Suicide

“

Don't throw your life away, son. You only get one! Or, depending on your religious affiliation, several! Either way it is a finite number so think it through! Click to listen — The Soldier

”

Any death unaided by an opposing player is considered to be a suicide.

There are multiple ways to suicide in the game. These include the player switching to another class or team while not inside a respawn or resupply area, a Soldier and a Demoman hitting themselves with their own explosives, a Pyro deflecting projectiles at their feet, or a Scout with the Boston Basher or Three-Rune Blade hitting himself repeatedly. It is also possible for an Engineer to be killed by his own Sentry Gun. If the player killed himself by switching teams or classes or using console commands, the message, "<insert name here> bid farewell, cruel world!" appears as a kill notice. These kill notices do not appear on death by environmental damage. However, death by drowning, trains, and saw blades indicate the player suicided. Dying by trains, saw blades, or in an Underworld produces distinct kill icons. Dying by fall damage (or a Pitfall) produces a different death message: "<insert name here> fell to a clumsy, painful death."

Soldiers are able to suicide by performing the Grenade taunt, killing themselves and any opposing players in range. However, the Soldier can survive if overhealed by a Medic and buffed with the Battalion's Backup, or if ÜberCharged.

A suicide can also be performed instantly by typing kill into the console. This is normally used in specific situations, such as when the player is stuck and wishes to begin the respawn cycle. Similarly, a player can enter explode into the console to undergo a gibbing suicide, as if killed by an explosion. These commands, however, are disabled during humiliation. These actions are usually called "killbinding".

Players who have recently damaged enemies who die from suicide or an environmental death get an assist in the kills list in the form of "<player> finished off <victim>". Any death not directly caused by a player will achieve this.

Strategy

While dying and returning to spawn after a lengthy delay means that the team is disadvantaged in terms of numbers or damage, suiciding can be useful in some situations. First, note that suiciding can be risky for Engineers as their unattended buildings can be vulnerable, and suiciding is often not worth doing with classes with charging mechanics, like the Medic's ÜberCharge or the Soldier's banner rages.

• Suiciding can deny an attacker of any benefit from the final blow. For example, suiciding instead of letting a Medic get a kill with the Ubersaw can avoid the Medic filling their Übercharge to then activate to save himself or start a push.
• When needing to get to a base, suiciding can be faster than a long run back to the base (or a long run forward to a newly opened spawn) on some maps with short respawn times, especially with slow classes.
  • Note that if a player is in spawn when their spawn zone changes, instead of suiciding, changing class while in that spawn immediately locates the player at the new spawn.
• While playing as a Ninjaneer, suiciding instead of running back to base avoids the risk of revealing to the enemy that a hidden teleporter is behind them.
  • This can be avoided by using the Eureka Effect.
• If two or more Engineers are working together on the same team, one of them may opt to suicide in order to drop a medium ammo pack for the other Engineer.

Related achievements

 Scout

Fall Classic Cause an environmental death or suicide using the Force-A-Nature's knockback.

Foul Territory Cause an environmental death by stunning or slowing an enemy.

 Demoman

He Who Celt It Use the Sticky Launcher to kill an enemy player via environmental damage.

 Medic

Medical Intervention Save a falling teammate from dying on impact.

Gallery

• 

  A Pyro after suiciding by explode.

• 

  A Pyro after suiciding by kill.

Kill icons

Main article: Kill icons

 Scout bid farewell, cruel world!

Sniper 

  finished off Spy

 Demoman fell to a clumsy, painful death

 Pyro

 Heavy

 Soldier

Update history

August 4, 2008 Patch

• Fixed clients earning achievements when a player they've recently damaged suicides.

See also

• Damage