Fun stuff! Let's do it again soon.

By the by, definately like using Stopping Power and Sleight of Hand on all guns now - didnt even have either of those Pro on my last prestige! Just did not use them at all, now I almost feel like I need them.

'Sharpshooter' is coming up more and more for me these days even when not sniping, but I'd like practice HS only 1v1s too. I'm in it for the practice, not the competion of course.

am finding alot more rhythm to my game, and finally getting the results i desire.
am rocking the silenced TAR or silenced m16 on just about every map.
getting a bit better at drop shots too. that has saved my ass and given me more kills.

@Kuzu: I've noticed your kdr seems to be climbing and climbing - you must be doing something right! And, I've switched to Tactical buttons and I'm all about the dropshots now too. It has finally become instinctive controlling my character with that button layout but I'm convinced it was the right thing to do.

As for me I continue on with this tendancy to have 4.0 plus games and 0.5 or less (big numbers too so yay, and ouch! lol) games about evenly, and about 1.0- even mixed in. My standard streaks these days are UAV, Counter UAV and Pred so those big games are a lot of semtex and gunning! No more Claymores and 40s or Danger Close set up for me. Starting to hate those guys iwth a passion -Red had a bit of a go at me for turning into such a hypocrite on that point...

So I gather there are times where I do everything right and times where I have a special knack to be in the wrong place at the wrong time all game... So annoying that I can go from the very top of the GW TDM to the very bottom of a DOM from game to game. Doesnt seem to be any correllation between maps or modes or weapons\loadouts etc.

So basic things like aiming and nades I've made ok progress with, but my main issue now is with positioning and 'game sense' - I dont think I've develped much of an idea about where dudes are/tend to be and rely mostly on luck/aim/reflexes to get klils. Any advice would be greaty appriciated of course.

You guys mght be shockd to hear this, but I've only just noticed that in GW TDM/TDM, they tend to roll in packs doing laps around the maps (wel DUH!)- round and round - or on some maps (like Subbase) they circulate til they get to that (A) area and area to the left of it and coagulate there all round. I realize that if you fall out of sync with the gangs, you get mauled sometimes by the other team if you are alone and in the way. Problem is, when youre with your team the guy at the head of the pack is usually the best guy, and he tends to get all the kills til he slows down to take care of streaks etc. If you are not careful, you get all the collateral fire/corner campers/spawners and get not kills, just the unlucky deaths... Tedious.

Positive side, I'vejust finished M4A1 Mastery and now Im using the SCAR - wow that thing is strong with Stopping Power!
I'm going to try to get Mastery for SCAR, TAR, and ACR. FMJs are gong to take forever for Intervention butlast night I checked and I think I somehow had 13 or something, so that might be a realistic target too *happy face*

i think uve played the game enough to know the maps. but sometimes its not enough to go to the "vantage points", ie, the top 2nd floor of whatever building that overlooks XX. sometimes, thats the worst place to go, since the other team will be expecting u to go there. i dunno. since i rock with a silencer, i like to get away from my teammates. all they will do is give away ur position and attract grenades/noobtoobs, and get u flanked. this, again, is mostly from watching those youtube vids, but now i really take care not to expose my back if i can help it. make it a habit to stay on the outskirts of the map. take guys out one at a time, and work ur way around the map. obviously, knowing where they are spawning from is important, which is why i like DOM and hate TDM. in dom, u know they spawn from their flag.

other obvious stuff, but things i forget as well:
crouch when shooting if possible.
always prone when reloading, using killstreaks, etc.
always take cover. make it a habit to kneel behind a wall/crate/rock.
never sprint around corners.
never sprint thru the middle of the map.
never stay near teammates using unsilenced weapons.
do not try to capture flags/objectives if u are overly exposed.
dont expose ur back.
keep to the edges of the map.
know the heavy traffic routes/choke points.
never use the heavy traffic routes/choke points.

Kuzu: Good advice for anyone. (^_-)b

On the home front, I rocked some FFA's for a bit today. I've been doing dumb shit like Silenced Raffica ONLY+Scav/Cold/Ninja+Claymore+Stun with UAV/Counter-UAV/Sentry Gun as KS's. It was actually pretty fun. Most of my kills had to be gun or knife, with Clay's to cover my back. That fucking Raffica is crazy. I've had some pretty insane "Long Shot's". If I keep this up, I'm probably going to end up feeling rather strongly about the game being much better without +5 KS's.

P.S. It's so fucking rad having a computer again!

i can see why u guys like ur shotties; getting 1-hit kills is very satisfying. but i dont like them for a few reasons.
1. long time to change from primary to shotty
2. pump (Spas) or few shells (ranger/1887/m1014) means its not ideal for multiple targets
3. long reload

i tried and enjoyed using: spas, rangers, 1887. they were each good in their own element. spas is very nice for single takedowns. i like the double barrels on the rangers, but felt the "range" was too short. also, with only 2 (4 akimbo) bullets, i run dry very quickly. 1887 just took WAY too long changing to. when i first started mw2, i used the aa12 for a bit. it seemed pretty solid. i guess i should give it another shot.

which shotties do u guys use the most and why?

after thinking about it, i will probably stick to machine-pistols. big clip size. fast ROF. ability to take out multiple enemies. fast switch-to. the TMP seems pretty sweet actually. clip of 15, but its very accurate. feels and looks like a SMG. pp2000 is alright, but seems to suck at akimbo. i like my glocks, but they are only good for very close battles.

i think ill try out (reds idea) of using rafficas, possibly akimbo. any opinions/stories/thoughts on sidearms?

edit: i dunno if its the experimenting or what, but ive been having trouble doing well this week. i was on a roll for a while, then i hit a roadblock. i still very much enjoy this game.

As for shotties, I guess my opinion is they are more for fun than getting the best results though there are times where they reign supreme. Since I started mosty gunning with primary weapons, to be honest I havent been using the SPAS as much, and I use the PP2000 as my Intervention/Barrett secondary because I need the range/versatility in those situations where there's guys coming at me or when I'm moving around (still no confidence quickscoping).

I mostly used shotguns up to now because I thought they were cool.

There's a timing to the SPAS, once you get used to the punp action you can fire and then fire again, and there is a way to move and aim and fire again/take cover and fire again or finish off those damn Last Stand guys etc. The range on that thing is always surprising and very satisfying when your aim is true. It also has a lot of shots in it before it is necessary to reload - I can't tell you exactly how many shots but in all the time I've used it I never had a problem with running out of shells. (M!04 has only 4 shells I believe and it's easy to run out even if all 4 are hits...) One other thing is I hipfire the SPAS 99% of the time, seems to hit just fine without it scoped at any range. This is without Steady Aim as well. Don't know what it's like w Steady Aim.

Akimbo Rangers is pretty good up close, there is some range there too but nothing like SPAS. Blast radius is huge so they are forgiving up close. One hand at a time and you reload (as long as not sprinting) automatically while you stil have two barrels left in the other hand. I've been inside the middle building on Skidrow just cleaning out guys before - the general player level's gone up since then so I doubt I could still do that (rockets come in from street w DC etc nowadays if you stay in there). Something I dislike about Ranger guys nowadays, don't know what it is...

Over the last few days I've been using the AA-12 a bit and I'm already convinced it is the best for close quarters up to 2 enemies. (Usually not more than 2 anyways...) It7s super forgiving if you spray (whereas the SPAS is NOT!) and I'm not sure about the range just yet but it's not that bad I think. Not as satisfying or cool as the SPAS but for pure effectiveness ie killing and not dying it is superior no doubt about it.

Anyway, I'm no shotgun master but that's my two and a half cents.

Personal news, finally got SCAR Mastery (man, FMJ's took forever again!) but I'm gonna use it for a bit more before going on to TAR Mastery full time, just cause I'n still finding out how good it is. Maybe leave it for next Prestige.

I played 'conservatively' last night and got much better personal results than usual, but to be honest it wasnt as much fun as it usually is - the game started to feel stressful more than fun, more like work. The last thing I want to do in my free time is work. So, probably back to something like the same ol way tonight - maybe try to balance things out more I guess - no sense in being careless, but I want to be effective as well...

Kuz: my favourite shotty is the SPAS. On my first prestige i was using 1887's but was always frustrated by the timing of swapping to and from it, and was only good for very close distances. I started using the SPAS and love the range it has, and its power. I either use grip or ext mags as i luv running in rooms and go BANG BANG!

AA-12 good for spam & close range situations.

kuzu, i do pretty well with the akimbo rangers. ive gotten multiple harriers in seconds with those things! get 2 kills with one gun reload while the other is still up. so many times im just walking around and "BOOM BOOM", 2 kills reloading enemies hear/see shotguns going off, kill them in the same fashion. for some reason they will keep coming back for more LOL until you get overwhelmed, heh

True. That's crazy shizzle.

dux: banion said he thought he saw you with an Autumn camo gun after prestiging. Does it keep through prestiges? If so, I'm going to be a little bit pissed off because I assumed it didn't & would just press forward. (>_<)

In bearded news,...

Today was C4 day! Yay! That shit can be really fun. I was, of course, using it in FFA's with UAV, Counter-UAV & Sentry. I actually won more than I thought I would. Hopefully I had people shitting their pants when they were perched/camped up.

Oh. One other thing. A guy I played against was all slicky-dicky, stunned the C4 & himself such that I couldn't detonate & was actually able to sprint out of the blast radius. Just thought I should post that up for future reference.