Shining Light; a comprehensive guide to the most controversial class.
The most popular class at lower ranks and the most odified on the forums, the light class has been the unending subject of a great deal of debate. With all the discussion circulating around Lights, there is still a stigma on either end that makes the light class far less valuable than it could be. This post will cover in expansive detail the class role and efficacy in relation to it's available kit.
To begin, we will lay the foundation for our journey of understanding by defining the role. When most people pick light, they are seeking the fast-paced thrill of high damage, high kill count, and the the sound barrier breaking acousticism of "I erm speeeeeed!" The reality of the role though is better understood by its weakest feature. The health pool.
Lights die exceptionally quickly. While their movement lends itself to the concept of high survivability, that is a short lived adrenaline rush, as they are simply not built for extended engagement. If you are using your movement tools to stay in a fight longer, you are actually doing your team and yourself a disservice. Often this also leaves your statue at inopportune positions, forcing your team to win an outnumbered fight in order to get the team back to full strength.
Not only is the light not meant to be in constant combat, it also is not meant to solo engage enemies of any class. No matter who you are fighting as light, your ability to completely melt that health bar is massively amplified by being unnoticed for the full duration of that fight. Flanking and orbiting are crucial to maximizing your efficacy.
Orbiting, or cycling, is when you maintain a distance of about one room from the main engaging force on your team (i.e mediums and heavies, objectives which draw in enemies etc) so that when the fighting starts you can choose an advantageous entry point (flanking- from the side or back) and get in massive damage from out of sight. As an additional benefit, checking between the rooms that surround your holding position allows you to give your teammates helpful insight into enemy positions and potential entry points, ensuring they can also choose advantageous sightlines, choke points, and trap positions.
Knowing this, your rule of thumb should be "If I am seen, I am dead." If you go into this class expecting to be helpful by waltzing around in a COD-esque kill hungry craze like some monster chugging Kyle high on pre-workout hold the workout, I have some bad news for you. This is an objective game. And not like S&D, siege or CS, where slaughtering everything on the map helps you anyways.
To emphasize; you need to stay out of sight and engage distracted enemies. Think of yourself as a turret that can move around and heal. You are either a distraction or cleanup, you are not the main event. Even if you have god-tier aim, if you lack game sense and role respect you will only get so far without having to grind your way slowly up to the top.
With the role well defined, I will now go over some quick use-cases for each gadget and weapon, and how it is used best for the functions I have outlined. I won't go into massive detail, but there is a plethora of YouTube videos by great content creators which should allow you to do any necessary due diligence with your chosen kit.
Cloaking Device & Vanish Bomb - Used to preposition and reposition, Leaving an enemy statue while on low HP, or getting in an ideal spot for an impending flank. Can be used to semi safely orbit.
Evasive Dash, Grappling Hook & Gateway - Used for escape. That's right, ESCAPE. If you waste dash or hook on entry, you run the risk of lengthening your engagement to an unsafe degree. That is not to say never use on entry, just that those cooldowns are much better spent healing from cover than in a hail of bullets.
Breach Charge, Gateway, & Thermbore - Used to create advantageous sightlines to entry points, harass entry through disadvantaged sightlines, and drop objectives and enemies into trap/choke points.
Flash, Glitch, Grav, & Stun - Used to halt & harass enemy engagement or objectives. Best used for a quick mag dump followed by an escape.
Smoke, Sonar, Track, and IRvis - Used while orbiting to provide info to teammates and prevent info gathering and reduce engagement confidence in enemies.
Dagger, Matter, Sword, Shorty & TK - Used to quickly chunk healthbars from behind at close range. Less effective for side flanking, but usable if enemies are heavily engaged with other targets.
93R, V95, & LH1(RD&IS) - Used to chip healthbars at medium range, most effective from a floor or two of height advantage.
M11 & XP54 - Used to chip healthbars at Medium/low range, best used on ground level with your targets for center-of-mass acquisition.
Bow, SR84, and LH1(ACOG) - Used to chunk healthbars at medium/long range. Best used at a significant height advantage and while the enemy is firing/has any mobility disadvantage.
That about covers it. If you are curious about roles in general or the minute to minute minutia of a match, check out these posts here.
And with that, I'll smash the soapbox, and provide potato 🥔