How can a Lonewolf Influence a battle

Welcome to Planetside Tactics, a series dedicated to strategy and how to implement it to solo and squad play. Today we focus on the individual player and the role they can play in the grand scheme of things.

Something that wasnt touched on but is using what was included with a different method.

If youre playing infiltrator youre in one of the best (not the best) to do lone wolfing like this.

If you are a good enough sniper to be able to hit moving targets reliably or there is a chokepoint enemies go to that they need to be slow moving, such as crouch walking, ADS strafing, or strafing in general, you suppressing the medics and engies, along with the more damaging classes like hoovies and LAs, you will be helping by cutting off their support, meaning less ammo, MAX repair, and revives. And of course less bullets being flung at friendlies. Sniping spawn points, small funnel style paths, and other snipers, you will be credit to team.

If youre getting camped and there is not a base suitable to just pull a MBT or sundy from for whatever reason (no tech plant, too far out, nowhere safe to drive and deploy, etc), assuming you have the resources spawning at a nearby tower and even in some cases your warpgate and pulling an ESF, flying to the enemy lattice link, hacking the terminal and pulling a tank fueled by their tech plant, or a sundy defended by their armor line as they most likely get the spawn camping tunnel vision oens up a world of safer deployment options. And if there is a vehicle zerg, or vehicles are otherwise posing a problem, camping the vehicle terminals, while cheap and at times boring, will help. A lot. If they cant survive long enough to pull the tank, thats one less tank or sundy helping the TR. Scale this up for 10 or more people getting increasingly annoyed or otherwise distracted/removed from battle looking for you, is ten less tanks spamming your allies and ten less sundies providing spawns for the enemy. Hell, its possible youre stopping important infantry units while they pull their own snipers to countersnipe or start running around looking for you.

If you prefer SMGs (or ASRs for whatever reason) doing basically the same idea as camping sundies/chokepoints with a sniper applies. If you grab grenade bandoleers and EMP grenades, toss them into a crowd of enemies firing at your friends, youre turning off their shield, cloaks, HUDs, and cause really annoying static. It would take three or four friendly HAs to go in there with full hp/shields to clean out 10-15 people who have half effective health, probably already wounded, disoriented, and possibly missing class abilities.

And trust me, there is very little more satisfying than tossing in two EMP grenades and solo cleaning out 10+ people with a sirius clip.

Thats my two certs in the matter and hopefully this helps a few newer infiltrators in some way

When the battle hasn't reached the " Spawn Camp " stage Engi or Medic are very good Solo / lonewolf classes for those more team orientated players ..

Myself , My spitfire and my AP mines have held many a Flank and tower staircase , while also supplying ammo and keeping MAX's healed ..

It's not going to win the battle on it's own .. But add each small part together and the jigsaw soon helps win battles ...

Some of the times I have (felt like I) made a difference, solo, was:

3 Prowlers on a hilltop raining death on our troops. No one seemed to try and do anything about it, eventhough we couldnt advance because of them.. LA with some C4 = problem fixed.

Huge battle between bases. Lots of vehicles on both sides.. I went to the nearest enemy base to test out my (at the time) brand new LA80 Sniper.. I camped their vehicle spawn for about 10mins, allowing our allies to finally advance to the base.

Tons of enemy vehicles defending a TR base, NC trying to advance to said base.. I went on my Infiltrator, hacked a antivehicle turret, and destroyed 4 Prowlers, allowing allies to push in.


It is things like this, that makes the game an absolute joy to play IMO.
And Im not even a good player - I have a horrible aim! Eventhough I have stopped looking at the floor, when running around, which have helped quite a bit (thanks ReNzOr).

This is the sort of stuff my static squad engages in. We can't reliably take large bases. Sometimes we can, but normally 4-6 people just isn't enough.

What we can do as a specialized force is take down sundies, and open up new fronts as it was called in the video. I can honestly say we've taken continents this way through our actions. Its hard to believe it but yes.. a small number of people can be the deciding force in an alert.

Many factors help with this:

1. Discipline - even for my static squad this can be hard to maintain. Keeping our heads in the game can be a challenge especially when getting pounded by a 96+ force. Or when someone wants to rack up kills. Lets face it, we all think and know we're badasses. But we do have to remember there's an objective at hand. Place the mission first. The glory and certs will shower you after.

2. Scope - understanding what your group is capable of. Yes I did say a 6 man squad can take a continent.. well more specifically they were integral to making it happen. This doesn't mean they took a biolab from 200 defenders. But it could mean they took the biolab's SCU out before the defenders responded. The trick is to keep mobile and don't get dragged into a fight that pulls your attention from things you could have a greater impact.

3. Communication - this is the most important. In both the micro and macro level. If you're leading a small squad, make sure the people are communicating. If one dies, they need to let the rest know where they died and from what. If you got ganked by a AI max, let your people know. Don't let them find out the hard way. Make sure the info is relevant. If you died from a random mine that is inconsequential, then no your peeps don't need to know. However if that delayed you from a time sensitive event, let them know.


This thread mentioned lone wolfing. But the video showed the guy in a squad. I'm going to talk a little about lone wolfing as it is commonly done. No squad, no friends, just you and your gun. And how to be useful.

As many of you might know, especially if you've seen me post on the subject. I hate lone wolves for the most part. I believe many of them are just cert farming little useless zerglings. My opinion has yet to change. And probably won't change. However, I do see some (like less than 1%) being useful in some respects. If you do what I am about to say, you may be in this group.

Ballto mentioned the Infiltrator. And I agree this can be useful for lonewolfing it. You have a couple of tools available. Cloak, EMP, mines, and recon darts.

First I'll address sniping. Sniping as a lone wolf can be very effective to helping a larger friendly force attack a base or even defend. The idea here isn't to get kills however. Think about it. What does a single kill do? Nothing. They just respawn. You got like half a cert for the kill, great job.

Instead of going for kills, go for being annoying instead. People hate snipers. They really do. Knowing a sniper is there is worse than actually being killed. Hit up sundies while they spawn in. Vehicle terminals, and other areas. Engineers repairing turrets are also good targets. The idea here is to let them know you are there and even to let them know where you are.

Sounds ridiculous right? This isn't Real Life, so don't worry about being the next Carlos Hathcock or Chris Kyle. Your job is to play puller in this MMO. Aka Ranger from Everquest or Leeroy Jenkins from World of Warcraft. Get in there and beat the crap out of that hornet's nest.

What happens if you do this successfully is the enemy sends a squad of people after you. 12 versus 1. Sounds unfair right? It is. Congrats, you turned a 48v48 fight into a 47vs36 fight in your side's favor. If your side was defending, the attackers will lose points and possibly their sundies. If your force is attacking, chances are you're now spawn camping the defenders. In 3 minutes the base is yours.

Not bad for a solo guy, right? Don't count on it always working. Disciplined outfits will not send peeps after you, or at the most will send an ESF. So mileage will vary. But at least you're doing more than a KDR padding sniper typically does.

If sniping isn't your bag, you've got SMGs and Auto-Scout Rifles. You can do something similar with this. You'll need to be very good at gun play and hit and run tactics. You might even wish to consider extra mags or health kits depending. But the idea is the same, gank people so that they get infuriated with you. Enough to pull people away from important locations.

Since you don't have OHK weapons you might need to rely on short bursts to damage and then pull back. This gets stymied if fighting a medic or two.

This really works well if attacking with or defending against a small force against a small to medium base. Your job is to slowly clear buildings. Pop in and shoot at anyone you can find. If you feel they can fire back, pop a shot and move back. Let them come around a corner and light them up. Trick here is to always come in from different sides and angles. You can actually solo clear a point with up to six people on it like this.

Again disciplined outfits will wreck you here. So like sniping mileage will vary. Good news is, 98% are not that coordinated.

With light assaults.. it used to be you could C4 sundies, but with Shield Shundies being a thing, this is less viable as a solo player. You're less likely to be useful with this class as a lonewolf. Running them in pairs, however is very destructive. With 4 C4 bricks, even shield sundies will be laid low. And you can support each other on the rooftops as you have two sets of eyes. But you pretty much do the same thing as the CQC infil listed above.

Medics and Engineers, you pretty much need to be in a squad. You 'could' be useful to others with healing and ammo. But in reality. Its a force multiplier when you're squaded. Engineers with Mines and AV turrets are 'alright' solo with vehicle and sundy duty. But being truly on your own.. these classes just don't do so well.

Heavies and Maxes.. just forget it. You need a squad to realize your full potential. You need to use a suit slot for extra rockets just to solo a vehicle with any reliability. And even then, most vehicles are going to pull back out of range before you finish them off as a Heavy. Maxes -can- fair slightly better solo. But when it comes time to hitch a ride to another base.. You're going to wish you were squaded.

Solo ground vehicles.. need a gunner in most vehicles to be decent. Sure a solo deployed sundy in just the right spot can turn a battle, but that's about it. Lightnings can be alright in some situations, but in most, you're just cert farming.

Solo air is even worse. Gals, Libs, and Valks need at least one other person to make them worth their nanite cost. ESFs and 1/3 libs with tankbuster are just cert farming it for the most part. You need to be in a squad or TS to really make a difference with ground as a ESF since they let you know where and when you're needed. But then you're not soloing it.

I know many of you are going to chime in and disagree. Showing points where you've killed dozens of people using the methods I said weren't useful. I'm sure many of you have hundreds of kills. But as I've said before. Killing isn't useful. You can kill dozens of people but unless you do so in a way that causes them to disperse or chase, it doesn't do much when 15 seconds later they respawn and run back in, or 5 seconds later they're back up from a medic rez. And to do so reliably from base to base.

Sure an ESF pilot for example gets lucky once in a while and draws away people from the point to deal with him so ground forces can overtake it. But usually this is done within a squad, not soloing. Usually a solo ESF pilot is looking for massed infantry to lolpod or another ESF to duel. That's not helping with the overall battle and alerts.

For the most part a lone wolf is going to be largely useless in this regard. Its tough to be useful without using coordination. But you can be useful if you make yourself appear bigger than you are. If you're causing a ruckus on the ground and it causes the enemy to come after you. You're doing well.

My static squad does this as I've said above. We are a 'lone squad' in a manner of speaking. Our objective is usually to bring a large force away from major objectives. If we notice the zerg going towards a Tech Plant for example, we hit an area that draws the enemy faction to a less important base and then we try to contain them there. You'd be surprised how often our group of 4-6 can draw 48-96 and 96+ to a location.

Sometimes we get c-blocked by outfits sending an elite squad to deal with us. Facing an equally coordinated force double our number means we can't make gains... cept for thats 12 hard core players not helping their main force. We're still coming out ahead even if we're losing ground.

I'd recommend anyone who lone wolfs it to take a look at squadding up with other like minded people if you're looking to do more than cert farm. Get yourself a static squad, a small one. And make chaos amongst the enemy zerglings.

If you're just a cert farmer farming away. Just realize your place as content and a bot for the rest of us.

Just do what I do. Get on Wraith Flash. Sure you can get hit pretty easily by tanks and those heavies that have rocket launchers equipped 24/7, but you can rack up 10 kills before that happens. Before you know it, you have 100 kills and only 10 deaths.

Pretty good for only a minute's worth of nanites.

AV MAX destroying sundies can wreak havoc. Not long ago I was in a tug of war and every time I lockdowned and HEGged the NC bus, we managed to move up. It was brutal.

What exactly did you contribute to the battle? 10 kills in like 5 minutes... you realize how many times people respawn in that amount of time? How many did you prevent from actually getting on point? Did you even fight anyone near a base, or was it out in the open field cert farming?

Lone Wolves that just try to rack up kills and certs are the reason why they get so much flak for being useless. And why the ones trying to actually influence a battle have a hard time.

Stealth Lightnings are great at picking off Sunderers, provided they aren't receiving repairs greater than the Lightning's DPS. They can definitely have an impact on the fight.

I´m rather new to the game and the amount of spawncamping, Light PPA and ton of snipers everywhere with no real option to fight back and a ton of other cheesy tactics like that above are certainly a main reason to stop playing for many newbies - and a well justified one in my opinion.

But I don´t want to blame anyone, I´m able to adjust (my excuse to that BR 72 TR I´ve killed recently a few times with pistol at an ESF-spawn, I only trained for Vanu, honestly . . .)

On the OP, NOONE ever should watch a vid from Renzor (especially Vanu and TR, I´m NC offcourse . . )

I'm a complete lone wolf and always have been, but would consider myself one of the more useful players. A dedicated vehicle hunting Prowler AP driver is always useful to have roaming about. I have turned the tide numerous times in large in battles by taking out key sunderers and often sacrificing myself in the process.

Or I start battles by getting a sundy into a good position and defending it the entire time until the base is taken by the randoms spawning in. I'll also go out of my way to repair team mates vehicles or stop to pick them up in the middle of nowhere - I'm only a lone wolf because I can't be bothered talking to anyone.

One contribution I make as a lone wolf; annoying the ever-loving crap out of people as a LA with a pump shotgun.

No one expects a Phobos to the face! Pump shotgun is best shotgun,

I'm a confirmed lonewolf. I turn down 5-10 squad invites per session. I just don't have the patience to deal with a mouth-breathing teenager telling me how to play the game. I like to redeploy often to bases in distress and as such have almost 3 times as many bases defended as I do bases captured. I'm the guy stopping the ghost caps away from the big zerg battles. Also, I am a terrible pilot, but i regularly pull ESF's with lolpods and thermal vision to clearout those hidden sundies. I feel like it gives me a better angle of attack rather than running around with tank mines or C4. I will also drop as a stalker in bases behind big battles to flip terminals and occasionally flip a turret. As mentioned above, just trying to create enough of a distraction to pull enemies off the main battle front.

I would have said it differently, but yeah, this is more how it should be played. Especially the Vanguard destroying the Sundies stuff shows the power that one lone player can have. Destroy the spawns, eliminate the enemies still around before they realize they aren't as safe as they thought they would be, base secured.

One thing I've found helpful that a lone player can often accomplish is to simply push the line.

When you get into situations where two factions are camping either side of a door or some similar standoff, sometimes it just takes a single person running through the door (and keep running) to make the opposing faction turn their guns away from the door for a moment, which is often enough to start a charge by your faction.

HA with Resto kits can get pretty far. An LA jump jetting through, then up and away from the door does wonders. A Medic can heal and make the run. An Infiltrator can cloak and run through. The trick is to not engage once you get in there, but to simply keep running. They'll break their necks trying to get you.

If I play lone wolf, I like to go Sundy hunting. Without team cohesion to worry about you can spent plenty of time getting the odd angles to attack from, etc.

people do, but most of them failing.. now you found VS low pop attackers, check out TR - they always using Prowlers. anyway, how often NC being warpgated?

Keep the base filled with motion darts. Amazing how little those powerful gadgets get used. Seeing every enemy troop movement on radar is a huge benefit.

I just kill loads of people, seems to work out well.

Don't really care too much about objectives besides holding the base. Killing sunderers is icky, no spawns no kills.

I feel the same, every time I end up lone wolfing i manage to take out a crap ton of sundies that bulk of our force is just mindlessly running at. its the one reason I run lock down on my pounder max. Find a good fire angle as infantry, return with the pounder max and wipe the thing off the map while everyone else is busy trying to head but it to death.