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Dirty Bomb: Tips and Tricks for New Players

Some basic advice for new players, what to do and not to do. Which merc purchases you should avoid and some tips how to get started.

Dirty Bomb Tips

  • First of all, if you’re a new player, stick to the max level servers. They will give you a better chance to learn the game without the frustration of running into very high-level players. To do that, click on the PLAY button, open the “Server Browser” and look for max level servers.
  • Dirty Bomb has a fluid movement system. You can jump off of walls, and get into hard-to-reach places. But don’t go around jumping everywhere and bunnyhopping in a fight, you lose your accuracy that way and it will make your aim worse in general. Oh, and everyone will hate you.
  • Pretty much every weapon apart from sniper rifles is very accurate, so you don’t need to aim down the sights (ADS) with it. Especially don’t do it with shotguns, pretty please with a cherry on top.
  • If you want to communicate with your team, press U to type to them. If you want to type something to both teams, press Y. To talk, hold X. There’s also a quick chat with pre-made commands, to use that you press V and then follow the numerical menus. Most useful/popular quick chat commands are: V21 to call a medic, and V22 to call for ammo.
  • You can run faster with your melee weapon out. To equip it, press 3.
  • Stay mobile. Stationary players are easy targets in Dirty Bomb. Use the movement system to your advantage, sprint with melee weapon out, strafe in PVP.
  • If you want to practice your movement, try the assault course and aim to get a gold or cobalt rating. I recommend checking guides on youtube. If you don’t like the key configuration for “long jumps”, you can search online for key binds for it (google: dirty bomb long jump key bind).
  • Never leave your deployables in your team’s spawn location (healing station, ammo station, turret, shields, mines). Your abilities, especially healing stations, will be needed on the battlefield. Some people like to leave their ammo stations in the spawn, but the issue with it is that while your team will get max ammo when it respawns, it will run out of it when fighting. Make sure your deployables are helping in a fight and that they give your team an advantage.
  • When you place your deployable, especially healing stations and turrets, don’t leave them in the middle of an open area and vulnerable to enemy fire. All deployables can be destroyed, so make sure to put them in a place where they can be effective and helpful to your team, but hidden from your enemies.
  • If you see someone from your team repairing/defusing/planting, and especially if you’re not an engineer and that player is, don’t try to do what he’s doing, it won’t make it faster. Provide cover instead and keep that person alive.
  • When playing an EV escort map (Chapel, Bridge, Castle, Dockyard), repairing or stopping it is the key to win a match. If you repair the EV, make sure to escort it, it doesn’t move by itself. If your objective is to destroy it, you can use Skyhammer’s airstrike on it, or other explosive/fire abilities to do it. You can destroy the EV with guns too, but it takes long and costs you a lot of ammo.
  • If you’re playing Skyhammer make sure to drop ammo for your teammates. If you don’t there’s a high chance that your team will run out of ammo and then they can’t fight. Remember that your airstrike can and will kill you, to learn how exactly it works, check out the training in the main menu or watch guides online.
  • If you see enemy team camping on a healing station, instead of trying to shoot them all, kill the healing station first. Winning a 1v1 against a single enemy being healed by a station might be tricky, winning a 1v5 with enemies getting healed is a suicide.

The Don’ts and Do’s of early merc purchases

  • For the love of everything that is holy, don’t purchase a sniper (Vassily/Aimee/Redeye/Hunter) early on. Being an effective sniper is extremely hard, and not only requires good aim but also knowledge of maps.
  • Don’t get Phantom early on, but if you do get him, don’t run around trying to be Genji. Phantom is not a “melee class”, if you’ll try to kill whole enemy team with a katana, you’ll get demolished. Use your cloak to get behind enemies, make sure to disable their deployables, like healing stations, turrets, mines, shields. Use your guns, and run away if needed.
  • Don’t get a Rhino either. Most of the times Rhino is only effective against new players. He’s a one trick pony, and pretty easy to counter, once you understand his limitations. If you want an effective tank merc, get Thunder instead.
  • For a first purchase I’d recommend getting Phoenix, Stoker or Sawbonez. They are flexible, help team a lot and are good when it comes to surviving on their own. If you really want to go solo and just kill players, you could try Nader, Fragger or Thunder. Their abilities make it easier to win in a fight, but they won’t keep you or your team alive.

Beginnings with Aura

  • There are no map generated health pickups in the game. The only ways to replenish HP are: to either wait in safety for a while, pick up enemy health pack or have a medic playing on your team. It’s very often that a team that doesn’t have a medic loses a match…
  • …which leads me to recommending Aura as the merc you should train with when you’re new to the game. Aura doesn’t have a lot of HP (in fact, she is one of the two mercs with 80HP, the least amount of hit points in the game), but once you deploy your healing station and stay close to it, you become one of the hardest mercs to kill.
  • Playing Aura will also give you A LOT of XP, assuming you will use her effectively (that is healing and reviving your teammates). Another plus is that if you place your station in a smart place, where your team can use it, teammates will follow you, giving you backup and providing ammo and other bonuses.
  • Your healing station is more for your team than yourself. Place it in a spot where your team congregates, but try to hide it from enemy fire.
  • If you’re playing Aura and you’ve placed a healing station for your team, don’t go around removing it every time you want to go somewhere. Unless the battle is moving, like when you have to escort EV or your team retreats, keep the station where your team congregates and don’t use it for yourself. If you have to make a quick run for ammo, leave the station for the team. You may die without it, but if the team gets to use it, the enemies will have harder time winning.
  • When you’re playing Aura and you see that another Aura on your team has placed a healing station, don’t put your station next to hers, try to find a good spot a bit further away, that will give your team another good place to hold. Placing stations next to each other wastes their potential, and DB players call it “station stacking”.
  • If you’re a medic, and there’s an objective that needs a repair or a defuse, but nearby you can see your downed teammates, leave the objective and go revive them. If you’re in a fight and your teammate goes down, pick him up instead of trying to kill the enemy.
  • Actually as a medic you should focus almost entirely on reviving and making sure that everyone’s got health. There are some long time playing medic mains in this game that don’t go around killing enemies at all, they just run from teammate to teammate, making sure everyone’s topped off and keeping the team alive. Sure, they end up with negative K/D ratio but they also end up with a very high amount of XP and a grateful team.
  • If the match has been going for some time, you can hold tab, see which one of your teammates is on the top of the scoreboard, and try to follow him and keep him alive. In this game you can almost solo carry. That is, if you’re really good and you also have a medic making sure you are healthy, you can do a lot. So help these guys out, it will make a big difference.
Written by Uncle Basil

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