TheVille

We have a couple guides for different classes, I figured we might want some for different map types as well. If you have some tips for pushing or stopping the cart. Right now, I only have 2 guidlines, but I am sure other will add more.

Defense rule #1: Hump the cart!

I don't know how many times I have seen one person push the cart across the point, while three or four defenders are shooting at it from a few feet away. Blu needs to move the cart; if you can control where the cart is, you can control where Blu will be. More importantly, the cart provides cover. Your goal isn't to kill them all; it's to waste their time. Hide behind the cart, dance around it or use it as a shield while you fire over it. Just do whatever it takes to keep the cart from moving and buy your team more time.

http://www.motionbox.com/videos/a79fdbb ... 2e?type=sd

Offense rule #1: Split up

Pushing the cart is the most important thing offense can do. It is also the most dangerous if unsupported. When the entire team advances very slowly behind the cart, defense knows where they are, and they are extremely vulnerable to attack; one crit rocket or sticky can put a fast stop to everything. If the offense splits up, with a few on the cart and the rest pushing ahead, they can take the fight away from the cart and make it harder for defense to stop it. It also allows offense to catch the engineers and demos before they set up their ambush, or at least approach it from a more vulnerable quarter.

"Wow, who's that person named Honbaby with that oddly familiar voice."
-- An actual thought that went through my head when I first saw the video.

I never thought about using the cart to take cover before. I've always tried to just stand in front of it and shoot at the enemy to buy my team time if I was a class that would allow such a thing, but I never thought about using it as cover from enemies further away, mainly Heavies.

And the second part is oh-so true. I remember me and Flobee joined a public server late at night when all the Ville servers were practically empty and we (Him Pyro, me Medic) managed to push back the entire Red Team into their last spawn with an uber and stop them from building any sentries.

Yet, there was only ONE person on the cart. And because of that slow moving cart, we didn't advance far enough and the Red Team managed to push us back and get up two or three sentries.

We then remembered why we didn't play very often on public servers.

Defense Rule #2
Spy check. A spy played by the right person can devastate your team. If you're a pyro burn early and burn often. Encourage those spies to choose a different class. Even if you're not a pyro if you see someone where they shouldnt be try shooting them a few times or actually ask the person to say something to prove they arent a spy.

Offense Rule #2
Patience is a virtue. You dont need to go in guns blazing, sometimes a little patience will pay off way more. Introduce some chaos into the Defensive lines and retreat to fight another day.

Defense: Keep constant pressure on the cart. Do not wait for the bomb to come to you, go to the bomb.

[quote="Stevo";p="124139"]Defense: Keep constant pressure on the cart. Do not wait for the bomb to come to you, go to the bomb.[/quote]

Unless your an engy...

Edit: awww I thought I would be in the video

[quote="Guardian";p="124817"][quote="Stevo";p="124139"]Defense: Keep constant pressure on the cart. Do not wait for the bomb to come to you, go to the bomb.[/quote]

Unless your an engy...[/quote]

Or a spy. Or, uhm, a Sniper.

Engineer, be near your guns (though I rarely play engies that way).
Spies, be past the bomb.
Snipers, be at range but with the bomb in site unless your team has control, in which case be at the bomb and project from there.

I was referring to the Engineers who build at the final point before the gates open.

If the cart is moving back, throw yourself at it! You may die a horrible bloody death, but you've saved precious seconds for your team. It takes 30 seconds of inactivity for a cart to begin moving backwards, and it boggles my mind when i see us lose several feet of track when nobody will touch the cart. You only need to touch it for a split second and you'll be saving your team a lot of trouble. This isn't sudden death, I guarantee you will respawn, and you'll be making a noble sacrifice for your team.

Hey man, if you watch that video, I kinda follow your rule. I stick around the cart... and what do I get for it? I get a rocket in the gut right at the end of the video.

[quote="TheCarpe";p="124828"]
If the cart is moving back, throw yourself at it! You may die a horrible bloody death, but you've saved precious seconds for your team. It takes 30 seconds of inactivity for a cart to begin moving backwards, and it boggles my mind when i see us lose several feet of track when nobody will touch the cart. You only need to touch it for a split second and you'll be saving your team a lot of trouble. This isn't sudden death, I guarantee you will respawn, and you'll be making a noble sacrifice for your team.
[/quote]

amen to that mate

Spies could also uncloak behind the cart and use it as shield to move it as much as you can before getting killed. If you feel like you can't do anything at the moment (Sentries are being guarded too much, you keep getting caught, team is extremely spy aware at this point), then cloak over and go behind the cart and start crouch-pushing it along the way.

That way, sentries won't see you and you'll at least be able to move it a bit before the team realizes the cart is moving and runs over to kill you.

A few nuances.

THE CART HEALS YOU! It's not as fast as a medic but the most important thing is that it doesn't heal the defensive team. Whether you know it or not, most one on one confrontations are decided by who shoots and hits first; having a slight heal gives you more advantage than you think (as well as having cover from the actual cart itself.) A cart defense push that stops a lot of offense from forwarding the cart usually is an attrition of players and, from my experience, peters out at the end leaving usually a one on one confrontation. If you are pushing the cart, hug it like your momma to make sure you are never out of healing range.

THE CART GOES FASTER with more people pushing it, hence the reason they display an X times symbol on the cart at the bottom of the screen. Always know what this icon is doing and what the state transitions of that icon means. If the icon goes from pushing to blocking to pushing to blocking that means there are teammates that need help now. And always, never let the cart go backwards. There is an unspecified time on the icon before there is a visible countdown of when it is going to go back. The offensive team that can muster a player or two to sacrifice themselves to keep the cart counter fresh and from going backwards will most likely win everytime, even in the face of sentry guns.
- For the defensive side, pyros work best at compression blasting offense away from the cart. When all you have to do is just barely touch the cart to keep it fresh, it makes defense so much harder.

PUSH THE CART DURING ALL UBERS. Ubered teammates are supposed to be a chaotic distraction to the defense, there is no better time to push the cart than when their key players and sentry guns are being distracted. If you are the uber on a cart push, let people know in advance before you go out that they should get on the cart. You need to focus on killing sentries but also you must spot the enemy players that are ignoring you (demomen usually) and are still watching the cart waiting for your teammates to push it. Kill those guys first!
- For defense, focus on the cart, ignore the uber and seek cover on the cart if the uber is far away. If the uber is on the cart you need to bait him a bit by getting close to the other side of the cart, using it as cover, and pull your melee weapon out, he will want to kill you to protect his medic when his uber runs out and won't have time to attack other key targets.
- Unnecessary uber on the cart does not push the cart. If you are ubering someone, neither you or them count for pushing the cart. The two of you alone, will watch as the cart goes nowhere. So, if you are alone, unattacked, turn off your uber by switching weapons or something and push the cart instead. Same reasoning behind no unnecessary ubers on a control point.

Riding the cart is not recommended when you are pushing it uphill, you will get headshotted. A pyro or heavy riding the cart can squirt nonstop flame/bullets because of the cart replenishing feature and this is a good tactic to keep spys off your teammates. You can still get backstabbed while riding the cart.

Great tips all!

My defensive tip:
The flip side of the offense using the cart as cover to push means as a roaming defender, you need to focus on the weak side (meaning whatever side is AWAY from your sentry(ies), the sentry will probably take care of anyone it can see, but your stickies, rockets and gunfire should be ready to hit the other side!

Offensive tip:
As a pyro on offense you should always always always be using the standard (only 90% of the time on defense). The reason? Because you can use the airblast to knock defenders away from the cart and allow it to keep moving. This is especially critical when you're inches from a cap point and have everyone on defense swarming the cart. I've capped the final point on goldrush many times all alone with several defenders around because the airblast freed up the cart to make the final few inches! Plus, you're probably not going to get to backburner many people on a PL stage on offense!

Wow that's such an old video.

Ahh, I remember the name "Honbaby".

That's going to be my new name when I get tired of Petite Chou-fleur.