Last one alive, lock the door!

Ohshi- the Soldier...
This guy's a true powerhouse!
Some people think this guy is overpower because of the massive damage he can do, but that's not true.
Since those people don't know the Soldier's weaknesses.

As a Soldier you're both really well in offence and defense, but you should really focus on offence, since that's where he shines.
You need to know how to utilise the Soldiers strength and need to know his weaknesses.
A Soldier's primary objective should be to push the team forward and defend Medics.

The Soldier should mainly focus on:

• Pushing forward.
• Dissable Sentry Nests.
• Cause massacre.
• Get to the frontline and keep it under control.

What a Soldier should NEVER do on his own is:

• Trying to take out a Sentry nest without a partner/Medic.
• Run up against groups of 5 or more people.
• Mindlessly shooting everywhere.

Now that we've focussed on the Soldier's objectives, let's take a close look at the Soldier itself.

Pros:

• The Soldier is the most powerfull class in the game being able to take out an entire team by himself if the odds are with him.
• The Soldier has the second most health having 200 Health Units.
• The Soldier is able to Rocket-Jump to get to places other classes can't.

Cons:

• The Soldier is one of the slowest classes in game and will probably lose to a Scout if he's good at utilising his speed.
• The Soldier can't be away from Medics/Health- or Ammopacks for a long time, since his ammo is fairly limitted and he usually takes quite a few hits.

For the Soldier it's wise to be around Medics a lot since that will make you even more usefull, but this is obviously not required.
You can deal a lot of damage, but if you do you'll probably be the main target for your enemy.
Basicly you should know when to attack but more importantly, know when to fall back, this is what splits a decent Soldier from a good or even pro Soldier.

If you know you won't make something, don't do it, but head towards health and ammo, since you'll have the upperhand if he follows you there.

Having the element of surprise is something that's nice for the soldier but not required, but it's certainly a good idea to use this against Pyros since they have their compression blast you'll have  to deal with.

Now, the weapons.

First off all, let's talk about the primary weapons.
The Soldier has three primary weapons: The Rocket Launcher, the Direct Hit and the Blackbox (and 4 if you count the Rocket Jumper but I'll cover that later).
These weapons also have the most devastating crits in the game, being able to deal up to 338 damage!
Most of these have their good and bad sides, and you'll probably fall in love with one of these quite fast and do not want to switch anymore, which is obviously possible since everyone has his favorite weapons.
Just make sure this weapon is ALWAYS loaded and you are ALWAYS wielding it if you are moving into a new area!


The Rocket Launcher is the standard and "ok" Rocket Launcher, if you don't want any nifty stuff this is your Launcher.
It has 24 ammo (4 clipped, 20 carried) and has a base damage of 90.
You need to utilise this weapon's splash range, since it's more usefull then just throwing rockets everywhere hoping to hit something.


Next is the Direct Hit.
This weapon is the strongest out of all, and that's no surprise since this weapon doesn't have splash damage, you need to aim with your rockets, which will only do a decent amount of damage if they hit.
They also do mini-crits if you hit an enemy in mid-air
There's not really a lot to say about this thing other then it turning the Soldier into a Sniper.


Finally there's the Black Box, a lot of people say this thing is overpowered, which I think is sad.
The gimmick with this is that it will do the same damage as the regular Rocket Launcher, and gives +15 Health units for each rocket that hits.
For the cost of one clipped rocket, making it only 3.
With this weapon you should truly focus on splash damage since that's what this weapon's best at.
The fact that this thing isn't overpowered though, is in the fact that you need to reload constantly, and since the Soldier cannot afford to miss rockets a lot this thing can be a pain if you miss.

Now let's talk about the Rocket-Jump.
With a Rocket-Jump you can skip parts of maps by utilising both height, disstance and speed.
To preform a Rocket-Jump, you need to look down, jump and fire a rocket.
If you crouch while jumping, you will go even higher, and to go further you should try to make the explosion happen as soon as you jump.
To practice this the Rocket-Jumper is pretty handy, it will do no damage, will make damage on you be double but has double the ammo, making it the perfect weapon to train your rocket jumps.


So that pretty much covers the primary weapons, out of all I'd say the Rocket Launcher and the Black Box are the best, if you use them well that is, and if you are accurate, use the Direct Hit.
Let's move on to the secondary weapons: The Shotgun, The Buff Banner, The Battalion's Backup, The Concheror and the Gunboats.


First of all is the standard Shotgun, which is a fairly decent weapon, and just like the Scout, the Soldier's only Lethal secondary weapon.
I'd say only use this if you are out of ammo, or to finish enemies off.


Next up is the Buff Banner.
After dealing 600(!) damage, your "rage" meter will be full and you'll be able to preform the buff, with this buff you'll deal 100% mini-crits for 10 seconds, and not only you will, but so will nearby teammates.
Be wary though, since you will be the primary target during this time, since killing you will end the buff.


Then there is the Battalion's Backup.
This is exactly the same as the buff banner but it's the defensive counterpart, it takes 175 damage to fill.
During the buff you will be immune to crits and will have +35% resistance to damage.


Next up, there's the Concheror.
This weapon is more a weapon to use on your own then to use with your team.
It takes 1133 damage to be dealt or 333 damage taken to be fully charged, because of this massive time to charge, you do NOT want to be killed while it's charged.
Since it's buff is great.
You will heal both you and your teammates for 20% of their health for 10 seconds.
The fact that charging this bloody thing takes so long keeps it ballanced.


And lastly, there's the Gunboats.
This thing just lowers self damage with rockets for 60%.
That's all there's to this, nothing else really.


Now, the melee weapons, the Soldier has 5.
They are: The Shovel/Pan, the Paintrain, the Equalizer and then Half-Zatoichi.


First of all there's the basic weapons which are the Shovel and the Pan (promotional item from Left 4 Dead 2)
These both deal 65 damage each.


Next up is the Paintrain.
This thing is purely situational.
Since this thing will give the Soldier the ability to capture points twice as fast as normal, but it raises his bullet vulnerability by 10%


Then there's the Equalizer.
This thing is a monster, seriously.
The lower your health is, the more damage you'll do and the faster you'll go.
With 1 Health Unit left, you'l l do 133 damage!
And his speed will be 60% higher, going faster then a Medic and almost faster then a Scout!
In my opinion you should ALWAYS wear this weapon, since you cannot go wrong with this.
You do a ton of damage, you can escape very easily and you will just over be more usefull with this.


Lastly there's the Half-Zatoichi.
This thing is kinda weird.
If you kill an enemy with it, you'll be fully healed.
But as a cost, once you've drawn the weapon you can't put it back before you make a kill.
This sounds overpowered, but if enemies see you using this weapon, they will backoff and you will be basicly dead.
Also note, a single with with this weapons on someone else who's wielding it will kill the enemy in one hit.
In other words, if you see someone else holding this weapon, go after him and kill him in one shot to heal yourself.


That end's the weapons I can talk about.
A few Combos I've thought to be helpfull as Soldier are:

• Black Box, Concheror, Half-Zatoichi (Or Equalizer).
• Direct Hit, Gunboats, Equalizer.
• Rocket Launcher, Buff Banner, Equalizer.

Lastly the Soldier receives a bonus for wearing the Black Box, the Battalion's Backup and the Grenadier's Softcap at the same time, which gives the Soldier +20% more Sentry resistance, making the Soldier a true sentry destroyer and a very good defender.

With this second entry I hope you've learned something and will now both be able to use the soldier but also utilise it's weaknesses, untill next time.

See ya