descentchampions.org

I'm curious of some definitions as to what ratting actually is
If you could enlighten me, I'd appreciate it!

not dogfighting

In detail please, I need to get better

I'm aware of three different aspects of ratting:

1) Disinformation. Flaring open a door from far away and then moving to somewhere completely different, or firing slow-moving shots and then flying away, or sometimes doubling back (but not too often) in order to get your opponent to go to the wrong part of the level or to otherwise be unprepared for what you're actually doing.

2) Using cover. Ducking behind pillars, using corners and ledges to block shots, etc.

3) Camping. Spending time in areas where you're strong; patiently waiting for engagements.

There's probably more, though.

A thesis could be written on the said topic. Although I'd prefer to recommend a book: "The Art of War"

Thanks guys, I'll have to get better at dogfighting then

Fumbling around in the tunnels is not "ratting" any more than fumbling around in a big room is "dogfighting". In either case, all of your movements matter. You're always trying to gain the advantage on your opponent -- getting to a better angle or a better position where you can get hits on them while taking fewer or no hits in return.

So a big part of ratting is being decisive. If you flare open a door, wait a few seconds, and then decide you're going to use the open door as a fake while you fly the other direction, you've lost a few seconds of potential advantage. If you flare the door and are already chording the other way while the flare is in motion, you can be that much farther away -- or that much closer to your opponent's turned back. But sometimes, ratting is about being decisively slow. If your opponent knows that you can flare that one door and then chord all the way to that other spot 8.2 seconds later, they can set up an ambush at the other spot. But if you intentionally delay a few seconds, you can get them to give up their ambush and turn their back to go the other way -- and then ambush them again. And if you've shown you can use both of those moves, that opens up a third move where you flare open the door, wait, and then come through it and your opponent is waiting too long to ambush you coming from the other direction.

It's bluffing, counter-bluffing, counter-counter-bluffing... making a series of real movements and a series of feints designed to get your opponent to make a mistake, and then taking advantage when they guess wrong and leave themselves exposed. A great example from the bahamut/dkh logic observatory match: bahamut waiting at the bottom of the ramp-door into the dog room (the one under the ledge), twice, and catching DKH coming out. Various other engagements had taught DKH that he could safely enter that way, and then bahamut was located where he wasn't expected and got some shots at DKH's exposed side. That's really the essence of ratting, even though it wasn't in the tunnels.

I don't know what ratting means or how to do it.

Then let's practice together jedi!