Every fan of first person shooters knows what a Duel is - two players are thrown into the arena to fight it out for supremacy, like gladiators in Ancient Rome. The player who has the highest points after a set amount of time wins. There are no teammates here to back you up. You are on your own in this game mode, and victory determines the better Quake Live player.
In Quake Live, you can either play online with a matched opponent with similar skills (they don't work all the time, trust me) or practice against bots. In the online duel servers the time limit is set to 10 minutes and the frag limit is set to 0. If you enter a server where there are more than two players, then you are queued in a waiting line. After each duel, the loser is rotated to the bottom of the queue while the next person in line enters the arena to fight the winner. This process continues.
To get points in a duel, you have to frag your opponents. For each frag you make, you get 1 point, but for each suicide, lava or void death you lost 1 point.
Throughout a duel, your strategy should be to control the map by timing the Red Armor and Mega Health and picking up other essential items and weapons.
The Red Armor (RA) will give you extra 100 armor.
The Yellow Armor (YA) will give you extra 50 armor.
The Green Shards will give you extra 5 armor.
The Mega Health (MH) will give you 100 health, and this can take your health over 100.
The Orange Health Spheres will give you 50 health.
The Yellow Health Spheres will give you 25 health.
The Green Health Spheres will give you 5 health, and this can take your health over 100.
When a duel starts, all the items the map will spawn, so you should get the Red Armor or the Mega Health as soon as you can, whichever is closer to you, and then start timing them. The RA and YA respawn every 25 seconds while the MH respawns every 35 seconds (except in qztourney4 [vertical vengeance] and qztourney6 [almost lost]).
In Quake Live the timer counts down to 0, so to quickly calculate use the subtraction addition method. If you pick up RA/YA at 54 seconds, quickly subtract 30 seconds and then add 5 seconds to find the time of the next respawn. So, 54-30 = 24+5 = 29s. For MH, if you pick it up at 54 seconds, subtract 30 seconds and then a further 5 seconds. So, 54-30 = 24-5 = 19s. Of course, this is a hassle for beginners and could be very troublesome during a duel, but with enough practice, this becomes second nature.
If you miss the timing, then listen well for a sound cue. Every weapon and item has a different sound when picked up. So when you hear the sound of the RA being picked up, quickly calculate the time for the next respawn.
Other sound cues will drastically change your skill level if you employ them right. Listen for enemy movements to learn their location. They make noise when jumping and falling, and if they use a jump pad, that has a particular sound effect too. When they are low on health, they will start screaming when taking damage, so it might be the right time to switch to a more appropriate weapon to finish him off.
In the next section, we will talk about weapon choice.
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