More Tips for Gambit. (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Saturday, October 20, 2018, 12:32 (2026 days ago) @ cheapLEY
edited by CruelLEGACEY, Saturday, October 20, 2018, 12:57

I've been meaning to write a post on this topic for a while :)

There are a lot of good suggestions in the OP, but I have a different take on some points. I won't go through a thorough breakdown of my own... instead, I'll give an example of my thought process as a match plays out.

Gambit is a race

Everything I do during a Gambit match is done with speed and efficiency in mind. I am always keeping track of time along 2 dimensions: how much time am I spending, and how much time am I costing the other team? This equation is always running in my head, and it leads me to some conclusions that might go against the common strategies. For example, I believe that going out of your way to bank 5 motes for a small blocker is almost always a waste of time. That's not to say that I never do it. There are scenarios where banking 5 motes is the least inefficient option in front of me, but I don't think that planning in advance to bank 5 motes is the best use of time. Why? Because the time I spend running back to the middle with 5 motes in hand is time that I could have spent killing more ads quickly, securing more total motes for my team faster, and keeping my teammates safer so that everyone could move as quickly as possible. The time that it costs me to run back with only 5 motes in hand is greater than the time it will take the enemy team to kill a small blocker.

That digression aside, let's start at the beginning of a match.

The initial rush at the start of a game of Gambit is crucial. You absolutely want your team to be the first to invade, because the first invasion is one of the greatest opportunities in the whole match to rob the enemy team of the most motes possible.

My Gambit loadout is a No Turning Back bow, IKELOS shotgun, and Sleeper. I'll usually begin a match by hanging out near the middle of the map, killing ads from a distance with my bow. I can usually get 5-6 kills before my teammates have reached the enemy spawn zone, meaning there will already be motes for them to start picking up right from the start. Ideally, I want 2 teammates focusing on picking up motes while my 4th teammate and I hang back and kill ads. I will also take out any small blockers that get sent our way (With my Ikelos shotgun, I can take out a small blocker in 1-2 seconds. Hence my opinion that they are generally not worth the time it takes to summon them).

Ideally, the mote collectors on my team should be coordinating so that one of them gets 15 motes ASAP and rushed to bank them. By about that point, the 2nd wave of enemies should be arriving. I'll turn and start picking them off while the rest of my team is still running to bank or collect motes. I'll often run over to the 2nd wave and pick up a few motes myself. Remember, the priority is to invade the enemy team before they invade us. So at this point, I'm looking at at how many motes my whole team has collectively banked/picked up. If we already have 15 banked and the other mote runner is holding 10, I'll be telling them to bank immediately. If they're still running around collecting a few from the first wave or are on their way to the 2nd wave, I'll try to get 10 as quick as possible so I can bank and hit that 25 mote threshold. In any scenario, I want to be back near the bank as we're dumping in the motes needed to hit 25, because Power ammo will be spawning at about this time. So I'm either banking what I have or covering my teammate while they bank, grabbing power ammo, and invading immediately.

If all of this goes relatively well, I'll invade the enemy team while they're stuck carrying 15-25 motes between them. This is the best position an invader can find themselves in, because the players carrying motes are going to be too concerned about protecting their motes to aggressively hunt me down. With any luck, I'll take out 3 or 4 of them. At the very least, I'll make sure I take out the enemy carrying the most motes (1 of them will often have 15 at this point).

This can all have a huge impact on the rest of the round. While I'm invading the enemy team, they aren't banking any motes, they're potentially losing the motes they've picked up, and my team is busy collecting more motes. By the time I return to my side, one of my teammates will probably be close to depositing another 15 motes. Another quick 10, and I can invade again, all before the enemy team has had time to recover and get an invader of their own across. If they do manage to send and invader, I will aggressively hunt them down. This is another reason why I prefer to only have 2 guardians at a time focusing on mote collection. If there are at least 2 of us who can actively attack an enemy invader without risk of losing any motes, we will usually be able to stop them before they do any real damage.

There is one other thing I want to mention here, as a general thought. A lot of people will say "when the Drifter tells you that you have enough motes to summon a Primeval, drop everything and bank right away!". I don't agree with this. At least, not in every case. I've played rounds where several players on my team were holding a few motes when we hit the total needed to summon a boss. If all of us have 3-4 motes, that's a scenario where IMO it's actually worth taking the extra few seconds needed to get everyone up to 5 motes, then rush back and bank all together. This buys your team time to quickly clear out the weaker enemies that spawn along with the Primeval, before you get invaded. I find it much easier to spot and stop the invader if you aren't getting shot from a million directions all at once. Invasions during the boss phase are another point that can make or break a round, so stopping invaders is crucial.

On that point, always invade the enemy team ASAP once they've summoned their Primeval. I've pulled off some incredible comebacks thanks to late-game invasions. Just yesterday, I reached a moment where both teams were fighting their respective bosses, when I saw that the enemy team's boss health bar started to drop, fast. Our portal opened, and I invaded. Their boss was down to about 1/4 health. I got 2 quick kills with my sleeper, popped my super, and killed the remaining 2 players with my hammers. Their boss's health was back up over 50% as I got teleported back to my side, giving me enough time to use the rest of my hammers to kill my Primeval.

Even if your late-game invasions don't go that well, you will at the very least take the enemy team's attention away from damaging their boss, giving your team time to gain ground.

That's all I've got for now... I was thinking I might live stream some gambit at some point in the near future. Would that be of interest to anyone?