Are defenders useless?

[Plop and run]

When you unlock them, you can have only 1 at a time, and it can do nothing. A bit later you can have unlimited distractors.

[ssilk]

Well, they're very useful to rush into a biters camp. And they are cheap, compared to combat.

[Calico]

i guess defenders are useful earlygame, clearing out the first few nests ... but as soon as most spawns include many Big Biters they are very much useless. Deployed en masse (10+) they still draw some aggro away from you and can act like a bit of a shield against worms, so they are still somewhat useful. Also they provide a bit of firepower.

Granted, Distractors are a lot better, but at least defenders are very cheap.

[syneris]

I tried out some of the lower tier capsules this time around, but not in the early game. Poison seems to be the massive forest eliminator, but more costly than flamer for precision trimming. Not sure how well they do against camps, but worms are immune. Defender capsules didn't really do much (bullet damage tech?), though they loved spinning around to make sure they were between my shotgun and the biters. Distracters didn't do anything. Everything that was chasing me, kept chasing me even though they were getting zapped. Maybe I used them wrong and you need to toss them before being spotted? I didn't use slowdown, but I can guess they are good with the right tactics.

[Calico]

I tried out some of the lower tier capsules this time around, but not in the early game. Poison seems to be the massive forest eliminator, but more costly than flamer for precision trimming. Not sure how well they do against camps, but worms are immune. Defender capsules didn't really do much (bullet damage tech?), though they loved spinning around to make sure they were between my shotgun and the biters. Distracters didn't do anything. Everything that was chasing me, kept chasing me even though they were getting zapped. Maybe I used them wrong and you need to toss them before being spotted? I didn't use slowdown, but I can guess they are good with the right tactics.

Yep, throw distractors before you aggro stuff. Throw lots of them and you can manage to take 4-5 biter nests plus some worms mid-game while running around avoiding the spawns that aggro you. Midgame i only use my shotgun when a nest is 80% down and i'm running past it. Distractors do all the hard work. Distractors have a increased throwing range and with a bit of luck you can land them on top of a nest, making them almost invinceble (only Big Biters and worms can reach them there). Depending on Nest size, 10-20 Distractors+Mod Armour with 1 exo can take out most nests midgame. Only avoid those big ones with lots of worms.

Haven't really found a use for poison/freeze capsules yet, but maybe i didn't try hard enough.

[ssilk]

Poison is useful to weaken the biters. Makes the fight much shorter. Maybe against smaller nests a good weapon.
Freeze to slow them down. If you ever been followed by 100 big biters you will know.

[Sedado77]

Haven't really found a use for poison/freeze capsules yet, but maybe i didn't try hard enough.

Check Malkasphia's videos, part 30+... you'll see what good the freeze caps do... xDDDD

[Plop and run]

Poison on top of distractors = instadeath to small + medium biters. No questions asked. Just be far enough so you don't aggro anyone.
Slow = kiting/withdrawing. A life savior if you aggro a big biter. Can replace armor and is much more reliable than any armor but power armor 2 (1?)

Crowds of defenders... well, they ARE cheap. I don't know; when you can spawn enough of them to make sense you might just as well open a destroyer capsule. Unless you have no oil.