Basic strategy

In this section, commonly asked questions, strategies, and tactical plays will be explained carefully.

### Countering Flame Thrower

Contrary to what most beginners believe, countering the flamethrower is pretty easy because there’s so many ways to do it. Grenades (especially HE grenades) are extremely useful for countering flamethrowers. You need to throw them slightly in front of your movement path, but make sure you jump away from your grenade (either in front or behind of it). Thus, when the grenade explodes, it should do high damage to the nearby flamer. A more effective way is to use rockets, or even better, grenade launchers. Jump away and shoot these explosives at or just in front of the flamer - the knockback will give you time to breathe. Alternately, you can use shield and take minimal damage from your explosion. Miniguns and shotguns are also extremely useful for dealing with opponents using flamethrowers at close range. Click here for an example of countering flamethrower attacks.

### Dodging Yellow Homing Rockets and Red RC Rockets

Many beginners consider Homing rockets and RC rockets to be overpowered in open areas. This should only be an issue if you are facing players with very high skill levels who know how to switch weapons in quick succession to combo you to death. Countering these two rockets is extremely simple with the wall active ability as you are able to block the rocket’s path and simply cause it to explode. You can also use a shield to take only a small fraction of the rocket’s damage. If neither of these are available in your build, move in a circular motion when the rocket is in close range. This should cause the rocket to circle around you, meaning that you can use weapons such as grenade launchers, miniguns, shotguns, etc, against nearby enemies. Do not use rockets or the sniper in these situations. Click here or here for examples of countering rockets.

After becoming more experienced, you can learn timeouts between shots of different weapons (rockets, lasers, shotguns) and avoid them (with jump) or block them (with shield) just before the opponent shoots.

### Chasing and Being Chased

In the game, you should understand how to move when not in immediate action. Use weapons like the shotgun and the flamethrower, since they increase your speed. Also, utilize tricks such as rocket and grenade jumping when chasing/being chased. If you have teleport in your build, it can also be very useful to move to faraway places instantly. You can also use scan to move to places where there is less action.

### Defensive or Aggressive Playstyle?

Should you play defensively or aggressively? This really depends on your build. If your build has high strength and some form of regeneration, then an aggressive playstyle is fine, since you are able to lose quite a bit of health without dying. However, if you have builds with low strength or little regeneration, ALWAYS play defensively. By playing defensively the whole time, you can get a lot of kills just by defending yourself from more aggressive opponents. In ranked deathmatch, you should play defensively no matter what, since you must not die in order to gain elo.

### Escaping from the Fight

When you have low hp, you can rocket jump or use teleport to escape a bad situation. Alternatively, you can use obstacles (placeable Walls, Turrets, Heal Aura) to block the way for opponents. Examples:

https://giphy.com/gifs/slayone-3og0IBeDPn0rySwaNq

https://giphy.com/gifs/slayone-l4FGmmKxA7vvwLXWw

https://gfycat.com/MiserableAnnualConure

*You can also use recoil from the shotgun as a speed boost.*

### Using the RC Red Rocket Effectively.

When you shoot the red rocket, immediately switch to a different weapon. This way, you are still able to shoot your new weapon while still controlling the red rocket’s path. A common combination is a red rocket followed by sniper since you can use the sniper’s scope in order to control the red rocket at a further range. This is especially useful in maps such as Courtyard and the Castle. Click here for an example.

### Importance of Medkits and Armor

In-game, medkits and armor are extremely important, especially if you do not have any regeneration in your build. They will heal you and give you enough HP to survive! Ensure that you move from medkit spots to medkit spots on the map as you roam so that you are always headed towards some form of healing when you are attacked. Try to always have armor on, but this can be hard in certain maps (e.g. The Bay). Armor is great as a health supplement, but remember that it doesn't stack.

### Effectiveness of Grenades and Explosives

Grenades and explosives are powerful due to their Area of Explosion (AoE) damage. If you’re using a melee build (i.e. a build meant for a melee-engaging playstyle), it is recommended that you use explosive weapons as your main offensive tool. Grenade Launchers and Rockets deal devastating amounts of damage to your opponents with direct hits, and leave your opponent weak and able to be finished off with a shotgun/flamethrower. By shooting two different explosives on both sides of an enemy, you can often confuse them, thus leading to them being sandwiched and killed/heavily damaged. This is just a strategy, but may not fit your playstyle, so choose wisely of what you wish to do before you do it.

* *Note: However, when using assassin-style builds, quick finish-off weapons like the flamethrower/shotgun/minigun are your recommended weapons.*

### Blocking laser grenade with a placeable building

You can use walls, turrets, heal aura to block laser grenades. Example: https://gfycat.com/WillingQuestionableAmurstarfish

# Strategy Overview

All of these strategies require practice! To get the hang of how to execute these strategies, try them out in a match, preferably a deathmatch (the FFA aspect makes it better for practice). If you have any further questions about these strategies or any others, you can contact the author of this article on Discord (Asteria#7630) or by email (hearth1.gaming@gmail.com).