disclaimer: I am a pretty nooby roaming soldier who's working on getting better. If I say something you feel is stupid, please include a reason it won't work.

The other day, I realized how bad I am at air shots, and it made me think WHY exactly airshots are so important. In exchange for 1 rocket and around 50 HP, the enemy soldier gets a far superior firing position and faster movement. Why would I stay on the ground and let him drop 3 rockets on my head.

Instead, could I wait for him to start firing (let him waste more ammo) and then counter rocket jump on him. Now I have the height advantage, 1 more rocket, and most importantly a sitting duck shot when he lands and I'm still in the air.

Airshots
Pros:
Control the enemy's landing spot.
1 more rocket
holding your ground

Con:
More difficult firing position
Easy target for enemy


Counter jump
Pros:
Much harder to hit
high ground to shoot from

Cons:
-50 HP
1 less rocket
more open to other enemies
let the enemy land where he wants



Any thoughts and comments?

Airshot = worth it if you can hit (ie, the enemy isn't close enough on the jump to strafe enough to dodge). Otherwise, jumping is better. A stronger motivation to attempt an airshot would be to defend your medic from a jumper, but if you're the target of the jump, you may as well jump.

Depends on the situation. If you're at a man disadvantage, just rocketjumping away and shooting spam rockets at his feet (to juggle) in order to stay alive is the best decision.

If you're defending your medic and a soldier jumps on you. The safest play is to pull out your shotgun when he's in the air, then switch when he lands and finish him off. Because hitscan is much easier to connect with.

But if you can hit the airshot more power to you. You can practice on tr_airshot or w/e.

I posted the following a few days ago on the small tips thread:

if you are a soldier and some other soldier comes to RJ onto your face... instead of getting hit with his almost-forgone-conclusion 100+ HP rocket.. RJ straight up. Here is the logic:

If you stay put:
-You just ate a 100hp rocket, goodluck in this 1v1.
-You could hit an airshot on him... you could.
-After he lands you should be relatively equal position-wise. Unless he lands in a better spot (think train on badlands mid). So if anything, he'll be in a better spot.

If you RJ:
-He will miss his 100HP shot. You will have taken (w/ the fall dmg) roughly what, like 65HP dmg?
-Enemy will be disoriented and have a low probability of hitting you with an airshot.
-You will land at minimum 2 rockets for at least 85 dmg. If you did it right, more likely in the neighborhood of 120-160.
-You will probably still have a half second or so of dis-coordination on his side once you land. Also you can land on that super-cool nearby pirch for added positioning.

i only counter jump if the pocket leaves the medic by himself, usually takes him away from our medic and usually their medic dies or has to retreat. Other than that i go for the airshot or use the shotgun, depends on what i feel like