Leonhardt, on December 14 2013 - 09:14 AM, said:
redslion, on December 14 2013 - 08:37 AM, said:
From my experience, against scouts you have to make distance, at least with Vanguards. Thus miniflak is much harder to use against them. If you stand at mid range, you make its Flak weaker, you can still land SMC and you can use Grenade Launcher (whose higher radius is a boon on those fights).
That means Flak brawlers have problems, IMHO. At hugging distance, a dodge is enough to bring scout away from you. You can counter dodge to correct the aim, but it's still hardly enough. And Scout dodges more often.
Might those things be correct, or am I wrong_ I'm kinda nooby and casual (played for a year and still level 18, because I used to play for some time, the stop for months, then play again, rinse and repeat), so I'm probably wrong.
So in a brawler you can't really create distance, but you can use the momentum of the scout to artificially create space. When they boost up to you dodge in accordance to keep them in POV. Even though your dodge cooldown is longer you have enough health and fuel to maintain good positioning.
Also I find the mini flak to be better than the SMC on the Vanguard, but that is a personal choice.
Just to elaborate on this a little bit...
If you just let a Scout run up to you and facehug you in a Brawler, you're down but not out. Ideally, you would avoid the situation entirely. You should be keeping a very close eye on your radar, and any dot moving right towards your position should tell you to face it and do as much damage as you can or fall back to a better position. The Brawler may be slow, but its health still does confer a pretty large advantage. If you trade blows with a Scout, he'll have to fall back long before you do. Even one good flak or TOW hit before he gets all up in your grill can decide the fight in your favor (or even make them think twice). Also bear in mind that if you have buddies around, that pesky Scout is a great deal easier to hit from their perspective. It might be worthwhile to run and dodge around to try and extend your life and hope supporting fire can bring him down.
But, of course, that's not super useful advice if you round a corner and SCOUT IN YO FACE. So, as Leon said, you have to dodge to maintain distance. As was mentioned, the Scout can match your dodge, but two things: one, that's actually pretty hard to do in an intense fight where he's also trying to keep weapons aimed on you; and two, Scouts run out of fuel
really fast. Even if he is riding your tail, it won't be too long before he's either walking or popping his ability (a Scout that uses its ability to win a firefight is probably in a pretty bad position, since a large portion of that reservoir will be used to finish up, resulting in say half a tank for escape... not great).
But less talk on outlasting and more talk on techniques. So first off, conserve your dodges. Dodges are pretty much the only way you can change momentum quickly. If you try to change directions by just walking, you will feel like you are standing still for an eternity (and in the eyes of a Scout player, you might as well be). The idea here is that if you are moving left (thus moving your cursor right to track your target), the Scout might try to dodge past you in the direction you are walking to throw off your aim. So, you want to move right to create distance again. You need a dodge to do this. Not having one can really suck, so conserve them for the right time. With practice, this will become the basic open-ground fighting pattern that you can rely on for fighting Type-A's.
And what if there's cover_ Even better! Put some between you and the Scout. Hugging it too closely can be detrimental, since your opponent might be able to hit you around the corner with a TOW. Ideally, you should be as far away from the cover as the Scout is, with the cover mostly just blocking LOS. Then it's just a game of pulling him into your pace and not falling into his. A big part of why I run for cover is to get a split second to breath and find my center so to speak. Again, trading shots, you'll win every single time. Have some patience and don't lose your cool. It's really important to remember that you can take a few shots and still be ahead.
Edit: Also, I think it's important to note that these recommendations try to describe what I do in a fight, but I don't think most can expect to be all "Oh, that's all" and then just do it. It takes some practice. You have to get a feel for the fight and basically practice (i.e. play the game while mixing up techniques and trying new things in a fight and so on and so forth) until it becomes intuition. I mean, that describes pretty well why i have trouble teaching others how to play Brawler. I just find the movements and the tactics and everything... intuitive. There's not that much higher-level thought going on during a fight. Sometimes, sure. But mostly I just... know... or feel... or something, I guess. Most analysis comes after the fight. Oh that was silly of me; I should have done X or Y sort of thing. Essentially, don't give up immediately. It took me a very long time before I could follow top-level Scout players (and even now I still lose track of them sometimes).
Edited by Daronicus, December 14 2013 - 03:08 PM.
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