7 Tips and tricks for beginners to master combat in The Finals Season 3

Our tips and tricks for beginners

Use these pointers to put pressure enemy squads as you improve your skills in-game. Remember that while the best loadout can help, mastering the game’s mechanics is crucial to winning matches. There’s more to these rounds than simply racking up the most kills. You need to focus on the objective of retrieving and depositing credits. Here are our essential tips to survive and thrive in The Finals:

• Your class defines your role in a squad
• Communication is essential to beating other squads
• Use equipment to protect areas and enhance your mobility
• Goo is great for traversal and is weak to fire
• Map awareness is as crucial as destroying terrain and ladders
• Shoot elevator and drawbridge buttons from a distance
• Use barrels with unique effects on the battlefield

Your class defines your role in a squad

The Finals has three classes to pick from: Light, Medium, and Heavy class. These offer different health pools, weapons, and gear that enable wildly different playstyles. While your core objectives remain the same, you can aid your teammates with special gadgets to shift the tide of battle in your favour. This can be done by denying control of an area, healing allies, or spotting foes and knocking them out from afar. This must be determined well before you enter a match. Here are the roles you’ll need to fill based on your class:

• Light: Scout ahead, flank enemies, and use your mobility to distract foes.
• Medium: Pick between a healer, defender, and spotter based on the ability you pick. Their extensive kit also lets them deny areas effectively and sustain some damage.
• Heavy: The toughest of the bunch in terms of health. Focus on explosive tactics that put pressure on enemy teams as your squad supports you. Their shield ability can dictate the flow of firefights.

Communication is essential to beating other squads

While you might end up with random squadmates, keeping voice chat or text comms (in Season 3) active is essential to winning matches. This is because your goal is not to kill as many enemy opponents as possible. Sure, beating a squad before any member respawns will set them back. But your focus should be on retrieving credits with the help of your squad. You should also be aware of their positions if you need to revive them.

While any player can revive allies, the Medium class excels with their defibrillator and Healing Beam combo. Communication also lets you take advantage of each class’s strength and pool in resources to pull off risky plays. While you don’t necessarily have to stick together, being aware of your teammates can help you stay competitive.

Use equipment to protect areas and enhance your mobility

Each class gets access to a unique set of equipment, ranging from weapons to defensive and utility options. While the Pyro grenade might be great at denying access to objectives, the Goo grenade makes for a great positioning tool as you can hide behind it or above it to surprise foes. The same goes for the guns. While only the Light class gets access to the Sniper, all three classes have their share of lethal weapons. The right specializations can also enhance your mobility like the Grappling Hook and Goo Launcher. If you’re on the hunt for XP and Multibucks, the new World Tour mode is worth your time.

Exclusive weapons mean that a mixture of classes might do better than a team of Light or Heavy class troops. Three snipers sound good in theory but if you get flanked, you’ll be moments away from a team wipe. The same goes for three Heavy soldiers who will take ages to reach key objective points.

Goo is great for traversal and is weak to fire

While you can destroy terrain with most explosives, Goo is a unique mechanic that sits on the opposite side of the coin. Place it near debris to clog up entry points or use it as cover when you evade sniper fire. Speaking of fire, Goo can be easily cleared by Pyro grenades and explosives lying around on the map.

This can be used to your advantage. Obscuring an enemy squad’s vision with Goo before dropping a Pyro grenade could deal some serious damage when it catches them off-guard. It’s a powerful tool that you should take seriously. Using Goo at unexpected angles can also give you good camping positions while defending objectives. You can also climb them to surprise enemies who are above you.

Map awareness is as crucial as destroying terrain and ladders

It can take a while to understand how each map works in The Finals. Weather conditions and randomized events like meteors can spice up every run. As for the buildings themselves, you’ll slowly understand their quirks as you play the game. Destroying terrain can block entry points or open new ones. As for ladders, they can be shot and destroyed too. Climbing up and then destroying a ladder grants you a vantage point to snipe enemies.

Remember that destruction can also be used against you. If an existing path no longer exists, you’ll need to get creative to find new solutions. Using Jump Pads and Goo grenades can help you access previously inaccessible locations to flank or outwit the enemy squad. Getting a better understanding of the map can let you plan traps in advance while avoiding enemy traps across game modes.

Shoot elevator and drawbridge buttons from a distance

Elevators and bridges are key traversal mechanics in The Finals. One trick to using them more effectively is shooting at their buttons from afar to speed up your getaway. Pair a rising bridge with the Jump Pad for some insane potential. Remember that explosions can still get in the way of your dream escape. A few seconds can mean the difference between victory and defeat. This is especially true when you barely make it in time to the Cashout Station to deposit your credits.

Use barrels with unique effects on the battlefield

Flammable barrels littered across the map let you cause some destruction without an explosive of your own. Others have different effects like fire, gas, or even Goo canisters can also be found. These, when shot, have a short delay before exploding. Pick them up and throw them to deny enemies a specific area or objective. You can attach explosives to them as well.