The new Losing Tactic: DEFENSIVE Sentry Camping

Battleborn Battleborn Competitive Multiplayer Discussion
#22

I’ll also add this other piece to Incursion:

It seems like most players, and I unfortunately put myself in the boat sometimes too, forget that at each choke point there are 2 OTHER paths. We all just pile up at the minion road and tickle each other.

Some of the most masterful defeats I’ve suffered have been from teams that make use of a concerted flank of 2-3 people at key times. My heart sinks when I see it, and it’s such a simple thing to do, and I know that more often than not my PUG is about to be spanked.

Let’s all try to remind ourselves and teammates about these other paths…it might get some people off those defense choke points to help reclaim the center.

2 Likes
#23

JC, this isn’t a tactic I see when I WIN. It’s a tactic displayed during a slow, painful LOSS. And yes, going defensive, is great when you plan to counter…but if you are waiting for someone ELSE to launch that counter, and they’re waiting for you…

#24

It’s always been like that. Any time one team is making progress the other team just sit around their sentry in complete safety and takes potshots at them until they lose. It’s why I don’t play Incursion.

#25

That’s a bad strat sitting there though minion waves get cleared easier by the attacking team and eventually if those people defending don’t push the attackers get a huge level advantage and overrun them

#26

You can’t overrun them at their sentry though. They have a perimeter of turrets and a sentry that’ll nuke you. They’ll still lose the sentry, but it’s not really a fun win for you, either. Then at the second sentry they can just snipe from the ledge outside of their spawn and walk inside if you damage them at all. Again, you’ll kill the entry, but it makes for really terrible, frustrating gameplay.

#27

and many BB picks are total wimps when they are pushed back because thye can’t get levels, weak as ■■■■ push, need shards or can’t move as quickly to mount an offense.

#28

SO, other than practicing and getting to know the maps (let’s face it, Paradise and Overgrowth) in solo/private, I have yet to dip my toes into the waters of Battleborn PvP. Are you telling me that players can just STEP back into their protected base, willy-nilly? Like, whenever they choose?

OK, that right there is a crock of horse s**t! THAT needs to be stopped most rikki-tik! That’s a one-way door; roaches go out, but they don’t go in (unless they teleport or respawn). No rounds pass through, and NO ONE walks back in. You come back on a (virtual) stretcher, or not at all. PERIOD.

Sorry, but I consider that dishonest and an exploit. You get your sorry @$$ out there and fight, or switch to Pokemon Go where it’s safe. This? This is a f***ing war, homegirl…

#29

If PvP, you can retreat back through the wall of your base and back to the ship for health, or teleport back if you can go for long enough without taking damage. It’s usually not a problem, since the actual objectives of the game are so far away that you can’t really camp by your door and shoot anybody, and so if you wanted to camp by it you wouldn’t be able to complete the objective. However, in Incursion, the second sentry has a ledge just outside of your spawn that people can sit on and snipe down from. In order to get to them, you have to cross the killing field containing their sentry while they snipe down at you. If you DO get up to them, they can just take a couple of steps and get back inside.

#30

I’ve played like this a few times, when the other team is in full HAM mode.

Let them overextend. You can wipe up half the team with sentry supporting fire, and then push.

Sure, always staying with your sentry is a losing tactic, but falling back and letting an over-aggressive opponent try to push in without minions … that’s just good strategy.

#31

Yes but …

Yes, but the “doorway” for this is usually WAY back away from the action.

The only time you’re even remotely close to that threshold is while attacking the final sentry in incursion, but attacking the players really isn’t the goal anyway. If the opponent want to retreat, fine. Pound the sentry.

#32

This isn’t about overextending. it isn’t even about the tactic of trying to draw an enemy out, or pulling them into a trap.

Whoever these players are, they’ve totally forgotten that the goal is to get PAST the enemy, to their sentry. They hide, avoid fighting, and generally try to do NOTHING that puts them at risk of dying. In my previous example of a Toby hiding further and further from the front line, the DPS and heals, were hiding behind walls or by the middle/friendly thrall camp. As soon as they took ANY kind of damage in a trade, they bolted for the healstation, or went into hiding to Back.

THAT’S the new nonsense pervading BB at present.

#33

Maybe it just been lucky, but I have seen anything like that. Really, the trend I’ve been seeing is the exact opposite of that.

I’m seeing more and more teams playing SUPER aggressively. Rushing straight in and sentry diving players right off the bat.

#34

Sometimes playing defensively in the base, waiting for the proper opportunity, is the right play. Although it may not be the most enjoyable experience to participate in or against, doesn’t mean it isn’t the right move. If the team with mid control is good, it can be hard to push out.

The alternative would be feeding, allowing the other team to get in an even more advantageous position. But as you’ve said OP, it is a losing strategy if used for too long.

A team can only turtle for so long without allowing sentry damage. As soon as their sentry takes damage, the defensive team is playing against the clock and must break out and deal more damage to the other teams’ sentry than theirs took. Just be patient and they will eventually come to you, surrender or lose.

#35

Zen, I’ve said repeatedly, that this ISN’T a case of people taking that strategic option. They’re not playing defensively. they’re hiding. I know, because I kept trying to get out of the box. I’d go over the thrall camp or through the tunnel and try to get some distance between me and the enemy, to come around from the back, hopefully spurring people to do likewise.

In the former example with a Toby, he just never left the base…PERIOD. Once he got pushed out of the perch by the shock turret, he never left sentry zone again for that game. The others would wait till I was engaged WITH enemies, cut off from them before they would start moving out to help. I know this, because after I died, I would watch them run back INTO the base and go back into hiding rather than trying to push further out.

#36

Toby can’t push up well at all. The only time he can really leave the base is if his team is able to pin the other team in their base, otherwise he won’t be able to keep his shield up and stay behind it. Toby relies heavily on being able to be behind his shield, so I don’t know if that would be a good example at all.

Just because you want out of the base doesn’t mean you can do it at any moment. Most of the time, the defensive team needs to pick someone off on their side of the map first.

Someone on the offensive team needs to over extend and become weak enough to point where they can be picked off around mid pillar area when chased.

Depending on the situation, you may have been over extending when you died. The fact that they attempted to push out while you engaged is to their credit and them having retreated after you died was probably the right move.

If you didn’t get a kill then your team was down a player, and it becomes more difficult to get map presence.

#37

Zen, are you just trying to pick a fight? You’re automatically assuming that I couldn’t tell the difference between what is, has been, and always will be a normally accepted strategy, and just plain cowardice.

First, as I said, the Toby didn’t just HOLD at the Sentry, Every time he was pushed BACK, he STAYED back. He started at the wall, and then went to the tunnel, then the healstation, and finally the Accelerator. As far as not being able to push…Toby’s Arc Mine(which that Toby player wasn’t even using) is an excellent slow/AoE/damage soaker.

Second, no one…NO ONE, was trying to “pick someone off.” If they weren’t engaging in a lopsided teamfight(which, since the other team wasn’t dying because they had the minion wave, never happened) they would back off at maybe 60% of normal health, and either back to the ship, or sit and HIDE at the Healstation. (You actually can shoot from the Healstation, to cover the sentry…unless you hide in the corner by the entrance where a small wall shields you from view or behind the boxes)

Thirdly, all of the DPS, while I and Toby were out trying to keep the sentry up, were trying to farm our Thrall camp. Now, it generally takes 30 seconds to a full minute, from first attack to actually out and swinging, to get the Thrall out there…and that’s all they did. They’d spawn him, send him out, let him die. Spawn him, send him out, let him die…Spawn him…

Lastly, I was overextending, because there was no other way to get AROUND them. No one was facing them head on. The only time they would, is when someone would get caught in sight of the Sentry’s guns. I tried going over the perch instead of the Thrall Camp…and no one backed me up. Instead, they dropped back into the healstation as soon as two of them got up to challenge me.

So, we have no one fighting head on, even our tank. We have no one trying to get out of the trap. We have three people trying to Thrall Farm for levels, instead of fighting to clear out minion waves…and this is a REPEATED pattern, by high level players. So, why is it automatically my fault with you?

#38

I never said it was your fault, I simply said you could have been over extending which is easy to do when bad teammates don’t move up when they should. I’m just working off the information you give.

If the players were as dumb as you make them out to be, I don’t know how you could consider it to be high level play, because it isn’t. And if they are as dumb as you say, then it should be taken for just that: you got stuck with bad teammates.

It’s extremely rare to have a public match of all high level players with these new, terrible ELO ranges.

Sometimes one team is considerably better than the other team and the best recourse is to surrender and find another match and not over analyze the gameplay of bad players.

#39

And that’s exactly what I’m talking about. EVERYTHING with you, comes down to how I see things. Well, that and this myth of high level play, not being high level play. Even when other people in this very thread, report the same problem, you turn it into “don’t over-analyze the gameplay of others, based on your personal standards.”

I don’t report things that happen once, or even twice. I report what I see as a CONSISTENT pattern, something that can be actually measured AGAINST the variances of random chance. To vindicate what I’m saying, I’ll challenge you. I’ve been in no less than nine games over the past four days, where I saw this tactic. The MEDIAN player average during those games, not counting my level, was 75+ Do you really think, I was matched up with 36+ level 65 or better players, who ALL, RANDOMLY, gave their controller to a friend in the same games at the same time, and employed this tactic? As I said, repeatedly, this wasn’t just ONE person. It was 3-4 players of HIGH Player Rank, pulling this move. And they were doing it AGAINST voice comms stating how bad of an idea it was. It isn’t an isolated incident, or a random occurence in a random game. It’s a deliberate outcome of people becoming risk-averse in Battleborn.

#40

The game has been out long enough that having a high command rank has zero correlation with skill level. I have played with just as many 100s that are bad that are good. You have to judge players on their gameplay regardless of their command rank.

When you say there are players that are camping at the health station, others doing thralls when they shouldn’t and tanks not doing their job, it should be a logical conclusion that it isn’t high level play. High level play is when everyone is doing what they’re supposed to be doing, almost immaculately.

But I’ll stop posting in your threads now since you’re always overtly hostile to anyone that doesn’t agree with you completely.

#41

Anyone else getting an attack on titan feel about this post?