Zep’s Tip List
Movement:
1. Left side flip: Ok so this one is pretty easy and it can be vital to use against someone with left side cover when you have only right side cover. Put your character against the wall and move them along towards the corner, once at the corner hard aim your rifle or shotgun while against the wall, now pull directly back with the left analog stick and you will now be able to move freely (must stay in hard aim mode) while holding your gun as a lefty would. This will allow you the same amount of body cover while having a wall to your right as it would if you had a wall to your left without the flip. Many times a person with a shotgun will rush someone without left side cover, this works great if you do the flip, just left side flip and pull back and lancer the guy running along the wall trying to take advantage of your right side cover.
2. Watch the rolling: Watch the rolling when you’re in a shotgun battle this’ll get you killed more times than not, when in a close range battle slide into cover, a wall, or just strafe left and right while fighting. You should limit the rolling in a battle unless you know the enemy is reloading or if you know that you can do it safely. I know it’s awesome to pretend like you’re running away really fast then roll backwards and get the one shot but it’s not as effective as it was in Gears 1.
3. Strafing: It’s just as important in this game as it is in any other shooter, side to side strafing with some unpredictability thrown in. Don’t walk straight left or straight right, just mix it up and try to determine where your opponent is going to be. This is more important with the rifles and the power weapons than it is with the shotguns, it’s hard to strafe when you’re right up on a person. It’s one of the most efficient things to do with the sniper as well, just line your shot up vertically at head height and strafe either left or right depending on where an enemy is and it’ll increase your chances at a head shot by taking away the possibility you could move your right thumb stick too far up and miss the shot or too far down and body shot someone.
4. Wall bouncing: Unique to Gears of War is wall bouncing, the ability to move from one cover to another quickly as if you were in a semi slide. Certainly one of the best things you can do in a shotgun battle. Move into cover with the A button and the directional pad and pull away right as or right before you meet the cover by pulling the left analog stick in the opposite direction to which you just used it sliding into cover. Use blind fire along with wall bouncing and you can attack and partially defend at the same time. Your character goes into a crouch like sliding routine when doing this correctly, making your hit box smaller and making it hard for people to get head shots on you across the map. Best used with blind fire but works great for someone hard aiming as well, wall bounce behind someone quickly enough and if they don’t have their sensitivity high enough then it’s fairly easy to pop shot them before they can turn around.
Shooting:
1. Pop shotting: The act of lining your shot up with the enemy as if to blind fire and then quickly pulling the left trigger to hard aim, effectively getting off a quick shot like a blind fire would produce while keeping the same bullet spread that a hard aim offers. Works great when you’re just out of the effective blind fire range of a shotgun and need a quick, accurate, and damaging shot. Since your aiming speed slows when you hard aim it’s best to make sure you have your enemy lined up as best as possible for a blind fire before doing any kind of hard aiming, effectively reducing the amount of time you have to scroll across the screen before you get someone lined up in your sights. It use to work really well for the sniper in the other Gears but not so much anymore, still it’s a good maneuver to pull off when it works.
2. Head shots: Just as it is in the real world, if you shoot someone in the head they are going to fall or die much quicker than if they were shot in the body. I believe the lancer has a one and a half times damage boost on it for head shots, meaning if it takes 15 shots to kill someone shooting them in the body, you could actually kill them in 10 if the shots are hitting the head. I don’t know if some people just don’t realize this or if they just want to make sure they hit the target but if you can take your time and actually aim at the enemy’s skull you can take them out in two thirds the time it would take for body shots.
3. Blind fire: It is back and in its full glory again, just as in Gears 1 blind fire shots actually work and come out of the gun where the barrel is truly pointing. In Gears 2 we didn’t have near the ability to blind fire our shots as we do in Gears 3 and did in Gears 1. The bullet never seemed to come from the barrel in Gears 2 so hardly anyone used it but in Gears 3 we actually know where the bullet is coming from. Just line up the tip of your weapons barrel with an enemy and fire. You have to be within spitting distance most of the time or the blind fire doesn’t really work. It allows you to move more quickly and be less restricted than if you were hard aiming, which makes it ideal for those up close battles where you need to use utilize the higher sensitive the look offers compared to the target and zoom sensitivities. Hide on a corner and as someone comes up just pop out of cover and take them out with one blind fire shot. Try making sure the enemy that’s coming is in the middle of the screen before you pop out (this is where the barrel will be when you come out of cover) and take them out. If you hard aim during a up close and personal shotgun battle it just slows everything down, so try not to hard aim up close and less you know the person won’t get a shot off within the next second or so. This is the only way to use the sawed off as well, if you hard aim with a sawed off you’re just wasting your time. Remember the spread on blind firing shots is huge, so don’t use it beyond its intended range or you’ll just pepper someone with shots.
4. Active reloads: It’s just as important in this gears as it is in any other Gears of War game, make sure you hit all the active reloads you can so you get a fire rate increase and damage increase for the bullets that have been active reloaded. I’ve done it in the other Gears and still do it in this one, shoot off a few bullets at the start of the round so the first person you walk into can eat a few active shots. If you start shooting at the same time as another person that hasn’t active reloaded their shots chances are you’ll get them down before they get you. One active reloaded bullet in the boltok pistol can get you a head shot, two to the body can take them down. Active reload the snipe and body shot someone then pull out your snub pistol and take them down with 2-3 shots. With power weapons such as the boom and the digger don’t reload them till you plan on using the weapon, if you killed someone and still have bullets put the gun away instead of reloading it. Then when someone comes along a half a minute later or so pull it back out then active reload it and take them out so you’re not wasting your damage boost on such a beast of a weapon by active reloading it and just having the damage boost go away before you run into the next enemy. Try active reloading your snub pistol or lancer then shoot someone in the head with it and see how fast they drop, combining the two is devastating.
Team Work:
1. Spotting enemies: Something totally new to Gears of war but something that has been around in the gaming scene for some time. One of the, if not the most, underrated things people can do in the match, although the majority of the Gears population doesn’t utilize it. Ever been in a match and tell your friend something like, “Oh he’s over there, over there with the sniper” then another friend chimes in “Where, where, I don’t see him” well now you can pinpoint an enemies location exactly. Even if a guy is right in front of you behind a wall and you can’t see him, if a friend marks him you know exactly where he is because the marker shows up through walls and even has a HUD that will show you if he is behind you. Pinpoint out the enemies and everyone will have a better idea on how they need to move or plant up throughout the map. It works wonders for cross fires when you’re in a game with 4 other friend as well. Tell everyone to hold off on marking for a second, then if a group of enemies comes at you guys the leader (or whoever the one marking is) marks an enemy and tells everyone to concentrate fire on that guy and they’ll drop like it’s nobody’s business, this works much better than the old fashion way of “Everyone go for the dude on the left” strategy. Keep concentrating fire on the marked target and you can get a group of enemies down in a matter of seconds.
2. Weapon swap: Also something new to Gears is the weapon swap ability. Maybe you picked up a gun that someone else on your team is beast with, you can swap them for one of the starting weapons they have or whatever else they may have picked up along the way. I like the new ammo feature too; you can share ammo that you have with your teammates that might be out or low on ammo. This helps cut down on those “Get my back while I pick up this guys ammo” maneuvers that can get us killed all too easy. Just stay back and share ammo in a hairy fire fight then when the smoke clears you can go get what you need.
3. Spawn swapping: I really can’t express how much I like this feature, especially when playing team death match, where the spawns can switch in the blink of an eye. Just keep your volume up and you’ll notice someone on your team saying “Enemy reinforcements” (for the cog team) or “Enemy forces” (for the locust team) and that’s your queue to know that the enemy is now spawning in a different location from where they just were spawning. Very helpful to listen for especially if your waiting back with a sniper or something and they spawn right next to you, it usually gives you enough leeway to get out of there before you get overran, so keep those speakers on.
Miscellaneous:
1. Cover jumping: Another new feature is cover jumping, line up with someone on the other side of a sandbag (or cover you’re able to jump over) and press A to get over cover and you’ll kick the enemy effectively stunning their movements for a couple of seconds. This can be kind of tricky sometimes because you don’t want to get cover kicked as well but if you get over the cover before your enemy they are virtually dead. The couple of seconds for which the enemy is stunned gives you just enough time to hard aim your shotgun directly in the enemies face, giving him a bloody makeover. I have friends that tell me there’s another controller scheme that helps to hit the wall and jump over it quicker than the default one, sometimes the default one doesn’t like to jump cover right after it’s been taken cover on but I’ve yet to try it.
2. Grenade tips: Just thought I’d throw a few grenade tips in here. Just so you know grenades can be detonated by smoke grenades, you might have noticed this a time or two when you accidentally killed the guy on your team with a grenade when you didn’t even have one. The digger can actually be detonated by a grenade too but I’ve not seen that as of yet. So if you see a grenade or think one might be planted on the inside of the wall there on Mercy, throw a smoke in and it’ll get rid of any grenades within its radius, maybe even kill the guy if he’s that close to his plant. Also if you see enemies close to an enemy grenade shoot that baby and you’ll be getting the grenade kill on that unsuspecting enemy teammate. Also if you see enemies readying a spinning grenade in their grubby little hands toss a smoke at them and it just might go off as the enemy is throwing the grenade, basically giving him a suicide that you get the kill for. It’s usually a good idea to tag a grenade in a fairly unsuspecting place near the grenade spawn as well, not only will you be basically ensuring a kill for yourself, you’ll be able to know when the grenades are back up because odds are that guy you killed saw them and was attempting to pick them up.
- I'll add more information as it comes to mind.
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