War Paint Mechanics
War paint wear levels explained
Alongside its grade, every war-painted weapon in Team Fortress 2 has a wear level — how scuffed and scratched the finish looks. Wear is one of the biggest reasons two copies of the exact same paint can be priced worlds apart. There are five tiers, from pristine to battered.
The five wear tiers
- Factory New
The crispest finish — the paint reads at full clarity with no scuffing. Usually the most sought-after, and the most expensive, tier.
- Minimal Wear
Very close to Factory New with only the faintest scuffing; a common "almost mint" choice for buyers who want clean for less.
- Field-Tested
The middle of the range and typically the most plentiful tier — visible but moderate wear. Often the value sweet spot.
- Well-Worn
Noticeably scuffed; the artwork starts to lose definition. Generally cheaper.
- Battle Scarred
The most worn tier — heavy scratching across the finish. Usually the floor price for a given paint.
These five tiers are universal: every one of the 158 weapons across the classic collections exists in all five, which is 790 distinct wear variants before quality even enters the picture.
How a weapon's wear is decided
Under the hood, wear is a hidden value on each individual item. When the weapon is created, it is assigned a number within a range, and that number is bucketed into one of the five named tiers — the lower the number, the cleaner the finish. Two items in the same tier can still differ slightly, which is why some traders care about being at the "good" end of a tier, not just the tier itself.
Why wear moves price
Wear works as a built-in scarcity-and-taste slider. Factory New copies are cleaner and almost always the most in demand, so they sit at the top of a paint's price range; Battle Scarred copies are the most plentiful and usually the cheapest. The drop from one tier to the next is rarely even — the gap between Factory New and Minimal Wear can be large for a popular paint, while the lower tiers bunch together.
Two factors push the spread wider. Busy, high-contrast artwork shows scratches clearly, so wear is visually punishing and the Factory New premium grows. Flatter or darker paints hide wear better, so their tiers stay closer together. This is why the per-collection write-ups note how each set's artwork tends to react to wear.
Wear is not the whole story
Wear describes condition, not composition. The paint's pattern is mapped onto each weapon's surface, so even at the same wear tier the artwork can be framed differently from copy to copy — a well-centred Factory New can out-present a poorly framed one. When you compare listings, read wear first for condition, then look at the pattern itself, then factor in grade and quality.