Hello there!
To start off, I am assuming you already have a basic grasp on rocketjumping and trolldiering.

If things like walljumps, pogos, and at least the general knowledge of b-hops and such are new concepts to you, know that this guide is not made to teach common jumping techniques.

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This guide is divided into:
1. The three base rules (that I believe are the foundation of winning trolldier 1v1s)
2. Jumps (specific kinds / general advised form of jumping)
3. Adjusting to your opponent and prediction
4. Credits + Closing statements

Before you start, I want you to know that you don't have to go through all of this in one sitting, this guide is not here to make you sit around and do nothing but read anyway. Boot up TF2 and go out there to practice stuff!
(little by little, don´t try to do everything at once, think of the Bruce Lee kick quote).

No point in learning all this theory only to never apply it right?

Oh and one very last thing to remember:
Have fun!
Since that´s what all of this is for :D

You´d be surprised to see how many people like to bet that the enemy trolldier will miss during fights which results in them not doing anything and dying;

Make sure to never find yourself in his melee range when he´s ready to swing.

All it can take is one second of not paying attention to what the other guy is doing- and BAM!
There goes your 195 HP.

Those 4 rockets in your clip are everything; your ability to move around the map, to avoid gardens and to garden yourself.

You usually want to use the last rocket in your clip for one of two things:

1. Avoiding a garden (and ideally jumping in a way that allows you to load one in before you hit the ground).
   
   
2. Going for a garden when you know the enemy trolldier has no rockets left and won´t reload to jump away in time.

If you ever find yourself in a situation where you are out of rockets and are about to get gardened, the only thing that can help you now is basic WASD movement.

There are two ways of avoiding gardens with regular movement:

1. Backing away to stay out of melee range.
   
   
2. Moving torwards to make them fall right on top of you.
   (Reccommended method, since it´s safer when your opponent can bhop)

You really have to get an eye for where the opponent is likely to land by getting some experience with trolldiers to know what´s the best course of action. It´ll come naturally over time, no worries.


Here´s a video of the second method:

Notice how I move in the same direction as he´s strafing, and just when he is about to land next to me- I strafe in the opposite direction, getting under him and denying the garden.


Here´s how it looks from the attacking POV:

Same deal here, just with different directions.

Even though this guide may be about fighting trolldiers, this part applies to trolldiering in general!

How do you land gardens more consistently against experienced and vigilant players?
- Is a question you might have asked yourself.

Basically, even if we assume you jump well enough to land in their melee range, their position will most definitely change. Based on the way you jump- they will adjust their movement to avoid you completely (like moving forwards to get under and behind you, for example).
However they need time to actually react to the way you jump to make the right movements.

"Effective Gardening™" is hitting them before they can react properly or fooling them into moving in a predictable way.



To give them as little time as possible, what you can use is horizontal speed.

And there´s no better way of getting it then by using a wall to fling yourself at them as fast as you can by aiming a bit higher then you would usually aim.


See video:

Notice how I barely get any height.
Whenever I do get high enough to land on someone (like with the spy), I tap S to slow down a bit and hit the side of his hitbox.

But the main thing to look at is the last jump where I garden the soldier:
Notice how I aim my rockets higher than you would normally do, trying to get the maximum horizontal speed and getting at least enough height to make it to him.
And mainly going straight to him without airstrafing.

When executed right, you will most definitely catch some players off guard and get a pretty easy garden on them.

NOTE:

• This also works especially well when you have the high ground- if you just aim even higher on the wall and go for someone below you, gravity will do it´s thing and you´ll get to your target insanely fast.
  
  
• Watch out for projectile firing classes like soldier and demo- you´ll be very easy to airshot when jumping straight at them.

Often times you can find yourself standing a bit too close to your target to garden them normally.
You don´t wanna jump high when they are this close, but you don´t have any walls nearby to use.
No worries! With some minor adjustments to your regular rocket-jump input, you can do a small "hop" towards the target.


See video:

Slow down the playback speed of the video, try to pay attention to the order of things I do.
Got all that down? No? Alright, here´s everything summarised in a list:

1. Just press jump. You can crouch-jump but it isn´t necessary.
   
2. Flick your aim directly away from where you want to go.
   
3. Shoot* (by the time you get here there should be a slight delay between jumping and shooting)
   
4. Profit

*Be sure to aim a little bit further away from yourself when you shoot, if you jump in a way where you have enough time to swing and also cannot land on top of them- that´s when you are doing it right.



This is what I meant when I said "fooling them into moving in a predictable way".
Obstructions such as plain walls you can jump over or corners you can jump around let you:

• Get closer to the enemy without him being able to shoot or even just notice you.
  
• Bait people to follow you or punish those that try to chase
  you down to move in an easy-to-garden manner.

NOTE:

• Watch out for players that are familiar with this trick, they could easily make it seem like they are following you, only to stand waiting around the corner expecting you to show up.

See video:

Low health and there´s a scout coming right after you.
You could go for the health kit, but you won´t have any rockets left to get you out quickly.

This is an ideal situation to surprise him with a garden:

The scout is going to run in, feeling confident, all he needs to do is finish you off. Meaning he´s not going to do anything special with his movement, he´ll be expecting you to keep running. Giving you an easily predictable target to garden.



So you know how everyone says that you shouldn´t hold W while strafing?
That there´s no practical use for it, since you can´t strafe by doing it right?


This is a trajectory of a regular A/D strafe.
You simply move in the direction you´re facing mid-strafe.
(The arrows on the images point to where you would be looking at that spot during the strafe.)









Achieved by simply holding W alongside A/D and having the right mouse movement.
Using this you can keep your sight at what you are jumping around, due to the nature of the strafe pulling you sideways.

This helps you keep track of what your enemy is doing, how he´s moving- so you can time your swing appropriately. Instead of turning your back to your target, like you would with a regular strafe.

This is a lot more of a niche tech, but it does provide utility in small jumps while fighting melee-using opponents.


See video:

See the direction im moving in mid-strafe? It's going to the side- that's how drift strafes look like. It might be hard to spot the difference right away, but as you practice it yourself, you will "feel" the difference.

Even though this falls under "Effective Gardening"
I'm giving this jump tech it's own section, because its a game-changer.

So it's a short-hop! You press spacebar yes? WRONG

HOW do you pull it off?

1. Press crouch
2. Immediately follow up with shooting a rocket
3. That's it lol

WHEN do you use it?

• Pretty much anytime somebody is in close range, especially useful against melee users.
  
• The tricky part is aiming the rocket just right, if you want to stay in place aim a bit more forward, if you want to move fast horizontally- flick straight down or behind you.

WHY should I use it?

• When done correctly, this is THE FASTEST way of getting a garden period. No other jump can let you go from shooting a rocket and swinging (and landing the hit) this fast.
  
• Feels slick asf to pull off.

HOWEVER:

• Hitreg isn't reliable, its more common to not register hits because...
  
• It's latency dependant. Meaning that depending on your ping, it could be easier/harder to garden with or just straight up impossible. (Test it out a few times and see for yourself)
  
• You can also guarantee a miss when "overshooting" the distance you need to get to someone. If you get close (bump into them) with a high-horizontal speed trickhop and are still unable to immediately swing- it won't work.
  
• Sometimes, a regular shorthop will work better thanks to the extended airtime it has, watch how your opponent moves and experiment with what works.

See video:

In the second clip I close the gap with a bhop too, I recommend chaining bhops with it, if you aren't in range just yet since it's faster than rocketjumping again.

Alright now, I want you to get this straight:

This IS NOT an example of a "jump technique" that I want you to use.
This is something you should NOT DO.


WHAT is a second-jump?
It´s when you directly violate the 1. rule by jumping at the enemy trolldier while he´s in mid air.

Now what does that mean exactly?
Well simply put:
The first person to jump is also the first to swing.
Which means if you jump right after your opponent does and reach his melee range- it puts you at a massive risk of getting gardened.

And even if you do happen to swing first, you´ll still be at the mercy of TF2´s hitreg. It´s better to fail a garden and live as opposed to getting hit immediately after.

See video:

Here it´s very clear that the BLU trolldier jumps just a little bit later than I do, which results in me getting to swing sooner than him. Even when the difference is that short, it makes a huge impact if there isn´t enough distance for both of us to pull out the shovel in time.


Oh and also about that hitreg I mentioned:

This jump is the practical equivalent of all the rules.
Ammo efficient, reliable and safe when done right.

HOW do you pull it off?
You simply rocket-jump straight up, to garden around the spot you were standing on.

WHEN do you use it?
When an enemy trolldier is in mid-air, heading for you and he´s:

• Far enough for you to rocket-jump in time.
  
• Isn't too high, so you can rocket-jump above him when he gets close safely.

And I especially recommend using this when the enemy trolldier is using his last rocket in his clip to jump at you- leaving him completely defenceless once he lands.

WHY should I use it?

• When done correctly, this is a very reliable way of gardening experienced trolldiers.
  
• You save up on rockets, because you both dodge and garden with a single jump.
  
• Feels very cool to pull off.

HOWEVER:

• The ideal form is jumping high enough to be just barely out of reach, if you jump higher than is necessary, you give your enemy time to jump away.
  
• If you don´t avoid his melee range when you attempt this, you basically do a second-jump.
  
• If you avoid his melee range but jump too high / away from him, you just dodge his garden, potentially putting yourself in a disadvantageous position.

See videos:

The name is pretty self-explanatory;
Out-&-in-jumping is simply jumping away from the opponent as he is about to land a garden and then right back.

HOW do you pull it off?
Any kind of jumps that:

1. Avoid a garden with the first rocket.
   
2. And let you jump again quicker than your opponent and reach him.

WHEN do you use it?

• If you have 3 or more rockets in your clip, and you just want to safely avoid a garden. (Especially when a counter-jump isn´t safe to try.)
  
• If you want to mix things up when your opponent is expecting you to counter-jump.

When it comes to this jump. It´s pretty flexible with how you can execute it. For example you can use a wall for your second rocket.


See video:

So the groundwork on how to counter enemy trolldiers thus far is simple-
Out-&-in: when the enemy trolldier is jumping with a big height difference
Counter-jump: when the enemy trolldier is jumping with a lower height difference

But what if I told you, you can (relatively) safely garden high-jumping players, with a SINGLE rocket...

Introducing:
It might look like you are just second-jumping. What makes it different is that you are trying to have them land right on top of you- cancelling their garden AND throwing off their swing timing.

See video:

Counter-jumps do have variety in terms of height, meaning this may be difficult to gauge and sometimes isn't optimal, if your opponent gets very little height with his counter-jump. However, given enough height (which counter-jumps need if they want to be done safely)- even counter-jumps can be outplayed easily:

1. You jump at the enemy trolldier, aiming for a lower vertical height than his counter-jump + you strafe away, landing nearby (but still outside of his reach).
   
   
2. As he´s falling down- you jump again. Timing it in a way, where you get into melee range just as he lands- making him unable to hit you or jump away in time.

See video:

Every player is different.
Not just in general skill level, but in habits and specific playstyles.
And each habit (which becomes a predictable pattern) can turn into an exploitable weakness.

You can´t win every fight by using one jump.
Instead, observe your enemy and find those habits, and use them to your advantage by utilising the right jumps for that specific player.

Often, there are rock-paper-scissors styled situations...

Trolldier A and Trolldier B fight:

/// Scenario 1a ///
A: attacks: jumps low and fast to garden
B: counters: counterjumps high enough to avoid, but close enough to not let him jump away

/// Scenario 1b ///
A: attacks: jumps low and fast to garden
B: counters: counterjumps
A: counters: strafes away, due to predicting counterjump, and shorthop in when landing sooner than trolldier B

/// Scenario 2 ///
A: attacks: jumps low and fast to garden (but with a bhop at the end)
B: counters: counterjumps higher (if he cant hold the bhop for long), or out-&-in using a wall timed to when he ends the bhop

/// Scenario 2b ///
A: attacks: jumps low and fast to garden
B: counters: counterjumps higher
A: counters: strafes away, due to predicting counterjump, going for shorthop immidiately after
B: counters: wallshots straight into the trolldier, landing a swing faster than A shorthops

What you are fighting is another thinking player. He too might look for patterns, he too might be able to adapt mid-fight to counter you. Try to keep track of what YOU do too:

What kinds of jumps did you do to land gardens on him?

What kind of strafing are you used to?

What kinds of jumps do you frequently use?


By making him try to work around your playstyle and habits. Suddenly changing the things he´s gotten used to predicting can throw him off- giving you the edge.

This section are honestly just arbitrary rules I made up to make trolldier fights feel a little more "fair" so to speak. All of this is just my personal opinion.

You can just ignore this if you don´t agree. It´s really not a big deal.

1. Killbind after getting gardened. - It´s the only thing that bugs me personally; I don´t like having to garden some guy 3 times only for him to get me once and I end up being the one who actually dies.
   
   
2. No guns! - I suppose you could bring a shotgun to finish off someone that doesn´t follow the guideline above though. >:)
   
   
3. Getting hit while retreating is fair game. - If you run out of ammo or health due to fall damage, that´s kind of a you problem. The other guy has the right to hit you even when you are going for a health pack, but it does go both ways.
   
   
4. No non-crit shovel hits. - Trolldier duels are about landing gardens. Finishing off gardened trolldiers, just like with shotguns is alright though.

Huge thanks to:

ItsYaBoiNexo
malum
Doobie
McK4y
Void Seeker
PolkaPushka
unusualszz

- for helping out with the recording!
This guide wouldn´t be here without your help, thank you!

And thank you, the reader, for taking your precious time to read through this dumb TF2 guide.

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This guide is not perfect, neither do I consider myself to be a "pro trolldier" or something like that, everyone can have something new to learn so please don´t go treating this guide as gospel.

If you see anything you don´t agree with or you think I forgot to add something:

DM me here on Steam or add me on Discord (mikall_) and we can chat there. 👍
Constructive criticism is appreciated :)