Both styles work, discuss with your team what they would prefer for you to use.

My team's fine with how I play, the salt only comes from enemy gamers. I've also noticed that in DM servers players are quicker to call people out for using the shotgun than they are to call out demomen that run only stickies.

lol?

people often get salty cause they aren't used to a soldier being able to follow up damage with hitscan like that. not really considered nooby, just a bit annoying by some

Provided you are actually trying to practice dm in dm, who cares what others think. Gunboats are more common due to being able to keep up sustained pressure as well as allowing your scouts to get healed more often in fights. Provided you understand the downsides, stop trying to let bad gamers in a practice mode dictate how you play the game.

Gunboats pocket means that you don't take as much heals/Uber and your demo and scouts get more of it. Scouts are currently widely considered to be the best class in the game so giving them more heals/Uber is considered to be a more optimal way to play tf2. Having a pocket scout, like a lot of top teams do in the current meta also means that you don't need a shotgun as much because your scout is there to clean up your dmg.

However, this is only an optimal way to play at higher levels which is where scouts truly hit their peak and their usefulness. Lower level players tend to parrot what's done at higher levels without really understanding why it's done, so you see shit like shotgun pockets being called out for being noobs "because prem/invite pockets run gunboats" and at the same time, having teams with gunboats pockets that still play passive as shit and take 40% heals while their scouts just overextend and feed with no buffs or uber

Many thanks. These are opinions I held but I wasn't sure if I wasn't just being thickheaded. The shotgun shall continue to flow.

a lot of people think if you run shotgun its because you can't hit rockets, which obviously isn't true because all the shotgun does is let you hit more. they think its easy to hit shotgun, but most of the players that say this have terrible shotgun.

every pocket but 1 at the last international lan ran shotgun on and off. its just that a lot of the newer players who started after i49 think that gunboats is a straight upgrade from the stock cause they've seen prem players use it. you become more heal reliant, but if you play it properly that doesn't matter. if you watch showstopper's stream, yeah they're pugs, but a lot of the time he kills like half their team with it in situations where his team wouldn't of had those kills.

.

People do what they're told is good and then bandwagon like they know why.

I prefer gunboats mind

I am old and thus prefer even seeing shotgun roamer from time to time. I mean how often are you gonna jump during a gullywash mid --) 2 stalemate? May as well scare the shit out of some scout by whipping a shotgun out on him in big door lol.

who the fuck uses gunboats in dm? calling someone out for using shotgun in dm is the dumbest thing ive ever heard

scout mains lol

my nigga, agree 100%

all these gunboats roamer that never even put the unlock to use smh #bringbackshotgunroamer

happens to me pretty often and I only whip it out when I run out of rockets anyway. idk

I've noticed a lot of newer pockets have very good rockets but as soon as they pull out a shotgun they have parkinson's.
It's more of a product of the times than anything else.

I think its very map dependent. I see a lot of pockets running gunboats even on last which in my opinion is dire on gully for instance. But then there's pocket soldiers playing mids with shotgun on process mid too. I think the key is to be flexible and use whichever weapon feels better on whichever part of the map and make sure you're playing your part

On some scout maps like sunshine and reckoner I use gunboats. On other maps I might use shotgun to help out my scouts

You need to be flexible, shotgun pocket is still more than viable just not to mids (especially process/granary), banners are awesome for stalemates. Shotgun is possibly the worst option (gunboats/banner/shotgun) but still good enough to be fully viable. In the end it's just if you can play the right role where you don't steal heals from scouts and demo.

Shotgun is the greatest thing on open last like Snakewater
But you gotta switch to gunboats to repush and control areas faster

Shotgun pocket still works man if ur good with it use it

its really just playstyle at this point
some prefer playing a long leash gunboats pocket who can make space with his roamer and free up heals compared to banner/shotty
shotty is good vs scouts + in ubers, and cleaning up dmg in general
banner provides a lot of utility but you need a team that actually knows how to play around it. its kind of like playing with shotty where you're not as free to jump away since you need to survive but your team can base new strategies around it, a lot like a "miniuber"

If you take more than 35% heals running shotgun, you're playing it wrong

airforever: nice shotty
airforever: you cunthead
airforever: its 2k17

:(

The main reason for the decline of shotgun pocket is the increasing importance of scouts in the meta. With the heal-speed buff and the increasing general skill level of scouts to a point where most high level scouts will rarely miss shots anymore, scout has become a much more efficient and desirable heal target in most teams, as a constantly 185 pocket scout can be highly effective in both cleaning up the damage of his combo players and protecting his medic from jumpers. Given this fact, the strict 'pocket soldier' role, who tanks heals and can 1v1 any single enemy with the help of their shotgun, has been moved away from in favour of a more 'roamer-pocket' style who will make space and initiate in fights but who will allow more of the heals to be put on the demo and pocket scout so that they can clean up. The reason most players do not expect a shotgun pocket is that most current teams would prefer to have the pocket scout fulfill the role of the pocket's shotgun, which they can do a lot more effectively and without 'waddling' and eating unnecessary damage, a cardinal sin of soldier play in the current year.

meanwhile they ran permasniper for the whole scrim smh.

If you have bad scouts or are the focal point of your team running shotgun is fine. Nothing more annoying than shit constantly living with sub 30 hp.

That being said if youre hitting 9 dmg shots or not using it properly its not worth the mobility trade off

Gunboats Roamer = noob?

Shotgun pocket = Cheeto :)

gunboats pocket is a scheme made by the tf2 Illuminati scout mains who wanted to make it so its harder for soldiers to play against scouts