Team Fortress 2: Cheaters, Hackers, and Bots: How to kill them! [An updated botkiller guide!]

If the amount of people on your team outnumber bots – try kicking them first!

Here’s a flowchart from u/6FeetDownUnder in r/TF2:

In order to make your teammates (and the other team) aware of the bots, call out the user’s name (or a recognizeable, unique part of their name), mention that they’re a bot/cheater, and make a call for a votekick. Using both text chat and voice chat if possible is ideal.

When you or another person begins votekicking the bot, say in the public chat (y key): “f1 bot”. This alerts your team to kick the bot (as some programmers opt to have their bots create false votes, in which case you should press F2) and alerts the other team that you’re currently attempting to kick your bot, which prevents hostility.

If you’re like me and play on a laptop, or otherwise use a keyboard with function layers, you’ll have to press Fn + F1/F2 in order for your votes to register. In my case, if I forget to press the Function key, it puts my laptop into sleep or airplane mode, which creates a huge delay for my ability to vote – neglecting to remember this can result in bots failing to be kicked!

Remember:

This prevents them from being able to immediately rejoin the match easily!

Not only will muting bots make it so you don’t have to worry about their voice chat spam – it also makes them easier to identify!

Bots – and by extension, bot hosts – tend to frequently change their Steam display names frequently. You can’t usually rely on your team to directly check potential bots’ and cheaters’ Steam accounts for VAC/game bans, -rep cheating profile comments, low Steam levels, etc., so muting these bots in-game makes it so you can check your mute list in-game to check if someone’s previously been cheating!

…This is also handy for identifying pricks, who should be kicked anyways, but I digress.

Hilariously, I’ve noticed that bots made by different programmers don’t recognize each other as bots, so they’ll start killing each other. Some of us have been calling this MVM 2.

These bots generally tend to be Snipers, but you also need to keep an eye out for a few more common variants: Heavies, Soldiers, and, yes, Scouts. I’ve also seen the occasional pocket Medic bot that pops conveniently timed Ubers exclusively when their health is low.

These bots generally have cosmetics mimicking new players (Ghostly/Ghastly/Ghastlier/Ghastlierist/Galvanized Gibus + Pyrovision Goggles), gaudy cosmetics (such as the Skull Island Topper), or otherwise wear scrap/craft hats.

Remember: these bots aren’t free-to-play accounts – Valve has made money from these cheaters and bots! This means that these bots can:

– Buy (and likely have bought) cosmetics off of the Steam marketplace,
– Trade from Backpack.tf before someone realizes who the host is and trade bans them,
– Trade from the bot host’s main account,
– Use the text chat to promote phishing scams or taunt players (and in the case of OMEGATRONIC, attempt to claim that megascatterbomb’s (YouTube link) anti-bot program is a scam),
– Fill the voice chat with music, audiobooks, racism, or other spam, and
– Use annoying cosmetics that make a lot of noise.

Work together against the bots. When these bots overwhelm a lobby and you’re unable to kick them, call upon your class solidarity and stop the fight between RED and BLU – you’re working together to kill bots now.

Stop attacking each other, communicate in the text chat about what bots you’re kicking, let the chat know about voting cooldowns, and work together to kill the bots. If the bot’s on your team, stand slightly in front of the bot’s scope.

If you stand directly in front of a bot on your team, the bullet will just pass right through you, but if you stand a little ahead of it, the bot’s bullet will get blocked on your player’s hitbox. This works best with classes that can walk as fast or faster than the Sniper class.

Scout is a difficult class to run, but as it turns out, he – as well as other classes – have similar viability to how you’d use them in MVM, albeit some run completely differently like Direct Hit Soldier.

Similar to MVM, you need to try to get yourself as close as possible to the bots to function as a bullet sponge. If you’re running Scout, you’re not normally gonna be an attack class,

(unless you’re fighting the new guy advertising their Discord server who programs bots so badly they jump into walls and get stuck in corners. Even the Mechinator bots are programmed better than that, and those ones are also bad), you’re a support class and largely a bullet sponge.

If you’re attempting to work offensively with a pocket Medic, you’re gonna wanna use one of a few weapons.

Stock Scattergun or Soda Popper: These both work about the same effectiveness. You don’t really survive that long to take advantage of the Soda Popper’s Hype, and the bots can usually track you well enough that flying around isn’t going to save you.

Albeit, the way these work is they predict where you’re going, not where you are, so if you move weirdly enough it does actually confuse the program. I’ve actually been able to do that as Pyro of all classes literally just by crouch jumping and strafing; some of these new bots are programmed very poorly.

Alternatively, you can use the Shortstop‘s shove mechanic, but I much prefer using the Force-A-Nature. The FAN can actually push back enemies at a further range, so it really messes with their aim between reloads by changing where their crosshair is, so some of the bots are unable to compensate the player movement prediction and it makes them miss their shots.

Any of the pistols actually work surprisingly well for chipping down bot health, but honestly the Mad Milk works better in combat against bots. You may die applying it, but it means your team members can get health back by actively fighting the bots

Use the Holy Mackerel, Saxxy, or Golden Frying Pan for comedy. Just kidding. In all seriousness, either Mark bots for Death using the Fan O’War, or safely make the bots bleed from a distance using the Wrap Assassin’s throwable ornament.

Also, if you’ve got a Medic, before you swap weapons, please sit next to the spawn resupply cabinet and repeatedly hit yourself with the Boston Basher. This allows your Medic to rapidly build up an Ubercharge from your bleed damage without actually committing suicide in the spawn room.

So, as it turns out, I was wrong about Soldier being a more difficult class. Soldier is one of the classes that can actually carry the anti-bot fight!

Soldier is best paired with a pocket Medic, and does a surprising amount of damage.

Unlike his MVM counterpart, Soldier’s best weapon for fighting against the bots is actually the Direct Hit. When combined with a Medic or healing secondary, your Direct Hit combined with precise aim kills bots pretty rapidly, as well as disjointing their aim through knockback.

You can also use the Black Box if you don’t have a Medic.

A more niche use case is the Beggar’s Bazooka if you have a looping taunt like the Conga or Kazotsky Kick, where you can pack in three rockets, start the looping taunt to hold onto the rockets (yes, this works), and when a bot starts rounding a corner, undo the taunt key to immediately barrage fire at the bot. Hilarious.

Since you’re pretty much just going to be using your primary for damage, you’re gonna wanna use your secondary slot for support purposes.

Equip the Buff Banner if you have a competent Medic and are confident in your ability to survive, or otherwise use the Battalion’s Backup (one-time) or Concheror (passive heal) to survive bot shots.

Melee weapons are a bit weird with Soldier, but you have three options if you aren’t just equipping the stock Shovel. If you’re close enough to melee the bot, you’ve probably already taken a ton of damage, so have your Medic briefly stop healing you and smack them with the Equalizer. Outside of that niche use case, please use a different weapon.

Otherwise, you can use the Disciplinary Action to help your Heavies and other Soldiers move up faster, the Escape Plan to get to cover quickly if you survive a bot shot, or – probably the best option – the Half-Zatoichi if you’re committed to melee as Soldier for some reason. It lets you heal while hurting the bot, and you can randomly sheathe it to help a Medic build up Uber.

Using the grenade tauntkill with the Equalizer or Escape Plan can be used to explode bots coming around corners or trying to destroy a teleporter with a melee weapon. Niche but funny.

So I’m an Engineer and Pyro main, and I’ve gone out of my way to figure out how to make Pyro work against the bots.

Pyro is actually quite difficult to make work, I don’t recommend them, but if you want to play as him, here’s how to make her an actually viable strategy.

It will in fact need a Medic to stay alive.

All four of the primaries actually work, surprisingly. If you’re going to use the stock Flamethrower, use the Rainblower instead; this’ll make sense later in the Pyro section.

If you’re confident in your ability to stay alive, use the Phlogistinator with a pocket Medic, phlogchamp in a safe spot when your Mmph is full, have a Medic Uber you, and have at your free crits. Not really useful unless the bots are in a crowd, like Harvest’s capture point.

The Degreaser is actually pretty bad at dealing with bots. It lowers your Medic’s ability to heal you, so you’re just gonna die pretty fast. Not even worthy of bold text here.

After having become a Pyro main and done some research, I found out that the Backburner is actually pretty decent. It has the same problem with Medic healing, but it does have a jank use case where flame particles being “behind” an enemy is determined by whether they’re travelling in the same direction as the enemy.

This means that, because of how jank flame particles work, you can bounce them off of walls, ceilings, floors, probably even props, and suddenly you’re dealing crit damage. Absolute madness; I love it.

Unsurprisingly, the best weapon I’ve found for Pyro is also the one that requires you to be able to aim: the Dragon’s Fury. 300% damage to burning players + +50% repressurization rate on hit = spam hits on the bot for free 3x damage. Especially effective with a Kritzkrieg medic on a crowd of bots capping a point.

I’m gonna level with you, Pyro’s secondaries and bots don’t mesh well.

The Gas Passer has the same problem as normal,
you’re not gonna live long enough to use the Thermal Thruster’s stomp ability,
the Panic Attack’s damage penalty is a problem,
the Scorch Shot’s mini-crits are easily outclassed by other weapons,
the Manmelter exists,
the Reserve Shooter isn’t even useable against Soldier bots because they don’t rocket jump,
and the damage from Detonator jumping just gets you killed.

Just use the stock Shotgun or the Flare Gun to capitalize on burning crit damage.

Use the Powerjack to move faster. Enough said.

Pyro actually has two viable taunt kills. Use a looping taunt or repeatedly use the guitar taunt to look around corners, and when a bot gets close, use the Hadouken taunt around corners.

If the map has verticality, you want to wait until the bot gets below you. For some reason, the Rainblower’s Armageddon taunt works with a damage sphere around the player that’s misaligned downwards and can go through floors, so you can wait until a bot’s coming under you and then use the Rainblower taunt to immediately deal 400 damage to the nearest target: the bot under you.

In all seriousness, I don’t play Demoman much outside of training trimping as Demoknight, but I have seen other players fighting against bots as Demoman.

Take my Demo advice with a grain of salt, and if you’re a Demo main, provide some in-game testing feedback in the Guide comments.

Honestly, yeeting bombs over or around map geometry works pretty well, and Loose Cannon Double-Donks are hilarious, but most of the utility of Demo’s primaries comes from rolling them rather than bouncing.

Stand on top of a ledge, loop (or otherwise repeated) taunt to see around corners, and when a bot is coming below you, use the stock Grenade Launcher, Loose Cannon, or Iron Bomber and let them roll onto a bot below you.

I’m 90% sure I originally saw Solarlight (YouTube Link) use this strategy, although I can’t find the source.

The Stickybomb Launcher or Scottish Resistance are both good for setting up sticky traps. Use your loop or repetitive taunts to see around corners to make sure you time it right.

You can also use the Splendid Screen to deal damage through walls. Because Source jank.

If you’re gonna use a Demoknight build, use the Eyelander, Scotsman’s Skullcutter, or the Half-Zatoichi. The Ullapool Caber has niche use as comedic explosive kills, but seriously, don’t use it.

Heavy is one of the best classes to fight against bots with. The huge amount of health plus the amount of damage Heavy can deal makes him ideal with a pocket Medic.

Same strategy as MVM: use the stock Minigun or the Brass Beast; I personally have a preference for the latter option. Not much to say here.

Use either the Sandvich or the Dalokohs Bar for the health bonus. Which you use is ultimately up to preference. The Sandvich heals more health to you and your teammates, and the Dalokohs Bar grants you more health to tank a bot shot.

I normally use the Fists of Steel for its ranged damage resistance, but I’ve hilariously seen someone strategically use the Holiday Punch of all things to force a firing bot to laugh, resulting in an easy kill. Honestly, given bots normally aim at the closest target, I have no idea how they accomplished that.

The Engineer is a seriously overpowered class for dealing with bots. Your Sentries and Dispensers will be essential for keeping your team alive, and if you’re successfully killing large amounts of bots, you can even set up a Teleporter network – and even if you’re not, Teleporters make a fine distraction.

Bots tend to target Sentries → Dispensers → Teleporters → Engineers → other classes, although I’ve seen some that are programmed better and target the Engineers first so they can’t repair their buildings.

This means that Dispensers can either be used to heal your team and provide them with ammo or be used as Dispenser armour. Remember: if your buildings are being shot, your teammates aren’t. This includes Teleporters.

Engineer only really has two melee options for botkilling. If your Sentries keep getting destroyed, or if you’re running the Gunslinger and getting Mini-Sentries, use the Frontier Justice to get free crits on the bots.

If you’re playing more defensively, stay away from your Sentry and sit by a distanced Dispenser while repairing your Sentry from a distance with the Rescue Ranger.

Just use the stock Pistol. Please don’t try to use the Short Circuit against a bot.

If you’re using the Frontier Justice, I recommend using the Gunslinger so your Sentries get destroyed faster. This grants you fast and repeated crits.

If you’re using the Rescue Ranger and have a Teleporter network (or at least one tele), use the Eureka Effect so you can rapidly teleport between your nest and the bots’ flanks.

Personally, however, I prefer to use the Jag. It’s great for setting up nests quickly, as well as repairing things for your fellow Engineers.

The Medic is the literal lifesaver while fighting against bots. If you’ve got at least one Engineer (or other class, albeit Engineer is preferred) fighting against the bots, pocket whoever you believe will provide the most defensive or offensive power.

Just use the Crusader’s Crossbow. The various Syringe Guns can’t do enough damage to compete with the long-range healing capabilities of the Crossbow. Using that Crossbow allows you to heal teammates low from a bot from across the map.

Your choice of Medi-Gun depends on what you’re intending to do.

If your team is struggling to stay alive, work with a Boston Basher Scout to build up Uber for your stock Medi-Gun and use that Uber to push your team forward. That immortality can help lend your team enough time for an Engineer to set up a sentry while your Heavy or Soldier kill off bots.

If the person you’re pocketing already has a higher health pool, use the Vaccinator and give the person you’re pocketing bullet resistance.

If you’re playing offensively and spawncamping the bots, give in to the inner demons and pop that Kritzkrieg. It’s surprisingly useful for when your team is absolutely dominating bots, although that tends to be a niche situation when only the enemy team has majority bots.

No contest, use the Amputator. You’re not actually trying to melee bots, you’re trying to AOE heal groups of teammates with the Amputator taunt. It can sometimes be a lifesaver when it’s not safe enough for you to turn a corner.

Sniper… Sniper I have done a disservice.

I was wrong about Sniper being practically useless – these programmers are sometimes so horrible at making bots that you can actually use the Sniper against bots.

I don’t play Sniper almost at all, so take this advice with a grain of salt. If you’re a Sniper main fighting bots, feel free to drop advice in the Guide comments.

The Huntsman might be useful for Lucksman shots, but I’ve honestly no idea.

The Sydney Sleeper‘s Jarate effect could possibly be useful, but honestly if you’ve just got the Jarate equipped, it makes the Sydney’s Jarate effect kinda useless.

I’ve noticed it’s a bit controversial, but I actually prefer using the Classic. I dunno, I like its’ ability to look for targets while zoomed out and then zooming in for accuracy.

If you have a Medic, toss the Jarate occasionally so your teammates can deal mini-crits to the bots. If you don’t have a Medic, use the Cozy Camper for some passive health gain.

I genuinely don’t think it’ll save you from a Sniper bot, but it might be life-or-death for other bots like Heavy or Soldier bots.

Since you won’t really have time to apply Jarate and then melee, it’s best to just use the jank Tribalman’s Shiv, which’ll at least let you deal damage posthumously.

With the shortest tauntkill time, if you’re using the Huntsman, the Arrow Stab taunt could actually be useful to kill bots coming around corners.

Spy has unfortunately become largely useless since the last botkiller guide I made. While some old strategies worked… they don’t really work anymore. Here’s what I have for ya.

The Ambassador. You’re just gonna wanna deal max damage if you’re going gunspy. Enough said.

You’re highly unlikely to get a backstab due to the nature of how bots work, but if you do wanna attempt that, either use the Conniver’s Kunai to get some extra health back, or use the Big Earner to get away quickly or be the world’s most cursed Spy main and try to chainstab bots.

The Dead Ringer used to confuse bots for a moment, but they’ve at least been improved past that. The Dead Ringer’s only real use now is to make it so you take two Sniper shots instead of one, which can save teammates if you’re close to a bot.

Enjoy killing bots! Here’s some more guides!

spoonkyyo’s 2020-2021 Bot Identification and Botkiller Guide

Loaf(?)’s Botkiller Guide

My own old, slightly outdated botkiller guide

Guide cover image: Cropped version from this source – A TF2 MVM Tiermaker List, of all things. Original render source unknown.[tiermaker.com]

TF2 class solidarity: Official TF2 MVM Trailer (YouTube)

Votekick flowchart: r/TF2 Votekick Flowchart

Class icons: Official TF2 Wiki