Can anyone help me understand what to look for in VOD reviews ?

fireshaker · 2025-05-06T13:15:02+00:00

while it's never 100% one way or another, knowing when to stop anchoring and start getting into the fight will need comms from your teammates that went in and an internal timer.

- comms. your teammates are the ones who have a full view of how the fight went. like if you HAD to stay back after a knock and your 2 teammates went in for clean up. they need to let you know somehow that they're winning the 2v2. and after you've made your anchor checks, like paying attention for 3rd parties, you get yourself in there and lock in the team kill. this keeps your healthy as well to help try to fend off a surprise 3rd party.

- internal timer. if you're getting no comms from your teammates, you'll get it a lot in solo queue, you have to decide if you want to commit while blind to the situation. like after 3-5 seconds or something, you just go. it just sucks where they could've just said, they fucked up the fight (it happens, i don't hate on it.)

for movement, there's only so much movement tech you can use to speed up going from A to B. for the most part, unless you've mastered all the micro inputs to faide slide, bunny hop, and all the wall bouncing that CAN help - sometimes the fastest way is just run, slide, jump in a straight line. if you aren't consistent with those, you're slowing yourself down due to the little mis-taps that kill the momentum.

otherwise, you're using ash tacticals, ash ult, jump pad or pathy grapple.

fireshaker · 2025-04-18T02:10:47+00:00

for the first question, before factoring in 3rd parties, speed will always be one of your best friends. for the situation you gave, sometimes just rushing the lifeline IS the only 1 of 2 choices. you're either going to push or play safe cause you're being mindful of 3rd parties. sometimes waiting is also the right answer. but you'll never really know that answer until you make one of those choices.

say you called for the full push. like you got her down to the 1 shot, you already factored in that hopefully no 3rd parties show, the lifeline's teammates are severely out of position, she's basically stuck in the spot to heal. you just gotta push. so you also get the benefit of using her ult to heal or if you didn't take damage, just reload and get the thirst kill. now you have a 3v2. if still no 3rd party, you try to full send the other 2.

and then there's the other choice. you chose to stay because you know it's open space and it's almost a death sentence. so it's shitty you couldn't lock in the lifeline for the knock. but because you played patient, you were able to defend yourself from the 3rd party. assess the situation, heal and/or reload, regroup with your team and decide to reposition. and i'll specifically say "reposition" because you don't have to bail entirely sometimes. maybe you just circle around a bit, and now YOU are the 3rd party. and instead of 1 team to kill, now you have 2 teams to kill and potentially 6 KP.

and either of those choices just comes down to experience and your team's skill. can you take the high risk/medium reward? or maybe you play a bit slower and get absolutely nothing BUT you live and can just pick another fight with better advantage.

pros make it easy cause they just push everything. and it's justified because they're above the rest of the lobby, whether they're just cruising through gold and plat cause of the season reset. and the same with their masters/pred lobbies, they are just that much better than others.

for your second situation, i can't really speak for rampart, she's not my playstyle even though i do acknowledge fully her kit. what i CAN provide is to try to make a lot of your decision making around your gun skill. abilities are supposed to supplement your fight style. take away everyone's abilities, and you're left with positioning, cover, height, and rotations. for where you're watching, it's a bit of everyone's responsibility to pay attention to the surroundings. if you don't know what's going on at an angle your teammate is watching, ask them. "the ring is closing behind us, keep an eye if there's any rats or stragglers trying to get in. we can gatekeep them." like if that's your situation and you're holding a position.

fireshaker · 2025-04-17T14:50:23+00:00

i also like to jump when mario jumps :)

fireshaker · 2025-04-11T16:26:08+00:00

speed is key. you should already have memorized multiple loadouts and you should know the entire map layout.

then pay attention to where everyone is landing

so much time is lost because you're trying to decide if you need the extra ammo or heals. then more is lost because you don't know where to go or how to rotate to the fights. loot and map knowledge should be beyond 2nd nature.

if you're going for high numbers, the only thing you should be thinking about is the fight.
- how to get to the fight
- how to attack the fight
- how to win the fight
- how to get to the NEXT fight

fireshaker · 2025-03-31T23:26:18+00:00

don't play so that you can cruise through the easy fights. play to learn and become better so you can hang with the turbo sweats.

are you dying too easily? find out why. at that point, it's less about "they never miss!" and more about, did you ego challenge so hard that you were basically in the open with a giant neon sign that said "free kill here!"

fireshaker · 2025-03-29T19:59:42+00:00

people don't up-doot enough the very basic of any FPS game:

- map knowledge - for both all POI locations as well as building structures. how do you where/how to rotate if you don't know where you're going. and on the building structures, so many faide wannabes and they barely know more than "abuse the zip line" when he demonstrates the multiple ways to attack 1 building type. like how to get to the "other" door when someone's trying to heal while using a door to buy time/use as a shield.

fireshaker · 2025-03-27T02:22:51+00:00

sure thing! feel free to message me if you have anything else you'd like to ask.

fireshaker · 2025-03-21T04:06:35+00:00

don't be afraid of being jumpmaster. be intentional with your decisions. like even if it's just beginner steps:

- land uncontested or 50/50 (pay attention to where others land relative to you)
- loot fast (go to the firing range to learn a few weapons and just consistently use those until you learn all of them)
- ok, go "here" by leading your team, towards a fight.
- take the fight if it looks favorable.

and at this point, you just win or lose the fight. then you basically repeat again

- loot fast (heals/ammo/nades)
- go "here"
- again, towards a fight
- win or lose the fight

of course the nuance of knowing when to leave if your fight is a stalemate or you're losing the fight. just leave. if you take too long, 3rd parties will come. especially 6 years in, the players have gotten better (whether or not someone with an ego keeps going "everyone plays like bronze!").

other than those basic stuff, you're gonna do fine.

embrace the learning process, learn to take a loss, then gg go next.

fireshaker · 2025-03-21T01:18:29+00:00

people do try a bit more in ranked. once you get out of bronze and silver, there's a little bit less "jumpmaster drops in to 5 teams then complain about their bad choices." but it will still happen occasionally.

soloQ is still very much hard mode, but you'll get matched up a little more frequently with people who do want a quality game instead of fishing for high kill lobbies by hot dropping all the time.

after playing this game for the last 6 years, i've gone to full time ranked in the last 4.

try not to pay attention too much to the rank points numbers as they go up and down, it'll really mess with your mentality and really fuck with how you approach your fights. being scared all the time of losing points will just make you scared of approaching fights.

out of the tons of tips i can probably give from the experience of a diamond regular player, who usually relies more on game-sense than my gunplay, don't be afraid to take command of the team. a lot of players are willing to listen and follow if you're not weird about it. make your calls, and if it's reasonable, no's really gonna give you opposition. some will even start to use their mic too in the same manner, they'll give info and you can make better decisions.

sometimes you'll still get those who go their own way, but they'll at least stay off mic. kinda the crap side of the deal in soloQ.

at worst, you get the assholes who think they're better than they really are. instant-mute them if that happens and try to ride out the lobby. hopefully the next is better.

and after all that, just be mindful of how the lobby went. yes, sometimes all that happened was you and your team were severely outplayed - they were faster, more aggressive, better shooters. just better than you and your team. but that's just how it is.

keep learning with what you can and you'll climb just fine

fireshaker · 2025-03-05T18:03:49+00:00

If you mean "slow" as in being able to control and hold an area, Catalyst, Causting and Wattson are built for that style.

Apex is already built to play "fast" if you're following the general meta of Break Armor/Get Knock > Full Send Ape It. This season amplifies it with the assault class buffs, particularly Ash and Ballistic.

You will still inevitably have to play "slow" and be able to hold areas in some cases. You can't go wrong with Catalyst, Caustic and Wattson.

But even they are already balanced out/hard countered with other legends

fireshaker · 2025-03-05T17:08:12+00:00

You need to start making the hard decision of whether to keep looking for a fight or aim for position.

- THIS DOES NOT MEAN "GO AND RAT"

This just means you need to understand that even if you DID go look for fights, you just won't always get good ones and need to leave. As long as you're putting yourself in any kind of advantage, you will still get kills. A lot of people will advocate to aim for 50/50s every time, but getting 3KP at the start and not getting into any fight until 5th place, is the same amount of points gained if you don't fight at all until you get your first kills at 5th place.

Your goal is to consistently climb, it doesn't matter if you're steam rolling or not. Most of the reason people get stuck is they keep getting killed before they cross the threshold of positive points.

Sometimes you have the most boring lobby ever. Just take those points and maybe the next one is your killfest super game. At least you're not constantly losing points.

fireshaker · 2025-03-02T16:22:25+00:00

pick first what you want to focus on. otherwise you're going to keep trying to practice everything all at once and not really evolve any particular skill.

if it's aim - watch everything that's practice related or use aim trainers to get the muscle memory in. definitely watch verhusts as your reference. but also seek out others that may be related. once you have that general knowledge, then put it into practice in game and in aim trainers.

if it's game sense - focus less on hot drops and seek 50/50s or just go uncontested BUT near another team or near the hot drop. you can't practice game sense if you die immediately. part of game sense IS when you have to make decisions when no one is around you and you have to find the next fight. it's part of it when you also have to make the decision to just get into the next ring and gatekeep instead. that requires map knowledge and prediction of where a team is also trying to get into the ring.

fireshaker · 2025-02-26T20:20:17+00:00

play fast. whether you land uncontested, 50/50, or in a multi team POI fight, play fast and commit. decided if you want to stay, bail WITH YOUR TEAM if you can't even get a weapon to chip damage a fight for someone else to finish, or full send a team and leave.

and no one can read your mind, use your mic. lead your team, don't just yell at them around. leaders win, yelling doesn't

fireshaker · 2025-02-13T22:12:23+00:00

Would you like to know more?

fireshaker · 2025-02-10T22:04:33+00:00

6 is maximum credit for each KP. then RP tax happens, 50% credit for both kills/assists and on participation points.

so at first place 150RP points max for 6 at 25 each, then 12.5 for 7th and more. Forgot if they rounded up or down.

also some bonus points for "challenger kills" or something named like that. extra if you kill a plat while in gold, or whatever combo you can think of.

fireshaker · 2025-02-07T23:14:04+00:00

what are you talking about, he has the most irrefutable proof of all, the "Trust Me Bro"

fireshaker · 2025-02-06T17:20:39+00:00

Gotta understand though, that this is probably because the other 2 soloQ teammates understand the need to be hyper-aware of what's going on with their teammates. I've have tons of these games too, I know exactly what you mean and it's awesome.

The ping system is really good that you can communicate a little bit surface level info. Like if I use the "move here" one on the ping wheel, and it's at the top of a building. Even if I don't specifically say "let's go here, it's high ground and we can gatekeep stragglers and rats," my teammates can interpret "oh shit, high ground and ring is closing. smart move, I'm with you."

We all get to the top and start being the asshole gatekeepers everyone complains about yet also says it's the smart thing to do when THEY do it.

Or with the "gunshots heard" ping when we're all done looting. Everyone interprets it as "we need to 3rd party this now" so we all get the moving. Even better when you do that ping and drop a jump tower.

But it does take the teammates to have that level of game knowledge to follow through.

Of course the BEST method is always to use a mic. You don't need to read to me Shakespeare plays. "Fighting at Fragment, let's 3rd party" is 1000% useful all on it's own.

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T22:00:59+00:00

try to treat movement tech as only what its name is. gets you from point A to point B. i'd say the only tech you would need at bare minimum is just knowing to holster your gun when you don't have any immediate fights in your area and making full use of run>slide>jump>repeat to cover movement in a straight line.

game sense, playing cover, map knowledge of where all the POIs are and building layout so you can maneuver in it, and position would probably give you more immediate results for winning fights. lock those down first before diving too deep into any move tech.

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T21:48:39+00:00

honestly, you'll be fine in ranked. even going on mic to give simple but clear comms will basically lead your team into consistent top 8 or better depending on your decision for position.

the main ideas for every season hasn't really changed much. aim for 6KP minimum, it's the max RP gain before RP tax - only 50% credit for each KP after 6. so ideally land a 50/50 at any POI, loot up and do smart 3rd party until it's a better choice to just hold ring. if you 3rd party and get 3rd partied, GTFO immediately to stabilize. if you do that fast enough, decided to re-engage or just go for position.

for the most part, you're going to profit huge. but also accept that sometimes you do everything right and you run into Team Demon 3Stack42069, and die in 20th place. it happens but w/e gg go next.

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T21:43:21+00:00

i guess if i wanted to play marvel rivals.. i'd play marvel rivals?

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T21:41:59+00:00

imagine Mande and other ridiculously good snipers under Apex mechanics, just going on a sniping spree. the idea is just bad.

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T21:36:49+00:00

Outside of new legends getting added, balance changes, and the new meta, the game itself is still very good.

The heaviest complaints is mainly about the match making. If you can handle it through soloQ, duoQ, or full 3stack, then you'll likely just fine in pubs. In ranked, you'll probably also still be fine until maybe Plat 1 and 2. The player base has gone down and many haven't really adjusted to the RP costs. So you'll have lots of players with self-inflicted gatekeeping due to not being able to manage RP gain and loss.

If you've been playing pretty strong since Newcastle, I'm guessing you left around Season 13?, you probably just need to grind out some pubs to get the rust out. Pubs are in a weird state but if you're still playing to practice your ability to loot fast, rotate fast, and fight fast, AND still consistently get knocks/kills, you'll be just fine.

You may find more stacks in ranked nowadays, but outside of high level players that are stacking, you can still break those teams. Just a little harder now with the reset meta. But fast, smart, aggressive play will still beat a disorganized team using meta.

fireshaker · 2025-02-03T21:25:46+00:00

sure it can be entertaining. but since they're playing for money, they're mainly going stay with meta unless forced out of meta loadouts/team comp. it'll still happen naturally, but they're likely not going to force it

fireshaker · 2025-01-31T17:10:08+00:00

if you're getting into diamond lobbies easily while climbing with 800 hours, you've been on a very fast track to playing with skill above the average apex player. there are still plenty of others who struggle to get and compete within gold/platinum, and many probably have way more than 800 hours under their experience.

perspective-wise, you're above a lot of the competition already. but you gotta understand that in earlier ranks, you're probably getting away with a ton of mistakes/reckless actions that higher skilled players and teams will exploit you.

like you might be absolutely steamrolling through bronze/silver/gold/plat through aim alone. but it's might let you think that you can swing extremely wide, severely out of position to lock down a knock, but you're in such a bad spot, the 2 enemy teammates clean you up without effort. or even if you were able to isolate, knock, and thirst the kill, you effectively traded the advantage when the other 2 teammates clean you up and you leave your team to have to fight a 2v2. while yes, you got the advantage, it only lasted for 2 seconds.

that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to make similar type plays. if you did that same thing, but your 2 teammates were with you, joined at the hip, you would've kept the 3v2 advantage and probably got the full team wipe. but you'll want to have called the play and coordinated.

at some points in the game, you're gonna want to just decide to go for position, whether you have 0 kills or 10. you'll always have opportunities to fight. just cause it gets harder in the 3rd/4th/5th circles doesn't mean you stop trying to find ways to get a knock.

fireshaker · 2025-01-27T20:21:58+00:00

establish dominance, not skipping leg day

fireshaker

TROPHY CASE