 11-09-2005, 6:42 PM
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Black Arrow Strategy Guide by motosan and dodgydriver
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Black Arrow Strategy Guide by motosan and dodgydriver
Acknowledgements:
Much of what follows was learned during hours and hours of Black Arrow with the following players: Mako GT350, Dale3Jr8, DodgyEmpire, Derek N, Double Dizzle, gravel trp, Harry Stamper, Helmakr, Keybur, Meesta, MumbleyJoe, The Red Worm, Razorgslng, redpoetaytoe, Rug22, SilverMustang07, Statman2004, Vincini, Woogit, Workman, xpirate16, zRob72, Ashe Corvin, Epsilon Paradox, F0NZ, Floppy Pigeon, Killanabilla, MaCrotch, MadMac11, NYINSTALLER, Oombufu, Race240Z, Rektor, White Griffon, Zurik, and probably some others we should’ve included here but just don’t recall--thanks to everyone at LiveWire and the 4MI crew.
Special mention goes to MatrixArchitect, one of the very best BA players we know and from whom we learned more than any other single player.
Introduction
There are already walkthroughs for the Black Arrow Single Player game, so this guide focuses mainly on strategies for MP games. For those unfamiliar with Black Arrow, we offer general advice on the game, advice on weapons, and at the end, some comments on the MP game modes. Since we have played much more Black Arrow than RS3, we are calling this the BA Strategy Guide. But much of the general information, weapons remarks, and strategy tips apply as well to Rainbow Six 3, since Black Arrow is more or less RS3 version 1.5, with new maps, new game modes, and some tweaks to the graphics and movement. Total Conquest and Retrieval game modes are not included in Rainbow Six 3, but the other game modes discussed below are, and the strategies for those also apply to RS3.
One of the great things about Black Arrow is the degree to which it rewards good strategy. If you’re too slow to be good at Halo, in BA you can use map knowledge and tactics to earn kills by out-thinking enemies. By thinking strategically you can sometimes predict where they will go and move to a position of advantage, thus earning an easy kill. If you are fast, however, you can certainly play BA in a run and gun style. It’s your choice, so the game brings together players of different styles, and this is part of the fun.
Why does BA reward strategic play? This is mainly because of map design. In BA you have many instances of doors that open and close, hallways, staircase, balconies, alleys, and so on—in short, many instances where you can only see a small portion of the map. You are constantly wondering where your enemies are, and you have the opportunity to mislead them as they wonder where you are. If you encounter an enemy up close, coming around a blind corner, say, you’ll probably find yourself in a face-to-face firefight. But if an enemy briefly appears at some distance, as often happens in this game, you begin a contest of who can out-think whom and get the first shot off. This guide is for those who wish to improve their skills in this situation and for players new to the game who want to learn how it is played.
General Tips
Experienced players seem to find one or two weapons they prefer, and we suggest you experiment with the weapons, find one that feels comfortable, and stick with it for a while. BA offers a wide variety of weapons, and some are clearly more effective than others (more on this in the Weapons section). But there is so much to look at and think about as you are playing, you don’t want to be distracted by noticing how different your current weapon is from another one. So to begin with, pick a weapon and learn to use it. When you are more familiar with the game, you can try the other weapons, and by that time you’ll have a good idea of which is the best for you.
When moving around a map, keep your weapon pointed at head level. BA is a headshot game. Most of the time, a single shot to the head will kill, and this should be your goal all the time, especially with weaker weapons, as it can take so many body shots to kill with a pistol you have little chance of surviving against someone who’s shooting at your head. So train yourself to aim at head height, not at the ground, as many players do. The one weapon that is an exception to this rule is the grenade launcher.
When you shoot any of the bigger machine guns, train yourself to double tap the trigger to control recoil. Short controlled bursts are the key to accuracy. Many of the larger guns have such huge recoil that only your first bullet will go where you are aimed if you hold the trigger down. As you get more accurate, you’ll only need that first double tap to get your kill.
Learn the maps! A player who knows the maps will have a HUGE advantage over one who does not. For example, if you see a player heading down a hallway that has only one exit, you know where he’ll be, (unless he doubles back,) and you can be waiting for him with an easy shot. Certain maps have sounds that reveal to some extent where a player is, even if you can’t see him. If you’re inside the stables on Presidio and you hear footsteps crunching gravel rather than on wood, you know right where someone is and can often get behind him for an easy shot. Between two players of equal shooting skill, the one with better map knowledge will usually win, so give yourself that advantage.
You can carry grenades, so don’t forget to use them, either to attack, to defend, or to mislead an enemy. Tossing one across a map can make him think you are somewhere else!
Look at the Server Settings when you join a room and look to see if Launchers, Thermal Vision, Friendly Fire etc are on. These can make a big difference, and if you’re the only one who doesn’t know what’s available, you’ll pay the price.
Check the statistics page to get an idea on who the better players in the room are and then watch and learn from them. Of course stats get reset, or players use alternate gamertags, but you will pick up more from a player with 1000+ kills and a kill to death ratio of 1.5 than one with 0.5!
Finally, if you are the host, keep mixing it up, and not just by changing the maps every few rounds. Custom game modes, such as limiting weapons to pistols only, shotguns only suppressed weapons only, and so on, add extra variety to the game. Tactics that you would normally employ when you have the full array of weapons available to you may not work if you are limited to the M1 shotgun. But having trained yourself to aim at head level will serve you well with all weapons except Grenade Launchers.
Weapons
Several weapons have become favorites among experienced BA players: the G36C is probably the most popular, but many good players also like the Tar-21, FAMAS, M-16 and G3A3. The latter two have the advantage of 3x scopes, but the G36C has the largest aiming circle of any gun in the game, and both the Tar and FAMAS have very high rates of fire. To begin your search for a gun that suits you, try these five and pick one. Then you’ll know that you’re using one of the best weapons the game has to offer.
Sniper Rifles: great for long shots, but unless you want to camp and snipe, the Dragunov and PSG are difficult to use in close quarters action. Some game modes/map combinations do require a sniper element to be involved, but many players are happy to use their scoped assault rifles for that purpose. If you really want to use a sniper rifle for Team Survival, develop your pistol skills as well so that you have a fighting chance if you get caught in a close quarter battle.
Pistols: The Desert Eagle is by far the most powerful pistol available, but is limited with a small clip. As there are no obvious alternates in terms of power, many players judge this a necessary compromise. However the .40 cal USP is considered useful in face to face firefights as some people believe the larger clip an advantage. Other pistols, especially the silenced variety cannot be dismissed as weapons never to be used. You will find that using such guns (making sure that everyone is using them too!) is good accuracy practice that will help you use the other weapons more effectively. Remember, the weaker the weapon, the more important the head shot.
Grenades: Perhaps there is only one thing that induces more panic than having a face-to-face firefight with someone with an M60: hearing the thud of a frag land next to you, and not knowing which way to run. A well placed grenade is a thing of beauty. Lockdown has spoilt the art of a good grenade toss with the trajectory arc all laid out for you, and the inability to chuck one after the other with any great frequency. In BA the frag grenade is significantly the more powerful than the WP, and you should ALWAYS carry some. Ideal for flushing out campers, destroying hidden traps, acting as a decoy, or protecting your satellite/drop-off point, the grenade is essential. Flashbangs require careful use, as an enemy nearly always sees that you have thrown one and has a chance to look away, and will be ready for you should you poke your head around that door afterwards. It’s also a good idea to let your teammates know you are throwing them, as they will not appreciate blindly stumbling into 4 of the opposition and being subsequently shot. Smoke grenades are only affective if the host has turned off thermal vision, but can be used to good effect to conceal your exit from a contained spawn.
Remotes/Claymores: Considered by many players a cheap way to get a kill, they do carry a risk in using them – camping with a detonator equates to you being a sitting duck. However they are in the game and should not be forgotten about. Some players have favorite spots for placing these, and care should be taken when approaching these areas. Look to see if that bush has an odd blinking light at the base. Be careful of open doors, as they may conceal a remote. Stairs make great traps, as players rarely look ‘on’ them for anything, lest someone is waiting at either end. You will get to know who likes to use remotes in a room quite quickly, and once that player(s) is dead, then you can move more freely in the knowledge that the next doorway does not hold your untimely demise.
Strategy
Most of the ideas below were developed playing Team Survival, but many apply to the game in general. We already talked a bit about how map design and layout affect strategy. But a big reason to think as well as shoot is this: face to face firefights are sometimes a bit of a crap shoot in BA. Many times my friends and I have experienced and witnessed when watching players in Team Survival instances of one player clearly shooting what should be fatal shots at another, but without a desired result. This aspect of the game is not only in face to face fights. Grenades landing at your enemy’s feet don’t always kill. Even launcher shots don’t always work. The fact is that the game is not perfect when it comes to detecting what should be a fatal shot or explosion. Some estimate that the game is 80-85% accurate--that is, 80-85% of the time, a fatal shot actually kills. This number drops dramatically in the presence of lag, and the worse the lag, the lower the percentage. In US-UK games, it’s not uncommon for one player to have a PSG double zoomed in on an enemy’s stationary head and find the first several shots have no effect.
If you do find yourself in a face to face battle and your opponent is firing wildly at you, try staying cool and double tapping headshots. Sometimes your enemy will waste a clip and have to reload, giving you time to go for the headshot. Many players, however, bounce up and down and move side to side, making themselves harder to hit. Some even start throwing grenades at you. But if you’re aiming for the chest, that becomes a headshot every time the bouncing player is down. So if headshots face to face are proving too difficult, try getting as close as possible and aiming for the chest—just unload a full clip and hope enough bullets hit. It’s still a risky method, though, and better to avoid if possible.
Therefore, if you have a chance to flank an enemy for an easy shot, take it! If you can trick him into going one way so you can flank him, do it! If he telegraphs where he’s going to be five seconds from now, just wait for him. For example, one guy we play with likes to open doors by emptying his M-60 into them until they explode, and then he walks through. He’s died many times because of it, as someone has heard what he’s doing and just waits a few seconds for him to walk through the door he’s just blown to bits. Or if, on Airport, for another example, you hear a barrel explode on the tarmac, chances are good someone is in one of a few good spots out there, and if you’re down to one on one, you know you can move through the green spawn without having to worry about running into him.
The fundamental principle is to create a situation where you have the advantage. That can mean that you see your enemy but he doesn’t see you; you know where he is and can reach him with a bullet or grenade but he can’t fight back; or you can predict with some likelihood where he will be in the near future and can be waiting for him. The following tips are all intended to help you create such situations.
Learn spawn points. One of the main elements of map knowledge is related to where you spawn, and what door/passage/vantage point you can reach before players on the other team can reach their opposite positions of advantage. Let us use Café as an example. The Green Team spawns above the central plaza in a courtyard with two exits. One exit is a short up staircase on the left that leads to the A satellite room. The other exit is a short down staircase that leads toward the center plaza and the right side of the map. Within that spawn courtyard, you might appear toward the left, in the middle, or toward the right, and the direction you decide to go must take your spawn location into account. Say you want to go to the top of the plaza steps and snipe at anyone who crosses the plaza or who is late getting from the Red spawn and moving toward your right. You run down the first short staircase, around the building to the left, and peek around the top of the plaza stairs to see who’s there. Then you drop dead, because back at the upper courtyard you spawned to the far left and your enemy had more time than you did to reach a position of advantage at the bottom of the plaza. The guy down there who spawned in the right place to make it to a position of advantage from the bottom of the plaza got there, lined you up before you even arrived and when you peeked around the corner, bang.
Many, if not all, of the maps have this aspect. The best players know which doors or corners they can reach first based on where they spawn, and they know that choosing a favorite route from the wrong spawn position can mean opening a door to a bullet in the forehead. So basic map knowledge means knowing the fastest routes from one map location to another and where each door or alley leads. Expert map knowledge means knowing where you need to spawn to get to that door before an enemy can cover it from his side.
Sometimes you spawn in the right place, get to your favorite door faster than an enemy possibly can, and you wait, all lined up, but no one shows up for you to shoot. Either the good players on the other side spawned in the wrong place to try to beat you there, or, simply, no one decided to go that way for some other reason. Too bad, maybe next time. Get moving!
And keep moving! In general, that is. First, you’re harder to hit when you’re moving than when you’re sitting there waiting for someone to walk into your sights. Second, the more ground you cover, the greater chance of seeing someone to shoot. Third, to exploit sound tactics, you need to move, to learn as much as possible about where enemies are and what they’re doing. Move until you have a reason to stop.
While you’re moving, LISTEN. BA makes great use of audio. Footsteps on gravel sound different from footsteps on wood. You can hear others changing to grenades, reloading, planting remote charges, tossing grenades, and so on. Use these clues to your advantage. If you’re in a shootout with someone around the corner, and you hear him start to reload, and you’re close enough to get to him before he can shoot back, CHARGE! If you hear footsteps going one way and you’re in a position to get behind that player, GO. Playing this game with the sound down is a huge disadvantage, and playing with 5.1 surround sound is a big advantage. So always try to play with the volume loud enough that you can hear all the noises the game is offering you as clues.
Look closely, not just for signs of enemies, but also at what they throw at you. Flashbangs are easily distinguishable from frags and WPs. If an enemy around a corner throws a flash bang, you have time to turn away before it goes off, as long as you see it land. But watch out he doesn’t throw another one while you’re turned away! Looking closely will also let you recognize an enemy who is holding a grenade instead of a gun. When you see this, you can take your time to line up a shot, because you know you have an extra second or so before he can put the grenade away and fire back at you.
Use doors to your advantage. Doors on maps like Café and Presidio can be a major component of winning strategies in Black Arrow. Throwing a grenade at a closed door as you approach it can save you a precious second or two that it would take to open it normally—this can allow you to get from your spawn to a position of advantage that much sooner than your opposite on the other team. Closing or opening doors as you move around the map can mislead enemies about where you are or where you’ve been, and can also allow them to reveal to you their whereabouts. For example, on Café’s upper level, you can see quite a few doors. If you come down to one on one on Café, try closing all the doors as you pass through them. You can then take up a position looking down a staircase, for example, and with a quick glance back at the upper courtyard and all the doors you can see, if you see a door open now, you’ll know your enemy has been there since last you looked. Sometimes which door has opened will tell you exactly where the enemy will be now, and give you an easy shot when he appears. Of course, you don’t want to stand still closing a door behind you as you’re vulnerable then. Learn to close a door as you move through it, so that, at most, you have to slow down only a tiny bit as you close the door.
When enemies start picking up that you’re intentionally closing doors to hide your movements, start opening them as you pass by, or close all but those in a path that leads to an ambush. Of course, for this strategy to work, you need to try it on an enemy who is just clever enough to figure out what you want him to think, but not clever enough to realize you’re setting a trap, and that he can flank you by going a different route to where you’re waiting to ambush him.
Anticipate and watch for patterns in other people’s play. People are creatures of habit, and often you’ll notice that a player always goes the same way, regardless of where he spawns. Send a grenade to meet him, or wait just long enough to see if he’ll do it this round. As you play round after round, you’ll discover spots on some maps where players like to hide and wait. Then you can start pre-firing and tossing long-shot grenades on your way by. By pre-firing we mean this: if you think there’s a good chance someone is waiting just around a corner you need to turn, line up and start shooting just before you emerge around that corner. If someone is there waiting, and is a bit slow to shoot when he sees you, you might get him first. If you’re running along a corridor below a landing, and you know that Joe Noob likes to hide behind a bookcase up there, toss a grenade just in case. Every now and then you’ll get a free kill.
Watch the Lobby for info on how many enemies are still alive. At any time in TS you can hit the Start button to bring up the Lobby screen, which will show you who has been killed and how many bars of health those still living have. Sometimes it’s hard to keep track of who has died, but knowing that you’re facing three enemies or one makes a huge difference in how you play. Make sure you reach a position of relative cover before doing this, as you are a sitting duck.
Communicate with teammates, if possible. If you are playing with friends or friendly strangers, try to tell each other where you are on the map as you move around. This intel can help you find enemies if one of you dies just after calling out a location. If teammates are not willing to share this information, you can use the Back button to bring up a larger map, which may show you where a teammate has just died.
Watch for traps. Some players set traps intentionally, by placing remote charges or smoking an alley up with grenades and then charging through to surprise you. Others wait for traps to present themselves to be taken advantage of. For example, if you get a kill at the end of a hallway, you may have created a trap for yourself! The worst thing you can do then is run over that dead body as you continue your movement around the map. The chances are too good that an enemy saw the death and is waiting for you to make the mistake of arriving at the same spot where your most recent victim lies. So when you witness the losing end of a fight, pause a moment and line up on that spot, just in case the winner arrives a moment later.
Certain maps have traps built into them, areas sometimes called ‘killzones,’ where a player can take a safe position and wait for enemies to wander by. Part of map knowledge is being aware of these areas and knowing that a camper is likely to be waiting for you, so once again we’re back to the importance of learning maps.
Use Team Survival to learn from others. When you die early in TS, you can watch any player on your team. Figure out which players you can learn from and watch carefully how they move around and what they do to learn their strategies. Our group often plays together, so we know our own tricks pretty well, but going into a public room is often an educational experience, because other players can use strategies we’ve never thought of. When we return to our familiar group with something we’ve learned in a public room, we have a distinct advantage until our new tricks are identified and countered.
Conclusion, and a few words about Camping
Finally, while you’re anticipating and watching for the mistakes of enemies, mind you don’t make the same mistakes yourself. You’ll know when you’ve likely made such a mistake—you’ll be dead. But be patient. Learning the strategies we’ve discussed and being able to play with them as second nature are different things, and it takes time and practice to be able to think clearly while trying to stay alive. Winning a round because you out-thought several opponents can be very gratifying, and to some of us is more fun than winning a run and gun shootout.
It is definitely more fun than camping, which many BA players resort to. There is nothing ‘wrong’ with camping, in our opinion—it is simply another strategy that anyone can use. It’s very boring, of course, just sitting there, waiting for someone to wander by so you can pick them off, and it seems unlikely that anyone would feel much gratification about being a first class camper. Playing the strategic game we’re talking about in this guide is a way to challenge yourself and develop skills beyond those of accurate shooting, or, in some cases, to compensate for a lack of accurate shooting. But if you enjoy camping, by all means do so in our rooms. We get particular satisfaction from killing chronic campers.
Addendum: Game Modes
Here are some comments on BA’s game modes for those unfamiliar with the game.
Sharpshooter (SS): Individual with most kills wins, respawns on. This mode is favored by those who like to cram as much killing into a round as possible. But it is also a favorite of campers who take up a safe position and pick off players who run by. Since there are limited spawn points on each map, with experienced SS players it becomes very hard to live past spawning. Since players continue to respawn until time runs out, SS is generally not a favorite game mode of the strategic BA player, but can be good practice for learning to aim and shoot, since you can get a lot of kills or deaths in a SS round.
Survival (S): Last man alive wins, regardless of who has most kills, which is the problem. Do you try to remain alive to win, or to have the most kills, even if you die before someone else does? Either way it’s more interesting strategy-wise than Sharpshooter since you don’t have to worry about someone respawning right behind you for an easy kill. The great challenge of S is that it’s you against everyone else, but a patient, slow approach is often rewarded simply because as your enemies fight it out, each time one survives a battle, he will likely have lost a bit of health and thus be easier to kill in the next fight.
Team Survival (TS): Team with last member alive wins, no respawns. TS is probably the most common game mode that you will come across on Live, and Strategy above is based mainly on many hours playing TS.
TS alternate: Donut Rules, aka Zeroes and Heroes: In Team Survival, the first round is played with teams as evenly divided as possible. At the end of the round, players with at least one kill move up to the Green Team, while players with no kills (donuts, or zeroes), move down to the Red Team. At the end of each round, teams are adjusted thus.
Ostensibly, this game mode is designed to vary the teams by rewarding those who get kills. Even the best players will have donuts occasionally, though they may spend most of the time on the Green Team. So you have teams that are almost constantly changing. Players get to (have to, in some cases) play from both spawns, rather than only from the spawns they prefer or dislike. Teams are often unbalanced in number, which requires/allows different strategies for both sides. Variety, in other words, is the thing.
However, Donut also leads to one of the best tests of skill in Black Arrow. Say one round is 2 players on the Green Team, and 4 players on the Red Team. If one Green player gets BOTH Red players, he’s the only one with kills. So the next round is one player against five! (This situation is different from 6-player Survival, of course, because in Donut all five are trying to get YOU, whereas in Survival, though it’s you against five others, everyone is trying to kill everyone else.) If one of the Red players gets Green before Green gets any kills, it’s one on five again! From time to time, a good player will manage to get all five and accomplish a near perfect round (perfect would be all on the Red Team dead, Green player has full health). This is one of the great experiences BA offers, because the level of *** and whining one hears upon returning to the lobby can be very satisfying. And best of all, you get to do it again because you’re still the only player on the Green Team. Of course, if the Red Team works as a team, it’s nearly impossible for a single Green player to get them all.
Total Conquest (TC): Team that controls the most satellites at the end, or who has the most kills at end of tie breaking round, or that controls all three satellites for 20 seconds, wins. TC is a complex game strategically when being played by skilled players, and might even deserve its own strategic analysis, since the possibilities are so varied depending on how large the teams are and how good the players are. But here are some general comments.
Some maps have questionable placements of satellites, and a few maps give a big advantage to one team over the other because of where a Satellite is placed. But on the maps that work well for TC, the game can be a lot of fun. A common general strategy is to assign roles to each player on the team. Some will hunt and claim satellites, while others will guard either satellites already claimed or choke points to prevent enemies from moving freely around the map. A good sniper can be very effective in TC on the right map, assuming teams are large enough to afford one player to watch a single satellite. If your team gets close to victory, either by holding all three satellites or by holding two with the clock about to expire, have everyone on the team toss grenades at the nearest dish. You might die, but this is a good way to prevent the other team from staying alive at a dish long enough to convert it. Try to move in pairs, at least, when hunting satellites, so that if one of you dies in a fight, another is left alive to claim the dish. If you’re reaching the end of the round, have all teammates converge on two of the three satellites, rather than trying to grab all three. You only need two to win when time expires.
TC Alternate: Team Sharpshooter: this mode was added to Lockdown, and rumors that this happened because Ubisoft heard how we were using Total Conquest to play it remain unconfirmed. The idea came from complaints in our group that if you died early in Team Survival, you had to sit for too long in the lobby watching others play. We figured we could use Total Conquest to solve the problem. We agree not to touch any of the satellite dishes. We set the round to whatever length we want, minus 5 minutes, because with no dishes activated, TC goes into a five minute Overtime period. If we want a six-minute round, we set it for one minute before the five-minute OT.
This game mode is also affected by the spawn killing problem, but among friends, this has a fairly easy solution. We came up with a rule about protecting spawning players. The rule is that you may pass through an enemy’s spawn, but you are not allowed to fire your weapon inside the area. You may be fired upon, however, if someone spawns and finds you there, so the choice is yours. If you want the tactical advantage of passing through the other spawn and are willing to bet your life that you won’t become a helpless target while doing so, you may try. Players are also not allowed to retreat into their own spawn for protection, and this is the only time you may shoot in the other team’s spawn: if you follow a retreating player into his spawn, he is fair game.
Obviously this is a friends only rule, as in a public room it would not work. It also works better on some maps than others. Village, for example, has clearly defined spawn areas, so you know when you’re inside and outside. Presidio, however, won’t work because the Red Spawn is open to long areas in two directions.
Retrieval (R): Team with the most canister drop-offs wins the game. A team member walks over the smoking canister to pick it up, and then has to use his/her secondary weapon whilst in possession of the canister (remember to equip your pistols!). The carrier then has to be defended whilst the team makes their way to the drop-off point (usually close to the opposition spawn) to deposit the canister. Not quite as strategically complex as TC, but very reliant on teamwork.
Like TC, placement of the drop-off points close to, or virtually in enemy spawns can be a cause for consternation. If a team has fought its way to a drop-off that looks onto a spawn point, it would be only natural for them to shoot into the spawn to defend their carrier, much to the annoyance of the other team. These maps are best avoided; Subway is a classic example of such poor placement. Again, assigning roles to various players (and sticking to them!) provides the best results, with some players deliberately staying back and guarding the opposition drop-off to prevent them scoring. This is where remote charges and snipers come into play. Remember, if you’ve found it easy going getting to the drop-off, you could be in for a nasty surprise!
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Good luck, play fair and have fun!
Gt: motosan, and
Gt: dodgydriver
Moderating Since 2004This posting is provided "as-is" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
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