probably because he wants to roam more and not rely on medic to constantly heal him. donno seems like a pretty decent strategy.

Yeah that's pretty much the only answer I got when I asked in the stream. To my knowledge he's the only soldier in ugc plat who seriously uses it and I'm sure every soldier has considered the utility of relying less on the medic, but most still favor the stock RL. I was thinking there was more to it; something a little more cryptic.

Typically you only need 3 rockets for a medic bomb, if you are supremely confident in your shots. It just seems a little overconfident to me. Unless you perfectly land your two rockets, you will die without killing someone a good percentage of the time, and even if you do, you can't jump instantly back out afterward.

I just want to make it clear that he isn't using the Black Box because he's cocky and feels he only needs 3 rockets to bomb a Medic. He's doing it because he has more potential to roam and overall can sustain himself much easier.

I'm just looking at a very specific situation where roamers frequently find themselves, solo bombing a med. Overall it makes perfect sense, but it seems significantly worse than the rocket launcher at those solo bombs.

http://steamcommunity.com/groups/blackboxbandits

splash 4 people when you bomb in, get healed for 60. reload 1 rocket because of the burst of hp keeping you alive, acquire kill.

This group just raised more questions for me. At first I thought vhalin used it for fun, then I saw the stream where he used it in a scrim "seriously", and then I found this group. Seemed to glorify Black Box usage but didn't elaborate on it. I couldn't tell if it was a joke group or not.

This seems very specific. Besides, if you're splashing four people with a single then you're probably flying headfirst into a crowd. I don't think you'll last, 60 extra hp or no. Trading an extra rocket for more health upon landing may or may not be worth it but you'll probably die pretty quickly either way.

Maybe what you just said is more practical in practice but in theory it doesn't seem to make much sense. I'm liking the general answer of "less reliance on the medic" more than this.

people use the black box because its a good rocket launcher if you want to play away from the medic and stay alive. there really isn't anything more too it, i don't know why you're talking about it like its a joke weapon.

You don't get 15hp per player hit you just get 15hp if you hit anyone.
edit: jk apparently it really is 15 x whatever you hit

http://i.imgur.com/zGm3P.jpg

I'm not seeing the difference. Can you elaborate?

It isn't a joke weapon, but the consensus for soldier loadouts in serious play is "stock is king". Black Box's popularity in HL deviates from the standard primary choice so I'm just trying to get a little more insight on it.

splashing 4 players with rocket gives you 15 hp rather than 4*15 = 60 hp

It heals you if you hit stuff. Pretty self explanatory. People like having heals, especially when they get less heals. Tradeoff is less rockets for fights/more reloading.

Unless they changed the healing functionality recently, this is inaccurate. The +15 overlaps itself so you only see one but if you hit two different enemies with a single rocket, you'll heal 30 hp.

wrong enigma wow learn how to play

whoops

Its a sad day when an international lan champion doesn't even know what the black box does.

A sad day indeed. *<|:O(

Its a pretty clever setup from Vhalin. At first I think it was for fun and to see how well he could do. Combined with funboats he saw how well he did and just stuck with it. HL medics have a pretty hectic time with the constant switching of heals. Vhalin doing this setup allows very minimal heals and can still achieve the same (or close to) what other bombers can do. I was healing him the other night and he explicitly told me to not even worry about it.

Pretty cool setup. Its for sure fun in HL. Not sure if it'd be viable anywhere else other than HL. So many people to hit to gain back health.

People don't use it because its difficult to get reliable damage and that's pretty much why people use stock weapons majority of the times.

because highlander is easy regardless of weapons

I also used it in Summer season, I used it pretty much every game (the one vs ts was fun since it was vhalin and I blackboxing everyone forever). Highlander soldiers are basically roamers that bomb differently (thanks to heavies/sentry guns/etc) and using it let me sustain myself without as many heals, which in turn creates a much stronger heal spread on everyone else.

There's so much shit to shoot at in highlander that i guess you can actually get a significant amount of health from your 3 rockets. Just don't take 1v1s and I think it's a good weapon to run.

you can take 1v1s with it if you have godly shotgun aim and a shotgun

I guess I can see how it'd be useful in some maps. But there are so many highlander maps with plenty of health packs, I'd prefer to just use the stock RL (which I think is the best RL), and pick those health packs up on the flank. 4 rockets vs. 3 rockets is such a big difference to me.

Black box turns soldier into a 1v1 machine that can take on almost any class in the game (besides pyro) while at the same time losing much less health than you would have with the stock launcher.

Using it while guarding or pushing flanks can be an extremely effective strategy as soldier.

In case you're interested, Vhalin does a bit of a dual commentary with stabby here: http://pl.twitch.tv/stabbystabby/b/322614064

Vhalin's PoV starts at 22:30. Judge for yourself, I guess.

i remember a pug where vhalin was on the other team doin this. bbox pretty much turned him into a really effective ''harassment'' class. but unlike scout, sentries were not a problem. If I'm not mistaken he was using gunboats as well.

Yeah BB is real good with Gunboats. A lot of people (myself included previously) thought it'd suck cause "you only have 3 rockets" etc, but essentially with BB + Gunboats what you do is is jump in, get a close range splash rocket, jump away. Reload, rinse repeat.