

Lowering your crest is a good way to get marines to waste ammo on you.Fortify can be used in front of boilers to provide defense against marine countermeasures and to keep the boiler safe.If you're charging into a group of marines always start or end the engagement with a tail sweep.Being stunned by either slugs or point blank buckshot is usually a death sentence. Lowered Crest: Deals 27.5 damage with 5 penetration to the chest, knocking them back three tiles. Normal: Has a 3 tile homing range which deals 37.5 damage with 5 penetration to the chest and pushes one tile away. Your headbutt ability also can be used while you're fortified.Ĭooldown: 10 seconds (shared with Toggle Crest Defence). They will be able to resist knockback and stuns while in this state. When activated the defender becomes extremely resistant to projectile weapons and additionally very slow while in this hunkered downstate. Cooldown: 2 seconds (shared with Fortify). A lowered crest will cause a slowdown while toggled on. Allows the defender to slash with a 50% reduction in damage against non-mobs while in fortified mode.īy lowering its crest, the defender caste becomes more resistant to projectile damage.It takes one second of being the selected ability before it can be used. It has a two tile range dealing 1.2 times the caste's maximum melee damage, making it more useful on the bigger xenos. Cooldown: 10 seconds (shared with Toggle Crest Defence). When activated the defender becomes extremely resistant to projectile weapons and additionally immobile while in this hunkered downstate.

They will be able to resist knockback and stuns while the crest is lowered. Must be next to the target.Ī spinning action that causes all marines within a one tile range will be knocked down or thrown one tile.īy lowering its crest, the defender caste becomes more resistant to projectile damage.

Lowered Crest: Deal 20 damage with 5 penetration to the chest, knocking them back three tiles. Normal: Has a 3 tile homing range which deals 30 damage with 5 penetration to the chest, but pushes only one tile away. Effects depend on if the crest is lowered or not. Headbutts into the designated target dealing damage. Hosts with boot knives can injure the Xenomorph they are inside if they are conscious. Xenos with devoured humans inside them can not vent crawl but Xenos with devoured monkeys can. To stop the host from getting up and running away, you can switch to an empty hand ( X in hotkey mode) and keep tackling them using Disarm intent ( 2 in hotkey mode) when you are devouring them. To devour, grab a host with Ctrl + Click or Grab intent ( 3 in hotkey mode) then click yourself, standstill. Due to the defenders focus on defense they make good engagement starters so where possible try to work with other castes to surprise and harass small groups of marines, though note that you can also take on large groups of marines if you have support from your fellow sisters. If defending the boiler is already being done by a crusher or a fellow defender then you can move onto harassing the marines supply lines, wounded and unmanned defenses. Once the marines have landed in force, you'll want to take an active role in defending the weaker castes especially boilers as your fortify ability allows you to soak a lot of damage keeping the squishy boiler behind you safe from any countermeasures the marines deploy. Early on in the round, you'll want to be gathering hosts, and due to your defensive capabilities, you are the perfect caste to take on any survivors who may have made it through the original infestation outbreak. Sometimes you will be required to fulfill both these roles if the marines have decided to push out an attack.

Playing as the defender means you walk the fine line between defending your fellow sisters and taking on small groupings of marines at a time, The defender can easily push into the marines FOB or supply lines and come out victorious against overwhelming odds due it's unique tail sweep ability providing superb crowd control and lower crest/fortify abilities providing varying levels of defense against incoming projectiles. The defender as the name implies is meant for the protection of the hive and its members, though don't let that fool you into thinking it's only a caste about protecting others as the defender can additionally be an aggressive pusher.
