honestly, the Direct Hit and Black Box are those weapons that you would think are direct upgrades, until you realize that their downsides are actually doing their job
@@Cister00What? Damage penalties are probably the thing me and most gamers I know avoid like the plague. The Direct Hit and the Black Box downsides in comparison don’t look so bad. Until you play with the weapon.
@TheUnitAce its how its programmed, i think. iirc, the second the pyro airblasts, it deletes the projectile fired by the soli, and spawns one fired by the pyro from his flamethrower, in order to give kill credit to the pyro and make it damage the enemy team. But since its fired from the pyro's flamethrower, which doesnt have any -explosion radius, the explosion radius goes back to normal
I know it's sacrilegious, but I love the Direct Hit. Extremely satisfying to use, demands you invest time into learning the speed. There are few things in TF2 that are as juicy as a long-range DH airshot. Despite it being an Engineer player's hard-counter, it's still one of those weapons where you just have to respect it.
I may be bad at the game 99% of the time, but I am weirdly very good at long distance DH airshots and getting Rescue Ranger kills. And damn do both feel good to land. Much like how when I was younger playing Halo... absolute trash at the game but the millisecond I'm in a wraith I even out my K/D in 30s flat. Weapon-determined Jeckle and Hyde skill level.
I gotta be fair to those scouts that run directly, and then call for Direct hit nerfs - it's totally in character for the Scout to complain about that and ignore the many nuances.
DH Soldier is even easier to kill as a Scout than Stock. Smaller splash means if the Scout steps back instesd of going for meatshots he can still very easily dodge the rockets while not worrying about splash
I don't call for direct hit nerfs, but I find it utter BS weapons like the sandman were nerfed for stunning players momentarily so the Scout, a weak class that's made even weaker with the health penalty, can get a temporary one-up on someone else by utilising his skill and hitting the ball, whereas you have this weapon called the direct hit completely untouched which damn-near invalidates your existence if the soldier even remotely knows how to hit shots with it. You know how Scouts used to counter direct hit soldiers, snipers (notably with the CLASSIC or huntsman), and nataschas? With the sandman. Because with its ability to restrict weapons momentarily it made these incredibly frustrating classes to play against on your own level so they didn't have a direct advantage over you because of what class you played. And the BONK. One of the most pointless Scout nerfs of all time that merely allowed you to bypass sentries or highly-contested chokepoints and not even counter engineers, that was nerfed because apparently Scout isn't allowed to better-combat his counters in the game?
To be perfectly fair to the Scout mains, getting up close to a Direct Hit Soldier isn't a completely baseless strategy. While yeah, Scouts eat shit at point blank range of the Direct Hit, its somewhat of a similar tactic with the Scout vs Demo matchup where Demo has a much easier time hitting Scout with a pipe from mid range as opposed to him darting around the Demo at a range where he's most uncomfortable. It's a bit of an odd dynamic, but its essentially increasing the risk of getting instantly deleted in exchange for increasing the chance for such an attack to whiff completely. Plus, the added bonus of possibly trading with the Soldier with self damage. Of course, this tactic requires Scouts to be smart with their movement, which those complaining about the Direct Hit probably haven't quite grasped.
I'd add onto it that evading direct hits from mid range can have the same problem pyros have with airblasting, as in your reflexes are built to react to regular rockets. And of course the fact that the range in which a shot is impossible to dodge is bigger when the projectile is that much faster.
Yeah if your scout facing a direct hit user, it feels like you need hyper reflexs to dodge it. How given scout increases momvent and direct hit basic no explosion radius, the direct hit kinda needs that speed.
I just avoid Direct hit soldiers because i don't think i want to pick a fight with one. So i just don't. It also made me like relying on my Pistol and the Winger is now my favorite secondary. And because i don't like being erased in 2 seconds by a Pyro, because i got the first meatshot on but missed the 2nd one
As someone who named their strange killstreak Direct hit the, "Direct Miss," I can confirm that it can be harder to hit scouts (or any class) that are right up in your face.
7:30 FUN FACT!: Airblasted Rockets always have the splash radius of a stock rocket launcher rocket!, Therefore if a pyro reflects a direct hit rocket, it's a Rocket that deals 25% increased damage, with MINI-CRITS and FULL BLAST RADIUS! While I despise this launcher when I play spy, deleting both a soldier AND his medic with 1 rocket is pretty satisfying when I play Pyro.
I once saw someone in a casual game (big shock) simultaneously argue this thing was a bad weapon, and that it was an overpowered crutch. If someone can wrap their head around that level of mental gymnastics, it certainly isn't me.
One of best designed weapons in the game in my opinion. The custom weapons and the weapon rebalance community( *cough* highGPS *cough* ) have quite a few things about game design to learn form this weapon.
@@pikachufrankieHiGPS’s mod is very much still active, with the last update since writing being January 27th of this year Creators.TF however is very much dead at this point
I'd say that the Gunboats-Direct Hit combo is worth mentioning. You completely lack the safety net of the Shotguns or extra damage of Buff Banner charges, but you gain all that extra mobility so you can jump into peoples' faces, nuke them with a max ramp-up 140 damage rocket and jump away.
Maybe in theory, but not IRL: DH rockets fly a lot faster than regular ones so your rocket jumping skills are useless with it. This is also one of many problems of LL.
Worth mentioning but not consistent because the height advantage means rockets with splash damage have the most impact, especially on groups. Also the Airstrike exists and does it better cause it makes up for it why the speed, rate of fire, quality of rockets, and sheer burst damage on single targets in the air while it still has splash damage on the group for only one more rocket to kill on average which the clip size makes up for anyways. Also Ive heard the splash radius penality can affect certain jumps and while I havent tested with personally I dont want to waste games figuring why specific jumps dont work on the direct hits like other rockets. So its basically one initial jump for me while I use it which isnt worth using the second slot for especially when I know the health packs. The Direct Hit and the Airstrike are the only 2 main rockets that could be better than stock with the catch being only on the ground with the direct hit andnonly in the air with the Airstrike. Stock is overall still the most consistent for all but I definately can see other more viable options for individual playstyles.
@@skipperg4436Useless is a bit hyperbolic. For most jumps it won’t matter and for the jumps it does it’s mostly just adjusting to it rather than it being impossible
@@Lawlz4DayzzThe Splash Radius Penalty should not affect Rocket Jumps as the DH rocket is coded to be the exact same radius but the check in that radius that damages enemies is smaller. For Self-Blast Damage the radius is identical
I think part of the reason Engineers don't complain about the Direct Hit is that other rocket launchers also fuck up your sentry in most sightlines. It's pretty expected that your sentry could fall to rockets when placing it in those sorts of spots, the Direct Hit just speeds it up. The main part of the reason though is just that playing Engineer frequently requires a fundamental level of patience that eliminates most complaints. (Source: I am patient enough to main Medic and Brass Beast Heavy but not patient enough to play Engineer more than occasionally)
Speaking as someone who plays engineer a lot, I can said if a solider is focus on your sentry hard that isn't the cow Mangler or liberty launcher, then it most of the time it dead, wether it 2 or 3 rockets. In fact I have hard time knowing it ether a stock or direct hit.
Yeah it feels weird that some rocket launcher have a scope but no zoom scope. I get it wouldn't that useful given solider is front like fighter, but still.
if it already wasn't powerful enough give it a scope and give it a charge like sniper and upon full charge let it fire 20percent faster that along with the buff banner would be funny
while i do like the direct hit, i do find the complaints from scout mains fair, when your main option in a head to head fight is dodging and going in close for the kill, having to then adapt to a rocket thats 20% faster then most rockets your muscle memory has learnt to handle, and no splash, will definetely throw off how you usually handle soldiers, your almost fighting an entirely different class just from how these small stats can effect a 1v1. Your only counter play at that point is the pistol from a far but the soldier is also far superior at a mid range too.
Yeah fish even contradicts himself in the video saying that scouts should just back off to further range where they're harder to hit, but then also goes on to say because the rockets are faster it's easier to hit at further ranges, so it's really just a no-win scenario for scout. He blames it entirely on scout mains being bad despite his genius solution being "just don't fight a direct hit soldier as scout". You really can't call a weapon balanced if it completely invalidates a class.
Best scout defense is to be really really good at double jumping and movement. Which is best scout defense generally. God tier scout mains are practically unhittable without luck.
@@heroninja1125 I find it funny that fish always claims to care about the enemy having fun, yet he mains a class that literally nobody has fun fighting against. is he so stupid he doesn't realize how obvious that contradiction is??
Scout's main strategy involves getting close for a pair of meatshots to kill the Soldier. A DH Soldier, at the same range, can kill the scout with 1 rocket, in half the time. Of course they're not going to like it.
Engineers don't usually complain about the DH because we know that either the Soldier is putting themselves at decent risk to take those shots, or otherwise we built in a spot that gave them that sight line. It's still annoying when a sentry goes down, but we just rebuild again and again.
Honestly, I'm just surprised this video wasn't made sooner, seeing just how much you used this gun on streams and just on random videos (or just in general).
For those who don't know: A pyro can basically turn a reflected direct hit rocket into a straight up normal rocket that retains the high speed and high damage (stock splash radius) This also applies to reflected cow mangler rockets being able to be *Regular* crit boosted (No mini-crit downside)
I don't know if it's a joke slime, he ends the video with a galighty comment about how you can "ignore complaints about the direct hit because the only people who complain about it are bad scout players."
@@shitanotosaurus There's no forcing there, though. You can simply practice on other launchers and then switch, no problem. It _would_ be forcing if its mechanics were so different you couldn't train to use DH without using DH.
Glad you finally made the direct hit video. Been hoping for one ever since you mentioned putting it off for something else since at the time Nate had just made one.
As an engineer main, getting my sentries destroyed doesnt get me heated because I know I'm the one responsible for setting it up in a place vulnerable to getting rocketed. If I reposition and it happens again, thats when I start tilting.
Might be because DH players will put more effort into hunting down engi buildings when they are literally carrying around the biggest middlefinger in tf2 against engineer buildings. It helps the team, and I get a good 'laff knowing the engi on the enemy team has to spend a solid 4 minutes setting up again much further behind the frontline and wait until we reach the nest in order to have proper engi gameplay once again, lmfao!
1 tip for pyros:Airblasted direct hit rockets do between 152 and 187 damage and they actually have normal splash radius so if you see a pocketed direct hit soldier, airblast into the medic %99 of time that medic is toast
As a scout main, I can tell you that the problem with the direct hit isn’t that it’s OP or whatnot, the problem is that it’s boring to fight. You either play passively or you die.
Except you can dodge the rocket and use cover like against anything else. This is more so the problem playing against Snipers except you die or dont play can the hitscan is instant.
@@Lawlz4Dayzz Baiting rockets and taking highground (which is what I hope you mean by “taking cover”, because if not, wow) at medium range doesn't work when it has that +80% projectile speed. It forces you to play at a long-ish range. It’s more akin to the Loch-n-Load in that way.
@@Lawlz4Dayzz If you play passively against a sniper you’re being an idiot. You have to exploit snipers' unreliability at medium-ish to close range. No wonder that people say that Sniper is OP if all they do is play passively.
My only real complaint with the direct hit is, because of its extreme projectile speed buff, muscle memory between it and stock is basically entirely different and it's really hard for skills with one to transfer to the other cleanly, it feels like it's own class of weapon almost and that kinda detracts from that lesson you mentioned about how direct hits with all launchers are more effective than splash
Similiar problem with the Loch N Load, it can mess up muscle memory at times switching between weapons. Its why I dont use it as Demo, except Soldier is easier to hit Rockets so the different isnt obvious.
When i was first learning soldier i noticed i struggled a lot with, well, hitting. So i thought "I rarely hit anyone, even with splash damage, so i might as well use the direct hit, so when i do hit it actually does something". Which helped vastly improve my aim with rockets.
I started playing in 2019 and I saw the Direct Hit in the MannCo catalog and thought “man that sounds fucking awesome.” It is still my favorite weapon in the game to this day. 3-1 KD minimum with this thing. Its beautiful. Also, the Conch is my secondary of choice. It’s better for support and it gives me more freedom to rocket jump. It also charges faster. I never used the shotguns on the principle of “why would I want any other weapon? I’ve got the Direct Hit!”
As someone who has doubled Haled their strange Direct Hit, there's only 1 change I'd make, and it goes for all rocket launchers (and Demo grenade launchers as well): ramp up self damage at point blank range much more if you connect with an enemy player. TF2 just doesn't punish dumb high damage plays like these nearly enough. Self damage on the DH is high, but still doesn't promote caution.
Sure the being instantly killed with little you could have done about it is something that both Snipers and Spys share with the Direct Hit, but at least those classes are flimsy anyways. With any other primary, a Scout has the chance to escape a Soldier if even directly hit, but getting instantly gibbed by a Direct Hit is something that happens often before either the Scout or Soldier realized it happened
As someone who spent 2 months playing scout, Yeah Fuck you direct hit soldiers. But as someone who occasionally plays soldier, fuck yes is it ever so satisfying to shut down people with the juggle. Scouts and snipers will forever be red mist when I rocket jump right in their faces.
as someone who plays engineer a lot, i dont usually care if my buildings go down, because there is a 90% chance im using the jag and was going to build another sentry anyways
It's funny that you mention the direct hit being newbie unfriendly. For the longest time I actually mostly used the direct hit just because my mind always made me go for directs rather than rely on spash damage even when using the normal rocket launcher. I've managed to somewhat change that behavior since then, but even then I still think the Direct Hit is easily my favorite rocket launcher. Probably also just one of the best designed weapons in the game.
the reason why scouts complain about being one shot by the direct hit is because being one shot in general is not fun at all (unless something funny happened) everyone hates snipers and spies somewhat as well and i feel it is precisely because of the fact that they can delete you from existence with a single click of a button at all, no matter how hard that click might have been
The direct hit is my favourite rocket launcher, but I have an annoying bug where if I equip it, I am unable to equip any other launcher afterwards. Attempting to equip another launcher shows the new launcher as being equipped in the menus, but the direct hit stays equipped. Changing to a different class and back does nothing. The only way to eqip a different launcher is changing server while making sure the Direct Hit is not the currently equipped launcher.
There's three types of Direct Hit players: the bad ones that use it as a projectile melee weapon, the good ones that deserve respect, and the cheaters.
dont' forget that a reflected DH rocket will do regular splash radius but also increased damage. if you know a pyro is good, shooting them puts you and everyone around you at great risk with a reflected rocket with DH minicrit damage
@@minimumapature3361 The Soldiers you're going against are complete bots then lol. Its so damn easy to bait Pyros to use their airblast on nothing, even with stock. Only way a Pyro can win against a Soldier that actually knows how to use the weapon, is if the Pyro jumps the Soldier and he fires a panic rocket.
@@nate_2004 oh yes. There's one dude in asia server who's an absolute god with the DH. Dude is impossible to airblast, his firing rhythm is completely random
I used it for a highly organized and trained for scrim once, and it completely changed how I view the thing. It went from being the Direct Miss to being a high-velocity missile launcher, and it slapped.
I hate the direct hit because the amount of soldiers who actually cheat while using it and dont get kicked because players assume you cant cheat with a projectile is staggering. Much like with the Force A Nature when scouts use it to instantly two tap everybody which is not intended and bullshit.
10:13 , "I do not use the reserve shooter skyler, i am the reserve shooter! A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think i am the one who gets shot? No, i am the one who Instakills"
I also wanna quickly make mention of the Battalion's Backup being able to shut down critical hits, reduce sentry damage, and overall reduce all other damage at the same rate that the buff banner increases damage. While it can't become a 152 sniper rifle rocket launcher due to minicrits ignoring falloff damage, it does prevent crits (which are fairly common in casual) from being able to tell your buff "no, you're not allowed to do that." Further, the Battalions gives you a genuine advantage over sentry guns which both the Banner and Conch can't do. The extra 20 health also does end up mattering quite a bit. The battalion's backup affords you and your team more up time and mistakes while the buff banner cancels your opponents' free trial of life and reduces their lives counter from 99 to 1.
If anything, Direct Hit was always an excellent example of rich getting richer. It's like, oh, you're pwning everyone on the field? Here, have a weapon that lets you pwn even harder. I mean, why not give the MVP of each team a flat +25% boost to damage while we're at it?
One thing I think should be considered is the Battalion's making you the ultimate nest buster and letting you have more impact in team fights, even if you beef all your rockets, while keeping the light class delete button and pick potential the DH comes prepackaged with. Instead of the multiplicative effect the Banner has on your damage when you hit your shots, the Battalion's lets you still be helpful even if you can't land your first clip, by letting you tank more damage and hopefully get another shot or two off. Just something I thought about.
conch + direct hit is pretty funny imagine a soldier rocket jumping to your location at mach 1 and then proceeds to blow you into smithereens with a close direct hit
While this is my favorite rocket launcher, I’m still irrationally salty they mangled the loch-n-load for one-shotting scouts and yet never had a problem with the direct hit. Why’d you do us dirty like that, valve?
Although I prefer using rockets blast radius to peak or hit things around corners, I have to admit there is potential with the direct hit in most games, unless you are dealing with multiple people at once who know how to counter it
oh yeah, as a Scout main, I don't even complain about the Direct Hit, since it's no where near on my hate list, and is a weapon I would actually use on Soldier. Especially when there's already a lot of weapons and combinations that can one shot light classes, so it really isn't something I would complain about.
7:36 The direct hit is the rl that i used the most, so i know it very well and i feed on overconfident soldiers with it when im playing pyro, as i consistently airblast them back
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honestly, the Direct Hit and Black Box are those weapons that you would think are direct upgrades, until you realize that their downsides are actually doing their job
Actually the same applies to Liberty Launcher, except... ehhhh
@@Cister00 I mean, the case with the Liberty Launcher is that one downside has the capabilities to punish you severely
@@Cister00What? Damage penalties are probably the thing me and most gamers I know avoid like the plague. The Direct Hit and the Black Box downsides in comparison don’t look so bad. Until you play with the weapon.
@avainttf6871 upside is healing on hit, but the downside is one less rocket in the clip
The one rocket smaller clip hits a lot harder than it sounds
Fun fact: The direct hit's rockets lose their explosion radius penalty once airblasted by a Pyro.
Wait you mean that I have the chance to do my dream it's about air blast a crit drict hit rocket and kill 5 people with it
@@AverageBaldisbasicsfan Yep, you're basically shooting a mini-nuke back if it's a crocket.
@TheUnitAce its how its programmed, i think.
iirc, the second the pyro airblasts, it deletes the projectile fired by the soli, and spawns one fired by the pyro from his flamethrower, in order to give kill credit to the pyro and make it damage the enemy team.
But since its fired from the pyro's flamethrower, which doesnt have any -explosion radius, the explosion radius goes back to normal
@TheUnitAce It's most likely overlooked, because it makes more sense in that context when you look at the source code that causes said bug
Ah yes that's some quality source spaghetti right there
5:26
my mans disrespected the bison and got killed by a bison soldier to end the clip
And the guy who killed him has the name "Righteous Botson", clearly he wasn't having any of that
@@bobbyferg9173 divine paladin smites heinous blasphemer the moment he uttered heresy
He was at 30 health
@@rubixclockpog so? it doesn't change the fact he disrespected the bison, then got killed by the bison
I know it's sacrilegious, but I love the Direct Hit. Extremely satisfying to use, demands you invest time into learning the speed. There are few things in TF2 that are as juicy as a long-range DH airshot. Despite it being an Engineer player's hard-counter, it's still one of those weapons where you just have to respect it.
BasedDane
ANKLE DAN THE SOLDIER MANE
I may be bad at the game 99% of the time, but I am weirdly very good at long distance DH airshots and getting Rescue Ranger kills. And damn do both feel good to land.
Much like how when I was younger playing Halo... absolute trash at the game but the millisecond I'm in a wraith I even out my K/D in 30s flat. Weapon-determined Jeckle and Hyde skill level.
Why do you have to respect it? Because it takes skill? Sniper takes skill too, guess people should just respect him.
@@pikachufrankie yeah i guess so huh
I gotta be fair to those scouts that run directly, and then call for Direct hit nerfs - it's totally in character for the Scout to complain about that and ignore the many nuances.
There isn't a single better instinct in the game that "Scunt" for a reason.
To be honest, Scout wouldnt even know what "nuance" means
@@actualcrafty5139 Most of the internet doesn't if we're talking truthfully
DH Soldier is even easier to kill as a Scout than Stock. Smaller splash means if the Scout steps back instesd of going for meatshots he can still very easily dodge the rockets while not worrying about splash
I don't call for direct hit nerfs, but I find it utter BS weapons like the sandman were nerfed for stunning players momentarily so the Scout, a weak class that's made even weaker with the health penalty, can get a temporary one-up on someone else by utilising his skill and hitting the ball, whereas you have this weapon called the direct hit completely untouched which damn-near invalidates your existence if the soldier even remotely knows how to hit shots with it. You know how Scouts used to counter direct hit soldiers, snipers (notably with the CLASSIC or huntsman), and nataschas? With the sandman. Because with its ability to restrict weapons momentarily it made these incredibly frustrating classes to play against on your own level so they didn't have a direct advantage over you because of what class you played.
And the BONK. One of the most pointless Scout nerfs of all time that merely allowed you to bypass sentries or highly-contested chokepoints and not even counter engineers, that was nerfed because apparently Scout isn't allowed to better-combat his counters in the game?
"With great doots come some seriously powerful shoots." Fucking art, man.
timestamp please. I missed this.,
@@dreamcream3738 8:11
@@dreamcream37388:10
@@dreamcream3738around the middle of the vid, busy watching to be specific
@@dreamcream3738 8:11
To be perfectly fair to the Scout mains, getting up close to a Direct Hit Soldier isn't a completely baseless strategy. While yeah, Scouts eat shit at point blank range of the Direct Hit, its somewhat of a similar tactic with the Scout vs Demo matchup where Demo has a much easier time hitting Scout with a pipe from mid range as opposed to him darting around the Demo at a range where he's most uncomfortable. It's a bit of an odd dynamic, but its essentially increasing the risk of getting instantly deleted in exchange for increasing the chance for such an attack to whiff completely. Plus, the added bonus of possibly trading with the Soldier with self damage.
Of course, this tactic requires Scouts to be smart with their movement, which those complaining about the Direct Hit probably haven't quite grasped.
I'd add onto it that evading direct hits from mid range can have the same problem pyros have with airblasting, as in your reflexes are built to react to regular rockets. And of course the fact that the range in which a shot is impossible to dodge is bigger when the projectile is that much faster.
Yeah if your scout facing a direct hit user, it feels like you need hyper reflexs to dodge it. How given scout increases momvent and direct hit basic no explosion radius, the direct hit kinda needs that speed.
It's +insta-delete for both parties.
I just avoid Direct hit soldiers because i don't think i want to pick a fight with one. So i just don't. It also made me like relying on my Pistol and the Winger is now my favorite secondary. And because i don't like being erased in 2 seconds by a Pyro, because i got the first meatshot on but missed the 2nd one
As someone who named their strange killstreak Direct hit the, "Direct Miss," I can confirm that it can be harder to hit scouts (or any class) that are right up in your face.
7:30 FUN FACT!: Airblasted Rockets always have the splash radius of a stock rocket launcher rocket!, Therefore if a pyro reflects a direct hit rocket, it's a Rocket that deals 25% increased damage, with MINI-CRITS and FULL BLAST RADIUS!
While I despise this launcher when I play spy, deleting both a soldier AND his medic with 1 rocket is pretty satisfying when I play Pyro.
i hate that. vlave needs to fix that eugh
I once saw someone in a casual game (big shock) simultaneously argue this thing was a bad weapon, and that it was an overpowered crutch. If someone can wrap their head around that level of mental gymnastics, it certainly isn't me.
A bad weapon doesn't mean it performs poorly. An overpowered weapon is bad because that's not good for the game
tbf badly-designed and bad are different, so he probably meant the former
@@ME0WMERE Nope.
@@purplehaze2358 ok i can't understand him then lmao
Give that (wo)man a gold medal.
One of best designed weapons in the game in my opinion. The custom weapons and the weapon rebalance community( *cough* highGPS *cough* ) have quite a few things about game design to learn form this weapon.
Loose cannon >
To be fair so do valve
Bro, HiGPS’s Balance Mod and Creators.TF are long gone. What are you rambling about?
@@pikachufrankiepeople still look to hiGPS for competitive balance discussion
@@pikachufrankieHiGPS’s mod is very much still active, with the last update since writing being January 27th of this year
Creators.TF however is very much dead at this point
How in the hell did it take me THIS LONG to learn that the Beggar's Bazooka has a blast radius penalty.
before the tough break update it didnt so eh
Because we're yugioh players
Because it's so inaccurate already
@@thedootlordhey I always read the description on the card how else can I send your monster to the gy
@@liquidsleepgames3661 but did you read the floating effect
I'd say that the Gunboats-Direct Hit combo is worth mentioning. You completely lack the safety net of the Shotguns or extra damage of Buff Banner charges, but you gain all that extra mobility so you can jump into peoples' faces, nuke them with a max ramp-up 140 damage rocket and jump away.
Maybe in theory, but not IRL: DH rockets fly a lot faster than regular ones so your rocket jumping skills are useless with it.
This is also one of many problems of LL.
Worth mentioning but not consistent because the height advantage means rockets with splash damage have the most impact, especially on groups.
Also the Airstrike exists and does it better cause it makes up for it why the speed, rate of fire, quality of rockets, and sheer burst damage on single targets in the air while it still has splash damage on the group for only one more rocket to kill on average which the clip size makes up for anyways.
Also Ive heard the splash radius penality can affect certain jumps and while I havent tested with personally I dont want to waste games figuring why specific jumps dont work on the direct hits like other rockets.
So its basically one initial jump for me while I use it which isnt worth using the second slot for especially when I know the health packs.
The Direct Hit and the Airstrike are the only 2 main rockets that could be better than stock with the catch being only on the ground with the direct hit andnonly in the air with the Airstrike. Stock is overall still the most consistent for all but I definately can see other more viable options for individual playstyles.
I will never give up my shotgun. That thing saved my life as solider so many times, when I ran out of rocketa
@@skipperg4436Useless is a bit hyperbolic. For most jumps it won’t matter and for the jumps it does it’s mostly just adjusting to it rather than it being impossible
@@Lawlz4DayzzThe Splash Radius Penalty should not affect Rocket Jumps as the DH rocket is coded to be the exact same radius but the check in that radius that damages enemies is smaller. For Self-Blast Damage the radius is identical
I think part of the reason Engineers don't complain about the Direct Hit is that other rocket launchers also fuck up your sentry in most sightlines. It's pretty expected that your sentry could fall to rockets when placing it in those sorts of spots, the Direct Hit just speeds it up.
The main part of the reason though is just that playing Engineer frequently requires a fundamental level of patience that eliminates most complaints. (Source: I am patient enough to main Medic and Brass Beast Heavy but not patient enough to play Engineer more than occasionally)
Speaking as someone who plays engineer a lot, I can said if a solider is focus on your sentry hard that isn't the cow Mangler or liberty launcher, then it most of the time it dead, wether it 2 or 3 rockets. In fact I have hard time knowing it ether a stock or direct hit.
I think the world would overall be a very, very slightly, downright exiguously better place if you were able to actually use the scope on this thing.
Yeah it feels weird that some rocket launcher have a scope but no zoom scope. I get it wouldn't that useful given solider is front like fighter, but still.
if it already wasn't powerful enough give it a scope and give it a charge like sniper and upon full charge let it fire 20percent faster that along with the buff banner would be funny
spyware ad ends at 1:54
Lol'd
opera gx is still better than any other browser
@@Numbers225 and the average gaming chair is better than the average office chair, yet neither add anything to your online experience.
@@slyseal2091nah thats cap
a basic officer chair will always be better than a “gaming chair”
@@slyseal2091 yeah and a browser does dumbass
while i do like the direct hit, i do find the complaints from scout mains fair, when your main option in a head to head fight is dodging and going in close for the kill, having to then adapt to a rocket thats 20% faster then most rockets your muscle memory has learnt to handle, and no splash, will definetely throw off how you usually handle soldiers, your almost fighting an entirely different class just from how these small stats can effect a 1v1. Your only counter play at that point is the pistol from a far but the soldier is also far superior at a mid range too.
Yeah fish even contradicts himself in the video saying that scouts should just back off to further range where they're harder to hit, but then also goes on to say because the rockets are faster it's easier to hit at further ranges, so it's really just a no-win scenario for scout. He blames it entirely on scout mains being bad despite his genius solution being "just don't fight a direct hit soldier as scout". You really can't call a weapon balanced if it completely invalidates a class.
@@captainweekend5276 Meanwhile sniper:
Best scout defense is to be really really good at double jumping and movement. Which is best scout defense generally. God tier scout mains are practically unhittable without luck.
@@heroninja1125 I find it funny that fish always claims to care about the enemy having fun, yet he mains a class that literally nobody has fun fighting against. is he so stupid he doesn't realize how obvious that contradiction is??
Scout's main strategy involves getting close for a pair of meatshots to kill the Soldier. A DH Soldier, at the same range, can kill the scout with 1 rocket, in half the time. Of course they're not going to like it.
That feeling when Meta Knight’s theme kicks in
Absolutely awesome use of SSBB music
engineer mains 🤝 soldier mains > mutual scout hatred
I feel attacked
What do you mean Engineer mains hate Scouts? We literally feed them free kills.
and then you start spamming X + 5 in their ears until they go insane @@GGshep
Why though? Scouts are pushovers. One revenge-crit and it's done.
Spy should've used condom
Engineers don't usually complain about the DH because we know that either the Soldier is putting themselves at decent risk to take those shots, or otherwise we built in a spot that gave them that sight line.
It's still annoying when a sentry goes down, but we just rebuild again and again.
Honestly, I'm just surprised this video wasn't made sooner, seeing just how much you used this gun on streams and just on random videos (or just in general).
For those who don't know:
A pyro can basically turn a reflected direct hit rocket into a straight up normal rocket that retains the high speed and high damage (stock splash radius)
This also applies to reflected cow mangler rockets being able to be *Regular* crit boosted
(No mini-crit downside)
Thx
6:35 The Medic corpse hitting the ground in such a satisfying manner.
The self sucking in the end of this video damn you would think fish's dog was shot by scout players irl
I know its a joke bit but its still funny
I don't know if it's a joke slime, he ends the video with a galighty comment about how you can "ignore complaints about the direct hit because the only people who complain about it are bad scout players."
@@pikachufrankiewell he WAS being true
Love how this weapon basically removes a crutch and forces you to get good. Similar to the widow maker.
It doesn't force you to get good, it gives you extra free pwnage when you're _already_ good.
@@Hisu0 but it does force you to get good. its not like you can still aim for the floor and still kill them with it.
@@shitanotosaurus
There's no forcing there, though. You can simply practice on other launchers and then switch, no problem. It _would_ be forcing if its mechanics were so different you couldn't train to use DH without using DH.
@@Hisu0 The stock rockets don't transfer to direct hit almost at all. Completely different muscle memory is needed.
@@102ndsmirnov7
If that were true, there would be a lot of players good with DH but bad with stock.
"Call me boeing because..."
I audibly reacted to that joke
Furry Detected, Opinion Rejected
@@Lawlz4Dayzzpresident of the united states detected, assasinated
The truest definition of a "get good" weapon
Glad you finally made the direct hit video. Been hoping for one ever since you mentioned putting it off for something else since at the time Nate had just made one.
Unfortunate you couldn’t post this on Monday, but I’m glad you were able to at least get it out this week. Great video too Fish.
As an engineer main, getting my sentries destroyed doesnt get me heated because I know I'm the one responsible for setting it up in a place vulnerable to getting rocketed. If I reposition and it happens again, thats when I start tilting.
Might be because DH players will put more effort into hunting down engi buildings when they are literally carrying around the biggest middlefinger in tf2 against engineer buildings. It helps the team, and I get a good 'laff knowing the engi on the enemy team has to spend a solid 4 minutes setting up again much further behind the frontline and wait until we reach the nest in order to have proper engi gameplay once again, lmfao!
1 tip for pyros:Airblasted direct hit rockets do between 152 and 187 damage and they actually have normal splash radius so if you see a pocketed direct hit soldier, airblast into the medic %99 of time that medic is toast
As a scout main, I can tell you that the problem with the direct hit isn’t that it’s OP or whatnot, the problem is that it’s boring to fight. You either play passively or you die.
Except you can dodge the rocket and use cover like against anything else.
This is more so the problem playing against Snipers except you die or dont play can the hitscan is instant.
@@Lawlz4Dayzz Baiting rockets and taking highground (which is what I hope you mean by “taking cover”, because if not, wow) at medium range doesn't work when it has that +80% projectile speed. It forces you to play at a long-ish range. It’s more akin to the Loch-n-Load in that way.
@@Lawlz4Dayzz If you play passively against a sniper you’re being an idiot. You have to exploit snipers' unreliability at medium-ish to close range. No wonder that people say that Sniper is OP if all they do is play passively.
@@II--II Have fun dying to The Direct Hit and Snipers then. Clearly dont know how to deal with either
@@Lawlz4Dayzzbuff sniper, buff dh and remove scout ez
My only real complaint with the direct hit is, because of its extreme projectile speed buff, muscle memory between it and stock is basically entirely different and it's really hard for skills with one to transfer to the other cleanly, it feels like it's own class of weapon almost and that kinda detracts from that lesson you mentioned about how direct hits with all launchers are more effective than splash
Similiar problem with the Loch N Load, it can mess up muscle memory at times switching between weapons. Its why I dont use it as Demo, except Soldier is easier to hit Rockets so the different isnt obvious.
When i was first learning soldier i noticed i struggled a lot with, well, hitting. So i thought "I rarely hit anyone, even with splash damage, so i might as well use the direct hit, so when i do hit it actually does something". Which helped vastly improve my aim with rockets.
Fun fact: the blast radius is about the size of an active teleporter.
Thx
I started playing in 2019 and I saw the Direct Hit in the MannCo catalog and thought “man that sounds fucking awesome.” It is still my favorite weapon in the game to this day. 3-1 KD minimum with this thing. Its beautiful.
Also, the Conch is my secondary of choice. It’s better for support and it gives me more freedom to rocket jump. It also charges faster. I never used the shotguns on the principle of “why would I want any other weapon? I’ve got the Direct Hit!”
As someone who has doubled Haled their strange Direct Hit, there's only 1 change I'd make, and it goes for all rocket launchers (and Demo grenade launchers as well): ramp up self damage at point blank range much more if you connect with an enemy player. TF2 just doesn't punish dumb high damage plays like these nearly enough. Self damage on the DH is high, but still doesn't promote caution.
I will say as a scout in close range spaces or corners getting one shot will never feel fair.
Sure the being instantly killed with little you could have done about it is something that both Snipers and Spys share with the Direct Hit, but at least those classes are flimsy anyways. With any other primary, a Scout has the chance to escape a Soldier if even directly hit, but getting instantly gibbed by a Direct Hit is something that happens often before either the Scout or Soldier realized it happened
Shout-out to the spy in all your clips showing up after you gib an enemy, just like "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize he was already dead."
As someone who spent 2 months playing scout, Yeah Fuck you direct hit soldiers.
But as someone who occasionally plays soldier, fuck yes is it ever so satisfying to shut down people with the juggle. Scouts and snipers will forever be red mist when I rocket jump right in their faces.
Direct hit is one of my favorite launchers. I'll miss a bunch, but when i actually kill with it, i feel pride and satisfaction.
10:43 I was there when FSoaS got the clip back
as someone who plays engineer a lot, i dont usually care if my buildings go down, because there is a 90% chance im using the jag and was going to build another sentry anyways
It's funny that you mention the direct hit being newbie unfriendly. For the longest time I actually mostly used the direct hit just because my mind always made me go for directs rather than rely on spash damage even when using the normal rocket launcher. I've managed to somewhat change that behavior since then, but even then I still think the Direct Hit is easily my favorite rocket launcher. Probably also just one of the best designed weapons in the game.
the reason why scouts complain about being one shot by the direct hit is because being one shot in general is not fun at all (unless something funny happened)
everyone hates snipers and spies somewhat as well and i feel it is precisely because of the fact that they can delete you from existence with a single click of a button at all, no matter how hard that click might have been
The direct hit is my favourite rocket launcher, but I have an annoying bug where if I equip it, I am unable to equip any other launcher afterwards. Attempting to equip another launcher shows the new launcher as being equipped in the menus, but the direct hit stays equipped. Changing to a different class and back does nothing. The only way to eqip a different launcher is changing server while making sure the Direct Hit is not the currently equipped launcher.
UPDATE: It appears to have been fixed, Yay.
I hope that spawn camping needle gun medic goes places. Becoming quite possible, the first, even if they are the only, True Battle Medic.
The direct hit: the best melee in the game
Crazy that 1/8 of this video was the ad
There's three types of Direct Hit players: the bad ones that use it as a projectile melee weapon, the good ones that deserve respect, and the cheaters.
dont' forget that a reflected DH rocket will do regular splash radius but also increased damage. if you know a pyro is good, shooting them puts you and everyone around you at great risk with a reflected rocket with DH minicrit damage
The Kirby music makes me remember that old Soldier vs. Masked Spy remix. I wonder if that was on purpose.
Hold up you used the stock plane crash as an engaging transition Damm nice editing
5:35 lol he got bisoned
fun fact: the direct hit's blast radius is the same length at the engineer's teleporter radius
I personally don't like playing against Direct Hit soldiers, but this might be just because I play a lot of Heavy.
That's something that should have been mentioned, Heavies catch DH rockets so easily, they can get burst down ridiculously quickly.
Do people actually ENJOY fighting it though?
@@pikachufrankie Pyro main here. I like playing against DH soldiers because they get so cocky and predictable, especially at longer ranges lmao
@@minimumapature3361 The Soldiers you're going against are complete bots then lol. Its so damn easy to bait Pyros to use their airblast on nothing, even with stock. Only way a Pyro can win against a Soldier that actually knows how to use the weapon, is if the Pyro jumps the Soldier and he fires a panic rocket.
@@nate_2004 oh yes. There's one dude in asia server who's an absolute god with the DH. Dude is impossible to airblast, his firing rhythm is completely random
Once, and only once, i managed to unlock the full potential of the Direct Hit and made a koth comeback only dying 3 times, it was beautiful
13:18 What are you doing spyyyy!!
The king dedede transition was such a nice touch
Scout 'B' Gone!
And mini-sentries.
Also Soldier's best melee weapon :)
Loving the classic Soldier vs masked spy music in the background. God does that take me back.
I used it for a highly organized and trained for scrim once, and it completely changed how I view the thing. It went from being the Direct Miss to being a high-velocity missile launcher, and it slapped.
The steady escalation of Masked Dedede in this video tells a story all its own.
You forgot to mention a crucial thing, when direct hit rockets are reflected they get the explosion radius of normal rockets :)
I hate the direct hit because the amount of soldiers who actually cheat while using it and dont get kicked because players assume you cant cheat with a projectile is staggering. Much like with the Force A Nature when scouts use it to instantly two tap everybody which is not intended and bullshit.
10:13 , "I do not use the reserve shooter skyler, i am the reserve shooter! A guy opens his door and gets shot, and you think i am the one who gets shot? No, i am the one who Instakills"
That Boeing joke aged like wine...
my boy went so fast from default 30 sec ads to full one and a half minute
I also wanna quickly make mention of the Battalion's Backup being able to shut down critical hits, reduce sentry damage, and overall reduce all other damage at the same rate that the buff banner increases damage. While it can't become a 152 sniper rifle rocket launcher due to minicrits ignoring falloff damage, it does prevent crits (which are fairly common in casual) from being able to tell your buff "no, you're not allowed to do that." Further, the Battalions gives you a genuine advantage over sentry guns which both the Banner and Conch can't do. The extra 20 health also does end up mattering quite a bit.
The battalion's backup affords you and your team more up time and mistakes while the buff banner cancels your opponents' free trial of life and reduces their lives counter from 99 to 1.
I absolutely love the use of kirby super star music throughout the video. It honestly feels like no one else remembers that game.
"Pfft, there's no way he's gonna DIRECTly HIT me with those rockets"-every Scout vs a 1,000 hour Killstreak Direct Hit Solider
that boeing joke was absolutely hilarious, caught me off-guard and i bout choked
Back when Gaben wasn't edging in his office all day we could have nice things like this
Anyone gonna talk about how he missed almost every shot at 8:58
Glad we finally got Good Weapon Academy! Can’t wait for the Crusaders Crossbow episode
If anything, Direct Hit was always an excellent example of rich getting richer. It's like, oh, you're pwning everyone on the field? Here, have a weapon that lets you pwn even harder. I mean, why not give the MVP of each team a flat +25% boost to damage while we're at it?
Poor fish losing his marbles trying to get this footage
The Boeing jab was gold. XD
One thing I think should be considered is the Battalion's making you the ultimate nest buster and letting you have more impact in team fights, even if you beef all your rockets, while keeping the light class delete button and pick potential the DH comes prepackaged with. Instead of the multiplicative effect the Banner has on your damage when you hit your shots, the Battalion's lets you still be helpful even if you can't land your first clip, by letting you tank more damage and hopefully get another shot or two off. Just something I thought about.
12:14 _Fewer_ Rockets.
At this point he's gonna review every single weapon in the game
conch + direct hit is pretty funny
imagine a soldier rocket jumping to your location at mach 1 and then proceeds to blow you into smithereens with a close direct hit
While this is my favorite rocket launcher, I’m still irrationally salty they mangled the loch-n-load for one-shotting scouts and yet never had a problem with the direct hit. Why’d you do us dirty like that, valve?
The most extreme example of "get good" in the game, big fan of this rocket launcher!
Although I prefer using rockets blast radius to peak or hit things around corners, I have to admit there is potential with the direct hit in most games, unless you are dealing with multiple people at once who know how to counter it
Direct hit is the weapon where getting kill is harder but once you get its SATISFYING
"I have used this rocket launcher a little bit"
Rookie numbers
oh yeah, as a Scout main, I don't even complain about the Direct Hit, since it's no where near on my hate list, and is a weapon I would actually use on Soldier. Especially when there's already a lot of weapons and combinations that can one shot light classes, so it really isn't something I would complain about.
"Edge heads" please Mr. Fish, we're called gooners
'if hand is rotten, you cut off- SCOUT.'
'if Heart is ro- YOU SHOOT SCOUT!'
Any rocket launcher is the direct hit when you always use the candy cane
>Is a Sniper main
>Complains about Scout mains
>Refuses to elaborate
Ive been getting into soldier for the first time and this video has actually been pretty educational. Thanks
the direct hit, aka the "i miss against a target standing still, die and go back to stock" weapon
I see this more as the “ i cant kill sentries” soldier weapon.
Can't wait for your April fools day bad weapon academy video on the ambassador
8:30 until the Medic is using the Vita-saw in which you’re left asking WHY?!
this is the first time I've noticed that the kill icon for the direct hit is backwards; the scope is on the wrong side
7:36
The direct hit is the rl that i used the most, so i know it very well and i feed on overconfident soldiers with it when im playing pyro, as i consistently airblast them back
Next video: The Direct Shit, Masterful design for not so masterful soldiers