DISCLAIMER

MANY MAY SEE ME AS AN EXPERT ON THE MATTER OF HOLOPILOT AS I AM G20, HOWEVER I AM NOT AN EXPERT DUE TO MY G, I AM AN EXPERT DUE TO THE TIME I HAVE INVESTED INTO HOLOPILOT. I KNOW FAR LESS ABOUT THIS GAME IN GENERAL THAN MANY MORE EXPERIENCED PLAYERS SO IF THEY CORRECT ME ON ANYTHING NOT RELEVANT TO HOLOPILOT PLEASE DEFER TO THEIR JUDGEMENT.

My experience in this community has been limited as I only got the game when it came to steam, in my time I noticed that G20s and others around this bracket are often seen as very experienced players, however I feel that I speak for many of us in saying that we while experienced are far from “gods” at what we do be it kraber or otherwise, of course I do not mean to devalue any players who are in this bracket but if you want someone look up to as truly experienced/ a god or to give you their knowledge of the game, look no further than the G100s as they know far more than most people and in my experience are quite friendly.

To clarify, While I am no G100 or a veteran I am probably one of the closest things to it in regards to holopilot and of the teeny tiny minority of experienced holopilot users I am going to be the person to bite the bullet on this one and try with all my knowledge of holopilot, player psyche and general gameplay gleaned over almost 500 hours in titanfall 2 and many thousands in other shooters, to provide the most informative and comprehensive guide possible for those looking to start playing holopilot or those simply scrabbling for useful tidbits in the cesspool that is made up of the existing so called “guides” for holopilot.

If you are a veteran who uses holopilot please get in contact through origin or steam I would be greatly interested in anything you have to say on the matter!

Intro

I have seen many guides on holopilot on steam, reddit or on youtube the latter of which has by far the most, however none of them cover any techniques other than use your holo in corridors and you might get a kill, few are passable if any, most content relating to holopilot is poorly edited montages filled with new players falling for terrible holos running into walls or more advanced players using a dozen or so clips from thousands of games without explaining themselves and proclaiming to have made holopilot viable. I have spent much of my time in game with holopilot and I think it is high time that I provide an informative and half decent guide on how to use and abuse the best ability in the game.

This guide will focus exclusively on pilot v pilot combat as not much can be done against titans and if you go up against one as a pilot you are pretty much screwed no matter what if they are any good at the game due to the sheer quantity of abilities that a titan has at its disposal to one-shot pilots.

It is widely believed that holopilot is a “meme ability” by those who do not know how to use it correctly, however today I intend to change that. If you attempt to learn the art of holo expect only one thing, your k/d will plummet, but when you overcome this hurdle even the most experienced players will turn into free kills because no one expects someone to use holopilot let alone use it well.

Don’t worry about learning lurchless wall boosts or whatever they are called, your goal should not be to go fast as rushing into any situation and I mean any with holopilot will result in your death no matter how easy the kill should be. Just focus on slide hopping and wall climbs as these will help you the most with anything not just holopilot. You need to be able to do tight moves quickly but moving long distance quickly is not always a good idea as it gives you no time to plan and study your surroundings.

Setting up

The following are required in order to make holopilot reach its peak effectiveness however if you do not have them you will simply need to make up the difference in skill.

The holopilot tactical ability (duh) (mandatory)
Lockdown redline (if you do not own the monarch’s reign camo pack blood tiger is a suitable alternative) (mandatory)
Electric smoke or satchels (based on your play style) (mandatory)
Low profile (optional)
Power cell (mandatory)
Holopilot nova or phase rewind (based on your play style) (mandatory)
Null and void (mandatory)
Female pilot (mandatory) (no reason not to use as its free)
Factory issue camos (mandatory) (use on EVERY weapon)

NEVER and I mean never ever use hover or wall hang, if you are still learning the the movement system these will only slow you down and if you intend to follow this guide you can probably replicate the effects yourself, even kill report is more useful in 100% of scenarios.

Gear explained

Most of the benefits gained from using this specific gear will only help you on rare occasions however it will help make your holos as believable and realistic as possible, this is to say that if you can perform well these will allow you to perform better with no input on your part besides some credits.

Pilot camo
The helmets and suits worn by pilots have lights that glow either red or blue depending on the team they are apart of, the helmet lights are one of the most distinguishing features of each tactical, lockdown redline provides the best coverage near the visor blurring the light and making it seem closer to any other tactical, this is important as if an enemy does not think a pilot is a hologram they are more likely to shoot at it, this camo also helps mask the body shape of your pilot ever so slightly. This camo also draws your enemies attention due to its bright color distracting them from you and your team mates. Blood tiger is a good alternative if you do not own the camo pack for monarch’s reign but if you have the choice pick redline.

Electric smoke
Esmoke allows you to completely control fights especially in 1v1s with some cover, dont be afraid to run through the smoke it does not discriminate but it cant kill you in one pass. This grenade alone has won me many battles and its utility cannot be overstated. I will go further into detail in the quirks section.

Satchels
Satchels allow you to setup traps and bait people into them with your holos, whether it be a complicated hallway puzzle or simply one under a holo’s feet these can do great work. If you put away the detonator by switching to another weapon you can double tap reload to blow the satchels, the detonation takes priority over reloading so if your weapon does not have full ammo you can still blow them just make sure you tap fast enough.

Low profile
I will go into detail in the quirks section.

Power cell
If someone finds the real you you’ll probably be dead before quick regen can have any effect, the other kit 1s have no effects pretaining to holopilot. With power cell you will never not have at least one holo ready, if you do not you are over using them, try to use holos sparingly in any case as too many and the enemy will realise what you are up to.

Holopilot nova
Use this boost if your play style focuses more on illusory techs as 9 holos in reserve can turn the tide of many battles, large groups of players can be overwhelmed by a couple novas, seeing 12 pilots come at you at once is even scarier than 3 and many groups of pilots have been steam rolled with 5 presses of 2 buttons. Normal holos will make newer players panic but novas can make even the most experienced players freak out for just long enough. Remember that holopilot nova CANNOT be activated while on walls.

Phase rewind
Use this boost if your play style focuses more on meta techs, disappearing while a holo is active will trick 100% of opponents no matter how bad the holo deployment is, the worse the better as if using meta techs your opponent will believe the holo is the real you, so once you pop back in from the upside down they’ll be in prime position for an execution method of your choice. This is my single favorite boost despite its less than stellar reputation. Use this if you want to play some real 4D chess with your opponent.

Null and void
I will go into detail in the quirks section.

Female pilot
The female variant for the holopilot looks far closer to either the male or female variants of any tactical other than cloak or awall when compared to the male holopilot. This serves a similar function to the camos as it makes you and by extension your holos look less like holograms enticing enemies to shoot at them. They may be minor but these benefits all add up.

Weapon camos
I will go into detail in the quirks section.

Mindset

^
This is a fairly common misconception as in every guide I have read or watched there has been little or no use of techs, however holopilot actually requires far more use of techs than any other tactical if you want to succeed.

Before begin any match with holopilot you have to understand that you will not perform as well as you would normally and for your first dozen or two you need to focus on learning your own style to trick opponents and putting it into practice rather than getting kills. THIS IS PARAMOUNT YOU MUST LEARN YOUR OWN STYLE BEFORE YOU CAN PUT ANY OF MY TECHS INTO PRACTICE AS SOME MAY NOT WORK FOR YOU.

Strategy is the most essential aspect of holopilot, even if you have no holograms ready reverse psychology can win you many battles.

all you must do is get into your enemies head

The 5 pillars of holopilot

META

Your opponents expectations are the single most exploitable tool you have at your disposal and many techs revolve around its abuse.

KNOWLEDGE

Your opponents movements and your intuition of them are crucial to succeeding, experienced players will often have distinct movement styles and mannerisms, as the player base is quite small at the moment you may run into them often so it is best to try and learn their styles especially if you intend to fight them with such an under-powered ability.

Obscurity

As holopilot is not used by many, many of its quirks are unknown the the vast majority and some are often not taken advantage of by those using it for the first time.

ILLUSION

Hiding while putting yourself in danger at the same time is a constant within the usage of holopilot and you will have to live with this, however whatever you do with this ability must be educated and in reality if executed correctly any real danger you put yourself into will only last for as long as it takes for you to pull the trigger.

POWER

Your choice of weaponry is often overlooked and seen as irrelevant to your tactical, however it is the first and single most important step in setting up your pilot, weapons that kill in one or two shots perform best as the enemy may have time to react to something like a g2, the kraber is my favorite however its is certainly not the best as the bullet trail will lead other enemies to your position, just don’t miss!

The techs

THESE ARE JUST SOME OF THE MOST EFFECTIVE TECHS I CAME UP WITH DURING MY PLAYTIME YOU SHOULD DEVELOP YOUR OWN TECHS BEFORE YOU TRY ANY OF MINE THIS IS A CRUCIAL STEP TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR OWN ABILITIES. A HOLOPILOT HAS TO THINK AND ACT IN THE MOMENT AND TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THEIR SURROUNDINGS THESE TECHNIQUES ONLY WORK IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES, NO EFFECTIVE TECHNIQUE CAN EVER BE REPLICATED AS THEY ARE PERFORMED OUT OF INSTINCT AND NECESSITY THESE ARE JUST FOR FUN!

Its the moment you’ve been waiting for, the techs! In this section I will be covering some of my favorite, most effective and stupidest techs.

Each tech falls into one of two main categories, Meta and illusion, these categories represent the type of tech, what playstyle they work best with and the responses you will face.

Illusion
Hide yourself amongst the decoys or simply use them to blind you opponent by filling up their screen with a sheer mass of holograms. Nothing scares an opponent more than several enemies focused on them at once so try to use this ability around corners or preemptively and then come into their line of sight with your decoys to make it seem like they are fighting a far larger force. Newer players will panic and fire wildly giving you an easy kill, more experienced players may hesitate or fire at one of the decoys briefly before finding the real target, however this time is more than enough to secure a kill and when facing kraber players the time it takes them to chamber a new round is always enough so even if they know which is which the realization will come far to late.

Meta 

DISCLAIMER META TECHS SHOULD NOT BE USED IN PUBS THESE WILL ONLY WORK AGAINST OPPONENTS WHO ALSO UNDERSTAND HOLOPILOT AND KNOW YOU ARE USING IT! PLAYERS IN PUBS ARE TOO BLOOD THIRSTY, IN PRIVATE MATCHES PEOPLE ARE FAR MORE CONSIDERATE AND THINK BEFORE THEY SHOOT ALLOWING THESE TECHS TO FUNCTION TO THEIR FULLEST.
Meta techs are not for the faint of heart, they are for the clinically insane and you will either be deranged enough before you start allowing you to overthink right out of the gate and confuse not only the enemy but yourself. If not you will soon be driven crazy by using these strats as they require so much forethough and planning that it really requires a special kind of psychopath to fully comprehend them in the moment and use whichever is most suitable, however if someone fights back and wins you may want to submit them to a mental institution or you know they got lucky. These work by not only getting into your enemies head but as the name implies understanding their meta knowledge and flipping their assumptions about holopilot to your advantage, if you are using them you will not have to worry about reaction times as either they are in prime position and you have all the time in the world or you are already dead.

Almost all techs can be reversed to work with meta knowledge so I wont go to the bother of re-shooting every one.

Quirks

Holograms and horseshoes

The holopilot has some of the weirdest traits of anything in titanfall 2, if I miss any out which I will pleas inform me in the comments. Lets begin with the easiest shall we?

Holograms do not take any kind of friendly fire from you or your teammates meaning they can sprint through arc grenades and satchels and most importantly THEY DON’T TAKE DAMAGE FROM YOUR ESMOKE use this to suprise your enemies. Holograms DO get sucked into enemy gravstars, holograms will block enemy melees and projectiles but hitscan weapons fire so fast that another round will have hit you before the holopilot dies from absorbing the first. Holograms can only be seen through walls using pulse blades, map hack and sonar pulse have no effect, they will also NOT be locked onto by the smart pistol.

Holograms always start with full health regardless of your health, grunts can damage them approx 33 health per shot I think spectres and stalkers do the same but don’t quote me on that, pilots and titans instant kill them no matter how insignificant the attack. Ai (ticks, sentrys, auto titans, grunts etc…) will all prioitize holos over you even if you activate them in line of sight.

Holograms do not have a patch next to their health, to compensate for this use the Null and void patch as it is blank, however a small black box will still appear next to your health but this is far less noticeable than any other patch in 99% of scenarios. If you are not G10 yet use the default patch and default pilot camo instead of redline or blood tiger, this will trick your enemy into thinking you are new and your holos will be bad allowing you to get away with meta techs in a pub, set the advocate network as active for the cherry on top 😉

Normally holos will have jumpjets like a normal pilot, if the low profile kit is equipped these will also disappear. When holos jump their jumpjets will not fire, as there are no good kits in this slot you might as well use this to add to the grand illusion.

Holograms will always have the default weapon skins no matter what but the main pilot camo will match your own so I suggest using the default camos for weapons as it will be harder for your enemy to determine you from your decoys once they see your kill cam, sidearms are so small that low profile skins on them can be hidden but I wouldn’t bet my life on a little extra style, however the b3 elite skin is close enough to the default that you can use it without detection and maintain full style points.

Holograms will never lose momentum or stop when wallrunning. When a hologram hits a corner while wall running they jump once away from the wall at approx 45 degrees regardless if the corner is inline or not, if you maintain too slow a speed on a wall your decoy will wall hang regardless of if you have the kit equipped or not. When you release a holo in midair it will do a second jump putting itself above you so release them before you double jump if in line of sight so you can match its height when you double jump.

TL;DR

I don’t blame you if you skipped through the part for nerds to get here, if you only read one part of this make it the gear explained section as it thoroughly runs through the best equipment to take with you when starting out. Not all of this guide is super important to read or crucial information but I wrote it all for a reason so I would highly suggest you read it all if you have the time.

TLDR:

learn your own style first above all else

players in pubs are far too thirsty and will fall for literally anything so if you don’t want to figure out techs just shoot a couple holos in different directions you’ll probably get a kill or two

use one shot weapons so your enemy doesn’t have time to react

speed is not good without a plan don’t rush anything when using holopilot

act instinctively and in the moment

no truly effective technique is ever repeated as they are created and forgotten in the same second

last and most importantly…

HAVE FUN!

don’t play holopilot just because you feel you have to if you are getting nowhere just switch off it and comeback another day holopilot is not for everyone

Holopilot grows in strength through meta knowledge, the more people who play holopilot the stronger it gets. As more and more people play holopilot other players will become paraniod and too afraid to go near anything that even resembles a decoy as they are afraid someone is watching… we will be

If you find new techs or things I missed out in your own holopilot adventures please leave them in the comments below!

YOU!

for reading this guide and being a part of this amazing community who are one of the most significant reasons I keep playing this fantastic game, you are also part of the reason I started playing holopilot and if anyone follows this guide you will be part of their journey too!

Thank you all truly.

Links

I will update this with any new guides I make

Here we come to an end for Titanfall® 2 Holopilot Gameplay and Tips hope you enjoy it. If you think we forget something to include or we should make an update to the post let us know via comment, and we will fix it asap! Thanks and have a great day!