In my opinion, the Black Box is usually the second strongest Soldier primary in the game, just after the stock Rocket Launcher, but in some cases the Black Box could be a better weapon. In this guide, I will cover weapons that work out great when paired with the Black Box and the play style with the Black Box equipped.

The Black Box only has 3 rockets loaded, making you run out of rockets much faster then other Soldier primaries. To balance this, the Soldier would have much higher survivability than normal, gaining 15 health per hit. Note that it regenerates 15 health per person you hit and not whether the rocket hit or not. Therefore you could gain more than 15 health per rocket, and spamming it into crowded areas could replenish yourself very, very quickly.

I believe that the Black Box is extremely useful in dive-bombing, which means rocket jumping into a crowded or an important target, making it a pretty good tool in competitive or Highlander games. (I will try not to include so much about competitive games.) Since you won’t normally have enough time to use all 4 rockets when using other Soldier primaries (3 excluding the one used to rocket jump), the Black Box would help you bombard all the rockets at your target, hurtling towards it like a mini-airstrike, and you might survive the dive-bombing and deal even more damage or even kill some more enemies.

Because of its limited amount of rockets, we come to the secondary. What secondary paired with the Black Box is a matter between getting owned or pwning others. In my opinion the Shotgun out the Gunboats would work out best. Usually I think the Gunboats is better, but we will cover the Shotgun first.

The play style of the Black Box + Shotgun combo would be similar to the Pocket Soldier in 6v6. You could still roam around the map with this combo, but you would take much more damage from rockets (60% to be exact), and probably die early in a fight. However, since rocket jumping to essential to the Soldier, you have to find a health source, which is either a large amount of health packs or a Medic, because of how unreliable health packs are (could be taken by others), the Medic is better. Also, the Medic could overheal you, allowing you to have around 240 health even after rocket jumping. Back to the Shotgun, it basically means that you have more firepower and take down enemies that you fail to kill in 3 rockets.

But the question is, why do you need the health bonus from the Black Box if you already have a Medic, and the Black Box couldn’t heal you when you have full health or even an overheal, so why don’t you just take your old but reliable stock Rocket Launcher? Therefore we come to the final contestant (not so final, since there is only 2 ‘candidates’), the Gunboats. You might have guessed that this means Roaming Soldier, and you are correct. When you have the health boost and self-damage reduction, you could remain full health or extremely close to that after you rocket jump into a group of enemies, maximizing your contribution to your team and the potential to the days of the glorious victory you all mercs have all been waiting for. Rocket Jumping with the Gunboats take away around 15 health from you, and there you go! A rocket shot in mid-air would replenish the 15 health, and the next rocket would replenish your fall damage after you crash on the ground, making you still at full health when you damage your opponent for around a 100 damage, making you have a whopping 100 health advantage with one more rockets loaded, and actually you have 2 rockets because I forgot to mention that you should reload once in mid-air. Therefore you deal a guaranteed 200 damage at your opponent, while you are still healthy and alive, taking down all classes except overhealed enemies and the heavy-weapons guy.

The 15 health bonus actually is quite a lot, if it does not seem so. It makes you fearless at incoming W+M1 Pyros, since you could just shoot at the ground twice, putting out the fire and suffer 0 damage, thanks to the Gunboats again. Or you could just merely rocket jump away, damaging your pursuer AND escaping from battle. That brings us to the next point. The Black Box soldier could use one rocket to jump, reload in mid-air, shoot 2 rockets at the enemies with one rockets left and finally using the last one to rocket jump away. That allows you to damage enemies.




Black Box Tutorial by Vhalin -ts- , from Highlander Team Syndicates, Winner of the Platinum Finals