Tier 1 is the equivalent of trying to break out of a cardboard box with a wet noodle. You'll do little damage, and it takes a lot of hits to kill.

Tier 3 is the equivalent of trying to break out of a cardboard box with an assault rifle. You'll die in very few hits, and said hits will be coming at you at great speeds.

I highly suggest fully heated weapons and armor before you go into Lockdown. It'll give you a slight damage bonus and a bit more health.

As a Recon, one of your best tools at your disposal are bombs. Ideally, status bombs. The Recon module gives a global CTR medium, in addition to a second CTR medium for bombs, resulting in a CTR Very High for bombs overall. If you heat said bomb to lvl 10, it will gain another CTR medium, resulting in CTR maximum overall without any sort of bomb specific gear.

The most effective status bomb is the Static Capacitor, a 2* Shock bomb that you get from 15 Bark Modules (Roarmulus Twin tokens). You can find both the bomb itself and the recipe for its 3* version at a VERY high price on the Auction House. It is generally better to get some practice against the Roarmulus Twins, and do some recipe runs (certain 3* recipes sell VERY well because the Hall of Heroes DOES NOT have every recipe). Upgrade it to a Lightning Capacitor, and use it as your primary source of area denial. With CTR Max, you should be able to have 3 haze effects going at once, allowing you to shutdown a point with ease. Any swordsman (cough cough STRIKER cough) without proper resistances to Shock will be unable to enter said haze effect... well they can, they just wont be able to move, attack, shield, and/or leave the haze effect.

However, super-competitive players will recognize that Shock is one of the most deadly statuses in Lockdown, and thus tend to get Shock Resist UV's. If you're lucky, you'll probably be able to snag a rather cheap 3* Haze Bomb MKII (Albeit this will still be at around the 15,000 crown mark), the Stun bomb. You'll have to use Krogmo Coins to get the recipes needed to upgrade it. Stun is the second best way to counter Swordsmen, making their normally quick first strike take about 10x longer than normal (and leaving them immobile in the process). It's not a requirement at all to get a Haze Bomb, but if you really want to kick sand into the tier 3 knights that go into tier 2 for easy wins, it's the best option.

Beware that most people counter bombers with shooting... more specifically, Kilowatt Pulsars. They have huge AOE, shock, and can be easily spammed. When someone comes at you with a Pulsar, it's best to just cloak and walk away if you're not on a point. If you are on a point, you can either a) try to dodge until you capture or at least turn the point neutral, or b) cloak and walk away while they panic thinking that you're still stalking them, or c) cloak, sit off to the side until they think you're gone, wait for them to stand still (most likely while trying to recap the point you were standing on), and then jab them between the ribs with your favorite sword. Remember, the Pulsar gets it's AOE when it's bullets expand at about half of it's maximum range. Thus, if you can get in close, before the expanded shots, you can easily get within striking range.

A Swift Flourish is a good choice for a primary sword. Shield cancel the first swing whenever you can. Even with a sword debuff, you can get some pretty fast swings. When facing another striker, never try to directly engage them in a tank+spank style fight. You'll usually have more health, but Strikers can either be boasting trinkets or will just out-damage your slight health bonus with superior ASI and Damage increase. You'll want to be constantly cloaking and constantly moving. Whenever they either use up their boost, or try to do a full Flourish combo, uncloak, strike ONCE, shield cancel/cloak, and then move (ideally around them). Guardians, you can just do the shield cancel trick, while spinning around them. Remember randomness is better than quickness. If you try to get in as many strikes as possible, you'll just become predictable and an easy target for cool-headed players. A good, sporadic, and random Recon will seem like he is teleporting around his target, instead of cloaking. That really screws with people's heads.