This week on Tip of the Week we are taking a look at the Nod infantries and one of their Tier 2 Upgrades, Dark Armaments!
This Upgrade is basically giving every single Nod infantry (owned by yourself) a 'Blue Core'. It has the same effect mostly as the Blue Cores have for the Offense Class, like more firepower and faster Rate of Fire (RoF). Even so, Dark Armaments also give some of the Nod infantry units a special 'perk', for instance it gives Black Hand a unique ability.
Furthermore, when the Upgrade is purchased it will also give the units a new look, to be honest most of them look pretty badass!
Dark Armaments
Infantry UpgradeOutfits most Nod infantry with new abilities or increased combat effectiveness.
Here follows a list of what Dark Armaments does to each individual!
Ascended
Rocket: Strong vs. Medium Aircraft
Light: Weak vs. GunAbilities:
» Recovers health automatically
Requirements: 10 sec, 3 CP, Tier 1
Hitpoints: 325
These boys still unfortunately love their sweet suits, but they fire more rapidly. Their model will be upgraded with some form of backpacker for easier notice. However, these are by far the best anti-air infantries for the Defense Class, they work great inside Bunkers or Reckoners.
Devout
Sound: Devout Quotes!Gun: Strong vs. Light
Light: Weak vs. GunAbilities:
» Recovers health automatically
Requirements: 10 sec, 3 CP, Tier 1
Hitpoints: 325
Devouts acquire a second minigun-hand attachment, which increases their DPS by 100 %. This is a cheap Upgrade at Tier 2 that will actually make a horde of Devouts very deadly, they will even destroy Structures and Tanks much faster.
Imagine having a Devout army worth of 50 Command Points (CP), adding in this simple upgrade will give you the DPS of 100 CP unupgraded Devouts. That's a lot of firepower!
Enlightened
Sound: Enlightened Quotes!Cannon: Strong vs. Medium Vehicles
» Can only attack ground units
Light: Weak vs. GunAbilities:
» Recovers health automatically
Requirements: 10 sec, 3 CP, Tier 1
Hitpoints: 325
Enlightened won't acquire anything fancy while alive but it will grant them a second chance. When these bad boys die they will gain a leg-less form (much like the Cyborg Commando) and will be unarmed.
Their Dark Armament perk is a suicide attack. Keep this in mind when you have them upgraded, always try to use them close to the enemy targets, for example GDI Turrets. Because if you have them close to the enemy while they die it will increase the chance of a successful suicide attack after their death.
Mentioning a second chance, the increased HP amount of the leg-less form will also make GDI waste a few more extra bullets. Even if you don't kill anything with the leg-less form, you at least held off a few seconds longer.
Enlightened damage value versus a GDI Bunker (Weak versus Blast)!
From far away:
From close:
It's better to run them already close and then suicide, rather then crawling and chasing what to kill.
If you are fighting a turret then move your Enlightened close to the turret before he gets killed.
The explosion will do more damage the closer you are.
Interesting damage values when fighting a Spartan Tank and then his Cannon-form:
- Versus Spartan Tank (Weak versus Cannon): 46 - 39
- Versus Spartan Cannon (Weak versus Laser): 33 - 21
Conclusion: Most damage versus (Weak versus) Blast, medium damage versus (Weak versus) Cannon, least damage versus (Weak versus) Laser.
Reaper
Sound: Reaper Quotes!Laser: Strong vs. Heavy
Light: Weak vs. GunAbilities:
» Recovers health automatically
Requirements: 10 sec, 3 CP, Tier 1
Hitpoints: 350
Reaper is probably the Nod Tier 1 unit who will benefit the most from Dark Armaments, not only do they look awesome but they also grant 100 % more DPS and the laser beams will prism to nearby enemies.
A horde of Reapers will reap through any enemy hostile that happens to be in their way. They are originally great versus Heavy targets but with the prism ability they can damage multiple targets close to each other, for example a horde of GDI infantry units, but watch out for Zone Enforcers.
Black Hand
Sound: Black Hand Quotes!Blast: Strong vs. Structures
» Can only attack ground units
Light: Weak vs. GunAbilities:
» Ignite Ground
Requirements: 12 sec, 6 CP, Tier 2
Hitpoints: 575
Lastly we got Black Hand, being the only Tier 2 unit affected by Dark Armaments, which won't really give him more flamethrower firepower but instead it will unlock his great ability 'Holy Water'. With this power you can even damage Linda Blair.
Launch Holy Water: Create a cloud that increases over time, doing light damage to enemy units. Can be ignited by fire effects.
You lob the Holy Water by targeting the ground and clicking the left mouse button. It will summon a cloud that increases over time. It will first add a Damage over Time (DoT) to the units inside the small Area of Effect (AoE), but with time the AoE will increase and the DoT will be added to everyone in the bigger area.
The cloud will increase a total of two times; first a small area, then a medium area and finally a large area. For greatest amount of damage you should ignite the cloud in it's third period, but act fast it will disappear after the second increase and then vanish away. The cloud can be ignited by fire effects such as Blackhands flamethrower and Flam Tanks flamethrowers.
Damage statistics for the Holy Water:
Holy Water Versus Light units:
- 60 damage on first target.
- 40-50 damage on second ignition.
- 20-25 damage on third ignition.
The smoke increases twice which means it does damage over 3 periods of intervals.
When igniting the third DoT it will ignite a huge explosion and also burn the targeted unit for some extra damage.
It will do a gathered amount of 224 damage to the unit in the middle of the explosion.
When the Holy Water increases over time, a bigger area will also acquire the Holy Water DoT on them.
- First Burning victim: 120 damage
- First Burning victim + explosion: 456 damage
- Third Burning victim: 91 damage
- Third Burning victim + explosion: 232 damage
These are the results if you ignite the bigger smoke cloud in the correct time, it will do less damage the sooner you ignite it, or sometimes instantly.
You can throw the holy water on a different area while using flamethrowers to burn another area, then when you notice the third burning period is happening on the Holy Water then quickly force-fire and ignite it.
This micro will get the most damage out from your Blackhand squads.
It seems to only get ignited my flamethrower weapons such as Blackhands themselves and Flame Tanks.
It seems like Nuke and Leviathan bombs won't ignite the smoke.
Tiberium Infusion
Support PowerInstantly complete the cooldown of all abilities on all units for all friendly players, and reduce all cooldown times for a brief time.
Tiberium Infusion Support Power will make you able to throw multiple Holy Waters around yourself.
Thanks for taking your time reading this Tip of the Week, there is more tips coming in the future!
If you have any suggestions of nice Tip of the Weeks or an idea of a quick 1%er then feel free to comment on the discussion topic or PM Incia.
