ubercharged.net

Demomen are by far my favourite class. We have a lot in common, too! We both have the same nationality and… Well, I’m sure that’s enough I want to have in common…

Here are five helpful and somewhat unique tips for people wanting to try out the Demoman or even for some people who use him regularly. I’ve tried to use less common ideas, to add a new zing of flavour to your gameplay.

As a Demoman, you need to be able to predict the future

Well, not literally. But read on and you’ll know what I mean.

Because your weapons are subjects to physics (more notably, the grenade launcher), they take longer to reach targets than, say, the sniper rifle. Sometimes, this won’t be a problem; inexperienced players will run at you in a straight line (as a Pyro, probably), making them easy pickings. However, players who know what they’re doing will most likely move around when trying to shoot you so you can’t shoot them back as easily. This mysterious technique is also known as ‘dodging’. How inconsiderate of them, using this unfair technique to avoid getting hit! Have no fear, my friend. The best way to try and hit them is by guessing where they might be heading to. Say your opponent is moving to the right; the sensible thing to do here could be to just shoot a few inches ahead of where they are. By the time your ‘nade gets to where you want it to go, your enemy might be too.

Sometimes you might even be able to trick your opponent. Shooting in one direction then shooting in the opposite direction will make it hard for your enemy to dodge. This will make them try to avoid the first shot, but then get hit by the second!

This isn’t as effective on Scouts, obviously, who can dart around much faster. In that case, it might be best to use stickies to stop them moving so much.

Sometimes, you want your stickies to be obvious.

No, seriously!

Of course, hiding your stickies is good if you want to ambush your enemy – but take this scenario. You’re playing defence on Dustbowl, second stage, second cap. There’s only 60 seconds left in the game and BLU managed to successfully destroy one of your sentries. You need to give your Engie’s time to build another one or else BLU will win the round – but how?

Putting a bed of stickies down on the floor, in clear sight of your opponents, will slow them down from getting anywhere. Sure you might not get as many kills, but you could help your team by holding back the enemy or, more importantly, win the round. Your opponents aren’t going to walk over the stickies and even if they do, as some sort of sacrifice for the team, you can easily put more down. I like to call this technique ‘faffing about’ (not to be confused with being useless). Time is of the essence – try to use up as much of it as you can when playing defensively near the end of games or when trying to hold people back.

Hide stickies well

In contrast with my previous point, here are some tips for when you want to hide your stickies. The best places to put them are usually, the ceiling. What if there is no ceiling? Put them on walls around corners. What if there are no walls? Well, you really shouldn’t be trying to ambush someone in the wide open space.

Ceilings are the best place to put them as they are hard for the Pyro’s compression blast to blow them off without making them land on him. However, most indoor maps I’ve known have high ceilings which make putting stickies on them as useful as a Scout without legs.

Corners are the best place for stickies, because as soon as your opponent comes around it’ll be too late for them. However, don’t plant them on a corner and wait for the whole round, hoping that someone will eventually turn up. That isn’t helping your team very much or yourself. Back to the first tip; if you know someone is going to be coming around the corner, for whatever reason, that’s the time to plant them. If you need to wait for more than ten seconds for someone to appear, it’s just not worth the bother.

You have the ability to split up ubers in some cases

Putting a few stickies between the Medic and his paitent can sometimes send them flying a part. It’s best to do this, obviously, when they can’t see you. And if in the situation that they do, you can at least waste time and stop them from getting to your team’s sentries or other objectives. If the uber can’t be split apart, it can be knocked back. This can also be done with a Soldier’s rockets, but it’s much harder to do in my opinion (then again, I don’t play with Soldiers a lot anyway).

Spread your stickies out

All the time I see Demomen putting four or five stickies on the exact same spot on top of one and other. This makes them easier to avoid. Spreading your stickies out limits your enemies’ movements. Never underestimate the blast radius of your stickies.

I hope these tips will help you in games, or at least get you thinking on your own unique tactics. That’s all for now!

More demo love from first time ubercharger Pyrit. Welcome on board – madlep