Five Awesome Tips for Titanfall Beginners

Online shooters can be a nightmare to get started with. You don't know the game all that well, the levels are unfamiliar and you're constantly getting shot in the face by another player, ten seconds after respawning. Titanfall happens to be no different, so here's five awesome tips for new players.

Your titan operates pretty much like any other ability in a game would, by having a cooldown. If it gets destroyed then you have certain amount of time to wait before you can call in another one. On the whole though, the cooldown time isn't that long, and getting kills will speed up the timer so always make sure you spawn your titan the moment it's available.

There's really no disadvantage to having it around. It deals tremendous damage, improves your survivability and allows you to stack up against another titan in a much better fashion than if you were running around on foot. If for whatever reason you don't want to pilot it, have it follow you around providing cover fire instead, or, if you're playing Hardpoint Domination for example, set it to guard a captured hardpoint for you.

Burn cards are one-off buffs you can use when you spawn. The bonuses are pretty diverse, ranging from double experience points, to giving you a super-powered gun until you die. You can equip three prior to any given match and use them as needed, and the best advice I can give is to use them often.

There's a tendency to stock up on them but the game doles them out so liberally you're better off simply getting the benefits they provide right away. What's more, you can only carry a limited amount, so any new ones you're rewarded might get wasted if you're not using them up.

That doesn't mean you can't be strategic about how you use them. Having a super-powered anti-titan weapon on your first spawn is generally a bit of a waste, since people are unlikely to have access to a titan yet. Better to save that one until about halfway through a match, for when the metal monsters start dropping down in earnest. Similarly, a powered-up regular weapon can be great when you start; providing you with a good tempo boost (and hopefully a bigger kill count), right at the start of the game, putting your opponents on the back foot.

Custom loadouts for pilots are unlocked at level five. To customise your titans you have to get to level ten. I can't stress this enough; make sure you vary your loadouts. Even if you typically run around shooting up people at close range, it's always good to have a sniper loadout on hand, if ever the need arises.

Similarly, having specific loadouts for different match types can help too. Mines and other defensive equipment obviously becomes much more valuable in a game of Hardpoint Domination or Capture the Flag. In contrast, make sure your more generic deathmatch build(s) are versatile enough to adapt to different combat situations.

As with almost any multiplayer shooter, one of the central tenants is to stay mobile. A moving target is always harder to hit than a stationary one. Unfortunately, many players don't seem to modify this strategy when playing Hardpoint Defence. Rather than ensuring each location is secure, many players seem to rush up towards the next contested point, leaving the previous objectives easy pickings for the enemy.

Titanfall rewards defending by spitting out points for players that stick around a hardpoint, keeping it under your teams control and preventing any enemy from quickly snatching it. In many matches I've ended up with a pretty high score, despite not having a mass of overall kills, simply by being one of the few players to stick to protecting an objective from the opposing team.

Another nice trick is to have your titan set to defend and leave it to operate itself, preferably an ogre model with a Guardian Chip installed. The hulking behemoth isn't the fastest at moving but on defence, it's going to be hard to budge and by having it operate independent of your pilot it allows you to cover two lanes of fire simultaneously.

More importantly, learn how to make use of your jump. In Titanfall, players are surprisingly agile. You're able to leap across buildings easily thanks to your jump kit and between some well-timed double jumps and wall-runs there's a lot of places you might not think you can get to easily that you can actually reach.

More importantly, learn the interesting skills that the game doesn't outright teach you in the tutorial. For example, by holding the left trigger whilst next to a wall, you'll stick your knife into it and hang there like Spiderman. This is useful for getting the jump on enemies that are likely to come into a room from a particular angle. By positioning yourself right, you can make sure they have precious little time to spot you or react to your attack.

There's also the forward momentum you get by jumping again as soon as you land. Which ensures that you cover the maximum distance in the shortest time possible. This can help you get back into the fray faster or contest a hardpoint before it's captured by the enemy.

These are just a few tips to get you started. There's enough depth to Titanfall's combat that no one strategy or load out is completely dominant. Make sure to experiment with the new toys you get whenever you level up and always pay attention to the level layout and enemy positions. And don't forget to check your mini-map.