Action Player Guide

From Savage 2 Strategy Wiki

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Translations: /de DEUTSCH

Contents 1 Introduction 1.1 Basic Commands 1.2 Action Player Resources 1.3 The Loadout Screen 1.4 Match Overview 1.5 Squads and Organization 1.6 The Role of the Squad Member: Tactical Execution 1.7 The Role of the Squad Leader: Tactical Leadership 1.8 The Role of the Commander: Strategic Leadership 1.9 Melee Combat Tips and Tricks 1.10 Decision-Making 101 for Action Players

Introduction

The majority of the players (basically, anyone who isn't commanding) in any given Savage 2 match are considered to be action players. Action players are the meat of a team and perform the actions required (and often dictated by the commander) in order to push their team to victory. These players can perform various roles (for the most part, not limited to a particular class), including:

• Scout
• Assault
• Construction and Repair (Builder/Conjurer)
• Base Defense
• Siege
• Healing (Shaman/Chaplain)
• Buffing/debuffing
• Squad leadership

Basic Commands

• Left click: Quick melee attack. Used against non-blocking opponents.
• Middle click: Block. Used to negate the effects of regular melee attacks. If you are quick attacked while blocking, the damage will be negated and your block bar drained. Hold it to block for longer periods of time - however their is constant drain on your block bar.
• Right click: Charge. Zooms your speed for a short period of time, emitting a red trail and using up your charge bar.
• Number keys: Abilities/weapon switching. Each ability and weapon you have is mapped onto a various number key. 1 is generally a melee weapon while 2 and 3 are normally reserved for ranged.
• Number pad: Item use. Each number on the number pad is mapped to one of your items. Press the number of the item to use the item.

Action Player Resources

• Gold: Used to purchase the non-free classes/siege units and items. Earned by damaging buildings, killing enemy units, and performing useful actions such as healing teammates.
• Health: Same as any other game. No health and you're dead - if so, you can be revived by the commander or a healer unit.
• Mana: Equivalent to mana or power, depending on how you look at it. Used for most abilities, spells, all beast ranged weapons (humans have FPS-style ammo), etc.
• Stamina: Your ability to perform actions. Stamina is used for all actions that don't require mana - so walking, running, attacking, jumping, and so on. Stamina regenerates over a period of time. Note: stamina regeneration speed is higher than what you use up while walking.
• Souls: Every time you kill an enemy player (and some of the stronger NPCs), you'll earn a soul. Souls are used to purchase extra-strong hellbourne units. As a hellbourne unit, collecting a soul earns you extra health, but doesn't contribute to your collected soul count. The maliken unit gains stamina and mana per soul in addition to health, and if you're carrying one of the items required to become a Maliken (heart, brain, lungs, soul), you'll gain a bit of health, mana, or stamina (the Maliken soul doesn't have any bonus) per soul collected.
• Experience: As you perform actions in the game you'll earn experience points. Every time you earn enough points to gain a level, you can customize your character a bit by placing a few points into stats like intelligence (more mana), agility (more stamina), endurance (more health), and strength (more melee damage). As you level, your character will show it by wearing extra pieces of armor and having a better-looking weapon (although those visual changes are purely cosmetic, and just serve as an indicator of your level). Experience is also factored into determining skill factor, a way to rank players. Skill factor is calculated by average experience/minute.
• Items: There are two types of items you can buy in the shop: items that constantly provide a benefit that never gets "used up", and one-shot items. You can acquire items once you accumulate gold. When you buy items, you reduce the amount of gold you can spend on non-free units, and the amount of gold you can donate to the team. Items have some use that makes you more effective on the field. For more information about using items, see Item Strategy.

The Loadout Screen

The loadout screen allows you to do the following:

• Choose your class (unit) and view its weapons, abilities, and statistics.
• View your current gold.
• View your personal statistics such as current health and experience.
• View your team's statistics such as team gold and stronghold/lair health.
• View the minimap (top-right).
• Manage your inventory (see the "Item Store" and "Persistent Vault" tabs at the top for items that you can buy or select to take with you). The current items that you're carrying are visible at the bottom-right of the screen.
• Assign attribute points which can improve your unit's statistics.
• Donate gold to your team. You gain experience for donating gold to your team, and donating gold allows your team to tech up and place other crucial structures faster.
• Enter the battlefield at one of the spawn points available to your team (potentially your squad's spawn portal as well, if it has been placed and hasn't expired or been destroyed). Once you click on the spawn button at the bottom-right of the screen, you'll be taken to a map view where you can click on the point where you'd like to spawn.

Match Overview

The goal of Savage 2 is to destroy the opposing teams Stronghold/Lair while defending your own. A few universal things found in every Savage 2 match that factor into this are:

• Two teams - the Humans and the Beasts.
• A Lair (the headquarters for the Beasts) and a Stronghold (the headquarters for the Humans). These are generally located on either side of the map opposite to each other.
• Various goldmines (the main source of revenue for your team).
• One or two Scars (the sources for Hellbourne units).

Squads and Organization

Action Players are grouped into organizational groups called squads. Each squad has an officer - the "leader" of the squad - and a few other Action Players in it. It's important to stick together with your squad for two main reasons:

• There is strength in numbers - it's easier to defeat an opponent when fighting them three on one than it is to duel them solo.
• The officer has an aura that confers bonuses to nearby squad members.

A unique feature of squads is that an officer possesses a special ability to construct spawn portals. These portals can be placed nearly anywhere on the battlefield and are used to let other players in the squad spawn at their location (hence the name). Strategic use of these portals can easily turn the tide of a battle, and if you ever see an enemy portal be sure to focus on bringing it down (four or five hits can destroy one)

The Role of the Squad Member: Tactical Execution

If you are a squad member (not a leader), try to listen to your officer - they are generally the most skilled players in the game you're playing and will have experience with the map you're playing. Follow them around and see what they're doing to get a feel for things and don't be afraid to ask for help.

It is almost always better to follow your squad leader and assist him/her in whatever they are doing at the time, whether or not you think it is the most important thing to do right now. A squad leader should never be without their squad members, because every fight where your team has strength in numbers is a fight that brings you closer to victory.

If you disagree with your squad leader's choice of goals, voice your concerns in squad chat by pressing CTRL+Enter to bring up the squad chat dialog. You should always be on the lookout for important events that are unnoticed by your commander or squad leader, and alert your team to them. Your commander can usually keep tabs on things, but a cloaked marksman can easily place a bomb that only you might notice; an enemy squad leader can easily place a spawn portal outside of detection range that only you might spot.

Try to select a unit class that complements your squad leader's unit. For example, if your squad leader spawns a Behemoth (a siege unit), you are much more valuable as a Shaman -- to heal them -- or as a Predator -- to protect them -- than you'd be if you spawned another Behemoth or Tempest. It is rarely necessary (or advantageous) to have large numbers of the same unit; variety requires the enemy to engage in more coordinated tactics to defeat you, and many squads lack the organization to defeat a diverse enemy offense.

The Role of the Squad Leader: Tactical Leadership

The Squad Leader's primary responsibility is to communicate to his squad members about intended goals; to keep his squad members focused on the same goal; and to direct his squad to accomplish things the commander wants done.

The power of your chat and voice macros is significant. Use them, but don't spam them. If you overuse them, your squad members will come to ignore them. Use them only when you are sure that most of your squad is not already trying to follow your orders.

Every few minutes, you should re-assess the strategic situation and determine whether your current goal is valid or not. When you change your current goal -- for example, stop trying to attack their well-defended north garrison and go for their main base instead -- you should communicate this VERY clearly to your squad mates using voice macros, chat, and a spawn portal near the new target.

Squad Leaders are often selected automatically by the game based on your Skill Factor (SF). If you are elected Squad Leader, you should forego some of your natural desire to charge into battle and kill enemies, at high risk to yourself. Your goals should be focused on staying alive; defending your spawn portal; supporting your squad members; and picking targets. You can still get a lot of kills and have fun as a squad leader, but prioritize your responsibility to your squad.

Here are some examples of the type of goal/orders you should issue to your squad members. The following examples are goals that your squad can accomplish in a few minutes' time; they are neither too detailed nor too broad.

• Sneak through the west passageway up to their north Sub Lair and destroy it. Avoid the Strata Spire.
• An enemy squad leader is waiting for his squad to arrive out of his portal near our main base! Spawn at main base and follow me to engage them.
• The enemy is using too many siege units! I'll wait for all of you at my spawn portal and then we'll rush their Siege Workshop.
• Commander wants to take the middle gold mine... spawn continuously at my portal in the middle and help me fend off the waves of enemies.

Note that, as an action player, you will have downtime when you die. Use your respawn time wisely by giving orders and assessing the strategic situation. You can also use this time to inform your commander of your squad's goals, if the commander is not already giving you specific orders.

The Role of the Commander: Strategic Leadership

Your commander is your guide and caretaker. He is responsible for overseeing the battle, looking for both threats and opportunities. Without your obedience, the commander is essentially useless. If you work together with your commander, you can execute a variety of extremely potent strategies which can effortlessly deliver your team to victory.

A commander provides you with the following benefits:

• Greatly-enhanced situational awareness - the commander views the map from an overhead view and can view the battlefield using the sight radius of all teammates, team-owned structures, and team-owned placed gadgets such as sentry bats and electric eyes.
• Guidance through player and squad orders, along with his unique-colored text chat.
• Various spells which can aid your team and debuff the enemy.
• Worker NPCs which can build and repair, reducing the need for action players to perform these duties and thus allowing for more teammates on the field.
• Structure placement anywhere on the map so long as a teammate, garrison/sublair, or stronghold/lair is nearby (builders and conjurers can only place structures near them, and only when their team does not have a commander).

If a commander begins to construct a structure, especially a garrison, try to help him out. This can either mean switching classes to a builder and physically helping the structure go up or by harassing enemies to stall for time while the structure is built. Conversely, you should always try to destroy enemy structures while they are being built as this is when they are most vulnerable. Structures cost thousands of gold and destroying them has a very noticeable effect on your enemies coffers. It is also worth noting that if a building under construction is not actively being built by a builder, conjurer, or worker NPC, damaging it even just slightly will pause the construction for about one second.

Melee Combat Tips and Tricks

• Never block for more than a second or two at a time - try to surprise your enemies in the middle of their attack so that they get countered.
• Melee combat is much more effective than ranged in terms of dealing damage. Try only to use ranged for picking off low-hp units or when closing the distance between your opponent and you.
• Be familiar with your abilities - trying out different units in practice mode is truly helpful.
• If you forget what your abilities do, or trying them has a non-obvious effect, press the Y key and the popup will remind you.
• If someone is concentrating on attacking a building/spawn portal, try to attack them from behind. You do more damage to enemies from behind, and the enemy will probably be facing the structure rather than you.
• (Advanced) You'll always be at the advantage if you can make your opponent move where you want them to be. In simplest terms, that means it can be extremely beneficial to hold your ground and shoot at an enemy who doesn't move directly into melee with you rather than rush at them shooting until you are locked in. This essentially makes them think you are not confident in melee, and offers you the option to be extremely aggressive once they do close. Like it or not, the way your character moves telegraphs your actions. By this same note, you can often cause an enemy to charge you by briefly swapping out your ranged weapon for 0-2 shots, then swapping back to melee. This "feint" maneuver is extremely difficult for an opponent who does not recognize you to predict, and can demoralize an opponent early on with the right follow ups.
• (Advanced) Practice quickly swapping between ranged weapons and melee and your recognition of the space between you and your opponent. Firing ranged at point blank/ just outside of melee is a great way to both taunt your opponent into making a mistake, and to just cause extra raw damage. Be wary, though, as many other advanced players will attempt to exploit your brief ranged shots. Consider using the setting "3rd person ranged weapons" to better have an idea of what range is safe to take a couple of free shots.
• (Advanced) Certain skills have hidden benefits not mentioned in the in-game descriptions (or in the case of critical strike, even on the website!). Of particular note are the abilities "Critical Strike" from the savage, and "Venemous Strike" from the predator. These abilities actually "snare" your enemy, that is, lower their movement rates. This can be a great opportunity to dodge back or to the side and fire some point blank shots at a foe while they try in vain to chase you down.
• Pressing "n" will make your character dance. This can be used to taunt people into attacking you head on. Dancing on an enemy's corpse is considered disrespectful and has a tendency to make other players quite angry if repeated. This can help you in the short-term, as anger does not assist their combat effectiveness; but in the long term you will likely suffer with negative karma and bad reputation.

Decision-Making 101 for Action Players

There are so many things you could be doing as an Action Player, but you can only do one thing at a time. You should always evaluate your decisions carefully to spend your time doing something that has the most value to your team. Over time, you will learn to make the right decision faster and with less thinking, because you have seen the situation before. At first, it will seem like a laborious process to think this through, but in the end it will make you a more valuable team player, and it can actually increase your win/loss ratio significantly by helping your team win more often.

Three main factors are associated with each potential encounter or goal:

• Risk. Encounters involving skilled enemy players, or many more enemy than friendly players, are riskier. Offense is riskier than defense. Generally, an encounter is risky if you have a good chance of failing at your goal. Conversely, you can spot a low-risk goal by the lack of enemy presence or attention in that area.
• Severity. What would be the immediate consequences for your team if the enemy succeeds at their goal in this encounter? For instance, the enemy's construction of a Hellshrine is much more severe than the enemy attacking your gold mine. It is more severe that an enemy siege unit threatens your Stronghold than that your squad could easily destroy one of the enemy's outposts because it is undefended.
• Benefits. If you accomplish your goal, in what way will your team be closer to winning? Goals of less benefit should come after goals of higher benefit. In general, offense is more beneficial than defense. Destroying structures is more beneficial than fighting enemy players. Destroying tech structures, in particular, is extremely beneficial.

Squad Leaders and Members alike should pay careful attention to the commander's orders. Get a sense for what the commander needs, and how severe the threat is. Certain events -- like "the enemy is constructing a Hellshrine!" have such high severity that basically the entire action team should respond immediately, with few exceptions.

Other than that, you should try to engage in combat that is an "acceptable" risk level for your skill level. If you know you're good at melee combat, you can take on greater risks (more enemies at once) and your benefits will be higher. If you want to go for a safer goal, you can try to spot "low-hanging fruit" -- that is, targets of significant benefit, but low risk -- such as an outpost that has no tower defense and no enemies around it. Unless your team is already dedicating significant manpower to a problem and needs further help, you should generally avoid very high-risk encounters, as this creates a "feeding" effect: the enemy team repeatedly gets kills in high-risk encounters, and this makes them stronger in terms of experience and gold.

One of the challenges of being an Action Player is determining whether a specific squad's goals are more important than something the commander wants done. When the commander pings the map or requests assistance, *someone* should definitely do it; however, if every squad responds to a threat that is only minor, valuable time will be lost.

For most commander requests, you should defer to your squad leader's judgment. If the squad leader says "we're on it" or similar, you should take that as a cue that your squad's new goal is to assist the commander. If your squad leader gives you no specific instruction, use risk/severity/benefit as part of your own decision-making process.

Before you ask for a recall or respawn on the defensive, you should use the mini-map, the commander's information, and your squad leader's orders to assess whether your assistance is really needed. In many cases, one or two enemy players on the offense is not a valid reason for you to ignore your squad leader and run to the rescue as soon as you can. Maintain a balance between ensuring the team's overall success, and ensuring the success of your squad's immediate goal.