hey guys,
i play roamer and i feel I'm fairly good at it. however, i feel like on mids its either a hit or complete miss, on almost every map on mid ill either get the med and demo and play a big role in winning mid for my team. Or i will just crap out and do almost no damage to the other team and die in vein. How can i get better at mid fights and be more consistent?

As the roamer, I usually play the gay distraction role. I get as close as possible to their team and spam rockets, close enough to not die but it'd be 50/50. It's so you take some fire off of your team and you still get to do damage. But in that time your team should be supporting you as well unless they have someone behind them. Its all team work just work with what your team is doing.

thanks spadez :)

Tell your team what you're gonna do, tell them when you're about to jump not when you're actually doing it, find the positioning of other teams scouts' and work your way around that, realize to always set up in a way where your team can help you the most. In the end k/d doesn't matter as long as you can get that initial 3~4 100 damage rockets against key players.

A big part of playing roamer is just being aware of what the other team likes to try to do. So, try to keep in your mind what the other team did the last few mids, and specifically which players seemed to take the most notice of your bombing because it's likely that teams strat. that this player is specifically assigned to roamer clean up on mids (or for that strat).

The other thing to keep in mind is how teams focus fire. The faster you are, and the earlier you bomb, the more likely it is that you'll be the thing that everybody shoots at. This can work if your team knows to follow up your quick aggression with quick aggression of their own because they can use the space you create by bombing direct and early to advance without being contested.

If you notice that you're drawing major fire/attention early and it causes you to be unable to attack at all (scout gang rape early, defensive stickies, etc) and your team can't play off of the distraction it's time to slow down. Lots of teams will simply counter an early bomb by delaying their own mid and either staying grouped up or waiting to show up until after you jump so that you get second jumped (that is to say you have 2-3 rockets, are hurt from Rjing, and then their 300 HP solly(ies) jump you and kill/force you back you no problemo.

There's nothing wrong with waiting a while to jump if you know ahead of time that your early jump is just being countered. Or simply changing your approach altogether. Take note of what works and what doesn't against a specific team and keep doing what works until it breaks - and be sure to let your team know when you're failing.

Every map currently in the rotation has TONs of options available to the roaming soldier, just familiarize yourself with those options and be sure your team knows what you're able to do on mid. If you guys are set on running a particular strat, and you can't get anything done, it's time to change things up.

I mean just to give you an example of all the things a roamer can do on Badlands for example:

Bomb out of the house (early), Bomb off of the plank (the extension from the house) (delay to super delay), approach your crates, and jump (delayed), rollout through the lower lobby --) spire --) choke (delayed), jump from the closet (could be fast could be delayed), submarine (under the point) (could be fast could be delayed) big dick it with gunboats, rollout off of the spire and into the house, take your demo's health pack, and get into their house (very fast), hell, you could even whip out a s3 strat and go pyro and run out of the closet - who knows it might work. And you can do several smaller variations of the above. Not to mention that your objectives can vary widely from killing/damaging specific targets, to occupying a certain space, to simply creating a distraction in x location.

The main things to do in summary: Remember what the enemy likes to do, and how they react to you. Know what your team is capable of (no sense is jumping super early if your team won't move up/take advantage of your sacrifice) mix things up an early bomb is an early bomb, a delayed bomb is a delay bomb, it doesn't make sense to go the same way every time when teh end goal is the same - you're just inviting them to shoot you earlier and earlier. Also don't be obsessed with killing one particular class or player. If you can kill a scout early even, it's certainly more effective than sending 2 hail marry rockets at the med/demo. Take what's there don't try to force something when they've laid a pick out for you on a plate with lettuce and tomatoes as a side.

What visitor says is really good too - be sure and call when you're bombing, once you practice it a lot you can tell your team at exactly what time you intend to bomb (on the game clock) and your team will know that that's the time setting for d-day on mids lol.

there are two basic things you can do at mid as roamer

be aggressive and cause a distraction/do damage and have your team follow up

or

follow up on your teams damage

of course there are a ton of ways you can do this, but I would say the best way to go about anything you do as roamer is to be unpredictable. lots of times i notice myself doing the same thing over and over again on mids, and usually (unless im against teams that don't notice it and/or medic/demo can't dodge rockets) i won't be having very good mid fights. teams -should- be able to predict you and counter you when you start doing the same thing. so try to change up what you do, it can even be as small as jumping a second later, or on granary jumping...but then just keeping your height and spamming and then see what comes from there.

don't go for only the medic, this is a very common mistake. at the very start of a mid fight the medic isn't very important. if you can get really good damage on their heavies, your team should win. getting two solid rockets on their soldiers is going to give your team a much better chance to win mid than wasting 3-4 rockets on a medic kill.

try your best to avoid the enemy scouts when they have height advantage, scouts are way better than soldiers on mid fights, and if the scouts know this they will look for you every time for a free kill

have plans for what you are going to do at mid, don't just say "well every badlands im going to jump to their house and kill their combo". what if their combo isn't there? what if their scouts are both on their train and are just glaring at you. try to work on your timings, this is the most important thing for a roamer at mid. start having a feel for where they will be if they go house, if they go valley, and when is the best time you can be aggressive on them.

last but not least, don't be afraid to stay alive, yes most mids it is fine if you die, but there are times where you can bomb in and out while getting back to your medic for some heals. if you can do 300 damage to them and stay alive, its just as good as doing 400 damage and dying, because you can reload and add to your damage that mid

Do you mean take their demo's health kit? I feel like rolling to spire just to go in your house and take your demos kit wouldn't make a lot of sense (ultra fast rollout being slowed down for health that could be better provided by a medic for the speed you get to mid).

Edit: Talking to marxist, got ninja'd.

It's an old video that I seem not to be able to find - basically you have to get a flash to 300 at the start, do the traditional jump off of the wall to lower main, jump off the wall at lower main, wall jump off of the right wall (or spire --) right wall) of the house. Here you can either pogo from choke to their plank with slightly less health or gank your demo's healthpack because you may be slivers of seconds faster than him lol. It was mainly put in their as a joke since nobody would ever seek to fuck their demo in such a way (unless your demo was planning on not using the pack).

jump around like an idiot and yell "they're all lit" after you die

^

do whatever blaze does

grape wrote:

jump around like an idiot and yell "they're all lit" after you die

IF YOU ARE RUNNING GUNBOATS ALL YOU DO IS JUMP IN FIRE TWO ROCKETS WHILE YOUR IN THE AIR AND THEN JUMP AWAY

ITS BOTH THE GAY DISTRACTION ROLE AND IF YOU ARE GOOD YOU CAN PICK SOMETHING SOMETIMES BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY YOU DONT DIE :D

if both scouts decide to do the "im gonna stare at you until you jump and then deny you huehuehue" thing...dont jump. just shoot rockets at them keeping them occupied. hell, look down and fake like you're gonna RJ. distracting both of the other teams scouts for your roamer being useless = you did your job and then some.

just make sure your team knows you're being a retard magnet and that they should go kill stuff.

Get airshoted once, PUSH THEY'RE ALL GOING FOR THE 2ND AIRSHOT

I feel like, in the newer metagame, it's also very viable on mid to go for a dual bomb with the pocket soldier

if you coordinate that well ahead of time, it sort of negates the fact that one of you will be shut down due to being focused by scouts and the like, and allows your team's scouts to get heals and clean things up on mid fights, which they excel at

kill yourself doing the jump and wait in yard with crits :) works everytime

SneakyPolarBear wrote:

1. Get on the flank.
2. Rockets.

R.I.P. UNLOCKS

As far as midfights go, varying your rollout/ what you're going to do is one of the most important things you can do as a roaming soldier, since if the enemy knows where you'll be going and whom you're targeting, then you'll often be shut down by scouts/demo spam before you can do anything.

Here's an example of different things you can do on mid. Skip to 2:00:

You should always assume your enemies check hiding spots. Don't make them your main plan. As for mids, everything depends on your team. I think why I stumped a lot on roamer was because people kept telling me to do so and so. It finally hit me when I started to try new things. There's not a best thing to do all the time, everything depends on how agro/passive your team plays.

This is really helpful. Thanks. :3

thanks everyone ive figured out that alot of my problems is me not communicating what im doing ill be sure to do that and not bomb right away and wait for a good opening. this has been super helpful

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12_E5p81FU

download this demo http://play.esea.net/index.php?s=stats&d=match&id=2832289

watch rr

guy's an inspiration.