A complete guide to rocketjumping.
Written by me.

Rocketjumping is a technique in Team Fortress 2 that allows the player to use the knockback of explosive projectiles as means of quickly traversing through the air from point A to point B, to overcome obstacles, to flee or attack with. This is used on jumpmaps and partially in pubs and comps to get the advantage and the upper hand of the battlefield. The best of it is that it can be tons of fun once you get down all the types of jumping and combining them with eachother, as well as improving your rollout and travelling speed during a normal game of TF2.
Jumping is not only for soldier or demoman, but also for engineer and scout, and some techniques can even be used as any class. Roughly said, jumping improves your skill at the entire game a little.

The reason why so many people give up on practising it however, is most likely because it can be difficult to master all the techniques, especially if you don't know what you're doing wrong or if you don't see any progress. If you don't have motivation, it will become all the more difficult to learn.

When I saw the jumpmovie "Tears in Rain by Dellort," it gave me the burst of inspiration and motivation required to practise and keep practising jumping.
And now, two and a half years and 150+ jumpmaps further at the time of updating this guide, both as soldier and demo, I am here to bring you a guide that you can use for learning and/or improving your rocketjumping.


Note: I'm what you can say an expert jumper if you compare me to the average player, but not nowhere as good like some out there on the TF2Jump community. I just enjoy going on jumpmaps and like to watch jumpvideos of all sorts. I do know many techniques and how to do them, however.

This guide is not able to contain every single type of jump. As good as I try to describe as many types of jumps as possible, there are always maps that have a different idea on doing some of these and you have to find out what to do or what types of jumps to combine.
So apologies if I explain something shallowly, but that is usually due the fact that rocketjumping cannot be learned solely by a guide; you and your muscles have to get used to doing them, developing a feeling, simply by trying and trying it.
Another recommendation is to look up videos of rocketjump tutorials or how to beat a specific map.

But most importantly: actually practise them rather than watching how someone else does it. Some people can really make it look easy.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The guide consists of the following chapters (note: some of these techniques are much harder to master than others and that order isn't present):

• Before attempting to learn rocketjumping
1. Rocketjump
- Standard rocketjump
- Wall rocketjump
- CTap
2. Strafing
3. Walljump
- Vertical walljump
- Horizontal walljump
4. Pogo
- Standard pogo
- Speedpogo
- Wallpogo
- Drop pogo
- Corner pogo (v1)
- Corner pogo (v2)
5. Skip
6. Sync
- Doublerocket (standard sync)
- Triplerocket (double sync)
- Quadrocket (triple sync)
- Quintrocket (quadruple sync)
- Selfsync
- Double selfsync
- Wallsync
- Slidesync
- Rampsync (v1)
- Rampsync (v2)
- Rampsync (v3)
7. Speedshot
- Standard speedshot
- Double speedshot
8. Catch
- Standard catch
- Wallcatch
9. Bounce
- Standard bounce
- Bouncehop
- Powerbounce
10. Edgebug
- Standard edgebug
- Edgeshot
- Double edgeshot
• Bonus
- Setting up an offline jumpserver
- Recording and playing POV demos
- Recording and playing STV demos
- Useful demo editing commands (both POV and STV)
- Recommended jumpmaps in general (climbing difficulty)
- Recommended jumpmaps for each type of jump
- Map downloads
- Ending

• Before attempting to learn rocketjumping •

First off, you should be aware that expert rocketjumping is something you don't learn in a day, two-three days, week, month or even up to a year. There are some techniques you'll grasp within like an hour, while others can take thousands of hours of practise to fully master.
Most people are interested in rocketjumping because of the smooth flying through maps and trickjumping, and the fact that it can improve your skill as soldier by a lot in pubs and comps. When they try it and fail, they usually give up already and resume their everyday TF2 gameplay.
Rocketjumping is something you truly need to want to be able to do before you can actually learn it. If you don't like it that much, you will most likely have more trouble learning it.

I've been jumping for over a year now. Not much compared to some people who have been jumping for 4-5 years or even longer. More than half of the time in TF2 nowadays, I jump instead of doing pubs and such. I've beaten many both cool and also awfully irritating, pointless and boring maps. Some maps have literally taken me hours on a single jump to complete, but the fact that you have beaten a really hard map afterwards is the sole motivation I need to sit out the nerve-annihilation at times.

What I'm trying to tell is, you will be able to become an expert at rocketjumping at some point if you keep jumping, but only if you actually put your time and effort into it.

These two videos is what all the experience in rocketjumping has achieved for me.



Isn't that motivating?

Anyway, here are some things about rocketjumping itself you should know:

- In rocketjumping, W stands for Wall and Walking. Only with those two you need to press W (not in wallshots, only for climbing walls vertically). If you touch W in any other rocketjump, it blocks strafing by a big part, and most likely will make you fail the jump you attempt to perform. So don't press it when you don't need to do so; it does nothing in the open air.
- Be comfortable with your mouse sensitivity and don't change it too often. Recommended is a bit more of a lower sensitivity instead of a high one.
- Unless doing a fancy trickjump, always use the stock rocketlauncher or any of its skins (except the original).
- Bind crouch to Shift and leave it like that. Shift is closer to your pink than Ctrl. It will save you a lot of muscle soreness.
- Never jump backwards, always face your landing zone.
- The recommended viewmodel is 90 for both your gun FOV and your actual FOV. You can change this by typing viewmodel_fov 90 and fov_desired 90 into the console. This is merely a preference and can differ for some people though.
- Some online jumpmaps have poor or no health regeneration. Use the rocketjumper or gunboats and, if it is enabled, type !superman (invincibility).
- Almost all rocketjumps require the crouch key. Always hold it.
- Jumping online and jumping offline can make a big difference in succes, especially if you have a big latency. Even with a ping as good as 15-20, it still can be a lot different.

There are also some terms in rocketjumping that can confuse new jumpers, so here are a few frequently heard terms and their definitions:

- FOV = Field Of View. How much you can see of the world and your weapon. Most jumpers have both set to 90. Standard is 70.
- Pain marker/indicator = Those red bars next to your crosshair when you get hit. These can tell a lot about how you jump in some situations (mainly syncs and speedshots).
- Hammer unit = Means of measuring distances in Team Fortress 2. A rocket flies about 1100 hammer units per second.
- Tick = Means of measuring time in Team Fortress 2 (you often find them in demos). A second equals 66.67 ticks.
- Duck = Same as crouch.
- Prefire = A rocket in trickjumping the player fires before doing a jump, only to catch up with it on a later timestamp. This is a tricky thing to do, especially with multiple prefires in one jump.
- Strat = Abbreviation of strategy. Tricks on certain jumpmaps that make speedrunners able to run the map faster and/or more easily.
- POV/STV demos = Clips recorded with an ingame recorder within the console (more about that on the end of this guide).

Also useful to know is that most experts abbreviate a lot of things (types of syncs, rocketjump maps, etc.).

Without further ado, I hope my guide proves itself useful, and good luck on the learning!

1. Rocketjump

The vanilla rocketjump is the most used type of rocketjumping in the game. It is an effective way of transporting yourself across a map quickly, especially if you combine it with other types of rocketjumps. Many jumps on jumpmaps start with a normal rocketjump.

Rocketjump

A standard rocketjump is performed by pressing jump, crouch and shoot all at once. Where you aim on the ground decides the direction you go. If you aim straight down, you perform a vertical rocketjump, but if you aim a bit more behind you, you perform a more horizontal rocketjump. When doing a horizontal one, flick your rocketlauncher behind you (right side) and fire. Doing a rocketjump in shallow water results in a much higher rocketjump.

Wall rocketjump

You can also do a standard rocketjump off a wall instead of using the floor. You press the same buttons, but simply shoot at the wall this time. In this case, how high you aim on the wall decides how high you fly. If you aim more below you on the wall, you will fly higher but not too far. If you aim a bit higher on the wall, you will fly lower but also a bit further.

The situation depends on how you need to aim. If you need to gain height (beginning to climb a wall with wallshots), you have to aim lower, but if you want to go into a (speed)pogo after a wall rocketjump instead, you have to aim higher so you skim over the ground, etc.

ctap

A ctap (crouchtap) is a precisely timed rocketjump that carries you both a bit higher and further than a standard rocketjump would. This is done by a very timed pressing of keys.

You press and hold crouch for about a quarter of a second, uncrouch and then jump and fire a rocket all at the same time. That all in quick succession. When you shortly press and hold crouch and then release it, the player glitches through the map for a very brief moment. Important to know is that once you uncrouch, you don't immediately crouch again as you would normally do with a standard rocketjump. Only after you have done the ctap, you should hold it again (especially when doing vertial ctaps as you'll need every bit of height you can get).

The strafe before it is a crucial part of a ctap. If you strafe to the right before and when doing a ctap, you will gain more height, while if you strafe to the left, you will gain more horizontal distance.
Doing the above can make you ctap the rightmost jump pillar on the back of jump_academy with 691 units (!).

This requires a bit of practise but can prove itself useful once you have a hang of it. This type of jump is also useful in pubs and competitive games.
Although the original rocket launcher makes ctaps considerably easier, I recommend mainly learning it with the stock rocketlauncher, because that way you get the gist down more.

2. Strafing

Strafing in rocketjumping is just as important as firing a rocket. Without it, you couldn't steer. Strafing is easy but just requires you to get used to it for a bit. NEVER touch W in the air, or else you will very likely fail.

When you fly through the air and want to change direction, you hold either A or D (depending on the direction you want to go) and crouch (you always hold crouch). Whilst you hold that, carefully move your mouse in the same direction. Don't move your mouse too fast, or all you do is turn around.

It is an easy part of rocketjumping, but a very important one.

3. Walljump

A walljump is, as it says, a jump in which you use the wall. It is done both vertically and horizontally. Vertical walljumping is quite simple, but horizontal ones can be tricky for new rocketjumpers and can also be a challenge to fully master.

Vertical walljump

A vertical walljump only takes you up high rather than moving you horizontally.
It is done by simply doing a standard rocketjump up, holding crouch, fire and W. Just as with wallpogo, shift your view a little to the left and hold D when you are not firing (more of that in chapter 4).

Horizontal walljump

A horizontal walljump takes you both up and carries you for a distance. Often players use the W key here too, which is helpful at first, but should not be pressed at all once you develop a feeling.

Instead, a horizontal walljump is the combination of the A and D keys. You begin with a normal rocketjump towards the wall (a more horizontal rocketjump). After that, you fire rockets on the wall diagonally behind and especially below you. Now comes the tricky part: when you are not firing, look ahead and hold D. When you face the wall to fire another rocket, you release D and hold A. Then when you look ahead again you release A and hold D again, etc. A keeps you going forward and D counters the drift. This requires some practise to do properly.
The further you come, the faster you will go, and rockets won't be able to catch up with you at some point. Instead of firing diagonally behind and underneath you, fire a little underneath and more in front of you.
If you're on a long walljump, eventually the rockets won't be able to catch up with you as much anymore, so you need to brake a bit with tapping S.

This works the same with leftsided walljumps, only there it is the other way around: you hold D when shooting a rocket and A when looking ahead.
Leftsided walljumps are a lot harder to learn and require even more practise.

If you have trouble with walljumps, right- or leftsided, you can alternatively do a sync or selfsync as a startup (more of that in chapter 6).

4. Pogo

A pogo is a technique of continuously firing rockets at your feet to prevent you from touching the ground. If used correctly, it can create a lot of speed to transport the player very quickly.

Pogo

A standard pogo is easy to learn and not necessarily difficult to master. You usually begin with falling off a small platform (or by a spacebar jump and then holding fire). Before hitting the floor, you press and hold fire and crouch whilst looking straight down. In any type of pogo, always hold fire and crouch and never let go. While you bounce up and down by your rockets, you use the keys W, A, S and D to keep your balance. A and D balance and steer you and W and S function as a brake when you go too fast in either direction (use W when you go backwards too much and S when you go too fast ahead). When you attempt a pogo for the first time, try to pogo in the same area for about 10-15 times. Once you can do that balanced and under control, you are ready for a pogo that actually gets you somewhere.
Now instead of looking down, you occasionally shoot a little more behind you so you begin moving ahead. Whilst doing so, keep the control and balance with the W, A, S and D keys. First just slowly move ahead until you reach the other end on which you can stand again. Also try to change direction with the A and D keys.

Speedpogo

Once you got the standard pogo down, it is time to learn the speedpogo. A speedpogo, hence the name, is a pogo with speed. This can be started in 3 ways: fall from a platform to pogo, spacebar jump up into pogo or by a low wall rocketjump.
Speedpogo barely differs from a standard pogo. The only difference is that the faster you go, the more you have to aim ahead of you on the ground. Just as with walljumping, there also is a limit of how fast you can go until the rockets cannot catch up with you anymore, so don't be too much of a speed maniac and tap S when you think you're going a little too fast.
You either start from a normal pogo or via a low wall rocketjump. From a normal pogo, occasionally fire a bit more behind you until speed builds up. Always focus on control and balance. Once speed is building up, gradually shoot more and more ahead of you so your rockets catch up with you and tap S when necessary.

From a wall rocketjump, fly high enough so you don't touch the ground, but also not too high so your rockets won't hit you. Once you did the rocketjump under the right angle, fire the first rocket on the floor already ahead of you. Same goes for all the next rockets, depending on your speed.
If at the end of a speedpogo you have to go on a ramp, shoot the last rocket on the ground a bit behind you for a little extra speed. If instead at the end of a speedpogo you have a horizontal walljump ahead, shoot the last rocket on the ground more in front of you for a slight upward boost.

Wallpogo

The wallpogo and all of it's variants are not for beginners and require a lot of practise to master. However, a short, single wallpogo should not be that hard to learn if you use the technique well. This technique is completely useless in pubs and comps.
Just as with wallshots, wallpogo requires you to press a combination of keys. Always hold crouch and fire and never let go.

You usually begin with a normal pogo towards the wall on which you will do the wallpogo. Once you reach the wall, it goes like this: bounce a few times on the floor as you would do with a normal pogo, get yourself ready, then shift your view a little to the left (important!) and place your crosshair underneath you on the wall. You hold W the entire time. When you are not firing, you hold D, when you fire, you release D for a short moment, then hold it again once you fired another rocket, etc. In short: you hold D inbetween firing rockets. If you want to move to the left on the wall, you hold D less often. If you want to move to the right on the wall, you hold D more often. Always keep your view a bit shifted to the left when climbing or moving left or right.

Drop pogo

A drop pogo is the hard part of a wallpogo. It is difficult to explain because it is a bit based on feeling. If you can cornerpogo as well, do that instead. It's a lot easier and less prone to fail.

When you want wallpogo down, you shift your view from slightly left to how you normally look at a wall (right at it). You fire a few rockets on the wall this way, still tapping D and holding crouch, and then you shift your view back slightly to the left side in order to not go down too fast. Then you repeat. You slowly go down this way.

Corner pogo (v1)

A corner pogo is an easier variant of the drop pogo and can be done on an inward corner.

When doing a wallpogo and you need to get lower, you can do a corner pogo to do so. You change from firing on the same wall to shooting one rocket on each wall, subsequently changing back and forth the two walls. Keep holding W whilst doing so. Once you're low enough, return to the wall on which you need to go. First fire a few rockets on it before deciding to go further so your balance is in control.

Corner pogo (v2)

A corner pogo can also mean doing a wallpogo over a wall to the either left or right side and then going around the corner on the outward. This technique is hard to master, even though it looks quite simple.

As said, you arrive at a corner with a wallpogo. At the corner, you quickly ''jump'' around it. It is essential that you do this with enough speed. It has to be a sharp turn as well; not too sharp that you can't go around the corner, but also not too broad so you can't return to the wall soon enough. As soon as you are around the corner, quickly balance yourself back on the wall and continue the wallpogo.

5. Skip

A skip is used to climb platforms by lowly flying over it (almost touching it) and shooting a rocket on it to climb it.

Skip

You usually begin with a wall rocketjump. This has to be a perfect one. The angle must be high enough to climb over the edge, but low enough that you don't go too high over the platform either. If you want to climb up after the skip, you fire straight down (usually with multiple skips after eachother). If you only want to pass it and don't necessarily want to climb, quickly flick behind you and fire a rocket so you fly lower.

6. Sync

A sync (synchronized rockets) is a rocketjump in which you bundle rockets together to gain a lot of extra speed upon the next rocketjump. The closer the rockets are to eachother and the better your timing is, the more speed you will get from it.

There is a lot of confusion about the names of the syncs, so to make things clear: a sync uses 2 rockets, a doublesync uses 3, a triplesync 4, etc. A sync is also called a doublerocket or simply a double. A doublerocket uses 2 rockets, a triplerocket uses 3, a quadrocket 4, etc.

A sync is even usable on a small set of valve maps, like plr_hightower, plr_nightfall, cp_gravelpit and cp_mountainlab.

All syncs that require you to land will be massively boosted if you pull them off in shallow water. As with all syncs: the more the pain markers are the same size, the better the sync.

Doublerocket (standard sync)

There are a few ways to do a standard sync. Most commonly you fall down a big gap and fire a rocket down in midair and the second one after you've landed.
Another possibility is to vertically walljump up (using 3 rockets is enough) and then fall down and shoot a rocket in midair and the second one after you've landed.

A standard sync consists of the following parts: falling down, shooting a rocket in midair, landing and a standard rocketjump. Best to learn this is on a single sync jump on jumpmaps (plenty of jumpmaps have those. See the bonus part of my guide for all sorts of maps for each technique).
Recommended is to not jump off, but simply walk off the edge. Once you are off the edge, wait about 0,6-0,7 second, then fire a rocket straight down (about the time you reach the end of the glass on the sync of jump_quba). Once you land, immediately rocketjump up. This is easily said, but requires some tries. Fall, shoot, land, rocketjump. Practise makes perfect.

As described above, you also have jumps that require you to do a standard sync together with a vertical walljump. You start with a standard rocketjump and 2 shots on the wall up, wait a bit, fire a rocket down, and as soon as you hit the floor, rocketjump up.
You can do these consistently if you're good, as long as you maintain a good balance and rocketjump at the right time.

Triplerocket (double sync)

A triplerocket isn't too hard to learn once you got the standard doublerocket down.

Just as with a standard doublerocket, you walk off an edge and wait about 0,6-0,7 second, but instead of 1, you fire 2 rockets (just hold fire). It is important that you notice when you do a proper triplerocket, when you have fired the second rocket to get the timing down. With normal interpolation settings (if you haven't heard about it, it is most likely set to normal), you see that you fire a rocket once you cannot see the other rocket anymore. Remember this visual for quintrockets and even bigger ones.
As you land, don't immediately jump. Instead, walk a step back (so you can see your rockets coming down in a better way) look up and wait for the rockets to come down (recommended with all syncs bigger than a doublerocket, if you're given enough time that is). Once the rockets are about to hit the ground, walk forward and quickly look/flick down and do a standard rocketjump.

If instead of height you want distance, walk a little more ahead before the rockets hit you and flick your rocketlauncher behind you and do a standard rocketjump you would also do to jump horizontally.
You can also do a doublerocket and one extra rocket on the wall and then do a triplerocket when you fall down.

Quadrocket (triple sync)

A quadrocket is a sync that requires you to first make a triplerocket, add a rocket, fall, rocketjump. This is done by the addition of a platform to land on after you made the doublerocket. On jumpmaps you more often see a quintrocket rather than a quadrocket.

You start by walking off the edge and making a doublerocket. You land on the platform (because you fall faster than that your rockets travel), look up and wait for your rockets to come down (recommended is to stand on the edge of the platform). Once they are in range, either walk off the edge, wait a little, then shoot a rocket down (so you make a triplerocket) or instead, quickly flick your view down to the ground, fire and fall (depends on the timing and jump). You land, then do a standard rocketjump. Usually with this sync, it is normal to walk off the second platform a bit earlier before shooting a rocket down.

This requires some more practise than previous two syncs because you have to line up a third rocket from a standstill.
Important to know is that with quadrockets and bigger syncs, you have to be more and more precise, as the rockets on the ground have so much power together, they immediately send you up, which makes it possible for slightly badly timed rockets not to hit you, and make you fail the jump due lack of height.

Quintrocket (quadruple sync)

This type of sync is very common on harder jumpmaps. It is a lot like a quadrocket, only you add one more rocket once you fall off the second platform (the ground is usually also a lot lower so you have enough time). It's not necessarily harder than a quadrocket.

You start by walking off the edge and making a doublerocket. You land on the platform, look up and wait for your rockets to come down. Once they are in range, wait on the edge, shoot a rocket down the same time as you walk off the edge. You will shortly see your rockets fly ahead of you, but you will soon catch up with them again. Once you are close enough to your rockets, fire a final rocket, land, look up and wait, then rocketjump.
The precision here is a lot more precise than the other syncs so this will take a lot of practise. Usually if even one rocket is out of the timing, you will fail the entire jump.

There exist variants of these jumps on which you need to fire a sixth or even a seventh rocket (hexarocket and septarocket respectively, although these often have no names). Attempting to do these is a tough challenge because you have to do multiple things perfectly (6 perfectly lined up rockets, the correct position from which you shoot rockets down, well-timed rocketjump and position, etc.), but keep in mind: try to be as precise as possible and simply practise and practise on it until you make it.

Selfsync

Back to the easier variants of syncjumps, a selfsync is a sync in which you begin with a wall rocketjump ahead, turn around, wait until you're about to be teleported back and fire a rocket back at the place you started, which is usually where the teleport takes you to. This can only be done on jumpmaps. Sometimes it is required for the jump, and other times it is only used due lack of skill for the jump in the intended way (often long horizontal walljumps, horizontal leftsided walljumps and CTaps).

As said, you begin with a wall rocketjump and/or a horizontal walljump. Once you are far away enough, you press S to brake (you don't actually have to brake, but it is easier to aim that way), turn around, aim at the location you will be teleported to (preferably on a wall next to it, if there's one) and fire a rocket at it. Once you respawned and quickly orientated, you walk to the location, wait for the rocket, then simply do a wall rocketjump (or off the ground).
Alternatively, you can use a spray on either the ground or the wall to help you aim.

Double selfsync

A double selfsync is an extention on the selfsync and requires a tricky timing to do it right. This technique is popular for doing trickjumps.

You begin with a wall rocketjump and do a horizontal walljump for quite a distance. Once you are far away enough, you press S to brake, turn around, aim at the location you will be teleported to and fire a rocket at it. Instead of waiting, you immediately do another horizontal walljump after you respawned and orientated. You walljump towards your rocket that's going for the respawn position. Once you're close enough, you press S to brake, turn around, time when you have to fire the rocket, aim at the respawn position and fire it. From there on out, it doesn't differ from the normal selfsync.

Wallsync

A wallsync is when you approach a wall with decent speed and do a sync off of it. It sounds easy when you got syncing down to certain degree, but it can be tricky to pull off correctly.

You begin by doing a jump that puts you into the position of doing a wallsync (a horizontal walljump for example). Once you are flying towards the wall that you are about to do a wallsync on, predict where on the wall you have to place the rocket. You have to place the first rocket slighly beneath and behind you and the next one not too far off it, but it can be hard to predict once flying towards it.
There is not much else to tell about it, other than the advice to just practise it.

Slidesync

A slidesync is a sync that can get pretty big, depending on the length of the ramp. You slide along the ramp with the same speed as a rocket, and you keep holding the fire button. The trickiest part of this jump is to get the perfect sliding speed and maintaining this.

You usually start off with a standard rocketjump or a wall rocketjump towards the ramp. Once on the ramp, you press and hold either A or D (depending on which side of the ramp you are) and you need to need to adjust your speed to that of a rocket.
If you go too slow, you can fire more rockets on the ramp to gain speed. If you go too fast, you can tap S until you go slow enough.
Once you bundled a group of rockets, keep holding A or D and keep sliding towards the end of the ramp. You won't lose speed as long as you hold A or D. At the end of the ramp, there usually is a wall or another ramp. Shortly before reaching it, you shoot a rocket at the ramp you are sliding on to propel yourself forward, then you fire the final rocket together with the bundled rockets and fly in the desired direction.

Rampsync (v1)

A rampsync is a sync you do on a ramp (sometimes the names are too obvious). This is usually done by either flying, pogo-ing or sliding towards the point where you have to sync off.

Just as with the wallsync, there is not much to tell about it once you have a feeling about syncs. You fire a rocket on the spot where you predict to be once it hits the ramp. Make sure you jump off the ramp at the same time the prefired rocket explodes for the best effect.

Popular belief with sliding over ramps is that you have to hold spacebar, but that is just superstition, so you might as well not press it (except if it is water that you slided on).

Rampsync (v2)

A rampsync can also meaning jumping up (usually with a triplerocket) towards an upside-down ramp and then doing a sync on it.

After you do the sync up, immediately focus on where to shoot the first rocket. Predict it so that when the first rocket hits you, that is also the time and place you fire the next one. The second rocket has to be next to you and a little ''beneath'' you on the ramp. The timing is important here.

Rampsync (v3)

A rampsync can also meaning falling down from a platform towards a ramp underneath you and then doing a sync on it.

Just as with a normal sync, you fall down, wait a bit, then fire a rocket straight down. Time it so that, depending on the angle, you hit the sync as soon as you fire the second rocket on the ramp. The earlier you fire, the more upwards you will fly after the rampsync, so if you want to go down instead, you fire the first rocket later.

7. Speedshot

A speedshot is a single rocket fired once the player is only a few hammer units away from hitting the ground which bursts the player ahead with a lot of speed. Many jumpmaps contain speedshots in all sorts of sizes and combinations with other jump techniques.
The timing can be tricky to maintain, and not even the most professional rocketjumpers can do this completely fluently without flawing from time to time.

Speedshot

A standard speedshot is usually done by first doing a wall rocketjump towards a platform (not too high, not too low. A bit in the middle). Once you are about to hit the ground, fire a rocket directly underneath you and flick your view up after it hits you for a little speed bonus (although this is never really confirmed). If done correctly, it shoots you ahead with a lot of speed, also going slightly upward.
This requires some practise on the timing and technique. You see a big pain marker once you did it correctly. You hold crouch the entire time.

There are limits with speedshots. Mainly speed and height limits. If you go too fast or fall from too high, very likely you will fail the speedshot. Advised is to jump towards the platform with a little arc.

If you want to do multiple speedshots after eachother, make sure you're not going too fast. Press S to brake once you have the feeling you're going too fast otherwise it will very likely fail to boost you.
It can be useful in pubs and comps, but pay in mind that, especially without gunboats or a medic, this technique blows a big chunk from your health away.

Double speedshot

A double speedshot is the combination of a sync and a speedshot which can carry you really high and far if done perfectly.

Just like with a standard speedshot, you usually start with a wall rocketjump towards a platform. In the air, just as with a standard sync, you fire a rocket on the place you are about to do a speedshot (very slightly underneath it). Predict it so that it hits you once you do the speedshot. If you do it correctly, you see a really big pain marker with a small pain marker beside it, although this doesn't always occur.

8. Catch

A catch is a technique in which you shoot a rocket and ''catch'' yourself on a surface to regain control and won't make you fail the jump by touching the ground or falling down. This can be done on the ground and on walls.

Catch

A standard catch (often called doublecatch because you use two rockets) is when you fly towards a lower ground and fire two rockets so you don't touch the floor but instead change into a pogo (example).

You do this by doing a low wall rocketjump towards the platform. Almost immediately after you did the jump off the wall, you fire a rocket towards the place you predict to be. Once your rocketlauncher can fire again, fire another rocket at around the same place. If done correctly, the first rocket slows you down enough, enabling you to fire another rocket which balances you on the surface. Once you caught yourself on the platform, quickly balance yourself with a normal pogo.

Wallcatch

A wallcatch is standard catch, only on a wall instead of the ground. When you fly towards the wall, you shoot two rockets at it to prevent you from falling, and you start a wallpogo.
You usually start by doing a horizontal walljump towards the wall. Once you did the last wallshot, shoot the first rocket at the wall. Predict it so that it hits you beneath you once on the wall. You almost instantly fire the second one, also a bit beneath you. After this, you quickly initiate a wallpogo.

This will take some practise at first, but overal isn't too hard if you know what to do.

9. Bounce

A bounce is a weird type of ''pixel-perfect'' rocketjumping in which the player fires a single rocket that will hit him at the time he would normally hit the ground, and ''bounces'' him up. This technique is almost only usable in jumpmaps. There exist many variations of it. It is also done to skip a wallpogo or beat specific parts of demo jumpmaps as soldier.

Bounce

If a jump contains a bounce, information on what to do is usually given. The only thing you need to know is to (crouch)walk, jump or ctap off the edge, fire a rocket and time it so that it hits you as soon as you are about to hit the ground, so the higher you start off a platform, the earlier you have to fire the rocket. If you fire it right underneath you, you bounce off in almost the same angle as you jumped in. If you fire it more behind you, it instead gives you a little forward boost. That last one is often done to change from bounce into pogo. Bounces can both be crouched and uncrouched, depending on the height.
If the rocket hits you before bouncing, you fired it too early. If the rocket doesn't hit you, you fired it too late. Try to fire it at the right exact timing.

Sometimes you also have to jump, ctap or hit the ceiling before you are able to bounce, because it is all about the height. Just look at the jump if it has any extra information on what to do.
Tempus servers have a ''bouncecheck'' which you can use to see if a surface is bounceable and how to bounce on them. Just ask a player about how to use it.


Bouncehop

You have undoubtly heard about the word Bhop if you ever played a Valve game. If somehow not, it literally stands for Bouncehop. This technique is often installed in surfservers of both Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike Source, and on some of the Bhop servers of the old Counter Strike as well (beware: scripting this in a public game or match can get you VAC banned! Only script it on your own offline server if you want to).

But, instead of giving the player enormous hopping speed across the map by simply holding spacebar (which you can't without scripts or special servers), it is used in Team Fortress 2 on jumpmaps to prevent touching the ground that would teleport you back.
It is done by jumping at the exact same time you hit the ground. That's all there is to it, but it requires a good timing to do, and even more to do it consistently. Alternatively, if the ground is shootable, you can go on with a (wall)pogo or powerbounce afterwards. Don't hold crouch whilst falling down or jumping off the ground.

Just as with the chapter ahead (edgebugs), it's a fault/error/glitch in the Source engine; when you jump at the same time you hit the floor, Source decides you didn't actually touch it and allows you to jump off it, when you should have been teleported back to the start.
Interesting to know is that in pubs and comps, you can use this together with the Market Gardener. Recommended to do this is with the rocketjumper because of the whistling. If you do a bouncehop and the whistling hasn't stopped, you can still get a melee crit when hitting a player with it.

Powerbounce

The term you read above is what happens when you add a rocket after a bouncehop. It almost has the same power as a standard rocketjump if done perfectly.
You usually begin by walking or jumping off the edge. Once you did a bouncehop, let your instincts take the wheel and do a standard rocketjump, only instead of pressing crouch, fire and jump all together, press jump, and instantly after that press fire and crouch.

10. Edgebug

Perhaps the trickiest and most inconsistent jumping technique of all, the edgebug is a very situational type of jump that, together with the bouncehop, is a fault/error/glitch in the Source engine.

It involves landing on the last half hammer unit (or smaller) of a platform. When that happens, Source decides you didn't actually touch the platform and breaks your fall and sends you further with almost the same horizontal speed as you had before the edgebug.
This is to both prevent falldamage and using a platform that would otherwise teleport you back for more distance. It can be done as every class and can get you a lucky save in pubs and comps.

Edgebug

There isn't really a technique to it, you just have to do it a lot of times to see where you have to ''land'' for it to happen. Even then, it is considered ''luck-jumping''. Advised is to not press S to brake, but strafe into the edgebug with A and D instead. It is the easiest way to fly into it with an angle of about 45 degrees (not straight down, not flat either) so you have a good vision on the edge and also gain a good forward speed once you edgebugged it. Unlike bounces and bouncehops, height doesn't matter with edgebugs.
If you're sent flying with low health in a pub or comp, strafe towards an object on the ground with a sharp edge (a wall, ledge, fence, crate, roof, chimney, etc). If you're lucky, you edgebug right off it and don't die because of falldamage. Don't rely blindly on it happening though, as you most likely will still fall to your death instead of edgebugging, and you are also still vulnerable due low health, but you can always try. You have nothing to lose during such a situation anyway.

Edgeshot

An edgeshot is the combination of a speedshot and an edgebug that functions pretty much the same as a speedshot.

It is done by doing a low wall rocketjump towards the edge of a platform. Once you're about to edgebug, shoot a rocket straight down, a few hammer units away from the edge. If you get lucky, you perform an edgeshot and rush ahead with quite some speed. Always shoot the rocket late enough so that it doesn't hit you before doing the edgebug, otherwise it lifts you over the edge.

Double edgeshot

A double edgeshot is the combination of a double speedshot and an edgebug, only a little less powerful than a double speedshot.

It is done by doing a medium-high wall rocketjump towards the edge of a platform. In the air, shoot a rocket at the edge of the platform. Once you're about to edgebug, shoot another rocket straight down, a few hammer units away from the edge, around the same place you fired the rocket in the air at. If you get lucky, you perform a double edgeshot and get launched for quite a distance and speed. Always shoot the rocket late enough so that it doesn't hit you before doing the edgebug.

• Bonus •

Setting up an offline jumpserver

Knowing how to create and manage your own jumpmap to practise, jump and do speedruns on is important if you want to learn it properly. It has no high ping, no lag, no end of the round, no mapchange, no other players, nothing that can disturb your jumping experience. You have the full control over your server in the console.
To set this up is really easy. From the main menu of Team Fortress 2, click the plus on the tab servers. From here, select a map you want to play on, and select start game (you can also type ''map jump_nameofthejumpmap'' in the console and press enter or submit). Once it is loaded, pick your class and open the console.

Useful server commands

- sv_cheats 1: This is the first command that you always type; it enables the other commands to work.
- mp_tournament 1: Use this to get past the 30 second startup.
- mp_tournament_restart: If you're already past it due waiting, type this command to prevent the map from restarting after the timer has run out.
- exec namecfgfile: It is very useful to have a regen script for jumping. You can find these online. Download them, put them in your cfg (config) folder and give it a short, single name (which is placed in the console after ''exec'' (execute)).
- hurtme -9999999: To give yourself tons of health. Useful on old jumpmaps with bad regen. Don't type too many 9's or you will die.
- noclip: Bind noclip to a key. It is super useful to be able to fly through the map to skip a jump or to resume where you left off previous time.
- getpos/setpos: You first type getpos. A red text with ''setpos'' and a bunch of numbers appears. Copy and paste that red text and bind a key to it. When you press the key, it sets you back at the place where you typed ''getpos''. If you can't bind it to a key, you can also manually paste it in the console and press enter or submit.
- mat_fullbright 1: Type this if you're on a jumpmap that's so dark, you can barely see anything.
- firstperson/thirdperson: To change the view to either firstperson or thirdperson. Recommended is that whilst playing, you always use firstperson.

If you want to revert any commands like mp_decals 0 for when you're done jumping, simply type the command with ''1'' instead of ''0'' (and vice versa).
Just as in binary, see ''0'' and ''1'' as off and on switches.

Recording and playing POV demos

Demos are clips made within Team Fortress 2 which can later be recorded by software like Fraps and Lawena. People use them for a variety of purposes within the jumping universe: making jump clips, jumpmap runs, jump movies, jump montages, jump tutorials, jumpmap showcases, showing someone what to do on a specific jump, alternative ways to do a jump, etc.

Valve gave us things like the replay and the replay editor. It looks useful at first, but you'll soon notice almost no servers have replays enabled. Even if a server has replays enabled, you never really know when it records. The saving and management of those files is also rubbish.

Luckily for us there is the option to record straight from the console, anywhere you are, both online and offline. You type ''record'' and after that the name of how you want your demo to be named (use underscores in the name of the demo instead of spaces, otherwise it will fail!), then press enter or submit. Usually you glitch a little after you submitted it. You are now recording a POV demo (ignore the ''failed to execute'' message if you get it). To stop the recording, simply type ''stop''. The demo is now saved in your Steam>SteamApps>common>TeamFortress 2> tf.
To play it, go to the main menu of Team Fortress 2 and press shift + F2. From there, load and play it. Record it with software like Fraps if you want to put it on YouTube and alike.

Recording and playing STV demos

Instead of a POV demo, you can also record an STV (Source TV) demo. This works a lot like the standard POV demo, but there are a few differences.

You cannot record these online without Source TV enabled on the server. You can record these offline however, as you just enable it yourself. You do this by going on an offline map and type ''tv_enable 1''. Then type ''map'' and after that the map you typed the tv command on (same map). After submitting it, the map reloads. Source TV is now watching. When you are ready to record, type ''tv_record nameofyourfile''. You are now recording an STV demo. To stop recording, type ''tv_stoprecord''. The demo is saved in the same location as where POV demos go. You can also record both a POV demo and an STV demo at once.
To play it, go to the main menu of Team Fortress 2 and press shift + F2. From there, load it. As soon as it is loaded, pause it and open the console. After you typed the sv_cheats 1 command, type ''spec_mode 4'' (or 5 or 6, but it doesn't matter because you can cycle through them with the spacebar). Close both the console and the demo editor and press the mouse and spacebar a few times until you are visible in first person perspective. With the spacebar, you can switch from firstperson to thirdperson and freeroaming (this is very useful for making an intro for a jumpvideo). Record it with software like Fraps if you want to put it on YouTube and alike.

Useful demo editing commands (both POV and STV)

- sv_cheats 1: This is the first command that you always type; it enables the other commands to work.
- mp_decals 0: Type this if you want to get rid of the charcoal marks your rockets leave on the ground and walls (keep in mind that this disables sprays as well).
- cl_drawhud 0: Type this if you want to disable the HUD (it also disables pain markers).
- viewmodel_fov_demo 90: The viewmodels in demos don't change with the regular commands. Use this one instead.
- cl_autoreload 1: Always worth typing to prevent weird, glitchy rocketlauncher animations from occurring.

Type the following commands in the main menu instead of on a demo:

cl_cmdrate 100
cl_updaterate 100000
cl_interp 0
cl_interp_ratio 0
cl_lagcompensation 1
cl_pred_optimize 2
cl_smooth 0
cl_smoothtime .01
rate 100000

This changes the interpolation of projectiles like rockets and stickies. Only use this if you know what you're doing. I recommend reading up on it before doing it, even.

Recommended jumpmaps in general (climbing difficulty)

Here are a few jumpmaps I recommend playing on when learning to rocketjump. The easy maps contain a lot of (basic) jumps you will face very often and the harder ones contain more varied jumps that will challenge your skills. The difficulty is meant for beginners, so the maps I put in the hard category means it's hard when you're a beginner, but it becomes increasingly more easy once you're getting competent at rocketjumping.

Some of the maps start out easy but become harder (jump_quba, jump_littleman, jump_renard, etc.), while other maps are hard from the beginning (like jump_underground). Hard means all of the jumps combined, or in short, the difficulty is based on the hardest jump on the map.
When you can beat most of these maps, you're on a good way at becoming a good rocketjumper.

Easy
- jump_rush
- rj_rckteer
- jump_beef
- jump_academy
- jump_sexydev

Medium
- jump_home
- jump_underworld
- jump_stretch
- jump_renard
- jump_cheval

Hard
- jump_void
- jump_underground
- jump_quba
- jump_4starters
- jump_littleman

Recommended jumpmaps for each type of jump

Here are a few jumpmaps in which there is at least one jump that has one of the following elements in it which you want to learn/practise on. I picked them randomly, there probably are other maps that enable you to practise them just as much, but these are just some that came to mind when thinking about the techniques and maps.

Rocketjump
- jump_fox (first course)
- jump_leet

Wall rocketjump
- jump_adventure (first course)
- plr_hightower (off the box outside the house near the cliff)

CTap
- jump_academy (CTap area in the water behind the course entrances)
- jump_underworld (main course and bonus course)

Vertical walljump
- jump_academy (wall course)
- jump_rush

Horizontal walljump
- jump_adventure (third course)
- jump_stretch

Pogo
- jump_deserted (first course)
- jump_academy (pogo course)

Speedpogo
- jump_cheval
- jump_quba (second course)

Wallpogo
- jump_deserted
- jump_sketchy

Drop pogo
- jump_deserted
- jump_littleman (bonus course)

Corner pogo (v1)
- jump_4starters (course D (white))
- jump_wallclimb

Corner pogo (v2)
- jump_baqu (course four)
- jump_sketchy

Skip
- jump_skip
- jump_toxic

Doublerocket (standard sync)
- jump_quba (course one)
- plr_hightower (rocketjump off the platform and the tower)

Triplerocket (double sync)
- jump_beef (course two)
- jump_annex (blue course)

Quadrocket (triple sync)
- jump_sketchy2
- jump_waves

Quintrocket (quadruple sync)
- jump_sync
- jump_above

Bigger syncs than quintrockets
- jump_gateway (course two)
- jump_torii

Selfsync
- jump_academy (sync course)
- jump_natural

Double selfsync
- jump_gateway (course two)
- jump_stretch

Wallsync
- jump_underground
- jump_sitood

Rampsync (v1)
- jump_gateway (course one)
- jump_finite

Rampsync (v2)
- jump_baqu (course four)
- jump_underground

Rampsync (v3)
- jump_heaven
- jump_collab

Slidesync
- jump_catch
- jump_stripe

Speedshot
- jump_rebound
- jump_natural

Double speedshot
- jump_destination
- jump_underground

Catch
- jump_catch
- jump_toxic

Wallcatch
- jump_jakey
- jump_4starters (course F (purple))

Bounce
- jump_bounce
- jump_bouncerific

Bouncehop
- jump_bouncehop
- jump_bouncerific

Powerbounce
- jump_bouncehop
- jump_bouncerific

Edgebug
- jump_edgebug
- jump_littleman (second red course)

Edgeshot
- jump_edgebug
- jump_crypt

Double edgeshot
- jump_edgebug
- jump_ingenii

Map downloads

Here is the database with all the jumpmaps known to date, which is being updated and moderated daily. I couldn't think of a better jumpmap download location.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1LcGfNOfIxFF21I5KWSCM0kEu4X4A9W3ngWFouprGJuo/edit#gid=0

You put them in Steam>SteamApps>common>TeamFortress 2> tf>download>maps.

Thank you for reading my guide to rocketjumping and a few extra things. Good luck on practising from here on out, and if you have questions, you can always drop 'em in by me.