Hello and welcome to what's probably the last video in the ZvZ tutorial mini-series. Last but not least, we will cover the DPS role, and I know many of you have been waiting for this one. If you haven't seen the previous videos though, I highly recommend checking them out, since they might give you more insight into how ZvZs work in general and from the other positions. We covered positioning, how tanks engage, how they end the support's PO.
All of this setup has been for this moment. in order to enable the DPS to do their job and to protect the DPS from dying. So before we get started let me just mention there are many types of DPS and I will only cover a few of them in detail here but hopefully the general explanations and the clips at the end of the video will be more than enough.
In this video I will cover in detail Brimstone, Mist Piercer, Energy Shaper and Bridal Fury because I think this will cover enough so that you can easily apply the concepts to the other DPS weapons if you want. So, I think it's common sense that as a DPS your job is to deal damage, but your job is also not to get blown up due to power positioning and not using your defensive such as Resistance Potion or Cleric Rope, for example. So, if you followed all the tutorials thus far for the different roles, the analogy is you're basically like a little kid trying not to trip over and die. You have your parents trying to hold your hand, making sure you don't mess up. That would be the tanks and supports.
So the tanks are trying to enable for you to be able to drop damage by creating clumps, CC locking the enemies, etc. But they're also protecting you and peeling for you when the enemy engages. Obviously your healers and supports are trying to keep the zerg alive. You as the DPS need to put trust in your zerg, trust your tanks, your healers, your supports, that they will not mess it up.
You need to go in there when the engage is called and you need to drop the damage when it's called for. Honestly though, playing DPS is pretty brain dead. You wait for the shotcaller to countdown, you run in, you drop your damage, then you walk out. And that's it. The first and most important thing we'll cover is the combo aspect.
No matter which weapon you're playing, you need to learn how to use your combo properly. The good thing is that you can easily practice this until you get the hang of it with zero risk involved. At the start just go to any safe spot like your island, a yellow zone, or a bank, or the market, and practice it a bunch of times until you get the hang of it. Another option is to join in with a faction blob during Bandit Assault.
You can just tag along or join one of the discords. It's also a decent place to practice pressing your buttons in the right order, just to make sure you get the muscle memory down. Alright, with that said, let's go over all the combos for the main four DPS weapons that I mentioned.
Let's start off with Energy Shaper. The combo for Energy Shaper is pretty straightforward. It depends on the exact build you're going with, but you want to first have three stacks of your passive, use your boots, and once you reach the spot where you can reach the enemy clump, use your cleric robe and then press E. You can obviously readjust your beam if needed, but yeah, pretty simple. After you're done with that, walk back to a safe spot and use your assassin to make sure you have cooldowns for the next engage.
Now notice two things. With Energy Shaper, we have two important things to keep in mind. First one is pre-stacking.
You can get a damage boost from your passive, so what I like to do while I wait in between engages is to always have like two stacks, one or two stacks at most, so you can always be ready to get the passive off. You can simply use your Q or W for that, it's a pretty short cooldown. The second thing is the reflect. Energy Shaper is a weapon where the damage can be reflected back on you. Demon armors are really scary for that reason, so it is highly recommended you use cleric robe before starting your E channel.
Now, if you don't have your cleric robe up, which... Fair enough, sometimes you don't have it because you need to use it as a defensive perhaps or whatever. Your weapon is a channeled one though.
So if you notice your health bar is dropping, you need to cancel your E immediately to make sure you don't kill yourself on a Demon Armor. Next we have Mistpiercer. For the Mistpiercer it's pretty simple. When the engage is called, use your Royal Sandals to run in. While you're running, use your Skull Robe and your E and then just aim your shots at where the Clump is.
Then you can W to get back. to a safe spot, use Assassin Hood. Pretty straightforward. You don't have to worry about pre-stacking here, since there's no damage boost passive for bows. However, reflect is still something we need to take into account, so don't tunnel vision and automatically fire off all four shots.
The issue is you don't have an option, like a cleric robe, since you're using this color robe. This is a little tricky, but just making sure you pay attention to the reflect and stop before you kill yourself is really important. Next we have Brimstone.
For the Brimstone we pre-stack until we have three stacks. You can use the second or third Q. I personally prefer the third Q because it has a shorter cooldown. So use your Royal Sandals, run in, use your Skull Robe and then press your E on the clump, throw a Q and W afterwards if you think it's safe and then run back to a safe spot to use your Assassin to make sure you have cooldowns for the next engage.
With regards to the reflect, the E damage cannot be reflected, which is really nice as you never have to worry about that. Brimstone is a staple in ZvZs and has been so for a really long time, but hey, so has Locus, so you never know with SBI. I highly recommend this one if you're just starting out since you don't have to worry about the reflect, and if you mess up your pre-stacking, it's not that big of a deal anyway, not something that's gonna result in you dying. So, very good beginner-friendly DPS option right there.
And last, but definitely not least, we get the Bridled Fury. Bridle is one of the hardest DPS clap weapons to play properly, but damn does it feel satisfying to pull off if you do it correctly. You want to make sure you have three stacks by the time you use your E.
So the amount of stacks you want to have when you start varies depending on how far the enemy's Urgot is. Having one or two stacks should be good enough, as you'll reach three stacks by the time you're there to use your E. You can have like two or three, just make sure your stacks don't run out by the time you use your E.
So two or three is fine. Start off by having two stacks, you start a combo, pop your Royal Sandals, run in, use your Cleric Rope if needed, because you're going to be running into melee range, use your W, Stock Hood, and then E. Now, there are many variants of this build, so let's just cover the Royal Hood variant real quick as well. This one is a little trickier, you need a little time to prepare your Royal Hood stack, so what I recommend is to hover at one stack, just keep toggling so you have one or two at all times, then when the shot color starts counting down, pop your Royal Hood, Run in with Royal Sandals, make sure you throw your W before your Royal Hood stacks run out, since if you let it run for too long at 6 stacks, the effect goes away altogether. And then, just simply hit the clump.
Notice, it's very important as a bridal player to pay attention to purges. If you see a Locust being channeled, try your hardest to not run into it while doing your combo. Also, if the enemy Zerg is a competent one, They might have one-handed or canes looking to purge big pp clappers like you so stay alert This is obviously easier said than done because in these large-scale fights. It's a clusterfuck There's a lot of things going on right, but the most important thing is to not run into a locus So you shouldn't miss that one at least All right So just really briefly let's compare these four dps weapons because we can't just look at the damage in a vacuum So even though the energy shaper damage is the highest well you're not realistically going to get full value out of your channel.
So, and also the E doesn't stack, so you can't just have a million of these in your reserve. I personally recommend the Brimstone for beginners because it's easy to pick up and since you don't have to worry about to reflect, even if you don't pre-stack, it's still fine. You'll still do great damage, so it's very easy to pick up.
That's why I recommend the Brimstone for anyone just starting out. So we just talked about these four builds and the specific combos, right? You might have noticed there are a few key concepts that are important when playing DPS, and so now we will mention the general aspect, so you can apply this for other DPS weapons. Number one is pre-stacking, so certain builds have a damage passive.
This might seem very minor if you do it or not, but a 10% damage increase is nothing to laugh at, so try to make the second nature to always be at one or two stacks, or however many, with your... build needs, right? Number two, we have reflect. Reflect is another key aspect of ZvZs.
If your weapon is one that can get reflected, you really need to pay attention to this and make sure you don't blow yourself up. For that reason, I recommend beginners to play something like Brimstone where you don't have to worry about the reflect. Number three, the combo aspect.
You need to make sure that you can pull off your combo like it's second nature. You need the muscle memory. If you accidentally forget to use your Scholar Rob, for example, when playing Brimstone, or you do a bridled combo and you have zero Q stacks, you need to go back and practice.
That should never be happening, basically. There's no shame sitting on your island or going to a yellow zone and just repeating your combo until you get it right. Number four, we have positioning. Besides actually pulling off your combo, there is the positioning aspect. This is not only important for being in position, where you can get a nice clamp, but also to position correctly in order to make it easier for your zerg to protect you when the enemy tries to clap you.
So we have covered positioning several times in the previous video but I think it won't hurt to mention it again because it's truly important. So let's watch one clip of a ZvZ where two zergs are fighting over a tight choke. In a situation like this you generally don't push through a choke and just do soft engages on the front line and we can expect the same from the enemy zerg and thus we position just correctly.
a little bit away from the choke here just so we can drop on it whenever it's cold. But yeah, pretty much what you want to do is you want to be close enough where you can drop on the enemy, but also far away enough so that the enemy cannot drop on you. Now this might sound like a paradox, but that's the thing. You need to adjust your positioning depending on how the fight is going. It's obviously easier said than done, but in general you can think of it the following way.
So step one of positioning is learning how to identify where is safe and where is not. You'll get the hang of the experience as you attend a few ZvZs and get the feel for the range and how far people can run and engage on. But step two here is to realize that there are times where you should walk in towards the danger areas in order to have better position for an engage. It's all situational, of course, but in general, if the enemy just engaged, they don't have any cooldowns, you have resistance potions up, you can just walk up a little more past the yellow area, especially if you know that your color is about to... to call for an engage.
All right, let's stop here with all the boring stuff and let's get to the clips. I'm sure seeing all the stuff in action will be more useful than just talking about it vaguely. So let's get to it.
Here we have a clip where you can see the enemy engaging. We position smartly and walk off to the side and walk south as we get ready for a counter engage. Because of our positioning, we were able to easily reach their backline as the enemy tried to push the bridge. Walk back north, okay?
We got five seconds, we got five seconds, okay? We're gonna engage right north. Everybody step up, everybody step up! We're gonna engage north in three, two, one! Everybody engage north!
Everybody engage north! Go straight into the north! Go straight into the north! This mid comes everywhere!
Drop the damage! Drop the damage! Okay?
Loot this baby up! Loot this mid! Drop the damage and loot it up!
Okay? Alright, now Q's and W's! Q's and W's!
Now, now, now, now, now step us up! Now step us up! We gotta be one bomb squad! We gotta be one bomb squad! West straight West in three two one go straight West go straight West go straight West straight West straight West Big clubs big clubs drop the damage drop the damage.
Okay big clubs, Kyrsten straight West Kyrsten Debbies Kyrsten Debbies We back out east back out east now back out east back out east We need to reposition ourselves. We're gonna go northwest, okay? In three, two, one. Everybody go northwest.
Pass the road, pass the road. They're gonna go northwest. They're running, they're running. Drop the damage, drop the damage.
On the tree, oh good damage. Great brimstone, great brimstone. Okay, now we're gonna step, now go off east. Go straight east. Alright, and next, let's look at two clips that will really showcase why paying attention to reflect is important.
OOF And that's it for this video guys, I really hope it was useful, and if you enjoyed leave a rating and a comment. Weeping and Galatins might be getting buffed by the way, as we can see by the NDA post, so looking forward to those making a return as well. Weeping is a strong non-reflectable clap weapon, so look forward to Shotcallers flaming the shit out of anyone who stabs on the mine. Alright, hope you enjoyed the video and have a good one.