Peek Awareness : Considering Your Options During Combat

Preface

This guide was written to help players understand the importance of being unpredictable, safe and active simultaneously. A common issue with the inexperienced is the feeling of hesitation, crippling them with almost every decision. I believe the cause of this is simply “Overthinking”. Having some simple yet effective methodology to fall back on may be beneficial. However this is something we’ll always be working on, as it’s our innate response of self preservation taking the wheel in such moments.

Introduction

In this write up I aim to give you a possible way to practice and exercise a simplified version of “considering one's options during combat”. We’ll call this concept “Peek Awareness”.

The whole idea will revolve around being aware of your opponents attention, and using it against them. I hope to help build some familiarity with “reading your opponents” and understanding how important it is. To know what they’re trying to achieve throughout an engagement, is a skill worth learning in all forms of combat.

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The Concept : Peek Awareness

The idea of Peek Awareness will be a simple one. It’s simply “to be aware of the last place you peeked from, and to remove it from your options until you have peeked from a separate position.” To do this one must use “concealment” as their ally.

The order of this performance will simply be to Peek > Conceal > Peek from another spot. We shall call this, “Conscious Peeking”.

To re-peek from the same spot twice or more times in a row will be considered “risky” and undesirable. For consistency's sake, let us call this “Risky Peeking”. The idea here is to try to avoid as many risky peeks as possible. If done right, you will surely see the pros and cons of this technique.

You should be able to delegate where and when you should apply this knowledge, without it tampering too much with your natural playstyle.

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Conditions & Criterias

Risky

So what should you look out for and learn along the way? First we should talk about the criteria which makes a Peek risky in the first place. There will be times where you peek and the enemy will notice and times when the enemy will not. If you can correctly identify when your opponent does not notice where you peeked from, then re-peeking from the same spot will NOT be considered “risky”.

Conscious / Safe

A conscious peek will be considered a safer option, and should be more desirable. This is done after concealing yourself from the enemy, only to pop back out from another location. Even if the change is only a couple ft, this is still very overwhelming and difficult for most players to deal with.

Concealment

This is simply when you remove the “entirety” of your character's model from the enemy. If they can see you moving behind cover, the effectiveness will be lessened, however it still will be effective to keep changing your position and consider all of your peek options.

How to practice

So the rules are simple: Remember the last place you peeked from and try your best to not reuse that spot until you have used another.

“Play around and get creative, if you have to run around a building to get another angle, do so. Taking a long time to reposition has its pros and cons. It’ll be your job to figure out where.”

Remember to gain a decent understanding of something, you will need to see it’s effectiveness in many different situations. Allow yourself to do so even when it’s clearly not needed. You may start to notice things about the game that you never did before. The common signs will be a conservation of health while still being active in a fight, along with slowing down the pace of a fight which can be desirable in many situations.

Be sure to try and identify if the enemy saw where you peeked from last, if you’re unsure then just consider them aware of your last spot.

Conclusion

During your practice you should end up learning how to quickly evaluate all of your possible peek options, before you even engage in a battle. This goes hand in hand when selecting a position during battles. Being aware of the spaces you are going to use, will be the essential skill you’ll inevitably pick up. It should start to become clear, when you have 1 peek option vs 5+ peek options throughout the engagement.

If multiple enemies are shooting at you, this is just another way to evaluate whether you’re truly pinned down or not. Meaning if you’re being focused however have multiple places you can still peek from that havent been used, then you’re not truly pinned and may have to use some of these extra options. You should also start to become less passive, as you cannot truly practice this without being active in fights. Push yourself and notice how much of a problem you can be to your opponents.

Remember where this works and where it does not! Make your own judgment and then incorporate it into your natural playstyle.

Etro