New Shielding Tips

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Good Addition to my older guides?

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Total votes: 6

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SPrinkZ
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New Shielding Tips

Post by SPrinkZ »

I noticed that the player level has gone up a little bit.

Some of you have learned how to use the sniper rifle, which is literally impossible to shield against, since it is a nigh instanteous hit.

Some of you have picked up tricks that I used to think were pointless, and have taken them a step further, and through empirical observation, I've picked up a few of these things...

I present you with new and possibly useful knowledge.


Mine Advantage

Remember in my last article how I spoke about the rhythm of a shielder? Well there are more ways to bulldoze through it.

Mines represent a shielders desperation to evade an approaching proximity missle, especially in long range combat it is great, since it's hard to get any other shot off but a proximity missle. Plus there is a lower probability of the proximity missle going above, or around it.

Now that you know what a mine really means: Oh sh** I need something to block!

You can exploit that, and I'll tell you how.

There are a few ways to exploit this:

1. You can take the extra second to make a small jump putting the mine on the left or right of you, and putting your enemy in direct sight, and hit them with another proximity missle. Worse comes to worse, they will throw another, and that will give you mine advantage.

Mine advantage is important, the guy with the most mines has the best chance of escaping proximity missles, same with flare advantage (in certain battles).

If you could force your opponent to throw two mines everytime you shot a proximity missle, wouldn't you want that? Of course you would; because now they are short a mine, just make sure to watch out for the other mine.

This is all fine and dandy at relatively close range, long range this becomes impossible, your best bet is to just try to close the gap.

2. At VERY close range, where your grenades can reach the mines, throw them before a shot to hit the mine, then as soon as it detonates it, shoot a proximity missle. They will immediately shield, and take a good portion of the damage, and be left to throw another mine, rinse and repeat if applicable, until dead (this is probably better on MORE aggressive shielders).


3. There is a final way to avoid their mine, but this doesn't produce mine advantage, think of being a shielder as a game of chess. You first must put yourself into a good defensive posistion, from there you attack, and your opponent from their defensive posistion, or perhaps offensive and thus sets a counter attack of their own.

Now for the next rule of chess, checkmate, even if you have to sacrifice your queen and a rook for two pawns, if it means checkmate, you win. The king is of indeterminate value, since the object of this game is to checkmate.

You should at all times make a logical sacrifice during a duel, to eventually destroy your opponent.

Ergo, you should fire a rocket OVER the mine into your opponents feet rather then play into their plan of firing a proximity missle (thus eliminating the possibility of that mine hitting you later), a homing missle is too slow, and can be avoided by flares, most shielders carry them now, and in this new player base, I can see why.


Flare Advantage


Flares are the newest thing I've seen, and they are actually VERY good to use against certain players, players who are aggressive these are not good for. Against defensive players, who like to turtle these are perfect for, you might ask me why, and I will tell you.

Defensive players always play a long game, they refuse to get close, they don't play well close, and they are masters at keeping it long range, from long range they will end up shooting homers at you while you stand in the middle of the field. If you are level with them, this homing missle will hurt more than a proximity missle, albeit a marginal amount, but a margin will shave off your life, and if they continue, they WILL win.

Flares are only used as a last resort, if you can dodge the homer all together, or make it crash into something and shield, and only take 1-3% of the total damage of it, you've accomplished something.

Also I've picked up on a few new techniques that are apparent during a duel, most people hold down their trigger, or fire at a certain rate, which makes their next shot predictable.

Homing missles take longer for two reasons: In general they always have, also they need to keep a steady bead on you to lock which may or may not be easy. In theory, if takes two seconds inbetween proximity shots, it might take 2.5-4 seconds inbetween homer shots, which will actually give you more time to recover.

But if you can sense a homing missle coming, you can throw a flare before it even fires, this in turn makes you immune from homing missles of the duration of the flare, if you do not want to experience a homing missle in a certain area, or perhaps need to go offensive, use that.

Of course you might want to make your opponent waste their flares, and I'll tell you how.

The same thing with the mines, if they throw a mine, try to lock them and fire a homing missle, it will travel over the mine and into them, since their shield is probably at 20-30% power they are given two options:

1) Shield and take about 30% of the damage.

Or

2) Flare.

Most experienced players go with flare, because life is a far more valuable resource than the flare itself, which leads you closer to eventually depleting this resource. This is important; because soon you can send homers at them, and they will be forced to shield instead.

Most good shielders will simply dodge the homing missles and will refuse to flare; because that would be a waste, you get ten homing missles, five flares.

Most people screw up half of their shots with the homing missles, or fire them at targets on hills, that's a bad idea. Never do that, ever, that's when you strictly use proximities and missles.

So if half of your shots are wasted, that's five shots left, and if they have dodged the rest, they can use their flares to totally evade any threat of your weapon. You have forfeited the raw power of the homing missle. It is not meant to be spammed against a good shielder, a good shielder will pull back far enough that they can use their foot work to remove any possible threat of the homing missles you are firing.

You have to use all of your shots for a purpose, it is important in this game during a duel, and during larger games, of 3v3 or above.


Why they are not good against aggressive players:

Aggressive players like to get too close for flares to really be useful, they are too busy hitting you with missles and proximity missles (they like a quicker shot, and try to overpower you) you need the extra speed, so trade in your flares for grenades. Drop a grenade and evade the threat while firing, drop another and keep going until you can create a large enough gap, aggressive players obviously fail at the long game. Eventually they will play into their impatience and coming charging, this is your time to use your counter-rushing skills to send them to the floor...dead.


Stay Down!


I don't know if I stressed this enough yet, being on the ground is almost essential for a shielder unless they are up against a rusher. Being in the air does a few things to you:

1) Your shots are much harder to pull off.

2) Your enemy can now predict your tradjectory.

3) Your enemy can implement a counter rush, and destroy you.

There are TOO many weaknesses for jumping higher than four of your body heights, if you want to jump low across the ground make sure to leap around a lot, but don't use that much fuel at all, it also is tied to your shield.

So do yourselves a favor and look at this, and think about it, I am sure you already know what I am talking about, so have fun, and good luck!
Last edited by SPrinkZ on Mon May 15, 2006 5:13 am, edited 2 times in total.
Xentek
Reg the Smooth Operator
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Post by Xentek »

Homing missile only has 10 rounds.
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SPrinkZ
Evil Smartie Genious
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Joined: Tue Nov 11, 2003 10:34 pm

Post by SPrinkZ »

10, 12, whatever...
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Nyvane
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Post by Nyvane »

It only has 10 from the poor shop :P
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Salazar
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Re: New Shielding Tips

Post by Salazar »

Bumping for Accuracy and Relevance.
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