How2NotSuck: Total Beginner's Guide

Look, this is just to prevent you getting totally destroyed in public lobbies. If a veteran player joins, you are still pretty much f#cked but at least you won't be an easy target.

Read one of the more advanced guides linked below in specific sections if you want to do better.

• The most reliable way you can find a Versus game is to search for Seize Ground, Classic Maps. Otherwise join a community to start a game because it's near impossible without one
  
  
• The button for ingame chat is T for team, Y or Z for everyone
  
  
• This game works on a Peer to Peer (P2P) system, so the lag is horrendous and often decides who will win a match more often than skill. Most reliable weapons are those that don't rely on lag too much because they are hitscan (ranged sniper weapons like Lascannon or Stalker), or those with a large AoE (Vengeance Launcher, Plasma Cannon)
  
  
• Customizer is unlocked at level 4. Weapon Versatility (Two weapons on Tactical Class) at level 13.
  
  
• Red Weapon perks and Challenges can be unlocked via grinding in private lobbies. So yes, get a friend or two (or ask in my community if you don't have one) and you can unlock all perks in a private lobby!
  
  
• The Boltpistol has a faster time to kill than the Bolter, even when the Bolter has two perks. It's very close, but the Boltpistol is just slightly better which means if you learn to land all your shots properly there is no reason to use the bolter.
  
  
• How much fuel you have left in your jump pack is denoted by the presence of and the size of the flames coming out of it. Small flames = 1 jump, Big flames = 2 jumps, or 3 middle jumps
  
  
• Blinds work in all directions, even if you are facing away from it, and they blind your teammates regardless of the friendly fire setting
  
  
• Kraken Bolters, Lascannons and Stalker bolters can shoot through some cover, but not all

Look, let's be realistic. A lot of new guys make the same mistakes. It's because humans are very similar by nature. You are not a different species from veteran players. A lot of us made the same mistakes early on too, but we learned better later on. So don't take this personally, or like I'm sh!tting on your fun or whatever, just accept that if you want to be better at this game then you have to learn some things.
If you don't want to be better at this game, then why are you reading this?


When new players cap points, take areas, or otherwise wait around, they tend to stand still instead of moving. You need to be on the move ALL THE TIME as much as possible. Even if it simply doing circles. Just DON'T stand still. Headshots in this game do more than 2x the damage of a regular shot, and there are many weapons that can instakill or near-instakill you. Moving and doing circles makes it harder for them to do that to you!


There are situations when you should change your loadout. There are situations when you should change your approach. Even the best players in this game change their tactics or their loadout depending on the situation. Nobody is keeping count at how good you are with the plasma gun or whatever. Just change to another weapon, another perk and move on.


Never hold your position. You should always be advancing, unless if you are defending. Even when you are defending, you are best off in most situations going around and flanking the attackers rather than just holding your position. If your team has taken the middle points, then go for the enemy team's home point. Do NOT just hold your position.


It doesn't work unless if the enemy team is braindead or you have intense lag. Worse still, you are teaching yourself horrible strategies that will lead to you getting worse at the game, not better, because there are bad habits which people start learning from trying to successfully camp which prevent them getting better at actually playing the game.
There is not a single loadout in this game where camping is rewarded. In fact, the sniper weapons of this game such as the Lascannon and Stalker bolter are best played aggressively and are very much frontline weapons.

Oh but what about the plasma cannon / heavy bolter camping the hallway??? He seems to be doing so good!!!

That's because he's farming noobs. Watch what happens when a clan player joins.

Flank around him, throw a grenade under his feet, then just shoot him dead. They're a free kill once you learn to disengage and stop attacking from the front. And even then, the plasma cannon or heavy bolter is much better played as an ambush or shock flank weapon - you'll notice the best veteran players with these weapons tend to use them very actively and do a lot more than just simply camping a spot!


Seriously, I've mentioned this a few times now but STOP ATTACKING FROM THE FRONT. Go around. Every single time. You are doing nothing but feeding the enemy team ammo and wasting a slot on your team. Every single time. Even if it is completely clear. Just go around instead. Take a flanking route, always.

This game has a Peer to Peer (P2P) internet connection, meaning that it's often very laggy and the host has a massive advantage. The advantage is such that the same 2 players could get in a 1vs1 a score with 8/20 kills difference depending on who is the host.

This means that most often even if you've evaded shots on your screen, your enemy probably still sees you as they see you with a delay of a second or two. This means you have two options: You can use your battlefield awareness to get out of situations before they even happen, or you should focus on killing and shooting your enemy rather than defending against their attacks.

Seriously. Focus on killing them. Stop dodging, rolling, whatever. Just keep shooting on them, use melee or whatever. It'll save you much more often.


Does your team have a lot of devastators and are having a hard time making a difference? Maybe it's time you pick your tactical or assault loadout for flanking, preferably something that can do a lot of disruption. Examples: air cooled thrusted + impenetrable assault with plasma pistol shooting charged shots then disappearing, or favour of the armoury + mastercrafted grenades vengeance launcher tactical to disrupt the whole enemy position all at once

Maybe it's the opposite. Maybe your whole team is currently going full disruption and they need some backbone. Pick a tactical with stalker bolter and burst shot, or a devastator of any flavour, and you'll be able to provide quite a lot of necessary DPS and staying power to the team. Be responsive to your team's needs and change your loadouts as necessary.

Even if you're bad at it, a bad distraction is better than no distraction, and most of the backbone loadouts are very easy to master as they literally just involve you clicking to kill things dead. Revolutionary, right?


You see that notification of someone getting killed by a Melta gun, and there's a skull sign right about where you heard a Melta gun being fired? That means your teammate was killed there by a melta gun. There's a very good chance an enemy with a melta gun is right there. Since it's a melta gun, you know it has to be a tactical. So, already you can deduce a fair bit of information about the situation there.

Seriously, battlefield awareness is like a cheat code in this game. LISTEN. THINK. It's going to let you predict enemy behaviour and be able to respond to things in real time. That's the real difference between a new guy and a pro; often not how good they are shooting or what loadouts they are using, but battlefield awareness. Because if you know a melta is coming, you know to stay away from its range and to bait them into where you can kill them - or to flush them out with a grenade, or a plasma cannon charged shot, or anything else of the sort.

• A strong backbone, frontline, highly powerful class. Strongest in any 1vs1 situation.
  
• Strongest in melee range, strongest in medium and long range, strongest in any open environment situation. Melta tactical overpowers it at close but not melee range. Other classes only win over it by surprise, disruption, or positioning.
  
• Best new player class as it's by far the easiest to learn and the least punishing as long as you don't make any blatant mistakes. As a new guy, it's best to first learn you limits before you learn to play aggressively - you're powerful, not invincible.
  
• Always be on the lookout for flanking Tacticals, ambushing Assaults, and never let yourself be ambushed. If you hear an enemy approaching and going around you, it's perfectly acceptable to either relocate or to pull back a little and bait them so you can shoot them dead
  
• Most of the gameplay for this class revolves around avoiding ambushes and baiting out premature rushes, as opposed to the other classes revolving around setting them up and trying not to be premature
  
• Weaknesses are mostly situational, environmental, from being caught out of position or flanking assaults - this is all caused by inferior mobility and versatility compared to the other two classes. Playing defensively or camping only makes these weaknesses worse as the enemy will more easily flank you!
  
• Lascannon is BY FAR the best weapon for this class, and is overpowered at all ranges. Headshot can instakill almost anything
  
• Play very aggressively as long as you see teammates flanking around, or there's other people also attackinbg. This class actually can pull off solo frontline attacks sometimes, and if the enemy team is distracted or already engaged then it can decisively win any fight it joins
  
• This class is the only class in the game powerful enough to lead such frontal attacks and not die pointlessly, if you're skilled and coordinated enough with your team. A single mastercrafted grenade can get 2-3 of you killed in seconds if you can't predict it. That's why you must first learn battlefield awareness and learn coordination with your teammates and learn how to deal with disruption, flanking, and ambushes before you can commit to playing aggressively.

Full guide if you want to learn more:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2583573954

• Powerful flanking, surprise and ambush class. Many burst damage and disruption options.
  
• Don't hold positions and don't do frontal suicide attacks, always go around and try to ambush enemies especially vulnerable devastators!
  
• Retreat from fights if they last too long and go somewhere else, or go around and re-engage the same enemy from behind.
  
• Rapid Deployment is the most powerful perk, combining with Teleport Homer and good teamwork can lead to 3-4 Tactical players easily owning the entire map for the whole match with that combo
  
• Melta gun is a must-take if you want to be able to survive most situations. Combine with weapon versatility perk so you can have another main weapon
  
• Stalker bolter is the best Tactical weapon in almost all situations. It beats all other tactical weapons by pure DPS at all ranges.
  
• Yes - Stalker is better than the stormbolter and kraken bolter at close range! Bolter and Stormbolter are useless unless if you have bad aim, that's literally the only reason you would use any of those weapons.
  
• Vengeance launcher is the best flanking, disruption, suppression and aggressive playstyle weapon and it is extremely good against assaults. It is considered overpowered by some, but it can be easily out-DPS'd by the Stalker or any devastator weapon - it's disruption is what makes it so hard to fight against.

Full guide if you want to learn more: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2581919205

• Great mobility and flanking class, but will lose any prolonged fights.
  
• Use the Impenetrable perk no matter what your goal or situation is - the class is unplayable without it. Way too little endurance, and too little ranged damage output.
  
• Some of the best targets for easy kills are tacticals moving around the map trying to get a flank on devastators. The food chain in this game goes something like this (but it's by no means the rule, just a general trend): Devastator Class shooting the frontal tacticals and flying assaults > Assault Class killing the lone wolf flankers > Tactical Class flanking to kill Devastators > Devastators getting killed by flankers
  
• If you have been spotted by the enemy and he isn't one or two shots away from being killed - run away! You have a jump pack, use it!
  
• The best use for assault is by far to use your jump pack in order to get around enemy locations and around the map really quickly, and then finish off players that are retreating from combat or hiding in cover with your pistol
  
• Only use melee to get kills against lone targets, unaware targets, or distracted targets - it's often not worth it! If you must use melee, you should either pick already weakened targets, or you should use some perk like Furious Charge, Killing Blow or Death from Above in order to make it worth it.
  
• Using melee to draw attention then jumping away is a good way to disrupt the enemy team and allow your flanking tactical teammates, and your attacking devastator teammates to finish the enemy team off!
  
• Throwing grenades or plasma pistol charged shots into enemy cover is a great way to flush enemies out so they get shot by your teammates!
  
• Even if you don't get the kill yourself, helping your team win is what's more important and a good distraction can lead to your team overrunning the map letting you get more easy kills later on
  
• Furious Charge with Stims can one-shot most enemies

Full guide if you want to learn more:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2586133671

Check out Vanfeldt's guide. It's the only really good one.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3233872665

Join my community on Steam or Discord if you would like to play Space Marine in all gamemodes and with a chill crowd free of the cheaters that plague public games.

Permanent discord link: https://discord.com/invite/yJgnE655vz
Public steam group: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/tsagualsanwarzone
Public steam chat: https://steamcommunity.com/chat/invite/jtWosiF4