Jumping in ammomod was the original MGE try-hard strat. I would tell people not to jump in regs and if they wanted to continue playing like faggots I would just kick them from the server to let others into the arena.

If you're seriously going to mash space in ammomod regs then you're completely defeating the entire purpose of the mod and can just as easily go pub.

Not sure I understand this.

If someone is jumping their movement is more predictable and you can land directs high on the body so they can't surf them. I feel like I have a much easier time in ammomod when my opponent is jumping.

I don't use stickies in soap, the whole point is trying to work on aim and movement and the majority of demos I see using stickies in SOAP aren't using them for that they are trapping up and playing very lame with them. The 2 per clip thing would be fine with me.

When your spamming them into a group of people not looking at you and fighting each other what exactly are you trying to practice? It's certainly not aim.

I think people get caught up with trying to TOP 3 in SOAP now so demos try and use stickies to top point on those servers. You can top frag in soap with pipes only its a nice challenge.

I'm ok with using sticks in MGE tho.

Using the targe is another lame thing to do. You will never be playing in a match or scrim with it so why equip it to get an advantage. You should get used to fighting sollys and demos with your standard damage resistance.

honestly stickies can be pretty broken in soap but that doesn't mean that pipes-only is the solution, they REALLY need to implement the 2 per clip thing

agreed.

Rockets that hit and rockets that do 80-100 damage are two entirely different things though.

I'm not saying I agree with using gunboats in DM, but I think you can always improve your rocket aim.

shotgun in directs
holding w into people in directs
mantreads in direct

???????????????????????????

what is your contention here, that sticky bombs aim themselves? that only demomen shoot people who aren't looking at them?

i mean you dudes realize that stickies are difficult to be precise with right? you don't actually think that it's easy to maximize your damage with them just because the large radius means that it's easy to put out mediocre damage?

THERE IS NO ETIQUETTE IN THE REAL GAME

yeah theres a difference between stickies being easy and stickies being a really good weapon

Seconded, for all the people I see complaining about etiquette in MGE/SOAP I think of all the people who complain when you shoot them while they're trying to melee you.

That said, wearing mantreads in endif is one of the most EVIL things you can do.

uh...how is that my problem? if you don't want to deal with a demoman correctly that's your fault

not if the soldier is smart enough to just jump you

in-game, soldiers won't stay grounded lol

agreed

bombing is clown shoes difficulty? then how come most of the time I play bombing soldiers in mge I manage to hit them with airstickies, surf their rockets, and beat them?

how come not every gunboats soldier is good at roamer?

as zigzster said, there's a difference between hitting rockets and hitting high damage rockets. plus, factor in being good at rocket jumps, timing, and shotgun aim to finish kills, and its not completely worth it

your argument is "you shouldn't be allowed to use your primary weapon because I don't want to have to learn to counter it"

soap

blaze gunboats/equalizes vs me all the time in mge, and i sticky vs him. its the best practice by far for demoman in mge, and really good practice for the roaming soldier as well.

aiming isn't the only aspect of dm. Avoiding damage is huge and if you just sit there trying to hit every shot yet you eat every sticky/pipe then you're not really getting better.

Anecdotal evidence, I also beat 99% of the people I played on ammomod spire, doesn't mean that I never played against faggot strats.

Considering I'm not talking about a situation in which a roamer is even a thing, I don't know what you're trying to argue.

Timing is essentially irrelevant or unimportant in either practice mod, rocket jumping isn't something you practice in a DM server, and we've already established that going to practice DM with gunboats is for try-hards or morons.

No my argument is and always has been "you shouldn't use a weapon that makes it impossible for me to practice what I want to practice when an alternative exists." If you want to talk about "real scenarios" so much then I suggest joining a PUG or scrimming with your team since this whole "real scenario" bullshit is entirely contrived to fit your argument as you see fit. There are plenty of scenarios in a "real" game in which you can't or don't want to bomb something as your #1 all-time go-to strategy. If I want to strawman you as bad as you want to do me, why do you think that mid-game rockets are completely unimportant to practice?

I half agree, personally I feel demo v scout is useful as well (or at least it was for me, idk about other dudes)

agreed, and it upsets me that people don't seem to realize this

a few months ago, termo aka yuri (arguably the best demo in australia) made a thread about demoman movement, essentially asking b4nny and other top na demos for advice on improving movement. all the random riff raff of the na community (clearly not knowing how high a level termo played and thus assuming he was some random noob) started posting about how "HERP DERP DONT WORRY ABOUT MOVEMENT WORRY ABOUT POSITIONING, IF YOU PLAY SAFE YOU WONT DIE ANYWAYS", and the OP got massively minusfragged. what they obviously failed to realize is that if your dm is really good, you can take risks that you wouldn't otherwise be able to, and output more dmg. and, as you said, movement is a huge aspect of that. that attitude of just playing passive as demo to avoid any risks is really dumb, and I hope people have abandoned it.

/minirant

shotgun in directs
shotgun or mantreads in endif
sticky traps
going afk without removing or saying anything
etc.

i only prefer gunboats soldier because i have to juke/reactively dodge their rockets on top of everything else. scouts are harder to hit and you still need good positioning though.

Many of the stuff here is "I don't want to have to learn to counter it, so I will label it as lame/gay rather than trying to do so". Top players are always searching for the most optimal way to win, not artificially limiting themselves to get there. Either it's an optimal tactic in a given situation, or it's not.
In any game I've played over the years the very top players complain less than the lower rung players about playstyles.

For one, they are usually using a ton of the things that a lower player may identify as "lame" in their own style. Secondly, when an opponent is frustrating them with an unorthodox playstyle or tactic yes they may frustrated by it, but rather than react and complain, they learn from it, how to counter it, and what they can do incorporate elements in their own play.

I find that more often the lower player is always bitching about something and limiting themselves to some self constructed ground rules for play they consider "correct", which generally has nothing to do with the game. So more often then not they will never progress their level of play because they refuse to expand their game as they have decided certain things are "lame".

of course it's anecdotal evidence, no one is gonna compile a perfect statistical breakdown of what strats work and what don't. my only point was that there is a lot more skill contained in THE BOMB than you allow for.

p.s. it's also anecdotal evidence that literally every invite player who has posted in here is ok with using stickies in mge, but it seems pretty clear based on that that some people are more upset about losing badly in mge than they are about not being able to properly practice

people play mge/dm to make themselves better in-game, right? at least, I should hope that that's the goal of practice mods (it is for me, anyways). as dummy said about blaze, playing a bombing soldier in mge can definitely be a decent analogy for bombing demos in game (something you will probably spend a fair amount of time doing if you're a roamer)

I thought we were talking about mge here, but regardless, timing is a massive factor in both mods. maybe not in a soldier v soldier or scout v scout fight in mge, but in a soldier v demo fight (as well as either class in dm) it definitely is. learning to look for openings before you bomb as a soldier or plus forward as a demo is helpful.

idk about dm, but in mge how strong your rocket jumps can be an enormous factor in soldier v demo or soldier v soldier (obviously not soldier v scout that much)

a) I don't see how using stickies make it impossible to practice soldier. what are you even practicing, if you're playing a pipes-only demo? strafing left and right while standing on the ground?

b) if pugging and scrimming were frequent enough/created enough DM scenarios for people, then we wouldn't be in training mods in the first place. just because there are 1. scenarios in-game where mge won't help you and 2. scenarios in mge that won't help you in game, doesn't mean there aren't also scenarios in mge that will help you in game. obviously there are scenarios where you need to know to not bomb. will mge help you with those? no, that's a gamesense thing, so they're irrelevant.

EDIT: whoops, forgot to respond to this

I don't know what mid-game rockets are

yeah, the thing for me (maybe I'm alone here and this is a bad thing, but idk) is that I think I aim differently against soldiers when compared to scouts (esp with pipes)- with soldiers, I almost use track aim to hit them, whereas with scouts I either twitch really spastically or, if they're not dodging much or fighting someone else, just throw out prediction pipes. I also feel like I'm forced to use pipes more against scouts (at least good ones)

Fuck you, Advanced.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/The-MGE-

Ah, sorry, I checked a couple pages back and couldn't find something like it.

MGE = good for practicing aim and trying situational events (see dummy's comment). 1v1 rarely occurs in matches and almost will never happen in the same light as MGE. Still it's a form of practice and i find it good for warming up if nothing else. Some people look waaaaay more into it than needed. I really hope Lange ends up removing stats because too many people take W/L records too serious. Keep accuracy stats and be done with it. People who talk shit either about being better, or someone getting beat are complete morons.

dm servers = good for helping enemy awareness, experience in multi dm situations, reaction time, and how to flank/escape in battle. Overall, the better practice imo, but still both will help you in some form or another.

I totally agree with using some stickies in DM/MGE. I feel totally naked not using stickies and I'm honestly at a huge disadvantage. Last night due to some made up Demo guilt I tried to use only pipes against a scout in MGE. His 6 shot scattergun plus 12 pistol shots versus my 4 Pipes and a lot of running.

Just isn't fair considering I damage myself at close range and he does not. Today I played DM mod, pipes only felt a little more fair, but still soldiers are bombing and you still get double teamed by scouts, today it was sal and enigma. They aren't doing anything wrong, but I would try to use 1 sticky at most as not to feel "op" and try to even the odds. Of course all 8 stickies plus 4 pipes would still get me shit on by those two, but you get my drift. It's not how demos DM at certain ranges. At the same time, traps are retarded as well as using all 8 stickies as fast as possible.

Just my 2 cents.

this is why dm is the best~

mge is for clowns

I mean, if you're dumb enough to try to get good at tf2 by spending 100% of your time in either, DM > MGE

but if you're already good at tf2, or at least have good understanding of the game, MGE = DM imo

Both are valid training methods, DM is more like real matches, but neither of these are complete. MGEing scout vs scout or solly vs solly for a long time will give you bad habits, if you don't have a sharp self-judgement you'll acquire them and stagnate in skill level.

That sounds like an interesting thread, did anyone give him useful feedback or were there only shitposts? If it was a good thread can you link me please?

I never realized how important movement in this game was until one day I got lucky and got to play against (read: get my ass kicked by) Enigma and Ruwin in the MGE server on Badlands middle as solly v solly. Seeing them abuse the crates and boxcarts opened my eyes to a whole new aspect of the game and now I am so much better because of that.

Now this is a considerate demo.

My rage at sticky-abusing demos in DM only comes from those who just spam everyone with their sticks continuously. For example on badlands mid and you're fighting like two other people meanwhile some dickhead is spamming sticks at you from behind your back across the point. That is just annoying.

Though there is no doubt that demos are underpowered when all they have at their disposal is the grenade launcher, I definitely like the idea of a 2-4 sticky limit.

Yeah bro, you should use every strat in your power when you have to fight people like Enigma heh. Nothing is wrong in that scenario.