Rover Guide: Clover Commands and Dart Rifle Modes

Rover (Rowan Walsh) is the Support operator who brings a second body to the fight. Clover, his military dog, does the finding and pinning; the Dart Rifle does the repairing or the weakening depending on which mode you are in.

He deals almost no direct damage. Everything he owns is leverage — space, information, time, or a limb that works again.

Clover commands

Man’s Best Friend sends Clover to lock onto an enemy, tackle them, and mark them. A marked, knocked-down target is a free first shot for whoever is behind the dog.

Three rules make the difference between a dog that wins fights and a dog that feeds:

1. Send Clover down routes you have not seen, not routes you are already watching.
2. Do not send him into a crossfire you have identified — he is a separate entity and cannot disengage intelligently.
3. Push when he contacts. The tackle lasts a moment; the mark lasts longer, but the free shot does not.

What matters is the gap between cooldown and mark duration: if the mark outlasts the cooldown you can hold one target marked permanently, and that changes how you approach a site.

Dart Rifle modes

This is the part of the kit that changes completely between modes, and getting it wrong wastes the ability:

Mode	Dart Rifle behaviour	Use it for
Hazard Operations	Repairs limb injuries on teammates	Getting a squadmate’s aim and movement back
Warfare	Reduces enemy stat caps	Softening a target before your squad trades

In Operations the rifle is a medical tool. Shooting an enemy with it does nothing you care about. In Warfare it is the opposite — a pre-fight debuff, not a heal.

The mistake players make is carrying one mode’s expectation into the other and then concluding the operator is weak.

Irritant vs smoke

Irritant is his throwable, and it does the job ordinary smoke does — breaking an aim angle, covering a body — while also being unpleasant to stand in.

Use it as an area tool with a timer, not as concealment. The right spots are the lane an enemy sniper is holding, the doorway a push is coming through, and the ground between a downed teammate and the enemy watching them.

Rescue drive differences

His two rescue drives are the reason he is a Support pick rather than a scout:

• Guard Drive (Operations): extends the down window and clears limb injuries during the rescue. In an extraction mode where a lost body means lost gear, extra down time is the most valuable thing a support can hand out.
• Prey Drive (Warfare): a rescue also supplies ammunition. A revived player who comes back empty is a player who dies again in ten seconds.

Same animation, two entirely different payouts. Read the mode before you commit to the rescue.

Pairing

He wants teammates who can convert a tackle into a kill: D-Wolf and Tempest both arrive at a pinned target well. He also doubles up cleanly with another sustain operator — Vlinder for timers, Stinger for raw healing — because Clover keeps finding bodies while the healers keep them alive.