22 replies to this topic

[Commander Mongo]

Here will rest the combined knowledge of defiance, from some of the most broken People you know....

[Commander Mongo]

"Defiance: Wins... Wins Everywhere "

The living gestalt, of our accumulated Defiance Data, eventually collated for your consumption, maybe...

We will be writing this on the fly as we encounter ...whatever.


Modding weapons:

Can't be done until lvl 50, technically but really your not concerning yourself with this until minimum lvl 100+

Your Ego rank directly relates to how much you can mod a weapon at the time. lvls 50,100,200 ect. seem to to be the thresholds.

Adding mod slots is a random draw, what I mean is when you have enough scrip, or resources and you choose add mod slot, it will give you one of the 4 at random, after the 10 min recharge time.
 
stuck

[Commander Mongo]

Edit, modding and weapon/ item use and progression is basses off of your POWER OVER, not ego, though they are closely related.

NICE GOING MAGELLAN
Drive around the map as much as you can, when you see white boxes on your mini map, they are most likely merchants, if you go to them and roam the area for a bit, when you next open your map, there will be a blue FAST TRAVEL ICON there, and if you push that button, it will warp you there. Much faster then driving, and better on gas.

LOCATION, LOCATIONS, LOCATION...
As in find the location of your main missions, and get as many done as you can as fast as you can, this one of the best ways to lvl grind. It also opens up new areas.


THE ABILITY TREE IS THE KEY:
While the 4 main abilities will attract everyone to a different one, here are die things you should know...
PLAN AHEAD: look through the abilities before buying, you can read what they do even if they are not unlocked, find a goal, the one you want and map and work your way to that.
IT'S LIKE JENGA: The abilities you equip and their effects, can stack. Try and equip a few that build off each other to effect maximum lethality.


WEAPONS:
While there is a relation of the class you choose and certain weapons, this does not mean you can't use other types.
PUMP SHOTTY FOR THE WIN:
Shot guns can be some of the most versatile and effective weapons in the game, especially once you level up a bit.
PISTOLS ARE NOT WEAK:
many people I've spoken with have expressed that they think the pistols are weak. This is a lie. With the right mods and practice, they can be broken. Think Dirty Harry, go ahead, punk make my day...

[CruciasNZ]

Double Barrel shotty is crap so don't bother with it.

SMG, LMG and AR share the same ammo unfortunately. Unlike all other games though, I find the VBI SMG (with recoil and rapid reload mods) to be one of the best guns in the game. It's fast, powerful and surprisingly accurate

Save up keycodes and get the level 4 lockbox, it comes with Legendary (Orange) weapons 25% of the time and they are absolutely kick ass.

Make sure you 100% the goals in each area, it's worth 80 EGO Rating and a set of appearance gear.

[Commander Mongo]

Double Barrel shotty is crap so don't bother with it.

PREACH BROTHER!

Synergy, classes and what it all means...:
Weapons and items with synergy (I.E. 2 SYNERGY SURVIVALIST) have added bonuses that are only effective for the named class.

Contracts and vendors:
To gain access to, and purchase items from the 5 vendors, you must build your reputation with each individual group. To do this you must complete certain tasks for them. These can be found by pressing start, then going to the options "WHEEL" and then goals. Once in goals, tab over to the right to the other tab. Here you will find your contracts and status.
Now just complete the missions.

[CruciasNZ]

I checked out Synergy, so far all the ones I've seen do not appeal to my playstyle.

I have also discovered that the goo launcher (biological warhead thing) is incredibly useful in Marin as it's stops those goldrush bastards.

Incendiary is also useful against the cloaking dudes, basically normal grenades are less appealing at higher levels due to the strategic value of the goo and fire grenades

Also, there's something coming on the 14/15th April. Trion say get the current content done by then. Considering I've just 100%'d the first 3 areas (bar the missing hotshot: dam defence that was removed to be fixed). I have at most 3 days of content left before I have to become a PVP whore

[Commander Mongo]

Re:Re: synergy
This is.the best explanation I've come across so far, and it's rather convoluted, but thus.far proving accurate.

" There are two major differences regarding synergy. First all the weapon itself l: If you use two weapons with the same synergy name in one loadout, the effects will be activated and will be useable on both weapons. Regarding mods it's almost the same, with the difference that mod synergies only affect the weapon they are attached on. I.e. there number on the synergy mods and an effect. If you have two mods with the synergy "brutal" attached to your wep, only effect 1 and 2 will be active. The rest you can conclude fron my description. Hopefully my bad english isnt that hard to understand though."
Also:

I found this, which should be useful to everyone starting out.
http://forums.defian...d-their-answers

[CruciasNZ]

Here's the site I use, specifically for Arkfall Codes and Levelling Guides (they show me where the data recorders are, but they might help others with other things)

http://www.arkfalls.com

[ramadibones]

Unless it is specificaly for a precision weapon I would avoid putting a sight mod on a weapon as it can make it less effective at a close range. Found that one out with my shotgun lol.

[CruciasNZ]

I love it when they give you that big ass minigun thing. I cart it all over the map by foot till I run out of ammo. Nothing more satisfying that walking onto a Major Hellbug Arkfall with 4000+ rounds of love

[Commander Mongo]

I love it when they give you that big ass minigun thing. I cart it all over the map by foot till I run out of ammo. Nothing more satisfying that walking onto a Major Hellbug Arkfall with 4000+ rounds of love

[CruciasNZ]

Just learned that if you max a weapon, that weapon will no longer contribute XP to levelling the corresponding weapon skill. This is supposed to encourage us to keep switching gear

[Commander Mongo]

Yeah, with weapons there are two types of lvling, the weapon itself and the weapon family (like assault rifles, or infectors)
If you max a weapon it will no longer lvl up the family.
It will however earn a new random boost.so if you are finished with maxing the family then keep using it, if not break it down...

[Commander Mongo]

Non-Arkfall Dynamic Events that give Keycodes

through observation I have figured out which events will give keycodes, enjoy.

Dynamic event - Description

Recicide - Kill the Monarch
Skitterlings! - Kill the hellbugs
Hellbug vs Mutant EMC - Start the generator/ secure the area
Feeding Frenzy - Kill the Hellbugs
Crystal Clear - Secure the area
No Good Deed - Clear out the Hellbug nest
Hellbug Nest - Clear out the Hellbugs
Turf war - Assist E-Rep
Crystal Cargo - Defeat the 99ers
Wandering Hulker - Kill the Hulker
Hellbug Extermination - Assist with killing the hellbugs
Pest Control - Help Echelon Mercs clear the Hellbug nest (Caution: A Monarch is the final enemy)
A Matter Of Time - Rescue Echelon Soldiers From Dark Matter

Remember to stop when you see one of these because they are always fast, easy ways to get keycodes!

[CruciasNZ]

One you haven't got there which is fucking awesome is

Weapons Shipment - kill a bunch of raiders, loot key, open chest, grab minigun - Win! via hundreds of hellbug corpses. Then lug minigun to an arkfall and Win! there too

[Commander Mongo]

A few more hard learned tips:

Co-op, is a great way to lvl both ego, but also weapons, not sure of the link but it's been tested a few times now and in Co OP games, you lvl the weapons your are using noticeably faster, it's also a great source of loot and items...
Also, there is always a daily and weekly contract requiring you to complete Co OP maps.

Scavenger mods are great! These can be found in the solpter faction vendors when you buy the faction mod cashes, with two scavenger mods on a weapon your drops start getting very interesting... Hell yeah legendary orange AR from a skitterling!


Grenades, for this it's really frag or flame, bio can be useful sometimes, but the cluster is rarely worth it.

Use your perks to help tailor loadouts with weapons for a specific purpose, and make sure if you change a weapon that you don't leave any related perks on, example being leaving two perks equipped that deal with explosive damage, but not having a single explosive in your load out...

Damage indicators should be on, go into the settings and view damage... It can really help to guide you aim, and judge weapon effectiveness...

Try to refrain from equipping any combination of AR, SMG, or LMG together in one loadout, as they all share ammo, you will be up shots creek rather quickly...

If any part of an enemy is yellow or glowing, shot it there, as it's more than likely a crit spot, With the scrapper forges, they have a yellow light for a face that opens and closes, this is crit central, however there are a few smaller yellow lights on the front side of the tails as well, these are also crits, but they don't become covered at any point....

Having trouble with hulkers? Try blur and an infector,the latter really does a number on them knocking them down quicker, and while blurred when he charges you, as long as your still blurred, you will not get knocked down. (until they fix that glitch)

Running over hellbugs, trying to collect for a contract, will not count. You or someone close to you must shoot or melee them.

Once you best the game, you can restart the old missions again, DO THIS. Now for every mission instead of whatever item you got the first time, you now get a random piece of gear, lots of purple and blue to be had here.

[CruciasNZ]

Didn't know about the mission restart, epic catch.

I use cluster grenades and find them to be amazing against those shield bastards.

[Commander Mongo]

More wisdom acquired by the filthy few...

Weapons lvling:
Impede to increase your weapon family skill (ar, smgs, pump shotty) you need to lvl up weapons in that group, this is already known. However it's no confirmed that Co-op matches will lvl these weapons the fastest, while arkfalls barely if at all lvl weapons.

Nano damage:
Certain types of nano damage work best on certain foes. While dark matter and electric mania are the most versatile, fire counts in here too, acid damage is not as effective vs Shields.

Stack your perks
There are a leave number of perks that will all effect certain things, like ego recharge or reloading. Putting multiple perks of the same effect together will lead to rather useful effects.
Like a.sawed off shotgun, with single minded, overcharge with overload, and say the 15percent ego recharge on full reload(the name eludes me atm) will result in a 60 percent boost to reload, and on every reload (which is after every shot) you get a 15 percent boost to ego recharge. Add that to killing spree and energy leach, and you also get 20 percent ego boost for every kill. Basically you can fire a sawed off like a semi auto pump, and almost never be without a fully charged ego
 
Also, there's been a lot of debate about the use and worth of tier 4 lockboxes. While I.have gotten a few legendary weapons from these, I've been sticking to tier 2. I bought 4 last night and got 3 legendary weapons.
Seems to be more cost effective in my opinion 
Crash test dummy
When this perk is used in shadow war, it's undeniably effective. Most ppl hate the vehicle kills out of nowhere, the random quad that ends you out of nowhere...
This perk when maxed reduces vehicle dmg by 60 percent. I've Ben hit by a cerberus... And it bounced off me. It hurt like hell, but I lived and blew that blew that biatch up.


Also you can through grenades from your back if knocked down.

[CruciasNZ]

Co-Op do indeed level weapons faster, 1 Commander Cronkite can level a weapon. Arkfalls are slower because you are killing less for time spent.

[Paladin Xenos]

I am going to leave this here because you briefly touched on it but not fully. The weapons themselves mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, what really matters is the mods on these weapons. yes the base statistics change a little the higher the rarity it is, but for the most part the effectiveness of the weapon is based on if you leveled it up and what type of mods you have. and a side note, the class you picked in the beginning does not affect what synergy your better with, just pick the ones you like and stick with it.