Time Limit Duel

Time Limit Duel

Video

Time Limit Duel, is a game mode in Quake Champions. Time Limit Duel was released on June 13, 2019.

Time Limit Duel is a a roundless time limit-based duel mode. Players select one Champion before the match and outfrag each other until time has elapsed.

Summary

The OFFICIAL and CLASSIC form of this proving ground is Time Limit Duel. Before the match starts, players select a Champion of their choice. The goal is simple as what in Deathmatch; frag or be fragged, and the player with the most frags wins. If both players are tied by the end of the time limit, the match will enter the sudden death phase, wherein the player that gets the first frag on this phase will automatically win.

Duel may be simplistic on the surface, but it's actually a game mode of hidden depths; survival is as important as fragging. And with the addition of Champions with different skillsets and abilities, it makes the game dug a hole 6 feet more than usual.

Core concepts to win duels are retained for classical gameplay; item control, map knowledge and positioning is key to winning duels.

How To Improve: Concepts

Like chess, Duel is for the brainiacs; more than just a test of strength, but raw skills and critical thinking. Individual skill always referred as to what Duel is: if you're good in Duel, you're fit to contribute even better to almost every team game made in Quake Champions.

"Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself. Otherwise, you're just a bundle of tics, a stringed puppet manipulated by the chance and the insensible wind." ~ Gregory Maguire

In order for you to improve your skill even further, play Duel matches. And sometimes your improvement in Duel shows how much of a great player you are. In order to improve in Duel, work out and maintain on these core concepts:

Item Control

By taking away the major items, like the Mega Health and Heavy Armor, you can take advantage of its benefits, survive more fights than usual and deny of doing the same to you. In order to deny and take control the major items, you'll need to know when they'll be available. This is called item timing, and every item has a duration before becoming available again and we can use this information to keep controlling the item. When taking an item, try and take a mental snapshot of when did you took it then should calculate upon when it is going to spawn again and make sure to be back in time when that major item is about to become available.

This way, you constantly give yourself significant amounts of health and armor more than your opponent, maximizing your chances of living or surviving a fight or two, and making your opponent weaker and easier to kill.

A good tip when learning to time the items is to say the time you took it out loud to yourself and then do a calculus of when is it going to respawn again. All major items spawn 30 seconds, so it seemed to be easy enough.

Or... you can do a system to make these easier. An example of this is to time the major items and look from where is it going to spawn next time, but you'll do this within the figures of tens.

• For example, if you took the Mega health at 1:27, then you should come back at 1:57.
• This also works in vice versa (30 -> 00).
• 20 -> 50
• 10 -> 40
• 00 -> 30

Map Knowledge

Thoroughly learning the map's layout allows you to gain the following advantages:

• take advantage of the angles provided by the map itself, maximizing your damage output.
  • This can be done by learning the map's angles; which angles for you to line up rail shots, to spam damage with rockets or Tri-Bolts.
• learn each item pickup location which would allow you to create a circuit of the weapons and items for you to take, especially when you get your first spawn at the start of the game.
• learn each route and shortcut which would allow you to move from one major item to another, outmaneuver, confuse and retreat from your opponent.

Positioning

Positioning is an assessment that you (should you do it) subconsciously make by considering the situation: your location and your resources do you have in the situation vs. those of your opponent, and what course of action you should take.

Positioning applies to all game modes in Quake Champions, and is one of the most important concepts for players to develop; encompasses a wide range of sub-skills and changes drastically based on situations. Improving this in general, is to play more. When you play a lot of Duel matches you are essentially gaining experience (if you are focused on the game in order to improve), because it is the foundation on how well you are able to learn, and progress as a player.

How To Improve: Attributes

As you come across with individuals playing, you study most of what they can provide in a Duel match. This is done by breaking your play down in to five key attributes. It is simply a breakdown of a players characteristics, to put what strengths and weaknesses you and your opponent has.

Aim

Most people think aim is the key to success, and this may be the case in Quake Champions, but that it is only part of the battle in each and every Quake installment. You can have the best aim in the world, but the fact remains that you will be crushed by anyone who is more experienced and intelligent than you.

Aim is pretty much a tool of leverage, and it helps to keep the map control, or in some cases, it allows you to pressure your opponent so much that they buckle. Aim can be converted into damage. If you take a look at the end-game stats of pro matches, it's very rare that the player with the least damage taken wins.

This will result in high frag counts, or on the flip side, it will swing control back in your favour. It is quite easy to spot a player that is very dependent on aim, because they will either win by a large margin, or lose by just as much. This means that when they encounter a player that is strategically superior, and has a strong aim which equals their own, they will struggle immensely. Aim may be very important in Quake, but not the be-all and end-all type of all the greatest players.

Intelligence

This may refers to the thinking ability of the player, but this is without doubt the most important attribute for being an effective player. This attribute really coincides with creativity, but they are slightly different in certain ways. For a start, intelligence is your ability to make good decisions, both strategically and tactically. And no, strategy and tactics are not the same. Intelligence refers to the quality of decisions make to gain the upper hand in a Duel match.

This coincides with experience as if once they knew what is going to happen, it’s up to the player’s decisions. Decision making is an important aspect when it comes to Duel; the better the decisions you make, the more frags you earn by those decisions and easily earn a win. That means on the flip side, the more mistakes you make, the more deaths you have and you’ll be given a loss.

Creativity

Yes, this may be referred to innovating a strategy, but I’m afraid it is. Players tend to do a lot of copycats and the whole game mode becomes a ‘Simon Says.’ But even then, you do something groudbreaking that it felt new and if your opponent throws off and caught off guard by the way you play, you get to what it means to be creative in Duel.

Creativity works hand in hand with experience and intelligence. Not only you want to improve in Duel, you want to know how you can manipulate and expend the limits of the game’s design to change how your games should be played. By exploring the map’s routes you know how you should move from position to position, item to item; manipulating and/or abusing the angles of the map's geometry; buckle your opponent to the point they never see you coming.

Dexterity (Movement)

Dexterity is an important part of efficiency in Duel. The way you move in a map determines not only how fast you are moving, but how efficient you are moving from position to position, item to item.

Bad movement such as stumbling on steps, bumping into walls or doorways, missing items, and failing critical jumps will make your play style lack fluidity, and be very deterring to the point that you lose control of certain areas, or items. And for the worse part, if you’re caught off with movement errors especially while running away from your opponent, you’ll be punished swiftly.

This also applies to how you dodge as well; how do you dodge, how do you engage in battles with your movement, and how do you position yourself to the point that you take little to no damage.

Q: So, not only I have to aim perfectly, I have to also move perfectly? 

A: And that is why it is very important to know the movement mechanics in all Quake installments, especially in Quake Champions. For almost every champion has a specific movement tech that you can use to your advantage.

Experience (Wisdom)

Experience is generally easy to gain as long as one pays attention to, and absorbs, what is going on while they play. When you do something, anything, for long enough, tend to get accustomed to what is likely to happen, even if you aren’t conscious of it at the time.

That’s why players tend and tell others to play more to improve more, because the more they play then the more they are accustomed to what’s gonna happen. Imagine if Michael Jordan didn’t play much, then he won’t know what locations he take and what shots he could do.

Experience refers to their knowledge of the angles they can use, what routes should they take, what spawn points are there to take advantage to frag the opponent off the spawn.

And when I say that intelligence coincides with experience, this means that your intelligence is formed via experience.

How To Improve: Counters

Of course, with the champion classes, each with different set of abilities makes the game look like a game of "rock, paper, scissors" but with extra types. But even then, they have senses of strengths and weaknesses that can modify with your playstyle. Saying as if like one champion can be found as a hard counter against this champion, that sort of thing. All except mirror matches, we don't count those.

Though, the best advice I can bestow to improve your knowledge on champion picks, is to do a lot of VOD Reviews. Study the reasons why some players pick certain champions on a particular map and how they were played.

These are some of my maxim notes on what you can push and what you can't push. It's not mandatory for you to follow these and you can modify them as you play and/or gain experience.

Anarki

vs. Nyx

• If you can't bother do some railshots, then try your luck with the rocket brawls.
• Do second guesses to see if you can sense Nyx while she's invisible. That way, if your guess was correct you get to do a kill.
  • That is unless you have the stack to do it. You can't push it with a 25/25 stack, unless you're a braindead confident.

vs. Slash

• Catch speed with speed; practice your airstrafing abilities to catch up with Slash.
• Try your best to catch her with rockets if she's about to rush you.
• If you want to keep your ground, use or at least battle her with LG. Sure small hitboxes, but at least it keeps her from getting it.

vs. Athena

• Keep your active ability intact with you as a panic heal. That way, you may be surviving fights more than usual.

vs. Ranger

• Don't get caught with the Orb, and you'll be fine.
• Abuse the active ability to keep up the Hourglasses in your control, that way, Ranger's Orb wouldn't be ready for another 30 seconds tops.
• Prioritize more on positioning for more damage.

vs. Visor

• Since you don't have unlimited information, or at least some miniscule bits, you have to risk it, take a guess and pressure your opponent as much as you can until they buckle up. That is if you're in control of the map and have a stack of 175/150.
• If not in control, do not make sounds and use your opponent's sounds to gain information on his/her whereabouts.

Ranger

vs. Scalebearer

• Abuse the LG with Scalebearer's hitbox.
• Dodge the Bullrush with the Orb. Make sure to teleport away or behind Scalebearer's Bullrush direction.
• Keep the fights on medium ranges.
• Abuse the mobility on Ranger's passive using Rocket Jumps to keep the map control.

vs. BJ Blazkowicz, DOOM Slayer, Visor

• Deal more damage with the Orb.
• Abuse the mobility on Ranger's passive using Rocket Jumps to keep the map control.
• Be balanced on weapon mastery.

How to Improve: Reclaiming Control

Of course, there are times that you'll be out of control, and makes the game's odds stack immensely against you. You've spawned with only your starting gun and melee, meanwhile your opponent's got lots of guns while you're away. Question is, how can we get up from our situation to his/hers? Here are the dos and don'ts that a new Duel player should take account of:

• Don'ts
  • Don't panic.
    • Emotions cloud judgement, and as much as possible, keep calm and focus on the task at hand.
  • Don't throw away frags in half-assed attacks or angry retorts to dying.
    • Or worst-case scenario, giving away the match entirely.
    • If you don't want to give him much more frags to raise his/her lead, don't let your opponent frag you again.
  • Don't rush too much.
    • Your momentum will be shifted, denying your comeback.
• Do
  • Slow down the game.
    • Take time to recover and get items and weapons, while your opponent is still taking major items. It's okay to give the items up for more equipment, so that you can be ready to fight again.
    • Sneak up by and slowly get into those weapons by walking. This way, you would take away things into the game and slowly snowball your way into it.
  • Be defensive.
    • If your opponent comes up in full speed and force, punish it by making space.
    • Let your opponent beeline you and land some shots while your opponent's at it. This is a kind of punishment when your opponent's too aggressive and reverse the momentum of the game.
    • Don't let your opponent frag you again. Ever. This is the way to snowball it back and taking the match in your terms.
  • Deal chip damage from afar.
    • Don't let your opponent make use of the stack he/she gains. Make sure to soften up before making him think twice on fighting you.
    • Spam rockets from specific places where your opponent would likely go to.
    • Deal some Railgun damage from specific angles where your opponent would likely to get caught off guard and not retaliate back.

The last thing you want to be doing is coming back from 10-0, just because you died and hit puberty, got in a tantrum, and continuously attacked the mega health room with MG in the hopes that you can get a cheap and easy frag from the previous battle. You want to keep the scores as closely tied as humanly possible; which means strapping on your newly found post-pubescent balls, keep your shit wired, and your head cool. Because as what the gamer myrm1don says:

It’s a lot easier to come back from 3-0, than 10-0, always remember that.