Goldmansbarn
New member
Contents:
1. An introduction and recommendations.
2. The basics of dires.
2.1 The range of dire and misleading animations.
3. Communication.
4. Priority targets.
5. Dire placement.
5.1 A caution on dire recourse.
5.2 Aggressive dires.
5.3 Example 1: Restuss.
5.4 Example 2: Jungle Warfare.
6. The principle of charity.
1. Introduction
This guide turned out significantly longer than I had initially planned and grew rapidly as I felt the need to elaborate and provide a more complete guide to dire. For the more experienced players most of this will be known to you and of little value. The purpose here is to give new and returning bounty hunters a first point of contact for understanding or re-learning the importance and role of dires for bounty hunter in group pvp.
Before I begin, I would like to direct bounty hunters to Sam’s Guide to Successful Bounty Hunting. If you are new or unfamiliar with the profession, this is the first place you should look. You need to be comfortable with the basics of your profession before you can be useful for your group. His guide will run you through abilities, builds, expertise, the player bounty system (PBS), and matchups in 1v1s. I am a firm believer in duelling and bounty hunting to improve your individual skill. You are in the unique position of having access to the PBS, wisely use it as a tool for improvement and it will benefit your group-play in the long run by making you a competent player.
I also recommend that you watch Micshaz’s Hitchhikers Guide to Battlefields. In this video, Micshaz is giving an overview of each profession’s role in battlefields and an understanding of the fundamentals required. This is far greater in scope than what is covered here in my guide as he is looking at team composition, damage outputs, assist calling, and so on. There is crossover between our guides with respect to dire bh. The essential difference is that my guide is specifically aimed at giving a more detailed understanding of dire for bounty hunters. Still, the visual nature of Micshaz’s guide can’t be underestimated and provides a lot of context you won’t get here. I advise that you first read this guide to familiarise and strengthen your understanding of dire before watching Micshaz’s video where you can pay attention to what I have said and what he is saying. In particular, watch his characters movement, the spacing between him and his team, selected targets, and the placement of his traps.
2. The Basics
What is dire?
Dire comes in two forms, dire snare and dire root. The former reduces the movement speed of the player, the latter prevents the player from moving. Neither of these can be broken by snare or root breakers such as with force run or scatter. They are the best crowd control in the game because of this.
This image shows dire snare icon.
This image shows dire root icon.
What is dire recourse?
Dire recourse again comes in two forms, dire snare recourse and dire root recourse. After the dire snare or root expires on your target, they will be given a temporary recourse or immunity to the specific type of dire used. Bounty hunters will usually rotate their dires for this reason, for example, a bounty may hit their opponent with a dire snare and just before that dire snare runs out granting them dire snare recourse, they will drop a dire trap on them meaning that they will be dire rooted. This is to maximise the duration of movement impairment on the target.
This image shows dire snare recourse icon.
This image shows dire root recourse icon.
What is the purpose of dire in group pvp?
Ideally, the purpose of dire is to impair your opponent’s movement in order to secure a kill or ensure survival. In practice, your opponent may survive and you or your team may only be delaying an inevitable death. Often dire roots are going to be combined with AoE damage as the enemy players are unable to move and you can maximise damage output across their group.
Additional information
The 5-piece dire fate set will grant:
A 45% chance to fast-attack on cripple (cool-down reset).
A 50% chance to land a dire snare on cripple.
A 50% chance to land a dire root on your traps (tangle bomb and razor net – any mark).
Timers on dire root/snare and recourse:
12 seconds dire snare duration, 26 seconds recourse (description claims 25 second recourse).
9 seconds dire root duration, 18 second recourse – (description claims 12 second recourse).
2.1 Range and animations
Range on dire snare:
The range of dire snare is the range of cripple which is the range of your weapon. For pistols this will typically be 35m, carbines 50m, and rifles 64m, there are exceptions to these ranges such as with the firestar carbines 55m range and the darksting rifles 25m range. You can further increase the range of pistols by 5m and carbines by 10m by picking up the ‘deadly strikes’ box in your expertise.
Do not go pistol bounty hunter in group pvp, the range loss and/or reduction in damage output is simply not worth it. Carbine can be viable but not ideal, you could go master crafted EE3 and take the 5m reduction in range over rifle or you could go the firestar and compete with rifle range but take a hit in damage output. That said, I highly recommend using a rifle for group pvp, you get the longest range and greatest potential damage output. Further, using a rifle will grant you access to snipershot which is the highest damage ability you have access to as a bh and can provide useful spike damage when it lands and is timed properly.
Range on dire root:
Without trap extension it is slightly over 14m diameter and 7m radius.
For each point in trap extension (2 max), you increase the diameter by 2m and the radius by 1m for a maximum of 18m diameter and 9m radius with two points investment. Is trap extension worth picking up? For most situations in group pvp, I would say yes. However, there are some circumstances where it can be a negative and you will have to play around it.
Do not trust the animation on your traps, they are misleading in at least three ways. The first is that the animation does not properly match the range of your traps. In the first image below, you will see a character clearly outside of the range of the animation and yet that character is dire rooted.
The second image shows a bounty hunter with trap extension. Notice how the gap between the animation and the dire rooted player has increased which indicates that while the area of effect that triggers a dire root increases, the animation does not. This is worth repeating. The animation does not extend, only the range of the trap effect.
Thirdly, while the trap animation is clearly visible it does not mean that anyone who steps into it is going to get hit. The trap works based on ticks, if the effect ticks every 2 seconds, that means there is around a 2 second window of opportunity that someone could run through it. While this isn’t common, it does happen, you’ll notice it mostly against spies using burst of shadows and Jedi using force run. The significant increase in movement speed can, when lucky enough, allow them to run through traps fast enough to avoid a tick, thus, avoiding the effects of the traps. Trap extension can help here as they need to run through more trap range, thus, increasing potential for the tick to apply. A related issue is that you will see the trap animation for a while longer than you can actually proc the trap/dire effect. If the animation lasts 16 seconds and the final tick of your trap is at the 12 second mark, you will see the trap animation for a further 4 seconds and anyone who walks through that animation will not be trapped or dired.
It is worth pointing out that while razor net mark 1 and mark 2 only proc 4 times compared to mark 3’s 6 proc, this does not apply to dire root, each of the marks will tick for 6 dire root proc’s.
3. Communication
Good communication is an important part of success in group pvp. One of the simplest and most important things you can do is communicate your dires to your team. This means that when you land a dire snare or root, you call it, when you miss or fail to land an important dire snare or root, you call it. There may be times when the goal isn’t to land a dire root on an opponent or enemy team, but to ward off an area or to prevent the enemy from coming through a chokepoint, you should also be vocal here and call out when your dires proc and when they do not.
By communicating your dires you set your team up for successful pushes, counter pushes, picking off targets, baiting enemy teams, and recovering when your team is hurting and/or when players need to be res’d. If you are not the shot-caller, then, you are providing important information to the shot-caller such that they can make better judgements about the above circumstances. Dire roots are likely going to be coordinated with officers SFP to lock and nuke enemies down. Co-ordinate and communicate with your team, it’s important. In the screenshot below you will see the fly-text for dire root that can trigger after pressing your traps. You need to keep an eye out for this text when you are pvping and call it out both when you do and do not see it. It is very clear in the below image, but when you factor in other fly-text popping up and animations from abilities, it is not always easy to see. If you miss the text or do not know if dire proc’d, say that you do not know. A good shot caller will treat this as a miss’d proc and react accordingly.
4. Priority targets, who do you dire?
Assist callers will usually call for targets that you should be focussing. However, assist callers aren’t infallible and there are times where you may see something the assist caller does not. In general, the priority targets are medics, officers, and then squishy professions (low defence). This can completely change depending on the context of the fight(s). Sometimes, you just want to dire root/snare enough people so that your team can fall back and recover. Other times, you may want to dire a commando as the enemy team is pushing around a corner and this is their main damage dealer. Applying a dire to this player could separate them from their team and reduce the damage output on their push. Unfortunately, there is no simple and easy answer here, a lot of this comes with experience and who best to dire will depend on the situation.
Nonetheless, the easiest target for you to punish with a dire is an opponent out of position.
What does it mean to be out of position? Usually, this is when an opponent is sufficiently far away from a building or object which they can use for cover and to avoid damage. You can dire this player which will delay the amount of time they need to get back in cover, this provides the opportunity for your team to focus down that player potentially killing them or making their healers waste healing abilities on them. Players can also be out of position when they are separated from their group. A player may be new, snared, lagging, pushed when they shouldn’t, didn’t hear the call to fall back, or whatever reason resulted in separation. This is an out of position player, take advantage, dire them.
Another target you need to keep an eye out for is the enemy bounty hunter(s). Often, they will be leading the charge to get dire roots and snares on your teammates. An early dire snare on a pushing bh can stop that problem in its track and pick your side up a free kill. You can dire snare a bounty hunter but cannot dire root them through prescience. If your dire snare fails, call it. Likewise, remember to prescience enemy bh’s when running through their traps on a push. I would recommend you make key bindings for enemy bounty hunters, especially in battlefields. Simply make a macro by going to your command browser > macro tab > new macro, then, insert /target (name), give the macro a title and bind that macro to a key that you can check regularly for their positioning.
From time to time a medic will panic stasis or stasis and get left behind by their team. This is a priority target in the making. Just before stasis expires you will want to dire snare them which you can land through stasis. You cannot land dire root through stasis, but you can land it with a well-positioned dire as they come out of stasis. It will be best to try and dire snare them first as they are coming out and follow up with a dire trap. If the enemy team is separated enough from their medic and it’s a free kill, don’t worry too much about stacking dire snare and root, just secure it.
5. Dire placement
Dires are for your team’s success, not yours. This can often mean that you are better off sacrificing yourself or putting yourself at risk in order to dire opponents for a potential win or recovery. This is especially true in mass pvp, less so in battlefields as you will always want to move as a team – if you play overly risky or suicide in a battlefield your team may have no way to ensure crowd control on the enemy. You can easily throw here if the team isn’t together on a decision. As a dire bh in group pvp you need to think on a macro level about the impact of using dires in various circumstances and you need to think about player and group movement.
5.1 Dire recourse
Do not give enemy bh’s free recourse by hitting them with cripple simply to increase your damage output. A good bh on the enemy side will take advantage of this and punish you by coordinating with their team for an aggressive push while they cannot be dired. If you do accidentally give a bh recourse or someone on your team does, call it out and focus them until the recourse expires, it’s also worth preparing to back off from your position if required. You should be placing defensive dire traps to try and catch them on a push. Equally as important is staying alert for when you yourself get dired and are given free recourse, this is a mistake worth punishing when you can.
If you are caught out of position and could potentially escape with dire roots but this would give your enemies dire recourse and allow them to push on your allies, don’t do it. Dires are there to protect your team and catch out your opponents, think about the survival of your team first and then yourself. The risk vs reward kind of decision making will come with experience, but there will be clear cases where you are dead and there is nothing that can be done, don’t give your opponent’s free recourse.
5.2 Aggressive dires
It is worth discussing being aggressive as a dire bh and the kinds of pushes that this entails. The ideal scenario for you as a dire bounty hunter is to run in and dire root either the priority targets or as many targets as possible to allow your officers to SFP them. Make yourself difficult to hit by using LoS and not telegraphing your movement. If you run out into the open and directly towards your opponent, you make yourself an easy target. Wait for opportune moments, if the enemy bounty hunter or smuggler give you dire recourse, make sure your team is aware of this as it is a solid opportunity to push on them and land your dires unhindered.
One of the biggest mistakes I see with new bounty hunters in group pvp is using their shields in a reactive instead of proactive way. If you get targeted by a group of 6 dps professions or in world 20+, you are going to drop if you are not careful and don’t have that shield up. Don’t react to the incoming damage, anticipate it. This is important for when you are aggressively pushing into an enemy team as you are going to be the priority target.
Use your dires to separate the enemy team. When you are pushing into a group of enemies, they will often fall back and scatter away from you because they know you are coming for dire roots. Before pushing or as a push is occurring, try and dire snare an opponent(s) and then move past them to drop dire roots in the direction they need to go to re-join their team. You are essentially placing roots between the isolated player and where their team has retreated to in order to prevent them from regrouping. In battlefields this will give your team a numbers advantage to continue pushing on the other faction.
The cloak push. If you have a smuggler in your group, guild or have given them /consent, they can cloak you (make you invisible). Communicate with your smuggler to coordinate this kind of push, you will want to make sure the enemy is not targeting you or the smuggler, so they don’t recognise the move you are about to make. Hit sprint and then get cloaked, you will have the movement increase from sprint whilst invisible. If you get cloaked and then hit sprint, the sprint will decloak you and you will suffer incurable embarrassment. Once cloaked, your aim is to get in amongst the enemy team and dire root them, if roots don’t land, try dire snare a priority target and separate them from the group. Remember, call out your dire procs.
I mentioned earlier that you should create a /target <name> macro and bind it to a key for enemy bh’s. This is incredibly important for avoiding the cloak push tactic happening to you and your team. If you know there is an enemy smuggler and bounty hunter on the opposing side, you need to regularly target the bh to make sure they haven’t been cloaked. In battlefields, if you see that bh get cloaked or are unable to target them, call it, drop traps to cover your teams retreat, and back off from that area until they are visible again. You can try and reveal them with detect camo, but only after or whilst taking the safety precautions just listed. If the enemy bh is cloaked in world, call it and your side can try to detect and start rotating to a position that is defensible (opposite side of the pinch from opponents) even if some of them do get caught by roots.
Here are some important examples of areas that you will need to be familiar with and the relevant trap placements. Try to extrapolate core ideas and practices from these examples as you can then apply them to environments that are not mentioned. This will be important for flashpoints if/when they are released. The same logic that applies to dire placement here will apply to dire placement in similar but unfamiliar territory.
5.3 Example - Restuss
Restuss debris
(refer back to this image for this section)
The image above is currently the most common area for mass pvp. Enemy teams will rotate either clockwise from 1 > 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 or counter-clockwise from 1 > 3 > 2 > 4 > 1 depending on if they are pushing or falling back. The exception to this is usually a move into the medical centre via the ramp which is labelled 5. The yellow line is rarely ever used by either faction in mass pvp, this is because it can be difficult to coordinate groups of players through without people messing up. However, it is used by bounty hunters as it provides multiple useful routes to flank and lay down traps. But do not take from this that you can only use this debris, you can flank in the opposite direction or hug the debris and push straight into your enemy.
Area 1. is called ‘the pinch’ and there are two sides to the pinch, the med centre side which is south in this picture and other side or reb side which is north. People usually use the route through the pinch closest to the number 1 in the picture, very few people use the route to the left of the 1, but if you have trap extension it is worth placing your traps to cover both routes.
Be careful when placing your dire traps here, look at the first image below to see correct dire use and the second for incorrect dire use, you will need to compensate and judge depending on whether or not you have trap extension in your expertise. Dire traps can register through parts of the debris here, you can see in the second image that the animation goes through pieces of debris, if enemy players see this, they will take the opportunity to stand near it and potentially get dire recourse. Traps go through the debris, your specials and auto attacks will not. Keep this in mind when placing traps as you don’t want to give free recourse.
Also, make sure you trap the correct side when your faction is retreating. If your faction is retreating anti-clockwise 3 > 1 > 4, then you will want to place traps on the med centre or south side so that any enemy players running through will be bunched up and dired for a potential counter push (sfp nuke). If you place the traps north of the pinch when rotating in this direction, you will give the enemy free dire recourse whilst they have debris blocking line of sight. In general, you want to dire your opponents on the same side that you have retreated to.
Areas 2. and 3. are what I call ‘the corners’ and others have called ‘the tit’ because of the piece of the starport on the right being tit-like. I prefer talking about corners here because often times you will be pushing or retreating from one of these two corners and it helps to talk about taking or controlling corners. The reason these two areas are contested is because of line of sight, you can use either side the debris to avoid incoming fire so long as you are not in LoS. Again, your dires here need to be placed such that they don’t go through the debris and give the enemy recourse, they should also be placed such that they are going to root someone who is in line of sight of your faction so they can target them and burst them down. If you look at the image below you will see an example of bad trap placement. your traps should generally be further to the right than this.
Area 4. (refer back to first picture in this section) is an area I don’t see many bounty hunters place dires. If your faction is pushing from 3 > 2 and the enemy faction is pushing from 1 > 4 or 4 > 2 such that 4 or 2 will be the contested area. You can flank through the debris, pop out at 4, and place traps on the enemy faction. This will prevent a significant number from retreating back towards 1 and out of LoS.
Finally, area 5. This is usually a move made by a faction that is losing or wants to change the pace of the fight, they will retreat away from the debris rotation, either from 1 > 5 or 4 > 5 and up the ramp. If you hear the call that the enemy is going to ‘med centre’, ‘up the ramp’, ‘third floor’, or something to this effect, it means you as a dire bh should be running towards 5 to drop traps and prevent as much of the enemy from getting into this demolished building as possible. A bh with enough foresight and dire procs on their side can wipe a faction here.
If you are the faction first running into med centre, do not drop traps until you reach third floor or the hallway, you will give free recourse to the enemy.
The med centre
It may be that the enemy was already in the med centre, they managed to get up there successfully, or perhaps you are the faction that is defending med centre and preparing for the enemy to push. As the aggressors, you will gather on second floor, this is the floor after the first ramp, you will gather here and prepare to push to the third floor where you will drop dires on enemies to lock them inside the room (dire access to hallway). As the defenders, you will already be on the third floor and you will be dropping traps near the stairs to dire any enemies that come up the second ramp (hole in the floor) and into the room. See the image below. Do not put dires too close to the ramp itself, you will potentially give recourse to enemy players on the second floor or players on the ramp.
The aggressor/defender relation can switch rapidly in this building. For example, your faction retreated to third floor and you are dropping dires at the stairs preparing for the attacking faction to make a push. However, if the enemy is bunched up at the bottom of the second ramp, the call may be made to push down on top of them, trap them in dires, and aoe/sfp them down. Be aware that this isn’t an uncommon move and you should be prepared to push down to second floor.
The hallway
Sometimes the faction that retreated into or is holding the med centre will move into the back of ‘the hallway’. This is an area that offers a pretty clear defensive advantage due to its tunnel layout. See the image below for a clear example.
The defending faction can fit into the back of the hallway with a bit of space and clear line of sight of the hall. The attacking faction is forced to come around the corner and face the entire defending faction. This is best thought of as a firing range. Essentially, your job as a defending dire bh is to place traps towards the end of the firing range in order to root the attackers and allow your faction to aoe them down. The trap placement here is unlike other areas and I would actually say having no points in trap extension is an advantage for this spot. You can see from the image below that without trap extension you can stick the trap just past the window whilst hugging it and dire players that are in LoS without diring those around the corner.
With trap extension, this area becomes difficult to place traps without giving the enemy free recourse. You might want to consider placing traps closer to your team and further away from the corner. If you’re the only bh and you have trap extension you need to communicate that this is the situation and that if you trap that corner, you will likely give free recourse to the enemy. A move into cubby would be better in this circumstance.
The cubby
As you reach the end of the hallway that is destroyed and open to the city of restuss, if you look down you will see a ledge that leads to the cubby. Make sure you run against the wall such that the ledge is below you and then drop down onto it. Don’t miss it or you will fall to ground level, be separated from your faction, and suffer incurable embarrassment. Once down here you will want to dire the area identified in the picture below.
There is LoS issues here, you can see the players across the pathway, but you are not able to hit them. They have to cross over to your side in order to attack your allies. Having dires ready for them coming over will group them up ready to get aoe’d down. An alternative and more aggressive call can be made here to push out onto the ledge to where they are dropping down and place dires. This needs to be coordinated as a push to catch them out of position or unprepared.
As the aggressor, you will be dropping down and trying to run into the cubby to dire clustered players for a push. Try and time the enemy traps so you can run through them, but in some situations you may just need to pop shield and take the root before suiciding in to trap the enemy side.
5.4 Example - Jungle Warfare (battlefield)
Below is an image of the main building in jungle warfare. This is the location where any fight worth mentioning will occur on the map, if you go into the battlefield, expect to be fighting here and not elsewhere.
You can essentially divide this map into three areas. Outside ground-floor, outside upstairs, and inside. I am not going to cover fighting inside, rarely do fights occur in here and if they do you should be treating them similar to the medical-centre in that you are dealing with choke-points, the key difference is you can be flanked from multiple directions, so keep an eye out for the enemy bounty hunter.
Outside ground-floor
You’ll have to excuse my pathing on this one, but it is accurate enough. The yellow line indicates the routes you can take through the base when flanking as a bh.
1 will bring you out at Imp side shown below, this is labelled imp side because this is the area that imps will hold at the start of the battlefield due to it being the closest side to their spawn.
2 will bring you out at reb side shown below, I’m sure you can guess why I’ve labelled it reb side.
3 is the only other entry/exit available and is displayed underneath. This can be used for flanking around behind the enemy to land dires when they are hovering for cover around the trees or in the reverse direction when the enemy is at rebel side.
If you ever believe that you are being flanked from the inside by an enemy bh you will want to drop traps in front of the doorways such that they are going to run into them. You don’t want to place them inside the building as this will prevent your team from getting a clear line of sight on the bh. Catching your opponent in dires out in the open provides an opportunity to nuke them down and pick up a (hopefully) free kill.
There is a time and place for this kind of flank. The advantage that it offers is mainly due to line of sight, players being unable to see through the building and easily spot you. It also provides line of sight if you have been cloaked and so there is a little bit extra safety in not being detected as targeting an invisible character through the building isn’t going to happen. That said, I do think this kind of flank can be risky and it can backfire if your opponent’s spot you getting cloaked heading into the base and are proactive about punishing it. As you cloak and move into the base, the enemy team can push on your allies from the outside, this can leave you in a position where you are halfway through the base or near the opponent’s side and have to double back on yourself or chase after them from behind as you can’t just walk through the base wall to join the fight. If they time it right, they can essentially be fighting your team with a numbers and crowd control advantage until you catch up. Moving through the base has its risks and you need to be aware of them. The alternative is to stay on the outside of the base and while cloaked flank wide before coming in from the side or behind your opponents for dires. If you don’t have cloak but you have recourse and scatter up, you can try and land a dire snare on a key target, hug the wall and go in for dire roots, careful with your shield and enemy dire roots at corners.
While on the subject of corners, you should be placing defensive dires on corners when enemies are pushing. You are going to have to try and predict the best placement for your traps, in general placing them close to the corner will pick up a few new or overzealous players if you land roots. However, most shot callers will tell players to swing wide on corners to avoid this kind of trap placement. Therefore, there’s a judgement call that needs to be made by you in the moment, do you place them at the corner because you predict players will run into them? Or do you try and place them wide from the corner in hopes that the shot caller has told players to go wide and they are all going to successfully follow that direction? It might sound like you should go for the latter option, but you’d be surprised how many players get caught by corner traps. Keep an eye open for players hugging the building wall heading in the direction of a corner, this can help you judge whether or not it is worth placing them there.
Upstairs
The issue of wide placement vs corner placement isn’t a problem upstairs. In general, you will want to place your traps at corners and bait your opponents to push into them. In the screenshot below you will see a typical situation for diring a player or group, this gives you access to LoS whilst your enemy is stuck out of cover, although if you catch players in a situation like this you will likely be pushing, not taking cover yourself.
Better than this would be to catch your opponents in dire roots at the midpoint between you (and your corner) and their fallback corner. This would leave them out in the open and unable to avoid damage by taking cover (unless you are fighting near the stairs and they move down). However, catching a team in dires at the midpoint isn’t always easy, the animations can be spotted, and teams usually adopt a more defensive corner-by-corner playstyle rather than faceplanting over and over asking to get caught by dires.
Another area I want to touch on is fighting at the stairs themselves. What usually occurs here is that one of the factions will be upstairs holding a corner while their bounty hunter places traps at the inside of the top of the stairs, you can see this in the image below.
This is the maximum range an opponent can be hit by root if you have placed traps up against the wall without trap extension. It’s not ideal, you can see there isn’t the greatest line of sight here. However, rarely does a player hover around making themselves a target trying to catch the edge of a trap, it can happen, a player may test if dires proc’d or not – punish this player and any player that tries to test the traps.
The most common response to this kind of placement is a rush by the team, either hugging the side of the stairs with an officer run to try and get to the corner at the opposite side. You’d be surprised how many people can bypass traps (avoid the tick) here if they are fast enough. The other response is that they may risk the dires, go in aggressive with sfp, and force their way upstairs and onto the upper level. While this area looks like it should be a clear advantage to the side upstairs with them wiping anyone who comes up, it’s not as significant as that and I find that in a lot of cases both teams end up surviving any kind of initial push and rotations around the top side of the building start. As an attacking bh, you should be looking to push up stairs and either fall to the opposite corner with your team or move in for aggressive dires on your opponents if your officers are going in with sfp.
This is another area where having trap extension can be a negative. Trap extension will extend the range of dire roots out 2 tiles from the previous picture, this gives the enemy a bit better cover if they do run up into traps and get caught. If you have trap extension and are placing traps in this area, I would strongly recommend being prepared to commit to a hard push on top of them, you will need to communicate with the team to tell them you have extension and coordinate sfp's.
Further, there is an issue with placing traps too close to the stairs despite obvious barriers, similar to the debris in restuss, traps can ignore some objects and gaps. In the screenshot below you will see a trap going through the railing and catching an opponent on the stairs in dire root. Be cautious with your placement here as you definitely do not want to give recourse in this area. Trap extension will punish your placement harder if you mess up here.
6. The principle of charity
You don’t have a 100% chance of proccing a dire, don’t beat yourself up if the team wipes because you didn’t get a dire and don’t blame your bounty hunters for bad RNG. I’ve been in battlefields where I could count my dire root procs on one hand and was a determining factor in losing. If you are a beginner to pvping in a group as a bounty hunter, you will mess up often, learn from it and move on. This profession is one of the more challenging to play well in group pvp, if not the most. Guides like this will only get you so far, you need the experience and practice.
With that said, good luck.
1. An introduction and recommendations.
2. The basics of dires.
2.1 The range of dire and misleading animations.
3. Communication.
4. Priority targets.
5. Dire placement.
5.1 A caution on dire recourse.
5.2 Aggressive dires.
5.3 Example 1: Restuss.
5.4 Example 2: Jungle Warfare.
6. The principle of charity.
1. Introduction
This guide turned out significantly longer than I had initially planned and grew rapidly as I felt the need to elaborate and provide a more complete guide to dire. For the more experienced players most of this will be known to you and of little value. The purpose here is to give new and returning bounty hunters a first point of contact for understanding or re-learning the importance and role of dires for bounty hunter in group pvp.
Before I begin, I would like to direct bounty hunters to Sam’s Guide to Successful Bounty Hunting. If you are new or unfamiliar with the profession, this is the first place you should look. You need to be comfortable with the basics of your profession before you can be useful for your group. His guide will run you through abilities, builds, expertise, the player bounty system (PBS), and matchups in 1v1s. I am a firm believer in duelling and bounty hunting to improve your individual skill. You are in the unique position of having access to the PBS, wisely use it as a tool for improvement and it will benefit your group-play in the long run by making you a competent player.
I also recommend that you watch Micshaz’s Hitchhikers Guide to Battlefields. In this video, Micshaz is giving an overview of each profession’s role in battlefields and an understanding of the fundamentals required. This is far greater in scope than what is covered here in my guide as he is looking at team composition, damage outputs, assist calling, and so on. There is crossover between our guides with respect to dire bh. The essential difference is that my guide is specifically aimed at giving a more detailed understanding of dire for bounty hunters. Still, the visual nature of Micshaz’s guide can’t be underestimated and provides a lot of context you won’t get here. I advise that you first read this guide to familiarise and strengthen your understanding of dire before watching Micshaz’s video where you can pay attention to what I have said and what he is saying. In particular, watch his characters movement, the spacing between him and his team, selected targets, and the placement of his traps.
2. The Basics
What is dire?
Dire comes in two forms, dire snare and dire root. The former reduces the movement speed of the player, the latter prevents the player from moving. Neither of these can be broken by snare or root breakers such as with force run or scatter. They are the best crowd control in the game because of this.
This image shows dire snare icon.
This image shows dire root icon.
What is dire recourse?
Dire recourse again comes in two forms, dire snare recourse and dire root recourse. After the dire snare or root expires on your target, they will be given a temporary recourse or immunity to the specific type of dire used. Bounty hunters will usually rotate their dires for this reason, for example, a bounty may hit their opponent with a dire snare and just before that dire snare runs out granting them dire snare recourse, they will drop a dire trap on them meaning that they will be dire rooted. This is to maximise the duration of movement impairment on the target.
This image shows dire snare recourse icon.
This image shows dire root recourse icon.
What is the purpose of dire in group pvp?
Ideally, the purpose of dire is to impair your opponent’s movement in order to secure a kill or ensure survival. In practice, your opponent may survive and you or your team may only be delaying an inevitable death. Often dire roots are going to be combined with AoE damage as the enemy players are unable to move and you can maximise damage output across their group.
Additional information
The 5-piece dire fate set will grant:
A 45% chance to fast-attack on cripple (cool-down reset).
A 50% chance to land a dire snare on cripple.
A 50% chance to land a dire root on your traps (tangle bomb and razor net – any mark).
Timers on dire root/snare and recourse:
12 seconds dire snare duration, 26 seconds recourse (description claims 25 second recourse).
9 seconds dire root duration, 18 second recourse – (description claims 12 second recourse).
2.1 Range and animations
Range on dire snare:
The range of dire snare is the range of cripple which is the range of your weapon. For pistols this will typically be 35m, carbines 50m, and rifles 64m, there are exceptions to these ranges such as with the firestar carbines 55m range and the darksting rifles 25m range. You can further increase the range of pistols by 5m and carbines by 10m by picking up the ‘deadly strikes’ box in your expertise.
Do not go pistol bounty hunter in group pvp, the range loss and/or reduction in damage output is simply not worth it. Carbine can be viable but not ideal, you could go master crafted EE3 and take the 5m reduction in range over rifle or you could go the firestar and compete with rifle range but take a hit in damage output. That said, I highly recommend using a rifle for group pvp, you get the longest range and greatest potential damage output. Further, using a rifle will grant you access to snipershot which is the highest damage ability you have access to as a bh and can provide useful spike damage when it lands and is timed properly.
Range on dire root:
Without trap extension it is slightly over 14m diameter and 7m radius.
For each point in trap extension (2 max), you increase the diameter by 2m and the radius by 1m for a maximum of 18m diameter and 9m radius with two points investment. Is trap extension worth picking up? For most situations in group pvp, I would say yes. However, there are some circumstances where it can be a negative and you will have to play around it.
Do not trust the animation on your traps, they are misleading in at least three ways. The first is that the animation does not properly match the range of your traps. In the first image below, you will see a character clearly outside of the range of the animation and yet that character is dire rooted.
The second image shows a bounty hunter with trap extension. Notice how the gap between the animation and the dire rooted player has increased which indicates that while the area of effect that triggers a dire root increases, the animation does not. This is worth repeating. The animation does not extend, only the range of the trap effect.
Thirdly, while the trap animation is clearly visible it does not mean that anyone who steps into it is going to get hit. The trap works based on ticks, if the effect ticks every 2 seconds, that means there is around a 2 second window of opportunity that someone could run through it. While this isn’t common, it does happen, you’ll notice it mostly against spies using burst of shadows and Jedi using force run. The significant increase in movement speed can, when lucky enough, allow them to run through traps fast enough to avoid a tick, thus, avoiding the effects of the traps. Trap extension can help here as they need to run through more trap range, thus, increasing potential for the tick to apply. A related issue is that you will see the trap animation for a while longer than you can actually proc the trap/dire effect. If the animation lasts 16 seconds and the final tick of your trap is at the 12 second mark, you will see the trap animation for a further 4 seconds and anyone who walks through that animation will not be trapped or dired.
It is worth pointing out that while razor net mark 1 and mark 2 only proc 4 times compared to mark 3’s 6 proc, this does not apply to dire root, each of the marks will tick for 6 dire root proc’s.
3. Communication
Good communication is an important part of success in group pvp. One of the simplest and most important things you can do is communicate your dires to your team. This means that when you land a dire snare or root, you call it, when you miss or fail to land an important dire snare or root, you call it. There may be times when the goal isn’t to land a dire root on an opponent or enemy team, but to ward off an area or to prevent the enemy from coming through a chokepoint, you should also be vocal here and call out when your dires proc and when they do not.
By communicating your dires you set your team up for successful pushes, counter pushes, picking off targets, baiting enemy teams, and recovering when your team is hurting and/or when players need to be res’d. If you are not the shot-caller, then, you are providing important information to the shot-caller such that they can make better judgements about the above circumstances. Dire roots are likely going to be coordinated with officers SFP to lock and nuke enemies down. Co-ordinate and communicate with your team, it’s important. In the screenshot below you will see the fly-text for dire root that can trigger after pressing your traps. You need to keep an eye out for this text when you are pvping and call it out both when you do and do not see it. It is very clear in the below image, but when you factor in other fly-text popping up and animations from abilities, it is not always easy to see. If you miss the text or do not know if dire proc’d, say that you do not know. A good shot caller will treat this as a miss’d proc and react accordingly.
4. Priority targets, who do you dire?
Assist callers will usually call for targets that you should be focussing. However, assist callers aren’t infallible and there are times where you may see something the assist caller does not. In general, the priority targets are medics, officers, and then squishy professions (low defence). This can completely change depending on the context of the fight(s). Sometimes, you just want to dire root/snare enough people so that your team can fall back and recover. Other times, you may want to dire a commando as the enemy team is pushing around a corner and this is their main damage dealer. Applying a dire to this player could separate them from their team and reduce the damage output on their push. Unfortunately, there is no simple and easy answer here, a lot of this comes with experience and who best to dire will depend on the situation.
Nonetheless, the easiest target for you to punish with a dire is an opponent out of position.
What does it mean to be out of position? Usually, this is when an opponent is sufficiently far away from a building or object which they can use for cover and to avoid damage. You can dire this player which will delay the amount of time they need to get back in cover, this provides the opportunity for your team to focus down that player potentially killing them or making their healers waste healing abilities on them. Players can also be out of position when they are separated from their group. A player may be new, snared, lagging, pushed when they shouldn’t, didn’t hear the call to fall back, or whatever reason resulted in separation. This is an out of position player, take advantage, dire them.
Another target you need to keep an eye out for is the enemy bounty hunter(s). Often, they will be leading the charge to get dire roots and snares on your teammates. An early dire snare on a pushing bh can stop that problem in its track and pick your side up a free kill. You can dire snare a bounty hunter but cannot dire root them through prescience. If your dire snare fails, call it. Likewise, remember to prescience enemy bh’s when running through their traps on a push. I would recommend you make key bindings for enemy bounty hunters, especially in battlefields. Simply make a macro by going to your command browser > macro tab > new macro, then, insert /target (name), give the macro a title and bind that macro to a key that you can check regularly for their positioning.
From time to time a medic will panic stasis or stasis and get left behind by their team. This is a priority target in the making. Just before stasis expires you will want to dire snare them which you can land through stasis. You cannot land dire root through stasis, but you can land it with a well-positioned dire as they come out of stasis. It will be best to try and dire snare them first as they are coming out and follow up with a dire trap. If the enemy team is separated enough from their medic and it’s a free kill, don’t worry too much about stacking dire snare and root, just secure it.
5. Dire placement
Dires are for your team’s success, not yours. This can often mean that you are better off sacrificing yourself or putting yourself at risk in order to dire opponents for a potential win or recovery. This is especially true in mass pvp, less so in battlefields as you will always want to move as a team – if you play overly risky or suicide in a battlefield your team may have no way to ensure crowd control on the enemy. You can easily throw here if the team isn’t together on a decision. As a dire bh in group pvp you need to think on a macro level about the impact of using dires in various circumstances and you need to think about player and group movement.
5.1 Dire recourse
Do not give enemy bh’s free recourse by hitting them with cripple simply to increase your damage output. A good bh on the enemy side will take advantage of this and punish you by coordinating with their team for an aggressive push while they cannot be dired. If you do accidentally give a bh recourse or someone on your team does, call it out and focus them until the recourse expires, it’s also worth preparing to back off from your position if required. You should be placing defensive dire traps to try and catch them on a push. Equally as important is staying alert for when you yourself get dired and are given free recourse, this is a mistake worth punishing when you can.
If you are caught out of position and could potentially escape with dire roots but this would give your enemies dire recourse and allow them to push on your allies, don’t do it. Dires are there to protect your team and catch out your opponents, think about the survival of your team first and then yourself. The risk vs reward kind of decision making will come with experience, but there will be clear cases where you are dead and there is nothing that can be done, don’t give your opponent’s free recourse.
5.2 Aggressive dires
It is worth discussing being aggressive as a dire bh and the kinds of pushes that this entails. The ideal scenario for you as a dire bounty hunter is to run in and dire root either the priority targets or as many targets as possible to allow your officers to SFP them. Make yourself difficult to hit by using LoS and not telegraphing your movement. If you run out into the open and directly towards your opponent, you make yourself an easy target. Wait for opportune moments, if the enemy bounty hunter or smuggler give you dire recourse, make sure your team is aware of this as it is a solid opportunity to push on them and land your dires unhindered.
One of the biggest mistakes I see with new bounty hunters in group pvp is using their shields in a reactive instead of proactive way. If you get targeted by a group of 6 dps professions or in world 20+, you are going to drop if you are not careful and don’t have that shield up. Don’t react to the incoming damage, anticipate it. This is important for when you are aggressively pushing into an enemy team as you are going to be the priority target.
Use your dires to separate the enemy team. When you are pushing into a group of enemies, they will often fall back and scatter away from you because they know you are coming for dire roots. Before pushing or as a push is occurring, try and dire snare an opponent(s) and then move past them to drop dire roots in the direction they need to go to re-join their team. You are essentially placing roots between the isolated player and where their team has retreated to in order to prevent them from regrouping. In battlefields this will give your team a numbers advantage to continue pushing on the other faction.
The cloak push. If you have a smuggler in your group, guild or have given them /consent, they can cloak you (make you invisible). Communicate with your smuggler to coordinate this kind of push, you will want to make sure the enemy is not targeting you or the smuggler, so they don’t recognise the move you are about to make. Hit sprint and then get cloaked, you will have the movement increase from sprint whilst invisible. If you get cloaked and then hit sprint, the sprint will decloak you and you will suffer incurable embarrassment. Once cloaked, your aim is to get in amongst the enemy team and dire root them, if roots don’t land, try dire snare a priority target and separate them from the group. Remember, call out your dire procs.
I mentioned earlier that you should create a /target <name> macro and bind it to a key for enemy bh’s. This is incredibly important for avoiding the cloak push tactic happening to you and your team. If you know there is an enemy smuggler and bounty hunter on the opposing side, you need to regularly target the bh to make sure they haven’t been cloaked. In battlefields, if you see that bh get cloaked or are unable to target them, call it, drop traps to cover your teams retreat, and back off from that area until they are visible again. You can try and reveal them with detect camo, but only after or whilst taking the safety precautions just listed. If the enemy bh is cloaked in world, call it and your side can try to detect and start rotating to a position that is defensible (opposite side of the pinch from opponents) even if some of them do get caught by roots.
Here are some important examples of areas that you will need to be familiar with and the relevant trap placements. Try to extrapolate core ideas and practices from these examples as you can then apply them to environments that are not mentioned. This will be important for flashpoints if/when they are released. The same logic that applies to dire placement here will apply to dire placement in similar but unfamiliar territory.
5.3 Example - Restuss
Restuss debris
(refer back to this image for this section)
The image above is currently the most common area for mass pvp. Enemy teams will rotate either clockwise from 1 > 4 > 2 > 3 > 1 or counter-clockwise from 1 > 3 > 2 > 4 > 1 depending on if they are pushing or falling back. The exception to this is usually a move into the medical centre via the ramp which is labelled 5. The yellow line is rarely ever used by either faction in mass pvp, this is because it can be difficult to coordinate groups of players through without people messing up. However, it is used by bounty hunters as it provides multiple useful routes to flank and lay down traps. But do not take from this that you can only use this debris, you can flank in the opposite direction or hug the debris and push straight into your enemy.
Area 1. is called ‘the pinch’ and there are two sides to the pinch, the med centre side which is south in this picture and other side or reb side which is north. People usually use the route through the pinch closest to the number 1 in the picture, very few people use the route to the left of the 1, but if you have trap extension it is worth placing your traps to cover both routes.
Be careful when placing your dire traps here, look at the first image below to see correct dire use and the second for incorrect dire use, you will need to compensate and judge depending on whether or not you have trap extension in your expertise. Dire traps can register through parts of the debris here, you can see in the second image that the animation goes through pieces of debris, if enemy players see this, they will take the opportunity to stand near it and potentially get dire recourse. Traps go through the debris, your specials and auto attacks will not. Keep this in mind when placing traps as you don’t want to give free recourse.
Also, make sure you trap the correct side when your faction is retreating. If your faction is retreating anti-clockwise 3 > 1 > 4, then you will want to place traps on the med centre or south side so that any enemy players running through will be bunched up and dired for a potential counter push (sfp nuke). If you place the traps north of the pinch when rotating in this direction, you will give the enemy free dire recourse whilst they have debris blocking line of sight. In general, you want to dire your opponents on the same side that you have retreated to.
Areas 2. and 3. are what I call ‘the corners’ and others have called ‘the tit’ because of the piece of the starport on the right being tit-like. I prefer talking about corners here because often times you will be pushing or retreating from one of these two corners and it helps to talk about taking or controlling corners. The reason these two areas are contested is because of line of sight, you can use either side the debris to avoid incoming fire so long as you are not in LoS. Again, your dires here need to be placed such that they don’t go through the debris and give the enemy recourse, they should also be placed such that they are going to root someone who is in line of sight of your faction so they can target them and burst them down. If you look at the image below you will see an example of bad trap placement. your traps should generally be further to the right than this.
Area 4. (refer back to first picture in this section) is an area I don’t see many bounty hunters place dires. If your faction is pushing from 3 > 2 and the enemy faction is pushing from 1 > 4 or 4 > 2 such that 4 or 2 will be the contested area. You can flank through the debris, pop out at 4, and place traps on the enemy faction. This will prevent a significant number from retreating back towards 1 and out of LoS.
Finally, area 5. This is usually a move made by a faction that is losing or wants to change the pace of the fight, they will retreat away from the debris rotation, either from 1 > 5 or 4 > 5 and up the ramp. If you hear the call that the enemy is going to ‘med centre’, ‘up the ramp’, ‘third floor’, or something to this effect, it means you as a dire bh should be running towards 5 to drop traps and prevent as much of the enemy from getting into this demolished building as possible. A bh with enough foresight and dire procs on their side can wipe a faction here.
If you are the faction first running into med centre, do not drop traps until you reach third floor or the hallway, you will give free recourse to the enemy.
The med centre
It may be that the enemy was already in the med centre, they managed to get up there successfully, or perhaps you are the faction that is defending med centre and preparing for the enemy to push. As the aggressors, you will gather on second floor, this is the floor after the first ramp, you will gather here and prepare to push to the third floor where you will drop dires on enemies to lock them inside the room (dire access to hallway). As the defenders, you will already be on the third floor and you will be dropping traps near the stairs to dire any enemies that come up the second ramp (hole in the floor) and into the room. See the image below. Do not put dires too close to the ramp itself, you will potentially give recourse to enemy players on the second floor or players on the ramp.
The aggressor/defender relation can switch rapidly in this building. For example, your faction retreated to third floor and you are dropping dires at the stairs preparing for the attacking faction to make a push. However, if the enemy is bunched up at the bottom of the second ramp, the call may be made to push down on top of them, trap them in dires, and aoe/sfp them down. Be aware that this isn’t an uncommon move and you should be prepared to push down to second floor.
The hallway
Sometimes the faction that retreated into or is holding the med centre will move into the back of ‘the hallway’. This is an area that offers a pretty clear defensive advantage due to its tunnel layout. See the image below for a clear example.
The defending faction can fit into the back of the hallway with a bit of space and clear line of sight of the hall. The attacking faction is forced to come around the corner and face the entire defending faction. This is best thought of as a firing range. Essentially, your job as a defending dire bh is to place traps towards the end of the firing range in order to root the attackers and allow your faction to aoe them down. The trap placement here is unlike other areas and I would actually say having no points in trap extension is an advantage for this spot. You can see from the image below that without trap extension you can stick the trap just past the window whilst hugging it and dire players that are in LoS without diring those around the corner.
With trap extension, this area becomes difficult to place traps without giving the enemy free recourse. You might want to consider placing traps closer to your team and further away from the corner. If you’re the only bh and you have trap extension you need to communicate that this is the situation and that if you trap that corner, you will likely give free recourse to the enemy. A move into cubby would be better in this circumstance.
The cubby
As you reach the end of the hallway that is destroyed and open to the city of restuss, if you look down you will see a ledge that leads to the cubby. Make sure you run against the wall such that the ledge is below you and then drop down onto it. Don’t miss it or you will fall to ground level, be separated from your faction, and suffer incurable embarrassment. Once down here you will want to dire the area identified in the picture below.
There is LoS issues here, you can see the players across the pathway, but you are not able to hit them. They have to cross over to your side in order to attack your allies. Having dires ready for them coming over will group them up ready to get aoe’d down. An alternative and more aggressive call can be made here to push out onto the ledge to where they are dropping down and place dires. This needs to be coordinated as a push to catch them out of position or unprepared.
As the aggressor, you will be dropping down and trying to run into the cubby to dire clustered players for a push. Try and time the enemy traps so you can run through them, but in some situations you may just need to pop shield and take the root before suiciding in to trap the enemy side.
5.4 Example - Jungle Warfare (battlefield)
Below is an image of the main building in jungle warfare. This is the location where any fight worth mentioning will occur on the map, if you go into the battlefield, expect to be fighting here and not elsewhere.
You can essentially divide this map into three areas. Outside ground-floor, outside upstairs, and inside. I am not going to cover fighting inside, rarely do fights occur in here and if they do you should be treating them similar to the medical-centre in that you are dealing with choke-points, the key difference is you can be flanked from multiple directions, so keep an eye out for the enemy bounty hunter.
Outside ground-floor
You’ll have to excuse my pathing on this one, but it is accurate enough. The yellow line indicates the routes you can take through the base when flanking as a bh.
1 will bring you out at Imp side shown below, this is labelled imp side because this is the area that imps will hold at the start of the battlefield due to it being the closest side to their spawn.
2 will bring you out at reb side shown below, I’m sure you can guess why I’ve labelled it reb side.
3 is the only other entry/exit available and is displayed underneath. This can be used for flanking around behind the enemy to land dires when they are hovering for cover around the trees or in the reverse direction when the enemy is at rebel side.
If you ever believe that you are being flanked from the inside by an enemy bh you will want to drop traps in front of the doorways such that they are going to run into them. You don’t want to place them inside the building as this will prevent your team from getting a clear line of sight on the bh. Catching your opponent in dires out in the open provides an opportunity to nuke them down and pick up a (hopefully) free kill.
There is a time and place for this kind of flank. The advantage that it offers is mainly due to line of sight, players being unable to see through the building and easily spot you. It also provides line of sight if you have been cloaked and so there is a little bit extra safety in not being detected as targeting an invisible character through the building isn’t going to happen. That said, I do think this kind of flank can be risky and it can backfire if your opponent’s spot you getting cloaked heading into the base and are proactive about punishing it. As you cloak and move into the base, the enemy team can push on your allies from the outside, this can leave you in a position where you are halfway through the base or near the opponent’s side and have to double back on yourself or chase after them from behind as you can’t just walk through the base wall to join the fight. If they time it right, they can essentially be fighting your team with a numbers and crowd control advantage until you catch up. Moving through the base has its risks and you need to be aware of them. The alternative is to stay on the outside of the base and while cloaked flank wide before coming in from the side or behind your opponents for dires. If you don’t have cloak but you have recourse and scatter up, you can try and land a dire snare on a key target, hug the wall and go in for dire roots, careful with your shield and enemy dire roots at corners.
While on the subject of corners, you should be placing defensive dires on corners when enemies are pushing. You are going to have to try and predict the best placement for your traps, in general placing them close to the corner will pick up a few new or overzealous players if you land roots. However, most shot callers will tell players to swing wide on corners to avoid this kind of trap placement. Therefore, there’s a judgement call that needs to be made by you in the moment, do you place them at the corner because you predict players will run into them? Or do you try and place them wide from the corner in hopes that the shot caller has told players to go wide and they are all going to successfully follow that direction? It might sound like you should go for the latter option, but you’d be surprised how many players get caught by corner traps. Keep an eye open for players hugging the building wall heading in the direction of a corner, this can help you judge whether or not it is worth placing them there.
Upstairs
The issue of wide placement vs corner placement isn’t a problem upstairs. In general, you will want to place your traps at corners and bait your opponents to push into them. In the screenshot below you will see a typical situation for diring a player or group, this gives you access to LoS whilst your enemy is stuck out of cover, although if you catch players in a situation like this you will likely be pushing, not taking cover yourself.
Better than this would be to catch your opponents in dire roots at the midpoint between you (and your corner) and their fallback corner. This would leave them out in the open and unable to avoid damage by taking cover (unless you are fighting near the stairs and they move down). However, catching a team in dires at the midpoint isn’t always easy, the animations can be spotted, and teams usually adopt a more defensive corner-by-corner playstyle rather than faceplanting over and over asking to get caught by dires.
Another area I want to touch on is fighting at the stairs themselves. What usually occurs here is that one of the factions will be upstairs holding a corner while their bounty hunter places traps at the inside of the top of the stairs, you can see this in the image below.
This is the maximum range an opponent can be hit by root if you have placed traps up against the wall without trap extension. It’s not ideal, you can see there isn’t the greatest line of sight here. However, rarely does a player hover around making themselves a target trying to catch the edge of a trap, it can happen, a player may test if dires proc’d or not – punish this player and any player that tries to test the traps.
The most common response to this kind of placement is a rush by the team, either hugging the side of the stairs with an officer run to try and get to the corner at the opposite side. You’d be surprised how many people can bypass traps (avoid the tick) here if they are fast enough. The other response is that they may risk the dires, go in aggressive with sfp, and force their way upstairs and onto the upper level. While this area looks like it should be a clear advantage to the side upstairs with them wiping anyone who comes up, it’s not as significant as that and I find that in a lot of cases both teams end up surviving any kind of initial push and rotations around the top side of the building start. As an attacking bh, you should be looking to push up stairs and either fall to the opposite corner with your team or move in for aggressive dires on your opponents if your officers are going in with sfp.
This is another area where having trap extension can be a negative. Trap extension will extend the range of dire roots out 2 tiles from the previous picture, this gives the enemy a bit better cover if they do run up into traps and get caught. If you have trap extension and are placing traps in this area, I would strongly recommend being prepared to commit to a hard push on top of them, you will need to communicate with the team to tell them you have extension and coordinate sfp's.
Further, there is an issue with placing traps too close to the stairs despite obvious barriers, similar to the debris in restuss, traps can ignore some objects and gaps. In the screenshot below you will see a trap going through the railing and catching an opponent on the stairs in dire root. Be cautious with your placement here as you definitely do not want to give recourse in this area. Trap extension will punish your placement harder if you mess up here.
6. The principle of charity
You don’t have a 100% chance of proccing a dire, don’t beat yourself up if the team wipes because you didn’t get a dire and don’t blame your bounty hunters for bad RNG. I’ve been in battlefields where I could count my dire root procs on one hand and was a determining factor in losing. If you are a beginner to pvping in a group as a bounty hunter, you will mess up often, learn from it and move on. This profession is one of the more challenging to play well in group pvp, if not the most. Guides like this will only get you so far, you need the experience and practice.
With that said, good luck.