Be Right Back, Uninstalling

In an attempt to appease Rummy and follow-through on my promise to write-up some idea of strats, I've inadvertently used a Lvl5 Wall of Yomanz. Sorry about that. :-[ Even with substitutes, we only managed a 5v5 on Granary at best, for the most part though it was 4v4, so it's very hard to pull actual examples from our matchup of what does and doesn't work in cereals granary business. Speaking of which, let's get down to business.

First off, the flavor of Granary you're playing makes a bit of a difference in the opening. There's Pro_Granary and there's Cp_Granary. If you hadn't already guessed, Pro_Granary is what is used in many tourney leagues; it's for pros . The only difference, if I recall correctly, is that the starting gates and setup timer are removed. In regular Granary, you've got enough time to build an uber, so your medic's uber is all-but guaranteed. In Pro_Granary, there is gates, This makes a big difference in the opening dynamic of the round. In comp play, you typically see scouts hitting the point first, with demos and soldiers coming in a literally just seconds afterwards (sticky and rocket jumps EVERYWHERE to help build ubers and get on the point point point faster).

In general, your scouts DO NOT fight to the death, unless one gets a few good hits in while the other completely botches his roll, in which case the crap-scout will be hunted down with prejudice. Scouts are for picking off people asleep on the ball and killing/aggro'ing medics. An aggro'd medic pops his uber-cherry, but unlike real-life, the first to pop their's doesn't win, they lose, as the enemy will undoubtedly have their own uber waiting for you when you're done. You'll want your medic to hold his uber as long as he can, but not so long that your team is dead. If you're a lone medic with an uber, you fail at life, just kill yourself.

After much bloodshed - shame on you if you let your medic die - one team will emerge victorious and take the first point. Now, if they're slow enough, the losing team (we'll call them blu b/c I love red and I never lose) might put up a half-hearted defense at the second point. You've gotta play it smart though, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. In *particular* your medic must hang back and get his uber on. Nothing will save you from getting rolled but a counter uber. So hopefully you managed to aggro the enemy's medic at the middle point, otherwise you're pretty much boned. :|

Gawd I'm tired. Fuck writing strats, I'm too tired. I'm just gonna throw a summation up, I don't feel like writing too much more.

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In Summation:

I cannot stress enough the importance of a medic. The medic is the backbone of the team, you won't be going anywhere without him. That being said, a mistake you see a lot of - especially in Granary - is a failure to protect the medic. You can't push through any point on Granary without one, so don't leave your medic behind!

It's probably best to decide beforehand who's sticking with your medic in the event that everyone else gets away (scouts running away, soldiers rocket-jumping away, etc etc etc). Furthermore, your priority target numero uno is the enemy medic. Once he's down, your enemy's crippled. They can either stay and defend (and die assuming you use your medic right), or flee, giving up a point capture.

Furthermore, unlike in pubs, you cannot be the goddamn batman, nor can you rambo a fucking win yourself. Never go anywhere without the rest of your team, ESPECIALLY if you know the entire enemy team is going to be on the other side of the doors waiting for you.

And lastly, in a 5 point CP map, you shouldn't give a damn about any point but your last. Watching a lot of competitive matches, it's VERY possible to defend your last point and push back out from there, as coming into the 2nd point is pretty nasty from the attackers standpoint.

Hopefully other people who played the other day will add something to my rambling.

As an afterthought: probably none of you will watch this, and you'll probably think I'm lame for actually watching them, but here's the pwnage.tv shoutcast for Pandemic vs 4Kings on Granary and other maps, two of the best teams out there right now for TF2. Hopefully watching this you can get at least an idea of what I was trying to talk about.

even though i said we need ths
teal dear.

We should get more people to practice, because we didn't really get to do that.

Also, FUCK YEAH! Medics!

I'll add comments after watching oyu stupid video

I really question the value of engineers on this map. I'm watching the vid, and I haven't seen one yet. With how fast the cps can change, a sentry quickly gets left behind, and with progressive spawns the teleporter entrance is quickly obsolete.

EDIT: Duck must like this vid cause his comments seem straight out of this match.  Also, crazymutherfucking rocket and pipe jumps.

I suppose having one dedicated Engy on the last point can be a boon, as long as they don't forget to keep spy-checking and all that, and by the time you hit the fourth point you want a tele, 'cause that's a lot of walking. But having more than one is completely useless, agreed.

I only watched the first 10 minutes or so, but I couldn't help but notice it's all Soldier, Medic, Demo and Scout.  Not a single other class to be seen.  Is this just because of the play on Granary, or is this pretty common across all "pro" play?

I imagine just Granary, as pretty much that's all you need on that map to do well.  Hence why I don't really favor it, even though the other classes have it's uses on that map.

height and mobility are key in pro dustbowl, solderi demo and scout are the best for this.

Soldier, Demo, Scout, and Medic are the key classes to any pro team. You'll never see a team without them. That being said, instead of duel scouts and duel soldiers, depending on the map you may see heavies, snipers, engies, spies, and (rarely) pyros in play. Though for Granary, soldiers, scouts, medics, demos, and MAYBE a heavy are the most common way to go. You only ever see engies on A/D maps like gravelpit, and even then it's the engy or the heavy, not both. Furthermore, I question the use of an engy EVER on granary, as only the heavy has a long ways to walk (anyone can rocket/sticky jump back in ~10 secs while ubers are building).

So in short: Yea, with Granary, it's usually going to be soldiers, scouts, demos, and medics. You MIGHT see a heavy, but that's a rarity. Also, interesting tidbit for you all (though none of you probably care): American/Canadian teams rarely run a heavy on all maps, however with European teams, a heavy is much more the norm. I'm not sure why the play-style is so different, but it might be because European teams stick closer together than their American counterparts. With a heavy, unlike other classes he has very little in the way of evasion, even 2 scouts getting the jump on him would spell doom for him; so you'd have to be a damn good heavy to convince your team that they need one.


edit: Yea Rummy, the majority of my comments came straight out of a few Granary matches I've watched, I just didn't really feel we learned much from our matchup beyond "Buddy System: IT WORKS BITCHES"

edit edit: No, I REALLY don't think an engy would ever work on Granary, even on the last point. The problem is no matter where you put it, the other team can pick it off from range, whether it be by lobbing grenades, rockets, etc etc etc.

(08-01-2008, 10:15 PM)CopulatingDuck link Wrote: [ -> ]With a heavy, unlike other classes he has very little in the way of evasion, even 2 scouts getting the jump on him would spell doom for him; so you'd have to be a damn good heavy to convince your team that they need one.

/glare

(08-01-2008, 10:15 PM)CopulatingDuck link Wrote: [ -> ]I just didn't really feel we learned much from our matchup beyond "Buddy System: IT WORKS BITCHES"

I think this is the hardest conversion to make from pub-play to the next level (I also think it is where we need the most practice, regardless of map). Especially how these top teams hold the middle point and purposely do not rush the 2nd cap.  On granary, it is all about holding the middle cap till you can issue a fatality from there.

Good write-up Duck. +1 for you.

On Granary, I noticed the importance of taking height when playing as soldier, demoman and even scout. Mastering rocket and pipe bomb jumps seems essential as the soldiers and demomen should arrive at the same time as the medic, short after the scouts.

After watching this video, I'd say we would need more practice. We have to learn to enter a room at the same time and using our class abilities as well as possible.

Strategies I found are very basic strategies: Divide and conquer, go for the weak first and hit and runs. By adding flanking to that using rocket/pipe bomb jumps and speed, a team gets the upper hand easily.
The medic also has a very important role of surviving, but that is true for every class: there is no use of going for a sacrifice. You are more useful with 1 life than waiting to respawn as you can, at least, distract the ennemy, when you are not shooting at them.

I only saw engineers in the second match, on gravelpit, in only one team, when they were defending. Same for sniper, but it was used in offence instead, especially against a heavy.

There was no pyro, which would maybe be used an a 7th player... nor was there a spy...

Finally, I saw a great use of übercharge when they used it on one soldier/demoman at a time as they are jumping on higher grounds so they don't take self dammage, and they get invulnerability for some time.

(08-01-2008, 04:49 PM)rumsfald link Wrote: [ -> ]Also, crazymutherfucking rocket and pipe jumps.

(08-01-2008, 01:24 PM)CopulatingDuck link Wrote: [ -> ]Lvl5 Wall of Yomanz.

: : :

Anywho, i suppose i do appreciate this strat. I've never done well at granary and i could never find a class that works really well. Maybe now if i ever get stuck playing on that map i'll at least be able to help my team a little more than i used to.