About Defender

If you discuss the defender, please keep it civil, and don't just say things, use facts please. I like to educate myself about a topic before I make any claims about it. So I upgraded my defender and took it out for about 200 battles. Keep in mind that I am playing in the 1700 to 1900 infamy range as a mk4. Anyway, I can see both sides of the buff/it's fine argument. The main reason defender appears to be underpowered, is that at the defenders final slot unlock(mk 5, I am aware you gain slot points at mk6) gives you the option of three weapons to choose from in battle. Shooters and speeders have five items that can be used, and enforcers and fixers have six. Having roughly half the things to do as other ships can be boring. With the others, you can be doing something whenever there isn't global cooldown. But moving on, I loved the gameplay of the defender. Provided you do it right, you can distract most of the other team, while your shooters wear them down. The problem is, the defender is slow, and has a massive hitbox. With only three things to do, the defender seems underpowered, because you are constantly getting hit, and not necessarily able to hit back. With most defenders using flare double explo, the explo nerf hit them hard, as they were unable to do things for longer. I am not making a suggestion of what to fix, if we should fix something, about the defender. Feel free to post ideas down below. However, my final thoughts of the defender, is that it is hard to do top damage without having the best or close to the best weapons in a match, and it is easily spammed by mortars and other weapons. However, I have decided to switch to a defender main, due to the fun I had of having sheer massive amounts of health.

 

MK4 Defender is in rough spot, but MK5 is a different story. At Mk4 the Defender just has 2 active slots (our reds) which you mentionedreally limits the ship since all the other slots are passive Blues, making the ship feel abit weak and more importantly not very fun since you have less to do compared to other ships. All the other ships at MK4 have 4 active slots.

Mk4 Defender is currently this:
4RR 5BBBB

It could be changed to this
3RRR 5BBBB

You lose a red slot point but gain an extra red slot giving you an extra weapon to use, making the ship more interactive. Then back to normal progression afterwards.

Defender gets a lot of buff request threads, since it you rarely see Defenders in the top 50 leaderboard, there is normally only 2 or 3 in a sea of enforcers, speeders and shooters. Even fixers get more representation in the top 50. Is the ship weak at the top of nightmare? I don't know since I play in Ace at Mk5 against mostly MK6s, but maybe there is a problem at MK7? What I can tell you is that when I was playing against mostly other MK5s, playing exclusively as a Defender I felt a little bit OP. And even now against mostly MK6s, I feel like i can hold my own just about. I think one of the Devs said that the Defender is actually the best performing ship across the game as a whole, so maybe there isn't a huge problem, just a few tweaks might be necessary to balance out the problem areas here and there.

 

Once I finish my farm proccess with my speeder (using only it by 5 seasons on nightmare while leveling up other boats), I intent to use this build:

It totally covers the DPS issue, if you want a little bit more versatility, try to replace the standard cannon with a grenade

 

Here's my current defender setup. I know it looks weak and that's because I don't have any defender talents right now. With talents it can have around 15.5 to 16k hp. Problem with flare setup in nightmare league is that if your flare is weak like mine here, you're stone dead against enforcers/ speeders because these ex cannons can't break their shields. No matter how much hp you have, you'll be stuck in this infinite loop where you can only land one shot at yellow boats per cycle while they roast you with their all 3/2 weapons. That's why it's weak... there's nothing else to do while you're reloading and it's not like we can run for cover while our cannons reload for 14 seconds.


Compare it with my 9.5k hp shooter which uses same setup, has 2 extra hard hitting weapons, can reposition faster than defender, has something to shoot at any time any situation and I think we can see which boat is the clear winner here.

 

And defender agility is HORRIBLE.. I can wear down MK5 defender by 2000 or 3000HP without help

 

I wish it had 1 green slot instead of blue for a duct tape or repair box.

 

I would love if there was one more blue slot point. Two big shields would change the defender game.

 

That build is fabulous how much hp does it have?

 

10818, it could go to 11068 if I was a pure defender and even more if I had leveled Blastian, but I like to play every boat then I need to compromise some things

 

That's pretty good

 

Thanks! It's really funny to use it because the old spinning around the defender tricks don't work but well it's more dangerous to rush alone with it

 

Why do t5 shooters have 5 weapons slots is the real question

 

@Jimbot Playing as a Mk4 Defender with mid-range weapons was rough. I learned to hide behind walls. It got less frustrating once I upgraded to Mk5. Went from 1,600 infamy to 2,600 infamy in two weeks.

I'm still Mk5. Hanging tough. Highest infamy is 3,716.

 

I run rudder and lube and it's cool. Prefer bandage over standard shield, preference/fleeting issue.The build you have will be really strong in many situations but some maps/scenarios will be difficult due to walls and setup. For ex. think about the way many battles develop on Crash & Burn and Chill Zone. On the other hand Fighthouse and Damage Depot will be great.

 

That'll definitely be a problem. Thanks for the tip I'll have to figure out some strategy or replace some items.

 

Shooter is hard to use ? Come on.
I feel like 70% of t5 shooter players just stack mortars and spam until their iq has reached zero...
Playing defender nowadays feels like a chore/curse : I have 9k+ health as a mk5 def and i feel like i would do a lot better with half that health and more weapons.