[QUESTION] How to improve on weapon choice and movement? (Page 1 of 2)

Of course you can kill an enemy with just 1 weapon, but it´s better to switch becouse every weapon is made for 1 special situation. When you hook an enemy and you are near to him, use shotgun because with grenade you hurt yourself. Otherwise grenade is very good too make high damage in a short time. The gun is good when your enemy is more far away, and here comes the laser into the game. When your enemy is running away and you cant hook any more, use laser to give him the last shot. I only use hammer when I have no other weapons and are very near to the opponent.
Not all tricks are useful, but on ctf2 you should be able to rocket jump to fly over the middle so you can avoid campers. Imporoving hook comes with the time, just play ctf2 and try to hold back an enemy. For practising you can try only to use hammer.

Here is a demo of a clanwar.
http://qi.m0g.net/cw_results/demos/qi_v … agnet.demo

Capture the flag mainly.

The demo was very helpful, although I still have no idea how he moves at that speed. /goes practise more

Here a little demo, you can view it with 0,5 speed to see where to hook to gain speed.
Btw the rocket jump is very useful but maybe too hard for you atm.

http://rapidshare.de/files/46551334/tutorial3.demo.html

good questions here my opinions:
"is it actually important to switch weapons often?"
i do so... it is always diffrent in which situation you are. if other tees are far away from you but you know they are coming in your direction, it is awlays usefull to shot a grenade-rain in their direction. and if you have much armor and health you can use the grenade as the shotgun: hook the emenys, be close to them, and shot them. you will do damage to your own but skilled players do everything to bring the flag back ;-).

"I'm aware that the gun is useful for chasing somebody, but I find myself never using it. If I do use it, I forget too reload it (swap to the empty gun when alone). How often should I use the gun and is it worth slowing down for the gun to reload?"
on maps like ctf2, where are long ways without any hurdles its very usefull to fight emenys with low health... the pistol is fast and has nearly no arc in it's trajectory so you can be sure that you hit the emeny often and take him the last health. If you use the pistol often and forget to reload it, only try to switch to it that it can reload if there is no emeny in your base

"do you ever use the hammer above the shotgun or just the gun?"
there is a easy answer for this question: you love the hammer or you hate the hammer! i use the hammer nearly as much as the shotgun becouse it punchs faster the only big disadvantage is the low range, very skilled players dont leave you come close enaught to punch them... but there are always moments on which you hook the emeny and he hooks you on at this moments, the hammer is perfect!

"what is the role of the laser weapon?"
my serious opinion: laser sucks... i dont like it and nearly dont use it... anyway i cant aim with this weapon

"are the grenade launcher tricks (to gain speed and altitude) actually important in real matches? Are they often used in big battles?"
not as often as in races but sometimes.  usually you can get swing good on the standard maps but some areas are just too flat to get speed with the normal way (hooking), and if the emeny has your flag, grenade jumps speedups are the only way to catch him up!

"what is the best way to learn how to hook?"
hooking other tees:
be defender and hook everybody who wants to take your flag then kill him with grenade, shotgun or hammer (or all of these weapons) after some time you can hook other tees while sleeping
hooking walls and platforms to get speed:
hehe, ctf2 is the best place to train it just play for fun and swing around there you will find out some cool movements and will be a super pro

much fun and succes with this tips, i hope we all can see a new good player soon

Teeworlds is all about movement. If you train your moves and speed, the rest will follow shortly (weapons, etc). You should practice on fastcapping ctf2 till you make it in 10s. That will require that you cut a lot of useless moves you make that make you slower .

As for weapons, all has been said already. Each weapon has its usage and you should switch using binds. Also, disable dynamic camera, active always show name plates, use binds and not nextweapon/prevweapons, look at better players and copy them. It will come if you play regularly.

Might as well reply again, maybe other new players might find my experiences interesting.

I watched a lot of demo's (a lot of them at 0.5 speed) and I'm confident that was time well spent. What I learned:
- the weapons aren't that specific as I thought.
- hooking the ground below can be useful for gaining momentum (I litterally never do this, should try it a bit)
- the "corner bug" thingy, where the hook is attached below a solid object and you swing yourself on it (and, although impossible the hook is going through that solid object for a second) is pretty important in order to avoid making a too big arc around an object.
- when to use rocket jump in ctf 2
- some general nice tricks that are too hard to explain in text.

I also followed the advice to practise in the ctf 2 map a bit, but I'm still stuck at the time 15.89 (for capturing the flag). There's certainly room for improvement though (I can't do rocket jumps consistently).

Otherwise, thanks for the advice/answers .

Exactly, lots of room for improvement. (I should have made clear my failure to do rocket jumps several times in a row without fallacies was just an example)

PS: just did a 15.02 time without rocket jumps, still 4 minutes to go!

Why no dynamic camera? It just allows further viewing as far as i know? Isn't dynamic camera > static?

exactly- though i have the max moussense(like many i think),i hate dyncam.
it might be also usefull,though

Interesting, my mouse sensitivity was extremely low. (I'll increase it a bit and test it a bit)

On paper, dynamic camera should be an advantage, since you can see more of your clipping and thereby see a non-dyncam player slightly before (s)he see you, but many players feel like it's confusing. I've been using it since the beginning, and feel like it's an advantage for me, so the best idea is to try both on/off and see what you prefer.

I switched to higher mousesens, and turned dyn cam off, and I adapted to it after a while (~2-3 hours of playing).
It is now okay to use it with wire mouse, it is sometimes said that wifi one adds some lag and with sensitivity at higher level you wont be limited by wires.

For the nameplates, it is useful to know what player are you fighting with, what can be advantage