*NECESSARY READ* What ships to focus in order & some situational play/tips

Hey all,

Wanted to make this guide due to me seeing a lot of lack of coordination/being on the same page in the current meta on which ships should be focused when opponents pop up on radar/los(line of sight) in climbing up the ranks (maybe this is gets better in Ace & Nightmare leagues, but I haven't seen it yet in around 80% of my games). Now this is based off my personal experience along with collaborating with other players on there's. Of course I invite you all to share your thoughts on your own focus orders & why, if they do differ from mine as at the end of the day this is a conversation to foster growth on tactics & strategy. Current infamy as of writing this is around 2k, with max so far as of writing this at 2114 lvl 23. Main Defender > Fixer > Shooter in that order.

I'll start by listing which ships you want to ideally be focusing first if it's optimal to do so (I'll dive more into this part later)

1) Shooter
2) Enforcer
3) Fixer
4) Defender
5) Speeder

Breakdown on ranking
1) Shooter: Is around 4th in mobility with 1st in overall damage potential given how many weapon slots they have at 5. Taking out the highest damage dealers should be 1st priority if the opportunity presents itself.

2) Enforcer: 2nd in mobility, tied for 2nd in weapon slots at 3. Though the 2 shield slots is what puts this ship in 2nd. Now there is the possibility of them running a Tesla Shield, though this still wouldn't factor in dropping them down the focus list due to being able to proc the shield with any weapon preferably your weakest (usually you would test this with weakest first so you can gauge strength of TS and you'll know if you need to proc it with a higher dmg weapon the next time). This makes wasting a cannon shot on it very useful since you don't want to deal way more damage than what the shield can soak as you would be giving your opp TS more value than it's worth (though unfortunately sometimes this is the case in order to drop it).

3) Fixer: 3rd in mobility & tied for 3rd in weapon slots. Now this one is tricky because it's closely even-matched with defender. The reason I give the edge to Fixer is and as it always comes down to, is team focusing. If you have at least 3 players focusing the fixer then regardless of their setup if it's double box/pulse or double pulse/box, you'll be able to take them down faster than you would a defender. Though if there's only 2 teammates focusing fixer, then depending damage output gauged after the first few shots are put in, you should strongly consider switching to the next ship on the focus list that's in the game. Another reason is that if your fixer is trying to delay by focusing all efforts on self-healing, this usually means that they won't be able to output any damage since their turret has to be facing the direction their moving in order to box themselves efficiently.

4) Defender: 5th in mobility (vanilla stats) & tied for 2nd in weapon slots at 3. Will explain in speeder section why I favor this over focusing speeder 4th. For defender your bulky, slow, larger hitbox (assuming here), & have 3 weapon slots compared to speeder.

5) Speeder: 1st in mobility & tied for 3rd in weapon slots at 2. The reason you should in my opinion focus a speeder last 99% of the time all comes down to Shot Leading. Most players who haven't played against a speeder enough or just need more practice at SL will struggle. You have lower % chances of hitting a speeder (especially when using Nitro & then still even with Overboost [though lesser effect]). Having the highest % chance of hitting your opponent is a big factor, especially when you also take into account that a speeders primary job more or less is to distract the enemy team via constantly flanking. The better tactic is to completely ignore the speeders and create at minimum a 5v4 situation against the rest of the enemy team giving you an advantage going into the initial engagement (this of course is dependent on your team moving together and everyone recognizing that they need to leave the speeders for last). Now this does not mean you should not put damage onto a speeder if they are within range or get close to you, because you should. The point is not to CHASE and leave your group area. Worst case if the enemy speeder is weak enough, leave the cleanup for your speeder, take them out last, or try to put shots on them when they come back in range (though I'd even caution against this especially if there is a juicier target).

Situational Plays
1) of course if a ship over extends then immediately focus and make that ship pay for their own error

2) Pay attention to target pings as they are important. Most of the time your Defender should be taking the lead and making the calls on who to focus. Though if there is a better target, then I'd recommend quickly double target pinging to indicate a re-focus.

3) Use the target ping because knowing how many players are focusing a enemy ship is still important. This can indicate if you'll stay committed to that ship depending on the ship type & how many teammates are focusing it. For example. If I only have 2 teammates focusing a fixer while that fixer is self-healing, I will immediately switch targets because I already know that the fixer will be able to delay long enough to where we will take more damage in terms of other teammates getting sunk than us being able to sink the fixer before that happens in most cases.

4) The only ship that should be going off on their own is the speeder. All other ships should be staying close together within an area, don't need to be should to shoulder, but must be close enough to where you can start immediately focusing when someone target pings or be able to move into position within seconds.

Composition Scenario's
1) Fixer vs no Fixer: In this situation the team with no Fixer needs to attack and basically YOLO, reason being that you're team's comp is most likely already at an advantage given that you're 5th ship compared to the fixer most likely has more health & 3/5th's chance of having more weapon slots. Additionally you're fixer will always be prioritizing healing over damage output in most situations. These factors mean that the longer the game drags out, only puts the team with no fixer at a sloping disadvantage pending how long the game lasts. As your opponents will just keep putting out damage while being healed and just slowly whittle you down. Being decisive and striking together in this comp setup will give the non-fixer side an advantage going into the initial engagement.

2) Fixer vs Double Fixer: Same as above, except the difference here is that you have to focus fire and be that much more coordinated. Because if you don't have at least 4 ships focus firing, double fixer is rough and can really make you pay by with double the heals on the ship you're going for.

If you've read this far, thank you and I hope you enjoyed. If this thread garners decent attention then I'll most likely post gameplay videos for reference to this threads context.
*For those interested in fleeting (though I only fleet up with players I can talk with in a call, hence the discord) or even just conversing for help, think-tanking, game debate, etc. My BB: #LQFKKJMH, Discord: bossnasti#8056

 

What a nice list you got here.
I'd like to ask, what would you recommend doing if allies don't even lead using pings (which just happens literally 85% of the battles we all have)

 

Well typically you'd hope that your defender is the one leading the charge or at least dictating who to focus fire. Though if this isn't happening and it seems no one is taking charge. Then I would say someone needs to and if that ever happens, then "you" can do it yourself as it isn't set in stone on who has to lead with "target pings". My focus order is general recommended order and should help you develop real-time game sense on who to focus in each situation as you play more games and acquire more experience. Hope this answered the question. I've never been one to give short answers lol.

 

Great write up. I generally agree with your recommendations. One thing I'd say though is that a shooter or enforcer make just as good of a shot caller as a defender in my opinion, maybe even better. I get that you want the defender to lead the charge and tank some shots, but to be honest most people at my infamy level (around 1800) don't realize what they are best equipped for and don't really play their role well. So don't wait for a defender or anyone else to start calling shots. Do it yourself if nobody else does quickly as you mentioned. And as a shooter equipped with long range mortars and sniper i think i make a pretty good shot caller. I stay at the back of the pack if possible so if I'm in range everyone should be. If i can get a shot, the rest of the group probably can. Also the guy up front may be a little too busy dodging shots to have time to pull up the communication wheel and tell the team what to do. An option to put quick communication buttons right on the main hud would help a lot.
And I think enforcer and defender could be switched as the little buggers can be just as tough to hit as a speeder depending on how they are being played. Defender may have more health but you won't miss a lot of shots if you focus fire as a team making them easier to take out. Again depends on the enforcer but when half the team weaponry is probably mortars I think you have a better chance of taking out a defender that an enforcer.
Anyway, good stuff man

 

Unfortunately in those situations there's not much you can do. Of course aside from the speeder going off by themselves and potentially re-grouping at a certain point during the game, there's nothing to be done about other players doing this. Though a good general rule here is that if the Defender (primary) or Shooter (secondary) aren't leading the biggest group (3 or more) and you notice that players aren't coming with you, then I would head to the biggest group. Or in the event there's 2 groups of 2, then I would pick which group compliments the ship you're running or if it looks like 1 out of the 2 groups has some kind of advantage on your opponents at that time, then head to that one. Hope this helps.

 

This is the sort of anyliticalbreak down of game play that I want to see used to direct play.

I echo the observation that there is such a wide range of styles (or lack of style) that any sort of cogent strategy is REALLY difficult. I will have some matches where people seem to act in accordence with the situation and other who just falil around lost.

I don't mind when the other team has lots of those captsas they panic when pressed and die easy. When you have too many of those folks on your team however... Doomed.

 

Thanks KellEl. Yeah the defender in my guide is considered more of the Primary shot-caller but of course doesn't mean they are the only one. One of the other big reasons why in most cases it's easier for a defender to callout targets is because it's easier for them to switch targets with how close they are via leading the charge. Until the new update (2.4) is released, it's currently more difficult for a back line player to effectively ping targets when they are not spread far apart or worse if they are all close together since the opponent names appear a little bigger making it just that much harder to get your reticle on the right person without it waving over to another opponent. Though once 2.4 comes out this will be fixed or at least a lot easier for anyone to ping targets. One of the other potential problems is that you typically have more shooters in matches when there are some, than you do defenders. Most of the time with it being 1 defender per match, this makes it easier to have the front man be the shot caller. Instead of having 2 or more shooters being shotcallers. This was another reason I figured having the defender being the primary shotcaller would make it easier on everyone and potentially set a foundation for BB games when it came to solo-duo queue'ing. If they ever come out with 5v5 guild wars or just 5v5 team queue then shotcallers can be of course different.

Definitely agree that a lot of what players will face each game can always be situational and requires game by game adaptions pending your opponents composition, movements, weapon loadouts, etc.

 

Thanks bro, appreciated. When it comes to the styles I definitely co-sign on that as I see it almost every game. You have a good amount of players with specific loadouts on their ships but sometimes each ship loadouts don't compliment each other. As an example, I've played a game where 3 shooters ran full mortar setups + defender + speeder. Which isn't a bad composition, but because the 3 shooters were running that setup, they felt they had to camp in the back and rain down mortars which quickly turned the fight into a 5v3 rather quickly. Implementing in 5v5 of course would easily fix this by allowing 5 players to communicate and actually develop comp strategies. The biggest one that always gets me is when you're team has no fixer or is down a fixer and team in most cases doesn't recognize the disadvantage they're at and need to push hard together to have an advantage against the fixer mismatch.

 

Unfortunately I even see it at around 2100-2500 as well. At least in about 2/3rds of my games. You'll make a push and even players who are primarily running mortars that still have cannons will most of the time stay back, which sadly limits their damage output. You can still mortar and shoot your cannon if you stay at max cannon range. These types of decisions is what causes a lot of players to reach their full damage potential per game.