with accuracy are called "Quickscopes".
  • Trope 2000:
    • One of the Soldier's primary weapons is the Cow Mangler 5000.
    • The Engineer has a primary weapon called the Pomson 6000.
    • The Spy's disguise kit is called the Spytron 3000.
    • Per the Sentry Gun operating manual, the Dispenser is a Dispense-O-Matic 9000 Provisions Dispenser.
    • The board of alerts in "Meet the Spy" and the map Double Cross is called the Alarm-O-Tron 5000.
    • The heart monitoring device in the operating room in "Meet the Medic" is called "CARDIOSCAN 2000".
  • Trope Overdosed
  • Troperrific: See the "Gameplay Tropes" folder.
  • The Unfavorite: The Engineer from a developer stand point. Is the only class to only have one class update and also has the least amount of hats. Lampshaded by Valve during the Über Update when they actively trolled the Engineer fandom by rubbing their nose in the fact that they were the only class to get nothing during the update.
  • Unexpected Gameplay Change: The 2010 Halloween event spawned the Horseless Headless Horsemann, a raid boss. The 2011 Halloween event gave players MONOCULUS!, which put a whole new spin on the Horsemann's basic premise.
    • The Australian Christmas event in 2010 introduced Medieval Mode.
    • There are also custom game modes that put a spin on "kill everything not on your team".
  • Unflinching Walk: Discussed in the description for the Demoman's Dangeresque, Too? shutter shades:

"When things aren't just Dangerous, they're Danger-esque, block out UV rays with Homestar's killer shades. Remember, when walking away from an explosion, it's totally uncool to turn around to look at the carnage."

  • Universal Ammunition: Picking up dropped weapons gives your current weapon more ammo and Cloak, if you're a Spy. Destroyed stickybombs, buildings, and sappers also provide ammunition.
  • Unlockable Content: Once players reach a certain number of achievements, they'll unlock weapons, like the Wrangler, the Deadringer, and the Kritzkrieg.
  • Unobtainium: the highest rank for the World Traveler's Hat.
    • In the supplemental comics, there's also Australium, a metal that turns anyone who is in contact with it into a mustachio'd, muscle-bound body builder (even if female), and was responsible for Australia's current global dominance.
  • Unorthodox Reload: Every class has at least one unusual reload animation. See that page for details.
  • Unstable Equilibrium: Teams doing good on Control Point maps not only get more of the map to use as an extension of their base, they also get quicker respawn times, as well, while the enemy team gets slower respawn times. The developers do not like stalemates.
  • Unwinnable: There's a glitch with the original version of pl_hoodoo where the cart will start moving on its own, with no one on RED able to stop it, and BLU never having to lift a finger. On the other side of the spectrum, there's a rare glitch with multiphase payload maps that causes the cart to derail and become a freefloating prop.
    • On certain Attack/Defend servers, Red loses automatically when the Server Time is up, regardless of the current progress. Likewise, on Gravel Pit, if the BLU team did not capture Point B before going into overtime, they will lose when overtime is over, regardless of whether or not they've captured Point B during overtime.
  • Useless Accessory: The Hats. The ones that provide set bonuses have a use by proxy, but no singular effect. The only other hats that have a use (albeit very specific ones) are the Horseless Headless Horsemann's Head and the Saxton Hale Mask, which protect the player from being stunned by the Horsemann; and the Hotrod: a Spy disguised as an Engineer who is wearing one will have the hat flip down over his face when the Electro Sapper is held, which can be used to detect Spies.
    • Averted with some players that play as Medic, they gauge how experience their patient is with how many hats, other cosmetics, and unusuals that they have.
      • This doesn't work as much, due to the 2019 Crate Depression, the status quo changed a bit concerning unusuals.
  • Vaporware: As Gabe Newell said in the first words of each map's commentary:

"Welcome to Team Fortress 2. After nine years in development, hopefully it will have been worth the wait."

  • Vendor Trash: Duplicate weapons and hats are often used in crafting or trading to make sure they don't take up space in the backpack.
  • Victory Pose: Inverted; the losing team is forced into poses that look sufficiently frightened and/or annoyed, and they can't do anything but flee or taunt.
  • Video Game Caring Potential: As an airblasting Pyro, a Scout with Mad Milk, or a Jarate-carrying Sniper, you may put your burning colleagues out, if you're feeling so inclined.
    • The sincerity of the "thank you" commands (some of which are automatically used when using a teleporter or getting healed) are probably made that way to invoke this for a Medic, who otherwise would be very tempted to leave his teammates to die and go Combat Medic with another Medic.
    • Heavies can drop any of their Sandviches to act as a medium health kit for their allies (or their enemies), which, since it's technically a medkit, also puts out fire.
  • Video Game Cruelty Potential: The top page quote is this between-maps tip:

"As a Pyro, you can often set enemies on fire and retreat, leaving them to die from the burning."

    • Don't forget Jarate. It can seriously affect the target's mental health.

Spy: "I have been shown... who is the boss!"

  • Violation of Common Sense: Dropping explosives at your feet to take out a Scout, or charging into a hail of gunfire to set someone on fire as a Pyro, rocket/sticky jumping. The description for the Ullapool Caber, a "potato masher" grenade that the Demoman uses to strike enemies, even lampshades this by saying a sober person would throw it.
  • Virtual Paper Doll: Along with the weapons in the loadout, there's a hat slot, two misc. slots, and an action slot. Those slots allow customization of a character's appearance and actions.
  • Visible Invisibility: Players on the same team as a cloaked Spy will just barely be able to discern their transparent form. Players on the other team will see it only if they shoot or bump into the spy, or will barely be able to make out a Cloak and Dagger-wielding Spy who hasn't let the charge on his watch build back up.
    • Fire, Bleeding, Mad Milk, and Jarate also reveal affected Spies partially. New items have been known not to work properly with cloaking, giving away a Spy using them or disguised as a player using them while cloaked, but are fixed eventually.
    • Invisible and/or disguised Spies using the voice chat on servers with all-talk enabled also risk giving themselves away.
  • Voice Grunting: For those who don't want to or can't use the mic to voice chat, there are a lot of voice commands to choose from.
  • Wacky Racing: Payload Race.
  • War for Fun and Profit
  • Weaponized Car: The bomb cards in Payload.
  • Weapon of Choice: Each class has both weapons and personality that reflect their gameplay.
  • Weekend Warriors: These players exist of course, though they probably might not want to admit it. There's also a badge called Mercenary that used to be called Weekend Warrior, for any players who started playing the game a year after its initial release and onward. The implication that players played only on weekends or didn't have a lot of play time was seen as derogatory, so Valve changed the name.
  • Weird Currency: The economy is made of hats and metal.
  • Weird Moon: Before a patch removed most of them, Double Cross inexplicably had seven moons in its skybox.
  • We Wait: With the Random Drop item system, this is one way you can unlock items: just join a server and wait. There are even dedicated "Idle" servers where that's all you do.
    • Anti-Poopsocking: Changes to the Random Drop system made it so that only the first few hours of gametime each week can grant items, but at a quicker rate than before. One can also idle by simply starting a map on their own computer and joining any team, including Spectator.
    • The Spy's Cloak And Dagger gives him unlimited invisibility, but only while standing still. This allows you to set up an ambush any time and almost anywhere. Now all you need is something to make the opponent stand still long enough to backstab him... like the sexy picture sprays mentioned under this page's Shmuck Bait entry.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Cosmetic?: When Team Fortress 2 first released alternative weapons, the only way to get them was to complete various achievements for the class in question. The achievements system is still in place, but the items can now drop, and you can trade, craft, or just buy them.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Whoever really runs the teams probably is no hero, but Heavy's "What sick man sends babies to fight me?" quip fits the bill.
  • What the Hell, Player?: Given that TF2 is an online multi-player game, one can undoubtedly count on encountering this at one time or another. Reactions can vary from a Precision F-Strike to a full-on Cluster F-Bomb.
  • William Telling: Invoked in the achievement "William Tell Overkill", though to achieve that, the Sniper must pin an enemy Heavy's head to a wall with an arrow. On May 3, 2012, a "Fruit Shoot" headwear item was added for the Sniper, which is an apple with an arrow through it.
  • A Wizard Did It: The in-universe explanation for "Medieval Mode" - literally.

How did the manly men of Team Fortress appear at a tenth century battlement? Simple. The Soldier angered a magician.

    • Specifically, this magician.
    • The Smissmas Comic implies that everything that doesn't have some sort of outrageous explanation within the TF2 universe is Merasmus's fault, since when Miss Pauling asked how the Soldier of all people managed to become a defense attorney, The Spy simply answered "It's a long story, but Part One, his roommate is a magician".
    • Also, the Gunboats page of the WAR! Update mentions how the shoes work:

"What is the science behind these miracles of technology? Magic, probably."

  • World of Badass
  • X Days Since...: Signs like this are placed on walls in some maps. All of them are marked "This job has worked <0> days without an accident".
  • Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: The Medieval Mode does not only force the players to use medieval-style weapons, it also wordfilters the text chat to sound more akin to the pop cultural image of how people talked back then.
  • You Always Hear the Bullet: You're liable to hear a loud, meaty THWACK when someone gets a critical hit on you.
    • Or a POW, especially with the Heavy's kill taunt.
    • You can turn this on to ensure that your character's hit something, which is signified by a bell ding with each strike. Especially useful for Engineers and blind-firing Demomen.
      • Particularly entertaining as a Pyro; it's not uncommon to light someone on fire, then die and wait the full respawn time only to come back and still hear that lovely dinging as your afterburn continues to damage your prior target.
    • Certain weapons will also cause a "whoosh" to be heard if they just miss your head.
  • You Cannot Grasp the True Form: The Mildly Disturbing Halloween Mask "appears as a moldering, eldritch veil of such manifold depravity, the human eye will not process the sheer enormity of its malevolence, and out of self-preservation will merely show you a brown paper bag with a team colored face painted on it."
  • You Can't Thwart Stage One: many attack/defend maps are (possibly intentionally) designed to invoke this - unless the attacking team is supremely incompetent, they will almost always make it to the second-to-last control point.
  • You Have Researched Breathing: Expensive [1], distinct items are required to point and laugh at your opponent or to high-five your teammates. Or to replicate the glowy bird pose from Meet The Medic. And you can only have one of any of them equipped at a time.
  • You Mean "Xmas": "Australian Christmas".
    • Later, "Smissmas".

"Australian Christmas? Or Smissmas?" Both! Read this comic to find out what happens when holidays collide! Two special days enter the squared circle! ONLY ONE LEAVES!"

  • You Require More Vespene Gas: The Engineer's metal, required for construction and upgrading.
  • Zerg Rush: Stacking a team with Scouts, usually for CP matches. Engineers are required to counter this. Heavy + Medic teams were - and still are - feared by all.
  1. ↑ whether you purchase them for IRL money or trade for them with other items
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