Cheerio all,

since contributing to a community works best through sharing your thoughts, I decided to start off my participation with a little guideline. Since the class reviews are obviously dominated by the people of TG, here it comes: my 2 cents about dodging.

Dodging is one of the most important parts of the game. Because dodging means less hits equals more health equals longer time not dead equals more use for your team. So, how does it work? Mainly by being not where the bullets, rockets, grenades and stuff are. Well, that sounds pretty easy, right? Unfortunately (or not) we are facing thinking players out there, so it all becomes a little more complicated.

A very common way of dodging bullets is the (I'd like to refer to as) Z-running. Which means mostly strafing. I think, this is the worst way to do it.
Why is that? Your movement becomes very obvious. As a sniper, I made the experience that it's pretty much useless trying to stay on target. Most sucessful way was to aim straight and just wait for the head to cross your, well, cross. *click* Dead. And people come back. You be sure about that.
For me being on the other side of the barrel it was quite the same. Trying to strafe simply does not work. For me. I don't know, if the people aiming at me lack the mental quickness to realise, that a demoman should aim in front of his target in order to hit it or if it's just me not moving fast enough, I got hit anyways.

Then there was this game where I made a scout killing streak of 7 or 8. How did I do this? With double-jumping. I mostly crossed my enemies over their heads while aiming down. I barely got hit while going that way. So I wondered, wouldn't it be more useful to dodge upwards?

So, basically, my 2 cents are: People, dont strafe, but duck or jump.

Another point about moving up and down instead left and right is this: as stated in the weapons damage thread, there are no differences in getting hit in the torso, legs, arms etc. Snipers excluded.
So, if one aims straight at one point, and this point is your torso, moving left or right takes some time to get you out of the line of fire. Now, if you duck, your head might get in the center, BUT you can get it out much quicker since the hitbox for the head might be half of your torso. So the possibility of not being hit is quite high. Or at least higher then with your torso in the line. And the risk of getting extra damage is zero. Snipers again excluded, but if hes aiming for your head by ducking you get out of aim for sure.

Pretty much the same goes for your legs while jumping. I guess, the hitboxes for your legs should be two different things and not just one. So again: less of you to hit for him.

But the most successful part of dodging is by breaking line of sight. Obviously. Unfortunately, you loose your aim too. But as scout/sniper vs. heavy/pyro/demo, this is a very successful tactic. So if you want to stay alive, get cover and try to flank. Another chance to kill is better than waiting for the respawn.

Bottom line: is dodging up and down better than strafing? Free for discussion, thanks for your input.

Cheers,
McQueen


Hint for scouts: Don't double jump down a ramp... *crack* Ouch!