Sep 01, 2009, 01:29 AM
Tarquin,
There are a number of things that make racking up pub kills a lot easier. Inferiority in your opponents is a big one. Being a demo, soldier, or heavy with a medic, preferable a kritz medic is the easiest. There are more people to shoot at when kritzed thus more kills. It's impossible to push a conservative combo while they're building kritz or uber because they have 14 people and more than likely numerous sentries to retreat to. Being a great pub player is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your name is known, you get pocketed more you get more ubers and kritzes and are topping the scoreboard because of it. Likewise, you can have a lot of extremely talented non-heavy class players who simply dont frag or play well due to conditions.
I'm not saying that the better pubbers don't have any skill. Of course, good aim, awareness and movement will all help but in pubs that's only a tiny piece of the pie. Only bare minimum of these skills is required for pubs. When you're playing competitively, when one or two people down is often the loss of a point and possibly a match and your opponents are just as talented as you are, if not more, then it's a much bigger deal and it requires a greater skillset.
Great pubbers are still good players, but that's all; simply good. They can definitely make the transition too. My team is mostly SourceOPians. LpG are from SOP Gold Rush as well as Evil. But you can't transition from being a great pubber to a great comp player right away. As soon as you step into competition you realize how great of a skill gap there really is and how far you need to go. Pubstars are just big fish in a little pond. Put them in a bigger pond with bigger fish and they're the ones getting chomped on.
tl;dr A comp player will always have more raw skill than a straight up pubber because he's better conditioned and held to a higher standard.
There are a number of things that make racking up pub kills a lot easier. Inferiority in your opponents is a big one. Being a demo, soldier, or heavy with a medic, preferable a kritz medic is the easiest. There are more people to shoot at when kritzed thus more kills. It's impossible to push a conservative combo while they're building kritz or uber because they have 14 people and more than likely numerous sentries to retreat to. Being a great pub player is also a self-fulfilling prophecy. If your name is known, you get pocketed more you get more ubers and kritzes and are topping the scoreboard because of it. Likewise, you can have a lot of extremely talented non-heavy class players who simply dont frag or play well due to conditions.
I'm not saying that the better pubbers don't have any skill. Of course, good aim, awareness and movement will all help but in pubs that's only a tiny piece of the pie. Only bare minimum of these skills is required for pubs. When you're playing competitively, when one or two people down is often the loss of a point and possibly a match and your opponents are just as talented as you are, if not more, then it's a much bigger deal and it requires a greater skillset.
Great pubbers are still good players, but that's all; simply good. They can definitely make the transition too. My team is mostly SourceOPians. LpG are from SOP Gold Rush as well as Evil. But you can't transition from being a great pubber to a great comp player right away. As soon as you step into competition you realize how great of a skill gap there really is and how far you need to go. Pubstars are just big fish in a little pond. Put them in a bigger pond with bigger fish and they're the ones getting chomped on.
tl;dr A comp player will always have more raw skill than a straight up pubber because he's better conditioned and held to a higher standard.