Gaming
Gaming
7 tips for mastering Quake Champions’ Duels
With the Quake Champions beta underway, we’ve got some suggestions to help you dominate Duels.
Quake Champions looks set to be our best hope of a new major eSport launching this year. Sure there'll be new iterations in the annual franchises that have large competitive followings, but for the most part Quake Champions appears to be the only eSports-ready title launching this year. In fact, Quake Champions is so eSports-ready that it already has a mode designed for competitive play.
Duels is a one-vs-one game mode where each player drafts three champions, then you jump into the map. Once you lose with a champion, you then respawn with your next one. If you die with all three champions then you lose the whole game. This is in turn a best of three, with the first person to win two of these rounds declared the winner.
While the traditional Quake Champions Deathmatches are fast-paced frag fests, Duels plays a little differently, and requires a lot more thought and attention. It certainly isn't easy to master, and even winning a round can be difficult for inexperienced players. To give you a helping hand, we’ve come up with seven handy tips so that you can be a threat online as soon as you jump into your first Duel.
1. Draft what you are comfortable with
In our first ever Duel we'd just unlocked a ton of new champions and had no idea what most of them did. Much like with Overwatch or League of Legends, choosing three champions we'd never played before wasn't a good idea. Sure, at the basic level they all play very similarly, as they all have access to the same weapons, but abilities are key in Duels, and not knowing what they did led to us using them in terrible situations and either charging into death, or discovering what would've been a great ability to use just seconds later.
As time goes on, there'll undoubtedly be a meta where some champions become better than others, but until that becomes a surefire thing, sticking to what you know and like's really the best option. Feeling comfortable will enable to you perform to your best level, and if you're constantly trying to figure out what your champion does, you'll probably be too distracted to notice your opponent sneaking up on you.
2. Always search for better weaponry
Whatever weapon you choose to start with, be it the Heavy Machinegun, Super Nailgun or Super Shotgun, you can be guaranteed that there's a better option elsewhere. Sure, these base weapons are OK, but even finding one of them on the battlefield will give you a slight damage increase.
From our experience, the Lightning Gun was the most favoured weapon by players, thanks to its rapid rate of fire and solid damage, but the classic Railgun served us best. We weren’t the best at tracking a foe for three to five seconds, as required with a lot of the Quake weaponry, but give us a moving target and a weapon that has the potential to one-shot someone, and we were starting to dominate. Of course the Rocket Launcher's always a favourite for everyone, but learn how to use the best weapons and you’ll be on the way to success.
Anarki has a hoverboard as a passive
© Bethesda
3. Utilise your active at the right time
It can be tempting to use your champion’s active ability as soon as you get the chance, but often it's better to wait for a while and see how things play out. That's unless you're playing Anarki, who should almost always instantly use his active to maximise that permanent health boost. Holding that ability can be the difference between winning a losing fight, so using it only when you're in need of a serious boost's a good idea. For the most part they should be treated like an ultimate in a MOBA, and only used when really necessary.
4. Don’t forget about your passives
It’s easy to remember that you have your active ability, as there's a massive indicator in the middle of the screen, but it can be easy to forget that every champion has a passive ability as well. Sometimes these are useless in certain situations, but sometimes they can be key. Sorlag, for example, can bunny-hop, meaning jumps make you move faster. Anarki’s hoverboard means he can control himself in the air. Default soldier-type Ranger takes less self-damage, making rocket jumps way less of a risk. They'll never be able to turn a fight, but remembering their use at the right time might save your life.
5. Keep track of your opponent
In a one-vs-one, picking your moment's key. If your foe has the high ground, maybe challenge them to a Railgun fight, or if they're on the other side of the map don't go shooting a shotgun at them. In order to pick the right moment, you need to know where they are, and keeping tabs on their location's key. If you lose them, that opens you up to a sneak attack, so finding them is your new main task. But once you find them, there's no need to engage straight away if they don't see you. People often play very cautiously, meaning you can tail them for a while before attacking at just the right moment.
6. Don’t be afraid to back down
If you feel like a fight isn't going your way and you think you have a way out, then run away – there’s no shame in that. Dying just once in a duel can turn any game, and so no kill should be given away just because you think you'll lose a fight. If you run away and lose your opponent, then you can heal up and stock up on your armour, basically resetting the round like nothing's happened. Of course, with the slower heroes, that isn’t always possible, but if you have a bit of pace, or think you can juke your opponent, putting distance between yourself and your enemy and resetting is a legit strategy.
7. Stay positive
Usually this is pretty much a given, but during our time in Quake Champions we came across a few players who gave up once we grabbed the first two frags. They just ran into us with their third champion and let us take them out, which took away a lot of the satisfaction of winning. Just because you're down a couple of kills doesn’t mean the game's over. We had one match where we were tied at 1–1 in a best of three, and in the final round we were down two kills. One more death would've seen us lose the match, but we somehow got two impressive Railgun frags, and brought it down to a simple next-frag-wins scenario. We lost, but it goes to show that you are never out until the final frag comes in.
For more eSports coverage, follow @RedBulleSports on Twitter and Instagram and like us on Facebook.
