Torpedoes, blasters, railguns excessive damage and other weapons

The Optimal Loadout for Defender is x2 Explosive Cannon with Flare Gun. The Flare with Explosives geared for burning damage provides so much burst damage, which is what you are aiming for. Defender is slow and bulky, so once it commits to a fight you want to end it as quickly as possible.

If you don't have a flare or want an alternative, you can replace with any of the following; Cannon/Carronade/Blast Cannon/Grenade/Sniper Cannon.

Cannon is nice alternative, it gives you regular weapon to fire between your explosive cannon cool downs thats fairly easy to hit with nice range.

Carronade is good choice when going up against Yellow boats and Fixers, since they have low/no defence you can chew through them and their tesla shields (thanks to the low cool down). Short range means you will have to get close, but it makes those follow up explosive shots much easier. To aid the Carronade's speed slowing effect, a chill shot perk on each of your explosives will help keep even faster ships in range while you destroy them.

If we could run 3 explosive cannons we would, but we can't, so you could add a blast cannon for good consistent damage.

Grenade is another way to get a fire effect but its percentage chance makes less consistent, also has a shorter range. The Defenders low turret agility makes it kind of awkward to aim as well, you may need a gear lube to get the best out of it.

Sniper Cannon gives you a long range option, and a good way for hitting those speeders that aren't inside your bubble of death.

If you don't have x2 Explosive Cannon, use X2 Blast Cannon to go with the Flare. You could go 1 of each but you'll have to make a couple of compromises in the Bhurt Skill Tree.

Railgun has too long of a cooldown to be truly effective on a Defender. They work on Shooters because they have 4 other weapons to fire while they wait. It works best at long range, and its too easy for ships to get inside short range, and your too slow to move back into long range. You would probably have to bring at least one quick cool down weapon to compensate. Carronade would be good to protect yourself up close, but then its at odds with the railguns range, so one is not getting used basically depending at what range you are at. This more or less means a Standard Cannon is a must when taking the rail gun, so you actually have something to shoot while you wait for the cooldown. If you want to fight at range I would rather take a sniper cannon instead, since it is just as effective up close as it is at longrange and doesn't have that horrendous cooldown.

Firebomb is maybe the worst weapon you take on a Defender, every single crew training for it apart from 1 is at odds with some kind of shield or defence buff. And HP is life, and the Defenders defining and best attribute. Anything that takes away from that shouldn't be taken. And if you take the firebomb without taking any of it s bonus crew talents, then you are just playing a weak firebomb.

Torpedo's are another bad choice for a Defender. Torpedo's become ineffective inside a certain range and its just too easy for other ships to get inside this range. Due to the Defenders low ship and turret agility its always going to easier for other ships to maneuver around you making even harder to aim those shots. You could take Gear Lube and/or Rudders to help with this, but then you sacrificing HP. Once again you would probably need to take a carronade (with mobility slowing talents) to compensate for this big weakness.

Mines aren't that great on Defender as well. They are just too slow to get around the map quickly enough to place those mines where they need to be. If you are dropping mines mid fight then you need high turret agility so you can properly place them against moving enemies. This why you see Enforcers use mines mid fight a lot (good mobility and turret agility).

 

Little Billy is in 3rd grade and his favorite game is BB. He is a MK6 and recently bought a T5 epic torpedo with his birthday money. Now little Billy isn't very good and doesn't land his torpedo very often so he hovers around 1500 infamy but he laughs for hours when he does.

Is it fair you matched him and got owned by the one hit he landed?
Yes...infamy is skill + boat lvl + item lvl. You have more skill so you still almost won despite his boat and item advantage.

Take your lumps and move on. You are skilled so one day, as you level up your boat, you will be in Nightmare league. Then AmericanMarauder will be the one laughing when his T5 legendary missiles annihilate you!

 

You make a good point. As you go up you find that you are not so good as you thought you are. There are others, cleverer, stragegic, with better guns/ships that will anihilate you on the first millimeter of ship that you show over the corner. I don't know if I will ever have the pleasure of playing in Nightmare League (sure hope so) but it will be a long way to do this because sure as hell I'm not giving any money to get there. I'll try the hard way. If I succeed then good for me, if not then ... that's life.

 

Good luck to you.

 

I don't understand what you are saying. Are you agreeing with me or disagreeing. Cryptic post dude.

 

Well there are lots of ways you can play any ship, that doesn't mean they are good ways though. Defender is more limited than most due to having only 3 weapon slots and 5 passive blue slots.
It's mainly the blue slots which limit the ship though. There are only 6 Blue items in the game, 2 of them are shields and 1 of them is Turbo. Bandage is a distant 4th, and Gear Lube and Rudder are 2 of the least used items in the game since their benefits just don't compare to the other blue items and are highly situational depending on the weapons you are using. On top of this, since the speed cap on the ship is so low you can't even stack Turbo's to try and create a speedy Defender. 1 Fully Upgraded Tier 5 Epic Turbo with crew upgrades should be more than enough to hit the cap, meaning you'll never need more than 1 Turbo equipped eventually.

This leaves you with 2 options, Shields or Bandages. Shields win out here big time, but that's not to say you can't make a viable build around bandages. You could try using mortars/snipers/rails/napalm/etc while staying at range and getting the constant heals. Problem here again though is the speed. If someone closes in on you, you have little chance of creating distance again to get the best out of these weapons, and since we have sacrificed shields for bandages in this scenario our HP is low too. The healing you get off the bandages isn't gonna faze a determined shooter or enforcer who has got in your grill.

Another reason why long range builds do not really work on Defender is that if you are trying to stay at range, what happens when your team needs to push to the opposition to win the match. They lack a HIgh HP ship that comes with alot of burst damage to draw fire if you are the only Defender on the Team, and since you are so slow you can't aid in the push if its outside the range of your weapons. In all likely hood, by the time you join the push, the outcome is probably already decided.

All in all due to the speed of the Defender and its ability to stack high amounts of HP, it seems silly for it to do anything other than be on the frontline, ready to make game winning pushes as the spearhead of the team. You need to be in position before the push even happens, and ideally you are one deciding when to push. You can't do these things playing at range or in another manner and not stacking HP. Not every weapon can help the Defender do this, which why you see a prevalence of the bursty type short to medium range weapons like flare with explosives/blasts, grenades, carronades, etc.

So Yes there are other ways you can play Defender, but there is an optimal way, and trueblood Defenders worked it out for themselves. I already knew what worked best for Defender before I even knew about these forums. And to see what other Defender players have written about Defender all it has done is confirm what I already knew. But if you have a brand new revolutionary way of playing Defender, by all means please share.

I understand your perception about these things may be warped since you play yellow boats, where they have the luxury of more versatility. Speeders have options for getting out of trouble and re-positioning, and Enforcers can protect themselves better with tesla sheilds and dancing ( i dunno why its called dancing, every other shooter just calls this ADAD or strafing). Once a Defender gets into a fight, whether they initiated it or not, they just gotta brute force it and out damage the opponent before they out damage you. There's not re positioning, there is no getting away, there is no dancing (its more like a drunk guy stumbling around the dance floor). Assume they will land every shot on you, and pray your HP is high enough while you unload on them. You'll soon know if you are winning cause they will try and run away.

 

Hide in the corner and build a mine fortress around you. This is obviously the most offective way because the description says don't chase the other ships, let them come to you.

 

For an enfo main, what your saying is spot on. Personally i avoid to engage a defender in early battle (even if he/she is alone). Usually if i have to choose who to target, i choose player with lower HP rather than defender.

 

You probably feel the gear lube is good against the enforcer, that's because it is. No over ship can move like the enforcer which gives the enforcer a unique movement style, one that actually helps out the Defender using gear lube in getting in extra shots.Enforcers like to duck in and out of cover and right in front of you. Shooters try to do this but they are too slow to do it as well. But Defender doesn't need it for the other ships. Speeders don't dance like an enforcer, they race around and no amount of turret agility will help you get in an extra shots in. Fixers, shooters and other Defenders are easy enough to hit without a gear lube. So unless Defenders happen to be getting a run of a lot of opposing enforcers in every game i would say gear lube is not worth it.

I would also say gear lube works better for things at close range, when quick movement that's lateral can be hard to follow. Most ships don't like to sit at close range against a Defender apart from the Enforcers and other Defenders. You definitely don't need a gear lube to hit other Defenders. Most other ships try to create distance, which is when you chase them (if they are worth chasing). And if you are in a chase the lateral movement from most ships isn't anything the natural turret agility of the Defender can't handle.

One could actually make the case that Rudder is better for Defender than gear lube. One of the big problems a Defender will face is Big Torpedos. A few of these can ruin a push or a charge. Rudder gives you some protection against them since it allows you a chance to dodge. Also getting caught side on by a Big Torpedo Shooter/Defender can cause problems, rudder here will allow you to outmaneuver them and get inside on them rendering their big torpedo's useless.

 

Yeah right. I'm at 1100-1400 depending on how I woke up the particular morning. It will be quite some time before I meet you but if i see something zipping by me fast and and then a big boom on me then probably I will have met you.

 

WOW you just said what I've been trying lately. I move into a blind spot, don't shoot anyone that passes and when the opponent engages my team I pick a target and start punching from behind. Usually the first one is gone by the time the others notice about it (if I'm lucky maybe half of the second) and as soon as they try to reposition I rush inside their formation creating panic. If my team has a little sense of knowing when to strike they start finishing opponents I left with holes on the way. Some times I dies some time I don't but every time I enjoy immensely the mayhem that is created.

 

I just gave up on defender due to surge of enforcers in nightmare. If you don't have a max epic flare, you're stuck in this infinite loop where you can only land one shot per cycle while enforcers get to unload on you with all 3 weapons. Not to mention how easy it is for them to run away from fight while their stacked flares burn you down.

Even if you have both ships 1v1 each other while being stationary, there's no way defender can come out on top.

You fire your flare. They block it with Tesla shield.
You waste one EC to break first shield and land your second EC (without fire bonus of course).
They take hit, tesla up second shield and flare blast blast you for 4k while you wait for your 14 second ex cannon to come back and be wasted on their free HP again.

4k vs 1k damage per cycle. You know who wins