ARES Dreadnaught

## Overview

**Based On:** Accord Dreadnaught, ODM Mammoth, Astrek Rhino. From the now dead MMO Shooter "Firefall".
**Role:** Ranged Tank
**Description:** An ARES Dreadnaught Pilot uses their battleframe to mow down charging waves of enemies while charging right back or standing indomitably.

## Job Gauge(s)

### Spin-Up Gauge

Speed Gauge that indicates current spin rate of your rotary HMG (Heavy Machine Gun).
Min-max values are 0-50.
Begins speeding up at 20 per second after casting Spin-Up. Higher skill speed increases charge rate.
Continuous Fire is active and doing damage to target enemy and others in a narrow cone as long as the Spin-Up Gauge is at full speed.
Begins slowing down at 20 per second after recasting Spin-Up.
### Heat Gauge

Fill bar indicating how much heat is accumulated from firing your main weapon.
Min-max values are 0-200.
Gauge heats up at 10 per second while Continuous Fire is active.
Gauge cools at 20 per second while continuous fire is inactive.
You take damage over time at 40 to 80 potency while the Heat Gauge is between 100 to 200.
### HKM Gauge

Hyper Kinesis Module Gauge.
Min-max values are 0-100.
Charges 1 per 50 potency of damage dealt or taken.
Can be spent to use certain abilities like Absorption Bomb and Rocket Barrage.

## Basic Guide

The basic atack rotation of the Dreadnaught Battleframe is not a rotation. It is a single skill that has to be managed carefully to maximize damage output without overheating too much and killing yourself. This ability is Spin-Up. It is a toggle ability that pulls or releases the trigger on your HMG Weapon. When you activate it, your character will face toward your target and automatically turn to keep facing them unless you move. To re-lock your character on target after moving, simply select a new target or deselect and reselect your current one. This is important because your weapon will continuously spray damage over time in a narrow cone in front of you while you fire. This will continue even after your target is dead or you deselect it.

Gravity Grenade can be used to bunch up enemies at a single location where you can hit them all at once.

The HMG has a spin up time of about 2.5 seconds after you pull the trigger before it begins firing (skill speed makes it spin up faster). So you want to anticipate when you will need to attack and activate Spin-Up slightly beforehand. To accommodate this, you can activate the skill even if you do not currently have a valid target, so that you can start spinning up while still out of range as you run forward.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, you must deal with heat management. Once your HMG reaches full speed and starts firing, you begin building up heat. If the Heat Gauge goes above half full, you begin taking damage over time. This damage gets worse and worse the hotter the gauge gets. This can be used to stretch firing time to finish an enemy off if you have enough health to spare, but simply stretching your firing time in the middle of a battle will not really do you any good, since the heat gauge always cools off at twice as fast as it heats up (cools faster with skill speed). This means you will always be firing about twice as much as you are waiting for your gun to cool, so your overall DPS will remain the same if you overheat, since firing longer will just mean you must wait longer for cooldown.

Dread Presence is your tank stance. You do know how you're supposed to use a tank stance... right? In case you don't, just keep it on when you are serving as the main tank for a party.

Turret Mode locks you in place while buffing you damage output. It also keeps enemies or the environment from knocking you around. It is worth using whenever you have an enemy that's going to stay in front of you and is going to take a little while to kill (such as dungeon mobs or a boss when you position yourself with your back against a wall or arena edge). Also make sure you aren't going to have to dodge any AoEs you can't tank, since it has a cast time to unlock, likely preventing you from moving in time.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your character can't turn more then 50 degrees in either direction while locked. Once again, Gravity Grenade is you friend for pulling enemies in front of you if they move too far to the side or behind you while you're locked.

Most of Dreadnaught's other damage abilities and skills are some form of point-blank AoE that hits all enemies around you. You need use them as much as you can when pulling batches of dungeon mobs, but you also to be careful how and when you use them so that you always have an acceptable means available of keeping enmity on large groups of surrounding enemies. Unlike most other tanks, Dreadnaught does not have a spammable all-purpose skill for this. Repulsor Blast is spammable with a relatively short recast time, but it also sends enemies flying away from you, which could annoy your party members if they are trying to burn down a group with AoEs, or if you keep knocking them away from your melee DPS allies.

Other skills for this purpose have long recast timers, forcing them to be rotated like damage mitigation cooldowns. Tremors, Absorption Bomb, Rocket Barrage, and sometimes Shock Armor can all be used for this purpose. Shock Armor only works for keeping enmity though if enemies are already attacking you, as they must do so for it to damage them and generate more enmity.

If all else fails, you can run a little ways away from the enemy group to make them bunch up and follow you so that you can more easily focus them all with your conal HMG attack. But again, be careful about inconveniencing you teammates by moving the enemies around too much. You can also resort to tabbing between them between ticks of your gun's DoT.

The Deadnaught has several abilities that can work as damage mitigation cooldowns if used properly. The basic abilities for this are your appropriate tank role skills, Heavy Armor/Shock Armor, and (to an extent for melee enemies) Repulsor Blast. Repulsor Blast can work for this by knocking them away (generating high enmity as you do) to reduce the time they are attacking you while your allies kill them. It won't work for this while fighting solo though, because its recast time is long enough to let them run back to you before you can start killing them again.

Thunderdome also works as a powerful damage mitigator/negator--especially since you are a *ranged* tank. You can activate it to trap enemies inside (or outside) and then leave them there trying futily to get at you while you shoot them dead from the other side.

For an invincibility skill (not counting Thunderdome), Dreadnaught boasts Absorption Bomb. Unlike other tanks' invincibility skills, this one should be used as often as possible for such things as keeping enmity or simple DPS. This needs to be balanced with saving it for when you need it to keep from dying. To help with this, wait to use it for other purposes until your HKM Gauge is completely full. This will allow you to use it and still only have 10 points of HKM Gauge to fill before you can use it again. Reactor to HKM is also your best friend for this.

Absorption Bomb should only be used for DPS output if you are taking or about to take very heavy damage, as it dishes out punishment based on how much damage you took during its invincibility period. Great for use before boss tank-buster attacks or when pulling several dungeon mob groups at once.