I'm the kind of engineer who cannot resist abandoning the nest to go shotgun DM some random players the moment that I've upgraded my teleporter and plopped a random sentry and dispenser somewhere. This gun is always sitting in the loadout screen, with its dopamine aura just begging to be used. I think I maybe end up equipping it about a third of the time I play engineer, usually with minis. This weapon has some of the greatest highlight moments of engineer, whilst simultaneously not really being that huge of an immediate improvement. Since you can kill most enemies with half a shotgun clip, its upside really only comes into play when dming multiple players back to back or if you are negligent in your reloads (something I am admittedly a little guilty of).

Given your light class status, I don't find the main purpose of bottomless clip coming into play very often as you either avoid fights where this upside might be more relevant, or you die before it has a chance to be relevant. However, the less intuitive upside of profiting your metal after dropping a mini or level 1 IS quite relevant. I regularly find that I'll go significantly positive on metal, have the ability to drop whichever building I'm missing or repair it, then pick up the dropped ammo from a fallen foe without having to path to a new ammo pack. This time saver really lends itself to the aggressive choke-hold style of engineer that I find the most fun to play, even on red team.

A high risk strategy that I've had a lot of fun with is running this alongside the short circuit, which when you have good aim can allow you to chuck off more projectile eaters than normal. It's kinda gimmicky and increases the risk way more than the increase in reward over normal shotgun + short circuit gameplay, but it is funny.

A widowmaker discussion would not be complete without mentioning pocket medics, as you are affored to play much more loose with your health bar when a healing beam is stuck to you, finally unlocking that bottomless clip upside. It's pretty easy to go on a tear on unsuspecting victims if the powerclasses are respawning or MIA (or the med is walking back to frontlines) and it'll catch enemies off guard. There's no sound of explosives to alert them before an engineer is popping 108s into their backside.

And of course... kritzkreig. Everyone has seen, been on the end of, or been the reciever of a kritz whilst the widowmaker pops off. Even light chip damage will restore ammo, and the distance with which this gun becomes lethal increases massively. It's trivial to take 3-4 enemies out with this unless they're all overhealed soldiers and heavies, and you can pretty reliably snipe the enemy medic which can sometimes be an issue when playing explosive classes (pyro reflects).

On the topic of being healed, the widowmaker is also engineer's best anti-engineer tool, only really competing with the wrangler. Wrangled buildings can be great for removing enemy buildings at range, but only if the enemy is not paying attention/fresh building/does not have wrangler of their own. It's very situational. Given that the widowmaker does get its ammo refund on hitting buildings, and they are stationary, you not only get a complete metal injection from hitting them, but they drop more metal to continue firing, allowing you to pump out the most possible DPS to buildings in close range/without wrangling. How often does this come up? Most frequently when ambusing low health enemies on a dispenser, and occasionally during an uber push vs a sentry. It also lets you bust up teleporters that an engineer is trying to wrench on the other end, whilst still being completely combat ready if an enemy uses the teleporter.

The main drawback is that whenever you commit to your nest and upgrading, even the teleporter at spawn, you are so much less combat reliable, as you MUST land all your shots or run completely dry. Starting at under 90 metal with this weapon is a pretty good risk to fail to even get 3 shots off before running dry, at which point you'd better have the pistol equipped or be close to a metal source. This drawback alone is enough to dramatically hold this gun back despite its litany of sizeable upsides, as having no primary weapon is a pretty huge disadvantage.

Overall, I'd say the more skilled you are, the more likely widowmaker is to be viable and fun to use, though when using it in the way it was intended, you may be better off playing another class in many cases. And since the rescue ranger exists in the same slot, it is really hard to justify using this gun when playing turtle engineer where the downsides of the widowmaker can be the strongest (even with a dispenser).

1 points bezzaboyo

I'm the kind of engineer who cannot resist abandoning the nest to go shotgun DM some random players the moment that I've upgraded my teleporter and plopped a random sentry and dispenser somewhere. This gun is always sitting in the loadout screen, with its dopamine aura just begging to be used. I think I maybe end up equipping it about a third of the time I play engineer, usually with minis. This weapon has some of the greatest highlight moments of engineer, whilst simultaneously not really being that huge of an immediate improvement. Since you can kill most enemies with half a shotgun clip, its upside really only comes into play when dming multiple players back to back or if you are negligent in your reloads (something I am admittedly a little guilty of).

Given your light class status, I don't find the main purpose of bottomless clip coming into play very often as you either avoid fights where this upside might be more relevant, or you die before it has a chance to be relevant. However, the less intuitive upside of profiting your metal after dropping a mini or level 1 IS quite relevant. I regularly find that I'll go significantly positive on metal, have the ability to drop whichever building I'm missing or repair it, then pick up the dropped ammo from a fallen foe without having to path to a new ammo pack. This time saver really lends itself to the aggressive choke-hold style of engineer that I find the most fun to play, even on red team.

A high risk strategy that I've had a lot of fun with is running this alongside the short circuit, which when you have good aim can allow you to chuck off more projectile eaters than normal. It's kinda gimmicky and increases the risk way more than the increase in reward over normal shotgun + short circuit gameplay, but it is funny.

A widowmaker discussion would not be complete without mentioning pocket medics, as you are affored to play much more loose with your health bar when a healing beam is stuck to you, finally unlocking that bottomless clip upside. It's pretty easy to go on a tear on unsuspecting victims if the powerclasses are respawning or MIA (or the med is walking back to frontlines) and it'll catch enemies off guard. There's no sound of explosives to alert them before an engineer is popping 108s into their backside.

And of course... kritzkreig. Everyone has seen, been on the end of, or been the reciever of a kritz whilst the widowmaker pops off. Even light chip damage will restore ammo, and the distance with which this gun becomes lethal increases massively. It's trivial to take 3-4 enemies out with this unless they're all overhealed soldiers and heavies, and you can pretty reliably snipe the enemy medic which can sometimes be an issue when playing explosive classes (pyro reflects).

On the topic of being healed, the widowmaker is also engineer's best anti-engineer tool, only really competing with the wrangler. Wrangled buildings can be great for removing enemy buildings at range, but only if the enemy is not paying attention/fresh building/does not have wrangler of their own. It's very situational. Given that the widowmaker does get its ammo refund on hitting buildings, and they are stationary, you not only get a complete metal injection from hitting them, but they drop more metal to continue firing, allowing you to pump out the most possible DPS to buildings in close range/without wrangling. How often does this come up? Most frequently when ambusing low health enemies on a dispenser, and occasionally during an uber push vs a sentry. It also lets you bust up teleporters that an engineer is trying to wrench on the other end, whilst still being completely combat ready if an enemy uses the teleporter.

The main drawback is that whenever you commit to your nest and upgrading, even the teleporter at spawn, you are so much less combat reliable, as you MUST land all your shots or run completely dry. Starting at under 90 metal with this weapon is a pretty good risk to fail to even get 3 shots off before running dry, at which point you'd better have the pistol equipped or be close to a metal source. This drawback alone is enough to dramatically hold this gun back despite its litany of sizeable upsides, as having no primary weapon is a pretty huge disadvantage.

Overall, I'd say the more skilled you are, the more likely widowmaker is to be viable and fun to use, though when using it in the way it was intended, you may be better off playing another class in many cases. And since the rescue ranger exists in the same slot, it is really hard to justify using this gun when playing turtle engineer where the downsides of the widowmaker can be the strongest (even with a dispenser).

1 points LoadEnvironmental316

Better than pomson 6000 and frontier justice actually I use this with my smissmas sweater pistol

TF2 Weapon Discussion: The Widowmaker