Category Archives: tutorials

TF2 – Demoman Pogo Tutorial

Demoman Jump Tutorials, tutorials, Videos
http://youtu.be/gw53la-oLdw

Originally posted by Raiin

Environment
First of all, let’s get the environment right for a beginner. The best setup for a new jumper is to have a high ground with about a 1-2 second fall beneath it and flat walls along the side, jump_ice_v3 and jump_aznbob_fixed are good examples. (Thanks Dellort)

Rules
The basic rules of pogo are pretty simple and without them you will struggle to pogo at all, of course there are exceptions to these rules but for a beginner those aren’t important; The rules are as follows.
Always crouch
Always shoot before detonating
Always have a sticky on the floor

Advice
I advise you to hug a wall while pogoing to get the timing of stickies down and then ween yourself off the wall slowly to work on control. Stickies have a slight delay before they become ‘active’, every sticky will ‘flash’ when it has become active roughly 1 second after shooting, after a while you wont need to watch the stickies for this flash as you will have the timing in your head.

Timing Stickies
Place your first sticky straight down onto the floor, remember to use the rules, shoot another sticky about .5 of a second before you want to use the first sticky; detonate the first sticky and then continue this shoot – detonate cycle and remember depending on your speed coming down onto the sticky you will have more/less height after detonating.

Controlling Movement
Hugging a flat wall helps by taking away 2 directions, assuming you hold A if the wall is on the left you will not be pushed right or left thanks to the trusty wall and the same goes for holding D if the wall is on the right. Controlling pogo without a wall is all about WASD, I personally like to follow that exact pattern when i get over a sticky, little circles in the air so i can be sure i am not going in any particular direction. While looking straight down and making sure the sticky is directly under you, you aren’t likely to go flying too far unless you hit a wrong key or positioned yourself poorly above the sticky. Really it’s about thinking where the sticky is in relation to you, if its behind and below, you will fly forward and up and you can simply hit S to be ready for the next push.

Once you pogo 5 times in a row, you can pogo infinitely and as you get better at controlling yourself you can move onto things like wall pogo and air pogo.

Sticky Power/Control

Demoman Jump Tutorials, tutorials

Originally Posted by Mike

Sticky Power/Control

Controlling the strength of your stickies (how far/high you go) is very important. Your momentum influences this on EVERY sticky you use. If you’re travelling upwards, you’ll gain more power out of a sticky. So when doing a basic sticky jump, you want to det IMMEDIATELY after jumping (if you want max distance/height). The quicker you det your sticky after jumping, the more power you get. On the other hand, if you’re looking for more control, perhaps you don’t want to go as far or as high, you will want to wait longer to det. Since the longer you wait, your jump will go from upwards momentum, to flat, then to downwards momentum. The more downwards momentum you have, the less power you’ll get. This is very important for ALL demoman techniques.

Another factor is how far the sticky is away from you when you det it. The closer you are, the more power you’ll get. When pogoing – you’ll need to learn to judge this with your momentum to maintain good control. Maintaining a consistency is important, you don’t want to be pogoing and having one sticky launching you very high and then the next barely moving you anywhere. You can always come to a balance within the use of a few stickies with good judgement of your momentum/distance away from the sticky when deting.

Knowing how your next sticky will affect you before you even det it is crucial for intermediate/expert/pro jumps. You need to know where your next sticky needs to be BEFORE you even need to shoot it to succeed at advanced demo jumping techniques (speed pogo, air pogo, efficiency jumps). Be one step ahead, always!