Post Buff Ballistic Shield is amazing.

[AnemoneMeer]

When worn on your back, it covers your head from fire from behind, preventing dying from random automaton headshots from narnia. If you get hit by a cannon tower in the back, you live. You can block tanks and devastators without fear.

It takes a bit of skill to use, as you need to dive some attacks to preserve the shield, but being able to walk up to a tank without fear and chuck two impact nades into its heatsink for free is very very nice.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Hellbeholder:

I just tried it and have no idea what the hype is about...
It's only effective against Troopers and Shield-Devastators, bullet based enemies. Which were, generally speaking, not an issue to begin with. Wrong angle on an explosion from a rocket barrage, grenade, tank, tower, bazooka and you still get flung around. Beserkers will rush you down when you don't have enough damage via a support weapon. Approaching Devastators close enough for headshots with the SMG gets you surrounded quickly or burns through ammo. And you randomly lose it when diving?
I don't get it.

You can take massive amounts of fire from bullets. By combining crouching, fortified armor, and heavy armor, you have a reasonably small hitbox for explosives that don't hit directly and take scratch damage from them.

Only direct impacts from tank cannons and cannon towers are a true threat. Yes, you can be ragdolled, but being ragdolled does not mean being killed.

If everything is shooting at me and failing to kill me, then they are not shooting my teammates, and the Defender can easily score headshots at a solid range while crouching in fortified armor, as this is equivalent to being prone.

I don't find myself having an issue with rockets, as they either miss me, I shoot the user dead, or I take like 5% of my HP and get back up, and then they die. Tank cannons and cannon towers have to be dodged, but worst case scenario is I lose the shield.

[Hellbeholder]

What support weapon do you use then? AM-Rifle?

[Soppothetoppo]

It still sucks ass got killed by MG emplacment while holding it.
It might be a skill issue but i would rather spend my skills on some other items then.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Hellbeholder:

What support weapon do you use then? AM-Rifle?

Personally, Arc Thrower, I can stagger enemies in one direction while blocking in another, letting me control combat quite well.

Originally posted by Soppothetoppo:

It still sucks ass got killed by MG emplacment while holding it.
It might be a skill issue but i would rather spend my skills on some other items then.

Yeah, that is a skill issue, but to each their own. Item does require you be able to get precision shots with the Defender.

[Fizzie]

Feels very niche. Sure its kinda fun to block some bullets, but ide rather have Autocannon in 95% of the time.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Fizzie:

Feels very niche. Sure its kinda fun to block some bullets, but ide rather have Autocannon in 95% of the time.

That's the fun part. I'm tanking, and my teammates can go hog wild with the AC without being so much as targeted because everything is (trying and failing at) shooting me.

And I'm still popping devastators constantly with precision Defender fire.

[Basho]

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

It has a healthbar. It does eventually die.

is this visible, or is it a hidden value?

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Dizzy:

I don't get something, this is a backpack slot right (I never actually used it, so perhaps I am wrong)

So if it is a backpack ... you can compare it to the personal shield generator backpack, and the personal shield backpack does everything (you survive a turret hit, you are immune to headshot while it is up) and it recharges overtime and isn't "clunky", providing niche protection if not using secondary, and if you do, well secondary aren't great right now, I mean I love my redeemer, but if I have to run it as a main weapon I would run dry of ammo in 1min.

When playing bot I run shield backpack / quasar / scorcher and it can deal relatively well with everything, I usually go duo with someone who grab an anti material rifle which is far stronger against devastator but isn't explosive so I run quasar for that.

Ballistic Shield can tank hundreds of rounds of direct fire all at once. Consider the value of this in a team scenario. I can set myself up in a forward position or push into the enemies, gunning them down while being shot at by ALL of them. Now my three teammates can do as they please with minimal danger. Meanwhile I am still killing. This is how I played it with friends. I outright stood in front of tanks, eating their fire while my teammates charged Quasar Cannons and deleted them. I stood in front of gunships, blocking their shots while my teammates shot them down. I walked into packs of Devastators and walked out because they were dead from my shots.

The shield Backpack is a temporary bubble of safety. The Ballistic shield is "everything in this direction is not a threat". By manipulating angles so that all the enemies are in that direction, I can just wreck them.

Also, use the Defender with it, as you can use the Defender with it, and that gives you 8 mags of 70 damage rounds to dump into enemies. If I had to just use the Redeemer with it, I would enter the realm of infinite cringe and no bullets.

[Hawk]

Originally posted by Katitoff:

It still randomly disappears tho, unless I'm missing something not mentioned anywhere.

It'll be better when we get more SMG weapons.

I just wish the Knight was better or more controllable because you just can't really use it easily even burst fire. There honestly aren't enough single handed, good weapons, out there yet so it's still limited to the M-19 and the Mac 11 so it's kinda boring gameplay honestly. Tried it once, didn't get kicked but the ammo economy while using the shield sucks because it's basically hipfiring the whole time and you have no aiming point in 1st person just the laser line.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Hawk:

Originally posted by Katitoff:

It still randomly disappears tho, unless I'm missing something not mentioned anywhere.

It'll be better when we get more SMG weapons.

I just wish the one SMG was better or more controllable because you just can't really use it easily even burst fire.

I find the Defender to be extremely controllable, but Fortified Armor and Crouching basically turns it into a laser pointer anyway.

I'm... not sure how people find it hard to handle tbh.

[Raymond]

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

I find the Defender to be extremely controllable, but Fortified Armor and Crouching basically turns it into a laser pointer anyway.

I'm... not sure how people find it hard to handle tbh.

he is talking about the inferior SMG people get for preordering the game, not the Defender SMG you get from the warbond. I think that weapon is responsible for a lot of people not knowing about the defender or how to use the ballistic shield due to how awful it is.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

I find the Defender to be extremely controllable, but Fortified Armor and Crouching basically turns it into a laser pointer anyway.

I'm... not sure how people find it hard to handle tbh.

he is talking about the inferior SMG people get for preordering the game, not the Defender SMG you get from the warbond. I think that weapon is responsible for a lot of people not knowing about the defender or how to use the ballistic shield due to how awful it is.

Completely fair. I've not tried the Knight, but it's not got a good reputation.

[Hawk]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

Originally posted by AnemoneMeer:

I find the Defender to be extremely controllable, but Fortified Armor and Crouching basically turns it into a laser pointer anyway.

I'm... not sure how people find it hard to handle tbh.

he is talking about the inferior SMG people get for preordering the game, not the Defender SMG you get from the warbond. I think that weapon is responsible for a lot of people not knowing about the defender or how to use the ballistic shield due to how awful it is.

Oh I know about the Defender, used that, still wasn't all that great and I burned through both secondary and the Defender and didn't do much else. No AP ability and since the shield takes a stratagem slot can't really bring anything other than maybe 2 or 3 anti-armor call downs so yeah I know about it.

[AnemoneMeer]

Originally posted by Hawk:

Originally posted by YariMurai:

he is talking about the inferior SMG people get for preordering the game, not the Defender SMG you get from the warbond. I think that weapon is responsible for a lot of people not knowing about the defender or how to use the ballistic shield due to how awful it is.

Oh I know about the Defender, used that, still wasn't all that great and I burned through both secondary and the Defender and didn't do much else. No AP ability and since the shield takes a stratagem slot can't really bring anything other than maybe 2 or 3 anti-armor call downs so yeah I know about it.

Devastators die in just a few shots to the head, and I use the Arc Thrower with it because infinite ammo and stunlock. Not really sure how you're running out of bullets tbh.

[Slapstick]

I've been using it all day, and I hope everyone can please shut up permanently about the shield or it'll get nerfed :D