From Scrub to Pug, in Crucible!

What’s up fambam, Kerdack here to let you in on how to not suck at Crucible. Full disclosure, I am better than average and have been playing FPS’s since their conception but I am by no means “pro”. But, I have several strats that if you follow and can work with you can pretty much guarantee not ever hitting bottom of the board anymore.

1: Controller Settings

Look, I have no misgivings about who this site is attracting. You guys are legit somewhere between scrub to rando. That’s okay, Kerdad is here to help you. Controller settings may seem obvious for some of you more “sweaty” Guardians, but I have found that many randos I find on console haven’t even touched this.

• There are a few things to note when choosing your control setting, 9 is super fast, and never go below 3.
• I always advice control settings of 5-7
• 9 makes precision shots difficult when sniping.
• 4 makes quick turning difficult
• My personal control sensitivity is 6 or 7 (depending on what other games I play atm)

If you are used to a mouse, then a high 8 or 9 will feel right at home with you. On the other hand, you may be defaulting at 4 because you are a controller buddy. However, 6 and 7 are what I find the perfect sweet spot.

I have a very hard time doing “precision” shots when I am at 8 or 9, and with the HUGE buff to precision damage since Forsaken it is critical that you don’t pug that up and go lower for precision shots.

Here are two tips to changing your control setting:

• If you are at a very low controller setting, bump it all the way up to 9 for an hour. While this may seem counter-intuitive, it is WAY easy to “slow down” the speed than to slowly “speed” it up. After an hour of playing at 9, bump it down to 8 for an hour or two, then sit at 7 for several hours before you switch to 6 if you feel you need more control.
• If you hare used to very high sensitive at 9, try out 7 for a day. That’s all I ask. It takes a little while to get used to it from being used to max sensitivity so high, but you might be surprised when you find that after you adapt you hit all the headshots.

2: Weapon Choice

This is something that I feel I have perfected, and am very good at explaining. Think of your 3 weapons like this:

• Burst/Close Range Damage
• Mid-Range
• Long-Range

I will be referring back to this in a bit, but want to delve a bit into what weapons are good for you.

I think there are 3 different players that I find:

• Slow, line up headshots players
• Quick reflex or jumpy players
• Average headshot and average reflex players

Lets take each of these individually.

• If you are a slower player, don’t use a shotgun. Shotguns are quick scrappy weapons for reflexes and people who don’t give a damn about headshots. Slower players will live right at home with Scout Rifles, Hand Cannons, Snipers, Fusion Rifles, Rockets, and maybe Auto Rifles. This is because you want a weapon with a slower RPM, one that you can do more damager-per-shot because they deal “slower” damage. That lets you line up your headshot everytime without wasting the “RPM” or “DPS”.
• If you a quick player you want to live around Shotgun play. The meta is entirely developed around this play style. So you want Shotguns, Grenade Launchers, Hand Cannons, Swords, Pulse Rifles, and Sidearms. I suggest that whatever you do supports your Shotgun play, so Pulse Rifles and fast RPM Hand Cannons will help.
• If you are an average player, between these two extreme, you should just join the “regular” meta. Shotguns and Trust. It’s that simple. You can spread your wings and play with Pulse Rifles, Swords, Rockets, Grenades, and even a few choice Auto Rifles. If you are average just find the archetype of weapon you like.

Now lets circle back to those three weapon types: Burst/Close Range, Mid-Range, Long Range.

You need to chose your “favorite” weapon and “favorite” play style, then choose weapons to fill the gaps of that. I highly suggest you start with the “mid-range” weapon, your all around weapon.

• Mid-Range weapons are Hand Cannons, Auto Rifles, and Pulse Rifles. You probably already have a favorite one of these, whether it is Trust, Horror Story, Talons of the Eagle or Tigerspite, you already have a favorite. Now you need to help build that weapon up.
• If you are a close range guy you now need a Burst/Close Range weapon to help out your play style. These are Shotguns, Grenade Launchers, Fusion Rifles, Swords. I personally hate Shotguns so use Militia’s Birthright instead (and have gotten pretty damn good with it).
• If you are a mid to long range guy, I highly suggest you find a Sniper Rifle to pair up with your Hand Cannon/Auto Rifle/Pulse Rifle. That way you can have one-shot capability with a sniper.
• Fill out your Heavy Weapon with a Tracking Rocket, Proximity Grenade Launcher or and Sword with Tireless Blade (and Assassin’s Blade if you’re lucky)

Now you have your “build” set up. This is a huge tweak and will go a LONG way to getting better at Crucible without even stepping foot into it.

Pro Tip: Weapon RPM is important. Most weapons sit around the average of a .8 second optimal kill time. This directly translate to whether or not a weapon is faster or slower firing it will kill around the same time (other than top-tier weapons). So if you are good at quickly pulling the trigger choose a higher RPM weapon because you can get the most out of how fast it can fire.

BUT, if you are slower at firing the trigger because you hesitate or line up headshots or whatever, pick a SLOWER RPM weapon. With a slower RPM weapon, it can’t even fire super fast for the “optimal time-to-kill” which means if you fire it slower you aren’t “wasting” as much potential in the weapon because it was designed to be slower.

3: Don’t Charge In First

I promise, if you are reading this post because you legitimately want to improve you are NOT a pro mlg player. That isn’t a bad thing, I’m not either. My reflexes aren’t super fast, and I flunder shit up a lot. So why would I personally go in to the battle first? That makes no sense.

You are support.

Team shotting and “dancing” with other players means it is way easier to kill people. If you aren’t a great or “Ace” PVPer, don’t pretend you are and fuck up your team. Just stay back and follow the targets your fellow Guardians are shooting. Everytime you die, you “feed” your opponent Super Charge and points to the win. BUT! If you stay back and help your team by “cleaning” up kills with fellow Guardians, you are now a useful team member.

This is not to say that you can’t grow out of the “Clean Up” position, you definitely can. But if you are the type of scrub who thinks he can 1 v 3 teammates and are constantly dying, you aren’t even giving yourself the chance to grow.

By staying back, helping your team, and shooting what they shoot you are now enabling your team to be better AND giving yourself the opportunity to grow and get better reflexes and headshot capability.

Pro Tip: If you are a Warlock and suck, wear the Exotic helm The Stag. This HELLA helps out your team. Everytime you die, you drop a rift for your buddies. The rift was recently buffed to last a “normal” rift duration. This means that it will be out long enough that you could even respawn and get to the rift before it despawn. But, most importantly, if you are constantly dying with The Stag on you are still providing your team with a huge buff ever. single. death.

4: Don’t go into the Middle

This is not an end-all-be-all rule, and you may need to go into the middle from time to time. But if you are following along with my guide, you understand the importance of being a supportive teammate and getting the most out of your shots by choosing the right weapon and settings.

This extends to your own placement.

Get the most out of your “scrubbiness” by not trying to Rambo the shit out of all the enemy Guardians with a shotgun in the middle. Try to generally move around the outside “rim” of the map and shoot inwards or forwards. This makes you a harder target to hit because you can’t be hit from all angles, and it enables you to keep one “back to the wall” all the time.

You can also be “outside” support by following your allies along from the outside of the map. You can “cross-fire” (as I like to call it) Guardians who are shooting what is in front of them by shooting then from the side. You can generally move along the outside of the map even on Control maps, it may take you a little longer but often time means you can line up easy shots with the enemy Guardian.

This leads me to my next point.

5: Move around the map Clockwise

By following a set pattern of play style, you can start developing strategies and learning what you do wrong (and right). But going all whilly-nilly around the map, you’ll never be able to tell if you’re doing bad or just running into fire. Moving along the outside in one direction, following the flow of battle and where your team is going, you now control where you are and where you are going in a noticeable pattern.

This is a strategy that me and my buddies have been using since Destiny 2 first came out, and teamshotting was the only way to win.

The best thing about doing this strategy, is that you can switch up your gamestyle easily anytime by changing your rotation to Counter Clockwise, and visa versa. Anytime I find myself on a bad “death rotation” and continuously dying, I simply start moving around the map in the other direction. If your enemies started predicting you, or you started not moving with your team, consciously deciding to change direction not only spices this up but also make a conscious choice to be better.

6: Game Sense & Profit

From game setting to inside the Crucible, this guide should cover almost (if not) all parts of Crucible. Just knowing that you are here reading this means that you are actively trying to get better, and that’s a good first step.

Over time, you will start developing what gamers call “Game Sense“. This covers everything from map layout, sniper lanes, team shot mechanic, top tier weapons, enemy flow, and team flow. Just by playing Crucible often you innately develope this skill. And if you follow my guide you have a pretty solid foundation for not sucking and keeping consistensy, this will enable you to start keying in on this going in on the game and not chalking it up to “GODDAMN SPAWNS“. Because you now have more control of your game.

If you liked this guide, let me know in the comments!
If you hated this guide, buy a shirt from me in the merch store!

And if there are other points that you think should be noted, comment as well! I always check these comments.

Thanks fambam, go git guud at Crucible.