Fish #641

The Story
Me and Cpt. Dude (among others) were playing on 2fort and came up with a great strategy. I was medic'ing him, and as you guys should know, he's one of the best heavies out there. Since he doesn't like to retreat and I can't heal everyone at once, we decided to use the high player count to our advantage. We ubered through the courtyard and up to the spawn, killing the SG('s). We had the rest of the attacking team to run and get the intel (I believe it was between 1-4, but usually like 2 or 3) while we pressured their spawn. I avoided fire and CD held them down and killed them while our team got the intel. And again. And again for the win.

What you need:
A good heavy
A good medic
High player count

Why this worked:
The heavy can take a lot of damage and output it at a good rate. When he fires at a low-mid distance, he can hit his mark a lot. A soldier or demoman has to reload, and the pyro simply doesn't have enough health. From that spot, the heavy can cover 2 of the 3 spawns (the third being downstairs), and it is much harder for spies to sneak behind them (though admittedly, Spade did manage to pull it off and kill me right before we got the third cap). With a higher player count, your teammates (read: intel runners) have a good chance to not die on the way down. Also, the heavy will be killing a lot more enemies, giving him ammo and improving his crit chance for when they inevitably mob. This being said, you're going to want a medic that is good at avoiding damage and a heavy that seriously knows what he's doing. Top of my head, ROCKS would be another good guy to try this with.


This dedicated to ROCKS for wanting more tactical discussions.

TheFeniX

Now, possible counters: discuss.

You already hit on the spy working his way around behind the medic. What other courses could be taken?

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neoviper

I play a pretty decent heavy, but not quite that good.

Now let me see, counters. Demomen seem to me to be the best, either that or another heavy med, might work better if there was a heavy med to distract them, and other people got the medic while he was working down the heavy. The main thing that kills me when i'm heavy is just too many people to shoot at once, this would make him pick between 3 targets and hopefully while killing one of them die to the others. So my decision is heavy medic, and a demoman to finish him off.

Spy would also be a very good choice, but again would need a distraction of some kind, even just the heavy killing a scout might be enough. in that particular situation though, stabbing the heavy is just as effective as stabbing the medic for getting your team out of spawn, and here he would probably be watching the door for people to shoot.

MagnaCentipede

Spy doesn't do anything in this situation but die. Demo can do it if the angles are right, same for soldier. At range a sniper can probably hit the medic. Everyone else can leave the server becuase they lose for choosing fail class. Noobs.

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Chewy

lol... you're just no fun!

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Fish #641

I know that my description probably doesn't do the situation justice, so I'll try to discuss every point that I can.
Demomen- We weren't right up to the door, which means that the stickies won't do much. CD is a really good heavy, so he could kill him before the demomen could get 2 consecutive shots off.
Heavy/Medic- This seems like a good counter, and it really comes down to if my heavy can kill his heavy first.
Spy- How I believe Spade killed me, I'm not certain, but I think that he spawned in the battlements point, went over to the other side, cloaked, snuck around the stream of bullets, went into the room with the dropdown, uncloaked, and killed me. It was much better of a manuever than I expected, and my spy-dar wasn't alert to it.
Sniper- Simply not enough range. Unless they spawned downstairs, avoided our intel running SWAT team, went up the straight staircase, and sniped the medic, I really doubt it would have been effective. Plus we would've had a cap and a half before they executed it.
Overall- I really think what helped us is the confusion. When everyone's dieing one by one, you don't really have time to formulate a plan unless someone really takes charge. Even when that happens, it buys enough time for the team to get a cap and the HMC a few points for their effort.

SpadeTF2

The counter is good communication. If you can set up a diversion, especially with the help of a spy, you can easily take out a heavy/medic combo of any calibur. In fish's situation, Capt.Dude was fighting with someone else and I was able to split in between them, and pick fish off. In that instance, I got pretty lucky though. Fish knows me pretty well, and can spot me better then others. Capt.dude is always on the look out and that makes him a real hard target.

If two players can organize a distraction, that's the best tactic. Distract the heavy, and the spy picks him off. Or in my case, I atleast got the medic.

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I can eat a rubix cube and poop it solved.

neoviper

that seems to be about the only counter as far as the ease to complete it. When I said demoman though, I didn't mean shooting a whole bunch of stickies, I mean putting enough down so that either the heavy has to move back a bit, or if he stands there firing getting killed.

Donagel

How about a breakout rush of 2-3 scouts The goal would be to get past the heavy, and then rush back in like a swarm while their respawning teammates break out. Scout massacre perhaps, but demos would get close enough to sticky , snipers would have enough time to charge up the one shot and spies could slip out.

Then again, the scout is quickly becomming my solution for everything.

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"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." - H. L. Mencken

MagnaCentipede

...especially Level 3 turrets which love to eat bat.

:eyeroll:

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Fish #641

Which is why this is such a good tactic in normal play, even on the TG server. You would have to have really good com in order to beat this in time to stop even one cap. In matches, this may work, but otherwise you can bet on getting the intel to at least your side of the bridge.
The thing about stickies is that heavies (especially good ones) are great at pushing stickies away.
Scouts can be easily slaughtered at short range by heavies (especially good ones), and even if they can get 1 by, the medic should be decent enough to avoid a shot before that scouts goes bye-bye.
As for snipers, I think it would be reasonable to charge up to 100%, then have someone open the door for you to take a headshot. You would have to be a good sniper and be lucky enough to not be hit, but I think that's a viable solution.

neoviper

probably the best thing is to not let the heavy get into this position in the first place, most of the time there is at least one sentry either in the stair room, or outside the spawn. all that would be needed was the engy there watching his sentry, and someone else to shoot the heavy if he tried to shoot the turret around the edge, and it would at the least delay them so much that someone could intervene.

ROCKS

Very few Heavies have the situational awareness and reaction time to hold a spawn with the help of one med for very long. Capt Dude IS the best heavy in the game hands down, I have Med up with him a few times and he is hela-good. Whether us mortal Heavies could pull that off is another question.

Firstly its all about doing a good mopup job before your uber runs out. That means getting up those stairs while spinning and clearing out the sentry and straglers in time to set up in front of the spawn, ready to take out anyone who runs out.

A good demoman will litter that outside with stickies by popping in and out and will eventually get enough under you to take you out if, like NEOVIPER said, you dont pull back, thus making your gun less lethal. And pushing away stickies takes a LOT of ammo and takes your eye of the prize. It takes about 1.5 secs of concentrated fire to move just one of those buggers.

Then there is the situation in the intel room. Engies? Sentries? how many? You need a second plan for that too. Sap them while a scout makes a break? Take them out with another Uber? I think you have less than a minute before the heavy gets overwhelmed.

How about 2 heavy medics outside the spawn? Thats 4 people, leaving 2 engies for D, 1 spy and 3 to attack the Intel.

Its still worth a try though. The worst that can happen is it doesnt work at that point in time. Its a good surprise tactic. Definitely the team will need one more uber in the intel room though (pyro to clear the room of sentries)

neoviper

like you said, its worth a shot, if it doesn't work, they will definitely not be able to push to your flag room before both heavies and medics are spawned, and would likely result in a cap by your team.

Fish #641

Few engi's (especially in big games where they want to get points) put sg's in the intel room, though that is a potential problem. I would say that you're good enough to do it ROCKS. And with all of the people rushing out one at a time, your ammo won't be running out quickly. What happened with us was a best-case scenerio, but as Neoviper said, the sheer destruction is enough to buy your team some time.