Tactics people, tactics.

[RimBlock]

So I was playing heroic the Underground a little over the weekend and with a random team came to the smallish room with a set of stairs on the left of the entrance door (ammo cache is usually upstairs with most the AI).

We kill the two enemies in view of the door.  The rest are to the left of the door and upstairs and there is the cage area just to the right of the door.

One guy goes out and starts shooting only to be cut down by multiple machine gunners.  A second guy goes out to get him up (from dead) and also dies.

Me and the other guy look at each other.  A wall of lead from multiple machine gunners all firing at the small doorway from the side so we have no shot...

I lept out and just about made it to the stack of boxes on the far side of the room visible from the door.  The wall of lead has now shifted to me.  The other guy comes out and hides behind a pillar and we start to split the concentration of fire.

With some back and forth to recover each other and concentrating on one bad guy at a time we managed to clear the room with just two of us, neither of which are super tuned (it seems at least).

We recover the other two and then free the JTF guy from a door upstairs.  Thank "enemy incoming..." sounds and whilst the upstairs is actually a pretty good defensible position ('hold the high ground', only two ways up) the other three go running back out the room through the door we came in by without any voice or chat.

Yep the weight of fire from all the enemy at a single doorway again but straight through it this time.  I am grenading to try to manage crowd control but a shotgunner slips around the side and up the stairs.  Being as there is no-one to cover the stairs he is able to strawberry jam me with two shots.  With the weight of fire on the doorway and the rest of the team goings up and down like yoyos and it doesn't take long for them all to go down for one last time.

So why the story... well it got me thinking about useful tactics.  Here are some I try to use, which can be difficult with randoms.

• Split the team to split the amount of fire coming in to one location (use survivor link to relocate if needed but pulse first to make sure your destination is fairly safe).
  
• Try to stick to pairs so one can revive the other if needed.
  
• Always go for the high ground if you think you can defend it.
  
• Use them grenades for some crowd control.
  
• Wait and go in as a team (yeah, I know right...).
  
• If one team has the aggro, team two can try to flank sneaky like (with no shooting.  yeah, I know right....).
  

What other tactics have others found that work well ?.

 

[Oh. daesu]

• Split the team to split the amount of fire coming in to one location (use survivor link to relocate if needed but pulse first to make sure your destination is fairly safe).
  
• Try to stick to pairs so one can revive the other if needed.
  

When there is a corridor or side rooms, I sometime follow anyone flanking, so that it is split by twos.

Though doing a daring dash into a room, I think it is best just one agent at a time. Two can go down just as easy as one.

•  
  
• Use them grenades for some crowd control.
  

An alternative to grenades is incendiary ammo. Just get a few AI doing Macarena dance to give you time to run into the room. If you have someone with a 4x Reclaimer then, even better.

• Wait and go in as a team (yeah, I know right...).
  
•  
  

With the scenario you described, I think only one or two engaging is enough. The others chill, be patient. They can revive the shooter(s) or hang back to deal with rushing shotgunners. I think the most important thing is someone is alive to revive the others. It is too easy to group up when everyone is trying to find the angle.

Also, the LMG has seems to have some crowd control. When things are going pear shaped down in the rail tunnels, switch it in. Seems to help the team over come. I find the AI is slower and ineffective when they're facing a lmg.

 

[RimBlock]

When there is a corridor or side rooms, I sometime follow anyone flanking, so that it is split by twos.

Though doing a daring dash into a room, I think it is best just one agent at a time. Two can go down just as easy as one.

An alternative to grenades is incendiary ammo. Just get a few AI doing Macarena dance to give you time to run into the room. If you have someone with a 4x Reclaimer then, even better.

With the scenario you described, I think only one or two engaging is enough. The others chill, be patient. They can revive the shooter(s) or hang back to deal with rushing shotgunners. I think the most important thing is someone is alive to revive the others. It is too easy to group up when everyone is trying to find the angle.

Also, the LMG has seems to have some crowd control. When things are going pear shaped down in the rail tunnels, switch it in. Seems to help the team over come. I find the AI is slower and ineffective when they're facing a lmg.

I was maybe a little unclear.  These are meant to be general strategies rather than one specifically for that particular encounter.  Going in as a group is more the the start of a phase or mission rather than for each room along the mission.  Two by two has many advantages when getting a foothold in a room. 

Incendiary ammo is good if people are ok to pause to switch to it but it is a direct fire solution where as the incendiary grenades are area affect and can be used for indirect hits (up and over a barrier, bounce around a corner etc).  I rarely see grenades used these days.  Special ammo is really good though for direct firefights especially if you have a reclaimer guy, as you mentioned.  I have toxic on my pistol and incendiary on my sniper (it had two bad talents, I kept incendiary and rolled the other to Brutal).  I am sure people wonder why I pull out my pistol doing heroic missions but a 3x Sentries tag and toxic before switching to the LW M4 or sniper is pretty powerful and uses no ammo in UG (great when waste not want no directive is active).

I did like the 249 LMG with 200 rounds it seemed to fire forever and ripped the AI apart at lower DZ levels.  At higher levels it just didn't have enough punch for me and time to kill was just so high.  I am using a AK74M at the moment now and then but mainly as a backup when ammo is out on my sniper.