Tutorial:How to dominate the leaderboard in FFA

To dominate Free For All, you will need to know how to survive first. See this tutorial for details, as this article will not go over the basics of surviving.

Due to the chaotic nature of FFA, it tends to be harder to score than modes with bases you can retreat to or teams to rely on for backup. At the same time though, many of the highest scores were achieved in FFA and you can regularly see one million and higher players on the leaderboard, so it can be done.

Strategies
Overall, there are two ways to get a high FFA score. You can either play aggressively or defensively. Aggressive play often nets more score but sometimes makes players mad, leading them to hunt you. Defensive play tends to accrue score slower but you are generally safer. Most high-scoring runs become defensive as their score increases anyway, since you become a more and more prominent target to other players. Keep in mind that these are not the only two choices, and most runs fall into a mix of these, switching playstyles depending on the situation. Knowing when and being able to do this is very helpful to succeed these longer runs.

A good starting point is to use a powerful tank. The Pounder, Trapper and Director branches are good starting points if you have absolutely no idea where to start, but if you are familiar with the game it is recommended to play into your preferred playstyle. Dominating the leaderboard often takes a while and runs where you do so tend to run quite long, so playing a tank whose playstyle you enjoy rather than something simply powerful is often better in the end.

Speaking of powerful tanks, it is recommended to avoid them. They have their reputation for a reason and can likely kill you easily. For example, Destroyers can one-shot you, Directors can blitz you with drones before you can react, and Builders can throw blocks at you while cutting off your escape routes. Do not engage any of them unless you are super confident you can kill them or escape safely, or if they have extremely high score you simply cannot pass up trying to take.