Rocket Monkey is the name I've given to a new style of play that came with the Pryovision update. It's simple to set up, but has a lot of room for creativity and has a much higher skill ceiling with cooperation to really help carry a team.
What you'll need: At minimum, a Medic and a Soldier. With the quite team/friend coordination, could easily by done with extra soldiers and possibly medics. The build relies on using a few specific items for both classes. This would be the Quick-Fix for the medic, and Soldiers will generally want to avoid Launchers and 2ndary's designed for support. (Ex. Gunboats, Buff Banner, ect). The idea is to take the Soldier's playstyle of using Gunboats or the Rockey Jumper to sacrafice some of offensive capabilities for the ability to hop around the map will nilly, and combine him with the powerhouse that a good Medic and Soldier pair can be. This is done at the core via the Quick-Fix.
For those of you who don't know, and don't keep up with the update notes as closely to see the balance numbers, what the Pyrovision update did along with release a new game mode and maps was to add a new effect on the Quick-Fix described in game as "Medic mirrors blast jump of their heal target." It's worded kind of weirdly, but it means when a Soldier being healed by a Medic with Quick-Fix on decides to rocket jump, the Medic will shoot up in the air alongside him depending on the strength of the Soldier's jump. The Medic's direction is actually relative to their own movement in positioning, not the Soldiers. If a Soldier is running straight forward and the Medic is running forward with a bit of an angle when the Soldier rocket jumps, the Medic will launch in the direction with whatever momentum the rocket jump was intended to have. This requires some getting used to for both players, and communicating via skype or vent is highly recommended, as you can easily say quick commands to each other on where to maneuver too. For example, playing on Koth Harvest, saying "I'm jumping to the middle roof." as the Soldier to let your Medic ally to know which direction he should be facing/going.
That's the basics of the build, but me being me, I have a tendency to dissect and perfect builds to their most efficient way possible. So after playing the style and tweaking it with the help of 2 of my friends, who are also decently skilled gamers, I've been keeping notes to myself on how to adapt the entire playstyle to deal with different threats and situations.
General playstyle: It's called "Rocket Monkey" for a reason. Get into the mindset of being in a gunboats type build, without worry about hp lost. Rocket jump EVERYWHERE. On top of buildings, behind enemies, away from enemies, behind attack points. In battle, you'll most likely do very little actual walking, minus with the occasional "Medic misfire" scenario to relocate your Medic. 1 important thing to remember, always ALWAYS save just 1 rocket for emergency purposes. When you get down to the last rocket that's loaded, switch to your 2ndary or melee to attack instead. This is to allow you to get out of dangerous spots immediately. The time to use it is generally whenever you need to quickly get out of the battle midfight to reload all your weapons, or when your Medic's hp is getting too low, and needs to heal up. You'll have to get a feel of the opponents playstyles/team composition to accurately jugde when these situations happen, but it'll start to come naturally.
Combat: Doing a heavy rocket jump style has a much different style of combat play. Keep the general feel of the combat the same. Jumping to get away from fights you know you can't handle, and into better positions. There are a few specific strategies I've found for dealing with certain classes/loadouts as well.
The loadout I personally think works best for my buddies and I are; Medic: Quick-Fix(Duh), Ubersaw, and any 2ndary that doesn't decrease your natural healing. You're going to be taking a lot of fall damage, so recovering faster is key. Solder: Cowmangler, Reserve Shooter, Default Shovel. I feel the Cowmangler works best for this build, since it grants you 5 shots when full you can still get a nice chunk of rockets off while saving an escape one for when you need it. It also doesn't use any ammo, which massively reduces the time you'd normally spend wandering around for ammo. This allows you to spam your rocket jump to zip around the map as much as you want, and still have full combat strength. Saving a single rocket is a huge cut for the Soldier, so Launchers with 3 shots are definitely not recommended, but if you're more skilled with aiming the Direct Hit or want more offensive power against Sentries, the 4 shot Launchers will do nicely.
Scout: Good Scouts can be nightmares to deal with. They'll generally ignore you and start trying to pick off your medic. It's also generally difficult to predict the Scouts movement pattern when engaged in a fight against a Soldier. Keep an eye on your Medics HP, if you see it too low rocket jump him out immediately. Remember to always save 1 rocket for escaping. Generally jumping straight up when they get too close to you will both get your medic away from the harass and allow you to line up a shot better.
Soldier: They shouldn't be too much of an issue, just start hopping above them and raining rockets down in their head, and using your 2ndary to fight them if they try to jump themselves. For dealing with melee variant of the Rocket Jumper build, just shoot at your own feet straight up will generally get rid of them.
Pyro: Good Pyro's can be a pain. Depending on what Launcher you're using, he'll most likely be able to reflect your rockets back at you. The best way I've found is to take the fight straight to their face, and show them how close quarters combat is done. Jump right into them, then aim straight down and shoot yourself back up. Swapping to your melee works well too. If they puff you away and start to retreat, pursue with shotgun.
Demoman: Try to jump both you and your Medic past any sticky traps that might be out. Get above the Demo and shell him from above. He'll have a much harder time hitting you airborne, use this to your advantage. For Demoknights, the same general Pyro/Scout strategy will work. Either jump yourself straight up when they get close to you, or hop yourself around and pick them off with a 2ndary.
Heavy: They can be a bit harder to deal with. Try to jump around any fire and get close to him. Depending on how accurate he is, you might want to wait until the Medic's uber is charged, for the extra healing. Otherwise hopping between cover and poking him with rockets works quite well.
Engineer: Depending on what Launcher you use, he could be easy or hard. Using the Cowmangler mean you can't really do shit to Sentries. If trying to push a point that's guarded by a strong Sentry force, switching to a 4shot Launcher will be the way to go. When dealing with battle engies using mini-sentries, try disabling the mini's with a laser shot, or using your 2ndary/melee to get rid of it. Jumping up to take out the Engie first if he's pestering you will make it easier to take him out.
Medic: Take him out first. General TF2 logic. Jump above, rain hell. Standard.
Sniper: Good snipers can reduce your mobility and zone you off certain attack paths. Jumping to usual sniping spots and taking them out can help the team defend/attack much easier. Usually jumping in with your Medic and melee works well, but in general just get right up to them and kick their ass.
Spy: Shouldn't be a problem at all. You'll be jumping around all over the place so Spies will have a hard time getting stabs lined up. Just watch your back and jump your medic in the air so he doesn't get facestabbed or anything.
You are basically chained together as long as he's healing you. Keep this in mind. If you see his health go low, jump your way to a medkits location so he can heal. Try to coordinate as much as you can so you can ensure both the Soldier and the Medic shoot off in the same direction, going in and out of the battle.
General Medic strategy: On top of the Quick-Fix allowing you to rocket jump around with a Soldier, it's Uber allows you to survive hell of a lot easier. The Uber increases the healing done to your heal target, and most importantly, heals YOU. Use it primarily as a self heal. If a Pyro or Scout has snuck up on you, hit the Uber and have the Soldier jump you away. Using your saved rocket should allow you to do this quite easily. Using it while charging into enemies is a great way to keep yourself long enough alive to deal some massive damage as a group and jump out to safety.
NEVER STOP MOVING. I said this early, but this is extremely important. Jump to a fight, jump back out, jump to get healing, jump to capture points, jump to defend points. Stay in the fuckin air.
I'll try to get some replays of my friends and I doing this, and put them in a video to help show what I'm talking about. But for now I thought I'd just share some of the ideas I've discovered while playing it, so you can use them with your own to further evolve the playstyle :D
Read the whole thing, I played this strategy as defence on badwaterwith a direct hit soldier. I recomend using the crossbow+amputator medic set because of the self heal.
good luck getting a medic with reflexes quick enough to crouch jump at every rocket jump, or not getting stuck within the scenary trying to follow the soldier(wich in the long run reduces the soldiers's posibilities).
aka: it requires a vast amount of coordination wich is not imposible to develop(its highly unlikely), but it simply >negates< the medic from the rest of the team.
no matter how much of a good duo you can be, you cant outgun an entire team.
Tried this out with a friend on Badwater the other day. The only possible bad thing is not getting as much air as your Soldier because of not crouching. Fixable by having at least the Soldier use a mic, though. This is possibly the most fun thing in the entire game.
[QUOTE=Metaru;36629593]good luck getting a medic with reflexes quick enough to crouch jump at every rocket jump, or not getting stuck within the scenary trying to follow the soldier(wich in the long run reduces the soldiers's posibilities).
aka: it requires a vast amount of coordination wich is not imposible to develop(its highly unlikely), but it simply >negates< the medic from the rest of the team.
no matter how much of a good duo you can be, you cant outgun an entire team.[/QUOTE]
The Medic doesn't need to crouch jump, only the Soldier. The Medic's momentum is entirely based off the Soldier's when he jumps. So if you do a really high/far rocket jump the only thing the Medic needs to do is be heading the same direction the Soldier is before he rocket jumps.
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