For me, this is obviously a much different situation than most, given the fact that I've made or been in the process of making roughly 75 dod movies and therefore watched literally thousands of demos. Along with that I've played each of the 3 classes at the top tier of the game relative to that time so I will list off a couple names for each class along with some of the tactics or whatever I took from those demos and movies.
HEAVIES
Shifty Powers - My biggest influence as a heavy and one of the bigger ones for my overall play style, I made shifypowers 4 as well as a lost project known as the triple threat movie featuring him, bewton and money b. shifty was a very straight forward players, putting frags and aggressive pushes above all else. He always trusted his exceptional aim and reaction time and simply took whatever recoil control he had and made it work. In my random time heavying I always played exactly this way, abandoning the camping and proning to go off and try to find any enemies and leave none behind to tell the story of the 37 damage they were left with (or at least that was my intention most of the time LOL)
MissioN - IMO, one of my most underrated movies was called Stevie vs MissioN, featuring those two players right when mission was hitting his stride and becoming more well known in the community as a top of the line heavy, Madison had excellent recoil control, aim and reaction time and tended to kind of either "crog" (or majl for you newer players) his way through a lot of situations, while resorting strictly to bar/stg sniping or bursting in the mid to long range situations. With my lackluster recoil control, I instantly took notice of this method and applied it to my own style of heavying which made me much more effective overall.
seveN - Joey is plan and simple a **** gamer. and he took to dod like a fat kid to doughnuts. Joey has an unreal sense for the game and the intricacies of the heavy class. But most of all, his technical abilities are the most superior there has ever been. EVERY SINGLE BULLET that this guy shoots is going 100 percent exactly where he wants it to go, and that alone is enough for anyone to try and take some notes about. Shit, he even gave mouse setting tips to help the recoil of two guys who went on to be some of the greatest heavies of the post CPL era, Baloo! and ryanemo. ask either of them and they'll tell you that joey harter was what took them from a good player to an elite one.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
zoanth and river - two absolutely amazing european heavies, though some may argue against it for zoanth he had superb aim reaction and recoil, and river was just plain a BEAST
SNIPERS
royAMAZING - This guy right here had by far the largest influence on the way that I sniped, which is become kind of a staple of the way that many snipers play the game nowadays. No longer is it a "sit back and let guys peek you" mentality. While working on the never finished royAMAZING movie, I got to watch 2 season and 2 LANs worth of roy's demos and see the way he had full confidence in his no scoping abilities. He never hesitated to engage opposing rifles in mid range no scope wars, and came out on top many times (which of course is the way i ended up sniping for the duration of my time as a sniper) but maybe the biggest thing I took from him, and one which is criticized sometimes by those who don't see the logic behind this method, was the way roy reacted to another sniper or rifle having the upper hand position on him. An example being allied side of anzio; say roy was in the allied loft and got up there knowing a sniper or a rifle was looking at him from tiki hut with full position on him. Rather than cheater peek over and over again hoping for a shot fired, or just plain slow peeking/crow hopping to go for the shot, roy would ALWAYS fire off a random shoulder peek no scope into that vicinity and instantly be prepared to re peek with his scope up, knowing that he would then have position on the opposing player. That tactic is one of the most useful things I've ever used and ever seen another player use, and the best part come when guys like he and I end up wasting off one of those random noscopes and actually have it hit!
LUKNORTH - this man may be lesser known to many players, but during his brief run from open to cal invite over 2 seasons, luk was one of the most dominant snipers in the game against anyone he played against. Full confidence in his aim and reactions coupled with a pseudo aggressive play style, I learned a lot about the smarter ways to play aggressively as a sniper from his demos (I was going to make him a movie as well but it turned out all of his best clips were already in the gomi movie and DoDealers) anyways, this guy was absolutely astounding to watch and his overall playstyle became mine after going through all of his demos.
edit: something I forgot to mention. A confirmed fact about luk from his time playing dod. joey had screenshots from every scrim, 12man, and match they played. Luk had ZERO negative halves ever. every single time he opened the game and played, he went positive. that's a pretty ridiculous stat, even for someone who was only around for 3 or 4 seasons
RIFLES
DORITO My most famous movie, my most famous movie star, one of my favorite team mates of all time. I had every demo that Bryan recorded from winter 2004 up until the end of the very first (and only) CEVO P season of 2007, 9 seasons of demos plus 4 lans totaling roughly 6 or 700 demos. That process alone is what made me into a top tier invite rifle during my hay day. Even my most consistent stand out performance map, railroad2, was fully learned by watching Bryan due to me going the same routes as him on the aforementioned map (kar apartments, garand ticket) What can't this guy do? I learned EVERY ONE of my technical rifling abilities from Bryan's demos. His strafe, his pre aim, his garand control, his body awareness for each angle and peek that he takes. All of that coupled with the best AIM in our game's history and top tier reaction time and you've got yourself the indisputable greatest player of all time. I owe about 90 percent of my rifling ability to this man right here. Not to mention he's the nicest guy you'll ever play with and the smartest team mate to ever have the privilege of having on your squad. Could I possibly be more on the dick? NO. but shit, who isn't on it already?!
KELLEN While making the beloved "kellenfulldraft" I got to witness one of the greatest couple seasons of a rifle in dod history as far as pure dominance went. The difference between what I learned from kellen and dorito comes simply from the spots that kellen played and his extensively aggressive playstyle + raw sixth sense for movie clip type killing sprees. Karring double windows on anzio, karring straight through middle on harrington rather than back alley, kar/garanding mid on harrington, I learned all of those spots from kellen rust. Not to mention many of my "sweet spots" on a lot of maps were spots that I picked up on from him (the old crouch hop spot next to white steps on harrington) as well as the spam spots all over anzio plaza on axis side. This guy was the greatest streaker of dod retail history and a whole lot of that rubbed off on me from making his film.
Nuker, An1maL, Jaunty, Jizz - These guys were just the most famous of the absolutely insane class of rifleman that topped the european dod scene for a very long time but they were all absolutely explosive. Aim, reaction time, sense of the game, flashyness, you name it these 3 had it. To this day I still watch all of their movies from time to time to keep some of their more creative play style tactics fresh in my mind.
RIFLE HONORABLE MENTIONS
Bewton, Vasily, An1maL, Jaunty, Jizz - In making movies for these two, the general idea that I picked up from them was just their creative instinct in getting out of tough spots by taking down 3 or 4 enemies at once. Very very tactically creative and always seemed to be able to turn what looks like an automatic death into a 3+ kill movie clip. Two very clever players with a whole lot of upside in reference to the player I turned out to be.
LIGHTS
jaz & Craftydus - These two were just the most famous of the absolutely insane class of lights that topped the American dod scene for a very long time but they were all absolutely explosive. Aim, reaction time, sense of the game, flashyness, bling, you name it these 2 had it. To this day I still watch all of their movies from time to time to keep some of their more creative play style tactics fresh in my mind.
OVERALL HONORABLE MENTION
Lucas Eckman
Just when I was hitting my stride and emerging as one of the top players in the game, I had the wonderful privilege of playing with a dod legend, mister lucas eckman. He and I discussed at much length the ins and outs of dod. Each and every class, different strategies for each route on each map. And the most important thing he ever told me, after playing some matches and scrims with me on uKz. and I quote "You have absolutely astounding aim and reaction time, yet I see you camp in corners and hide like you're scared to peek these other players who just don't have the raw ability you do. If you trust your aim and reactions and take the peek, even on someone who has the upper hand on you, you're gonna start putting up 40 kill halves on a regular basis"
A couple guys who I didn't mention but that I learned quite a bit from via demos from movie projects or just watching hltvs and gotfrag demos-
scotty too hotty harris aka Bleargh! - right up there in the top 3 or 4 rifles of all time
dan schey aka - Scorch - IMO the best sniper of the post retail era. to me, dan was the only sniper who ever gave me a hard time whether online or on lan (i take nothing away from the other notable guys such as Marshall_D) Dan has flawless aim and unheralded knowledge of the class itself, and on top of that, he can play the other classes at an elite level as well both online and on lan. We've had a few very revealing conversations at LANs about sniping which helped me adjust from being a sniper who was essentially just an aggressive rifle with a scope, to an overall force with the class.
Steve The European sniper of Begrip came across the pond and made a MASSIVE splash at CPL 05. The best EURO sniper of all time without a doubt and definitely equal to scorch, when I took on the project of Steve Eat World 2 I LOVED watching all the demos he gave me. (unfortunately my HD died and that movie got passed on to someone else)
Matt Vazzana - Dyelife - unmistakably one of the best lan rifles of all time in dod during the CPL years
Alex Rubel - ninjuh (IMO one of the 5 best players post retail PERIOD, any class, he was just dominant)
Jordan Fenton - cableguy (IMO one of the 3 best heavies of all time, any incarnation of dod)
John Simpson - Hudson (we kinda came up the ranks together from open to invite but i always admired john's ability to frag mercilessly while still erring on the side of caution when necessary, now he's just our bitch boy. jk love you john)
and of course my war time consiglieres and co leaders of THUNDER since 2007, the other two heads of our 3 headed monster. Ryan Marko - ryanemo (absolutely unstoppable lan heavy with his mixture of balls to the wall aggression and mind numbingly slow play, he hasn't been out performed by a heavy at a lan since he started attending them and has been one of the top 3 online since 2007 as well)
and Jared Munday - toxinator. the best player of our current day and age of dod. we all know what he brings to the table. He's the best third rifle to ever play (with Nick Ward as a very close second) jared has the best aim and reaction time I've ever seen and the best understanding of the game as a whole. he is constantly top fragging as the garand stoss which is unheard of, and really it's just kind of redundant for me to say any of this considering we all know every one of these things first hand lol
I took that advice and went on to 3 lans and 26 other championships since that conversation so, thank you Mr. Lucas!
anyways, obviously no one else is as nerdy as I am or had the gigantic sample size of demos and movie making experience to really go THIS in depth, but I'm very curious to here from everyone out there (especially the newer top tier guys or up and comers) as to what exactly helped to shape their successful strategies and other in game tactics.
