Let's talk speeders

I keep swearing I'll at least give rudder a try. But I seem to be addicted to the bandages. I think I'll need to give them up in favor of a big shield when I hit M5 but I'll miss them. You honestly think a rudder is a better choice than a big shield?

 

Definitely not, that's why I'm waiting until mk6. I only give up the big shield for my rudder when doing custom battles against lower level players.

 

I'm gonna miss my bandages so much. The math works out in a fairly interesting way. My bandages do 50/tick or 10/second. My BShield is 1052 HP or 105 seconds of bandages. So for any match in which I spend 2 minutes or more being damaged the bandages actually work out. Honestly, that's most matches. Where the shield would show is it'd be more forgiving of me making a mistake and taking a beating. I'll have to experiment carefully with both when I hit Mark 5.

Heh, the math would be different if I had dual epic shields rather than just my T3 rare. Then again, I have lots of rare bshields I just need to do crew training and then level up the shield.

 

I've been using the rudder lately and I've noticed that it changes one thing about my gameplay in the speeder. I'm like 2 times more cautious and aware then I am when I have on a shield or bandage. As a short range brawler I have much less room to slip up before everything goes south than anyone else does. Having next to no HP encourages the extreme caution and awareness needed to play in such a reckless and dangerous manner.

If you can't take a hit or two before having to worry about your HP or just run away and get it back when your HP is low, you have no choice but to be the most cautious guy on the bay. Try not to stress yourself out though, stress will get you killed quicker. Real talk.

 

Oddly, that's exactly how I feel about the shield/bandage choice. I'm going against M5's with racks of epic gear and I have 1700hp. I definitely see my HP as a resource to be expended but it's a precious resource. I'll play around with the rudder as promised and see how that feels to me. I expect I'll like it better for dogfighting but like it less in terms of strategic strength (the bandages give me a choice to blow a bunch of HP early on a prime kill and still be a part of the battle after some recovery time). That's much like the tesla bolt vs. nitrous choice... bolt is better for dogfighting but the nitrous is better for putting me where I need to be at any given moment -- tactical vs. strategic.

*** edited to add ***
1463 infamy now. Part of that is just getting a good bubble but another part is that the matches definitely become more sane above 1200 or so infamy. By "sane" what I mean is that for the most part people seem to be trying to win. There's still a lot of cowboy behavior but people are obviously trying a lot harder.

 

I feel a lot more capable of playing without a rudder now that I'm used to the playstyle, but I miss being able to make those split second decisions, juke snipers with sharp turns, and circle closely around shooters and defenders. The frost blaster made encircling enemies easier and I wish it slowed their turrets, too.

 

Yeah, I had to learn that circling enemies that can kill me in 3 hits is a bad idea. So nowadays it's more like hit and run. I can see how the rudder would sure help with close combat. Honestly since I've never used one, I probably should experiment. As soon as I have a tragic string of losses so I'm not at my infamy high I'll give it a go.

 

It's hard to master, even I fail at it often. It's really easy to get ahead of yourself and overdo the circle. Sometimes you need to move parallel to them. It's really tricky to do, but if you can do it right and there's no unfriends shooting at you, you can make it impossible for your target to do anything about it.

 

1v1 I agree although I still need to get a lot better at it. I get caught in dual circles like I would in my shooter rather than using the better turning radius and nitro to get on his other side.

 

The hardest part is figuring out what to do after nitroing to the other side. The nitro itself is a good move, but after that it's basically a coin flip and reacting to said result properly. Sometimes I wish the speeder's agility didn't cap at 71.3°

 

I think what’s nice about the Rudder is that you can feel it working from the moment the game starts, and it makes your ship play better, which is fun.

In contrast, Shield and Bandage don’t really make your ship play better, they just make it play longer, and until you’ve exceeded your base HP, they aren’t really doing anything. So they’re kind of like insurance. I’m sure most people will agree, that while insurance is ‘sensible’, it’s not really very ‘fun’.

 

It's a tough decision, really. You could be on top of your game even without the rudder, and the moment you switch out that shield for a rudder, you suddenly have everyone sights on you because they wanna take out the guy with the least health. I've been singled out many times with the rudder. Once I gave in and switched to the big shield, I noticed that most matches I was getting out with enough hp to ditch the shield. It's a really strange relationship between two item choices.

 

Totally! I guess having a shield does also allow you to play more confidently too.

I started playing Speeder at mk2, so all through mk2, mk3, and for a lot of mk4, I was severely low on hp. I probably played my first 2000 games, never being more than 2-3 hits from death. That certainly teaches you good battle awareness, if nothing else.

When I was finally able to run a shield, and go toe to toe with other ships, it was incredible. For a while, I was just able to crash into unfriend teams on my own, and tear them apart before my team could catch up. Until, of course, my infamy got too high, and I had to start playing carefully again. But hp certainly made a difference.

It’s weird, because I have had games like this one, where I just don’t get hit ‘at all’, so the shield isn’t really doing anything.

But, conversely, I also have games like this one, where I used every last bit of my shield (twice), and without it, I would have died, and my team almost certainly would have lost.

http://replay.battlebay.net/VMPVYTJP#NFGDXGMH

That game was kind of interesting, because it starts off as one of my worst games ever, but in the end, it’s probably one I’m most happy with, simply because it could have easily been lost, but we turned it around by making good battle choices.

 

I like running either dual blast cannons, or blast + ex cannon. OB and Nitro essential for me, turbo and small shield. Hit and run haha

 

Iv'e seen you around recently in games

 

If you are going blast cannon + flare, don't run full flat burn perks unless you know how to land your flare. Consider taking double cannon damage perks + 1 fire perk. It's important to still maintain strong base damage while having bonus damage at the same time. What happens if you don't hit your flare? Well, your blast will lack in base damage. Keeping all burn perks means that you are too reliable on fire damage to be strong.

Things to keep in mind

- Tesla Shield blocks your flare
- You only have 2 weapons on speeder so make sure you are very accurate
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