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Command and Conquer 4

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Support Power Guide Part 5

By Incia - 8th May 2011 - 20:35 PM

Commanders! Welcome to the final part of Incia’s über awesome five part Support Power Guide. We saved the best for the last. Now it's time to take out the big guns. There's the Vein Detonations with the beautiful glow and the GDI's epic Firehawk Strike doing insane amounts of damage, both supportive powers and offensive powers, what to use when and where! Find out all the answers now and enjoy!

GDI Support Powers: Level 5



These Support Powers are very expensive and will take away all 50 Support Points from GDI. You can't really do any combinations with these big boy powers, luckily they are usually good enough alone. Seismic Disturbance is good to uncover large areas with stealth/burrow unit infested areas, Displacement Field is good in mixed unit warfare and Firehawk Strike is great at 'finishing' off damaged enemy Crawlers or Structures.

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Displacement Field


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Hot-key: F5
Significantly increases dodge for 30 seconds.

This Support Power gives a 75 % dodge bonus to all affected units. Dodge won't affect Area of Effect (AoE) Blast weapons, so use it versus Gun, Laser, Rocket or Cannon units.
Furthermore, the Dodge also works versus annoying High Confessors.

Displacement Field is very effective in countering Nod Support Powers for example a Basilisk army affected by MoK. Displacement Field will make a lot of incoming lasers to miss and do absolutely no damage to you.

This Support Power is best used over hot war zones, where lots of shooting is happening. Giving your whole army 75 % dodge bonus out from nowhere will take your opponents by surprise for sure, but act fast by killing your opponent or chase them away because this will wear off relatively fast in hectic battles.

This can also be used versus the Nod Nuclear Missile too, as the 75 % dodge will make it possible to avoid the nuke blast. Unfortunately the aftermath of a Level 2-3 Nuke can not be dodged.

Be aware that this Support Power only grants you with a good dodge bonus, meaning the enemy still have 25 % chance to get in a nice shot. It's not advised to use this power on nearly dead units, because they won't get invulnerability like some may think. For example a Crawler with 20 HP left chased by Basilisks, you cast this expensive 50 SP on to your Crawler and one Basilisk gets in a shot which kills you; not worth it.

Do not use this onto a big army that is debuffed with the Demoralizer, because it will make this power next to useless, because Demoralize reduces 50 % dodge and speed. In this case use Status Reboot instead.

Nod might not have a fancy Support Power such as Status Reboot but be conscious when fighting at areas where Nod Scalpels are present, Scalpels can use System Restore and Debuff your Displacement Field (though, it takes two Scalpels to fully debuff a Displacement Field).

Displacement Field is very different from the GDI Mirror Coat Support Power, for example the Mirror Coat won't affect air to ground weapons where Displacement Field will. Which makes Displacement Field a better use on your ground army when fighting for example Tier 3 Nod Support. Zone Raiders, Titans, Sandstorms, Strikers with Displacement Field would make short work of Nod air units, while Mirror Coat works better when on same altitude, like Paladins versus Basilisks. Displacement Field also dodges Rockets where Mirror Coat won't, which makes Displacement Field a superb shield versus enemies such as Salamanders, Stealth Tanks and Rocket Pods. Also not to forget the annoying High Confessors.

This Support Power is probably one of the very few Supportive Powers that indeed do not work on Structures, so never cast this expensive Power over your friendly Defense Players buildings. It will only make units (and air units) get an increased dodge bonus. However, this does still work on undeployed Crawlers.

Upgrades
Be conscious of which upgrades your opponent has purchased. Keep in mind that the Accuracy Boost makes units unable to miss specific targets. Accuracy Boost affects all Tier 1 Cannon and Rocket units.


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Basilisk army shooting and missing their 'pew pew' weapons...


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Firehawk Strike


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Hot-key: F10
Spawns a fighter/bomber squadron to bombard the target area until they are out of ammo.

The Firehawks strike down from the skies, squad after squad, and the first Firehawks come down in only three (3) seconds but won't start bombing until five (5) seconds have passed. They will auto-attack all enemy units and structures; so you can't give them move or attack orders.

These are good for Crawler 'sniping'; if you can get your enemy off guard then you will be most likely successful with the Firehawk Strike. It will kill an enemy Support Crawler if it's alone. However, if the enemy even has one Engineer or one Bunker near his Crawler then the Firehawks will drop some bombs to kill them first and then they won't have enough firepower to kill off the Crawler. A fully successful Firehawk Strike will do approximately 2250 damage.

Also, if you are very sure the player is paying attention or you know they are at Tier 2 or Tier 3 (which means they will most likely have Stealth Upgrades), then a good idea is to first send in a Recon Drone to search that area and then wait for the additional new 10 SP and cast the Firehawk Strike.
If the enemy Crawler tries to run or go into stealth then the Recon Drone will sniff it out.

One other use is to fend of enemy armies. However, when they see the Firehawks come down they will most likely try to avoid them by moving away from the targeted area. This move will give you more map control or area control, for example if you use this over an Uplink or enemy captured Node, then the enemy Crawlers will retreat from the area and give you the chance to steal it.

If you are controlling many Nodes and are heavily guarding an area with your teammates and the enemy decides to attack you, and leave their own Nodes unguarded. Then another use for the Firehawk Strike is to neutralize enemy Nodes. Just cast it over the Node and they will bomb it to death and your opponent won't gain any more VP from that Node. The Firehawks will also circle the area over the Node until out of ammo or out of time.

Nod Crawlers are masters in disguise, both Offense and Support Crawlers has an Upgrade for becoming Stealth while mobile, which means they can avoid the air-strike by simply going mobile and running away. Offense can also use Hold Fire Stance (hot-key 'H') for becoming Stealth even when deployed. Nod Defense don't have stealth by default but they can always build Disruption Towers which will provide stealth when deployed. Slaves can also build an Outpost, but you need Tier 2 to Upgrade it with Stealth.

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Nod Crawlers effective ways for 'countering' Firehawk Strikes:
  • Offense:
    • Stealth Generator Upgrade
    • Mobile Stealth Generator Upgrade
  • Support:
    • Mobile Stealth Generator Upgrade
    • Cloaking Field Support Power
  • Defense:
    • Upgraded Outpost
    • Upgraded Burrow Tunnel
    • Disruption Tower
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Similar to the Recon Drone you acquire Firehawks that circle the targeted location which cannot be controlled manually. Though, while the Firehawks arrive and leave they will also help you with scouting. If you strategically place the air-strike on enemy areas, then you will also get a sniff of what they may be hiding. You may also be lucky that the air-strike goes into the enemy Spawn area and destroys some enemy Turrets for you while retreating back to base, which will be free Victory Points (VP) for your team.

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Keep in mind that the Firehawks has all the functions a normal Firehawk has. They even reload their pay-loads (which takes some time). Firehawks also have AA-Rockets which makes them very useful versus Cobras, Scalpels and Vertigoes. Their Blast bombs also make them excel versus Structures and light infantries. A Firehawk Strike can easily destroy a big infantry army, if they get targeted successfully.


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Some Firehawks attacking a Nod Offense Player...


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Seismic Disturbance


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Hot-key: Shift + F5
Reveals stealth and burrowed units, reduces dodge and speed and also damages enemy units.

The full duration of this Support Power will inflict approximately 300 damage on Weak versus Blast (Structures), and because Structures are immobile they will take the full length damage if not Dismantled before. Idle units (Weak versus Cannon) that take the full damage from the Earthquake will lose 450 HP if in the middle of the area, units outside the center will only lose 325 HP. Luckily the slow debuff everyone acquires will give them a hard time running away from the center.

If you think your opponent is hiding a heavily guarded base somewhere (with the aid from Disruption Towers or Upgraded Outposts), then use a Seismic Disturbance on the enemy base. The tremor will force all enemy Burrowed units and Turrets to the surface, and it will slow down and reduce dodge for all retreating units in the area, and it will also reveal all stealth units (and Crawlers). Dodge and Speed are reduced by 75 % (this would be an excellent counter to Displacement Field).

If you get a successful hit then tell your teammates to attack at the same time, or ask your Defense teammate to shoot an Ion Cannon blast into the mix of slow enemy units and damaged Structures. The whole duration of the quake is 15 seconds which means the DPS is fairly slow but the nerfed dodge and speed is constant throughout the tremor.

Due to the very large scale of the Earthquake it can be used over hot war zones and it will seriously weaken the enemy ground forces. The debuff even lingers for five more seconds after the Earthquake. Very effective over medium-ground tank battles. Also units being unburrowed that haven't moved a tile yet will not be able to return fire.

This is also the perfect weapon versus Nod Defense, as infantries with low HP will get heavily injured and can't escape, all upgraded Tier 1 Turrets will have to unburrow, all Stealth Structures (Disruption Towers, Upgraded Burrow Tunnels and Upgraded Outposts) will get revealed and damaged.

List of Nod burrow units:
  • Scorpion
  • Spider Tank
  • Widow
  • Upgraded Reckoner
  • Tyrant
List of Nod ground stealth units:
  • Stealth Tank
  • Specter
  • Upgraded Cyborg Commando
Be aware that this Support Power is ground-based, which means it can't 'counter' units such as stealth Vertigoes and Cobras. It can also not be used to counter other air units cloaked by the Nod Cloaking Field Support Power. Even so, this can be used to reveal cloaked ground units (cloaked by the Cloaking Field), such as cloaked Aftershocks for instance. Cloaking Field lasts for 30 seconds so the units will still acquire Stealth back on for an additional 15 seconds if these two Powers are used at the exact same time.

Seismic Disturbance is also a nice way of weakening the very powerful army of upgraded Reckoners (with Healers inside of them). Because when they are affected by the Earthquake they won't be able to burrow over that area, which they normally otherwise do, and they also get slowed and damaged.

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An Earthquake revealing a Nod Defense Crawler and killing his Centurions...