Friday, February 02, 2018

Succeeding at Titanfall 2: Weapons, Boosts, Kits, and Ordinance

[NOTE: One in a series of posts on my Titanfall 2 experience. Find the intro article with links to others here.]

Over the year I’ve played I’ve settled into a comfy groove with my equipment. Here’s a few thoughts on my fave and not-so-fave items.

Weapons

Hopefully you remember that my preferred play style is engaging mid- to long-range. I’m also not the most accurate or fastest shooter. Ergo, my preferred weapons give me a stable shooting platform with either burst mode or modest, controllable recoil. I also prefer weapons that work well shooting both from the hip and Aiming Down the Sights (ADS).

For the weapons mods I use almost exclusively extended ammo and quick reloads across all weapons. While I like the Gun Ready mod for faster ADS, I’ve found it’s just not as good a tradeoff for me. Same with quick swap—the payoff just isn’t there for my style of play.

Hemlock: My go-to weapon. It’s great in hip fire, and I can snipe at very long range. The burst mode gives me several rounds accurately on target, and I can knock out pilots with two bursts. Normally. When I’m playing well.

Flatline: Second favorite weapon. Great impact, solid accuracy both from hip fire and ADS, even at longer range. Moderate recoil is controllable for me when I’m shooting past mid-range.

Devotion: My go-to weapon for Frontier Defense due to its huge ammo capacity, especially when modded up with extra ammo. Beautiful at close range with hip aiming, solid at mid-range ADS. Squirrely at long range, but hey, it’s an LMG.

Kraber: One shot, one kill. Fast reload mod is a must. This is one weapon that I will regularly use the Gun Ready mod for faster ADS. This gun isn’t great for several of the maps with constricted sight lines (think Rise or Glitch), but it’s lots of fun on Angel City, Exoplanet, Homestead, and Boomtown.

Note: This gun is killer awesome in round one of Frontier Defense on Angel City, especially in Normal difficulty. Grab your Kraber, jump up and perch on one of the high towers in the courtyard and rain death down upon the mortar specters. I played with a dude who scored 260 points the first round using this approach. My best has been 210-ish.

G2: Great damage, poor at hip firing. I’m also somewhat slowish on the trigger, so this semi-auto is harder for me to play—but it’s great for wailing away on the same maps the Kraber’s good at. It’s also a great weapon for covering the long angles in Forward Base Kodai.

Note: I had the misfortune to play a match against some high-flying, rain-death-on-everyone-from-above jerkface of awesomeness who spent the entire match on Angel City mid-air leaping from wall to wall, or catapulting himself around with the grapple while shooting everyone everywhere with the G2. He got like 40 kills in the match, half of which seemed to be against me. He’d be mid-air and firing off rounds, on target, like the G2 was a fully automatic rifle. I was in a HULK RAGE because I was getting killed so often, but it was awe-inspiring to watch the kill replays and see how crack this guy was.

Cold War: I love, LOVE, LOVE this weapon for Bounty Hunt. See my notes about it in the Game Modes post.

CAR: I like this gun just fine. Good accuracy, nice damage. I don’t play it much because there’s other weapons I prefer.

R–97: I don’t play well at closer ranges, so I tend not to use this much. But it sounds wicked cool when it fires. Same reason I love the Vector in Call of Duty Squads. So I do run it every once in awhile for fun. Because why not?

Shotguns: No. Just. No. Like I’ve said, me no likey close range combat. I got all my shotguns to Gen 2 just to prove I could, then stopped playing them.

DMR: I do not play this gun well. I just don’t. I get killed by lots of folks who do play it well and I think they’re all disco-loving phone spam call center jerk faces. Or something. I forced myself to play this enough to get Gen 2 because I hated it and refused to let it control me, then I put the thing in a deep, hidden, unmarked grave. Like Jimmy Hoffa or Chuck Schumer’s conscience it will never see the light of day again.

Alternator: Beloved weapon of the crazed crackhead monkey wall-running space flying stim-boosted kids who kill me all the time. I just don’t play it well. I hit Gen 2 with it and put it to rest in the same grave with the DMR.

Others: The other weapons are OK, just not what I prefer. The Double-Take is kind of neat, the Spitfire has too much recoil for me, and the rest are shruggsville. I’ve hit Gen 2 with all my weapons, so I do feel I have had enough game play with them to understand their pros and cons for my style of play.

Anti-Titan Weapons

After having run all the weapons I stick with the Thunderbolt pretty much exclusively. It doesn’t need a lock on, does area of effect damage, and can be fired off at a group of Titans. Its drawbacks are it’s slow, and it blows up if you hit an obstacle before the enemy. It works great against Reapers, stuns stalkers and specters, and will damage pilots too. Yay, big-ass-electro-gun!

The other AT weapons aren’t bad, and I will run the Archer occasionally. The Thunderbolt is just what I prefer. I think I’m up to Gen60 with mine.

A Thought or Two on Sights

Find a sight that works well for your style of play. I love the HCOG and have been using it exclusively for months. It takes away field of vision when you’re ADS, but it works well at all ranges for me.

The Threat Sight is a mid-range sight that highlights enemies when you’re ADS. This can be a big help when you’re working on your proficiency. I used it early on, but switched to the HCOG after I got more proficient at aiming. The Threat Sight takes away your second weapon mod, so it’s an opportunity cost there. Still, it can be helpful as you’re working on your game play style.

I also used this when leveling up my DMR because I hate that gun and had trouble with it. Now I don’t worry about it any more. See comments about unmarked grave in section above…

Ordinance

I’ve run the Firestar solely for months. I love its area of effect, I love that I can damage and blind Titans with it, and I love its range.

The other ordinance options are all solid, and I’ve played them a fair amount. Gravity Star is just plain wicked fun, but it doesn’t do a damned thing against Titans, and it barely knocks dust off Reapers.

So I stick with the Firestar.

Pilot Kits

I’ve come to the place where I use Phase Embark and Titan Hunter exclusively. Phase Embark’s speed of getting into my Titan can be crucial if I’m hurt, or if my Titan’s engaged. Titan Hunter helps me get my Titan faster. Yay, Titans!

Ordinance Expert is nice because it shows you the arc of where your ordinance will hit. This is a great training aid as you’re learning. I moved off it once I got moderately comfy understanding the arc my ordinance would travel.

Fast Regen is also good, especially when you’re like me and tend to spend time in Leeroy Jenkins mode running into battles wiser folks might not.

All the other kits, for my style, are boring or unhelpful.

Boosts

I’ve run the Pilot Sentry as my main boost for a long, long time. It helps me lock down hardpoints, control fire lanes, kill off bounty Remnant forces, and generally annoy the hell out of opposing pilots.

The Titan Sentry is good as well, but doesn’t seem to do as well for me.

All the other boosts are fine, although I am damned proud to say I have not once used the Smart Pistol. Not. Once. I lived on the Smart Pistol in TF1, but I’m happy with how well I’ve progressed in my gun skills in TF2.

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