Defender

Choose an Archetype
Berserker	Bio Engineer	Champion	Commando	Defender

Class Statistics

HIT POINTS		The amount of life you have.
MELEE		Physical Attack Power
BALLISTICS		Ranged and Explosive Attack Power
ARMOR		Reduces chances of being damaged.
SPECIALIZATION: Defensive Toughness, Hammer and Shield

Class Bonuses:	Bonus Resistances
	Hammer & Shield Proficiency
	Knockdown Immunity
	Aggro/Taunt Bonus
Class Statistics:	Final Melee Damage: +10%
	Final Ranged Damage: -15%
	Base Blunt Resistance: +10%
	Base Slash Resistance: +10%
	Base Pierce Resistance +10%
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Slug): 1174
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Plasma): 1099
	Base Ballistic Range (Pistols/Laser): 1270
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Slug): 2135
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Plasma): 2018
	Base Ballistic Range (Rifle/Laser): 2234
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Slug):
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Plasma):
	Base Ballistic Range (Cannon/Laser):

Biography

With the blessings of ODIN and runes of protection, the Defender is the backbone of the Aesir's defense. Heavy armor enables the Defender to absorb a tremendous amount of damage, leaving his allies to take the battle to the enemy unharried. Spirit: The Valiant Proficient with lasers as well as hammer and shield (exclusive bonus) High Health Low damage output in ballistics Low damage output in melee Typical combo meter Capable of 1 air attack Main Co-op group benefit: Defensive Bonus Please check out the Skills section.

One item to remember is that when using a hammer shield combo with the defender, obviously if you were to cap hammer damage and dual wield damage you would gain a +60% damage bonus, but an added bonus is that you can also add dual wield attack radius and gain an additional +50% in your melee damage, making your total bonus from these 3 rune types +110% which will make your hammer shield combo a weapon to be truly reckoned with.

Defender Skill Tree Advice

Excepted from Darth's Interest in Defenders page

First off, I will say that I am a huge fan of the Defender. If you read my past posts, you will see that wasn’t always the case, as at one time I actively badmouthed them. So new people, why should you choose the Defender over another class? Here are a few reasons. First, they are very TOUGH. They are just naturally more resistant to damage than the other classes, and when equipped with a hammer and shield, they receive passive bonus of 10% less damage. Coupled with Defender’s Resilience, their first tree skill, they receive 17% less damage for every hit. Also, Defender’s are immune to knockback/knockdown. If you have ever been pummeled by rockets and knocked down, and then pummeled again while you were trying to rise, and then pummeled again till you died and there was nothing you could do, you will know what I mean. That won’t happen to a Defender. Just turn into whoever is shooting at you and beat them with merciless abandon.

Middle path: The Tank.

If you max out the Grim Resolve skill, you have a 70% chance of not dying. I have been bereft of combo, on fire, had NO health, spider was recharging, got hit by a rocket barrage, shot by a Dark Elves “arrow” and managed to kill everything and come back up to 100% from the dropped health orbs.

Your spider, Ward of the Norns, makes you completely indestructible for as long as it is active.

The Battle Cry? You know how much you hate hitting something that explodes or erupts with poison, burning you or killing you slowly or freezing you and you just have to stand there and watch 40 rockets headed your way? Well, with Reversal of Wyrds, not only are you immune to the enemy’s status effects while it is on, it reflects them back at them too. In my opinion, this is better than the Bio Engineers cry’s that cure you of the immediate effect, but doesn’t stop the next one. In other words, if you are a Bio on fire and pop it, it puts you out. If you kill a poisoned guy a second later, you are now poisoned. The Defender will not be.

Finally, the last skill increases your overall armor rating by up to 14%. This doesn’t sound sexy, and it’s not, but it does help you reach the 1530 armor cap and frees up a rune slot for something else.

Left path: Commando without a glass jaw.

This is the effects and range, or Fire and Ice as I like to call it. I must admit, this path will work better with a cyber than a human if done right, but it can still be effective. Enthalpy Reduction Attack gives you the chance to freeze solid anything you hit. As a human using a 1 handed hammer and shield, this won’t “proc” that much. However, my cyber with a 2 handed hammer and maxed out submunitions distributor has it go off on a regular basis. Again, others may kill stuff faster, but this is a skill they don’t have, and I like to play and try different things. Facing 5 Elite Dark Elves, swinging your weapon and freezing 3 of them, evens the odds pretty quickly. This skill is pretty fun to me, and that is what the game is all about.

Enthalpy Reduction Mine, the left path spider does the same thing, exploding and freezing everything in its blast radius. More points equal a bigger radius and more frozen bad guys.

His battle cry, Fimbulwinter's Numbing Touch, freezes anyone who hits you, allowing you to concentrate on those who are not.

Lastly, the fire portion of the tree. Adept of the Light Spear will massively increase the damage you do with laser weapons, up to 42%. Now lasers seem bad at first, as they have to heat up and if you break contact due to rolling or what not you have to start all over. Read my previous posts, I HATED cannons in general and lasers in particular. However, put points into this skill and a few runes for laser penetration and you will kill things really quickly, I mean REALLY quickly. And the secondary fire makes a “Death Star” like overload beam that really annihilates stuff. An example is Hod’s Palace. Take a laser cannon there and overload sweep the towers from one to the other. You can usually take them out in 1 or 2 tries. And for procs, I find a laser cannon works just as well if not better than a plasma cannon. My Cyber Defender just flashlights (rapid pulls of the right trigger) the bad guys and usually sets off 4 gravity wells and an unknown number of necro pools before they can reach me for their freezing death. Right path: Stop-Hammer Time.

The Berserker’s Grief has a 14% chance of deflecting any damage done to you (or with your shield on, would have been done to you) back at the enemy. It doesn’t sound very cool as there are no sound effects or lightning bolts associated with it, but it is pretty funny to watch a Dark Elf run up behind you, hit you, and then fall over dead. It happens pretty frequently too.

The Spider is one of the few that I really like. Tree of Scorching Light produces a deployable laser cannon. If you max out this skill, it gets a 42% increase in damage. Put some runes in your armor and it stays out for 30% longer, and gets another 50% increase in damage. If you are cyber, max out everflowing source and you have a weapon that does massive amounts of damage over a long period of time. Again, other characters may do more damage, and quicker, but to me the game is about having fun. I have fun letting the characters do what they do with their skills. My spider has destroyed 2 trolls while I fought the elves and goblins.

The Battle Cry. Okay, no way around this, it is mostly worthless. Egil's Blessing taunts enemies to attack you. For single player…well, there is no reason for it. HOWEVER, on multiplayer it is pretty funny. Axeman and I were running Ice Forrest once and his Berserker was surrounded (as was I further away) when I popped The Angry One’s (his name) Battle Cry. You could hear his Australian accent saying, “Hey they are running away from me. That’s f*^kin awesome!” So it has its moments. Another way is to create a Necro pool, jump in the middle, activate it, and let everybody run to their deaths, including trolls and spiders.

Finally, hammer damage. Like the Berserker's dual wield or the Champion'ss sword damage skill, Warrior of the Iron Fist increases the Defenders’ hammer damage by 42%. You can then rune it up to 102%. This makes the Defender incredibly deadly with a hammer. Put some runes in to increase his attack speed and he gets FAST. Put in a hammer juggle radius rune and juggle time and you can pound the ground and kill Everlasting Hate.

Finally, the Human ruiner. In my opinion, this is the best one in the game. The Berserker's bear is close, but the warrior ghost who appears and kills for you is the best in my opinion. In co-op, whenever I pop it, I always say, “This …is…SPARTA!” when I do and everybody always laughs. It never gets old. I maxed the ruiner damage on my human defender, and he can clear the room and kill just about everything with it.

I hope people, especially new ones or those who haven’t given the Defender a shot (as I once was) get some use out of this and try the Defender out. I will say that I am not the most experienced player here, nor am I the worst (I think I am ranked right above 1000) but I have gleaned a lot from playing the game and listening to folks like Axeman, Batosai, Phildo, Prodigy, Slinx and others. Thanks for reading and giving the ole fender a chance.