Black box is a viable weapon in 9v9 when used with the gunboats. However, obviously, you won't be able to pocket or stay with your medic a lot since this loadout requires a different kind of playstyle, a roamer/harrass playstyle. The black box and gunboats allow you to deal damage and have high health without the need for a medic, which is very useful in 9v9 since the medic can focus on healing more important classes like the demo and the heavy.

I agree with everything else you said though.

black box being effective is really dependent on the skill level of the people you're playing against

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gF2VxeEeHSA

This guy is on one of the top highlander teams in USA and basically uses that loadout every match and does fine. I doubt all the top teams except -ts- are bad.

that's not really what I was trying to get at and I worded my original post wrong. outside of playing against heavy I'd argue that the black box is the best choice in 1v1 situations, and in highlander soldiers aren't usually taking heavies on 1v1 so that's why it can be effective for them. 3 rockets will be enough to kill any class, and they'll come out of it with more health than had they gone into the fight with 4 rockets

but in 24 man servers and when you're taking on more than one person at once black boxes are at a disadvantage. that 15 health on hit won't make up for the fact that you're missing a rocket. so it's only really effective when you're playing against incompetent players (besides the 9v9 scenario)

also vhalin is just a beast

In highlander the soldier can do many things, but it depends on how the team as a whole functions. While I was playing soldier for playstuff (EU team that made platinum playoffs when we entered the UGC league in season 6) I found myself mostly roaming with our scout, using vanilla rockets, gunboats (sometimes shotgun) and of course the old equaliser. For some of the payload maps, upward in particular, I would be sticking very close to the core group (medic, demo, heavy and pyro) and running buff banner. Sometimes running direct hit for certain sentry spots (the top of the hill just beyond the first point of upward springs to mind).

When I roamed, I never needed the health the black box would give me, but the 4th rocket was crucial for making sure their scout died, killing a minisentry AND the engie, or being able to jump away after forcing an uber. Vhalin is a good dmer but is much better known for his scout plays in 6s. Showing one video of him killing people that he is better than does not mean that the black box is a particularly good choice.

Upload date: 1 Jun 2012
WOOOOOOSH



WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH

But seriously. Pomson requires somewhat skill to hit people. Rockets going at that speed is reasonable because they tend to, you know.. explode?
The pomson used to just take down most classes at once, and I liked that the engineer had some new weapons to even the playing field for heavy+medic combos.
Plus, which would you rather have;

A weapon that kills heavies in about 3 hits.
Or a weapon that kills heavies in about 15.
Incase you don't read patch notes, the original pomson damage was much, much lower then what it is today.

The projectile speed and hitbox size have not been changed since those videos were released. What is the point you are trying to make?

Trying to compare its damage output to rockets means you're missing the point entirely. The soldier is a combat class that is supposed to be able to throw out damage while also taking a beating. The engineer is a utility class, his strength is in his ability to turtle, provide the team with teleporters and to be a nuisance on the flanks when playing battle engie.

The fact that you think that the pomson "evens the playing field" against a heavy medic combo just speaks volumes about how dumb the weapon is. It has been banned in every competitive league for good reason.

I dunno about you, but every goddamned time there's always a scout rushing to our base within the first 2 minutes.
Now the time it would take for me to even make a level 2 sentry is about 3-2 minutes with the jag.
You're telling me, the engineer's going to be useful in defense when he gets killed within the first 30 seconds?
I think buffing the damage and taking away projectile penetration was the worth thing they could do.

I'm not comparing the damage between the two, I'm comparing the usefulness.
The pomson penetrates with normal damage, and the rockets have splash damage.
I'd rather take the penetration over 3 shotting a heavy any time.

Okay, I was told to post in this 6 year old dead thread by the admins themselves. Apologies in advance for 2 year bump o7

Lets revive it.
Welcome to Team Fortress 2.
After 9 years in development, we hope it will be worth the weight!

you can still light people on fire in their spawns...

So, I'm really surprised nobody discusses this.

Let's talk TF2

-comp (if any of you are into that)
-mains, league and etc.
-loadouts and cosmetic show offs
-lolpics

Go! Go! Go!

Soldier main reportin in. And to whoever said black box is bad you need to be castrated with a fish hook.