Tribes Ascend Doombringer Base Defense Guide

Tribes Ascend Doombringer Base Defense Guide by Grizzam

I’ve written a bit about the doombringer and his primary job: flag defender, but I would like to move to the second doombringer job: base defender.

This is an open discussion about ways to improve doombringer’s role as a base defender. Here is my suggestion for you!

– Loadout

>Weapon of Choice (Chaingun, Bolt Launcher)
>Repair Gun/Sabre Launcher
>Mines
>Safety 3rd
>Perk of choice
>ForceFields

Theory: using the deployables, you will negate access to your base without your knowledge as FF’s and mines will block the entrances. You will then either gaurd the flag or perform general base defense with a focus on your deployables and their still being around or not. This is a ‘trap’ oriented gameplay, and ideally you can defend your base to a satisfactory level without being inside of it.

Application: each map, save raindance, has two entrances to the gen. By blocking each entrance with two mines and a FF, you will kill/stall attackers all game in a deployable oriented attempt. When people slip into your traps, they will either die or be stalled clearing them, allowing you to strike from behind or within.

Important: you need to be outside as soon as your traps are set. There is no reason to be inside unless you see an assault coming. Try to focus on an outdoor deployable to upgrade and repair, such as a turret or sensor. Make sure you are paying attention to the flag or taking pressure off of the defenders of it in some way shape or form when you have nothing else to do.

CG vs HBL?

It is important to mention the HBL is probably going to serve you best as a base defender: however the CG has merits if you can use it and don’t put yourself in situations where you are weak with it (close quarter combat with high traversal movement). The CG is actually an excellent indoor weapon, if when treated as one.

You are not outside with your CG in all combat situations so you have some limited capabilities vs explosive wielding payers especially indoors. You cannot use knockback with your CG. You won’t be able to nuke around corners. You will, however, be excellent at controlled standoffs in your own base. You can also become the nightmare of every infiltrator you hear.

I do not own the HBL so I can only imagine its merits, and I’ve tried my best to do so. For the CG: when using this indoors, you want to watch your radar icons and try to put long corridors of line of fire between you and others. Give yourself room to move where they don’t have any and must rush you at a limited movement approach where you can effectively chain them down better.

The CG loses some of its edge indoors, and like all weapons, you can become overwhelmed using one for sure. It still manages to make an effective indoor weapon when you start thinking of how to use it better indoors, and remembering to spray for INFs and get some outside action as available.

Examples In Practice: Arx: Place FF’s close to the gen if you want to discourage infiltrators from hanging within kill range of it as soon as you walk away. Put mines off-center to the back entrance, towards the inside with some cover if possible. Place another just off the drop from that ledge. On the opposite side you can put mines in the corners of the ramp @ the top, behind the boxes, even throw them in the corners on the way in. You should probably focus on the sensor once you can upgrade it and the defense seems to be capable of pulling together with the sensor up. You can also use well timed bolt nukes to aid the flag stand, or get on top and attempt to stop the siege and intercept people before they find your traps!! (protip there, the less they ‘discover’ of your traps or get practice taking them down, the more you chase them in there injured instead of wait inside full health, the more kills you will get and the less you’ll have to challenge yourself to keep the enemy in a disadvantageous situation you can manage)

Don’t forget how useful your deployables are to the flag D as well on this map!

Temple Ruins: Perfect for this strat, you can assist the HoF by being a body gaurd and really help the team’s overall defensive potential as he cannot move and has no knockback, you can move and move others with yours! Place each FF as close to the blue conduit line as you can. Put one mine on the angled portion of the bottom of each chute and another on the inside somewhere before it opens into main access to the gen room. You can sit on top of the gen and intercept people by firing into the chutes esp blindly every few seconds to discourage their entrance and flush out INFs who aren’t paying attention. If players attempt to engage you they likely will hit the secondary mine.

Cover the chute closer to the enemy base often in the beginning of the game but be prepared to intercept in a moments notice later on. Good players will still get in and you will have to seed the entrance again with mines before you start repairing the gen. Remember to worry about your butt more than how fast the gen goes up: if you are the only one whose job it is, you should be pressing as many combat advantages as you can, and repping the gen up a few seconds earlier then dying as it explodes and you do too is not a combat advantage, abandon the gen and call for help if you need help.

Once you are set up, head outside! You can attempt to gaurd the entrance from the tower access 2nd floor, attempt to cover the area outside the entrance and the flag area a little, or my fav and probably would be for the heavy bolt launcher too: post up on the broken pillar in front of the flag stand, try to call incoming and engage anyone who comes to do battle with your HoF/get by you and into the base. Buy a remote invo if the ‘main’ side entrance is getting a lot of traffic and you want to help your team and HoF! Also try to work on repairing and upgrading the outdoor turret that gaurds your front entrance. Base turret is MPV in pubs!

Katabatic: pull your FF’s in closer to the gen if there are more infiltrators giving you problems, and push them out to protect your turrets and buy them more time from being fusor sniped or melee+pistol’d. There are a ton of ways to set your mines up in this map, but your forcefields should present an actual barrier to infiltrators if you have them as a problem. Your mines should go just over angled ledges indoors and you could theoretically design your defense lopsided with heavy mine or FF coverage from one direction each. If you are being strongly harassed, you should opt to be sneakier and more random in your mine application than if you are facing light harassment that is being stopped.

Try to make your way outdoors in this map, if you can. You can opt to babysit the flag stand and try to keep the sensor up and upgraded while nuking the stand/countering close range mortar juggs with your bolt launcher and hanging out on the spire above. You can also attempt to fight for control of the cave entrance and the turret there if your side has it: if you’re going to do this you should try to do it from above not at the entrance inside/below.

Crossfire: This is an interesting map to play base-oriented defender in, you will always ALWAYS do better hanging out where you have fast access to the outside and the gen room.

You can cut off access to the gen with one simple FF: and you can cover this room with three mines but I find two are practical as they garner the most traffic (3 on a busy day). Place them in dark areas, at least a meter or few from walls in rooms and at least a meter or few from corners in hallways. These will snag people but also are susceptible to being cleared. The middle access doesn’t seem to get as much traffic I find.

Your last FF and mine should probably go towards helping the flag or the heavy on flag, and you can do this by limiting access to the base. A front FF and a mine on the ledge of the back (conduit) are good at protecting the base and your heavy on flag, and alerting you to when people come through the conduit… even showing stealthed INF due to the damage they do, alerting a possible indoor turret!

If you’re going to buy an invo, put it either on the ground just under the stand area w/ the turret for coverage (if you are falling down a lot, this gives you full energy to get back up) or just out front on the ledge next to the flag stand, blocking straight-away flag capping attempts that are going side-to-side and too low! Placing one of these outside allows you easy access to claim the front turret for your upgrades/repping when nothing else to do.

You can also cover the HoF by putting a FF behind him, restricting access to front-back and back-front cappers while giving your HoF a FF to dodge behind when bombarded, and one that serves as a barrier to assasins or raiders/other players in your base looking out at him as an easy target!

The last mine can go a number of places, I find one inside the base in the middle of the room behind the flag stand, with variations on slightly to one side or forward/back in regards to the hallway access intersecting the front/back path is a good spot, and placing this back further towards the back platform will avoid most combat fire while saving itself for a capper.

If trying to fix and upgrade the front turret just isn’t working out for you, or your sensors are more important (good team player you!!) you can hop down from the conduit and work on the sensor, keeping an eye on the conduit access and possibly mopping up injured players going through mid and under the front of your base..

Drydock: If you’re going to try this on drydock, you should probably get good with spotting and possibly the HBL so you can one shot cappers coming in from around the secondary entrance. Pray you have flag D to cover the other entrance and you can contribute significantly outside and inside by focusing your deployables and freeing up a person inside.

Place your mines carefully and be sly about switching them up, and you will have kills all game long. Adapt if your enemies seem to favor one entrance over the other. The sensor is helpful in this map, the turrets are moreso later when they are upgraded. Don’t waste too much time repairing with your red gun if the equip gets sniped right away. Practice hitting the ledge behind your flag area, if you can!

Sunstar: Oh boy. Keep FF’s close to the gen in this map, if you can – there are essentially three access areas to the gen, but you can spread your coverage out with mines to enforce the two main entrances pretty well. You should really be out on the stand or preferably, out on the FF dome above the stand during your free time. If you get any.

Use mines at the bottom of each conduit to surprise people falling down and give anyone down there a heads up if they clear it. These mines can also reveal an INF, and if there is a turret nearby that means you can get an assist on a cloaked INF in your base without being present or using jammers/motion sensors!

You should probably try to pay attention to the ‘back’ base equip in this map, it gets underused and if there is a lot of action behind the base and up to it, upgrading that turret is often a good idea. In any case, the sensor deserves attention as well.

Another good spot to hang around in this map is at the top of your tower. You can fire HBL down the conduit at people trying to access your gen, and give some coverage outside as well.

Raindance: you shouldn’t need help on this, but you can make a very bored gen defender if there already is one! you should at least mine and put one FF on the entrance path so that cloaked players will alert your gen D if there is any.

Use your second FF to help the flag or even block base equip sniping. Keep your repair gun handy and hang out on top of the base or flag stand and it should work out very well for the HBL if you have it.

Place your mines far apart so they dont blow one another up, but along the drops and right inside the ledge so that a player cannot walk out from the initial drop without triggering the mine as they do so. Sprinkle them to the side somewhat when you place them outside on the ramp leading in.

As as special ‘surprise’ you can put a saftey 3rd bonus’d mine inside the dome on the flag stand, just far enough to give it cover but close enough to trigger people who aren’t picking up with their boots!

There ya go. Hope this helped! Open for comments/criticism/additions!