Tips for Predator and Fireteam

#1

Not saying there aren’t still balance changes and tweaks to be made. Things need adjusted on both sides. But here are a few tips for both sides.

Predator

  1. Use your ranged weapons. Seriously. Even if you’re a Zerker. The bow and caster are great for softening up a team. Get a down with a few well placed shots, then you can hit em with a slam when they go for a revive, or a charged caster shot if the group tries to shield. There will be plenty of moments to use melee but only if you’re smart. This is the number 1 reason you can’t make a dent in the team. Take advantage of your caster it’s an essential part of your kit. You always have it (there might be a reason for that huh?) and its your best friend.

  2. Don’t try to melee charge a team of 4…or 3. Just don’t. You’ll die. Unless the team isn’t paying any attention at all. Even a Zerker with full health and Impenetrable will get one down at most before needing to retreat. It’s not worth throwing away a heal or 2nd wind on 1 claim or 2 downs. This is the number 1 reason Preds get melted.

  3. Use your movement in a melee rush. Don’t just charge in a straight line. Leap behind, sprint around a corner and circle back for another strike or two. Don’t just swing away eating bullets. Jump, leap, sprint, use cover, and pick your targets carefully. Just keep an eye on your stamina gauge.

  4. If it’s too hairy just run away. Chances are someone will stupidly try to run you down, if they’re solo and you still have a good amount of health they’re screwed. If they bring friends it’s usually likely they left someone behind. Use your movement and go punish the straggler. Keeping your health up will also deter fireteams from pursuing you.

  5. Don’t think every attack has to end in a down or a claim. Every little bit helps. Stay patient. Keep your distance. Splash damage from a fully charged caster shot is great and a good fallback if your aim isn’t the best. One or two strikes before running away is great if you don’t take much damage, but it’s not worth the trade to spend your entire health bar on one soldier. Think of it this way, even if it only takes down a fifth of their health, chances are they won’t waste a heal but that’s one less melee attack that needs to land. If they heal, hey, you just cost them a syringe.

  6. Don’t get too close unless you’re ready to give away your location. If you’re within 30-50 feet or so, you’re probably gonna get spotted. Movement is also gonna get you spotted. Try to move or switch trees when they’ve got other stuff going on.

Fireteam

  1. Stick together. Just, I mean, you know this right? How can some of you still not know this? And don’t get mad at your team for not staying with you. Unless they agreed you were the pointman. If you’ve run way up ahead and the three of them are way behind you staying together, they aren’t the problem. You are. Work with them. If they aren’t ready to move on, wait.

  2. MUD UP. It is actually really hard to find you if you are mudded up…AND not making a ton of noise. Yes, we can still see you in normal mode, and sound indicators in heat mode. But it’s much harder to pinpoint you across the map.

  3. NOISE. You know that loud out of breath effect when your stamina gets low? Yeah, the Pred can hear that across the map and sound indicators show up on his screen in heat vision mode. Splashing and running through water? Yep, more sound indicators. Gunshots? Yep. Jumping and landin? Yep. Scaring birds? Yep. When you run, try running in bursts. If your stamina gets to about half stop running. This is also a good practice to ensure you can parry if the Pred drops in.

  4. Always keep your team in eyesight. If you can see them, they can see you. If not? Then neither of you can help if the Predator tries a melee rush…and this is exactly when he’s gonna try it.

  5. Be careful when reviving your teammates, it could be a trap. DON’T JUST IGNORE THEM. Just be careful as a lot of Preds will spam caster and arrows, or circle back for a melee rush or a slam. Keep an eye out and COVER YOUR TEAMMATES trying to revive. Remember you can cancel a Predator’s slam by shooting him mid leap. The whole team should be involved in a revive. Yes it slows you down in that moment, but you’ll be faster in the long run with more teammates…and safer.

  6. Pay attention to your team spotting. If the team throws up an eyeball, at least take note of it. You might want to get behind cover. If they spot the Predator, drop what you’re doing and at least try to get in a few shots, or get to cover if you’re in danger.

  7. If you’re still having a lot of trouble with rushing Zerkers, try this build;

Assault Class, Primary: RP-103 Heavy Machine Gun (4x scope), Secondary: XBD-12 Shotgun
These weapons have some of the best range and TTK. Only downside is neither of these can take a suppressor, so let your team take the lead until you’re ready to go loud.

Flash or Smoke for your preference. I use the flashbang but some people like smoke. I feel smoke is better for scouts as you’ll have a tough time shooting anything, but it’s good for running. Just be careful you don’t blind yourself with the flash.

For perks, Yaujta’s Bane (duh), Weapons Training and Action Hero. So the first is obvious but the other two are all about maximizing your effectiveness when hip firing (another reason for the assault class). That Zerker rush can be hard to track, especially when he starts striking and his movement becomes more erratic. ADS can actually hurt you more than help unless you’re really confident with your aim. Just hip fire the RP-103 until it’s dry and then unload your shotgun. Should give him a little incentive…
In addition, you’ll be better able to hit longer range shots with the recoil reduction, hence the 4x scope.
Obviously some players will be effective with any weapon but if you’re not confident in your aim, and parry is more about luck for you, then this build will let you at least do some damage and be more useful to your team.

As an alternative the Scout can be effective but requires more skill. With the right perks he can run if he gets targeted, and gets a damage boost to his secondary weapons. The XBD-12 is good again, but so is the ZR-55. It’s fun to use as well and it’s one of my favorite weapons in the game. I’d use the weapons training here again with the ZR-55. You can also run the Z-06(mp5) but avoid the PDW-Z as it isn’t any good at range.

I’m not a pro player by any means, but these strategies seem pretty effective. Good luck.

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#2

People won’t listen to this. Something I have noticed is that people as the fireteam prefer to sprint into action and go guns blazin like it is a game of Call of Duty. The people who rush in as the predator and spam melee attacks don’t care about their game lasting 1/10 as long as it took to get a lobby and aren’t playing for fun, but instead just play to be victorious. I mean being victorious is the point, but they don’t actually care about having fun, ONLY winning.

#3

True, but hopefully as people start to understand the game and its mechanics, they’ll be able to punish people for playing stupidly and they’ll have to adapt in order to win. Could be a pipe dream but it’s worth a shot.

#4

i guesse i’ll just leave my FIRETEAM tips here too i posted this in another thread a few days ago people may have not seen it if you haven’t i hope you learn somthing

ok SO first Scar, LMG, AK, the first AR, vector the last SMG, and the double barrel shotgun use extended mag on all of them each of these weapons can down the zerker predator in one clip or at least in 11 seconds or less in some cases if you are a fireteam these are the only weapons you should be using unless your a sniper god the barret 50 (last sniper) and the bolt action are both fine at taking off the preds mask in around 2-4 shots the minigun is overrated but is really good in close range as another option instead of the double barrel the auto shotty and magnum are memey with the scout but not terrible it’s just other primary weapons/secondary weapons do their job better
with these weapons you now have the capability to downs zerker in one clip or in 11 seconds or less assuming your pretty accurate

2nd you have to know how to parry with the autos above it takes 2 parries to kill any predator in the game

3rd you should be using either the assault or support classes in all cases unless your going to meme with scout + magnum or + double barrel shotgun never have more than 1 recon per team you only need one spotting machine assaualt is strictly worse than support you will never need the hip fire accuracy and + revive speed could be useful but most of the time if someone is downed unless they crawl behind something it’s not worth trying to revive them the xtra perk points is fine as said in 4

4th you should only be using perks that increase your dmg to the predator or increase melee dmg and hp up it’s more valuble than the dmg reduction but dmg reduction is fine too and then for any low perk you should always be picking reduced recoil reduction or for 1 cost ADS movement speed increase also the trap finding perk causes perks to show up on your minimap when they are placed it’s range is super far so you can have an idea of where the predator might be

5th Gear you should always be taking medkits on every single class you use or syrnges if you can’t afford it

if you are support you should take both if your in a premade 1 person should have ammo bags and whoever is recon/scout should be running audio decoys + thermal distractions every other item isn’t usually worth using unless all these items are being used by someone it’ s best to have 2 medkits per fireteam so 2 supports are the best usually per team in theory smoke grenades plus thermal = the predator is blind but your at the mercy of smoke rng spawns so just a thought really

6th communicate with you team if you have a mic if the predator leaves then come back without you hearing the roar that means he found pigs next time you make him run chase him if you find his pig stash is near obj camp it lots of em are closer than you think have 2 people in each location AND SPOT SPOT SPOT SPOT it doesn’t have a CD and has no reason not to use it

7th reinforcements 3 people means all in go their 2 people should split up you can be mudded for the entire game if you keep an eye on it rendering isolation worthless for pred if your all running silencers which you can it only lowers dmg by a small amount but it causes some of the guns above to no longer kill in one clip still unless the predator gets lucky on which camp he is looking at he will never find you until extraction

an 8th thing i just thought of if your fighting a predator who killed 2 people and he left whether healing or not you should immediately mud up and get out of the obj your in and wait for reinforce mission and head to it cause if he comes back he will probably wipe the 2 of you once reinforce starts he is alerted and you should immediately leave the local area not too far so you can sprint back to help your friends when they spawn but far enough that pred doesn’t kill you before they spawn

this is all you need to know to be successful as a fireteam even against other pred varients not just zerker combi do to raw dmg output you have access too

#5

I have yet to play with a fireteam that are not permanently sprinting, not waiting for any support members that can’t keep up, guns blazing and constantly breaking up for the pred to pick them off. It’s kind of the reason I might take a break from the game.

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#6

This is pretty good stuff. I love seeing others’ Playstyles.

I’ve defaulted to the ‘87 Jungle Hunter, exclusively using the Net Gun and Bow. For Perks I swear by Cloak uses less Energy with More Energy Reserves and Energy comes back faster (sorry… can’t remember the specific Names). This way, I can stay Cloaked for a very long time and use it as a tool to Stalk the hell out of everyone.

Instead of going crazy in-depth, I’ll just do a few Short Points about what works for me.

The Bow is a GODSEND. If you’re familiar with the Plasma Caster/Shoulder Cannon, they function identically. I’d recommend practicing with the Bow to warm up to it. It’s amazing for mid-range Encounters where a Fireteam is focused on objectives. Just don’t forget to collect your Quivers once you get safe passage. Save the Plasma Caster for when Fireteams bunch up or for Splash Damage.

Side note: When shooting Boars to return to later, leave a Quiver with it. I’ve found that the Boars disappear if you trek too far from them. Keeping a Quiver with a Boar will keep it there. At least from what I’ve experienced thus far.

If you want to go ham with 3-tap Melee attacks, Net someone up first!! This is the only time you should commit to 2+ Melees. Otherwise, hit once and repurpose. If you haven’t given yourself a setup while going in you’re essentially asking for a death sentence.

Bear Traps are awesome for zoning off Exits or pressuring Fireteams on specifics. I love using Traps when Objectives or Respawns are active. People run into them all of the time.

Side Note: Toy around with stalking on foot, behind a Fireteam while Cloaked, when they’re engaging the AI, and simply tossing a Trap. Quickly repurpose after a toss and mop up People scrambling to help. It’s fun.

Lastly, do not forget to cycle through your Gear!! Disengaging and repurposing with good Cover?? Uncloak and let your Energy recharge. Going for a Melee?? You immediately become visible, so don’t forget to Cloak back up again.

And above all else, stay mobile!! A Predator is easily 3x as fast as a Fireteam Member, so use that to your advantage. You’ll be surprised how you can really screw with Fireteams who think they have the upper hand.

#7

I thought the grenade launcher was supposed to have impact projectiles as well as timed. Is there a way to toggle between the two, what am I missing?

#8

Nope, they got rid of the Impact Shot with 1.06. Now your only Option is Delayed Explosion or whatever it’s called.

I was grinding my Launcher up to Level 10 and shooting at the AI is hella fun. But against the Predator?? It’s not as successful.

#9

I stopped playing support because the team always left me behind. Probably expected me to distract the Predator or be a sacrifice to give them a better chance. I dunno why they have to rush everything, do they not consider that the sprinting creates more sound for the Predator player to take advantage of🙄

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#10

Thanks, appreciated. I don’t need to waste my time with that weapon anymore.

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#11

Great tips, appreciated. I wish more players understood the NOISE part especially, sprinting ahead and gasping for breath giving our damn location away🙄

Last question, do Thermal Flares actually do any good? Like, if I throw them around an area for blanket cover does that mean the Predator player can’t pinpoint us/single us out while we are in the thermal zone and only see a big bloom of heat??

#12

I can’t say to be honest. I never really see people using it so I haven’t been on the other end of it enough to know what it does.

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#13

I’ve went against Teams who were quite adept at using Flares. In that case, I shut my Heat Vision off. Profit!!

BUT!! I’ve gotten into the habit of running Thermal Flares and Smoke Grenades. It’ll mess up a Predator’s Engagement focus and make you harder to see. I need more practice before I can say if this truly works outside of theory LOL

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#14

They only work if the predator is using thermal vision. Out of thermal vision the pred player sees the environment like you do. Because of that, my fireteam and I combine smoke grenades and thermal decoys. That way the pred player is screwed regardless of the vision mode. This is really only useful for evac’ing, otherwise you can’t see where you’re running. Imagine a smoke filled train yard.

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#15

I get it now, thanks👍🏼

#16

I play Pred 95% of the time, I always hear the out of breath FTs gasping for air, it’s a homing beacon, I run right to em. I Especially love it when they leave their support behind.

Also, flares only affect thermal vision, smoke can make it very difficult to engage in a ranged or up close and personal manner. That being said most FTs will sit in the middle of smoke making it primetime for a slam.

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#17

Some more advance predator tips (I have like 90% win rate with pred, hope they will put stats in the game to prove that):

-use bear trap at the start of the game, you know where they have to go so run in the hypothetical second point and put 3/4 bear trap

-save target isolation for reinforcements, if you have killed two, save target isolation for the one who is gonna get reinforcements. Probabily if they are premade, one stay in the objective and try to bait you when the other one run into reinforcements point

-improve a lot your aim with bow , a full charged hradshot deal 120 damage with perk, that means you can kill some one from far distance with two shot (it’s hard I know but not impossible)

-learn melee combo like 2 hit with combi then throw the combi, it instant knock down every ft member and prevent the perry