The Best Factions In XDefiant | Ranking Every Faction

In XDefiant you have to select one of the game's five Factions to play as before starting a match. Each Faction has their own unique Ultra, their own unique Passive Trait, and two separate Abilities (but you only get to pick one of the Abilities to use each match).

In this article we're going to give you a complete overview of the Factions in XDefiant by addressing the following topics:

1. Factions Overview
2. Complete Ranking of all Factions
3. The Best Faction For Each Mode

Before we begin however, there is one point of misunderstanding that we need to address. Within Factions there are different characters to play as, but these are purely cosmetic. Every character within each Faction uses the same set of Abilities.

Right, let's start with providing a basic overview of the Factions in XDefiant, before addressing the question of which Faction is the best.

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XDefiant Factions: Overview

Before we dive into the abilities and power-rating of each Faction, we'll begin by providing an overview of them all. The five Factions each come from a different Ubisoft franchise, and they each represent a certain playstyle-archetype. Here are the Factions, where they come from, and what each one plays like:

And, as you can see below, the aesthetic of each Faction is loyal to the franchise from which it came:

It's a damn shame that we don't have any named-characters, like Sam Fischer for the Echelon, but at least this gives the writers of XDefiant more creative freedom.

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XDefiant Best Factions: Complete Ranking

Right, now let's get to the juicy topic you've been waiting for, the best Faction in XDefiant. You can find the current power ranking of each Faction for XDefiant below, from best to worst.

1. Libertad (Far Cry / Healers)

"What, Healers, the most powerful?!" We can hear some of you splutter. But yes, Libertad are absolute the best Faction in XDefiant right now. In fact, they're broken, and this is why all the best players in the world who are currently streaming the game and going for kill records are playing as Libertad.

Why are the Libertad so powerful? Because the devs (in a well-intentioned effort to get more people to actually play healers) have made their abilities absurdly strong compared to other Factions. Two abilities in particular, the Espiritu de Libertad and BioVida Boost, are insane.

With those abilities, a higher-skilled player can escape and reset after almost every engagement to get on super high streaks. If you've ever gone against a cracked-out jetpack CoD player that can keep repositioning/stimming, you'll know what it's like to face the Libertad: painful.

2. Echelon (Splinter Cell / Recon)

As a long-time lover of the Splinter Cell franchise I'm thrilled to say these guys are great in XDefiant. It won't be the case that you ever see a full team of Echelon players, but in Ranked at least, you should expect one per team (probably the roaming SMG player).

Echelon's strength lies in their self-sufficiency and ability to find gaps. For this reason, you should allow your best shooter to go rogue as an Echelon, while the others focus on the OBJ.

Echelon have the passive ability to stay off radar, while their Ultra is fantastic for hitting a long-flank and pinching the enemy:

We can see Echelon being popular, but we highly recommend teams to try and limit the amount of Echelon players they bring. Just having one dude in the back to be annoying is all you need to slow down an enemy push.

3. Cleaners (The Division / Damage Dealers)

Finally, we get to the Damage Dealers. Most players will instinctively see extra damage and assume it means this is the best Faction in XDefiant, but that simply isn't the case at intermediate and higher-level play.

The Cleaners are super fun, and it can help to use their Firebombs for area-denial, but their kit simply lacks any play-making ability when compared to the higher ranked Factions

And as cool as these abilities sound, the devs were very cautious when designing the Cleaners, so none of them are individually that strong:

Still, you know what it's like, many folks are simply going to want to have that Passive Trait to use with the best weapons in XDefiant. Who doesn't love extra damage?

4. Phantoms (Ghost Recon / Tanks)

Phantoms might one day be much higher on this list, because although they might not be natural slayers, their usefulness in objective-focused play is obvious. However, the abilities they currently have feel underpowered for this role.

While the passive and the ultimate are both solid, neither of the Phantoms' abilities are very strong, and they can be very easily countered.

All of that said, we can still easily imagine a competitive meta that would see one player on each team using a Phantom with an SMG and taking the role of Entry Sub.

They will need to buff Phantoms, but we hope they don't lean too hard on improving the Blitz Shield ability, as riot shields are quite unsatisfying to play against in shooter games.

5. DeadSec (Watch Dogs / Controllers)

And way down at the bottom we've got DeadSec, the shitters of XDefiant. Okay, that's mean, they aren't terrible. In fact, if they receive a solid buff or a minor rework, we could see them having an important role to play. But they aren't very important right now.

The Lockout Ultra just feels so lame compared to other Ultras, and it will rarely win you a gunfight. The Fabricator passive is quite cool, but grenades are well-balanced in XDefiant, so this isn't as powerful as it first seems. And the two main abilities? These are some of the worst abilities in the whole game.

You don't want to be driving around a little Spiderbot just to maybe get a stun, when you could be playing as Libertad or Echelon (the best Factions in XDefiant).