If you are dueling another Soldierknight, or just any class using there melee in general, it is often best to wait and study their attacks so that you can strike at the right moment if you are playing defensively.

If you are playing Soldierknight aggressively, however, it is best to rush your enemy and catch them off guard so that they don't really have time to react to your more offensive approach to attacking this time.

During moments of panic, you do have the option to use you Rocket Jumper or any other soldier primary. This will cause you to lose 50 health, but gives you the ability to get away from the fight or to take the fight to your enemy due to your increased mobility. This makes your enemies have to think quicker when having a confrontation with you.

When in a fight with another Half Zatoichi user as Soldierknight, if you do not want to take the risk of being instantly killed by them, you can parry their hit by pulling out your Rocket Jumper real quick. You will lose 50 health and an additional 65 damage from their attack, however, you can use your Rocket Jumper to rocket jump to reposition yourself to where you can land on your opponent, potentially killing them if you land and hit them with your Half Zatoichi.

Soldierknight is a mix of both Soldierai and Trolldier. Similar to Soldierai, Soldierknight uses the Half Zatoichi. Similar to Trolldier, Soldierknight uses the Rocket Jumper and the Mantreads. Some could say that this is basically playing Trolldier with the Half Zatoichi, which it kinda is. However, with Soldierknight, you have both the aggressiveness of a Soldierai and the mobility of a Trolldier, making you very deadly in certain situations if played right.

A lot of these tips could also be applied to Soldierai, being that both Soldierai and Soldierknight use the Half Zatoichi. The same can be said with Trolldier, being that both Trolldier and Soldierknight use the Rocket Jumper and the Mantreads.

The Mantreads gives you a 75% knockback resistance against damaging weapons, even including the Pyro's airblast. Along with that, while rocket jumping, your air control is increased by 200%, allowing you to be more mobile in the air. Not only does the Mantreads help Soldierknight out with being more resistant to damage and being more mobile in the air, but you can also use your Mantreads to land on an opponent and deal damage to them, allowing you to have another source of damage dealing that isn't the Half Zatoichi.

Under certain circumstances, you can put both your Mantreads and Half Zatoichi to a great damage use at the same time. You can land on an enemy real quick with your Mantreads as well as have a Half Zatoichi follow-up hit. This can potentially allow for you to basically one shot lighter classes if you pull this off correctly. This technique is known as the Wombo Combo.

With the Rocket Jumper, or just any other Rocket Launcher in general, there is a little trick you can do to increase your speed while rocket jumping. This technique mainly only works most of the time if you find and use a map prop that has either an downward or upward trajectory, such as a roof or a hill. In order to pull this off, you must quickly rocket jump from where your wanting to rocket jump from, and depending on what map object your using, go downward or upward (Going upward is a lot more uncommon from what I've experienced with this technique). You must do this quickly though, because if you don't, you won't be able to rocket jump as quickly as intended. If you have pulled this off quick and correctly, however, you will notice a major difference in your speed while going to your designated spot to land at (And yes I know that this all sounds kind of complicated). This technique is known as Ramping.

Hit registration can be quite the pain to deal with while playing Soldierknight, or just any other class using their melee in general. No matter what it will stay janky but there is actually a way to increase a chance of one of your hits registering. This is plain and simple as to how this works. From my experience, crouching and hitting at the same time will allow you to not be effected by hit registration as much since your not moving as much due to crouching. If you decide to do this, you have the benefit of hit registration working a lot more than it has before, but you have the downside of having less movement speed since you are crouching.

When you are playing Soldierknight, it is important to always have a backup plan for whenever things don't go your way in the middle of a fight/duel. For example, say if you swing your melee attack at your opponent and you either get effected by the hitreg or you just simply miss it, that will then give your enemy an opportunity to attack and gain the upper hand. Although this may or may not work, either jumping backwards away from the enemy's melee range or curving around your enemy by crouch jumping could potentially let you land a hit on them due to you repositioning yourself to a position to where you have a better chance at beating them more so than how your chances were before.

During a lot of 1V1 duels, there are a lot of mind games that go into play while playing as Soldierknight or just other melees classes in general. It can range from technique's ranging from Baiting to Dodging to even Half Zatoichi attacks you were not even expecting to happen.

Baiting is when you make someone think that you are going to attack first because of either that person's mindset or your movements are acting like you are going to swing first, but what ends up happening is that a lot of the time, that person will end up swinging first because you baited them, and in return, that can end up giving you a hit on your opponent because of Baiting.

Dodging is one of the more simpler techniques, its as simple as follows: If your enemy goes to swing at you, you can use your mobility tools are just simply jump out of the way. This can lead to you having an opportunity to attack if you play your cards right. Also note that your enemy can also make reads off of you and therefore also dodge your attacks as well, so make sure you have a potential backup plan, because a lot of duels with the Half Zatoichi are 50/50's due to the instakill mechanic it has.

While although not really necessary for duels with the Soldierknight subclass, when going against other classes that use any sort of weapon, whether it be ranged or melee, one way you can gain an advantage over them is by going up close to them (Whether it be by brute-forcing your way to them and tanking the projectile damage or by using stealth to your advantage) and just rapidly crouch-jumping while also attacking at the same time. This is also another 50/50 as you are kind of kamikazing your life in order to kill those classes, but if your careful enough and know the player's skill level and what you should and should not do around them in order to kill them successfully, then you have a potential chance at getting the Snowball effect.

Snowballing is when you are able to get a lot of kills within a certain time frame with the Half Zatoichi. The main benefactor's that can make Snowballing as Soldierknight work is the following 3 factors: Your skill and positioning, the enemies skill and positioning, and the Half Zatoichi overheal that you can gain once you get a kill with it. Snowballing can indeed work with Soldierknight, but you gotta make sure that you know what you can or can not do in whatever situation that you are in.

Another technique you can use (especially when going against a projectile class such as a Soldier or a Demoman) would be that of Surfing. Surfing is when you are able to jump (as if it were a blast jump) off of one's projectile which could then potentially gain you the upper hand in whatever fight you find yourself in. You just got to take note as to how much health you have and how much health you can afford losing.

If you are really wanting to get to most out of the Half Zatoichi as Soldier, then I cannot stress how much you really need to know the timing of when you need to pull out the Half Zatoichi and when not to pull out the Half Zatoichi. I am going to admit that although sometimes I do get my timing down correctly when playing Soldierknight, a lot of the time I am just running into unwinnable situations mindlessly without a care in the world while playing as the Soldierknight subclass for no reason whatsoever. That right there is an example of how careless positioning can send you back to where you started. If you keep on trying and get better at knowing your timing and being aware of your positioning, then you got the dang potential to kick butt in whatever situation you come across because of how well your game sense has improved over the encounters and experiences that you have had. Not only that, but then with or without the Half Zatoichi as Soldier, you can really nail down what you gotta do with your melee. Looking at it now, I know it probably ain't gonna happen but I should use this dang advice myself at some point.

When playing Soldierknight, you also probably might experience going against Half Zatoichi Demomen and Demoknights. This I would say is a lot more trickier as to how to counter them, because from my experience, most Half Zatoichi Demoknights I have seen also have the Tide Turner equipped. This makes it to where that they will always have a mobility option at their use most of the time, but like I said before, you may have to be patient a bit but if you really keep an eye on their movements and little tiny mental notes like that, then you may potentially have the chance to take that Half Zatoichi Demoknight down with ease as the Soldierknight subclass.

If you are using the Rocket Jumper while playing as Soldierknight, you may also have to take note as to how much ammo you got on the Rocket Jumper. On vanilla/regular TF2, its 4 clips at a time, but if you are playing on the 2fort Improved Texas Rebalance Server, you will have 12 clips at a time. With 12 clips, it is a lot more laid back as to how you want to use your clips, but if it is just the regular 4 clips, then it is important as to how you want to use them. You may have to put some consideration in as to how to use a 4 clip Rocket Jumper, but if you nail that, then the 12 clips mean nothing compared to what you are able to do with 4 clips, which also proves just how well your game sense has become. From my rare experiences whenever I don't play Soldierknight on 2fort Improved, the 4 clip Rocket Jumper really had me considering how I should use it to jump whenever I used it. Also on the 2fort Improved Texas Rebalance Server, if you have the Mantreads equipped, you will be able to see the enemy's health as well.

When going against an Engineer sentry nest as Soldierknight, it is important to note that depending on where and where-not the sentry is placed, that will ultimately factor in as if you can take the sentry down or not. If the sentry is right around a corner to a point where it is close enough to jump on top of it and start attacking it, then you may be able to potentially take the sentry down. You could also use the Rocket Jumper to potentially evade a sentry's rockets and could also get you on top the sentry, which is another way you could take it down. Although a bit riskier, you could also try to surf off of the sentry's rockets and land on top the sentry that way as well.

Miscellaneous Soldierknight Stuff: (Probably not as useful as compared to all the other Soldierknight Tips And Tricks that were all mentioned, but still seems pretty dang rad to mention especially for those who want to pull off some stylish moves as the Soldierknight subclass).

The 360: Plain and Simple, just make sure you have the right mouse with the right settings equipped.

The 180: An easier 360 to land, same mouse rules apply here.

The Backwards Slash: Requires a lot of predicting to pull off, but in summary, you walk backwards and land a hit on your opponent last second.

The Stand Still: You act like your AFK, but turns out that entire time you were just waiting for your opponent to make their final move.

The Wombo Combo: Mantreads stomp into Half Zatoichi hit.

The Midair: A Half Zatoichi instakill in the middle of the air (Both Soldierknights have to be airborne in order for this to happen).

The Midair 360: A 360 Half Zatoichi instakill while in the middle of the air.

(Bonus) The Aggressive Yell: C+2.


Ight y'all that's all the Soldierknight Tips And Tricks I have up so far right now, now there maybe a new tip every then and there potentially, but I think I may have all the basics down so far for as to how to play Half Zatoichi Soldier in certain kinds of ways, but also remember that you should play Soldierknight the way you want to play the subclass too ight. Don't let these tips come across as "if you don't play this certain way, then you just playing the subclass wrong". Play how you want to play ya know what I'm saying. Now I hoped y'all enjoyed reading some of this stuff and I also hope y'all do well as the Soldierknight subclass and even if you ain't into Half Zatoichi Soldier stuff I still hope you do well with whatever class you play. Thank you for reading and take care!