While a lot can be achieved acting alone, Gundam is a 2-on-2 team game where much of the outcome relies on your ability to cooperate with your partner. While absorbing previous sections is enough to fend for yourself in battle, making strategic errors will ultimately render much of your individual success futile.
In a previous section we briefly referred to "front" and "back" suits when covering the cost system. To elaborate, this dynamic emerges as a result of several interconnected strategy concepts which will be covered in this section.
To begin with, the higher cost suits perform better: more boost, more mobility, and better movesets. It makes sense that they should be in the action to capitalize on those perks. Lower cost suits typically struggle when put in the same position, especially if they're being focused by both players.
If both suits are equally active, the natural outcome is that they will take damage equally. However, if both suits take damage at equal rates, many problems can occur...
We spoke briefly about Overcost in the System and Controls section, but it actually has a huge impact on the team dynamic, because overcost is not a flat penalty. It is based on cost. The higher cost of the suit, the more extreme the overcost penalty will be. Let's look at a basic example with typical 3000/2000 cost pair:
Gundam DX (700HP) is paired with Gunner Zaku (600 HP).
Let's imagine that, as hinted at in the prior section, each suit plays aggressively and each takes 600 damage.
Gunner Zaku (Cost 2000) dies, and respawns with 600 HP
Team cost reduced from 6000 to 4000
Gundam DX now at 100 HP
If each suit then takes 100 additional damage, Gundam DX (Cost 3000) dies, and respawns with 230 HP due to overcost, putting the team cost at 1000 remaining. We're now in a situation where the 2000 cost Gunner Zaku has 500 HP while DX has 230. This is now a very undesirable situation - the enemy team would like nothing more than to attack and kill DX. At this point DX is forced to play defensively while Gunner Zaku must try and get the enemy team's attention.
Now let's take the same damage, but distribute differently. Instead of 600/600 then 100/100, let's put 800 on DX and 400 on Gunner. DX respawns with full HP (700) then takes an additional 100 to leave him at 600 HP. Gunner Zaku is left at 200 HP. If we distribute the next 200 damage straight to Gunner Zaku, she will respawn overcosted by 50%, leaving her at 300 HP. Not only is the total remaining health higher (900 vs 730) but now DX has the higher health while Gunner is more vulnerable. While having one player at low HP is never a great situation, DX can comfortably maintain being active, while Gunner can continue to support while being careful not to expose herself.
To make things simple, it's easiest to remember that if you team gets overcosted in the incorrect order, the roles of each suit will be reversed - your overcosted front suit will be forced to play support, and your back suit will come back at full HP. For most suits, this is problematic - many back-oriented suits are not suited at all for playing in the front position.
You can simply play extremely well to overcome these disadvantages, but this is a team game where there is often a lot of damage being traded. It's quite difficult to go untouched without an overwhelming skill difference, and even so, you would much rather outplay your opponents without overcosting.
To summarize, having the wrong player on your team overcosted is strictly a disadvantageous situation that should be avoided.
Understanding how important death order is, you might be wondering why players don't simply try and focus on the back player to force overcost as a strategy. Well the answer is that most players would like to, and it's up to you to prevent that from happening.
The concept of front/back are not simply lofty ideals - they are born out of concrete truths in the game. For example, all 3000 suits come with at least one move that is good for punishing players for ignoring them. 3000 suits are equipped with the tools necessary to stop enemy teams from ignoring them and 2v1'ing their partner.
Understanding the consequences of death order, you ideally want to be playing in a way that reflects this. If your goal is to die second, you should avoid putting yourself in situations that can lead to receiving too much unwanted damage. In addition, even if your team seems lined up to die in the proper order, regulating where that damage is being distributed to is equally as important. It's common for a new player to play a 3000, play aggressively and die first, but die again, ending the game, before their partner has lost a single life. Ideally, players should try and work so that damage is distributed equally towards the end. If you dying has ended the game and your partner has a significant amount of life left, it's important to accept a fair amount of responsibility for effectively wasting your team's resources.
This is the general idea of health management - making decisions based not just on the combat aspects of the game, but also taking into account you and your partner's current health values and potential consequences.
The reason we emphasize all these concepts is that if you are focusing on the 1v1 aspect of the game, it's very easy to forget about things like who should be taking more damage, and end up in a very problematic situation despite playing "well".
Having reviewed the basic teamplay concepts of death order and health management, here is an overview of what each role on a team should be working towards:
Front
Acts as the focal point for the team's position on the map
Absorbs damage
Uses burst proactively
Looks for opportunities to deal damage / create good situations for the team
Diverts enemy attention away from the back player
Protects the back player if they are being focused
Back
Compliments the front player's position / formation
Supports the front player by cutting combos (when possible)
Capitalizes on opportunities made by the front player (punishes enemy landings, etc)
Prioritizes health management by defending themselves and avoiding unnecessary risks
Gets the attention of one enemy, if possible
Now that you understand a bit on team dynamics, we'll summarize each cost combination and the basic dynamic. These descriptions should be thought of as guidelines - remember that ultimately your decisions are often a trade off - you can choose to forego ideal damage distribution if the result is getting lots of good damage on the opponent. Often times there are situations where both teams are imbalanced, and it can be a race in some sense.
A composition that typically shows up in shuffle matches - one 3000 gets two lives, while the other player only gets one. In otherwords, since one suit should take roughly twice as much damage as it's partner, one 3000 should expect to play a support role from the very beginning.
One of the most common competitive combinations. Typically the 3000 should front, with 2500 supporting, but with a 2500 that has a good front capacity, the roles can be switched as long as the team commits to it. With some aggressive teams, it can be better to initially double front until the 2500 has taken some damage.
The second orthodox 3000 composition. 2000 suits have a lot of issues being forced to play front, so the team should make sure not to die out of order.
Probably the most difficult pair as far as managing health goes. If the 1500 dies a single time, the 3000 will be overcosted, meaning the team should work as a team to make sure the 1500 does not take excessive damage. Alternatively, the 3000 can play a support role and let the 1500 take all of the lives.
A composition that generally appears in shuffle matches, and plays similarly to 3000 / 2000. The front/back roles should be determined by suit characters, or it can be played by ear based on who is taking damage.
Since the overcost in this situation is not too extremely, the death order itself is not that important, but suits should still play their roles based on their strong suits. Generally this can end up as a double front.
The best comp for 1500 suits, and one of the main competitive comps alongside 3000/2500 and 3000/2000. This is an aggressive comp that allows both suits to apply a lot of pressure from the start. Ideally the 2500 should die first to avoid overcost but since this composition often benefits greatly from momentum, it should not be considered a hard and fast rule.
The main ways Burst is gained is through taking damage and dying, meaning that managing health will also greatly impact how and when you use burst.
Because bursting at 50% is roughly the same as bursting at 99%, any burst you gain between 50% and 100% is wasted to some degree. If you burst at exactly 50%, burst meter you gain will start to count for your next burst. Generally speaking two half bursts are guaranteed, but the more efficient you are with your meter gain, the earlier you will gain that second burst. The game can often be won based on who has and doesn't have burst, so timing your first burst well can ensuring you get your second burst when you need it to close out the game or avoid disaster. Since burst is also gained when an ally dies, ideally a player with 50%+ burst should use it before letting an ally die, or that meter is wasted.
A vector refers to the direction in which each suit is heading. Matching vectors refers to firing along your opponents movement vector.
For instance, imagine your opponent is running away from you, and you are in hot pursuit directly behind him. In this position, your opponent must change directions to avoid fire.
An L-shape or L-formation refers to the relative position of you, your partner, and a target.
[Partner]
[Enemy] [You]
In this situation, the enemy, who would typically move laterally to avoid fire from a single target, is in a position where moving perpendicular to either player will cause their vector to match the other player's fire.
The L-formation is highly advantageous and should always be considered when positioning. Especially as a back player - while staying directly behind your partner can make it difficult for enemies to attack you, you also make your firing contributions much less effective. L-formations are especially powerful when the opponent is unaware of one of the two players. This formation is a very powerful way to capitalize on players ignoring your presence.
Having familiarized yourself with concepts to know going into the match, review Situational Awareness to identify elements of the game to pay attention to mid-match.