12 Tips To Help You Master Titanfall 2's Multiplayer

Titanfall 2 is out today. It's pretty great! Alongside having a fantastic campaign, the robust multiplayer mode that was essentially the entire original game has returned, along with some adjustments and additions. I've been chewing through the multiplayer over the past few days, stomping and being stomped myself, and have returned from the front lines with a few tips to help you carve out a path to victory.

Experiment With Both Pilot Loadouts and Titan Perks
You can have up to 10 custom pilot loadouts in Titanfall 2. You get 6 for free and have to buy the rest with currency earned through matches. With pilots, your best bet is to have a loadout for every occasion. Want to go stealthy sometime? Have a loadout equipped with the cloak ability and a weapon of your choosing (shotgun or sniper work pretty well depending on your play style). Also have a class with an assault weapon and frag grenades. And another with an explosive weapon as your pilot's primary. During matches you can switch between loadouts in order to change things up, so take advantage of that if your current loadout isn't working.

Titans don't technically have loadouts, but they do have buffers and perks you can equip, like having your Titan's core go nuclear upon its destruction, killing anything that happens to be close, or starting with a shield encased around it when it drops onto the battlefield. There's a lot of mixing and matching to be done here, so be sure to experiment.

Play The Objective
Playing the objective isn't too hard in Titanfall 2. Most of the time it revolves around killing enemies in order to build up your team's score. However, certain modes, like Bounty Hunt or Amped Hardpoint, exist outside of that basic premise, forcing you to do extra things in order to score points for the team. In Amped, you need to capture a point then stay there in order to hold it for your team, which means you can't run off willy-nilly, hunting down other pilots, if you want to be an asset to your team.

In Bounty Hunt, you should be more focused on picking off grunts and other AI enemies roaming the environments in order to build up a bonus you can deposit in the team's bank between rounds. Time spent hunting down other players is usually wasted money.

Pick Your Boost Carefully
The Burn Cards from the original Titanfall have been replaced with Boosts. These are ultimate abilities you get access to during the match once your Titan meter hits whatever percentage is attached to your selected Boost. For example, Amped Weapons, which increase the damage of your primary and secondary weapons, require you to have 80 percent of the meter filled while Ticks (walking explosive mines that hunt down enemies) only cost 65 percent. You can only have one Boost active at a time and can't switch between them during matches, so figure out some of your favorites and stick to them.

Check Your Inbox Often
As you level up in the game, a mysterious figure known as The Advocate will send messages to your in-game inbox. These often include special callsigns, emblems, and camos for both your Titan and pilot so if you're into that sort of thing, keep an eye on that inbox.

Grab Those Batteries!
Glowing green batteries are littered across the battlefield in Titanfall 2. As a pilot, you can scoop these up and feed them to your own Titan or an ally's Titan to help it recover health. You can also rodeo an enemy Titan, steal their battery, and deliver it to a friendly one, which is always fun. 

You can also call out to friendly Titans to catch their attention when you have a battery on you that you can give to them. Do this. In return, they will love you. They will cherish you. And then they will leave you for the next pilot with a pretty glowing battery.

This is life.

Never Try To Take On Multiple Titans Yourself
Do I really have to explain this one? It's just a bad idea. Don't do it. Get out of there, wait for backup, or circle around until one of them is distracted by something else happening in the environment.

Take Out Grunts, Spectres, and Reapers
Matches in Attrition and Bounty Hunt are often decided by single digits, so every little bit helps. Killing AI enemies that roam the map during these modes bump up your team's score bit by bit,  so if you're having trouble facing off against other pilots or titans, it might be better to dedicate your time to mowing down these AI foes.

Grenades Are Your Friends...Until They Aren't
You get several varieties of grenades to choose from. There's your typical frag grenade, an electric grenade that distorts enemy vision and puts robots out of commission, as well as my personal favorite: the incendiary throwing star. More varieties of grenades are probably one of the first things you should unlock with currency since they're one of the more useful items and offer you new strategies during matches. Just don't cook them too long or throw them too close or your portable pal might splatter you all over the room.

Always On The Move
With few exceptions, it is almost always better to be on the move in Titanfall 2: wall-running, sliding, creeping through a house--whatever. Do not stop. It makes you a prime target. Even if you fancy yourself a sniper, you should learn how to use that weapon on the move. Trust me.

Learn Every Map
A little basic, but the idea rings true here as much as it does for every other multiplayer game: learn the maps. Get to know every nook and cranny. Figure out where you can lay ambushes or chokepoints to try and take on Titans when you're Titanless.

Anti-Titan Weapons Are Rarely Worth The Trouble
In my experience, I've always found a sidearm dedicated to taking out other pilots is far more useful in the long run than any of the anti-Titan weapons, especially since they don't really do that much damage. You're better off rodeoing Titans and stealing their batteries.

Sometimes Being A Pilot Is More Useful Than Being A Titan
You might feel the temptation to hop in your Titan whenever your meter is full and you can call it down, but take every situation on a case-by-case basis. If your team is better served with you on the ground, swiftly making your away across the battlefield to steal flags or deliver cash bonuses to the bank, it's probably best just to call your Titan down and it set it to autopilot.