A few pointers for the aspiring Pocket

[*CoCo | JoKOR]

Hey there guys, I was browsing reddit tonight and came across a small post on /r/truetf2 - a place for competitive tf2 discussion. It's a young thread, but some key points were quickly posted. Me being a horrible medic, having a capable pocket is one less thing for me to worry about.

So here's a few key points from the post ;

• Practice MGE vs scouts. Being able to efficiently DM vs scouts will make your medic fall in love with you.
  
• Learn when to expect an attempt at your medic's life. Watching demos can help with this.
  
• Try to create a "zone" for your medic to freely move around in.
  
• Play ultiduo
  
• Protect your medic above killing the enemy
  
• Learn to rocket jump

Keeping these few things in mind while practising Ultiduo and MGE will help you become a better pocket.

If you have any other tips feel free to leave them below :)

[ᴫ.marez]

I am maining roamer but I think I can also offer some tips:
1. Dont stick with your medic like when you want to kiss yourselves that way you will take much more spam/damage than when a little spread out, best positoning is probably to move pocket in front of medic not too far not too close and pocket should be facing enemy attacking combo and medic should be facing pocket trying to hide behind him and pocket should try to be a meatshield for a medic.
2. Communicate. It is true that your primar task should be protecting medic but in some situations like when attack enemy spire on badlands and only you medic and demo are alive and enemy is nowhere to be seen you should ask what to do whether jump the point and capture or stay with medic to build/ whatever. Just try to ask about what to do with your team and that way improve your play.

[TC Spike Himself | ETF2L.org]

I think first and foremost, a pocket should know that his role is not so much to "be with" his medic, but rather to "keep him alive". You don't keep your med alive just for the sake of it though - the point is getting über. If your med has über and you think it's 100% safe to jump away to get a frag, that's entirely fine. If there's scouts nearby then it wouldn't be 100% safe to jump away, so that's not at all a good time to do it.

As Coco points out, you create a "zone" for your medic to move in. A good practical example of this would be granary middle (not a mid fight as such, but maybe a push to mid later on, when the enemy is backing out); your roamer may be covering the entrance on the right, you as pocket are then totally free to jump away and cover the left entrance. So long as nothing can come in from the balcony, your med is now free to move wherever he wants on mid.

Be aware though, every time you jump away from your medic to get a kill, and a scout comes around the corner to kill your med or force über, a kitten somewhere dies a slow and horrible death, and your medic will be very very sad.

Also bear in mind that TF2 is about *area control*, and not so much about frags (people respawn anyway). If you can make the enemy fall back without killing any of them, and as such allowing you to cap a point, you ARE winning. Getting kills helps in pushing them back but it is by no means a requirement.

This post turned out a lot longer than I wanted it to be :(