Global cooldown and how you can make it work for you

Global cooldown. It is an event that lasts 2.5 seconds and is the single most influential thing in a close fight. In a super close fight, the speed at which one can process the fact that GCD is over can mean the difference between victory and defeat, especially so if both players are pros at the top of their game. But I digress.

I'm not here to talk about that. I'm here to talk about how YOU, a regular joe when it comes to fighting ultrafast opponents, can make it work for YOU. And how YOU (yes you, the CQC pro with a smug expression that just dissolved when you realized your secret is out in the open) can counter that.

A disclaimer: Although some of my concepts are applicable to other ships as well, this guide has been made for yellow-hunters and yellows, respectively.

GCD is a diamond absolute. You could be BlackTail himself but you would still have a window of 2.5 seconds where you were vulnerable without anything to retailate with. Everyone must bow to it.

So what? You may ask, as the Joe. Well, Mr. Joe. So, it means you have a 2.5 second opening where your opponent won't be making those nasty little jumps with nitro, or stunning you, or hitting you with a heavy gun, or shielding up, OR accelerating, OR freezing you into a floating piece of the environment. 2.5 seconds where you can take your sweet time aiming and firing. In fact, you could land a Berta shot these days, with a little practice.

Use. It. Learn how to make the most of those 2.5 seconds.

If you have guns ready and are a fast shot, use the time to think about what you're going to hit them with, then hit them, nice and easy.

If you have guns ready but are a slow shot, that's okay. Practice makes perfect, you'll be good at shooting fast in no time. But of course, that's in the future. Right now, hit the opponent with whatever is on hand and out of cooldown. A shot is useless if you're going to just shuffle guns and half-ass it with little to no time aiming. That's how you miss.

If you have no guns ready and are a fast shot, relax. Take this time to take a quick look at the map. At the situation, the lay of the land. You are at an advantage here. You can use those 2.5 seconds to make a fraction of an analysis, to decide whether you're being kited or baited, to check if there's someone else more deserving of your attention and precision.

If you are a slow shot and have no weapons ready. Please understand. You do NOT have the time to make an analysis at this point in time. You're up against someone who can really, REALLY move. And if it's a speeder, chances are, he's picked you because you're slow. You may be sharp as hell. But make no mistake. Taking your eyes off your opponent is bad if you cannot aimfire very, VERY fast indeed. Instead, take this time to get to your favored weapon. If the cooldown is just a second or so away, prefire. They don't expect someone to aim a weapon while it's still in CD because none of the fast people do it. But you're slow and you need the time. Take it. A golden rule in duels is, "Devote just the right amount of attention and time". Too much makes you fixated. Too little makes you a juicy target. If you know yourself well enough to call yourself a slow shot, you know how to duel. Trust me, I was like that this time last year.


To the pros. Now I know who you are at this point. You're a paranoid shooter/defender, a speeder who duels, or a speedforcer. If you're a shooter or a defender, this section is not going to help. The tricks I'm about to talk about are situational and, other than the 180° needle maneuver, have no counters.

So if you're a speeder or speedforcer. You might be asking, "What do I do when Anti just revealed this to everyone?". Well, relax. Not many read this anyway and you can work towards making yourself less vulnerable in GCD. How?

1. Use the waves.
Your opponent does not have your speed. Nor does he have your agility. Use this, and the momentum you have on you 80% of the time, to get into a position where waves can shield you, or better yet, deceive the enemy into thinking they have a clear shot.

2. Needle.
A 180° is the surest way to make someone miss their shot. Just make sure they don't "eye" your needle(difficult to describe what this is... Let's see. Where is the eye of a needle? At the end of it, right? Well, imagine the needle to be a shooter, and the eye to be the tip of their cannon. Eyeing the needle is when the shooter brings himself into such a position where he'll need to traverse a <<180° angle to hit you.)

3. Obstacles.
Move out of the way whenever possible in the case of terrain with obstacles. And if all that fails...

4. Flow dodging.
In an enfo, just do the tornado and pray. In a speeder, shooters see your turn direction, A LOT, when they target you. The fast guys clear leather so fast they only note "target hull appears to be moving in x direction" and shoot instantly. You can make their prelead fail by turning quickly in-place. Most of the time in the upper leagues, this will save you more often than moving linearly, so that's your best bet even if it looks silly.

Of course, I do acknowledge that there are many exceptions to the norm. If you are one of them, comment below with whatever problem you have, and the solution you have found. If you have a problem, I'll be more than happy to assist, ask away!

Hope this guide helped you, Anti out!

 

It's not meant for you either way, you're too pro ;-)

 

It's really hard to do a guide on them unless you can somehow get camera angles on both the hunter and the hunted. Otherwise, it's easy for the unskilled eye to distinguish between someone who's hesitating and someone who's being blocked.

And personally, other than the "speed boost", I use every trick in the book. The reason I don't use speed boosting anymore is that I have a maxed OB and don't need to.

*Sigh* At the risk of being called a pretentious charlatan(for the n'th time), I'll make the guide lol