Free to Play Tips: Improve your Base Defense

Let’s get this out of the way – your base will fall 90% of the time, with or without the perfect bot to mod pairings, and regardless of how high your defense ratings are, because if someone’s initiated an attack on your base, you can be quite sure s/he has the stuff to take you down. But, let’s not make it easy, shall we? Here are some tips that you can use to help elevate your defenses to the next level. 

Optimus on HA gives MV1 a run for its money

1. Counter the counter
It is no secret, Harm Accelerators hurt (and they’re a popular fixture on many bases), so what do attackers do? They bring along MV1 – the hard counter to bleed machine. As a brawler, MV1 eats warriors for breakfast, so while Harm Accelerators (or HA) synergises with Bonecrushers, avoid pairing your hardest hitting HAs with them. Instead, place it on a Knight. This way, you force a disadvantage or, at the very least, a match up with another bot that doesn’t handle bleed as well as the MV1. 

2. Your most powerful bot should be a decoy 
Your top-rated bot on your base is going to get advertised in the selection round, and you can bet, someone with a strong counter to your hardest hitting bot will swiping right on you in a heartbeat. Ideally, you’d want to set up one, if not two, counters to the counter of your strongest bot. It’s the fastest way to crush the spirits of an overconfident attacker. For example, if Soundwave if your meanest bot, set up two warriors (counter to scouts) on your split nodes, and hopefully this will give your opponent something to sweat about. 

Do your homework and weed out the bad Bots

3. Know which bots are crap 
There are some bots that should never be placed on defences, such as Sideswipe, Arcee or Ratchet. Even if you have them maxed out, they will serve you better on away missions instead because they are simply incapable of putting up a decent fight. Kabam will periodically nerf and buff bots so do your due diligence and find out which ones are weak (Ratchet, for example, was previously decent) and which can put in a good shift. These are the bots that, even when paired with their ideal mod, will defend your base with the valour of a sack of potatoes. 

4. Pair same class bots on your split routes
If you can, do not give your attacker the luxury of choice. Force him/her to fight bots of the same class. If s/he has a counter, they would have picked either one anyway, but if they don’t, then there’s no way out. To take things one level higher, make sure your split routes compliment your bot on the central node. For example, if you have two brawlers in your flanks, put a Waspinator at the end, so that nullifies the opponent’s knights. 

Review which side is constantly under sieged

5. Review your defences 
Check your defence history regularly and do not be afraid to chop and change if you find bots or mods to be ineffectual. Depending on what rating bracket you are in, certain bots may be slightly more popular with attackers, so take stock and make the necessary adjustments.  

6. Varied vs. homogeneous bot spread
It might be cool to be rocking 3 scout bots on a base, but really, this might be your undoing. Smart attackers will do well to look up your composition before they confirm their attacking party. Personally, I find 3 of a kind spreads easy picking, especially if you have a strong counter. Unless all 3 are sitting in the convergence nodes, in most cases, you won’t have to fight all 3. That said, if you’re going to go heavy on one colour (purple/brawler, we’d recommend that) you might as well go all in and do so for at least 4, if not 5 nodes. Combined this with tip #2, bless the poor soul who jumps into attacking you without analysing your defence set up. 

Don't leave your base unmanned

7. Bot up, not down
This is not pre-patch 2.0 anymore, you’re not going to annoy anyone by leaving nodes unmanned. In fact, you’ll be doing your attacker a service by leaving nodes untended as that would mean a quicker route to the pay-out. If someone’s going to steal from you, don’t leave the door open. Furthermore, capped nodes give you gold. So, really, there’s absolutely no good reason to void a node. 

Did you find the tips useful? What are your tips for defence? Let us know in the comments section below!