Where do you think you’re going?

from Stardock Forums

By Russell Brown

Although I do enjoy playing them, I’m not very good at RTS games. I pretty much have one strategy, and chances are you’ll soon spot that and counter everything I do in short order.

I’m also not very good at tactics. I don’t do well at figuring out, performing, or countering Wombo-Combos or other such things.

However, I have started using one power differently of late. My default “strategy” when encountering an opposing Servo is to unload everything I have as quickly as possible in order to get my opponent’s health down, which I figure gives me maximum advantage. But of course, it doesn’t. You need to be a lot more crafty to get maximum use out of your powers.

While I’m still by no means an expert, I have started using the Snipe power differently.

Things get a lot more complicated when multiple servos are involved, but in a one-on-one situation (assuming that you’re pretty evenly-matched), it boils down to leaving the snipe in reserve until the end of the duel.

If your servo is losing the fight, you can try using snipe to swing the fight back in your favor. The additional damage may be sufficient to tip the balance and turn defeat into victory. If you time it right, you can turn the tables before your opponent has a chance to react.

If your servo is winning, you can opt to just not use the snipe and let your auto attacks finish your opponent off. Of course, you may opt to snipe anyway just in case your opponent has some burst damage of his own up his sleeve, or to preserve more of your Servos health.

Snipe can also be great to take out buildings that are under construction.  It can foil a turret rush, forward base, or be used to stop construction in an opponent’s base.  Its long range can even mean you don’t take damage from a defending Bastion in the process.

But the most fun way to use snipe is when your opponent decides to run away. Since snipe has longer range than your usual auto-attack, you can use it to finish the job. Its extended range makes that even more useful in multi-servo battles when your opponent’s rearmost Servo makes a run for it.

When it works out, it’s very satisfying!

71 views 2 replies
Reply #1 from Stardock Forums Top

I like to use grenades for burst because you can make the cooldown 15 seconds. Before Beta 3 I ran a lot of Burning Rifles to proc fire and would do my burst combos when I saw a proc. I'd still be doing that except now I have 500 damage 350 trample snipe assassin rifles.

Apart from the uses outlined here I like to use it to harass before the fight starts proper. It has a long range so if you and the other player are still jostling for a good position to engage from it can be pretty safe to let off your snipes and back off. If you do enough damage you can delay them. 2 Snipes can do at least 700 damage at s.con 3 which is HUGE, even with health buffs that is a pretty scary amount of health to lose before the fight starts, and puts them low enough that the grenades are even more frightening to walk into.

Probably best counter to it I've seen was against wondible just after the update came out where he took in 3 drone buffing servos instead of ganky servos. Here I was playing a typical beta 2 game where the deadliest things going are servos, knocking them over, getting all kinds of map control going. Then he made a ton of drones and I had nothing to counter it lol. It was very cool to see the servos made into mere buffs and still be viable with the right strategy.

Reply #2 from Stardock Forums Top

Good point on using snipe before the battle proper begins - that can turn things in your favor from the get go, and the cooldown is likely to finish before it's over so you can use it again.  ...15 second cooldown grenades are good for that too...man, I love/hate them.

Very cool to hear about your game with wondible - I've definitely specialized a team of Servos to the point where something has been lacking, usually AOE.  It's only becoming more of an interesting balancing act the more cool pieces of gear Jacob and Dave put in.

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