Oyster's guide to hunter style in bladder

[Oyster]

I've been working on this at work for the past couple weeks, adding stuff as it came to me. This is a snapshot into my play style which is pretty kill heavy and plays very differently than flashy self-passing randa styles.

Hopefully it will spur some discussion. If you agree/disagree with something I've posted, lets talk about it!

Also, if y'all have anything to add, please feel free to post and I'll update the OP.

Thanks guys! Hopefully you all enjoy this as much as I have in making it.

General Info
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~ Positioning
- You are either playing on the ball, finding an item, retreating or killing the other team.
- Killers can play off the ball and pressure reinforcement lanes to get easy kills off of the newly spawned who are frantic to reach the offscreen ball. Be sure to only do this when you are confident your team can handle defense without your presence.

~ Ball control/passing
- if the area in front isn't clear, don't be afraid to loop around and find a teammate for a drop pass.
+ almost always better to pass to a teammate rather than huck the ball and lose possession, unless you can get a long clear.
+ drops passes are risky because you will lose massive yardage if you miss, but can be useful to maintain possession.
- if your team is behind you and you are confident they can clean up, it's better to die and let the ball fall rather than huck it forward and give the enemy different, more vulnerable angles to attack.


~ Item camping
- Items tend to draw activity, so there is a higher chance to meet an enemy playing off the ball.
- Look for items, but be careful not to sacrifice a push opportunity or get passed by a fast ball mover.
- Health packs should be taken asap on your side to make room for other items and left alone on the enemy's side to block more useful items.
- Learn what lanes you can take which overlap with item spawns and make them your standard fly lanes.
- Use your item before you die so the other team won't get it.
- Most people gravitate towards item spawns, so they make for good targets to pre-shoot at.

~ Playing off the ball
- Most people blindly chase the ball and completely ignore players not directly in their path. You can take advantage of this opportunity to blindside them, but be careful not to leave the ball mover (bait) too exposed.
- If you leave the ball, you can fight in places people don't expect to be engaged and get the jump on those who are only following the minimarker


Offense
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~ Openings
- Blindly rushing forward at the beginning is bad.
+ If a lone explo takes a forward position and dies, it is so much easier for the other team to bypass the defense. If two whales are on a team, one can afford to take an offensive position while the other hangs back for defense.
- Rush openings will pick a lane and send every plane at the same time to overwhelm the defense with a unified push. You will occassionally see this in bladder, but it's rare to get everyone to work together.
+ Delayed rushes are same as a regular rush, just slightly delayed so the enemy team has flown around a little bit and isn't so concentrated. Usually wont see this unless it's league play.
- Lob openings are bad since they immediately give away ball control.

~ Progressing the ball
- Possessing space is the safest way to advance the ball. If you fly ahead of your ball carrier and claim that area, you are buying them space to safely fly forward
- Prioritizing kills isnt necessary while on offense, but it certainly helps keep the push and ball carrier alive if the other team is dead.
+ Target explodets first since they have the largest impact on defense, followed by loopies/randa since they are easy to kill and will delay/prevent any quick transitions if there is a turnover.
- Forward passing
+ Passing to open space lets the receiver make some evasive moves of his own before being locked into everyone's radar. Passes to randas should try to be made a warp ahead.
+ Passing directly to a teammate is the safer play; however, you should be careful to not pass to someone who is about to die or in position to be swarmed if they catch the ball.
+ Flying in front of the ball carrier for passes can be tricky, but is often the best way to progress the ball. Be careful of sneaky planes trying to intercept and be ready to double back on a turnover because you will be way out of position if you are flying ahead. Also, ballhogs don't always pass.
- Pushes
+ Shoot at targets in front of your ball handler so he has room to advance (duh).
+ shields are tailor made for pushes and should always lead the pack.
+ Shoot and fly forward of the ball, but be wary of sneaky defenders sliding in behind to snipe the ball carrier.
- Gaurding the ball carrier can mean clearing the area of threats and using your plane to soak up damage intended for the carrier

~ Red Zone
- Taking the lead to kill enemies in front of the goal is the best way to help your team score in the red zone.
- You can trail behind the ball to push from behind and clean up any loose balls/stop turnover transitions before they take off.
- Being in a heavier plane means dunking is more viable. Dunking is very safe since there is no threat of turnover due to interception or a bad shot as long as you are healthy.
- Don't rush the attack or force any shots that you know aren't going to score.
- Flying offsides is a great way to cherry pick a goal

[Oyster]

Defense
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~ Defending an opening
- Don't overly press forward. Claim your territory around the 50 yard line and defend.
- A fast kamikaze hoping to snipe the ball carrier is viable, but usually gets shut down leaving your team essentially playing a man down. A kamikaze defensive start is a gamble and requires good evasion skill to slip through the first offensive line without dying
- You can use the precious few seconds at the start to move around the backfield for items, but don't waste too much time away from the ball.
- Explodets should always begin defense by circling to the back.

~ Clears
- Since clears are usually made out of desperation, try to put the ball in a friendly reinforcement lane or, if that's not possible, to the spot that best allows your team the most time to respawn
- anticipate enemies line of approach and take unorthodox paths
- look for extreme top or bottom clears since the ball can usually move a great distance in these open areas
- The safest play is to clear it towards your team's respawning area, but be careful because that lane is usually also a high traffic area for enemy reinforcements.

~ Zone Defence
- Controlling space is key to defense. As a whale this means prepping the area with mines. As a hunter, this means getting in position to take an unorthodox angle to get the drop on someone who enters their space.
- pre-firing on choke points is the most common way to defend. While it is effective at making a lane unattractive for a ball mover, it gives away your position.
+ a skilled hunter can force the ball runner to fly in a specific lane by pre-firing down a choke to scare them away from it, then switch to the new lane that they pushed the ball runner into. They will expect you to be following your bullets when in fact you've surprised them with a frontal engagement

~ Marking players
- Some players are excellently skilled and greatly impact the game no matter their role. They need to be guarded and hunted whether or not they have the ball. This includes hunters who are murdering your team, randas or loopies who are focusing solely on the ball and defensive whales that are halting any offensive plays.
- Ball runners need constant pressure and should be smothered with pressure. Most of the time, they will not be able to handle being marked and will make a mistake.
- If you apply constant pressure to ball movers and potential ball movers, they will have less room to make big plays

~ Guarding the lob
- Rarely will someone take the ball from coast to coast. This means at some point in their run they will either pass or lob it. Expect the ball to come loose once the runner starts taking fire. If you are trailing behind the action, try to anticipate where the opponent is going to clear the ball and get to that area before it flies into the backfield.
- Guarding the lob is the easiest way to minimize negative yardage and is a great way to slow down a push's progression
- A successful lob guard usually gives you a chance to create a scoring opportunity off of a quick turnover.

~ Lost ball
- Some maps have kill spots for the ball that you can drop into on defense
- Hard to reach corners with chokes that can be easily defended are good places to delay or force a lost ball

Combat
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~ Guarding the pass
- In the same vein of guarding the lob, passes can be guarded too. Fly in between the ball and the intended receiver to force the runner to keep possession of the ball and slow down the attack.
- The best way to shut down a passing play is to kill the receiver before they catch a pass. Only go after the ball carrier if you are sure you can kill him before he can get rid of the ball or if the attack is getting too close to the goal. Otherwise, you are wasting time and energy hitting a target that is just a link in the passing chain

~ Stall/delay tactics
- pushing injured planes away from the play with suppressive fire
- leading a tail away from the action

~ 50/50 balls
- you have two plays on 50/50 balls: kill everyone around you THEN pick up the ball or try to reach the ball first and make a quick pass/lob

Mistakes
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~ Turnovers happen due to careless passes/clears or if the ball carrier gets sniped. The best way to deal with it is to immediately accept that the ball has changed directions and stop whatever you are doing to fly back towards the ball for defense.

~ Out of position
- If you fly outside of the action behind the enemy team, either suicide if you are too far or drift back towards the ball. It can be extremely helpful to stay offsides to cherry pick and kill from behind when you are confident your defense can handle the forward threat.

~ Bad composition
- Most games need at least 1 whale for defense and 1 light (randa) dedicated to moving the ball. Not uncommon to need two whales on defense in tighter maps.
- Usually you need at least 1 acid or emp loopy for crowd control. Emp if the map has a lot of turns or a really good randa handler. Acid if your team is heavy and can dish out a lot of damage.
- Certain maps affect optimal composition. Larger maps favor loopy spam and director explodets. Smaller maps are better for bips and thermo

[Fartface]

tl;dr but i like it

[REDDRAGON]

you've had no success in ball: you can barely break out of 1k, and you haven't meaningfully participated in any league games. what makes u think u have anything meaningful to contribute? furthermore (since this is apparently a guide to ur specific style) what makes u think ur style is good? based on literally all the evidence, i.e. ur record and me seeing u in ladder, u are bad, and by extension ur style is too
it should also be noted that u r not taken seriously in any way in the competitive community, this isn't just me


as for the actual text

first of all a lot of the lingo is, i imagine, unclear for a large portion of ur demographic. in particular, **** like:

"Gaurding[sic] the lob is the easiest way to minimize negative yardage ..."

(hint: there is no yardage in euro football)
the ****ing plus-minus formatting makes no sense, and the formatting in general is annoying to read. you have list, indents, bolds, italics, fonts and font sizes, LISTS, etc, all at ur disposal. if u want ppl to read a long text, u gotta work for it a little, i mean ****

speaking of having to work a little: there are a lot of spelling mistakes, which is who-gives-a-**** intrinsically, but are indicative of u not even reading through ur own text after u were done. brutal sign


as for the actual tips

this is nothing but a glorified collection of all the platitudes u get thrown at u while playing ladder. stuff that everyone knows and stuff that doesn't actually help. u give a general idea of what one needs to do but not the indepth discussion of execution. might as well tell us to score 6 times. here's an example:

"Since clears are usually made out of desperation, try to put the ball in a friendly reinforcement lane or, if that's not possible, to the spot that best allows your team the most time to respawn"

basically: don't clear into the enemy. i bet even lou could've told me this. oh, and about that negative yardage quote earlier: HOLY ****, REALLY? "catch the ball so it doesn't keep rolling towards ur side"... if only i had KNOWN SOONER

"you have two plays on 50/50 balls: kill everyone around you THEN pick up the ball or try to reach the ball first and make a quick pass/lob"

u dont say buddy. nobody sets out to not kill ppl AND get the ball second. they're not ****ing up in the planning stages, they're just not executing correctly. holy ****ing **** this tip is actually useless

also, i thought this was a guide to the oyster-hunter style. including all this general **** dilutes it to the point where it's meaningless. right now this is a general ball guide, and a bad one at that. u want to list a few, in-depth pointers on unconventional responses to conventional situations; that's how u delineate a style

general, common knowledge **** like this adds nothing to a community of this size. gameplay-wise there's nothing to discuss here

[sunshineduck]

ye i agree with all of rd's points but overall a good guide 10/10 recommend to all ur friends

[Oyster]

thanks guys glad you liked it

i'll be following this up with another guide for randas soon, so hold on to your britches

[Mulu]

That might be useful.