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try playing some dustbowl

Play lots.
Watch your demo’s lots and don’t just watch them, analyse yourself and ask why you died and if you could have avoided it…lol…if, I mean how you could have avoided it.
Remember you’re the most important team member and play like it.
Call your damage so a team member can add to it. One nade in the face followed shortly by a rocket or meat shot is a load of damage.
Play lots.
Practice roll outs.
Play dustbowl…serious, 32 man spam fest and practice dem nades.
Walk round maps working out some devious sticky traps, best thing in the world taking out a fully charged medic with a clever trap.
Play lots.
Have fun.

Demoman is probably one of the hardest classes to actually train for, especially if you are new to the game and don’t know where to start, so, this is where you start:

GO THROUGH MAPS!

Learn the maps inside and out, learn them so you can walk from one side to the other backwards, blind folded and without using your keyboard, learn them so much that when you dream you dream of MAPS! Knowledge like this is so helpful, just knowing one little clever sticky trap can separate you from their demoman, it can make the difference from winning and losing as well, here’s a brief run through of what I do with new maps (you can apply this with old ones you’ve already gone through, you can always miss something)

– Rollouts, duh, even if you are slow to mid, not knowing what to do when you actually get there is even worse. If you know the map well enough you can work out what position you should be to make yourself useful. Obviously do try and get there quick but it’s not the be all and end all.

– Traps, as mentioned before sticky traps are the game changers, it can take you from an uber disadvantage to an advantage in one click of a button, learn where to put them, learn to put dummy traps and learn to mask them. Some traps are still yet to be found and tried, some of the best traps I’ve learned from div4 demos that are trying to make themselves better.

– Positioning, same as middles in some way, but learn where to position yourself on the map. When you get jumped by the soldier, where can you fall out to? If he doesn’t die straight away is there somewhere you can quickly get to for HP or cover? In the current position you are standing do you have enough space to dish out damage whilst under pressure? All these questions are vital, nothing is worse than getting caught out from a jumping soldier with your trousers down, once you are out of position the only thing that will stop you from dying is either an uber or the soldier missing.

There is a load of other crap as well about maps that I could go on for days, but I still do it to this day, there is always something that you will learn.

Also be comfortable when you play, I hear a lot of stuff about huds, sensitivities, configs etc. etc. Just play the way that makes you feel comfortable.

And play a lot of public! :D DM servers are all very well and good, but most are pipes only and can distract you from those 8 stickies you have waiting to be used, I find public is good for just getting in the swing of things and if you can’t rape as demoman in public how the fuck are you going to do it in 6v6?

I could write more but I need a crap.

Quoted from ilike2spin

[…]

I don’t imagine that sentiment will last long.

I know man i owe you and the ETF2l a massive apology, just with everything that went down in my personal life i wasn’t upto supporting either the team or the etf2l. if you wanna talk feel free to add me again i can only say sorry :( i did let everyone down but i dont want to repeat that again now my life is back on track.

Anyway back on topic :)

I agree that pubbing helps (to a certain extent), but once you start hitting pipes and sticks, there’s not way more to it. So also play pugs (tf2pickup.net), they really help you get more 6’s gamesense.