Am bored at work, will answer questions!

[Flare 0]

Hello everyone Im bored at work atm so I will start a Q&A thread!

 

Some background: As you should know i rejoined nfr upon coming back to SG from my studies and have been scrimming/matching regularly with them these past 1.5 months. Ask any of them and i am sure they will tell you how i was (maybe still am, but i hope not!!!!) a complete scrub when i returned, being out of the scene for >6 months. I have learnt alot and adapted how i play and i daresay have also improved alot.

 

Not claiming to be the best person as a pocket (again ask nfr for evidence), but im happy to share my thoughts with newer pockets or sollys who struggle with their role. So feel free to post some questions here and Ill give my 2 cents.

 

Do keep questions to SOLLY only though, dont think i am in a position to comment on many other classes. Hope people find this useful!

[natapon 124]

good chance for everyone now flare is bored at work!

 

how has the soldier evolved for you from when you have last played?

[Flare 0]

Hello its my lunch time and office is really quiet. Hooray.

 

Ok here goes:

 

From my experience, the competitive game (and hence the soldier's role) has changed drastically in many ways (and in a more subtle fashion in many other aspects). To boil it down, in the past, the combo was generally the main 'fragging arm' of the team - good teams succeeded by creating opportunities for the combo to get into good positions and DM people down. Team movement as a whole was generally less fluid/dynamic, and most pushes involved getting uber --> walking into enemy face --> wiping or getting wiped.

 

I feel this is primarily due to scouts and demos not realising their true firepower (perhaps also just a function of lousier PCs/equipment that impacts scouts more than sollies). Most team scoreboards in the past used to be SOLLY SOLLY DEMO SCOUT SCOUT or SOLLY DEMO SOLLY SCOUT SCOUT. Nowadays it is very common (especially for maps like badlands and gully) for it to be SCOUT SCOUT DEMO SOLLY SOLLY.

 

As players get better in general, the main problem I have faced (and hopefully fixed) is that i can no longer adopt the mentality of "letting people make mistakes and killing them 1 at a time", which is typically of a combo role in the past. A good pocket's contribution on middle no longer boils down to who putting out the best spam rockets. Often, if you as a pocket take a backseat and wait for things to happen, it is much more likely for the opposing team to gradually carve out small advantages here and there, gather a huge shinku hadoken and unloading it on ur face.

 

I have tried to improve by 'always doing work' (as my team pointed out), where i actively assess the biggest threats to the medic (and my team) and take them out. Examples of targets of mine are: 1) that jumping solly on your crate 2) that demo who overextended by a bit 3) that scout +fwding your medic. These 3 threats are examples of players that in cleric's words "NEED TO XPLODE NOW" and it is my role to do it. Realise in these 3 situations, the target is almost never you - it is your medic or a big clump of your team. Notice also that if you fulfiled these 3 jobs consistently every time on mid, you have taken half the team and you should have won.

 

On another note, since pushes no longer revolve around "standing around charging uber waiting for 6 and pushing", i find it helpful to keep a mental score in my head that tells me when/where i generally should be pushing. I read this somewhere and if you are clueless on how to 'lead' ur team, try this:

 

Assign scores to enemies. Scout = 1 point, Solly= 1-1.5 points depending on map/terrain, demo/medic = 2 points, have uber enemy no uber = 2 points. A general good rule of thumb to help guide you is: When 1 point up (ie u just killed a scout), try your best to turn that advantage into a 2 point one (send both scouts to VS that remaining scout). 2 points up: Push hard on the weak flank. >3 points up: You should be able to wipe team if enemy is slow, or capture a free point. (vice versa, when 1 point down, hold good positions to enable you to flatten the disadvantage. when 3 points down, GTFO)

 

Modifications can be made to this very general framework (ie mentally assigning half a point more to known 'carry' players of enemy team, some terrain conditions adding or subtracting half a point etc) but all that is meant to condition you to constantly assess when you really should be making things happen, when you need to stay back and when you need to drop your pants and balls out RUN.

 

[LToro 2]

what do you think about the general asian comp scene? as in tactics strategy deathmatching and stuff.

[Flare 0]

dm: alright. most asian teams have 1-2 mge regulars that can fare pretty alright given the circumstances.

 

tactics ie positioning and maneuvaring : weaker teams suffer here. not knowing how to create positional advantages or recognise extreme disadvantages will erase whatever dm you have

 

strategy: non existent even at high lvl. frankly, can pretty much get to the top here with good dm and tactics alone.

[DarKie 15]

tactics ie positioning and maneuvaring : weaker teams suffer here. not knowing how to create positional advantages or recognise extreme disadvantages will erase whatever dm you have

 

strategy: non existent even at high lvl. frankly' date=' can pretty much get to the top here with good dm and tactics alone.

[/quote']

 

so in your opinion what do you think can be done by the teams to fix this

 

you mind describing strategy a bit more ?

 

 

[spammah 103]

Question for Flare:

 

What is it with you and enemy sticky traps, specially the ones that are laid out on the floor right behind a gate or in other places?

[Flare 0]

@ darkie: strategy involves the larger thoughts about the game itself. For eg, "when should we send a roamer to force uber" is a strategy question. a tactic question in the same vein is "should we send a roamer only, or have a scout bomb as well". most asian teams ive played against/watched have very little clue on the answer to the first type of questions, but are slightly better at 'doing' it if someone called it for them. how to improve: i dont have much to say here, like i said teams can get pretty good just by cleaning up DM comms and tactics (ie how to execute in certain situations).

 

@ spammah: yeah my thought process short circuits right at the 'check for stickies' task. its like ok kill that scout ok lead medic here ok we have advantage we can go ok comms to tell everyone we are going AUTISM SETS IN check stickies

[blaz-3- 0]

who are the best soldiers in sea/singapore? i'm looking to improve on my soldier.. are there any players i should observe and learn from?

[Flare 0]

well if you ask me, i am biased since im with NFR, so atarax and lex are the best at what they do! :> lex has opened opportunities for me / the team countless times, and atarax has better aim/is more aggressive than i am :>

 

that said, to gain a good sense of how to play typical pocket and roam, watch malice and sedated play. They have good coordination and know how to do their jobs very well.

[r3sty 7]

KFLARE PREASE EXPLAIN TAKTIC BEHIND WALKING OFF POINT IN BLANDS VS EC INKTFL? KTHXHEARTS

[Flare 0]

it was to keep u guys on ur toes and never take things for granted/expected things to happen when they havent happened! what if u guys thought i would cap and got off last point and a scout backcapped in 0.5 seconds!!!!!

[r3sty 7]

rofl oh you. laughed so hard whiskey shot out my nose. that stuff hurts coming out of a different orifice.

[Flare 0]

;D i just watched that moment again in demo it was sad and funny

[Flare 0]

HI IM BORED AT WORK AGAIN SO KEEP QNS COMING.

 

NEW PLASYER DOTN BE SHY

[Haruhi 0]

hi falre how to counter jumping sollies on med

[Flare 0]

Well this actually does not have much to do with you. Few suggestions that may help:

 

Call it early/use sound cues – it helps to recognise and have some sense on when in the fight is a solly most likely to dive your medic.

 

Obviously try for 1 airshot (if you miss, don’t try for the second one, aim for the full ground shot)

Make SURE when he touches the ground he gets a full 110. Even better if you can bounce him in a strange direction– anything to throw off his aim. Often times if he was not buffed/was at <200, he will die instantly. This is what you want. When spamming, always try to chuck a rocket or 2 at the roamer so when he jumps he is less likely to have 300. Best thing u can do (train this in bball) is “act” as though you are not paying attention to him, then 1 second before hes going to jump, chuck a rocket at his feet to make him fly really high up and look stupid.

 

Make absolutely sure your aim is 100% consistent so you can take him down asap. When spamming, do the reload-spam timing so youll always have 3-4 rockets loaded. Smarter/more alert roams will pay attention to what you’ve been doing in the last 3 seconds (did you just take 3 rockets to kill a demo, are you reloading, are you full) and time jumps at the worst time possible.

 

Medic should rocket surf, airstrafe and time the jump right when the rocket lands (higher chance of flying and avoiding the next hits)

 

Accept the fact that many times you wont be able to prevent your med from dying. If he lands 2 crisp rockets on ur medic’s head and ur medic couldn’t surf any, ur meds going to die.

 

[r3sty 7]

werd, slow day at work. so lets just talk about priorities of a pocket soldier, do you put down damage on anything close by or attack anything that your teammates respond to? do you position yourself in the safest spot possible or depending on your teammates draw/focus fire on opponents? as playing a scout role my focus will rotate between attacking/watching flanks/attacking extending players.

[Summer 180]

How do you counter aggresive sollies, or how do you actually play gran mid? If you've specced or played against m. before in gran, we lose 90% of midfights. Really need some advice on this :/

[Flare 0]

@ r3: usually its 1) close by stuff first before 2) follow up damage.

 

for eg say bl priority usually goes for me 1) enemy jumping solly 2) demo (if over extended ie standing on point/in front of his train) 3) scout near medic (this is after demo cuz scout has potential to kill our med, demo can kill me + medic + anyone unfortunate enough to receive his imba stickies before 4) follow up. Sometimes i deviate esp if our roam has done a ton of splash to combo + med and our scouts are near our med and can play defensive for just 2-3 seconds while i finish off enemy combo. But since the 1 2 3 situations crop up 99% of the time, and by the time im done with THOSE, the fight is usually already won or lost.

 

 

@ benny yeah ive played against, more than spec for m. Gran midfight is a 100% solly game. I think whats obvious is that your sollies have to start their damage output ASAP, and this is completely determined by their ability to hold crates. If you have one solly (pocket) staying back and being boring (as i found out for myself 2 months ago) then once the roamer dies the pocket has to pull some serious frag vid shit to protect against demo/solly on crates shitting down on team. Without saying too much, perhaps thinking through how best to WIN THE CRATES will help your gran mid fight, instead of thinking in terms of sides or flanks etc.

[Destroyerxen 0]

What should i do if 2 scouts will chase my medic i get it alot

[Flare 0]

kil them both u dickwad

 

[Jared the Hippo 0]

My rocket jumping is very inconsistent, I fail at a lot of crucial jumps. For example jumping onto top of mid pt in gully, I will fail 80% of the time. Or second jump of bl rollout, I will fail 50% of the time.

 

Could you help me with this?

[HaXxorIzed 17]

On a scale one of to obscure how aggravatingly useless and overrated is mge.

 

Bonus points if you make a reference to there being some element of truth or skill assessment in mge because cookies and spammah are bad at it.

 

ZING.

 

As for a reasonable question, do you have a script for duckjumping or maximum height rocket jumps in your config folder? I know more than a few people who have one for jumps they can easily do manually, just in case.

[spammah 103]

I'VE ONLY DONE 2 HOURS OF MGE IN MY LIFE FFFFFUUUU