The Orbital Strike Caber Demo revolves around going as fast as possible to annihilate your enemies before they can react. Like a living missile, you will travel at great speeds through the skies to deal killing blows against anyone you can kill in a single hit, which ends up being the majority of classes in the game.
There are a few key rules to the orbital strike playstyle
- Go fast. Above all, you must embody speed. Attacking anyone while you move slowly is both dangerous and not guaranteed to succeed, but is also BORING!
- Do not spawncamp. Spawn camping requires you to sit in one place and wait for a door to open. This is SLOW! You are a missile, and missiles explode on impact, they don't sit on the ground waiting to explode. Additionally, these enemies provide less of a challenge and prevent your missile guidance system from improving it's homing abilities. A heat seeking missile must learn to change paths in the air to attack opponents wherever they may be, always aiming for a static location to hit lethargic players is BORING!
- Pick your battles. Some enemies are unkillable with your caber and are not worth going for. If you miss an enemy, retreat so you may approach them again at a higher speed rather than waddling over to them in shame. If you aren't going fast, there's no point.
Loadout
There is only one loadout that a true orbital strike demoman can use.
- Booties/Bootlegger: These utility weapons replace your primary. As your main weapon of choice is the caber, you have no need for silly weapons like the grenade launcher. The booties provide you with additional health, giving you a higher chance of surviving any of your strikes so you can retreat to spawn and strike again. Jumping back to spawn is often faster than respawning, and as such surviving is crucial to maximum strike efficiency. Additionally, a speed boost allows you to move even faster in the air.
- Sticky Jumper: When it comes to speed, there's nothing that can rival it. Depending on the number of stickies you place, you can move at the speed of sound to destroy players before they can even blink. It allows unparalleled vertical and horizontal movement to get you around any map with ease.
- Ullapool Caber: The caber is your bread and butter and the entire playstyle revolves around it. Scoring a direct hit on an enemy deals on average 175 damage, 35 for the hit with your melee and 140 from the explosion. Anyone who falls under 175 health is your prey.
- B.A.S.E Jumper: The base jumper is, to put it simply, slow. You may think it makes cabers easier to hit, but this is a myth. The slower you are, the more time enemies have to react, and the more time they have to shoot you before you can land. The parachute also caps your speed in the air, which means you're sacrificing speed. You may also think that saving you from fall damage is worth it, but if you hit your targets and know fall damage heights, this is less valuable.
- Shields: The shield is inferior to the sticky jumper. While it does give you access to critical hits, this only opens up killing 2-3 extra classes in exchange for more inconsistent and less efficient bombing. The shield is not as fast as the sticky jumper, it has a cooldown, and does not send you through the air (unless you trimp which is location dependent, unlike the jumper which is universal). Having to walk around the map leaves you vulnerable to Missile Interception Systems (enemy players) who can defuse you before you even get close.
- Any melee weapon other than the caber: Do I even need to explain it? It's like a missile without a payload.
Your goal is to kill as many people as you can, as fast as possible. This means both moving fast, and getting kills quickly in sequence.
The sticky jumper can be used in many ways, the number of stickies will determine your intent
- 1 sticky: You can use a single sticky to move yourself a short distance or reposition. You should never be on the ground for more than a few seconds, always use stickies to move around quickly.
- 2 stickies: Two stickies is the most frequent bombing count. On most maps you can use two stickies to cross most of the map at high speeds. It is a good amount of speed to hit players at.
- 3 stickies: This is usually the most you want to do. Unless you are on a huge map such as balloon race, three stickies will let you traverse any open space at more than enough speed, and in fact on some maps it is too fast. But if you have a map where you can hit players at 3 sticky speed, then you can use it.
When moving at high speeds, you can avoid fall damage by hitting sloped surfaces from the side. If your forward momentum is greater than your downwards momentum, hitting a slope will launch you instead of dealing fall damage. This is important for avoiding fall damage on maps which have appropriate slopes, such as the roofs on Harvest and Suijin.
If you have enough skill to do so, you can perform what is known as a Preemptive Strike. During the start of round setup period, you can launch yourself out of spawn using stickies to give yourself a forward spawn. This allows you to launch into the air much sooner than enemies expect, often allowing you to catch them as they leave spawn. This is the only time when hitting an enemy in spawn is allowed, as the preemptive strike relies on being unexpected. To perform the Preemptive strike, your goal is to have your launch stickies (the stickies you will use to go across the map) placed as soon as possible, preferably before the few second setup time has ended. This involves using stickies to get yourself as far forward during the setup as possible. On maps like harvest, this involves hitting the door during setup and placing your launch stickies immediately, while on a map like Garbage Day this involves simply getting as far out of spawn as you can.
The Caber
You must know yourself to be as maximally effective as possible. Knowing how your weapon works, and its strengths and limits is crucial.
The Caber deals a total of about 175 damage dependent on ramp up. This comes from the 35 damage the weapon does normally on a swing, and the 140 damage from the caber explosion itself.
If you do not directly hit your enemy, such as by hitting the ground or a wall, you can at most deal 140 damage. Therefore it is important to, if possible, always try for a direct hit as 140 damage is less likely to kill than 175. If you are in a situation where you missed your attack and are about to die, you can attempt a final suicide strike by crouching and hitting the ground, or hitting a nearby wall in hopes of catching an enemy with your explosion. But note that the explosion itself is not a very large radius, only meant to hit people around the point where you swing, so this should be used as a last resort.
Due to the explosion originating from a different point that precisely where you hit, you will occasionally have your caber explode while only dealing 35 damage. This is known as a dud and happens randomly, due to lag and inconsistent explosive physics. If you hit a dud there is nothing to do but retreat and try again. Do not be distraught, even the most efficient missiles can have mechanical failures.
Deciding whether or not to attack an enemy depends on their class and loadout. There are certain classes you should always attack, some you should never attack, and some you should attack conditionally.
Always Attack:
- Medic: The medic is unlikely to have overheal and will have at most 150 health otherwise. This allows you to instantly kill him with a caber hit if you hit him directly, and also you can kill him with just the explosion if he has taken damage recently. Due to his importance to the enemy team and highly likely kill chance, the medic is the highest priority target. Generally speaking, you should never attempt to caber the target a medic is healing, unless they have just started to heal them, as any player with max overheal will be out of your caber range. Classes like the scout, sniper, and spy are unlikely to be at max overheal for long, but it's a better idea to target the medic than their target. Medics are also the easiest to see from high in the sky due to their white coat and healing beam. It's important to note that you can still strike a medic with the vaccinator as long as they do not uber, as the passive resistance is not enough to get them out of instant kill territory.
- Engineer: The engineer is unlikely to be overhealed due to being behind the enemy team. Even with the gunslinger bringing him to 150 health, he is almost always going to be within caber range. Killing the engineer allows your team to attack the buildings uncontested. If the engineer is hiding behind a sentry do not fear - if you go fast enough, you move faster than the sentry can turn. You may need to find a good angle to hit an engineer turtling but if you are fast enough, no engineer is safe.
- Sniper: Like the engineer, the sniper is unlikely to be overhealed. Snipers also tend to be alone and in high up places, making them very easy targets. Due to other classes having trouble fighting snipers, these are your second highest priority target other than medics.
- Scout: The scout is a target who will almost always be killed by your caber. However they are also the hardest targets to hit due to their speed. If you have a good angle on one and can make the strike, then go for it. The only time not to attack a scout is if they are being pocketed by a medic, as a fully overhealed scout will be out of your kill range.
- Soldier: The soldier has 200 health which puts you out of range of instantly killing him. However, many soldiers rocket jump, and a single jump will most likely put him in kill range of you. If a soldier is on the ground and is not in the middle of combat, it's likely he is at 200 health and a strike won't kill him. If a soldier is in the middle of the fight, he has probably taken enough chip damage to let your strike succeed. If a soldier is high up in a place he most likely rocket jumped to it is a similar story. Never attack a soldier being healed by a medic, as they are almost guaranteed to be out of your kill range.
- Pyro: Pyro has just enough health to be in kill range for you if you land a direct strike. However, if a pyro is especially attentive they may be able to airblast you and disarm your strike. Only attempt to attack pyros if you have not been spotted, if the pyro sees you then you should retreat unless you know beforehand that the pyro is unlikely to airblast you (due to skill or using a weapon like the phlog). As with all other classes, an overhealed pyro is not a good attack target.
- Demo: The demoman on his own stands no chance against your strikes, as his health is right in your kill range and his weapons are too slow and hard to hit against your high air speed. However, if a demoman is using a shield, you should rarely try to attack him. A shielded demoman has explosive resistance, drastically reducing your explosive damage and making it unlikely for your strike to succeed. Only target a demo with a shield (or booties) if you see them in combat, as then they may be low enough. Overhealed demos are also usually out of your reach, and overhealed demoknights should be completely ignored. Demoknights also cannot retaliate due to having no vertical movement so you can usually ignore them completely.
- Spy: The spy is a target well within your kill range. However, if they use the dead ringer, they can completely nullify your strike, making it equivalent to a miss. If you know a spy uses the dead ringer, it is best to ignore them. On the other hand if you see a spy who has just gone invisible, then you know they don't have the dead ringer and can attempt a blind strike on where you think they are. Spies are usually not out in the open and are a low priority target.
- Heavy: The heavy is as close to a hard counter to the orbital strike playstyle as exists. His massive health pool and even more massive overheal health makes attacking him with the caber near pointless. Unless you know for certain a heavy is under heavy fire from your teammates, you should ignore them completely unless in desperation such as trying to save an objective. The fists of steel only give your 35 damage swing increased damage, while nullifying most of the damage of your explosion, so they are not vulnerable to you either. Even heavy taking mini crits from the GRU is not in instant kill territory. The best strategy to dealing with heavies is to target their medics or to run away unless you want to valiantly sacrifice yourself to give a nearby teammate the edge in a fight
There are a few maps where the orbital strike demo is most effective.
I have found king of the hill as the perfect gamemode for orbital strike demo. This is due to the relatively low respawn times, allowing you to keep going even if you die, as well as the relatively small map sizes allowing you to get from one side to the other in a single jump. King of the hill maps also tend to have high skyboxes which let you strike from above.
Some good maps to play orbital strike demo on are:
- Harvest: The original caber demo map. The high skybox and small size lets you hit anyone anywhere in a single jump. The way the map is designed, players do not often hang out inside, which means most players will be outside and easy prey for you. Hitting the enemy roof also lets you ignore fall damage. You can also land directly on the point from the roof to strike enemies who can't see you coming. It is the quintessential orbital strike map. Spawn is also in the main map, which lets you jump from spawn to anywhere.
- Garbage Day: Similar to harvest, the small map size and high skybox allows you to hit anyone anywhere in a single jump. It takes a little bit of extra work to get in and out of spawn but the openness of the main map makes it worth it
- Lakeside: Another solid map, while it takes an extra sticky to get out of spawn it gives you plenty of room to hit snipers on their battlements.
- Sawmill: While players do tend to stay inside on the point, there is a lot of area outside where you can hit. Sawmill has some cruel low skyboxes in places you will have to take into account with your jumps, but if you figure out the correct jumps you can get anywhere at the map at high speed.
- King: This map has a unique feature where you can jump directly from one spawn to another if you strafe correctly. It also has a large skybox. The only time this map is poor is if players are sitting underground or on the point for most of the round, but otherwise you usually have lots of targets.
- Suijin: Suijin is an average map. While it has a small size and large skybox, players are often indoors which makes your pickings smaller. But if an enemy tends to stay on the roof, you can strike them with ease.
I would not recommend other maps unless there is a good reason. On the first point of any payload or attack/defend map you can go orbital strike demo until your team has gotten some ground, as it lets you quickly assault engineers, medics, and snipers. Examples include the first point of Upward, Mojave, and Badwater.
Conclusion
If you follow this guide correctly, you will be an ICBM that can strike anywhere at any time on applicable maps to bring dread to light classes. Just remember, if you aren't going fast, then there's no point.