Team Fortress 2 Soldier Guide
January 13, 2008
The Soldier is the “average” player class in Team Fortress 2: It is able to kill and be killed by any class with ease. The standard issue Rocket Launcher is the biggest reason to use the Soldier, but he does have other advantages.
1. Weapons
The Soldier has a Rocket Launcher, a Shotgun, and a Shovel. The Rocket Launcher is what you’ll use most of the time, seeing as it’s incredibly fun to shoot it. The other reason you’ll use it is because his other weapons are horrible. The amount of times that you’ll be close enough to actually hit someone with your shovel are low, since the soldier is fairly slow. Just ignore the Shovel unless you feel like getting killed. Most people treat the shotgun as just an emergency weapon, which you use in case a Scout gets too close, or if someone is dodging your rockets. I personally try to use the Shotgun as much as I can, since it leaves me with four available rockets to use when I get close. Rockets seem to do less damage at range, so try to get close and fire. And don’t be afraid of hurting yourself with your rockets: They only deal 30-50 damage to you, and more than twice that to enemies. It would be much better to damage yourself and your opponent with a rocket, than to have them kill you when you’re trying to get distance. Aim for where an enemy will be, and aim at the ground, since the splash damage is really what kills them. Only aim at the body when they have a wall behind them, or if they aren’t moving. You can aim a rocket to the left, right, and middle of a slow Heavy and have a decent chance of hitting twice.
2. Protect Yourself Using Fear
Lots of enemies aren’t willing to sacrifice the tiniest amount of health, so you can just fire at doorways and Sniper nests in order to prevent anyone from getting in a position to fire at you. You can use this to walk from cover to cover, reload, and move into the building that they’re in. You might not get a kill, but at least you aren’t dead. Also, on maps like Dustbowl where enemies are concentrated in a very small area, you can lay down continual fire and hold off the enemies for a while. Also, Spies try to walk by you cloaked sometimes, so walk in a sort of zig-zag to make invisible opponents visible. After that, just fire a rocket at the ground and that should kill him. You can also fire rockets at the ground in front of you, just out of the range that can hurt you, in order to see if a cloaked Spy is running around. Fear is a two way street, so be as paranoid as possible and constantly look behind you and fire a rocket, to give Spies a warning message.
3. Rocket Jumping and You
Rocket Jumps tend to be overused by new players, and underused by veterans. Rocket jumping might be fun at first, but when they get shot while doing it, people tend to lose interest. Rocket jumping is a useful tactic, because it puts distance between you and death. It’s much more preferable to take 30 damage from your weapon, than to die from a grenade or other rocket. The Soldier moves slowly, so the only direction you can move in quickly is up. There are three types of rocket jumps: low, high, and really high. You can fire at the ground, and get almost no vertical distance, but you can use it whenever someone decides to go close range on you. You can jump while firing at the ground to get pretty high up, and out of harms way. It is useful for dodging grenades and getting on top of small structures. If you really want to jump high up, you need to jump, crouch at the height of your jump, and fire the rocket so that it hits the ground right before you reach the height of your jump. It’s useful for getting to hard to reach places, like in 2Fort and Dustbowl, where you can ambush the unsuspecting enemies.
4. The Accidental Sniper
While rockets might not be the completely destructive, apocalypse-in-a-can that they are at close range, they can still pack a punch at range. If you find that Snipers are killing your teammates before they can even take a step, you can use the info from section 2 to save the day. Just jump out from cover, shoot 3 rockets (leaving one for a Spy or Scout who pops out) towards the Sniper nests, reload, and keep firing 3 at a time. That makes it so that all the Snipers are held back, your teammates get to walk over to the enemy base, and the other opponents who didn’t see the rockets coming get a big lesson in explosions.
