Dredd's Guide to the Hydra Doc

A brief word of caution. Perhaps no word is so tactically overused in the world of War Robots than “distraction.” While it’s true that drawing the attention of the enemy can often help your team, it’s also a very easy cover for poor play. A subpar player might still feel they accomplished something if they managed to “distract” their opponent (meaning they moved to engage and killed the poor player). It’s a good assumption to make that distraction is overrated in the judgment of most pilots.

That said, the Hydra Doc can be distracting. Don’t just hit the red button when firing a Hydra. Instead, fire the first missile manually, then hit the red button to discharge the remaining payload. This has the effect of staggering the individual missiles, and a player who gets hit twenty-four times in a row is often going to need to make a Wisdom Check to avoid fixating on you.

My suggestion is to do your job, and the let the enemy do what it will do. Don’t try and get clever with “distraction,” because it’s often not as effective as its advocates think.

While offering an interesting (and IMO the most entertaining!) aspect of Hydra Doc, Dredd sneaks in an important consideration for all those "distraction" campers out there.  Shaking my screen 24 times every 16 seconds would likely be distracting... whereas shining a cute little laser pointer at my bot just tells me it's 6v5, so I can probably play more aggressively (barring additional "distraction advocates" on the blue side).  

Lots of wisdom sprinkled around this well-written blog.  Kudos for solid production quality.