Stop over-using shotguns!

This thread is MOSTLY for Team Deathmatch, although the concept applies to other modes too.

It'd be hard not to notice the trend, considering how prevalent it has been throughout the gears series. Let me preface this post by saying that the gnasher is a good weapon. You SHOULD use it, when the situation calls for it. After the sawed off nerf it's clearly the superior (if marginally harder to use) shotgun and for close range engagements is an excellent option when used well.

The problem with a VERY large portion of this community is that it ONLY uses either power weapons or the gnasher, ignoring their other primaries to irrational extents. They even go so far as to complain when people actually play intelligently and team-fire lancers at them. Let's break down what wins matches:

1. Teamwork: Any situation where 2 or more of your players can put rounds in somebody and kill them before their team can assist is advantageous. Getting shot by 2 of pretty much anything is damning, regardless of range assuming it can hit at all.

2. Map Control: Map control sets up teamwork. It allows the guys on your side to shoot more areas of the map at a given moment than the other guys. It also allows you to cover multiple power weapons.

3. Skill with weapons: You need this no matter what you use, and it obviously matters so I'm including it.

4. Awareness/Judgment: How quickly do you notice footsteps? Guns fired? Where is the enemy team? Where is your team? Should you push up or wait for help? Flank or hold a line of sight on a power weapon or important area?

Now, let's break down how a shotgun trash player hinders his own team if he uses his shotgun as a primary at range:

1. Teamwork: This guy has an effective range of 5-7 bodies, and no more. He can not put rounds in anybody further than that at all unless he moves...sometimes great distances. In the amount of time that movement takes, a teammate has often either won or lost an engagement. This guy has left points on the table, as well as possibly an assist, kill, or the match. It's a scrub move.

2. Map Control: When in a central location of a map (concessions in thrashball, fortress in sandbar, central area in drydock, balcony in hotel, etc), an assault rifle can easily reach 60-80% of the map and do damage/spot people across that entire area. The shotgun reaches about 10% of the map in these situations, if that...they should be used if someone is in your immediate area and pushing you...however you give team control of multiple power weapons only if you're actually willing to spot and shoot at distant targets, too. Bullets travel much further than you do. If you're running a shotgun while your team is in a central area and are seeing enemies but not shooting them, you're forfeiting map control and palying poorly.

3. Skill with weapons: That's ALL weapons, from gnasher to lancer to torque. If you're sitting with a shotgun out with enemies in view while not firing it to damage then because they're too far away, you are showing poor skill in BOTH lancer AND shotgun play. Using the wrong weapon and/or not firing at the other side at all is not very skillful. Generally the purpose in a shooter is to shoot the enemy team, not deliberately go 30+ extra seconds not firing or contributing at all.

4. Awareness/Judgment: Weapon choice is more judgment, although making sure you have the right one out is also dependent on how aware you are of current situation. Needless to say, running only shotgun and not even giving it thought is instant failure in judgment.

So, this thread is for all of you out there who switch to the gnasher at the start and never switch back. That's suckage. Learn to use team shooting. Learn to spot people. Post up in power positions (usually centrally located high ground) on maps and cross your opponents or use that power position to push a flank. DO NOT do these scrub moves:

1. Hide with a shotgun while firing at nobody for more than 10-15 seconds. If you go long periods while contributing nothing, you're CHOOSING to suck.

2. IGNORE teammates engaged with an opponent when said opponent is in your immediate line of sight.

3. Ignore opportunities to spot enemies (yes, you can do it with the gnasher too).

4. Not bother to shoot at enemies outside of cover who can clearly be downed by team firing at him

5. Stay at spawn and let the enemies control power positions, resulting in a spawn trap and nigh-constant situations where your team is crossed.

6. Ignore shots being fired or footsteps near you. This is a great way to die a few seconds after a teammate with a thumb up the @#$ rather than at least attempting to play the game by firing back at the other side.

If you avoid those things, play for map control, and shoot at distant enemies as well as close while spotting a lot, you'll score better and win more. There's a reason you don't see really good players in clan matches using the shotgun exclusively. They use it, sure, but they use other weapons and play for map control.

The shotgun is for when people close the distance on you and are threatening to gain position at an important power weapon (like boom shot) or an important area with lots of map control. You kill them then pull the AR back out, rather than killing them then doing nothing.

And now for a quick quiz!

You just spawned in on Mercy. Your team has control of mortars, but only has 1-2 guys there. You have 2 options:

1. Go to your team on the balcony
2. Go to frags in the church

One of these answers is for good players, the other one for awful players. Good luck and don't feed that TDM stock .

well . . . thats quite a rant.

if you are not part of a team and having a few quick matches solo it is very difficult to get good teamwork on the go as most people just want to shotgun battle.

shotguns have been the primary weapon in gears since i started playing as it is the best close quarters weapon in the game. if you want to take down a close quarters enemy with the lancer while he has the gnasher you cant afford to lose the 2 seconds it takes to switch weapons so you will (90% of the time) die.

i will concede that spotting is a must, i do that as much as i can. most people dont as they have already onyx'd the spotter medal. people primarily look out for themselves in gears, the only time you can really practice most of what you have said is when you have 3 or more in your party.

now to address your other points:

1, this is done lots, its called holding your position, if you know that the enemy will come here then do not give away the element of suprise.

2, if you see a team-mate engaged in the 'gnasher dance' and you come in from behind and blow the opponent away you will most likely get an abusive message from that player saying that you stole his kill. its not worth the hassle. a better thing would have been to say keep an eye on the battle and join if your comrade goes down.

3, nothing to add on that a i have already said

4,if you dont think you have the opportunity to kill a far away enemy then you are giving away your position for little reward by firing upon them.

5, staying at spawn is the worst idea ever since the spawn points for each team swap at certain points in the game.

6. if you ignore footsteps near you and sounds of a close gun-battle then, in all fairness, you deserve to die.

your post is good and i don't mean to be-little it in any way but you have to remember, there are always other tactics then anyone can think of, gears of war is a highly tactical game and there are pro's and cons to every tactic.

as for the quiz, depending on whether there are 1 or 2 people at the mortar spawn. 1 person i would go and support them, 2 people is enough to hold the balcony so i would try and get the frags.

call me an awful player and we'll 1v1!

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1, this is done lots, its called holding your position, if you know that the enemy will come here then do not give away the element of suprise.

If you're in a power position, your presence there is HARDLY a surprise. The only time this kind of behavior is acceptable is when you're between their spawn and areas they're likely to run and pressing them, such that your presence can surprise them. Nobody in their right mind will just walk into a power weapon without some awareness. If your opponents are THAT bad, you don't need the surprise.

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2, if you see a team-mate engaged in the 'gnasher dance' and you come in from behind and blow the opponent away you will most likely get an abusive message from that player saying that you stole his kill. its not worth the hassle. a better thing would have been to say keep an eye on the battle and join if your comrade goes down.

That's called "playing to lose on purpose". I'd rather attempt to win. Besides, the whole point of this thread is that you lancer the enemy from a distance rather than trying to close that gap and giving the opponent (potentially) 2 1v1 situations instead of a 1v2. If you lancer the guy, you don't even have to steal "his" kill if you don't want to. I shoot a LOT in this situation, and I've yet to get an abusive message from my own team (the other team doesn't always like it much).

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4,if you dont think you have the opportunity to kill a far away enemy then you are giving away your position for little reward by firing upon them.

You spot them, you damage them, and if they're going anywhere remotely worthwhile, you get assist points if a teammate kills them. Sometimes 80+ assist points. You want to tell me that isn't worthwhile? If they're not going anywhere worthwhile, again what do you care about "giving away position"?

Since when did gears turn into a game where people hide like scared little girls? On most maps people know @#%$ well where the other team is or trying to go. If you're worried about "giving away position" on a map like drydock, you're not applying much logic.

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5, staying at spawn is the worst idea ever since the spawn points for each team swap at certain points in the game.

Now this I agree with, but unfortunately you'd be surprised just how many idiots still do it.

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call me an awful player and we'll 1v1!

Kind of missing the team play concept here. Map control and team-firing are worthless concepts in 1v1, so you fall back to weapon skill (often grenades, especially on ink rounds when those are readily available). However, all the weapon skill in the world won't save someone in actual team play if their other choices suck.

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2 people is enough to hold the balcony so i would try and get the frags.

My little quiz has some hidden critical thinking required. What isn't said but is IMPLIED is "where is the enemy team, if ours holds the balcony). They're either at their boltok/gorgon, or they're at frags (the latter being more likely). Anywhere else and people on the balcony can spot/shoot them and they'll easily be crossed by your own team's spawn.

That means that unless you hear/see teammates firing at boltok (and if they are, you should probably flank to help them or just go to the balcony), they're at or going to frags. If you go in there, you have a good chance of either

1) getting blown to bits by a proxy frag
2) getting stuck in a 1vMany

When your team has control of 70-80% of the map and 2 of the power weapons, an action akin to straight up suicide (going into the church when they're almost certainly there) is not intelligent play. No matter how skilled one might be with their weapon, playing stupidly still costs the team. The reality is those guys in the church HAVE to come out, and the balcony can EASILY spot (and damage/down) them the instant they choose to do so. Balcony can mortar/oneshot/grenade into church with no real way for the idiots camping in there to retaliate. The correct solution is to NOT push into the church vs the other team, but to force them to come out where they will be at a considerable disadvantage.

Incidentally 3 people on the balcony can easily kill someone trying to run into their hidey hole in the church if the all shoot at him as he runs from spawn.

this may get a little tricky to follow but ill give it a whirl.

1. to use your own words 'people still do it' the amount of people who run into weapon spawns and around corners is stupid, they rush in and get pissed off when they get killed.

2, i highly doubt anyone who plays gears is 'playing to lose on purpose' and if they are they will be stricken from my list immediatly, i play to win end of story. i am pleased that you have never had an abusive msg from a team-mate who you angered, but the fact is it happens alot. there is even a thread on these forums about it.

4, assist points are worthless to me, i have onyx'd the assists medal 5 times and i still play daily. i'd rather get a good kill. gears turned into people'hiding like little girls' as you say. in gears one. is kind of the point of a COVER BASED SHOOTER.

my 1v1 comment was in light of the fact that your answer to the quiz were '1 answer is for good players and 1 for awful players' who are you to determine who is good and who is not?

if the entire enemy team is camping in the church then in all liklihood (sp?) they will stay there trying to get you to come in, i have been stuck in a 1vmany scenario many time and mostly i come out as the victor. proximity frags are easily visable on mercy and can be dealt with accordingly

well the best way to find proximities is to throw any grenade to the spot u think the grenade is and it blows up sometimes(if lucky), u can kill the players close to it

If someone sees a scenario where a teammate is engaged with an enemy they're capable of helping, but choose not to do so, they're playing to lose on purpose.

"I choose not to do this action which clearly raises the team's chance of victory" = idiocy. And yes, playing to lose.

But like I said, shooting them from range helps out even faster than running there. I see multiple deaths every match that never should have happened, because people chose to run around instead of shooting someone. In a shooter. The word "awful" fits these players to a T.

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4, assist points are worthless to me, i have onyx'd the assists medal 5 times and i still play daily. i'd rather get a good kill. gears turned into people'hiding like little girls' as you say. in gears one. is kind of the point of a COVER BASED SHOOTER.

Using cover to avoid fire is one thing. Ignoring opportunities to shoot people for meaningful damage and contribute to victory is another. It's not like you can't down them/kill them outright. The only true exception I can think of is execution, but even there it's worth putting rounds in someone if you have a teammate near them.

Also claiming assist points ever become worthless is a joke. Assist points mean that you did damage to someone and/or contributed to your team getting a kill against the enemy team. If it's that or no points, taking that is good play. Killing someone is great and all, but denying a teammate the opportunity to kill someone just because you'd rather have your own kills than assists is not good play.

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my 1v1 comment was in light of the fact that your answer to the quiz were '1 answer is for good players and 1 for awful players' who are you to determine who is good and who is not?

Well, it's not like you or anybody else can't look at how somebody fares in terms of wins, points per round, etc and make the same conclusions. That guy who is 2-12 at the bottom of a team wasn't the one playing area control and going for team fire, I can promise you that. There's a VERY strong pattern as to what type of player is there; the guy who runs into multiple enemies with a shotgun.

1v1 only proves my point further. Good 1v1 skills are useful, but they do not make a competent player by themselves. A player can very well STILL be awful despite them, and I see it every time I play.

The other major drag to teams is the guy who goes something like 5-3...across THREE ROUNDS. This douche is just hiding all day. He might even get some kills and make his score look better in garbage time by surprising a few people at the end of rounds...but when the outcome was still in doubt, this trash was putting his team in 4v5's constantly. His score/round shows it.

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if the entire enemy team is camping in the church then in all liklihood (sp?) they will stay there trying to get you to come in, i have been stuck in a 1vmany scenario many time and mostly i come out as the victor. proximity frags are easily visable on mercy and can be dealt with accordingly

Sorry but you are wrong. Unless your team is losing badly and time is short and they're all hiding in there trying to win on time/stock, you have NO reason to push in there. It is, simply put, a stupid move.

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well the best way to find proximities is to throw any grenade to the spot u think the grenade is and it blows up sometimes(if lucky), u can kill the players close to it

I'm aware of how to deal with proxies, assuming you guess correctly where they are and throw a smoke there or painstakingly jerk into-back from areas it's planted. Of course, the hiding trolls can just shoot you when you do that, and proxies respawn while you only get more smokes if you die.

Alternatively, you can just stay outside, make it utter hell for them to leave the church, and win. They either have to push out of there (and take tons of damage/lose some people doing it) or they're going to lose on time. If that's how they want to play it, do it to them every round until they quit hiding like @#$#%@#. There's no justification for pushing into an area where the ENEMY has the advantage when you have the power position and the advantage and they HAVE to push you to win. It's stupidity, plain and simple, and leads to a lot of deaths because people think they can do things that often they can't...and frankly don't need to do to win.

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if the entire enemy team is camping in the church then in all liklihood (sp?) they will stay there trying to get you to come in, i have been stuck in a 1vmany scenario many time and mostly i come out as the victor. proximity frags are easily visable on mercy and can be dealt with accordingly

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Sorry but you are wrong. Unless your team is losing badly and time is short and they're all hiding in there trying to win on time/stock, you have NO reason to push in there. It is, simply put, a stupid move.

im not sure if you have ever played gears before, ive played on mercy thousands of times and if there is a team camping in the church they will not leave as it is a solid position and they know they will probably take out some of your team when you push in. plus it takes a decent mortar shot to hit the hole in the roof and take them out that way.

assist points are pretty much meaningless, people dont care if you damaged someone they killed, they just want to run around like rambo and shoot at people, sometimes they'll kill a few people, sometimes they get bloan to pieces themselves.

it looks to me like you put far too much stock into what random internet people think of you, thats sad

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assist points are pretty much meaningless, people dont care if you damaged someone they killed, they just want to run around like rambo and shoot at people, sometimes they'll kill a few people, sometimes they get bloan to pieces themselves.

So what you're saying is that people do things that often contribute to losing, and they do so by choice. In other words, playing to lose on purpose. I see you agree with me after all.

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it looks to me like you put far too much stock into what random internet people think of you, thats sad

No, what I'm putting too much stock into is relying on trash teammates who are directly responsible for losing by feeding the other side 6 kills per round while maybe getting a kill or two. You know...guys with competence around the level of bots (bots really really really need to be buffed in casual settings BTW. Even against terrible players the bots lose and blow through half the spawns).

Playing well (even taking MVP in a good % of games) and still losing games because the team sucks that hard and blows through all of the spawns isn't fun.

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im not sure if you have ever played gears before, ive played on mercy thousands of times and if there is a team camping in the church they will not leave as it is a solid position and they know they will probably take out some of your team when you push in. plus it takes a decent mortar shot to hit the hole in the roof and take them out that way.

I think the even sadder thing is that others have allegedly played gears "thousands of times" (really? THOUSANDS? When it's one of a pool of maps? Have you played like 10000+ matches?!) can roll on the same map so many times and still quite obviously not know how to play it optimally when push comes to shove.

If you claim that the church is a solid position, you don't know the map.

If you claim that the mortar is hard to land in the church, then all I have to say is if you take cover on either side of that little + sign of shrubbery in the middle coming from mortar spawn, a full power shot drops in there easily enough. You can get at least a few parts of the shot in every single time. You can then push up just slightly for different patterns of where you're hitting.

You also seem to be ignoring the "why would you push in" question I posed, probably because there's no answer that's rational. WHY the hell would players go into the church with a lead on spawns, or even relatively even spawns left? Solid position my @#$! How do you kill people who are not in the church from the church? You don't. All you've done as a team is gone into an area where you can't get out without being spotted/taking damage (very likely killed if 2-3 people are aiming at the exit), can't shoot at the vast majority of the map, and can't actually kill anybody unless they go total retard mode and chase you in.

Terrible moron scrubs will of course chase a full team into the church, and they'll do it alone sometimes. Good players will not do that. They will let the idiot team rot in there until the timer ticks to 0...and the outside team will win the VAST majority of times.

TheMeInTeam wrote:

Terrible moron scrubs will of course chase a full team into the church, and they'll do it alone sometimes. Good players will not do that. They will let the idiot team rot in there until the timer ticks to 0...and the outside team will win the VAST majority of times.

Just this quote alone makes me think your a bit of a, whats the word... Idk, maybe idiot. Its a GAME, play it for FUN if you get pissed off so easily by people "Overusing" the main weapon in the game then play something else. Furthermore if you can't handle the fact that you get owned half the time, get some friends in a party and game with them. This is all im posting on this topic, so good day sir.

TheMeInTeam wrote:

I think the even sadder thing is that others have allegedly played gears "thousands of times" (really? THOUSANDS? When it's one of a pool of maps? Have you played like 10000+ matches?!) can roll on the same map so many times and still quite obviously not know how to play it optimally when push comes to shove.

this debate is starting to bore me so im gonna put my last post in here and answer the only decent question in your last post.

YES I have played 10,000 + matches, and although it is true mercy is only one in a rotation of maps there is a game type called PRIVATE. where, if i choose to, i can play on mercy all day every day.

and if your next question is 'how do you know how many matches you've played?' then i would suggest looking at the medal list, there is one called Veteran Gear, and the onyx medal is for playing 4000 matches. i have onyx'd it 3 times which equals 12,000 matches, plus however many i am towards the fourth.

the fact that you are so gung ho about the shotgun being 'overused' leads me to believe you just can't use it. you are so quick to call other players 'terrible' and 'awful' but all your are doing is complaining about the main weapon in all 3 gears games so i think you are probably worse then all the people you claim are bad.

i will not be posting in this thread again so please enjoy your time here, and remember, the second a game you play stops being fun its probably time to find something else.

good day to you

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Just this quote alone makes me think your a bit of a, whats the word... Idk, maybe idiot. Its a GAME, play it for FUN if you get pissed off so easily by people "Overusing" the main weapon in the game then play something else. Furthermore if you can't handle the fact that you get owned half the time, get some friends in a party and game with them. This is all im posting on this topic, so good day sir.

The main weapon in this game, the most iconic one, is the lancer. The shotgun is a close range weapon meant for areas with tight corners or fights where the distance is too easily closed to use an AR.

"Get owned half the time" is a rather odd thing to be telling someone who has ~2.7 wins/loss ratio solo. Even so, losing because 2 people died 20 times in 2 rounds isn't fun. A party would help yes.

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YES I have played 10,000 + matches, and although it is true mercy is only one in a rotation of maps there is a game type called PRIVATE. where, if i choose to, i can play on mercy all day every day.

You could do that, but I'm doubting you did.

Averaging 5 minutes/match (on the low side), you'd need to have played well over a month straight (in-game time) to get anywhere near 10000 matches. That's an impressive amount of gears 3. Do note that I didn't outright say you didn't play it 1000's of times, though by the sound it's likely only in the 1000's by a smaller margin. I did say that it's pretty rough that even today you still don't understand how to play the map though.

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the fact that you are so gung ho about the shotgun being 'overused' leads me to believe you just can't use it.

Someone who does not know how to use a shotgun does not win nearly triple the games as lost solo or with 1 party member. Now that you can't possibly answer the logic presented in my arguments, you fall back on "skill" in a lame attempt to attack my credibility along those lines. That's because you have no argumentative position and are wrong, but don't want to admit it.

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you are so quick to call other players 'terrible' and 'awful'

What do you call going 2-12 in team deathmatch? Do you consider that good play? Do you consider 5-3 across 3 rounds in tdm good play? My guess is that you also consider these players awful, but again you'd rather simply attack my credibility than admit reality.

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all your are doing is complaining about the main weapon in all 3 gears games so i think you are probably worse then all the people you claim are bad.

Wow. Your side of the argument is really scumming the barrel here. Is this really the best the other side has to offer? To simply not bother to read or outright claim lies that can be readily verified by simply reading the discussion (and with poor grammar, too!)? If "all I'm doing is complaining about the shotgun", then why did I:

1. Bring up where you go on each map
2. Talk about landing the mortar in the church, which you implied was somehow difficult to do (how is it that you've played a map 1000 times and don't know how to do something like this?)
3. Ask why you would do something that gives up a superior position (still waiting on an answer to this, but I bet you don't have one despite your 1000+ games on mercy)
4. Talk about shots fired/footsteps nearby
5. Talk about the importance of spotting and assisting teammates
6. Discuss map control

But of course, top score on my team and/or MVP obviously makes me a bad player. After all, those assist points "don't count", and I suppose since I didn't get ALL of them with that precious gnasher that the kills don't count either somehow. Victories and score/round don't count. Derp.

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i will not be posting in this thread again so please enjoy your time here

Not the best way to concede your argument, which is what you are doing btw. Generally, if you really want to prove someone is wrong, you don't ignore their points and attack their credibility. You attack their arguments directly.

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and remember, the second a game you play stops being fun its probably time to find something else.

Now this I agree with. The thing is, when my team isn't full of people with sub-70 IQs who throw lives away right and left, gears 3 IS really fun. It's one of the most balanced shooters released in years and the importance of playing it intelligently is leagues ahead of dumbed down disgraces with lag compensation like call of duty. On top of all that, it has SERVERS.

But, the objective of the game is still to win. It's not as fun when people completely undermine any victory chance by using up all of the respawns...then you die once or twice in a round and that's it, round over because two people died six times and scored 400 points between them.

I do think a lot of this issue stems from the community's tendency to use shotguns come hell or high water. It's a crutch...a reasonably high skill weapon with virtually no positional strategy. Perfect for someone who isn't intelligent enough to figure out where opponents are. People miss kills every single round because they simply won't switch. They take risks that get them killed when they could have easily downed + killed someone because they already had them crossed. They ignore teammates and in some cases even enemies. These are not good players. They do not have the scores of good players, the W/L of good players, or any other objective metric you can possibly use.

If you take offense at the 2-12 guy being awful, I could simply copy your tactic and instead accuse you of being a bad player in an attempt to discredit your argument, but there's a reason I never did that. Because that argumentative approach is weak and worthless. I don't need to do it...you've already said all that needed to be said by saying that the church is a good position for a whole team to be in on mercy despite playing the map 1000+ times. That's some SERIOUS time to play without learning ^_^.

If players want to rambo around without thinking and die a lot, there's a better game for that playstyle...call of duty. I'd rather play gears, and that means moving more intelligently, controlling power weapons, and team-firing people...not feeding the other team kills!

I'll do what I can to get a full party. Part of me was hoping to find some competent players here...maybe someone who knows how to aim an AR too will come forth? Someone who knows the right answer not just on Mercy, but also on Overpass, Hotel, Drydock, checkout, etc.

Back to the topic, I want to illustrate a few in-game scenarios to demonstrate what I'm saying:

1. You're on thrashball. You just gained control of concession stands. Your teammate is contesting frags vs an enemy:

If you try to run down to frags with the shotgun after securing concession, you suck . Not only will you not get there in time most likely, but you have a high likelihood of getting owned by enemies just spawning in (possibly still with protection too) or getting nailed by someone camping their side of concession entrance. You also give up one of the best areas on the map.

There's really nothing better you can do, assuming your area is clear, than to shoot at the enemy. Assuming those guys are equal skill and shotgun, your teammate will win 50% of the time there. However, if you do say half damage to the enemy, your teammate will win it much more...probably over 80% of the time. He can now down and gib at a further ranges, the enemy has to worry about gun knockup since he's being hit, and your teammate can down with 1 melee while the enemy can't.

However, what if your teammate ALSO chooses to lancer there, staying back a bit on the frags line of sight? Well, now you can spot for him (he can't be surprise flanked) but you ALSO have set up a cross. The opponent can't go anywhere where either you or your teammate can't shoot him.

This makes concession the power position on thrashball. It helps that it has mulcher/mortar, but the real power it holds is that you can literally cross everything but spawns from in there with a single teammate on the ground. It's hard to take and easy to hold. Good teams are likely to send 2-3 guys up there at the start in TDM. If controlled well enough in TDM, it is a spawn-trap monster position

2. You're on checkout. You just went for flame grenades:

The first step is winning the area. These are tight quarters and THIS is a situation where you use the gnasher if you're playing the flame grenades directly. The ARs can't really beat cover-pop gnasher and the range in those turns is small enough that you can easily down someone with a single active shot. Use the shotty there.

If you are instead flanking near the sniper spawn, you need to execute the judgment/awareness I mentioned in the first post. There's a good chance that someone will push sniper or you and you'll want the gnasher then. HOWEVER, you can also support the person contesting flame grenades there by lancering at his guy, possibly getting a kill or a massive assist. At the very least, you can force him off of cover near the flame grenades and allow your teammate to safely climb up there and get them...which is a BAD scenario for the other team.

This area of the map is the power position on checkout. The high ground with the flame grenades allows a guy (you don't want too many actually there) to spot the ENTIRE map. He is also a constant crossing threat and there are precious few places to take cover where either he or a teammate coming out from spawn can't hit at a distance. Enemy pathing becomes very predictable and it's not unlikely the the person camping the nades area takes MVP on the map.

Of course, the other side doesn't appreciate that, so expect some serious counter-attacks on flame grenades.

3. You're on clocktower. Your teammate is heading out for boomshot, and you've gone upstairs:

This one is a trick situation compared to the others. Clocktower doesn't have an obvious power position; the high ground is favorable because you can get more map coverage there, but you actually can't see down at frags or just under the ledge at all, nor can you fire meaningful rounds at more than 1 spawn at a time easily.

Your job when you get up there is therefore to spot the enemies heading for boom and shoot at them. Make it harder for them to beat your teammates at boom, possibly get some downs/kills if you're accurate + your team down there actually does something. However, after that you have to move, and even while firing you have to be mindful that the other team can run up on you and nail you in the back if you don't have support, so keep that internal clock going for how long you have until it's time to look around again.

After that initial phase, which weapon you choose is again situational. If you're fighting someone on the same side up top, the gnasher is the better weapon usually as there's plenty of cover and ways to move around. If they're across the way fighting teammates up there, use the lancer and shoot the enemy!

If you're the guy heading for boom, the shotgun is the probable winner there too as well as most engagements at the bottom. Once again, if people are already engaged down there firing the lance to quickly down someone near a teammate is useful, but if you yourself are down there flanking you really need the shotgun out.

So you can see that while the lancer has a role on clocktower, it's MUCH weaker than mercy or thrashball (where shotguns are really only wise to use or spawns or vs opponents also in concession when they're close) where you can cross the vast majority of the map at once with it and the shotgun will probably be the most-used weapon on clocktower. Gears maps are fairly dynamic and have different elements that balance approaches on them.

Keep in mind that the lancer can drop someone before they get their 2nd shot off with active hip spray, so if they miss that first shot gnasher vs lancer is a crapshoot. Similarly, the gnasher's range with an active (and with both weapons, you really should be taking advantage of actives) is impressive and if you get stuck with it out you can still hurt people out to a fair distance while exposing yourself from cover for less time.

Still, team shooting is king in a tactical shooter with health. Use it.[u]

I'll gladly game with you, but if you start bitching on the Mic im leaving. I main the Hammerburst, but use my Retro when i am not in the mood to use my trigger finger, and don't even try blaming me for a Modded controller if you face my Hammerburst because i can get three people in the party that know i don't have one, lDoomDogl, ETERNAL DARKNES, and FTG Juggernaut. What i meant by "getting owned half the time" was losing matches. Oh, and i don't play purely for winning, i play for fun. I don't just charge out but it has been a while since i gamed in Gears so im probably going to suck for a while.

Mod vs not is pretty obvious because the timing on mod is full-auto precision. Even the best trigger fingers I've seen have small variance between firing times rather than EXACTLY .x seconds between every shot with guaranteed perfect actives every time.

As for "winning" vs "fun", part of the point of a game is to have fun, but generally that means trying to win within the rules otherwise why play? Still, I don't expect anybody to be super-serious all the time...just reasonably competent and moving in a rational way. I admit to switching to the retro and just charging a lot when the opposing team is REALLY bad, among other things :p.

Anyway my gamertag is TheMeLnTeam (been meaning to fix it forever, but haven't yet).

TheMeInTeam wrote:

Mod vs not is pretty obvious because the timing on mod is full-auto precision. Even the best trigger fingers I've seen have small variance between firing times rather than EXACTLY .x seconds between every shot with guaranteed perfect actives every time.

As for "winning" vs "fun", part of the point of a game is to have fun, but generally that means trying to win within the rules otherwise why play? Still, I don't expect anybody to be super-serious all the time...just reasonably competent and moving in a rational way. I admit to switching to the retro and just charging a lot when the opposing team is REALLY bad, among other things :p.

Anyway my gamertag is TheMeLnTeam (been meaning to fix it forever, but haven't yet).

I don't got for actives with my Hammerburst, i go for the fastest reload for the faster kills. I don't ever run in like a kamikaze bomber or anything but i have been sucking pretty badly latly, idk if its due to the modders i've encountered or just horrible host connection lol. But yeah, I'll add you later on today when i decide to get my xbox back up

i know im going back on what i said by posting again but i just can't walk away from a good debate.

these points arent going to be in order as i can't be bothered sorting out the quotes.

1, i attack your credability as all you have done is belittle other players over what you deem to be 'proper behavour'. there is no way you can tell how good a player is by which answer they give to a question you pose. that is a fact.

2, after re-reading my post i say that my grammar is spot on, if you think it is not then you have poor grammar yourself.

3, at what point did i say it was a difficult shot to get the mortar into the church? i believe my exact words were 'decent shot'

4, i do not care whether or not you believe how many matches i have played, i know it to be true, and that is all that matters. and just a bit of information for you. mercy is my girlfriends favorite map so we play it more often then not in private matches.

5, i never said inside the church was a 'superior position' as you claim i did. the actual words i used were 'solid position'

6, you claim i haven't answered any of you points with rational answers yet by the looks of things you haven't even read my posts properly.

7, gears 3 has been out for almost 7 months. i am sure alot of hardcore gamers have racked up over a months worth of playing time. hell, some people had seriously 3.0 less then 2 months after game release, and the average private match can last as little as 2mins

8, if a player on my team has a 2-12 score he may be a bad player, or he may just be having a bad match. we've all had them im sure. but i will not discrimate against a player because of his skill level, we were all beginners once.

9, how many times you have MVP's is of no interest to me, i would tell you how many i have done but then you probably wouldn't believe me anyway.

pretty sure i have addressed everything, if i haven't feel free to inquire about something i missed.

also feel free to add me and im sure between us we can get a match going with omen and a few others, then we can actually see each others skill levels, instead of using a random question about positioning to determine whether a person is good.

and another piece of information for you, not once did i ever say i was one of the people who switches to the gnasher at the start of the match and stays with it, you were making an assumption, i merely addressed your points in my first post. i love lancering people down, my loadout has always been the lancer/gnasher

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i know im going back on what i said by posting again but i just can't walk away from a good debate.

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1, i attack your credability as all you have done is belittle other players over what you deem to be 'proper behavour'. there is no way you can tell how good a player is by which answer they give to a question you pose. that is a fact.

I have done a lot more than just belittle other players. The players I chose to belittle are the ones who pull those kinds of scores consistently and don't adjust. You're clearly not one of those players, but I expected as such from the start.

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2, after re-reading my post i say that my grammar is spot on, if you think it is not then you have poor grammar yourself.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned it because it wasn't relevant to my point anyway, but both that quote and the one I'm quoting now have grammar mistakes. Capitalising, improper usage of punctuation (what I just quoted is two full sentences for example), things like "your" vs "you're", etc. Again, worthless of me to bring it up. It isn't relevant. This isn't a graduate dissertation, it's an internet forum and I'm not exactly perfect on them either.

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3, at what point did i say it was a difficult shot to get the mortar into the church? i believe my exact words were 'decent shot'

You are right, then again you used that "decent shot" as a line of argument intended to refute that the outside could just fire them in there. In reality, it doesn't take much skill to place mortars in there, but rather just a little map knowledge, and hopefully someone on the team has it.

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5, i never said inside the church was a 'superior position' as you claim i did. the actual words i used were 'solid position'

The problem is that the church is *not* a solid position. You really can't effectively attack anybody outside of the church, while they have some capacity to threaten to kill players who are in it. Leaving it when the other team is outside is just as hard as entering. It's a weak position and it would suck horribly if not for frags...but frags are the only reason to go in there. It's a bad spot to be in for a team.

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6, you claim i haven't answered any of you points with rational answers yet by the looks of things you haven't even read my posts properly.

I quoted the majority of them and answered them. Not sure what else you want. There are still a few lingering points of mine you've not addressed, although I'm starting to suspect that's just because you know what you're doing and don't see the need.

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7, gears 3 has been out for almost 7 months. i am sure alot of hardcore gamers have racked up over a months worth of playing time. hell, some people had seriously 3.0 less then 2 months after game release, and the average private match can last as little as 2mins

I don't see a need to continue trying to prove you've played a lot of games. I accepted that you have some time ago. It still doesn't change the fact that a team playing for church on mercy is a bad idea :p.

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8, if a player on my team has a 2-12 score he may be a bad player, or he may just be having a bad match. we've all had them im sure. but i will not discrimate against a player because of his skill level, we were all beginners once.

Anyone can have a bad match (though 2-12 is pretty rough). It's when they keep doing it over and over again that it's problematic...especially when they've hit level 100 already or are higher level than most players. I really don't begrudge someone for lacking skill. There's always going to be someone with faster reactions, better aim, better movement patterns with the gnasher, etc. What really irks me is seeing experienced players choose to go places or do things that give themselves virtually no chance to succeed...and then after paying for it simply refuse to adjust at all.

When I see a level < 10 sucking it up, or a split screener, I'm more understanding. That's part of reality. I just want to see people adjust, or at least attempt it. What separates newbies from awful players IMO is that the newbies have upside. They still have a real chance to become good players as they learn the game. Level 100's who are still playing like beginners are much less likely to change much.

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9, how many times you have MVP's is of no interest to me, i would tell you how many i have done but then you probably wouldn't believe me anyway.

Indeed. Let's both get away from trying to prove anything by claiming games played, MVP, reaction time, or any other thing. This thread is fundamentally a strategy thread, because it is the lack of it in team play that is the source of my frustration.

I'll add you too.

Unfortunately, brighthouse and I are going to need to have a little chat. Past few days, I've been lagging (part of why I'm suddenly active here). This isn't the kind of lag that "gets you killed" or anything...no. I'm dropping from games outright. I don't think you guys would appreciate if every other game "themeinteam" became "golden gear" or "miner". Let me sort out why it's doing this and then we'll join up.

I'm much less of a hardass in person than I came off as in this thread too X_X. I should have cooled off a bit before making OP because it has a good amount of strategy discussion alongside too much ranting.

i like how we brought this back from the brink of argument, back to healthy debate. it seems we have differing opinions on the church in mercy, so im going to back up my claim that it is solid in some situations.

me, you and 3 of our friends join a losing battle on mercy aganst another party, we fight well and push it into a 3rd round. the final round we get hit hard, we are out of re-spawns the other team has maybe 3 or 4 left. if we were all to fortify the church we could potentially win that round as they can only come at us from the 2 doors, (people who shoot through the gate generally dont hit much) one guy on each door, one behing the alter and the other 2 behind benches ready to re-inforce. we get a few seconds warning if the mortar is fired through the roof. and we know where the enemy will come at us from.
if we chose any other position on mercy we run the risk over being over-run, the can come at us from several angles and (depending on which position we take) the cover may be inferior to what we could get inside the church.

thats just my take on it, obviously everyone plays differently

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if we chose any other position on mercy we run the risk over being over-run, the can come at us from several angles and (depending on which position we take) the cover may be inferior to what we could get inside the church.

The problem is, in such a situation they don't have to ever come in. If they just sit outside doing nothing they'll win :/. If you are running low on time and then decide to push out rather than simply lose on spawns, it's the other team that can instead simply take cover watching both entrances, and that little hallway exit is long enough that 2x lancer on each entrance can be pretty lethal.

TheMeInTeam wrote:

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if we chose any other position on mercy we run the risk over being over-run, the can come at us from several angles and (depending on which position we take) the cover may be inferior to what we could get inside the church.

The problem is, in such a situation they don't have to ever come in. If they just sit outside doing nothing they'll win :/. If you are running low on time and then decide to push out rather than simply lose on spawns, it's the other team that can instead simply take cover watching both entrances, and that little hallway exit is long enough that 2x lancer on each entrance can be pretty lethal.

but didnt they get rid of the 'team with most lifes left wins' rule with update 3, as far as i am aware if time runs low its a forced stalemate.

i may be wrong, its been a while since any of my matches have run out of time

It might vary on mode. I've only been running quick matches lately and it DEFINITELY does not end in a stalemate there.

I use my shotgun obsessivly because it's fun. Your right I could go for frags or I could run up to the mortar and just destroy everyone. Which is what I normally do. I'm a wallbouncer as most people call us now, you know the rare breed in Gears now a days.

Gears of War is boring when you try to hard to win. I honestly have more fun losing a fun shotgun match then winning a camping lancer match. That's just me and my opinion along with the 200,000 players who quit playing Gears due to the fact they can't stand the weapons power now. If you indeed don't believe me on these statitics Gears of War 3 had 300,000 players online consistantly the first week and is now barely pushing 50,000 sometimes 70,000-100,000 players online during events. Which in honesty is TERRIBLE.

People go online to play a game because they just want to relax have fun and kill some people and not worry about what would be the best way to kill someone a cheap and cowardish way. AKA the way your speaking of. Old fashioned Gears 1 and 2 players hate that tactic good chance we always will. If you were serious about Gears 1 and 2 when they were big then you would indeed know where they are coming from. But if you just played the campaigns and horde and barely played MP then yeah, you won't understand.

In simple terms of what I'm saying.

I'd rather lose a good fight, then win a cowardish one.

Its kinda of hard for me to enjoy any online match in Gears anymore. I've found so many modders its ridiculous, and the host lag has just been getting worse and worse with every new DLC and update.

BadOmenYourWay wrote:

Its kinda of hard for me to enjoy any online match in Gears anymore. I've found so many modders its ridiculous, and the host lag has just been getting worse and worse with every new DLC and update.

I couldn't agree more.

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Gears of War is boring when you try to hard to win. I honestly have more fun losing a fun shotgun match then winning a camping lancer match. That's just me and my opinion along with the 200,000 players who quit playing Gears due to the fact they can't stand the weapons power now.

Lancer matches only result in camping if one side is already winning. Otherwise there will be flanking and at least some close range play.

However, if attempting to win (IE playing the game at all!) is boring, possibly it's not a good fit for the person playing it.

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If you indeed don't believe me on these statitics Gears of War 3 had 300,000 players online consistantly the first week and is now barely pushing 50,000 sometimes 70,000-100,000 players online during events

You don't know why each person quit. Nobody does. You apparently like shotgun charging and still play. Why wouldn't the others? It's also normal across over half of a year for the #players to drop. How many players were on gears 2 at the 7-8 month range?

Also, the way you're arguing against lancer usage as I describe seems to actually confirm it's a more effective way to play even if you don't like it.

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People go online to play a game because they just want to relax have fun and kill some people and not worry about what would be the best way to kill someone a cheap and cowardish way.

When attempting to kill someone, killing them more consistently is a good thing.

"Cheap and cowardish" comment does nothing that I didn't do by calling hiding with a shotgun instead of shooting at someone in a shooter cowardish. It's 2 sides of the same coin. It is almost beyond belief, however, that an experienced player would call the DEFAULT weapon which EVERYONE starts with and is INTENDED to be used as "cheap". That's painful. I didn't know teamwork and shooting at someone was "cheap" lol.

Lancer was weaker in earlier gears because of the crummy net code. In gears 3 it was buffed IIRC, but so was the gnasher! Even in the older games, however, crossing somebody with lancer fire was very effective and lethal. All the way back to gears 1, lancer hip spray was a serious threat especially with actives (it was also much better vs chainsaw users because even 1-2 bullets would drop the chainsaw). Gears 1 players didn't like it either. I got kicked from quite a few lobbies because I shot people from a distance and outplayed them. I actually think your typical gears player is more amenable to good play now than back then.

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Its kinda of hard for me to enjoy any online match in Gears anymore. I've found so many modders its ridiculous, and the host lag has just been getting worse and worse with every new DLC and update.

I could do without the modders. I would vastly prefer to do without them actually. 480 rpm hammerburst with 8 rounds needed to down someone is annoying.

Lag is only even noticeable at times in this game. If you think the lag in this game is bad you're spoiled, it is AWFUL in other games and it was leagues worse in gears 2.