How Should You Play When You’ve a Defender on Your Team?

If Defender charges in, charge in with him. He may die, but he'll leave their team so drastically damaged, that you can just pick enemies one by one.

As a speeder I love to charge in with defender. Either they focus on him and I can do whatever I want (if I see someone damaging him a lot I can stun him, I can help him destroy one target..), and if they focus on me, he can do whatever he wants, and because I'm speeder I can survive that also.
Perfect situation.

That's my observation.

 

By all means don't charge if you cant kill at least 1.

 

That's good questions. Some Defender reply to that would be really appreciated.

 

Part of the problem with Defender is that the meta at least around my infamy (2500), is dominated by long range battles involving Torpedos, mortars and snipers. All these weapons will hit you easily. So your best defense against these weapons is closing the gap (sniper is still good at close range, but thats another convo entirely). However this is where the problem lies, everyone else on your team is quite happy to a long range duel, whoever lands the most shots or whoever has the more upgraded guns, wins.

This leaves us Defenders in a pickle. Now you can equip your Defender with Torps, mortars, snipers too and play the long range battle and can do well playing like this. But you have a huge disadvantage playing like this, your massive hitbox. Your higher health is not going to save you once a few torps and sniper crits start landing on you. The other ships have an easier time being evasive at longer ranges.

So this lead me to the conclusion, that I might as well play close range since I'm going to get hit anyway, whether I'm far or close to the enemy. When you are using close range weapons, like flare, blast, grenade, etc. The enemy can't dodge these as easily and you can lay out some big burst damage up close. But there are problems here too. If your team doesn't back up your forays forward, you will get bursted down very quickly.

So you need to pick your moment and place. I find it it best to assist my team by edging just close enough to use my weapons at maxmimum range while utilizing cover. From here I am hoping that an enemy boat gets caught in a bad position in relation to my own position. When it happens and it often does, thats when I strike regardless of team support. I will charge my target with the sole intent of destroying them. It's more than possible for me to solo kill an enemy boat with just 2 cycles of my weapons.

What my team does now is up to them. If they recognize the charge, then they should charge with me and take advantage of the chaos it causes when a team of ships descends very quickly on the enemy, letting them easily burst down the Fixer, or other high priority targets. If they don't charge with you, then you probably get burst down and destroyed unless you can make a quick exit after taking out your designated foe.

Now in an ideal world, I would just charge the enemy straight away at the start of the match, but other players are very happy to just stay back and trade long range shots, so I have to play smarter with a worse strategy that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. If we just charged in with full support from the get go while the enemy is all spreading out to take up nice long range positions every game our win rate would be higher since its so easy to catch a team off guard at the start of a match.

 

This is a tough question, because there are two types of defenders. The most common are the in-your-face charging defenders, the next are defenders who hold the mid-field line, delivering suppression fire. The only way is for the team to pay close attention to the defender's actions, and follow him if he's charging head on. Actually better just stick behind any defender, even if they are the mid-field type, they can also absorb some hits for the team.

 

As a shooter I love playing with defenders,
Their just charge in and acts as a Sheild for others. Whenever I see a defender I usually just chase him. He keeps on absorbing damage and I keep on delivering damage to unfriends. Only in some situation I get spotted instead of a defender. like if a defender is charging in and I am with him for a support, some unfriends will attack me despite defender being at ahead of me. Lol
But that okay it's bit smart work also by unfriebds to kill the support ship and then taking care of the defender.

Sorry for my bad English I am not that good in writing.

 

It's tough because is depends so much on the situation. As a fixer, I've had to let many an overconfident defender die. It's true that defender can absorb some hits, but if you get focused by all 5 enemy ships, you die, no matter if your HP is 4k or 15k. So if a defender goes alone in front, best to ignore him and be smart. You don't want to be right behind him when he dies because you'll be next.

The best defender is a smart defender that doesn't make himself an easy target. When you start a round and see a defender on your side, you don't know whether that's the case though. So imo it's always best to be careful. Don't do anything you wouldn't do without the defender.

 

As a former speeder turned defender I play slow then charge at a good time. I really want to see what I am facing before I go charging into the death zone. I find I am most successful when I leave my shooters get one unfriendly damaged then charge in with them to follow. I am looking to make sure the one unfriendly can’t be healed and force the other unfriendliness to scramble. When my shooters follow it is glorious, when they don’t I get some good damage done but potentially die.

 

I can tell you what I do. I follow them if they are big enough to warrant it and if they are aggressive enough to actually do their job. I follow them for three very solid reasons:

By leading the charge the defender is going to soak up those first few bullets and they're going to go it much better than my speeder can.
The defender may well score a lucky torp hit or somesuch and I need to be in range to turn it into a kill
The defender is going to be cut down by enemy speeders if I'm not there to stop it.

When I see a beefy defender on my team I tentatively rejoice. The reason it's tentative is because at my infamy (2500) the vast majority of defenders play like crippled shooters... hanging back and firing their paltry gun tubes at far range. That just makes them a gimped shooter. But if that beefy defender charges he is my hero and I'm there for him.

 

As the ranking (lol) defender poster on these forums. I always charge. My other top defender friends...again 5k+ guys. Always charge.

We never vary. Yes we might pause at a moment. Or charge along cover. But we always move forward. Think of our boat as incapable of going backwards. The boat is sooooo. Slow going backwards. That I avoid back at all cost.

So all my decisions are forward. Forward left. Forward right.
Also when charging I always attack fixers first. Followed by whoever the highest ranked unfriends player is in my path.
I keep track of them. At front of match. I use commands and tell friends team who i am attacking.
If my friends team wants to win. They follow. Not super closely mind u. But they stay in the area. And start picking off whomever I attack.

I happily have games I die first. And did 18k damage and zero kills. And all my shooter/speeder/enforcer friends team mops up the unfriend slop.

Follow the charge and enjoy the 2min game i provide. As miika said. My average game time is currently 2min 16seconds.

Tons of victories I have brought my friends team. If in battle with me or another nightmare defender. Dont camp.

Follow and attack

 

I look forward a great deal to the day my infamy is high enough that this is the norm for me. Dying to the enemy shooting line is your job. Do it well is all I ask. My job is to see that you survive long enough to do that (enemy speeders) and that when you do, I'm there to turn whatever damage you did into hard kills.

I like to fondly remember the first time I saw a competent and well constructed defender. Till then I'd discounted them as a wasted slot on the team - a gimped shooter with 2 gun tubes. This guy was toting dual standard cannons and some monstrous bandages. I was dead at the time and so watching through his view. He basically just charged an enemy and ate whatever the enemy threw at him until he got in range of those standard cannons. Then he cut the enemy down like a buzz saw and chugged on to the next victim... healing substantially along the way. It was the exact opposite of "elegant". I could only think, man, that'd be terrifying if it had been coming at me -- the only possible word is "juggernaut". Like you, he seemed to think forward was the only direction worth considering and while cover was handy, getting to the next victim was more important. That was when I started thinking of defenders as potentially valuable team additions and thinking what I needed to do to support them.

That story is why every single time I see a defender on my team I think, "Oh dear lord! PLEASE let him be like that other guy!"

 

I play defender only when i have to do quests so i dont have huge experience but one thing i noted particularly as a defender is that while charging in always make sure the other team doesnt have a napalm user because when they do they simply throw it at you or behind you and while u manage to cross it or dodge it you simply dont realise that it has blocked the way for your team mates to follow u and now they either have to go inside hell fire or they just leave u to die and believe me its the latter in 9 out of 10 times. Sometimes a dedicated fixer follows u by overboosting his/her way through fire only to see both of you getting rammed. So my advice would be to always make sure of napalm user and try to make the last mile charge only when napalm has been used and is on reloading.

 

I would say- without getting into best strategy- that when you have a Defender on your team, communication becomes more important. Because it's hardest for them to correct having gone the wrong way/place. So maybe think about using the communication tools more.

 

I appreciate if team will follow me and support route I take.

Or in unison all other 4 friends team chooses a route different from me and at least move forward and draw some fire.

Can promise good things happen when i arrive in front of unfriends team.



In this battle. Originally my team didnt want to follow me. Even shooter at beginning says negative to my idea of capture. He was first to die because he chose to camp.

Fixers eventually follow me.

Special shout out to defender snowsrfr...who did 18k damage while trailing me and moping up. His tage team helped. Charging.

I then get to spot to carve thru unfriends and take eventually 1v4 out. And kill 4.

This win is due to fixers figuring out shooter wasnt worth listening to. And co defender deciding to rampage charge.
To the Shooters.
Listen. Even if u have camper weapons. Follow me. Follow the big Blue Boat.
Remember that the majority of all defenders. Use close range to mid range weapons. There are very few long range defenders boaters.

So for us to be effective. We have to fight with a knife and see the white in their eyes as we make unfriends boat burst into fire.

I have zero illusion to think i will live all game. My plan is to go out in a blaze of glory creating maximum havoc on unfriends. Will u take advantage of the opportunity?
Watch the above game. And see how unfriends have to call out kill jaws at beginning of match. And multiple times have to adjust who they want to attack in order to deal with my boats arrival. This obviously is a good example. But even in matches where i do a 1/4th of this damage. Same results. Unfriends play reactionary defense. And cant focus on offense until i am off the playing deck.
This means. Unfriends arent aiming at u. Move forward. And kill.
Dun dun

Jaws

 

Depends on the defender.

If the defender is using one of these setups;
1. Railgun, firebomb, mine
2. Blast cannon, railgun, mine
3. Standard cannon, ballpark, firebomb
4. Railgun, missile launchers, mine
5. Flare, napalm, mine

It's pretty obvious you are screwed. High cooldown weapons are not cool on defenders. You know what happened with 2sec increase in EC cooldown, which in comparison to railguns are standard cannons, dps/cooldown-wise.
Just leave these guys alone and pray the unfriend goes for them first so you can capitalise on the time you get while they are getting killed. The bait thing works if the unfriend is stupid. Usually smart ones will kill you first while the defender pops in a couple of shots or a lucky mine hit.

Now if a defender is using a combination of any of these - blast, standard, sniper, flare or EC, I'll follow them without question. A high dps defender is a killing machine. I use fire combo as well so it's a treat to watch a 8k hp shooter panicking while the defender knocks it around with me running circles and having a lot of fun in general.