Roamer in pugs are op

Why does he get +frags for suggesting shotgun roamer, but I get -fragged to death for suggesting it

great

Probably because you implied that roamers should only use the shotgun, when the reality is that most roamers that run shotgun in lower levels are probably just eating up more heals from the med than they should.

The shotgun is amazing to have when you need higher damage output, but that's not the roamer's main job. I'm not going to turn this into a "how to play roaming soldier" debate (especially since I barely have a season of experience on it under my belt), but there are more important things for roamers to do than secure kills:
Bully people out of flank.
Force ubers.
Run distractions during fights.
Be really mobile to throw burst damage in a mostly locked-down area and then probably die. (ie. bomb)

Most of the time, having a shotgun only hurts your potential to get those accomplished. Gunboats make you almost completely heal independent, which means your scouts will get more buffs, which means you'll win more fights.

roamer is like med, most people who don't play it think its easy but in reality there are very few good ones. only about 3 really great roamers playing right now.

saying that roamers are the "weakest" "class" in tf2 is as silly as saying that medics are the "weakest". The subtlety to realizing the truth is obviously that both of these classes have roles within the team that extend far beyond having a good kill to death ratio. In a way, every class and role within the team has this aspect, but it is a very necessary distinction when considering medics and roamers especially.

I totally disagree [with the premise of the roamer being weak]; roamer is fine the way it is. It's probably the most wildly versatile role in the game. You have the ability to annihilate holes in an enemy's flank and make plays that people don't expect if you play creatively (read: creatively, not idiotically). It also allows for a great amount of freedom since you're incredibly mobile, and if there needs to be a pick you can either bomb in or go for an unexpected offclass, or you help turtle up and defend the medic.

Also half the reason I like it so much is because spy to mid is the most impossibly gay thing a human being can do.

Like vhalin said once, it's not really a glory class. It does what it needs to.

Roamer's strong because it is a wild card for your team. A soldier without a medic is, of course, weak. But that "physical" weakness can be made irrelevant by applying knowledge of what's happened on the field. Cunning and roaming go hand in hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbFA2LH5OIM

because it was a joke.

Because he said they are stronger and you said good roamers use shotgun. They both sound similar but with a range of vocabulary it doesn't make it sound elitist.

Sorry if i made it seem like i think roamers are a terrible class. I just mean that theyre not quite as powerful/vital to a teems success as any other combat class. I just feel like they need a slight buff in one form or another. Stronger roamers could also speed up the game and lessen the time of stalemates

...then again i play stand on the crate and shoot the sky scout so maybe my views are a little skewed >___>

Stronger Roamers DO speed up the game and lessen the times of stalemates.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=axYF-JS3OVM

Play roamer, win the mid of one map before the rest of your team even arrives.

The gunboat roll-out on process rarely works on demomen that well unless they are slow to mid, they are a idiot, or they trying to sticky off the enemy choke before scouts get there just to experiment in scrims (me)

I just thought id have to clarify this because every time I scrimmed your team you link this video and even put it in my own looking thread. If you are trying to show the strengths of the roaming soldier It probably shouldn't be you doing it let alone this clip

l8r

hippo

Didn't realize you were getting butt frustrated bro, I've done one cool thing ever let me enjoy it. :C
And now you're just being a jerk about it..
l8r indeed

My apologies hippo, I think you thought I was trying to talk shit about you perhaps, which I was not.

I see most roamers playing like the other team is bad. ie hiding, bombing at bad times.
In reality if the enemy team is pushing like a team, a bomb on the med is very hard to pull off as there should be people denying like a scout, and everyone should be checking all hiding spots. But us roamers can be creative in our jumps, and teams can be bad, eh?

I think Memphisvon is one of the smartest roamers out there. Hell on viaduct mid I can remember him not even jumping, just playing a 6th class that the other team doesn't have because they just throw him away like idiots. He does tend to use shotgun a lot too.

I'm probably the only person in open who tries to mimic his playstyle :(
Many teams just tell me to bomb the demo and med right off the bat.. sigh...

buff medic

am I the only person who thinks mangachu is good :D

yes

roamer is the only role I can get a bad k:d ratio and still feel good about myself!

http://www.twitch.tv/mgemike/b/380516216?t=14m

0 to Med down in 15 seconds

slin what the fuck

as a roamer main myself, I could say that is complete bullshit. If you constantly get amazing picks (demo, med , two scouts, some other amazing bullshit), force ubers, make distraction plays so your demo, scouts, pocket whoever could move up on that damage and clean up all the damage you just did, then it could be one of the best roles to a team.

A good roamer could carry a team, as long as the team itself knows what to do with the plays he makes.

And no, a roamer does not need a buff. Giving the roamer a buff is like saying medics should get 500 health because they can't survive two meatshots.

Capn, I think the deal is that roamer is the least "vital" to the team, as in if a team had to strip off one player, it'd probably be the roamer. But it's not because he's weak, it's just because he's generally the only player that can be removed without compromising the core structure of the team. But even that depends on the team's playstyle.

In other words I think you've mentally transposed "least essential" with "worst", which is understandable, but still notably different. Even if he IS the least essential (again, depends on team playstyle), he's still essential from time to time.

And even if he was objectively the worst, that doesn't necessarily mean he needs a buff. The goal isn't to make all 6 players of perfectly equal performance, but to make the game as a whole play well while allowing all players to enjoy themselves. I think roamers are pretty well off in that regard.

sorry, you probably don't want to read anymore text walls telling you why people think you're wrong, but I don't think anyone's adressed the source of your confusion so much as say "this is why roamer is good", and I thought that might be something worthwhile to you.

Try winning 5v6 and then tell me roamers aren't important.

what

That video stopped being good when you linked it for the 2nd time.

Why are people discussing roamer as if he's an entirely different class from pocket? They're both soldiers, only with different jobs that are entirely dictated by the meta-game and has nothing to do with "balance" as such. You could run two shotgun pocket soldiers just fine if you wanted to, but every team chooses not to since that would leave virtually no heals for the demo and scouts. The medic can only heal a certain amount per minute, and the answer that people have developed over time is to have one of their soldiers play away from the combo, relying on med-kits and (usually) make use of the gunboats.
The meta-game is constantly shifting as people adjust to new strategies and further refine their play, and right now the roamer just so happens to generally play a style that involves going for " big plays," bombs and distraction plays, but there's no telling what will happen over time as people become better at the game, come up with new strategies and new maps are introduced.

I think it's important to realise that the roamer's currently "weak" position is entirely our own construct and that you are free to change his role into something that you feel would make him more useful (say, leave him far back and only use him to spam until the ubers get exchanged at which point he jumps in and helps the combo, or whatever. You can literally do whatever you want as long as your team is willing to go along with you).

The roamer is not weak. He's just a second soldier whose life we decide to make more difficult because we believe it helps the team win.

Hit it right on the nail for me at least I hate all you fuckers