We’re pleased to announce that over the course of the next four weeks, we’ll be giving you all some insight into Trion Worlds’ Defiance, the EGO skills available to players, and some basic beginning builds you might start the game with when it launches in April. This series will not only give you a basic background of each main skill, but will hopefully also reveal a bit more about how progression in Defiance is handled. Defiance is a classless game, and players are free to build their character however they want, with limitations only being how many skills and perks you can have active at any given time. But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s talk about how progression works in Defiance.
Ark Hunter Progression
In Defiance, players assume the role of an Ark Hunter, essentially a gun for hire, bent on reclaiming alien Arks for fame, profit, and of course... more profit. For those that may not know, character development is not the same “pick a class and go” action you’re used to in many MMOs. Instead, Defiance uses a classless system that instead has you pick a main skill to use (and you can learn all four) and then flesh them out with perks as you progress through the game. At character creation you’ll pick an Origin, which gives you a basic starting look and a little character back-story, but you don’t pick a class. As a shooter, there aren’t really strict roles to fill. Everyone is going to be shooting something, in some fashion or another.
It’s important to note that once you start playing the game? You can change your build, create your own, and share with others as you go. It’s going to be up to you to choose your favorite EGO skill and what perks synergize best with your chosen weapons and gear. As you play the game, you don’t gain “levels” as you’d normally know them, though you will progress in terms of how many EGO skill points you have, and earn better gear as well. All of this contributes to your overall ranking, which begins at 10 and scales up as you dive into the content and earn perks and items.
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Since each player can choose whatever progression path in the game’s EGO (skill) tree they like (there are four beginning skills to pick from at launch), they’ll eventually wind spreading points across the board as they play through the game world. EGO Skills have about a 30 second recharge rate, but this can be shortened by picking appropriate perks in the skill tree as well.
This week, we’ll focus on the angry man’s skill: Overcharge. It’s for those players who prefer to just go balls to the wall on their enemies, kill them, or die trying.
EGO Skill: Overcharge
Of the four EGO skills you’ll start your adventures with, Overcharge is the most cut and dry. Overcharge boosts your damage, instantly reloading your weapon, and creates an awesome visual impact when you nail someone in the head with a round of assault rifle firing. Your Ark Hunter’s arms will glow read, and every bullet he fires will land with a satisfying impact on your target. Aside from looking cool, it really will help you tackle the tougher foes in San Francisco’s changed landscape. It’s a simple “give me more damage so I can gib things” kind of skill. It’s right up my alley, personally.
The Perks
Perks are the “supplemental fiber” to an Ark Hunter’s diet. Your EGO skills determine what you literally do on the battlefield, but Perks serve to make what you do more extraordinary. As you gain experience in the world, you’ll unlock points to spend across the EGO tree. There are synergies and it’ll behoove you to eventually unlock all four main EGO skills so you can mix and match perks across the tree. Here are some sample perks that are unlocked when you choose Overcharge as your main EGO skill.
Risk Taker: This perk, like many of the early perks available to those who choose Overcharge as their primary skill, is about surviving in the face of taking damage. Risk Taker extends the duration of your active EGO skill when your shields break and you’re left taking actual damage to your health. It’ll be helpful for when you’re going at someone with say a run-and-gun shotgun spray, while using Overcharge. Hopefully, it’ll keep you from dying before they do.
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Thick Skinned: Along the same lines as Risk Taker, Thick Skinned allows your Hunter to take more damage after his shield breaks, by cutting said damage in half. The buff doesn’t last long at first, but subsequent ranks will last longer so it’s worth investing in if you’re not the kind of player to use cover.
Preparedness: This one may not seem too important off the bat, but if you’re using overcharge, you’re going to want to switch between primary and secondary weapons often, as you’ll run out of ammo in your clips. Preparedness helps offset reload time by automatically reloading your stowed weapon at a fixed percentage per second. So if you swap out your SMG for your shotgun, the SMG will reload while you spray people with the shotty. Subsequent ranks in this perk will increase the reload speed.
These are just three of the early perks, and as you can see in the screen above, there are dozens to unlock and add to your character. You can only slot so many at one time, and only one EGO skill at a time to boot, but the mixing and matching if each is going to be where the fun happens. Next week, we’ll take a look at Decoy, the skill that sends out a carbon copy of your Ark Hunter to distract enemies while you shoot them in the head. Handy, that!
What do you think of Overcharge? Is it the skill you’d choose in Defiance? Let us know in the comments!
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