Portal Kombat

The Team
● Groups of players assigned to portals
● Individual players assigned to roles
● Players know their role in defense & their role in
offense
● Shielders know their preferred mod-slots

Example: Groups of 6 players/portal with the roles:

● Defense: 3 Deployers + 2 Shielders + 1 XMP-Attacker

● Attack: 2 Deployers + 3 XMP-Attackers + 1 US-
Attacker
● Get it down! 4 XMP-Attackers + 2 US-Attacker
Background
● Mass-playing puts server
under stress
● Your scanner view may not
show the correct (actual)
status of the portal
All Roles
● Use a PC no later than at ⅓ of XM bar depletion
● Shout “cube” before you take it (to have only one
player at a time not participating)
● Report “green” or “blue” if you see the portal color
changed
● Report when you have no data connection/network
problems/scan failed/GPS out-of-range/… can’t play
● If you can’t do anything (resonators & shields full,
never-ending animations, ...) — Don’t just wait!
○ Go to scanner map view to force-refresh
“scanning local area…”
○ Then try to do an action again
Positioning is important
● As an attacker, try to stand as close to deploying ENL
as possible, they will stand on top of their resonators
and you want to be there too.
● As a deployer, you want to deploy as far away from
the center of the portal as you can, max deploy range
is 40m, depending on device and local GPS stability.
Ideally, team is positioned in two groups
diametrically at an angle around the portal to
attain the maximum distance to the attacking ENL.
Tasks
● Single Task: Bursting continuously or shielding
regardless of greens claiming (accounting for lag).
● Multi Task: Claiming, deploying R8/R7, moving on to
next portal drop R8/R7, bursting when needed.
● Exchanging roles: Depending on inventory and portal
ownership, single-task players may be switched to
firepower, “if you can’t have it, no one will” while
multi-taskers try to burst and then claim.
 Deployer Positioning: Max. Range, on opposite side of your other deployers, don’t stand near ENL-Attacker!

Defense:
Offense:
● Deploy R8, R7, R6, R6… if R8 is available, switch back to
R8. When you get “capture” often stick to deploy. ● Force refresh until you see a gray portal. To do
But: The more deployers on a portal the more often this, tap on the portal and then immediately
use “Forced Refresh Deploying (FRD)”, since the tap into some free space on the scanner map
portal might be fully deployed but you don’t see it. view again before the portal view opens.
To do this: Deploy one resonator, then get back to
● Repeat until it’s shown gray
● Grey portal: Try to deploy
scanner map to get “scanning local area”, then go back
○ If you get an error about the portal
to deploy one resonator.
being an enemy portal, keep hitting
● Ignore messages like “XM object not available”
"Confirm" until either you deploy a
● If you can’t deploy (ongoing animation, portal full), resonator or the "Confirm" button
either disappears
○ Try to deploy a shield
○ Force Refresh (= Go back to scanner map to get
“scanning local area”)
○ Boost recharge and take PC afterwards
Then go back to deploy again
○ Repeat until successful
● Keep deploying even if it’s green (= “Static Deploy”):
○ In deploy screen you may see “Enemy portal”
with the “Confirm” button still available
○ Stay in the deploy screen!
○ Rapidly hit “Confirm” until it catches on and
you may recover the portal or the “Confirm”
button disappears
Shielder Positioning: Does not matter!

● If your job is to switch to Attacker (US) in offense, place yourself on on

top of the portal as a shielder so you can switch to US immediately if
the portal becomes green.

Defense:
● Deploy shields in 2 slots
● Defend a link portal? Use AXAs only!
● If the shields don’t drop out immediately, try to either
○ Deploy R8
○ Go to the main scanner map view to get “scanning local area”
○ Boost recharge, take a cube
Then go back to the mods again.
Attacker (XMP)
Positioning at: Offense:
● ENL-group of deployers ● Burst. As fast as you can.
● Center of the portal ● Shields are heavily used, go for 20%
○ If you have enough Attackers;
between your assigned portals

Defense:
● Continuously burst even when it’s
blue:
Your scanner view may not be up-to-
date. If the portal switches to green, you
may or may not yet see it in your
scanner yet. But it’s important that the
first green resonators are destroyed
before all ENL-players switch to defense.
As a result your deployer-teammate
may be able to immediately recover the
portal by “Keep deploying even if it’s
green” (see “Role: Deployer”)
Attacker (US)
Positioning: Offense:
● At the center of the portal ● Burst US
Collector
● Roams about and collects unclaimed portals that may be gray due to
collateral damage.
Additional hints to get a portal back
● Drop a capsule or a virus on the ground and immediately pick it back
up:
○ ENL may see it and try to pick it up to swipe what they think is an
important gear drop, only to back off the portal and give you a
chance to take the portal back.
● Burst together, unexpectedly:
○ Backing down from the portal and waiting to all burst together will
catch the enemy off-guard and allow you to take back the portal in
seconds. This is a great technique if you are coming in
outnumbered. Continuous burst/deploy battles will just waste
gear.
○ TL should give an order to stop, take cubes, watch until the green
portal is full of resonators and mods (so ENL players can’t do any
action immediately) and then give a signal to start again.
Special tactics to get a portal back
● ENL link portal with strong defense:
○ If positioning allows it, place US attackers on the resonators and
burst together.

● Pre-bursting on ENL flip:

○ ENL may have pre-flipped your portal to blue (for example at 12:
55)
and will flip it back to green (for example at 13:55)

When ENL flips the portal back it takes sometime until their
defenders see the portal green on their scanner.

So if you know their flip-time: Start bursting short time before

the flip (for example at 13:54) so you catch in and destroy it before
their scanners shows it green.