It’s time to look at a map that causes a mixture of responses from myself such as; fear, excitement and excessive flatulence, all of which are down to a map that is incredibly dynamic in a multitude of ways, it’s CP_PROCESS_FINAL1.

It really makes a demoman’s job difficult as a very large amount of lengthy sightlines can thwart a demos damage output, and moving in too close to try and make an impact can open yourself up to an unsuspecting roamer jump. Couple this with some incredibly constricting areas that will make movement and positioning vital, it can really be a map that will put more pressure on you than your dad watching you at your first ever ballet recital that you had been practicing for months in preparation but you still fuck it up and disappoint him.

We are first going to take a look at middles in today’s edition, I was going to do it all in one but considering I have the reading comprehension of a 8 year old I thought it would be better for me to break them down into parts.

Middles

The first thing you must ask yourself, are you a SEB FARTON or a Kaidus? Do you have lots of experience in Turkish baths or have you lost all feeling in your wrist? If the answer to these questions is yes, I ask that you read again. Anyway, basically are you fast or slow to mid? Because this is important on how you should approach the ensuing fight. It’s also worth noting that it’s not vital that you’re fast to mid, sometimes it can be a bit risky. If their soldier is doing a fast rollout he can pretty much poop on you most of the time so be aware of who you’re playing against and if they’re likely to do it. What is important is that you arrive at mid and know what you’re doing and what you will be up against.

Here we have a basic diagram made by the incredibly helpful tool tactics.tf (did I fill my contractual obligation Jon?), if you focus the top you are forcing the enemy’s position into three small channels if they want to move forward, the enemy soldiers will be forced to do a wall jump to get over the crates and avoid the stickies, meaning they do more self damage and will be seen jumping from a mile off.

Quite often some teams make the mistake of trying to counter jump soldiers that take the top crates with their own, for me this is a inconsistent way of winning the positional advantage as you can risk losing your own soldier in a trade and exposing him to what you’re doing to them. However, if your soldiers are going to jump top, do make sure you coordinate with them and help spam anything off with your stickies, this helps with maintaining high ground advantage and you can proceed.

Now we’ve all had a moment where you try and focus something on mid, but you’re incredibly indecisive as to what to focus, mainly because there’s no obvious targets, or someone out of position.

Let’s take a look at a mirrored scenario on middle

Now the positions won’t be 100% correct but fuck you.

Anyway, you’re kinda left in between two minds of going after the bulk of their players or picking off the flank. To me, winning the mid with little risk is probably the best way. If you commit to the main combo you can leave your flank exposed when you try and go aggressive on the right.

A better option is to try and pick off the two players furthest away from any heals. If you’re able to get significant damage on them they will be forced to give up their position and go back to the medic or try and find HP. This way you take that position from them on the left side, gain more of the height advantage and can easily just bully them out from mid all together.

You may have been in a similar situation to the one above, once you lure the enemy into this position it’s important that you don’t overextend, just spam them out gently, get buffs on your team and once you cap middle or have almost capped middle you can start moving in one 2nd.

Many people make the mistake of diving in to choke, while it’s not an awful idea and you can get lots of frags, you’re in a very confined area that can backfire. It would be sometimes more favourable to send players into sewers or PC to shut down any possible attempt of backcapping or an unexpected flank.

Hopefully if you were able to kill a player or two you can continue moving forward on to their second.

Even though this is all easier said than done this should help try and give you some direction on who to really go after in situations where the target isn’t clear. It’s always best to help your team take some extra ground on middle because then the kills should follow, with process designed the way it is, getting caught at the back of mids is certain death. Do be conscious of the situation and don’t get caught out yourself. If you see yourself with backs against the wall with no real ground then just back out. A constant critical mistake that I see is that teams will try and fight it out and just get rolled to last. It’s better to just back out of mid with your players alive than it is to go in and die.

Just remember to take control on middle and do damage, your teammates will be better suited to get the frags, if you stop controlling top then it gives the enemy a clear avenue and opportunity to retake control.

Lastly there is the obvious case of people going under the point and towards you, I would say that you should focus that area but I think it’s best to take it on a case by case basis, if there’s 2 players trying to just go over the point then try and stop them. If there’s just the one then don’t bother.

Don’t forget you can use your pipes as well to take control on the actual point. If you can’t hit them consistently then do not worry, I would suggest you just roll them on to the point so they can just get some splash damage out and maybe juggle some enemies making it easier for someone to finish them off.

That’s all from the middle edition of process, next up we will be looking at 2nd, how to push it and defend it! Wowzers!

Big thanks to Davidtheloser who tries to make sense of whatever it is that I try to write.