(This is not to be regarded as a "git gud noob" or "omg you suck so bad" thread. I am genuinely trying to help people out by addressing things I see people do over and over and over again, which make things a lot harder than they need to be. Feel free to add or expand upon anything in this post. I am not a super pro player and I wasn't aware of a few of these things until about two weeks ago. I make no claim that this is the end all be all best strategies ever thought of. These are just things I have seen work many times.)
Strategic Homeland Division Field Agent Standard Operating Procedure Manual
Target priority: rushers/immobilizers/flamethrowers, snipers (including war hounds), medics, heavies, engineers/controllers, everything else. In that order, no exceptions 99% of the time, unless there is an imminent threat closing on you. (kill order. I do not mean ignore other enemies completely, but when possible kill these enemies ASAP)
Heavies: really simple on this one. Shoot the ammo belt. It only takes a few hits and it's an easy shot to make. Heavies should never even get the chance to fire a shot. As soon as you break the belt, they will stop, crouch down and reload. You can force them to do this over and over forever. When you break the belt you have 3-5 seconds to work on other targets, as soon as the heavy stands up, shoot his ammo belt again immediately. rinse, repeat.
Warhounds: Gigantic threat, they need to be killed ASAP. When the light on their weapon turns read, listen for the sound and you can easily avoid their shot. Their weakpoint is on the right side ( when it's facing you) next to their gun, a red box/part thing. It's a very small target, but it's there. Break that weak point and they will be stunned for a good while, 10 or so seconds. When they die they will trigger an EMP that effects a huge area, so when possible, wait until after they are dead to deploy any kind of lingering skills.
EMP grenades: Enemy medics will throw EMP grenades. You can shoot them to get rid of them. I see a lot of people just completely ignoring them and that's never a good thing.
Mini-tanks: Shoot the tracks. I'm still a little unclear on this one but they seem to be much easier to kill after you destroy the tracks. Watch out for the enemy controllers to repair them. try and shoot out the tracks when they are in the open, not near any cover, this will make it much harder for the controller to repair them.
Engineers/turrets: You can shoot the ammo box off of most turrets. However, it's a much better idea to kill the engineer who placed it, instead of killing the turret. If you kill the engineer, the turret will turn on the enemy and stop shooting you.
Chokepoints: Whenever possible get the enemy to come AT YOU, instead of rushing out in the open. Even better when there is a choke point where they have to cluster to come through. Excellent time to use grenades.
Grenades: When you throw a grenade into a group of enemies who have not engaged you yet, wait for the grenade to go off or just before it does before you start shooting. If you shoot too soon they will see the grenade and scatter. If you don't shoot, they will still notice it, but won't react by running. Flashbangs should be the opener to start the engagement. Enemies are easier targets when flashed because they don't run around and move as erratically as with an incendiary. This gives you a much better window to make your shots count and take a few out quickly.
Suppression: Know when to use it and how to exploit it. If enemies are clustered behind cover, suppress them with an LMG. Once they are suppressed you only need to fire one shot from the LMG to refresh their suppression recovery. Sometimes it's better for one person on a team to keep the snipers and/or clusters of enemies pinned down while the other 3 deal with the rest. It's mostly useful when there are a lot of targets fighting you. Once things calm down you can stop suppressing and move up to flank or use grenades. If one person has the enemy suppressed and the opportunity to rush them is presented, do it. Don't just sit back trying to wait for them to stand up, take a few shots, then wait some more.
Knockdown/death/revival/healing: If you are knocked down, crawl to the nearest player that is in cover. If that is not possible, crawl into cover for yourself and stem the bleeding until you can be saved safely. On the other side of that coin, if a person who is knocked down crawls to you for revival, wait for them to be in cover before you start reviving them. Reviving them before they are in cover is almost always going to result in them immediately getting killed.
If you are using a repair drone as a skill and it is not already deployed, deploy it before you start reviving someone. As soon as the revive is finished, tap your drone key while looking at them so it immediately starts healing them. Another thing to keep in mind about repair drones is that you can easily outrun it and it will have to catch up before it can heal you.
Don't be afraid to retreat. If you are the last person standing, sometimes falling back and just surviving until players can respawn is the best option to avoid a total wipe. When in a no respawn zone, patience is a virtue, especially if you're using the revival hive. When possible you should not leave cover and run to somebody for revival. Throw your hive out there and use it. Even if they are a only couple feet away. Putting yourself at risk of being killed should be avoided at all costs. Sometimes there is just no good option and you have to make that clutch play. It's better to exhaust all your other options and be smart about it than to run out and die when you could have avoided it. That said, sometimes it's just a no win situation. That is up to your discretion whether to just give up and wipe or to stick with it and hope for the best. I have seen heroic missions on the final boss be salvaged by a lone last standing player a few times. Even if that lone player has to fall back to the beginning of the level in order to clear enough enemies at a safe pace, it's better than a total wipe.
Thanks for taking the time to write this all out! I had always wondered why some enemies would flock to the mini tanks as I was bringing them down. I'll be sure to keep this post in mind if I see someone asking for advice or detailed information about enemies and tactics!
Still seeing way too many people who appear to not know about shooting the heavies ammo belts. I can only assume they don't know about it because anyone who does know, surely understands that this is the best way to deal with them. I see everything in this post happen every day in PUGs sometimes all of it at the same time. Gotta pay attention people. You're only making it harder for yourself.
Thanks for your insights.
Did not know about the mini tanks that you can shoot of their tracks.
I'm still in story mode so have not met warhounds yet.
It took me a while to realize you can shoot the red "items" on enemies - their so called weak points. Early in the game its just easier to focus on their head a sometimes their weird behavior makes it hard to aim at their weak spots.
On that subject, how do you quickly take down those hammer swinging heavies? Whenever i meet one, i just wait for it to swing, role away and resume fire on the head.
A pain in the *** though when there are other enemies shooting at you :/
Great start for new or less aware players. Let me add a few points to it. I apologize if this comes across as a little harsh or even a little "advanced" to some but these points seem simple/basic enough to expect from most players.Originally Posted by JudgeLazar Go to original post
Heavies: If you have decent aim, the fastest way to kill a heavy while incurring the least damage to your team is to shoot his helmet off. Once the helmet is off a heavy will take full health dmg from subsequent headshots. Up to challenge difficulty and even in a 4man group, it takes less than a magazine from most automatic weapons and about 6-10 shots from most rifles to break the helmet, after which it takes literally only 2-3 headshots to kill a heavy. It is much faster than slowly whittling away at his armor plates and is by far the most efficient way to dispatch heavies, in my experience. I stress again that this should only be done if you are confident about being able to hit those headshots, if not, fall back to the ammo belt rinse and repeat strategy.
Suppression: I think knowing when NOT to use suppression is just as important as knowing when to use it. Too often you see folks continuously shooting suppressed targets even when only 1-2 targets remain. This is extremely annoying for the players who are actually trying to kill the targets. Have a decent awareness about how many targets are left in the field and how good your teammates are. Understand that there is no point constantly shooting at a surpressed target, especially if there are only a couple of targets left, it simply keeps them in cover and basically keeps targets alive longer than necessary. I cannot count the number of times I have found myself aiming at the last 1 or 2 targets, only to watch a random keep them in cover for ages by shooting at them while they are suppressed or in cover. You could do that and we'll be here til u run out of ammo, or just stop doing no damage to a target in cover so that it peeks us and we can kill it and move on.
Reviving: This is for the revivee more than the reviver. It does not matter whether you are revived in the open or behind cover. If someone revives you, the first thing you should be doing before anything else is to use an armor kit. You have a couple of seconds of 100% immunity after being revived, as long as you do not move or perform any other actions, this immunity is granted for a reason and that is to allow freshly revived players to use an armor kit without taking damage. The only thing that can break this immunity(besides waiting too long) is an enemy grenade, because it knocks you back. Burn this into your brains, if you are revived, do not move, use an armor kit immediately and get your butt into cover. And I do mean an Armor Kit, not a heal skill, using skills breaks the immunity.
Stay and fight as unit. A team that is spread across a map is weaker than a tight four as you cannot cover each other's back. Exceptions to this rule are the closing down of approach lanes when you have no CC. In this instance a player might break way slightly to shut off that route, but that player must pay attention to team movement or find themselves over extended.
The right weapon at the right time. Sticking to your bolt action rifle when there are eight enemies rushing you is the wrong weapon at the wrong time.
Watch your radar. Enemies can and do spawn from any location. Call it out and react accordingly. If you're surrounded then fight through in a coordinated direction and regroup. Staying put will get you surrounded and whittled down.
Know when to Rambo and when not to. There is a time for maximum aggression as much as there is a time for patience.
Part of the hammer strategy is knowing when they spawn so you can thin out the other enemies. They also have a weak point at their waist. I use a 100 round LMG on these guys. They are usually in rooms where you can't retreat which just makes it extra funOriginally Posted by Vanhus81 Go to original post.......not
Casual player here saying thankyouverymuch for the time and effort you put into posting this. I've figured out most of it the hard way but there were a few new tips in there.
Just the other day I was going to post a "where do I go to find tips, tricks, and techniques instead of a bunch of wailing and gnashing of teeth" thread but you've rekindled my faith the forum by the game developer dedicated to the game might actually have some useful information.
Quick question -- is there a weak spot on the ginormous drone helicopter? If there is, I haven't found it with an LMG.
Exactly. Its all the ankle-biters shooting at you while trying to deal with MC Hammer that make it hard. I just run around in circles gunning down the ankle-biters before spending too much attention on Hammer Dude. Once they are down Hammer Dude is easier to deal with. Best tool I've found so far is the full-auto shotgun. Just point it at his head and hold the trigger down, roll away when he gets close enough to rush.Originally Posted by Vanhus81 Go to original post
Yeah, that. Best I can hope for is staying out of reach while running around like the proverbial chicken. I didn't know about the waistbelt weak point. I'll have to give that a try next time.Originally Posted by HeliBrewer Go to original post