Soldier

The Soldier is a class played in both 6v6 and Highlander. It is the most basic of the classes, and is a good all-around fighter. The Soldier's weapon of choice is the Rocket Launcher, a projectile weapon with good damage spread and range. The Soldier can adapt to many different situations and is a crucial class to have.

6v6

Main Article: Soldier (6v6)

In 6v6, the Soldier will usually fulfil two main roles: "Pocket" Soldier and "Roaming" Soldier. The Pocket Soldier focuses on keeping his medic alive and using heals to deal damage, take positioning on his enemies, and lead his team. The Roaming Soldier plays a fundamental role in initiating battles for his team by creating distractions and advantages, and supporting his team by controlling the flank, and in turn, the universe.

The most basic role of the Pocket Soldier is keeping the medic alive and using his abundant heals to deal damage, get kills and lead the team. The Pocket along with the Medic and Demoman form the core "combo" of any 6v6 team. He will usually be the target of an übercharge, if not the Demoman. The Pocket is usually the third biggest pick behind the Medic and Demoman, however since he is usually at a fearsome three hundred health, it is not easy to frag him. The standard or "meta" loadout for the Pocket soldier is the Rocket Launcher/Original, the Shotgun and the Escape Plan.

The Roaming Soldier's main job is to help one of his Scouts on the flank, and create openings in the other team so that his team can push. The Roamer is most often the player that will suicide into the other team in hopes of getting a Medic pick or to force the Medic to übercharge. The Roamer also wants to know the ins and outs of a map so that he knows all of its hiding spots and flanks. He wants to hide so that he can easily get a jump on the enemy team and hopefully get a pick or two. Hiding also provides the advantage of knowing exactly what the enemy team is doing, allowing the roamer to relay tons of information back to his team and gaining an advantage over the opposition. He is basically the most "disposable" unit of the team. The standard loadout for a Roaming soldier is the Rocket Launcher/Original, the Gunboats and the Escape Plan.

Highlander

Main Article: Soldier (Highlander)

In Highlander, there is only one Soldier on each team. This Soldier often functions like a Roaming Soldier would in 6v6. As such, many 6v6 Roamer strategies can be applied to Highlander as well. Often used as a roaming pick class, the soldier is mostly run with gunboats and the stock launcher, or the black box. A well coordinated team can organize pick classes to work together for a common goal, like forcing a medic or taking out a engineer nest. In most maps, the soldier is used to control the flank. He is used to defend the flank of his own team and in turn harass his opponents.

Allowed Weapons

Primary

Rocket Launcher		This is the default primary weapon for the soldier, due to its versatility. The combination of high splash and direct damage, four rocket clipsize, knockback and the ability to rocket jump make this the most popular choice for almost every soldier.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Direct Hit		A spinoff of the default primary weapon, allowing for precise shots due to the reduced spread and buffed damage. Granting minicrits for airshots and dealing buffed damage to buildings, the Direct Hit is a great weapon to counter jumping soldiers, or to take out the enemy sentry. The projectiles also travel 80% faster
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

The Black Box		The black box has identical stats to the stock rocket launcher, except for the fact that you have one less rocket, but gain 15 health for every enemy you hit. This makes the black box ideal for roaming around the map without a medic. Pioneered by Vhalin, the black box can be used effectively if you can land your rockets with accuracy.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Rocket Jumper		The rocket jumper deals no damage, to yourself or enemies. It is often used as a training weapon for rocket jumping, and thus is rarely seen outside of pubs/jump servers. If it is seen, it is generally used to troll the other team, as it is just not as useful in a competitive setting, compared to the rocket launcher.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Liberty Launcher		The Liberty Launcher isn't used often at all in the competitive scene, giving you faster rocket speeds at the cost of one rocket. This weapon doesn't see a lot of use, and is widely considered a crutch.
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Cow Mangler 5000		The Cow Mangler, while an attractive choice on paper, results in an overall slower and less effective play style. On top of this, the Cow Mangler is very bad at dealing with Mini Sentries, which prevents soldiers from using the weapon in most situations. The charge shot has been shows to be situationally useful by providing a "Ranged Sap" for a Wrangled Sentry.
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Beggar's Bazooka		The Beggar's Bazooka is perhaps the most unique rocket launcher out of the 7 choices. Instead of having 4 rockets loaded like most others, it starts with zero loaded, and the player is required to hold down their Primary Attack button to load the rockets. Only 3 rockets can be held at one time, and loading additional rockets will cause the launcher to overload, damaging the Soldier and any players in the immediate area. However, the Soldier can intentionally overload, and use the damage to jump across large areas, similar to a rocket jump, albeit much more powerful. A bomb from a soldier holding the Bazooka is nearly unstoppable. The explosion from overloading the chamber can be used to rocket jump with the full three rockets in the clip, and when a glitch was found to allow holding all three rockets indefinitely, the weapon was quickly banned in all leagues.
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	No
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	No

Secondary

Shotgun		The shotgun is the go-to secondary for pocket soldiers in the 6v6 game style. The Shotgun is useful in a variety in situations. For instance, the Shotgun provides you with extra firepower should you have no rockets loaded or if you're out of ammo. This extra damage can help protect your medic should he be harassed while you're out of rockets.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

The Gunboats		The Gunboats give you a 60% reduction in damage taken from rocket jumps, at the cost of an effectively empty secondary slot. This is a common choice for both the roaming soldier role in 6v6, and for soldiers in Highlander. The reduced rocket jump damage further allows soldier's to perform what is called a bomb.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

The Buff Banner		The buff banner gives any of the players's teammates around him a 35% damage increase. This is not seen often, but is used by some players.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Battalion's Backup
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Concheror
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Reserve Shooter		The Reserve Shooter deals mini-crits to airborne enemies up to 3 seconds after you switch to your secondary. The Reserve Shooter has 3 shots in it's clip, and also increases weapon switch speed by 15%. The Shotgun is generally considered superior to the Reserve Shooter, as it has a full 6 clip and can deal a great amount of damage on it's own.
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Righteous Bison		The Righteous Bison functions as an alternative to the shotgun that excels as midrange spam. This role is fulfilled by three attributes of the weapon: decreased ramp up (resembling the rocket launcher or sticky launcher's damage curve), projectiles penetrate targets, and infinite ammo. The Righteous Bison does not see a lot of use in competitive play because the Soldier's rocket launcher is arguably better at spam than the Bison, and giving up the gunboats or shotgun is too much to ask for most Soldiers.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Melee

Shovel and reskins		The shovel is a stock weapon, however in competitive it's rare to see it used. The soldier has a vast variety of melee weapons, some of which are regarded as straight upgrades.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Escape Plan		Once this weapon is equipped, it has the unique ability to increase the movement speed of the player as their health is diminished. Consequently, the weapon blocks healing from all Medic weapons while active. This weapon is especially useful to flee from fights. The Escape Plan is a common weapon used by 6v6 soldiers. The increased movement speed paired with the soldier's ability to damage itself allows the Escape Plan to be used as a tool for rolling out. Pocket soldiers in 6v6 will generally use this "Escape Plan rollout".
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Equalizer
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Pain Train		The Pain Train increases your capture rate by 1 (from 1x to 2x), at the cost of 10% extra bullet vulnerability. In 6v6, the demo often equips the Pain Train, however it's still viable for a soldier to equip it.
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	Yes
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Half-Zatoichi
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Disciplinary Action		The Disciplinary Action is a melee weapon used as a rollout tool for Highlander play. When an ally is hit with this weapon, both the soldier with the item equipped and the ally hit receive a static speed boost (meaning a Heavy will have the same net speed increase as a Scout). The downside is -25% damage, however it is rare to see melees used to deal damage in competitive play, so the Disciplinary Action is regarded as an upgrade.
ESEA 6s legal?	No
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes

Market Gardener
ESEA 6s legal?	Yes
UGC HL legal?	Yes
ETF2L 6s legal?	No
ETF2L HL legal?	Yes