It has been proven time and time again that aim while playing a major role in duel, is not the deciding factor on who wins and who loses.
Having a better position virtually makes you the "better aimer", so your game may not be as tactical as you think it is.
Having good aim DOES rightfully improve your chances to win a fight, erase some mistake you did or coming on top from unfavourable position, however, it does not grant you instawin like you try to portray it.
On the other hand, why would you want people with bad aim to win a duel? It's a skill that needs to be practised a lot, just like timing and positioning.
Raw aim only goes so far - strategy, tactics, knowledge, goes a long way to improving how often you hit, and how many opportunities you take advantage of in order to hit.
Have you noticed in pro tourneys, they put their xhair in a specific place and wait? Its more timing and knowledge than raw aim.
Edit: Also its relatively easy to get decent raw aim, you just need a good setup, and work through the weaps and learn them one by one, theres tons of good advice out there which if you follow will improve your aim a lot. I say raw aim is relatively easy because it applies to all the situations in quake, and its easy to give advice on them, but learning a map can be really hard and there are a lot of them to learn.
Massive rocket splash radius is obvious in every game. be fast with +back RL and inflict 300 chernobyls a game so that your opponent can't move around the map. DM13 is already pretty small. What fun.
true to an extent - you can't win if you can't get the xhair in the general location of the opponent, but if you can do that, you can win just fine with +back rocket splash.
I disagree. Rapha doesn't have the best weapon stats, he's not even in my top ten list, but he has dominated for years. Position, awareness and timing are more important than pure aim, in my opinion.
Actually Rapha has beastly aim tbh. He's always had a pretty good rail and LG imo but it's the weapon choices and dodging that was his greatest asset in combat situations I think (and doing free damage when he could).
It's good no doubt, but not among the best in my opinion. His tactics and control are great, but how he would fare against strenx, cypher or stermy on Eye to Eye? I think in this scenario he would do poorly because it's more of an aim contest with no substance.
He really doesn't. In terms of raw aim skill he's probably worse than most if not all of the current top players.
Where he does excel, though, is in making sure that raw aim skill just isn't a factor, whether it be through superior dodging, positioning or making sure he has the superior stack when it comes to those one on one fights. - I mean how often is it that you see Rapha start an LG fight with even stacks?
Don't mistake cautios, tactical play with +back. It is also a huge skill to leave an escape route open in case the battle doesn't go in your favor. So that's what you see with rapha, not simple +back that would get him nowhere.
I know. Doesnt change the fact that it comes across as +back though. My personal preference is more cypher-flying-through-doorways-attacking over 'tactical' play where a guy backs off into another room, and another and so forth. I know im exaggerating a bit but u get what i mean.
I could take it a step further; I think it would be bad for esports if there were more players like Rapha. For the sport to stay, i'd say there should be more drama, more extremes, more personality in each players playstyle; Not so much of the balanced but extremely effective 'flat' gameplay.
That's what dis&vor discussed yesterday on stream.
It's better to have players that you don't like than players with no character - If you like someone, you'll cheer for him, if you don't like someone, you'll cheer for the person playing vs him.
Having someone that you don't really like or not like makes the game bland and without soul.
tsk. What's wrong with Rapha personality? That guys has steel balls, but still he doesn't act like a total moron, wich is the usual quakers behavior;
Maybe THATS the problem: Rapha is too good, too sporty, too fair to be accepted by the quakers without massive envy.
Envy? lol. I was talking more about playstyle, not Rapha as a person. Every other player has more peaks of crazy stuff, rapha just looks so solid and refined, but not necessarily in a good way. Again, hes a great player but not for spectating.
I get the sense that his attacks are based off of details and very specific bits of information, and sometimes he might have goals as well. I think he understands the gameflow well enough to win based off of situational awareness and not sheer aim and luck. He sort of plays the game like a Dota player, or something of a chess player. Where most of us play it like it is. You have items, and a few situations that occur, but then the rest is just force.
Agent is the ideal spectating favorite. His sens looks ridiculous, he plays at 120 fov, he moves fast. He's russian ffs.
He's abusive, good, fast and russian.
The ultimate people's champion.
I want Agentjkezoor back in faceit!
FREEAGENT
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i actually find smarts to be far more fascinating than aggressive playstyle because I see so many holes with aggressive. sure, if you're one of those top players, you can win with aggressive attacking. however, if you're still coming into quake and expecting any of that to work for you, you're beating a dead horse. i've exceeded my need to aim well by using tricks to get damage instead of going for aim battles. i've developed almost all of my aim based on listening for my opponent to move and also punishing escape options and positional mistakes. of course, to actually keep up with people who aim well, I still have to try harder to hit those shits. it is just much easier and more consistent to wait for the opponent to drop his guard.
Cept that (imo) its leaning towards running away beeing more rewarding than beeing agressive. And if by CPMA u mean promode, why would anyone watch that, thats just for playing.
That is the worst possible example you could come up with because even tho tox hit some incredible shit av3k kinda let him come back. Just watch the scene at rg (havent watched it, I just still remember it). Av3k would never ever go down there in a real match.
Aiming in duel is way different than ca, particularly 1v1 on thunderstruck. If he has no clue about duel then heartless would have mediocre to bad aim, getting outdamaged by 1500s.
Cool, you beat spart1e on a small open map with limited tactics available. I've beaten dahang and fatal1ty in CA, but it doesn't mean anything. They should go ahead and add BFG to CA and be done with it.
Based on his history I think fat would take you in Duel. Dahang is much better than him today. I don't think Johnathan takes Quake serious at all anymore.
I think it's pathetic guys like him hide behind ridiculous gametypes only because they can't stand losing. This is exactly the kind of attitude leading to a dead end.
Consider this: to get better you absolutely NEED to lose. Else you won't get any serios lesson besides aim practice. Some people just cannot grasp this simple concept, to become great you have to lose a lot first.
well, when i was playing dm6 only back in the day, i did beat people like a1r_r41d, dem0n and silencep. Also beat some oldschool french duelers. Actually i was pretty decent at duel...
I wouldn't put Cypher in that list he's pretty level with Rapha in head to heads.
Both of them are fantastic players with almost equal success yet with completely different styles. Rapha, to me at least, is the ultimate method player, he is a clinical tactician. Cypher is the artist or flair player always able to surprise in a game in which everyone thinks they've seen it all before. These differences are what make matches between them so great to watch: can Rapha deliver the perfect tactical game against the ultimately unpredicatble damage dealer that is Cypher? Sometimes he can, sometimes he can't.
That's not to say Cypher isn't an excellent tactician, but he seems to enjoy taking risks because he has the confidence he can turn the game around if things don't work out. And Rapha has got great aim when it matters. Not the only example, but the best illustraition is that win against Strenx on Toxicity at one of the DHs. 90% rail and Strenx whining :D
Both great players, both seem like pretty nice guys without overinflated egos.
The most important thing is positioning and dodging. If somebody comes at you with 200 200 and you outposition him you can take him down easily. So you have cypher with sick positioning and the best raw aim and dodging(my opinion).
When he's outpositioned he does miracles with raw aim, when he's positioned well u can have 400 400, won't help.
Not true, when I dueled a lot I would completely aim rape whoever and still lose to quite a few people. Granted I never lost to anyone who didn't also have solid aim, but I remember games I would have 10-15% higher lg and 30% higher rail, deal more damage, and still lose by a 5-10 frag margin
Just because you have higher acc doesnt neccessarily mean you hit better in duel. People always neglect spam and forget about rl aim (yeye its only spam I got it). And if you completly aimraped him and still lost than well ...
I realize that, I played at a high level in duel for a couple years when I was active. Maybe I shouldn't say completely aim rape, because no one with bad aim could come close to beating me...but I've lost quite a few games to players who I clearly out aim but have just dueled so much more than me because I've chosen to play team modes more than anything over the years
The "QL champion" is the one that wins the most international lans no matter if a certain person attended or not. It's not cypher's fault rapha (correctly) considers thanksgiving being more important than attending dreamhack.
Thank god for Americans, where they thank god 1 day a year for the harvest but blow each others brains out the other 364 thanks to the gun laws ( how very christian)
most titles=best player - not true
depends what titles (rapha has the 2 IEMs) and depends on the head to heads
cypher has 3 quakecons in ql and rapha 2 iirc
dremhacks are clearly in favor of cypher (altho one should not be sosure about rapha getting raped every time by cypher in finals or at smaller tournaments, like ugc)
i'm not saying rapha is the best or that cypher isnt the best. personally i think cypher is the best ql dueler and 1v1 fighter (meaning best fighting skills and battle dynamics, combined with great overall aim). just saying what i already said in the first line of this post
There's no such a thing as a "world title" or "smaller international lan" in QL, maybe with the sole exception of the esl grand finals.
This is something other games struggle with (lots of international events), but here top players attend all (5) of them, prize money is similar, there are no qualifier lans and overall there's not a general consensus of lets say quakecon being more important than the rest (actually we all know that event is a joke).
It is useful naming someone the "quake champion", like rapha has been called since the beginning of QL, and keeping score makes it more entertaining, as it builds hype if rapha and cypher are close to each other in lan wins. It is more fair to each player accomplishments too since it prevents having another fatality (by q3 wins he is not even top5),
edit: and by "international" I mean the obvious sense of the word. Adroits was (everyone attended), australian lan isn't (the one with the intel laptop thing). Also the cgs fatality invitational (him and stermy only playing duel on dm17, in the US) is obviously not a "world title".
This year those are dh:s, the ctf lan at netherlands, quakecon, adroits, dh:w.
qed? and what exactly were u trying to prove there?
"rapha dominated the game"- true (wont go into details, who has more titles in ql, but this is generally true or plausible at least)=aim IS NOT the only factor or not even the most important
"Who would win a Thunderstuck 1v1 match, Rapha or strenx? Rapha or tox?" - strenx and tox would win obviously=aim IS the most important factor
it's all about the tactical aspect of the game and also dodging, AND strategy.
but you're right to some extent. why ?
because from my own experience, when i used to duel at dm6 only, i was actually quite good mainly because of my aim and dodges.
i did beat people like silencep, a1r_r41d, dem0n and reload, mainly because of my positionning, aim and dodges.
but after all, it's all a matter of playstyle, some people are better at strategy, others at aiming, others at dodging, and some people are good tacticians.
if I had good ping there I'd do it. Ins[69swag] could too.
What heartless said was he can win duels with his aim. Well then play using the official pool, which does not have thunderstruck (rofl) nor dm6 (could be on the pool for entertainment value on this case), and bo3.
Here is a list of combat skills that contribute to winning duels:
Weapon choice
Dodging meta
Exit damage
Pre-fight positioning
Post-fight positioning
Item timing
Enemy stack awareness
General map awareness
Aim is just one contributing factor, there are heaps of other combat skills as seen above that can have a big impact, skills that players like rapha use to beat better aimers.
Some might be wondering why I put item timing on a 'combat' skill list: it's because being able to time items in the middle of a high pressure fight is a skill that is difficult to master. While you are having close quarters rocket fights, or any kind of fights really, on top of a major item like RA or MH it's difficult to mentally add or subtract item timings and keep those times in the forefront of your mind while planning your routes around the map and fighting. It is a 'skill' that needs to be used during combat, therefore I think item timing can be classed as a skill that is ultimately essential for winning fights in combat situations.
if you wanna improve then don't try to calculate stuff during fights.
Just wait till the fight is done and then make an estimation of how long the fight took and from that figure out the respawntime of the item(s).
(In general the 'calculating' part of timing is heavily overrated by players who think it is a skill to add/subtract)
That is a bad way to do it imo because estimations still require more thinking than just memorising the times. What i do if i am in a fight during picking up an item is take notice of the time of the pickup and then figure out when the next mega should come up after the fight through memory. But even this can be hard sometimes because you forget to remember. And anybody who takes quake seriously knows that calculating 12 + 35 isn't the hard part, it's the remembering to remember part that's difficult because you are trying to do 20 different things at once.
yeah I never understood why rapha was so flustered after that game, he got outclassed in a fps game by a far superior fps player. strategy and everything aside, so many noobs believe that good position means instawin fight.
Watching his games against other players that quakecon I think it was because the only thing worse than getting raped is getting raped even when you are in the zone. He was destroying everyone until he met the toxinator. Imo it was the match that finally made rapha lower his sens for better lg.
I can't remember the other maps well, but Rapha really messed up some of the fights on Sinister I thought - it wasn't a case of them both hitting what they normally would and Tox just being better. There were a few places Rapha underperformed.
Not to downplay Tox being better on the day, he deserved the win, but that map at least looked worth getting frustrated over to me. Especially one fight on the RA stairs if memory serves.