by HeardVenus

Hey, In this guide I will help you guys counter cheaters in TF2. Obviously, you can’t counter everything, but hopefully, I can enlighten some of you about this subject!

[Key] –

* – This cheat can have a customizable FOV.

^ – This cheat is subtle, and can be very hard to spot.

# – Client side, Impossible to spot if they are sneaky about it.

! – Blatant cheat, very easy to spot.

@ – Can be blatant or subtle, in the middle.

Cheats

First off, lets start with a cheat list so we can understand what I’m talking about (^{I won’t be including every cheat in the game, only the important ones that matter}) –

Aimbot : I’m Pretty sure everyone knows what this is, this cheat automatically aims at players, and it can be customize to target specific hitboxes. This cheat can also be set at a specific FOV (^{Field of view}), If the FOV is set to, for example, max, the cheater can shoot people at every angle. Lower FOVs are subtle and harder to spot.

• [*^] Normal Aimbot : This option locks on to people, and can be pretty obvious. Smoothing CAN be added and CAN be very subtle.
• [*] Silent Aimbot : This option quickly flicks to the enemy and goes back to it’s original position.
• [*] Silent Aimbot (And silent projectiles) : This option includes silent aimbot and silent projectiles. The projectiles are fully silent, you won’t able to see any flicking or twitching from a spectator’s point of view.
• [*^] Aim Assistance : This option assists the cheater’s aim a little bit, because of it’s subtle nature. You can barely tell if the person is cheating or not.

Triggerbot : This cheat also performs automatic actions, such as :

• [*] Auto-Airblast : Automatically airblasts projectiles. Can be set to ignore specific projectiles.
• [*] Auto-Backstab : Automatically backstabs players.
• [*] Auto-Detonator : Automatically detonates flares and stickies when a player is near them.
• Auto-Uber : Automatically activates Uber when the healed person/your health is below a specific %.
• [^] Normal Triggerbot : This option automatically shoots when a player is under the crosshair.

ESP (^{Extra Sensory Perception})/ Visuals : This cheat gives cheaters useful information about players, buildings, NPC’s etc.

• [#] Player ESP : This option allows cheaters to see enemies/teammates through walls, the cheater could also see, Health, Conditions (^{Overhealed, Ubered, Scoped, Cloaked, Deadringered, etc.}), Name, Uber %, Class, Weapons, etc.
• [#] Building ESP : This option allows cheaters to see enemy/friendly buildings through walls, the cheater could also see, Health, Conditions (Sapped, etc.), Building LVL, etc.
• [#] Spectator List : The cheater can see all the spectators watching him (^{and all the spectators spectating other players}). The cheater can turn off any aimbot, etc. when they are being spectated, so they can appear legit. Cheats can also turn off aimbot automatically when they are being spectated.

Also, there are some irrelevant Visual options, (Skybox changer, Freecam, Player cam, No visualized hands/weapons, Thirdperson).

[@] Bunnyhop/BHOP : Automatically jumps when you hit the ground. Combined with strafing, the cheater can gain significant speeds.

[@] Autostrafe : Automatically strafes, usually combined with BHOP.

• [^] Legit : Strafes according to mouse movements. Example, if the mouse moves right, the player strafes right, if it moves left, the player strafes left.
• [@] Silent Strafe (Rage) : Automatically strafes forward when the player is in the air (^{doesn’t require mouse movements}). This is completely silent and cannot be seen from a spectator’s point of view.

[@] Crit Hack : This cheat allows the cheater to get random crits whenever they decide. Cheaters used to be able to get 100% crits, this was patched. Now, cheaters can store crits in a “crit bucket” and gain a massive advantage. Unfortunately melee weapons still use the old method of random crits, so cheaters can still force 100% random melee crits.

[@] Backtrack and Fake Latency : Backtrack abuses Source’s lag compensation to “send people back in time”. Backtrack allows cheaters to hit people from previous positions. Fake Latency allows cheaters to increase their ping on the scoreboard, this won’t increase their real ping (^{You can still see their real ping if you type “ping” in console}). So, why did I talk about these 2 cheats? That’s because when they are combined, cheaters can hit people in positions that they were in a second ago. If you still don’t understand what these 2 cheats mean, here is a video of someone using Backtrack with Fake Latency(^{You can see the medic was fully behind cover and still died}). This cheat is often very easy to notice, if you get killed when you were 4 feet behind the wall, then they might be using backtrack, also when you get melee killed from a ridiculous distance, they might be using this cheat. NOTE – To the cheater’s point of view, there is a huge gap between your model, and your hitbox. We will use this to our advantage.

[!] Multibox/Followbot : The cheater might use several computers or virtual machines to multibox. They usually go medic on the bots and try to pocket the host computer. Or he could, you know, go spinbot sniper on all computers.

[@] Fake-Lag : This cheats makes it look as if the cheater is “lagging”. This is mostly use by cheaters to counter other cheaters. However, cheaters sometimes use this cheat to juke enemy snipers and forcing them to miss. Also this cheat can be set to a specific value.

[!] Spinbot/Anti-Aim : This cheat is also used by cheaters to counter other cheaters. Spinbot spins the player, cheaters sometimes use this to just show other people that they are blatantly cheating, or it can sometimes be used to counter cheaters. Anti-Aim is a more effective way to counter cheaters, AA (^Anti-Aim) creates a fake body, known as a fake angle, this is used to juke other cheater’s aimbots, and there are ways to counter fake angles by using resolvers, that resolve the fake angle and determine where the real angle is. TL;DR Most commonly used by cheaters to counter other cheaters. However, is some cases, AA can be used to juke legit players, “Legit-AA” creates a fake angle that faces forward, and makes the real angle face a different direction, away from the fake angle, thus, it forces legit players to hit the fake angle and miss.

[!] Anti-Backstab : This cheat flips the cheater’s AA so that the real angle is facing you, and the fake angle is facing forward. The cheats also changes the cheater’s pitch down. All of this prevents a backstab.

[!] Nospread : Hitscan nospread was fixed a long time ago. However, projectiles with inaccuracy, such as the Beggar’s Bazooka, Needle gun, and the huntsman, still have nospread. The beggars bazooka can fire 3 rockets that don’t have any deviation, the huntsman can shoot arrows without any of the inaccuracy, the needle gun can shoot needles in a perfect line. From a spectator’s point of view, you can see a lot of snapping when seeing a cheater uses nospread.

Misc Cheats – These cheats are not very common :

• [!] Duck Speed : Allows the cheater to be at full/ or close to full walking speed when they are crouching. These are very easy to spot as they are looking backwards and moving unusually fast whilst ducking.
• [!] Name Linebreaks : Allows the cheater to put line breaks in their name. Like

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..This

• [!] Name Stealer : Allows the cheater to steal anyone’s name on the server, in casual, the cheater can only change their names every 5 minutes.
• [!] Taunt Slide : Allows the cheater extra movement in movable taunts, (^{Kazotsky Kick, Conga, Mannrobics, etc.}). The cheater can go sideways, and they can have no turning delay during these taunts.
• [!] Noisemaker spam/Infinite Noisemaker : Allows the cheater to have infinite noisemakers when there are limited uses.
• [#^] Custom Item Schema : This is one of the more destructive cheats, in my opinion. Custom Item Schema basically allows cheater to load custom schema. This allows the cheater to, add backpack slots, which actually tricks steam into thinking the backpack slots are genuine, they could remove equip region restrictions, and more stuff. MASSIVE NOTE: CHEATERS WHO REMOVE EQUIP REGION RESTRICTIONS AND EQUIP HATS IN MISPLACED REGIONS CAN CAUSE OTHER PLAYERS TO UNEQUIP HATS AND MISCS. This happens when anyone looks at the cheater’s loadout. If the cheater removed the equip region and, say for example, put 3 hats, they can cause other players to unequip hats and miscs when they look at the cheater.

Counters

Phew, that was a lot of writing, now, let’s get revenge on those cheaters.

[Key]

^ = Easily countered.

# = Almost impossible to counter.

* = Counter-able, but difficult.

? = You can’t really do anything about it.

​

Aimbot : If someone is using aimbot, you can do 2 things. But first, you need to analyze :

[*^] Legit/Closet : If they are using aim assistance, or something very subtle, it can be easy or hard. You will need a medic with the vaccinator and you need to go sniper. If the cheater is sniper too, you can out snipe them by hitting body shots with the sydney sleeper. The hard part comes when you kill them too often, they will most likely target you and increase their settings and they will be less subtle, tell the other team to watch him and he will be stuck. If he is too subtle, you will keep killing him. If he is too obvious, they will notice and kick him.

[#^?] Rage : This one depends. You can try the vaccinator medic trick, and that should work or the other team will instantly kick him out of good faith. However, this is very hard if cheater is queued/has bots/just getting help from teammates. Then you are out of luck, if he has a medic, then its probably over. Either convince the other team to kick him, or just leave and find a new game.

[?] Triggerbot : You can try to convince the other team that he is cheating, but you need to be 100% sure that he is cheating, the problem with triggerbot is that it is REALLY hard to spot. If that doesn’t work, try to counter aim the cheater or just leave and find a new game. You really can’t do anything about this. HOWEVER, if they are using the Auto-Detonator, and spawn camping, the other team might notice, as they will realize that his reaction time is suspicous. Example, 2Fort spawn camping, as soon as the doors open, he detonates his stickies.

[?] ESP : If they are being obvious about it, and always know where you are, tell the enemy team. They will most likely kick him. If he is subtle about it, you can’t really tell at that point.

[^] BHOP/Autostrafe : Most cheaters are obvious about their bhops. However, knockback can affect their bhops dramatically. Example, If you see someone bhopping and autostrafing blatantly at you with melee, you should hit them with a ranged weapon. They will slow down and you can finish them off.

Crit Hack : These are usually easy to spot, if they always crit you or your teammates, be suspicious. However, it always depends :

[^*] Melee : If they ALWAYS get crits non-stop, you should keep your distance, and airblast if you are pyro. Also, never engage in a melee fight with the cheater.

[^#?] Ranged : Although they won’t get as much crits as they did with melee, ranged crits can be devastating. If they are using projectiles, go pyro and airblast, cheaters are usually more aggressive when they know that have a guaranteed crit. If they are using a hitscan weapon, use the battalion’s backup (^{works with ranged and hitscan}).

[*#] Backtrack : This is a mixed bag. Most backtrack cheaters go spy and try to go for easy face stabs (^{NOTE: Cheaters who constantly use backtrack say they use high cl\}interp as a defence, this isn’t true, don’t believe them!)). Now, I have stated in the backtrack section that from the cheater’s point of view, there is a gap between your model and your hitbox. Here is some beautiful MS Paint illustration. From the illustration, the cheater has a disadvantage. To counter backtrack cheaters, and I know this might sound weird, just charge at them, because of the gab, they will be stuck. They will have to wait for your backtracked hitboxes to come, by then, you will have plenty of time to kill them. Another way you can kill them is just by standing still. They can’t get behind you, and even if they do, they will probably hit a different backtracked hitbox. MASSIVE NOTE – WHATEVER YOU DO, DO. NOT. WALK BACKWARDS WHEN YOU ARE FACING A BACKTRACKING SPY! You will just be a free kill, and this doesn’t just work with backtracking spies, this works with every melee. But, what about ranged? Cheaters can only backtrack hitscan weapons, they can’t backtrack you with projectiles and sentries, as they are not lag compensated. Countering backtracking cheaters using hitscan is very difficult. In order to do it successfully, you need to shoot first and kill them ASAP as you cannot retreat because they can easily kill you. You just need to remember, the green part (^{in the illustration}) is the only part the cheater can hit you from. You could also try airblasting, which works effectively, but sometimes you can die because they have far range.

[?] Multibox : You can’t do anything about this :( Because the bots will auto vote no when the host gets voted to be kicked, its literally impossible to counter this, you could try splash damage weapons, phlog crits, vac medic. But the better way would be to leave the game and join a new one.

[*] Fake-Lag : It is almost impossible to try and kill people with fake lag using hitscan weapons, to defeat fake lag users effectively, you need to use splash damage weapons.

[?^] Spinbot/Anti-Aim : If they are using this, that means they are probably rage hacking. Your best bet is to rely on the other team to kick. But if they are using Legit AA, aim for the groin or legs if you are playing sniper.

[#] Anti-Backstab : This is impossible to counter, unless you have 2 spies, one on the back, and another on the front. You could get on top of the cheater’s head and backstab him, the cheat will try to correct, but if you are on top, the cheat gets quite confused, sometimes. Another way is to just kill the cheater with a weapon.

[^] NameStealer : Cheaters might steal other people’s names in hopes that the team kicks the wrong person. However this is very easy to counter. You can kick them via the console, or kick them via the kick menu, just look at the avatar of the cheater and click on it. In casual cheaters can change their names every 5 minutes.

Extras

VAC Bypass : This is a program/cheat that fully bypasses VAC. The program makes VAC abort scans, thus leading to cheaters being IMPOSSIBLE to VAC ban. This also makes cheaters immune to VAC Authentication errors. Valve, pls fix :(

Common sense : Check the cheater’s profile, low hours, low steam levels, previous bans, etc. are all suspicious. AND REMEMBER, JUST BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS A REALLY EXPENSIVE UNUSUAL OR AN EXPENSIVE ITEM, DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE NOT CHEATING!

The end!

I hope this helped some of you! Took me a while to write all of this lol