7/8/2014 The Pit

[eldawg51]

1. JAWS
2. Jebediah Springfield
3. VigiLance (Lance Head)

I've never had a more disheartening finish to a tourney. 11 minute fill, first to cap, beasted and held onto the lead until about 15 minutes left. Dropped to #3 trying to fill. No ferry in the left water had me moving obby's to fill. Finally filled to 100 cross the board except for radar. 6 minutes left and a hail storm knocks out my connection and I freeze. Not a thing I could do.

Congrats to the winners!

[shermanfrombf]

i would've cupped silver for sure if i got a kill, maybe gold cause jaws was behind me when he made captain. but idk what his points were after he made cappy.

all the strong pphers didn't get kills. kinda lulzy everyone icy'd

[LastSingularity]

After what's his name showed me a chart of all the points that each rank for hitting other ranks, I know why my PPH this tournament lagged.

After I got mobbed twice (the raiders were clearly intending to deactivate me), I decided to fight with bots for a lot of the tournament. That probably put me behind by over 13,000-15,000 points.

You get 93 points (single shot) if you're a lieutenant hitting a lieutenant, and if you're lieutenant hitting a private bot, it's 66 points. So I forfeit 93-66 = 27 points by hitting a private bot instead of a human lieutenant. For a dual shot, that's double of that: 54 points per dual shot. Over 30 min of PPH'ing, I can easily fire 250 to 300 dual shots. 250 dual shots, each worth 54 points, amounts to whopping total of

13,500 points!



I have to say, I have seen BlueGhost win cups in his youtube videos, and he is always bot-fighting. I don't know how he gets such amazing PPH doing that. Very impressed!

[Jordann]

the idea is to fight bots when the entire map is in a group getting 1 shot every 5 seconds. at that rate, you can shoot a bot far more often and actually get better points. dont kill the bots however, as that requires too much chasing. youre better off quickly getting each bot to teleport. your best bet however, is to stay on the outskirts of the mob and scope in. shoot the target least likely to teleport. being off the screen of many of the players allows you to avoid the waiting time between shots.

You should work on getting the most points possible in tournaments and let kills come. if youre too focused on kills more often than not youre going to get a kill and still end up outside of top 3. its better to ensure that if/when you do get the kill there is no question was to whether or not you will cup.

just look to maximize every decision in tournaments, dont spend time on map, dont use unnecessary equipment, dont chase targets that most likely wont die and never turn down a 1v1 opportunity. also dont ever give up, the end stages of tournaments can change quite drastically and youre never truly drawing dead until the river hits.

[shermanfrombf]

jordan's right, most cases bots are better points because they don't drive all over the place forcing you to waste shots shooting the ground. which = 0 pph.

2 shots on a bot = more points than shooting a lieutenant once and shooting the ground once. let competant pphers come to you or look for people showing signs of strong pph capabilities and try to single them out.

[weekend_nachos]

Bots are definitely the unsung heroes of tournaments, unfortunately when you get passed sarge you dont get any extra points for killing them anymore. In water maps i would stay away from players if i could help it, kill 20 - 25 corp bots and be #1 pph most times. Now that you don't get the exp for them that little system doesnt work as much.

But regardless dont stop shooting and still utilize bots fully, there's always someone willing to kill em when they teleport.

[LastSingularity]

Thanks guys

I think I generally do that - here is what I do:

I definitely use bots as a means of filling up my equipment. Say my duals fall into the high 30s or low 40s, and the guy I am PPH'ing with teleports away to pursue a kill or to fill himself. I will find a full-health bot on the map, teleport to him, radar the entire screen with an ER, see where all the fuel and equipment is, hit the bot 7-9 times until he teleports (I don't follow him), and then pick up the 3-4 boxes of equipment left on the screen. Since I usually pick up more than 2 boxes of equipment, fill-fighting bots has been a net positive for my dual inventory (I expend 7-9 shooting the bot until he teleports, but I pick up 18-30 duals on that screen, so my duals actually go up)

Once my duals go past 60-70, I try to find two or three guys doing 1v1 or 2v1 PPH and join in. Best situation is when there is a 2v1, I join, and it breaks off into two 1v1's.

I am just saying that if I do find a competent PPH partner, I should try to stick with him for 5+ min, because that usually accumulates points faster than fill-fighting with 10 bots. A good PPH partner stays put (like a bot does), knows when you will refuel (so both of you drive to fuel, one immediately after another, so no shots are missed before / after the refuel), but you get 30%+ more points than hitting a private / recruit bot (assuming he is lieutenant or captain). But of course, if I can't find such a partner, I won't force it by staring at the map for 30 seconds. I'll let it come, or I'll find one in the mob, when I am sniping from the side lines.

[Jordann]

in that spot it seems like a net negative to be wasting those duals on a bot. Like I said, shooting a bot should only happen when theres literally no one else to fight. in situations like you explained above, your best bet is to quickly grab those boxes and snap teleport back to the guy you were fighting. Also, it doesnt matter if you have 30 duals or 70 duals, your goal is to fill fight. Never use homings or missiles until the last few minutes or you know for a fact someones gonna die. this is a huge part in maintaining good equip management. if you ensure that you never use shields, missiles or homings and have them topped off youll only pick up duals or extras. This is critical in the mid stages of a tournament when finding 3 boxes on one screen is a jackpot. You dont want those 3 boxes to be 9 missiles 8 homings 3 homings. you want them to be 8 duals, 9 duals, 8 duals. 25 quick duals will sprint you past some competition struggling to refill. use this strategy to maintain your progress. never fall into the set times to fill routine, itll just be like a martingale where you quickly get top pph and quickly fall back down to 14th. using that strategy you have to hope your final push is better than theirs ideally youll want to be able to coast in the final few minutes to find/steal kills.


quick rundown of how you should be playing your tournaments:

:00-:10 - filling. always fill straight to 60 extra radars no matter how long it takes (or 58-59, since the time it takes to get the other box is wasted time)
:10-:20 - fight, fight, fight. keeping homings on until you reach serg, as youll have to refill them anyways and the extra few points are critical in the early stages. usually between 6 minutes and 16 minutes the equipment is so plentiful your main goal should be to find someone to armor fight (always armor early, like mid fuel bar to ensure nobody thinks you are a free kill/easy target) if two people are on your screen only armor if youre not being shot at. constantly fill while armor fighting as much as possible. base your fills around the rocky/harder to maneuver areas in the map as these will have been skipped early in favor open areas. Make sure when you reach serg with the points for lt you fill your equipment before ranking. this ensures your lt fill will be much easier and youll have duals early on.
:20-:30 - Youre still pphing as much as possible. at this point youll probably know who is the easy targets. dont chase them since pph is still more important than a kill at this stage. instead stay in their area and fill fight as much as possible. you can also scope the groups and just bank on sitting ducks. Its going to start getting drier now so try not to use too many wasted radars looking for fuel/trying to fill. If you go a few screens without a box stop trying to fill and start fighting, even with singles. wait a minute, go back to filling. during those periods too many people are trying to fill, so even shooting the singles will help get an edge.
:30-:40 - equipment is starting to make a return as more people are focused on raids/getting kills and are using far less than if they were to be 1v1ing. at this point if you dont have a kill focus on getting as many points as possible to ensure when you do get your kill you are going to cup over the guys who are raiding. This is usually the perfect time to make big passes if youre playing catch up as alot of the top pphers are no coasting and loosely looking for a kill.
:40-:50 - Youre still pphing, but now you need to think more about the kill you need. while fighting, hit the top ten colors to find out which color the weaker players are (if theyre serg they will show up). now that you know what color the newbs/weaker players are, you can quickly find them on the map. At this point fuel is getting very scarce and equipment is piling up in certain areas that have gone unnoticed. get close to the mobs and keep fighting for points but make sure if theres anybody who is potentially going die youre there for it. You dont want to start missing on the kills at this point, but dont go full blown 'I need a kill mode' and resort to getting points from the missiles/homings youre shooting every 7 seconds. this time is critical for determining if youre going to stand the end game push by current captains who can devote their time to pphing and if you can pass the guys who are in front of you but also relying a little too heavily on getting the kill.
:50-:55 - Equipment. youre going to want to have alot of duals at around the 53 minute mark. if not, at around 50 minutes in make it a priority to get the equipment youre going to need to finish the tournament off. typically with ten minutes to go youre probably gonna shoot off anywhere between 80-120 duals if youre playing right. You can shoot far more or far less depending on your circumstances. If youre far ahead in the top 3 and can coast your best bet is to get the kill you need to ensure a cup, so youll shoot less shots. if you need to beast and get a kill to cup your first priority should be to beast, to eliminate the potential of making rank but not placing top 3 (the worst possible outcome to any tournament)
:55-1:00 - final five minutes can feel like 5 seconds or 5 hours depending where youre at. if youve gotten your kill find someone to armor fight. dont get too low on armors or youll spend alot of time playing avoidance while looking for fuel. youll wanna have a couple of them for the last few seconds. if you dont have duals, and have a kill, go behind some rocks and shoot missiles. I dont think it nets you anymore points but it makes it more difficult for others to shoot you which is a huge bonus. If you dont have a kill and can still cup if you made rank, do everything you can to get a kill. Snipe as much as possible, stay in the groups as much as possible and stick on the guys who are habitual dyers.

As you can tell my strategy is based mostly on pph, as nine times out of ten youre going to need to be top 5 pph in order to cup. Plus, just because someone spends more time raiding or in groups doesnt mean they have a greater chance at a cup, it just means theyre not utilizing the massive amounts of time that people arent dying. these are the critical times to sustain the pph that will allow you to coast at the end. Once you play more tournaments, youll get a feel on how to have a great chance at getting kills while spending the least time looking.

gl.

[The_Revelation]

^ You have a name for that guide Jordann? Ill add it to the tournament guide section, just give me a title.

BTW, I when I read a "quick rundown" and saw the novel after - which I read entirely lol

[LastSingularity]

Wow, I never thought that if there is no equipment at 20-30 min in, and I run out of ammo, I should just continue fighting with singles.
That's eye-opening

[Jordann]

^ You have a name for that guide Jordann? Ill add it to the tournament guide section, just give me a title.

BTW, I when I read a "quick rundown" and saw the novel after - which I read entirely lol

its actually pretty short compared to most tournament guides. this is just a general guide to follow to give yourself the best possible chance to cup (within your means). once people get better and more adept to tournaments they do their own thing that works.

I play very few tournaments and have no problem landing myself a cup with this technique.

[-LanceheaD-]

Interesting.. I always avoid shooting singles if possible Lastsingularity... unless I run out in the last minute or so. But like I've said before, there is definitely more than 1 way of winning a tourney.

I was shocked to cup this tourney, also from this point forward I have moved in with my parents and I have very crappy internet here. Looks like my cupping days are going to be put on hold for now.

[-Copperhead-]

Interesting.. I always avoid shooting singles if possible Lastsingularity... unless I run out in the last minute or so. But like I've said before, there is definitely more than 1 way of winning a tourney.

But one thing's for sure. One way NOT to win a tourney is by attacking me ever. I will always make you burn your homers if you attack me in a tournament.

[AsTrOKiD]

But one thing's for sure. One way NOT to win a tourney is by attacking me ever. I will always make you burn your homers if you attack me in a tournament.

Can confirm. I decided to pop into a tourney for fun a few tournaments ago and Copperhead homing trolled me hard. I just laughed and kept shooting. I must have used a dozen homers though, which equates to like 6 duals promotion points-wise. Totally a waste.