At least in the near future, this guide will no longer be updated.

I know that, even though this guide hasn't seen the light of day, it still remains very useful and up-to-date with the current state of Rocket Jumping and Market Gardening. But please don't assume this is the one and only all-encompassing guide to these niche tactics. Mine is only one of many. When I made this guide, I made it out of a love for teaching others how to do these things--not for fame or anything of the sort. Hoping that I will have been able to teach at least one person, not thousands, was my goal.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to view this guide and found it useful in some way, shape, or form. I really--truly--am glad to have helped so many people.

This guide is being based off both my personal knowledge and the knowledge of a few different sources that were used, which I will list toward the end of this guide. This guide is intended to inform and educate those individuals that would like to learn how to become a Market Gardening champion, and if this is the reason about why you're reading this, you've come to the right place!

I have come up with the idea to make this guide because, myself being an avid Soldier fan, I love to rocket jump and Market Garden, but I also see a lot of people struggling on both of these areas. I, too, struggle with these two specific areas, but I keep trying and trying to improve my abilities with the necessary fundamentals. By the time you, the viewer, are done reading through this guide, you will have some very helpful knowledge on these two special abilities for the Soldier. Now, without further ado, here is the guide!

To be able to Market Garden someone, you need to understand the basics: basic rocket jumping, how to successfully rocket jump, how to strafe while in midair, what the Market Gardener is, how to successfully Market Garden someone, how to time your Market Garden hit, how to improve your rocket jumping/Market Gardening ability, and trial and error while rocket jumping/Market Gardening. I will go over each topic for those of you that are first-time rocket jumpers/Market Gardeners. For the veteran rocket jumpers/Market Gardeners, please treat this guide as a refresher and handy tip for yourself in the future.

This should be a familiar ability to many Soldier fans out there, but for those of you that do not know how to rocket jump, you simply look at the floor below you, fire a rocket, then depending on where you aimed and fired, that will determine the area where you will land at. Though this is very self-explanatory, this kind of rocket jump is both not very effective, and it will get you almost nowhere. The next area will explain how to successfully rocket jump.

Assuming that you were paying close attention to the first part, I will explain the correct way on how to rocket jump. First, you start with your rocket launcher pointing at the ground. Next, you hold down the Ctrl key. Then, fire a rocket at your feet and watch the difference versus not holding down the Ctrl key at all. Although that this is a very handy fundamental, looking straight down at the ground, crouching, and firing your rocket will not get you very far. In fact, that strategy is mainly for doing vertical jumps. In order to get more momentum out of your rocket jump, you want to look behind you before you do anything else. Thus, this will launch you farther, except you may or may not get as much height depending on where you aim. Always keep in mind to look where you're aiming. If you do not follow this, you may not get to your desired destination so easily.

There is a difference between these two kinds of rocket jumps. Take the map plr_hightower for example. You're standing under the platform where the large medkit is sitting, on top of the hightower, and you want to go up and grab it. Simply look down, crouch, and fire your rocket. This little fundamental is sure to get you toward your destination, and it will come in very handy as you progress in your rocket jumping.

Now we move on to the second kind. For this second example we will be using the same map, plr_hightower, to explain the reasoning. So, let's say you are at the sniper nest at your spawnpoint, and you want to reach the medkit sitting on the top of the hightower. You simply do not want to look down at the ground and do a rocket jump, for that will get you nowhere near the platform. What you need to instead do is turn around and aim your rocket launcher slightly up, but not too up. After that, crouch before you rocket jump, and then fire your rocket at the desired area for where you want to start. If you did everything correctly, you should be at least near, and if not, on the platform of the hightower where the medkit is.

Congratulations, you now know how to do a simple rocket jump! Pat yourself on the back, for you have just learned the first, and possibly the most important, strategy to pulling off a successful Market Garden kill. In the next paragraphs, I will cover how to strafe while in midair.

Okay, Soldier! You now know the basics of rocket jumping; now it is time that we go a little in-depth: you are going to learn how to strafe while in midair after rocket jumping.

This is not going to be easy to explain, but what you want to do, after pulling off a successful rocket jump, is to take your finger off the W key and use the A and D keys to maneuver yourself around in the air as well as using your mouse to move toward the desired location for which you would like to go. For example: you want to do a strafe to the left. What you want to do is do a rocket jump, hold down the A key, and use your mouse to guide yourself toward the left. This is a very common thing to get stumped on, because people want to usually hold down the W key so they go as forward as they can upon a successful rocket jump, but if you come to a situation where you have to strafe while in midair, you need to know and be able to do that. I will link some sources below if anyone needs an extra explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvYRamyNxv0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWxoLwaXWUY

You, too, might be scratching your head, asking yourself what the same question is. Well, to explain the question in the best way that I can, the Market Gardener is an offhand weapon for the Soldier class that is shaped like an entrenching shovel. This weapon differs from the Soldier's default Shovel, for this weapon grants the user an automatic critical hit while rocket jumping at 195 total damage, but it will not deal out random critial hits. In short, if you know and understand the above requirements to rocket jump, the advantage to the Market Gardener should be self-explanatory, but for those of you that do not understand what it means to never dole out random critical hits, it means that if the user is not currently rocket jumping and wielding the shovel, they will deal a total of sixty-five damage to their target, and will always do that unless they are rocket jumping and manage to hit their target.

Once you get the first two topics down, you are ready to begin learning how to Market Garden! Before I go any further, the most necessary requirement for this to own either a regular Market Gardener or one with the Strange quality. This weapon is going to be the weapon that you will use to pull off all of your Market Gardens with, and will be used as such.

As long as you were paying attention to how to pull off a successful rocket jump and how to strafe, this next topic will be easily understandable for you. What you want to do in order to Market Garden is first assess the area that you are in; ask yourself these following questions: Can I rocket jump from where I am now? Are there any enemies in sight? Am I within the proximity of reaching any enemies? If so, will I be able to rocket jump toward them and survive the splash damage? Will I be able to successfully Market Garden my target, or will I need to resort to a different method of killing them? Take these questions into consideration, for these will determine whether you will be able to successfully Market Garden someone or not. Next, you want to pick out your target, following the questions, and understand that you may or may not be able to kill them. Then, you want to pull off a successful rocket jump from where you are, and if your target is not in your direct line of sight, you want to strafe toward where they are going. At the same time, you need to quickly whip out your Market Gardener in order to be prepared to kill the person, should you reach them upon the first rocket jump. Finally, you want to go in for the kill, AKA whack your target with your Market Gardener while you're still in the air. If you did everything correctly, you should have gotten the 195 critial hit on your target, and depending on the class, kill them in one shot.

Always, always keep in mind that you need to be airborne in order to get the critical hit on your target, but if you're not in midair and you hit the ground too soon, you will be doling out the base damage of the Market Gardener, which is sixty-five, on your target. In the next paragraph, I will explain how to correctly time your Market Garden to ensure you get that 195 cirital hit kill.

Since you now know how to do a basic Market Garden, you need to understand that timing your swing is a very important factor. This can not be easily explained, so much as instead demonstrated, but what I can tell you is to get a feel for when you're going to land after doing a rocket jump, then incorporate that into when you go into a Market Gardening spree. Always pay attention to when you actually swing your shovel and manage to get a critical hit, for that will be your guide to correctly timing more Market Gardener swings.

Some handy sources that demonstrate proper timing are:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTW7hcuJrQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Wc24j5xb8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPyMOoocXQ4

Also, just adding on to STAR_'s video, you are also able to glide on water as long as you hold down the spacebar key before you hit the water.

Improving your rocket jumping/Market Gardening ability is vital to becoming an overall better Soldier. Some tips that I can give you are practicing your rocket jumps on jump servers, practicing your Market Gardening either on Training mode or Multiplayer servers, and pay close attention to what you do when you rocket jump in case you feel as if you're doing something wrong.

If you want to practice on jump maps alone, here is a handy source for doing so:
http://stats.tf2jump.com/map/all

Also, if you want to practice your Market Gardening on AI players that do not attack, here is a very handy map that provides that ability:
http://tf2.gamebanana.com/maps/107794

Also, as stated in the comments, an extra fundamental that you can use to either gain extra height or do a mini rocket jump is by holding down the spacebar key with or without the Ctrl key. The spacebar key can help utilize several other things that the Ctrl key cannot do alone, such as beginning a pogo jump on a flat surface, gaining even more exceptional heights with your jump, or simply doing small jumps that do not require great distance.

Thanks to Knusperfrosch (TF2CrunchyFrog) for stating this in the comments and helping my guide out some more.

You are going to run into this many times as you learn how to both rocket jump and Market Garden. The best tips that I can give you for this are constantly practicing your rocket jumps on both jump servers and multiplayer maps, as well as watching videos of other people jumping, or even spectating other players on jump maps.

As well as these, I can explain some very common rocket jumping/Market Garden errors and teach you how to improve upon them on your own time.

Error: Even though I am aiming at the floor and rocket jumping, I'm not going high enough!
Trial: Make sure you're always holding down the Ctrl key before you rocket jump in order to get the most out of a simple rocket jump, and do not look straight down at the ground for every jump; some can be substituted for looking behind you and looking slightly upward, looking forward but looking slightly upward, or if you want, some trick jumping can work, but that's a different story.

Error: I kill myself after I rocket jump too much.
Trial: Always be aware about how much health is degrading after you rocket jump! Any launcher (except the Rocket Jumper) will hurt you in terms of splash damage, and depending on how high you go, you may also experience fall damage. This is normal for a first time rocket jumper, but always be sure to replenish your health whenever you can!

Error: I can't reach the person I am trying to Market Garden!
Trial: The problem could be with your rocket jump in general; always be aware of how you execute your rocket jump so that if you mess up and you know what you did, you can try and readjust your aim and give it another go.

Error: I tend to land on people's heads when I attempt to Market Garden!
Trial: You want to make sure that you jump as horizontally toward your target as possible! Do not try to do a vertical jump toward your person, because usually you will either miss your Market Garden, land too far away, or land right above the person.

This wraps up my first guide for Team Fortress 2 on how to Rocket Jump/Market Garden.

I hope this guide is to be made of good use to as many people as possible, for this is what I intend for it to do. If I missed anything important, I would very much appreciate it if anyone that notices anything missing out could comment about it so I can update this guide and make it more noob-friendly. Also, if anyone has any questions about this guide, you are more than welcome to either message your question in the comments or privately message me at any time while I'm online.

Farewell, everyone! See you on the battlefield, maggots!
-Koil (my nickname)

I have not thought of adding this in before, but if anyone needs help on making a class for rocket jumping/Market Gardening/Mantreading, here are some that I know and use:

Stock Rocket Launcher
Stock Shotgun
Market Gardener

Stock Rocket Launcher
Mantreads
Market Gardener

Stock Rocket Launcher
Gunboats
Market Gardener

Rocket Jumper
Stock Shotgun
Market Gardener

Rocket Jumper
Mantreads
Market Gardener

Rocket Jumper
B.A.S.E. Jumper Parachute
Market Gardener
(Thanks to |H4L| F.O.X. for adding in this extra loadout.)

These are just some class choices that you could try out, but you do not need to if you do not want to. Remember that the Rocket Jumper is a rocket launcher that cannot hurt you or other players in terms of splash damage and rocket jumping! The only damage you will intake is damage from falling... or damage from enemy players.

I have already taught you everything that you need to know in terms of rocket jumping and Market Gardening, but there is another useful weapon that you could use for some extra damage toward enemy players: the Mantreads.

What are the Mantreads, you ask? The Mantreads are a pair of dark-brown boots that have the ability to cause fall damage on opposing players at 3x the damage rate. In addition to that, the Mantreads also reduce 75% knockback of damaging weapons from opponent players, such as an Engineer's sentry gun, a Demoman's Grenade Launcher, or a Scout's Force-a-Nature. Keep in mind that this 75% reduced knockback does not affect self-made damage.

Now, in order to successfully use these, you need to be able to be at a height where you can land on an enemy's head and cause fall damage to them. Depending on how high up you are will predict the amount of damage you dole out toward your target. Both rocket jumping and simply falling from an elevated platform are viable choices in order to use the Mantreads.

For advanced players, the Mantreads can be combined with the Market Gardener as a backup weapon if you do not want to use your shotgun. Miss a Market Garden but you land on the person's head? No problem! You still cause fall damage toward them at 3x the rate, and you still have a chance at killing your foe (if your Mantreads did not do the trick), should you choose to use your rocket launcher or Market Gardener, but be quick about it!