This Guide is going to (eventually) talk about the three most important parts of being a Soldier:

• What weapons you have, and how to use them
  
• How to deal with every other class in the game (Including other Soldiers)
  
• What tactics you can use to be more effective.

In addition, this guide will also tell you about specific weapon loadouts that can be effectively used with great results. (Work in Progress)

This guide is not for other competitive players. It is for people who are either new to the game or are looking to get better at Soldier but do not know how.

My single goal in this guide is simply to help other players get better at being a Soldier, and learn more about the class as a whole. Whether I help only 10 people, or 10,000, I will be happy.

Weapons will not be judged based on their absolute best potential. Every weapon on this list has its shining moment of glory. Instead, weapons are judged based on their average or overall usefulness, as you can be fairly certain you will not be consistantly running into "The Perfect Setup" for your weapons to be at their peak.

The Soldier, like the other classes of TF2, has a variety of weapons in his arsenal. He is a hard hitting powerhouse, capable of easily wiping the floor with any other class if used correctly. He moves at 80% of the normal move speed, so you will be getting to the front lines just in front of that fat heavy. However, rocket jumping adds a whole new mobility option, allowing him to beat nearly everyone else (Except maybe the scout) to the front lines in a battle, but not without semi-severe self inflicted damage.
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The Soldier has 200 base HP, which is second only to the heavy. This allows you to take quite a punishment before finally being defeated in a giant brawl. The Soldier is still slow, however, and this
makes him an easy target for snipers and spies. In addition, his projectile weaponry can be deflected by airblasting savvy pyros. Thankfully, there are methods of avoiding or beating these troublesome classes.

It should be noted that all Rocket Launchers (Except the Original) fire rockets at an angle from the character model. This means you can actually shoot around walls on your left side, but you will have to completely go around any walls on your right side to shoot past them.




The base, stock Rocket Launcher for the Soldier. It argueably has the biggest reliable damage output of any Rocket Launcher.

Damage Output:


The Stock Rocket Launcher can load a maximum of 4 rockets at any point in time with 20 spare ammunition, This means if you live long enough to fire off four full rounds of rockets, you are going to be running low on ammo, and will need to either switch to your secondary or retreat and find a restock crate. While this is a close range effective weapon, take care not to fire at your feet too often, doing so will quickly lower your health to dangerous levels, and possibly kill you in the process. The most effective distance to shoot at is approximately 2-3 meters in front of you. This will keep you out of the blast radius as well as still deal what is considered Point Blank Damage.






The Original is a promotional item from Quake, and is, for all intents and purposes, identical to the stock Rocket Launcher. The only notable difference is that using the Original will switch your point of view to a classic FPS version, making it appear in the center of the screen instead of off to the right side. This can make it confusing to fire sometimes, as the rockets will travel straight instead of at an angle like every other launcher. This also means that you can no longer shoot around walls on your left side (As mentioned in the beginning), and you must now fully go around any wall you wish to shoot past.

Pros: If you were great at old FPS games like Doom and Wolfenstein, this will be a great time for you.

Cons: If you sucked at old FPS games, this will be an absolute nightmare to use.

The Black Box has the same damage output as the stock Rocket Launcher, however, it is still much different. The Black Box rewards you by giving you +15 health for each player you hit, regardless of how much damage is actually done to them. This means if you have low health, you can simply fire in the general direction of enemies and hope to get your health back. The major downside, however, is you can only load and fire a maximum of 3 rockets at any point in time. This is a severe disadvantage when facing heavies and other soldiers, as chances are your third and final rocket will not kill them, and they will finish you off while you attempt to reload. The Black Box is most effectively used in crowd situations, where each rocket is going to hit more than one player, effectively healing back more health than you lose. One on one, however, the Black Box will most likely get you killed. (Important Note: You will not gain health for hitting a disguised spy or ubercharged medic. You will gain health for hitting a Bonk! charged scout. The health bonus can also not overheal you.)

Pros: Can restore significant portions of your health while also dealing good amounts of damage.

Cons: Does not have enough rockets to finish off powerful classes and can get you killed while reloading.






The Direct Hit does more damage than the stock Rocket Launcher. However, it also makes it much harder to hit enemies due to a gigantic decrease in splash radius.

The exact damage the Direct Hit does is not documented, however, it does notably more damage than the stock Rocket Launcher, able to 3-shot Heavies and Soldiers instead of the normal 4-shot. The rockets travel 80% faster than normal rockets, reaching their target in well under half the time. This makes it easier to hit targets dead on. However, it also suffers from an 70% decrease in splash damage, making it completely nescessary to hit your target dead on, and not shoot at the ground near them. This is great for Soldiers who have mastered the art of accuracy, but is a suicidal option for beginners that have yet to figure out how to effectively aim their rockets. In addition, any targets hit with the Direct Hit while airborne will be mini-critted, resulting in either death or severe loss of health. Direct Hit criticals deal instant death, the only exception being a fully overhealed heavy, which will still be left with, at maximum, 30 health.

Pros: Has a much higher damage output than other Rocket Launchers, and mini-crits airborne targets.

Cons: If you cannot aim, you will never kill anyone with this weapon.

The Liberty Launcher fires notably faster rockets than the stock ones, and does -25% less self-inflicted damage when rocket jumping. However, it also does -25% less overall damage to enemies.



At it's essentials, the Liberty Launcher is a trade. It trades raw firepower for tactical expertise. The rocket jumping self-damage decrease allows for a bit more rocket jumping, however, it usually only means one or two more before you still have to go look for health again. The faster rockets also mean that they hit your target earlier than normal, and are also harder to dodge. The lowered damage output is not actually that bad, it still does massive damage at medium to close range. While it will not be able to take down other powerhouses like Soldiers, Demomen and Heavies, it can still effectively deal with other classes. It is best used as a hit-and-run launcher, firing off three rockets then using your final one to rocket jump away and reload.

Pros: You can rocket jump a bit more than with the stock launcher, fired rockets are harder for enemies to dodge.

Cons: More experienced Soldiers and Heavies will easily tear you apart with the damage decrease.






The Cow Mangler is a unique rocket launcher, which is only useful in certain situations. It can never get a critical hit, and instead charges up a special beam that deals mini-crits and sets everything it damages on fire, including the user if it is used too close. It also disables any buidlings for 4 seconds. This prevents teleporters from teleporting, dispensers from healing and giving ammo, and prevents sentries from reacting in any way. However, this blast chews up all of your currently loaded ammunition, and has to be at max to be used. It also slows you down to 10% your normal speed, making you a very easy target. Thankfully, you have unlimited ammunition. On the downside, you can still only load 4 shots at a time. Other than those few points right there, the Cow Mangler does normal damage identical to the stock rocket launcher. The only exception is that the Cow Mangler does even less damage to engineer buildings than the stock rocket launcher, but a charged up shot can disable the sentry for 4 seconds allowing your team mates to take it down more easily, and that is the only good way of dealing with sentries while using this weapon. It is also very effectively used when facing enemies who have fortified themselves in small areas with buildings to help them. A single charged blast can cause chaos and allow your teammates to take the group down. Other than that scenario, it is merely a weaker rocket launcher in normal combat.

Pros: Can be devastating in small corridors and can allow teammates to take down sentry gun nests. It will never run out of ammunition. Can also be used with the BASE jumper to perform the infinite fall Market Gardener glitch.

Cons: Does barely any damage to buildings, can never get critical hits.

These two Rocket Launchers are either incredibly difficult to use effectively, or are not good at all. I highly recommend sticking with one of the more reliable launchers from Sections 1-3.



The Beggar's Bazooka is like a Rocket Launcher with three clips that has to be manually loaded and then immediately fired whenever you want to shoot a rocket. Loading a rocket will just result in it being fired right after you let go of the left mouse button. Due to this single factor, firing this weapon effectively requires that you know where your enemy is with about 4 seconds of an early notice. If you are ambushed, chances are you will be long dead before you fire enough rockets to kill your attacker. In addition, only a maximum of three rockets can be loaded and fired, meaning you still won't be able to kill other high health classes like Soldiers and Heavies. To make it even worse, attempting to load more than three rockets will cause a misfire, and the Bazooka barrel will explode in your face, dealing the maximum self-inflicted damage possible and knocking you around. If you zone out and keep loading or freak out and shoot a wall or the ground, this WILL cost you your life. Also, any rockets you fire will not fly straight forward, they will instead fire slightly off to the side. This makes the Beggars very dangerous to use in small hallways, as the rockets will hit the walls nearby and severely damage you. It also makes it impossible to use long range, as the rockets stray completely off target by medium damage range. With so many ways to kill yourself and how utterly ineffective it is at hitting targets who know how to dodge, this is the worst Rocket Launcher to use.

Pros: It can fire three rockets at once. It is great at point blank crowd control if prepared in advance, at the risk of self-inflicted damage, can be repeatedly fired faster than any other rocket launcher.

Cons: You can easily damage or kill yourself, fired rockets are laughably easy to dodge by even mildly experienced players at medium+ distances and it takes so long to load 3 rockets that chances are you will either have 30 health or be dead before you fire them. Completely useless at a distance. Chews through ammo very fast while single-rocket firing repeatedly.






The Air Strike fires super fast while rocket jumping, and the maximum amount of loaded rockets increases with each kill. The Air Strike has the same attack power as the Liberty Launcher, already making it weak without the extra speed bonus the Liberty Launcher had. It starts with 3 maximum loaded rockets, and reaches a maximum of 8 loaded rockets after 5 kills. This means you can rain down 8 rockets in the span of about 3 seconds when rocket jumping. However, due to the damage decrease of the rockets, and the slight decrease in splash damage radius, as well as the initially reduced maximum loaded rockets, it makes it very hard to do damage, or even get a kill. While on the ground, the Air Strike is basically a Black Box that does less damage and doesn't heal you. In the air, it is essentially a Liberty Launcher that fires a lot faster and won't kill anything due to its decreased damage.

Pros: Can get a lot of ammunition in one clip if enough enemies are killed, can rain down rockets of fury when rocket jumping.

Cons: It can be very difficult to kill enough enemies to get your clip big enough to makes a difference, and is horrible at taking down enemies while the user is on the ground. It also chews through your ammo like wildfire if you constantly use higher and higher clips.

The Soldiers secondary weapon choice can vary greatly. It can range from health boosting, attack boosting, craptons of bullets, defense boosting, rocket jump partial immunity, and much more. Each listed secondary will be put into one of three categories: Offensive, Support, or Passive.




Classification: Offensive

The stock secondary for the Soldier, the Shotgun does massive amounts of damage at close range (More than medium distance rockets actually), but also suffers from very high damage falloff from distance.


The Shotgun is the stock secondary for the soldier. It holds a maximum of 6 pellets and has 32 reserve pellets. While it does not take very long to load each pellet individually, it can take a fair amount of time to load all 6, so it is advised to take temporary cover while reloading. The shotgun is a great finisher, able to take out that last 60 or 70 health an enemy may have left. Use this in accordance with your rocket launcher to finish off opponents before they even know what hit them. However, the shotgun is virtually useless at long range, as each pellet that hits will only do roughly 5 damage, which really can't kill anything at all. However, each shot will fire one perectly straight shell, but only if you wait about 2 seconds for the cooldown time. Even still, this would only be useful if you are trying to distract a sniper while you are hiding around a corner. All in all, this is a close range beast, which is fairly evened out by being pretty bad at long range attacks.






Classification: Support

The Buff Banner is a backpack for the soldier that takes up the secondary weapon slot. This means you will be relying solely on your Rocket Launcher and melee for damage. The Buff Banner charges up a Rage Meter based on how much damage you do. After you do 600 damage, the Rage Meter will be filled and the Buff Banner can be used. When activated, by switching to your secondary and hitting your primary fire button, you will blow a horn. This horn can be delayed from finishing by holding down the primary fire button until you are ready to release it. When the horn is done blowing, you and all teammates in the nearby area will be given guaranteed mini-crits for ten seconds. All affected allies will have a yellow ring around their feet and their weapons will be glowing. With the power to give multiple allies mini-crits, the Buff Banner is very useful for leading an offensive push, carving a path of destruction through your enemies. However, if you are killed during the mini-crit time, all effects of the Buff Banner will cease immediately. Also, your rage meter will always reset upon death, so do not be afraid to use it if you need to make a quick escape.

Pros: Can mini-crit boost yourself and nearby allies to help take down swarms of enemies.

Cons: Lack of a damage dealing secondary will make you completely reliant on your launcher, which can possibly get you killed if you run out of ammo.

Classification: Passive

The gunboats are boots for the soldier. They take up the secondary weapon slot, and cannot be selected at any point in time. Their effect is always active. When rocket jumping, you receive 60% less self-inflicted damage from each rocket. This means you can carry around a normal rocket launcher while also rocket jumping more than normal. It can be quite useful when dealing with enemies that like to get really close up to soldiers in the hopes that they will end up killing themselves on their own rockets. However, the lack of another damage dealing secondary, and no stat boosting secondary like the Banners means you will be 100% reliant on your launcher to do any damage whatsoever. This means enemy soldiers and heavies that are not killed immediately can whip around and finish you off while you are reloading.

Pros: You can rocket jump nearly as much as you want, and can shoot rockets at your feet to get rid of close enemies.

Cons: Lack of any damaging secondary makes you way too reliant on your primary, which can get you killed if your target does not die from the first 4 rockets.






Classification: Support

The Backup is another one of the stat boosting backpacks for Soldier. However, this one has the added bonus of 20 extra life points, boosting the Soldier's health to 220. Like the Buff Banner, it charges via the Rage Meter and requires 600 dealt damage to become fully charged. Upon usage of the horn, which can also be delayed by holding down the primary fire button, you and all nearby teammates become immune to critical and mini-crit hits, as well as their effects (knockback), gain 35% resistance to all forms of damage, and 50% resistance to all sentry damage for ten seconds. The mini-crit and critical hit immunity also extends to items that cause Marking For Death, such as the Boxing Globes of Running Urgently. Again, as with the Buff Banner, your death results in all effects immediately vanishing. However, unlike the Buff Banner, your newfound super defense makes it very hard to get killed, and if a medic is healing you, it is essentially impossible to die for 10 seconds. The same applies to all nearby teammates that have a glowing ring around their feet. This damage resistance also stacks with items that already provide damage increases and decreases. For example, a Chargin Targe Demoman that normally has 40% resistance to explosives and 50% resistance to fire now has 75% resistance to explosives and a whopping 85% resistance to fire.

Pros: Can provide yourself and allies a massive defense boost that can be used to take down sentry nests, as well as rooted down players.

Cons: Lack of any damage dealing secondary, yet again, makes you reliant on your rocket launcher for all damage output.

Classification: Support

The Concheror is the third and final backpack for soldier. Like the others, it charges a Rage Meter by doing damage to enemies. This time, only 450 damage is needed to fill the charge meter. Also, the Conch gives the passive effect of +2 health per second, helpful if you are retreating from a fight you narrowly escaped from. When the horn is blown (Which again can be stalled by holding down the primary fire button), you and all teammates in the nearby area are given a speed boost and recieve a +35% health bonus based off the total damage they do to enemies per shot. These effects last 10 seconds, like all the other banners, and all affected allies will have a glowing ring around their feet. Remember, the health you regain is proportional to the damage you do. If you have a damage reduced rocket launcher, like the Air Strike or Liberty Launcher, you will not get much health back. This is probably the least useful of all three backpacks, because unless all your allies need health really badly, (And even in that case, they should be retreating and healing, not fighting head on), this backpack has no use. If you have low health, and are engaging an enemy with the Conch to regain some, chances are you are going to die while blowing the horn.

Pros: Restores 2 health per seconds, upon activation gives nearby teammates a speed boost and helps them heal based on their damage to enemies.

Cons: 35% health regain is a very low amount of health gained per hit, and the Conch really has no practical use. The other 2 backpacks give much more rewarding results for your efforts.






Classification: Passive

The Mantreads are another form of boots for the soldier. Like the Gunboats, they can not be selected at any time, and their effects are always active while equipped. As long as you are wearing the Mantreads, you recieve 75% less knockback from damaging enemy weapons. This means the Force a' Nature barely knocks you off your feet and you can actually walk TOWARDS sentry guns (Despite this still being a suicidal option because these boots do not decrease received sentry damage). In addition, the Mantreads deal 3x the landing damage you would have recieved when you land on an enemy player. To explain this, lets say you fall too far and recieve 30 fall damage. If instead of landing on the ground, you land on the head of an enemy. That person you fell on will receive 90 damage and you will not be damaged at all. It does not matter how you fell, as long as you would have taken fall damage and landed directly on the enemies head.

Pros: You will not be sent airborne by enemy rockets, Force a Natures, Sentry Guns, or any other knockback. In addition, if you have good aim, you can stomp on enemy heads while rocket jumping to avoid fall damage and injure your target.

Cons: Yet again, lack of a reliable damage dealing or boosting secondary will, yet again, make you mostly dependent on your rocket launcher for damage. Also, Mantreads do not reduce rocket jumping damage or normal fall damage.

Classification: Offensive

The Reserve Shooter is basically a modified shotgun. It does do the same base damage as the stock shotgun, but has a couple slight twists. One of these surprises is that the Reserve Shooter mini-crits any enemies shot withing five seconds of bringing it out. To make this a bit easier, it is paired with a 15% faster weapon switch. This honesty does not do much, but it does help a bit. The other twist is, instead of 6 maximum pellets, only 4 can be loaded at any point in time. This makes it pretty inferior to the stock shotgun unless you enjoy juggling enemies with your launcher and then shooting them. It is still recommended to use the stock shotgun unless you intend to bounce up enemies at every single chance, as it isn't as good at finishing off grounded enemies.

Pros: Anyone in the air you shoot is pretty much going to die.

Cons: Anyone on the ground you shoot is probably going to live or kill you back. This weapon is more useful for the pyro when paired with the Degreaser.






Classification: Passive

It's a parachute. You can float gracefully down to the ground while also being riddled with bullets because you are probably the most obvious target to ever roam the earth. But if you catch on fire and then open your parachute, you keep the same altitude. You can float around and market garden people into a hilarious grave. In addition, you don't have to activate the parachute immediately, you can use it a split second before you hit the ground to avoid taking fall damage. However, this is a pretty bad waste of a secondary slot, when you could just take the 20 or so damage and use a shotgun instead.

Pros: Market Gardening for days.

Cons: Hope you like bullets, because you are going to have about 5,000 headed your way when you start floating down.






Classification: Offensive

Another one of those futuristic weapons for the soldier, this one being equipped in the secondary slot. It fires a projectile laser beam that cannot be reflected and deals damage to anything that hits it, as well as passing through players and repeatedly damaging them. Also, like the Cow Mangler, it requires no ammunition. It simply reloads its 4 shots when you run out. Sounds great, right? Not really. It has unique attacks stats, but I'm not going to list them, because the highest you can possibly hit without a critical is 12 damage. The projectile also travels extremely slow, making it pathetically easy to dodge, which most players will do anyways. In addition, it does so little damage to buildings that you could shoot a Level 1 Sentry for about 3 minutes before it gets to half health. This weapon is, without a doubt, the worst Soldier weapon in existence.

Pros: It might hit an enemy more than once for an astounding 15-30 damage.

Cons: Everything else sucks. Deal with it.

The Melee is the final weapon slot for Soldier. The purpose of a melee is to attack enemies that get way too close for comfort, or to finish off enemies after your primary and secondary weaken them. While it will not be that commonly used, melee has its place in combat.


The Shovel is the stock melee weapon for the Soldier. It has a fairly short range, like most melee weapons, and does a decent amount of damage.


The Shovel does solid amounts of damage per hit, and a critical hit, which are very common for melee weapons, will 1-Hit Kill any class except Soldiers and Heavies. Even then, they will have very little health remaining. While melees can be hard to aim, due to your enemy constantly moving out of sight, you mostly just have to point and click while as close to your enemy as possible. A couple of repeats and he is dead at your feet. If you feel you are inexperienced with melee combat, try to avoid getting into a situation that involves melee by keeping your distance and rocket jumping farther away if they press you.






The Equalizer is a bloody pickaxe that is equipped in the melee slot for Soldier. The damage of this weapon depends on what the users health is at. While above half health, the Equalizer will do around 33 damage, a bit less than the stock shovel. While below 113 health, it will start hitting in the same range as the shovel's base damage. When the users health drops below 52 health, it will start hitting over 88, basically making each hit the same as a Shovel mini-crit. At one health, the Equalizer hits with a whopping 107 damage per hit. These damage values are not set, they are simply checkpoints to each new tier of damage. Basically, the more hurt you get, the stronger your melee becomes. Unfortunately, by the time your health is low enough to make the Equalizer pack a punch, it is also so low that pretty much any weapon will instantly kill you. More importantly, while you are holding the equalizer, you can not be healed in any way, shape, or form, and cannot call for medic.

Pros: The Equalizer grows stronger as your health goes down, allowing you to quickly kill foes.

Cons: Often your health be so low that you will be shot and killed long before you get close to killing somebody.

The Pain Train is a stick with a spike in it that can be equipped in the melee slot. It adds +1 on to your active capture rate, meaning you capture controls points and push payload carts at the same speed a scout does. This can be used effectively in accordance with rocket jumping to quickly arrive to locations and capture them while also having more firepower than a normal scout. The main downside to this capture rate is that all bullet based attacks deal 10% more damage than usual. This means shotgun blasts, sentry guns, and miniguns are going to hurt a bit more than usual. However, this weakness only applies to bullets. There is no added damage from explosives, melee, or other non-bullet weapons. Do not use this weapon unless you are playing on a Control Point or Payload map, as the active capture rate only effects those two things.

Pros: Can capture control points and push payload carts faster, while having the firepower of a soldier and not a scout.

Cons: Bullets are going to mean a quick demise.






The Half-Zatoichi is a samurai sword for Demoman and Soldier that does damage identical to the shovel. It has a few special quirks to its design: Once drawn, the sword cannot be put away until it kills somebody. After a kill, it can be put away again. In addition, upon a successful kill with the sword, you are fully restored to 100% health. Each time you draw the blade, you have to kill another person with it to put it away. Despite the long appearance of the sword, it does not have any extra reach. Another feature of the Half-Zatoichi is that it will instantly kill anyone else who also has the sword out and active. This means that if you land a hit on another person wielding the Half-Zatoichi, they will immediately die. BE WARNED! This effect works in reverse and you will be instantaneously killed if hit with the sword while your own sword is active.

Pros: Upon a successful kill, all your health is restored.

Cons: Walking around with only a melee weapon makes you very vulnerable to any form of ranged attack. It can also not be put away until it kills somebody directly.

The Disciplinary Action is a whip melee for the Soldier. It slightly suffers from a 25% damage decrease, but hear me out, it gets a lot better. When hitting an ally, you and whoever you hit will gain a temporary speed boost. This can allow you and your teammates to get to the front lines faster. Note that any disguised spies you hit will gain a speed boost, but will get damaged and will freak out. This is useful for spy checking. In addition, the whip has a ridiculous range for melee. It can hit up to two yards in front of the user, and can also hit enemies that are behind you and to your side. This means almost every swing with your melee with guarantee a hit. This pretty much negates the slight damage decrease, as you are likely to hit your enemies more with the Disciplinary Action than any other Soldier melee.

Pros: Has an overpowered melee range, speeds up yourself and allies, and can be used for spy checking.

Cons: Deals slightly lower damage than other Soldier Melees.

This is my Melee of choice.






The Market Gardener is another kind of shovel for the Soldier that does identical damage to the stock Shovel. The only difference is that the Market Gardener only deals out critical damage during rocket jumps. It can never have random crits, and will only do so if charged by the Kritzkrieg. This means that the only effective way of getting kills is by rocket jumping and hitting people with it on the way down. It is extremely hard to beat people to death on the ground with the Market Gardener, as the lack of random critical hits will mean it will take a fair amount of hits to kill anybody, and they will probably kill you while you try.

Pros: You can embarrassingly kill tons of people by jumping around and nailing them on the head with a shovel.

Cons: If you can not accurately rocket jump, then chances are you are not going to kill anyone with this weapon.






The Escape Plan is a grey pickaxe melee for the Soldier. It works like the Equalizer, but instead of making the user's attack higher after starting off lower than normal, it makes the user faster the lower their health gets. By about half health, the user is as fast as a medic. By 1/3s of the users health, they are as fast as a scout. This means you at low health you can make a dash for your life, or run in, surprise your enemies by running at them like a mad idiot and swing the pick around until either you die or they die. (Probably you). Just like the Equalizer, you cannot be healed in any way or call for a medic while this weapon is active. In addition, however, you are Marked for Death, meaning that while this weapon is active and for a short time afterwards, all damage done to the user will be mini-crits.

Pros: You can make a quick escape if your health gets low.

Cons: The fact that your health is low and that all damage done to you will be mini-crits will severely lower your chances of survival.

The Scout is by far the fastest class in all of TF2. He runs well over double the speed of the Soldier, making him hard to hit when he runs. He also caps points and pushes payload carts twice as fast as other classes, making him a big threat on badly defended capture points.


The Scout may be considered a weak class by many, but it is actually a very hard hitter point blank, capable of dealing a whopping 100 points of damage per round point blank. This is also a serious issue for the Soldier, as many Scouts will get in close where your rockets will hit your own feet and cause self-inflicted damage. They will then promptly blast you into the next century with their Scattergun. You need to prevent a Scout from closing in and taking the advantage. Do this by aiming your rockets where a scout is running to, so that they run straight into it. If they start jumping all over the place, aim your rockets at where they are going to land. This will cause another unavoidable run-in with your rockets. Because they have such low health, 2 rockets should be enough to kill any scouts that cross your path.


No matter what Scattergun they use, the Scout will deal deadly damage at close range. However, the Soda Popper allows the Scout to jump up to 5 times before landing again. During this time, dodge and evade, and wait for him to land. Once they start landing, shoot your rocket at their feet again. Repeat this process until they die. In addition, Scouts using the Force a Nature can knock you completely airborne if they hit you close up. To prevent this, try and keep your distance from them, or use the mantreads to make sure you don't meet an untimely world related death.

Debateably the biggest threat to a soldier are other soldiers. Able to tank up to 3-4 direct rockets, and 5-6 indirect rockets, as well as match you for firepower and manueverability, other soldiers are a force to be reckoned with, and often they will be the cause of many of your deaths.

The most effective way to take down another soldier is to discern their weakness, or their loadout. Try and quickly take note of what primary launcher they are using, and to take advantage of it. If they are using the Black Box, they only have 3 shots. If it's the Beggars, they have a lower chance of hitting you the farther you are. Modify your attack strategy to focus on their weaknesses. Also, if you run out of loaded rockets, don't be afraid to bring out your secondary (If it can deal damage) and blast away at them. It is more dangerous to get caught reloading a rocket launcher than to be actively inflicting damage with a shotgun.

Finally, whichever soldier holds the high ground holds the advantage. Soldiers on lower ground have to hit their targets dead on, because they can't hit the ground around them or walls nearby for splash damage. While, on the other side, Soldiers with a height advantage can easily shoot the ground and walls around their target for effective and casual damage output. An enemy soldier may attempt to perform a bombing run, in which they rocketjump towards you and fire rocket down. If this happens, quickly rocketjump away from where you were and shoot towards where they are going to land. With any luck and practice, the rocket you fired will hit them and jar them slightly, temporarily confusing them and dealing damage.

Just remember, don't be afraid to die and give it everything you have when fighting other Soldiers.

The Pyro is a close combat expert that specializes in fire. As such, any of his fire related weapons leave afterburn, which will do continuous damage to the affected for a fair amount of time after being attacked. This can mean that even if you do not die from the initial attack, you may die after it instead.


The pyro does most of its damage with its flamethrower, a short range flame spewing weapon. This weapon does insane amounts of damage close up. Thankfully, it can ONLY be used close up. The flames do not extend that far past the weapon that shoots them. However, this means it is of utmost importance to avoid pyros at all costs. If one is attempting to approach you, rocket jump away or shoot at it to try and knock it back or kill it before it gets close enough to burn you.

Another, much bigger threat the pyro has that specifically affects Soldiers is the pyro's ability to airblast. This can push enemies away, extinguish teammates, and reflect enemy projectiles back at them. A skilled pyro, or even a decent pyro, can reflect back Soldier rockets right at the person who fired them, with the added bonus of being mini-crit rockets. Critical rockets that are deflected will remain critical and can instantly obliterate you if it hits. To avoid this, test the waters a bit. Fire some rockets at the pyro. If they airblast 1 or 2 at walls or floors, you can probably still attack with rockets, though a shotgun is recommended. However, if the pyro reflects more than 2 rockets or reflects one back at you and it lands, you need to stop using rockets immediately. This pyro knows how to airblast very well, and using rockets will just end with them back up your mouth. To deal with these skilled pyros, you need to use your shotgun. Bullets cannot be deflected and will still deal decent damage. If you need to, you can still use rockets to jump farther away to keep clear of the flames.




The pyro has a secondary weapon that can cause pretty big issues: The Flare Gun. This item shoots flares at a rate of roughly 1 per two seconds. This long range weapon can deal roughly 30 damage and light enemies on fire. It will also score a critical hit if it lands on an already ignited opponent, meaning 3 flares hitting you will likely result in your death. To avoid being nailed by flares, bob and weave in a confusing manner. If you get hit, try to rocket jump to avoid getting hit again and avoid the pyro until the burn effects wear off. Luckily, a pyro that is using the flare gun is not using the flamethrower, and cannot airblast back rockets. Use this opportunity to switch back from the shotgun to deal out serious damage again. If they switch back to the flamethrower again, go back to your shotgun. Keep them switching and they will eventually screw up and die.

Another weapon that poses a substantial threat is the Degreaser. The threat isn't in the damage, its the combo possibilities. The degreaser allows for a signifigantly faster weapon switch, allowing deadly combos such as the Degreaser - Axtinguisher, Degreaser - Reserve Shooter, and Degreaser - Flare Gun. It's fairly easy to avoid an axtinguisher related death, just try and keep your distand and don't turn your back so that you only suffer minicrit damage. If you end up getting airblasted into the air, fire rockets down on the incoming pyro, your life probably will depend on getting him either killed or at least away from you. To avoid a Reserve Shooter death, try and keep your opponent from airblasting you. The reserve shooter is actually much weaker than a normal shotgun due to its reduced clip, and it cannot do severe damage unless the target it airborne. The most dangerous combo is the flare gun, as unlike the others, any hit will result in a critical hit if you are already burning. At this point, your options are to either try to run and take cover, or take them out before they take you out. Either way poses the threat of dying, but that's always a factor in the game of TF2.

The Demoman is considered to be the direct rival to the Soldier, and for pretty good reasons. Both of these classes use high damage explosives, albeit grenades are a tad harder to aim with. This still makes the demoman a very dangerous foe.



The Demomans main weapon is the grenade launcher, a 4 shot launcher that does damage nearly identical to a rocket upon direct contact. It travels in an arch, bounces off walls, and only explodes on people if it hasnt touched the ground first. This means going around walls for cover will not save you against experienced Demomen. The best way to counteract this is to try and dodge all 4 shots, then fire rockets at them while they are reloading. The reload time for the grenade launcher is fairly slow, although if you are confident enough in your dodging skills, you can fire rockets while the Demoman is still shooting as well. The main problem with the Demoman is his sticky bomb launcher. This can lay traps for people all over the place, as they stick to any surface. It is a small spiky ball that is team colored. If a room has these in it, shoot one with your shotgun (Rockets will not destroy them, but they will knock them away from the blast). If the demoman is elsewhere, he might detonate all of them thinking somebody is in the room destroying them. If the stickies do not explode after the first one is destroyed, continue until all of them are gone. If a Demoman runs behind a corner, do not immediately follow them. Shoot a few rockets at the interior corner edge; the fleeing demoman might have laid down stickies and is waiting for you to turn the corner. The other serious issue is what everyone in the world terms "Sticky Spamming". This is when a demoman, instead of using stickies how they are supposed to be used, fires them at people and spams the detonate key. This can cause major issues as it is basically a 8 shot Grenade Launcher. To counter this, rocket jump in really close to the Demoman, and use any weapon to take him out. Chances are he is going to keep trying to spam you out, so keep very close, but dont stay on one side of him.




The only other non-stock Demoman weapon that can cause issues is the Ullapool Caber. This is a brown and green stick grenade that is used as a melee weapon. It can only explode once, but does massive damage and can send you airborne. If a Demoman comes charging at you, shoot rockets at their feet to try to blast them away from you or into the air. Do not let them hit you with the Caber.

The Heavy is the slowest of all classes, as well as having the highest health of all classes. All Heavies carry around a minigun, which is a rapid-fire bullet spraying gun that is absolutely devastating in close quarters. Thankfully, it suffers from a fairly steep damage drop off, meaning at a distance the most you have to worry about is a couple of 4-6 damage bullets hitting you.


A full health Heavy can be tough to deal with. With a whopping 300 health, every rocket has to hit its mark to kill this behemoth. It is necessary to attack Heavies while they are either distracted or currently not fighting. The absolute best scenario is to attack from behind while they unaware of your presence, and do not currently have their minigun spun up. When a heavy is pre-revving their minigun, they are normally expecting a fight and will have a boosted reaction time, spinning in place to gun you down where you stand. An unprepared heavy will react very slowly, giving you time to finish him off with your rockets before he can get his gun spun up and firing. The only thing that truly matters is that every rocket you fire hits, because with its ridiculous damage output, the opposing Heavy will not be eager to give you a second chance.




The main minigun that can cause the most issues for Soldiers in general is the Natascha. Darker in color than its stock white counterpart, the Natascha will slow down anything it hits, stopping rocket jumps cold and making the already slow Soldier slower, completely denying escape unless you are right next to a wall to hide behind. While it does do slightly less damage than the normal minigun, it has enough bullets (300, to be specific) to get the job done.

By himself, the Engineer only poses a mild threat to a soldier. With the only semi-dangerous weapon being a shotgun, which only does 30 damage at medium range, not a lot against a class with 200 health. However, the Engineer becomes immeasurably more dangerous with help from his buildings. He can make a sentry, a dispenser, and a teleporter. All of these, when used correctly, can help bring about your ultimite doom.

The building that causes the most direct trouble for you and your team, the sentry gun is an immovable turret of death that, when on max level, can mow down enemies effeciently. As it is not a player, a sentry gun WILL NOT MISS, meaning you cannot rocketjump past it unless there is
effective cover nearby. A few seconds is all it takes to either be killed or reduced to so little health that gravity or somebody else will kill you before you can heal. Thankfully, with your rocket launcher of choice, about 5 hits will destroy any building, including the sentry. There are a few methods of taking a sentry down without being killed, and here's the most effective ones:

• Quickly pop out from behind a wall and shoot a rocket at it before quickly retreating again. Repeat a few times until you see in the killfeed the sentry was destroyed.
  
• Have a medic pop an ubercharge on you. With the invincibility granted by a stock uber, you can leave your cover and shoot directly. This is more effective if an Engineer is actively repairing a sentry and healing off any damage you do from hit and runs, as you can kill the Engineer while ubered without having to worry about the sentry.
  
• Try and get behind it. Sentries don't miss, but they turn very slowly and only scan in one direction. By going behind it, you can get off more than one shot before having to take cover again, making it faster and easier to destroy it.

The building that causes the most indirect trouble for you is going to be the dispenser. It gives unlimited amounts of health and ammunition to enemies that get near it, and limited amounts of metal to any enemy engineers. It doesnt heal quite as much as a medic does, so enemies glued to one won't die quite as slowly. The ability to give metal to engineers can cause major problems, as many of them will place it behind them and near their sentry for fast metal replenishing when repairing a sentry under fire. It is more advisable to try and destroy the dispenser or the engineer repairing the sentry before attacking the sentry itself. It may also be healing and giving ammo to other classes that need it, so be prepared for a possible fight with any class. The dispenser also has a fairly high amount of health at Level 3, so possibly more than 4 rockets will be needed to destroy it. If you find a dispenser all alone without a teleporter or sentry nearby, destroying it is very low priority. If you are low on ammo, don't bother wasting it unless a teleporter or sentry gun is nearby to give enemies an advantage.


The third and fourth buildings the Engineer can make are the teleporters. With an exit and entrance needed for the system to function, it is the easiest of all the buildings to make inoperative. All you have to do is destroy the entrance or exit to disable the teleporter and reduce the remaining side to Level 1 again. The entrance can normally be found right in front of the enemy spawn, which makes it a reliabley easy target, but with it comes people spawning and exiting spawn, which can cause problems if a serious hitter comes out as you try and destroy the teleporter. The other end of the teleporter, the exit, can be in various locations, ranging from the middle of a battlefield, a secluded corner, or right behind a sentry. This end is also easy to destroy, however, enemies could potentially teleport through it at any second, so it's best to always be prepared for an unexpected fight. If the teleporter is spewing forth an unrelenting stream of baddies, it can turn into a priority mission to seek it out and destroy it.

The Medic is the main center for health and support on either team. A team with a competent medic can easily beat a team without one. Your job is to make sure that enemy medic bites the dust.

While a medic by itself is not much of a threat, they are rarely alone. Chances are where the healing is, the high health powerhouses like other Soldiers, Heavies, and Demomen will be there too. This can make things very difficult, as you may end up fighting an entire team while they try to defend their medic. If more than 2 other players get involved in the fight, it is best to retreat, find health, ammo, and try again. The most effective way of taking down a medic is to stay in their blind spots. Attack from behind using rocket jumps, and take him out before any of his teammates can help him. If he is currently healing another enemy, take him out first anyways. It is much harder to take down a constantly healing enemy than an enemy who is distracted and cannot attack back immediately. While the opposing medic is down, the other team does not have any mobile form of health distribution, and will be forced to retreat to look for health if they are heavily damaged.


When you attack a medic, there is a possibility that they will pop an ubercharge. This can swiftly turn the tides of the fight against you, as you will end up fighting a insanely powerful healing target.

• If the medic uses an invincibility ubercharge, immediately retreat and find cover. There is absolutely no way to damage the medic or his heal target for 8 seconds. After those seconds pass, you can run back out and attempt to kill the medic. This will be slightly harder, as his heal target will be aware of your attack and will already be overhealed.
  
• If the medic uses a Kritzkrieg uber, focus all your energy on killing him as fast as possible before his heal target notices why he used it. There is no point in retreating, as a crit boosted heavy, demoman, or soldier will instantly obliterate you should they notice you.
  
• If the medic uses a Quick Fix ubercharge, they can still be harmed, however, they will regain health insanely fast. 4 direct rockets should be enough to overload the healing factor and finish off the medic.
  
• If the medic uses a Vaccinator ubercharge, quickly look to see what resistance they are currently using. Switch to another form of attack that is not affected by the selected resistance and continue your attack until the medic is dead.

While they are not very effective solo fighters, a competent medic can knock a fair amount of your health away if you are careless. The Crusader's Crossbow and Blutsauger can cause issues, as one does fairly high amounts of damage, and the other restores the medic's health for each needle that hits you. The avoid being hit if they start firing, move erratically so they do not land a shot, and continue your attack.

The Sniper is the undisputed master of ranged takedowns. Capable of killing any class in the game with one shot, it is best to keep moving and rocket jumping to avoid having your brains blown out.


The Sniper is a ranged only class, using stealth and precision to take down high threat targets. Unfortunately, as a Soldier, you are one of the highest threats in the game. Most snipers will be aiming for you. In order to avoid being sniped, crouch and jump every few feet to throw off the scope of the sniper, and try to work your way towards him. The closer you get, the harder it will be for them to aim at your head. Don't forget to use convenient cover to completely deny a shot. Up close, the Sniper has to rely on either melee or an SMG to try and fend you off. These should not cause too many problems as the SMG's damage output is pretty low and the melee can be avoided fairly easily. The only real threat in close quarters is the Jarate, which soaks you in a yellow fluid for roughly 7-10 seconds. During this time, everything that hits you will be mini-crit damage.



The Sniper has a primary that can cause issues up close: The Huntsman. A classic hunting bow, this weapon shoots arrows that do insane amounts of damage and 1-hit-kill most classes upon headshot. Thankfully, these arrows are easier to dodge than rifle bullets, so just keep strafing and dodging while attacking. Watch out if you have a distance huntsman spammer. These foes randomly shoot arrows down long stretches of the map and can still deal out tons of damage with no warning.

The only real dangerous close range weapon the Sniper has at his disposal (Other than the huntsman) is the Bushwhacka. This nifty little knife deals full blast critical damage where other weapons would normally minicrit. This, paired with Jarate, yields deadly results. If you get close to a sniper and end up getting doused in Jarate, you should pull back a bit anyways, as all damage you suffer will be minicrits. If you get hit with the Bushwhacka in this yellow liquid state, it will deal crippling damage. So much, in fact, that nearly any stray bullet will do you in. Keep your distance at any cost, and wait until the effects of the Jarate wear off.

The Spy is the supposed master of stealth, disguising himself as either his own team or your team and attempting to backstab anybody he can. This can cause issues, as a backstab from a spy's knife will instantly kill you.


Spies can either pose serious problems, or can be cannon fodder for your rockets. You can easily avoid spies by simply turning around and running backwards every now and then to check behind you and keep on full alert. You probably don't even need to do this unless you have already been backstabbed, most players don't seem to enjoy going spy. Spies have pretty low health, meaning 2 rockets or a couple of shotgun blasts will take care of them. If a spy fails a backstab and instead tries to butterknife you (Repeatedly swing their knife at your front hoping for either a lucky backstab or to somehow kill you with 20 hp hits), bring out your melee and beat the crap out of them. As long as you don't glitch out and get backstabbed from the front or turn around and let him backstab you, you should be able to melee him to death quickly. Be on the constant lookout for teammates acting weird, such as moving directly towards other allies, directly following you, or not heading in the direction of the fight. If you see somebody acting weird, hit them a couple of times with any weapon. If it is not a spy, they will either not react, or will give you a strange look. If it is a spy, they will either start backing away from you, or will freak out and start shooting you with their revolver. In either case, shoot them a bit more to finish them off.


The most annoying weapon for the spy is the Dead Ringer, an invisi-watch that can fake the users death. While in disguised "death" mode, the spy becomes resistant to all forms of damage, cannot be seen by any means, and will leave a gib or ragdoll after they "die". To figure out when a spy is using the dead ringer, look for spies that "die" within one rocket shot or one-two shotgun shots. Chances are that they did not die from low health, but are instead prematurely faking their death and are going to head farther into your base. Hang around the area and listen for a very loud decloaking noise, then follow it to the source. You will probably find the spy near a medical pack or slightly deeper into the map when they decloak.

In large crowds, or when you need to push for a sentry nest surrounded by people.

Consists Of:

• Black Box
  
• Battallion's Backup

This one is a very common strategy, but it can also yield great results. With the healing power of the Black Box, you can regain health whenever you hit an enemy. As such, this is best used with more than one enemy, although one on one does give you an advantage too. However, when you charge up your Battallion's Backup to max, let it rip to see the carnage. With the crit-denial of the backup, as well as the incredibly boosted defense, you will take far less damage than normal. And even better, if your facing a crowd of 3 or more people at once, you'll be healing back 45+ health per shot. This gives you a tremendous advantage, although you could still suffer from the lack of a fourth rocket or any damage dealing secondary. Having a few teammates nearby to watch your back and take advantage of the defense boost helps a lot, too.

When nobody on your team will go medic, and you have small to large crowds to deal with.

Consists Of:

• Black Box
  
• Concheror

This loadout once again takes full advantage of the Black Box's health regeneration. When you deploy your Concheror, the health regain buff paired with the Black Box's normal health regen allows you to heal back lost health astoundingly fast, and actually works even better the more people you hit at once. It continues to scale up indefinitely, as the Concheror bases the regen off of a percent of the damage you do, while the Black Box regains 15 health for every person you hit. As long as you don't run out of rockets or get overwhelmed by multiple heavies or crits, you should be able to hold off entire teams all by yourself.

Paired with a medic, when the only option of taking down a sentry is to face it head on, the best example being "That Spot" on Cap A of Dustbowl C. If you've played Dustbowl C before, you know the spot I'm talking about.

Consists of:

• Direct Hit
  
• Mantreads
  
• A medic with either a Quick Fix Uber or a Stock Uber ready

This loadout combines the sheer damage output of the Direct Hit with the knockback resistance of the Mantreads to allow you to get a clear shot at a sentry without being blown back or pinned against a wall by sentry fire. The Mantreads will prevent the normal knockback of the bullets from pushing you away or screwing up your shot, while the direct hit allows you to unload the maximum possible damage on a non-moving target. A medic is actually just highly recommended, as it is possible to destroy a sentry before it kills you with well aimed Direct Hit rockets (Not recommended for beginners), but if an engineer is actively repairing the sentry, you are going to need a method of either incredibly fast healing or flat out invulnerability to destroy it. This method works even better if you team up with another soldier or demoman to take out the engineer while the sentry is distracted.

Try to avoid engaging enemies that are on higher ledges. With no walls or floor to hit, you will be forced to land direct hits to do damage, while your enemy won't.

If you know somebody is around a corner, shoot the ground right past the corner of the wall. If they are directly next to it, they will take full splash damage and possibly get knocked back.

Ranged rocket damage is based off of how far you are from the target at the moment of impact, not from where it was fired. This means rocketjumping towards your foe and firing down on them will result in more damage the closer you are when they hit.

The shotgun is almost as devastating as the rocket launcher in close quarters, with no self-damage. Use it in tight hallways and close enemies to avoid killing yourself while still doing massive damage.

Always try and keep your rocket launcher and shotgun fully reloaded. The reload times on both can and will get you killed in high stakes situations.

Aim for the feet of an opponent, the splash damage will guarentee more constant hits instead of the all or nothing tactic of shooting straight at enemies.

When shooting at far away enemies, aim for where they are going to be when your rocket hits, not where they currently are. Your prediction timing skills will get better the more you play, so practice a lot.

If you are in the middle of an intense firefight, pull out your shotgun when you run out of rockets instead of trying to reload your rocket launcher. It gives you a chance to keep fighting and cover fire for your retreat, if nescessary.

If you are looking for a specific weapon, they will all be listed here, along with their locations in the guide.

• Rocket Launcher: Primary Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Original: Primary Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Black Box: Primary Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Direct Hit: Primary Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Liberty Launcher: Primary Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Cow Mangler 5000: Primary Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Beggars Bazooka: The Primary Weaponry, Section 4
  
• The Air Strike: The Primary Weaponry, Section 4
  
• The Shotgun: Secondary Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Buff Banner: Secondary Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Gunboats: Secondary Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Battalion's Backup: Secondary Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Concheror: Secondary Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Mantreads: Secondary Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Reserve Shooter: Secondary Weaponry, Section 4
  
• The BASE Jumper: Secondary Weaponry, Section 4
  
• The Righteous Bison: Secondary Weaponry, Section 4
  
• The Shovel: Melee Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Equalizer: Melee Weaponry, Section 1
  
• The Pain Train: Melee Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Half-Zatoichi: Melee Weaponry, Section 2
  
• The Disciplinary Action: Melee Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Market Gardener: Melee Weaponry, Section 3
  
• The Escape Plan: Melee Weaponry, Section 3

If you have a correction for me, feel free to leave a comment notifying me of it, in a polite and effective manner. Considering there are obviously going to be trolls or people that wouldn't know "polite" if it ran up and snapped their little pink undies, I need to state this here. Causing disrespect in the comments, to me or others, will result in a deleting of your comment and possibly any future comments you leave.

Don't forget, these are tactics and opinions that I have developed over 3 years and nearly 2,000 hours of gameplay. I have tried and tested every soldier weapon for myself, and made the mental list in my head. If you have your own opinions on a weapon, go ahead and state it, yet again in a respectful manner. I do not count situational scenarios that make one weapon better than others, as I normally base my final judgement on the all- around effectiveness of a weapon, not the best it could possibly be.

I made some edits to the Beggar's Bazooka to put it in a not-so critical light. As such, now ANY comments relating to it will be deleted, because now there is no reason for you to say anything about it. Comments relating to the Righteous Bison will also be deleted on sight.

Any suggestions for the Loadouts section are appreciated, however they will be very critically reviewed and looked over.