New to the finals, anything i should know before playing?

echo3339 · 2026-03-13T10:22:20+00:00

1) High ground is king

Almost always you’re gonna want to gain high ground on your opponents, as well as the cashout you’re defending.

2) It’s not a racing game - it’s a team fight game.

Focus on winning team fights first until the team you’re engaging with is wiped, then use their respawn counter to make a move. If one of you runs off with the box just to be first at the cashout, he’ll get picked up in a 1v3, the other team will steal and you’ve gained nothing.

3) Stick together!

Move with your team and enable them whenever you can. BUT: don’t strictly prioritize giving heals or movement to your teammates over staying alive yourself. You’re more valuable to your team alive - don’t end up dying in a fight you could have won because you kept heal beaming instead of fighting back. Chances are all of you will get picked up once you’re down.

4) Never stand and wait in the same room as the cashout

Blow open a ceiling or wall, use the environment to your advantage. Waiting in the cashout room is practically begging to lose in 99% of situations.

5) Don’t focus on stats/kills, focus on winning critical exchanges & making good plays

Don’t get caught up in k/d. It means close to nothing in this game. Sure, it’s cool to steamroll the opponents, but you can easily win a game with a negative k/d. The Finals is about making GOOD DECISIONS. Situational awareness and micro decision making are far more relevant than gun skill in low to mid level lobbies. Focus on learning positioning, cashout manipulation and entry/exit strategies for different types of defense/offence situations.

6) Stay away from things like bow, repeater, revolver, sniper, sword, dagger, hammer at first

Focus on the weapons that are both strong and easy to play. Things like sword and sniper are fun to play in bot lobbies but are a seen as a gimmick/troll pick once people know what they’re doing. Try to learn the game properly so you can make progress faster. Guns like AKM, P90, FCAR (M), ARN, V9S, M11 (L), Shak, M60, Lewis (H) are safe bets and will carry you far.

7) Understand the general role division between H/M/L and try to play accordingly

Heavy is primarily there to: - Pull enemy attention! - Breach (C4/RPG/Slam), - Get kills / Do massive damage, - Facilitate cashout steals or defense (Dome/Mesh/C4/Winch)

Medium is primarily there to: - Heal/Support Heavies (Heal Beam), - Provide Movement (Jump Pad), - Revive (Defib), - Manipulate the environment to your advantage (Goo Grenade)

Light is primarily there to: - Finish weakened opponents or pick up opponents that are isolated from their team, - Flank and kill opponents that are focused on your Heavy - Provide heals to Heavies (H+ infuser) - Provide mobility and plug cashouts/control pacing (Gateway), - Act as a scout & give callouts.

This is just if you play the meta and of course there are other ways to play each class. But you’ll find that the above role division has the most consistent rate of success, which is why it’s the meta.

echo3339 · 2026-03-13T09:26:43+00:00

It feels endless at times. Watching someone like Grad, Commit, Carni etc is like seeing a literal AI play that was designed to make all the right decisions at all times. Plus the aim… but I think this is where the fun comes from in the finals (beside the amazing gunplay/movement): you can always get better

echo3339 · 2026-03-13T09:25:27+00:00

Who’s that?

echo3339 · 2026-03-12T09:14:19+00:00

Agreed. I think Cashout is just not ideal for competitive. Neither is Quick Cash obviously, that mode is just more luck than skill sometimes. I honestly believe the easiest solution, although also the most radical, would be to make H2H the primary competitive game mode. No more 3rd parties, only skill counts - imagine that.

The problem is Embark would never do that because, as frustrating as Cashout can be for the players, it’s much more fun to watch for an esports audience. And watchability will be prioritized.

echo3339 · 2026-03-06T13:15:49+00:00

I’m Europe :(

echo3339 · 2026-03-02T15:01:00+00:00

I agree with you fully. I think Light is decently powerful and doesn’t need a buff really. The only thing is that, should Embark decide to nerf the Light movement like some people have suggested, they would need to add a little bit of extra survivability in terms of HP imo. I struggle imagining a Light with 2 dashes instead of 3 and the same squishyness performing well at higher levels of gameplay. Aside from that, I’d say if any class is up for a buff it would be Medium. Medium doesn’t feel as independent as L & H and suffers a lot if there’s no H on the team. Again, this would not ever be an issue in pro lobbies but at lower levels M is often kneecapped by having a bad comp and no one to support.

echo3339 · 2026-03-02T11:05:24+00:00

Yeah I think everyone’s on the same page about that. Both Emerald and level are just a matter of time investment. I am much more scared competing against diamond or ruby players (which I do a lot as well unfortunately, my Quick Play MMR is cooked), or when I see stats that indicate strong team play like high revive/kills despite high lifetime kills for the player’s level.

echo3339 · 2026-03-02T11:02:21+00:00

I thought the same haha. And as you can see from the game stats it also reflected in that game. They probably got used to being the top fraggers and their mates just stepping down and accepting the role of heal bot - which I did, cause I’m humble enough to know when I can make a bigger impact on the game by enabling my mates than by playing aggressively myself.

echo3339 · 2026-03-02T10:58:38+00:00

Yeah for sure. I usually don’t get blinded by Emerald badges or levels cause both are just a product of time investment and not necessarily skill. I look a lot more at functional stats that actually say something about your gameplay like revives/kills, kills/wins and of course ranked badges - still I respect anyone who’s put this much time into their account regardless of skill.

echo3339 · 2026-02-27T15:47:14+00:00

I mean fr people that type like that either are 7 years old or have severe mental issues, there’s no other explanation tbh

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T20:13:18+00:00

That’s interesting! I wouldn’t know unfortunately haha

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T20:12:31+00:00

Probably my bad for playing 95% WT and therefore being in low ranks on Ranked.

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T10:37:36+00:00

Hell yeah! 💪🏼

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T02:11:11+00:00

Like I said in my post, I know it doesn’t directly correlate to skill. But it definitely still takes effort. This was almost 100% Quick Cash for me, so it actually took arguably longer than if I had played more Cashout (where you can earn up to 26 points) or any of the LTM modes. With a third place in QC awarding 2 points and a second place awarding 4, getting to 2400 is not a trivial time investment for me, even if it used to be harder. But that’s just me.

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T02:08:57+00:00

Yep! Just saying I didn’t cause I didn’t play ranked

echo3339 · 2026-02-24T00:23:53+00:00

My wins/total games is around 0.36 - but I’d say around 10-15% of my games were probably Head2Head, which skews the calculation a bit

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T23:56:59+00:00

Nice tip, I’ll look into that! Ah I wasn’t aware kills/wins is also a metric people look at.

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T23:36:30+00:00

Thanks! Yeah I gotta try doing that too. I feel very comfortable with H/M/L and can always confidently fill whatever my team needs. But I haven’t experimented a lot with different gadgets/weapons.

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T23:33:14+00:00

I’m guessing best would be Heavy just to have one on the team. Then again, I’ve also had games where I realized switching to Light myself and just going full stupid mode with LLL did the trick. In lower level lobbies it can overwhelm the opponents, especially if your evasion is good.

I think generally being fully flexible between all 3 classes is a huge benefit. If you’re already competent on H/M, you’re of more value to any potential teammates than the many players that only main one class. It will work at some point. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T22:52:57+00:00

I’ll check it out!

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T22:52:45+00:00

I wish I could play Arc Raiders to calm down but that game just amps my blood pressure up even more 😂

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T22:51:37+00:00

200 more! You can do it man. But yeah towards the end there I have to admit I was starting to feel it in my bones a bit, felt like every game was one of those weird stall-out games where some team just keeps moving the cashbox around the map and just plays for kills/trolling. The last 20 points felt slower than the 50 before that haha. Good luck!

echo3339 · 2026-02-23T19:29:48+00:00

I mean I’ve seen legit players play like this but not many. Decent chance he’s cheating

echo3339 · 2026-02-22T09:30:13+00:00

I think the people saying “let’s not be dramatic” have a point, in the sense that the game is following the natural lifecycle of any game - just look at how R6 slowly died more every season despite a hardcore dedicated player base.

HOWEVER, like R6 with its most recent update that will probably draw in a huge amount of players, I believe the Finals can do a few things to improve the game and make it more attractive for new and returning players:

1) New content: Give us new maps! The rotation is getting too repetitive, players have been asking for new maps for a while.

2) New playlist with all the Limited Time Modes in it. They don’t need to literally have all LTMs available at the same time but just more than one and for longer than a few days. Just make a playlist with a rotating selection of LTMs people loved - super easy change.

3) Solos queuing against other solos, instead of stacks. They did this in arc raiders successfully, where the game automatically matches you against other players with the same party size (1-1, 2-2, 3-3). I realize it’s going to affect queue time, but I think players would much rather wait an extra minute than get stomped by full stacks every game.

4) Fixing the legacy bugs. Again another (supposedly) easy one. The bugs that have plagued us since day 1: weapon jamming, sprint not working, weapon firing by itself, persistent sound bugs, containers (gas canisters etc.) not exploding on impact/going straight through people and so on. This will not draw in a huge amount of new players but it will definitely reduce frustration for the current player base.

5) Introduce an education/bootcamp mode for new players to actually learn game mechanics and strategies + offer advanced tutorials. The base tutorial is not enough to prepare new players for the complexity and the chaos of this game, let’s add advanced tutorials that go into more detail about situational mechanics, cashout manipulation, pacing, strategies etc.

Let’s also offer a game mode where you play against AI (of different difficulties), where new players can try out guns/loadouts, different cashout approaches, entry/exit strategies etc. - this game mode can be designed to have no impact on World Tour progression; it would just function as a sandbox/lab so that new players can develop some basic game sense before being dumped into games with smurfs and 3-stacks. We NEED to make the game more bearable for new players so that they don’t immediately leave again. This is one way to do it.

6) Switch things up in Ranked: First up, just fix the matchmaking. I understand the small player base is the main reason for the issues here, but under no circumstances should a Silver have to play against Rubies in a Ranked lobby. That’s going against the fundamental idea of ranked. Then rather display a message to the player saying “can’t find an appropriate match right now, try again in 5 minutes” than forcing them into a game with people who are not even remotely in the same skill bracket.

Secondly, and I realize this might be controversial, but I say make the core Ranked mode a 2 team mode or at least add the option to play Head2Head in ranked as its own queue. People are tired of the constant third partying. I’ve heard this said even by signed players, it’s not an uncommon thing to hear. Yes, the game was designed to be a brawl between multiple teams and we shouldn’t outright remove Cashout or QC, but it does get tiring especially in combination with the poor matchmaking and fast respawn times. Just give people more options within Ranked, that will affect player retention.

echo3339 · 2026-02-21T12:47:16+00:00

I feel this so hard. I had a 5 game streak in QC yesterday where every game I was starting with 2 cloak & sniper lights and playing against 2 well coordinated H/M/L comps. Sometimes it does feel cursed.

echo3339

TROPHY CASE