On the proper utilization of missiles on Gold:
First, do not be afraid to use all of your missiles, you stingy bastards.
Secondly, when you are using a missile, it should either A) significantly shorten a wave, making you more credits for your time investment and making things a lot easier for everyone, or
avert what could otherwise be an extremely sticky situation. These are your GOALS. The better you are using missiles, the better these two goals will be accomplished.So, here's some tips on how to better accomplish those goals, including some that go beyond simple common sense.
-REMEMBER:
- Missile explosions can hit through walls.
- Missiles actually do decreasing damage the farther away from the center of the blast the enemy is... it's not actually an instant kill. It has an actual damage value which can be boosted by the likes of Tactical Cloak or Adrenaline Rush for a bigger killzone.
- It is better to run out of missiles than it is to run out of medigel.
- Unlike lower difficulties, there is no cap to the number of "boss" enemy respawns on Gold, and thus trying to remove a heavy enemy type from the field early in a wave with missiles does not work.
- Missiles can be blocked by an ally jumping in front of your line of fire.
- Use all your missiles on wave 11. You've already got your money, and the wave is always going to be 2 minutes. Use all your missiles up on earlier waves.
- Use missiles on wave 1 or 2.
- Use up a missile on enemies that are already being heavily focused fired by teammates and will die eminently without your help.
- Use up a missile just to kill one or two Atlasses or Banshees while enemies are still spawning, unless it is in a key position where it needs to be killed RIGHT NOW to avoid bad things happening. You'll just make more Atlasses and Banshees spawn and if you can't handle one Atlas, you probably shouldn't be playing on Gold.
- Aim directly at the enemy, unless the enemy is sufficiently easy to hit like an Atlas. I do not want to see your missile flying past a banshee and out into the wild blue yonder.
- Actually wait until you're hopelessly surrounded and getting meleed by a swarm of phantoms at point blank range to try to switch to your missile launcher, using up 5 medigels and ops packs in the process as you get repeatedly downed whle switching weapons.
- Use missiles to "clear out enemies faster" on Objective waves before the objective is complete. The enemies will simply respawn instantly.
- Wait until you actually see the objective target (or shoot it a few times) THEN switch to your missile while taking fire. Whip out that thing right when the target is announced.
- Waste time clearing a path through endlessly respawning mobs on your way to a target you intend to missile. Just run around them.
- Shoot the floor, walls, or even ceiling to position your shot. Sufficiently bulky and ponderous enemies like Brutes and Atlasses can also serve as good targets for positioning a shot if you don't have a clear shot at an optimal section of floor or wall.
- Remember where enemies spawn at the beginning of waves. Then, immediately when a (non-objective) wave begins, rush crowded enemy spawn points right off the bat and get a massive killstreak with a missile, thus dramatically thinning out a wave. This is especially efficient on later waves.
- You can take the last point a step further by learning where enemies will respawn immediately after you blast apart that first spawn point for a killstreak, so you can dash right to it for more carnage. This video link demonstrates me using this tactic to take out a huge portion of Wave 9 Gold Reapers by myself in a very short period of time using one missile.
- Be an opportunist. If you see 4 phantoms and 2 atlasses and a bunch of mooks all bunched together on a non-objective wave (or after an objective is completed and enemy spawns have stopped), blast 'em for a killstreak!
- If you have a target mission, and the target is one of the most durable enemy types (Atlas, Banshee, Prime), try to missile the target and catch other potential target objective enemy types in the blast. Due to the way the spawning system works, this will usually cause the new target to switch types to something more easily killed for the rest of the objective wave (such as switching from Atlas to Guardian, Nemesis, or Phantom). If you simply kill an X alone, the next target will likely be another X. If you get significant collateral damage, it'll almost always switch to something else. Missiling 1 Atlas and then killing 3 Guardian targets is much easier and faster than killing 4 Atlas targets. You can see this tactic demonstrated in the Geth Infiltrator videos in my sig.
- Missiling the targets of target objectives in general is good if you have missiles to spare.
- Recognize what kind of enemy the target of a target objective is just because of its pattern of movement as indicated by the cursor through walls, judge whether you should use a missile on that type of target, and then don't bloody hesitate. Whip out your missile launcher right away, sprint to the target ignoring enemies in your path (just weave around them), and blow it away.
- See a bad situation coming and get your missile launcher out BEFORE the **** hits the fan. Maintain some situational awareness so that you can pre-empt the situation where you will be cornered with no way out, rather than getting pummelled while trying to switch weapons.
- Use missiles to clear out the last few problem enemies of a wave when all of your teammates are down and you are not capable of reliably soloing. Remember to maintain a realistic understanding of your own ability level. It is better to use up a missile than it is to use up medigel. Even if you're a decent player, two banshees left with only you alive could glitch and pull you 30 feet through a wall or something and end the run on wave 9.
- Clear a path to downed allies in the midst of a horde of enemies in order to save them when you otherwise might not have been able to revive them. This applies especially if it would allow you to save multiple allies.
- Use a missile to clear out a large group of enemies blocking you from activating/deactivating an objective so that you do not waste time chewing through them or leading them off, and can thus get a higher money bonus.
- Use a missile to prevent an enemy like a banshee or phantom that you otherwise cannot stop in time from interrupting a teammate activating/deactivating a device objective so that s/he does not have to start all over again, particularly if such a delay would threaten to allow enemies to overrun the objective's position.
- Use a missile to clear out a hacking objective once it is almost overrun, and not a moment before. Don't fire a missile the second a banshee gets to the circle (the sooner you kill the banshee, the sooner it will instantly respawn and be right back up in your face). Instead, kite around inside that circle with your teammates for as long as possible, then grab the killstreak right when the pressure is about to get too high to continue standing inside of the circle (or if someone is actually being sync killed and you need to interrupt it). This should only be done in such a way that it will increase your time completion bonus for the hacking objective, e.g. in a situaton where the only alternative would be to lead enemies off of the circle and then circle back around, or to spend a lot of time reviving random teammates who are not contributing to the circle's hacking bar while downed.
- Interrupt sync kills on teammates with an instant kill of your own if you have the opportunity. Note that if it would take too much time to switch to your missile launcher, the gesture is futile, and you'd have better luck just laying down more fire in hopes of staggerring the enemy performing the sync-kill.
- Communicate! If you're planning to use a missile, it is a good habit to let your team know, so that they can better plan where to direct their own firepower. You don't want to see three missiles heading towards a target that's already dead.
- Take advantage of class abilities, such as Hunter Mode or Biotic Charge, to maneuver and position your missiles better. Also use abilities like Tactical Cloak to make your missiles do more damage (so you get less instances of half-dead banshees surviving a missile).
Edited by GodlessPaladin, 20 May 2012 - 08:03 PM.
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