Defiant Guide by NodDragon (CB4) []
This guide is base about the Defiant Mark 1, since it is created to beginners, but can be used for higher level players. Mark 2 and mark 3 will only get mention, if they got difference speed, range or ability compare to mark 1.
Defiant []
States
Defiant
Mark 1 states:
Health: 17000
Damage: 230
Shared states for all marks
Speed of fire: 2s
Range: 600
Speed: 110
Vision: 750
Offensive capture: 45
Defensive capture: 85
Details []
The Defiant is heavy assault vehicle with a long range, but have low health and damage compared to other heavy vehicles as the Titan, Shadowmaker and most other heavies. With a speed on 110 it is faster than most heavies, allowing it to maneuver around other vehicles. It gain more damage for each kill, and can repair itself on the battlefield.
The Defiant got 3 dots vs light, two dots vs heavy and can´t hit air.
Abilities[]
Passive: []
The Defiant got a single passive ability known as “Bloodlust.” Bloodlust increases the damage done by the Defiant with 30 (40 on Mark 3) each time it get a kill and it stack up to 5 times, allowing a lot more damage to be done by the Defiant, but as soon the Defiant get killed the ability will get reset.
Active:[]
Field Mechanics is a repair ability that heals for 20 seconds with a colddown on 120 seconds. Mark 1 heals 400 per seconds, while mark 3 heals for 600 per seconds. But this come at a cost, the unit that is using it can´t move and will take 300% more damage. (Mark 3 only 100%) Meaning that either you only repair a few of units at a time or else you have to be quite sure that there is no enemy around when you use the ability.
Combat[]
Good against[]
The Defiant can deal with almost all light units, even when it don´t use it superior range to fight them. The Defiant can also fight other heavies, but it will mostly need its superior range to deal with them, since they are superior in health, damage or speed for the most time. The Defiant can also deal with turrets because of its range, but normal it will take quite a while and is so not worth doing and is better done by a teammate who got anti-building units.
Weak against[]
The Defiant can´t not fight air, and should because of that always keep it distant from them. Note that all LF air-units got a higher speed then the Defiant, so be cautious when you know that there is air on the battlefield. The Defiant can´t neither deal with infantries even though it can hit them, but most infantries will hurt the Defiant more then it will do to them.
Micro level:[]
High: The Defiant got a quite high micro level, since of its ability Bloodlust will reset if it die, and that it is most useful at long-range combat, where it can fight enemies without being fired back at. Also that its Field repair allow for more damage taken when it is active then else, meaning that you have to be caution when you use it.
Companies:[]
Some of the companies the Defiant can be used with. Each company name also mention what they are best used for. If there is mention a level after the name and type of company, it means when it will become useful. The hotkeys are how you normal want yours units on, but you can put them as you want if you don´t like them.
Mono-Defiants (offence)[]
The mono company is most likely the easily of all the companies with Defiants in it to use, since they all share the same straights and weakness. The company is built around the Defiants range which they use to pick off enemy units at the longest range as possible.
Turrets/CA:[]
Given that you got no anti-air units with you, Cluster turrets will be good things to bring with you into combat, since they at least will give you some anti-air, but most time this will only hold of air-units for a small time. Cluster and Slug turrets will also help you to better hold a point of interest, since Defiants really can´t hold a point for them self without help.
As with Command Abilities it don´t really matter just as much what you bring with you compare to the turrets. Normal Orbital Laser Hack would be a great chose, but Umbra Virus can also be helpful to weaken the enemies. Reboot can end up being quite useful since it remove all negative states on you Defiants. Repair Subroutine mark 1 which brings back one unit at dead back to full life is not much of a use given that it cost more than a Defiant do. When you reach level 10 you can use the mark 2 which heal all units that die inside a circle back to 50% for a time. But the revived Defiance will still lose it bloodlust.
Mods:[]
Most important mods you can put on you Defiants are range and damage mods. Secondary mods to put on the Defiants are health mods, since you might end up in close combat, even though how much you try to not enter close combat.
When to fight and when to run:[]
You will always want to fight when you enemies can´t hit you, this mean that there a one special LF unit that you want to keep a look out for and that is the Shiva. The Shiva is a long-range “sniper-tank” which will do quite a lot of damage to your Defiants, since it can pierce all units in a straight line. You want to get right up to the Shivas and spread all your units out for minimal the damage when you fight them.
When you are holding a VP/RP/LZ, the mono-company is not the best for the job, for the most time you want to pull them a little back to keep them out of range, but if the points is getting captured you want to move back onto the point to keep.
Hotkey[]
With the mono-company, you want to split your Defiants up in two groups and set them to 1 and 2. You also want to have them all in one group as 3. The reason is so you can move all your Defiants on one time, but when you are in combat you can easily split them up in the two groups. It also allow you to split them up when you are retreating, preventing your enemies to hunt them all as easily, since they also will have to split up.
Defiants and Shredders (Offence)[]
The Defiant/Shredder company is a redesigned mono-Defiants company which is less good against light and heavy, but are able to deal with air and turrets much better. The Defiant and Shredder work well together since they each got a range on 600, but the Shredder got a speed of 140, meaning that the Shredder will get ahead over time. Though because the Shredder don´t have a repair ability, it will need to return back to a Landing Zone to get repaired, but at the same time the Defiants field repair allow for them to stay in the field for a longer time and be fighting the enemies before having to return to get repaired.
The mix you want of Defiants and Shredders depends mostly on what you want to counter mainly. Air and building you want two Shredders for each Defiant, meanwhile if you want to fight heavies and lights you will need two Defiants for each Shredder.
Turrets/CA:[]
With the Defiants and Shredder the only thing you don´t have a counter against is the infantry, but since Phantom don´t have a true anti-infantry turret, the best thing you can bring with you are the Ravager Platform which is a more powerful version of the Ravager to deal with it, but it fire quite slow and take a while to hit. Else bring in Slug and Cluster turrets as you feel you will need the most.
Both Launch Sequence Overdrive (LSO) and Reboot are great CAs to use with the Defiants and Shredders. LSO prevent the enemy to use they abilities making combat much safer for you, while reboot will remove any negative states that might had hit you.
Mods:[]
You want to give Health mods to the Defiants, which will allow them to tank some more, while be giving damage mods for the Shredder, since they already do much more damage than the Defiants do. You can also do it the other way around if you want your shredders to be more survivable and not have to heal them that often.
When to fight and when to run:[]
You want to use the long range both the Shredder and Defiant got to fully, and because of that you want to have you army in the back, while using your units speed to get away from any charging enemies. This company is able to attack points of interest which is getting hold by turrets and some few units, but you have to keep your units a distance from the units at the point and make use of your units’ range.
Hotkey[]
You want the Defiants and Shredders in each they groups as 1 and 2. In 3 you want all your units. You can also have a mix of your Shredders and Defiants in two groups. Then you want them as 3 and 4, while all then are put in group 5. This will allow you to easily pull back those units which are not useful in the combat, and if you got an enemy that has split his/hers air/ground company up in two, you can easily send units against them.
Defiants and Shadowmaker (Defense/offence)[]
The Defiants/Shadowmakers company is both a defensive and an offensive company, where the Defiants serve as the offensive units and shall be used as hit and run units while they pick off the enemies units. The Shadowmakers is a defensive unit with a speed of 100 and got the ability to stealth nearby units and other Shadowmakers. The Shadowmaker have 3 dots vs heavy and two dots vs light. The Shadowmaker is used to hold points since it ability remove all they movement speed, (Mark 3 have a movement speed of 40) this make them perfect to hold points since if you got 2+ they will stealth each other forcing the enemy to use area-attack as Napalm Strike or units ability such as the Hydras gas attack.
You want minimal two Shadowmakers and the rest to be Defiants. As you gain more points for units, you might want the number of Shadowmakers to be raised to 4, making them very hard to knock off a point they are holding on.
Turrets/CA:[]
There is one turret that is great for the Defiant/Shadowmaker company and that is the Jamming Frequency Platform, (JFP) since it prevent the use of abilities and with that remove some of the threats against the stealthing Shadowmakers. One thing to noticed about turret-placement is that you don´t want them to make the enemy suspicious, so you want to mostly place them a little away from you Shadowmakers.
A quite good CA for this company would be the Repair Subroutine, since it allows you to buy more time for you and your teammates to reinforce the points and push of the LF assault. So you might want two of this CA with you, the rest of the room for CA don´t really matter and you can use them as you will.
Mods:[]
Great mods for the Shadowmakers will be health mods allowing them to hold a point for even longer than normal. At the same reason you want to give you Defiants damage mods, since you can be sure that most LF will be concentrating about the Shadowmakers.
When to fight and when to run:[]
As normal you always want to keep you Defiants out of close combat as long time you can, while the Shadowmakers most of the time will only be in close combat. Use Repair Subrutine on shadowmakers near death, you may even wish to make this unit more visible *ie packing any shadowmakers cloaking the shadowmaker with an active repair subrutine* to encourage the enemy to kill it and give you a fresh shadowmaker, deploy that shadowmaker as soon as it respawns, should you not be able to place more repair subrutine on your shadowmakers, analyze the situation and determine if your defiants can hold until your shadowmakers return from the LZ, if not it may be best to retreat the defiants and use your shadowmakers as sacrificial lambs. Another thing you can do if you get ambush when you are moving you Shadowmakers and Defiants together is to use the stealth field generator to hide your units, but this will only work so long time there is no detector unit around.
Hotkey[]
Here you want your Shadowmakers in group 1 since they mostly are going to be in stealth mode, while you want the Defiants in group 2, and them all in group 3. When you get more Defiants you might want to split them up in each their group and put them in 3 and 4, and move the all group to 5.
Defiants and Beaker (Offence) []
Beaker is a modified Defiant tank, who got the same range and speed as a normal Defiant tank, but got a huge 49200 health, allowing him to be a great tank units with the Defiants. You want to use this company just like a mono Defiant company, but this time you got a tank unit with you who got some great ability. The AM-snipe will allow you to deal a lot of damage if used right to units that is clumped op, while the Phase-short allow you to for a moment to remove an enemy unit from the battle. This unit should be the biggest threat to you. The AM-pulse is most likely the best ability you can use, since this will allow Beaker to tank almost to death, but then phase out for a moment allowing him to make a run for survival.
The reason to this company is level 5+ is else you wouldn’t be able to have enough Defiants in the company, when you also got Beaker in it since he use 500 points alone.
Turrets/CA:[]
As with the mono-company you will not bring any anti-air units with you, so Cluster turrets will be a great thing to bring into the battlefield, but it will not keep the air units off for that long of a time.
Of CAs you want to bring at least one Repair Subroutine with you to keep Beaker alive the whole time. Else you can bring whatever CA you want with you.
Mods:[]
You want to give your Defiants as many damage mods as possible to max they damage, since they will be kept at a distance as always. Beaker at the other hand will need as much health you can give him, so give him the best health mods you can get your hands on.
When to fight and when to run:[]
Just as the mono-company this version can´t fight off enemies at points, nor deal with air units that might appear or enemies in close combat, so goes it for this company. You want to pick off the enemies at a distance and if they get too close to you army make use of Beaker to tank, while you pull your Defiants back to a better spot.
Hotkey[]
You want Beaker in group 1 and the Defiants in group 2, and them all in group 3. Since Beaker will be send against the enemy if they are hunting you, you will not need to split the Defiants up in more groups.
How to fight Defiants[]
This is for any LF players who want to know how to fight of Defiants. This will not look at companies, but only the unit. The greatest weakness of the Defiant is that it is not designed for close combat, which mean you want to ambush them and force them to fight in close combat. If this is not a possibility you want to make use of faster units then the Defiant or Rolling Thunder to get close. Units as the Shiva can do quite a lot from a distance, but you want to spread them out if the Defiants get close to increase you chance of getting them lined up for a short that is hitting as many as possible. Else are air a great option since the lark of anti-air. Else is the Titan a great unit to deal with the Defiants since they got the same speed, but have more health and damage then the Defiant have.