A comprehensive guide to the Bonk! Atomic Punch.

(Not a draft. I finished the guide.)
# Context

The Bonk! Atomic Punch (shortened to Bonk for this guide) is a food item for Scout that gives the player 8 seconds of invulnerability, then slows the player for sometime afterwards based on the amount of damage taken during the invulnerability. It is often regarded as nothing more than a tool to destroy sentries (by tanking knockback) and to escape certain death. However there are a lot more strategies and uses to Bonk than there is at face value, and it is severely underrated considering its true potential. It's like a free über that can be activated on demand and can be refilled through (re)spawns or resupply cabinets. Bonk is a support item and should be treated as such. Only use it if your team needs (help) to get through a specific obstacle; otherwise unequip Bonk and play as a flank class.

This guide is meant to teach you (the reader) everything you can do with Bonk. It is targeted towards every *traditional* game mode (pubs, highlander, and MvM specifically) except for 6s, because Bonk is banned there (reasons why are at the end of this reading).

# Basic Knowledge

* Bonk when activated gives Scout exactly 8 seconds of invulnerability, afterwards the Scout will get slowdown based on the amount of damage received during the invulnerability, with the maximum slowdown being 50% slower than normal at 200+ damage.

* Bonk's cooldown fills in exactly 30.3 seconds. The cooldown does *not* regenerate in 22 seconds; that value ignores the drink time and invulnerability time.

* Bonk deplenishes its cooldown at the *start of* the drinking animation and not the end.

# Weapon Combinations

Shortstop is a primary that has 4 bullets in one clip and it has the ability to reload the entire clip, so already it means you do not have to equip the Shortstop when using Bonk to escape to reload it. A lesser known fact that is important to note about the Shortstop is that it increases knockback taken from damage and airblast. This is extremely useful with Bonk as it allows you to fly from sentries and flee from hard-to-escape areas much easier, but it will handicap you in areas with heavy amounts of knockback when you are trying to make use of the invulnerability (aside from escaping), so these are situational uses.

Baby Face's Blaster (or BFB for short) is a primary that has a special speed boost meter that increases your speed. The speed boost meter is filled by dealing any kind of damage which is a relatively easy task. Unfortunately the speed boost meter can easily be lost by double jumping or tanking damage. However Bonk allows you to preserve the boost easier due to the invulnerability. Use Bonk when you know you are about to lose your speed boost from a fight, so that you can preserve the speed boost to get to the resupply cabinet or medic faster. The speed boost can also be used with the Bonk effect to negate some level of knockback. This is primarily useful when going into areas with heavy amounts of knockback, like areas with ≥2 sentries, but not in areas with Pyros or where high vertical mobility is required.

Atomizer is a melee that when equipped gives you a third air jump (or an extra double jump). The third air jump is useful with Bonk as it gives you extra aerial mobility which helps greatly when dealing with airblast, negating knockback, or when trying to get near sentries. The uses for the Atomizer are not at all situational, as the Atomizer's negative attributes are negligible.

Fan O' War (or FoW for short) could be used with Bonk to help guarantee mark for death on a special target (like a medic or Sniper), but if you manage to get close enough to the special target that you can mark them, you may as well just go ahead and kill them instead of trying to mark then kill. I do not recommend using the FoW *in general* unless if an important target is particularly hard for your team to kill.

# General Tips

**Always conserve the amount of time needed to get to your location!** Bonk's invulnerability lasts 8 seconds, which is the length of an über. Where you drink your Bonk is important because it will affect the time you have to use your invulnerability. Here are some examples:

* You're trying to get [to Under at last in pl_badwater](https://comp.tf/wiki/Badwater#Fourth_point) to help your team take out a sentry there. However you drink [at C sign](https://comp.tf/wiki/Badwater#Third_point), so by the time you get [to Under](https://comp.tf/wiki/Badwater#Fourth_point) your invulnerability already ran out. If you had instead drank [at Map Room](https://comp.tf/wiki/Badwater#Fourth_point), then you would have had all of the 8 seconds to utilize your invulnerabilty.

* You need to get [to Platform in pl_upward](https://comp.tf/wiki/Upward#Second_point) to take out a sentry. Your medic has 100% über so the team pushes. You drink [at House](https://comp.tf/wiki/Upward#Second_point) so you have more than enough time to distract the sentry. As a result your team destroys the sentry and kills the enemy medic and you manage to survive, gaining your team an advantage. If you had drank [at Rocks](https://comp.tf/wiki/Upward#Second_point) then your team potentially would not have had enough time to destroy the sentry, thus losing your über advantage and potentially losing you the game.

**Use the enemy knockback to your advantage!** When it comes to Bonk, knockback is a double edged sword; it can be used to escape areas where you would otherwise not make it out in time, but it can also prevent you from properly using Bonk. When escaping the knockback gained can be manipulated with aerial movement techniques to move through large amounts of distance.

**Do not worry about the post-Bonk slowdown impact.** You *will* take *a lot* of damage when using Bonk, so just assume you are going to get slowed by the maximum amount. If you do not get a lot of slowdown then use that to your advantage.

**Do not get too close to players with melee feeder weapons!** A mistake I see (and make) all the time is getting *way* too close to players that have melee feeder weapons (like the Übersaw or Vitasaw). This tip is not particularly hard to execute as Scout is a very mobile class even in the air, but do remember that the post-Bonk slowdown *will* guarantee the enemy a kill if you are too close to the enemy. Note that this tip does not pertain feeder weapons with on hit attributes that feed based damage (like Baby Face's Blaster, Black Box, or the Soldier banners).

**Use aerial movement techniques when in air!** Even with your fast speed as a Scout, aerial movement is still faster and superior due to higher control and speed cap. For instance you can gain knockback from a sentry and then trimp off a ramp to gain high speeds.

# Tanking Damage and Knockback

## Sentries

A staple usage of Bonk is the ability to tank knockback from sentries, which helps greatly during a push. When a sentry is on a target, the sentry is essentially doing it's job and providing use to its team. If the sentry's target happens to be invulnerable (like when übered) for some time, the sentry can still deal knockback to them making it hard for them to deal damage to the sentry before their invulnerability ends. Now what if there were two targets and one of them were invisible? If the sentry targeted the invulnerable player, now the vulnerable can focus on killing the sentry without having to deal with knockback. This is the main reason why Bonk is a great firm counter (it's not remotely a hard counter, but it's not a soft one either) to sentries.

Of course there is more to this tactic than just walking in front of a sentry. To tank the most amount of knockback from sentries, you have to get as close to them as possible, but the sentry will deal a fair amount of knockback, which makes it a struggle to get in close. There are two other strategies that can be used to get in close. One of these strategies is to simply hone into the sentry from an angle where the sentry is not facing you. Sentries can instantly fire at a target if the target enters in *front of them*, but not if the target comes in from where the sentry isn't facing. Another strategy is to circle into the sentry perpendicular to the sentries' direction, which results in the bonked player being able to get closer to the sentries without having to enter in from bad angles.

If you manage to get in close to a sentry, try to kill the sentry's owner with the sentry fire. Sentries can deal damage to their owners. In other words they have friendly fire on, but only towards the Engineer. If you kill the Engineer, then their sentry becomes much easier to destroy,

NOTE: Smart/Experienced Engineers will pull out their Wrangler (if he has it on hand) to keep the Sentry under control the second a Bonk Scout comes into vicinity of the Sentry. In these cases getting in front of the sentry can still work, but not as well since the engineer can easily just redirect the sentry to fire elsewhere. Alternatively you can get in front of the wrangler engineer himself to more effectively tank damage and knockback from wrangled sentries. This strategy can be quite effective due to the Wrangler's lock-on style aim.

Do not use Bonk to distract mini sentries; they can easily be destroyed and the Engineer can easily set them up again at no cost. You will just waste your time and Bonk by doing this.

## Enemy Team

You can also tank damage / debuffs from the enemy team. To do this simply get in front of the enemy and try to stay in their sightline as well as you can, push against the enemy, or intentionally setting off projectiles. Like if the enemy team used their über and started a push, a Scout could Bonk and get in front of them to tank some damage from the enemy team and halt their movement for sometime. This strategy works great with kritzkreig übers as pyros cannot just airblast the übered pair away, but a Bonk Scout is invulnerable and can halt the movement of the kritz über pair so that by the time the pair get to their destination, their über has already ran out. The Scout can also block projectiles with critical hits to keep his team safe.

Other examples:

* Blocking Sniper sightlines to prevent enemy Sniper from hitting valuable targets and make then waste a shot.

* Blocking a Jarate or Mad Milk projectile to prevent your team from getting coated in milk or Jarate.

* Intentionally getting into sticky traps to bait the Demoman into detonating them so your team can push through safety.

Note however that by doing this type of tactic you will also block your team's projectiles and melee hits, so only do this tactic if you know your team is not going to survive an action from the enemy team.

# Escapes

Bonk can be used for quick escapes from situations where you would die otherwise. This is particularly useful as Bonk's cooldown, while quite long, can be instantly refilled through the resupply cabinet, but the cooldown from dying is impossible to refill quickly and it can get long. (Translation: Prioritize your survival first and damage later.)

The best way to use Bonk as an escape tool is when realize you're not going to win (or in other words immediately when you know you're going to lose). It sounds counterintuitive at first glance, but trying to find a position to use Bonk will just reduce the chances of you successfully drinking (Bonk has a drinking delay before you actually gain your invulnerability), since you'll lose more and more of your health, unless if there is cover very close to you. Your health acts as a buffer when drinking, so if you have enough health, you can tank some damage and fully drink Bonk and escape, unless if the enemy can interrupt your drinking animation.

When using Bonk to escape equip your primary if it hasn't been fully reloaded. This way you can safely reload so even if you cannot escape, you can still fight back. An exception to this tip is when your primary can reload all of its clip in one reload animation (Shortstop, Soda Popper, and FaN).

# Counters To Bonk!

## Airblast

Airblast is a hard counter to Bonk, because it deals large amounts of knockback and flamethrowers (except the Dragon's Fury) have low airblast intervals, so as a result it restricts Bonk Scouts' movement. Since you cannot attack while under the effects of Bonk, you cannot do anything to the Pyro until the Bonk effect ends, meaning Pyro can easily stall bonked Scouts if they do not have an air jump remaining and waste their time, *especially* when Bonk Scouts have Shortstop equipped. Atomizer can help against airblasts somewhat, but Pyros can still screw you over. Airblast doesn't counter Bonk as hard when Pyro uses the Dragon's Fury or Backburner, because of the increased ammo requirements for airblast, but they still can screw bonked Scouts over.

Pyro is pretty much useless against a Scout under the Bonk effect if he is using the Phlogistinator (Phlog for short) since it cannot airblast or harvest damage off bonked Scouts due to their invulnerability, meaning that if you get ambushed then you can safely escape a Phlog Pyro with Bonk.

## Rockets and Pills

Soldier and Demoman can easily stun lock a bonked Scout, but only if they have expended their air jumps. It's easy to simply negate the knockback power of rockets by not air jumping too much.

# Miscellaneous

## Flanking

Bonk is a great tool for flanking enemy lines due to the invulnerability. Generally flanking the enemy lines is done to get rid of a specific nuisance (like teleporter entrances at enemy spawn). While Soldier and Demoman can do this easily thanks to their jumper weapons, they have important roles to fill so they have to stay with their team. Scout on the other hand is just a flanker and is quite disposable, so he can sacrifice himself to go for the enemy teleporter entrance.

## Scouting (Get it?)

Bonk is a useful scouting tool. You cannot see enemy health or über like a Spy can, and you cannot hide away like a Spy can so they will be aware that you got information on them, but unlike a Spy you have invulnerability, so you can sacrifice yourself to focus purely on getting useful enemy info, without having to worry about dying.


# Mann vs Machine (MvM)

Bonk is extremely underrated in MvM. Scout gets huge amounts of health by collecting cash, so it's worth it to go into areas with large amounts of bots to get as much cash as you can, and the damage they deal usually isn't enough to negate the cash heals. Sometimes however the damage coming from bots greatly outpaces the cash heals (like waves of giants, crit and minicrit bots, and fast-fire-rate spammers), so having an item to make you invincible *on demand* to collect cash stuck in those dangerous waves of bots is extremely useful to Scout.

It can also be used to body block giant Scouts and Medics, but you should just use Sandman or Shortstop instead because knocking them back or inflicting slowness are much better tactics for slowing down giants than blocking them with your hitbox.

NOTE: Before anyone argues here the Mad Milk bottle is inferior to the Sandman as a slowing tool; it requires an upgrade that costs 200 and suffers from a large cooldown that requires an expensive upgrade to reduce which costs 200 per point and maxes at 4 points. Also the -15 max health on the Sandman is negligible in MvM.

# Frequently asked Questions

## Why is Bonk banned in 6s?

1. It's a free get out of jail card for Scout, because it's cooldown is filled on (re)spawn.

2. Bonk can get a Scout to the back of enemy lines to cap points behind the enemy team. This forces the enemy team to send multiple teammates to get the Scout, which creates a vulnerability that the Scout's team can use to win the game. Remember that Bonk's cooldown is filled when touching the resupply cabinet or (re)spawning, so a Scout can just do this over and over again.