Overview
This guide is about the merc Fletcher. I will talk about stats, loadouts and strategies.
Introduction:
Hello, and welcome to my Fletcher guide! While I’m definitely not the best Fletcher out there, I like to think that I’m good enough to make a basic guide.
I named this guide “Hidden Potential” because I’ve seen people calling Fletcher “useless” and “worse than Phantom after the nerfs”. This is not true. People that say this have never played against a good Fletcher, or even played as Fletcher before. Fletcher has one of the highest skillcaps of the game. A good Fletcher can easily dominate pubs and be useful in comp.
Before using 50k credits or 9.99$/€ on Fletcher, try him out in one of the free rotations. Fletcher is hard to get into because his playstyle differs so much from other characters, having to switch weapons often.
The Stats:
Fletcher has balanced stats, 110 health and 420 movement speed, 10 less health and 20 more speed than Skyhammer. Being an Engineer merc, his C4 plant time is 3 seconds and his defuse time is 4 seconds.
If you stick someone, Fletcher’s sticky bombs do 100 damage (80 if the enemy has the Unshakeable perk), enough to one-shot Aura, Proxy, Vassili, Sparks and Kira. If you don’t stick your opponent, you do a maximum of 80 damage.
The stickies arm as soon as they leave your hand, and the detonator takes ~0.5 seconds to detonate the sticky (~0.33 seconds with the Quick Draw or Lock-On perk)
The Loadouts:
Fletcher’s default loadout has the Ahnuld-12, the Empire-9 and the Beckhill Combat Knife.
While best loadouts are always based on opinions, Fletcher’s normally considered best loadouts are the:
A31 Guardian Close Assault
The A31 features Fletcher’s default weaponry + Lock-on, Tough and Double Time. Lock-on used to be broken, but now it’s fully functional and has the same advantages as Quick Draw! Tough is decent and Double time is great. Reload on the run is useful for a character that needs to be as quick as possible.
BL33 Standard Operative
The BL33, my personal favourite, has the Blishlok, the Empire-9 and the Cricket bat + Quick Draw, Tough and Flying Pig. While Tough and Flying aren’t worth writing home about, Quick Draw makes up for it by allowing faster sticky throws and detonations (The stickies and detonator count as weapons, therefore are affected by Quick Draw) Again, when playing as Fletcher, every milisecond counts. Saving time when using your ability is extremely useful.
Since the Lock-On fix, I highly reccomend the A31. It has the faster sticky detonation with Lock-On and the reload on the run with Double Time. Use the BL33 if you don’t like Shotguns.
While Lock-On and Quick Draw do both reduce the time on the stickes, Quick Draw’s effect on them isn’t as big as the impact Lock-On has, with the trade off that Quick Draw affects all of your weapons and not just the stickes. (Credit to Geo for pointing this out.)
Strategies And Tips:
The strategies are what separates a good Fletcher from a bad one. Let’s start off with the basics:
– Your stickies are your primary, run with your stickies out. I can’t stress this enough, running with stickies/ not using the quick ability feature makes it easier to get sticks on people. That is essencial for Fletcher. If you’re having trouble reaching the 4 key/ whatever your “ability 1” key is (NOT the quick ability), try binding ability 1 to Q, or even better, an extra mouse button if you have one. This also helps with cooking Fragger nades, aiming Skyhammer airstrikes, Sawbonez/ Sparks healthpacks, and other abilities that require aiming.
I’ve seen people ask “Won’t this get you killed?” I thought the same too. When I tried it out, I was surprised at how effective it is. Throw the sticky, detonate it and finish the opponent off with your guns. This is why I prefer the BL33 over any other loadout, as it makes this process faster and easier.
– Know the maps. Load up a private server, practice trickjumps and flanks, learn the chokepoints and flank routes, common sniper spots, etc. This is a general tip, it will improve your game overall. But knowing the flanking routes is essencial as Fletcher, as he benefits alot from flanking the opponent.
– Watch good Fletchers play. When i say “good”, I mean https://www.youtube.com/user/How2nx levels of good. The type of guys that seem to never miss a sticky, that are extremely accurate and can predict their opponents almost perfectly. Sadly, there are little to none tournament VODs with Fletcher.
– If possible, record yourself playing, and rewatch the videos, multiple times if necessary. Think: “Why did I die there? What could I have done to avoid that death?”; “What if I tried a different flank route?”. Try to ask these questions to yourself after every death, if possible. Again, this serves as a general tip, it works for every merc and will improve your game overall.
– Playing Fletcher defensively doesn’t mean you have to set up traps. I would avoid setting up traps as Fletcher because it’s not that effective, Proxy does it better. You’ll need more than 1 sticky to guarantee a kill on any class, and since every sticky you have out detonates when you press the detonator, you won’t be able to use stickies offensively. This is a HUGE negative, since offensive play is one of Fletcher’s strongest point.
When on defense, Fletcher serves as a offensive engineer. He kills the attackers before they have a chance at the objective, and if they CAN plant the C4/ repair the EV, Fletcher can defuse said C4 and use his stickies on the EV, or even better, the people escorting it.
Conclusion:
I believe that Fletcher has alot of potential for competitive play. While the stickies are much worse at defense than Bushwhacker’s Turret, They’re much better offensively.
Fletcher is definitely not easy to learn and he’s even harder to master. He requires practice, timing and prediction, lots of it.
If you tried Fletcher out before and he left a bad taste in your mouth, try him out again with the tips I gave you, the difference will be day and night.
The End:
Thanks for reading my guide about Fletcher. If there are any errors or missing information, let me know.
Big thanks to:
Splash Damage for making this game.
The great Fletcher players out there that inspired me to play Fletcher and make this guide: https://www.youtube.com/user/How2nx andhttps://www.youtube.com/user/BeardyDuck
The community for letting me flank them and get easy kills being so nice and caring.
Sources:
The Dirty Bomb Wiki[dirtybomb.gamepedia.com] for the stats. (the sticky damage is incorrect on the wiki)
An Obvious Fletcher Tip: Run with your sticky bombs out from Dirtybomb
for the “run with stickies out” tip.
The other Wiki[dirtybomb.wikia.com] for the pictures.
The loadout suggestions were my personal picks, but most of the community agrees on those.
Update Log:
May 15th 2016:
– Changed the incorrect information about the Lock-On perk.
– Fixed some grammar errors.