Titanfall Strategy and Teamwork Guide

Titanfall Strategy and Teamwork Guide by KGBCommissar

THIS IS THE TL;DR

• Classes: Don’t run Quad Rockets. 40mm w/ Burst for LTS and Fracture, Chaingun for everything else. Shield regen, play for shields, avoid damage. Vortexes are pretty cool. Warheads > Dumb fire. Nuclear Ejection for Auto-Titans
• Strategy: Call them in whenever. Use your teammates to shield yourself. Want some teamwork? Play peek-a-boo with your shields. Time your Vortex to catch their Vortex, and while their shield is up just lay into them until it turns red, then wait them out and hit ’em right back!

Titans are incredibly important. My first two hours on this game were 95% Pilot, 5% Titan. However, I’ve recently discovered their potential uses, how important they are for map control, and how to effectively control the flow of the game with your Titan. Now, my time distribution is 70% pilot, 30% titan. My credentials, if needed, are my Last Titan Standing stats. 7 games played, 68 Titan kills, 49 Pilot kills, 0 deaths (of course, my titan has been destroyed some rounds), 28 round wins, 4 round losses, 100% winning percentage.

1. Classes

Classes are more important than you might think in being an effective Titan. The two weapons that I personally use are the 40mm and the Chaingun. I have not experimented very much with the Accelerator, but I personally prefer to use the Extended Magazine attachment. On the 40mm, I prefer Burst Fire to Extended Magazine. The Quad Rocket I haven’t really touched, mainly because it’s too easily countered by Vortex Shield and basic movement/cover. In LTS, I prefer the 40mm. I’ve found that it’s better for dealing quick bits of damage, and is very good to pop in and out of cover with (a key strategy to LTS). In Hardpoint, I prefer the Chaingun because of its ability to combat Pilots and because it still performs well against Titans, especially when aiming for critical hits.

Your kit is a crucial aspect of using your Titan effectively. Many people are enjoying Nuclear Ejection; however, this is only useful if your Titan is set to auto-pilot mode. In regular play, you’ll always want to be using Shield Regeneration. Shield Regeneration is a crucial aspect of Titan vs Titan combat – to boil down everything that I have to say about strategy, it’s to play for your shields. Having shields regenerate quickly is a huge bonus to your play, and often makes the difference in your gameplay. As for the second kit, I personally prefer Auto-Eject for the Cloaking ability (useful, seeing as how I’m an avid Stimpack user), but the capacity to fight to your last breath is often useful. This piece is, in my opinion, more about personal preference. Auto-eject is useful for self-preservation, and my preferred choice of loadout.

As for Ordinance/Ability, I prefer the lock-on rockets and the Vortex Shield. Ordinance isn’t particularly useful other than when countered by the Vortex Shield, so it’s important to make your rockets count. Vortex Shield, however, is mandatory. Without it, all you have is cover to work with against enemy Titans. Using the Vortex Shield also counters other VSs. While the ability to kill enemies rodeoing you is useful, you lose far too much to compensate for what you gain.

2. Strategy – Metagame, Teamwork, Teammate-Shielding

The strategy to Titan usage differs between gametype. Attrition I won’t comment on, but LTS and Hardpoint, while similar, should be approached differently.

In LTS, your usage of weapon isn’t crucial, but the 40mm Cannon with 3-round burst is immensely useful. Capable of doing quick bursts of damage, this is especially useful against other skilled users who play for their shields. While the Chaingun only does so much damage, and is quite useful for scoring Critical Hits at all ranges, LTS is centered on when you choose to unload on your enemy and picking your shots. Therefore, it’s only sensible that you should choose to use a weapon that can deal large amounts of damage in relatively short bursts, in order to deal damage to health when the enemy’s shields are down.

Whether you’re playing with a friend or by yourself determines whether or not you use teammate-shielding or teamwork as your strategy (obviously). Teammate shielding, in short, is letting your teammate soak up the damage for you. Let him run in front of you and act as a tank, while you sit in the back and deal as much damage as possible. Don’t let him fight the whole battle, but certainly be farther back than he is. Step in to help when needed, but if you play with him as bait then you can weaken two Titans to the point of near-death, and so when your teammate dies you’ll still be at close to full health, ready to clean up the mess.

Teamwork, on the other hand, is far less vague. You and your teammate take turns using the Vortex Shield. The two of you essentially go square dancing: One uses the Vortex Shield and soaks up damage/bullets, while the other player fires around the first in order to land hits on your opponents. Switch places, rinse and repeat. The recharge rate is fast enough so that, with a few seconds lost here and there, you can do this continuously. On the two matches I did this with a friend, I never once took any damage directly to my health. It’s an excellent and simple strategy, and it works!

Two more pieces to this (finally) metagame piece: As it is, I can only see two real instances of there being something that I’d need to expound upon. The first is timing. When do you call your titan in? As someone with some very good opening routes that give me a 1-2 minute advantage over the next Titan, I often have the luxury of deciding on when I want to use my Titan. After experimenting with timing, I’ve found there to be no real benefit of one time when compared to the other. I call mine in first, partially because I like the bonus, and partially because of how fun it is to be the only Titan on the map. When you are the only Titan, especially on Angel City with a Chaingun, you have the capacity to entirely shut down a section of the map. Depending on how huge your lead is over your opponents, you can seriously slow their pace and force them to the rooftops or the buildings. This in turn slows down their acquisition of Titans. In addition, you can play for complete area denial with your Chaingun, forcing your opponents to retreat or be slaughtered at every turn without actual Titan support. This is fantastic for locking down the flags.

The second piece is on when to use your Vortex shield. The timer on the Vortex shield decreases at a constant rate + whatever you put into it. If I had to guess, I’d say that the rate at which it depletes is a function of damage absorbed (as opposed to number of projectiles), so Quad Rocket users might need to hold back on slamming their opponent with the following tactic. Attack them and simply absorb damage with your shields for a while, and wait for them to use their shield. This happens very early on against most opponents. Once this happens, attack them! There might be a shield, but that’s not going to stop you. Keep on shooting. Once the shield turns red, stop firing and put up your own shield. Wait them out. There can only be one end-result from this, and this is a world of pain for your opponent.

I hope you enjoy and make use of this guide!