Tactics, Tactics, Tactics

[Surf314]

As a community we like to work together to help each other improve and therefore to make ourselves better by playing constantly improving players. So in that spirit here is a thread to discuss what you learned, what works and what doesn't playing casual competitive in the BRBU league. Especially post here if you are out of the ladder to get and give advice for the next one, if you are still in and want to give some of your secrets away feel free to as well.

Also just because I can foresee some griping I will inform you that I intend this thread for a very specific purpose and will therefore be moderating it very heavily, but I really hope I won't have to.

[Surf314]

So what I learned was that the medic is essential. He's like the prez and we are his bodyguards. Seriously nothing can collapse a push faster than having your medic die. On the other side of that is kill the other teams medic! Half of his life may be worth all of yours if a teammate can finish him. Also a good medic used to playing on full teams may have trouble adjusting at first. Savage is a great medic but in the beginning he was taking the same risks you'd take in a full server but become fatal playing like this. As the match went on he learned and seriously him running like crazy away from people may have saved us a couple of times.

The other thing is work as a team. Everyone should pretty much always be able to see the other teammates. You can send one person to flank but only if that person isn't vital and you don't mind dying, because he probably will.

[WaR1761]

Yup, flanking was high risk and if the other team was aware at all it was pointless.

[Professor Funbucks]

So what I learned was that the medic is essential. He's like the prez and we are his bodyguards. Seriously nothing can collapse a push faster than having your medic die. On the other side of that is kill the other teams medic! Half of his life may be worth all of yours if a teammate can finish him. Also a good medic used to playing on full teams may have trouble adjusting at first. Savage is a great medic but in the beginning he was taking the same risks you'd take in a full server but become fatal playing like this. As the match went on he learned and seriously him running like crazy away from people may have saved us a couple of times.

The other thing is work as a team. Everyone should pretty much always be able to see the other teammates. You can send one person to flank but only if that person isn't vital and you don't mind dying, because he probably will.

At the start I was being really timid, really worried if that stray rocket hit, etc trying to stay at full but near the end i started doing a few more daring things...if anyone was watching, when someone was attacking a demo..might've been you surf, i went around to try and sneak behind you and it turned out great, haha
I agree that the medic is essential, but what irked me the most was that when you spawn and if you were the only 1 to spawn, nobody was around and it was hard trying to find where my team or where my priority heals were. I called it out on the mic a few times to get people to press E, and once I got someone I was pretty much invincible.
Also, whenever you guys were rolling 2 heavies and a med, me and benito like pushed forward on your side with a uber, killed heavy, medic, then the last heavy. I was so amazed.

[CorpseFactor]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4106.msg132578#msg132578 date=1263650806]
So what I learned was that the medic is essential. He's like the prez and we are his bodyguards. Seriously nothing can collapse a push faster than having your medic die. On the other side of that is kill the other teams medic! Half of his life may be worth all of yours if a teammate can finish him. Also a good medic used to playing on full teams may have trouble adjusting at first. Savage is a great medic but in the beginning he was taking the same risks you'd take in a full server but become fatal playing like this. As the match went on he learned and seriously him running like crazy away from people may have saved us a couple of times.

The other thing is work as a team. Everyone should pretty much always be able to see the other teammates. You can send one person to flank but only if that person isn't vital and you don't mind dying, because he probably will.

At the start I was being really timid, really worried if that stray rocket hit, etc trying to stay at full but near the end i started doing a few more daring things...if anyone was watching, when someone was attacking a demo..might've been you surf, i went around to try and sneak behind you and it turned out great, haha
I agree that the medic is essential, but what irked me the most was that when you spawn and if you were the only 1 to spawn, nobody was around and it was hard trying to find where my team or where my priority heals were. I called it out on the mic a few times to get people to press E, and once I got someone I was pretty much invincible.
Also, whenever you guys were rolling 2 heavies and a med, me and benito like pushed forward on your side with a uber, killed heavy, medic, then the last heavy. I was so amazed.
[/quote]Nice medic final cap by the way.
I also saw that working quite well for your team.

[Surf314]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4106.msg132578#msg132578 date=1263650806]
So what I learned was that the medic is essential. He's like the prez and we are his bodyguards. Seriously nothing can collapse a push faster than having your medic die. On the other side of that is kill the other teams medic! Half of his life may be worth all of yours if a teammate can finish him. Also a good medic used to playing on full teams may have trouble adjusting at first. Savage is a great medic but in the beginning he was taking the same risks you'd take in a full server but become fatal playing like this. As the match went on he learned and seriously him running like crazy away from people may have saved us a couple of times.

The other thing is work as a team. Everyone should pretty much always be able to see the other teammates. You can send one person to flank but only if that person isn't vital and you don't mind dying, because he probably will.

At the start I was being really timid, really worried if that stray rocket hit, etc trying to stay at full but near the end i started doing a few more daring things...if anyone was watching, when someone was attacking a demo..might've been you surf, i went around to try and sneak behind you and it turned out great, haha
I agree that the medic is essential, but what irked me the most was that when you spawn and if you were the only 1 to spawn, nobody was around and it was hard trying to find where my team or where my priority heals were. I called it out on the mic a few times to get people to press E, and once I got someone I was pretty much invincible.
Also, whenever you guys were rolling 2 heavies and a med, me and benito like pushed forward on your side with a uber, killed heavy, medic, then the last heavy. I was so amazed.
[/quote]

Yea heavies can't run away. You did great as a medic, I was the demo and the heavy you killed. Also rolling heavies is really difficult at this level. They really do become almost strictly a defensive class because of their slow speed. Also I didn't try a chargin targe demo, which actually might be effective if you are good at it, but the thing I learned about demo is it's all about the win bombs. Seriously your opponents are too good to hit with a no bounce unless you are super good at arcing them so being able to time when the explode is essential.

[Turtle]

I noticed it's never a bad idea to just wait it out if there's a big group of enemies and you're the only one there. You don't need to say sorry if you let them cap the point, You're better to us if you're alive. Like last night a huge group of enemies with a heavy/medic combo were jumping onto the middle point, and someone on our team attacked them alone, he got destroyed and they capped the middle point anyway.

[Luinbariel]

Related.

[[fr31ns]Karrde]

Related.

Awesome.

Also, I think Tim posted a good but on competitive TF2 tactics a while back.  For a 6 man team I think the combo was like 2 soldiers, 2 scouts, a medic and a demo.  Scouts worked together with hit and run and harassment, one soldier was pocket, one was set to do a lot of RJing/mobility tactics and always trying to gain high ground, and demo for ass kicking support.  2 phases: attacking, holding, and retreating.  The key was to decide when to stop defending a point and either advance or retreat based on who's waiting to spawn, and who's out fighting.

[Duck, Duck, Goose]

Don't play a class you suck at, regardless of if your team "needs" it or not. (Although my team carried me, I suck balls as Demoman, and was completely useless for the first 3 rounds. Got MVP as Soldier in the last two rounds though. 8))

But yeah, a good medic wins games.

[zaneyard]

I noticed it's never a bad idea to just wait it out if there's a big group of enemies and you're the only one there. You don't need to say sorry if you let them cap the point, You're better to us if you're alive. Like last night a huge group of enemies with a heavy/medic combo were jumping onto the middle point, and someone on our team attacked them alone, he got destroyed and they capped the middle point anyway.

this is something you should always do, regardless if we are playing large game or not

[Didzo]

The Chargin' Targe makes for an excellent tool for capping intel...

If you are willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of the team.

[backfire]

[quote author=Turtle link=topic=4106.msg132595#msg132595 date=1263658964]
I noticed it's never a bad idea to just wait it out if there's a big group of enemies and you're the only one there. You don't need to say sorry if you let them cap the point, You're better to us if you're alive. Like last night a huge group of enemies with a heavy/medic combo were jumping onto the middle point, and someone on our team attacked them alone, he got destroyed and they capped the middle point anyway.

this is something you should always do, regardless if we are playing large game or not
[/quote]
This happened with our scrim as CAREBEARS. Most of us were dead and they were charging mid cap. I fell back letting them cap it, but we eventually grouped up and ambushed them. Like they say, sometimes a good offense is a good defense.

.. or is the other way around :\

[Surf314]

The Chargin' Targe makes for an excellent tool for capping intel...

If you are willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of the team.

I'm scared to try it but it seems a good chargin targe eyelander could essentially be your teams hitman, like a spy but without having so much downtime and grenades.

[copulatingduck]

[quote author=Didzo link=topic=4106.msg132721#msg132721 date=1263718357]
The Chargin' Targe makes for an excellent tool for capping intel...

If you are willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of the team.

I'm scared to try it but it seems a good chargin targe eyelander could essentially be your teams hitman, like a spy but without having so much downtime and grenades.
[/quote]

I'm guessing the majority of the time you wouldn't get much out of it since teams would be smart enough to focus hitscan on you. It's nice for stragglers I guess, but then again so are stickies. :\

[Didzo]

[quote author=Surf314 link=topic=4106.msg132726#msg132726 date=1263739400]
[quote author=Didzo link=topic=4106.msg132721#msg132721 date=1263718357]
The Chargin' Targe makes for an excellent tool for capping intel...

If you are willing to sacrifice your life for the sake of the team.

I'm scared to try it but it seems a good chargin targe eyelander could essentially be your teams hitman, like a spy but without having so much downtime and grenades.
[/quote]

I'm guessing the majority of the time you wouldn't get much out of it since teams would be smart enough to focus hitscan on you. It's nice for stragglers I guess, but then again so are stickies. :\
[/quote]

It's a whole lot of fun, charging into almost certain doom. The key is to make sure that the path to the capture point is unobstructed and that whatever heavies are around are at least momentarily distracted. I am usually able to charge straight onto the point and cap the intel before I end up dead. The targe also makes it easier to slip past a clump of defending enemies to move the intel up. I find this to be riskier and less successful than doing the sacrificial point cap... but it's much more satisfying, especially when you can loop back and start chopping heads from behind.

[zaneyard]

lol not using the sticky launcher

[Professor Funbucks]

lol not using the sticky launcher

this
demospam demospam demospam
lol "comp" play

[zaneyard]

[quote author=zaneyard link=topic=4106.msg132820#msg132820 date=1263790147]
lol not using the sticky launcher

this
demospam demospam demospam
lol "comp" play
[/quote]
well, you have no defense against a good scout
no stickies to blow him up, unless you're really fucking good at aiming those pipes, he's going to have you dead in a second

[Radio Raheem]

you basically have to use pipes on scouts. stickies are for everything else. losing the ability to trap is retardedly huge in comp play and makes the demo pretty much worthless. half of the demos job is just completely shutting down one entrance with a trap