Team Fortress 2

Team Fortress 2

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MVM : Soldier Trio tactic
By Quenquent the babysitter
Due to the workshipping of the meta composition by some players, it's hard to discover new team compositions and tactics without having your teammates forcing you to change class. This is why I would like to suggest you a team composition with enough variety to change from the regular team compositions, but also works and is easy to understand. Let me show you : the Soldier Trio team composition !
   
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Introducing the Soldier Trio : what is it ?
The Soldier trio is, like his name implies, having 3 Soldiers in the team. The Soldiers will each use one of the 3 backpacks avaiable in the game : the Buff Banner, the Battalion's Backup, and the Concheror. Of course, each Soldier must have a different backpack. The Primary and Melee weapons the Soldiers have doesn't really matter, but they should be a minimum good for MVM.

Soldier with the Buff Banner
The most commonly used backpack due to his effectiveness, the Buff Banner gives to players mini-crits while active, which increase their damages by 35%. The Soldier using this banner should try to have it active as much as possible. In the case he can't, he should try to use it when groups of robots come, Giants or even Tanks. The main role of this Soldier will be to increase the damages of his teammates and himself.

Note : the Buff Banner is completly useless against robot Soldiers with the Battalion's Backup active. Don't use it at this moment.

Soldier with the Battalion's Backup
Not only the Soldier with this backpack have 220hp (+20hp), but the Battalion's Backup also gives players 35% resistance to all damages, 50% resistance to sentry guns, and also cancel any form of mini-crits and critical hits when active. The Soldier with this banner should try to have it active as much as possible, or at least when robots that deal mini-crits or critical hits comes by the team. The main role of this Soldier will be to keep his teammates alive and to allow them to reduce the amount of resistance upgrades bought, and to have more money on their main use of fighting (weapons, sentries...)

Note : This banner can also be used to assault a Engiebot's nest, as the rage give 50% resistance to sentries. The Soldier with this weapon should try to focus on Engiebots and their nests.

Soldier with the Concheror
Not only the Soldier with this backpack will recover 2hp per second, but the Concheror also gives players a speed boost (between 26.3% and 40%) and healed for 35% of damages done. The Soldier using this banner should try to have it active as much as possible, or at least when his allies deal and recieve a lot of damages, like against Heavy robots or powerfull Giants. The main role of this Soldier will be to keep his teammates at high health, or even at max health, and help slower classes such as the other two Soldiers getting more mobile on the front.

Note : This banner is the one that complete the two others : more damages done with the Buff Banner means more health recovered, and less damages recieved with the Battalion's Backup means less health to recover. Having the 3 banners active at the same time guarantee the team to be always fully healed.
Strenghts of the Soldier trio : what makes them good ?
This team composition basicaly triple the advantages a single Soldier gives to the team normally, added to this their backpack's effects. I will also, for the ones that don't exactly know what are the Soldier's strenghts, explain them.

Easy to understand strategy
All the 3 Soldiers need to know are the basics of playing a Soldier : not even they way you play Soldier nor his upgrade path change. And the other 3 members of the team, no matter the class they pick, will have their way of playing/upgrading changed too much (this mostly depends of the other 3 teammate's classes)

Extreme crowd control
Robots tend to stay close to each other, and there's a lot of them too. The Soldier's rocket launcher is really powerfull against them due to the rocket's blast radius. Having this multiplied by 3 decimate entirely the constant swarm of robots the players face against.

Giants immobilisation
With the Rocket Specialist upgrade, Giants robots will barely move forward when 3 Soldiers stun them each time they shoot. The Soldier Trio don't have problems dealing with Giants, even Super Scouts don't last long when the 3 Soldiers are on him, and Giant Medics rarely have the time to use their Ubercharge.

Extreme team survival
With the combination of the 3 banners, the team by itself won't recieve a lot of damages due to the Battalion's Backup. And even if they recieve damages, most of the health lost will be recovered when dealing damages, thanks to the Concheror. And this doesn't matter what kind of robots the team is facing, as Buff Banner and full critical hits robots can be considered as standard bots thanks to the Battalion's Backup.

Overall damages done
A Soldier with a Buff Banner by itself deal a lot of damages, so 2 more Soldiers under his banner's influence will deal even more damages.
Weaknesses of the Soldier trio : what makes it bad
The Soldier Trio is better than other team composition, but is also worst than others. What makes it not perfect ? Well because you also triple the Soldier's weak points.

Uber Medics
The Soldier Trio will need to have an Uber Medic picker in their team, or they will have some problems taking them out fast (they can kill one in one rocket shot if a Soldier has upgraded his damages and is under the effect of the Buff Banner's mini-crit boost, but even with that it's not guaranteed to kill more than one)

Deflector Heavies
Deflector Heavies destroy the Soldier's rockets when shooting at it, making it difficult or even impossible to kill. Having a Giant Deflector Heavy isn't really a problem as Soldiers can attack him from different sides (as he can't destroy the rockets he's not shooting at), but it makes it harder when facing swarm of Deflector Heavies, mostly present in Expert missions.

Pyros
A somewhat worst version of the Deflector Heavies, Pyrobots will send back most of the rockets send to them. Not really a problem against Giant Pyros, as they can be attacked from different sides, it's a bit harder for swarm of Pyrobots. It will be the tack of the Soldier's teammates to take them down.

Tanks
Despite the Soldier being a good Tank busting class, it forces the team to split up, which means that most of the time one or two Soldier will have to take care of the Tank and reducing the amount of buffs in the front. Having some Tank buster classes, such as a Pyro, can help.

Ammo consomation
Soldier is one of the most ammo consomating class, which means he need to look for ammo regulary. Having one person that need ammo isn't really a problem, but having 3 is an other story. But a dispenser can easely solve this problem.

Money grabbing
Soldiers aren't naturally good at grabbing money, but most classes aren't that good at this actually.
Teammates : the other classes and the trio
Now that we are done with the first half of the team, time to talk about the other half. This is important to have the good teammates as the trio will need them to make up for their weaknesses.

The Scout
The Scout is the best class when we talk about money grabbing, which is one of the trio's weakness. A Scout with the Mad Milk can not only extend to power of self-healing the team have from the Concheror, but also slow down faster robots. The Scout can also use the Sandman or the Fan O War to mark the Giants and makes the Buff Banner Soldier's job easier.



The Soldier
Having an other Soldier might be over-doing the tactic, and be worthless, but if a Soldier tend to have problems having his banner active, this one can help by activating the same banner when the other Soldier's banner isn't on.

Note : The 4th Soldier can also equip the Direct hit and act like a Tank buster for the team, but he will be less efficient against group of robots.


The Pyro
The Pyro won't really benefit the trio's buff, as he will mostly be in close to melee and so far from the Soldiers who tends to be most at close to medium range. However, a good Pyro can prove himself to be the perfect Tank Buster the trio needs. Also, because he is fighting close to the robots, the Pyro can be a good money grabber.

Note : the Pyro's ariblast can also slow down the robots, or even better, throw them into pits.

The Demoman
The Demoman is part of the actual meta because of his Uber Medic's picking skills. For the trio, he won't be an exeption. Plus, his explosive and high damaging weapons makes him a good crowd controller and a wonderfull Giant killer. This, added with the trio's buffs, makes the Demoman a powerfull class in the team.

Note : Demoknights tends to have the same characteristics the Pyro have without the Tank busting upside.

The Heavy
Because the Heavy won't move that much, he's easy to find for the trio. However, this is why the Heavy tends to be the teammate that recieve most of the damages. But don't fear ! With the trio's buffs, not only the Heavy will barely lose health, but he will also deal impressive amount of damages. Add to this a dispenser and he is a titan-sandvich-filled-buffed-and-unstoppable sentry gun.

Note : if the team have a Heavy, this is the trio's duty to buff him first, as he's the one class to benefit the most from these.

The Engineer
An Engineer is 99% of the time needed for the trio, not because of his sentry but because of his dispenser. The trio tends to deal enough damages to take out any robots, but it needs ammo to do so, lot of it. But the sentry and his Engineer by itself will really benefit the Buff Banner's charge, making the sentry an unstoppable killing machine.

Note : this can be the occasion for an expert Engineer to try playing Gunslinger Engie : Upgraded Windowmaker + Upgraded Resistances + Disposable sentry makes the Engineer a neat damage beacon for the robots, as long as a Giant pounder and multiple-source crowd controller. When adding to this the trio's buffs, it makes the Engineer the ultimate fighter. But keep in mind that this is, again, for Expert Engineers (I'll make a guide about this playstyle later)

The Medic
Not only the Medic will extend the survival of the team to the extreme, but he will also support the team with his variety of Medigun : Kritzgrieg to maximize the damages, Vaccinator to be sure no one stay dead, and his shield will tear apart smaller robots and add an other layer of protection to what the team already have.

Note : the Medic will always benefit from the damage resistance the Battalion's Backup gives, but he will onyl benefit the other 2 backpacks when his shield is on and attacking robots.

The Sniper
The Sniper is a polite professional, expert on killing Uber Medics and crowd control when a Giant is present. Plus, he will recover some of the money when killing a robot with an headshot or an explosive headshot. His Jarate will not only help the team deal with faster robots, but also help the Buff Banner's Soldier do his job. Exepted that, the Sniper don't really benefits from the trio's buffs, as he stay far behind them.

Note : a Sniper with the Buff Banner's Soldier and an upgraded Bushwacka can make him an exellent Tank Buster : 195 damages per seconds you don't see this every days.

The Spy
For me, this is the class that really take out most if not all of the weaknesses the trio have. He can kill Uber Medics, grab the money, but also slow down faster robots with his sapper. Having a good spy in the team is having an exellent support teammate that makes everyone's life easier. Howerver, since he mostly stay close or behind the robots, he won't really benefit from the trio's buffs.



In short, the trio needs a dispenser, an Uber Medic picker, a money grabber and a Tank buster. 4 roles with 3 teammates, you will have to make the right choice with what I said above.
Conclusion
This tactics tends to be used on Bavarian Botbash (Rottenburg) due to his lack of Uber Medics, but this can be used in any missions (but avoid the Expert ones)

Don't hesitate to comment anything you have to say, and if you have an idea of team strategy for MVM, don't forget to make a guide about it !

Also, check my other guides if you have the time to, they are about MVM :
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=340356042
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386948630
5 Comments
DrArchimedes 5 Dec, 2015 @ 5:21pm 
can confirm that this works, made mannhattan seem like coal town
Hydrogen 7 Jul, 2015 @ 8:18am 
This guide listed the cheapest mvm setup to beat any Valve mission with ease. I have used this and confirmed it makes mvm extremely trivial.

The setup we used to turn 2 cities upside down is:

Beggar's bazooka with buff banner
Beggar's bazooka with battalion's backup
Beggar's bazooka with concheror
Engineer
Demoman/Medic (either or; the medic makes it even easier)
Scout/Spy (either or)

It also works on expert mode pretty well.
Quenquent the babysitter  [author] 15 Feb, 2015 @ 4:56am 
@CAR_|No Sound
-How does Backup mess up rocket jumping ? Having it on reduce rocket jump's height ? Even with that, rocket jump isn't that much used in MVM.
-Backup still can be usefull against robots that deal lot of damages (Giant Heavies for example), but yeah, it can be remplaced by an other Conch/Buff
-I do agree with you about the Pyro stuff, but even if the trio is close to the robots, it's hard to buff a Pyro behind the robots (like, if the Pyro use Back Burner)

Also, thank you for your comment
アンダースコア 12 Feb, 2015 @ 4:18pm 
Also, if you're not in close enough to buff the Pyro fighting at close range, you're playing Soldier wrong.
アンダースコア 12 Feb, 2015 @ 4:17pm 
Backup messes up rocket jumping, and most missions don't have many crits. Just run a 2nd Conch Soldier.