Bounty Hunter Archive
Thread: More Jedi Hunting Tactics....
Tactics without specials - the combat guide for Bounty Hunters
4/14/04 - At this date, the Bounty Hunter has no true advantage over any other given combat profession combination. As a profession, it is definitely not worth pursuing for PvP purposes.
However, there has been a lot of rumors generated by SOE that the full Death Mark system is coming in some form.
Given you will be expected to hunt superior player templates at all times, and given that our specials do not work properly, I took the liberty of developing useful tactics over time that anybody can use to help win an engagement. None of these points address Bounty Hunter in particular, and any profession can use them, but we are forced to compensate for inferiority in the game system by applying the only advantages we can find through that existing combat system.
I've talked about it to a limited degree previously, but here in its entirety is the method I use to win engagements of any variety versus other players.
Psychological Warfare
This is the application of tactics based upon the enemy's weakness. His mind. This is what this post is all about.
As a Bounty Hunter, you find yourself outgunned by some of the lamest skill points expenditures. Therefore, the following points carry weight in determining just what you are capable of achieving in the PvP environment:
1 - If you are defensive, you are dead. (Tactically)
As long as your opponent is determining the pace and location of the engagement, you cannot win. As long as he is able to think and take action independently of YOUR action, you are defensive. And since you have no defenses....
Because of this truth, you must force yourself to think in terms of guerilla warfare. Hit and run. Strike and retreat. Recover, relocate. Anything but standing in the fight too long and trying to trade punishment.
2 - If you are defensive, you are dead. (Strategically)
Never go overt and wait for the enemy to charge out of the starport. This places you in a poor position, being in ANY town overt. Even when no enemy is in sight, you have placed yourself in a position of being strategically on the defensive.
If you must be overt, do not enter towns unless you intend to strike. Stay outside and maneuver around them.
3 - Always assume the worst. There is an enemy nearby.
You decide to move. Whether into a town, or just change locations. The assumtion that there is an enemy at the location you are moving to should always be in your mind. Be prepared to fight at all times.
4 - Macros are NOT your best friend as a Bounty Hunter.
Spamming macros does nothing as a Bounty Hunter. Your specials are broken, assume your first shot will miss. (ALWAYS assume the worst). To remain in an active offensive posture, you must be capable of thinking in terms of half-seconds. You should not ever be reacting to your enemy, but instead reacting to the effect of your last special attack.
If you miss the dizzy, the knockdown is a wasted special, for example.
Also, clearing the queue takes time. Time is not your companion, it's your enemy. Defeating time is the first opponent to be overcome. Saving time by sowing confusion is your best friend.
5 - Use the tools.
You have many tools at your disposal. I speak of equipment of course, but don't start thinking that which hotkey you are pressing is a 'tactic'. Your special attacks are tools, not tactics. Under this category are many methods of bringing confusion to your enemy. Here are a few...
a) Droids. As long as you can get a droid deployed, it should be leading you into combat. The very first thing your enemy should be targeting is your droid, not you. This includes any pets. Never open fire until your droid does first.
b) Redirection. When moving to evade and escape pursuit, move on angles, determined by where your opponent sees you in his radar. NEVER move in a straight beeline to your destination unless you are out of his radar screen.
c) Waypoints. Proper use of waypoints in extended engagements is VERY useful. For example: You are attacking a Jedi. You had the wisdom to deploy a vehicle somewhere in the vicinity outside their radar range, and dropped a waypoint on it. During the attack, whether you win or lose, the assumption can be made that you are now under pursuit and burst-running. Your destination is your bike location to escape with your bacon intact.
Using waypoints once individuals are located is also useful. Knowing the initial spot of engagement can be used to maneuver them later into a poor position and finish them if done properly. Drop a waypoint where they were initially. This is all done with a macro, have one on your hotbar to be able to drop a waypoint at a moment's notice.
d) Aggro creatures are your friend. But only if you have a good mask scent going. People have a tendency to overlook your presence if you could easily be mistaken on radar as one of a mass of aggro.
e) If possible, use Commando skills. The launcher pistol is very useful in confusing an opponent. They are moving based upon what they see. What they see should be fouled-up in any way possible. In this case, massive visual effects and screen-shaking cause momentary delays in their response. Use it to your advantage.
One thing to remember here, ALWAYS have backup equipment. At least two of everything. A vehicle or droid can easily be taken out, assume it will be, and you will be one step closer to success.
6 - As long as you are initiating an attack, your opponent is momentarily confused.
Your opponent knows he is under attack, he just doesn't know yet from where or in what force. Strike him hard, then leave. Bring the droid if possible, sacrifice it if necessary. In these cases, it's not ALWAYS good to be using a droid. Trying to coordinate so that you are not losing your equipment for nothing takes time, and time is your enemy.
Sometimes, it takes several seconds for a player to respond, whether they were flipping through the channels, changing the CDs on the blasting stereo, getting a drink, whatever.
Once they are returning fire, leave.
7 - You don't have to kill this guy now.
By making sure your first attacks weakened your opponent's physical attributes, you now have even further advantages on the second hit. This means DoTs. Fire and Blood are your big friends. They may seem lame, but over time have a tremendous effect on the outcome of a given engagement.
So, you strike him hard, hit him with everything you've got, DoT him, then leave. Sure, let him recover. You need to recover and relocate too. By doing this, you have given yourself a psychological edge.
Again, trying to stand toe-to-toe with a Pistoleer or Rifleman based profession is suicide. Not to mention melees...
8 - Use the terrain to your advantage.
This is where towns come in handy right now mostly. Buildings can't be fired through, normally, maneuver so that you are firing and your opponent is not. As long as you are pounding out specials and he is not, you are winning the fight in the short-run.
Also, escaping from a town is easier than it seems. By taking the initial action of calling up the cntl-M heads-up display, you know where you are going, but you opponent doesn't necessarily know. Use it to your advantage. You can cut your escape by a couple precious seconds by constant redirection through a maze of structures.
In guild towns this is a disadvantage for you if you are on the offensive. He may know the layout and you don't. And you might just be sprinting into a cul-de-sac where there is no escape.
9 - Heavy Weapons suck.
Don't use heavy weapons in a fight. UNLESS you are defensive and about to be killed. The reason is the very slow refire rate of their specials, the close range required to fire them, and the necessity of being on your knee to aim them.
If you are in bad shape, a good LLC or Flamethrower especially is an excellent last-ditch weapon. The only way you can use it properly is to get behind an object where you are not being fired upon, aim it while the target is incoming on your position, and spam the fire button until the weapon goes off. As the target comes into view, pray you hit.
If you miss, you're dead, but if you hit, you JUST MIGHT pull off the win. Either way, a good FT drops a huge DoT onto them, rendering them relatively useless until they can get that cleared.
10 - As a Bounty Hunter, your best targets are in groups of 9 or more people.
I'm not going to beat a dead horse here, suffice it to say that you have a better chance of success taking a single target out of a group, and getting away alive, than you do facing a solo opponent.
This has everything to do with the fact that people in groups generally get stupid, and are easily misdirected. Use this fact against them.
Facing a mass group of 19 people defending a Jedi, and taking that Jedi out, is easier than facing a single TKM/Pistoleer. Trust me.
11 - The talking guy is your primary target.
Never get involved in a conversation in PvP. Whether on the phone, at the keyboard, or on Roger Wilco. When talking, you aren't concentrating on the situation around you. This is why the guy spamming BS about your favorite political leader is your primary target. He is currently your weakest opponent.
12 - Never fight unless you are burst-running.
Speed advantage is critical. Get some Parwan cake so you can burst run repeatedly in any given engagement. Getting in and out of a fight quickly will save your hide. It is also a great advantage over Jedi at this particular time. They are not expecting you to be quick, though they are faster for shorter periods. Keep this in mind.
13 - Never group.
If you group, you lose the advantage. You will not surprise the targets, and you will be suffering from group-think yourself, making you vulnerable. Let the enemy group, and weaken themselves as a result.
14 - You don't have to kill your opponent to win the engagement.
Nothing ticks off an opponent more than knowing he was just attacked, and the attacker got away alive. People want closure, and that means making fun of your corpse. If you never provide them with a corpse, you have won the engagement.
Use your opponent's weakness, his mind, to win the fight. Strike him, retreat, recover, relocate, strike again from a different angle. Keep him off balance. Never give up the only advantage you have, surprise.
This is a good basic way of looking at how a Bounty Hunter should fight any PvP opponents. Again, anybody can use these tactics, but most don't because it requires a lot of thought processing, and mainly they don't have to, they already have an uber-template.
That does not make them unbeatable though, keep that in mind. There should never be any situation that you are actually afraid of facing, regardless of numbers.
I will say here, there is only a single method of tactics (outside of luck) that is fully capable of defeating this way of thinking. And I won't say what it is, obviously, because the Jedi Guardian groups have not yet stumbled upon it. The reason they haven't is the same reason why people in large groups get stupid. I leave it at this and move on to combat examples...
Example
I like this example, because this was the first full test of these tactics that I attempted in the game. This took place in September 2003 and is still fully viable.
A full group of rebels hit Bestine. Usually, at this time, and quite often today, several of them began talking smack about the Emperor. I went overt, and relocated to a position behind them, in the direction they came from.
Point 1: They just came from there, this is the one place they least expect an attack.
I waited patiently, observing them from a distance on radar, and maintaining that distance maneuvering to appear as one of the local aggro (kreetles, I love these) on radar. They stopped moving, and remained that way for 10 seconds.
Point 2: They stopped moving. They are no longer spamming trash talk. This means that it is likely the leader was in conversation, for whatever reason. Often you will find that several members of a group under these circumstances choose this opportunity to go to the bathroom, get a drink, pet the cat, flip through the channels, anything but actually pay attention to what is going on around them. Without them actually being in heavy combat, this is the best opportunity to strike.
I hit burst run and ran straight for them. inbound, I targeted the guy without the helmet.
This was my choice at the time. The assumption I made then was that this guy was likely a healer. Losing him meant delaying any further moves for them.
As I approached to 32m, I unloaded a barrage and killed him while he was on the ground. I stopped for a split second to DB him, and kept on moving. There was no return fire.
Penetration of a group, catching it off balance, is one of th easiest things to accomplish in this game. Much of it has to do with group-think, also with the group interface. Unless somebody is actually LOOKING for it, they simply do not recognize the danger they are in until it is too late. They are not situationally aware.
The escape and evasion. I moved directly into Bestine, giving them the impression I was making a straight-line escape. Then I started weaving through structures to avoid counter-fire...there was little.
Of the initial group of 20 enemy, 3 pursued. This is related to them not being situationally aware. Of those 3, I had a great lead due to the burst run. I lead them to believe that I was heading to a specific location. Once they passed 115m on my radar, to the closest pursuer, I cut left 45 degrees, misleading them yet again to my escape direction. Then, as they passed off radar, I cut right 90 degrees to finish the escape.
Misdirection in the escape is key. Without it, they will simply continue in a straight line to your location and finish you.
Recovery and relocation. The spot I chose to recover initially had a spawn of kreetles located there. I moved into them with my mask scent on, and stood there unmoving with several out between myself and the initial pursuers.
By this time the group was spread out all over town looking for me. Two of the three original pursuers managed to find their way nearby me. I targeted the lead guy, and observed them. They came to within 20m of me facing in my direction....and then left without firing at me.
They didn't see me, because they weren't LOOKING. They checked radar, saw red dots, targeted a couple and saw 'kreetle', and moved on without actually looking for me. They saw nothing. Your opponent's weakness is his own mind.
I waited for burst-run to return, then moved out backtracking to the group's original location where I attacked. Staying just outside town was easy evasion, as they had no intention of leaving.
How do I know this? Because they are arrogant egocentric people. Not NPCs. They arrived in Bestine to take control of the area, and make a big deal about that. They will not give up the town to pursue a single Bounty Hunter. By this time, they are likely regrouping, but searching for the smaller sub-groups is what the next task is.
I located a group of 3 just outside town, a sub-group of the main. I targeted the center guy, and opened fire knocking him down. Here, they started firing more effectively. The return fire from the other 2 targets was heavy. I passed through them, retargeting the 1st guy, applied a couple DoTs on him, and left in a hurry.
No longer the advantage of surprise. DoT the targets and get out of Dodge. Remember, if you live, you just won that engagement, or sub-engagement in this case. Nothing ticks off the opponent more than knowing you got away with the bacon intact. This gives you an even further advantage as the fight progresses. As they get more and more frustrated, they make more and more mistakes.
I knew the location of the main group at this time, and I was also sure that that sub-group was busy informing the main group my location. The reason? They did not pursue, they therefore were waiting for reinforcements.
I passed through Bestine again and out the other side, this time going a little further into the desert to avoid the pursuit. There was none.
As the group was reforming, I waited on the top of the hill after burst-run returned, and burst run into town to engage them again.
This continued for over an hour. A second Bounty Hunter had joined me using the same tactics, and between the two of us we eventually forced the group to leave the area. Neither of us was injured in the engagement.
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The success of the first test led me to believe that the observations I made of my own nature, and those around me, while conducting operations in large groups, were correct. The tactics have evolved slowly over time, but currently the next post will explain how to apply these to Jedi hunting groups.
The key here is that you CAN be successful solo, if you apply the above correctly, regardless of your profession.
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Although this is old, my whole point to this post is to refresh everyone's mind about how to hunt and to keep you guys away from just relying on your template/armor/weapons to get the job done.