Here you are with a nice, high-ish level Strike Titan that can just wade into the middle of enemies and tear shit up, then you switch to Defender and all of a sudden you can't double jump, or even throw a grenade. Then once you get the dome shield, it doesn't help with any kind of damage, and it definitely takes some adjusting just how to strategically use it and what enemies will kill you when you pop it anyway (i.e. KNIGHTS). Oh and you might not realize it, but those Codex skills make a difference. JEEZ my Defender felt slow and useless when I first switched.

But then right after the dome shield you get a punch that if it kills, puts an overshield on you, so you're good wading back into masses, encouraged to do it even. Pretty soon the dome shield is helping you regen when you stand in it. Up next for me is the dome shield giving damage perks and the overshield resulting in reload and stability bonuses (I think?). Anyway, once the Defender starts ramping up, it starts feeling a lot better, and just one big light punch feels less necessary. Since I'm mainly interested in the Strike playlist right now, it's co-op nature feels good. Oh and right away the Defender grenades are better, that did help me early on.

I don't know anything about the locking in or 3rd subclass. My plan was to max Defender, then max Striker, hopefully have a flexible offense/defense build. And yeah, I was a Vanguard player, too lol. Right away I knew I wanted the class designed to wade into enemies with. I get so bored trying to hang back while other dudes cause all the ruckus lol.