TitanFall 2 is a brilliant FPS that I loved playing for the campaign. The multiplayer modes are great too but can take a bit of adjusting to. It’s strongly tied to movement with loads of tricks and quirks for doing awesomely cool things. Unfortunately what that meant for me starting out was I got killed repeatedly by other people doing awesomely cool things while I flailed about randomly.
So here’s a few tips in how to get started, do decently in games and not just be a slightly more-animated target dummy.
Play The Campaign
The story is great fun (and not too long) but the campaign does a good job of introducing you to the main components of TitanFall2 multiplayer; running about in a massive Titan, the parkour elements and what all the various weapons and gadgets do.
Even on the harder difficulties it’s not the same level of challenge as human opponents and you’ll have at least a rough understanding of the gameplay before you dive into PvP.
Titan Choice
I’ve stuck with the Ion. It’s a good all-rounder, has decent health, can fight at any range and has a core (ultimate) ability that’s easy to understand; you really can’t go wrong with a Massive Death-Beam of Doom (TM).
Titan Options
I found Overcore and Zero-Point Tripwire to be the best starter choices. The trick with Ion is managing your energy supply and making your defense (TripWire) cost no energy simplifies things a lot.
Overcore: See above about Massive Death-Beam of Doom (TM).
I also played a lot of the Northstar with the theory that if I stayed at range from the other Titans I’d last longer but it was a bit fragile while I learned.
Pilot Options
Again I went for simplicity and general usefulness;
Phase Shift as Tactical: A get-out-of-jail-free card a couple of times a minute. The others require some skill to get the hang of (Grapple) or familiarity with the maps (Cloak).
Arc Grenade as Ordnance: Good against both Pilots and Titans plus is straightforward to use. Can hit yourself with it for suicide-hilarity too.
CAR as main gun: A decent all-rounder. Good damage, decent range, can hip-fire and is accurate out to medium distances. I took the options to allow firing while sprinting and a faster shooting down sights.
MGL as secondary: Nice anti-titan gun that allows you to fire out of line of sight. Plus the grenades are magnetic so you can spam randomly fire blind. I get through lots of ammo so I took fast reload and bigger magazines.
Fast Regen and Low Profile round it out. Fast Regen gets your health back faster and is passive (one less thing to worry about) plus ties into Phase Shift nicely. Low Profile means people don’t get so much advanced warning when you attack their Titan or move around the map.
Boost
Lots of options here. Wall-Hack or Jammer is useful for your whole team so you can contribute even if you’re not doing well at the fighting. The two turrets can be put down to deny areas and get some free kills.
I prefer the Battery as Titan combat is a lot less frenetic and I tend to do better once I’ve got it.
The Smart-Pistol is great, but losing your secondary weapon is a bit of a big cost while you’re learning the ropes.
Game Types
I found that game-types with the Titan were best when starting. You can’t get insta-gibbed in it, you get a lot more time to learn the maps and stomping around in a 10-metre robot is cool no-matter how well you perform. Also, squishing people by accident while bumbling about is awesome.
Game-modes with NPCs are also nice to start with. You can do decently on the scoreboards without even seeing an enemy player and you get your Titan that much quicker.
So stick with Bounty-Hunt, Attrition, Titan vs Titan and Amped Hardpoint until you get your feet wet. Pilot V Pilot and FFA are a bit more unforgiving 🙂
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