PSA: Your Team's Fixer Is Your IGL!

Far too many times have I seen a game lost through simple refusal to communicate. An important aspect of all team games is that when your leader makes a call, you follow it whether it is a good call or bad call. It's much better for everyone to follow a bad call than half follow and half defect.

As the fixer is the class with the highest potential to impact the match, when you are on a team with a fixer, they are your leader. If your fixer makes a call-to dive an injured unfriend, to push up, to retreat, whatever- Follow it to the best of your ability! If you follow your fixer's orders, they know where you are so they can heal you and rely on you as a defense. If you disobey tour Fixer's orders, then you are creating a weakness in your team's formation and a liability to your teammates, as well as an asset to your opponents.

Above all, stick with the group and make sure to know where your fixer is and make sure they know where you are as well.

 

I agree with your overall reasoning but I think I disagree with your chain of logic. The fixer certainly can impact the match strongly. That's a really good reason to keep the fixer alive. But the main reason I think being a fixer goes well with being the team leader is that both roles require broad-scale situational awareness. That's hard to maintain when you're in among the thick of things dodging and weaving and targeting.

I also find the high mark bombardment shooter (at lower infamies) is a great leader. They're likely to be [one of] the high damage dealers so focusing on their target has a lot of merit. Unlike brawlers/assassins/etc. they are standing off of the combat enough to hopefully have the same sort of situational awareness.

Make sure you know where your fixer is? Of course.... and what is going on around him. I hate it when the fixer is being attacked and I'm the only one responding. Why? Where are our freakin' speeders and enforcers?

Stick with the group? Sort of. I'd say, "Make sure you are coordinating as part of the team." Almost invariably my role in the beginning is to go be eyes and ears... pick up those red dots for our bombardment shooters. I'm WAY out in front. Later, I'm probably in among the enemy team just where a brawler/assassin ought to be.

 

I agree with the general gist but i think the main damage dealer should make the calls and everyone else should protect the healer

 

Interesting. I seldom see defenders actually doing their role so that hadn't occurred to me. But yeah, I can see that. There's just a lot less buttons to press and the strategy becomes that of any tank, "get hit"

 

There's nothing better than having a defender, who knows what he/she is doing and is taking the leading role.

Too bad it happens only from time to time.

 

Another way to say who to listen to....
They player in front. Whomever they are attacking. All players behind should attack.
Player in front during global Cool down hit destroy " " and all players finish them off.

This makes charges much more affective.

I recently was in a 5k to 6k battle with all 5 boats on both friends and unfriends in the upper echelon on ranking.
When I charged...I said destroy brizo. He was the closest boat to me. His defender boat was 17k h.p. All my friends team fired. I shot Brizo 2 total times with ex cannons. Brizo and his 17k. Was destroyed in 10 seconds.
Then I boater forward to the next target. Repeated attack " ".
We all killed the next boat in 13 seconds.
Our friends team won the match 5 kills to 1 kill for unfriends.
This isn' rocket science. Doesn't matter really at the end ...whether a fixer, or a defender, or etc leads the team.

What matters most is combined firepower on one target at a time. I prefer people support the leading front edge of the formation. But really that' just preference.

Even if they forget to call a target. Pay attention. Hit the player they fire at. Watch good things happen thru paying attention.

 

Don't forget frost (it is nerfed now) and burn perks!

 

I like this thread - Fixer love <3

As a fixer, I'd rather have another role take the lead and for the team to follow. Not that I don't think a fixer could do it well, but I find we probably have the most full plate.

1) Fix
2) Awareness (that's both friendly and unfriendly)
3) Damage avoidance
4) Damage dealing

As simplistic as the above is, having leadership would be 5 things to deal with in the match. We also have to try and make use of the loadout which is different to say shooter / defender i.e. Reds, Yellow, Greens vs. Reds. Bit more fiddly.

I'd be more than happy for a capable defender/shooter take the lead and for the team to back them up.

Biggest bugbear is the team not being a team and cooperating as described here. Oh and your friendly ships sailing away from you when you're trying to heal .. because you know, having 100% health is soooo overrated. -.-'

 

Not That Much Down Here But I Should Like To See Defenders Do the Best Job Tho

 

You now know that you say that, in most of the games I've played the tank is typically the leader. There's a lot of sense in that since the tank is the one getting hit (ideally) and needing to manage the incoming damage.

 

And then they scream help from across the map, and you don't feel bad for not helping them because you had 3 other people you had to take care of who stuck with you.

Even when I'm playing speeder and get caught out far from my fixer, I never have the audacity to use the help command at my fixer unless I made it back to him in one piece. Even if he could make it to me in time, I wouldn't want him to die trying.

 

I agree the highest power shooter is the best one to listen to, possibly more than defender because of the different roles they play, but I could go either way.

It's hard to know who is the right one to follow... I agree just following someone doing the callout is better than splitting up, but I constantly see Fixers following the wrong people. The other day I had a match of 4 shooters and 1 fixer. I went in the mix into the perfect position to decimate the opposing team with my fleetmate behind me, but we wound up dying. Why? I realized afterwards the Fixer was off hiding in a tunnel with the two weakest shooters not supporting the main battle. When all was said and done we left the match essentially 3 vs 1 (our favor) and it was painful to watch these inept shooters try to track down and kill the last opponent. When all was said and done we did win, but had the fixer stayed with my fleetmate and I we would have shaved an entire minute off the battle as in the end I alone dealt more damage and kills than those two shooters combined...and would have stayed alive with even minimal help from the Fixer as it was just not that dangerous.

So again, how does a Fixer know who to follow? In my case I had 1800 more HP than either of those Shooters... that should have been an obvious sign, but it's no guarantee. Beyond that, who knows?? We don't get to see loadouts, just league colors, but no other applicable stats. I don't actually know the answer here.

 

*sigh* In my prime, I was the best defender in my league. I had 1.3 speed, double cannons, I could be anywhere I needed to be, when I needed to be there. I had great situational awareness. But then, RNG stopped giving me good stuff for my defender, I didn't get any rare canons, my lvl 10 rare was pathetically under powered. When I got to Mk4, I was a sitting duck with weak weapons, then I switched to enfo and speeder.

 

Hah yes! Tis the bane of the fixer life. I probably die more than I should chasing after a player to heal them.. I need to get better at that and if they ask for help, spam Negative. Need a 'smh' command..

 

In some games, a leader is automatically designated. Their player tag / name would be 'crowned' to make it quite clear they have the lead role. It's not perfect as you simply don't know who you're playing with but it would be a start to solving the problem.

 

I usually follow the higher infamy teammate and I also try to keep an eye on the minimap in order to do not let flankers to finish my dear fixer (love your fixer )

 

I am following this advice too – follow behind the highest infamy teammate and/or with the highest HP.

 

It is good work advice, but not always.
Sometimes shooter with low HP or infamy has much better skills & more usful for team.

Not so long ago, in the subject of "advice noob to noob" I read that it is not necessary to chase after speeders or enforcer, they will return.
And it really works.
I read that the life of a fixer is often more important than someone else's (I mean, I started using the repair box) and I must try to live to the end with all my strength, sometimes even sacrificing someone.
And I improved my equipment successfully.
Also I stopped playing with other ships and began to improve only the fixer skill, the benefit of the update 2.8 has slightly improved their lives
As a result, I rose from 1500-1600 to 2200