Forge Beginner’s Tips

Forge Beginner’s Tips by Foxx

This is the first time I’ve ever written a guide so I’m gonna give it my best shot and mainly address this to new players. What frustrates me about almost 90% of guides is that they always focus on the concrete instead of the abstract. For example, I’ve read so many guides on Dota, LoL, HoN champs, or even WoW arena comps that focus on what items to buy, what skills to level, what route to jungle, etc that the actual intricacies of a character or composition are glossed over. This isn’t going to be a guide on how to spec your a/s/e points or pick your ability focuses, but a guide on how to improve your actual gameplay and hopefully think critically.

Introduction:

Forge combines RPG and FPS elements to create a very high skill cap, team oriented game. Naturally, if you want to improve at Forge then you need to have a strong grasp on the important aspects of each of these genres. Someone coming from CoD or CSS will probably struggle with the RPG side of forge and likewise a WoW player will probably not have the greatest aim. Here I outlined the three most essential components of Forge according to me.

Aiming in Forge:

Aiming is critical in Forge as it is both your source of damage (or healing) and your sustainability. To newer players it may not seem like a big deal to miss a few M1s but these add up. Higher level gameplay and arenas require shamans to consistently land M1s as well as for other classes to have sufficient energy to use their escape, opener, other combos, etc. If you’re not landing M1s your wasting GCDs and you aren’t contributing anything to your team. So…

How to improve- I consider aiming to be a combination of both muscle memory and reflexes and you should work on both. You could play other FPS games or training mods, but I think the best way to improve is this website: http://aim400kg.ru/en/

This website is great and will help you improve at any FPS game. Also, aiming is probably the easiest and most difficult thing to improve…

A few tips for Aiming:

• Lock on Spells can be cast from behind line of sight, making it easier to focus on aiming if you’re having trouble
• When a spell is successfully “locked on”, the cursor will flash red in the first .3-.4 seconds of the cast.
• If a spell fails to lock, don’t waste time, cancel it and recast or decide accordingly
• Seriously, use that website. Do aim training and reflex training
• Maximize your fps, turn off v. sync and mouse acceleration, and find a comfortable sensitivity

Positioning in Forge:

A mix between FPS and RPG elements, this area of forge requires you to be constantly analyzing your enemies position as well as your own. This will probably be the easiest for experienced WoW arena players and Dota/MOBA players. Obviously the best positioning would be one where its easy for you to hit them and difficult for them to hit you. This component is primarily for the ranged characters but is still extremely important for the melee classes.

How to improve: Really, you just need to be diligent and constantly thinking about your position and evaluating it. Good positioning will always change throughout the game. Ask yourself simple questions like Who can I see and who can see me? Am I behind line of sight or close to line of sight? Am I close to a wall to wall jump away if I need to? Where’s the nearest health totem or shaman and can he see me? The next stage of these questions is applying them to your own team or the enemy team. With time comes experience, these should become second nature at some point but communication never hurts either.

A few tips for Position:

• Maps are tiered for a reason, take advantage of high ground
• Abuse line of sight if you have to or are under pressure
• Probably the most important: Out of sight, out of mind. So many people, even the majority of vets fall for this
• And the reverse of the above tip: If you cant do something about your positioning or an enemies positioning, ask someone on your team to help you. For example, Jroc and Eradicate love to snipe as pyro and go unnoticed throughout entire arena matches. Tell someone where they are and to do something about it.
• Learn to “push” and “fall back” with your team.
• Spend time learning wall jumps or getting to difficult positions

Mechanics and Tactics of Forge:

The real substance and theory of the game. Basically my lazy way of saying “l2p”. A good understanding of these WILL make you good at this game and will even help get better at the other two “essential” components. For example, utilizing block can forgive bad positioning and understanding GCD means blocking attacks at close range no longer requires uber reflexes but a simple rhythm

How to improve: Keep playing forge. Even if vets are stacking against you each round, keep playing. Watch what they do or even ask them to help you. A lot of vets are willing to help new players. They want this game to succeed just as much as everyone else. Read about the spells of a class. If a ravager keeps killing you over and over again, play ravager for a day. This is some pretty obvious stuff but some people still refuse to do it or are lazy. Make some friends, get on skype or raidcall, and play combos together then switch roles to learn strategies and really perfect something.

Some tips on mechanics:

• Learn to block and the “big” spells to block
• Don’t waste energy, be efficient
• Related to above, DON’T BUNNY HOP. Its a bad habit and any player with decent aim will still hit you. This doesn’t mean you cant jump when necessary to hit a target (mainly on Pathfiner)
• Don’t hold down block, try to time blocks perfectly in 1v1 situations
• Use walls, ledges, and corners to your advantage either for blocking or walljumping
• Play nearly all of the classes. Don’t hurt yourself by only learning one class

Tieing it All Together:

So within this wall of text, I tried to explain how to become a better forge player, whether its thinking about your positioning, using mechanics and tactics to your advantage, or just practicing aiming and reflexes. There’s one last piece of advice I think would apply to any player to help you improve. Every good RTS player, chess grandmaster, professional sports team, brilliant tactician, etc have this attribute in common. If they lose, they analyze why and what they could do better. If they win, they analyze why and what they could do better. Forge is no different. Did you lose an arena match because you didn’t have energy due to poor aim, or did you lose because you wasted all your energy blocking due to poor positioning? Take some time between deaths/rounds/whatever to decide what caused you win or lose and how you could do better, specifically in the areas I outlined. This is really where thinking critically becomes important and helps you improve. Your aim will always fluctuate from day to day, its unavoidable, but being able to identify and understand why you lost or won is invaluable.

So that’s about it. Forge has a steep learning curve but its worth it. Good luck, don’t get frustrated, and ask for help if you need it.