Overview
This is the basic introduction to Titan gameplay and Mechanics for TItanfall, as well as providing tips and advice to help players along. Future guides will be referencing this guide when applicable.
Introduction:
Titanfall 2 gives players the ability to choose from a nice selection of larger-than-life war machines to stomp around the map with; Ranging from the nippy and up close Ronin TItan to the Mechanical Personification of the Heavy that is Legion. All titans can be complete game changers and even game winners if you play your cards right.
With the exception of Titan Brawl, Last Titan Standing, Live Fire, and Pilot vs Pilot, all Titans are on a cooldown from the start of the match and will charge up at an Extremely Slow rate on its own. This cooldown can be reduced by doing any of the following things:
- Killing AI enemies (4 – 20% no matter what and depending on the enemy killed)
- Killing Pilots
- Rodeoing/Damaging/Killing Titans
- Capturing an objective (In CTF and Amped Hardpoint)
The rate at which the cooldown is reduced is dependent on the gamemode you’re playing. As an example, Killing a pilot rewards 15% Titan Charge in Attrition but rewards 20% in CTF.
Each titan comes equipped with their own unique playstyle, but there are ways to tailor that same style to how you play. The full intricacies of each titan will be discussed in their own separate guides. This guide will be going through the general information of Titans and the Universal Titan Kits (refer to after this point as UTKs).
Titan Classes: The Triumvirate of Metal
If you played the Original Titanfall, then this section will sound very familiar. All seven Titans in the game can be classed into three unique Chassis Types: The Ogre, The Atlas, and the Stryder.
The Ogre
Ogre Class Titans are characterized by their Tankiness and slow movements. They have the highest Base HP Pool of 12,500. They are also the slowest of the titans, both in general movement and in their dash, of which they will have one dash no matter what. Their weapons focus on low Damage per second with a small burst damage sprinkled in-between thanks to their offense-focused abilities.
Legion and Scorch are Ogre Class Titans
The Atlas
Atlas Titans are your generalist Titans, having kits that cover all of the bases but weaker or less useful than their more specialized counterparts. Having a base health of 10,000 and good movement speed, they’re very useful to have in any situation. Their weapons do a consistent amount of DPS and their abilities are more supportive than damaging.
Monarch, Tone, and Ion are Atlas Class Titans
The Stryder
Stryder Titans are your Damage Specialist Titans. Their kits are focused around doing as much damage in a single attack as possible, at the cost of having the lowest base health pool of 7,500. They are also the fastest Titans in Titanfall 2, having 2 base dashes to boot. The Stryders are not good in multi-titan fights – they work best when fighting a single enemy at their preferred distance that they can pick off with ease. The weapons, as mentioned before, do incredible amounts of damage and their abilities are focused around support rather than attacking.
Ronin and Northstar are Stryder Class Titans
All Titan classes can obtain a defensive shield by having a pilot insert a battery into it. These can be acquired – generally speaking – by using the Battery Back Up boost or by stealing it from an enemy Titan.
Titan Kits
Titan Kits are one of the Three special Kits that can be installed into a any Titan of your choosing. These kits upgrade your Titan with a general support ability. There are 6 Titan Kits in total at your disposal. These kits are not all available when you first use your titan unless you buy it with Credits, which are acquired at the end of each game. However, it is recommended that you just play with the individual titans and level them up to get the kits since it would take you no less than 5 – 10 completed matches to get the credits necessary to obtain a single Titan Kit. This goes for all Titan-related kits as well, which will be talked about in their own separate guides.
This is the Titan Kit you use when first using a Titan. This grants the Titan greater accuracy when in Auto-Titan mode, and it allows for the usage of Offensive and Utility Abilities when in this mode.
In all due honestly, you’ll be wanting to switch out this Titan Kit as soon as you can. The other Titan kits are far more useful and far more practical than having a smarter AI Titan. There have been so few instances that I thought to myself “Wow gee golly I wish I put in that Assault Chip.” because an AI Titan is more often than not a waste of a Titan.
Stealth Auto-Eject causes you, the pilot to eject and cloak whenever your titan enters a Doomed state, preventing Pilot Death.
Though there are more useful Titan Kits, the SAE still has its uses. For starters, this makes you Completely Invisible to enemy titans when you eject out. This can help prevent the situation I like to call the “Titan’s tracking your movements and is about to pick you off like it’s Duck Hunt” moments. That being said, however, the downsides to this kit is that it will eject you as soon as you enter a doomed state, which means that if you, say were about to pull an execution or titan core on an enemy Ronin, and he taps you into a Doomed State, then you’ll have to rely on another titan or yourself to kill him. But if you attack Ronin yourself… you get put out of cloak, rendering the entire kit as a glorified auto eject script. Additionally, Pilots can still see partly see you, and they can pick you off when you’re in the air or when you land.
This kit is not bad, per se, but definitely gets outclassed by other kits.
Turbo Dash gives Atlas and Stryder Class Titans one additional dash to use, effectively reducing the time it takes to preform a dash by half. For Ogre Titans, this reduces the time it takes to dash by half, but does not provide a second dash.
This is the first really useful kit that you’ll get your hands on. The ability to dash in and out of danger is one of the best things about a Titan’s movement capability. Having more chances to dash is always a plus. Of course, you’re going to be sacrificing the other useful Kits to get more movement speed, and that’s not the best idea on certain Titans.
This is a Must Have on Scorch and Legion because their dash recharge times are disgustingly slow.
The Overcore Titan Kit gives your Titan a 20% boost on your Titan Core when it’s first called in. This is the equivalent of giving your Titan a battery for free.
Overcore is the other very useful Titan kit that you’ll be relying on during your Titan stomping. Having 20% core charge to begin with can be a huge help with titans whose cores can take ages to fully charge, like Ion’s or Monarch’s. Additionally, if you pair it up with a battery that you, *ahem*, acquired through legitimate means, then you’ll start with 40% Core charge which is nothing to sneeze at. It’s often argued that this is the best Titan kit to use because of that extra boost, and at the same time, it’s seen as a crutch for new players due to that same boost.
In my personal opinion, it’s a bit of both. There are some titans that absolutely need this kit like the ones mentioned above, but putting it on all of your Titans tells everyone that you’re bad at getting Titan Cores. Which means you’re bad at killing enemies, pilots, and enemy titans… in your own Titan. Which at that point I think you have a bigger problem on your hands than just getting a single Titan core.
Additionally, some Titans don’t actually need that head start. Scorch can famously get his core in under 20 seconds if he can get a few titans into an Incendiary Trap or two, or by liberal use of his Thermal Shield against an unlucky slow boy. Northstar’s Rifle does so much damage you can get her core in 4 – 5 well placed shots at the very least, and Legion just throws out so many bullets that it’s very hard not to get his core with relative ease.
At the end of the day, I can recommend it but I’m putting a major asterisk on the end of that recommendation.
Nuclear Ejection causes your Titan to explode in a large radius dealing Titan-killing levels of damage to any enemy around the detonation. This explosion can only occur if you eject in a doomed state. This ability also can kill the ejecting Pilot if done improperly.
This is the “F&#K IT, IF I’M GONNA DIE I’M TAKING YOU ALL WITH ME!!” kit. This kit can be useful for making sure that the enemy doesn’t leave the encounter unscathed… if at all. However, the detonation is telegraphed to everyone in the area, encouraging them to use the tried and tested tactic of Running the F&#k Away. As stated before, it can also kill you if you’re caught in the blast radius. Even at the most outer reaches it will put you into a critical state, leaving you open to anyone with a line of sight to pick you off. If you find yourself as a pilot and a titan is about to go BOOM, you better have a damn good escape plan.
It’s a good way to bully Ogres though… that is, if you can get to them in time.
Counter Ready gives you an additional Electric Smoke every time you obtain 30% of your Titan Core.
If anyone actually, without a hint of irony uses this kit please let me know in the comments. Electric Smoke is used to get away from bad titan matches or to kill those dirty battery thieves, which is useful in of itself. Alright, so what’s the issue with this kit?
Well, Nine Times out of Ten a pilot will only rodeo you if they’re confident that you don’t have a smoke available. They don’t value the battery that much. Even if that wasn’t the case, though, experienced pilots will happily pick you off at a distance with Anti-Titan weapons, using cover and their small body to hide from your death dealing arsenal. Finally, you are actively giving up all of the other useful kits here just to have a bit more anti-pilot power.
Stick to punching those nerds off, and leave this kit in the trash bin.
Domeshield and Warpfall
There are two ways that your titan will be delivered to you when you call it in, both play quite differently from one another.
A Dome shield Titanfall will take 5 seconds to drop onto the battlefield. When it Touches down, it deploys a shield that will last for 15 seconds. In the shield, the titan is impervious to any form of attack and damages all enemies within.
This is the starter, and honestly the better of the two titanfalls. Sure, the actual time to fall is much slower than a warpfall, but that 15 seconds of shields can be a life saver. If you get killed while it’s falling, you’ll have a very healthy window of time to get back to your titan and load in.
Warpfall “warps” in your Titan, deploying it within 2 seconds with no shield. A Titan will go into Auto-Titan mode if not boarded by the player immediately.
Warpfall is the “High Risk, High Reward” version except without the reward and all the risk. You’re only going to use it if you know you won’t be getting attacked in the next 3 – 5 seconds. Otherwise, it’s free Core Feeding for any Titan in range. There is one cheeky way of using it by warpfalling a titan onto an enemy titan, killing it. But that’s just an unlikely event to occur.
Additional Tips and Tricks
This is the section dedicated to things that you can do both as a Pilot and a Titan to better your experience. Feel free to post your own tips in the comments below and you may find yours added here (with credit of course).
- Pilots can Damage Titans without the use of Grenade launchers or Anti-Titan weaponry, but it’s only possible if you boop them on the nose.
- A Titan will be gravely injured or even destroyed if a Titanfall lands on it.
- Pairing a Warpfall with a Back up Battery will give you a decent substitute for a Dome Shield
- If you have a pilot rodeo-ing you and you have electric smoke, crouch in it for better effectiveness.
Feedback
I’m always happy to receive any feedback you have. If you have any questions about this guide please leave them in the comments below.
Good Luck out there, Pilots!