How to be a good sapper

[leow]

How do I get good at the role?

[JV44]

For the most part it's practice. Eventually you'll learn what your team needs and where.
When in doubt ask your teammates and officers what they want. Sometimes officers want to push forward but prefer to be in the safe harbor of emplacements.

[MiSFiT77]

Sapper fail number one. Don't build behind capture points on Conquest maps. Your team will just sit behind your defences and watch the enemy cap the flag and you'll get blamed for it. Build on the flag or better still slightly in front of it.

[VoodooKhan]

Don't waste build points, don't build a large fort behind your lines no one will use...you have to take risks by going to the front line and helping your troops. However, to be really good you have to predict what you can hold and what your can't, where the fighting will be, where to place a canon.

If you know your team is about to lose it tickets, then build a fort at your spawn before you hit zero.

Spikes and little triangle spikes are your friend use them, as well as sand bags dirt mounds.

All else fails, build an explosive and set it off in a house/wall to get enemies killed around it.

[AsuraTheDrunk]

If you build walls/ditches your team will sit behind them and snipe, dont build them way in the back. At the same time, if you build too far forward enemy will just destroy them.
Learning where and when to build is an acquired skill, you'll get better as you play.

Swivel cannons can be absolute game changers, but you entire team is only allowed 2 of them. Place them carefully, an enemy sapper can steal the cannon, which leaves your team down a cannon(thats immune to friendly fire) and they've gained one.
On the other hand stealing an enemy swivel is excellent.

Dont underestimate the defensive power of ditches and sandbags, they're free and offer excellent protection against cannons. Pallisades may be impressive, but they take a long time to build and a magnet for enemy artillery.

[MiSFiT77]

use mostly earthworks, sandbags and the two types of smaller spikes, they cost less. Also look for good forward terrain and link it. So for example the space between a rock and a fallen tree. By filling that space you've made a huge defence but used a small amount of materials. This will give the infantry space to spread out. Bunched up infantry is dead infantry. Don't waste materials building a little fort for the artillery no matter how much they ask you to. Don't build behind something that is clearly a well placed piece of natural cover. I actually saw a sapper build a little fort behind a huge rock the other day. The rock itself provides ample cover, that's why the devs put it there. Build next to it if you must, but not in front or behind it. Giving the Infantry width to spread out a bit can win the game. Don't build a line of sapper defences behind another sappers line of sapper defences. Two layers of Infantry is a good artillery guys wet dream.

On one of the conquest maps there are two farms (one capture flag on each) and a hill with a capture flag. Fortify the hill (if your team takes it) Not the farms. The farms are big buildings with walls, they are already fortified. Build where its most needed, not where its easiest or where it'll look nice.

But also. Whatever you do someone will say you built in the wrong place (Quite often it'll be me, I apologise in advance). Because everyone wants sapper defences on their position. So don't be afraid to ask the guy screaming "build something here" why he wants it there and what it will achieve. If he's got a good reason he'll tell you. If he just wants something to cower behind, he won't have a good reason.

[Jimothy]

Breach, Reduce, Bypass ftw