~~~~~~~~~~~~~Pro tips Sky Shield~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Sky Shield, the best counter ability~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Worthless at times

Amazing at times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~EV protecting~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Placement~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Right angles behind cover if teams are peaking

Cover spans

Place in area that protect and are unexpected

Open areas and objectives

If you like the potential of this, Guardian is for you! Note the sky shield shooting down explosives while turtle shield and a med station by my feet. This can be a very strong defense. Sky Shield is a counter play ability. It can be one of the most effective abilities or most useless in any given situation. Its duration is part of this dilemma and that's compounded by proper placement of the drone.At times the other team will not be using a merc with explosives. In these scenarios, Sky Shield is little more than deploy exp and a distraction. Still, get in the habit of deploying it anyways in tactical spots just in case someone switches mercs.Generally, there are a few mercs at any given time that it counters. Sky Shield can be rendered near worthless with bad placement. If mercs are present with abilities that Sky Shield can counter, you don’t want it to be a distraction; you want it to counter them. If the enemy did focus on killing the drone, guess what? That is damage that could have been fired at your team which in effect puts you x hp ahead for trading shots. Don't throw the drone down in 1v1 duels as it will cost you time that could be spent dueling. Its best to throw it pre fight, during large battles, while your reloading behind cover or before you walk through that door. Countering the all mighty airstrike/artillery is what makes it all worth it. IDS gives a warning about 2 seconds before it's too late to deploy the drone. This situation happens pretty often on objectives and key locations. Should you hold onto your drone for this or deploy it as soon as possible?Generally, deploy in any danger zone where there is likeliness of a prolonged fight. Best deployed on objectives but also choke points. If the enemy team has lots of sky hammers and artys, you may want to hold onto the drone a little longer for a few seconds before deploying. With the perk Recharge, you only have to wait 8 seconds before deploying again. Making it much less costly to have early placement. During those 8 seconds, mercs could do an airstrike/artillery strike but you still have that 2 second window to deploy to counter it. Meaning you only have a 6 second window of vulnerability. Thats 70% of the time immune to bombardments (12 duration + 2 second window = 14 divided by 20 total cool down [recharge included]}. Thats amazing!Vs everything else, deploy it at the 1st sign of danger if multiple enemies are present. Deploy on sight of mercs who can team wipe. Don't spend lots of time trying to get the perfect spot for the drone. It's better to throw it in a 1/2 decent spot than wait for the perfect spot most of the time.The main way to control objectives and key points is explosives. I’ve seen sky shields neutralize an entire teams worth of explosives all aimed at the objective. At that point their main tactic failed and they are left to guns which is not what they expect at all and you overall should win. EV protecting is among the best things sky shield can do. Have it cover the back end where your team is both repairing and pushing it. If the EV is moving throw it just ahead of the EV to the side to cover it moving. It's better to protect your team than the front of the EV. Some spots you can get cover for the drone to cover the front of the EV and that’s great as it should also protect from most explosives targeting through the EV to your team. Protect the back end. If the EV goes down but your engineers are alive they can repair it in a few seconds. If the EV is healthy but the team is dead it's still not going anywhere and will be destroyed with no protection.Guardian does an amazing job protecting the initial repair of the EV as defenders often throw every explosive they have at the EV. Often as soon as players get in range/sight of the EV they will throw explosives at it. They may not have sighted guardian yet or seen the sky shield at that range. For the defenders at worst they could cause the attackers to scatter so it’s still in their favor. If explosives are the defenders main tactic to keep people off the EV a single guardian repairing with sky shield can get it repaired during the lifespan of 1 drone leaving your team to flank and push forward. Especially if the defenders are not relying on flanking.Place it in locations that are a hybrid between turtle shield and med station. Generally don’t put it out in the open. As med station put behind cover but near the battle covering allies. If the battle is turning into a peaking war then hide the drone behind cover to still cover you if explosives come around the corner. If it's open battle with many running around there will be enough going on it will be low on the priorities of enemies compared to people with guns. Here are a few examples from 1 match that you can apply to many situations.Placing here allows us to hold this corner without fear of explosives. It does not protect us once forward but allows us to pull back behind the corner to reload/heal for the next push. Out of sight of enemies and hard for them to tell its there.Placed a little differant could cover whole span of balcony. They have to come up stairs to flank or we need to come out and/or make a mistake. After peeking back and forth and firing a few shots they wasted all their explosives. This creates a partial safety zone for use. Use this tactic when it’s not an open war.I threw several in this spot covering the balcony, lower right tunnel and area below. This worked because the enemies were playing defense all behind cover and they could not see the drone below the steps. The drone allowed us to push forward with a safe area. They could at best only see small angles of the ring. This all made it hard to know where the drone was to counter it.Perfect situation to put the drone out in the open for maximum coverage. It helped cover that large side of the objective from explosives. The drone is lower on the priority list compared to guns, med stations and turtle shields. Even if there are no explosives present the team knows this is a safe zone for a time and that can give them confidence to hold that area. I would do a similar placement in any team fight.