Vorp! Advanced Defense Tactics page 2

I don’t defend with ant that often, but the best thing to have is lvl 3 mines, then place them at strategic points and use them to help kill enemy players who try and maneuver

DEFENDING WITH CIRCE

First off Circe role is not primarily defense, early game you’ll focus on turrets and support, and some base killing, though if you are teamed with an ant or clank they’re typically better at base killing, and your role in this area is secondary. So assuming one of your ops is Deport, you want to go base hunting when your Deport is charged, and take a defensive role while your deport is recharging. If you are getting killed frequently, joined late, disconnected and reconnected and are thus underlevel (i.e. 2 or more levels under the other team average) it may be a good time to switch to a defensive role.

For your defensive role, you are typically most effective in positions 2 (between left batts) and 5 (between right batts), you can spam bolts that typically won’t generate damage quickly enough to kill but may get you an assist if you have some more effective defenders around, or may be sufficient to get the enemy to turn tail and run home before they finish a turret or battery. And if you find ships at an emitter, or in a stationary position lining up a shot on a turret or battery, they are vulnerable to omen sphere and if you line it up good for a direct hit that may also be good for a kill, so don’t spam your omens, save them for that scenario.

Since you aren’t highly maneuverable, you won’t be that good at chasing ships, stay in your optimal def position and let them run away, or if they are in a pack 2 or 3 against you, try and get an omen sphere in their face and try and retreat to left depo using space fold and hug the center flame turrets if they are still up.

Pay attention to mini-map and positions of your teammates, if you are being ganged it may be better to run toward your nearest mate instead of reatreating to depo. If you are underlevel and have suffered several kills already, your enemy may be more interested in chasing you and chalking up another easy kill than finishing the batteries and getting them to chase you toward a more effective defensive teammate that finishes them before they get the batts may turn the tide. You are the rabbit and the big dogs will get excited and distracted to chase you when you run toward your friend the tiger.

Continuing with Circe, I should also note that my reference to tiger is assuming you have an effective Craw or THawk co-defender. Another approach, if you have an SS and Circe on the team, pair up and stay together, you have similar speed and handling limits and as a pair can opt to go base hunting together or hold a defensive station together, with healing assistance you stay on station longer, and your bolts have better range than the SS loadouts so you give him good cover. Work out the details in pre-game chat.

Some additional tips for defending with dread

Dread’s survival ability is essentially kill your opponent before they kill you, Dread cannot run without good team support, so your goal is to either cripple or kill your opponent before they can do the same to you, if you do not, Dread can die much easier than you might think.

Pack Mines – these are Dread’s real defense, unless your opponent is only interested in destroying a structure then getting out while more or less ignoring you, do not use these unless you’re sure at least 1 will hit. 1 on 1, if an opponent is not crippled when they get past your mines, you will likely die. The best uses tend to be in close range where the front mine either instantly hits, or when an opponent is rushing you and cannot avoid them. You can also use them to block an opponents escape route if they only have 1 path that is not complete suicide for them.

Orbital Nuke – a powerful skill but it can be tricky to handle and is rather situational. As such I would reccomend against focusing upgrades into nuke unless you have a partner you plan to stick with the entire game and have a good strategy, even then I would say focusing nuke upgrades is risky at best. A good idea for nuke usage would be to use your teammates and turrets radar to predict an enemies route and block them with a nuke, as your normal radar does not have enough range to properly trap a fast enemy. Deep Scan can also be used for this, but its cool down means rather limited use if you’re relying on it alone.

-also, the nuke can move horizontally fairly fast while turning, if an enemy isn’t engaging you directly you can track most ships from the side and keep them inside the nuke range, this primarily happens when an opponent is chasing a dying ally or rushing a critical structure.
-even if you don’t hit, or know you cannot land a hit, the nuke is a great zoning tool to keep opponents away, as no one really wants to stand around inside the nuke zone if they don’t have to, you can use this to cover a teammates attack on early structures such as the front line turrets, and to cover fleeing allies, forcing a chasing enemy to retreat or likely die. a great tool for cover, but it is punishable, so make sure you have cover when using this in an open battlefield.
-use the turning to catch enemies off guard, you can start the nuke while facing the opposite direction of where you want it to land, you can turn about a full 180 with default turn speed by the time it actually lands, giving enemies much less time to react.
-a risky but potentially effective use is to use the nuke to bait an enemy into rushing you, as it is a good opportunity to get inside Dreads defense, and a fast ship can easily get inside its range if they’re nearby when its activated. in a 1v1 situation against an opponent like craw or any player you know is likely to rush you against a nuke, you want to place it so they are essentially forced to rush you head on or retreat, in the case they rush you, drop pack mines and simultaneously fire a bfg directly into their face, when done correctly this will potentially cripple and/or cause them to panic at the amount of damage they just ran straight into to avoid your nuke, throw in a particle wave before those hits and most ships will be dead at this point.

double post for seperate sections

Defending Against Dread

A big difference in facing dread as opposed to other ships is the long downtime for its main gun the bfg, this can create the illusion that you are not at risk of dying during then downtime when you are taking no damage at all. The bfg does significant damage per hit, so you can quickly go from not at risk to being on the brink of death, especially if there is more than one enemy nearby.

The minigun is a pretty standard type weapon, there isn’t really anything special to note about it that does not apply to fighting just about any other ship, however it does increase dreads potential damage output so when fighting a dread with a minigun just remember that it will be doing more damage overall.

Pack Mines are something you need to watch out for, their damage does not change when leveled up, so even level 1 packmines will hit you for 500 damage with no damage techs. Dread is vulnerable up close, but packmines can easily turn this area into a deathtrap, if you’re trying to get in close, try to force dread to use the mines before you go in, point blank mines can turn a winning fight into instant death. If you’re ship has the range combat ability for it, try to engage dread from outside its mine range, if you’re going to go in once mines are out, make sure you move carefully, accidentally hitting one mine can make a huge difference. Keep in mind when rushing a dread or chasing one that is throwing mines, or hasn’t used mines recently, they always follow the same pattern, one directly in front, and 3 on each side (at max level), the side mines fire from front to back, so circling dread will get you killed while they’re firing. the safest approach is just off center from dreads path, as you’ll avoid the middle firing mine and go right through the gap just inside the side mines, a good dread wont make this mistake many times against you in one match, so the safest bet is still to stay just out of mine range.

The nuke is something you may or may not have to worry about against dread, this depends largely on the player, as it is a situational and somewhat tricky to use ability, against a dread that can use this effectively, your best options to avoid it are back away from the dread out of range, as it cannot move full speed while active, or rush the dread get inside its range and go for the kill. Rushing is not a good idea if you are low on energy or the dread has significant support nearby, as it will probably just lead to your death. Trying to sidestep a nuke can be suicidal if the dread is aiming for you, as it can easily turn and keep pace with almost any ship. Another trick to watch for spinning nukes, where a dread purposely fires to the side or behind where it wants to hit and then spins the nuke into place, giving little to no time to avoid the nuke if you are in range. If you notice this happening, the same applies, safest escape is away from dread, fleeing to the side may avoid the nuke depending on how far back the dread started the nuke rotation, but can just as easily lead into a different deathtrap, as most dreads that know how to use this maneuver effectively will likely have some way of covering that side blind spot, such as teammates or turrets.

*there is currently a bug where the nuke targeter will sometimes not display when its activated from off screen, theres not much you can do about it, but just something to keep in mind when facing a dread that uses nukes

Key points to getting rid of dread are to keep pressure on it after the mines are out, and get in close. Packmines are deadly but are dreads last line of defense, as dread cannot run without support, once mines are out dread is wide open to be taken out, if you can take a bfg or two and dread doesnt have a huge energy advantage, if you get inside its mines you should win. Also watch for Dread paired with SS attacking, this is in my opinion one of the few viable methods for attacking a base with dread, as its ability to kill ships quickly paired with the healing and support from SS Venture can make dread very hard to get rid of. You can either target the SS and force a retreat, or take it out leaving dread pretty much done for, or you can keep some distance and avoid the mines+vorpedos and keep pressure on them, exploit dreads weakneses and you should be able to get rid of them before too much damage is done.

Lol the devs need to let you write tutorials for this game.

Defending with Turbo: Don’t get distracted by kills

What do you mean by disraction? TH is ultimate killing machine. What distraction?

i spend 30 minutes reading that very nice

Defending with Shinobi

Shinobi is primarily an assassin. Very quick and maneuverable, a good Shin pilot can cover several points on the battlefield. However, it only has two damage dealing skills. The first is the Iadio Beam, which is basically a laser. After firing, the laser will take some time to recharge. Waiting for the Iadio Beam to fully recharge is the key to playing Shinobi- a fully charged shot will take out half of an ANT’s health in a split second. The second skill are the Death Marks, which are a homing projectile that will stick to your target. Upon latching onto your enemy, the death marks will continue inflicting damage for approximately 10 seconds. The key to this skill is that the damage per second (DPS) of the death marks goes up the longer they are attached.

My standard path for upgrading Shinobi is thus: W, Q2, E, Q3, hull, hull, hull, E2, E3, W2, W3, R1, R2, R3

Attacking Turrets
Shinobi’s Iadio Beam outranges flame turrets, so they do not pose you a problem. The standard turrets can really put a hurt on you, though there is a trick to attacking them. The shots fired by the standard turrets bounce off of walls, and your Iadio Beam can pass right THROUGH walls. So situate yourself at an angle behind a wall to where the turret’s shots bounce away harmlessly, and then hit it with your beam. NOTE: Do not fire away senselessly with your laser. Let it charge up to its full capacity before firing. Failure to do so will result in weaker powered shots and will also leave you with less health. If enemy reinforcements arrive, use your invisibility and get out of town.

Defending
Shinobi’s speed and PvP abilities really help it excel as a defender, ESPECIALLY if teamed with another defender such as a Dreadnaught. Throw out your death marks as soon as you come in range with your enemy, as you want the marks to be dealing damage throughout your encounter. Usually your enemy will arrive in your base with diminished energy after using their thrusters to cross the map. Fire off a fully charged Iadio Beam. Lots of opponents will immediately panic at seeing their health drop so dramatically. Try to anticipate if they will leave your base or attempt to go deeper. Pace their ship, but hold off on firing your beam again. Let it charge up again before firing. Use your invisibility to teleport past Clanknor’s shield wall.

Also for shinobi:
If against ant, make sure you get your first iado off when invisible. If they see you they can deport away before your iado will kill them (since it takes multiple shots). Being invisible on first shot if usually a good measure if you think they might deport also.

Also for shinobi: If you have your death marks USE THEM. Many people overlook death marks but they are a very important loadout especially for ant and clanks. I recommend after firing the invisible shot shoot death marks right away or preferably death marks then invisible shot. After that they are crippled and you have 7 seconds to make the kill, remember 1 thing DONT MISS xD gl and hf.

Defending with Craw
Craw is a low health ,high speed ,high damage primarily defensive ship that should almost never go offense. However there are a few exceptions such as one sided, blowout, or noob matches where it is acceptable. The best defensive position for craw is position 2: LEFT SHIELD/EMITTER, in this position craw can defend the emitter, watch for backdoorers and defend first battery all at the same time. As spower mentioned defending is NOT about going crazy with pvp and trying to kill everyone. Since ant and clank are the primary attackers ants will already have low health and killing them should not be a problem. In regards to clanks they are more difficult, they rather fight back or run away; your objective is to make them run away. A clank that is running away is way less dangerous than one who fights back. Another tip for craw is to make sure you are NEVER under leveled, an under leveled craw is just food for the enemy. Also when drone hunting be sure to watch base and never stray to far in the middle, attackers wait for this and by the time you are back your batt/turret is gone and so is the attacker making you look like an idiot.
Basically for craw stay in base stay leveled (but don’t go too crazy) DO NOT let any attacker go unnoticed, be aggressive (a craw that strikes fear into attackers makes them attack less often which greatly helps your offense), STAY ALIVE, and in the rare occasions that the offense is not attacking help your teammates. Helping teammates does not have 2 mean go crazy with p v p usually your kames are enough to scare enemy or save the life of your teammate as long as it is inside of your base of course. In conclusion you are the primary defender do not assume your teammates will handle it TAKE INITIATIVE, BE AGGRESSIVE, DON"T BE TOO BLOODTHIRSTY, STAY LEVELED and overall have fun.
The recommended upgrade path would be 32134531254245. Of course everyone has there preferences and some builds work better than others but that one is pretty basic but no matter what 3(kamehamehas aka kames) should be your first weapon to upgrade NO MATTER WHAT. This build focuses on kames early to help with mid game and for early attackers.
Lastly ALL craws should have deepscan the second OP depends on preference but i personally use spacepinch if u do not have pinch u can use divert shield dronehunter or energize. i would not recommend hypercool because even though double kames is very high damage it is not worth for a 1 time use for 240 secs.
Good Luck Craw strike fear into the hearts of any offense :)

I’ll just be covering the basics because I’m not the best person to write this out.
Defending with Torpaz
Torpaz has low health, reasonable speed, fast turns, and high damage and no set role, meaning it works well for defense.
Razor Shard is hard to aim, but does loads of damage if shot well. In addition, if you press your ship against a wall, you can shoot Razor Shard through it.
Maelstrom also goes through walls, and does great damage, though less to structures. You will need this.
Impure Crystals fires a bunch of crystals that go more-or-less in the direction you face, and look almost like atoms. They do good damage, but any player who runs into them will try to avoid them later.
Sapphire Armor is weak and won’t protect you against most laser/explosive weapons, but can soak a hit or two from projectiles(Such as Scatter Cannon fire, or Pincer Bullets.)
Unfortunately, while you could take a Clanknor head-on, you have little health or stopping power, and not enough reputation to scare other players away(Unlike Craw or Clanknor, which do.)
Stay leveled, be careful, don’t get close to enemy ships unless they’re low health, don’t get Sapphire Armor or Impure Crystals too early, and don’t rush into the enemy base unless all enemies are dead or fighting your allies.
The upgrade path I use is 21212554353434, which is good enough for what you can do.

I’ve been asked to write one for iron wolf.
Defending with Iron Wolf
Iron wolf has crappy energy regen but good DPS and has a shield that makes you invincible and heals allies. It can also deflect incoming bullets. This makes it great at several things: You can be a portable depot for your allies, you can block turrets, and best yet, you can block the core pretty well and shoot through it with lasers and missiles while leaving spinning claw cannons around it.

I don’t usually play defense with iron wolf because I think it is best in an offensive support role, but by using your shields you can save many turrets and structures while melting people with lasers and harassing with missiles. You generally don’t want claw cannons unless you are going all offense for some reason, they are mostly good against structures.

For defense I would recommend first lasers to kill drones better, then shield to defend turrets and heal allies. After that it depends on if you need to kill people faster or heal faster which you do next. I usually go 242424 or something, and upgrade differently if I am chasing someone and want stronger missiles for instance.

Because you can heal yourself, but cant chase people that well (because you burn so much energy with your lasers) It is best if you defend from one spot and only chase a little. If you go back to their depot you are not playing good defense.

Offense/Support with Iron Wolf
You still want lasers first, as they are great for firing through 2 big drones at once, or shooting through allies and your drones at enemy targets. In addition, Iron Wolf can shoot through walls with the lasers, so a good strategy for structures is drop 2 or 3 claw cannons and then get behind a wall and laser, then you can use shield if someone defends. Hopefully you brought Deport because you can use it to get home safe no matter what.

Where Iron Wolf shines best though, is using a straight shooter like Ant, Squid, Undo, or whatever to do the damage on a structure while you behind the wall laser, then you can both heal up in the shield and go to the next target. This works for all batteries, and lasers outrange flame turrets so you are fine there as well. The hardest part is getting your team to realize you are pretty much a portable depot and damage dealing machine, and to use you as such.

Originally posted by Texas:

DEFENDING WITH CIRCE

First off Circe role is not primarily defense, early game you’ll focus on turrets and support, and some base killing, though if you are teamed with an ant or clank they’re typically better at base killing, and your role in this area is secondary. So assuming one of your ops is Deport, you want to go base hunting when your Deport is charged, and take a defensive role while your deport is recharging. If you are getting killed frequently, joined late, disconnected and reconnected and are thus underlevel (i.e. 2 or more levels under the other team average) it may be a good time to switch to a defensive role.

For your defensive role, you are typically most effective in positions 2 (between left batts) and 5 (between right batts), you can spam bolts that typically won’t generate damage quickly enough to kill but may get you an assist if you have some more effective defenders around, or may be sufficient to get the enemy to turn tail and run home before they finish a turret or battery. And if you find ships at an emitter, or in a stationary position lining up a shot on a turret or battery, they are vulnerable to omen sphere and if you line it up good for a direct hit that may also be good for a kill, so don’t spam your omens, save them for that scenario.

Since you aren’t highly maneuverable, you won’t be that good at chasing ships, stay in your optimal def position and let them run away, or if they are in a pack 2 or 3 against you, try and get an omen sphere in their face and try and retreat to left depo using space fold and hug the center flame turrets if they are still up.

Pay attention to mini-map and positions of your teammates, if you are being ganged it may be better to run toward your nearest mate instead of reatreating to depo. If you are underlevel and have suffered several kills already, your enemy may be more interested in chasing you and chalking up another easy kill than finishing the batteries and getting them to chase you toward a more effective defensive teammate that finishes them before they get the batts may turn the tide. You are the rabbit and the big dogs will get excited and distracted to chase you when you run toward your friend the tiger.

In regard to how to defend with Circe what you do is place ghost field exactly on turret reducing damage done to it then engage enemy. As a good defender should know you don’t have to kill them just scare them away or call a teammate if needed however u shouldn’t need to. Against ants what i do personally is stand in the way in there line of fire and then defend, the damage reduction from the ghost field reduces the damage to you so the damage is bearable. The same technique works for Undulorean. If defending against a clank ALWAYS go after the Gruba turret first and try 2 shoot omen directly at the clank. The damage is too much for the clank to handle and the turret or you will finish it off. The reason why you go after the turret first is that you absorb the gruba’s hits while your turret kills the clank’s wall allowing you to destroy the clank with your omen sphere or as I like to call it “Death Ball”.Try not to waste the Death ball on the wall because your crippling damage force would be wasted. The damage that a clank does to you turret is immense and it is hard to do this while saving the turret so I always try to reach turret before clank does giving me a head start on dealing damage. If you arrive late use the same technique but use space fold to push your “Death Ball” further faster to speed up the process. If you happen to miss your Death ball do not worry the static + your bolts should be enough damage to scare them away. There are the rare exceptions that it does not such as enemy has more tech than you or you are facing an aggressive clank who tries to kill you or you just arrived at a bad time. If facing an aggressive defender LET them chase you this gives time to call a teammate,lets your turret heal and overall help your base. If you arrive late to a turret already finished DO NOT let defender attack battery without any pressure batteries make a huge difference and turn the tides of games. lastly in teh case where the clank is already attacking your batt they most likely have a wall so instead of trying to go around to shoot Ball at them instead use bolts and shoot Death Ball DIRECTLY at the battery whether it is at the middle or side of battery the static especially at level 3 is a lot of damage and this will rather scare clank to come out behind wall or just give significant damage, also use ghost field to reduce the damage to the batt. Using all of these techniques this will make you a great defender however don’t defend TOO OFTEN remember to rape there base :).
Good Luck Circe may your Death Balls destroy them ALL!!

DEFENDING WITH CIRCE

First off Circe role is not primarily defense, early game you’ll focus on turrets and support, and some base killing, though if you are teamed with an ant or clank they’re typically better at base killing, and your role in this area is secondary. So assuming one of your ops is Deport, you want to go base hunting when your Deport is charged, and take a defensive role while your deport is recharging. If you are getting killed frequently, joined late, disconnected and reconnected and are thus underlevel (i.e. 2 or more levels under the other team average) it may be a good time to switch to a defensive role.

For your defensive role, you are typically most effective in positions 2 (between left batts) and 5 (between right batts), you can spam bolts that typically won’t generate damage quickly enough to kill but may get you an assist if you have some more effective defenders around, or may be sufficient to get the enemy to turn tail and run home before they finish a turret or battery. And if you find ships at an emitter, or in a stationary position lining up a shot on a turret or battery, they are vulnerable to omen sphere and if you line it up good for a direct hit that may also be good for a kill, so don’t spam your omens, save them for that scenario.

Since you aren’t highly maneuverable, you won’t be that good at chasing ships, stay in your optimal def position and let them run away, or if they are in a pack 2 or 3 against you, try and get an omen sphere in their face and try and retreat to left depo using space fold and hug the center flame turrets if they are still up.

Pay attention to mini-map and positions of your teammates, if you are being ganged it may be better to run toward your nearest mate instead of reatreating to depo. If you are underlevel and have suffered several kills already, your enemy may be more interested in chasing you and chalking up another easy kill than finishing the batteries and getting them to chase you toward a more effective defensive teammate that finishes them before they get the batts may turn the tide. You are the rabbit and the big dogs will get excited and distracted to chase you when you run toward your friend the tiger.

Jan 18, 2013 3:52am
avatar for Texas Texas 24 posts

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Continuing with Circe, I should also note that my reference to tiger is assuming you have an effective Craw or THawk co-defender. Another approach, if you have an SS and Circe on the team, pair up and stay together, you have similar speed and handling limits and as a pair can opt to go base hunting together or hold a defensive station together, with healing assistance you stay on station longer, and your bolts have better range than the SS loadouts so you give him good cover. Work out the details in pre-game chat.

Jan 19, 2013 9:45am
avatar for TinFoilMkIV TinFoilMkIV 10 posts

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Some additional tips for defending with dread

Dread’s survival ability is essentially kill your opponent before they kill you, Dread cannot run without good team support, so your goal is to either cripple or kill your opponent before they can do the same to you, if you do not, Dread can die much easier than you might think.

Pack Mines – these are Dread’s real defense, unless your opponent is only interested in destroying a structure then getting out while more or less ignoring you, do not use these unless you’re sure at least 1 will hit. 1 on 1, if an opponent is not crippled when they get past your mines, you will likely die. The best uses tend to be in close range where the front mine either instantly hits, or when an opponent is rushing you and cannot avoid them. You can also use them to block an opponents escape route if they only have 1 path that is not complete suicide for them.

Orbital Nuke – a powerful skill but it can be tricky to handle and is rather situational. As such I would reccomend against focusing upgrades into nuke unless you have a partner you plan to stick with the entire game and have a good strategy, even then I would say focusing nuke upgrades is risky at best. A good idea for nuke usage would be to use your teammates and turrets radar to predict an enemies route and block them with a nuke, as your normal radar does not have enough range to properly trap a fast enemy. Deep Scan can also be used for this, but its cool down means rather limited use if you’re relying on it alone.

-also, the nuke can move horizontally fairly fast while turning, if an enemy isn’t engaging you directly you can track most ships from the side and keep them inside the nuke range, this primarily happens when an opponent is chasing a dying ally or rushing a critical structure.
-even if you don’t hit, or know you cannot land a hit, the nuke is a great zoning tool to keep opponents away, as no one really wants to stand around inside the nuke zone if they don’t have to, you can use this to cover a teammates attack on early structures such as the front line turrets, and to cover fleeing allies, forcing a chasing enemy to retreat or likely die. a great tool for cover, but it is punishable, so make sure you have cover when using this in an open battlefield.
-use the turning to catch enemies off guard, you can start the nuke while facing the opposite direction of where you want it to land, you can turn about a full 180 with default turn speed by the time it actually lands, giving enemies much less time to react.
-a risky but potentially effective use is to use the nuke to bait an enemy into rushing you, as it is a good opportunity to get inside Dreads defense, and a fast ship can easily get inside its range if they’re nearby when its activated. in a 1v1 situation against an opponent like craw or any player you know is likely to rush you against a nuke, you want to place it so they are essentially forced to rush you head on or retreat, in the case they rush you, drop pack mines and simultaneously fire a bfg directly into their face, when done correctly this will potentially cripple and/or cause them to panic at the amount of damage they just ran straight into to avoid your nuke, throw in a particle wave before those hits and most ships will be dead at this point.

Jan 19, 2013 10:04am
avatar for TinFoilMkIV TinFoilMkIV 10 posts

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double post for seperate sections

Defending Against Dread

A big difference in facing dread as opposed to other ships is the long downtime for its main gun the bfg, this can create the illusion that you are not at risk of dying during then downtime when you are taking no damage at all. The bfg does significant damage per hit, so you can quickly go from not at risk to being on the brink of death, especially if there is more than one enemy nearby.

The minigun is a pretty standard type weapon, there isn’t really anything special to note about it that does not apply to fighting just about any other ship, however it does increase dreads potential damage output so when fighting a dread with a minigun just remember that it will be doing more damage overall.

Pack Mines are something you need to watch out for, their damage does not change when leveled up, so even level 1 packmines will hit you for 500 damage with no damage techs. Dread is vulnerable up close, but packmines can easily turn this area into a deathtrap, if you’re trying to get in close, try to force dread to use the mines before you go in, point blank mines can turn a winning fight into instant death. If you’re ship has the range combat ability for it, try to engage dread from outside its mine range, if you’re going to go in once mines are out, make sure you move carefully, accidentally hitting one mine can make a huge difference. Keep in mind when rushing a dread or chasing one that is throwing mines, or hasn’t used mines recently, they always follow the same pattern, one directly in front, and 3 on each side (at max level), the side mines fire from front to back, so circling dread will get you killed while they’re firing. the safest approach is just off center from dreads path, as you’ll avoid the middle firing mine and go right through the gap just inside the side mines, a good dread wont make this mistake many times against you in one match, so the safest bet is still to stay just out of mine range.

The nuke is something you may or may not have to worry about against dread, this depends largely on the player, as it is a situational and somewhat tricky to use ability, against a dread that can use this effectively, your best options to avoid it are back away from the dread out of range, as it cannot move full speed while active, or rush the dread get inside its range and go for the kill. Rushing is not a good idea if you are low on energy or the dread has significant support nearby, as it will probably just lead to your death. Trying to sidestep a nuke can be suicidal if the dread is aiming for you, as it can easily turn and keep pace with almost any ship. Another trick to watch for spinning nukes, where a dread purposely fires to the side or behind where it wants to hit and then spins the nuke into place, giving little to no time to avoid the nuke if you are in range. If you notice this happening, the same applies, safest escape is away from dread, fleeing to the side may avoid the nuke depending on how far back the dread started the nuke rotation, but can just as easily lead into a different deathtrap, as most dreads that know how to use this maneuver effectively will likely have some way of covering that side blind spot, such as teammates or turrets.

*there is currently a bug where the nuke targeter will sometimes not display when its activated from off screen, theres not much you can do about it, but just something to keep in mind when facing a dread that uses nukes

Key points to getting rid of dread are to keep pressure on it after the mines are out, and get in close. Packmines are deadly but are dreads last line of defense, as dread cannot run without support, once mines are out dread is wide open to be taken out, if you can take a bfg or two and dread doesnt have a huge energy advantage, if you get inside its mines you should win. Also watch for Dread paired with SS attacking, this is in my opinion one of the few viable methods for attacking a base with dread, as its ability to kill ships quickly paired with the healing and support from SS Venture can make dread very hard to get rid of. You can either target the SS and force a retreat, or take it out leaving dread pretty much done for, or you can keep some distance and avoid the mines+vorpedos and keep pressure on them, exploit dreads weakneses and you should be able to get rid of them before too much damage is done.

Jan 20, 2013 9:34am
avatar for Valentiinro Valentiinro 105 posts

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Lol the devs need to let you write tutorials for this game.

Jan 27, 2013 2:01pm
avatar for master001749 master001749 82 posts

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Defending with Turbo: Don’t get distracted by kills

Feb 3, 2013 12:35am
avatar for Lionking302 Lionking302 47 posts

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What do you mean by disraction? TH is ultimate killing machine. What distraction?

Feb 4, 2013 11:21pm
avatar for MedoA1 MedoA1 6 posts

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i spend 30 minutes reading that very nice

Feb 8, 2013 11:40am
avatar for bpwwhirl bpwwhirl 6 posts

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Defending with Shinobi

Shinobi is primarily an assassin. Very quick and maneuverable, a good Shin pilot can cover several points on the battlefield. However, it only has two damage dealing skills. The first is the Iadio Beam, which is basically a laser. After firing, the laser will take some time to recharge. Waiting for the Iadio Beam to fully recharge is the key to playing Shinobi- a fully charged shot will take out half of an ANT’s health in a split second. The second skill are the Death Marks, which are a homing projectile that will stick to your target. Upon latching onto your enemy, the death marks will continue inflicting damage for approximately 10 seconds. The key to this skill is that the damage per second (DPS) of the death marks goes up the longer they are attached.

My standard path for upgrading Shinobi is thus: W, Q2, E, Q3, hull, hull, hull, E2, E3, W2, W3, R1, R2, R3

Attacking Turrets
Shinobi’s Iadio Beam outranges flame turrets, so they do not pose you a problem. The standard turrets can really put a hurt on you, though there is a trick to attacking them. The shots fired by the standard turrets bounce off of walls, and your Iadio Beam can pass right THROUGH walls. So situate yourself at an angle behind a wall to where the turret’s shots bounce away harmlessly, and then hit it with your beam. NOTE: Do not fire away senselessly with your laser. Let it charge up to its full capacity before firing. Failure to do so will result in weaker powered shots and will also leave you with less health. If enemy reinforcements arrive, use your invisibility and get out of town.

Defending
Shinobi’s speed and PvP abilities really help it excel as a defender, ESPECIALLY if teamed with another defender such as a Dreadnaught. Throw out your death marks as soon as you come in range with your enemy, as you want the marks to be dealing damage throughout your encounter. Usually your enemy will arrive in your base with diminished energy after using their thrusters to cross the map. Fire off a fully charged Iadio Beam. Lots of opponents will immediately panic at seeing their health drop so dramatically. Try to anticipate if they will leave your base or attempt to go deeper. Pace their ship, but hold off on firing your beam again. Let it charge up again before firing. Use your invisibility to teleport past Clanknor’s shield wall.

Feb 16, 2013 11:30pm
avatar for Gorigomi Gorigomi 30 posts

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Also for shinobi:
If against ant, make sure you get your first iado off when invisible. If they see you they can deport away before your iado will kill them (since it takes multiple shots). Being invisible on first shot if usually a good measure if you think they might deport also.

Mar 22, 2013 12:41am
avatar for ajfast1 ajfast1 5 posts

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Also for shinobi: If you have your death marks USE THEM. Many people overlook death marks but they are a very important loadout especially for ant and clanks. I recommend after firing the invisible shot shoot death marks right away or preferably death marks then invisible shot. After that they are crippled and you have 7 seconds to make the kill, remember 1 thing DONT MISS xD gl and hf.

Mar 28, 2013 11:48pm
avatar for ajfast1 ajfast1 5 posts

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Defending with Craw
Craw is a low health ,high speed ,high damage primarily defensive ship that should almost never go offense. However there are a few exceptions such as one sided, blowout, or noob matches where it is acceptable. The best defensive position for craw is position 2: LEFT SHIELD/EMITTER, in this position craw can defend the emitter, watch for backdoorers and defend first battery all at the same time. As spower mentioned defending is NOT about going crazy with pvp and trying to kill everyone. Since ant and clank are the primary attackers ants will already have low health and killing them should not be a problem. In regards to clanks they are more difficult, they rather fight back or run away; your objective is to make them run away. A clank that is running away is way less dangerous than one who fights back. Another tip for craw is to make sure you are NEVER under leveled, an under leveled craw is just food for the enemy. Also when drone hunting be sure to watch base and never stray to far in the middle, attackers wait for this and by the time you are back your batt/turret is gone and so is the attacker making you look like an idiot.
Basically for craw stay in base stay leveled (but don’t go too crazy) DO NOT let any attacker go unnoticed, be aggressive (a craw that strikes fear into attackers makes them attack less often which greatly helps your offense), STAY ALIVE, and in the rare occasions that the offense is not attacking help your teammates. Helping teammates does not have 2 mean go crazy with p v p usually your kames are enough to scare enemy or save the life of your teammate as long as it is inside of your base of course. In conclusion you are the primary defender do not assume your teammates will handle it TAKE INITIATIVE, BE AGGRESSIVE, DON"T BE TOO BLOODTHIRSTY, STAY LEVELED and overall have fun.
The recommended upgrade path would be 32134531254245. Of course everyone has there preferences and some builds work better than others but that one is pretty basic but no matter what 3(kamehamehas aka kames) should be your first weapon to upgrade NO MATTER WHAT. This build focuses on kames early to help with mid game and for early attackers.
Lastly ALL craws should have deepscan the second OP depends on preference but i personally use spacepinch if u do not have pinch u can use divert shield dronehunter or energize. i would not recommend hypercool because even though double kames is very high damage it is not worth for a 1 time use for 240 secs.
Good Luck Craw strike fear into the hearts of any offense :)

Mar 29, 2013 4:06pm
avatar for BunBun2 BunBun2 73 posts

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I’ll just be covering the basics because I’m not the best person to write this out.
Defending with Torpaz
Torpaz has low health, reasonable speed, fast turns, and high damage and no set role, meaning it works well for defense.
Razor Shard is hard to aim, but does loads of damage if shot well. In addition, if you press your ship against a wall, you can shoot Razor Shard through it.
Maelstrom also goes through walls, and does great damage, though less to structures. You will need this.
Impure Crystals fires a bunch of crystals that go more-or-less in the direction you face, and look almost like atoms. They do good damage, but any player who runs into them will try to avoid them later.
Sapphire Armor is weak and won’t protect you against most laser/explosive weapons, but can soak a hit or two from projectiles(Such as Scatter Cannon fire, or Pincer Bullets.)
Unfortunately, while you could take a Clanknor head-on, you have little health or stopping power, and not enough reputation to scare other players away(Unlike Craw or Clanknor, which do.)
Stay leveled, be careful, don’t get close to enemy ships unless they’re low health, don’t get Sapphire Armor or Impure Crystals too early, and don’t rush into the enemy base unless all enemies are dead or fighting your allies.
The upgrade path I use is 21212554353434, which is good enough for what you can do.

Mar 29, 2013 7:55pm
avatar for Valentiinro Valentiinro 105 posts

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I’ve been asked to write one for iron wolf.
Defending with Iron Wolf
Iron wolf has crappy energy regen but good DPS and has a shield that makes you invincible and heals allies. It can also deflect incoming bullets. This makes it great at several things: You can be a portable depot for your allies, you can block turrets, and best yet, you can block the core pretty well and shoot through it with lasers and missiles while leaving spinning claw cannons around it.

I don’t usually play defense with iron wolf because I think it is best in an offensive support role, but by using your shields you can save many turrets and structures while melting people with lasers and harassing with missiles. You generally don’t want claw cannons unless you are going all offense for some reason, they are mostly good against structures.

For defense I would recommend first lasers to kill drones better, then shield to defend turrets and heal allies. After that it depends on if you need to kill people faster or heal faster which you do next. I usually go 242424 or something, and upgrade differently if I am chasing someone and want stronger missiles for instance.

Because you can heal yourself, but cant chase people that well (because you burn so much energy with your lasers) It is best if you defend from one spot and only chase a little. If you go back to their depot you are not playing good defense.

Offense/Support with Iron Wolf
You still want lasers first, as they are great for firing through 2 big drones at once, or shooting through allies and your drones at enemy targets. In addition, Iron Wolf can shoot through walls with the lasers, so a good strategy for structures is drop 2 or 3 claw cannons and then get behind a wall and laser, then you can use shield if someone defends. Hopefully you brought Deport because you can use it to get home safe no matter what.

Where Iron Wolf shines best though, is using a straight shooter like Ant, Squid, Undo, or whatever to do the damage on a structure while you behind the wall laser, then you can both heal up in the shield and go to the next target. This works for all batteries, and lasers outrange flame turrets so you are fine there as well. The hardest part is getting your team to realize you are pretty much a portable depot and damage dealing machine, and to use you as such.

Apr 4, 2013 11:01pm
avatar for ajfast1 ajfast1 5 posts

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Originally posted by Texas:

DEFENDING WITH CIRCE

First off Circe role is not primarily defense, early game you’ll focus on turrets and support, and some base killing, though if you are teamed with an ant or clank they’re typically better at base killing, and your role in this area is secondary. So assuming one of your ops is Deport, you want to go base hunting when your Deport is charged, and take a defensive role while your deport is recharging. If you are getting killed frequently, joined late, disconnected and reconnected and are thus underlevel (i.e. 2 or more levels under the other team average) it may be a good time to switch to a defensive role.

For your defensive role, you are typically most effective in positions 2 (between left batts) and 5 (between right batts), you can spam bolts that typically won’t generate damage quickly enough to kill but may get you an assist if you have some more effective defenders around, or may be sufficient to get the enemy to turn tail and run home before they finish a turret or battery. And if you find ships at an emitter, or in a stationary position lining up a shot on a turret or battery, they are vulnerable to omen sphere and if you line it up good for a direct hit that may also be good for a kill, so don’t spam your omens, save them for that scenario.

Since you aren’t highly maneuverable, you won’t be that good at chasing ships, stay in your optimal def position and let them run away, or if they are in a pack 2 or 3 against you, try and get an omen sphere in their face and try and retreat to left depo using space fold and hug the center flame turrets if they are still up.

Pay attention to mini-map and positions of your teammates, if you are being ganged it may be better to run toward your nearest mate instead of reatreating to depo. If you are underlevel and have suffered several kills already, your enemy may be more interested in chasing you and chalking up another easy kill than finishing the batteries and getting them to chase you toward a more effective defensive teammate that finishes them before they get the batts may turn the tide. You are the rabbit and the big dogs will get excited and distracted to chase you when you run toward your friend the tiger.

In regard to how to defend with Circe what you do is place ghost field exactly on turret reducing damage done to it then engage enemy. As a good defender should know you don’t have to kill them just scare them away or call a teammate if needed however u shouldn’t need to. Against ants what i do personally is stand in the way in there line of fire and then defend, the damage reduction from the ghost field reduces the damage to you so the damage is bearable. The same technique works for Undulorean. If defending against a clank ALWAYS go after the Gruba turret first and try 2 shoot omen directly at the clank. The damage is too much for the clank to handle and the turret or you will finish it off. The reason why you go after the turret first is that you absorb the gruba’s hits while your turret kills the clank’s wall allowing you to destroy the clank with your omen sphere or as I like to call it “Death Ball”.Try not to waste the Death ball on the wall because your crippling damage force would be wasted. The damage that a clank does to you turret is immense and it is hard to do this while saving the turret so I always try to reach turret before clank does giving me a head start on dealing damage. If you arrive late use the same technique but use space fold to push your “Death Ball” further faster to speed up the process. If you happen to miss your Death ball do not worry the static + your bolts should be enough damage to scare them away. There are the rare exceptions that it does not such as enemy has more tech than you or you are facing an aggressive clank who tries to kill you or you just arrived at a bad time. If facing an aggressive defender LET them chase you this gives time to call a teammate,lets your turret heal and overall help your base. If you arrive late to a turret already finished DO NOT let defender attack battery without any pressure batteries make a huge difference and turn the tides of games. lastly in teh case where the clank is already attacking your batt they most likely have a wall so instead of trying to go around to shoot Ball at them instead use bolts and shoot Death Ball DIRECTLY at the battery whether it is at the middle or side of battery the static especially at level 3 is a lot of damage and this will rather scare clank to come out behind wall or just give significant damage, also use ghost field to reduce the damage to the batt. Using all of these techniques this will make you a great defender however don’t defend TOO OFTEN remember to rape there base :).
Good Luck Circe may your Death Balls destroy them ALL!!

Eatin, as far as I know, Ghost Field does not boost the defense of other ships/turrets… just your own =p. On the other hand, dropping it and then ramming the other ship will help protect your turret.

Death Ball… hehe… yeah, that it is. Although I tend to call it Boche Ball or Bowling Ball…. but same sorta thing XD.

Defending with Friend Ship requires using the Heart Throb extensively pressing forward through the midsection and then following up with the Cupid Arrow deployed to their rear and then the Reach Around so they cannot escape.