I suck at shock combos

[legacy-Dunsinane]

Learning to combo well is mostly a practice thing, and the tips above are good ones (load up a map, give yourself shock ammo and just try and hit the balls). Here's a couple other ideas:

What's your mouse sensitivity like? If the slight nudge of your mouse spins you around twice, you're going to have a very hard time using combos or any hitscan weapon reliably. I like to have mine so that a comfortable sweep of my hand turns me a little further than 360 degrees.

Start with standing combos, then move on to strafing combos (you move left and right, timing the primary shot with when your crosshair passes over it). In neither of those should you be moving your crosshair at all. Once you've got those down, you can start practicing your 1337 shots by moving around and putting your crosshair where you know that shock ball is going to pass and picking it off. Deck17 is a great map for practicing with your shock rifle.

Don't always try to combo. It may sound contradictory, but the threat is sometimes stronger than the execution and there's nothing more fun than firing a secondary ball, watching a skilled player move away to avoid the obvious threat, and nailing him with a pair of primary shots by leading your fire in that direction.

[legacy-DoctorB]

The hardest thing I have found in a shock combo is judging the distance at which to detonate the ball. You have to use visual clues. Inside you will see a glow on the floor that is the shock ball's reflection and can help quite a bit with timing the detonation. If you get good at hitting the balls it's very easy to fire of two or more if you have the ammo and detonate those. The best defence against the shock combo is the dodge and to detonate the ball before it gets near you using your shock rifle. And as previously noted doing that sometimes you get to be the shockor and not the shockee.

[legacy-Ryufoxy]

Originally posted by SL802404
lol DO NOT listen to what he said. Always move...even if its just back and forth for now. No matter what in this game dont stop moving..ever.

I must disagree. While it would certainly be better to be able to hit the shock balls when you're moving at all times, there are plenty of situations when standing still only puts you in slightly more danger.

If you run around a corner with someone chasing you, often times you can dodge jump a little way, spin around and hold still while you fire a shock ball, let it get just past the corner and explode it. Of course this takes timing, (When the enemy will get within range of the blast, and luck (That the enemy isn't expecting this.) This is just one example.

It takes more skill to be able to hit those flying shock cores on the move. Definately practice doing it, but don't be afraid to fire off a shock combo while standing still if you think the situation is right.

My opinion: There is no bad strategy, only badly timed strategies.

[legacy-SL802404]

Fire once don't move and then shoot it.

lol DO NOT listen to what he said. Always move...even if its just back and forth for now. No matter what in this game dont stop moving..ever. The best way to get good at tehm is practice. Just load up your shock rifle and go to an empty server (not offline--no ping) and just work on them. Im assuming you know how to dodge so what helps at first is just shooitng straight and then dodge jumping right or left and trying to hit it..just to get a feel for it. After a while it becomes second nature and you just hit them without thinking about them..mid air or on the ground. Btw you dont want to fire more than 1 ball unless the 1 ball you fired missed the direction in which way your target is going. Shooting the shock core in the right direction is hallf the battle and people fail to realize this. Make sure you get decent at shooting the shock core, just as you practice on hitting the shock core.

[legacy-Cobonweb]

Try blowing yourself up with your own combo (fire ball, dodge jump after it, shoot it)

[legacy-Archer]

Tips, eh? Practise. It's pretty much the only way to improve on hitting them. And it does take a lot of work to get it right (some of us are still practising, despite having the original UT for years... )

[Firebert]

one good thing is to do 'unreal skeet shooting', just start out by sitting by yourself in instant action, fire like 4 shock balls and let them go a little ways and practice shooting at them, eventually start to move around as you do it, o and as to how you shoot them, just blast one ball near a person and then hit it with the primary, you can also hit other people's shock balls, they'll blow up in their face

[legacy-FuTaR0]

well ut2004 made it easy'r maybe because the more smoothher and more fps

[legacy-[MK]_VooDoo]

Easy trick to learn how to aim is play allot of DM modes with instant gib turned on. That way you will be able to improve your aim and accurency. Frag on dude!

[legacy-Blind Ryan]

So long as they aren't too far away, I don't have a problem with it. Fire once don't move and then shoot it. I use the minigun personally (though I wish I could use the shotgun ) as it's the best "point and click with no delay" gun

[legacy-Valjiin]

As the topic title implies, I'm horrible at these things. Any tips? Do you spread a ton of the secondary shots around and then blow them up (like in the Hellbender) or just fire one? I also seem to miss the **** things 50% of the time, but no amount of tips can help my sucky shock rifle aim.