Now you probably have played a few matches by now, but you may not like certain aspects about how that charecter plays. For example, Lockwood's dash has a very long cooldown, and as a result you get hit more than you find comfortable. I shall now inform you of a way to improve that.

We shall now take a look at how the very first Freelancer has survived for so long,
his dash!

It has a cool down of seven turns, and taking damage reduces this cooldown by one each turn as well. So after you avoid damage (hopefuly) with your dash, you then must wait seven turns to do it again. So you can only do it a max of three times per match. However, the cooldown also goes down by one if you take damage that turn, but the whole point of the dash is to avoid damage. This is where mods come into play. In this case, Lockwood's main ability, "Trick Shot", has the very advantagous mod, "On The Move."
Every time you hit an enemy with a Trick Shot, the dash's cooldown is also reduced by one. I find this to allow me to dash whenever I want (when I'm playing smart.) Of course, that's my playstyle. You may prefer an extra bounce, extra damage, a piercing shot, or whatever. Mods are there to make your Freelancer as mouldable as possible to suit YOU!

*Season three brought some new stuff, I'll be sure to update it soon, but for the most part the generalizations apear to remain correct. Finished it now, they played a game of musical chairs, but they are pretty much the same.

These are pretty basic, you have one for the prep phase, dash, and attack phases.


Critical Shot grants you might, (which increases your attack by 25%.) You should use it on a Freelancer that stays on the offensive.

Brain Juice reduces all cool downs by one, I recomend this for support charecters, and for other coold down heavy long range heroes.

Second wind heals 30 hp over three turns, and (I think) it let's you sprint (i.e. move full distance.) It's good for people who play risky, or for long range heroes you sometimes need a turn relocating and are often far from any health packs.

Regenergy gives you the "energized" buff, which means you get additional energy (25%?) for your ult. Try to use it on the same turn you do a lot of damage, like during an early game ult.

Another one gives you 30 shields for one turn, works well on tanky types like Rampart. This one was removed...it was one of my favorites...

Another one gives you haste and unstoppable for one(?) turn, use it for ranged ligh health, heavy damage types. My Oz setup, destroyed! This one is also no longer in the game.

Prep catalysts are the only one that let you also attack that turn, while the other catalyst do not let you dash/attack So now free actions are not only confined to prep catalysts, if you look at your catalysts in game, you will notice that some say "FREE ACTION" on the top left. If it says that, you can use it that turn, and you will retain your ability to attack.

EDIT: So dashes have also been changed quite a bit, I'll update what I already have here.

It's a get out of jail free card. It let's you teleport (game calls it "shift") a decent distance by default, use it to get out of sight of an enemy to confuse them. i.e. behind a wall out of the line of sight of your enemies, or into one of those S T E A L T H S Q U A R E S (I forget what they are called, have not done the tutorial since the alpha sneek peak...) Why bother using that when you have another one that turns you invisible? ("Fade") Yeah, this one turns you invisible for the rest of the turn, and begining of the next one (assuming you don't get hit.) The downside is it is VERY short range, however the default Shift is only an additional tile, but than can be a life saver I'm talking a couple tiles here, which leaves you well within range of some aoe attacks, but that's in few situations. Another one called "Fetter" is also short range but it roots your enemies (doesn't let them move, *it also deals ten damage now.) I would recomend it for slow moving short range Freelancers


Adreneline gives you unstoppable (no rooting or knocking you away,) which is good if you are chasing someone and see they have an ability that can root you refresh that turn.

Probe let's you see a sizable chunck of land for two turns, and has a rather large deploy distance. It's very situational, I only use it on a few heroes. It can be useful if you have an ult coming up next turn.

Echo Boost increases the duration of any buffs you have by one turn, hover your mouse over a buff in game to see what it does.

Chronosurge slows nearby enemies and gives you haste, good for chasing down someone if you are in their face.

One restores health, at a rate of 15 hp for three turns, meaning 45 hp total, and it is a real life saver. This move was Second Wind pre-season three. It got a nerf of 15 hp restored, but is still a good idea if your Freelancer isn't the kind that can go into the fray to pick up health.

Another one reduces all cooldowns by two turns, which can help out for healers a ton. This is in the prep phase now.

When I made this guide in season two, I had this thing where I would say "another one" with each catalyst, and so I put DJ meme down here. He isn't relevant to the current draft of the guide, but I'm keeping him!

Ok, so your Freelancer is mouldable, but you might run out of clay. That is to say, you might exceed your loadout limit.
You see the yellow bars next to every mod? Those are your loadout points. (they actually are not named so...) You only get ten of these "points" so you can't invest in all the most op skills, there has to be balance. Below I will list some of the ways I like to invest my points.

• Invest heavily into the skills you use the most, and use 1 or no points on your least favorites
  
• Have a balance where most skills use two points
  
• Focus on a certain playstyle like survivability or offence
• Focus on deathmatch or extraction modes

Just choose mods that take advantage of your strengths and cover your weaknesseses...es, and you will do fine! Don't forget to choose catalysts that compliment your playstyle!

So each turn goes through three phases, which are ordered in prep, dash, and blast respectively. This means that your attack in the blast phase will not hit the dude who just dashed ten spaces away. Let's break it down. The prep phase comes first in the turn, and it is usually reserved for traps, (are they gay lol,) which counter dashes; boosts, which...well boosts stats, like "might" which grants +25% damage; and healing, both catalysts and ability heals happen in prep, AND heals from pick ups happen in prep unless you pick them up in the movement phase, in which case the first turn of healing happens at the end of that turn. Next is the dash phase, it's pretty straight forward. Abilities that dash occur between the prep and and blast phases, and are used to escape the attacks that are likely going to happen in the blast phase, as well as trying not to get hit by any traps set up in the prep phase. Some dash moves also have an attack, HOWEVER, there is no advantage in one of these attacks over an attack done in blast phase, in fact, it's at a bit of a disadvantage. If you attack in the dash phase, then all that means is that your attack CAN'T hit other people who are dashing as well. There's really not much else to tell about dashing, it's a simple concept, but the gameplay revolves around you utilizing it to avoid the max amount of damage possible, and you can truely only learn that by playing the game... or if I wrote an entire guide about it, but that probably won't happen... The blast phase is where all the damage happens, aside from the dash attacks, and believe me you will be on the edge of your seat on turn twenty when the dude with 5 hp dashes and your team tries to blast away at as much ground as possible to get at him. This phase is also straight forward like the dash phase, however it doesn't have nearly as high of a skill ceiling, because this is where we see how all your fancy traps, buffs, heals, and dashes are actually worth anything. Being the final phase of the turn, you can usually tell who will die simply from placement of players, but this skill is something you pick up. There's really nothing interesting to say about the blast phase.

IMPORTANT: There is a super secret fourth phase. Some attacks in the blast phase have the special ability to move the enemy, such as Pup's and Rampart's abilities that pull enemies toward them. These attacks happen at the end of the blast phase, and they ALWAYS happen last. You can't launch a mortar that pushes an enemy into the area of someone's ult, because it won't happen until after the ult has happened. At this time I am unable to determine in what order these displacement attacks occur in, two displacement attacks effecting the same enemy is rare, so I haven't had the chance to notice any specific patttern. I'll ask around and see if I can find out though.

Protip: Abilities/Catalysts that occur in the prep phase have a green line under them below their lower left corner, dashes are shown with a yellow line under the middle of the icon, and normal attacks that happen in the blast phase are indicated with a red line at the bottom right.

Just a couple of PROTIPS for during matches.
It is the button on either side of the space bar. It displays the moves and cooldown of everyone, meaning good and bad guys. So if someone is standing in the open with no cover and in range of everyone, hit alt.

So if you hover the mouse over their icon at the top of the screen while holding alt, you can see their moves and cooldown as stated previously. But since you are new (I'm assuming since you are reading this,) then you don't know what their icons mean. Not to fear, if you hold alt and hover your mouse over their on screen character, you can then mouse over the ability to see what it does! (I believe you can't do this to the character's icon at the top, meaning if you can't see them, you can't see their abilities.

So you hit alt, you look at his skills, he can't use his dash, but what are these three colored bars? When I was new, it took a long time to realize what they were. Fortuneatley, I suffered many wasted turns, so you don't have to! You see, those three colors green, yellow, and red respectively. These colors represent actions, or rather the catalysts they have. You know, those things underneath the "END TURN" button. The colors represent each one, and what phase they take place in. The green is during the prep phase, yellow is for the dash phase and red is for the attack phase. So if they have a green and they are a support, they will shield if put in a sticky situation. The most important one to take notice of is the yellow one. Back to our dude in the open, if he is about to be bum ♥♥♥♥♥♥, you click alt to see if he has that yellow bar. If he does, DO NOT TARGET HIM, he is about to gtfo of there, so unless you have some massive aoe (area of effect) attack that's also going to hit some other guys, don't even think about it.

So here is an image, and we will have a little quiz. What do you think these people would do?
1.Probably just shoot, he has plenty of shields, and only one person maybe two can reach him.
2.He will attack, or shield. He has a weakened, stupid, ugly, fat, stinky, idiot (me) standing in front of him with only one shield to save himself, in range of two other enemies, AND the rampart has high health. Attacking would make the most sense here, but you must take into account that there are many idiots. F2P games attract many kids, and they will think "Got my ult, BETTER USE IT!" or "GUH, three enemies? Better shield!" but don't count on it.
3 & 4. Probably nothing, they are relatively safe, but they may dash next turn with our ninja turtle spawning next to them.

Edit (even though it hasn't been published yet ecks deeee): Look at the ground, it shows the moves of your allys, plan accordingly! Don't shield the guy dashing away! Don't shoot the dude with 3 hp when everyone else is aiming for him already!

No one will listen even if you are right. Tone goes a long ways, and wether you are right or wrong, you are salty, and everyone else will hate you. Meaning you are a lower priority for heals and assistance.

Hey, one last thing! This isn't for gameplay, but it will improve your experience as a whole! You see this thing right here!
The lower left, chapter missions. They give you cash money (flux) AND they give you an animated emoticon if you complete 4 out of 5 of them, as well as a new chapter to complete. Top that off with season levels, which give you loot matricies to get stuff for charecters.
They will give you some iso, something for you banner, and a taunt or bitmoji thing! Sometimes you will get lucky and get something for a charecter you actually have..I got one while making this guide! ^^ Nice!
To top this sweet sweet pie off you also get a guarenteed skin for your charecter that you don't already have when they reach rank five!
And there is sometimes challenge missions which gives you special items if you complete them. For example they will have some skins that you can only find in their loot boxe, don't worry though, they become purchasable like every other skin after a while (sometimes...)

Take a look at your mods and catalysts numb nuts! (Oh yeah, each mod costs 500 flux, but they are worth it!) Also do the challenges, ALL OF THEM!

This is my first guide, I just wanted to get my referal code out there, but I wanted to have some information as well unlike all these other self promoting pricks. (report those nerds!) I was just planning on putting something basic out there, but then I got into it and spent my afternoon eight hours on it...damn my desire to hear my own words. So yeah, tell me of any information I should add, or maybe tell me about the spelling errors (there must be hundreds...)

Oh yeah, all images are my own screenshots of Atlas Reactor, and the photoshop is my own creation. (the face is from Yaranaika, it's a meme, and apparently some manga about homosexuals from the 80's...teh moar u know~)

Go to Trion's website This website[glyph.trionworlds.com] Scroll to the bottom, and on the lower left you will see "apply code" and just paste muh code:

RRKN3FXZTX32JZZYPJCP

Not sure why I'm doing this, the pup skin looks cool but that's about it.
If you want to give your code to a friend, you can find your own code by clicking on the person button on the bottom left (next to the exclamation mark,) and click the recruit button. For God's sake don't just spam it in chat like a degenerate. Say "♥♥♥♥♥♥! lololololol" in the comments if you read the whole thing.

6-25-17: Updated some old information, fixed some spelling, still have to tackle catalysts revamp. Also, damn, 660 visitors? Three favorites? Pretty good for something I put together waiting for matches!

10-21-17: Added some basic info on turns and phase orders, corrected some spelling, killed a thot, finished updating everything to be relevant to the game's current game play.