A Q&A for the new PC players.

Shaveices definitely slow bots; you can see a far more pronounced effect if you use them in Blitz games, at the later stages of Blitz. (Not that it seems anyone plays Blitz, which is kind of sad.)

Upgrading a Shaveice improves the area of effect - not sure about the effectiveness, but I'd guess the answer there is "yes, but not tremendously." The AoE factor becomes MUCH more pronounced, though.

And think about the other annoying, dangerous thing that uses a cloak instead of "Gremlin" and you'll see another great use for Shaveice turrets.

I'll throw out a question of my own: I've never seen any kind of large-scale, organized combat play. For squads of 3-4 members (actually if you're feeling motivated, go up to 5 and 6) what would you say are some of the most effective combat group compositions?

Me and a buddy have been playing "advance anchor/rallypoint" by trying to hold ground for the team to organize around, using a support and gunner combo to great effect. Wondering what tends to be popular or theoretically would be above pairs.

Part of the fun of playing in an organized team is coming up with theoritcal plays and seeing how they turn out once you actually use them. One of my favorites is my Assassin goes in, stuns a level 3 rockit, our support hacks it while our gunner defends the support.

Something I haven't had time to figure out yet:
Are grapples interuptable? ie: You kill an enemy player while he is grappling your teammate.
Or does the grapple animation have to finish even if the player has 0 health?

You can kill someone out of a grapple and save your teammate. Or jackbot, or whatever.

Yes thought I get mixed results, sometimes the grappler feels like they have triple the health but they can die and the grappled team mate goes free after falling to the ground.

The grappler might get extra defense while in the animation, I don't know if anyone has ever done any tests. The assassin gets extra defense while in the smoke bomb animation, so it's possible.

I could test it out if I still had 2 controllers dammit.

During a grapple animation, both players involved take significantly less damage from anyone not involved in the grapple. This is the same effect that the assassin gets during her smoke bomb animation.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Adding a little more to the ShaveIce response: Like all turrets, it will also gain health when upgraded. A level 3 ShaveIce takes a lot of firepower to destroy.


Rescuing people from a grapple depends on which grapple animation it is. Different animations deal their damage at different times, and not always all at once. The assassin's rear dagger grapple on light classes sticks the knife in right away, dealing damage almost instantly, so it's tough to actually save someone from it. The rear sword grapple takes its sweet time before doing any damage, so it's much easier to save someone from.

Honestly, how am I suppost to stop a push when I got an entire team in my base? I'm pretty sure at least on the 360 version this had to have happened once or twice where one second I think we are doing OK because the lane I'm on is nearing their base, and then... 'Shelds are down on your moneyball!', get myself on back and end up dying over...and over...and over...usually to a point where I gain no kills, and we lose.

Building guns doesn't work, that just gives them more cash and me FAR less.Can't get over to the annihilator...even if it was up, and even then they chances are would send soeone back to set it off just so we can't anyhoo. Attacking head on does no good, if gunner deploying on my upper ramp is DEFENTLY no good, if assault I might get a tackle off, but I'll be dead RIGHT after the fact, support might as well be free money both sentry and himself, with all the gun fire trying to grapple as an assassins not going to happen. Also the granades, and the slam 'help', but then they juice on up out of nowear and I'm back at freaking square one...

We had the same issue on Xbox, but mostly when a team was playing on the other side and would spawn camping us.

When that happens, there is unfortunately not much you can do... However, that didn't happen to me a lot on Xbox, and not at all for the moment on PC, so I guess it's just bad luck...

The best way to counter this is to find some friends to play with, and build a team where everyone would play a specific role. (with a support 100% dedicated to base defense... this is a must-have! )

One thing a lot of newer players haven't picked up on yet is "crowd control". This basically refers to any attack that inhibits your opponents movement. This can be through area of effect (traps/product 'nade,) knockback (bomb/grapple/charge), or area denial (airstrike/traps/bomb). Crowd control is used primarily for breaking your opponent's momentum, however killing your opponent is often a secondary effect.

When I'm on a team that has been pushed back into the base, I'll start tossing traps around the money ball, or on the spawn ring if their camping us from up close, and if I have level 3 flak I might toss one right on our own moneyball to keep them off of it. One thing you need to keep in mind is that if you're trapped in your base, it's perfectly acceptable to charge out kamikaze style for a single kill. If you kill someone at your base, they get sent all the way back to the other end of the map, while if you die you spawn back in basically the same place. You win this game by controlling the map, not by having a good k/d.

Nuts and bolts of good play. Pay attention.