Ideally, you not only want to fire at your enemies’ feet, but also lead your targets so that they run into your explosion. Plus, if the person is jumping when you fire the rocket at their feet, you can potentially launch them into the air, which is goddamned hilarious (especially if they die from the falling damage). A single rocket usually isn’t enough to kill anyone other than Scouts or Spies, but aiming for the ground is still the best method of inflicting damage as the Soldier. Instead of aiming directly at your enemies’ torsos - which will just result in them moving, and your rocket missing by a at least half a mile - instead aim for the ground near their feet, where the rocket will undoubtedly detonate and harm them thanks to the splash damage. The rockets simply move too slow to directly hit moving targets. While he might occasionally fire a lucky rocket and score a bullseye, the vast majority of the Soldier’s kills come about as a result of splash damage. How does one utilize the soldier’s decentbutnotspectacular’s traits to greatest effect, then? And how does one kill the crap out of a Soldier when forced to?īetter you find out sooner rather than later: the Soldier very, very rarely scores direct hits on his enemies. He’s got a decent - but not spectacular - amount of health, and he’s got an abysmal - but not decent - running speed. Today, we look at the soldier: an all-purpose grunt, the Soldier is decent - but not spectacular - in both close-quarters and ranged combat. You can easily practice this against stationary bots.Booyah - it’s part three of ten in our series, “How to not look like an idiot in Team Fortress 2,” started Monday and leading up to the official release of The Orange Box. The amount and location of damage the player took will directly translate to their velocity and trajectory. If you launch a player into the air look at how much damage the player received. Try to time your shot so it hits the player when they are at the apex of their trajectory. The easiest time to hit a player in the air is when they stop moving vertically. The velocity and trajectory of the target If you know exactly how your weapon will perform, it is one less thing you need to think about. You should get comfortable with your weapon to the point it is second nature. Do this a few times each day for different areas, on different maps, for different distances until you can accurately predict what will happen. Try to make a mental picture of the trajectory it will take. Using weapons like the Direct Hit with its whopping 80% faster than regular rockets and straight line trajectory is probably one of the easiest weapons in the game to hit people in the air with.Ī good way to practice with your weapon is to find an object and guess: how long it will take for the weapon to hit the object. In general, the faster and straighter a projectile fires, the easier it is to hit a target. Velocity and Trajectory of the Projectile Knowing the distance between yourself and the target mostly comes from experience there is no hard or fast rule to know the precise distance between you and your target. Some effective methods you can accurately estimate the distance between you and the target are: the size of the target (the smaller it is the further away it is) and landmarks/popular places (ammo/health kits spawn locations and map objectives). Some distances are just too far to accurately hit an opponent in the air. Knowing the distance between you and the target is important.
Generally speaking, the closer you are to the target, the easier it is to hit them. However, most experienced players do not calculate all three of these points to make a shot - instead, they try to: minimize the impact of a variable to gain an advantage. The velocity and trajectory of the target.īecoming an expert at those three points and doing all the calculations in your head is a difficult task for experienced players.The velocity and trajectory of the projectile.The distance between you and the target.There are three main points you need to take into consideration when shooting airborne targets.