You point. You click. They explode.
Although that much is undeniably true, it is important to keep in mind that there are other players and many classes out there. Some of these players suck; some are incredible at what they do. The purpose of this guide is to help you make good decisions when matched up with a variety of enemy classes.
Versus The Pyro:
Soldier versus Pyro is an interesting matchup. Remember that the Pyro is nearly useless until he’s very close to you. Use this knowledge to your advantage — shoot your rockets at his feet in a way such that it either a) propels him backward or b) propels him up into the sky. While he’s flying up or backward, try to calculate where he might land. As he lands, shoot your second rocket — in most instances, this second rocket will kill the Pyro.
Above all, the most important thing with Pyros is early detection. If you can see him coming at you, you can launch the rocket that will keep him at bay (and keep your skin from melting).
Versus the Scout:
The Scout is unique among classes because of his high movement speed. That speed combined with his obnoxious taunts gives him an incredible ability to annoy the fuck out of everyone on the map. As a Soldier, he’s more than annoying: he’s deadly.
Think about it: you have what is arguably the slowest firing weapon in the entire game. He’s the fastest class. He can easily jump over your rockets–and if he really wants to he can probably run along side them a la Roadrunner.
Here are some good tactics for neutralizing an enemy scout:
- If he gets in your face, shoot at his feet. All scouts are fast, but they aren’t all intelligent. A scout that runs right up to you and starts shooting deserves to be gibbed.
- When he’s running away, try to lead a rocket shot into him. Take into account his speed — He covers distance faster than any other class, so lead your shot differently than you would for another class.
- Abandon the rocket launcher. If you have a really annoying scout, you might want to pull out your shotgun and hit him a few times just so that he knows you mean business.
Versus the Demoman:
He’s a lot like you, but his shots are often easier to dodge because, well, they fall to the ground. Plus, he has no direct shooting weapon.
Avoid sticky traps.
Versus the Medic:
Do your worst to this sick German bastard. You won’t usually see him by himself though, so…
Versus the Medic + another class:
Do your best to take out the medic first. Try to separate the medic from the person he’s healing. If there’s a medic with a heavy, and you’re the only person from your team fighting that combination, and you decide to attack the heavy, well, you’ll probably never kill him unless you get very lucky with some critical hits.
Versus the Soldier:
Obviously an even matchup. Avoid rockets if you can. When your clip is spent, you might want to switch to the shotgun — chances are he shot all four of his rockets too, and he’ll be reloading. You can kill him with the shotgun if you’ve already hurt him.
Versus the Sniper:
Don’t even try it at long range — you have three things going against you in a long-range matchup:
- Rockets are slow. They can be seen from a distance, and dodged as quick as someone can find ‘a’ or ‘d’ on their keyboard.
- Rockets do not do very much damage from long range. The damage a rocket does decreases a lot at very long ranges.
- A bullet is fast and painful. You might die while you try to “snipe” with your rocket launcher.
BUT: If you manage to sneak up on the Sniper somehow (like by rocket jumping into the 2fort battlements and unloading one or two while he’s zoomed in), it can hardly even be called a fight.
Versus the Heavy:
You’re somewhat faster than a Heavy. Use this to your advantage. Don’t attack head-on, because his minigun will make short work of you. If you can get to some vantage point or behind him where he’s not expecting it, you can kill him with 3-4 rockets.
Try rocket jumping OVER him, then attacking him from the air/behind.
Versus the Engineer and his gun:
The damage an Engineer can do by himself is largely negligible. The damage his sentry can do, however, is devastating. Soldiers are pretty good at taking out sentries. At medium range, you can take out a level 3 sentry with 4 direct rocket hits. This is often impossible because of the nature of sentry guns, though, so you might need to rely on splash damage. Basically, if you can see any part of the gun, or know it’s around a corner, shoot the wall/ground near where the gun is. It will take damage and often times you can destroy it before the owner even knows it’s going down.
If you have an ubered medic with you, make sure your rocket launcher is fully loaded before going in to destroy a sentry. There is nothing worse than being ubered and spending the first half of it reloading.
Versus the Spy:
As Soldiers we are particularly attractive targets for Spies, being that we’re slow. Spies are particularly nice targets for Soldiers (if you can find them), because they have low health and can often be destroyed with a single rocket. If you think there might be a spy around you, don’t hesitate to do a quick 180 and see if anyone is sneaking up behind you. Don’t hesitate to “spy-check” your teammates. A good indicator that a teammate is a spy is that your rocket doesn’t pass through him — rockets pass through teammates, but not enemies. If you have a teammate that rockets do not pass through, or that is moved by your rocket, he’s not a teammate. Destroy him.
