How can I be sure my team has a good composition?

I personally think the reason Team Fortress 2 has remained one of the top PC games for over a decade is on account of its amazing balance. Every class fills an essential role, and in a 9v9 game one player should be on each of the 9 classes. That being said, the game isn’t always played 9v9, and you’ll commonly have more or less players than there are classes, meaning you’ll have to either switch between classes or double up on them. This tier list will be based on how essential each class is, and therefore how often someone should be playing them, or which should be doubled up on.

S-ential Tier

The S-ential Tier is named such because the only class in it is essential. You’re gonna need this guy on your team or you’ll be steamrolled, no argument.

The Medic (S-ential Tier)

A team without a medic is a losing team. The Medic (born in Stuttgart, Germany as Ludwig Humboldt) is the ultimate support class in the game, able to heal, uber, and give crits to all his allies, and still being able to put out decent damage of his own if the situation dictates it. The medic has only gotten better over time, getting new items to allow him to heal from long range, see enemy health bars, and even raise his ubercharge with melee attacks.

+Can heal allies

+Heals himself

+Can uber himself and allies

+Can crit allies (with a nonstock medigun)

+Can see enemy health bars (with a nonstock melee)

The Medic (S-ential Tier):100/100

S Tier

The characters in S-Tier are really important to your team composition. They fill some of the most important slots in your team. I wouldn’t recommend playing without them.

The Scout (S Tier)

The Scout (birth name Jeremy, and born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts) is dedicated to playing the objective. He has the highest speed in the game by far, has a double jump, and he counts for two players when capping a point or pushing a payload cart. All of those things make him essential on offense, and rather handy on defense, which puts him firmly at the top of S tier.

+fastest class in the game

+decent DPS

+caps points and pushes payload faster than other classes

+can double jump

-not much HP

The Scout (S Tier): 85/100

The Engineer (S Tier)

I’ll be completely honest right away here, The Engineer (born in 1925 Texas as Dell Conagher) is my main, so I’m biased. There’s very good reason for me maining him though, because Dell didn’t get those 11 PhDs for nothing, and he makes sure to use them to do his namesake, which is of course engineering. The Engineer’s main gimmick is building devices he can place around the map, these items being sentries, dispensers, and teleporters. The modern engineer also has a lot more offensive capabilities than he did at launch, being able to get revenge crits whenever his sentry dies, get metal from shooting people, repair his buildings long range, and even swap out his sentry for a smaller, cheaper, and faster built mini sentry.

+can teleport players to advantageous positions

+the best class for area denial, just drop down a sentry in an area and watch the corpses pile up

+can use the gunslinger for a more offensive build

+can heal other players and restock their ammo with a dispenser

-not particularly great at combat without his buildings

 The Engineer (S Tier): 80/100

A Tier

These classes are important, but you’ll get away with switching to more situational ones easier.

The Demoman (A Tier)

I had a lot of trouble deciding which order to place the Demoman and Soldier in, being that they’re very similar classes, both being the demolitions experts in the game. I ended up deciding that Demoman (born as Tavish Finnegan Degroot in the Scottish town of Ullapool) just barely edges out the soldier by being more versatile, since he can lay sticky traps and his pills can be ricocheted around hallways. His demoknight gear, which I will bring up in more detail later, also gives him a much wider variety of toys than the soldier, which allows for more potential playstyles. 

+can set sticky traps

+can can send pills around corners

+massive damage potential

+sticky jumping allows for high mobility

-doesn’t have many options for close range combat

The Demoman (A Tier): 75/100

The Soldier (A Tier)

Like I said earlier, Soldier and Demoman are very similar, however the key difference to me is that The Soldier (allegedly named Jane Doe and born in the Midwestern United States) is a much better offensive class, which is presumably why he’s in the offensive section. Instead of pills that fall and bounce, Soldier shoots rockets that fly straight ahead and explode on impact, and instead of sticky bombs he packs shotguns that’ll tear close range enemies apart without harming him in the process.  He also has a vast selection of melees to allow him to capture faster, boost his teammates’ speed, and deal more damage when at low health.

+rocket jumping allows for high mobility

+has sidegrades that do more damage to buildings

+has a sidegrade that heals him when he does damage

+secondary weapons allow for decent close range combat

-just an all rounder, doesn’t particularly excel at anything

The Soldier (A tier): 74/100

B Tier

These classes are still good, but you won’t hear many complaints about them being missing from the team.

Pyro (B Tier)

The Pyro is my second most played class in TF2, and objectively the best for playing dress up. His gameplay is probably the simplest, mainly consisting of running up to people with her flamethrower and barbecuing his enemies, to the point where the community complains about people who play her just pressing W and M1.  There is more to his gameplay than that though, her second biggest gimmick being the airblast, which can be used to push enemies where you want them, reflect projectiles, and extinguish teammates. His secondary shotgun can also be switched out for either a flare gun or a jetpack, and she has a variety of axes to pick between for melee.

+can set enemies on fire

+airblast has a variety of uses

+can rocketjump with some of the flare guns or use the jetpack for higher mobility

+two of their axes do extra damage to buildings, along with being able to remove sappers

-not very good in water, even with the neon annihilator

Pyro (B Tier): 70/100

The Heavy (B Tier)

The Heavy (born Mikhail, in the Dzhugdzhur Mountains, Khabarovsk Krai, USSR)  is an interesting case to write about, because he’s basically the mascot of the game, but he’s not really the most useful class in the game, mostly due to his infuriatingly slow speed. That isn’t to say he doesn’t serve a purpose though, being a massive bullet sponge that also deals big damage. He has enough health to tank a headshot with no medic, and his wide assortment of miniguns will fill whoever he points at with lead very quickly. He can also swap one of his many shotguns out for one of his many food items, most of which heal, allowing for him to either recover some of his own health or heal an ally. He can also taunt with his melee to one hit kill an enemy from long range, and put gloves on said fists for a variety of effects.

+by far the highest HP in the game

+effective damage dealer

+can heal himself and allies

+wide enough to shield allies

-really slow

The Heavy (B Tier): 65/100

C Tier

these are where the classes get really situational, and actively get less useful by having too many

Sniper (C Tier)

The Sniper (born as Mun-Dee in New Zealand, but raised by adoptive parents in Australia) is the most straightforward class, you snipe people. The snipers primaries pretty much all focus on trying to land headshots, the closest thing to an alternative playstyle being to switch to using a bow and arrow to be a bit more aggressive and get closer to the action. He can also trade out his secondary SMG for jarate, which douses allies and makes enemies take mini crits on hit, or a shield to protect from backstabs or fire.

+can snipe

+can use jarate

-doesn’t offer many different playstyles

-low hp

-really good target for spies

Sniper (C Tier): 60/100

Spy (C Tier)

The Spy is only this low because he’s situational and becomes less effective the more you have on your team. Everyone knows the feeling of joining a game and your team is full of mentally deficient morons, shirts stiff from dried drool, playing spy. The spy is very effective when you only have one however, especially on offense. that lone spy can sneak in and take out the engineer’s defenses and a sniper, along with whoever else dares turn their back to him, leaving the objective wide open for everyone else. His arsenal has widened over time too, including different sappers, a knife that disguises you on kill, and even a revolver that can headshot.

+best class against engineers

+really effective at removing snipers

-really low hp

-gets worse as you get more

-a good pyro makes him mostly ineffective

Spy (C Tier): 50/100

D Tier

This one is really fun but it doesn’t have a place if you wanna play seriously

Demoknight (D Tier)

Do you remember earlier, in the Demoman section, when I said “His demoknight gear, which I will bring up in more detail later”, and talked about a wide variety of playstyles? This is what I was talking about, and it’s basically its own class. You can trade Demoman’s primary out for a pair of boots, which offers some buffs, swap his secondary out for a shield, which also offers more buffs AND a charge attack, and you’ll end up with a melee only build. you can take this further by using one of his swords, most of which offer buffs by collecting the heads of your foes. Notably, the Persian Persuader is a sword that doesn’t collect heads, instead allowing you to get health from ammo pickups.

+can trimp

+style on your foes

+high mobility

+only gets stronger as you slay more foes

+most stylish way to play

Demoknight (D Tier): 200/100

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