Attacking B
Coming from C is particularly good when the enemy team has a sentry on the ramp, which is a very cookie cutter position [Shown below].
The benefits of coming from C opposed to other routes I will now discuss. Coming from the right side of B spawn is of course suicide, you won’t be able to get out of the tunnel until the sentry has been destroyed. Coming from the left of B spawn or from the A-B connector is a more viable option, but you are still fighting against a team who has high ground (soldier on the roof, the house just by the connector [the left house in screenshot below]). Your visibility is also rather restricted coming this way: the wooden palisades and the house narrow down your view considerably.
With these things factored in, coming from C seems like the best option a lot of the time. When coming in from C though, it is important not to rush in, if you aren’t sure where the sentry is don’t be caught off guard and come rushing in to meet a sentry behind the house, placed towards C or anywhere else unexpected. Check out the video below as an example of what may be the unexpected (This same sentry spot was used by Dignitas in their UKESA game vs Crack Clan):
You have two entrances to choose from coming from C: the left and the right, always be aware for cleverly placed sticky traps exiting either of these doors. If the sentry is placed behind the house going left is going to be useless until it is taken down.
Going right you can get on the roof quickly, this is a viable option, but is highly dependent on the enemy team not spotting you until you have got up there. If it is timed right, when the rest of your team is pushing in, it is possible to get up on the roof without the enemy team noticing or being able to react to it in time to stop you. When up on the roof you have a lot of options, don’t underestimate how much damage you can do from up there. Soldiers will find it difficult to deal with you; even if they jump you can knock them down again a lot of the time. Not only the damage but the pressure you create from up on the roof combined with your heavy classes pushing should overwhelm the enemy quickly. The demoman will most likely be the most able class to deal damage to you up on the roof throwing sticky bombs up there, or even hitting you with a nade... >.<
Most teams have their entire team behind the house, coming from the right means you will face less spam, which can be useful depending on what you are doing.
Coming from the left C entrance means you will get spotted right away by their team behind the house, but this doesn’t matter and is actually desirable if we are playing it right. Our positioning up on the left with our team pressuring around the rock area means we have tactical and psychological advantage over the enemy team: our positioning means their weak players can’t fall back towards us without risking being picked off by us. Also being pushed from two sides like this creates a lot of stress and can panic teams which can cause them to make bad decisions, having to pay attention to the front and back at the same time will inevitably lead to looking the wrong way at some point.
Attacking C
OK, so attacking C gives us five ways of entering the point area. If it is played right, with good decision making and timing, I think this area can really be a nice arena to play in as a scout.
There are many height levels; there is the ground, the first level where most of the entrances are at, the second level coming up to the point and the point itself. What is special about this area opposed to many areas is that the players up top aren’t always at the advantage. The area lends a lot of cover, like the two walkways which extend to the first level of the tower, which means we aren’t at the mercy of soldiers above us firing rockets down at us.
You can use your speed and double jump to really enjoy a high level of survivability; all the while you should be trying to deal large amounts of damage and confuse the enemy team by “disappearing” with some clever movement and jumps.
If you are walking up to the point, and you come across a heavy or a demo in your face, you can easily just get a shot off as you jump off. For other classes jumping off the point means taking much longer, or taking damage from sticky/rocket jumps to get back up. This is not the case for us scouts, so use it to your advantage and disappear if a healthy soldier is in your face, and look for someone with low health or someone who hasn’t seen you and is vulnerable to a full shot in the back.
I can’t emphasise enough that you need to stay alive when attacking this point. As a scout you are one of the most important classes when attacking C because of your double jump and x2 when capping the point. Like I have said, you really don’t want to be rushing heavy classes and getting yourself into trouble, just play it safe and stay alive until a good opportunity arises e.g. your team calls a weak player who has fallen down.
It is quite common to run a sniper when attacking C, particularly when the enemy team is running a heavy. If the sniper is taking the place of one of you scouts then it can be a nice option to sit round a corner behind the sniper and wait, there is a high probability the enemy team will send one of their scouts to kill the sniper, so you can be ready to surprise and take out the scout who rushed your sniper.
The timing of your entrance into this point can be one of two ways. Your two scouts can go in ahead of the team, cause a distraction so the rest of the team can uber in when the enemy is “looking the other way.” If you are going in first like this then it is best to go in a different way from the main team so as many players as possible won’t notice the uber until as late as possible.
The other way to time your entrance is the complete opposite. Enter the point area after the main team has ubered in, so you can get in undetected and pick off any players who are weak or have fallen off the point. It is quite common for the enemy team to run a sniper who will sit by the spawn; this may be a good opportunity to rush him also. When doing this type of attack, the bottom entrance [video below] is going to be your friend. If the enemy team isn’t allocating the resources to cover this area (it can be quite hard to spot because of the walkway just above this exit) you can slip in unseen and position yourself somewhere unexpected.
I hope some of you scouts out there will find this useful. Hopefully it will have given you some new ideas, and make you think about your game.
Feel free to leave comments and feedback, if I get a good response and feel like people found this useful then I will continue posting about all things scout.
Also special thanks to Player Thirty-Two, Renegade26 and Scary for their help with this post.
Peace,
nub
