Private Match Metagame Guide/Q&A

Throughout the years this game has had many "eras" of private matches and players. Throughout the eras, the metagame has constantly changed up until this last era, which I consider the No Juice Era. I'll explain some of the thought processes and strategies for this era.

*"Era" is a loose term for the different stages or time periods of these private matches* (5v5 Dev Hosted Tournament, GP Era, No Juice Era)

Overall thought process

• Each class has it's own thought process and responsibilities. You need to know your own class' responsibility and roles, as well as the others in order to help you make the right decisions at the right time. With juice buying off, it's become hard to drop the enemy ball. The best way is to make a team push into the base, while maintaining your role and setting up for a spawn trap. I can't stress enough how critical communication and awareness is. Every move you make should be made in relation to where your team is and what moves they will be making. You also have to take into consideration where the enemy is, and what you think they will do.

Assault

• The assault has changed throughout the the years. It used to be a secondary gunner who would help team shoot the enemy gunner, and freelance throughout the map. We used to be able to stick lesser skilled players on it due to the ease it took to play it. However, now it is one of the most important classes to have a skilled player on due to all the responsibility it has. I agree when Chron2cle when he says the Assault is now the "point guard or quarterback" of the match.
  
  Assault requires the most player awareness and communication due to it's high mobility and supporting firepower. You have the ability to open up plays for your gunner, which will then open up plays for the rest of your team. Doing this will establish map control and bot control. You also have the ability to chase down kills with rather ease, but should be done cautiously so you don't die. You're going to want to do whatever you can to make your gunner's job easier, which means you want to target the enemy sniper aggressively and separate the support from the gunner, since you are a pretty good counter to each class. The enemy sniper will be putting long range shots onto your heavies, and when he's out of the way the gunner has more mobility and freedom to move. The enemy support will be following the gunner keeping him alive by overhealing him, since he is the most important and dominant slaying force in the game. Both of these can be accomplished by use of your mobility and bombs. Try to engage in fights where you have the element of surprise, or your bombs down in areas you know the support will have to walk on in order to reach the gunner. After bombing a support it's a good idea sometimes to follow up on the kill. It's a tough decision to make since you are prone to death, but sometimes I'm willing to trade my death for a support's death if that means opening up the field for our gunner.
  
  Another important aspect of assault which I cannot stress enough is the awareness. The enemy assault will have the same strategy as you, and will target your support and sniper. It's very important to keep them alive, and the best way of doing that is to respond to the call outs ASAP, and create a mismatch which will usually result in the favor of your team. By working with your sniper and support you can easily kill a chasing assault who has lost the element of surprise. As a result, the enemy looses their most mobile player that should be finishing kills, while you still have the rest of your team alive to utilize their skills.

Assault on the team push

• A team push for map control and base control should be orchestrated by an assault or gunner on the slaying aspect of the game. Tanks and Assassins can request for pushes as well but it is arguably harder to push without slaying power. As the quarterback of the map, the assault should be calling out enemy pros that have died. Usually it will start with the death of an enemy support, that leads to the death of the enemy gunner. When that happens, your need to call out for your team to move up from mid map to about 3/4 map control, where your team may pick off a sniper or a bot pusher as well. Once you're at 3/4's map control, or where they are fighting out of their base, you need to kill the enemy gunner again before making a push. Once again, the best way of doing so is to take away his lifeline, the support. Once the gunner goes down again, communicate with your gunner to get a spawn trap going, as well as the bot pushers to start pushing a lane aggressively. The gunner will camp on the ring, and its up to you to position yourself in an effective manner. You want to be a combination of firepower and harassment, something which certain players do significantly better than others. The gunner is such a big and easy target, so you need to keep moving and harass the enemy team from various points so they have to divert some focus to you. Plant bombs outside of spawn doors and put shots on people exiting spawn while calling out where they are going. You can really utilize the bottom of their base to stay behind enemies walking down from spawn, then utilize the top when they are respawning.

Gunner

• Good gunners are separated from bad Gunners by their ability to "Claw" (Clawing is when you use your index finger to control the A button, which controls your jetpack. This allows you to aim, shoot, and use your jetpack to increase the effectiveness of your strafe, and throw off the enemy's aim) Great gunners are separated from bad gunners by their awareness, decision making, and the ability to position themselves for situations in which they have an advantage.
  
  Gunners role hasn't changed a lot throughout the years. It has always been a dominate slaying force with high DPS. However, it wasn't until around the GP era was it's slaying power appreciated enough to the point where it was common sense to stick a support by him to keep him overhealed. The thought process for this is that if we can keep our most dominate slaying force alive and in the front, then we can establish/maintain map control until we make a push.
  
  As I've said, the Gunner's role is the main slayer, and force that holds down the map. As a gunner, you're going to want to get dual minis ASAP, which means you shouldn't be buying any jump pads until you get passive 3. (exceptions are situational) Communicate with your support in order to keep him alive, so you're able to maintain your overheal. Unfortunately you are the biggest thread and target in the game, so don't over extend too much or put yourself in a position where you can be sniped, ambushed by the other gunner, or can't reach your team's support. When engaging enemies, try to enter battles to where you can "wall glitch". (halo 2 term) What this means is that you use a wall to cover most of your body, while still exposing your gun on the right hand side of the wall (the gun is able to shoot but you won't be as exposed). You want to play both passive, and aggressively, depending on how many enemies are down, but remember you are the driving force of the team. When you die, you can expect to be pushed back into your base and lose map control.

Gunner on the team push

• A gunner is the THE key component on making a good final push. It is up to you to determine when the rest of your team needs to push up and follow you to establish map control, normally when the enemy gunner or support is taken out, giving you the advantage. From there you have to maintain map control until you are able to find either a mistake or an enemy death that you can capitalize on. When the gunner goes down a second time and your whole team is in a position to get aggressive, call out to them that you are going for a spawn trap. It's a good idea to hide behind some glass in order to wall them out of the spawn. Don't stick around too long in the same spot, and depending on the map, make sure you're in a position to easily get back to your support. It's important not to die, because the enemy will be able to push back out for map control. It's at your discretion should you suicide in an attempt to drop the ball. Communicate with bot pushers asking them which lane they're in and what is happening in said lanes. Your sole focus should be watching the spawn doors and slaying, and leave the bot info to communication. *FEEL FREE TO ADD MORE*

Assassin

• The meta game hasn't changed a whole lot except for how much more focused the role has become. You can watch matches of zYn where the assassin seems to sit back, spawn gremlins, and pushes one lane sometimes engaging the enemies. Now, your team is much more rewarded when you have an assassin who is aggressive and focused on the objective. Communication is extremely important since you are very weak. You want to get in and out, pushing the objective then falling back if you realize there is no opening to take advantage of. Playing sneaky will pay off if done properly. You can spawn camp bots in a lane, but you don't contribute much to your team by doing so. However if you're real close to juice it may not be a bad idea to stay out of the fight for the next one or two bot waves then make a push.
  
  Although the assassin's role is very focused on bot pushing, you have the ability to do much more. You need to be very aware of the map and where your map control is. You have the ability to sneak bots in, and do a lot of back door pushing, however more times than not, it's useless without map control. You build up juice very quickly, and it should be used to take out level 2 and 3 turrets while pushing bots in, and/or taking out a couple of unsuspecting players. Usually taking out the support leads to the gunner dying, which again opens up the field for your team to take map control. My personal playstyle may be a little more kill oriented than others, which can hurt in the long run, but can help tremendously if you pick the right targets at the right time. Numerous times I've found my team at a stalemate in terms of both map control and bot control. A quick back grapple on a support then going back to the lanes helps more than you can imagine, but only if pulled off at the proper time. When you play a slayer assassin, you need to be extremely careful you you will find that your ball will drop to the other assassin who just sneaked bots into your base.

Assassin on the team push

• Your role here is to still get bots in, however you aren't very effective at it when the enemy is fighting out of their base. Usually you need juice to effectively push in, which isn't hard to get. However if you don't have juice you can still contribute by harassing the hell out of the enemy. Like usual the gunner assault sniper support and tank will move up when establishing map control. At this point you want to keep the pressure on both lanes, so they can't counter push you or sneak anything past you. It also keeps their team split so they have to focus on both bot lanes as well as the slayers. I'll end up saying it again, but you create chaos, and chaos creates confusion for the enemy. With map control established you guys will normally wait for a spawn trap before making the final push. Keep the aggressive bot work in both lanes and as the spawn trap is about to be set up, the tank should call for a heavy push in his lane. A lot of times I see the assassin is right there with him, which personally I don't agree with and is up for debate. Personally, I think that as the spawn trap is about to be set up and the tank calls for a heavy push, you should let the slayers keep pressure off the tank, while you kill the latest wave of bots in your lane allowing your side to advance. From that point your team is pushing 2 lanes, but you then have to make the decision to escort bots in your lane if you think you sneak them past. However what I find best is to push the lane, let your bots walk in by themselves while you come from behind to apply pressure on the tanks side. They now have to worry about both lanes, the spawn trap, and you who is applying pressure from the back of one of their lanes while the tank is applying pressure to the front. This is a great opportunity for you to juice, seeing as you might only be able to get one kill without it. Smoke bomb, spam the ninja stars and make your presence known to get them to divert their focus. The ball should go down and now it's your job to tap the ball from various spots and distances to keep the shields down.

EDIT : I don't have time to finish this yet, but will continue this. BTW will hopefully help noobs out mostly, but maybe give some experienced players some insight on how to become better team players.

Support

• Supports role has changed a great amount from the 5v5 Dev Hosted Tournament, but hasn't changed a whole lot since the GP Era. It's been decided that the support is best used to keep the best slaying class alive, rather than move around the map at free will, fully exposed to any class at any range. Now unfortunately there are many support players who disagree or don't like the idea of essentially becoming the "gunners bitch", but this is a team game, and this is the best way to benefit the team.
  
  It's really a rather simple concept, but people still have difficulties keeping their gunners alive, or themselves. A big deal of this can be prevented using good communication. Chemistry helps as well, but each gunner has their own playstyles so you have to adjust accordingly. One thing to take into consideration, is since you aren't a very mobile or active class, make sure you call out everything possible that you see. You're behind the guy taking the brunt of the damage, so you should be able to see who and where. Since you are the life line of the team, you are going to be heavily focused on by multiple classes, mainly the assault. Once again communication is important, because with it you are able make a quick call out to your assault to give you a hand. You should be able to fight him off or kill him completely when the numbers are on your side. Additionally, the gunner on your team will be able to help if you let him know about the assault.
  
  Although you aren't fully using all your skills, you still are a huge asset to the team. There are other ways you can benefit your team by calling out various airstrikes by the enemy support, as well as icetraps from the enemy sniper. These will get your gunner killed right away, and you will lose map control as a result. Use your airstrikes underneath bridges, and roofs so the enemy isn't as aware of the beacons displayed. Try to keep one airstrike available for the enemy firebase. They can be very time consuming to other classes trying to take it out, when you can just do it instantly. Throw your firebase in a high traffic area, preferably where it can be used for an element of surprise (like their landing on steel peel) or protected from airstrikes (in the dome on ammo mule), Do not waste the time hacking the firebase unless you ask your gunner and he says you have enough time. At any moment a gunner can get sniped or an assault can start playing aggressive, so try and make sure the coast is clear prior setting up the turret.

Support on the team push

• Throughout the game it's important to position yourself so you're supporting the gunner, but also staying alive. You shouldn't have a hard time building juice when you maintain map control for a little. Since you are following the gunner, you should be aware of when the team push starts. Once the enemy gunner goes down with map control established, chances are your gunner is going to call for a spawn trap. If you don't have juice, try and scout the spawn trap from behind the gunner, while in a position where he can fall back on. Depending on the map, it's not a bad idea to keep your level 3 firebase in a location where the gunner is able to fall back to. When the enemy is getting spawn trapped, you have to determine whether or not you're more useful sitting back making sure your slayer stays alive, or charging in with a bot pusher trying to keep them alive. When you get juice, you should absolutely use it to make a push. Support has one of the most effective juices in terms of clearing out a base. In an ideal situation your team will try and set up a spawn trap, and you should make an attempt to camp their ring with juice, one shotting anyone who comes out

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Tank

• Tank is a class that's hard for me to compare in terms of how the meta has changed. Whether you like him or hate him, you have to contribute a lot of the current meta to shammas. Up until I played GP nobody really made use of the tank like him, especially while utilizing everything at his disposal. The rail gun was looked over or too difficult for most tanks to use consistently, but is extremely important. Tanks have always been great for pushing bots, but it's the decision making and positioning that makes a great tank an asset to his team.
  
  The role requires you but is not limited to being the defensive life line. At the start of the match you'll need to determine with your assassin which lane you want to cover. Usually when no map control is established, you tend to watch a bot lane and play more passively. Scout out where players are, while fully utilizing your railgun to kill bots from a far, and put shots on weak players. Call out which pro's are pushing bots specific lanes, where the sniper is and if he's focusing on bots, and most importantly, when you need help in a lane or when you want to switch. It's important not to over extend as a tank, because you don't want to create an open lane for the enemy to push bots. However, when your team has the upper hand in terms of map control, it's definitely a good idea to move up and get aggressive, pushing the bots with you. As your team advances bots towards their base, you'll notice that the focus of their team starts to become more bot oriented. It is important that you keep bots pushed in order to create chaos on their side of the map. Chaos creates confusion, and forces the enemy to lose focus on slaying the gunner or chasing the assassin due to them protecting the objective.
  
  As I said before, rail gun accuracy is important, but a tank who makes the right moves at the right times, and positions himself accordingly will be a huge asset to the team. Playing passive is fine when there is a toss up for map control/bot control, but you will hurt your team when you don't get aggressive as soon as everyone else pushes up. The same goes for playing too aggressive when your team is still trying to establish map control. A lot of times you will be the focus of the assault or sniper, so those call outs are important to your assault. This is why positioning is important because you want to stay close enough to someone You have enough health, and two weapons that deals damage at close medium and long distance so you should be able to survive with some help if you made the call out quick enough.

Tank on the team push

• When I stated that is but not limited to a defensive life line, this is the not limited part. A tank is the ideal class to escort bots to the ball. First you need to decide when and where. Certain maps like steel peel and lazer razor have designs that favor you pushing in your right lane. Although it's possible to push both, keep that in mind throughout the entire game. Ideally, you want to capitalize on the spawn trap your team creates, but there will be situations in which you request for a team push before a spawn trap is set up. Save your charge 3 for when bots are nearing the enemy turrent, since chances are the enemy will try and make a suicide save. Use the walls to your advantage as well as your level 3 product grenade. It is possible to spawn trap bots in both lanes when you can utilize your rail gun and product grenades, but its best if you push one aggressively. If you can build up juice, it should be a guaranteed ball drop due to how devastating your juiced death blossom is. Literally escort bots in while juiced, and if possible try and target the enemy bot pushers. Once the ball does drop, it's not a bad idea to create chaos in their base by focusing a little more on using charge 3 and death blossom on players exiting the spawn. I say this because you do very little damage to the ball, but have the ability to deal a lot of damage to players. However, don't let any bots or bot players by because it's your job to make sure they don't make a counter push. You want to take the burden of bot duty off your assassin so he has the ability to tap the ball in order to keep the shields down.

Sniper

• The change of the snipers metagame is hard to assess because it mostly changes depending on the players skill level, and play style. For instance, an older player named Sigmar was considered to be one of the best because of his insane accuracy, however in my opinion, his play style didn't benefit the team as much as it could have because of his passive style, and the little use of all his skills. Another example I use is the player F5in. I thought he was one of the best despite his accuracy not being as good as sigmars, but he played in a more aggressive, team based, skill oriented way. This style is what is often looked at for a private match sniper, since not everyone has the accuracy of sigmar.
  
  First thing you need to know is how the sniper works and how you can be most beneficial to your team. Although shooting bots with level 3 explosives is quick and easy, you already have 2 bot pushers in control of the lane, and you should be contributing in other ways to your team. A snipers job is pressure and containment. You can counter the gunners and tanks easily, and should be able to land a couple headshots from time to time. Your pressure on the gunner is extremely important because that will open up the field for your gunner to advance, where you should be close behind in order to contain them in their base, and apply pressure. More specifically, you need to abuse the hell out of your ice traps. We usually use the term "high traffic areas" for ice trap placement, which basically means areas where you know the enemy will have to walk to advance. These are usually ares that jump-pads will land, platforms like the area on ammo mule that you can use to jump back onto the spawn ring, etc. Use flak in areas where the enemy pros are bunched, such as turrets and bot lanes, and even those high traffic areas I mentioned earlier. Keep an eye out for the enemy sniper, as well as the enemy assault who will be hunting you down like crazy. Much like the assault, you need to make a call out to your team to create a quick mismatch and quickly pick up the kill. This gives you more freedom to extend and put shots on players without having to check your surroundings as often.

Sniper on the team push

• As I keep repeating, the team push usually starts after the gunner/support goes down. Incase you haven't picked up on it, there is usually a domino effect once the gunner goes down that allows you to push up for map control. You should be a playing a party in killing the gunner, so as soon as he's down you want to advance with your gunner, while staying extremely cautious of the enemy assault. As you advance spam icetraps in high traffic areas, and concentrate on the gunner or tank while trying to position yourself near some of your teammates incase you get overrun. You want to use your flak to keep back enemies, as well as throwing it on at an advancing gunner/support which will either push them back, separate them, or push them forward while weak. With explosive shots you should build juice rather easily, which you can use to create a push yourself, or hold onto it for when the bot players are making their push. However, when you do use juice you need to communicate with your team to set up a spawn trap, because if you and your gunner/assault play your cards right you can create an incredible ice trap. Knowing your bot pushers will play aggressive, I think its best to use your juice in their base to do some quick slaying on the gunner/support combo (once again opening up the field for a spawn trap) and ideally try and hit the tank as well so your bot pushers can get aggressive. Try to use this juice from within their base, which allows you to put your ice traps on the spawn ring right out from of their door trapping them in there. It's kind of cheap, but it's not spawn killing so it is allowed. Between your ice traps, the gunner, and the assault, you should spawn kill a couple of them before anyone actually makes it out of the base.

If you hold your breath and concentrate really hard, you greatly increase your chances to fire critical shots.

I can't stress this enough. This is grade "A" advice. Thank you, Jon! You're the best!

^here is another amazing tip

Q: How do i get better?

A: Don't call yourself bad all the time or else you will stay bad.

Exemplary advice, Gunked!

I will take that under advisement. Thank you.

I might re-make this thread after I update it with all the info, that way everything is organized and right up front.


Anyone have suggestions on what to add? This was rather bland and more focused on thought process, chemistry, and team roles. I plan on going over opening strategies, positioning, as well as misc stuff. I'd like to talk about endorsements, counters classes as well as counter pushing. I still need to go into details for class roles and I know I missed out completely on the anni.


I know how to play basically all the classes in privates but I'm not the best at most of them. I'd appreciate some help from the gunners and anyone else who wants to contribute. I feel talking about positioning and taking advantages is something learned from experience and not really some text, so if anyone can put it into better terms, feel free to help.

Make sure to add that it's just as much as the gunners responsibility as it is the supports to stay together. Lots of Gunner's always blame the support for not getting leashed, even if it's 100% their fault. Stagger spawning is the main culprit, as the gunners will usually run straight out of spawn without a leash, die because they didn't wait three seconds for the support to re spawn, and then blame the support for not getting leashed.

Opening strategies

• Generally teams use the same strategies in the beginning while fighting for map control. I'll explain some basic opening pushes. I'm only explaining the beginning because the rest is so situational. Normally after these opening pushes, a gunner will usually die and teams then fight to hold down map control so I won't get into specifics.

Ammo Mule

• Once you spawn, you want your whole team to advance towards the middle of the map. As an assault I like to rush to top first and assess their opening strategy. I'll try to land a bomb where I think their support will have to walk, then fall back so I don't over extend. By this time the rest of my team is mid map. Gunner + Support will move around both top mid and your landing trying to land shots and determine when to get aggressive and capitalize on kills. It's up to the tank and assassin to communicate on which lane they want to cover, then assess whether they need to switch lanes as well as push. Assassins might need sniper or tank help in their lane due to an enemy tank preventing them from pushing. It's usually best for the sniper since he can counter the tank rather easily, and your tank should be pushing the other lane. Sniper is a bit of a toss up because I like to stick him on a bridge over the tank, that way it allows them to stay close to each other if an assault rushes. The assault would not have the advantage in a number mismatch. However, the sniper is most useful in the containment role, so in the opening push he should really try to get some good icetraps down in the middle and on their landing.

Steel Peel

• A lot of the premise is the same as ammo mule, since the whole team will try to gain control of the center ring. Assaults should once again charge the center, and land a good bomb for their support. Specifically, there is a jump pad that takes them from the outer ring to center ring. That jump pad is the only way for the support to reach the gunner in the middle, so you can separate them right off the bat. Both the gunner and support will take the jump pad to the outer ring which the support should buy. The other assault will have a bomb on the landing from outer ring to center ring, so try and fake a jump or get your assault to bait him.Tank and Assasssin once again need to communicate to with each other on which lane they would like to watch and push. They usually can't sneak bots in within the first minute, so it is okay if the tank takes the jump pad as well in order to land rail gun shots. However, he won't be much help after the first 30 seconds. Snipers are a bit tricky since it their pushes would reflect their playstyle. It may be beneficial to hang back putting multiple shots, or also advancing to the middle to get some ice traps down. One thing I rarely see, is the sniper taking the jump pad to outer ring, then advancing to the left, towards our "elbow". He is a bit isolated and has limited access to cross map shots, but his line of sight is amazing. With this line of sight, you can watch their jump pad to the outer ring, as well as the jump pad to the inner ring where the support and gunners will walk. You force the gunner to push either left or right in order for him to use the glass as a barrier. There is a good chance he will over extend at this point.

Lazer Razor -

• Compared to the other maps, this map has less visibility in seeing where pros are, and landing cross map shots. Communication and bot work are more important here since its harder to notice bots due to all the corners in the bot lanes. The fight for mid map control is difficult as well due to all the corners, and high walls that block shots. There is usually a stalemate until one gunner goes down..
  
  The assault should go straight to the middle again, and try to get a good bomb on their support/gunner combo who will most likely be coming to the middle from the top left of their base. You're gunner and support will be advancing through the top right of side of your base mirroring their gunner. The reasoning is this provides the most cover and visibility while having easy access to the support, and a good escape route. Assassin and tank need to determine the lanes they want to cover, and make their respected call outs from there. It's easy to switch lanes, and even cover both lanes when the bots meet in the middle. This should give a little bit of freedom for a bot pusher to get aggressive and possibly be a little more slayer oriented. I've seen snipers push both top left or top right, each has their own advantages. Going to the right keeps you near your gunner and support, so you have the numbers game on your side. You are also able to counter the enemy sniper who may be going to the top right on their half of the map. However, going on the left will give you a great line of sight to the gunner. He'll use the walls to his advantage so you may not have an easy time hitting him, but you can stop him from advancing.

I'll continue this and add details at another time.

I disagree with the tank playstyle for match start. What you have written is a good reason why every tank is bad. You should be targeting pros and aggressively (but not stupidly) pushing their players back. Instead of staring at the bot spawn waiting for them to walk out, it's a great idea to shoot people. Also, since there's no point in pushing bots with their turrets still up and their team controlling mid, it's a much better idea to slay until your team is on the offensive and your assassin has killed their turrets. So monitoring bots is best until your team is ready to make the push (in my opinion).

Basically I said you don't want to over extend in the beginning while you use you rail gun to clear bots and put shots on pros until you get map control. Then you want to get aggressive.

what you did is just write another way to say it.

pushing bots with their turrets up and slaying for map control is a good addition though.

Ohhhhhkay. From the way you wrote it, it sounded like you were implying that youshould head to the bot lane at the start. I usually try to push middle with my gunner and assault at the beginning to win over map control.