[John Doe]

OK, here are some of the posts from the previous forums.

By Warhammer TPF


The soldier is probably one of the most well-rounded classes in the game, IMHO. It has long range punch, short range punch, a mean secondary grenade, and good armor. The only tick against it is he's somewhat slower than other classes - the only thing slower is a HWG.
The rocket launcher is the Soldier's lifeblood. The trick to being an effective soldier is to keep your rocket launcher loaded! The launcher can hold up to four rockets at a time. When it is out of ammo it will automatically reload, UNLESS you keep pulling the trigger! Then no matter how much you hit the reload button, it will not reload. A good soldier is patient when he needs to reload, and waits for at least one round to get in the tube before firing off again. If you see a soldier on your team hanging out in a quiet spot for a few seconds, he's probably reloading. Try to cover him if he needs it! While you are in a firefight as soldier, keep hitting that reload button, even if you have one or two rockets in the launcher. You never know when that fresh HWG will come around the corner, and it takes five full rockets to kill him.

The next trick to being an effective soldier is to be able to lead your enemy with the rocket. Since it is a slow weapon, you must anticipate where the enemy will be when the rocket hits the nearest surface. Good soldiers will not fire at the target's body, but at its feet. This way if the target moves, the rocket will hit the ground and the explosion will severely damage the enemy instead of missing completely! When leading your enemy, take into consideration where they have to go. Clearly they're not going towards the walls, and they're not going towards you (unless he's a spy with a knife wielded), so take a guess as to where the escape route is.

Tip #3 - Rocket Jumping. Or, "How to capture CP2 in 15 seconds". In concept, while you are running, you look down, jump, and fire your rocket launcher. This process sends you flying into the air. The most effective way to do it is to crouch in mid-jump, then fire while you are at the apex of your jump. This will give you enough height to get just about anywhere on AV. In fact, soldiers can find some pretty tricky ambush spots (which I'm not going to give away!) on Avantiville. If you do it right and land at least at the same height you launched from, you should have no less than 87 health and 154 armor when you land, which you can easily restore from one bag. This is a good way to suprise those snipers up at CP2 (two rockets to get up to CP2 and two to shake up anything that's up there!).

Nail grenades are a nasty weapon for taking out groups of SGs, sniper nests, and hapless defensive engineers. It will jump into the air, shoot nails out in each direction, then explode after about 5 seconds.

How to take out SGs:

If you have a line of sight, and there is an engy defending his SG, fire a spread of rockets, first at the SG, next to the left, next to the right, next right at the SG again. The impact of the rockets fired to the side should cause the engy some grief, and four near-hit rockets will take out a fully repaired L3 sentry. If you don't have line of sight, you're relegated to using grenades just like everyone else. Try the nail grenade out for style. If there is no engy defending the SG, three to four rockets will take it out (two if it's a L1 sentry). Either pop in and out of view and fire, or attack from distance.

What not to do as a soldier:

When you're in a close melee with an enemy, don't get too close! If you are shooting at your enemy's feet, you'll hurt yourself as much as the enemy, and that is a recipe for disaster. Try to aim so that you're shooting down at about a 30 to 40 degree angle.




by FingerDemon


OK, now.... (cracks knuckles)
This is something I know a little bit about
I, of course, agree with all WarHammer has said. But I have a few observations of my own. I find the biggest skill a good soldier needs to learn is patience. Waiting that half a second to figure out where the enemy is going before pulling the trigger. This ain't no HW with a steady stream of death issuing forth from his weapon. You have about a second (maybe less) between each rocket and if are loading next rocket when you need to take your best shots, you're out of luck. So, wait... until the time is right. One well placed rocket can end a fight that might go on a long time with a bunch of near misses.

Also, a good light class (sniper, spy or even engy) will jump around alot as you shoot them. Leading them with your rockets will wind up giving an effect I like to think of as human pinball. You hit to his left, he shoots way over to the right (maybe hitting a wall) You shoot when he gets there to his right and he flies to left. The hapless victim may be adding to the effect by jumping in the air before you hit. They have no real chance to do anything since you can't really move when you are flying through the air. And you have time for next rocket to load. A couple of well timed bounces can take out almost any light class, with little threat to you. Also, when someone like medic or spy get in too close, I am not above rocket jumping straight up so I am sure to hurt them. This also limits damage to you from them and your own splash damage. This can still get you killed, but at least you might take them with you. Some good high rocket jumps leave you the time to load another rocket and hit something before you come down. You can't ignore chances like that, nothing like hitting a guy on the top of his head for the kill.

I emailed Sully with this next tip but I haven't heard back from him or perfected it myself. I've been random, so no chance to work on it lately. On CP 3 when sgs are on ledge, I go to flat area outside covered balcony at the top of ramp. There I prime Grenade 2 and rocket jump releasing grenade towards ledge at jump's height. Death from above to sgs and engys alike. The trouble with this trick is you often get a teammate coming too close and the rocket jump mirror damage hurts or kills you

I would love to hear from Magnetron on this thread. He is the rocket God. I fought him the other night and it was like he had the rocket shooting before he even saw me. It was eerie, like he was using the Force or something. I am not the best at rocket dueling, but it is undoubtedly the thing I find most fun on TFC. Bouncing and getting bounced around... waiting to reload... guessing the other's moves... trying not to step on my own grenades... YES, that's some fun.

So, two major pieces of advice to would be soldiers... Learn rocket jumping and patience. Not necessarily in that order.

FingerDemon

P.S. I thought of this after posting this. If you never play soldier, you may not realize it. So, if there is an engy sg on the ledge by CP3 and you need to take it out, you can get a nail grenade from respawn and before you turn corner prime grenade and charge straight to sg trying to rocket it and release grenade about halfway to entranceway to CP3 at 45 degree angle up. This can even take out two sgs if they are too close. You will die doing this, but since the server focus lately is on teamplay, it's a critical task a soldier can accomplish.

[kazebari?]

I thought that rocketjumping was most effective by jumping and firing at the same time, giving you maximum splash/deflect power from the rocket explosion and jumping.

[ice]

said it once ill say it again,if you wanan be a better soldier best place is mulch_dm,play mulch for a hr and you will be twice the man before you went in!!

[Maian]

Nail grenades are the best for taking out sgs, especially when going after cp1. Just stand inside gates, and throw a nail grenade out there. It will kill almost all sgs that are on ground level. Or if going into the church, throw a nail gren in first, and take out any immediate danger. Nails from nailguns and nail grens are very effective against sgs, maybe the most effective gun.

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[ROOFCUTTER]

The Mulch DM is a good idea I've just started visiting these maps and the players there are good and since its one on one you can see right away what your doing wrong or right. As in the VILLE they have rules that if you break they will kick you.
So be forewarned Don't walk into any matchs already in progress. When your turn is up go out and stand between your doors against the wall. When you are both ready each person jumps once and the match begins. You play until one is the victor. If you win you resupply and wait for the next player. If you lose you wait your turn again. I've only scratched the surface here and I'm a newbie at it so you Mulch veterans speak up.

[Bakuryu]

I diasgree about the whole mulch thing. I "mulched" for 2 hours and wasn't beaten once. They even put two guys on me. Personally, I feel the best way to get better as a soldier is to face a more skilled or equally skilled soldier. A while ago, Magnetron and I had a mini soldier war (1 on 1) on av1 and we were unable to kill eachother at all. I found this to be more rewarding than mulching. I always wanted to set up a training server and show people how to be better at certain classes and to learn from others as well. Dueling seems to be the most challenging way of learning to play but at the same time the most rewarding.

[NiGhTmArE]

soldiers are very good, im one alot

[KillerRoofcutter]

yep me too I agree nightmare soldiers are the best but if you want a kick go scout and try to take out a hw that is alot more fun than a soldier lol

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PICKACHU GOT OWNED!

[Kronic]

Hey bak when u set up that server give me a buzz I need some training bro