Defender is pointless now: am I wrong? From one of original defender or die boaters

Hello Battle Bay community. Formerly Jaws here. Changed my in game name to Keke. Since I wasn't being a blue boat anymore. Thought I would take a complete joke name.

I advocated for almost a year to have a defender buff. Nope. Developers always promised something or balancing in the future once next update came out. They lied. Not on purpose. But it was their way to say. Shut it.

Currently I wonder. Is Defender Pointless? Only less than 5 percent of all Nitemare uses it. Battle Bay stats.

It can't compete in most formats except when stats are boosted where defenders can move faster. Or fire faster. Or in formats where it's 2vs2, or 3vs3.
Notice my theme. Only usable in certain events. But not really in league play.

Only 1 defender made top 10 in 8 months.

Developers won't fix the boat. So why is it still around?

Ps now I use speeder or fixer. At least those have some level of fun attached. Using the Speed force. Or healing friends team.

Big blue love? Nada.

Your thoughts forum?

Keke....aka formerly the blue boat known as Jaws.

 

I actually just suggested a defender buff that (I think) would be easy to implement

Give defenders a permanent invisible Tesla shield—they still take damage, but they

1. Absorb all splash damage (mortar shots, torpedoes, explosive cannon)

2. Are immune to crits from any cannon

 

Defender is fucked. Unless you gonna add a green slot to the thing...

 

Defenders auto repair 10x ship level every 5 seconds?

 

I was planning to upgrade Defender to mk 6 next, is it really that bad?

 

I was thinking about something like that. For every blue item, there's a base stat. Turbo - speed, shields - hp and defense with perks, rudder - ship agility, gearlube - turret agility. But there is no health regeneration for bandage. So what if they added base health regeneration? Defender's will be higher than the other ships' so it will also be a buff to defenders.

 

It's fun to play. But it's way to dominant in nightmare league with highest win percentage out of all boats. I'd say it deserves HP nerf. #430madStats.

 

I dont know about other, but to me, its hard to bring defender down especially those with high HP so they still essential in a team compositio imo

 

I wouldn't give out auto repairs as a base stat. By default it would make sense that a fixer had the greater repair being what they are.

I'd give consideration to boosting the Defender defense cap to 200. Leave everyone else's cap as it is. A defender is meant to defend, not much defending if:
a) They soak up damage at same rate as everyone else &,
b) Shooters are getting close to matching their health pool except with greater fire power.

 

More defense points. And smaller hitbox.

It's time

 

Currently what do defenders do? They're just there to give free dmg points to the opposite team, I mean they're so huge, so slow, lacking firepower, and their hp pool can almost be matched by shooters. Anything a defender was supposed to do, an enforcer can do it 3x better.

The main problem, as I see it, is way too many passive blue slots for defenders. Blue items were meant to support a ship, it is always weaker than a red, or yellow, or green item. Weaker as in it gives way too little value. For example, a single shield's value is evaporated by a single explosive cannon during a match, a bandage restores way too little hp (eg 30 seconds hp restoration evaporates after a single cannon shot), gearlube and rudder makes a defender even weaker hp wise.

Current defenders are nothing more than a poor man's shooter, it does nothing to defend. Solution? Ditch a blue slot and change it to a green slot for defenders. That way defenders can actually play a mini team healing support role, or even equip a duct tape. Before you guys think duct tape would be OP on defender, remember that defenders are extremely easy to hit, huge hitbox, slow in everyway, cannot overboost or nitro, and a big torp/firebomb magnet.

EDIT : A defender is supposed to resemble a paladin class in mmorpgs, paladin classes are always heavy on shields, weaker in firepower, and ALWAYS has a mini team support skill, such as healing, team defense boost, etc

Cheers!

 

Best thing defender deserves is a shooter hp nerf and something about tesla shields. Defender is fine in good hands. Can't do anything about people carrying 2 big bertas on defender.

 

I've never played the defender but if their hit box is greater than the ship itself then I'm 110% with you on that!

 

Idk bout you guys but I love fleeting with defenders! A good defender will always have your back!

 

Exactly my point. All those who think defender is pointless either thinks their boat should be invincible and should win 1v5 or they play it wrong.

 

I don't think they should be invincible, but I think they should at least have a distinct difference in hp against a shooter.

 

I personally feel that defender needs other things besides hp (it already has more than enough).
For example, most defenders I see in game are 15k hp, I've also seen 20k+ hp.
Shooters usually only have 7k-10k, which is 50% of defenders.

 

Where I am, shooters are 7-9k hp and defenders are 9-12k hp, which isn't that much of a difference, while shooters are fast, more agile, and has nearly twice as much weapons.

 

A big part of defender right now is having a ton of small shields which is really hard to get at lower levels

 

If there was nothing wrong with defenders, usage won't be at 6% in top 200. Top 200 guys have all the shields to pile up, any kind of viable defender build should be showing statistically in usage rate, but they aren't.