With Team Fortress 2's countless updates, a significant ton of weapons have been added to the game. In total, there are 160 weapons in the game not including reskins. Each of these 160 weapons has unique stats and attributes that cater to a specific playstyle and strategy. Unfortunately, if you're a Free-To-Play TF2 player, your backpack slot is only limited to 50 slots.
But your variety and flexibility don't have to be limited by the number of weapons your backpack is allowed to. Here is a list of solid and strategy-staple weapons that are functional and flexible in a lot of situations:
10 Mad Milk
The Mad Milk is a weapon useful for both self-survival and team fights. This is an area-of-effect secondary that covers teammates and enemies with a "non-milk substance." It extinguishes teammates from fire and reveals cloaked or disguised spies. Additionally, players who damage enemies that are under the effects of Mad Milk are healed 60% of the damage they dole out. In the absence of a Medic, a Scout can use this to heal himself in firefights or aid his team in a crucial push. The weapon awards an offensive playstyle with a healing buff making it a well-rounded weapon in all TF2's game modes, including the PvE mode -- Mann Versus Machine (MVM).
9 Buff Banner
The Buff Banner is a secondary weapon for the Soldier that makes nearby allies including yourself deal mini-crit damage. This boosts team damage output by 35%. In dealing damage with your primary and melee weapons, you fill up a meter. Once that meter is filled, it allows you to blow the Banner's horn thereby buffing you and your nearby allies. Due to the absence of a Shotgun, this makes the Soldier cater to a more team-oriented playstyle, rather than fragging for himself solo mode. Regardless, under the effects of the Buff Banner, you are sure to outplay any of your engagements. This weapon has been the meta weapon for MVM, along with the other banners.
8 Black Box
The Black Box is a Soldier primary weapon that gives him up to +20 health per successful hit. This allows the Soldier longer survivability in fights at the cost of -1 rocket in his clip. This brings down his clip size from four to three making him need to reload more. The Black Box rewards offensive playstyles due to its healing mechanic. This enables the Soldier to take his own splash damage without much consequence; allowing effective use in both close-quarters combat and rocket jumping assaults.
7 Powerjack
Arguably, the Powerjack is one of the best melee weapons in the game. It is a Pyro melee that, while active, gives him a 15% increase to movement speed and restores 25 health on kill. This allows the Pyro to restore any health that was lost in the engagement. While the weapon is active however, the Pyro also takes 20% increased damage from all sources.
This caters to a risky yet rewarding finishing blow that, when mastered, turns the Pyro to a killing machine. Additionally, by switching to and from this weapon, you can toggle the buffs and debuffs on-the-fly. So, different playstyles can revolve around this weapon and can be paired with many other weapons.
6 Chargin' Targe
This weapon is one of the main things that make up the Demoknight subclass. The Chargin' Targe is a shield secondary for the Demoman that gives him significant resistance against explosive and fire damage; and also gives him more offensive functionality. The shield significantly hybridizes the Demoman's playstyle allowing for more flexibility and close-range lethality. Right-click will charge the wielder at insane speed in the given direction and will bash the enemy on the receiving end. The melee strike that follows the charge is a guaranteed critical hit. The shield, however, will take the place of your Stickybomb Launcher so you would have to rely on your primary and melee weapons more.
5 Sandvich
The Sandvich is a Heavy secondary food item that restores him to full 300 health when consumed. A Sandvich can also be tossed to any of the Heavy's teammates to pick up as a medium health kit. This food item is useful and crucial with or without a Medic. If there's no Medic present, the Heavy can rely on the Sandvich to heal himself and his team. On the other hand, if a Medic is present and is pocketing the Heavy, the Sandvich can heal Medics to keep them alive; thus keeping the Heavy alive. Also, picking up any kind of health kit at full health immediately replenishes the Sandvich.
4 Wrangler
The Wrangler is a useful secondary for the Engineer that allows him to take manual control of his Sentry Gun. Sentry Guns are automatically-firing units that target enemies within an effective range. However, they cannot target cloaked or disguised spies. Not only does the Wrangler allow you to manually control your Sentry Gun, but it enables its effective range to be as far as the Engineer can see. It also provides the Sentry with a boost in fire rate. By overriding the Sentry Gun, you can even eliminate Spies that you've spotted and extend the lethality of the Sentry, turning defense into offense. Additionally, Sentry Guns are provided with shields that triple their effective health when wrangled. Overall, the Wrangler's manual control of a Sentry is an effective utility for Engineers of different playstyles.
3
Huntsman
The Huntsman is a bow-and-arrow for the Sniper that also drastically hybridizes the class. In place of the traditional sniper rifle, the Huntsman has a different mechanic for dealing damage. Instead of scoping in and doing hitscan damage, you draw back your bow and send a projectile zooming through the air.A lot of players swear by its insane "luck" rate since it's seemingly easy to get headshots with the Huntsman. The playstyle that accompanies the Huntsman is a more offensive and flexible one, as opposed to traditional Snipers nesting out in vantage points. The Huntsman is also one of the few ranged weapons allowed in TF2's Medieval mode.
2 Quick-Fix
The Quick-Fix is a Medic secondary that heals 40% faster than other Medi Guns. From the name, the Quick-Fix is an effective weapon for fast-paced playstyles. It also caters to various approaches your healing target is taking. Because of this effectiveness, its use in competitive 6v6 has been banned. Though you can't beef up the health of your comrades as much as the Medi gun, you can consistently make sure that their health bars are quickly filled. The Quick-Fix also allows the Medic more mobility since it mimics the blast jumps and shield charges of its healing subjects. This enables the Medic to keep up with his subjects, much like a Pharah+Mercy aerial assault in Overwatch.
1 Dead Ringer
At a point, the Dead Ringer was the cloaking device used by a whopping 90% of Spy players. After many nerfs, the Dead Ringer luckily hasn't been rendered useless. The Dead Ringer is a device that allows the Spy to go invisible after taking damage, leaving a corpse that gives the impression that the Spy has died, though nowadays not many people are easily fooled into believing that the Spy has actually died. But, like a ninja's smoke bomb, it gives the Spy a quick dash for escape after being overwhelmed by adversaries.