Comprehensive Spidering Guide

[Grasps]

Missed this post.. Incredible. Just what I've been looking for. Insta-bookmarked. Thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!!!!!!!

[Leland]

ive been a Lancaster my whole life.
should i try a spider

[NaiLed]

spider best ship

[Pressure]

spider best ship

Should log in sometime. TW is very active right now.

[NaiLed]

spider best ship

i used to a bit, but my SS client stopped working on my mac. thinking about buying a new one soon though. if i do i'll install bootcamp again and install continuum again!

[Pressure]

i used to a bit, but my SS client stopped working on my mac. thinking about buying a new one soon though. if i do i'll install bootcamp again and install continuum again!

I may be able to help with this, as I use a MacBook. PM me I'd be happy to try to get you back into the game, NaiLed.

[NaiLed]

cheers mate, but i am just waiting for the new macbook pro (2020) to be available where i live to buy it. plus work is crazy right now and i have little time to play

if only i was 13 again

give it a month or two and i'll login and say hello!

[Wirah]

I strongly recommend either bootcamping your mac so it can actually boot into Windows on a separate partition to play SS, or getting a dedicated SS Windows laptop.
Had so many problems with mac over there years with SS. Eventually after all the Wineskin nonsense (breaks after every single macOS release in the fall) and battery drain on macs I just gave in and got a gaming laptop to so I was on true windows.

[Beast]

where's our comprehensive sharking guide? matteys is utter shit.

[Ardour]

Guide needs updating so we know how to spider vs "the Dreamwin Manoeuvre" please.

[ogron]

Here's a replay analysis I did during TWLB prepping for our semi-final. The game features Spastic defeating Plade, and applies many of the concepts in the guide to an actual high-level game, and may be of use to players looking to learn or improve their spidering:

https://i.imgur.com/wy4hMHn.png

[Rab]

bump to point out there's a sharking guide there too now, was useful to me this twdt ty.

[a2m+]

a2m’s tips and tricks for sharking



Thanks to Rab, I just noticed Ogron started compiling a sharking guide and figured I’d share some tips and tricks that have helped me throughout the years. I have some free time at work to write this since it’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s (a lot of people take off so it’s not so busy). Some of these items are repetitive to his guide, some are addenda to his guide (slightly different ways of thinking about what you need to do as a shark). I’ll try to put these in some sort of order, but I’m not as organized as Ogron is, so you’ll have to deal with my thoughts in the order by which they come to me as I type this. Also, there are so many scenarios that happen in game that would be difficult to cover in one place, so this isn’t as comprehensive as his guide is on spidering (I’m also not piecing together photos like he does… Now that I think of it, he really did an awesome job pulling that guide together). There will most likely scenarios that I cannot think of now that occur during games. You can always pm me in game if you have specific questions.



1. Overall Shark Game / Flag Room Battles

a. Your main objective as shark is to use your reps to help your team gain and hold the flag. Killing is secondary. Order of preference when using reps (for any facet of the game, whether you are attacking, cramming, or in flag room battles) should be:

i. Protect the terrier

ii. Timing with your shark partner

iii. Protecting yourself to preserve the timing with your shark partner

iv. Pushing the enemy

v. See items i through iv

vi. Protecting teammate spiders

b. There are scenarios where only repping once or twice to preserve the timing with your partner or to protect your terrier is important. I’ve had spiders bitch at me because I’m not repping for them in flag room battles, but you’re the last thing on my list of priorities. Don’t get me wrong, it is important and key in certain situations to repel for spiders to push the action. It’s their job to time their push with your push, however, not the other way around. If you concentrate on items i through iv, item vi should happen naturally.

c. Always repel fast moving bursts (unless it’s obviously going to redirect it to the wall your terrier is sitting on and thereby kill them). Don’t assume that your terrier will be able to dodge them.

d. Always grab greens if they’re not out of your way. It can be an easy way to regenerate reps.

e. Change your repel graphics to have color at all 4 corners of the .jpg file. Repels are square shaped (even though the graphics are round). The full .jpg file extents work as a repel, not just the default circular shape. I added a bright green blob around the outside of my repel graphic so that I know the exact extent of the rep to use it to my advantage.

f. Change your bomb graphics to text to know how much shrap you have at all times. Learn the shrap patterns (0 = no shrap, 3 = shrap expels in “peace symbol” pattern, 5 = shrap expels in “star” pattern). You can use this to your advantage to know when to try mining aggressively in flag room fights (high shrap) and when not to (no shrap). Also use this to determine where to place the mines as you’ll be able to predict where the shrap will expel to.

g. As Ogron stated in his sharking guide, the goal in flag room battles is to push the enemy team into a disadvantageous position. If you can push the enemy team into a corner, the chances of the enemy terrier dying go up exponentially. I tend to think of flag room battles in three different stages:

i. Stage 1: Your team is pushed into a corner and at a disadvantage.

1. In this scenario, you need to try to push the enemy away from your team to create as much space as you can for your terrier to recuperate energy and for your spiders to detach, get into position, recuperate energy and fire. In competitive games, I will almost never mine or bomb in these scenarios as 9 times out of 10 you’ll end up tking your team. If the shark timing remains on point, the team will be able to get out of this scenario by either overpowering the other team’s spiders, by smartly timed bursts (or additional greened bursts), or by using enemy bombs/mines against them to teamkill their team.

ii. Stage 2: 50/50 flag room battles (neither team is at a disadvantage).

1. In this scenario, I first try to secure the flag. The game is a timed race, after all. If you use your repels to grab the flag first and foremost, your reps will also cover most of the mid flag room and will protect your team. As a bonus, you can help control under by doing this as your reps will also cover the bullets under flag. From this position, you can continue your push of the enemy team, again trying to push them into a corner. Don’t let enemy spiders get by you (assume that they’re a threat to your terrier). Also, as long as it does not disrupt your timing, do not let enemy spiders push under from this position. Use your reps to push their whole team into a corner. In this stage, I will selectively place mines against walls that are extremely difficult to repel at my team. I will also monitor the enemy sharks’ reps to see if there is an opening to bomb. DO NOT TRY BOMBING ON EVERY DEATH – this will just hurt your timing in the long run.

iii. Stage 3: Enemy team is pushed into a corner (ear, behind mid bar, nook right next to cram spot, etc.).

1. I know this sounds repetitive, but in this scenario the most important thing is to maintain your timing with your shark teammate. If you do not give the enemy team an opening with your reps, they will not have a chance to get out of this spot and they will all die. This is the only scenario where I don’t push as much as timing is more important. In this scenario, I tend to open up a little bit with my bombing / mining. I’ll try to use my last rep to push and mine the enemy. I’ll try to place bombs on an opposite wall (without putting my team at jeopardy) to shrap the enemy team. I’ll try to time my reps with the enemy sharks’ reps so that I can bomb. Most importantly, however, I’ll make sure my timing with my shark teammate does not break down.

h. Know your terrier and adjust accordingly! When dice first formed, Cape was the terrier. He played an aggressive style (which by the way, I like in a terr). I knew that he would be pushing the action on attack and in flag room battles. Thus, I adjusted accordingly and would stay attached sometimes up to 10 seconds when I first attached after each death. Pretty much he would push the enemy for me, making it so that I did not have to detach until he finished his push, bullying the enemy team into a corner. After a few seasons, Cape became inactive and Chief Utsav took over. In the earlier seasons, Chief played a safer style. When I first started sharking with him, I noticed that we weren’t winning flag room battles as easily as we weren’t pushing the enemy team around as much as we did with Cape. Once dice sharks realized that we had to detach immediately to start our push against the enemy team, the squad rebounded and started winning easier. It almost became as if I would touch the attach button twice simultaneously to automatically detach to start my push. Chief ultimately changed his style to be somewhere in between (aggressive on cram breaks, moderate in flag room battles). We again had to adjust to stay attached on attack, but to detach quickly in flag room battles.

This principle of adjusting to your terrier still holds true today. Just last twdt season, I sharked with Mikkiz as my terrier and it was like playing with Cape. This season, I’m sharking with SpookedOne as my terrier and it’s like playing with the original version of Chief Utsav. You can still win with either type of terr if you adjust.

2. Cramming

a. Time for some more repetitiveness: the most important part of cramming is maintaining your timing with your teammate shark. Time your 3 reps so that you’re dying right after your last rep and just before your teammate attaches to the terr.

b. The order of precedence outlined in Section 1.A still holds true in cram, but it’s significantly easier to accomplish i through iii due to the location of the walls that you can hide behind. Thus, when cramming, focus on the enemy sharks to accomplish iv. Use your repels to keep them from getting high. If they get high on attack, they will repel your team out of cram. Thus, use your reps to keep them low. Do not focus on enemy spider’s bullets unless it works with your timing for keeping the enemy sharks low. It’s your spider teammates’ jobs to stay alive in cram, not your job to protect them. If the enemy sharks cannot get high on attack, they will not be able to protect their team when they try to break through.

c. Similarly, use your repels to keep the enemy terr low. If the enemy terr is sitting high, the enemy sharks will be able to attach high and use their reps to repel your team out of cram.

d. If the enemy team is all low on attack, then use your 3 reps to push out. This is often when teammate spiders can time their push behind you and cause havoc, oftengetting teks. Only push out if your confident that you can use all 3 reps and not disrupt your timing with your teammate shark.

e. As stated earlier, know your terr. If your team gets pushed out of cram, a lot of times the terr will try to get back into cram position for you. If you stay attached, he will push for you (obviously using your reps to push the enemy team). If you have a conservative terr, you’ll need to do this pushing on your own.

f. Do not mine or bomb when cramming.

3. Attacking Cram

a. As outlined in Ogron’s guide, try to dodge enemy spider’s bullets as much as possible to get as high as you can when attacking cram. The goal when attacking is to get high enough and in position to rep the enemy team out of cram. Sometimes this will take slightly disrupting your timing with your teammate shark. Due to the dire nature of trying to cram your team through a tiny hole, this is the only scenario where timing can go out the window a little bit. Because it’s so difficult to break through sometimes, it can be beneficial to rep a little fast to push the enemy team out of the cram (thereby pushing their sharks back so that their reps do nothing to your team).

b. Some sharks will try to bomb on every death when attacking cram. I do not do this as I see it as helping the cramming sharks’ timing… the longer you stay lower trying to time a bomb, the more time the enemy sharks will have to recoup their timing (again assuming that the cramming teams’ spiders know that they need to dodge and not rely on their sharks to rep for them). The only time I try bombing cram is when I notice that the enemy sharks are not timing efficiently, or (rarely) in times of desperation when my terr is not being aggressive enough to push into the flag room.

c. An aggressive terrier is a shark’s best friend for cram breaks. As stated earlier, if you have an aggressive terrier, try to stay attached a little longer as they can assist you with getting high on attack (or even pushing through on attack).

In my opinion, sharking can be an easy way to get into basing if you have previously never based as it is not dependent on aim. Sure, I can go into some slumps as far as timing goes, but nothing prolonged like sometimes I run into in jav or wb, since for the most part it’s not your job to kill in shark. One last key point is to always be flexible with how you play. I’ve been near the top of the shark pyramid for a long time and have had to adjust my game many times throughout the years to work with aggressive terrs, passive terrs, aggressive shark partners, passive shark partners, time races, point races, cramming, line and mining, solo sharking, etc. The basics are still the same: rep, rep, rep, die.

[Poseidon]

plz sharks disregard timing if u see a spid pushing a sharkless/repless team. ur prioritirs will always b diff depending on situation

plz sharks, zig zag ur pathing - most spids are jabroniez and spend most their time shotting in lines. this is rdy for u to abuse.

plz sharks while ur zig zagging cover as much space as u can while repping as slow as neccessary, this way pro spids can move up and retrieve FR.

plz sharks watch when zidane plays and a good pushing spid is in the game and watch how he synchronizes w them and throws all other priority out the window and then take a moment to perhaps reflect how successful he has been. reflect on how valuable it is to protect a full nrg spid w a direct line to nme terr. reflect how unfortunate it is to prioritize ur bombs or ur timing when ur beside a full nrg spid w a direct opening on enemy terr.

[a2m+]

If you’re a shark pushing towards the enemy terr and protecting yourself to make sure you get your 3 reps off to keep the timing with your teammate shark, then you’re also protecting the spider who is pushing on top of or just behind you. You shouldn’t have to rep any quicker and disrupt your timing if you’re doing it right. The priorities listed above still don’t fly out the window and your teammate spider can still have his push. I’d rather waste a rep on a burst that might kill my terr before starting my push (which may end up costing a teammate spider a tek) rather than pushing right away because there is an opening and then having both terriers die and then having a race to flag room that we may lose. Yes it’s important to rep for spiders, but saving my terr is always top priority.