You are such a “Kill STEAL”

Greetings Readers,

I have been playing Halo 4 for a little bit now, it’s been a few weeks of gaming and I noticed the same trends that I see in just about every team based FPS, or well any team based game. The concept of getting the last shot, it seems its very rare to have someone say, “I will shoot their shields off, I need you to finish the kill.” This concept is entirely new to some people, when I am solo queuing match making, I always tell my team mates to follow my shots. I become almost Archer like with a DMR or BR shooting off from a long to mid range as my guys charge forward to take out their team as they try to dodge my shots by going into cover. When people listen they appreciate me, this never stops me from getting many kills either, I just so happen to help my team to get kills. What is so wrong with this? Sounds like good planning, correct?

Well the gaming community at large has created a term that makes my profession or preferred way of playing a dying art. “Kill Steal” Once more for the people who never heard of this, “Kill Steal!” For short, “KS”. Used in a sentence, “gosh you are such a kill steal.”

By this point in my life I have learned to let these comments go. Typically when I hear people say this is when their enemy has shot them 3 times and preparing for a 4th and the enemy has only been shot twice. Therefore both of us shoot the bad guy and he dies over my friend. Half the time it’s my shot that lands second and finishes him. Is it fair to be called a kill steal? Would you rather me wait for you to die and then shoot? It gets frustrating but you have to understand many of the people don’t understand the situation they were in, or you were in. When most of your time refuses to talk or doesn’t have a mic, no one understands anything else besides what they see on the battlefield. I see some guy get shot three times and want to save him, or I think my guy could get a kill quicker if I shot the target from afar, and then I realize they had no shield.

Tactics are vital in games like Halo, in CoD the tactics are entirely different but the same thing is sort of going on. If you and a team mate are running together in CoD it’s better to both shoot the enemy, than for one person to shoot the enemy, especially in Core matches when they actually have health so it speeds up the death process. That means 50/50 times your team mate, not you, will get the kill. This is not the end of the world. However back to Halo, tactics are vital. To be a sound competitive team you have to have a team that shoots together. Something I learned from playing with Master Theory, and other well skilled players is, that when you face them you never go 1v1, you always go at least 2v1. Why? Because the them chemistry is at the point that each player is talking and communicating well enough to call out enemies and travel together. A team full of people who want to get kills, will not work together. You will have 3 people go 3 directions looking to get the most kills in the game. That 1 person behind will probably be a defender that is too worried about dieing they hide in the corner with a shot gun, and wait for a enemy to walk through the door. Nothing wrong with that, but there is not a team there. A headless chicken has more coordination than that.

This is merely a suggestion, but I believe the most important player on the team is the person who is providing assists. I am a tad biased, but think about it. A team has four positions. These are:

Main slayer (going for all the kills)
Frenzied ( Aiming for the big weapons like rockets )
Support (Could be a sniper, but typically based on hanging out away from the direct fights)
Objective (Going for the objectives)

A main slayer is vital because without them you have no one for your support to well support. Your support has to be the main slayer now, but since you are passive you won’t see these players push the enemy back, and the team gets cornered. The frenzied keeps the big weapons out of the hands of the enemy which is great. This guy grabs rockets and kills people with them, and aims at groups. This helps weaken the enemy, and scatter the enemy. Objective guys are vital because without them no one is getting the flag. Simple enough. Now support has many roles. This could mean being a sniper or using a long range to mid range weapon to weaken enemies and keep them cornered. When they want to make a move, you have to see them and shoot them so they halt their advance or die. When the objective guy has the flag, this guy is jumping in and guarding the guy with the flag, or is shooting from afar the people that are running towards the flag guy. I can’t imagine how many times I died because I ran in when I saw the flag guy about to die and using my body as meatshield as I fired off a AR at whoever was there, waiting for the mainslayer to finish them off after I died. The support provides kills for the mainslayer and when the frenzied guy is scattering the enemy they are helping pick them off one by one. Support is mister call out. The phrase “2 shots or 1 shot at (this place)” is mastered by support.

The thing I don’t get and want my support friends to not be offended by is when people say “Kill Steal”. It is this phrase that destroys my profession. No one wants to steal, and it is such a downer. I feel like I am the guy who took the last cookie at the bakery when there is a line behind me. Very awkward. So a heads up to my friends who are not support, don’t call people kill stealers, if you see someone steal a kill, then majority of the time they are supporting you and oversupported you. Even if they happen to be looking to literally take kills from you, not trying to support you, it’s ok.

When people look at K/D’s, I think they should look at KA/D’s. Don’t judge a players skill by looking merely at how many kills and deaths they had, look at how many assists they have as well. If the assists are not terrible far behind kills, you are dealing with someone who has really mastered playing the support role. Trust me the team with them should be happy, they are about to win.

– Theo