Well, a lot of people have been bitching about the operative not actually doing particularly well, and I’m convinced it’s because they’re doing it wrong, so I put this 2 part guide together. Part 1 goes through perks, part 2 is some gameplay.
Let me know what you think 
Hey, Combat Intuition, believe it or not, is extremely useful. It lets you know when someone is aiming at you, if they aren’t on your radar(which is a lot). You can then use that information to move around sporadically, to avoid their fire, and to take cover. I’ve used this when a disguised operative aimed at me, and I gunned him down. 
Also, the drum magazine is awful. It decreases the accuracy, not very useful, as your shooting becomes erratic.
Really? I’m relatively sure combat intuition doesn’t show up when an operative is disguised. I’d tried it before, and generally found that it didn’t actually give you any chance to react before somebody started shooting. But hey, I’ll give it a go again, see if I change my mind.
Thanks for confirming my fears as to drum mags
He was circling me, and it went off saying they were all around me. I was like, wtf, and then I saw a guy right next to me, and I shot him. He was definitely an operative, I made sure to gib him before a cortex bomb went off. 
Cool, thanks
I think one of the biggest problems is that operatives need to know the maps fairly well. I don’t know about you guys, but I find the maps very convoluted, and still don’t have a very good mental picture of most of them
Does part 2 involve any human players? I only ask b/c it shows the person playing as being the only human according to the scoreboard. It’s nice to make videos, but it doesn’t really carry much weight against bots.
Nope, no human’s at all. I was mainly demonstrating a lot of techniques operatives weren’t using particularly well - like how to add fireteams, plant homing beacons while disguised, and that sort of thing. Didn’t see what having actual humans would add. Still, maybe next time!
could you make a guide on sticky bombs, and cortex bombs o_o ? you also didnt really demo comms hack or hack turret? cool guide though
Comm hack is not that useful imo.
You spend about 10 seconds hacking a downed enemy, which can open you up to enemy fire. Then you gotta really kill the guy in order to steal identity, or you will comm hack first and then steal ident.
So basically you sit in the open crouched to a enemy typing on your PDA for 15-20 seconds. :S
It’s a cool idea. Just not a huge benefit to the effort involved to using it.
Cortex bombs are the gold. Just like using martyrdom in COD. The trick is triggering it at the right time so you can take out your enemy. I actually stopped a suitcase transfer, because they ran over my dead body. 
Sticky bombs. I don’t know what the crap is up with these things. Thought it was a bomb that sticks, but i haven’t seen it do just that. I still use them, but caltrops are more useful.
I dont know who can remove the stickies yet. ATM I just run for the next group of enemies
you died several times while standing at a command post. that should ve teached you that combat intuition and/or sense of perspective are quite useful.
Combat intuition does show enemies in disguise, probably a bug. Operatives thrive on the unorganized battlefield though. Cortex/stickies/caltrops are pretty good (or maybe just annoying) when you can get close enough to use them. On a well organized battlefield, Operatives lose their worth as they become much harder to play usefully, unless there is a hack objective of course. Making the operative a debuff class and maybe giving them the speed boost ability or some extra team oriented ability would make them a lot more balanced imo.
All classes can remove stickies from team mates.
[QUOTE=Clickable;316018]Comm hack is not that useful imo.
You spend about 10 seconds hacking a downed enemy, which can open you up to enemy fire. Then you gotta really kill the guy in order to steal identity, or you will comm hack first and then steal ident.
So basically you sit in the open crouched to a enemy typing on your PDA for 15-20 seconds. :S[/QUOTE]
You’re exaggerating. It takes 10 seconds tops to comms hack and disguise. The comms hack would be incredible if anybody actually paid attention to the radar but as far as I can tell, very few players do.
If you get a direct hit on an enemy it’ll stick to them and go off shortly. You can also stick it to the ground where it will last for a minute or two and then detonate, unless an enemy runs over it in which case it will stick to them and the shorter fuse will start.
Good effort on the video, will probably help alot of new players. At the same time I have to say, it doesn’t seem as if you have tried all the different ways of playing an operative, with the use of abilities/weapons/body type/tactics. I don’t meen to sound elitist or condescending, because it is very helpful to everyone that people make guides like this, but you should not emphasize alot more that people need to try out what works out best for them.
Just as an example, playing on public servers as a heavy operative can grant you a suberb game, disguising yourself -> Get behind the enemy’s at the chokepoint -> Mowing them all down with your MG.
Also the guide was imo a bit too much about getting experience, for example the use of caltrops. It would be good mentioning that you can place these to cover your own flank or the whole team by placing them in positions that the enemy team can take to get behind you. When you see that you get exp you will know they are passing through there and therefore you are ready for them, or you can tell your team if you are using VOIP or for instance skype.
There are other things aswell but I think you got the point, anyways, great work, just wanted to give some constructive criticism since I assume and hope for the communties sake you will be making more videos, keep it up!
P.s epic that the bot ran you over haha (:
Only Engineers can remove land mines, but everyone can remove sticky bombs. I believe you just need to press F on a stickied teammate. Anyone can shoot a sticky bomb on the ground as well.
Sticky bombs are a hit or miss item. They require too much effort to use in a firefight and the delayed explosion makes them almost meaningless since the enemy will most likely be shot to death before the explosion goes off.
On the other hand, the sticky bomb can be used as a breadcrumb, especially if an enemy is chasing you. Once you hear the pop when the enemy runs over the bomb, you can hunt him down and shoot him to 2/3 health and then hide. He will soon blow up and you can comm hack + disguise.
My general thoughts on the Operative class:
[ul]
[li]Overall fairly weak. It has its moments but it lacks both the ability to absolutely decimate a target instantly (which this game is not about, so that’s fine) and the ability to greatly hinder enemies for his teammates to more easily dispose of them.[/li][li]More of the Operative’s abilities should keep his disguise. There’s no invisibility in this game, so once he loses his cover he is screwed. Sticky Bombs, Comm Hacks, disguising, turret hacking, etc, should not remove an Operative’s disguise.[/li][li]Specific abilities:[/li][list]
[li]Sticky bomb as mentioned is hit or miss.[/li][list]
[li]It’s best used as a means to cover your tracks so if a lone enemy stumbles upon it you know his location and can hunt him down.[/li][li]It is merely okay for team firefights when the enemy is too preoccupied with shooting and not enough with removing stickies, but you may as well just cook a normal grenade instead for greater gain.[/li][/ul]
[li]Comm Hack is too long and unintuitive.[/li][ul]
[li]Operative needs to get in and out quickly and cannot afford to spend 7 seconds hacking and then disguising while sitting still in one spot.[/li][li]Ability requires a living, incapacitated enemy meaning you are competing with both enemy medics and your own teammates to get to a downed enemy to hack him. Often your teammates will shoot or stock strike the enemy before you can start hacking. It is frustrating to use this ability as is for little gain.[/li][li]Comm Hack should be a throwable item (i.e. Engi buff, Soldier ammo, Medic heal) that does not remove the Operative’s disguise (but plays an obvious animation if enemies are paying attention). This way you can properly infiltrate the enemy team and hang out undercover with them, only for your teammates to find and jump them and then for you to start backstabbing everyone with sticky bombs and knife stabs.[/li][/ul]
[li]Hack Turret also takes too long for little gain.[/li][ul]
[li]It kills disguise, the turret AI is weak, and it makes the turret your own (i.e. Mapex’s turret).[/li][li]Taking a page from Fortress Forever, the turret should remain in the enemy’s possession but your hacking should confuse its targeting AI so it attacks friendlies instead of enemies. After ten seconds of its initial strike against an enemy, the turret should be dropped down to 1/3 HP so it appears overheated, requiring a repair from an enemy engineer before it can operate properly (and be hackable) again.[/li][/ul]
[li]Homing Beacon is good, but it could use a crosshair when disguised (maybe only when zoomed in)[/li][ul]
[li]This speaks for itself. It isn’t hard per se to keep your aim on an enemy without a crosshair, especially with many years of FPS experience (over a decade in my case), but when you are zoomed in it is noticeably more difficult and a crosshair would greatly help achieve this task. The Operative’s life isn’t nearly as easy as those of the other classes, so I think this slight change wouldn’t be too much to ask.[/li][/ul]
[li]Caltrops don’t achieve their purpose[/li][ul]
[li]It appears Caltrop Grenades are supposed to be for area control, either to keep enemies from chasing you/your teammates or preventing their escape. Unfortunately they don’t appear to do enough damage and thanks to SMART can be avoided even in the tightest of corridors (especially in the tightest of corridors for Light classes).[/li][li]Either the damage needs to be upped so enemies have no choice but to walk/crouch slowly when passing them (meaning the grenade is achieving its purpose) or they need to slow when an enemy takes damage (ensuring that the enemy is always slowed either by the grenades or by using walk/crouch).[/li][/ul]
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Agreed!
Homing Beacon is good, but it could use a crosshair when disguised (maybe only when zoomed in)
Agreed!
(Caltrops) need to slow when an enemy takes damage
Agreed! – I don’t care as much about the damage, but a slow-down would be great.
[QUOTE=Mapex;317525]Homing Beacon is good, but it could use a crosshair when disguised (maybe only when zoomed in)
[/QUOTE]
You already have a dot in the centre of the screen. It’s not the most obvious aim marker, but if you know it’s there, it’s not hard to spot with.
Also, I find Caltrops are more useful than Stickies for tracking enemy movements - set them to block a couple of routes into an area, and set yourself up to watch the other(s), and you’ve got a warning system for when enemies come in the way you can’t watch directly.
Unattached Stickies don’t stay down anywhere near long enough to track enemies like that - I find them far more useful as the “break disguise” button - hit an enemy with one from behind, then your teammates round the corner while they’re panicking - either they forget about the sticky, and you blow everyone up with it (massive damage + massive XP), or they defuse it, but two enemies are out of the fight while they do, leaving their team short-staffed at a critical moment.
[QUOTE=Skysaw;317545]Agreed!
Agreed!
Agreed! – I don’t care as much about the damage, but a slow-down would be great.[/QUOTE]
The damage is actually excellent. You might not notice it when it’s just on the ground, but if you put it in a choke point (ie. Security Tower- the two doors they bring Nachayev through, it will seriously mess with their team. If they’re like me, they’ll think they’re being shot at and try to run out of the way, only to continue stepping on them(being shot at) and eventually bring their health down to a point a grenade will clean things up. The slowdown is a good idea, but it wouldn’t work the same with caltrops, because they stab into the feet unless you go slow to pick your way around them.