Titanfall Strategy Guide: Last Titan Standing Gameplay Tips & Tricks

Chaos brimmed from Respawn Entertainment's Titanfall servers this weekend as players invited to the beta (which is now open) ventured into the game to try it out. Despite serious initial video issues and other bugs and odd benchmark performance, Titanfall's gameplay can at times be relatively smooth and strategic.

I have a good deal of criticism to dish out in another article, but for now, we'll stick to the tactical discussion. This Titanfall strategy guide will cover Last Titan Standing tips, tricks, and gameplay mechanics to help elevate level of play.

Titanfall Strategy Guide Video: Last Titan Standing Gameplay Tips & Tricks

Titan Combat & Last Titan Standing Gameplay Strategy

Titan-to-titan combat plays extremely differently from the fast-paced infantry combat experienced in pilot gameplay. Further, Last Titan Standing requires different loadouts for maximum efficacy when compared against the other game modes.

Last Titan Standing is, of course, the game mode where all players spawn in Titans and proceed to rock 'em sock the snot out of each other in a giant slugfest of rockets and wrecking ball-sized fists. In this game mode, we highly recommend equipping the Vortex Shield to your Titan loadout, given that electric smoke has little use in its traditional sense. It does have new uses in Last Titan Standing though, so stay tuned for that below. The Vortex Shield also has deeper mechanical uses in combat scenarios and can be a huge strategic advantage when deployed properly.

First, it's important to know that the Vortex Shield can be used either for a set amount of time or until it has sustained a certain amount of 'damage' (need to do more testing on this; not 100% positive). Once you release the shield, it fires the rounds it has intercepted toward wherever your crosshair is pointing.

The most basic 'advanced tactic' involving the Vortex Shield is to do the following:

• Wait for the enemy to use his/her shield against you.
• Shortly before you anticipate them releasing their shield, activate your own.
• When they release their shield, your own rounds will be fired back at you (if they're aiming at you) and will be intercepted by your shield. Now you can release your shield and return the already-returned volley; because they already exhausted their Vortex Shield tactical ability, your ammunition will find its new home within the chest of the opposing Titan.

Here's where you can add to it: I've found that when I know (or have a good feeling) that my opponent will heavily use the Vortex Shield, I change engagement to leverage it against them with greater effect. For instance, firing your entire arsenal (your ordnance and several rounds of ammunition) all at once might sound inadvisable, but if they use the shield to intercept it all, you can achieve several things at once:

• They've now depleted their defensive ability entirely.
• You can pop your shield when theirs ends, thus returning the entire volley with a high rate of successful hits.

Normally you wouldn't want to over-commit to an attack given the enemy's ability to block it with a shield. By using your own defensive ability in this way, it can give you the advantage, land hits, and surprise the other player.

Try to time your attacks with the expectation that they will use a shield. Keep in mind that it's not too difficult to dodge a returned volley at range, so shields and health permitting (and opposition), it can be worth pushing to get closer for the shield release.

Don't use auto-eject in any Titan loadout. In general, it's best that you remain in control of ejection. Use Survivor and pick between Regen and Nuclear Eject.

Wait! I'm the other Titan in this scenario!

Let's say the enemy just fired several rounds into your Vortex Shield and you're now hanging onto them, with the shield about to expire. The enemy Titan turns its shield on, prepared to receive your return volley to make it work against you.

The best thing to do here is to aim the volley upward or away, thus directing it away from the enemy's shield. It won't gain you any ground in your battle, but you won't be hurting yourself by means of eating rockets when they come flying back at you.

The Nuke Rush

The above is a gameplay video of nuke rushing in Titanfall's Last Titan Standing mode. The nuke rush requires a few things:

• A Titan loadout with the Nuclear Eject ability.
• A planned route that leads you to their spawn quickly (flanking behind).
• Teammates willing to follow you and clean up the remains.

The idea here is pretty simple: Rush the enemy team as quickly as possible (burn through boosts), plant yourself in the center of a pack of them, and eject before they know what hits them. This works best when teammates can contribute fire from the sidelines to force the enemies to engage (and distract them from the nuke); these teammates can then clean-up the remaining Titans afterward. Nuke rushes can easily bring down a squad of four Titans to one bar of hull strength and can kill adjacent Titans.

Immediately after ejecting, you should cloak and attempt to land on top of one of the (hopefully few) remaining Titans. Grab your primary weapon and fire away at their hull since the shields should be down, hopefully putting them in a doomed state. Hop to the next one after this.

On AngelCity, the best path is generally through the field (the side nearest 'A') and straight into their side line. Fracture tends to work best by pushing through the canyon.

'Go for the Eyes, Boo!' AngelCity & Fracture Strategy and Weapon Choice

Keep in mind that Titan weak spots are primarily the head and backplate, where weapons will do significantly more damage than the rest of the Titan's structure. For this reason, I'd highly suggest equipping the rapid fire quad rocket (fires single rounds in rapid succession with greater ability to aim) or the 40mm cannon for most rounds. Each has different implementations for maximum potential.

The 40mm cannon is the best weapon at range, period. Its slight arc allows a light volley over cover and its long range means you'll be able to hold well against those using quad rockets and chainguns. It only takes a couple of solid hits to the weakspot to reduce shields to 0 with the 40mm cannon (somewhere in the range of ~4~6 shots); position yourself down long corridors to be advantaged against opponents without similar armaments.

Let's take Fracture as an example. While talking about Fracture, I will be making relative references from the point-of-view of the lower side of the map (the side containing 'B' in Domination). Callouts that team GN uses on Fracture are generally 'canyon' (near C), 'corridor' (left of B, up the hill), and 'mid.'

The best positioning for the 40mm cannon on Fracture tends to be the far left side, hiding behind the 'B' building; from here, you can volley upward and ping enemy mechs without exposing yourself much. Using the tree and building as cover, it should be possible to volley upward and not need to worry about being hit in return. Remember that crouching is your friend.

My next favored cannon position is the canyon at long range, but once your opponents start pushing canyon, it tends to be preferable to have a quad rocket (rapid fire preferable) instead. Mid will give you better range, but is often so heavily contested and exposed that I avoid going mid until later.

I'd recommend quad rockets for the canyon if you can get into position. There's a small cut-out in the canyon wall (on your left, coming from 'C') that makes for an excellent ambush spot with quad rockets. Make sure you have at least one teammate nearby or you'll get destroyed in the event two Titans come through at once.

For AngelCity, I'll make relative references from the port-side of the map (the side that is butted against the ocean, containing 'C' in domination). Callouts that team GN uses for AngelCity include 'bridge' (straight/left from spawn at C), 'street' (the right street strip between A and B), 'field' (the open field on the right), and 'containers' for the shipping container area near the bridge.

AngelCity makes it extremely easy to get out of position from your teammates; being overly aggressive is OK as long as you can easily retreat -- like on Fracture -- but almost all paths on AngelCity connect at some point, so it's easy to have a retreat cut-off by other Titans.

I find that volleying fire with a 40mm cannon on the right side (from spawn; facing the city from C) can keep the enemy pinned behind the nearby low-walls. There is a low wall in the middle of the field that you can use to hide behind. It is generally inadvisable to waste your shield at this range, since any returned shots will be easily dodged. Only resort to the shield if necessary to protect yourself without getting out of position.

The quad rockets tend to suffer in the field due to the range. Rockets are either slow (quad) or inaccurate (rapid), so by the time it reaches the other side, you won't be hitting anything. The chaingun has decent accuracy, but is such low damage at range (fewer hits) that you might as well be pinging them with BB pellets. The 40mm cannon excels here. Keep in mind that an inherent benefit of taking field means that you can avoid pilots atop buildings; if it's at the end of the round and you're one of the last Titans left (and are facing many pilots), try taking the battle to the field.

Quad rockets and the chaingun do best toward the bridge, where you're more likely to force Titans into close quarters. Try to lure them under the bridge to reduce their mobility and the pilot's chance of escape.

Be wary of the buildings near 'A' - they'll over-expose you and have several easy means for enemies to flank.

As a quick note, electric smoke can be very useful for shrouded escape - especially on AngelCity. Because there are normally multiple streets connected to where you're currently standing, a well-placed smoke gives you the means to boost down a street relatively unnoticed and recharge shields.

Dealing with Pilots as a Titan 

Titans play a significantly different role in Last Titan Standing than they do in the other game modes, as you'll see in the next section ("Playing As a Pilot in Last Titan Standing"). Because the only truly relevant 'unit' on the map in this game mode is the Titan -- insofar as the victory condition -- Pilots end up playing a support / ringer role when they eject.

It's extremely dangerous and generally inadvisable to disembark your Titan while in Last Titan Standing; generally, the only time a player should exit his or her Titan is upon its imminent doom, and even then, the player should push it to its absolute limit before ejecting. Every shot counts in this game mode. This is important to your strategy as a Pilot.

First of all, the prevalence of the Vortex Shield means that electric smoke will be a rarity, making it significantly easier (safer) to rodeo Titans. If you manage to catch a Titan out-of-position (away from its teammates) or if the enemy team is overrun / not particularly good at working together, rodeoing is almost a guaranteed kill. It's too dangerous for a Pilot to disembark their Titan in the middle of combat, but they'll eventually have to disembark if their teammates don't end your rodeo. If the target does disembark, it's fairly likely that they'll be killed by the next incoming shot from your allied Titans (who are presumably beating down on the target).

In this regard, you'll either kill them with the rodeo or kill the pilot indirectly, by proxy of incoming allied fire.

Cloak notwithstanding, it's much more difficult to rodeo on Fracture than on AngelCity; given the city's propensity to have, y'know, buildings, it's exceedingly easy to position oneself for a rooftop-to-Titan rodeo. The best way to deal with this is to simply keep out-of-reach of Pilots. Try to keep track of where Pilots land when they eject and keep a close eye on your radar. If you see that familiar red blip pop up on a building, get away from it immediately. Remember, you have to kill Titans, not Pilots. If you can land a couple shots on the Pilot from afar, do it -- but if it puts you at risk of rodeo, then it's best to just stay away and kill the remaining Titans.

In the event you do get rodeo'd, it's important to communicate with your team (a quick "Get it off! Get it off! Aah! Something just touched me!" should work). Unfortunately, pubbing means that you probably won't get reliable teammates, so the next best option is to boost away from the battlefield (use both boosts and round a corner), then get out and shoot the pilot. This is risky, though, and the pilot atop you might plan for this. Positioning yourself in front of friendly fire is also a decent idea (to force friendly contact - it won't hurt).

Playing As a Pilot in Last Titan Standing - All About the Rodeo

Playing as a Pilot has interesting gameplay mechanics in Last Titan Standing. First of all, every kit should equip Cloak as its tactical ability; as great as Stim is, it's far more important to be cloaked when facing Titans (which, unlike Pilots, can't detect cloaked players that well).

It's a good idea to keep arc grenades and cloak in your Pilot loadout. Arc grenades can have a severe influence on the course of battle if you manage to chuck one into the center of a cluster of Titans. Using the Shock Rocks burn card (below) has even better effect.

Your anti-titan weapon is up to you, but I've found that the Archer Heavy Rocket works best for me. You'll generally want to fire off a quick round and then duck behind a corner, something the Archer excels at, and the high damage slugs will help at penetrating hull strength while your allies contribute fire. The Sidewinder does a good job at preventing shield regen, but it'll be easier for the enemy Titans to detect and kill you given the nature of the weapon (can't really fire-and-hide like the Archer).

Rodeoing is the most important aspect of playing as a pilot. As mentioned above, Titans are incredibly vulnerable to rodeos in Last Titan Standing. Stay positioned on buildings (try to land on them upon ejection) and high objects. On AngelCity, you can easily land atop the 'cell phone towers' that are present in the center (near 'B') and the back side (near 'A'). These are seen in the first video in this article, found above. Those are at the very peak of the ejection arc, so if you can position to land on them, you'll have a view of the entire map and can hit almost anything with an Archer rocket. Try to drop down on top of Titans for easy rodeo kills. Keep track of which players use electric smoke -- at most, it should maybe be one player per side, so just remember to avoid that player.

Here's an interesting trick: If you're being rodeo'd and are also in front of another Titan, you can disembark (not eject) to rodeo the one in front of you. I did this in a video found here:

Only do this if the rodeo is going to doom you anyway.

Your second job as a pilot -- if your team is communicating -- is to issue callouts about enemy positioning. Place yourself high atop a structure and keep your team updated on enemy movement.

Use Your Burn Cards & Damage Core! 

This applies to the entire game, but does have uses in Last Titan Standing. You've got burn cards to burn, do so! Each round nets a couple of new cards, so equip the Titan-relevant ones; Shock Rocks, Pull Rank (damage core acceleration), Titan Salvage (useful for rapid EXP gain, but that's it), amped anti-Titan weapons, and Reserve Ogre (calls in an Ogre Titan) all have good uses in this game mode.

I'd suggest equipping Shock Rocks when planning to do a nuke rush, since you know you'll be bailing and the card won't go to waste. Shock Rocks gives infinite magnetic arc grenades, so they'll 'lock on' to nearby Titans and obscure their vision.

Oh, and don't forget to use the damage core whenever it comes online. If you're doomed and just activated damage core, I find that it's normally best to stick it out and dish what you can before destruction; it's likely that the damage core-empowered slugs will have more impact than whatever amount of AT shots you can fire as a pilot.

That's it for this guide. Go have fun and let us know if you've got any of your own strategies/suggestions! Leave a comment below with them so other readers can benefit.