# Individual VoD Review for ThievesArmy
### 2021-04-02 09:00 UTC+10

VoDs used:
Solo Ranked
SZ Shipyard, Port
TC Towers, Canal
RM Reef, Hotel
1900~2300 Lobby Power
Light Tetra Dualies, QRSJ + 30 dmg MPU build

## Goals

* Looking to improve on TC and RM (SZ going decently)
Previous:
* Maintain 2300 XP+ on SZ/TC/RM (mid term)
* Improve retakes/defending, especially vs range
* Learn how to track enemy locations
* Dealing with long-ranged weapons (esp. chargers)

For these notes, we'll be looking at the previous writeup and noting what you've implemented plus anything else we've seen in this session.

## What you should do

* From last time:
* Get your rollouts consistent
* Most games, I'm seeing openings that are slow and unfocused, leading to mid fights where you start off on the back foot with less information than we'd like.
* Much better fighting and disengagement
* Still some moments here and there where we're getting caught out by people attacking us from behind
* Also some moments where we get "baited" into our old habits e.g. that one CDS fight on Shipyard and the jump landing camp attempt
* Good progress in more normal situations though, dramatic improvement in avoiding fixation
* Defence in TC looking much more thought-out
* Lots of moments where you're using the tower as bait to let the enemy team come to you and present you with free kills
* Also some good moments rescuing pushes, but we'll look at that in more detail later
* Doing well on retakes in SZ too
* Didn't have too many opportunities to spawn camp in these games but that's fine
* We're getting better at waiting for opportunities and acting on them. Looks like you've got a decent feel for what an opening actually looks like and you're much more decisive with them, which is excellent
* Awareness is improved but definitely falls off during longer sessions
* You're getting better at tracking multiple enemy players.
* The rough spots come up later in your sessions (RM session especially, lots of feeding---maybe a bit tilted?). This is normal, just need to re-centre yourself when you can.
* Also seems like you're still either fixating a bit on your way in or you're not trusting your peripheral vision.
* Lots of moments where you see an enemy and seem to respond to them but forget where they are and they come up from behind.
* It's good that you're breaking away from them and not chasing pointless kills, but we do also want to just be aware that by leaving them alone they'll try to re-enter the fight.
* Handling Chargers
* Seemed like there weren't too many issues with them
* A few moments where your rolls kinda left you vulnerable but for the most part you weren't punished and at least had the right idea with your movement, just need to plan your rolls a little better

* New Stuff:
* **Careful with jumps!**
* Definitely superjumping in too often, especially in RM. It's fine to do it, but I notice a lot of the time you've decided to jump back in when you die and not when you respawn.
* Respawning is an 8 second delay. Jumping takes about 3.7 seconds. The delay on jumping already presents an information problem; we're more than tripling our information latency by deciding to jump before we actually are able to.
* Think of it like how we're trying to reassess every 2 seconds because of how much can change in that time span. A jump is twice that. A respawn plus a jump is **six times** that.
* It's good to have the map open while you're respawning; keep doing that. Just don't pick a jump target until you've assessed the game state and can predict what it'll look like when you land.
* Don't jump to the rainmaker!
* The rainmaker carrier is almost always the worst jump target, because it's virtually guaranteed that the enemy will either be attempting to make a play (which you'll get caught up in) or throwing bombs (which you'll die to).
* Jump to anyone else. Not the RM.
* **Plan all four of your rolls.**
* Start by just splitting them into forward and backward e.g. 3 in 1 out or 1 in 3 out
* Add in evasive rolls e.g. jump, forward, left, right, left
* Then start placing your rolls using the map e.g. 1 in 3 out, end behind cover
* Don't forget to squid jump out of ink to get more distance on your first roll
* Want our rolls to be super quick and fluid so the enemy doesn't have time to adjust
* Eventually players will try to read your rolls with splat bombs. At this point we start adding contingencies, but again these are planned before you go in (e.g. 3 in 1 out, if we see a bomb then we just go 4 in)
* **Watch your feet** to avoid bombs and slipping off terrain
* Two problems, one cause.
* Lots of reactable bomb deaths and falling off the map or high ledges unintentionally.
* If you need to get yourself in the habit of sub-strafing, that's fine. You can even use sub-strafing to break up your engagements in the manner we've discussed, that'll build the habit better than anything else.
* Use your peripheral vision to track where you are rolling to
* Practice precise rolls in recon mode before each game. Combine this practice with your roll planning!
* **Mind your health, and predict enemy damage**
* You were struggling really badly vs that luna in TC as well as in some other moments
* This was mainly due to not making the connection between damage you've already taken and damage the enemy is likely to deal i.e. damage estimation
* If you get hit by a luna, you cannot keep fighting it at close range. It's practically guaranteed to get another hit. You have to plan around the idea that a single hit from them means you must disengage.
* Likewise with bombs. One RM game you died to an autobomb shockwave after taking 3 hits from an nzap. Estimating damage in that scenario would have told you to get the heck away from the autobomb ASAP.
* **Only throw your sprinkler when you're about to move somewhere.** Never throw it when you're fighting.
* This is why you keep running out of ink at bad times.
* It's a good habit to throw your sprinkler often, just make sure you stop yourself from doing it if you are anticipating a fight.
* It also has the benefit of making it less likely that the enemy will realise you're there.
* **Time to hit the range.**
* Mechanics are starting to hurt a bit now that you're taking more control over the games. Tons of moments where you're a bit slow on finishing kills and it prevents you from being able to convert into multikills.
* We'll need to work on a practice schedule. Ideally we also will do a practice journal too.

## Mode-Specific Feedback

### Splat Zones
* You don't need to help too much with the zone.
* Throw a sprinkler if you must, but your job is usually to jump the enemy players who are painting the zone.
* You only really need to paint the zone when it has to be capped in a timely fashion.
* Watch the enemy retake routes.
* There are usually about 3 to watch out for. You should be looking between them on defence.
* Couple times you're getting caught by people who are coming from the same retake path you keep using!
* Great defence on Port.
* Look at how much easier it is to play the defence when you let your team draw the enemies out, then you just mop up.
* If you are worried about what your team is doing, try to tune your expectations to things that will always happen. In Zones, your team will always push up a bit and paint the heck out of the enemy base. You don't need to be part of that; take advantage of the chaos!
* Keep pulling fights away from the zone.
* You're dragging enemies into the pit a lot, which keeps them off the zone and isolates them from their teammates.
* Just remember you can also pull fights back into the enemy base too! Sometimes you're able to slip through the right side but you instead opt to stay in pit and get trapped.
* Don't jump in quite so much.
* Jumps on SZ are usually only something you do when your team has won the fight but you died in the process. Jumping to a lost fight in SZ is usually not great, and jumping on retakes is pretty pointless.
* Get special for the next push instead and start getting some info together.

### Tower Control
* Get ahead of the next checkpoint.
* Key part of TC is taking the enemy team's defensive strongholds before they can use them to stop the tower.
* On Moray, we want to be going to the enemy snipe to head off reinforcements so that the tower can scoot through the checkpoints with as little resistance as possible.
* Looked like you tried to do this a fair bit but didn't know where to go once you were there. Think about where you'd want to defend from and where you'd be vulnerable!
* Great clutching!
* Lots of moments where you're the last up on a push and you play it well, getting jumps for your team and staying safe, while baiting the enemy team out using the objective.
* This is **really good**. The thought process behind this kind of play is really useful, so keep it up!
* Careful on the defence.
* Looks like you're trying to be conservative with positioning on defence---good!---but I'm seeing some spots where you would 100% die if you were playing better opponents
* Treat it like a zones retake except you're retaking the checkpoint area instead of the centre.
* Roll out to the checkpoint you want to push to.
* Defensive opening rollouts on TC aren't that good for aggressive weapons for a number of reasons.
* Take the first checkpoint you're pushing to or mid. Then, if you lose the mid fight and live, you can flank the tower when your team is ready to defend.
* Also, if you play to a defensive position and your team rushes mid and dies, you're just going to get overwhelmed.
* Notice how much easier it is to play from behind the tower than in front of it?
* It's harder on some maps than others (like moray lol) but you can see the difference in the Snapper game where you get tons of kills.

### Rainmaker

* Don't pop the shield straight away.
* This is an engagement, similar to what we've been talking about; we don't want to be stuck shooting the RM shield for ages when we could be doing something else.
* You typically only pop the RM shield immediately when either you're the last one out of your base, or there is an immediate push opportunity.
* Instead, go hunting for the remaining enemy players. Make sure they can't backdoor you.
* It's fine to just put a sprinkler under the shield and leave it at that. In fact, that's what you should do.
* It's OK to let your RM carrier die if you've got the enemy scrambling.
* That one moment you asked about, one of your options was to just let the RM die and focus on the follow-through instead.
* This means things like taking high ground, flank paths, and so on.
* We can usually assume that our teammates will play defensively with the RM and generally not die easily with it, or they'll suicide push and the enemy will try to insta-pop. Both of these scenarios benefit us if we're going for positioning or flanks.
* Remember, escort by catching the defenders off guard, not by just hovering near the RM.
* Hovering is fine if you're a longer-ranged weapon or if you don't know where the enemy is going to defend from
* Most of the time, especially on base pushes, you actually know where the defenders will be and can just shoot them from behind
* Light Tetra is good for this cos you can re-pop the RM shield with your bomb rush; just don't tunnel too hard on it, and remember the enemy will be respawning!
* Don't jump to the RM carrier!
* Already covered this but it bears repeating
* Figure out where the enemy is likely to be slow to rotate before you fight.
* Especially at the start of the game, the enemy will likely have some path not painted that you can exploit.
* We're trying to get some follow-through on our play. If the enemy is all on the right side before we fight them, we know they'll be slow to defend if we grab the RM and go left.
* This keeps us grounded if the enemy starts to retreat. We can decide in advance where the RM should go and shave a couple seconds off our push.
* It also gives us another win condition in the fight. Either kill the enemy or get the RM moving to the opposite side of the map from where they are.
* The enemy will be looking at the RM. Use this to plan your flanks.
* If the RM is on the left of Albacore, you can run pretty much straight into the enemy base from the middle and you'll probably find like one player.
* Any time the RM carrier is not really moving and the game's at a standstill, look for a flank relative to where the enemy team is likely to be looking.
* Pushing ahead---great! Seeing a lot of times where you're pushing ahead of the RM. Just remember that if you push into their sightlines, you're going to get caught in the crossfire.
* The time to push ahead is when the enemy team is approaching the RM from an angle, rather than straight on. This is because by pushing ahead when they're not going straight on, you're actually moving away from the enemy's sightline!