Slaying the Vagamonster

[brett friggin favre]

The purpose of this post is not to qq about vagas, it's to show you why you shouldn't be qqing about vagas. The methods described below are honed through playing against spasm, shady, wolf, cyber, and other strong vagas.

1. Lace. Get one. Can't afford one? Change to a race that has free weapons (archmage, hell hunter, magician, dragonfly, jack) and spend your money on a lace. Or switch to a race that has a chance to have a free lace (athena, shadow of the void, warden). Also with the shopmenu price balance currently enabled, laces can get as cheap as around $1200 bucks if i remember, so GET ONE. It's the best way to deal with vagas but only if you use it properly. See below for details.

2. If the vaga's raping your team, stay away from wide open areas. This applies mostly to bond than lion, but their long range mobility in either case is their biggest weapon. Whether it's a bond sniping you from afar or a lion teleporting from across the map to backstab you...stay in enclosed areas. Combine this with a lace and you have a good chance of trapping and thereby neutralizing the vaga. Keep in mind vagabonds are efficient in long-range sniping AND in-your-face knifing, whereas vagalions can only knife.

3. Bait them. I love to do this with a speedy race like undead, stand at the opening to a tight area if you know a vaga is near you. Watch him teleport around, and look for when he zips towards you. Right when he does, sidestep him. He'll usually chase you trying to get the knife (unless vagabond, either way you now have him in a tight space). Turn on your flashlight and start looking for that shadow. HAVE A LACE. If a bond, work on getting him trapped. If lion, he's probably trapped already if you sidestepped correctly.

4. Speaking of flashlights, use them. If they're invisible, their shadows will still show up. Easy way to find them. (if you cannot see vagas with your flashlight, make sure that you have the "shadow details" option in your settings set to HIGH. thanks cyber)

5. Funnel them, kinda goes hand in hand with baiting. If there's a long tunnel you can draw a vaga into, even if you don't have a lace, you'll know when and where to shoot. Get a hit on him, and follow his blood trail. Consider using eye ra for this, as not only can you evade their attacks but if you hit them, they'll be visible for a bit, and easy targets. Combine this with a lace and you're golden, but still effective without.

6. Caught in the open? You're gonna need some help, even with a lace. I like to be undead in these situations though, speedy and low grav. Keep this in mind, with a vaga's teleport range they'll usually end up in corners. With a bond especially, you can see in that split second between teleports where they'll be going roughly. Head at them, keep the pressure on them. Ideally you have a lace and you're undead. They'll see you coming, know they're about to be stuck, pop out and try to get a shot on you. As soon as they pop out, jump and keep going towards them, shoot the fuck out of them. Make them panic. They'll probably miss. If not, tough luck. It happens. But if they miss, they'll try to tele away, jumping while they do. Follow them, shoot them til they're dead, you're out of bullets, or til they get a tele off and if they do get that tele off, follow that blood trail and start charging again. Not as effective against a vagalion but due to the fact that they have to get right on you to kill you, they're not quite as effective in these situations especially if you're a speedy race. This is why undead is a great counter to vagas that most people don't use, and soon they'll be even more powerful with updates.

7. Piss them the fuck off. Works best on the objective team, but be some race like santa or dragonfly, especially santa. Fly around super fast, they can't touch you unless you get yourself stuck on a texture. Use that speed to, say, plant a bomb, then just fly around the site. A vaga can't kill you without being a lucky fuck, and he can't defuse if you're being vigilant. Ask cyber, he hates santas.

8. Wards. With shadow hunter or with strider, these aren't 100% effective with anti-wards, but can be used until the vaga wises up.

9. Humans, spidey, xonvert, and others have a bash effect. Land a bash on a vaga, unload on them, quick kill or at least deal a lot of damage. Pretty simple but also effective.



Know the map you're on, learn how vagas operate on them, and find areas where you can limit your exposure to them. Learn to bait and funnel them, all of these things take practice but it's not impossible. I rarely have problems with vagas extending outside the first couple rounds, and I'm no god, just gotta be smart about what you do. Also if a vaga's getting to you before you leave spawn, he's a douche. Not all vaga players are douches. It's also a poorly designed map as far as wcs goes (westwood I think is terrible for this reason), but you can still combat them with speed or with wards.

Sorry pals. Had to be done, I'm tired of typing this stuff out over and over in other threads.