A tl:dr provided in first comment.
As a medic main in 6s I have never had a satisfactory answer for this question. People parrot the wiki or they say their own side but none of them felt correct to my own feelings, so I decided to sit and time many ubers to give my own "data-backed" answer since I honestly did not know the answer to the question. and instead relied on the feeling that each flash reduced uber by an equal amount, independant of who got flashed.
Overall the intuitive answers I received from others as well as my own understanding worked well in judging how it worked for clean gameplay purposes. The fading invulnerablity of uber or what most people know as the "flash", being a portion of the uber shared to multiple people so it fades faster is an understood point, and counting how often that happens is what most people intuitively do to determine a better or worse uber.
The wiki under the "activation" section reads:
With a single patient, an activated charge lasts 8 seconds, draining the meter at a rate of 12.5 points per second. The Medic is free to move his healing beam to another player, which will give the effects of the charge to the new patient, but the total ÜberCharge duration decreases by half a second for every second that another player is being ÜberCharged.
This line, along with the following table are what players tend to use to determine how flash timings work:
https://i.gyazo.com/821e71fa9af0dd09041464daceb5b834.png
Personally I understand this to mean two things:
1. When you flash a player you lose 0.5 seconds of uber from the 8 seconds.
2. This occurs when you flash any player whether they have been ubered already or not.
We reach the conclusion of #2 by extrapolating the table timings.
0 recipients = Solo uber on medic of 8 seconds
1 recipient = Solo uber on one player of 8 seconds.
2 recipients = Both players consistently ubered for 5.33 seconds. If you only flashed once, then the uber length would be 7.5s as only half a second is lost based on the previous line of information. So this means that this timing is for both players to be constantly ubered.
3 recipients = All 3 players consistently ubered for 4 seconds.
etc.
This is how I understood the wiki, but due to it's lack of explanation it is confusing. The wiki does not explicitly state if the recipients are the same people being flashed or not. In other words, does ubering 2 players constantly in 7 flashes result in a same length uber as 3 players in 7 flashes? Is each "recipient" an individual flash? My understanding could be misunderstood and my timings could be off massively by a few seconds every uber.
The wiki also lacks a lot of critical information to actually help players to understand how to flash players. How long is a flash? Does the full duration of a flash need to occur to drain the extra half second of uber? What is a recipient? When does the extra half second of drain occur?
I've sat and done a test of multiple ubers in order to determine the answer to some of these. I classified a "recipient" of the uber to be someone who recieved the uber at any point (ignoring the medic who used uber). I classified a "flash" as a break in the beam. A regular flash waiting for the uber to fade before reflashing (if applicable) and a "quick flash" as an instant re-flash (if applicable).
My data is rough and there are more tests than just these ones but these were all that were recorded. Time is from pressing M2 (bound to timer start) to when I see a 0% on my hud (high possibility of human error):
https://i.gyazo.com/ae2fcdf8251978bddaccff9abf4642c7.png
The top table represents regular flashes. I tried to keep the full flash before rehealing the same person, as in the uber flash had faded before they got ubered again. This resulted in fairly expected results based on the wiki's information of 0.5 seconds of drain per flash.
The second table shows quick flashes. These are ones where I would spam click to get the flash as quick as possible onto the next (or same) person. This became a necessary thing to test as my initial timings were not nearly as consistent as I would have liked, and many results were completely innacurate when testing, which I now know was due to re-flashing too quickly rather than counting errors due to the similarity of results between the two tables.
Based on these results and my testing, I determined that:
1. The wiki timings are likely correct for my understandings of them.
2. A flash is 1 second long (requires further testing) from the moment the heal beam disconnects to the point of vulnerability.
3. If this full second does not occur then less of the 0.5s drain will occur. This is likely linear (e.g. if you reflashed after 0.2s then the uber would only go down by 0.1s total to result in a 7.9s uber) but the exact relationship cannot be stated. In other words, the rate of uber consumption increases upon a flash rather than a chunk of 0.5s being taken from the uber.
4. The increase drain rate occurs at the disconnection of the heal beam. This means that if you uber without a target and then start healing someone it will not reduce the duration of the uber the same as a flash would. This is why a flash must be known as a break in the heal beam rather than the gifting of a player invincibility.
Some examples:
If you consider a flash as to how most of the community does, you will see the problems this causes when counting uber durations. You can notice that a player flashing everyone once but then holding uber on the last individual will have flashed 5 people, 4 times for about 6 seconds of uber duration, whereas another individual flashing 2 players, 4 times between them will also have this duration, if not less due to reflashing the same player, making ubers incredibly deceiving. However, if you ignore the number of people ubered and instead only focus on the breaks in the heal beam, you notice that both teams have 4 breaks in the beam, resulting in an even length uber trade.
This is also important for medics to understand when to back up from an uber. If you take a solo uber and then the person you are solo-ing jumps away 1s before the uber ends, the uber will finish and start to fade within 0.5s shortening the time you thought you had left exactly the same as if you flashed a new player. This also means that any breaks in the beam during a solo decrease the duration of the solo uber. If the player being solo'd at any point was vulnerable, then it would be the same as flashing a brand new player into the uber.
The final point to note is that an uber spam flashed between two individuals 20 times will last the same duration as an uber carefully flashed 5 times to keep both members ubered for the 5.33s time. This is a logical step from point #3 above in which the rate of consumption goes back to normal if the player had the uber flash on them is now in the uber again.
Ubers are difficult to get right, and a team that can use uber trades to their advantage will be head and shoulders above one that can't. For example, if you wanted a solo scout trade into the enemy team, who should the scout shoot and who should the opposing medic flash? If you go too far in to force a flash it is possible your medic will be disconnected and therefore force a flash of their own, resulting in a same length trade, even though you forced a flash. The scout running in should also not be concerned with doing damage towards the end of the enemy uber, as then they will in essence receive a "free" flash as the last 0.5s of ubercharge can be used to flash another teammate for 1s.
A tl:dr provided in first comment.
As a medic main in 6s I have never had a satisfactory answer for this question. People parrot the wiki or they say their own side but none of them felt correct to my own feelings, so I decided to sit and time many ubers to give my own "data-backed" answer since I honestly did not know the answer to the question. and instead relied on the feeling that each flash reduced uber by an equal amount, independant of who got flashed.
Overall the intuitive answers I received from others as well as my own understanding worked well in judging how it worked for clean gameplay purposes. The fading invulnerablity of uber or what most people know as the "flash", being a portion of the uber shared to multiple people so it fades faster is an understood point, and counting how often that happens is what most people intuitively do to determine a better or worse uber.
[url=https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/%C3%9CberCharge]The wiki[/url] under the "activation" section reads:
With a single patient, an activated charge lasts 8 seconds, draining the meter at a rate of 12.5 points per second. The Medic is free to move his healing beam to another player, which will give the effects of the charge to the new patient, but the total ÜberCharge duration decreases by half a second for every second that another player is being ÜberCharged.
This line, along with the following table are what players tend to use to determine how flash timings work: [img]https://i.gyazo.com/821e71fa9af0dd09041464daceb5b834.png[/img]
Personally I understand this to mean two things:
1. When you flash a player you lose 0.5 seconds of uber from the 8 seconds.
2. This occurs when you flash any player whether they have been ubered already or not.
We reach the conclusion of #2 by extrapolating the table timings.
0 recipients = Solo uber on medic of 8 seconds
1 recipient = Solo uber on one player of 8 seconds.
2 recipients = Both players consistently ubered for 5.33 seconds. If you only flashed once, then the uber length would be 7.5s as only half a second is lost based on the previous line of information. So this means that this timing is for both players to be constantly ubered.
3 recipients = All 3 players consistently ubered for 4 seconds.
etc.
This is how I understood the wiki, but due to it's lack of explanation it is confusing. The wiki does not explicitly state if the recipients are the same people being flashed or not. In other words, does ubering 2 players constantly in 7 flashes result in a same length uber as 3 players in 7 flashes? Is each "recipient" an individual flash? My understanding could be misunderstood and my timings could be off massively by a few seconds every uber.
The wiki also lacks a lot of critical information to actually help players to understand [i]how[/i] to flash players. How long is a flash? Does the full duration of a flash need to occur to drain the extra half second of uber? What is a recipient? When does the extra half second of drain occur?
I've sat and done a test of multiple ubers in order to determine the answer to some of these. I classified a "recipient" of the uber to be someone who recieved the uber at any point (ignoring the medic who used uber). I classified a "flash" as a [b]break in the beam[/b]. A regular flash waiting for the uber to fade before reflashing (if applicable) and a "quick flash" as an instant re-flash (if applicable).
My data is rough and there are more tests than just these ones but these were all that were recorded. Time is from pressing M2 (bound to timer start) to when I see a 0% on my hud (high possibility of human error):
[img]https://i.gyazo.com/ae2fcdf8251978bddaccff9abf4642c7.png[/img]
The top table represents regular flashes. I tried to keep the full flash before rehealing the same person, as in the uber flash had faded before they got ubered again. This resulted in fairly expected results based on the wiki's information of 0.5 seconds of drain per flash.
The second table shows quick flashes. These are ones where I would spam click to get the flash as quick as possible onto the next (or same) person. This became a necessary thing to test as my initial timings were not nearly as consistent as I would have liked, and many results were completely innacurate when testing, which I now know was due to re-flashing too quickly rather than counting errors due to the similarity of results between the two tables.
Based on these results and my testing, I determined that:
1. The wiki timings are likely correct for my understandings of them.
2. A flash is 1 second long (requires further testing) from the moment the heal beam disconnects to the point of vulnerability.
3. If this full second does not occur then less of the 0.5s drain will occur. This is likely linear (e.g. if you reflashed after 0.2s then the uber would only go down by 0.1s total to result in a 7.9s uber) but the exact relationship cannot be stated. In other words, the rate of uber consumption increases upon a flash rather than a chunk of 0.5s being taken from the uber.
4. The increase drain rate occurs at the disconnection of the heal beam. This means that if you uber without a target and then start healing someone it will not reduce the duration of the uber the same as a flash would. This is why a flash must be known as a break in the heal beam rather than the gifting of a player invincibility.
Some examples:
If you consider a flash as to how most of the community does, you will see the problems this causes when counting uber durations. You can notice that a player flashing everyone once but then holding uber on the last individual will have flashed 5 people, 4 times for about 6 seconds of uber duration, whereas another individual flashing 2 players, 4 times between them will also have this duration, if not less due to reflashing the same player, making ubers incredibly deceiving. However, if you ignore the number of people ubered and instead only focus on the breaks in the heal beam, you notice that both teams have 4 breaks in the beam, resulting in an even length uber trade.
This is also important for medics to understand when to back up from an uber. If you take a solo uber and then the person you are solo-ing jumps away 1s before the uber ends, the uber will finish and start to fade within 0.5s shortening the time you thought you had left exactly the same as if you flashed a new player. This also means that any breaks in the beam during a solo decrease the duration of the solo uber. If the player being solo'd at any point was vulnerable, then it would be the same as flashing a brand new player into the uber.
The final point to note is that an uber spam flashed between two individuals 20 times will last the same duration as an uber carefully flashed 5 times to keep both members ubered for the 5.33s time. This is a logical step from point #3 above in which the rate of consumption goes back to normal if the player had the uber flash on them is now in the uber again.
Ubers are difficult to get right, and a team that can use uber trades to their advantage will be head and shoulders above one that can't. For example, if you wanted a solo scout trade into the enemy team, who should the scout shoot and who should the opposing medic flash? If you go too far in to force a flash it is possible your medic will be disconnected and therefore force a flash of their own, resulting in a same length trade, even though you forced a flash. The scout running in should also not be concerned with doing damage towards the end of the enemy uber, as then they will in essence receive a "free" flash as the last 0.5s of ubercharge can be used to flash another teammate for 1s.
TL;DR
Ubers are hard to time and flashes are tricky.
Each flash reduces uber by 0.5s
A flash onto a "flashing" player reduces the reduction of uber.
Considering flashes as "a break in the beam" rather than a new player being ubered is important as the same player can be "flashed" during a supposed solo uber.
I guarantee some of these points are why people mis-time trades so often. Something that seems really good isn't as good as it seems.
Let me know any interesting points of discussion, or even if you agree with the data, feel free to time for yourself.
TL;DR
Ubers are hard to time and flashes are tricky.
Each flash reduces uber by 0.5s
A flash onto a "flashing" player reduces the reduction of uber.
Considering flashes as "a break in the beam" rather than a new player being ubered is important as the same player can be "flashed" during a supposed solo uber.
I guarantee some of these points are why people mis-time trades so often. Something that seems really good isn't as good as it seems.
Let me know any interesting points of discussion, or even if you agree with the data, feel free to time for yourself.
[img]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1051767893878124635/1099927327217041448/rome.png[/img]
Wasn't all this already known?
I don't even know where I ready anymore, because this was over a decade ago. If I had to guess it was either Sigma or PYYYOUR who wrote about it.
Über still flickers for exactly 1 second after the charge runs out or the beam connection is broken, and every player with those flickers on them increases über drain rate by half the normal one.
Hence keeping exactly 3 players constantly flashed drains at twice (1 + 2x 0.5) the normal rate and gives you 4 seconds of über, which an extra second of flickering at the end. So the last one runs out after 5 seconds, down from the usual 9, the others slightly sooner, depending on how fast your last round of flashes was. Those last flashes are indeed almost free.
And yes, if you flash a player just once, then never touch them with the beam again, you lose 0.5 seconds of über.
It is known.
But I approve of the testing. You had not good source, set up tests, and your results are, as far as I know, absolutely correct.
Wasn't all this already known?
I don't even know where I ready anymore, because this was over a decade ago. If I had to guess it was either Sigma or PYYYOUR who wrote about it.
Über still flickers for exactly 1 second after the charge runs out or the beam connection is broken, and every player with those flickers on them increases über drain rate by half the normal one.
Hence keeping exactly 3 players constantly flashed drains at twice (1 + 2x 0.5) the normal rate and gives you 4 seconds of über, which an extra second of flickering at the end. So the last one runs out after 5 seconds, down from the usual 9, the others slightly sooner, depending on how fast your last round of flashes was. Those last flashes are indeed almost free.
And yes, if you flash a player just once, then never touch them with the beam again, you lose 0.5 seconds of über.
It is known.
But I approve of the testing. You had not good source, set up tests, and your results are, as far as I know, absolutely correct.
This was written up in a kind of difficult way to read, but the basic takeaway for me is that players who are ubered while not actively being beamed drain the uber at a faster rate. That's why when you beam them, overlapping your "free" uber with the "flash" uber, the drain goes back to normal.
Some gameplay applications:
1. Breaking beam during a solo uber proportionally as bad as flashing, so don't do it lol. Or account for it if u do and leave earlier.
2. The "free" flashes at the end of an uber aren't technically actually free, it's just that the tradeoff (1 second flash for 0.5 off the original uber) goes from a 2x ratio to approaching an infinite value as the uber approaches its end. (flashing x people with y < 1 second of uber remaining will shorten it to y/(1 + 0.5x) while generating x total seconds of flash. Let's say we have 0.25 seconds of uber left and a robotic medic who flashes 4 people in that span. That shortens the original uber to 0.08 seconds and creates 4(!) seconds worth of uber from thin air. Your net uber gain is 4/0.16 = 24x return!
That said, gaining real value from it is easier said than done. It won't matter in even uber trades since both medics have access to this (unless one medic diffs the other? OMG), and if your uber is clearly better to the degree that you can take advantage of this by having your team flood at the last second, it's likely the other team will already know this and back off/scatter enough to where it doesn't really matter. Teams pretty much already run away to reset towards the end of uber trades regardless.
I think the most realistic way I can see this getting value is an aggressive yard to second trade on granary where you flash your entire team in at the last second and count on trading out favorably or forcing the enemy out of the point. Even then, there are complications since the force has to be near instantaneous in order to gain value from forcing flashes.
Also theres no point when u can just run a sniper or something and be way more successful with no risk LOL
edit: wait it might be goated on koth tho
This was written up in a kind of difficult way to read, but the basic takeaway for me is that players who are ubered while not actively being beamed drain the uber at a faster rate. That's why when you beam them, overlapping your "free" uber with the "flash" uber, the drain goes back to normal.
Some gameplay applications:
1. Breaking beam during a solo uber proportionally as bad as flashing, so don't do it lol. Or account for it if u do and leave earlier.
2. The "free" flashes at the end of an uber aren't technically actually free, it's just that the tradeoff (1 second flash for 0.5 off the original uber) goes from a 2x ratio to approaching an infinite value as the uber approaches its end. (flashing x people with y < 1 second of uber remaining will shorten it to y/(1 + 0.5x) while generating x total seconds of flash. Let's say we have 0.25 seconds of uber left and a robotic medic who flashes 4 people in that span. That shortens the original uber to 0.08 seconds and creates 4(!) seconds worth of uber from thin air. Your net uber gain is 4/0.16 = 24x return!
That said, gaining [i]real[/i] value from it is easier said than done. It won't matter in even uber trades since both medics have access to this (unless one medic diffs the other? OMG), and if your uber is clearly better to the degree that you can take advantage of this by having your team flood at the last second, it's likely the other team will already know this and back off/scatter enough to where it doesn't really matter. Teams pretty much already run away to reset towards the end of uber trades regardless.
I think the most realistic way I can see this getting value is an aggressive yard to second trade on granary where you flash your entire team in at the last second and count on trading out favorably or forcing the enemy out of the point. Even then, there are complications since the force has to be near instantaneous in order to gain value from forcing flashes.
Also theres no point when u can just run a sniper or something and be way more successful with no risk LOL
edit: wait it might be goated on koth tho
How you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.
How you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.
SetsulWasn't all this already known?
I don't even know where I ready anymore, because this was over a decade ago. If I had to guess it was either Sigma or PYYYOUR who wrote about it.
What Sigma wrote is actually really good and may make people see it a bit clearer, but it seems no real testing done for their side and it is just known values being used (which could have changed in 10 years but seem not to). https://www.teamfortress.tv/post/47865/details-on-uber-splitting
They considered it a break in the beam as well (which imo is a really nice way to put it). My main points were to understand what the wiki says, see how long a flash actually is by timing it and to test how the flash drains the uber in real time. Sigma stated it to be an increased in rate of consumption (I agree) but some players I would talk to would consider it as a block being taken out of the uber.
The fact they missed data is really important, it means that we don't know what was specifically tested. I decided to do one more test that was actually overlooked and it is whether this "reduction of the increased drain from reflashing a currently flashing player" has a linear decrease in time or not. This would determine if all flashes are equal or if a quick reflash loses less or more uber than expected.
This is incredibly hard to test but after several trials, decided to use the 3 flashes that occur as a player are flickering to determine timings, testing at a reflash on the first, second, and third and after complete faded. If done correctly with a linear reading you would expect each flicker to last 0.33s, so ubers of lengths 7.33, 7.16 and 7s. If it had a curved relationship you would expect ubercharge to last something like 7.4s, 7.1, and 7. or 7.3, 7.2, 7.1.
My results averaging 7.38, 7.15, 7.03 and 6.91 show roughly a linear relationship so all flashes tend to be equal, but it should also be noted that reflashing a player instantly should be counted as a single flash rather than two.
[quote=Setsul]Wasn't all this already known?
I don't even know where I ready anymore, because this was over a decade ago. If I had to guess it was either Sigma or PYYYOUR who wrote about it.
[/quote]
What Sigma wrote is actually really good and may make people see it a bit clearer, but it seems no real testing done for their side and it is just known values being used (which could have changed in 10 years but seem not to). https://www.teamfortress.tv/post/47865/details-on-uber-splitting
They considered it a break in the beam as well (which imo is a really nice way to put it). My main points were to understand what the wiki says, see how long a flash actually is by timing it and to test how the flash drains the uber in real time. Sigma stated it to be an increased in rate of consumption (I agree) but some players I would talk to would consider it as a block being taken out of the uber.
The fact they missed data is really important, it means that we don't know what was specifically tested. I decided to do one more test that was actually overlooked and it is whether this "reduction of the increased drain from reflashing a currently flashing player" has a linear decrease in time or not. This would determine if all flashes are equal or if a quick reflash loses less or more uber than expected.
This is incredibly hard to test but after several trials, decided to use the 3 flashes that occur as a player are flickering to determine timings, testing at a reflash on the first, second, and third and after complete faded. If done correctly with a linear reading you would expect each flicker to last 0.33s, so ubers of lengths 7.33, 7.16 and 7s. If it had a curved relationship you would expect ubercharge to last something like 7.4s, 7.1, and 7. or 7.3, 7.2, 7.1.
My results averaging 7.38, 7.15, 7.03 and 6.91 show roughly a linear relationship so all flashes tend to be equal, but it should also be noted that reflashing a player instantly should be counted as a single flash rather than two.
doughyHow do uber flashes actually work?
idk
[quote=doughy]How do uber flashes actually work?[/quote]
idk
SetsulHow you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.
Your main uber target is getting like 0.2 seconds less of uber man, relax. It’s hardly going to be the difference between life and death for them, especially since this would only be something you do in a trade that you’re already winning. You only benefit from getting more people into the uber if there’s non-ubered people to shoot at with it. In that scenario, if they commit to shooting the guy that you just unflashed, they are also committing to getting nuked by all the people that you just brought into the uber.
[quote=Setsul]How you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.[/quote]
Your main uber target is getting like 0.2 seconds less of uber man, relax. It’s hardly going to be the difference between life and death for them, especially since this would only be something you do in a trade that you’re already winning. You only benefit from getting more people into the uber if there’s non-ubered people to shoot at with it. In that scenario, if they commit to shooting the guy that you just unflashed, they are also committing to getting nuked by all the people that you just brought into the uber.
Hunter_2_0SetsulHow you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.
Your main uber target is getting like 0.2 seconds less of uber man, relax. It’s hardly going to be the difference between life and death for them, especially since this would only be something you do in a trade that you’re already winning. You only benefit from getting more people into the uber if there’s non-ubered people to shoot at with it. In that scenario, if they commit to shooting the guy that you just unflashed, they are also committing to getting nuked by all the people that you just brought into the uber.
Eh, I've seen it.
If you've got two main targets in the über you're not going to be switching between them every 10 milliseconds, you'll try to switch as little as possible, both because a solo über is obviously much better, and because breaking the beam that often would add up.
So if you haven't flashed your secondary target in a while because of that, you need to flash it again before searching for tertiary ones or you might not get that last flash in.
But if you have flashed both primary and secondary and turn away to look for more right as the über runs out, you're not really paying attention to the position that might get you killed after the über.
Basically, don't get greedy. A quick flick to the side to über a second or third target at the end of the über is easily doable and should be done, but spinning in a circle to try and flash everyone can and will go wrong fairly often.
[quote=Hunter_2_0][quote=Setsul]How you picture the end of über flashes in your head: Free über for the whole team.
How it actually goes: You turn to flash the flankers and get surprised by how fast the über drains when it's on 5 people simultaneously. You don't manage to turn back in time, drop both of your main über targets, push's fucked.
Seriously, at the end of your über you flash the second scout or whoever else is coming in for post über cleanup and is within reach, and that's it. You take that, and you're happy with it.
If you can manage two extra flashes, probably because it was a solo über, then great, but don't get greedy.[/quote]
Your main uber target is getting like 0.2 seconds less of uber man, relax. It’s hardly going to be the difference between life and death for them, especially since this would only be something you do in a trade that you’re already winning. You only benefit from getting more people into the uber if there’s non-ubered people to shoot at with it. In that scenario, if they commit to shooting the guy that you just unflashed, they are also committing to getting nuked by all the people that you just brought into the uber.[/quote]
Eh, I've seen it.
If you've got two main targets in the über you're not going to be switching between them every 10 milliseconds, you'll try to switch as little as possible, both because a solo über is obviously much better, and because breaking the beam that often would add up.
So if you haven't flashed your secondary target in a while because of that, you need to flash it again before searching for tertiary ones or you might not get that last flash in.
But if you have flashed both primary and secondary and turn away to look for more right as the über runs out, you're not really paying attention to the position that might get you killed after the über.
Basically, don't get greedy. A quick flick to the side to über a second or third target at the end of the über is easily doable and should be done, but spinning in a circle to try and flash everyone can and will go wrong fairly often.
DoughyConsidering flashes as "a break in the beam" rather than a new player being ubered is important as the same player can be "flashed" during a supposed solo uber.
this is actually pretty huge and not something that i think people really talk about during exchanges, its not uncommon for pocket scouts to rush into exchanges for the best timing possible, but with beam breaking that might end up making it worse than taking a brief moment to avoid the flash
[quote=Doughy]
Considering flashes as "a break in the beam" rather than a new player being ubered is important as the same player can be "flashed" during a supposed solo uber.[/quote]
this is actually pretty huge and not something that i think people really talk about during exchanges, its not uncommon for pocket scouts to rush into exchanges for the best timing possible, but with beam breaking that might end up making it worse than taking a brief moment to avoid the flash