ozfortress - team fortress 2 in australia

Originally Posted by Ask a Question Forum

In my team atm, both myself and my scout partner have roles. I play more of a passive scout while my partner plays more aggressive. I find that we don't really coordinate many pushes/holds/plays together as we have quite different roles and are positioned accordingly. Is this an effective play style? Would it be more effective if we both played aggressive/passive together based on calls from both myself, him and calls from our medic/pocket?

It's not that I'm not allowed to/don't play aggressive/make plays, but it feels like we would be better off if we both played together, and just rotated our play style based on what is happening during the game. Rather than have given roles before playing the game.

Originally Posted by No Mercy

In general what you are describing works out just fine.

Scouts obviously need to play with the team in general, get heal buffs, however they shouldn't feel attached to each other when making plays. If anything running 2 scouts together often results in over aggression and playing too detached from the combo. Both scouts should work on being where they need to be for the team without sitting in each other's splash radius.

Both scouts still need to attack and be pro-active when possible and equivalently defend as needed also based on the team intention, however often the mode of execution varies with the agressive and passive scouts.

examples: (a) The passive scout consider it a top priority to help the medic/demo when they are bombed on a rollout, however the aggressive scout may want to weigh up the options and either hold a flank from 2nd wave aggression, or provide a counter gank to buy time or trade key players.

(b) Where the aggressive scout should look to push the flank path in a push with e 2ndary soldier, the passive scout may want to lead or tail the main path with the medic. Note that here the 'passive' scout may end up doing more legwork than the 'aggressive' one.

(c) Win rollout only their medic left alive retreating. BOTH scouts should go chase him down, even if it means noone is capping middle - then go back for the cap (or have combo cap ideally). Here aggressive or passive is irrelevant, both scouts should push forward together.

As you get more comfortable with the 2 roles both scouts should understand when they can and need to switch between the 2 roles, in the same way a 2ndary soldier goes pocket when the primary is dead. Opportunities for big plays shouldnt be wasted just because you are 'passive' and the partner scouts needs to know to adjust.

As passive scout i might think something very roughly like this
1. Do i NEED to be holding somewhere, protecting someone (in order of relevance medic->demoman->scout->2ndary)? if not
2. Is there a free kill? if not
3. Do i need health, and can i get it off the medic or is he busy? call as such...
4. Is there free territory? if not
5. Can i follow any ally and support?
6. Go get buff and wait for opportunity...

Originally Posted by Ask A Question Forum 2

In the team I'm playing with now we have two very DM heavy, high fragging, aggressive scouts and our roamer is just a solid consistent fragger jumping in getting a kill or two and jumping out. I'm not sure wether it would be best to let them work together up front and have our roamer on our flanks or to have the generic scout roamer up front and a passive scout on the flanks? What are your opinions?

Originally Posted by No Mercy

I don't fully agree with your simplification of tf2 roles saying most teams have a roamer up front and a passive flank scout/ up front scout, this isnt really how it is. Aggression is not something you assign to different roles in the team, it is a whole team mentality. Regardless scouts need to be effective without dying early, and the 2ndary soldier will need to know he can be away from the primary soldier without needing to protect the medic/demo when pushing hard.

Having scouts with strong DM is great, but they still need to learn how to play with decent awareness. Watch how sheep or any top level scouts plays, and notice that not dying and playing with your team will net you more kills than hunting. And even when pushing forward fast all the possible flanks paths will be taken just to be sure that nothing is missed - this is done intuitively.

Originally Posted by Bowt

yeh definitely not thinking about the game the same way you are

Originally Posted by Yuki

You can't really generalise how people play in your team. I guess you can to an extent, but that still doesn't really count. Your scouts need to know how to adapt to certain situations in the event they arise (re: they will). They can't just decide "I'll be passive!" or "I'll be the aggressive scout!" It doesn't really work like that. If you want a valid comparison: with soldier you can often switch roles mid game with your soldier partner because maybe as the pocket, you're in a better position to bomb the medic and SOMEONE NEEDS TO DO IT (and you cant wait that x amount of time for your roamer to get into position).


Also sheep does a fair amount of hunting - he just more often than not knows when he should/shouldn't compared to other scouts.

Need more questions like this though

Originally Posted by snowblind

another big reason as to why its better to not have scouts playing together is because losing both of your scouts is crippling, it creates openings that any good scout/player will take advantage of

a lot of the times (in terms of the flank) it is simply better to have a scout and soldier just because having the ability to bounce/deny players is really good

i'd recommend getting some stvs of good teams (both from aus and north america) and see how the scouts play