Hello, After almost a year away from PS2 I've dusted off my account. This time around I'm sticking with TR and I've given myself the hilariously optimistic goal of earning the Black Camo. Now this will probably take me a couple of years because I'm very, very bad at planetside 2 but I really, really enjoy the game so what the heck. And weirdly, everybody else seems to have got a lot worse...I'm generally killing an enemy with each of my lives... I've equipped a weapon from the Exceptional list into every slot I can but the one area I really have issues with is knifing people for fun and profit. Looking at the stats on my knives I've got an accuracy of 25-35%. One issue is clearly my inability to manouver in close quarters - enemies seem to find it very easy to dance around me and then shoot me (very unsporting). Clearly, the answer should be to knife them in the back...but I seem to manage to miss a lot of the time doing that. Taking Iridar51's suggestion I've bound knife attack to scroll UP/DOWN on my mouse and that does make things a bit easier.
For me it requires a lot of patience and creeping around well behind the battle zone. Guys on turrets, standing at spawn sundies, guarding things..........i.e. standing still and not expecting it.
Okay, I have been trying to use it as a last ditch defensive weapon, or as part of my Stalker loadout. This is perhaps where I'm going wrong. Do head or leg shots cause different damage or am I literally just trying to hit them anywhere?
cutebeaver in one of her videos (its a couple of years old) says to aim for the shoulders, i believe because youre more likely to hit... its probably better if i just link the video, and if its outdated someone can say ^.^ i dont knife too much, but i took note of this for when i stalk, and i have seen more reliability in my knifing... but i should say, im not the most knowledgeable, and as such there are more informed individuals (such as cutebeaver herself) who could give you better information and more update tips.
I personally bound my quick-knife key to M3, but it's just a preference, really. A few things you should know and do if you're knifing : - Quick knife makes a swipe, while wielded knifing fires an invisible bullet, which can hit the head and do 750 damage, and do 1500 (? not sure) damage with activated power knives. - you have a very high DPS with knives, use them correctly (from behind if possible) and you'll even out-DPS people with commissioners, or 652/143 types gun. - use your radar, if the guy is alone and unaware, go for him. If you see two people facing you, with flashlights, run. Don't even hesitate, you're dead if you stand still. If you see a group of people, knife the guys who're not included in the FOV of one of their allies. - watch out for heavies, you'll need 3 hits all the time with regular knives, 2 with activate knives - move erratically when in combat, force people to hipfire with weapons who have terrible hip accuracy, use your gamesense to determine which target will be dead before reacting, and so on. You need to pick fights you'll win, be more careful with people wearing camos than people wearing vanilla uniforms for example. - use nanoweave armor (effective health increase for the body, very useful), and MLG kits (medical kits are still OP) to bolster your survivability. - don't let your power knife do too much noise, activate it just before you're going to kill someone, and then deactivate it. You're TR, so it's even more important. - stay away at ALL costs from that weaboo knife, it's good at nothing. - use the clientside hit detection, you'll always have a couple more milliseconds before the enemy even sees you on his screen. Wrel made a video on it, and you can make wonders with the radar tools, knowing where and when an enemy is going to peak. Oh, and welcome back. Go knife some dudes for the Republic.
Thanks, Rhello. That's some very useful advice. I have to use The Slasher, as I don't have a power knife that fits the Exceptional group. Am I correct that it isn't worth running around with it equipped? I think you have hit upon my main weakness - not enough wiggling - the video linked by doomedking617 shows how much hoping around Cutebeaver does.
Did a bit more digging. Found this nice video guide by some randome guy Plus read through Iridar's blog entries to get a better idea of the underlying mechanics.
Wow thats an old video lol. You must have used a shovel to dig that one up :3 Each body part has a hitbox even today. When that video was shot headshots with a knife were not possible, no wielding, and stalkers didn't exist at the time. Basically shoulders offered the closest possible area we could hit. This isn't necessary today because the reach to knives has been extended. The torso hit box was / is also directly behind the shoulder which helps when swerving around. When an enemy ADS their shoulders stay visually stable as well making them a great target to focus moving towards. I still tend do this when in frantic situations. With the new addition of being able to stab people in the face its probably better to consider a Heath Ledger enemy makeover when the option presents itself. I don't like going for headshots on evasive enemies with a knife simply because the target it so small and the enemy is moving rapidly. Headstabs??? on Heavies really help overcome their shields and this is critical if your not using a power knife and just wielding a classic variant. Consider where enemies are pathing ---> What direction they will take when they enter rooms. Allow the enemies to come to you instead of having to chase everyone down. Corners are also a stalkers best friend, especially so with the knife. You know enemies chasing you are typically going to turn the corner sharply and spray. This allows you to offset by taking a few steps back. (Dont hide directly around the corner - be polite and allow them to make the turn unhindered) then counter from behind as the enemy begin shooting the corner and wall area looking for you... Alternatively you can double back (on an enemy chasing you) and retake the corner with client-side advantage. However this only works when you can time it properly so you take the corner when they are in knife range. (Radar Tools Help) If you backtrack too soon, the enemy will be out melee range and light you up. The good old method of blocking their path with your deep cloaked body and hooking around the back while they are questioning the sudden stop in motion, works well too, but only if they do not expect you to be there. Not as a defensive / countering move. (As shown in the old video with Axne) As you play you will figure out which moves work best offensively and defensively. Also keep in mind sound can be used as a weapon. If you decloak on one side, and quickly wrap around to the oposite shoulder the enemy will face the direction they heard you decloak offering better positioning. Most of the time with a power knife this won't matter but if you were injured trying to make a safer attack it can help. Same thing goes for actually using the frisbee knife for stabbing. But honestly why lol. Its way too much fun to spam. <3
When I was playing stalker, I was doing the following : always running with my secondary in my hands, unless I was out of ammo, or was about to go at extreme close ranges. Attacking with quick knifing requires less aiming (has much more AOE, and hits before the strike lands but is rather slow, since your character swipes and puts the knife back in), while the wielded melee has more DPS and the ability to score headshots, but requires to be really accurate. I'd suggest that you get familiar with the range at which you can knife in the VR training, and try to use the crossbow as secondary, or any revolver in fact, as they're borderline OP with some accuracy. The crossbow is able to score 1HK bolt&knife combos on every target besides infiltrators using NAC, and shielded heavy assaults, and the revolvers are truly versatile, with a big pool of ammo, and packing a punch, but are unsilenced and should be used cautiously. If you don't want to give out your position, the CQC sidearms are your friends I personally preferred the Inquisitor, an all around great pistol, with great accuracy, huge mag, and good damage model. Both AMP and repeater are terrible at range, even more so with silencer, but they boast of a (slightly) higher DPS value than the Inquisitor. TLDR : Secondary : go with inquisitor as a silenced & versatile pistol, repeater & AMP as high DPS silenced pistols, but for close range only. If your aim is good enough, try the crossbow or the revolvers from NS, since they're the true option for any stalker nowadays. As I understood, you're willing to reach the black camo, so try to get your aim working if it's not the case, and use the crossbow to get knife kills. Don't forget to run with your knife out if you know the engagement will be in extreme CQC (so you don't have to pull it out), otherwise, run with your sidearm out and try to close the distance to score several hits to the shield (with the sidearm), and quick-knife when it disappears.
I just remember watching your videos when i was a really really new stalker, and my K/D was at 0.1, and thinking how on earth does someone get that skilled... i refer back to them from time to time, (though i try to watch newer videos - the older ones still demonstrate skills and tactics such as placement that prove very valuble) but that one stuck because at the time it really did help me learn a few tricks that have scored me more than a few kills ^.^ thanks by the way... i owe a lot to you and iridar for my infiltrating abilities now (even though they are mediocre... it says a lot about how bad i was xD). finding it wasnt that hard though, 30 second search ^.^ that said i dont really keep upto date on mechanics, so i wasnt aware of how knifing changed, and i was still applying the older approach in the video. i shall try out what you said (maybe get even more stalker kills ^.^)
I'm glad it helped. I think we are all much too hard on ourselves. Mistakes are part of learning, we should embrace the fail shovel.
