[The-Phantom]

Things to expect going in. Have the mind set, you are going to be a complete bum on the field and expect to go 0-20 every single game. then when you find that your going like 2-7 you don't feel as bad, and did better then you expected. I know in all sports they tell you to think positive to do positive, but coming into pump this doesn't apply. Also you may know that a lot of people will give you respect for playing pump, these are the people who know a little about the sport. But then there are people who are going to be assholes who don't know shit who will talk down on your pump, pump in general, pump players and the style of pump play. Ignore these idiots, they're basic reasoning is "well you can hit me in 1 shot, it doesn't matter if i can hit it with 15 in the same time" don't listen to these idiots.. your best off not even arguing because they're too dumb to reason with and if you do end up getting shot out, they tend to overshoot if you argued with them earlier that day

Essentially, pump has what i call a learning curve. This is in fact true and i think any one who has ever played semi and changed to pump can attest to this. This is a period of time (especially your first day) You start to learn things that work, things that don't.. what you can do that you've never thought or saw to be possible before can now happen. You see things that are consistantly not working out so you can change either how you do them, or not do them at all and change your strategy completely

First thing you want to learn how to do is take apart and clean your gun (if you get a vsc do this but leave the air system untouched) all you need to do is loosen the front thumb screw and walah, everything slides off and it's fairly basic, get to know how the order of stuff goes and easy way to remember is it's like a surfboard the tail (clamp) on the goes down on the hammer, the spring is obvious it goes in the middle, and the front is round like a surfboard... lol i know it's really really stupid but stupid shit is the best way to remember things i've found. But thats fairly simple and after every day of play you'll want to clean and lube all parts of your "bolt" and 12 gram changer threads. Having a clean marker is vital to accuracy, accuracy is vital being a good pumper

Importance of a clean gun in better detail


Next getting good at shooting. I'd say at least once a week, if your budget allows it, take 1 12gram and 40 paintballs and just go out back and practice shooting, knowing how your gun shoots is important and getting good at aiming is also very important. Good targets are pop cans old masks, balloons, pieces of wood that are light colored and fairly small, old shoe boxes anything. One of my best practice methods is taking dental floss and tying it to a pop tab then hanging the can from a tree, when you hit it, it starts to move, and when you get good enough you can hit it 3 or 4 times in a row while it's moving, and sometimes knock it off the string.

The first 2 tips i gave you are far and most important, and I disagree with any one who says otherwise. If you can shoot accurate as hell at 150 feet to the point where you can hit a pop can 20 for 20, i don't care what you do on the field your going to be good, you can stand out in the open looking around and dropping who ever you see.

Next most important thing to a pumper is Snap shooting. This is kind of a 2 step thing... but the first step is

Learn how to shoot with both hands!!!!! If your snap shooting out the right of your bunker you can't be pumping with your right hand, if you do this, even if your accurate your making yourself a very easy target for any one who can shoot. It is so crucial to snap shooting that your pump arm is on the "in"side of the bunker and the shooting hand is on the outside. Also with your shooting hand, make sure that you don't develop a bad habbit some pumpers call the chicken wing... this is when you have your elbow cocked out in the shape of a boomerang like it's in a cast. You need to have your shooting arm tight to your body, your elbow needs to be tucked into your ribs and your hand firmly wrapped around the handle of the marker so nothing is flailing out to be shot.

When you get your stance and form correct a good way to practice is to look at a mirror and see how much is hanging out and where it's hanging out, and fix it then snap in and out... your body should not move below your waist, and you don't need to come back a few feet into your bunker, you only need to come 1 or so inches back into your bunker just enough to be 100% behind cover... this is hard to explain in text so thank pro pump ballers and youtube for this vid


coming from the mouth of a long time pump player and a pro pump veteran then it's what you need to be doing

i just want to end this up saying, when you get good at snap shooting, be unpredictable.. the beauty of pump is it's so unique and so effective you only do need that 1 ball, so unlike semis you don't need to become predictable when snap shooting because hopefully in each snap you'll either hit the person, or come so close they need to go to cover. So even if you don't hit them on the first time, don't get in a rhythm of going snap right shoot, repeat every 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 seconds some people are very specific just by muscle memory i play with and after 2 shots that day i get them timed up and shoot before they pop out knowing what side and when there gonna come out. You should be going left, right, left, left, right, left, right, right, right, right, left, right, right, left, left, left etc... it should be crazy no reason behind it unpredictable un-timed just do it unless of course there is an enemy on the player your shooting at's team aimed and pouring paint on a side, but even if there just aimed at you if your random 3 people can be looking at you, and when you snap and shoot and get back in you can hit one of them and get back in and wait as 10 balls miss by a few seconds, i've actually done this in a 4 on 1 as a drill and i got all 4 of them, because i have got great form and un-time-able snaps. ^This is crucial to becoming "great"

While this may not hurt you sometime and won't always get you killed, try to avoid getting "Tunnel vision" this is when you are over focused on 1 target and then don't notice other things moving around you, or cause you not to move. In turn, always keep your eyes moving, knowing what's going on while pumping is 50 times more important in pump then in semi because in pump 1 slip up and you can't go back to the wall and fire your way out, you need to think about every shot and what it may do in accordance to the people around you

You have a few choices when it comes to movement, you can either out move the opponent, or have little to no movement in the whole game. Each has it's place. By out moving i don't necessarily mean move more... It means move smarter and faster. Your gonna be light with the light gun and light pack, so you can out maneuver people, so when you can if you feel a fire fight is going no where, or there has been no engagement yet, but you can get a better angle on some one, DO IT and try and avoid getting shot. If you have a good spot and can catch an opponent off guard, or in an area where you have many angles and they don't it's almost too easy, this is where pumping comes together and is easy, if you position yourself right and get a good angle where they have limited cover it feels like the semi player is at a disadvantage lol.

Then again some times not moving at all can work, although not as well it does have it's place. I picked this part of my game/style up while practicing longballing in game and when my buddy wanted to try my pod pack out when he got his phantom (he only used it twice lol now he shoots his a-5 but won't sell his phantom cuz he loves target shooting... go figure, rich people..) So i let him borrow my pack and all i brought to the field was my gun, 3 12 grams an empty 10 round tube, no cap and a fresh bag of 500 paintballs. The game started i went to a tree that is like the natural uber bunker. It was a 3 foot deep hole that's 2 feet wide with a 2 foot tree at the top of the hole and the roots made a barricade around it. So for the majority of that game i longballed, and just scooped paint out of my bag and reloaded like that, but towards the end of the game it was 2 on 1 and i stayed in my tree the whole time and took out both enemies because they got anxious and wanted to move up but when they tried i plugged them. so if your a decent longballer and patient you can dominate without moving at all

The not moving part leads me to my next point/tip. Practice reloading, with what ever set up it may be that you use, if it's a 50 round hopper and you reload with 12 round tubes, or 50 round pods etc... If you shoot a VSC gun, take 2 empty 12 grams, and 2 empty 10 round tubes and just practice pulling them from you belt, changing them, and throwing the 10 round tube where ever, your dumb pouch back in your belt, off to the side where the nets at, on the ground... what ever you do just be consistent and do the same thing every time, if you do it enough it become muscle memory and you begin to be able to do the whole reloading process with out having to look down, in turn you can keep your eyes up and watch the field for any movement, so you can help communicate to your team.

And now this last tip is more for paintball in general, doesn't just apply to pump. Make sure that you communicate, it is your job, as well as your teams. If you talk or yell out where the other guys are not only is it going to help your team mates know where they are too shoot them out, but what lanes to avoid etc, and also it makes the guy IN THE !BACK RIGHT DORRITO! uncomfortable because he heard you, and now he knows every one on your team now knows where he's at... and for some inexperienced players that's all it takes to fluster them and make them move so you or your team can shoot them out. It's not your team mates job to make you communicate, you should step up and take the initiative to talk/YELL it out, let every one know whats going on at all times, and if your team wasn't talking/YELLING before some times seeing you do it will make them start so that you can work together as a TEAM, not just a bunch of individuals fending for yourselves. The only time it's not great to yell or talk to your team is in certain spots in woodsball/scenario when your close to some one who doesn't know your location, so if they move get the proper angle and shoot them out, don't shout "HEY GUYS HE JUST MOVED FROM x BUNKER TO y BUNKER" if those bunkers happen to be 15 feet away from you and he has no idea that your there. Other then situations like those, it is almost ALWAYS a good thing to keep good communication with your team, on where the other team is moving, on who's in and who's out, where you need cover fire etc. The mask muffles a lot of sound so speak loud and clear let your team know whats happening and you will start to become better as a group

i gave you a lot of my best tips and you can always refer to these your whole pump career, and i guarantee 100% I'd bet any amount of money on it, as the skills i mentioned get better you will dramatically become a much better player

feel free to add any tips i didn't mention, but don't repeat things i have already said, i don't mind your agreeing or disagreeing with me, but don't come in and say something that i already mentioned because you didn't read the original post


Note speedball Tactics For Pump Can be found Below In my 2nd Post!!

This post has been edited by The-Phantom: 11 December 2011 - 06:38 PM

[Cream Puff]

nice job

[GoldieCurls]

Yeah, very nice.

Detailed, good info... nice job

[rogalxxx]

would you mind if I translated it to polish and posted it at www.pump-action.pl ?

[The-Phantom]

That's 100% okay with me as long as you site me by name

Brett Goudy

For a great woodsball guide that Tribbs wrote up also check out the link below!

Tribbs woodsball pump tips (CLICK ME!)

SpeedBall Tactics
The first and most important thing in speedball to me, is the break. You need to have what your going to do thought up and let your team know before the game.

Are you gonna come off the break shooting, (with a pump, i'd say no... not more then 1, that's asking to get dropped early and leave your team down a man)

First choice, left, right or center. Now this seems very minor, but in fact depending on how well you've worked on your snap shooting you can help your team do much better. Because if your able to pump off handed and snap shoot tight out of both sides of the bunker, you can go in my case center or left (weak side) and allow your other players who are only good at snapping right and playing the right side of the field In the position they can be most successful.

Now, as a pumper where do i go? am i a sniper, should i stay in the very back and longball? should i bum rush the front? what do i do? Personally i think you can do anything you want, minus the very back row of bunkers, back right and back left standups, dorritos or what have you are for your back players who are gonna be firing for the whole entire game, from the break til the end horn. So stay away from the farthest back bunkers. Now the rest of the field, is open for a pumper to do amazing things

The following is how i recommend playing a few common bunkers

Standup (dorito, can, tombstone etc) basic tall bunker in the center i recommend you play the side of the field you have less people on, so you can see more that your team may not be able to see. This is a good bunker to either make a move up, or let team mates know when/where they can move. You may have trouble shooting some one out if from here because these are normally back mid bunkers, so a good player can dodge a paintball coming from that far away, against rec ballers and D4 and lower if your good at aiming you can actually be pretty deadly from these, you have a nice comfortable shooting position, and your standing so you have a good angle on the snake, if your get lucky or they're playing bad you can drop balls in on them. Be careful when you move from here you don't come out standing straight up and down or you are a huge target. I tend to run in a gears of war sprint type run, low and pretty fast, good position to slide on your chest from.

On the outside, these bunkers should be played to the tape side every single time. The single most dangerous player can be a good snake player if they aren't given some attention. It's fairly often that the person in front of you will have a fire fight with them, and if they lose, the snake player will generally try and move up shortly after then look across the field, this is a great time to either shoot them on the move up if you have a good shot, or make a bunker run. An important topic a lot of pumpers aren't experienced in is bunkering. How much do i shoot them, where do i aim what do i do? Personally i never shoot just one ball, i used to but bounces are a very lame way to lose an elimination and you can get spun on or shot out by another member of the opposing team. Personally i go 2-3 shots in the back, if pack shots count i go two in the back one on the pack, to make 100% sure for a break. Any more then 3 is a dick move in my opinion, and 1 shot is risky. Now how do you go about the bunker run? Personally if i know they're shooting in field i don't fire on the run and i just get there as fast as possible and give them no warning... but if you hear there teammate yell BUNKER COMING BUNKER BUNKER!!! you should put 1 or 2 shots just to the side they can pop out, because most people will pop to the outside, not out the top of their bunker, so you may hit them before they get a chance to shoot or keep there head down and get them and go 1 for one.. and thats never too bad if theres decent numbers.

Mini Bunkers (Box's, dorritos, anything about 3' tall 1.5/2ft wide) Personally these are my favorite bunkers, especially the box. There is so many good uses for them, my personal favorite is you can shoot out 3 sides. And i know all the big tourny guys will say no one shoots out the top thats a death wish etc etc... Well if you do it every time, yeah your gonna eat paint in the face all day. But if your a quick snap shooter and you stay tight, after you are sending them wizzing by their heads snapping left and right when they come out and try and lay a rope you can snap up really quick and get the kill 85% of the time if you get a good shot off. They are usually so focused on walking the trigger they don;t even react fast enough when they see you pop out of the top, and you can get a lot of eliminations doing this, i do it way too often, i love it when i hear paint pounding on the side of my bunker. But now some people who play with me pound paint on the top of my bunker because they know my ways, so you just gotta be aware and all it takes is 1 good snap shot out of 4 or 5 to take some one out

The Snake Oh the infamous favorite bunker of many pumpers and semis alike around the world... This is hands down my favorite bunker to be in and i go for it every single game, this spot is MONEY! This is a position where firepower is well, not needed... you are rarely ever shooting more then a few balls even using a fast electro semi. This spot is all about quick, well placed one ball shots! Want to be a pumper who gets a ton of one shot eliminations, well sorry your still not a sniper, but this is the place to be! Using the low profile of a pump (mainly stock class guns) your snap shooting can expose such a little profile, if you work on snap shooting and can get to the snake consistently with out being eliminated you will be able to compete with some of the best of them.. People over look a pump in the snake all the time and i can't even tell you how many times i've gotten people out who are just exposed to me in fear of my team mate while i can snap at them with ease and eliminate them! Basically, like i said in the OP be unpredictable... make sure you check the tape because you can never trust your back players to cover you all the time and people will try and bunker you, which if your active you can stop them dead in their tracks and get an easy elimination, or at worst get them out while exposing yourself to their team momentarily risking getting out by some one else on their team but getting the person running at you out.. win win to me, if their team slips up, you can get the elimination and stay in, if they don't you get out but you still eliminated one of them... a fair 1 for 1 i can take that any day

this is an open ended one, their are plenty of speedball experts on their with millions of techniques and strategies on how to play this bunker and you can feel free to post here, or people feel free to check out there videos and threads all around the web, i am not the best out there i'm just saying what i do and what works well for me


Now those were just a few of many bunkers, with small tips, but whats that have to do with pump? hows that any different then semi? well the difference is in how you use it... I think the best way to be successful in speedball as a pumper is to get as far up the field you as you can with out being eliminated... now how do you do that? You can't walk the trigger and pin heads down, so you have to move fast and smart, and use a "one shot lead" any person you suspect has the best shot at you, lay a shot where they last popped out and make your move as fast as possible to a better position. I like to get as far up the field as possible and try and out snap shoot the other players. A lot of semi players at the rec ball and low divisional playing levels aren't amazing with there form, they can all walk the trigger, but they leave there hopper, elbows, hands, legs and just a lot out for you to shoot at, and at that close when the ball is going 200 mph, no one is gonna dodge a paintball if you time your shot right.

My game strategy is to usually go left, to help my righties out, use the light weight and low profile of the stock class gun to be as tight as possible, and be able to make really big slides, not worrying about hoppers flying off, or anything like that, and you can snap shoot oh so tight. always remember to pump before your out to shoot, and when you snap back in don't come way back in to the bunker, just come back far enough into the bunker where your no longer exposed, and have enough cover just to pump, and wait till you can come back out quicky and take a well aimed shot. And when you reload, just drop your tubes, there easy to find, and it takes way to long to put um back in the belt in speedball, in that time some one could have rushed all the way to your bunker and have you eliminated.

The last thing, and i know this was semi short, and some stuff is repeated, but you have to communicate. Every one is different, but you have to be loud, and clear and make sure between games you get eachothers calls down. I'm pretty simple, i go with center is the 50, then common names of bunkers. example "ONE IN THE LEFT FIFTY SNAKE!" or carwash, or rollie, just say the side, where about the field there at, and what side, if you team knows where they are then it allows them to not be shot out by some one they didn't see, so if they were going to make a certain move they might not make it now, or they can call for cover on that bunker. Also if your team mate is going to get bunkered you have to let him know, i have seen so many people get lit up for no reason in the snake, they look inside for a second and have 15 balls on there back because their team mate didn't call it out, it's simple "BUNKER COMING TAPESIDE SNAKE!" whatever you have to say, let them atleast have a chance, because if they have a second they can get some shots off, and either eliminate them, or atleast have a chance to, instead of just a free loss of player.

This post has been edited by The-Phantom: 19 May 2010 - 11:02 PM

[Moxie]

Awesome, I better copy-paste and save it for reference later

I'm new to pump and haven't played a game with my Phantom yet, but I remember hearing an "advanced technique" where you disengage a 12 Gram enough to make it hiss but then re-engage it, and the sound will alert opponent players that you are reloading, but since you re-engaged it you can pop out and surprise them as they come up to you thinking you are empty.

[Lewthor]

That may or may not work. In pump only games that would probably work best. In open play with everyone plunking away with their hose cannons few if anyone would notice let alone know what that noise usually means. It is a fun trick tho

[Tweaker]

thanks for the tips man, this was a really well made guide.

[Freedumb]

Agreed,good thread.

[fenderplayer007]

wow i needed a thread like this cause i want a pump gun and didnt know much either lol

[JohnWayne]

Great thread phantom, there's a lot of great info there!

[Newman513]

I think I am one of the few who read the entire thing... great tips, should be stickied or maybe combined with UNIMoose's

[The-Phantom]

Thanks for all the positive feed back guys, feel free to add any tips/tricks that have helped you over the years

[Newman513]

I just noticed that this just got revived... hmmm.

As for tips and tricks, you seemed to mention most of them but one that I am pretty sure you missed is go as far up on the break as you can.
This is especially important in a woods game where most people take their time.
But don't go so far up that you are caught alone.

Sorry if that was mentioned, I read this last night.

[chewiestmonkey]

that was a really good read!

[Lewthor]

I vote this for a sticky!

[Nategotskillz]

I second the sticky! It should go in with Unimoose.

[cal0925]

sticky

[pwnasaurus]

sticky

[The-Phantom]

Newman513, on Jul 5 2009, 07:17 PM, said:

I just noticed that this just got revived... hmmm.

As for tips and tricks, you seemed to mention most of them but one that I am pretty sure you missed is go as far up on the break as you can.
This is especially important in a woods game where most people take their time.
But don't go so far up that you are caught alone.

Sorry if that was mentioned, I read this last night.

wasn't mentioned but thats a very good tip... i always do it and never really thought about mentioning it... but yeah this works well unless you get caught up behind enemy lines