The Divert formation leverages stealth capabilities. Use the Divert formation to defend your medium range battle zones by lowering the threat of your bots in that zone. Having a lower threat means that your bots are less likely to be targeted by enemy operatives whose nanobot swarms have a higher threat than yours. Divert is only useful when used as part of a team defense, and best used to cloak the threat of Booster and Strengthener bots. Every Divert bot offsets the threat of approximately four or five defense or support bots, depending on defensive strength. Divert also has the same effect on Aggression for offensive bots, making it more likely your friends will step up to take out incoming defensive bots. Your Scope must have a Distortion Generator to execute this maneuver, as well as a fresh canister of Stealth Chroma paint.

Divert is the most complicated and misunderstood formation, but can create devastating impact when leveraged correctly by a team of players. Divert decreases your threat to an enemy, making it more likely that your friend in the same faction will be attacked instead of you. Each Divert bot can effectively “hide” approximately five other defensive or support bots in the zone. It is possible that enough Divert bots could make you look as harmless as squirrel in the woods, as long as there is at least one other player on the same faction, even a Level 1 noob, in the zone with you.

While this formation could be used to selfishly protect your army of bots while your friends take the brunt of an attack, it can also be used much more strategically. If you place enough boosters in the zone to give all your faction-mates a 100% boost in their offensive attack, then place 20% as many (or more) Divert bots in the zone to completely mask your presence, your friends can see tremendous attack advantage, obtaining 100% bonus from your Boosters. Your very expensive Divert and Boosters can safely remain in the zone with the appropriate mix of bots, as long as at least one friend is there with you. However, once all your friends are gone, Divert offers no stealth. You will be hunted down and destroyed by subsequent attacks from your enemy. Most top level formations will be completely masked with a 5 to 1 ratio of Divert bots; however Absorbers and Hardened Lattice’s are a noticeable target of incoming offense and require a ratio that is closer to 4 to 1 to adequately hide them. Finally, Divert has the same camouflaging for Aggression, making it less likely your offensive bots will jump out and attack incoming defensive formation, unless there aren’t any friends in the zone to do it for them. The ratio for Aggression reduction is approximately 5 to 1 for all top level formations. Divert cannot force the enemy to attack another faction, only another player in your faction.