GDI Support Powers: Level 1
At the modest cost of 10 SP the level-1 support powers are the cheapest, but they are by no means the worst support powers. These are powers that you can use almost constantly, for instance when floating 50 SP; or in a crunch you can even use the same level-1 power five times in rapid succession (though they do have a small cool-down).
Hot key: F1
Provides stealth detection, increased attack and vision range for nearby units and turrets.Recon Drones just circle the targeted location and cannot be controlled manually. They will self-destruct after three minutes. The AI won't auto-attack the Drones, but they are indeed targetable and destructible. Thankfully, they have a huge dodge bonus and are thus pretty hard to take down.
A major weakness of Recon Drones is that they fly in from off-screen, which means it takes some time for them to reach their target location. Therefore, they are not well suited for catching a running enemy. However, they will also scout the area all the way from off-screen to their ordered location, which you can use to your advantage.
A Recon Drone boosting a Missile Turret's sight and weapon range.- Drones can be used over big army battles to boost your army with additional range. They will also prevent your opponent from going into stealth.
- Recon Drones over an ally's base defenses boost the attack range of the defenses. In a Defense-vs.-Defense battle, your ally's affected turrets can out-range the opponent's turrets, giving your ally the upper hand in the battle. Be aware that the Recon Drone does not boost the attack range of units garrisoned inside a structure or of healing units.
- If you suspect a burrowed Nod turret guarding some area, you can always send in a Recon Drone to scope it out.
- If your opponent goes into an all-in Node capturing tactic, then you are almost forced to use Recon Drones over all Nodes. This includes the ones the enemies have captured and the ones they are going to capture next. If you notice that Nod is capturing Nodes without any units visible for your eyes, then be sure to scout them out with a Spanner or Recon Drone, since there might be a Stealth Tank or Specter hiding somewhere nearby.
- When you notice the enemy has reached tier 2 and starts using stealth units, try to figure out which Node he is reaching for. Then you can do a nice quick combo of using Recon Drones on that area to see the stealthed units, and then cast Status Reboot to take away their dodge bonus so they are much easier force to counter.
- You can also use these Drones to scout areas where it's normally hard for you to see, like impassable cliffs where an enemy Support Crawler could be hiding, or across ramps where big enemy forces might come through.
Hot key: F6
Removes all debuffs and slightly heals own units up to 50 HP and removes all buffs from enemy units.Here are some good uses for the Status Reboot:
- Status Reboot can remove the dodge bonus from unupgraded, revealed Stealth Tanks and the garrison bonus from High Confessors. In order to reinstate their bonuses, the rebooted units would have to restealth and the Confessor would have to exit and re-enter the building or unit in which it was originally garrisoned.
- Status Reboot can debuff the nasty Nod support powers like "Mark of Kane". The reboot's area of effect unfortunately is too small to debuff a larger army, but luckily the power is pretty cheap, and if you have those 50 SP lying around and you encounter a Nod army with the Mark of Kane, then you can use Status Reboot up to five times to debuff the whole army one by one.
- If a Marauder is chasing you and you kill it successfully but survive with only a few hit points left, directly cast a Status Reboot onto your army: This will remove the toxic effect and also heal your army a bit.
- Status Reboot can be used directly before the detonation of a Nod Vein Detonation. The Vein Detonation first causes a debuff and then the detonation hurts a lot, but if timed correctly you can heal your units right before the big explosion and it will do 'normal' damage only and your units won't suffer the additional armor reduction debuff anymore.
- Unfortunately, Status Reboot does not remove the virus from Hijackers.
Buffs and Debuffs
You can see small triangles next to a unit's or structure's health bar which indicate if the affected unit or structure is under the effect of a buff or debuff. Blue triangles indicate a buff, red ones a debuff.
A Status Reboot helping out a Sheppard Tank holding a Tiberium crystal.Hot key: Shift + F1
Boosts the rate of fire by 80% for all friendly units in the targeted area for 10 seconds.Overkill will affect all your units that do some kind of damage. When using it on gun units, the rate-of-fire bonus is not visible to the eyes, but they do shoot faster (faster then the animation can keep up with). It can be more easily noticed on gun units with the Reload Ability, as these units will Reload super fast, while normal reloading is quite slow.
The Ironback also benefits from this Support Power since it boosts its damage rate (damage per seconds, DPS). Other medium ground units that would care for a fire rate boost are Hunters, Spartans and Sheppard Tanks. Shells will fly like bullet rain.
All unit types benefit the same way, but the boost is most noticeable for Laser and Rocket units, as these otherwise relatively slow units will start shooting like maniacs. One other example are the Zone Raiders, who with their already fast speed become very dangerous with a fire rate boost. GDI Crawlers will also show the power of increased rate of fire for sure.
If you have reached tier 3 and are bombarding the enemy with the slow artillery units like Rhinos, Juggernauts, Kodiaks or Mastodons, then by all means give them a quick Overkill boost whenever needed. It is advisable to use Overkill on the highest DPS-for-cost units.
Last but not least, repair units (Engineers, Spanners, Dozers and Archangels) benefit from the Overkill. They all will repair much more rapidly with the Overkill touch.
A big mix of different units acquiring the Overkill boost.
