Wrangler
“ | Everyone loves remote control toys. But the problem with most of them is, unless you manage to remote control one directly down someone's throat, they're pretty useless as weapons. But what if we were to tell you that we fixed that obvious design flaw?
— Blog post highlighting the Wrangler
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The Wrangler is an unlockable secondary weapon for the Engineer. It is a wooden grip implemented under an early-80's single-button style team-colored joystick, with a small, rectangular radar satellite dish protruding from the front. A team-colored wire which is taped and attached to the joystick runs from the back of it and into the radar dish.
When active, the Wrangler allows the Engineer to manually take control of his Sentry Gun, during which the Sentry Gun loses its default auto-aim and automatic firing abilities and is instead controlled by using primary fire for bullets and alt-fire for rockets (default keys: MOUSE1 and MOUSE2, respectively). Additionally, the Sentry Gun gains a translucent, team-colored shield around it and a team-colored laser pointing where the Engineer's crosshair is aiming. The shield absorbs 66% of all incoming damage and reduces the amount of health and ammo restored per hit by 33%. When the Wrangler is put away (or the Engineer holding it dies), the Sentry Gun becomes inactive for three seconds, after which the shield disables and the Sentry Gun resumes normal operation.
Furthermore, a Wrangled Sentry Gun fires bullets 40% faster at level 1, 33% faster at levels 2 and 3, and 50% if it's a Wrangled Combat Mini-Sentry. Rockets are fired 26.5% faster and calculate damage falloff based on the Engineer's position (while bullets still calculate damage falloff based on the Sentry Gun's position). To assist with hitting targets, the Wrangler has a small aim assist that automatically points at the center of an enemy when the crosshair is near them. Disguised or cloaked Spies are not targeted automatically, being ignored entirely instead. A Wrangled Sentry Gun can still injure the Engineer that build it, which allows him to clear small gaps using the bullets or perform a Sentry Gun jump using the rockets.
The Wrangler is automatically given to any player who obtains 17 Engineer achievements.
Contents
[hide]Demonstration
Crafting
Blueprint
Class Token - Engineer | Slot Token - Secondary | Scrap Metal | Possible Results | |||||||||||||||||||
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Strange variant
[expand]Strange variant information |
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Related achievements
Engineer
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Update history
- The Wrangler was added to the game.
- The Wrangler no longer shows the Shotgun's ammo count.
- Fixed a bug where Wrangled level 3 Sentry Guns would still fire rockets when they were out of ammo.
- Fixed an exploit that allowed team kills with wrangled Sentry Guns.
- Fixed Engineers being able to build level 3 mini-sentries using The Wrangler.
- Fixed Engineers being able to build level 3 mini-sentries for real this time.
March 10, 2011 Patch (Shogun Pack)
- Fixed the "Best Little Slaughterhouse in Texas" Engineer achievement not counting Wrangler and Mini-Sentry kills.
October 13, 2011 Patch (Manniversary Update & Sale)
- Wrangler taunt now performs the Pistol taunt animation.
June 27, 2012 Patch (Pyromania Update)
- Fixed sentry sometimes spawning in shielded mode while the Wrangler was equipped, but not deployed.
- Changed attributes:
- Slightly reduced accuracy of manually-controlled sentry at long range.
- Protective shield now fades 1 second after the owning Engineer dies.
- Added Collector's quality.
December 20, 2013 Patch (Smissmas 2013)
- [Undocumented] Added Festive variant.
- Updated Strange Wranglers to track wrangled sentry kills.
- [Undocumented] Strange Wranglers now count wrangled kills properly.
- Updated the Wrangler so Strange parts can be applied to it.
- Strange parts only increment if a Wrangler-controlled Sentry does the scoring.
June 18, 2014 Patch (Love & War Update)
- Sentry bullets are now affected by damage falloff outside of sentry scan range.
- Sentry bullet damage has been changed so it calculates damage based on the Sentry Gun's position, not the Engineer's.
- Added Strange quality.
July 2, 2015 Patch #1 (Gun Mettle Update)
- Updated description to better detail the weapon's features.
- Changed attributes:
- Ammo and Repair given to a shielded Sentry is reduced by the strength of the shield (66% reduced) when shield is active.
- Engineer death keeps the Wrangled sentry shielded and disabled for 3 seconds, same as when Wrangler is switched away. Previously Engineer death caused disable state for only 1 second.
- Fixed the Wrangler not properly disabling Sentry Guns for 3 seconds on Engineer death.
October 28, 2015 Patch (Scream Fortress 2015)
- Fixed an idle animation bug for the Wrangler.
- Fixed Engineer's Wrangler contract updating points for players other than the Engineer doing the contract.
- Fixed the Engineer's Wrangler contract updating points while the player is not an Engineer.
- Fixed the Wrangler's death notice icon being clipped.
- Fixed Exorcism effect not working for Wrangler kills.
Notes
- Being stunned by any means leaves the Engineer unable to fire, but keeps the Sentry Gun in the Wrangled state, effectively disabling it.
- If the Sentry Gun is sapped or hit by a charged shot from the Cow Mangler 5000 while it is inactive, the 3 second Wrangler cooldown is bypassed.
Bugs
- Shield and laser effect issues:
- The laser emitted from the Sentry Gun while using the Wrangler may travel through some walls and occasionally move back and forth very quickly.
- Picking up a Wrangled Sentry leaves the Wrangler shield visual effect in place for a short time. Also, upon deploying the sentry and Wrangling it, the laser emits from strange points, such as enemy Sentry Guns. This can be fixed by switching to another weapon then back to the Wrangler.
- Using a Wrangled Sentry while the Sentry is built on a moving platform results in the shield being left behind when the platform and the Sentry move.
- There is currently a glitch which causes the targeting laser of the Sentry to be emitted from the eyes of allies when the player aims at them. This can make it somewhat harder to aim at enemies. The glitch is only present on the user's screen; no other players see the effect.
- The Sentry Gun can retain the shield and laser effects even when the Wrangler is not the currently held weapon. It may still operate normally, without taking reduced damage, but may also retain the Wrangled behavior, including a functional shield, if the player builds the Sentry Gun and then changes their loadout to equip the Wrangler.
- The glitch persists upon the death of the Sentry Gun's owner, and can be fixed by switching to the Wrangler then switching away to another weapon.
- Using the Wrangler to kill enemies with Sentry Gun rockets produces the level 3 Sentry Gun kill icon instead of that of the Wrangler.
- Once a Level 3 Sentry Gun is directed to fire rockets, it does not play the normal rocket reloading animation.
- If pointing the Sentry Gun at a far distance, the laser appears to move rapidly away from the player's crosshair, but the Sentry Gun still fires at the player's crosshair.
- The Engineer achievement Pownd on the Range can be earned if the Engineer kills himself with his wrangled Sentry Gun outside of the normal range.
- When attaching the Buildings Destroyed Strange Part to a Strange Wrangler, it does not track buildings destroyed.
Trivia
- The Wrangler, along with the Frontier Justice, the Gunslinger, and the Southern Hospitality, appears to have been designed by Radigan Conagher, the Engineer's grandfather. This is shown via a hidden link on the Engineer Update page.
- To wrangle is to professionally handle animals, often directing them to perform certain actions.
- When firing the Sentry Gun for a long time, an animation plays in which the Engineer twitches his hand and a quiet sigh can be heard, as if removing a cramp.
- The Wrangler's joystick looks very similar to that of an Atari 2600 controller, though it lacks a button in the upper left corner.
Gallery
BLU variant of the weapon.
RED first-person view.
RED Festive variant.
See also
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[expand]Weapons |
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