The Miranda Ball Guide

NastyManatee · #1 01-10-2010, 07:41 PM

Miranda Ball Guide

The Miranda is, without a doubt, the most controversial plane in altitude when it comes to ball. While many view it as overpowered and in need of a nerf, I view it as a plane with a unique move set that requires skill and timing to be used correctly. While there is a lot of gripe about Mirandas in ball games, you don't see them used very often, and the main reason for this is that the Miranda isn't easy to use effectively.

Of course, the purpose of this guide is to alleviate that problem. Also, I hope to shed some light and reveal that the Miranda isn't really ball's spawn of Satan, but a challenging offensive plane with unique, though limited, abilities. Finally, I will discuss where the Miranda makes sense in competitve ball play, and provide some context for its use.

Strengths and Weakness

First and foremost, before taking the time to practice the Miranda in a ball setting, you should know what you're getting yourself into. The challenges of a ball match are not the same as the challenges of a tbd or tdm match persay, but ultimately many of the Miranda's strengths and weaknesses in those game types translate over to ball.

Strengths:
- Unparalleled speed in movement while warping
- Unique ability to attack while moving (useful for reasons that I'll discuss later)
- Ability to attack effectively at all ranges, from very close to very far.
- Ability to rapidly correct maneuvering errors thanks to d button perks.

Weakness:
- Exceptionally low HP
- Totally reliant on energy use (especially while ball-running!)
- Lack of afterburners (afterburners work without energy, warps do not)

On the surface level, the strengths seem to override the weaknesses, but it's important to provide some context.

In a ball match, your team is either on the offensive, defensive, or scrambling for possession in mid. As I've stated before, the Miranda is a plane meant for the offensive, largely because it's miserable in defensive or scrambling roles.

Against any good team, A defensive stand will consist of stopping the runner and around two to four escorts (depending on how good the enemy team is, the size of the match, and the current spawn state of the game). In general, a Miranda can provide rapid dps on defense, but this damage comes with a catch. First and foremost, to provide maximum dps, the Miranda has to be up close and personal to use a shot-warp combination attack. However, the Miranda has exceptionally low defense, and against 3 or 4 planes, the Miranda is far more likely to die than kill in a close position because it lacks the ability to last through an attack to return fire. To avoid rapid close-range death, a Miranda can keep a distance. This is effective to an extent, as a good sniper can kill almost any plane in two charged shots. However, if there is another foe escorting the enemy, that foe will either absorb one of your shots or pick up the dropped ball before you can, and most likely make their move to score before you have enough juice to fire another shot. With enough defensive support, A Miranda's damage output is useful, but a Miranda will hardly be the backbone of a defense squad.

Additionally, in a scramble situation, the Miranda handles much like it does in a close range defense situation. The ball will be receiving a huge amount of enemy fire, and while the Miranda may be able to close on the ball quickly, it will likely not survive the enemy fire required to make away with the loose ball.

Ultimately, the Miranda is glass jawed, and it cannot be played as recklessly as other planes. In my mind, this is the main reason why Mirandas are unpopular to most ball players: the forgiveness that can be garnered from using explodets, bombers, and even biplanes can't be matched by a Miranda. Also, because the Miranda is not spammy by nature, you can't receive the satisfaction that comes from dying after firing 20 loopy rockets at an enemy position. Many time with a Miranda, you will die without doing much harm to the enemy or good for your team, and this is very frustrating. The second big reason it is unpopular is energy management. Any player who has used a Miranda before knows that a low blue bar equals a dead plane. The strength of the Miranda comes from it's ability to self pass (a technique discussed in more detail later) while carrying the ball. However, this move can only be performed twice with one energy bar if your blue perk is ultracapacitor, and can only be done once without a wait time between passes with any other blue perk equipped. This doesn't sound like the end of the world, but when you're surrounded by planes, one or even two warps rarely gets you to safety, so it's important to position your plane away from enemies to give yourself the best chance to survive on only one or two warps. Because Miranda's are so energy reliant, pacing is important, because every burst of movement requires a subsequent waiting period to recharge energy. If you use all your energy to move forward and get jumped by a loopy, too bad, you're SOL because you're out of blue. In a way, Mirandas are a lot like cheetahs: they may be extremely fast, but only for short bursts with long periods of rest between.

In the end, Mirandas are challenging planes requiring a good understanding of the map, a better understanding of where your enemies are located, and the sense to know when to use your energy and when to save it. When played right, however, they are dangerous planes that can put an offensive team on the defensive before they have a chance to collect their wits, often resulting in a goal.

NastyManatee · #2 01-10-2010, 07:41 PM

Techniques

If you're reading this, you probably have some interest in pursuing the Miranda despite its shortcomings, and hopefully understand that it won't be a cake-walk from here. However, this is the part where we can relish in the best aspect of the Miranda, its manueverability, and learn what makes a Miranda deadly when used correctly.

Self-Pass: Undoubtedly the most dreaded move in all of ball, as well as the foundation for most Miranda ball techniques. The self pass is the result of passing the ball with s and then promptly warping your plane forward (by holding down up) to catch your own pass in front of you. What makes this so important is the fact that a Miranda's warp length is decreased while it's holding the ball, so by passing ahead to yourself you effectively overcome this weakness and can move forward like the dickens. Of course, this technique isn't perfect, because in traffic situations you could easily pass to any other plane, ending your advance. Furthermore, if emped, you lose the ability to warp. Often will you find yourself passing the ball and holding up only to realize that you've been emped, can't warp, and effectively just passed the ball away for nothing. Finally, when passing for a self pass, be aware of your current speed and energy. Holding up for a Miranda both increases speed and starts a warp, so if you are only at half speed when starting a self pass, you might take too long to warp and consequently pass the ball out of your reach, which is embarassing and sometimes devastating for your team. In much the same way, if you don't have enough energy to warp, you won't be able to catch your own pass, and the technique is total failure.

Pass-Turn (or Pass-Anchor): More advance, less common, and very useful. While the self-pass is fast, it is very linear, and players familiar with Miranda play will usually know where you're going and where to aim to stop you. That said, diversions can be your best friend, especially when you get close to the goal and have an explo or two playing goalie. The Pass-Turn is relatively simple. Assume you're going in to the goal from above. Aim at a relatively steep angle downwards and perform a self-pass. The goalie, who was pointing at your above position, should now be turning to attack your low position. As the enemy is turning, point yourself downwards as much as possible and press d, reversing your direction. Depending on energy levels, you can then self-pass again or just fly upwards, the point being to get yourself quickly to your original line of attack while misdirecting the defending plane downwards. This is also very useful if you have two planes on the offensive. If you have the ball and have an escort behind you, have them slow down and maintain the line of attack so you can immediately pass to them after you press d in the method outlined above. Done correctly, this results in a clear line of attack for them thanks to your distraction of the goalie. Now, if you're running time-anchor, this method is easier yet. All that is required is a low self-pass and press of the d to anchor yourself to your original, now hopefully open, line of attack. Additionally, to sell the distraction, instead of turning straight down as with the pass-turn, aim up at the goal like you're trying to make a shot, and press d to anchor at the last instant that still allows you to keep the original line of attack. These techniques are great ways to deal with goals occupied by goalies, and in general are a great way to intice a player to pursue you in one direction while you go elsewhere (such as a pass-turn or pass-anchor to the top level of mayhem, after which you take a lower route).

Team-Pass: For teams with more than one Miranda playing offensively, there are some interesting options available for extremely rapid map progression. As I mentioned above, a Miranda can at most make two warps quickly, but what if another Miranda was lying in wait with full energy to extend that progression? Two warps plus a pass plus two more warps essentially creates a rapid 4 to 6 warp length progression, and can create amazing offensive situations. While a large degree of communcation is required to work regularly, in general, if you have one Miranda cherry pick in a middle area of a map and another recover the ball defensively, this type of teamwork can be easily used to turn an enemy's offensive rush into a defensive scramble, often resulting in one on one Miranda vs goalie, or even open net, situations. Another interesting option for a team using one non-anchor and one anchor Miranda is to have the anchor Miranda take the lead with the ball, followed by the non-anchor Miranda. At a point of conflict, the lead Miranda can anchor and immediately pass to the non-anchor Miranda, which should be in front of him, with full energy, after his manuever. From here, the non-anchor Miranda can rapidly advance with two self passes. What makes this useful is the fact that most good players know how to time shots to keep an anchor Miranda anchoring so he/she can't progress further in the map, but the pass-dash will totally throw this timing off and will sometimes allow the non-anchor Miranda to progress past the attacking plane without any damage. More importantly, this technique doesn't give the enemy team time to surround you and stop your offensive rush.

Standard Warp: This isn't really a special technique persay, but it is important. Because so much of the Miranda game relies on the self-pass, a Miranda with the ball is significantly weakend when a plane is flying directly in front of it to cut off the pass. In these situations, it's important to note that you can still warp without a self-pass, and while the warp range will be limited, a forward warp will often be enough to put you beyond your would be defender, and perhaps even kill them if they are low on health, completely eliminating any problem they could pose for your attack. Practice will be required to learn the ranges of a warp with a ball and a warp without a ball, but in time you will be able to use both to their full advantage.

Reverse Anchor: This technique belongs only to a Miranda using both the time anchor and reverse thrust perks. Without a doubt, this setup is the most unpredictable plane in Altitude, as it can move in all directions rapidly and reset itself to a previous angle and location at almost any time. This particular technique is especially useful when carrying the ball around choke points. In this hypothetical situation, say you are approaching a choke point from your side of the map and an enemy plane is approaching the choke point from his side of the map. In this situation, approach the choke point, luring the enemy into doing the same. Immediately hit reverse thrust to pull yourself away from the choke point. To an enemy attacker, this makes you fresh meat because you are still in front of his/her plane and in a good line of attack. However, because you are moving in reverse with anchor, your anchor point will now be in front of you instead of behind you. Once the enemy plane has been lured past your anchor point, hit d, and you will find yourself between your enemy and his goal, which is exactly where you want to be. While he turns around, take the opportunity to self-pass or generally advance on his goal to take a shot by whatever means you choose. While this Miranda setup is very challenging, it provides unique opportunities, as this technique illustrates.

NastyManatee · #3 01-10-2010, 07:42 PM

Formations

With the above techniques in mind and a good idea of the general strengths and weaknesses of a Miranda in a ball game, you should be able to use a Miranda effectively in ball. With that said, I'd like to briefly discuss how a Miranda might fit into a plane ball team setup. While Tgleaf's ball guide does introduce many valid team construction ideas, they are almost solely focused on loopies and explodets. I largely view this to be due to the relative ease of using these two planes in ball matches and the specific lack of well-piloted ball Mirandas, not the lack of opportunities to use Miranda's effectively in a ball team.

Before I talk about specific team setups, I want to make one general observation that may be disappointing to Miranda players: Miranda's suck in large scale ball games. Even well piloted planes will find themselves in trouble once the match goes past 7v7, and this is largely because with games so large, there is rarely an opportunity to sneak past the enemy team to get in a good position. With that said, ball matches larger than 7v7 are usually just slop pits anyway, more prone to farming than actual playing, so it's nothing to feel bad about. Even in these large game situations, Mirandas can be useful on occasion, but I'd advise sticking to 7v7 and smaller matches if you want to fly a Miranda effectively.

In my mind, teams consist of three main elements: defense, dps, and strikers. The defense is responsible for maintaining goal space and making it hard on the other team to score. For obvious reasons, explodets excel in this role, and you will be hard pressed to find a good ball team without an explo in goal. Dps (or damage per second) planes are responsible for attacking offensive rushes, usually in the middle space of the map, to either stop them altogether or creating situations in which your defense can come out ahead. These planes are also commonly responsible for escorting and becoming strikers in pinch situations, so speed, as well as attack strength, are important factors for planes filling this role. In my mind, loopies, biplanes, bombers, and sometimes even explos fill this role the best. In particular, I like acid loopies and heavy cannon biplanes, because they are the best planes in the game at area damage (acid with its large radius, hc with its pierce ability). With these two planes as escorts, scoring situations happen a lot more often; however, most any plane can fill these spots when flown well. Strikers are the ball carrying and scoring planes in the game. Obviously, I think Mirandas are an excellent choice for this role due to their speed and ability to deceive defenses. Loopies and biplanes can also fill this role due to their high speed and manueverability (if the biplane has flexi wings of course). Generally, loopies fill this role on most teams, but I'm going to try and present some other options.

4v4 and smaller: In general, if the game is 4v4 or smaller, Mirandas absolutely dominate. This is for the exact same reason why they suck in large games: When a Miranda can sneak past a team quickly, they are deadly. It won't be hard to get into 1v1 goalie vs Miranda situations in small games where you only have to move past 2 or 3 planes, and as with most any sport, the team with the most shots on goal is usually the team that wins. These small games largely give the Miranda its overpowered reputation, but games of this size aren't standard for competition and aren't really worth discussing in detail.

5v5 formations:

Standard: An explo on defense; an acid loopy, heavy cannon bip, and any other plane as dps; and a Miranda as a striker. An explo on the defense will prevent break away goals, the loopy, bip, and other dps plane can stop rushes and provide strong escorts, and the Miranda will be able to capitalize on openings for scoring opportunities. The loopy and biplane will be able to provide secondary scoring if the Miranda goes down, so the team isn't one dimensional offensively.

Defense Heavy: Swap the "other dps" plane with another explo on defense. This is often a good idea for teams with 3 or 4 loopies, as they typically rely on the brute force, run and gun, offensive pushes to score, and have difficulties staying alive with two explos on defense. If three or more enemy planes die in a failed offensive rush, get the ball immediately to the Miranda: quick map progression will often reveal easy scoring situations.

Offense Heavy: Swap the "other dps" plane with another Miranda as a striker. In general, it's better to be on offense than defense (the shots on goal arguement from above), so if a team is going to load up on explos for defense, oblige them with a larger striker force. The general speed of the Miranda will often reveal scoring opportunities even with multiple planes on defense.

6v6 formations:

In my mind, there is no reason to have only one explo on goal in a 6v6 game. One explo can easily be outgunned by a large rush, so a larger defensive force is required to stay safe. That said, one of the explos can play more of a defensive role than a goalie role (not right in the goal, but not more than a quarter way down the map) to provide interference and slow rushes, but it should always stay close enough to the goal to not be useless if an attack comes from an unexpected angle. With that said...

Standard: Two explos on defense, the three dps planes, and a Miranda at striker. This works for the same reason the other setup does: it can put down enemy rushes with area damage and create powerful offensive rushes with the ability to have escort pick-up goals. While before I just suggested any dps plane, here I will suggest using a thermo explo as the third dps. Thermo explos can be very useful on 6v6 dps because they can turn enemy defenders away from the goal, creating openings for scoring opportunities. In general, defensives are a lot thicker in 6v6 than 5v5 games, so this ability can be very useful

Defense heavy: In a 6v6, the need to bulk up your defense to 3 planes is silly. You don't want half of your team on defense, that's just inviting multiple shots on goal which usually results in a loss. To beef up defense, a new role is need, something of a mid-line defense, a role well suited for remote mine explos and non-bomb bombers. The idea of this plane is to stick to the middle of the map and provide a first layer of defense for any offensive rush. If the rush is delayed, or weakened by the loss of a plane, the mid-line defender did his job because it allows the dps planes to respawn and in general weakens scoring opportunities. At mid line, this defender can also soften defenses and prevent enemy planes from attacking the rear of a rush, giving it dual usefulness. The rest of the team is the same as in the 5v5 defensive setup.

Offense heavy: Literally the same as the 5v5 offense heavy setup, just with one more explo. In 6v6 games, when a team is feeling overwhelmed, they will likely put a cluster of players on goal to make scoring difficult, so this is where the area of effect attacks from the acid loopy and hc biplane are extremely important to utilize since they are the most effective way to take down multiple planes occupying a small area of space. If you are really hammering a team and keeping the ball out of your half of the map, you might consider taking a defensive explo and using using it as a thermo dps explo as outline above, but this should only be considered in real domination scenarios.

7v7 formations:

In my mind, once 7v7 has been reached, real team organization kind of hits the fan. Ideally, you would keep with the formations mentioned in 6v6 and add a plane to either defense, mid-line, dps, or striking as you see fit. Howver, some teams prefer overwhelming offense and others like strong defenses that encourage the enemy team to wipe out 4 or 5 planes in failed rushes, so it becomes a matter of taste at this point. Ultimately, 6v6 is as large as a truly organized game can hope to get .

8v8 and beyond:

Just cluster****s. Apart from being generally chaotic, they prevent the Miranda from really shining in most cases (as noted above). Some maps provide enough levels to allow for rapid movement and even strong scoring opportunities for Mirandas (mayhem2 comes to mind), but don't count on much teamwork and skill in games of this size.

NastyManatee · #4 01-10-2010, 07:43 PM

Closing

Hopefully this guide has been useful to people who want to play the Miranda in a ball setting, people who perhaps minunderstand the Miranda's strengths and weaknesses in a ball setting, and even people who are just trying to understand formations in a ball game. As more organized ball play comes to pass, I hope to upgrade this guide to contain more information that might be useful to Miranda and ball players alike. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed the guide.

Evan20000 · #5 01-10-2010, 07:48 PM

Solid writeup. I'll post a more detailed response in a little while.

GGQ · #6 01-10-2010, 08:42 PM

Miranda self-pass is not at all hard.

Phenoca · #7 01-10-2010, 09:21 PM

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