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like the noob above said, tf2 in many epoples eyes to get better is all about experience in matches etc, when you play pubs etc you do get good expeirence from it but inn matches pubs are way different. the soldier is a slow class but can deal heavy damage, they can kill anything (except heavy) in two hits with a rocket launcher so hes essential in a 6v6 environment. get the time in and become one with the shovel

Whenever you feel that you did something stupid, instead of raging in the respawn time, you can think about how you could have played better.

Watchings stv demos from matches between top clans might also inspire you.

Moose and appe:

What are the pros of the Soldier?
Reliability, damage resistance, high mobility with rocket jumps.

What are the cons of the Soldier?
Small clip in the rocket launcher (4) and long reload time. Secondary weapon (shotgun) less powerful than for example demoman’s. Slow movement makes the class usually easy to predict. The rockets do less damage than other projectiles, especially from longer distance.

What are the main functions of the Soldier in 6vs6?
I’d like to think that soldiers are the backbone of the team. Their job is to keep the team and themselves alive while absorbing most of the damage from the enemies. One of the key tasks for soldiers is protecting the medic and usually there’s at least one soldier close to the medic at all times.

Depending on the map, the soldiers often work as some kind of a support class. They can’t move as fast as demomen or scouts and usually those classes also can deliver more damage to the opponents. Soldiers are often required just to spam from further distance and to hope that their rockets hit so that the demo and scouts have easier job to pick up the weakened enemies. The rocketjumping ability allows the soldier to escape or quickly to gain the distance to their enemies.

In close combat, good soldiers have the upper hand over most classes. The self-damage from rockets is high when compared to stickybombs and grenades, so the soldiers are usually tied to their medics because of this as well. They need to be healed often to be able to fully benefit from their rocket jump ability.

How to engage / what to do vs. ?
Soldier vs Scout:
Fighting against scouts depends heavily on the map and position. In small corridors the soldiers should have the advantage because scouts can’t dodge the rockets as easily. Just make sure that you don’t let them sneak in too close because a full hit from scout’s scattergun usually means that you’ll kill yourself with rocket’s splash damage with your first shot. The scout doesn’t die from one rocket so the scout usually try to ambush you from an unexpected angle to get that one clean shot. In open spaces, scouts can dodge freely and it becomes a whole lot trickier to kill an experienced scout. I usually try to predict their movement and try to time my rockets so that I shoot after the double jump. That way I can easily guess where the scout is going to land and aim my rocket there. Also, it’s a good idea to switch to shotgun once you get one rocket to hit a scout in such situations. You’re much more likely to finish him off with your secondary weapon because he’ll be easier to hit with it.

Soldier vs Sniper:
Spam, spam, spam. Don’t let him to aim you freely. The sniper’s accuracy is weakened considerably when he is taking damage, especially from explosives like rockets. If you see a sniper that is aiming elsewhere, it might be a good idea to rocket jump closer to him and try to get him down by flanking him. Good snipers usually hit headshots if they see you jumping directly towards them so it’s probably smarter to hide from them if you know they’re aiming for you.

Soldier vs Soldier:
Be with your medic, hit your shots better than him and dodge his rockets if you can. Strafing in irregular patterns make the rocket prediction harder for your opponent. Quite often when two soldiers meet, they’re both with their medics. Be mindful of which one of you is fully buffed in health and take advantage of that. If you seem to be losing the fight, you should usually rocket jump to safety in time. Like always, having the high ground helps soldiers tremendously but this is especially true against other soldiers.

Soldier vs Medic:
Depending on the situation, the medic might be your primary target because other classes are that much easier to kill once he’s down. On the other hand, the medics are often heavily protected so it makes sense to concentrate your fire on more vulnerable opponents and just focusing your fire with your team mates to the closest enemy to get him down quickly even if he’s getting healed. Sometimes it is a good trade to sacrifice yourself to kill the enemy medic. If your team will get an ubercharge before the opponent, you’ll have a big advantage over them.

Soldier vs Heavy:
Focus fire is the key. Tell your friends to shoot the heavy and he will go down quickly because he can’t dodge or fall back. If you’re playing against a heavy, be mindful of corners and closed spaces. The heavies usually like to wait behind the corner for you to walk in fron their minigun.

Soldier vs Pyro:
Probably the easiest class to kill unless you don’t have rockets loaded. Shoot for his feet and even if he reflects your first rocket with the air blast, he won’t be able to reflect the second one if your shoot it straight away. Pyro is extremely easy to bounce to the air and he won’t get close to you if you just keep hitting the ground below him with your rockets.

Soldier vs Engineer / Sentry Gun:
Leave the sentries for ubered demomen to handle, they do it much more easily. You can do focused fire again with your soldier partner against sentries but it’s never a good idea to try to take one down by yourself even if you’re ubered. Unless of course the engineer is not repairing it at the time. Helping your demo and medic to handle the sentries by covering them and shooting a couple of rockets to the sentry is the best way to handle turtling engineers.

Soldier vs Demoman:
This depends much on the skill of the enemy demoman. Against low skilled opponents, get close and just overwhelm him. Highly skilled demos usually hit a couple of grenades to your face if you try to rocket jump to them so you might do better from further distance and trying to get someone from your team to flank him. Good demos are a pain in the ass because they can deliver a lot of damage from both close and from distance. Your best bet is to remember that they are weaker and will go down quickly even when being healed if you focus the fire from several players.

Tips?
High ground always helps as a soldier. You are much more likely to hit the ground next to your enemy that way. Only aim for the body with rockets when you know you can hit. Jump to gain more height, you’ll also take less splash damage yourself that way.

Source: http://www.tfportal.de/?30&lang=en [written by Moose]

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What are the pros of the Soldier?
As a soldier you’ve got more health than every other class except the Heavy. You have both splash damage and hit scan weapons.

The rocket launcher allows you to reach areas on the map that only soldiers, demomen and sometimes scouts can reach. The rocket jump also allows you to travel faster than any other class except the demoman. Your rocket launcher can send people up into the air if you shoot on their feet, allowing for some form of crowd control.

What are the cons of the Soldier?
You’re slower than every class except heavy. You can only have 4 rockets loaded at a time, and you reload slowly. You rely alot on your teams medic to be able to use the class to it’s full potential.

What are the main functions of the Soldier in 6vs6?
As a soldier you have to keep communicating with your scouts. As the scouts are the first in your team to each cp3, you can act accordingly to where they say where the enemies come from.

When attacking a cp, the soldier should run in first and draw the enemies attention while your scouts flank behind them.

The soldier can be a so called “pocket soldier”. Your job is to protect your teams medic from flanking scouts and other players attempting to kill your medic. The medic+soldier combo is one of the deadliest things in the game and if a team utilize it fully with clear comms from both the medic and the soldier it can often be game breaking. The pocket soldier should also call which target he’s currently attacking, so that the rest if his team can focus on the same target.

If your team is using a pocket soldier, the other soldier has a more free role. He usually runs with the soldier+medic combo, but if your teammembers call for backup he’s the first one to help them. This soldier has tro try and stay alive as good as he can without getting overhealed, and only come back to the medic for a quick boost before he rocket jumps towards the action again.

How to engage / what to do vs. ?
Soldier vs Scout:
As the scout is the fastest running class in the game, it can be hard to get in body shots on them. Try and aim on their feet and do as much splash damage as possible. If you hit 3 or 4 rockets, take out your shotgun and finish him off.

Keep track of his double jump. If the scout is in the air, and you see him do his double jump, be ready to shoot him where he lands. As long as he still can do his double jump, it will be hard for you to predict where to shoot your rocket.

If the scout flanked you and hit you with a major meatshot, try to quickly turn around and shoot in the ground while jumping. This will hopefully cause alot of damage to the scout while you get to a free escape flight away from him while shooting him from above. However, if the scout succesfully flanked you, don’t expect to win the fight. Instead, keep better track of your surroundings and communicate with your team to prevent it from happening again!

Soldier vs Sniper:
If the sniper is aiming towards you from a distance, try and spam a few rockets while strafing before running out of his line of sight. Find a different route around him where he cant aim at you, and rocket jump towards him while strafing in the air (or else he’ll just headshot you in the air, assuming it’s a good sniper) and shoot rockets down on him. The sniper doesn’t have alot of health and should go down pretty quickly.

Soldier vs Soldier:
Try and be overhealed by your medic before engaging the opponents soldiers. If you know the enemy soldier is not fully boosted, you should have no problem taking him down before he can kill you. If you see an enemy soldier on a higher ground, for example the granary containers or the badlands spire, jump him while strafing in the air (so he can’t shoot you in the air) and shoot him from above.

If you’re with your medic and meet another soldier+medic combo, try and get as many bodyshots as possible on the soldier. Shooting on the ground around him does not cause enough splash damage to keep up with the healing he recieves from his medic.

If you feel confident enough with your aim, you should always try to get bodyshots on the enemies, as two rockets can be enough to kill any (non-overhealed) class except the heavy, who can take 3 rockets. However, don’t overdo it. Sometimes it’s better to cause moderate splash damage on the opponents, than missing all your attempted body shots!

Soldier vs Medic:
Killing an enemy medic can sometimes be harder than you think, because of the sudden rush of stress you can feel since you shouldn’t have any problems and it’s such an important target to take out. Just stay calm and aim carefully with your rockets/shotgun and he should die in two rockets, or three to four shotgun shots. Try and dodge the needles as good as possible. If the medic is desperately rushing you with the ubersaw, just shoot a rocket on his feet to send him up in the air so he cannot get any hits on you and thus fill up his übercharge.

If an enemy medic has ubered someone, try to shoot on their feet to knock them back or send them up in the air. Also, if you can, try to separate the medic from the player he ubered by shooting at their feet. If the enemy medic übered before your own medic, try to follow him and estimate when his uber will run out by looking at your own uber and how much is left on it. Then kill him with two fast rockets before he gets a chance to get away.

Soldier vs Heavy:
Try to engage the heavy when he’s not spinning his minigun. If you can do that, you will be able to kill him with three or four rockets before he even has time to start shooting. If the heavy is spinning his gun and is standing with a medic, there’s not much you can do as a soldier. Wait for backup and focus fire the heavy with the help from your teammates.Since the heavy is incredibly slow when shooting his minigun you should have no problems getting body shots on him, which will deal at least 100 damage to him.

Do not rocket jump towards a heavy that is shooting at you, as you will get caught mid-air and either die right there or fall to your death.

Soldier vs Pyro:
First you need to check if he’s using the flamethrower or the backburner. If he’s using the backburnder, just shoot rockets at his feet and laugh while the pyro dies without being able to do anything.

However, if he’s using the flamethrower, he will airblast back your rockets in your face if you’re not cautious. Shoot rockets at him right after he has used his air blast, as there is a small cooldown before he can use it again. Shoot one rocket on him, which he will airblast back. Sometimes the pyro expects you to shoot another rocket at him as soon as you have reloaded, and will airblast right away. Use this to your advantage and shoot the second rocket right after he used his airblast. If the pyro is smart and waits for you to shoot your rockets, pull out your shotgun and charge towards him with it, if he starts shooting flames at you, put a rocket in his face. One rocket should be enough after the damage you did with your shotgun.

Soldier vs Engineer / Sentry Gun:
Try to stay out of the sentry guns range and spam rockets on it. If it’s not possible to take it out because of smart placement, or an engineer standing behind it repairing, try to find a better spot to shoot from. If the engineer is repairing the sentry while you shoot it, try to shoot on the ground beneathe the sentry to take out the engineer before the sentry. If the engineer is standing next to both his sentry and dispenser, try to take out the dispenser first, so that he’ll eventually run out of metal and health.

Soldier vs Demoman:
Oh the demoman… Soldiers have whined and cried about the demoman since players started to master the class. However, there are a few things you should keep in mind when fighting a demoman.

The demoman will often dominate you on long and mid distance. Try to minimize the distance between the two of you as the demoman does not like to have people inside his point blank radius.

Remember the demoman does not have any hitscan weapon, and relies on his splash damage. If you’re fighting a demoman in a big open area, try to dodge his sticky bombs for as long as possible. You strafe left, he will put a sticky there. Then you go right and he will put one there. Then you go forward, and so on. If you’re trapped inside a big sticky bomb trap, it’s time to rocket jump towards the demo. Hopefully you will have caused enough damage to the demo while dodging his stickys, that you can take him out in a rocket or a few shots of your shotgun.

Always try to use your rocket jump to your advantage when you’re up against a demoman. If you jump him, it’ll force him to either explode stickys in the air or switch to his grenade laucher and try to hit you in the air. Just strafe in the air and shoot him from above at the same time and you should be able to kill him first.

Try and estimate how much ammo the demoman has got loaded. If you rocket jump towards a demoman with 8 stickys and 4 nades loaded, you’ll stand there with 2 or 3 rockets while he unloads all his explosives in your face. Always keep your guns loaded. This of course counts for every class, but especially the demoman.

Tips?
As a soldier, you should try and find a good mouse sensitivity that fits you. Some like to have a high sens to be able to easily do flick rocket jumps while others, such as myself, prefer a lower sens for pin point accuracy on longer distances. You can start by using the lowest sensibility as possible, while still being able to easily do rocket jumps. Or as high as possible while still being able to aim with your shotgun. One important thing with your sens is that you should be able to do a 180 degree turn without any effort at all.

Keep your guns loaded at all times. Even if you just shot 1 time with your shotgun before swaping back to the rocket launcher, switch back and reload your shotgun fully.

Don’t underestimate your shotgun! Use it as much as possible.

Don’t attempt fancy air shots in an important match before you’re feeling 100% confident with air shooting. If an is jumping towards you, and you feel you won’t hit the air shot, just do like they do in ctf_bball. Jump up into the air yourself, and YOU will be the guy jumping the enemy instead!

Source: http://www.tfportal.de/?30&lang=en [written by appe]

^
Thats the summary of my previous post!
Thanks for writing it Evil!

Pocket soldier:
Stay close to medic in all situatuion, check behind all corners,watch your back all the time. One scout is easy to kill but if they get two scouts behind you call for your other soldier or another class in your team.

Not pocket soldier.
spam, spam rockets, so the other team need to back of, launch at medic and the other soldier as mush as you can.

I don’t get why people think that this one faggot soldier and one aggressive soldier is the best option. I always thought it was better for both the soldiers to stay with the medic in order for them to focus fire targets down, as effective focus fire from both soldiers on a single target will kill anything very quickly, quick enough that they will take a very little amount of damage from the target.

Obviously there are times when a soldier must go alone or with the scouts to hold an access point, but this idea of a roaming soldier is a bad one imo. In the first wotr/tcm team me and Coinz did this a lot especially targeting the enemies demos and choke points and it was much more effective than the roaming soldier. At the UKeSA finals dignitas did this very well with good comms calling the focus target and they won the tournament, this I believe is why they win a lot of gay online tournaments even though they have that shit cunt agron as medic.

+ 1

Pocket and Aggressive soldier is a pile of shit.