Tips

These are a few **tips** to help you master *Descenders*.

## Jumps

Many situations require different jumps, depending on your momentum, the ramp, the landing area etc.

* **Bunny Hop:** The basic jump, just hold down your right stick, then push it up when you want to jump. **The higher up on the ramp when you push up the stick, the higher you'll go**.

* **Moon Jump**: This long jump is incredibly important to learn. Useful in many situations like BikeOut's second obstacle or many career jumps, execute it like you would a bunny hop, but push up the right stick at **the beginning of a ramp**. You can learn this while completing a challenge from the No More Robots Pro Tour.

* **Light Jump**: Makes a little jump. Instead of holding your stick down, just push it down then immediately push it up.

* **No Jump**: Don't bunny hop, just let your bike fly off the ramp. Useful when you got too much speed before a jump (or in the "don't brake/do not release the acceleration button" missions).

## Survival

* **Counter-pumping**: Hold the right stick up when you are about to land, it will **significantly soften the impact**. Doing so, you might land jumps you wouldn’t survive otherwise. This is **very** important to learn, and is relatively hidden (but can be found under Extras --> Advanced Tips).

* **Controlled braking**: To lose speed in a precise and controlled fashion, instead of holding down the brake, just tap it repeatedly.

* **Full braking**: The most efficient way to lose speed - slide while braking.

* **Safe respawning**: In career mode, if you are off-road and can't get back on track, or blocked, you can press the respawn button (see here for the platform-appropriate binding) (If you are under the danger speed: 50km/h or 31mph - which make you lose 2 lives if you bail). This will get you back to a checkpoint **WITHOUT** depleting your lives.

* **How to handle difficult tracks**: If you want to survive on hard tracks, **RIDE AT YOUR OWN SPEED**! The key to mastering *Descenders* is to master your speed control; therefore, if you aren't comfortable with taking obstacles at a fast speed, then don't; take it in a slower and more controlled manner that you are more comfortable with. If you are not in a good position to take a ramp/ obstacle or don't have enough speed, find a way to avoid it.
	+ Every jump and obstacle needs a certain amount of speed. Too much and you will most likely fly out and bail; not enough and you won't pass it. Figure out what is the appropriate speed for the obstacles/jumps, and don't be afraid to slow down if necessary. Sometimes, the “drone fly” though the stage at the beginning of a node is important to view, so you can better prepare yourself for the obstacles that are there, especially for a boss jump node (that you may have reached for the first time).

* **Finish-line trick**: You can perform a trick a little bit before the finish line to get a little bit more Rep. However, do exercise caution; if you hit the finish gate, you may lose a life even if the run finishes.

## Other general tips

* Try and get used to the control scheme instead of focusing on Rep gain. The more control you have over your bike, the more Rep you will typically gain anyway.

* Play around with the camera view. Some points of view make the game *easier* on certain maps or modes, while others make it harder. For example, the First person view cam is *absolutely* horrible. Generally speaking, the best camera view is with the Drone or Bowl, which gives you a third-person view and allows you to pre-empt incoming obstacles. However, in certain conditions First person view may actually help you, for example in a nighttime track which is relatively straight and has few obstacles.

## Crew Member tier list (subjective)

* Not all crew members are equally useful. Here is a chart by Gardalice, sorting the crew members into various tiers with explanations, and this rule of thumb can be followed for both rep-gain and regular play. This isn't a be-all and end-all guide, due to everyone's differing playstyles, but it is useful if you want to improve your modifier selection.