Fletcher Thoughts and Questions

(Amerika) #1

So, I’ve seen quite a few videos about Fletcher which includes a lot from @Sniff (from @kAndyREW 's video and his own) and I’ve seen a few others as well. I’ve put off learning Fletcher because his typical play style isn’t something I normally enjoy but I figured I might as well attempt to figure it out since I do enjoy learning new things. My current progress can be seen here.

My current thoughts are:

  1. Stickies are thrown with you momentum which can make them pretty hard to predict as easily as if they were a static launch every time. This means I tend to stick things I don’t mean to or miss small areas. Especially if I am really close to a wall or some ledge. I am pretty bad at this and I know only experience will fix it.
  2. When you click to throw the stick is where the sticky is going to go as opposed to it’s release even though there is a pretty long delay. This throws me off a lot and I need to get better at it.
  3. I do not like shotguns. I do quite well with burst rifles which is pretty much the same concept as a shotgun outside of one fact. Being slightly off with a burst rifle means you still do the same damage to the arm as you would to the center of the chest. Not true with shotguns. I’ve been using a Blishlok.
  4. I am pretty good at being mobile around maps in general and always use long jumps off of walls to get to flank/get places. But I don’t jump nearly as much as most Fletcher’s I see playing when in straight up combat. I am not 100% sure this is a bad thing as I feel like due to this I can rely more on the certainty of my aim with guns than stickies. But I think part of my issue with stickies is that I’m not throwing them towards where people’s feet might be and am instead still trying to throw at people. Does this sound right?
  5. I am currently using BL33. I also have BL32 but I felt as if that didn’t help much where the quick switching between everything, especially with me being so gun reliant, seemed like it helped me more. Is this an accurate assessment or should I learn to play with BL32/lock-on?
  6. I use the manual binds (Q&W but they are what 4 and 5 are I think?) for pretty much everything (I prefer to do everything manually if possible). Should I be using the quick bind for triggering the stickies or throwing them?

I know that’s a lot of random thoughts along with some questions so my apologies. I appreciate the time!

(Naonna) #2

I’d use the 4 button for throwing, but the quick bind for detonating.

The stickies have a learning curve on them for the throw-trajectory (pun intended). After some time this becomes instinctive though. Also, learning to wall-jump+throw consistently can be surprising for opponents at range.

The default ahnald 12 shotgun has the least spread but with reduced damage. Treat it as a hochfir-type of range and only click on heads if possible. Bodyshots are far less consistent.

The Empire9 as a sidearm may as well be your primary if you dislike shotguns. Finding a loadout with it could be quite beneficial if the blishlock or ahnald doesn’t work for you.

Lock on is better for detonating closer to oneself, but quick-draw is actually a very slight bit better. Lock on changes how soon it detonates after actually pushing the bind. The 30 percent of 'weapons switch is applied once for each weapon you switch to, so is marginally better.

As for aiming the stickies, aim for body-sticks. Air-bursting them works wonders as well - even if you don’t get a direct stick every time, they can do considerable damage. Air-bursting gives the largest blast-radius compared to detonating them only on the ground.

Fletcher mains can correct me if I’ve said anything terribly out of place. (Also, sorry for how disorganized the first bit of this post is.)

p.s. edit: - If you’re confident with your timing, push the detonate button IMMEDIATELY after you throw. Does wonders if you want to weapon-change to finish off someone.

The Empire9 is good at medium-to-long when compared to the ahnald.
Close range = shotgun
Medium = stickies
long = Empire9

(_Sniff_) #3

For jumping try changing your lower thumb mouse button to your crouch button. Or rebind crouch to the thumb button if you can’t customize your mouse buttons.

This will open up one of your fingers and also help it to be more consistent to time your jumps. This will make consecutive superjumps and map surfing much easier.

(Eox) #4

@Naonna : Did you meant Empire-9 or you are really saying Tolen MP ? I just want to be sure.

@Amerika : pre-detonating stickybomb can help, especially with BL33 (you might detonate them too soon with BL32 due to Lock-On, so careful with that). Try to hit the detonator before the sticky is stuck, so at best it detonates as soon as it hits. It allows faster kills and also allows you to pull out your primary/secondary sooner. Be careful though, missing a sticky bomb can be deadly for you. Usually a mindless 1v1 with sticky bombs is not wise : you surely know that.

With sticky bombs, you should indeed try to throw them where the people will be, and not at their feet. It’s also something that comes with practice. Anticipating where people will go is not an easy task, especially in such a fast game like DB, but you have competitive experience so it should come to you quickly.

If you do not like shotguns, it’s fine. Actually isn’t DB still a mid-long range metagame game ? It’s pretty wise to keep the Blishlok with you in my opinion.

About the mobility, I think I’ll come with the more you practice. You are probably used to less mobile, better ranged mercs. You should get better with time.

(Eox) #5

@Amerika I confused the quote button with the edit button, can you erase that post please ? :confused:

(BananaSlug) #6

i am always running with bombs in my hands and then using detonator on , i am only puling off the detonator when i have trap or something like that

(Amerika) #7

[quote=“Sniff;133206”]For jumping try changing your lower thumb mouse button to your crouch button. Or rebind crouch to the thumb button if you can’t customize your mouse buttons.

This will open up one of your fingers and also help it to be more consistent to time your jumps. This will make consecutive superjumps and map surfing much easier.[/quote]

Not sure if you watched the video I linked but I don’t have any issues with crouch jumping or movement in general. I have toggle run turned on because it requires one less button input for crouch jumping and it’s handy in this game (no clue how people play with it off). I also have crouch on shift to make it easier as well (I use ESDF to move).

I don’t jump as often as most Fletcher’s I see while throwing stickies. Not because my fingers are pretzels but because I tend to rely heavily on my aim to win fights. So I’m internally debating if I should change this up and go with more sticky usage and go airborn more often or stick to the ground where I can easily switch to guns. Most likely this will just turn out to be an experience thing for me and how I play rather than an “advice can fix it” thing haha.

(Amerika) #8

[quote=“Eox;133221”]@Naonna : Did you meant Empire-9 or you are really saying Tolen MP ? I just want to be sure.

@Amerika : pre-detonating stickybomb can help, especially with BL33 (you might detonate them too soon with BL32 due to Lock-On, so careful with that). Try to hit the detonator before the sticky is stuck, so at best it detonates as soon as it hits. It allows faster kills and also allows you to pull out your primary/secondary sooner. Be careful though, missing a sticky bomb can be deadly for you. Usually a mindless 1v1 with sticky bombs is not wise : you surely know that.

With sticky bombs, you should indeed try to throw them where the people will be, and not at their feet. It’s also something that comes with practice. Anticipating where people will go is not an easy task, especially in such a fast game like DB, but you have competitive experience so it should come to you quickly.

If you do not like shotguns, it’s fine. Actually isn’t DB still a mid-long range metagame game ? It’s pretty wise to keep the Blishlok with you in my opinion.

About the mobility, I think I’ll come with the more you practice. You are probably used to less mobile, better ranged mercs. You should get better with time.[/quote]

Yeah, I’ve found out throwing stickies in what should have been an easy kill situation can be bad. Especially in 1v1’s. Which is why I’m quick to shift to guns more than most Fletcher’s I see.

I think I am doing a bad job of throwing them and blowing them up and ranges that should work and am instead waiting to see if they hit or not. That is definitely something I should practice. What I meant about throwing towards their feet instead of at them was me thinking that you’d rather throw to an area they will most likely be at their feet instead of throwing it at them and the sticky sailing past. However, if I blow it up in flight towards them and I get good at the ranges/timing of that it should minimize the risk of doing no damage, tipping them off and hopefully in this case I’d be immediately switched to guns and finishing them off.

And yeah, DB is definitely range dependent in 5v5 so I’ll be sticking with the Blishlok. Especially since I’ve had some solid success with it. The consistency and the limited range, even of the Ahnuld, just isn’t quite there for me personally when it comes to using shotguns.

(Amerika) #9

@Naonna I guess I could make a new bind that I use strictly for Fletcher for quick detonate. That might help with throwing stickies at people and blowing them up in the air.

(Naonna) #10

Muscle memory is simpler. Fletcher is fun to play, but sucks to fight against. (similar to battle-medic-headshot sparks) If Fletcher uses his ability only, he can still carry a team: if you connect multiple stickies before detonating, you can 1v2 much easier than using your guns, if the range isn’t point-blank. - and yes, meant empire9 surry.

(Eox) #11

One might be able to deal with a 2vs1 using Stickybombs only, but it’s not very wise to do proper 1vs1 without using your guns. If the guy in front of you know you rely too much on it, he’ll just stay back and probably kill you at a comfy range just before or a bit after second throw (and likely before you detonate). Face to face with stickies is never a good idea : missing a sticky is too much of a penality.

(_Sniff_) #12

Show me you doing this successfully multiple times. Because I can’t do it and nor can many of my good Fletcher friends. It’s a great theory but I’ve never put it into practice well.

(RyePanda) #13

[quote=“Amerika;133318”][quote=“Eox;133221”]@Naonna : Did you meant Empire-9 or you are really saying Tolen MP ? I just want to be sure.

@Amerika : pre-detonating stickybomb can help, especially with BL33 (you might detonate them too soon with BL32 due to Lock-On, so careful with that). Try to hit the detonator before the sticky is stuck, so at best it detonates as soon as it hits. It allows faster kills and also allows you to pull out your primary/secondary sooner. Be careful though, missing a sticky bomb can be deadly for you. Usually a mindless 1v1 with sticky bombs is not wise : you surely know that.

With sticky bombs, you should indeed try to throw them where the people will be, and not at their feet. It’s also something that comes with practice. Anticipating where people will go is not an easy task, especially in such a fast game like DB, but you have competitive experience so it should come to you quickly.

If you do not like shotguns, it’s fine. Actually isn’t DB still a mid-long range metagame game ? It’s pretty wise to keep the Blishlok with you in my opinion.

About the mobility, I think I’ll come with the more you practice. You are probably used to less mobile, better ranged mercs. You should get better with time.[/quote]

Yeah, I’ve found out throwing stickies in what should have been an easy kill situation can be bad. Especially in 1v1’s. Which is why I’m quick to shift to guns more than most Fletcher’s I see.

I think I am doing a bad job of throwing them and blowing them up and ranges that should work and am instead waiting to see if they hit or not. That is definitely something I should practice. What I meant about throwing towards their feet instead of at them was me thinking that you’d rather throw to an area they will most likely be at their feet instead of throwing it at them and the sticky sailing past. However, if I blow it up in flight towards them and I get good at the ranges/timing of that it should minimize the risk of doing no damage, tipping them off and hopefully in this case I’d be immediately switched to guns and finishing them off.

And yeah, DB is definitely range dependent in 5v5 so I’ll be sticking with the Blishlok. Especially since I’ve had some solid success with it. The consistency and the limited range, even of the Ahnuld, just isn’t quite there for me personally when it comes to using shotguns.[/quote]

Personally, I run around with stickies out, and whenever I have one, I lead an engagement with it, the advantage of possibly taking out 100 health is tremendous. I try to aim my stickies at the torso, so if they miss, they are still close enough to them on the floor that some damage could be dealt. I try to get myself in close quarters with fletcher (even though I’ve started using the blishlok) because it gets way easier to land a stick.

All of that said I’m not the most experienced fletcher player.

Edit: Also, I jump a lot because there is no accuracy penalty and the momentum differences aren’t that noticeable in close quarters.

2nd edit: Also pretty sure that running with stickies is faster than running with a bat.

(Hallaw) #14

Rebinding your sticky throw-det keys is essential if you want to play on a high competitive level (which doesn’t really exist yet in DB), because having to press 4 all the time will mean you are not able to strafe to the right, which can be absolutely essential when you are playing on a level like that. I’d say the same for crouching but since you are only really using crouching to hide somewhere or to longjump, I feel it is a bit superfluous.

(Amerika) #15

I use ESDF for movement and Q and W are my manual special ability buttons. I’ve rebound Z to be the quickbind for the detonator but I don’t find it any speedier than what I’ve been doing manually.

(Sir_Slam) #16

I actually have question that will no doubt show how noob I am.

Sometimes when I throw the bombs out, he equips the bombs instead of defaulting back to his weapon. This drives me fucking nuts.

I’ve noticed that it happens when I hold the button, but it’s MEGA inconsistent for some reason. I don’t know if it’s my keyboard or what, but it’s the only ability I have this issue with. I don’t want to put my gun away after throwing a bomb, I want to keep it out and quick throw them instead. Any idea on how I can fix that?

(Randomdeath) #17

[quote=“Amerika;133314”][quote=“Sniff;133206”]For jumping try changing your lower thumb mouse button to your crouch button. Or rebind crouch to the thumb button if you can’t customize your mouse buttons.

This will open up one of your fingers and also help it to be more consistent to time your jumps. This will make consecutive superjumps and map surfing much easier.[/quote]

Not sure if you watched the video I linked but I don’t have any issues with crouch jumping or movement in general. I have toggle run turned on because it requires one less button input for crouch jumping and it’s handy in this game (no clue how people play with it off). I also have crouch on shift to make it easier as well (I use ESDF to move).

I don’t jump as often as most Fletcher’s I see while throwing stickies. Not because my fingers are pretzels but because I tend to rely heavily on my aim to win fights. So I’m internally debating if I should change this up and go with more sticky usage and go airborn more often or stick to the ground where I can easily switch to guns. Most likely this will just turn out to be an experience thing for me and how I play rather than an “advice can fix it” thing haha.[/quote]

Imo its not good to keep the same strategy, or technique for ever merc. When you are Vassili, you are very still and stay behind lines, and in close quarters combat you just aim well and move. For Fletcher you are ALWAYS a freaking jack rabbit, unless you running to an objective and arent fighting anyone.

(Randomdeath) #18

[quote=“Sir_Slam;136254”]I actually have question that will no doubt show how noob I am.

Sometimes when I throw the bombs out, he equips the bombs instead of defaulting back to his weapon. This drives me @$!# nuts.

I’ve noticed that it happens when I hold the button, but it’s MEGA inconsistent for some reason. I don’t know if it’s my keyboard or what, but it’s the only ability I have this issue with. I don’t want to put my gun away after throwing a bomb, I want to keep it out and quick throw them instead. Any idea on how I can fix that?[/quote]

Its just a timing bug. Happens to everyone. I just got used to switching back to shotty (which is scroll-down for me on my mouse) after a sticky. Very rare, but when it doesnt happen i will just switch to secondary instead of shotgun

(ElDingDong) #19

Am I a criminal if I toggle sprint? Helps in super jumping. Is this acceptable or am I a nub and I need to git gud?

(Amerika) #20

I really don’t have a clue how people can play DB without having sprint toggle set to on due to the mechanics in DB. So no, you’re fine.