Tips That Actually Help You Improve In Xdefiant (Beginner to Advanced)
If you’re jumping into xdefiant for the first time or switching over from another shooter game i’ve got a list of tips that helped me go from around a 1kd to consistently over a 2kd. Now some of these apply to many fps games but in Xdefiant there are some subtle gameplay mechanics that you might not notice. Especially if you’re not used to hero shooters or games with character abilities. These tips all stack together so make sure you stick around to the end so you don’t miss out on any of them. You might just find that one of these tips was the missing piece to your gameplay and then everything just starts to click for you. If any one of these sticks out to you as particularly helpful or if you have any tips yourself, drop them in the comments below. These are in no particular order so we’re just going to jump right in.
Tip number one: Aim for the head. Very simple and obvious, yes, but Hitting headshots reduces the number of bullets and time to kill considerably compared to recent shooter games. Mixing in just 2 headshots is easily enough to help you come out on top and start winning more gunfights. On most weapons it reduces the time to kill by roughly 20-25 percent. In an fps shooter where every small advantage matters, that is a massive difference.
Number two: Learn the recoil patterns. While I was testing weapons in the firing range I noticed that almost every single gun has a similar recoil pattern with a few exceptions that we’ll go over. So if you learn one you kind of learn them all. On screen are the recoil patterns of the AR’s, SMGs and LMGs. Almost every single weapon kicks up and to the right with the MDR, M60, & M29 being up and to the left and the vector having a recoil pattern that basically goes straight up. When it comes to controlling recoil, I noticed something that feels a little different in Xdefiant compared to other shooter games, and maybe it’s just me so let me know in the comments if you’ve experienced this. But in Xdefiant, the weapon recoil starts much more aggressively then other shooter games requiring you to pull down and control it faster. I feel like in other games the recoil starts off fairly mild and overtime becomes more aggressive. But here in xdefiant I noticed that If I started pulling down quite a bit the second I started firing, I was landing a lot more shots and winning more fights, especially at those medium to longer ranges. Not so much up close because in those engagements there’s a built in feature that actually removes recoil entirely. Which brings me to my next tip.
Number Three: Take advantage of recoil smoothing. What is recoil smoothing? It’s a built-in feature where it measures how much you're moving your aim horizontally, and if you’re moving your aim enough it actually removes the recoil entirely. Which is why I said recoil is a non factor in close range fights. Because a lot of times people are jumping back and forth and you’re moving your aim so fast to keep up with them that recoil is no longer a factor. Xdefiant isn’t the first game to do this as it’s also a feature in apex legends so if you’re coming over from that game I'm sure this will be easy to pick up. Now not every situation you’re going to be tracking or aiming so fast that you can get the recoil smoothing to kick in, but there are some ways to game the system. Which pairs nicely with the next tip
Number four: always mix in a strafe, crouch and jump in every gunfight. Now you don’t want to be the person spamming everything non stop because while that might make you a difficult target to hit, it will also make it incredibly hard for you to aim. But how does that tie into what we talked about with recoil smoothing? When you’re strafing in a gunfight, you obviously have to compensate by tracking your enemy, but if you do something called counter strafing, meaning you strafe in the opposite direction, then you’ll be moving your aim much more to stay on target and recoil smoothing will kick in making it easier to land your shots. Combine strafing with a crouch or two in there and you’ll be a more difficult target to hit and you’ll be winning so many more gunfights. Alright i’m pretty sure that’s the last time I'm going to stay strafe.
Tip Number 5: Learn to pull the trigger before you aim down sights. There is a noticeable sprint to fire delay in this game, meaning if you’re sprinting and you pull the trigger, bullets will not come out until the delay time has expired. What most people do is start to aim down sight and then start firing. But you actually want to do this in reverse because of the sprint out time. Pull the trigger first and then start aiming down sight so that your bullets come out as fast as possible. If you do this and your enemy doesn’t you’ll likely get one or two bullets out before they do and if you’re on target there’s very little chance that they win that gunfight. Now you do have to be careful because if you pull up on an enemy that’s standing still, they actually don’t have a sprint to fire delay and can start shooting immediately. So if you’re slide jumping around corners and feel like you're getting melted there’s a good chance this is part of the reason why. I know the servers and hit registration aren’t perfect but in a lot of matches it’s completely fine and you’re dying to things like this rather than the servers just being bad.
Number Six: Avoid taking on more than one enemy at a time, especially if they're all looking at you. Since the time to kill in this game is on the slower side, the chances that you’ll be able to successfully kill 2 or 3 enemies at once is incredibly low. Now what you can do is use cover to your advantage and “slice the pie” so to speak by using cover to break line of sight so that you can take on one enemy at a time. And if you take out the first enemy you also have the option to back out of the gunfight to reposition, reload and heal if you took too much damage.
Which brings me to Number seven: Swapping to your pistol dramatically increases your movement speed. While this is great for getting into the action faster after a respawn, it’s actually incredibly useful for getting out of gunfights or repositioning. If you walk around a corner and see three enemies all holding hands and you’re following the last tip then you know you need to back out, reposition or wait for your team mates. In these situations where you know you won’t be firing your weapon it’s great to swap to the pistol for that extra speed to make you harder to hit and get back to cover safely as fast as possible.
Number Eight: Take advantage of the kill assist feature in xdefiant. You’re awarded a kill assist when you do most of the damage to an enemy and one of your teammates finishes the kill with that last bullet. Kill assists actually count as kills towards your K/d. I think this is the best system instead of something like Black ops 4 or cold war where all assists counted, leading to inflated stats. Now what I mean by take advantage of this feature is that in those situations where the enemy just needs one more bullet but it’s risky to stay in the fight to finish the kill because you’re either low health or there are other enemies nearby, it’s more advantageous to backout, let your teammates finish the kill and stay alive to keep fighting. This is especially important because Xdefiant really leans into the team work and objective aspects of the game. So staying alive and not having to wait out the respawn timer and run all the way back to the action is a massive benefit. Especially when it comes to being able to stick around to support your teammates with your abilities and continuing to play the objectives.
Number Nine: learn to cook grenades. I’ve noticed a lot of people feel like grenades are underwhelming. Now they do seem to have a smaller area of effect but I think the issue here is just how long they take to explode. The player hud actually gives you really useful information to know how long to cook the grenade for. One bar for long distance throws, two bars for medium throws & if you want the grenade to explode right on impact, hold it until you see 3 bars. Now I'm sure a lot of people have already picked up on this but I just wanted to mention it here for people just jumping into the game.
Number ten: have an exit strategy. In every engagement, have an idea in the back of your mind where you’re going to retreat to in case things start going south. This could be a piece of cover, a doorway or just to where your teammates are behind you. Now this comes with playtime and learning the maps but always having a place to reposition to in the back of your mind will save you so many times because you don’t have to look around or think where you’re going if you’ve taken too much damage or rounded a corner with 3 enemies staring you down.
Number 11: You and your teammates' abilities work better together so stack them. For example when a phantom player on your team uses they’re bubble ultimate, play inside and escort them either around the map or use it to take an objective. I hate that I’m about to recommend this but you can even use the Libertad team healing inside of the bubble to basically make everyone inside the bubble invincible. If you stack these things together you’re basically guaranteed to capture any objective. The enemy is forced to either stand there and let you take it or try to challenge you and likely die. This is just one example but there are tons of ways to abuse the abilities by working with your team and using them together instead of just constantly spamming them.
Which brings me to tip Number twelve: Play with and learn all of the factions and their abilities in the game so that you understand they’re strengths, but more importantly how to counter them. Here are some examples. An EMP takes out the phantoms shields. Deadsecs ultimate cancels out all ultimate abilities in use and prevents players from triggering any abilities while disrupted. This is incredibly useful for when you see “revealed by sonar goggles”. There’s almost no counter to this as they can see you through walls and have an incredibly strong pistol but with dead secs disruption it shuts it down right away. Again the list here could go on and on but this is more of an overview and not an in depth guide of each faction. So give each one of them a try and pay attention to how to best leverage the abilities and also how other players are countering you.
Number thirteen: Cover cover cover. With how fast the movement speed in this game is and the map designs, it’s really easy to get caught out in the open. While there is plenty of cover on all of these maps there are also a lot of wide open spaces. Best case scenario you run into an enemy who is also out in the open and you have a 50/50 even gunfight. Worst case scenario you’re caught out in the open against an enemy that IS playing on cover and your chances to win that fight go down dramatically. We want to be the one with the most advantage in every fight so instead of running as fast as you can through the map, you want to be moving from cover to cover to cover. This isn’t the fastest way around the map but you’ll be the one catching people out in the open and not the other way around.
Number fourteen. Never challenge snipers. If you see a sniper glint aiming at you do not stand there and try to shoot. Snipers in their current state are incredibly strong, have very little flinch and one shot to most parts of the body. So if you see that glint, turn around and run the other way. Reposition and try to take them out from the side where they can’t see you.
And number 15, this one is a little bit of a bonus tip because it doesn’t help your gameplay. But after a match, you get an extra 100xp for giving your teammates a thumbs up & you get an extra 200xp for every person that gives you a thumbs up. Not the most helpful but for those of you that like to squeeze a little bit more out of each game and like to min max everything this one's for you.
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