Face Off experiences; what's your strategy?

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#1

So, as some of you here may know I absolutely hate Face Off, but sometimes I’m forced to play it so be it. My Face Off strategy is remarkably simple and yields an incredibly high success rate, yet for whatever reason the only other people I’ve EVER seen doing this are the people who I play with: Orendi.
I play as Orendi, my gear is a shard generator and a wrench with cheap skill damage gear that I activate after the first boss fight, I spend the first ten minutes doing nothing but spawning and killing Varelsi, after the second boss fight I go “hunting” (wipe the enemy team several times with Pillarstorm) and we win. Simple. But most of the time I just see people running around killing each other - which is one of the reasons I hate Face Off - even full premades of CR100+ players. Occasionally the killers succeed and win with almost no Varelsi kills by stealing our masks - another reason I hate Face Off - but most of the time I just avoid conflict and finish the match with more Varelsi kills than the entire enemy team combined, it’s not even uncommon for to to have killed more Varelsi than all other nine players in the match combined. Often I wont even have a kill until I reach level 10, then finish with 10+ kills, a few days ago I finished 18-0 after the second boss!

Anyway, this mode frustrates the hell out of me despite being my most successful mode, which I hate about it even more! So, what are your strategies for Face Off? Do you typically solo queue? Do you pick a specific character, or composition when in a premade? Does your team kill Varelsi together or do you have one peel off to power level while the rest of you protect them or chase kills? Do you turn in masks before or after the first or second boss fight, or in the dying seconds to drag out the match and secure the win?

#2

As soon as it came out I played with and heard from your crew and adopted their strategy, so I’m not much of a help here. Although roaming Kleese on outback is amaZING

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#3

When it first came out I’d just come back from my break so everyone was telling me what to do, I just played Orendi and told everyone to ■■■■ off. It worked lol, they did and I got Orendi xD

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#4

My faceoff loadout is free shards+wrench+ regen.
If my team decide to hunt mask i follow untill i have enough shards to build a heal station and stay around that place defending and spaming varelsis.

I play anyone exept marquis and toby, i think they lack movility or self defense skills. Ppl just like to try to steal from you, so its better to have a toon who can decent in a 1vs1

#5

well, that is the name of the game, and that is a valid strategy. the counter is, if they can’t kill you then they lose horribly. I’d rather be playing meltdown or incursion, but I don’t hate face-off.

#6

I usually play solo so I just pick whoever I’m working on at the time or whoever seems fun. Face-off is one of the best modes for learning situational awareness and leveraging the environment to your advantage so I like to experiment here.

I try to stay near my group to help keep them alive if they need it. If not I usually spam whatever varelsi spawn or headhunter bot is closest and deposit my masks whenever it’s safe. I think it’s rude to artificially lengthen the match.

Terrible advice/tactics if you want to win everytime, though it’s great for learning.

#7

Group strategy is how I’ll answer based on my group

Group: rule of thumb is 2 power levelers and 3 harassers. The harassers don’t need to get kills, they just have to stay engaged and keep the enemy from focusing on the objective(or from attacking the power levelers) once the levelers hit ten then they go hunting and drop masks

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#8

Do your harassers spam Headhunter bots? I find that a good strategy, if not only to prevent enemies from buying them. I prefer to be a lone leveler, with a healer or bodyguard to protect me, while my other teammates do whatever they feel necessary. Generally I call shards as I build everything, Headhunter spawns I pass by, Varelsi spawns (I have set paths for each map) and of course supply stations, but I leave the spamming of HH bots to another teammate who typically runs between them to prevent the enemy from getting them first.

#9

I don’t like face-off either and avoid it whenever possible, but I feel the same way about Capture. I’ve never particularly liked the death match aspect of this game and always felt Battleborn vs Battleborn was one of the weakest features.

Back when I had a choice I avoided those two game modes whenever possible, but now that I’m forced to occasionally play I use the same tactic you do. Except I usually pick Galilea and use a regen item instead of skill damage.

If it makes you feel better I adopted this strategy after stealing it from you.

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#10

Face Off is the reason I don’t like Capture, I used to like it but now the maps just remind me of Face Off and a lot of teams now play Capture like it’s Face Off, and incidentally they almost always lose. I guess the same even goes for Meltdown, hyper-aggressive teams always get an early lead but seldom get much further than 250 points… Sigh

Gali is an absolute monster on FO, she’s frighteningly hard to kill in a 1-on-1 and that pull off the depository gets me every time, then you have no choice but to run as her Desecrate surrounds the depository for however long it lasts. Gali + Orendi = assured FO victory. Some still use Kleese but the rift network strategy is countered easily enough, all it takes is Gali to pull him out of his network or Orendi to Pillarstorm the depository and he’s ruined. Funnily enough, I lost to a Kleese the other day, but Orendi was already locked in and I was stuck with Whiskey who I was leveling but I’d never played on FO before lol :confused:

#11

Assuming the enemy team is equally skilled yes we do buy head hunters when able, if they’re obviously less experienced we hold off so it’s more equal

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#12

I actually like playing Face-Off. I usually try and avoid conflict at first in Face-Off and simply just farm varelsi and power level until I have my ult unlocked. I also have a habit of picking characters that can cloak too (mainly Shayne and Deande) which makes depositing masks and avoiding unnecessary team fights easier. I run an all common gear loadout too including a wrench and shard gen so I can spam headhunters and varelsi camps. This seems to work for me and I’ll pretty much do this every time.

#13

More or less my preferred strategy, I did play cloaked at first but the omnipresent Galilea would just throw Desecrate down on the depository, and since enemy cloaks are so common Orendi is even more useful to me. She’s one of the least common picks on FO - at least in my experience - and I’ll never know why. Between Pillarstorm and revealing Pillarstorm, so basically just Pillarstorm, Orendi is Face Off. Shaurox is probably the most troublesome to me outside of Galilea, Pillarstorm barely scratches her and between cloak and pull she’s just the worst, I like to have an anti-Shaurox if I’m in a group because she’s literally the one I can’t do a thing against.

@loving-hatred I try to buy them in passing no matter what, if I don’t the enemy likely will, even inexperienced players will be like oh what’s this button do, and seeing as I usually have 200-300 masks by the second boss I’m almost always the marked target so I want them as far away from me as possible.

#14

I play Rath (go figure) with zero cost sprint speed, movement speed and shard collector. I usually take on the role of either gathering masks or distracting the team. Because of Genetic Syphon the verelsi usually keep me at decent health and if not I build a supply station. Because of how fast I am, I can run around with 200+ masks without much risk of getting killed and I almost always out level my opponents which is great for Rath.

If I’m playing with Slif or someone else who is power leveling I take on the role of harassing the enemy. Spam headhunters, steal their verelsi kills ect. Then I watch in awe as everyone on the enemy team bull rushes to the depository and straight into a narrow path while Orendi is using Pillarstorm. Thing of beauty.

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#15

Early on I took the path of 0 cost sprint and movement gear back when I was learning the best routes to take and how not to die, I still have a loadout with those pieces in case Orendi gets locked in before I get her.

You’re one of my favourite teammates for that reason, speedy Rath keeps everyone well away from me while I do my (albeit boring) job, anima does the same thing too he runs full harassment while I do my thing, I get annoyed when people follow me killing Varelsi lol, it seems the only my teammates do it is when they tag along behind me and somehow that always gets me killed >.<

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#16

I’ve been playing mostly Ghalt recently. Attack damage, 0 cost shard gen, and purple max health with attack damage. Past level 3 he just crits everyone to hell and back. Just farm a few camps, then run to deposit when I get about 40 or so masks, drop a trap by the deposit point, then head back out and guard the squishies on my team while they farm Varelsi.

#17

I actually remember this one game where I decided to play as passively as possible because it looked like everyone on my team was treating it like TDM. I did nothing but kill verelsi and ran from any conflict. I waited until the very end to turn in masks and my end score was 0-0-1 with 512 masks turned in. I accidentally got an assist against an Orendi while using Dreadwind on the boss. I believe I was level 10 at the end of it.

#18

I don’t recall ever seeing a Ghalt on Face Off, at least not one that was memorable anyway, I could see that pull and those crits being very effective though, but I almost never play him myself.

@blainebrossart1 0-0 and 512 masks LOL holy ■■■■! I’ve never turned in 500 masks but I’ve held onto that much before, sometimes the tankier teams make turning in hard for poor squishy Orendi so I’ll drop my masks and clear the way for my teammates, though that’s not often as usually even without my masks we’ve got enough to win so I just go hunting, I don’t even have the title for turning in 200 masks X amount of times.

#19

The pull is especially handy because you can stop people depositing, you can pull people off the edge of the map, and you can coordinate it really well with a good team to get sh*ttons of damage on a single target. Ghalt’s a little bit less fun post-nerf but he’s definitely still got it where it counts.

#20

I liked to use Kelvin because sublimate will stop the entire team from depositing masks and the knock back on ground pound at level 7 feels so makes it fun to troll the enemy team when they are all try to deposit.

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