Chasing 101

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shaskie

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Hey guys, it's shaska / blaze / powah / a whole bunch of usernames I've used in the past. I'll be telling you guys the basics of chasing, and I will be providing in game tutorials, pugs, pubs, you name it. Not just for chasing, but for any position!

I just took this definition from Sin because it was spot on, except added one thing.

Chaser- Defense/Offense. Most people prefer Light, although Medium can be viable. Kill the enemy flag carrier. When your flag is home, stay at base, and call out incoming cappers for your HoF. This includes how far out they are, and from what side. If the capper grabs your flag, kill him and either hold the flag, or return it to your base. In standoffs, you pretty much turn into LO until your flag is returned or captured. A chaser should mainly practice his skiing, flag returning, and high-speed gunning.

Sin has this all correct, but also, if you can kill any LO at your base, do it before you leave to chase if they are out the back or on a long return. If you are a highly skilled chaser, the 4-5 seconds really shouldn't matter too much.

I will be breaking down the key components of chasing right here. There is a lot.

Skiing: First and foremost, learn to ski! You can't catch a capper if you don't know how to ski. Practice skiing by yourself in your own server, or practice in pubs. Get comfortable with whatever armor you have selected, and learn it's speed and jet consumption.

Combos: Comboing is the easiest way to catch up to cappers, and I will be showing you guys a video on the basics of comboing after this is posted. To perform a combo, simply have the boost grenade selected, and shoot either a rocket or a grenade at it right after throwing it. Get used to the timing, and how much health it takes. Once you get comfortable with comboing, you're gonna perform better and more complex things the better you are with them. You need to learn how to actually combo in a duel, learn to use them while skiing, combo catching, ect. It's the basic way to catch up to cappers, so keep practicing them!

Aim: If you can catch up with the capper, that's not doing any good unless you know how to shoot em' down! That sounded pretty stupid. Moving forward. Have a comfortable mouse speed that lets you turn around quickly and track players with no discomfort. It took me a while before I got my sensitivity down, so don't get down if you can't find one that works for you yet! A very good tip is to not change it a lot. If you just your sensitivity, and then change it again right after, you will most likely not hit the shots you normally hit. You need to get your hand and eyes adjusted to how fast your cursor on your screen is moving, and how fast or slow your hand is moving to aim at targets. You should also have reticles that you are comfortable with too! I use the default reticles, it doesn't really matter what you use, just pick what you like.

Flag Awareness: To chase the proper way, you need to have a good sense of flag awareness on the field. Pay attention to both of the enemy flags at all times. A prime mistake I see a lot of chasers make is, they shift their attention over to the enemy teams flag, and just leave the capper to go home freely. That's the cappers job. It all depends on the situation, sometimes I may abandon the chase to catch a pass my team mate has thrown to base, toss it to the Hof or Stay at home, and continue with the chase. Most of the time though, your flag is more important than the enemies, since you are the only chaser on the team, you need to do your job.

Cut off routes: When chasing the enemy teams capper, cutting them off is the most efficient way to catch up to them. You never want to just follow where ever they go, in the same pattern as them, because they will cap on you every single time. Look around various maps and find out good routes to cut off cappers, that take the least amount of time and provide the best speed. I don't really use cut off routes anymore, I just combo twice and I'm there (lol fix combos) but having set cut off routes is a good idea if you haven't fully mastered the combos yet.

Weaponry: A lot of times, I see chasers only going for midairs when chasing. Never do that, unless you are god like. The easiest loadout to use when chasing is the chaingun, and the rocket launcher, since they are the 2 most efficient weapons in the game, they will do you a great deal when chasing. If a capper gets out, always combo first, then chain, then rocket. That's basically the order I chase in, or if they are going super slow then I get the midair. A lot of chasing depends on situation, but don't be stupid about using the wrong weapon when chasing the player a certain way, the best way to think of it is, you always need to be dealing out damage to the capper to keep them on their toes and to not let them rocket jump or do any other method of gaining more speed than they already have, you need to damage them as much as possible, and as fast as possible.

Arriving at the enemy base: If you do not kill the capper on his/her route home, you need to kill the capper at the enemy base now. When arriving to the enemy base, you shouldn't have 100% ever. I always chase with below 50%. Pilot kiwi is notorious for using the super combo, which takes him down to 14% all the time. He is a great chaser, but I think that using the traditional combo technique is better. (Which is just comboing 2-3 times, not just wasting your health on one) Once you arrive at the enemy base, you are in no condition ready to take on the job of killing the flag holder with 3 other defenders right there. You need to heal up, so the easiest way to do that is to just hide in their base, regen, and get back out there. Or you can just intercept the flag when the capper tosses it home, god like. Anyways, regen to about 75% health or more, and get back into killing the flag holder. In pugs, we have certain people who kill what. Usually, you have 4 people on return. 1-2 people killing the holder, and the other 2 killing the people the flag holder will pass to. You need to be smart about where the passer will throw, and get in the middle of that pass! I intercept dozens of flags during standoffs because I'm just aware, and come at the right times. Don't worry, once you get the awareness down, it's as easy as catching a flag! joke joke.

Defending the flag: Basically, when both flags are home, you have a few options. You can be stupid like me and combo into the cappers and od them to make them really mad, or you can just play chase normally. Normally, chasers simply only call out cappers and then chase them, while I play stay d / chase because I'm a huge point *lady friend* and I like taking peoples kills, so I basically play those 2 positions the whole game. I tend to midair people when the come in, rather than body blocking because I think it's easier. Whatever way works for you on stopping cappers the best, do it. Once again, the best options are to body block, od troll them, midair them, or ground and pound the *dance* out of the stand like black hawk does. Once the capper gets out, just apply the steps I showed you, practice them, and one day you too will be a super saiyan!

Extras: Using different weapons in chasing adds spice to the game, and adds certain advantages and disadvantages. I prefer using snipe chase, simply because I'm really lazy and I just snipe the capper going out, then go return it. Envy has used the plasma / GL, Pilot has used the Bolt, a lot of the great chasers use different weapons. In my opinion, get comfortable with the chaingun and rocket launcher, because those are the best starting weapons to any chaser, and if you want to, use a different weapon!

I've probably left out a few things, but Chasing is my main position, and if you have any questions let me know! I wasn't put as the #1 chaser in NA for nothing, so don't be shy!

Have a nice day ;)

Also, I know godlike can be used as one word, I'm just really tired and I don't wanna re read it and fix them.
 
Pretty good there, sometimes I like to play Catch-Up instead of Cut-off. I lol'ed at the 3rd last line, until I realized Envy doesn't play anymore. I don't know about Phana either, he told me he was going to come back during the summer. But, so far, you've stepped up into the spot.
 

loc

#1 Private Tester
Another valuable lesson to learn that Shaska forgot to mention, not only in gaming but in real life is to NEVER quit on your team. Even if there's less than a minute or two left and you're losing, finish the game or task at hand. Win or lose you'll gain more respect if you follow this simple rule.
 
Catch-Up, a random word? It was a term Envy used to explain chasing to me. He pretty much made it into 2 aspects. Cut-off and Catch-up.
If you look up catch-up in google search, you'll find atleast 7+ dictionary sites explaining it.
catch up1. To move fast enough to attain the same progress as another; draw even:

Let's imagine there's 2 groups of planes. We'll call them Alpha and Beta just for this explanation. If Alpha planes are heading straight to a point, Beta team has 2 options of attacking them. They can do cut-off, which is intercepting them by attacking them on their side. Or, they can do catch-up, which is getting directly behind them and then chasing them from there, by gaining speed on them.

Here's another example: A robber in a high speed car chase is traveling in a straight line. A cutoff can be applied, if a cop car is placed in front, or he rams into the robber's car in the side. Another is catch-up, which is getting directly behind them and then gaining speed to catch-up.

what happened to rj??

As most vets have said, nade jumps are easier, and require no skill. Thus, is much easier to chase with.
 

Vox

Member
How do you do the supercombo(like the one you said kiwi does which kills off most of his health but sends him flying)?
 
How do you do the supercombo(like the one you said kiwi does which kills off most of his health but sends him flying)?

Doing super combo on the floor below you, will get you good speed and great altitude. The one Kiwi does is doing it at side on the floor next to you, less altitude, but increased speed. Same effect if you do it behind you, instead of under.

Edit: I've seen Envy do it ALOT of times on Frostbyte. Helps explain how he manages to catch flag very quickly.
 
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