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Fanblade

Wiki › Classes › Tier 4

Fanblade is the widest gun in Trident's family: seven barrels spaced 15 degrees apart. It's built for clearing crowds and farming, and it asks you to accept that most of your bullets won't hit the tank you're aiming at.

Stats

Tier4
Unlock level45
Upgrades fromTrident
Barrels7, at 0°, ±15°, ±30° and ±45°, all fire together
Reload (0 points)0.77 s per volley (1.3 volleys/s); the 30 Hz server tick makes it 0.8 s in practice, 8.75 bullets/s
Bullet speed368 px/s
Bullet rangeabout 331 px
Bullet damage4.4 per bullet (×0.55), 30.8 per full volley
Penetration2
Bullet sizeradius 8.5 from the centre barrel, 6 from the six side barrels
Recoil0.7 of a Recruit's kick per barrel
Health / movement×1 / ×1
Body damage20 (×1)

Every number here is at 0 stat points, before the per-level health bonus and the per-level speed penalty that every tank gets. The automatic balancer can nudge a class's damage and health over time, so treat these as the roster's base values.

How it plays

Fanblade covers the same 90° cone as Pentad but fills it with seven bullets instead of five. The gap between lanes is 15°, so the cone is nearly solid close to you. It thins out fast: the ±15° bullets only reach a normal tank if it's within about 100 px, and the ±30° and ±45° bullets are for anything within a few body-widths. Beyond 100 px you're firing one 4.4 damage bullet at the thing you aimed at and six at the scenery.

That sounds bad and it isn't, as long as you play it for what it is. Fanblade is the best of the Trident endings at hitting things you didn't aim at. Shapes, drones, crashers, a bot drifting past your flank, a tank that dodges sideways: the fan catches them. Its full-volley output is about 38 damage per second, which is less than Pentad's 47, and you get coverage in exchange.

Seven forward barrels at 0.7 recoil each means every volley shoves you backwards harder than any other Trident child. Use it. Backing away while firing keeps the fan between you and whatever's chasing.

What it beats and what beats it

Fanblade is excellent against swarms. Bullets deal double damage to drones, and seven lanes means a diving swarm from a Hivelord, Steward or Dreadnought runs into several bullets at once. It's a strong farmer because it breaks clusters of shapes in one pass, and it handles groups of low-level bots well.

It's weak against a single strong tank at mid range. Trebler lands all of its output on one target from 300 px while you land one bullet. Snipers like Horizon (926 px) and Apex (794 px) outrange you completely. Your small bullets lose penetration quickly, so a stream from Cascade or Deluge can grind your fan down in the space between you.

Building your stats

A solid 33-point build: Reload 7, Bullet Damage 7, Bullet Penetration 6, Max Health 5, Movement Speed 5, Health Regen 3.

Picking it over the other tier 4 options from the same parent

From Trident you choose between Pentad, Trebler and Fanblade. Fanblade has the widest coverage and the lowest single-target damage of the three.

Pick Fanblade if you spend most of a run farming, if you play team modes where fights are crowded and messy, or if drone classes keep killing you. Pick Pentad if you like the fan but want more damage per bullet. Pick Trebler if you duel one tank at a time and can aim: it lands all three bullets at any range and has the highest fire rate of the three.

Common mistakes