Sniper Mythology

[FalseLights]

Then there was Snipers.

Starcraft UMS: Sniper Bald Locks is a capture the flag "Lock" map where opposite teams, Hot and Cold, (typically 2v2 or 3v3 teams) would attempt to capture the enemy's flag and return it to base. In a combination of strategy and skill, the team with the most points at the end of the time limit wins the game. In this map you are allied with your enemies which forces you to manually lock them with the "A" (attack) key on your keyboard. After several years techniques were discovered and strategies were made. In this tutorial I will go over Abbreviations, Techniques and the three Sniper Theory's: Angle, Dlock and Pulse.

-Techniques and Abbreviation-
Difficulty Rating: 1 Easy to 5 Hard

Noob lock (nl): You locked an enemy far out of you sniper's range of attack.
Difficulty 1)

Stance: You locked and shot an enemy while your sniper is completely motionless.
Difficulty 3, 4 if consistent)

S-Lock: You pressed the "s" key to abruptly stop your sniper and locked an enemy.
Difficulty 3, 5 if consistent)

Shift Noob Lock (snl): You noob lock two ghosts while holding the shift key.
Difficulty 2)

Quick lock (ql): You instantly locked an enemy with very limited vision or reaction time.
Difficulty 3, 4 if consistent)

Walked: You rush an enemy and ql'd him as if he was nl'd.
Difficulty 4, 5 if consistent)

Walk stance (ws): Your sniper locks and kills an enemy while in motion and without changing his initial direction.
Difficulty 4, 5 if consistent)

Hack shot (hs): You gain vision of an enemy but locked and killed him as he entered Fog of War.
Difficulty 3, 4 if consistent)

Shift hack shot (shs): You got a hack shot by using the shift key.
Difficulty 4, 5 if consistent)

To Dlock please view: http://www.blizzboards.com/forums/sh...-Lock+Tutorial
To HS please view: http://www.blizzboards.com/forums/sh...-Shot+Tutorial
To SHS please view: http://www.blizzboards.com/forums/sh...-Shot+Tutorial


For fogging and glitching your enemy please view : http://www.blizzboards.com/forums/sh...litches-by-LaZ

-Additional Abbreviations-

"Aired": Your sniper fired at an enemy but you shot at the ground (or air) instead.

"Clear"(c): The field (or area of interest) is clear of enemy's.

"Dance": You move side-to-side in a speedy fashion to provoke nls or mc.

"Drift": Your sniper moved in a direction you did not tell him to go.

"Double Kill/Draw Kill" (dk): You and the enemy killed each other.

"Ground Hack Shot" (ghs/gs): You kill an enemy in full vision and your ghost does an over exaggerated shot similar to a hs.

"Kill Steal" (ks): You took another person's kill.

"Miss Clicked" (mc): You tried to lock an enemy but missed.

"Off Screen/scroll" (os): You were looking at another part of the map while your enemy killed you.

"One"(1) or "two"(2) in game means how ever many snipers are on the field.

"Raise": Your sniper raised his gun but did not fire.

"Reload": The time it takes for you sniper to shoot after his initial shot.

"Safe it": You take a more secure route to your base.

"Skip": Your sniper raised his gun but moved before he could fire.

"Stall": You locked an enemy but ended up pausing in place.

"Stuck": You dlocked and killed an enemy sniper and you suddenly become immobilized for a period of time.

"Team work" (tw) You and your partner work together to take down an enemy.

"Trail Vision (tv/vis)": The vision that you leave behind as you move around the map.

*Sniper Theories*
Without timing, neither theory will execute properly.

-Angle Theory-
There are a lot of debate about Angles in snipers; most would say that they don't exist. Only a few understand the concept of Angle theory while others, who only learned one of the other theory's first, are skeptical. Angle theory is the strategy of maneuvering yourself to a distance of attack or intentionally drifting your enemy's nl. Experienced players can minimize there luring to a point where a few steps at either direction would give them proper angle to fire or instantly drift the enemy sniper; theoretically you can predict when and how a sniper will drift with angle theory. Angle is generally used as the current position of yourself and the enemy.

-Dlock Theory-
Distance Lock or Double Lock is the technique of setting an action towards an enemy first before executing a lock. Dlock will register a sniper's ability to react faster than a standard lock. Once the enemy sniper is in range, your sniper will immediately engage in spite the angle you or he has. The only thing that effects Dlock is the direction of which u dlocked and of course distance. Other variables that effects dlock are additional miss clicks and your enemy's counter for it. Experienced players will often dance an enemy nl then execute a dlock once in range.

-Pulse Theory-
When a sniper noob locks an enemy, the sniper checks periodically if he is in range or not, given the position and time of execution of the lock. The range check is arguably 100ms, or the reset time of the sniper's animated movements. Pulse theory is the theory where the snipers animated movements/reset timer will determine how he will register to fire at the given range. This explains why sometimes you have max range and other times you do not. Also why you stall or skip an enemy at close range even though you locked once. One would argue that locking in between pulses can cause the skip/stall phenomenon.

Additional Tutorials & Strategy: http://www.blizzboards.com/forums/sh...ic-Sniper-Help

"Knowledge does not determine skill, skill is knowledge and 10,000 repetitions."

Special thanks to Damein and Lazer for his tutorials/videos/pictures and Solar for his Pulse Theory.

[ZER(o)]

I would just like to point out once again that angling and pulsing are the exact same thing. The prehistoric term "angling" was used for all of those little tricks we "thought" were working. Pulsing is the new term for a distanced and timed lock, which is essentially what angling always was, just nobody ever knew it. they're the exact same thing, just labeled with different terms. Everytime anyone has ever angled, they either drfted (called a "curve" lure) their opponent, or they "pulsed." Lot's of people figured this out years ago, but credit to SOLAR and DaMeiN for testing and figuring out the relative m/s reset, and turning it into a science.

[Oragami]

I guess it depends on what you considered angles to begin with. I've noticed a sniper will 'drift' when you walk 1 unit length under or above to the left or the right of the enemy, causing their sniper to not be facing you at that time, allowing you to lock them while facing and have the advantage. Sure its all 'pulsing' but there are different pulse techniques used. Imo angles are real and do still exist.

I mean cmon they arnt real 'angles' like degrees, i've always known that..its obvious. its just another gay term we made up. But 'angling' is still a technique.

All these theories are different times of game play, all of which are based on timing. In reality if you had literally perfect timing you wouldn't need any of these techniques aside from a single simple lock with perfect timing to beat your opponent, different locks do different things depending on the situation. I mean look @ stancing, its ALL timing, you don't even 'need' to dlock, if you have perfect timing. You could stance all day long from any direction anywhere with timing. All these different theories are only relative to the situation your in.

Overall 'stancing' is the best technique, if you've got the timing for it, which nobody does...cause nobody is perfect. In fact you could take any of these theories combined with perfect timing and you'd beat anything, or if your opponent has equal timing, you'd DK all day. It's all about being able to react to what ur enemy is doing, say if ur stance gets lured, it will be harder for you to have perfect timing, because you'd need to react faster to their action..thats all this game is.

And all theories aside, you could just surprise your enemy all game and win. 'ninjaing' without any of this extra bullshit we invented.

[ZER(o)]

I acknowledged curving in my earlier post, it's all in all a pretty safe way to angle, it's just that it's hard to do consistently unless the nl you. Drifting someone is difficult to do if they're constantly luring you.

I also agree that stancing is probably the best technique, since it fires at maximum range eveytime. Well, actually, d-lock is a lot more practical, I guess, since it's easier to time.

[Oragami]

Idk if anyone else has noticed, but during 2 parties luring the one who DOESNT be the aggressor usually wins.

Say its a side to side lure 'battle'

the person on the left is trying to 'lure' you and get u to be the aggressor, the person on the right simply runs away and makes them be aggressive and 'attack' you in ur direction. The one who doesn't get lured is going to win the battle I'd say 70% of the time.