One minute and thirty seconds: The average time ingame that passes before suddenly realizing your teammate is a royal douchebag. (and I'm not talking about noobs)

Three minutes: The amount of time you must suffer the verbal abuse of said douchebag until you can begin enjoying yourself at his expense.

Player chemistry plays a huge part in the success of any given Demigod team (and enjoyment of the game in general), so it comes as no surprise that when players don’t get along, tempers flare and people’s days are ruined.  This is partly because people get too into the game, and forget what they’re doing – playing a videogame.  Your annoyance and rage – it’s all in your head!  Learn to suppress this rage, and suddenly a world of delightful mischief will open for you.

We’ve all played with the royal douchebags before.  You know who they are: the arrogant, bossy, I-only-play-to-win folk, to whom the smallest error on your part is suddenly a horrendous slight upon their very person, and who chastise you for putting your left foot in front of your right.  They invariably assume the position of captain of the team, without prior discussion and usually based on their inflated sense of self-worth according to a (meaningless) win ratio, and proceed to order their teammates around and basically expect them to dance to their every whim.  Inevitably, these players will begin verbally abusing and insulting their teammates when things start to go wrong – the bigger the douchebag, the sooner the insults begin to fly. (the current record is just over a minute into the game for one of my teammates)

Many players, usually less confrontational or less aggressive ones, will be intimidated into submission, whereas more aggressive players may begin verbally sparring with him, especially if there is a disagreement on tactics.  I say, both options are wasted opportunities.  Here’s why: in both of these situations, no one is having any fun.  You are insulted and treated poorly by your teammate, and even if your team manages to win you may be left with a foul taste in your mouth.

So what do you do?  If you’re the mentally unstable type, it might not take much for you to go off the deep end and start purposely feeding the enemy while you slander your teammate in ALL chat with caps lock on.  That might be amusing for a brief period of time (mostly for the other team), but there is so much more you can do, much of which can be so much subtler and prolong your enjoyment of making life miserable for the asshole who’s making life miserable for your team.  The following is a compilation of my favorite methods of causing grief to douchebag teammates.  Enjoy, and feel free to add your own!

GENERAL GAMEPLAY STRATEGIES

Send your monks on a heroic mission to cap the enemy portal.  Nevermind that this is impossible and doesn’t make sense.  If you are a general and Mr. Douchebag is an assassin, he will assuredly order you to share your monk.  If you delay just a few seconds you might be subjected to insults like “hurry up dumbass”, “f*cking noob”, or “my grandma can play better than you. And she’s dead.”  That’s certainly not pleasant.  Here’s what you do: Send him both of your monks.  Yes, both of them.  When they arrive, have them continue on past the battle site towards the enemy’s portals.  If they make it, camp them at the enemy portal till they die.  Your teammate will soon curse you for your incompetence.  You respond:

“I’m capping their portal.”

“What?”

“Don’t worry, my monks are gonna cap their portal.”

“…  

“YOU DUMB PIECE OF SHIT”

Depending on the level of douchebaggery, you may soon be laughing at rage worthy of a South Park episode, or you might not.  The more creative your responses, the greater your enjoyment will be.

Warp in to help your teammate in need, then immediately walk away from the battle back to base while the asshole gets nuked by the enemy team.  When he inevitably rages at you for being an idiot, tell him you were “oom”.  And leave it at that.

Steal XP from your teammate with Heaven’s Wrath.  Make sure to do this frequently, and always in his lane.  If he protests, be sure to apologize profusely, then resume at a later time.  If he protests again, rinse and repeat.

Use capture locks on inconsequential flags at inconsequential times.  For example, lock your reinforcement flag or your portal flags on Cataract in the early game.  When questioned by your teammate, utilize one of the following responses or make up your own:

- “I accidentally bought too many cap locks, just freeing up space in my items bar.”

- “Nowhere is safe.  Nowhere.”

- “I’m flag capping for science.”

Buy items that do not complement your demigod’s abilities/strengths, e.g. speed boots for Rook, gloves for Sedna.  Of course, this may result in you dying a lot, so use discretion.

Upgrade the death penalty reduction at the citadel.  If you are discovered, inform your teammate that you are “planning for the future.”

Don’t buy a single tower regen or currency upgrade.  Ever.  Always have an excuse on hand, and always blow your money on other shit when asked to make such an upgrade.

Let yourself get killed by the enemy team.  This is the holy grail of inciting rage, if done properly, infrequently, and with perfect timing.  You must make it look somewhat genuine, to avoid accusations of purposely feeding the enemy team.  Thus, it must be done infrequently (this takes a bit of skill, of course)  And finally, there are moments when a death can come at the most inopportune moment for your team.  You must be on the lookout for these opportunities!  Here are a few instances when a death will really set him off:

- A critical fight at the portal towers (on Cataract), in which your death results in the loss of the towers and/or your portal

- Losing a close 1v1 battle to an inferior demigod/player

- Chasing an enemy close to death, but getting knocked out in the process, and before you make the kill

DEMIGOD SPECIFIC STRATEGIES

Always heal yourself instead of your teammate when he needs it the most.  Tell him you clicked on the wrong demigod.  I do this quite a bit, just on accident, so it’s actually a legitimate excuse.   Just make sure to do it every time.  If your teammate is killed, you get extra points for Sedna fail.

Shield your teammate when no one is around.  And when he’s at full health.  How do you explain this one?  “I thought Reg was gonna snipe you.”  If there’s no enemy Regulus, then: “Sorry, this is my first time playing Oak.” Oh boy will they love to hear that.

As Rook, use no abilities other than Structural Transfer.  Over and over again.  Their towers, your towers.  Give in to your structural transfer desires and suck that rock good and hard, and don’t stop.  Be sure to enlighten your teammate on the joys of sucking through use of sensual narrative.

Line up snipes on reinforcements.  The most enjoyable part of this is seeing if they notice.

As Beast, only ever get the first level of Spit, and don’t tell your teammate.  He will see you using spit and think you are somewhat competent.  But in reality you’re just wasting mana.  If he’s observant enough, he may call you out on it – in which case you should immediately call into question his ability with basic math.

Suicide off your own vampiric poison potion.  This is difficult to pull off.  You need to have died earlier in the match (with the potion still lying around), and then take enough damage to be low enough on health for a vampiric potion to kill you.  You will die and – I believe – even get cash for the “kill.”  In ALL chat, brag to everyone in the game about how l33t you are.

Really, there are hundreds of unique, enjoyable ways to get back at asshole teammates.  Take advantage of their proclivity for raging, and make them rage even harder, to the point where the rational part of their brain shuts down and mindless gutter language flows forth like the flood waters of the Nile.  Use your imagination, keep your cool, and you may find yourself laughing so hard you temporarily stop breathing.  In the process, you may actually enjoy yourself playing Demigod (*gasp*) and perhaps have a truly memorable experience worthy of telling your friends.