TF2 Zombie Escape Guide
  • What is Zombie Escape?
  • ⭐Highlights
    • Bhopping
    • !zload
    • Gamemode Changes 5/20/2025
    • Recent Maps 6/3/2025
      • Legacy Maps
    • Map List (+Map Records!)
  • 📖General Overview
    • Mod Mechanics
    • New Player's Guide
    • How to Play as Humans
      • Human Class Overviews
      • Human Mechanics
    • How to Play as Zombies
      • Zombie Mutations Overview
      • Zombie Mechanics
      • Niche Mechanic Uses
    • Leading
    • Defending and Falling Back
    • Boosting 101
    • Terminology and Slang
    • Useful Commands
    • Where to Play
  • ⚔️Human/Zombie Guides (Stats Here!)
    • Meet The Humans (+Weapons!)
      • ⚾Scout
        • Scout Primaries
        • Scout Secondaries
        • Scout Melees
      • 🚀Soldier
        • Soldier Primaries
        • Soldier Secondaries
        • Soldier Melees
      • 🔥Pyro
        • Pyro Primaries
        • Pyro Secondaries
        • Pyro Melees
      • 💣Demoman
        • Demoman Primaries
        • Demoman Secondaries
        • Demoman Melees
      • 👊Heavy
        • Heavy Primaries
        • Heavy Secondaries
        • Heavy Melees
      • 🔧Engineer
        • Engineer Primaries
        • Engineer Secondaries
        • Engineer Melees
      • 🏥Medic
        • Medic Primaries
        • Medic Secondaries
        • Medic Melees
      • 🇳🇿Sniper
        • Sniper Primaries
        • Sniper Secondaries
        • Sniper Melees
      • 🗡️Spy
        • Spy Primaries
        • Spy Secondaries
        • Spy Melees
        • Spy Sappers
    • Meet The Zombies
      • Zombie Scout
      • Zombie Soldier
      • Zombie Pyro
      • Zombie Demoman
      • Zombie Heavy
      • Zombie Engineer
      • Zombie Medic
      • Zombie Sniper
      • Zombie Spy
    • Human Meta (+Loadouts!)
      • [OPTIMAL DPS] + Team Comps
      • Class Loadouts (Scout/Soldier/Pyro)
      • Class Loadouts (Demoman/Heavy/Engineer)
      • Class Loadouts (Medic/Sniper/Spy)
  • 🌀Elements of Zombie Escape
    • Parkour
    • Surf
    • Lasers
      • Ping Issue
    • Items
      • Common Items
    • NPCs and Bosses
      • Bosses
  • ⚙️Miscellaneous Info
    • Miscellaneous Info...
    • Stat Explanation
    • TF2 Systems
    • Useful Console Commands and Keybinds
    • Better Flashlight
    • Map Guides
    • Editor Notes
    • ⭐Afterword⭐
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On this page
  • Frontier Justice
  • Panic Attack
  • Shotgun
  • Rescue Ranger
  • Widowmaker
  • Pomson 6000
  1. Human/Zombie Guides (Stats Here!)
  2. Meet The Humans (+Weapons!)
  3. Engineer

Engineer Primaries

Engineer Primary Options

PreviousEngineerNextEngineer Secondaries

Last updated 3 months ago

Frontier Justice

Attributes

Clip Size - 9

Weapon Spread: 30:1

+100% Damage Bonus

+50% Faster Firing Speed

+45% Faster Reload Time

Gain 2 revenge crits on each sentry kill and 1 for each sentry assist when your sentry is destroyed

Revenge crits are lost on death

The Frontier Justice is a weapon that rewards Engineers who play in tandem with their sentries in base TF2. It allows them to build up stored crits after their sentries kill enemy players and are destroyed. This mechanic doesn’t serve much of a purpose in Zombie Escape, given that players generally shoot constantly. Any reasonable amount of crits gained over the course of a round will be lost in a few seconds, as merely holding onto them will be detrimental to the player and the team.

Instead, this weapon plays into its current niche in Zombie Escape as the weapon with the highest DPS among all the shotguns; (at ~190 DPS) falling only flat at stopping waves of zombies in your face due a small clip, but nothing a short circuit or pistol swap between this can't handle.

Panic Attack

Attributes

Clip Size - 18 Shots

Weapon Spread: 20:1

+80% Faster Firing Speed

+45% Faster Reload Time

+50% Bullets Per Shot

+50% Quicker Weapon Deploy

+25% Damage vs Players

-37% Damage Penalty

-50% Less Accurate

Fires a wide, fixed shot pattern

Successive shots become less accurate

The Panic Attack in base TF2 has gone through many revisions. It was originally a charged burst weapon that fired much faster the lower one’s health was. Now, it’s a rapid-fire burst weapon that loses accuracy the longer one keeps firing. These modifications follow the trend of the latter, as this weapon has been reworked into an immediate response option for players caught out by groups of zombies.

Even if this weapon has low sustained DPS, it evens out by being given a damage bonus to players in an attempt to make it more effective for close-range knockback in hitting multiple zombies due to the spread 'penalty' applying to extra pellets. With all this in effect, hopefully this becomes a weapon Pyros, Heavies, and Soldiers can consider as an option should they tend to over-defend or get caught out often. The low damage and high spread also make this weapon less appealing for fast-moving boss fights, so try to avoid using it on maps that require optimal DPS or accurate shots to win unless you're comfortable with getting up close.

Attributes

Clip Size - 18 Shots

Weapon Spread: 30:1

+60% Faster Firing Speed

+60% Faster Reload Time

+20% Damage Bonus

The stock shotgun is pretty much the de facto weapon used by new players or those overwhelmed by all the weapon changes. It also sets the precedent for pretty much all shotgun-esque weapons. This weapon's base DPS is around ~150, which is a damage range all weapons will hover around with a lowered fire rate to compensate.

Reliable as a mid ranged option, the stock Shotgun is still a good choice for Engineer since it has a large clip size to cover yourself with; but tends to be overshadowed by the Frontier Justice in terms of damage, only having a slightly higher fire rate to compensate for that too.

Attributes

Clip Size - 10 Shots

Projectile Speed: 2400

+50% Damage Bonus

+50% Faster Firing Speed

+40% Faster Reload Time

+50% Sentry Damage Bonus

Projectiles Penetrate Enemy Players

Alt-Fire: Use 80 metal to pick up your target building from long range

Fires a special bolt that can repair friendly buildings

Self mark for death when hauling buildings

4-to-1 health-to-metal ratio when repairing buildings

Projectile cannot damage breakable objects

The Rescue Ranger is a unique utility weapon for Engineers in base TF2. It allows them to pick up their buildings from a distance at the cost of metal and serves as a decent damage option if they can land their shots.

In Zombie Escape, the Rescue Ranger satisfies a couple niches by being given penetration against zombies, allowing you to spam it out and slow large groups of zombies in very narrow hallways or chokepoints while also giving you the ability to move your buildings around without having to lug them around (Namely dispensers.)

It also lets you safely repair buildings from a distance without putting yourself in danger, which is great if you're using them as blockades. One more beneficial thing worth mentioning is that it also beefs up your sentry gun's damage (knockback) power. However, the Rescue Ranger is far worse at holding zombies back compared to the shotgun options and can't damage NPCs or Bosses.

Attributes

Uses Metal for Ammo

Weapon Spread: 46.153:1

+40% Faster Firing Speed

+35 More Accurate

+50% Increased Damage to Sentry Target

-50% Sentry Firing Speed

-20% Damage Penalty

Per Shot: -50 Ammo

On Hit: Damage is returned as Ammo

No Reload Necessary

The Widowmaker is a very unique primary for Engineers in base TF2. It's gimmick is that it uses metal for ammo and returns the amount of damage dealt as ammo. This can allow Engineers to fire nonstop should their damage to players exceed the cost of ammo per shot.

It also features increased damage to the user's sentry's target, which should allow more knockback to that target. One would think this weapon would be extremely overpowered in Zombie Escape, and it certainly can be. However, current changes have made it somewhat underwhelming. On maps with tighter enclosures the weapon can get some decent mileage going in having long uptimes; so long as you pinpoint your shots at a closer range (to ensure the most metal return) from pellets not going astray.

Also falling into the same problem as the other gimmicky Engineer weapons - you'll be doing almost no damage to bosses with this, (very, very minimal.)

Attributes

Clip Size - 8 Shots

Does not require ammo

+25% Faster Firing Speed

+50% Sentry Gun Damage Bonus

On Hit: Slow target movement by 40% for 2.0s

Projectile Penetrates Enemy Players

Projectiles cannot knock back zombies

Projectile cannot damage breakable objects

The Pomson 6000 is essentially an Engineer's Righteous Bison with additional perks. Currently the weapon has been given a side-upgrade providing enemy slowdown on hit to a minimum of 240 HU/s for ~2 seconds.

With a larger clip size than prior iterations, it might be slightly worthwhile to use on zombies as it also buffs your sentry knockback some to make up for lack of knockback; but it will still remain useless against most NPCs and bosses as energy projectiles do not damage a majority of them.

Currently the weapon stands as the fastest-firing yet slowest-reloading shotgun. With a TEC time of 2.43 seconds and a FRT of 5.4 seconds, this produces an extremely low uptime-downtime ratio of 0.45. This means that this weapon is highly unsustainable for long-term defenses and should only be used if necessary. This weapon has a 37% damage penalty, leading to the lowest sustained DPS among all shotguns at ~130. But, because this weapon boasts an extremely high fire rate, its nonstop DPS is actually one of the highest among all weapons at 420 (provided that you have an )

Shotgun

Rescue Ranger

Widowmaker

Pomson 6000

⚔️
🔧

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.135

TEC: 2.43 seconds

Reload Time (First): 0.555 seconds

Reload Time (Consec.): 0.285 seconds

Full Reload Time: 5.4 seconds

Damage [Func_Physbox]

Base Damage: 56.7 per shot

Real DPS: 130.344 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 420 DPS

Damage [Func_Breakable]

Base Damage: 28 per shot

Real DPS: 64.367 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 207.407 DPS

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.255

TEC: 4.59 seconds

Reload Time (First): 0.405 seconds

Reload Time (Consec.): 0.21 seconds

Full Reload Time: 3.975 seconds

Damage [Func_Physbox]

Base Damage: 72 per shot

Real DPS: 151.312 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 282.352 DPS

Damage [Func_Breakable]

Base Damage: 36 per shot

Real DPS: 76.656 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 141.716 DPS

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.315

TEC: 1.26 seconds

Reload Time (First): 0.6 seconds

Reload Time (Consec.): 0.3 seconds

Full Reload Time: 1.5 seconds

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.375

TEC: 0.75 seconds

Full Reload Time: 2.835 seconds

Damage [Func_Physbox]

Base Damage: 48 per shot

Real DPS: 26.778 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 128 DPS

Damage [Func_Breakable]

Base Damage: 24 per shot

Real DPS: 13.389 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 64 DPS

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.6

TEC: 4.8 seconds

Reload Time (First): 1.02 seconds

Reload Time (Consec.): 0.54 seconds

Full Reload Time: 4.8 seconds

[Timings]

Attack Interval: 0.315

TEC: 2.835 seconds

Reload Time (First): 0.555 seconds

Reload Time (Consec.): 0.285 seconds

Full Reload Time: 2.835 seconds

Damage [Func_Physbox]

Base Damage: 120 per shot

Real DPS: 190.476 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 380.952 DPS

Damage [Func_Breakable]

Base Damage: 60 per shot

Real DPS: 95.238 DPS

Clip DPS (Nonstop): 190.476 DPS

ammo item.