So, you're playing Depth as a shark, and you're having a hard time. Maybe you got one of those crazy players that can see you on the other side of the map and punishes a second of stopping with a harpoon. Maybe you're just missing your lunges. It could be anything.

You've got 2 options at this point.
1- You can leave. At the end of the day, this is just a game, and no one with half a brain is going to fault you for leaving what is supposed to be an enjoyable activity when you're not enjoying yourself. You might stay if there's something you can learn to do better next time, but you need to ask yourself if the resulting frustration of dying repeatedly with little progress is worth whatever you'd learn.
2- You can focus everything on making life easier for your sharkbro, so even if you can't hit a stationary diver in the middle of the open ocean, they'll still do okay.

Anyone that wants to take the second option, continue on.

Now, I know I started this guide by offering this playstyle up as a "just in case you suck" option, but it is entirely doable to choose this playstyle from the outset. As such, you can choose a shark that will be very helpful to your teammates. I'd personally suggest trying the Great White or Thresher first. You don't have to, mind. Pretty much anyone that isn't the Hammerhead will work*. But, I like to focus on these 2 guys so that you will be able to complement whoever you are playing with. I'll give some quick info on all sharks before we continue.

Great White

Big and slow, but very hard to kill. The GW has the highest innate health of anything that isn't a Megalodon, and his active makes him even harder to put down. However, lunging destroys your stamina bar in record time. When you attack, use Dash rather than Lunge whenever possible.
A particularly fun tactic to use on aggressive divers is to intentionally fumble a grab while not using your Active, then swim and 'hide' a short distance away. Trigger-happy diver goes for the kill, gets a faceful of Juggernaut'ing Great White with no backup. Meanwhile, the main group of divers is down 1 gun.

Tiger

Tiger works well with basically any shark, thanks to his Jack of All Trades nature. His active is more for attack than support, IMO, but it's great for clearing sonar buoys and shark shields without opening yourself up to attack.

Lemon

Modified Tiger kit. Hard to see and increased thrash damage upon activating the ability. More of an offensive shark than a supporting one, but not a bad choice for targeting priority divers to remove things like net and harpoon guns before the main attack.

Mako

Fast, but made of paper, Mako excels at combat in open water. The high speed and large stamina pool allow you to make several passes at divers in quick succession, keeping them off balance as sharkbro attacks. If you're the kind of support shark that just loves to make a total nuisance of yourself, a Mako is right up there with a Thresher, in my humble opinion.

Blue

Like Mako but much more team-oriented. It has a marking ability like Mako, but instead of rewarding the Mako points upon the target's death, it awards health to whoever killed it. This means you can team up with a heavy-hitter such as a Great White or Hammerhead and make them nearly indestructible, especially if they're also running Adrenal Glands to generate additional stamina.

Thresher

He's slower and tougher than the Mako, but not by much. His main selling point is his tail whip Active, which knocks out the divers' flashlights, and deals damage to anyone in a small area around him. At full power, it'll also damage walls and destroy equipment. Additionally, grabbing a diver and thrashing also damages any divers in the immediate area. His Active and Thrash damage passive are great for dealing heavy damage in enclosed spaces.

Bigeye Thresher

[[Testing in Progress]]

Bull Shark

This one's in a weird place. Stat-wise, the Bull Shark is similar to the Tiger. The bonus health, stamina and damage from the Active are great for when you need to assist sharkbro on short notice as a tank, distraction, or follow-up attacker. And since the bonus health and stamina are depleted first, you can potentially attack repeatedly without having to fall back. That said, it can be counter productive, because equipment like shark shields make the Bull Shark build Rage faster, which should be a priority if you're playing support.

Copper

A fellow tank-shark, but with a different focus. Instead of getting an overall buff from Rage, the Copper has slightly better starting stats in exchange for being outright immortal while Raging. I mean, it's hard to beat "literally unkillable" for drawing fire. But with stamina ammo divers will turn you into a sitting duck.

Goblin

Another oddball. The speed and fragility of a Mako, but the clunkiness and stamina pool of a Great White (by that I mean a single lunge takes most of your stamina but Sprinting is fast and efficient). Its saving grace is the ability to spawn a decoy shark that automatically swims to and attempts to eat divers, disappearing on impact or upon taking 1/60/120 damage. The decoy sets off heartbeats, gives points when fired on, and even causes screams of pain on impact. At lower levels it's a distraction, but at higher levels it can even tank a couple shots. An ideal support shark, if you will. Especially if the in-game stat of having lower Thrash damage is accurate.

Oceanic Whitetip

Another middle of the road shark with a cool mechanic, able to switch between offensive and defensive stances with its pack of pilot fish. Grants support players the adaptability to switch between defense and offense as needed, at the expense of not being as strong at either as more specialized sharks. A worthy choice.


*- The reasons I don't suggest Hammerhead for playing a Support Shark are as follows.
1- Low Stamina: HH has stamina issues unless you've got Adrenal Glands/Blood Rage or are using the Active (which works best when attacking divers). You can't cover sharkbro's six or stall S.T.E.V.E. for any length of time without a good stamina pool.
2- Healing takes forever: HH gets the least benefit out of eating seals, which means your best bet for healing quickly is Blood Feast or a maxed Active. Neither of these is going to be an easy purchase. Without a way to heal quickly, there's going to be long period of time where you can't assist sharkbro without bleeding tons of tickets.
3- HH is easily countered in actual combat- Slow, tranq rounds and nets all render the HH a joke shark. You're trying to salvage tickets you'd have otherwise lost, not bleed them faster.

Distraction is going to be a major theme no matter which shark you play. If you're the Thresher, you get in, tail slap whoever you can get at quickly, and get out. If you're the Great White, just attack from the most obvious angle possible and pop Juggernaught when the spears start flying. In either case, you want to do this right before your sharkbro launches his own attack, so pay attention to him. Some players will charge right in every time they respawn, especially if they're already ahead, others will focus on finding an isolated diver or other circumstance that makes their life easier. If you go in without your sharkbro, you're probably just going to die without accomplishing anything.

That said, there's other stuff you can do:

1- Smash into all the breakable walls surrounding the divers. Not only does this give sharkbro more avenues of attack and retreat, it also keeps the divers on their toes. If you really want to be mean, leave a couple walls with only 1 hit left on them. Smashing through a wall completely often throws up a cloud of dust, obscuring the divers' vision, making it much harder to focus on an attacker. EDIT- It has been pointed out that this may also give the divers easier access to gold.
Thus, you may want to take a moment and see if there is any treasure outside the wall you are currently targetting.

2- Attack Consumables/S.T.E.V.E.. This is particularly handy if you're a Thresher who managed to max out his Active. Just tail-slap that shark shield/sonar buoy right out of the game. Any divers you hit in the process are a bonus. If the enemy is being lazy with mine placement, you can set them off by lunging near but not directly into them. This will give sharkbro more safe angles of attack, and if you're really lucky, damage the divers and S.T.E.V.E.. Attacking the robosub, particularly while it's in the open, means sharkbro has more time to attack/respawn/heal/whatever it is sharkbros do.

3- Play Mind Games. Hover right outside the diver room so they're too paranoid to go for gold. Sprint/Lunge past an opening to make divers waste shots or even chase after you. Anything to keep your opponents from focusing on sharkbro.

4- Watch Sharkbro's six. A lot of divers like to chase after a shark, knowing that they're low on health and stamina after an attack. Do not let this happen. Worst case scenario, the diver kills you while sharkbro gets away. But if you're lucky, you'll get a kill and some much needed Evolution Points, which brings me to our next section.

As a support shark, you may not have many Evolution Points available to you. This makes choosing your purchases extremely important. It also means you should jump at any opportunity to score more.

The obvious approach is to attack when S.T.E.V.E is moving between rooms. You stand a much better chance of getting a kill/getting away when there's no narrow corridors or obstacles to get stuck on after a grab. Another option is going after divers trying to collect gold with the DPV. These divers usually aren't as well armed as their comrades, especially in the early game where they likely gave up a starting weapon completely. Catching up to them is difficult to say the least, but doing so gets you a kill and denies the enemy precious money they can use to better fight you and sharkbro. Ideally, you avoid chasing after them in favor of lying in wait as they try to return to S.T.E.V.E., but the further away you can kill them, the harder it will be for them to recover the lost gold.

As for spending the points you do have, here are some suggestions. (Note- Spending points on your Active Ability should go without saying. Unless you're a Mako. With the changes to his Active from the Fresh Blood update, the Mako Active Ability is now a strong... 'Think about it'. I mean, it's much better now, yes. The second rank will pay for itself in 2 kills, and the third rank will almost do so in 1. That said, the purchase is only worth it if you're actually getting kills in the first place. If you're reading this, that may not be the case.)

Electroreception: 10 points- Normally, this upgrade isn't worth it, but it has 2 handy effects you may find useful.

1- It lets you see who has the most dangerous weapons. If you're trying to make life easier for sharkbro, few things can beat grabbing the harpoon guy before he can get a shot off.

2- It lets you see the health of the divers. If you're trying to scavenge some kills, it'd be much easier to kill that which is already wounded, yes?

Nimble-Finned/Double-Time/Hangry: 20 points- These all give you improved mobility, letting you attack more rapidly and/or giving you a better chance of getting away after. You may not be very good at securing kills, but any tickets you can avoid losing make sharkbro's life easier.

Serrated Teeth: 30 points- Well, this is a support shark skill if I've ever seen one. Between the bleed damage slowing when a diver is low on health, and the sudden abundance of medkits on the sea floor, this is not an evo you'll be getting kills with often. But, it puts pressure on the divers, forcing them to spend money on medkits closer to their safe rooms, swim out into the open to heal, or try to fight off sharkbro with steadily decreasing health.

Headstrong: 30 points- 2 major benefits.

1- Smash through obstacles in 1 less hit. Very handy for things like the windows on Galleon or the irons bars on Stash.

2- Tackling S.T.E.V.E. makes him take a whopping 12 seconds to reset rather than 6. With a relatively fast shark and a good sharkbro, you can darn near stunlock him to death, leaving you to hunt divers at your leisure. At the very least, every tackle buys you more time to finish off the divers.

Powerful Tail: 40 points- I hesitate to recommend this. Partly because you're going to have a hard time affording it and partly because it is more of a skill for attacking sharks rather than support ones. That said, it has one major benefit for support sharks: If your enemy has been putting down a lot of mines, you can grab divers and slam them into them, scoring you kills while removing the dangerous obstacles from sharkbro's path.

Just like the title says, this section provides a closer look at the maps from the perspective a supporting shark player.

Olmec: Very few situations where S.T.E.V.E. is in open water. This means you can't stall as easily as on other maps. That said, there are many destructable walls that can give sharkbro easy routes of attack and escape.

Hillside: S.T.E.V.E. is only in the open between the first and second safe, and during the final stretch (which is fairly long). The terrain cuts down on your angles of attack, but otherwise there's plenty of time to catch up if you can time your attacks well. Also, on the safe in the tower-thing, there's a side-entrance that most people forget about, on the wall furthest away from the treasure pile outside.

Station: Attacking the divers once they make it into a safe room is tricky (even if you break down as many walls and doors as possible), so you'll need to bring your A-game. There's a particularly long open water sequence right before the last safe, so make sure you have headstrong by then if you need to catch up on tickets. In comparison, the final stretch is pretty short, so don't rely on it to win the match.

Stash: Not many open sections. If you're not being much help at the current safe, go break down the bars and doors protecting the later rooms.

Fractured: This map has a golden opporunity for stalling: When S.T.E.V.E. is between the 2 halves of the broken ship. Make sure you're alive and nearby when it's moving through this area. The last safe room is a very tough target, so don't feel bad if you're having trouble there.

Cove: Every time you spawn while the divers are working on the first safe, take a few seconds to make a few dashes at the plane wreck that houses the second safe. Break it down enough, and the divers will be completely exposed until they go into the cave that houses the third safe. Quite an opportunity for stalling and easy kills.

Antiguo: Lots of destructable walls and resulting alternate routes in. Pay special attention to the side wall by the first safe (left side from the shark spawn's POV), and the door-shaped wall sections in the last 2 safe rooms. If the divers are good at detecting you, make sure to use the massive stone pillars outside for cover after an attack. Final stretch doesn't offer many avenues of attack, but it does cross back through the first safe room.

Crude: MASSIVE open area in the final stretch. Speedy sharks can get kills here without too much fuss. Headstrong strongly (haha) advised.

Galleon: Biggest stretches of open water are the second and last, so those are your main stalling opportunities. Galleon has some less-than-intuitive breakable walls in the ship itself, so keep your eyes open. The windows and shutters are obnoxious and take several hits to completely destroy.

Devil's Head: I hate this map. Anyway, seals are very hard to reach here, so if you barely survive an attack, you might be better off using your last bit of health to distract a particularly dangerous diver, depending on remaining lives/time.

Temple: After the safes got flipped, the first safe is in the most fortified location, and the last is in the least. Be wary of the statues, they're breakable but it'll take multiple strikes. Between them and the countless walls around the first safe, it's easy to get boxed in when attacking.

Breach: Don't be afraid to use the new breaching mechanic to jump between pools of water and surprise the hell out of people. The second safe has alternate entrances behind and to the left of S.T.E.V.E. for flanking, and the last safe is in a fairly open area.

*No longer in the game, left here for the sake of completion*
Quarry: Final stretch is almost entirely in the open water, which is great for stalling. There's a few walls in the path to the last safe that can be broken down for alternate routes. Also, if you're playing with a new-ish sharkbro, make sure they see the alternate entrances leading to the later safes.

No, we are not shipping the sharks. (But on the off chance you were, MakoXThresher 4 lyfe)

This section is about which sharks work well together. The general rule is that 1 light and 1 heavy shark works well in most cases (And Tiger is the little black dress that goes with anything). This is about exceptions to the rule and particularly impressive combos. Note that any 2x heavy/2x light combo is inherently risky, because divers only need to counter 1 playstyle. Also note all these have the support shark listed first.

Thresher & Tiger: Thresher causes absolute havoc among the enemy team while Tiger picks them off. The main weakness of the Tiger's cloaking is the divers' flashlight... which the Thresher Active disables. Also, repeatedly dashing about while knocking the lights out makes it that much harder to look for a cloaked Tiger. I've done this combo a dozen times with a good Tiger sharkbro, and the results are always good.

Great White & Hammerhead: Or as I like to call it: Hammer and Anvil (you're the Anvil, but Anvil and Hammer doesn't have the same ring to it). This is mainly for maps like Station and Devil's Head where there's not much room for hit-n-run tactics. You go in, pop Juggernaut, kill maybe 1 diver and wound another. Hammerhead comes in right behind you to find the divers reloading and down 1 gunner with another wounded, the perfect set-up for a big killstreak. That said, this combo only works if you go all out at the start of the match when both sharks are at their peak in terms of resilience. Even with Hammerhead's health regeneration and Great White's damage resistance, the divers will kick your sorry tail fins the moment they get big enough guns. Do not let this happen.

Thresher and Mako: The opposite of the GW and HH, this team rocks in maps with large stretches of open water like Crude. Wear down the team the best you can with Thresher, and Mako might even be able to manage some killstreaks, rather than picking off divers 1 or 2 at a time. Detection systems will really screw you up though, so make sure both of you are diligent in destroying sonar beacons and shark shields (yes I know shark shields aren't detection).

At some point, you're going to run into a situation that is the stuff of horror: Your sharkbro is bad. You are the one that needs to carry the match. It's that moment when you start looking for an adult and realize you are the adult, except you're underwater and people have wandered into your house and started shooting spears at you and stealing all the fine china.

Don't panic. There is good news. Many of the strategies mentioned here? Attacking while STEVE is in the open? Smashing open walls for surprise attacks? They also work for being the attacker rather than the support.

It's certainly a gear shift. You can still try to minimize deaths, but your goal is now destroying the divers. You can still attack alongside your sharkbro, but use him as a smokescreen instead of the other way around. You can still destroy equipment, but don't let that distract you from the win condition. And there's more good news: You get the kills, you get the evolution points. And now you get to spend them on upgrades that will help you press the attack, such as Blood Rage and Powerful Tail (As for why I'm not giving more details, there's already guides that cover ideal builds, the point here is the paradigm shift from "support/defense" to "offense"). But hey, you got this far, I'm sure you can handle it. It'll take practice, like anything else in this game, but you can do it.