Season 10 of The Finals dropped one of the most requested things in the game’s history: a new Medium specialization. The last one came in Season 3. That was 2024. So when Embark announced the Shockwave as part of the new Aerialist playstyle, the community paid attention fast.
The full kit — Shockwave specialization, Hover Pad gadget, and the Chimera-XB crossbow — was built to work together as one movement-focused system. And in Starlight Hollow, the new medieval village map designed specifically for Point Break and TDM, all three of them click in ways that are already reshaping what high-ranked Medium play looks like.
This guide focuses on exactly that: how Shockwave and Hover Pad work together, why Starlight Hollow is the best map to abuse this combo, and what the players currently dominating ranked lobbies are actually doing differently.
What Is the Aerialist Playstyle in The Finals Season 10?
The Aerialist is a movement-first identity for the Medium class. Every piece of the kit feeds into vertical control and unpredictable repositioning.
If you’ve played Medium with Grapple Hook or Evasive Dash before and liked the idea of being somewhere unexpected mid-fight, this playstyle is a more vertical, team-friendly version of that. The difference is you’re not just moving fast — you’re controlling where the fight happens vertically.
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How the Shockwave Specialization Works in Season 10
The Shockwave fires a small projectile that detonates on impact. The explosion pushes players, gadgets, and objects away from the blast radius. Aim it at the ground below yourself and it launches you upward. Fire it at an enemy and it shoves them off whatever position they’re holding.
A few things worth knowing beyond the basics:
- Self-launch: Shooting it at your own feet with the right angle gets you vertical height fast. Slightly off-vertical gives you both height and horizontal distance — useful for clearing gaps or reaching a pre-staged Hover Pad.
- Mine and trap clearing: The Shockwave displaces enemy mines and turrets from Cashout positions without setting them off. This is one of its most underused applications in ranked play.
- Displacement on enemies: It can knock players off objectives, push them out of doorways, and interrupt defensive positions. Especially effective in Starlight Hollow’s narrow corridors where there’s nowhere to sidestep the push.
The incidental damage on detonation is still being observed in live matches — the displacement effect is what you’re actually building around.
How the Hover Pad Works — and What Most Players Get Wrong
The Hover Pad deploys a floating platform wherever you throw it. It stays in place for the rest of the match unless you recall it or it gets destroyed. You can also melee-hit the pad while standing on it to nudge it slowly in a new direction mid-air.
Most players who try it for the first few matches drop it reactively — mid-fight, usually too low, usually in obvious spots. That’s where the value drops off fast.
The pad works best when it’s already placed before a fight starts. Think of it as real estate you buy early. A roof position that would normally require a wall-climb or a jump pad to reach becomes your permanent high ground for the whole round if you stage the pad there during the opening phase.
It also works for your teammates. A well-placed Hover Pad above a contested zone lets your whole squad access an angle that the enemy team can’t easily contest from the ground. That team utility is worth thinking about when you choose where to put it.
The Core Combo: Shockwave Rocket-Jump onto Hover Pad
This is what the Aerialist build is actually about. Here’s how the sequence looks in practice:
- Pre-stage the Hover Pad on an elevated surface — rooftop, stone wall, high window ledge — before contact
- Engage in a ground-level fight or find yourself needing a fast reposition
- Aim the Shockwave orb slightly below your feet and fire
- Ride the blast upward toward the pad
- Land, stabilize, and go to ADS with the Chimera-XB from your new angle
One thing to account for: when the Shockwave blast catches the Hover Pad, the pad nudges slightly from the impact. It’s a small shift but enough to throw off your landing if you’re not expecting it. Stage the pad a little further back from your expected trajectory, or aim your launch to account for the drift.
The combo also works as a disengage. You’re in a losing close-range fight — fire Shockwave at the ground, get vertical, land on the pad above the fight. Enemies on the ground now have to look up and recalculate. That half-second of confusion is enough to reset the engagement entirely.
Starlight Hollow Map Tips for Shockwave and Hover Pad Players
Starlight Hollow was designed for Point Break and TDM specifically, and its narrow layout is exactly why this kit thrives there. Medieval stone buildings with angled thatch roofs, tight central lanes, elevated walls along the flanks — it’s a map that rewards players who can get above the fight and hold.
| Zone | Best Hover Pad Spot | Why It Works |
|---|---|---|
| Rooftop above cobblestone main streetCentral village lane | Full view of the primary attack corridor, difficult to approach from below | |
| Defender spawn side | Elevated stone corner wall | Forces attackers into a tight kill zone with no cover from above |
| Grand Vault area | Angled thatch roof above vault entrance | Hard angle on the objective, accessible via Shockwave launch from street level |
The map also has Daytime and Nighttime variants. At night, visibility from elevated positions is better for enemies below to spot you by your silhouette. Stage the pad in shadow or behind cover when playing the night variant — a Hover Pad glowing above an open rooftop is not a subtle position.
The narrow attack and defense phases in Point Break mean elevation control often decides rounds outright. An Aerialist who owns the roof above the main lane early can anchor the whole team’s defense or push.
How the Aerialist Meta Build Looks in High-Ranked Lobbies
The players getting the most out of this kit in ranked are not using it as a pure aggression tool. The pattern in higher lobbies is more calculated than that.
What they’re doing:
- Hover Pad gets placed in the first 30 seconds of a round, before any fights start
- Shockwave is used to disengage losing fights as often as it’s used to push
- The Chimera-XB is used for follow-up from elevation, not as an opener at close range
- The pad position gets updated between phases when the objective moves
The combo rewards players who think one exchange ahead. If you drop the pad mid-fight you’ll usually land in a bad spot. If you’ve already staged it, you have an exit and a firing position ready whenever you need one.
The Shockwave also works well as a counter to camped Cashout positions. A heavy team sitting on a defended box with proximity mines around it runs into a problem when the Shockwave can clear the mines without triggering them, then blast the defenders off the box.
Mistakes to Avoid With Shockwave and Hover Pad
A lot of the frustration players are reporting with this kit comes down to the same few habits:
- Placing the Hover Pad during combat — it takes a moment to deploy and you’re exposed doing it. Stage it before the fight starts.
- Using Shockwave only to push enemies — the self-launch and disengagement uses are where ranked players are finding the most value
- Placing the pad where only you can reach it — your teammates can use it too, and a pad that benefits three players is three times more impactful
- Launching straight up — a vertical launch leaves you hanging in the open. Angle slightly to get horizontal distance and land behind cover
- Forgetting the pad nudges on blast — the Shockwave impact moves the pad a little. If you aim your launch directly at the pad’s edge, you might overshoot
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Conclusion
The Aerialist build hasn’t been fully figured out yet. The players at the top of ranked right now aren’t doing anything wildly complicated — they’re just planning the Hover Pad placement before the round starts and using Shockwave to control when and where fights happen rather than just reacting.
The skill ceiling on this kit is higher than it looks in a casual match. Get the pad down early, learn the rooftop geometry on Starlight Hollow, and use the Shockwave to exit bad positions as often as you use it to create good ones. That’s the loop the best Aerialist players are running right now.
