How to play well in a public CTF game?

[Revisor]

There is little coordination in public games but a single player can be useful anyway.

I'm new to this, only level 9, but want to do my part to help my team win a CTF game.

Judging from my experience with BF3 and BFBC2 I would say the most useful way is to learn at least a little bit of every kit, watch the match development, check the number of kits chosen and switch kits as needed (cap, repair, harass the defense or distract by sabotaging their base).

Yesterday I tried switching between a raider to slow down the offense and later an infiltrator to distract defense (and cap a flag or two).

What would you suggest?

[Heliocentric]

Assume a roll, announce the roll to your team, announce when you are acting contrary to said roll?

/thread?

[Skydancer]

Do whatever your teammates are not doing, this mostly relates as these roles:

Heavy/light on flag (light for advanced only, stay on the flag and kill incoming cappers or bodyblock capping attempts)
Heavy offense (clear flagstand, destroy sensors/turrets/gen in that order)
Light offense (harass the enemy defense, divert their attention from your own cappers)
Defense (defend the flagstand, kill enemy offense, repair stuff, defend generator in that order)
Capping (go get the flag - don't llama grab, this means: don't take the flag while going slow. You WILL get killed and another capper zooming at 250 kmh might be arriving on the stand while you're busy dying and miss. Acceptable speeds are 150 kmh+)

[Revisor]

As concise and useful as it can get, even more so with the clear priorities.
Thanks, Skydancer!

[deadly.by.design]

And don't forget to spam VGTG.

[Revisor]

My question was serious, deadly.by.design.
If you don't have anything helpful to say, please don't derail this thread.

[deadly.by.design]

I wasn't trying to put you down, if that's what you're thinking. It was just some dumb Tribes humor.

What Skydancer said is solid advice. Pubs are a mixed bag, so you have to be versatile. Follow the class roles he gave you, but don't be afraid to try other ones like SEN. Many pub games lack a solid SEN as sniper, which can really aid your team's defense, so it's worth a zoomed shot. I had assumed that I'd hate sniping in this game like I do in most, but after giving it a real try, it has become one of my favorite classes. It's worth noting that it's probably the one that requires the most practice for skill maintenance, though. If I go a few days without sniping, it may take a whole game to get my aim back.

Similar to the "How do I get blue plates?" question that many ask, I can only recommend practice. If you don't try for mid-airs, you won't get them, and the same applies for sniping. Shooting those high-flying cappers seemed impossible at first, but things eventually started clicking for me. It's kind of hard to explain, but your brain & fingers eventually just "get it." (which is to say that I hit them sometimes or often now, as opposed to never)

[Revisor]

Ok, thank you for the response and I apologize for having taken it too personally.

As a sentinel, do you prefer the BXT1 or the Phase Rifle? The Phase rifle seems by all accounts a better choice, no?

Do you have any tips for placing the Drop Jammer?
Sometimes I see a SEN manning a lonely hill and having the Drop Jammer nearby. That seems like a waste. Wouldn't it be better used eg. in the gen room? Near the flag?

[deadly.by.design]

As a sentinel, do you prefer the BXT1 or the Phase Rifle? The Phase rifle seems by all accounts a better choice, no?

Most competitive SENs seem to use it, but I say use whatever feels the most natural for you. I would've sworn by the BXT-1 a month or two ago, but the Phase Rifle has since won me over. I was landing shots with the BXT, but getting more kills with the Phase. My "sweet spot" for landing shots is hampered by the BXT's charge time of ~4secs. With the Phase, a quick shot will actually do damage, rather than be sub-100. I also like that the Phase has a smaller damage falloff on ranged shots. (i.e., a long-range shot will only deal 250dmg with the BXT, but will be at least 300 with the Phase) Another contributing fact is that the Phase's crosshair got "fixed" in the Accelerate patch. Prior to that, its awful xhair was a major downside.

One Phase downside is that you need to swap the Energy Recharge pack in place of the Drop Jammer, which gives you less utility. Along with that, you have to get better at avoiding harassers with low energy. (after shooting) As for perks, I tend to run Close Combat (to counter INF backstabs) and Ultra Capacitor (for a larger energy pool to shoot from).

If you find that you love SEN and can unlock the Falcon, do it. The Nova Blaster (aka swag blaster) can do quite a lot of damage when used properly, especially against slow-moving Heavies, but it's just not as reliable as the Falcon.

Do you have any tips for placing the Drop Jammer?

Though I've been running Phase for a month now and haven't had the jammer, I prefer to hide one around the stand and another wherever seems useful. I tend to snipe around either a spawn area or the flag stand, so the jammer is a nice counter for INFs at both. Putting a jammer on top of a hill basically draws a big target on enemy huds, since those can be seen at range. The alternative there is if you can place it behind a rock, where they'd only see it after circling behind you. At that point, the vulnerability is moot. If you do place one near the flag stand, hide it around a corner or behind a pillar, etc. As long as it's not in the enemy's line of sight, it won't broadcast that huge icon on their hud.

Minor disclaimer: While I have an okay skill level and knowledge of weapon mechanics, my perspective is not really a competitive one. I do follow the scene to an extent to know their arguments, but evilbob is better suited to chime in on that.

[Revisor]

Thank you for the great tips.

I was just watching this helpful video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J18FuvSYw8I
And the author says pretty much the same things as you, to the extent that I suspect you made it.

[deadly.by.design]

Thank you for the great tips.

I was just watching this helpful video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J18FuvSYw8I
And the author says pretty much the same things as you, to the extent that I suspect you made it.

Hah. No -- Roxton's SEN guide did really help me get into the class, though. Just mind what has been changed since it was created in May. (Phase xhair, falcon slight nerf in dmg/falloff, close combat backstab boost, SEN respawn changed from 5secs to 10)

[bonkers]

In most my pub games there is almost never anybody in midfeld doing the roaming situational stuff. Like taking out the mortar heavies, intercepting the flag capper, defending your own capper etc. So if all classes and roles seem to be filled, thats one you can always pick.
And clearing the flag stand is very often neglected as it is not a very rewarding role as it feels like you are not achieving much, but in fact you are.

[Skydancer]

Me for example, I love jugging the enemy stand down. It feels SO rewarding when you see four dudes coming after you and chase you half the map while your cappers score. Anyway, SEN duties are defense and, if somebody spots heavies in the midfield, GUN THEN DOWN ASAP since it means they are fucking your defense up pretty bad.

[Antares]

If you're going to play lots of SEN (Which is not a bad idea, as good sentinels are rare, yet crucial for effective flag defense at higher levels of play), this next tip might not be of much use to you, but it still needs to be said:

Do not over-invest in generator play.
This is something I did when I first started, that I saw new players do all the time before matchmaking was implemented, and that I still occasionally see happen in lvl 20ish games.

It is a game-ending mistake, because apart from maps where the gen affects the flag stand (Sunstar and Permafrost), having the gen up just doesn't matter all that much: turrets and sensors don't do any good against cappers going fast enough, and both of those are very easy to disc snipe from a safe distance. Deployables are even easier to tear down and are a pain to replace. Vehicle pads only need to be powered for as long as it takes to spawn the desired vehicle, and you can easily resupply from a supply call-in (doesn't need the gen to be up to function) or by suiciding.
And yet you'll often encounter these absurd situations where all the base assets are gone and the only things being powered by the generator are the deployables being used to defend it in the first place! This takes valuable manpower away from the field where it could be used to cap, chase, snipe, harass or defend.

Obviously there's still situations where it's worth having someone repairing or attacking the gen, but in most cases I'd say it's easily worth abandoning it if it grants your team a 2-man advantage.
Some good rules of thumb are:

• DO go and repair / attack the generator if resistance inside the base is minimal.
• DO go and repair the generator if you need a vehicle, but be prepared to give it up if there's just too many people in there.
• DO ocasionally go to the gen and keep camping gen-haters / defenders distracted IF THEY OUTNUMBER YOU SIGNIFICANTLY. So long as they're in there doing nothing they're useless to their team and you don't want them getting bored and doing something productive instead.
• DON'T stay in the generator room for any longer than you absolutely must to defend / destroy it.

Hope this helped!

[Revisor]

Thank you for the great tips. I've already partially found out about them myself. I used to care about the generator, clean the room, repair it, but now I'm on the other side. I'll visit the second team's gen room from time to time just to distract them.

Sometimes it's enough just to ski through the entrance and two or three are already on their way to the generator to check things out.