Pat Bates

"Nobody knows where this thing came from, what it thinks, or why it does what it does. Eager researchers who interview Bates tend to either quickly change their area of study -- or go mad themselves."

Overview

Pat Bates is an unusual character due to a complete lack of the attack power stat. To make up for this, Pat gains skills almost every level and has the powerful Spoonfuls of Love ability. This skill prevents all damage in the current room for a short time except damage over time effects, including that from Magical Rainbow Fire and Health Warning.

Because Magical Rainbow Fire always hits a group, Pat is best used in making hit and run attacks on large groups of approaching enemies, wearing them down with its damage over time effect before they reach the rest of the team. This strategy is even more effective once Pat gains the Gas Mask ability which prevents toxin clouds from applying the slowing effect. It also synergizes well with Scamper and the Skulker ability from the Aftershave item. Note that as with the Tear Gas module, enemies that die to Pat's damage over time effect will not drop dust.

Stats

Level	Hit Points	Defense	Speed	DPS	Attack Power	Attack Cooldown	Range	Wit	Skills	Cost to Recruit / Level
1	500	20	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Pack of Dogs Magical Rainbow Fire	33
2	543	21	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Scamper	25
3	589	23	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Spoonfuls of Love	36
4	639	25	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Magical Rainbow Fire LVL2	47
5	693	27	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Gas Mask	60
6	749	28	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Health Warning	73
7	809	30	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Magical Rainbow Fire LVL3	88
8	873	33	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Repair	103
9	940	35	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Spoonfuls of Love LVL 2	120
10	1010	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Magical Rainbow Fire LVL 4	137
11	1084	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3		156
12	1161	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Spoonfuls of Love LVL 3	175
13	1241	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Magical Rainbow Fire LVL 5	196
14	1325	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Health Warning LVL2	217
15	1413	37	28	0	0	1.5	Melee (2.5)	3	Magical Rainbow Fire LVL 6	240

Weapon: None

Armor

Device

Device

Hero ID: H0022

Strategy

Pat is a unique hero that plays very differently than most. Pat always has 0 attack power, and attack boosting items have no effect. All of its damage comes from abilities: Magical Rainbow Fire and Health Warning. Pat is extremely poor at single-target damage, but has amazing AoE and DoT capability, thus is generally best played by making constant hit-and-run attacks against large waves of enemies. Attacking again reapplies the burning effect, so leaving and re-entering a room is often recommended to avoid taking unnecessary damage. In the event retreat isn't an option, Spoonfuls of Love can be used to make a temporary stand, as it nullifies all damage done in the room except DoT - which Pat uses exclusively. Keep in mind that all non-DoT damage is nullified, that includes teammates and modules! Worthy of note is that Aftershave is arguably better on Pat than any other hero, allowing it to sit in a chokepoint and annihilate massive waves of enemies unabated. As Pat has two accessory slots, equipping a dust or speed boosting item along with aftershave can be very handy indeed. Natively having Repair and Gas Mask are also nice bonuses even if not terribly important. It's also worth mentioning that the complete lack of the attack stat and inability to use weapons drastically changes Pat's effectiveness in different pods - making the Armory Pod much tougher and the Library Pod much easier compared to other heroes. The Infirmary Pod provides drugs that are particularly useful on Pat, because he isn't affected by their attack debuff: Bunkerosate and Kwykovir.

As mentioned above, Pat is abysmal at fighting fewer numbers of powerful enemies. When you inevitably find yourself facing huge waves of Silic Bulldozers, you may as well just assume the fetal position. Pat's stats are also very average, and it can't equip a weapon. Other than AoE, Pat is not exceptional at anything.

With a bit of micromanaging, Spoonfuls of Love can allow Pat to clean up any Chimera Keepers that are still alive at the end of a wave, even if they managed to reach max level. The best method to do this is to first power the room that the Keeper is in, then send in Pat and pause the game, activate Spoonfuls of Love, start building a single Pepper Spray and then unpause, the Keeper will be unable to damage Pat or the building Pepper Spray, when Spoonfuls of Love runs out, restore Pat and reactivate it, you should only have to restore Pat once before the Pepper Spray finishes building. Once the Pepper Spray is built, it will target the Keeper and pacify it, rendering it harmless to your team, kill it at your leisure.

• This strategy works best with Pepper Spray, if you don't have it researched, you can do something similar by filling the room with weapon modules, but this is much more dangerous, more expensive, and highly dependent on how many minor modules that the room can hold.
• In the highly unlikely event that the Keeper spawned in a convenient location, you could theoretically let it stay alive with the Pepper Spray as a devastating turret, though the keeper's presence will massively reduce the amount of Dust that enemies drop, and it'll still count as an enemy itself, preventing your heroes from auto-healing and greatly slowing down your module repairs.

Story Events

Pat is involved in following events:

• Australium!

Quotes

When found in a dungeon:

• "Hiiih hooo... hiii hooo... hiii hooo..."
• "Nrs plss ndz mr nnncrns..."
• "Rr brrvv mjjjk!"

When opening a door:

• "Mm? Rrrr?"
• "Mrrraaa! Ah ha ha haaaa!"

When repairing a module:

• "Hm hm hmmmm hm hmmm..."

When low on health:

• "Rrrrrr ...rr...RRRRRR!!!"

When carrying the crystal:

• "Mm! Hm hmm. Aaaahh!"

Notes

• In the Team Fortress canon, the Pyro is never given a name. "Pat Bates" likely refers to the Pyro's voice actor, Dennis Bateman, as well as fictional characters Patrick Bateman from American Psycho. The name is also a reference to the Saturday Night Live skit "It's Pat!", about a person of highly ambiguous gender. The gender ambiguity of the Pyro is a running gag in Team Fortress 2.