14 replies to this topic

[Aphex]

I see a lot of people coming into 4s lobbies, saying that this is their first ever game in the format, and really, you only have the short pregame to explain an entire format to them, so to nullify those concerns, I'm creating a guide for the basics of 4s, and the roll each class plays

 

RULES

 

In 4v4, you can only have one of each class at any given time, and you can have either a heavy or medic, but not both. Most teams opt for a medic, since heavies can't heal beyond the occasional sandvich

 

Whitelist

 

Scout

 

Crit-a-Cola: Can take down a med with a single meatshot

Baby Face's Blaster: Ridiculous speed

The Bootie Time: Disguised spies don't make the jingle jangle

The Back Scatter: Deemed unfair by playtesters

 

Soldier

 

The Reserve Shooter: See Pyro

 

Pyro

 

The Reserve Shooter: At point blank range, the mini crits do 140 damage, dropping light classes and severely wounding most other classes

The Jingle Belt: Same reason as the Bootie Time

 

Demo

 

The Tide Turner: Do you REALLY have to ask?

 

Heavy

 

Nothin', UGC loves hoovy

 

Engy

 

The Gunslinger: Mini sentries can shut down an entire team on koth maps, since you don't have the same damage output available to you, or the ease to run a spy that HL or 6s provide

The Short Circuit: 50% of the team is now useless

The Pomson 6000: A long range anti-medic cannon. Uber advantages drop like flies to this thing

 

Medic

 

The Quick-Fix: Forget what I said earlier about soldier being the roamer, you can now bomb their medic free of any risk because you have a constant flying healer, and with only needing to heal 3 people, you can make them constantly buffed

The Vita-Saw: After your first life you spawn with advantage the majority of the time

The Vaccinator: A constantly 260 health pyro that is semi-immune to the things it can reflect

 

Sniper

 

Darwin's Danger Shield: it gives a health boost that might screw over other snipers because it has +25 health and +15% bullet resistance which means snipers can survive uncharged headshots and fully charged bodyshots which might screw over other snipers in 1v1s and also would make them difficult to counter with scouts who are their only reliable counter in 4s

The Bazaar Bargain: This

 

Spy

 

Red-Tape Recorder: If for some reason they decide to run an engineer, the team won't have a whole lot of protection on him, with the exception of on maps like gravelpit, where your combo and engy sit in the same position, this can just ruin an engineer's day, in a format where you have anything but time

 

All Classes

 

Bombinomicon: A similar reason to the Bootie Time and the Jingle Belt. Dead Ringering spies don't explode when killed while disguised as someone wearing this

 

Taunts

 

Square Dance Taunt: All of these are the same reason, you can use them to look around corners, and detonate sticky traps without any risk to yourself

Flippin' Awesome Taunt

RPS Taunt

Skullcracker Taunt

 

Conga Taunt

High Five Taunt

 

THE META

 

You are generally going to be running a Scout, Soldier, Demoman, and Medic. However this may change since 4s allows for more offclassing than any other format around. Many teams opt for a pyro in lieu of their scout, and in rarer cases, the soldier or demo. The soldier is generally going to roam in 4s, with the demo generally sticking very close to the medic and leaving the scout to patrol the flank and make callouts, drop medics, etc. But in the case of a pyro being played, often the demo becomes a flank class, since the pyro can defend the med easily from both projectiles and scouts. This isn't to say the pyro can't flank in 4s, far from it. You can keep the demo as your main pocket, and have the pyro effectively taking over the scout's role, since with the powerjack his speed is very close to that of the scout, you can wrap around maps and get behind the medic.

 

CLASSES

 

Scout

 

Your role is to patrol the flank, you are the team's first warning of something bad coming their way. Spy circling around? You have eyes on him. Pyro or another scout trying to pull something sneaky? You're an early warning to your team, and potentially able to pick either of those classes in 1v1. As well as defending the flank, you are charged with making plays from behind enemy lines, such as dropping their med or sniper before they can put your team in a bad situation, or catching a stray demo or soldier when they aren't in a good spot to be defended by their team.

 

Soldier

 

You are essentially playing the same role as the roamer in 6v6, you fight the point, bomb the medic, occasionally help the scout on the flank. It's ultimately up to your playstyle, since you are effective at helping defend your medic, or pushing into the other team to make opportunities for your combo or flank classes

 

Pyro

 

I can provide much more comprehensive instructions on playing pyro in 4s, since it's my main. You are singularly most effective at protecting your medic, you can reflect rockets, stickies, pills. You are essentially a walking Short Circuit with flames while playing defensively, and on offence, you can do everything the scout can do, and can even drop medics faster with the flare gun when they aren't paying close attention. Even ubers aren't immune to you: Uber? Just puff them away until the only kill they might get is you. Kritz? On a demo, just keep those stickies the hell away from your team, and on a soldier, you can drop their med with a 270 dmg reflect without much difficulty. From personal experience you are an effective flank and defence, but the most success has been coordinating with your demoman so that he pockets while you flank, and vice versa, never leaving your med defenseless, but allowing both classes to play to their full capabilities.

 

Demo

 

Playing a defensive role like the class was designed for is perfect for 4s, you can keep other classes at a distance, for risk of serious damage output with your stickies, lay down traps to keep people out, or to let your combo escape, and your pipes can just about drop the scout, and make any other of the main classes seriously reconsider pushing into you without backup. To give some map examples, even with a coordinated push from the opposing team, on ashville, if you just keep the stickies flying at the point, with some support from your flank and roamer, you can stop the opposing team from taking much ground.

 

Heavy

 

Heavy in 4s is used, but for very short periods of time. You generally sub off your med for a heavy in the last minute of the game, where you know uber isn't an option, so you go for a huge damage output and beefy tank. Just the surprise alone of a 300 health monstrosity with a gun pushing at your measly team of 3 classes that can fight effectively forces the other team to act quickly and wisely, or lose the round. Comboing this class with pressure from your demo and soldier, who are now both free to roam now that they don't have a medic, allows you to sneak in much more easily than if the pressure was only coming from a soldier, or a soldier and a scout

 

Engineer

 

Engineer is only ran seriously on attack/defence maps for as long as you can hold a good sentry position for. Depending on the size of the map, you would sub out your soldier on a massive map like GPit, or on a map like Egypt or Dustbowl, your scout, since you don't need to cover as much ground easily. Your strategy is to get an early teleporter up to keep pressure on the point consistently, and get that level 3 gun in a spot that isn't easily spammed out, and can lay down a lot of hurt on the opposing team

 

Sniper

 

Sniper is generally ran for a singular life to surprise their team and drop the med before he can get himself in a position where sniping is a less viable option. But I have seen teams run snipers full time when said sniper is a deadly quickscoper, getting a 4 killstreak singlehandedly with nothing more than good positioning and a quick hand. But if you're not that person, use your one life, or more if they don't start getting their med in better places, don't overcommit to the class and end up costing your team a valuable offensive class

 

Medic

 

A quick thing to get off the table before we start: Despite the small number of players, you can still get dropped very easily, and do not suddenly become a combat medic. With that aside here we have the class with the most pressure on himself the entire time. You are responsible for leading your team in most situations, pay attention to the callouts, find cover when being bombed, and follow the basic rule of medic: If you don't have a teammate between you and the thing that's trying to kill you, RUN! We can't all get on the ExTV Moments of Glory with a massive ubersaw killstreak, so just stay alive, and pay attention to the numbers on your team for when you're pushing

 

Spy

 

Just like the sniper, you're a class that is generally ran until the surprise wears off and they can anticipate you, but with the invis watch, most maps are set up with ammo packs that allow a spy with the invis watch to circle around the entire enemy team unnoticed, and drop the med without being noticed. An example of this is airfield: Going from your spawn entirely cloaked, go through your boiler, take the ammo pack, drop into your valley, take the ammo pack, go into the opposing team's elbow, take the ammo pack. You are now behind them, and you were not visible for any of this time. 4s spy is all about positioning and timing. Since the medic is often forced to back up and retreat, coordinate with your team and wait for the perfect opportunity to get that stab on the medic.

 

Thanks for reading my guide, I hope it helps new players to the format understand it a little bit more 

[R.E.M.]

Nice guide. As a 4s player currently in UGC EU Steel playoffs I appreciate the fact that someone took the time to write a guide about such an underplayed and underrated format.

 

One of the things I love about this is the freedom it allows you to experiment with classes and loadouts. 4s is not like 6s or HL, there is no standard for any of the classes partly because it's only been around for 2 seasons but also because there are plenty of valid choices to make and no real strict rules as to when to use them.

 

If I may make some comments on your guide,

 

1. With regards to the meta, I'm a med main so what class will pocket you depends on the map you're playing and also the classes your enemy uses. I agree that the most common setup is scout, soldier, demo, medic and this is the one my team (F4) uses but one of the best teams in my division has run nothing but demo, scout, pyro, medic and done extremely well for themselves. There's no strict default class line-up I have even seen teams not run medic at all in silver. Anyway back to pockets, I find most of the time that my soldier is actually pocketing me and keeping me safe. My demo tends to be quite aggressive but also keeps an eye on me. However on koth_stallone my scout is my pocket because stallone is crazy good for roaming soldiers and as a result the best pocket would be either a hitscan class like the scout or a pyro for reflects. It also means my soldier can basically play full time roamer on stallone which is a very good thing on that map because as previously mentioned roamer is INSANE.
2. In my opinion scouts should always run pretty boy's pocket pistol for the health bonus. It's great in a format like 4s despite the added fire damage.
3. As I said already soldier is rarely a full time roamer at least in my experience but it depends on map, personnal preference and what classes the other team are running and their team's strengths. It's good to practice judging who the strongest player on an enemy team is and try to shut them down if they're getting too much room.
4. The great thing about demo in 4s is his versatility. The aforementioned team with the full time pyro has a seriously aggro demo who does insane dmg. My demo is also very aggro but as you said demo is good at defense. I guess the point I'm making is soldier and demo aren't as black and white as this guide makes them out to be (at least in my opinion/experience).
5. I would recommend subbing the scout for the engi on gpit instead of soldier. The reasoning for this is that the soldier is great at attacking and defending the C point because he can get up there very quickly. Point A is almost never defended and Points B & C have high up places the soldier can deny people from and if there is one thing soldier is great at, it's using height advantage to great effect. Also the soldier is a much better A/D pocket than a scout because he's much more of a tank with his 300 buffed health pool and aforementioned manouverability. If your demo goes down and you only have a scout and an engi you have no decent pocket classes to help your med.
6. As a med main I mostly agree with your advice not to deathmatch. However if a med is running crossbow (and why the hell wouldn't you?) + ubersaw then you can be quite effective at DM if you choose your moments. For example, I know that x enemy class is low so I crossbow him and get the kill when nobody else on my team is up. Another great time to DM as a med is when your team is struggling to kill an attacking soldier/demo/scout. Oftentimes I have saved my life by engaging in a demo/soldier/scout who is about to kill me because my team hasn't been able to kill him. I actually love deathmatching in 4s personally as I'm ok at it (I've done 1.2k dmg in a scrim before and I've gotten 4-5 kills some games) but not all meds like doing this.

That's all I have, everything else I totally agree with. Thanks again for writing the guide, admins/mods please move this to the guides section.

Edited by R.E.M., 31 July 2014 - 02:02 AM.

[Aphex]

Nice guide. As a 4s player currently in UGC EU Steel playoffs I appreciate the fact that someone took the time to write a guide about such an underplayed and underrated format.

 

One of the things I love about this is the freedom it allows you to experiment with classes and loadouts. 4s is not like 6s or HL, there is no standard for any of the classes partly because it's only been around for 2 seasons but also because there are plenty of valid choices to make and no real strict rules as to when to use them.

 

If I may make some comments on your guide,

 

1. With regards to the meta, I'm a med main so what class will pocket you depends on the map you're playing and also the classes your enemy uses. I agree that the most common setup is scout, soldier, demo, medic and this is the one my team (F4) uses but one of the best teams in my division has run nothing but demo, scout, pyro, medic and done extremely well for themselves. There's no strict default class line-up I have even seen teams not run medic at all in silver. Anyway back to pockets, I find most of the time that my soldier is actually pocketing me and keeping me safe. My demo tends to be quite aggressive but also keeps an eye on me. However on koth_stallone my scout is my pocket because stallone is crazy good for roaming soldiers and as a result the best pocket would be either a hitscan class like the scout or a pyro for reflects. It also means my soldier can basically play full time roamer on stallone which is a very good thing on that map because as previously mentioned roamer is INSANE.
2. In my opinion scouts should always run pretty boy's pocket pistol for the health bonus. It's great in a format like 4s despite the added fire damage.
3. As I said already soldier is rarely a full time roamer at least in my experience but it depends on map, personnal preference and what classes the other team are running and their team's strengths. It's good to practice judging who the strongest player on an enemy team is and try to shut them down if they're getting too much room.
4. The great thing about demo in 4s is his versatility. The aforementioned team with the full time pyro has a seriously aggro demo who does insane dmg. My demo is also very aggro but as you said demo is good at defense. I guess the point I'm making is soldier and demo aren't as black and white as this guide makes them out to be (at least in my opinion/experience).
5. I would recommend subbing the scout for the engi on gpit instead of soldier. The reasoning for this is that the soldier is great at attacking and defending the C point because he can get up there very quickly. Point A is almost never defended and Points B & C have high up places the soldier can deny people from and if there is one thing soldier is great at, it's using height advantage to great effect. Also the soldier is a much better A/D pocket than a scout because he's much more of a tank with his 300 buffed health pool and aforementioned manouverability. If your demo goes down and you only have a scout and an engi you have no decent pocket classes to help your med.
6. As a med main I mostly agree with your advice not to deathmatch. However if a med is running crossbow (and why the hell wouldn't you?) + ubersaw then you can be quite effective at DM if you choose your moments. For example, I know that x enemy class is low so I crossbow him and get the kill when nobody else on my team is up. Another great time to DM as a med is when your team is struggling to kill an attacking soldier/demo/scout. Oftentimes I have saved my life by engaging in a demo/soldier/scout who is about to kill me because my team hasn't been able to kill him. I actually love deathmatching in 4s personally as I'm ok at it (I've done 1.2k dmg in a scrim before and I've gotten 4-5 kills some games) but not all meds like doing this.

That's all I have, everything else I totally agree with. Thanks again for writing the guide, admins/mods please move this to the guides section.

Thanks for the review, I'll take what you said and make some changes to the guide

[R.E.M.]

Oh I nearly forgot, the darwin's danger shield is banned because it gives a health boost that might screw over other snipers because it has +25 health and +15% bullet resistance which means snipers can survive uncharged headshots and fully charged bodyshots which might screw over other snipers in 1v1s and also would make them difficult to counter with scouts who are their only reliable counter in 4s

 

Edit: Bazzar Bargain is banned because of this

Edited by R.E.M., 31 July 2014 - 02:30 AM.

[Aphex]

Oh I nearly forgot, the darwin's danger shield is banned because it gives a health boost that might screw over other snipers because it has +25 health and +15% bullet resistance which means snipers can survive uncharged headshots and fully charged bodyshots which might screw over other snipers in 1v1s and also would make them difficult to counter with scouts who are their only reliable counter in 4s

 

Edit: Bazzar Bargain is banned because of this

Thanks, I'll add those to the guide, and also, how do you edit posts? I can't see a button for it.

 

EDIT: Except for on this one, can't see it on the others

Edited by Aphex, 31 July 2014 - 03:00 AM.

[TheMattgician]

There's a time limit on the edit for users, so I edited in REM's suggestions.

Also, I'm moving this to the guides section.

[The Once and Future King]

Whitelist

 

Scout

 

Crit-a-Cola: Can take down a med with a single meatshot

Baby Face's Blaster: Ridiculous speed

The Bootie Time: Disguised spies don't make the jingle jangle

The Back Scatter: Deemed unfair by playtesters

 

Soldier

 

The Reserve Shooter: See Pyro

 

Pyro

 

The Reserve Shooter: At point blank range, the mini crits do 140 damage, dropping light classes and severely wounding most other classes

The Jingle Belt: Same reason as the Bootie Time

 

Demo

 

The Tide Turner: Do you REALLY have to ask?

 

Heavy

 

Nothin', UGC loves hoovy

 

Engy

 

The Gunslinger: Mini sentries can shut down an entire team on koth maps, since you don't have the same damage output available to you, or the ease to run a spy that HL or 6s provide

The Short Circuit: 50% of the team is now useless

The Pomson 6000: A long range anti-medic cannon. Uber advantages drop like flies to this thing

 

Medic

 

The Quick-Fix: Forget what I said earlier about soldier being the roamer, you can now bomb their medic free of any risk because you have a constant flying healer, and with only needing to heal 3 people, you can make them constantly buffed

The Vita-Saw: After your first life you spawn with advantage the majority of the time

The Vaccinator: A constantly 260 health pyro that is semi-immune to the things it can reflect

 

Sniper

 

Darwin's Danger Shield: it gives a health boost that might screw over other snipers because it has +25 health and +15% bullet resistance which means snipers can survive uncharged headshots and fully charged bodyshots which might screw over other snipers in 1v1s and also would make them difficult to counter with scouts who are their only reliable counter in 4s

The Bazaar Bargain: This

 

Spy

 

Red-Tape Recorder: If for some reason they decide to run an engineer, the team won't have a whole lot of protection on him, with the exception of on maps like gravelpit, where your combo and engy sit in the same position, this can just ruin an engineer's day, in a format where you have anything but time

 

All Classes

 

Bombinomicon: A similar reason to the Bootie Time and the Jingle Belt. Dead Ringering spies don't explode when killed while disguised as someone wearing this

 

Taunts

 

Square Dance Taunt: All of these are the same reason, you can use them to look around corners, and detonate sticky traps without any risk to yourself

Flippin' Awesome Taunt

RPS Taunt

Skullcracker Taunt

 

Conga Taunt

High Five Taunt

 

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but none of these are actually whitelisted items.  I'm pretty sure this is a ban-list(blacklist) and not a white-list.

[Aphex]

 

Whitelist

 

Scout

 

Crit-a-Cola: Can take down a med with a single meatshot

Baby Face's Blaster: Ridiculous speed

The Bootie Time: Disguised spies don't make the jingle jangle

The Back Scatter: Deemed unfair by playtesters

 

Soldier

 

The Reserve Shooter: See Pyro

 

Pyro

 

The Reserve Shooter: At point blank range, the mini crits do 140 damage, dropping light classes and severely wounding most other classes

The Jingle Belt: Same reason as the Bootie Time

 

Demo

 

The Tide Turner: Do you REALLY have to ask?

 

Heavy

 

Nothin', UGC loves hoovy

 

Engy

 

The Gunslinger: Mini sentries can shut down an entire team on koth maps, since you don't have the same damage output available to you, or the ease to run a spy that HL or 6s provide

The Short Circuit: 50% of the team is now useless

The Pomson 6000: A long range anti-medic cannon. Uber advantages drop like flies to this thing

 

Medic

 

The Quick-Fix: Forget what I said earlier about soldier being the roamer, you can now bomb their medic free of any risk because you have a constant flying healer, and with only needing to heal 3 people, you can make them constantly buffed

The Vita-Saw: After your first life you spawn with advantage the majority of the time

The Vaccinator: A constantly 260 health pyro that is semi-immune to the things it can reflect

 

Sniper

 

Darwin's Danger Shield: it gives a health boost that might screw over other snipers because it has +25 health and +15% bullet resistance which means snipers can survive uncharged headshots and fully charged bodyshots which might screw over other snipers in 1v1s and also would make them difficult to counter with scouts who are their only reliable counter in 4s

The Bazaar Bargain: This

 

Spy

 

Red-Tape Recorder: If for some reason they decide to run an engineer, the team won't have a whole lot of protection on him, with the exception of on maps like gravelpit, where your combo and engy sit in the same position, this can just ruin an engineer's day, in a format where you have anything but time

 

All Classes

 

Bombinomicon: A similar reason to the Bootie Time and the Jingle Belt. Dead Ringering spies don't explode when killed while disguised as someone wearing this

 

Taunts

 

Square Dance Taunt: All of these are the same reason, you can use them to look around corners, and detonate sticky traps without any risk to yourself

Flippin' Awesome Taunt

RPS Taunt

Skullcracker Taunt

 

Conga Taunt

High Five Taunt

 

 

Correct me if I am wrong, but none of these are actually whitelisted items.  I'm pretty sure this is a ban-list(blacklist) and not a white-list.

 

Yeah, it's technically a blacklist, but UGC calls it a whitelist, so I'll humour them

[The Once and Future King]

 

Yeah, it's technically a blacklist, but UGC calls it a whitelist, so I'll humour them

 

 

Well the UGC whitelist is a list of allowed items, which also includes the banned items at the top.  The catch is that if an item is not on the whitelist as in it exists and has the "1" then it is banned.  This means all new items added to the game are automatically banned until the whitelist (the part listing the allowed items) is updated, even though they do not show up at the top on the list of banned items.  The only reason they even include the list of banned items is to make it easy for players to see which items are not allowed, that list of banned items does not need to be on the top of the whitelist because the whitelist is there to tell the server which items are allowed.

 

Technical detail, and it really doesn't matter I just see a lot of people not understanding what a whitelist is so I like inform people using the term incorrectly so that they can use it correctly in the future since the ability to understand the language you are using is crucial to good communication.

Edited by The Once and Future King, 31 July 2014 - 08:50 PM.

[Aphex]

 

 

Yeah, it's technically a blacklist, but UGC calls it a whitelist, so I'll humour them

 

 

Well the UGC whitelist is a list of allowed items, which also includes the banned items at the top.  The catch is that if an item is not on the whitelist as in it exists and has the "1" then it is banned.  This means all new items added to the game are automatically banned until the whitelist (the part listing the allowed items) is updated, even though they do not show up at the top on the list of banned items.  The only reason they even include the list of banned items is to make it easy for players to see which items are not allowed, that list of banned items does not need to be on the top of the whitelist because the whitelist is there to tell the server which items are allowed.

 

Technical detail, and it really doesn't matter I just see a lot of people not understanding what a whitelist is so I like inform people using the term incorrectly so that they can use it correctly in the future since the ability to understand the language you are using is crucial to good communication.

 

Looking at the list itself, the way I stated it was a blacklist, but what they have is in fact a whitelist, since everything on it with a 1 is allowed, and everything with a 0 is not

[Kennethea]

I have placed a new sticky thread with renewed links that sijones has kindly sorted out in x-type stickies. Its called How to Guides for x-types: 2014 edition.

[5☆ hr]

I disagree about the offclassing. I think if 4v4 was taken seriously then you'd see the scout pocket the medic while the soldier plays a roaming kind of role and has the ability to offclass. I think offclassing scout in 4v4 is like offclassing a demo in 6v6, you should just never do it. Scout is a far stronger class than soldier in 4v4 largely because the gamemode revolves around dm rather than holding specific chokes and because people run pyro so much it makes it even worse.

Someone mentioned gpit later and I guess with that kind of map where you have to jump for the last point as well as on B it could be better to offclass a scout than a soldier but I can't see an engie being better than a scout on defense anyway because unlike 6v6 you give up a lot more for that sentry and will just get into a 3v2 fight once the sentry is spammed down. For koth maps though you should never offclass the scout.

 

I also disagree with the idea of flanks and this kind of thing. I think with only 4 players you need to just ball around your medic a lot more, your 'flank' should not really take fights but just have people in a situation to spot certain things, it's kind of hard to explain what I mean but stuff like flanking pyros is just wrong in my opinion. If you're running a pyro it needs to be purely defensive, an organised team will not get flanked by a pyro.

[Captain Pegleg]

I disagree about the offclassing. I think if 4v4 was taken seriously then you'd see the scout pocket the medic while the soldier plays a roaming kind of role and has the ability to offclass. I think offclassing scout in 4v4 is like offclassing a demo in 6v6, you should just never do it. Scout is a far stronger class than soldier in 4v4 largely because the gamemode revolves around dm rather than holding specific chokes and because people run pyro so much it makes it even worse.
Someone mentioned gpit later and I guess with that kind of map where you have to jump for the last point as well as on B it could be better to offclass a scout than a soldier but I can't see an engie being better than a scout on defense anyway because unlike 6v6 you give up a lot more for that sentry and will just get into a 3v2 fight once the sentry is spammed down. For koth maps though you should never offclass the scout.

I also disagree with the idea of flanks and this kind of thing. I think with only 4 players you need to just ball around your medic a lot more, your 'flank' should not really take fights but just have people in a situation to spot certain things, it's kind of hard to explain what I mean but stuff like flanking pyros is just wrong in my opinion. If you're running a pyro it needs to be purely defensive, an organised team will not get flanked by a pyro.

Yes, this! Medic has only 3 people to heal, which means scout can stay buffed pretty constantly. Add Pocket Pistol, and you're a 200 HP, meatshotting monster. Pyros stand no chance, as long as medic realizes that keeping Every teammate buffed when possible will help him stay alive, rather than dishing out all heals on one player.

The blob! Soldier and scout can stray just far enough to look around, but staying one jump or a couple seconds away, to return for heals, works well.

http://logs.tf/38876...561197972097827

Edit: I'm not a very good scout, this score was thanks to a smart medic who communicated and healed around; I have played with many meds who stubbornly focused on the demo because they had heard "that's who pockets you"

This also shows what happens if you constantly offclass...

Edited by Captain Pegleg, 28 January 2015 - 02:12 PM.

[Aphex]

Something interesting that's been working surprisingly well this season of 4s that I'd like to note: rather than offclassing the scout, my team has opted against a demoman, save for maps like warmfrost where winning mid is important (On warmfrost we generally stop using a soldier). The way we play is that the pyro hugs the med and watches for the scout and flicks his aim back when there's a push; the scout stays midrange to get information and pick off anyone who runs too far forward; and the soldier is the one that goes forward a lot. This changes from map to map however, since on something like Brazil, where the point is the highest ground on the map, having the pyro and soldier hold there while the medic and scout stand behind the cover it gives is an effective hold.

 

I honestly knew a lot less than I pretended to when I made the guide, and updating it with some of the information from peg and 5 hr would be wise. 

 

I also disagree with the idea of flanks and this kind of thing. I think with only 4 players you need to just ball around your medic a lot more, your 'flank' should not really take fights but just have people in a situation to spot certain things, it's kind of hard to explain what I mean but stuff like flanking pyros is just wrong in my opinion. If you're running a pyro it needs to be purely defensive, an organised team will not get flanked by a pyro.

 

I completely agree. I said what I said because it worked in steel, which isn't a particularly good estimation of what actually works. To expand on this, not having necessarily a flank, but having a couple people go a bit forward and try and catch someone out before falling back works marvels in extending a hold.

[Scorpion]

nice