Welcome to The Gambit Bible, a guide that serves as a tool to teach new and veteran players alike about the builds and strategies used in Gambit.
The Gambit Bible
Introduction
The information provided here will help you achieve success whether it’s your first ever match, or your trying to beat squads at the highest level. While the gamemode may seem unapproachable, this guide is designed to be highly accessible for everyone, regardless of experience or skill level. We highly recommend you read all sections, even if you believe you are knowledgeable enough to skip them; there are many small tips which could make all the difference, and could be easily missed if you aren’t careful. However, if you instead wish to navigate to a specific section, a table of contents is provided below.
The Basics
Gambit, Destiny 2’s sole PvPvE mode, pits two teams of four player squads against each other in a race to clear waves of enemies, collect the motes they’ll drop upon death, and deposit enough of these motes to summon the Primeval; the first team to kill their respective Primeval is declared victorious.
While on the surface level it may seem straightforward, success is anything but a given due to the fast-paced nature, defining metas and arcane tactics of the gamemode. Before anything, we must first go over the absolute core basics of Gambit.
A good understanding of these basics is essential. Let us begin going over these basics by first familiarizing ourselves with the two rules every Gambit player should abide by.
The Golden Rules
How many times have you been minding your business in a Gambit match that seems to have just barely just started, when all of a sudden you’re rudely interrupted by the jarring sounds of Taken landing on your bank and The Drifter’s voice urgently informing you that ”You’re being invaded!” Before you know it, you’ve been killed, and perhaps so have the rest of your team. All of sudden, you and your team have no motes, with what little that might have been deposited being drained by the dangerous Taken holding your bank hostage; yet somehow, the enemy team is already well on their way to summoning their own Primeval.
What happened? Simply put, the enemy team followed the first golden rule of Gambit, snowballing your own team and quite possibly determining the fate of the match before even a minute has passed; they understood that banking as soon as possible, even if it means depositing just a single mote to raise their count from 39 to 40 and thus meeting the portal threshold before you, will exponentially increase their chances of success.
- Always aim to bank your motes to meet the 40, 80 and 100 count thresholds
To understand why this is necessary, we must first understand invasion mechanics. In order to activate the second phase of a Gambit match, the “Primeval phase”, your team must collectively deposit 100 motes into the central bank. Reaching the thresholds of 40, then 80, motes banked is what will open your team’s portal, allowing for invasions; these thresholds are visually represented as white lines on the mote counter at the top of your screen. Typically, the first two waves of a match will yield enough motes to open your side’s portal, allowing for the first invasion. This first invasion is critical, and very often a deciding factor between victory or defeat.
- Never plan to use a weapon that utilizes primary ammunition
The reasoning behind this is simple; since you are racing to beat the enemy team, you do not want to waste precious time plinking away with a hand cannon at the chunky enemy types which will frequently appear. Special weapons are your friend; more efficient for every aspect of the gamemode, their only drawback is offset by the ammo crates which conveniently spawn at the end of waves. If you assumed there is an exception, you would be right; in the case of an invader who runs out of ammo during prolonged matches, a quick swap to a trusty scout rifle is seen as more beneficial than a dry sniper rifle.
Communication is key
Now that we understand and have begun to follow the two golden rules, we can move onto learning another vital portion of Gambit, and indeed any team-based PvP gamemode; callouts. While mastery of effective and efficient communication during fast-paced high level matches will require time and practice, the callouts every Gambit player should incorporate into their gameplay are fairly few and intuitive.
Reap/Reaper: The players who are the team’s main source of Primeval damage, and who clear the enemy waves as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Invade/Invader: The player who makes use of the portal to cross over to the opponent’s field with the intent to kill, or otherwise waste their time by pressuring the reapers during their ad-clear and Primeval damage phases.
Anti: The player who is tasked to deal with an enemy invader by killing them as soon as possible, or otherwise locating and preventing them from interrupting the reapers. May also be responsible for keeping the bank clear of blockers.
Clear Bank/Clear Drain: A ‘drain’ occurs whenever two or more Taken blockers are alive on your bank, periodically transferring one of your mote’s to the enemies count. Perhaps the most important callout besides invader location, to ‘clear’ means to stand near the bank to stop your team’s motes from draining, while dispatching blockers to keep your bank quickly accessible for deposits in the event of an invasion.
Invader Locations: These callouts will refer to a specific location of the map, for example “right beach.” Whenever an invasion occurs, the first team member to spot the invader should immediately relay their position to the rest of the team; if possible, further callouts should be given as the invader moves and changes locations across the map. Though typically the responsibility of the Anti, every team member should learn how to give precise invader callouts. Further information will be provided in the “map knowledge” section.
TP/Teleport: On each Legions Folly and New Arcadia, there are two portals; entering one will ‘teleport’ you to the opposite portal. The term TP refers to calling out the enemy invaders position in the event they use a portal.
Block: To “block” a specific point of a map refers to the practice of waiting in an area where an invader typically spawns, to force their spawn into a killzone for the Anti.
Skip/Skipping: A technique used by your most mobile reaper to leave an enemy wave before it ends, “skipping” the ammo crate, in order to get a head start on the reap of the following wave.
Prime/Prime Phase: This term is used to represent the Primeval and the time frame in which it exists in the arena.
Map knowledge
The next crucial step towards becoming a formidable Gambit player is learning how to read and traverse the environment in which you and your team are operating in.
All of the 4 current maps are fairly similar in design, with the bank and invasion portal located in the center; this is also where the Primeval will appear.
Players will spawn at the bottom of the map, with waves and Primeval Envoys appearing at the left, right and middle corners; of course, with such terminology being extremely open to an individual’s interpretation, we will instead learn to use the characteristics of a specific location to describe its relative position.
- Emerald Coast (Earth)
- Legions Folly (Nessus)
- New Arcadia (Mars)
- Deep Six (Titan)
Roles
At this point in Destiny 2’s lifecycle, Gambit has existed for around half a decade without many significant changes, and as a result the meta is so deeply ingrained that only a small handful of builds can be recommended in good conscience. In the second part of this guide, we will discuss how to assemble and operate these builds, and how they fit into a team composition.
At the highest level, an ideal squad will consist of two Reapers, one Invader, and one Anti.
Going Solo
While Gambit is a mode designed with team coordination in mind, and as a result is best enjoyed in a group, not everyone may have the means, nor the inclination, to “stack up”.
Be advised that since the removal of Gambit: Freelance, you will be regularly placed against other teams of four, while your randomly matched teammates will almost certainly have no interest in playing correctly, let alone winning.
It must be stressed that solo play should be seen either as a way to learn basics, or as a place to enjoy the gamemode in an environment where you are not expecting your team to perform well or win.
With that being said, let us now turn our attention to helping you achieve one specific goal; as high a win rate as possible while solo queuing into Gambit.
Before continuing, please familiarize yourself with the roles section.
There are two main methods in how you should approach solo queuing into Gambit.
The first is very simple; choose a role and stick to it. This is commonly seen as a way for players to enjoy Gambit at a more relaxed pace, while at the same time learning to use their role of choice at a more basic level. Be advised that by using this method you should not expect to win, let alone achieve a high win rate. If that is indeed your goal, you should instead consider the second method and take on a more jack of all trades approach.
The Master of None
When it comes to solo que Gambit, no other playstyle gives you as much of a chance at success as employing aspects of all of the three main roles into your gameplay. The caveat to this, of course, is that since you are no longer specializing in just one role, certain elements of all three will end up diminished.
If that wasn’t enough, you must also be proficient with the use of all three. You will have to be capable enough to serve as your team’s invader and anti, while at the same time contributing towards, and perhaps even carrying, your teams reap.
Is Gambit PvE or PvP?
As some of you may know certain exotics, aspects, fragments, and mods have different values in pvp and pve and with gambit being a PvEvP mode. All damage related buffs/debuffs will use their values depending on what you are fighting, like radiant will be 25% against combatants but 10% against guardians.With this being said all ability regeneration related exotics, fragments, and mods use their pvp values this includes exotics like Hoil and mods like grenade kickstart.
The Reaper
A stacked Gambit team will typically employ two to three reapers. To reap means to have a heavy focus on ad-clear, as well as being responsible for Primeval damage. The most important characteristics of a skillful reaper include efficient wave rotation, shrewd ability usage, high burst damage output, and survivability.
Primeval Time
The Primeval has three health gates, meaning it will become invulnerable two more times after it initially spawns, assuming that it is not sufficiently healed by an enemy Invader.
The only way to remove the immunity shield is to kill both Primeval Envoys; Taken Wizards who will respawn each time you damage gate the Primeval. After the initial spawn, the Envoys subsequent respawns will always rotate clockwise from their initial spawn location. As soon as the Primeval appears, your first priority will be to locate the Primeval Envoys. Each time two Envoys are killed not only does the Primeval become damageable, you and your team are provided with the “Primeval Slayer” buff, enhancing your damage output towards the Primeval. While the Envoys have a relatively high amount of health and damage output, the low tier enemies they spawn in with will allow our trusty One-Two melee combo to eliminate them in mere seconds.
As you move on to damage, make sure you and your team always leave two or more enemies alive near the Primeval to ensure Biotic Enhancements are up as synthos are almost always used to damage the Primeval.
Prismatic Titan
Wave clear
The greatest hallmarks of a skilled Reaper are not only the capability to quickly and efficiently dispatch with large groups of high tier enemies, but also possess an awareness of Gambits wave rotations and the enemies typical spawn points on an individual wave. While the Map Knowledge section will hopefully serve to bolster your understanding, experience will be the best teacher.
You will want to try to save your grenades for the start of a wave. As the wave begins, you will throw it at the foot of a door from which enemies will emerge, and then leave it there to do its damage. By doing this, you will effectively be doing the work of two people; a well placed grenade will act almost like a second reaper.
The moment your grenade has been thrown, you should then proceed to the next closest spawn point to immediately burn your melee ability on the second group of enemies; doing so will not only instantaneously wipe out a cluster, but also, for example on an Arc Titan, Amplify you and create Ionic Traces, enhancing your movement speed and cooldowns, thus allowing you to reach the next wave fast and with freshly charged abilities.
Be mindful of any stragglers; as you move, fire off your wave-frame to dispatch those at a distance, while using your base melee for those at close range, applying One-Two Punch to enhance this melee for more resistant enemies.
As long as you meet the requirements on a Light based Titan, for example having Knockout active on Arc or an Overshield on Void, your base melee will be regarded as charged.
With the armor mod Heavy Handed, this base melee will generate Orbs of Power for you and your team; these will serve to further ability cooldowns via leg armor mods, provide a ready supply of Armor Charges, and enhance Super regeneration.
With the Hands On mod equipped on your helmet, you will see a final layer of Super regeneration, ensuring it is ready to use for the Prime Phase. With the exception of burning it on an Invader who gets too close, you will want to save it for this part of a match.
Loadouts
With a single exception, every Reaper should be using a One-Two Punch shotgun on a Titan with Synthoceps. This vanilla Exotic has stood the test of time, and to this day is still, and will likely forever remain, the absolute pinnacle of ability based ad-clear and damage specifically within Gambit, granting your melee and Super a 200% and 50% damage buff respectively, so long as you are within 15 meters of 3 or more enemies.
Not only will you be effortlessly dispatching low-tier enemies with a single uncharged punch, you’ll also be able to apply huge amounts of burst damage with the shoulder charge abilities of the Light based classes and the Frenzied Blade of the Berserker by stacking the two melee damage buffs Synthoceps and One-Two Punch provide. This is done by, after sprinting for a short time, shooting then activating your melee during a slide. Finally, for a good middle ground, an uncharged melee buffed by the One-Two Synthoceps combo will prove effective against a wide range of mid-tier enemy types.
Your other weapon of choice, a wave-frame grenade launcher, will further enhance your ad-clear capabilities by providing the option of instantaneous ranged multi kills, and serves as a tool for dealing with enemy types who may be more resistant to your melee, such as Phalanx Cabal.
The Exotic heavy weapon Parasite. The main value of Parasite is derived from its Exotic perk Worms Hunger, which will upscale its blast radius and damage as you land final blows, capping at twenty stacks. A x20 Parasite is comparable to Nova Bomb not only with its short, slow trajectory but also by the potency of its AoE damage. This provides a further option for superb burst damage, and might make an enemy invader think twice before deciding to push your position.
For the most part, however, you will want to trust your Anti to deal with the Invader and instead focus purely on reaping. This can be done by understanding the invaders position, either by receiving callouts from one your team, or by applying your learned knowledge of invader spawns.
Prismatic Hunter
The cornerstone of any Reaper build. While our other builds may be faster, or deal higher overall damage, absolutely nothing comes close to the sheer versatility and ease of use of the Arc Titan. No parts of its kit are wasted, with everything serving a specific function. It simply excels at everything you want it to, with virtually no drawbacks.
The Pulse grenade, combined with Touch of Thunder and Sparks of Shock and Magnitude, is a fantastic tool for either dealing sustained damage or for clearing a spawn point during wave clear, while simultaneously providing ability cooldown via Ionic Traces.
Seismic Strike deals AoE damage within a generous area, even more so when Amplified, and has its damage further buffed via Spark of Feedback and Knockout.
Knockout, meanwhile, provides a surefire way for becoming Amplified, maximizing your movement speed and weapon handling; it also allows your base melee to act as if it was charged, thus allowing you to create Orbs on base melee kills. These kills will also trigger health regeneration; combined with Spark of Resistance and high Resilience, you will become extremely difficult to kill.
Thruster is a great tool to use either for mobility between waves or in combination with the Powerful Attraction mod to quickly scoop up not just orbs of power but also motes so that you don’t waste time running around during the wave.
Thundercrash is a fast moving roaming Super that deals exorbitant amounts of damage, acting not only as a tool for melting the Primeval but also evasion and elimination of enemy Invaders.
The Berserker
The Berserker titan is the fastest movement titan build because of its access to grapples.
Grapples are the strongest part of Strand Titan; they give you insane mobility between banks and waves that can be used instead of or paired with an Eager Sword. Grapples are great because they can help you get to the first wave before most other reaps, especially if you have a strand hunter invader on your team making grapple points. With this combo, you can make it to farther first waves like red on Deep Six, and clear it before your teammates even get there.
Grapples melees are also insanely good damage when paired with synthos and Banner of War. Grapple melees also have a pretty generous AoE similar to shoulder charges.
Tangles can be used to clear a wave of red bars or to grapple onto without wasting a grapple charge
While Frenzied Blade isn’t a traditional shoulder charge like other Titans subclasses it has great damage that can kill any wave boss or even chunk the primeval.
The Super is also great at clearing envoys or waves and has good boss damage (lower burst than the grapple or charged melee) and the suspend projectile can even be used for anti if you want.
The preferred stats you want are 100 resil, 100 strength, and then as much disc as you can.
Iza shotgun Eager
Shotgun Wave Frame parasite
Both of these are great weapon choices, the wave frame isn’t required but there isn’t much else you can put in the slot. Link.
Exotic Choice
- Synthoceps – Easier to use and doesn’t require kills
- Wormgod Caress – Requires kills which can make it slightly harder to use to use but gives you a bigger damage buff that can allow you to easily kill 4x
Aspect Choices
- Banner of War – Increases melee damage and heals you
- Into the Fray – Increases melee regen when woven mail is active
Don’t use the other 2 aspects they suck
Fragment Choices
- Thread of Fury – Gives you melee energy when you hit something with a tangle
- Thread of Generation – Gives you grenade energy when you deal damage
- Thread of Warding – Gives woven mail on orb pick-up
- Thread of Transmutation – While Woven weapon kills generate tangles
- Thread of Ascent – Reloads equipped weapon when you grapple, also provides handling
Always use Fury, Generation, and Warding. Then you can decide on transmutation for more strength and a tangle generation without using an ability or ascent to reload your weapon and give some handling.
Mod Choices
Helmet:
- Hands On – Provides super energy on grenade kill, super useful for getting your super and you should always have at least 1 on.
- Targeting Mods – Can provide ADS speed and aim assist to weapons like Izanagi.
- Siphon Mods – Will allow a wave frame to generate orbs
Gloves:
- Heavy Handed – Provides orbs to you and your team, there isn’t a reason to take this off
- Impact induction – Gives you grapple charge on charge melee hit, allows for more grapples
- Grenade Kickstart – Gives you more grapple energy when you grapple
- Dexterity Mods – can be useful if you have a low-handling weapon that you want to buff but is most likely less useful than Bolsteristing Detonation
- Momentum Transfer – Only works if you actually attach your grapple to something so do not use it
Chest:
- Resist Mods – Make it easier to survive
Boots:
- Better Already – Heals you on orb pickup, provides survivability
- Invigoration – Provides melee energy on orb pick up, useful for getting melee back
- Holster Mods – Can help reload your shotgun or a weapon like Parasite
Bond:
- Powerful Attraction – Sucks up motes is fun and good (more mods means more range)
- Outreach – Can help you get melee back
The Dawnblade
Sunbracers warlock revolves around getting a kill with your melee ability and then spamming nades across the wave. The incapacity snap melee is used for this because it can ignite and anything that does from the ignite will proc sunbracers making it easier to proc.
Use well of radiance for well skating, song of flame to give teammates abilities during prime phase, or dawnblade for invading if you are solo/duo queue.
If you get to wave early enough and enemies are still spawning from the doors you want to proc sunbracers as fast as possible then throw nades at the spawning locations, if you still have spare nades by the time there’s one at the spawn doors you can throw them in the middle of the wave where the enemies are or will path to (this is something you will learn with time).
If you get to wave late after the enemies are already outside all their spawn doors you want to proc sunbracers then throw your nades at the groups of ads or majors, you also want to keep in mind the idea of throwing the nades of where enemies are pathing to if they are still moving.
You also want to remember what the enemies do and where they spawn because they will spawn in the same spots and do the same things nearly every time(within that season’s wave rotation) with a few differences like where the ogre spawns.
Weapons for this build generally consist of a shotgun for blockers/envoys. A shotgun with pugilist or incandescent (to proc ember of searing) is nice to help get your melee back.
If you want to focus on pure reap pair the shotgun with mountaintop or a wave frame.
If you want to anti or invade use izanagi or a normal sniper rifle.
The heavy slot should be used for eager edge for increased movement between waves. Parasite can also be used to help anti and provide burst primeval damage if you use parasite make sure you use solar holster onto your boots.
Xeno can be used to help anti or kill envoys from a distance
Your stat priorities for these builds should be 100 resilience with decent recovery and some strength to help get your melee back.
Here is a baseline for mods and fragments for Sunbracers reap with changes you can make listed below
Aspect Choices
- Icarus Dash – great movement tool
- Touch of Flame – Makes your solar grenades a lot stronger
Fragment Choices
- Ember of Searing – Is how you get your melee back
- Ember of Resolve – Gives you survivability
- Ember of Ashes – Makes snap only need 4/5 sparks to hit to ignite instead of all 5
- Ember of Singing – Allows for more spamming of class ability for Powerful Attraction
Mod Choices
Helmet:
- Ashes to Assets – Provides super energy on grenade kill, super useful for getting your super and you should always have at least 1 on.
- Targeting Mods – Can provide ADS speed and aim assist to weapons like Izanagi.
Gloves:
- Momentum Transfer – Helps get your melee back
- Firepower – Provides orbs to you and your team
- Bolsteristing Detonation – Allows for more spamming of class ability for Powerful Attraction
- Dexterity Mods – can be useful if you have a low-handling weapon but generally isn’t needed compared to the other mods
Chest:
- Resist Mods – nothing else to run
Boots:
- Recuporation – Gives you survivability
- Invigoration – helps get your melee back
- Holster Mods – Can help reload your shotgun or a weapon like Parasite
Bond:
- Powerful Attraction – Sucks up motes is fun and good (only use 2x of these, 3x does nothing)
- Outreach – Can help you get melee back
Follow the dim link and tweak what you want based on your weapon choices.
The Invader
Perhaps the most influential role, the Invader is a player who will use the portal to cross over to the opponent’s field in an attempt to buy their own team time. While a team will have multiple Reapers, there will only be one Invader, and so a mistake on their part could single handedly cause a loss. Therefore, a skillful Invader must be able to perform well under pressure, as well as displaying tremendous aptitude from a PvP standpoint.
Goals
Killing all 4 enemy guardians might not always be the play to win. You can for example sit on the enemy bank if you got a drain going to drain further, or specifically target the best reapers on the enemy team while ignoring their anti and invader to prevent them from clearing more ads. In general, there is much more to invading than just wiping the enemy team. Here things like stall and a focused approach on specific players can be your best tools for a successful invasion. When you are not invading, you will want to be picking up ammo crates, clearing bank, and helping your team anti-invade the enemy invader.
Loadout
When Invading you want to make sure that you have weapons to deal with enemy players at all ranges, as well as weapons to counter the current anti and reaper meta. You will also want to be pairing these weapons with a good mod selection on your armor to smoothen the flow of your invasions.
First of all you NEED to run a sniper. With how wide and open the gambit maps are, having a one-shot hitscan kill at any range is by far the best tool in your kit. Depending on your aim, you need to decide if you will use Izanagi’s Burden, or a regular sniper. Izanagi offers a way to easier secure kills, as well as spawn-kills once you are back on your side, but you sacrifice running an exotic power weapon along with ammo effeciency if you are constantly using the perk. The higher the zoom the easier it will often be to use in gambit due to the map size.
Secondly you want to pair your sniper with a lightweight shotgun in the other available slot. You want to be using this shotgun to sprint faster while collecting motes and rotating during your invasion. It will also serve as a tool to clear the bank once you are back on your side. You can also use it to clean up during your invasion. If you are using Izanagi with another sniper you have a few options. Typically you want something with long zoom values, high aim assist, and something that “feels good” to you.
Now for the mods. You will want a targeting mod for your sniper, as well as for your chosen power weapon, this increases ADS speed and adds a bit of aim assist. Make sure to run dexterity mods too for these weapons, as you will often need to switch weapons fast. Depending on your weapon, holster mods are good too (one solar holster instantly reloads Parasite).
While it’s true that one could use any of the three classes and still perform well, when it comes to Invading, the Hunter is the standout option.
Golden gun is by far the best invading super as it has 3 hitscan one shot bullets. Since golden gun is solar it has acess to healing grenades, which can allow you to retake fights while invading if you have taken some damage.
Exotic armor wise you can play on either Ophida spathe, Stompees, or Star-Eater Scales. Stompees allows for increased movement. Ophida Spathe allows for higher knife damage and a second charge which can be useful for helping with blockers and a little bit of primeval damage if needed. Star-Eater Scales allows for a higher chance of having a golden gun for 1st or 2nd portal.
Weapon wise you can use what you are comfortable with whether that is izanagi’s burden, parasite, levithans breath, eager edge, etc. Due to golden gun not having any movement ability eager edge works very well.
While Threadrunner may not have the comeback potential that a well timed golden gun does, it does excel at being able to support any strand titans on the team as well as help with some reap if ever needed by using the whirling maelstrom aspect (primarly in the 1st and 2nd waves. Allowing your strand titans to get to wave can allow you to out tempo the enemy team and more consistently get the invasion portal first.
The Threadrunners ability to make grapple points allows strand titans to have higher mobility to get to waves faster or have a grapple point to increase damage during the primeval phase. Grapples are not only useful on your side however, as grapples can be very important during invasions as well. Grapples allow for increased movement without running an eager edge sword. This movement can allow you to potentially escape situations that you otherwise would have died in.
Exotic armor wise you can play on either Stompees or Frostees. Stompees allows for increased movement. Frostees allows for increased ability up time and is arguably the better option to use for strand.
Weapon wise you can use what you are comfortable with whether that is izanagi’s burden, parasite, levithans breath, eager edge, etc. However, parasite does work with strand very well as you are able to use grapples for faster movement and high ground to better arc the parasite.
Tips & Tricks
Now there will be moments where quite literally the whole team WILL just hunt you down, if you face this scenario, try to waste as much time as possible. 30 seconds is INSANE, so if you can waste that much time your team can take a BIG Lead. (Just make sure to keep the bank clear of them).
Try to use everything you have in your arsenal (Ex: I use Succession, Xenoclaust, and Parasite. I make sure to use all of these depending on the situation while also pairing my super, an EX).
Even though you can see enemy’s names through the walls, they can still sneak up on you. ALWAYS keep special awareness to ensure you won’t get killed.
ALWAYS, be moving. You are a more scary invader if the enemy has no clue where you are.
The Anti
Goals
Anti might not seem like an important role, especially if you are not sitting for spawn kills. However a good anti can do a lot more than you think, making the game much less stressful for your reapers. The first thing to note is that an anti does not just sit in a spawn kill spot and wait for the enemy invader, if you are doing this YOU ARE THROWING. There are of course times where it is appropriate to do this but it should not be the only thing you do, positions for different spawn kill spots and clips of using them will be provided below.
Aside from spawn killing invaders you still need to be engaging them in some way. If an invader is given free access to your reapers on wave then you will probably just get ran. Use whatever is at your disposal, especially your barricade, to block their ability to advance. Even if you aren’t killing them, if they are stuck pinned where they spawned and your reapers can reap and bank freely then you are still doing a good job. Ego peeking isn’t necessary, they are the ones on a timer, hold smart angles and let the enemy come to you. By doing this you are creating space for your reapers to seamlessly keep up their flow of ad clear.
Aside from killing invaders, anti players are also responsible for clearing blockers from the bank and rotating early to waves while their reapers bank. You can find your own flow and make rotations that work for you and your team, but if there is a drain happening and you aren’t clearing those blockers maybe rethink. Not clearing the drain as stated above is a fatal mistake, especially in high level games, that 5 mote difference or the time it takes to clear the blockers could cost you the win. In terms of rotating early to waves, you will need to know how the waves on the map go, usually just playing a lot you will memorize this, and as they change with the seasons I’m not going to bother to write them in here.
An example of how this would work is let’s say you clear the bank after your team banks on the second wave. After your reapers have cleared the third wave they will be heading to the bank most of the time, so instead of getting ammo you can go early to where the fourth wave will spawn and instantly start reaping it. This works especially well if you can communicate with your reapers, and will often let you get the motes for a second invasion portal very quickly. Note that this is not always worth doing, especially if there is an invader currently on the field.
Loadout
While being a good Invader doesn’t necessarily translate into being a good Anti, you must be at least somewhat proficient as a Reaper to fill the role. The optimal build is almost identical to a Reapers, as the only time you should not be contributing to your team’s Reap is when an invasion has occurred. The only thing that changes are the weapons of choice. Instead of Parasite, opt for Eager Edge, and replace your wave-frame with Izanagi’s Burden. Both of the builds here play almost exactly the same way so I wont type individual explanations
Tips & Tricks
Map Knowledge is everything for this role, if you can peek someone from an odd angle they don’t know, or be holding something so that when they try to go to your reapers you can kill them then you will win more. My suggestion is don’t just robot around even when playing casually, think about the maps and spawns to come up with ideas you can use. If you can’t win with your aim then win with your brain.
Continue to reap even if you aren’t specifically a reaper, you are still helping to reap for the first two waves and might be pre reaping waves later into the game as well. if you are helping to speed up those first two waves the chances of your team getting portal first will increase.
Use your barricade liberally. You can put it near the bank to block the LOS of an enemy invader so that your team can bank safely, or so that you can kill blockers to stop the drain before trying to deal with the invader.
Stand directly on the bank. This was said above but I feel a lot of people don’t know that standing directly on the bank will mean you don’t drain motes even if the alarm sound is still playing.
Look at the top of the screen, this will help you get an idea of when an enemy team is clearing their bank to put in motes, or if they have a portal up so that you can rotate to a spawn kill spot. It can also help if you ever find something happens where you don’t have enough for the portal after 2 waves, you can quickly run and grab the missing motes. This point is especially valuable if you have two reapers on Parasite, as the eager edge sword will allow you to quickly get back to the bank with the needed motes.
Finally, keep your gameplay fluid, if you are in the middle of a wave and see they are gonna come quickly jump up to a spot that can see the spawn, spawn kill the invader, and return to the wave. Spending too much time on any one roll will be inefficient in the long run.
Guide To Spawn Locations
The Idea of this section is to try and explain spawn priority and give you the knowledge of where an enemy invader will spawn. I won’t detail every single location an invader can spawn in this section as there are far too many to try and write them all out however once you learn them this section will hopefully help you determine which of those spots the invader is most likely to spawn in.
The first most important thing to note is that the wave location will block an invader from spawning there. This holds true as long as all other spawn locations aren’t also being stood directly on as then the game may freak out and just randomly spawn the invader somewhere without considering if they spawn in melee range of someone on the other team. However this doesn’t work for envoys, during prime phase an invader can always spawn in the same location as your envoys, although it is less likely as your reapers being in the location may block the spawn.
Now onto other factors that determine where an invader spawns, these are mainly proximity to the spawn point and line of sight. If a player on your team is standing on or near a certain spawn location the game will try not to spawn the enemy invader there, this is explained in depth in the spawn blocking section below. The other factor, line of sight, means that sitting staring at a certain spawn point for a prolonged duration will make the game less likely to spawn the invader there. This means that if the invader doesn’t spawn right where you are expecting them to keep your eyes open as they could have gotten an odd spawn location to try and compensate.
After considering those things you also need to learn the maps inherent spawn priority. If you have spent any amount of time playing gambit you will notice the game seems to love using certain spawn points more than others ex. left white on deep 6, top mid on arcadia, left base on folly, beach on em coast. While you shouldn’t treat these as a 100% guarantee that an invader will spawn there you can use it to make an educated guess where if the preferred spawn is not blocked that they will spawn there over a different location.
A prime example of this would be if your wave is base on legions folly then step spawn is preferred over drill so you can play the game out with the knowledge that an invader is most likely to spawn there. however as the wave shifts to step lets say, if you or your reapers are still on base the only open spawn now becomes drill and so the invader will spawn there even though it is the lowest prio spawn point because everything else is blocked. Ultimately this is something you just need to get the feel for by playing games especially at a higher level where the enemy team is actually keeping up with your reap but it can be very rewarding/satisfying to know where someone is without even seeing them and just completely shut them out of the match.
Spawn Kill Locations
These are hard to describe without using them during a match, but nonetheless the clips are sorted first by map, then by what spawn you are aiming at. Just a note that any of the antis from on the bank are put in there as a way to very quickly kill invaders while fulfilling other anti duties like clearing drain or banking motes they aren’t necessarily spawn kills but still are good angles to know and use.
Spawn Blocking
Spawn Blocking is a technique where someone on your team stands on a certain area of the map to prevent the enemy invader from spawning there. This is almost always in combination with the locations listed above as it forces the invader into a specific spot on the map to ensure the spawnkill. Keep the wave position in mind if you are going to run to a spawnkill. You can also have an extra person on your team, the invader, stand to block a spawn point, usually during prime phase. If they are waiting for a portal or you are rolling the other team and they don’t have prime yet then they dont have much to do so make use of them.
An example of how this works can be seen here:
Note this is really funny but not a practical strat im just using it as an example.
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