Thread: Some Tips For Working With Your Team

I've had a couple thoughts on playing with the team recently, and as usual, when I think of something that has to do with the game, it goes right here.

There are some techniques to working with the team that I feel even the strongest players with much experience with the game occasionally miss out on. These aren't world-shaking revelations, but merely details to keep in mind that make your team-mates' lives a little easier.

On the calling out of spies:

Almost always, when people call out a spy, they say "Spy [Class]." This is useful information, but not as useful as it could be. What matters when calling out a spy is where, not what. "Spy behind you Cheese!" will make me and the people near me look around. "Spy Pyro!" will make everyone on your team turn around, which wastes precious time in the middle of a firefight, or just won't get people's attention, and will get them stabbed. Always, if you can, provide the most useful information to your team. "Spy behind you medic!" is also good, or even "Medic, turn around!" People tend to respond fairly quickly to having their class used instead of their name.

On the healing of other medics:

Every medic guide talks about how you should always keep your fellow medics healed and buffed. This is true - other medics are your absolute first priority. So why is it that I so often hear that the other person didn't realize it was a medic calling for heals? This is an absolute rule: you should always know who your medics are. Really, you should associate a name with a class for every player on your team, so you can tell team composition by hitting tab. But medics are especially important, because what a medic says is more important than what anyone else says.

On the acquisition and distribution of health packs:

It is again pretty common wisdom that you should avoid taking medpacks when your medic is hurt, because he can heal you and you can't heal him. Most players are even pretty good about backing off the pack when the medic is running for it yelling "Don't take that!" What I would like to propose, however, is this: Unless you are dying, don't take it even if the medic is at full. In fact, don't take it even if the medic is nowhere near you. Good medics count on the presence of healthpacks as a sort of buffer to their current health. When near a health pack, they are able to play more aggressively and be of greater value to the team - provided someone hasn't snatched it out from under them. What it comes down to, basically, is that it's important to trust your medics. They will be of more use if you let them heal you, and they will be of more use if you let them heal themselves.

On switching to engineer at strategic moments:

Here are the times when you should switch to engineer when on offense: First, when someone has a teleporter entrance. Switch, upgrade, switch back. You lose very little time, and gain your team an immense advantage. Second, if a spy is sapping an entrance. Level three entrances actually give you enough time to, if you're in spawn, switch to engi, knock off the sapper, and then switch back.

Those are all the things I can think of at the moment. There were a few others I had planned to write about, but couldn't remember, so expect to see those shortly.

Article harassment has arrived now, though!

Thought of a couple more random little tips that don't warrant a thread of their own, so I thought I'd rez this dead one to share them.

On the most efficient ways to kill sentry guns as a demo:

When Ubered, the easiest and most reliable way is generally to hit it with four grenades. Aim for the engineer if possible, or the dispenser, as often the splash will kill both the engy and the sentry, but just pegging the front of the sentry is usually good enough. For the second and even third sentries, the best way is generally to fire two stickies, and then immediately hit detonate - this will blow up the first sticky right away, and then the second will continue to fly for a bit, blowing up just when it reaches the engineer. Always aim your stickies for the engineer rather than the sentry (Making sure to hit both with the splash, of course). Once the engy is dead, send the third sticky in and blow the gun to shreds. If you were supremely unlucky, and the engy managed to get a whack in in the millisecond of opportunity you gave him, you will need to fire two more stickies. It is tempting to try to plant all three stickies before blowing them up, as that is guaranteed to drop the gun, but that can be defeated by the techniques in the next tip as well as several others. Unfortunately, however, if the engineer has a medic keeping him healed, you will need to try the three-sticky approach regardless. With no medics, even accounting for wasted ammunition, combining these techniques will allow a talented uber demo to reliably kill three spaced-apart level three sentries, though often he and the medic will die immediately afterwards.

On the use of explosives to save sentry guns:

Many demos will try to plant all three necessary stickies to drop the gun before detonating. If you see someone do this, or think they are about to do this, make sure to rapidly fire rockets and stickies at your own sentries (or rather, the ground near it.) As a demo, when defending, try to always keep a sticky planted next to your own guns. Firstly, you can detonate as soon as you hear engineers yelling about sappers, and save them a world of trouble, and secondly, you can use it to knock away incoming stickies. As long as they keep trying for three - and you'd be surprised how often they do - you can keep knocking the things away and saving your engineer's life. Even with the advent of the airblast, this and overhealing engineers are still by far the best ways to keep sentries standing in the face of enemy ubers. Though often the engy or the sentry or the dispenser will still drop, it is extremely rare, if you are doing it correctly, to lose all three.

Drawing from these two tips, we can see that the best way to make sure you still have sentries standing after an uber is to have at least two, preferably three sentries up. (This is important - If you are going to rely on sentries as defense, and not mere area denial, you must have at least two engineers on your team.) When the uber comes in, medics switch their heal beams over to the engineers, and explosive classes and pyros start firing at their own sentries (as well as knocking the uber around, of course.) If done properly, you will be able to kep guns up against all but the fiercest of attacks, and even if the guns drop, the uber targets will have exhausted their time and resources in the destruction of a single sentry, allowing you to retaliate with deadly force.

Right on, cheese!

This kinda stuff needs to be said every once in a while.

Its especially useful for people who recently joined the forums and are starting to play on TTP consistently.

I'm thinking about randomly posting replies here to keep the topic on the top of the list :-Þ

Thanks, Sider. Keeping this thread near the front would be a boost to my fragile ego.

Just wanted to link to this thread: http://forums.steampowered.com/forum...d.php?t=792436

Most of the stuff is a little more basic than the things I've been writing, but it's still a great resource for newer players.

Originally Posted by PizzaSHARK!

Of course, you can't defend your team against uber demo rushes if you took the backburner...

The uber shouldn't be going alone. The uber leads by a few feet, and is backed up by soldiers, heavies, and pyros. Especially heavies can dispatch that pyro very quickly. Regardless, everyone except the uber demo shoudl focus on the pyro to make the demo's uber easier.

or... just uber the heavy.... lol he will slaughter the pyro and everyone else around; but heavies (who dont already know this): you shoot the engi off his gun. Fortunately, as heavy you will probably succeed either way, but you shoudl be aiming at engi and dispenser, becasue ANOTHER HUGE bonus to the heavy being ubered is that wehn the uber is done, he still hang in there against a lvl.3 sentry for antoehr 4-5 seconds with the heal beam on him. Plus... after and before the sentry goes down, the heavy rapes EVERYONE around... OR they have to run away the INSTANT that they see you (if not, they die). lets be honest... forcing the other team to run away is a success.

Again i stress the rarity of good heavies. The decisions are not that hard to figure out with heavy, but there are jsut very few people who make them accurately in the split-seconds you ahve to make them. Quickyl deciphering the order that you shoudl kill enemies in , depending on the situation can be tough choice, but when you get the hang of it... the heavy is jsut as valuable (in many cases, MOER valuable) than soldiers and demos.

thats the word