Can I deny weapons in ut4 duel with 20 second respawn?
Yes you can. With 30 second respawns players simply needed to remember the order they picked up weapons.
For this explanation we are going to concentrate on denying a single weapon – either because one’s opponent is particularly adept at using it perhaps the sniper or because it is a good jack of all trades that opens up more options for good players shock.
This was written because of comments made by a US player while commenting on fjarus DM-Echo (https://youtu.be/l_JYtgeMoKM?t=6m27s). After wiring this the whole video feedback is potentially a troll, however the “how to time” part is still relevant.
“Actually with the weapon timers being 20 seconds it is a lot more accessible to both players to get shock. It isn’t really a viable strategy in competitive duel to really lock down weapons because it is really hard to lock down weapons.”
It is not viable to lock down weapons because it is hard to do this. Not that it is ineffective or weak, but because it is difficult. Is it? In the past players were quite keen to hype up longer respawns and denial as a semi-unique feature of ut duel that adds depth and nothing has changed in this regard with 20 second respawn.
With 30 second weapon respawn players simply remembered the pickup order. Taking the 100a then they went shock, then flak, then sniper, etc. The only point of timing needed here was the spawn time of the 100a – which is not 100% required. Adding in a pause before each weapon pickup gave some leeway in travel time and spread out whatever weapons you were denying. This was very simple, easy and quite “strong” in relation to what it offered the player doing it. It also took very little thought, you had things to do, places to see and along the way grab a few weapons. Just remember the order.
This is no longer possible with 20 second respawn weapons. Or rather chaining off the armor pickup is possible but because the respawn is shorter the weapons will repop before the armor does, leaving them up for the opponent to take.
So then, how does one run belt + 100a and at least one weapon?
This is surprisingly straight forward and not “hard” provided one actually wants to do it and not just say “oh, well, I can’t do it anymore because the spawn time is different”. You need to be able to time and you need to be able to time two pickups on different spawn times that can clash. Just like quake armor+mega.
The basic version is this : When you pick up the shock you note the time +20 and now know when to return. It is identical to timing the armors. You now have to remember two or three pickup times if you time the belt and 100a separately. It takes more effort for sure.
The problem arises when because the 20 second weapon spawn can pop when you are off doing something else – like picking up the belt or the 100a, which we will assume are more important to you. There are situations where these pickups do not matter, for example if you know your opponent has close to max armor, denying the 100a becomes less important. Likewise the belt, if for some reason your opponent has taken, no damage has been dealt and you have been denying the shock for their entire current life you might opt to not even challenge for belt and instead continue denying shock.
However you can work around this by delaying pickup of the weapon. For example if the 100a is spawning at :34 picking up the shock at :55 is going to cause these two items to clash for the next pickup. Rather than taking the shock straight away, hanging around for 5-10 seconds will allow you to deny the shock then move onto the 100a.
One thing in your favor if deciding to do this is the general obsession with the belt+100a at expense of everything else, so if the shock is clashing there is a good chance there will be a little leeway as your opponents focus will be on the larger item. Keep in mind on a map like ASDF this might not work as the enemy player may be at the shock when it spawns around the same time as the 100a. However in the ut4 map discussed above the 100a is not close to the shock. This can be helped further by trying to position yourself in a way to take the 100a and then move to the shock, preferably without your opponent between.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words so here it is – this is how to deny a singular weapon in duel while keeping the 100a and the belt locked down for three minutes. Good luck.
Is this viable or a good strategy? Not sure. Is it difficult to deny a weapon for a long time? Sure it is, it would take practice. Is it possible to deny for an entire game? Probably, but again quite difficult. Is denying a weapon for 2-3 minutes good? If denial is good then partial denial is still good.
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