What You're Doing Wrong In Shatter (And How To Fix It!)

[kuma_aus]

One thing that helps me immensely in shatter is knowing the ice spawn times. There's several macros that get posted to alliance chat when I have matches so people know spawn times. Here's one example, in JP because of JP data centre but it's easy to understand as long as you know that 大氷パターン = Big Ice Pattern, 小氷 = Small Ice and 分 = Minute. I tried an EN translation one but it might be a bit ugly.

[大氷パターン]
[1]19分→16分→12分→8分
[2]19分→15分x2→10分
[3]19分→15分→10分x2
[4]小氷ALL→14分→12分→10分→8分

[Big Ice Pattern]
[1]19 min→16 min→12 min→8 min
[2]19 min→15 min x2→10 min
[3]19 min→15 min→10 min x2
[4]Small Ice ALL→14 min→12 min→10 min→8 min

This is for a full 72 player match. If there was a Big Ice spawn at 19 minutes to go, then there will be another Big Ice at 16 or 15 minutes. If there was a Big Ice at 16 mins, then the next Big Ice will be at 12 mins > 8 mins. If there was no Big Ice at 16 mins, then at 15 mins there will be 1x or 2x Big Ice spawns. If there was 1x spawn, then at 10 mins there will be 2x. If there was 2x spawns, then there will be the final big ice at 10 mins. If at the start of the map, there was every small ice, then the big ice follows pattern 4 with them spawning at 14 mins > 12 > 10 > 8. If this is a 24 player map with just Big Ice, it will always follow pattern [1].

The way knowing this helps me is that it lets me know when I have free time to get other objectives or camp highly contested small ice areas before a big ice spawns. I can't log in and play properly for a few days so I can't make my own map, so I'll just be editing Valeria's to show what I mean.



So say I'm playing as Flames. I might stand near the purple marker after the first Big Ice at 19 minutes spawns. If there is no spawn at 16 minutes, I know that there will be another spawn at 15 minutes. So that gives me like 1 minute of just doing nothing and waiting. So instead of that, I sometimes make my way across the blue arrow and try and steal a base (Maelstorms in this case). You need to pay close attention to the map if you're trying this though. If it's clear the enemy is very close to the outpost, you might not be able to steal the base. But it's always worth to try since there have been times that the enemies haven't looked back towards the base and noticed I've been trying to steal it. And if you are successful, it normally causes around 50-80% of the enemy team to rush back to base to try and recapture the base you just stole. This frees up a lot of space for your own alliance to get a good position on any Ice that spawns at 15 minutes. You can do something similar but on the outside circle to make your way to other bases if big ice is a while away. Also say Bottom Right Ice is the last Big Ice to spawn, if you know when it will spawn, you can position yourself on the outside circle so that you can quickly steal an enemy base once they rush towards the Big Ice when it spawns.

Now say it's following pattern 1 - 3. There is a lot of free time between big ice spawns. Now on the map imagine if the big red circles I've added were Small Ice that have been destroyed, and green circles are Small Ice still alive but not spawned. If there is quite some time before the next Big Ice spawns, I know I can hang out near the Orange Circle and pressure the enemy from getting close to the 4 small ice at the top. It helps a lot if you have other people to help, but even when enemies just see you by yourself, a lot of them are a bit cautious at trying to approach especially if no Ice has spawned yet and we're just waiting. And if one of the top small ice spawns, I have a good position to start on them.

It's hard to say exactly what I mean. But with good map awareness, knowing when the big ice will spawn and knowing how most enemies react to different things you can do some good plays that really disrupt the opponent teams.