[G] Guide to TBD

[Kuja900]

Intro:

For those who are not familiar with me and are wondering why you should just listen to what this random guy on the forum thinks, these are my credentials: I have played this game since march of 2009 in the most competitive scenarios I have been able to find, I peaked at rank 2 on the tbd ladder in season 1, I am leader of fLb the oldest and the most successful clan in Altitude. I have tested everything I have wrote in this guide countless times and I promise you if you try to incorporate the strategies in this guide into your game your tbd results will improve, without a doubt. There will be no trivial information in this guide that is easily available in the wiki, if you're looking for useful information towards out right trying to improve your game this is the guide u need to read.

Highground:

Highground>lowground, why? By pushing high your carrier has more options because you can descend a lot faster then you can ascend meaning he has more options in terms of maneuvering. You also are a lot better off against bombers and whales as their projectiles are far easier to dodge when you are above them then when you are below because 1. as started earlier u cant climb as fast as u can drop, meaning you have more ways to dodge that rocket. 2. gravity allows bombers projectiles to travel faster giving them an advantage when you are below them. As the situation demands it of course you drop from high to low ground but you should never voluntarily have your team pushing low, make the other team have to force you from your high position.

ps- there are some exceptions for mirandas, but your team should have at max one miranda consistently going low any more and your team cannot be as effective high.

Keeping Track of How Many Players Are Alive/Dead:

It is very important that you have some general idea of the amount of players alive on BOTH teams at ALL times, especially so for bomb runners. This helps prevent you from flying into packs of enemies by yourself and also lets you know when you should be advancing or retreating on the map. Like if you see 2 of your teammates just died and they got a bomb coming it may be wise to fall back to a position you can defend optimally from, also if 2 members of the opposing team just died thats when you need to be getting more aggressive on their side of the map to solidify this advantage. For bomb runners especially this is one of several key factors (the others being visual information and what items your team has) in determining your time to push. I do this by watching the kills/deaths on the bottom left of my screen but some just constantly use tab to check, both methods work I just find mine to be easier. My method also lets you better gauge what the spawn time of these players will be to help you further time your movements, by using the tab method you are running the risk of all those dead spawning any time as you have no way to tell when these players died.

Pressing S:

Many people underestimate just how important a quick S finger is in the tbd game mode. It IS a skill and it is an ESSENTIAL for any neutral map. Your team mates who are not in the immediate vicinity will very often not be prepared for a counter push from the enemy team from the position you are in when you drop the bomb. It is very surprising to your teammates when a bomb that was in your possession flips to the other team in the neutral game mode and they will not be nearly as prepared for an enemy push as they would be if the enemy team had the bomb to begin with. For most players keeping a "better safe than sorry" philosophy to their S'ing is the best way to go as you will be handing the bomb over far more often then you will be succeeding at the risky play your attempting to make by not just dropping the bomb. This is not to say that you should always S the bomb at the first sign of danger but rather you should adopt a happy medium leaning towards dropping the bomb in such situations where applicable. There are times when your teammates in the immediate vicinity will out number the enemy and you are going to have to make judgement calls about whether to go for the hand off or just dropping the bomb. MOST of the time in all but situations where you have numbers just dropping the bomb will be the best choice but be sure you don't get excessively careful.

Reverse Thrust:

There is no circumstance in the tbd game mode where using reverse thrust will ever be superior to using turbo or ultra. It is very hard to be a team player when you are using reverse thrust and even if you get over the hurdle of effectively working with your team you will then just be a sub optimal teammate. Even the VERY few players who were capable of playing well with their teams while using reverse would have been seen higher performance by using their team play talents with a stronger perk. Reverse falls under the novelty perk classification, it is something different and fun to do when you are bored in a pub game. In my two years of playing despite countless attempts, reverse has never been able to establish itself in the competitive tbd scene. Ladder is part of the competitive tbd scene and by using reverse thrust you are automatically hurting your teammates who are doing their best to both win the game and hopefully keep the plane composition of your team effective. All but the very best reverse users also over use the hell out of their reverse at times when it is not needed causing them to be out of position a lot more often then they would be if they weren't. I am fully aware many reverse users do not care about their rating but the 4 teammates in the ladder game they are participating in most likely do and not honoring that is just really selfish. While yes some people are good at reverse, reverse isn't good so it doesn't really matter how good they are at it.

EMP>Acid:

EMP is the single most versatile ability in the entire game. It can stop entire teams in their tracks, disable turrets and it gives you an extra tool to use when running the bomb. Acid while not terrible, has poor utility compared to emp, is more difficult to manage your energy with and to top it off you can only fire one missile as opposed to the two you would with double fire. Acid is by a significant margin more difficult to be effective than emp with and even when used to its maximum potential a DF loopy of the same caliber will still be more helpful to his team. You basically give up too much to gain too little by choosing acid over emp.

ps- Double fire is significantly stronger than tracker, there is no question about it.

Overextension (with bomb): A lot of carriers begin to lose track of whats going on in the field when they smell an opportunity for a hit. Perhaps a lot of players on the opposing just died or you see nobody blocking your path. While these are both situations to be advancing on the map there is still room to be patient and allow your teammates to take the lead most of the time. This sets them up to make the crucial mistake of flying ahead of their team and not giving them a chance to lead the charge, greatly increasing the chance of getting picked off. Sometimes based on spawn times running in as quick as possible may very will be the best play, but 80% of the time its not. So while it still may succeed a portion of the time, every four out of every five times you try it you will not succeed. Impatience is one of the worst ways to squander such chances and flying ahead of your team more often then not is a mistake. You may not have much time to take advantage of a situation and now and then you do have to go alone, but most of the time you have at least a little bit of time to spend on letting your team get in position before you make the final lunge for the enemy base.

ps- keeping track of kill/deaths as mentioned previously is one of the key factors in determining how long you can wait for your team, if you can wait for your team and if its worth waiting for your team it is absolutely vital for bomb runners to be keeping track of how many players both teams have alive.

When and When Not To Lob: This is one of the most critical aspects of a good bomb runner. As a runner your objective should always be to wait until you can find the moment where you will have the absolute highest chance of success to hit your bomb. You should always, always, ALWAYS be taking the bomb as close as you possibly can to the base without having to lob it, the ONE exception being if you are keeping up well with the spawn times and believe a lob would have a better chance to hit the base before the opposing team spawns, because lobbed bombs move faster then your plane. Never just lob the bomb because you can, if your going to lob it do it when the opposing team has closed off all other options. Lobbing is a resort but it should almost always be the last resort, provided there has been no key emp or some player who was out of position rushing back. Countless base hits have been squandered by careless lobs, do not fall into this rhythm with your bomb running. Keep in mind that players rushing to get in your way, a player on your tail, low health + turrets are all acceptable reasons to lob. Sometimes a lob is the best play but it should never be your first choice.

[Kuja900]

Leading Out Your Carrier: This is a mistake that is very common in ladder. There are a lot of aggressive players that will try to pick your team's carrier off if he is left unattended. This happens most frequently when the carrier is leaving the base to make the transition to mid map. It’s absolutely painful for any team to have their bomb runner to be picked off in this manner, it doesn't matter if you got the opposing team camped in if you let your carrier get ambushed. To counterbalance this very common snipe attempt when a bomb runner spawns and is taking out the bomb (on the high route of course) another player on your team should always lead you out. By having a player lead the carrier out the carrier can see that player firing, getting shot at and that player ahead can use his vision to help guide the carrier. If the carrier watches this player he will have advanced warning of any ambushes coming and a 2v1 waiting for said ambushes, some additional knowledge of where enemies are based on where said player is aiming, and a man ahead of him who will have superior visual information. If you see no one else around and your carrier preparing to leave the base it is your responsibility to lead him out. The lead out's plane does not matter and there is no other task that player could be doing that would be more effective at that point in time meaning, so logically it should be getting done more often than not. Never just robotically leave your base a lot of players just develop a set rhythm of leaving their spawn to get back to mid map asap, this is just careless play and a bad habit that players need to force themselves out of. It is very important to be mindful of the field at all times and that includes your carrier’s need of a lead out.

There are of course exceptions to this, like if your team just scored 2+ kills it is a lot more safe to move without a lead out because your team will have a stranglehold on the map meaning not having a lead out is generally not as big of a deal.

Health Spawns: On nearly every map there is an item spawn somewhere near your team's spawn, and some even directly adjacent to it on maps like focus. A lot of the time when players don't need health or even when they do health spawns tend to sit in these spawns for large amounts of times and this is a big mistake. While these items are neutral, the large majority of the time the respective team will be the one receiving this item spawn due to shear geographical convenience. So of course when a health spawn occupies this item spawn other items are not spawning, meaning your team as a whole has less items then they would otherwise. Therefore it is fruitful to waste health spawns on the item spawns in and around your team's side of the map in an effort to allow your team to acquire more items giving your team an edge in the match. It is also helpful to leave health spawns in your opponent's in/near base item spawns so as to assure that they get less items then they would otherwise, provided you don't need them of course.

----------------

Please note I am posting the strategies I believe to be optimal. If you would like to civilly debate the merits of said strategies I will be happy to oblige. Comments, compliments and criticisms (as long as they are constructive) are all very welcomed.

[sunshineduck]

as a laser who spends 90% of the game flanking, it's much more helpful when the bomb runner/push go high. there are literally no drawbacks i can think of.

when the bomb goes low, it's still possible to flank, but because of gravity and the speed i'll be moving downwards the time i have to react to how the defense is set up and the actual time the laser weapon can be focused on the opponents. i find that when approaching from high the majority of kills have to come almost purely from warps, which is an extremely inefficient way to kill considering it takes more than 50% of a non-ultracap energy bar to warp.

when the bomb is high, it allows me to flank extremely well as well as usually get most of my laser into enemy planes as opposed to thin air. it also has the obvious advantage of allowing for much easier pickups.

another thing i noticed is kind of difficult to say in text, but i'll do my best (and supply an image).

explos typically have a set circling pattern in which they typically rotate as seen in the image below:



when your team's bomb approaches from high or straight on, the opposing explo will, naturally, turn in that direction and start spamming. at that point, i swoop in from below. typically the whale won't turn in the opposite direction of their natural circling pattern, which means that they have to turn upwards to 270 degrees just to shoot me with their missiles. the time that it takes a whale (even with flexy wings) to rotate is usually far more time than is needed to lazer/warp them to death. without flexy wings, they're whales in a barrel. if they're thermo/director, they won't have time to poop out more than one or maybe two mines, which is not enough to stop them from dying.

if they're remote, then there are two possible scenarios.

A) they fail to stop you with their remote mine and they die
B) they manage to stop you and have used up 50% of their outs defensively and likely have lost a significant chunk of health along with the mine. should be easy pickings for the actual push incoming.

basically, it's much more useful as a randa when your team has an organized push coming in hot from the high route. kind of went off on a whole different tangent, just thought i'd share some potentially useless info though ^^

[Ribilla]

Originally Posted by sunshineduck

longpost

QFT, this is especially evident on maps like cave and middleground.

[dr. carbon]

Furthermore, when holding the bomb, pressing into the <TAB> screen helps identify the total remaining defenders during a push. As you traverse the map, one should also keep note of the misplaced enemy defenders that are behind you or incapacitated (emp, healing on base, or too low on health) to judge when to make the last final lunge at the base.

[sunshineduck]

Originally Posted by dr. carbon

Furthermore, when holding the bomb, pressing into the <TAB> screen helps identify the total remaining defenders during a push. As you traverse the map, one should also keep note of the misplaced enemy defenders that are behind you or incapacitated (emp, healing on base, or too low on health) to judge when to make the last final lunge at the base.

wait so if you know this how come you never make use of the information?

mind = blown

[Kuja900]

Updated OP

[Kuja900]

Btdubs thanks for the assists in my explanation ssd that looked like a bit of work.

[Kuja900]

Updated again, btw many of the tips I am provided will be not minor but major improvements to your game so if there are any of them that you are not adhering to just try them out and see if your results improve. I bet anything they will.

edit: Can a mod move this to the guide section after they feel it gets appropriately long enough. I am not done updating this and I feel like I got a lot more to say.

[Demuyt]

Originally Posted by Kuja900

Updated again, btw many of the tips I am provided will be not minor but major improvements to your game so if there are any of them that you are not adhering to just try them out and see if your results improve. I bet anything they will.

edit: Can a mod move this to the guide section after they feel it gets appropriately long enough. I am not done updating this and I feel like I got a lot more to say.

Done. I enjoyed reading it by the way.

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by Demuyt

Done. I enjoyed reading it by the way.

This is my new outlet for venting ladder frustration lol

[Demuyt]

Originally Posted by Kuja900

This is my new outlet for venting ladder frustration lol

The reverse thurst part should be added to the lobby.

[A Nipple]

this guide is lurvelyyy!
just a few things I would add.
[1] in the scenario of 1v1 ambush on a bomb runner, the bomb runner should learn to be cautious and keep a charge available to at least damage the opposing player and scare him off if not kill him.
[2] pay attention to the bomb spawn (indicator to). Especially on neutrals. It does every player wonders not only for their team play, but for your skill level, as you become far more aware off the battle field. It is easy to fall into the pattern of just killing if your primary function is not to run the bomb, however at the end of the day it is a team and all are responsible for the bomb.
[3] lrn2lob™ effectively. As much as you should avoid lobbing when possible, if you do lob on a base where people are in the way, it helps to lob off their screen as it can often take them by surprise and fly past them on to their base when they least expect it!

neepneep

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by A Nipple

this guide is lurvelyyy!
just a few things I would add.
[1] in the scenario of 1v1 ambush on a bomb runner, the bomb runner should learn to be cautious and keep a charge available to at least damage the opposing player and scare him off if not kill him.
[2] pay attention to the bomb spawn (indicator to). Especially on neutrals. It does every player wonders not only for their team play, but for your skill level, as you become far more aware off the battle field. It is easy to fall into the pattern of just killing if your primary function is not to run the bomb, however at the end of the day it is a team and all are responsible for the bomb.
[3] lrn2lob™ effectively. As much as you should avoid lobbing when possible, if you do lob on a base where people are in the way, it helps to lob off their screen as it can often take them by surprise and fly past them on to their base when they least expect it!

neepneep

I'ma expand on point 2 you got there later. You guys let me know if you like what I am doing so if I know if I am wasting my time or not by posting more, I have a lot more.

Edit: some mod please rename this thread "Kuja's Guide to Tbd"

[Pieface]

This is great, look forward to moving it out of beta when you're done. Just thought I'd point out this though:

"80% of the time its not ... every three out of every four times you try it you will not succeed"

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by Pieface

This is great, look forward to moving it out of beta when you're done. Just thought I'd point out this though:

"80% of the time its not ... every three out of every four times you try it you will not succeed"

I was a bit of a lot out of my mind when I wrote all of that, still am. I am just going to be continuously adding to it forever really its never going to end until I completely run out of ideas which wont be soon. Are official guides forbidden from being edited continuously?

[Pieface]

You can still edit them once they're made official, but we'd prefer the guide to be mostly completed and polished before moving it over.

[sunshineduck]

Originally Posted by Pieface

You can still edit them once they're made official, but we'd prefer the guide to be mostly completed and polished before moving it over.

both my playing the lanes and tips for new posters guides are completed

:s

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by Pieface

You can still edit them once they're made official, but we'd prefer the guide to be mostly completed and polished before moving it over.

Well in terms of content it already has plenty more then a lot of the guides. I am pretty much just going to update it continuously.

[Flight 666]

Keeping Track of How Many Players Are Alive/Dead:

pressing tab all the time hurt my eyes (im a old i know rite)

they should make something like a stats...to shows whos dead.

this would make my job more easy.

ABOUT...

"When and When Not To Lob"

if u guys wants to know..ask me in game

[Ribilla]

Nice guide, might actually help get better ladder games

Originally Posted by Kuja900

Leading Out Your Carrier: This is a mistake that is very common in ladder. There are a lot of aggressive players that will try to pick your team's carrier off if he is left unattended. This in particular is very common when the carrier is leaving the base to make the transition to mid map. It’s absolutely painful for any team to have their bomb runner to be picked off in this manner, it doesn't matter if you got the opposing team camped in if you let your carrier get ambushed. To counterbalance this very common snipe attempt when a bomb runner spawns and is taking out the bomb (on the high route of course) another player on your team should always lead you out. By having a player lead the carrier out the carrier can see that player firing, getting shot at and that player ahead can use his vision to help guide the carrier. If the carrier watches this player he will have advanced warning of any ambushes coming and a 2v1 waiting (did you mean weighting)? for said ambushes, some additional knowledge of where enemies are based on where said player is aiming, and a man ahead of him who will have superior visual information.

[Kuja900]

No I didn't, I meant that you were prepared with 2 players, yourself and your lead out for any 1 player getting greedy and trying to ambush the carrier. A 2v1 situation.

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by Flight 666

Keeping Track of How Many Players Are Alive/Dead:

pressing tab all the time hurt my eyes (im a old i know rite)

they should make something like a stats...to shows whos dead.

this would make my job more easy.

ABOUT...

"When and When Not To Lob"

if u guys wants to know..ask me in game

Lol you just like to be flashy and have lag to abuse.

[XX1]

Could you include a section on how to break free from being trapped in your base or regain lost map control as well as keeping the mid-map in your grasp such as core, or middleground

[elxir]

Originally Posted by XX1

Could you include a section on how to break free from being trapped in your base or regain lost map control as well as keeping the mid-map in your grasp such as core, or middleground

don't die

flank

make enemy ded

???

profit

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by XX1

Could you include a section on how to break free from being trapped in your base or regain lost map control as well as keeping the mid-map in your grasp such as core, or middleground

Well I could, but what would you give me?

[Ribilla]

Moar pro-tips please.

[Kuja900]

Originally Posted by Ribilla

Moar pro-tips please.

Hah I have a few, wrote this whole thing in like 45 min when I ran out of things to do on adderal. I will update it soon.

[Boko]

This is the TBD bible.

[Kuja900]

Added an update, as I am back from vacation and laddering again expect more soon.

[Beagle]

Good tips, sensible guide, I like it.

Originally Posted by Kuja900

In my two years of playing despite countless attempts, reverse has never been able to establish itself in the competitive tbd scene.

If there are people apart from me who have seriously stuck with Rev I have yet to meet them. Unless "countless attempts" refers solely to me, or I'm ignorant, both possible. Not arguing against your opinion on the subject, just a turn of phrase I thought out of place.

[Kuja900]

Just btdubs everything in this guide about reverse thrust is still true after the patch

[Kuja900]

For new players reading this, when I say "competitive tbd" I am not talking about public servers I am talking about ladder games and clan league matches. Not much of this guide is very helpful for public server play.

[mled]

Gota say nice work on the guide kuja. Its gona come in real handy now and its detailed.
congrats on the nice job

[CmdrNoval]

Transferred to Steam on 5/11/17