That's why we got on Mumble 30 mins earlier. We just didn't have a full team until 10 to. But yeah, next time will hopefully take less time. Was a good game though.

I fell asleep sry!

I mean that we should seriously talk about classes and tactics before the next game. It seemed that many people didn't really know what are the roles of classes in highlander.

I wrote some tips that came to my mind during and after the match. These are something I've thought or read from elsewhere.

TEAM MOVEMENT
=============
- Team should move together and focus their fire at one target at a time.
- Keep a good distance to your team mate (not 1 m, not 100 m, but 5-30 m).
- Heavy+medic, demo and pyro preferably stay close. Solly in sight ahead, sniper in sight behind.
- Scout and spy do their own thing, attacking from other direction at a suitable time.
- Engi gives the team a base to fall back (on def priority 1: sentry, on attack it can be tele or disp.)


SCOUT
=====
- Take alternative routs and do scouting, report if you see enemy flanking.
- Harrash the enemy from far, give them something to shoot. Then escape to regain health.
- OR do a surprise attack by getting very near silently. Go for the medic.

SOLDIER
=======
- More mobile than in 6v6.
- Can move and coop with scout or stay closer to heavy+medic.
- When with heavy+medic, jump aggressively to give our heavy+medic more space.
- Better keep heavy+medic in sight and go back to medic to regain health every once in a while.

PYRO
====
- Depending on the effectiveness of enemy spy, either:
- Follow heavy+medic all the time and check their back.
- Cover the engi and his base when defending.
- Airblast stickies, rockets and ubers. Sacrifice yourself if you must when blocking the uber.
- Slow down the enemy by putting many of them on fire.
- Can also play more like a scout, doing sneak attacks.

DEMOMAN
=======
- Stay in sight of heavy+medic.
- Use sticky traps or clearly visible stickies, which slow the enemy down or make them change their route.
- Stickies on cart/point.
- Sticky jump fast to mid point and when fast push needed.

HEAVY
=====
- Stay with medic all the time.
- Keep medic and yourself alive.
- Target an enemy which to shoot: Shout who is the target and everybody shoots this target. This way the whole team focuses on one target which then goes down more quickly.
- Use sandwhich and give it to medic when needed.

ENGINEER
========
- Normal sentry (or wrangler?) when defending.
- Mini-sentries on attack and 5 cp maps.
- Use mini-sentry to cover alternative routes, which the scout would use. Also makes spies job harder.
- Set up a base on a location where the team can fall back, close enough to the enemy lines.

MEDIC
=====
- Control the voice chat. Call when spawned, when died, how much % uber you have.
- Say when to push (with uber) and if there's a special target (get the sentry/kill the medic/etc)
- Try to monitor enemy locations and how many of them are down.
- Control individual team members when needed.
- Overheal demo and solly before they jump.

SNIPER
======
- Kill enemy sniper.
- Kill medic.
- Try to keep in sight of the team, on a good spot behind them. (Use second weapon when running so that your not misguided as a spy.)

SPY
===
- Take alternative routes and avoid attacking the enemy from the same direction as rest of the team.
- Attack from behind when the enemy is shooting (more difficult to attack when they are not aiming at anyone).
- Target the medic, sniper and engi especially (whatever seems the most important at the time).
- Change watches if you can. Normal watch is imo the best. DR when much spam. With CnD can sit down and report what the enemy is doing (very useful at times too).



Special on PL-maps
==================
Attack: Combo and heavy classes try to clear out the way, scout and sniper can be left behind to push the cart.
Defend: Focus the defend on a good spot next to a 3 level sentry. Dispenser in a spot where it can be safely used.

Wrangler should definitely be used by the engi since it slows down the push and wastes uber trying to destroy the sentry.

I would say it depends. For example on Badwater's first hill Wrangler is an obvious choice. But would you use it next to the B point on the roof?

It's wrangler or pistol, really. Wrangler is the superior weapon choice due to the buff. You are able to do more damage and is a bigger asset to the team.

A wrangler sentry is/should always be the priority 1 when pushing any point where it's positioned. As for the the roof on B, yes I would since you are able to spam the cart with rockets, and slow the push down. The enemy first has to take down the sentry down to effectively push the cart.

Your example doesn't lend itself to a good sentry position to begin with and since your second choice is a measly pistol or zap gun that destroys projectiles (which uses 35 metal each shot) the wrangler is still the superior choice.

A sentry usually is only there to stop the enemy uber from picking up too many of your team. Thats why the wrangler should, if allowed, always be used. Dont try to rescue your sentry, its worthless except you have a lot of luck. Just keep wrangling from a good position.

Badwater is a map where it really just depends who is holding the top of the map. You loose roof on B, you already lost the point.

On the other hand, keeping the team together is not a good idea in my opinion. It makes you so vulnerable against an enemy kriz / uber. The medic has to switch a lot between healing what will result in everyones being buffed, but not fully. I remember our last Hampshire Heavies Highlander on the ETF2L tournament. I think we had the Heavy/Medic/Demo Combo. Those 3 were a pack, never leaving each other alone and creating an unbelievable firepower.

Soldier (which I used to play there) was the offensive first man. You can pick up against basically every class on the front and you can jump the medic to force him, getting followed by a strong team push.

Scouts on PL maps should focus on pushing the cart, trying to go huge at the front makes you totally useless. Most of the time you wont have the chance to get next to your enemys to deal important damage.
On 5CP maps its different. There you should try to go flank and disturb the enemy by making some of them focus on you, while your team pushes in.

Pyros: have fun spychecking and some Deflecting on PL_ maps, on 5CP just try not to die and spycheck. Anything else, going in, trying to go huge, makes you useless.

Sniper: Guess everyone knows. Enemy Sniper / Heavy / Medic / other classes, in this way. Try to talk to your spy, if he can get a stab on the heavy, dont focus on him. Needs some good communications.

Demo/Heavy stay with medic, doesnt matter if pl or 5cp.

Spy: Talk with sniper about heavy (wether you go stab him or he has a free sight line to his head). Engineer/Sentry/Teleporter/Dispenser / Heavy / Medic / other classes.

Thats what I like to have highlander played as, just my own way of experiencing this gamemode. I dont play Highlander often, its like maybe once a month with some friends or on events like these.

There are no 5CP maps in the league map pool so I wouldn't waste time thinking how to play highlander on 5Cp maps.

As for Wrangler, I think there are some interesting counters and substitutes available now that were not previously.

Cowmangler: Disables the sentry for 5 seconds. If enemy pyro is not by the sentry ready to airblast the projectile the sentry is useless for the first 5 seconds of the uber in which time a lot of people can be killed and the sentry too.

Short Circuit: Theoretically you could prevent any rockest/stickies/pipes from reaching the sentry with pyro airblasting projectiles away and engineer shooting projectiles with Short Circuit.

I'm very interested to see if the top teams come up with good use of these weapons. I've been playing with Short Circuit on pubs but you can really solo with it because most of the time your team mates don't put any pressure on enemies trying to get your sentry.

I think the only thing Wrangler has got going for it is the infinite range. On close range wrangler is worse than un-wrangled sentry in my opinion.

Good that you've shared more tips and thoughts.

But one more thing about Wrangler. It also has disadvantages:
- Engi who is focused on aiming with wrangler (wrangling?), is easy to stab by a spy.
- When engi switches weapons or dies, wrangler is inoperative for 3 seconds.
These are the reasons why it's not just a case of wrangler > pistol.

Also, there are no 5CP maps? Really? :/