"Killwhore" "Sniperfag" "Lonewolf" "Scrub" "Mudblock" (I don't really know what that is, but I figured it was an insult) Look at these names, this is how we're reviewed by the other classes in this game, sitting on top of hills and mountains, with our wierd farty cloaks, blasting dubsteb and eating hotpockets while we shoot head after head, padding our K/D. When we do get into our big boy pants and go CQC, we're more annoying than we are scary, and I don't mean annoying in the "OMG, that Fury Harasser just mowed down my whole squad, so annoying" But more in the "There's one SMG Infiltrator on the point in that base we just capped, someone go there and kill it, uch" annoying. In order for that to change, so that we may closer resemble what our flavor text suggests, the thing that sends Light Assaults screaming into the night and makes Heavies soil their Nanite Mesh Shields, we need to change, and I don't mean get new gadgets like C4, or grappling hooks, or suitcase nukes that will take out the entire base. I mean use our current tools, to become more than a bother, to become an actual threat. Now, open up your notebooks and put your RAMS, Longshots and Paralaxs down. Yes, you in the back, with the Blitz, I can see you, put that down. I want to begin by reviewing a tiny bit of cloaking history, in a wierd game genre named RTS, there was a game called Starcraft. In that game, the Terran faction had a unit named the Ghost. Now, the Ghost was a lot like us; a scrawny guy, with lower than avarage damage capability, but with powerful abilities. Used correctly, a few Ghosts could turn the tide of battle, and that's what we're going for here. As a squad member, you must always fulfil your role to be effective, otherwise, you're just some guy who makes wierd farty noises. Let's begin by showing you how INEFFECTIVE you are. As an Infiltrator, you cannot: 1. Repair MAX units 2. Place ammo packs 3. Heal wounded/revive dead 4. Directly interact with any vehicle other than a Flash Moreover that, you provide less firepower than any other unit on the field, if you take a direct role, you're not even avarage, you're a liability to your squad or platoon. Like the Ghost, you have a very specific roles to fill, Counter Support. You fulfil this role by: 1. Crippling enemy infantry 2. Denying enemy of vehicle and aircraft support 3. Indirectly interacting with vehicles 4. Espionage 5. Assasination in the term of removing priority targets 6. Working as a DMR (Designated Marksman) or Counter Sniper Let's go over these with detail. 1. Crippling the enemy is crucial to your team's success in any size of offense. If you're attacking a position defended by the enemy, doing this will spare a few kills from you squad mates and make the fight much shorter, giving your team more breathing space before the next wave of defenders comes, allowing your team to assume better positions, place ammo and mines and what not. You fulfil this role with your EMP Grenade. Yes, it will not get you any of those kills you love so much, but what it does is remove the enemy shields for about 8 seconds. That's eight whole seconds where you and your squad can kill the enemy twice as fast, even Heavies will have only their oversield to rely on, they're exposed once you've gone through it. Two more effects of the EMP are that it destroys all mines and C4 packs, as well as scrambles your enemies HUD to a certain extent. Now, imagine you're defending a point, suddenly, your screen scrambles, all the mines your guys placed are exploding at once and these blobs rush in between the blobs that are your friends and everyone starts shooting everywhere. Pretty scary, huh? That was an EMP grenade, and you just lost the cap point. 2. Ever tried assaulting a major facility without a totally overwhelming presesnce, say, two, or three squads? Where you actually have to stay on the move and can't afford to just cover one particular area because the giant friendly zerg is covering everything else? Ever had two or three guys rush their vehicle bays, spawn MBTs and go directly for your AMS Sunderers? Poof, no more attack. You're there to make sure this does not happen. By hacking vehicle/aircraft terminals, not only that you're denying enemy of the ability to molest your Sunderers, like I mentioned above, but you also grant your team the option of spawning new ones, to replace those that were destroyed, say, by a drop pod Engineer, or a Light Assault. Hacking the terminals will also help you prepare for a smarter enemy. If the enemy force is spawn camped, they could either stay there, or redeploy to another base, spawn tanks there and come back with a vengeance. Your hack just gave your team a better chance of fighting back, good job, glad to see you're paying attention. 3. Indirectly interacting with vehicles is one of the two ways you can assist your squad by actually killing. Nothing stops a tank attack like a wall of anti-vehicle turrets and a couple of enemy tanks, all clumpd up and shooting your guys. This is where you come in. This role is the first one in which you have to actually use you class' main ability: cloaking. Now, cloaking, be it Hunter Stealth, Nano Armor Cloaking or the soon to be added Stalker Cloak, works very much like the super power owned by The Invisible Boy from the Mistery Men movie: You're invisible unless someone looks at you. This means you live off distractions; explosions, infantry running, tanks, shells and rockets are your bread and butter. You sneak into an enemy rich area, you kill those that are in your way, do not be tempted to kill as many as you can, remember that any person you kill is now aware of you and in 10 seconds will come after you. You hack their turrets, and you turn them against them, shoot their tanks in the back, they picked up on you? Rush the other turret, rinse and repeat. Did they take out all the vehicle turrets? Go for their vehicle bay, hack out a terminal, spwan an AP shells armed MBT, kill some more. You've done your job. Another way for you to indirectly engage vehicles is the Wraith Flash. A smart enemy will park their Sunderer far enough from the base they're attacking to be out of Squad Deploy/Squad Beacon drop range, meaning the defenders will have to push out of their comfort zone to stop the enemy attack. Using the Wraith, you and another passanger (say, a Light Assault or Engineer) can stealth your way up to the enemy Sunderer (Again, distraction: The enemy players are occupied with the base they're attacking and the defending forces, not with you) and destroy it. 4. Espionage is one of the most basic things you can do by simply Q spotting. Your cloak allows you to get to places that other classes cannot, use this to spot enemy Sunderers that were placed close enough for your squad to drop on and destory, spot enemy sniper nests and tanks for your ESFs to kill. Another tool for you to this is the Recon Detect Device. This motion tracker will help you squad wheather on the offense of defense, just make sure to look at the minimap for those blips, each of those is anywhere between 100 and 120 XP points coming towards your squad, asking to be picked off. Make sure to resupply from the ammo pack your Engineers put down, cover as much as you can with the darts to give your squad full cover of how many enemies are there and where are they coming from. 5. Taking out priority targets is a role you will need to accomplish with two tools, one that SOE gave you, and one that you own. The tool that SOE gave you is your cloack, it allows you to pick your fights and select your targets over engaging anything that comes in sight. The tool that you own is your wit. This may very will be the hardest role for you to fill, because you need to have a brain that's faster than your trigger finger, and we all know how quick you are on that Left Mouse Button. You'll need to evaluate the situation, what is your team doing compared to what the enemy is bringing and see what can you kill to make their lives much easier. For example- -Enemy is MAX crashing your squad. Flank the enemy, kill the Engineers. Wait for the Medics to repalce their guns with the medic tool and start healing, kill the Medics. A MAX Crash without support is as good as dead. -Sneaking into a tower that your team is attacking, go to the landing pad, first kill the Engineers on their turrets, then the Engineers dropping ammo packs, then the Heavies. 6. The DMR/Counter Sniper can be either very helpful or stupid useless. The most important thing to do when you're trying to fill this role is to STAY WITH YOUR SQUAD. By staying around them, you will be able to take fire extactly how they're taking it, however you, with the long range scope and rifle, will have the ability to spot and kill whoever needs a new airhole instead of firing at some distant bad guys who are not even remotely relevant to your squad. Well, that's class for today. I hope you enjoyed reading this, it sure took a long time and effort writing it. I wrote this down because I want more of you, Infiltrators to feel when I, and I'll bet other dedicated players on this forum feel when we join our outfit's TS or some random squad/platoon and someone goes (without any sarcasm) "Oh, it's you, we could use a good Infiltrator" Feedback is always appriciated, Mr Murdok signing out, see you on the field.
Good read. Constructive advice from an obviously knowledgeable and experienced cqc'r. I find that one of the biggest issues with the class for newer players is the conflicting roles of sniping and close range SMG style infiltrating. There is an appeal for less experienced players to stick with BA long range sniping because of the survivability it offers. Therefore, I assume there is some spill over from these expectations to close quarter SMG play simply because we can cloak and are perceived as the "stealth" class. However, the opposite is true for the CQC infiltrator relative to the elusive sniper. To be truly effective in larger-scale operations a dedicated close quarter infiltrator should approach their goals with the expectation that they will eventually be killed - the only question is how much one can accomplish before the inevitable happens. I believe this is in part why many less experienced infiltrators are so easily frustrated by the fact that they cannot survive nearly as well when they attempt to approach the class from anything besides the comfort of long range sniping.
Damnit, I just started using this... *Leans Blitz against my chair and sits down* Anyhow with that out of the way, I should add that we can indirectly influence a tank war. There have been quite a few times recently where either as a sniper or as a smg infiltrator that I have chased down smoking vehicles to kill the engineers (which is usually all the occupants of tanks) repairing. When my team sees an empty tank, they destroy it even though I can't. As a CQC infiltrator, this is very dangerous if you don't kill people in the right order. Ex: On Esamir, I was behind enemy lines. The VS were setting up a siege of some base and the NC were holding out as best they could and laying damage on those tanks. I went out to (hopefully) kill some drivers. I came across a magrider repairing with a guy in matching camo to his tank and a guy without camo. I killed the guy w/o camo and therefore got shot in the face by a tank shell. So order does matter. One (skilled/coordinated) infiltrator can make a difference, a small squad of infiltrators can change the course of a battle.
This is, of course, a textbook example of chapter 5: Assassination of High Priority Targets. It takes a lot of time and practice to get that instinct of knowing who to kill and when, arranging your target list and engaging them the way you should. It sounds so organized and slow when you're reading it, but it becomes so chaotic in the field that you need this to become like a second nature to you, much like hitting "F" when your sight is already lined up with the poor guy's head before you let loose with your SMG.
Something I think you should put more emphasis on. The Recon Tool. SPAM SPAM SPAM that thing as much as you can. The more darts out the more information your team has, the more effectively they can counter the threat. If there's any invaluable asset you have as an infiltrator it's letting your team know where the enemy is coming from.
I really enjoyed this read, it echos much of how I play, and how I teach others to play in BWC. Very good writeup! Bumping for more reads and thumbs up!!!
Good read, needs a ninja fix: "5. Taking out priority targets is a role you will need to accomplish with two tools, one that SOE gave you, and one that you own. The tool that SOE gave you is your cloack, "
*Bump* I've honestly always tried to play infi as close to the Ghost as possible. The original Starcraft was my introduction into gaming - I've found that I try to replicate it in any game I play. When used correctly and with the right setup infies can be absolutely devastating at any range, something that I think people are just starting to appreciate. Awesome read (especially over morning coffee )
I just picked up the Wraith cloaking device for the Flash, I'll be taking a LA with me from now on. I often find the enemy Sunderer or stealth up to it, only to find little more to do there than plop down a Anti-Infantry mine and tip my hat. More of a lone wolf player, but hey...there's always someone around to drag into an adventure.
"As a squad member, you must always fulfill your role to be effective, otherwise, you're just some guy who makes wierd farty noises." Great read, especially this
Despite being named Infiltrator, it never ceases to amaze me how little infiltration infiltrators do. The strongest thing in the game is a good infiltrator and a competent platoon/squad lead. It boils down to one word "Scouting". Yet no one wants to actually sit there and scout, because there are no certs for calling out positions on platoon chat, and most platoon leaders don't think of countering the call outs.
1. One of the best Infiltrator related posts in these forums. Can't thumbs up this enough! Take all of this advice on board. Seriously. 2. Another tactic, which I've used to turn the tide in a battle is the 'suicide bombing run'. A couple of times this has allowed the friendly force to advance and then exploit the advantage gained. Method: Spam recon darts to find the greatest concentration of enemy. Cloak, run into the middle of them, uncloak. Drop Betties at the feet of the medics. Throw a grenade at the rest of the group. Open up with the SMG, when dry, switch to pistol. If still alive, cloak, reload and repeat until dead or out of ammo. 60% of the time, it works every time! But seriously, you'll die a lot. However, when it does work, it works well. 3. Also, I just got the Auraxium medal on my Blitz SMG and was getting tired of the SMG action, so on a whim I got the SPR. It would rule in medium range with a 2x scope, but the lowest magnification available is the stock 6x. So it seems intended for long range, but the damage and mag size implies double taps (or even triple taps are required). How does the damn thing work? Perhaps I should have got the Stalker or Shadow?
