The Fundamentals section of this guide is ordered chronologically from Waves 1-10. The order it’s in acts to give you an idea of when you will be performing certain actions & how it all pieces together. However, this order isn’t necessarily the best way to approach learning the defender role when you’re starting out, as learning defender can be quite overwhelming. Listed below is a general overview of how to incrementally progress when learning the defender role. The order is loosely based of RushyRulz’s Defender Concepts Checklist in order of importance & should help to guide those with limited experience. This order isn’t concrete because everyone learns in different ways. Therefore, if you’re capable of performing actions further down this list then you should continue to implement them.
Learning food placements - Waves 1-10: The first thing to learn is learning where you should be placing food & how to place it efficiently. This includes learning buffer dropping so that food can be placed without delays, reinforcing good habits early will help you in the long term. When starting out you can also drop a piece of bad food on the logs every time to recover double west runners.
Slow multi-kills Waves 5-10: Start out by slow multi-killing Runners while you get a feel for the Defender role, this will also give you plenty of time to look over your other notes until you can remember them.
Runners & logs per wave - Waves 1-10:Understand how many Runners there are & how many reserves there are on each wave. Once you're comfortable with how many Runners there are in each wave, you can start to passively reduce the amount of logs you use as your skillset improves.
1 tick multi-kills (Visual) - Waves 6-9:A good defender is a master of south, east & west multi-kills. Start learning these until they become second nature.
Recoveries - Waves 1-10:Now that you're 1 tick multi-killing you need to know how to recover from any mistakes you make from missed multi-kills & crashed Runners along with being able to recover if you're phased at the trap. You should also learn to recover south Runners, double & triple west Runners.
Start helping your Healer - Waves 5-10Once you're comfortable with killing Runners you can start to help your healer more. This involves:Overstock calling: You should give the first call prior to stocking on requested waves. You should know how to buffer the call menu before the wave ends so it carries onto the next wave, making the OS call easier.Cannon delays: You should not run into the vision zone of healers until after 12 seconds (when the second healer has spawned) to prevent the second healer from targeting you.Mainstack Delays: If the third healer is lured to you, you should wait for it to poison you before moving to the logs.
Staggering - Waves 6-9:Once you're comfortable with multi-kills you can start to practice staggering your kills. You should start by utilising the 2-x-2 staggers but also learn the alternative staggering patterns depending on the situation. An easy way to accomplish this is to learn when you should be multi-killing each wave. You'll also be able to start implementing basic lures by heading east into the crevice after you have multi-killed Runners.
Identifying & Preventing crashes - Waves 1-9:Bump the first Runner if it goes east on Waves 1-4. You can also start identifying when multi-killing with an east runner would result in another runner crashing & instead, delay your multi for the next runner. You can also start to identify & prevent double movement crashes, start out by learning the north food recovery.
1 tick multi-kills (timer) - Waves 3-9:Multi-killing using a timer is a useful tool when a visual cue multi is not possible. It can also be useful for multi-killing bumped Runners & Runners that don't approach from the standard west/south/east directions. They can also be useful for certain Runner permutations & staggers or for blind multi-kill recoveries.
Understand Healer spawns - Waves 6-10:Understanding when Healer reserves will spawn will give you a better gauge of luring & how many Healers you'll be luring. This will aid you when you get into wave specific strategies.
Wave specific strategies - Waves 6-10:Once you have a full grasp of how the defender role aids the Healer along with being able to efficiently deal with Runners you can start to focus on improving specific wave strategies such as: calling the runner direction on Waves 2 & 3, the Wave 6 split & the Wave 10 Relure method.
Log timing - Waves 6-10:This is one of the most important skills to learn for defending in leeches. You must be at the logs at 24 seconds.
Leech specific strategies - Waves 2-9:These include learning to no-log, blocking your own west Runners & the log/hammer order.
Reluring - Waves 7-9:Learning to relure using the 'blughhhh' or Twoless relure depending on the situation.
Advanced methods - Waves 2-9:Expand your arsenal. Recommended advanced strategies: 2-1-x-x Wave 9 stagger & cannon splits.
Credit: RushyRulz
The purpose of the following guide is to develop an understanding of Penance Runner mechanics, the defender role & how it interacts within the other roles. This guide is aimed at defending in a leeching scenario with the A/C block, although core components within this guide will also be of use in fun runs. The guide is ordered intentionally & while it's recommended that you read it in order - you can skip the advanced sections or sections that you're already comfortable with. A note on defending in leeches: Defender involves more than just simply killing Penance Runners. For the most part it is a support role heavily focused on not sabotaging the Attacker & helping the Healer as much as possible. You do not need to be able to perform the Attacker & Healer roles, but you are expected to understand how they interact. The majority of this guide is aimed at beginners & to aid trials but it also contains advanced methodology to help with continued development for ranks. Thus, you do not need to know everything within this guide to trial. See the trial requirements for what you should be focusing on. If you have any questions regarding anything in this guide then don't hesitate to ask a defender, trial or star rank or alternatively a BA teacher in BA School. If you have any amendments, new strategies or gameplay examples that you would like to add to this guide please contact "EIIIIII" (6 x i's).
The following requirements must be met to pass a trial:
- Consistently place trap, trail & mainstack correctly. - Overstock call, drop safety food, cannon delay & mainstack delay on waves 5+. - Stagger your runner kills. - Multi-kill runners. - Lure healers (& split if applicable to the wave). - Be at logs on time (at 24 seconds) so that you don't lure fighters & rangers from the A/C block. - Minimise hard crashes & recover runners - Recover from any mistakes you make in an efficient manner.
- You do NOT need to know the "Advanced" sections of this guide in order to pass a trial.
All of the above will be explained in depth in this guide. Before trialling: We recommend that you familiarise yourself with the basic defender mechanics, the fundamentals section & understand the wave overviews in this guide. Although no-logging & relures aren't a requirement to trial for BA Boosts, they are both extremely useful in leeches & it is something we expect you to learn & apply over time. We recommend that you gain an understanding of these & apply them in your trial if you are comfortable.A word of advice:Some people regard defender as one of the easiest roles to learn when first getting into leeching. However, it's one of the hardest & most complex to master.
When you're learning defender keep it simple. Do the basics well & practice them until you're consistent & confident. You stand more chance of passing a trial doing the basics well, than you do by making mistakes trying to overcomplicate things.If you're using this resource to trial for another cc, make sure to read their requirements as they may differ.
Defending has advanced a lot since the release of Barbarian Assault. This guide is a result of a large amount of research & development throughout the years by a number of members of the BA community & although published by BA Boosts belongs to the community. I'd like to acknowledge Leech BA, Casual BA & BA Services for their help in creating this resource. I'd also like to acknowledge the following people for their contributions to defender research & development & for indirectly inspiring this guide: Thank you to:
Auk, Bakey, BA United, Big T, Commie, Dren, Drop Trou, El Prodigy, Ethan, Flunch, Gau Cho, Hendi, Henke18, Jad Lost, KuroKama, LHC, OS Dweeb, Pterobyte, Pole Met, Rapolas, Shir, TheNamesBurt, Thorin, Twoless & WTF Monster.
I'd also like to acknowledge the following people for their direct support with the submission of footage, reviewing, the creation of resources &/or for helping me with recording parts of this guide. Thank you to:
Agv, Blue Whales, Dren, Drop Trou, Furret, General428, Henke, Hendi, I am Fixate, Juju, J xx, KuroKama, LHC, Messiah, RushyRulz, Sen Onara, Serpico, Snzx, Spread, Twoless, Whey, Zachulous, Zulc.