Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[yyler]

I think with time the SR will be the pro choice, just as the DH is the pro choice for soldiers.

Team Fortress: Combat Evolved imo

[Zaratustra]

Standard lawnchair builds up rage better than the Direct Hit, I feel.

[yyler]

Not if you can hit someone, I think, unless the weapon you use corresponds directly to rage raisin'

[Niku]

one rocket can hit three people for more damage than one rocket can hit from one person.  In that way, the Launcher is the better rage-builder.

they call it the rage meter because whenever you get it full you get backstabbed

[Kayin]

I really don't know why you would use the Direct Hit with the banner anyways. Mini crits are way better when you can splash em. Considering you can build it faster too it seems like an obvious choice.

I'm not sure if the Direct Hit will truly end up staying a 'pro choice'. I think a lot of reall good players can use it amazingly well against weaker opponents and pretty much make a mess of them, but against high skilled enemies that know how to move, splash becomes more and more important. I think the direct hit and  normal launcher are going to end up being a situational thing

SR I really doubt as a pro choice. Stickies are good for the same reason the normal lawnchair is good. Splash. In close or semi mid range, a good demo is going to pipe reliably even against an equally skilled player. It might have it's situational uses though in 'pro' play.

It seems like a perfectly fine choice in public play though which frankly is all that matters.

[Niku]

I honestly still find it way harder to "airburst" stickies than to just shoot pipes into people's faces.

[Kayin]

I imagine thats because knowing when to actually use stickies in situations where their better then pipes is hard. I mean, the random pub scrub (or my self) will basically say 'airburst all the time ever!', but thats obviously wrong. Another aspect is this is pub play. A real team will rely on each other. The demo can hang back at harass at a distance to stay safe or slide in and pipe if need be. In a pub, you're more likely to be in front most of the time because god, you're not going to rely on me to get shit done! Also if few people are moving around well enough to make piping hard, the incentive to use the sticky launcher decrease.

Or so I guess! I certainly blab a lot for someone who doesn't play this game much (until recently), so I apologize if I'm being super silly or anything.

[patito]

Pipes can do more damage than a single airburst sticky if it actually hits something, once the pipe is rolling it does barely any damage. However three stickies on the ground can do more damage than a single airburst sticky.

[Mongrel]

For me, I'd rather lay stickes, and lob pipes, using each as they're designed to be used. I tend to airburst only when caught in a firefight with no time to weapon switch (I just seem to do this slower than most folks).

[Doom]

For what it's worth, I consider the SR to be superior because I consider the ability to "Duel" to be vitally important to such meta-game concepts as Morale, Momentum and Control. I could go into more detail regarding each, but I'll just say that my team is probably more likely to win a defense if the attackers begin to feel that the mere sight of SR stickies means they are about to be kited to an inevitable death.

[Mongrel]

For what it's worth, I consider the SR to be superior because I consider the ability to "Duel" to be vitally important to such meta-game concepts as Morale, Momentum and Control. I could go into more detail regarding each, but I'll just say that my team is probably more likely to win a defense if the attackers begin to feel that the mere sight of SR stickies means they are about to be kited to an inevitable death.

I also think the ability to 'duel' is important for the same reason, though in practise that just means I try to use the weapons I'm least bad at.

I would be interested in hearing how you think the SR makes for better 'duels' rather than just better defense.

[Doom]

For the same reason you use weapons that you are "least bad at": it's infinitely easier for me to bait a pyro into a death-trap than it is to hit him with two pipes. Especially if I'm actively shooting more stickies at him and nudging him towards that death-trap. The SR clearly requires a bit more set-up time than the Vanilla Stickies, but my original class of choice was Combat Engineer so baiting people into false senses of security is sort of my thing. My natural play-style makes the SR a flat upgrade because I will win more duels.

You can also see me do this if somebody tries to spy-check me and I can strafe and back-step them away from their friends. At this point, I can magnum them down or simply waste as much of their time as possible with my watch up. Particularly hilarious if I have a medic trying to uber-saw me for seven consecutive strafe-dodge. Don't your friends need you, pal?

[SCD]

All it takes is four good stabs.  It doesn't matter if I kill you, just that I can make bruno over there red and sparkly.

[Doom]

That's a gross risk of losing a lot of defensive momentum, being shot to death, or me just running in and back-stabbing Bruno anyway. [spoiler]Not that there's much choice against DR Spy without a Pyro around.[/spoiler]

This is the same attitude I hold for Eyelanders bragging that my DR adds to their Head Count. So? If I can Magnum Rogue you, I would. If I can't, I'm not exactly being sent back to the respawn, having learned my lesson.

Hell, that's another positive-thinkin' Engineer attitude I learned. Blow up my stuff, who cares? As long as I'm alive it'll be back up in five seconds. My Forward-Thinkin' A-Game is entirely divorced from your bit of good fortune.

[Bongo Bill]

How do you get set up so fast, Doom? It takes longer than that for ammo boxes to respawn; are you relying extensively on the ammo dropped by dead enemies?

[McDohl]

Well, a sentry builds much faster if you're whackin' it, and the sooner it's up, the sooner it's killin' doods that drop delicious 100 metal boxes.

[Doom]

Rote memorization of ammo spawns, mostly.

And willingness to put a dispenser up before a level 3 sentry.

[McDohl]

Yeah, the dispenser's a good portion of it too.  Usually, I'll drop a teleport, run out to where I'm gonna build, drop a dispenser, snag an ammo box, drop my sentry, and beat the shit out of my dispenser until I can't beat it no more.

[Mongrel]

Rote memorization of ammo spawns, mostly.

And willingness to put a dispenser up before a level 3 sentry.

Exactly.

A good engie needs to play it smart. Sometimes the correct move is to get that damn sentry up ASAP, with nearby 200-crates enabling you. But getting the dispenser up can actually get you to a lvl 3 faster in many cases. Sometimes you split the difference and get the sentry up to lvl 2 before dropping a dispenser. Your exact course of action will depend on your location, distance to (and quantity of) nearby ammo spawns, the ebb and flow of the game (and how close you are to the action). And of course, if you get into a shotgun duel and create one of those 'do-it-yourself' 100-ammo drops, then maybe using it to throw up a dispenser before you run for the 200-ammo crate is good too.

Having a backup plan is keen too. Today, I had a lvl 3 up guarding an exit near a 200-ammo drop. After the exit guard was up, I then built my dispenser (and upgraded it) in a more forward location farther away from ammo spwans, in anticipation of moving up the front. Had the sentry either been destroyed OR had we moved up quickly, I would have been in position to MOVE THAT GEAR UP within a few seconds.

[Bongo Bill]

Oh, I usually do put the dispenser first. But to have a dispenser, a decent sentry, and a teleporter up usually takes me most of setup time. And here you are talking about five seconds and under fire? I mean, that's clearly hyperbole, but I think I must be overlooking something.