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Support Power Guide Part 3

By Incia - 18th April 2011 - 14:48 PM

Commanders! Welcome to the part three of Incia’s amazing five part Support Power Guide. It is about time to move on to waste even bigger amount of support points! We are talking about Level 3 support powers. But I am sure this part of guide will tell you exactly, what support powers are fit for what situation.

GDI Support Powers: Level 3


These Support Powers aren't cheap anymore and cost 30 Support Points. Even with a full 50 SP on your disposal you can still only use these powers once. However, you can do combinations with the lower Level powers such as Level 1 and 2. For example cast an EMP Mine Drop and then a Tech Support to aid the area.

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EMP Mine Drop


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Hot-key: F3
Creates an EMP minefield in the target area. Drop pod will damage enemy land and air units, and also damage enemy structures.

This is an excellent Support Power to halt enemy armies, or damage those retreating enemy units or Crawlers.

A good tactic is to also plant these Mines right outside of a Crawler's entrance, all new units coming out would instantly walk on the mines. Afterwards when they move around they will step right onto the next mine and get EMP'd again.

The first damage is done by the Drop pod itself, and the rest is by the powerful mines (there are 14 mines in one Drop Pod by the way), which also in addition EMP enemy units for a while. These are excellent for taking care of retreating Crawlers.

This drop pod will most likely do the most damage of all drop pod powers in the GDI arsenal; these almost guarantee you a dead Tiberium carrier.

A nice combo with this drop pod is the Tech Support power, in combination they take 50 Support Points, and then you can kill a Tiberium carrier with this Drop Pod of Mines and then steal the crystal with the use of Tech Support. The drop pod will also damage (200 HP) enemy Buildings and Turrets, so this combination can do double the drop pod damage if placed over the same target.

Keep in mind that these Mines explode by themselves after five (5) minutes, so you have to place them where you think the action is or are going to be at.

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A Drop pod heavily harming a damaged Basilisk...


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Point Defense Shields


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Hot-key: F8
Spawns non-regenerating shields around all friendly units/structures in the target area for two (2) minutes.

This Support Power is very useful in most situations, as it works on all of your units and structures. If you are lucky you can even get in multiple ally Crawlers onto the field; boosting their HP a lot. It even works on infantries, base defenses and even captured Nodes.

You can even boost your own air army with shields (very useful for a big Kodiak army), or you can cast the shields over an offense ally who just mass-produced a big tank force.

Every unit can always need some extra protection. However, it's quite expensive after all so use it wisely and keep in mind that you can't stack the shields, so never use it on an army with existing shields. Even using it on units with damaged shields won't give then back full shields.

Extra shield can also be considered as an extra boost in HP, using it on soldiers with a low amount of HP left will give them a good amount of extra HP to stay alive. This can be extra useful if the unit is carrying a Tiberium Crystal for you, which might change the course of the game.

The extra shield also acquires its very own Health Bar, a secondary HP. When the shield HP is finished the enemy needs to shoot another wave of ammo to damage the original Health Bar, which means that units such as Specter or Underminers will 'overkill' the last few HP left on the shield. Also similar weapons that will overkill are the Catalyst Missile from Nod. The Missile will simply detonate and only erase the shields while the original Health Bar will be still intact. Furthermore, these extra shields can even protect your forces/Crawler from an enemy 'Crawler Drop'. The Nod Crawler will spawn and only instantly kill/destroy your shields, and all your units will survive without a scratch.

You can also cast it on a retreating Crawler with low HP. The extra 120 HP (reinforced armor bonus) will be more then enough for a safe exit most of the time.
Blast weapons are strong versus Reinforced armor, don't use shields when facing Blast units!

Nod army only have three (3) units that shoot Blast damage and can also aim at air targets, which means if you aren't facing High Confessors, Medusas or Incinerator Turrets then you would be advised to use shields on your air force for maximum defense.

The correct use of the shields will give you the advantage of each situation over your opponents. These shields also have a time-limit of two (2) minutes.

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Almost a whole Defense players army plus a Support Crawler covered in shields.


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Supply Drop


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Hot-key: Shift + F3
Launches a drop pod containing two (2) blue and six (6) green Tiberium Cores at the targeted location. The drop pod will also slightly damage enemy land units and structures.

This underused Support Power do have some rare but good usages. It has similarities with Battle Hardening because both Support Powers promotes your units veterancy, and if you are going for a horde of units and need a quick promotion then it's advised to use Battle Hardening instead.

However, what Supply Drop can do better is to fully promote a unit, all the way to Heroic stance. You need three (3) Crates to promote a unit to Heroic stance, which means that each Supply Drop can give you two (2) fully promoted units.

This Support Power is best used for important units like the Commando, Mastodon or even the Forgotten Scrapbuss and Ironback. A Heroic Scrapbuss and three (3) Ironbacks will be much more feared then a regular rookie army.

Due to the relative low Support Point cost you can do combinations when needed. For instance, if you are getting heavily bombarded by the enemy and your ally just lost his Crawler and army, then a good use of this power in this situation would be to drop it right outside of your allies Crawler and also cast in a quick Accelerated Building to keep him going. By doing this your team mate can now easily pump-out two (2) Mastodons relatively fast and also get them to heroic stance almost instantly with advanced weaponry. However, keep in mind that you need all 50 Support Points to make this combination.

Offense Class is also the only class that can actually see these Blue Tiberium Cores, so it's always advised to give this power near an Offense player, as that player will get the most out of the little crates.

Supply Drop can also be useful to already promoted units, unlike Battle Hardening. Crates actually heal a fraction of the units health (10 % of the total HP matter of fact). This can be good news to important retreating units.

Supply Drops also get delivered by drop pods, and these drop pods can be aimed at enemy units to damage them. However, never use it on a Heavy unit or even an undamaged unit because they won't die from it. Instead they will use the crates themselves and get promoted and healed up. Only use it to 'snipe' off highly damaged enemy units. The Support Powers cursor is also much smaller then the Mine Drop, but affects the same big area. This means it's easier to place it next to enemy units or buildings. However, this Support Power won't damage air units, only ground units.

Act fast to harvest the newly created crates too, because they disappear after a period of time.

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An Offense Crawler looking at his breakfast to 'nom nom'...