Introduction
Scenarios is a section of game content where you might spend hundreds of hours due to EXP requirement to level up Red Glyphs, so it might be useful for you to learn a few tricks how to makes things easier in Scenarios.
Character Build
Scenarios requires approach quite similar to solo gameplay. You need to as much damage as possible, while being able to stay alive through combat with each pack of monsters.
Taking care of your damage is rather straight-forward thing. You need to be able to deal with:
- High HP single targets.
- Medium HP 2 monsters packs
- Low HP 4 monsters packs
It’s not the Dungeons, so you don’t need to do your best DPS, just your best attacks, since you’ll need active abilities slots for survival, Control and Utility. Though you just might go Full crazy max DPS and just kill things so fast that Survival is not an issue at all (though some bosses might disagree with you and you still might consider having separate build for bosses).
While taking care of your survivability might take you while to make it right:
- You need some Utility in the form of ability to cleanse debuffs and damage over time effects from yourself. Purification drone gadget (even green one) will do nicely for this purpose (though having high level and tier of signet of time and space will improve it immensely!).
- You might need (higher the elite tier - higher the need) ability to Interrupt abilities of monsters and especially abilities of some bosses (at E10 quiet a few their attacks can 1-shot you). Budget and very good option for this - The Mistress’s Bashonen. Get a legendary one from AH - they are common and cheap. (having high level and tier of signet of time and space will improve it’s usefulness greatly). My personal choice as a gadget unless i’m facing Fungi in Castle.
- You need ability to restore health during the combat. That one achieved through various ways. Usually every weapon have a passive ability that restores your health in combat, and some weapons have active abilities do it even better (if you have active slot for such ability).
- You also might consider using some Tanking abilities, or Allocating Anima towards being more “tanky”
- One of the extremely effective ways to get enough self-health for everything in Scenarios - high level Signet of Cruel Delight. Expensive. Effective. Totally worth it!
- Also take a look at the Sword. It’s self-healing capabilities are God Like! Provided you are into the Swords and have one leveled up to adequate level.
So resulting build will look like a selection of your most effective and high damaging abilities, with (probably) one or two abilities to save your bacon in the heat of the battle (self-heal or CC).
Don’t be shy to switch Gadget between the fight or just build for specific enemies or bosses.
Example of Scenario build that i’m using in E10:
Scenario Hazards
At the start of each Scenario you will get randomly one of the 4 hazards that you have to deal with. They vary from “there was a hazard? I did not noticed” to “not his one! Not on this map! Not with those monsters! Retreat!”. It’s quite situational sometimes.
Spectral Disturbance - usually considered as easiest to deal with. Since it’s just slowly moving clearly visible small red circles, which are easy to avoid (unless in narrow passage in Castle) with damage not that high, so you can actually run through them without risk of killing yourself. Though there are second part to this hazard - occasionally a huge circle telegraph for AoE attack will appear (can be confused with Seeder fungi AoE or with blue-coat vampires AoE) that deals very high damage to players. On high tier Elites it will 1-shot you. Thankfully it’s slow and easy to avoid.
Long Range Threat - varies a minor annoyance to serious trouble (it can 1 shot-kill you on higher Elites, and sometimes you will just retreat from Mansion if you get it there) if you are not paying attention to it. It deals damage that progresses significantly with difficulty (instant death on E10 unless you are tanky with above 10k health) and puts a slow with long duration on you if you survive the shot. When you get targeted you will see a HUGE target above your head filling. General rule - don’t use active dodge to dodge AoE attacks of spawns - save active dodge for Snipers. As soon as you see a HUGE GLOWING cross-hair above your head - stop doing what you was doing and a)Do an Active dodge immediately b)Try to break Line of sight with sniper. On maps like Castle or Hotel you might not even get targeted once!
Saboteur subroutine - a moderate annoyance that can be turned into your favor most of the time. At very specific time stamps(first around 2:54 on timer) a huge Unstable Survivor (running with very distinct sound) will spawn and run toward normal survivors to plant a bomb. You will get a notification about the bomb, and you will have ~30 seconds to deal with it before it explodes. It removes a lot of health from Survivors (~50%). Bomb is small, and sometimes hard to notice, but it always will be planted next to one of the survivors packs. It takes only few seconds to grab a bomb (and you see how much seconds left till explosion on buff\debuff panel) - then you have 2 options: a) re-plant it away from survivors by pressing Left mouse button and maybe even lure some enemies on it later b)Plant it as a mine close to you with a split-second for you to active dodge out-of explosion - that is actually very good option - this explosion will remove roughly 50% of health from monsters and even from the 1st Boss (!) saving you some time on killing them. Just write down each time stamp when you hear “Alert! Explosives detected” - saboteur plants them on schedule in each scenario, but sometimes this time modified by saboteur travel time, and sometime saboteur can get stuck and will fail to plant the bomb (happens in Hotel). Also - bomb will despawn when final boss appears. Also note that bomb will be planted 3 times per wave.
Possession Protocol - minor level of annoyance. Happens 2 time per wave (often happens in pause after 1st boss). You will get a notification that one of the Survivors being possessed - he will get a glowing halo above him and special sound effect. To save a Survivor you need to interact with him withing 90 seconds - it will initiate channeling Exorcism interruptible by damage (!!!) that will remove Possession status from survivor and will spawn a Specter (weak one) who will attack you and will ignore survivors (thankfully). If you don’t remove possession status in time (in 90 seconds) - survivor will count as dead and will have to kill strong high HP monster. You should get only 2 Possessions per wave.
Enhanced monsters
Sometimes announcer will tell you about special monster or about initiating mutation protocol. That means that next spawn will be with 1 special monster with one of the following traits (you can see which one by how how monster moves and by visual effects or just by targeting it and reading it’a buffs). And most of the time (but not always) they will be shown on map with scull icon.
Here is the list of traits:
Hellish - spams small ground AoE that can be easily avoided simply by moving around, though it will hit for quite significant damage if not avoided. The most dangerous special monster on E10. Can kill you very fast if you are stop moving. Also will attack you through the walls. since this attack does not require line of sight for some reason.
Acidic - leaves a toxic ground effect that deals damage to you and Survivors, and leaves DoT that deals high damage. It’s better not to allow them close to Survivors.
Infested - spawns 2 suicide-bomber locusts upon death. It’s better to keep an eye on this particular trait and avoid killing such foes to close to Survivors, since dual explosion of locusts kills Survivor. It crucial to be able to identify this particular kind on higher elites when you can loose only 2 or 0 (at E10) survivors, since double explosion from both locusts kills all survivors in radius. You can identify it by checking his yellow buff icon (Advanced UI helps a lot) or by spotting dark green smoke effects on the boss.
Strange Attractor - occasionally casts Huge AoE effect that pulls you into melee range.
Behemoth - have extra health, but moves really slow. Immune to CC (can’t be stunned or slowed).
Commander - have a green circle around them that prevents other monsters from being killed while they are in radius taking damage for them. Only appear as a part of weak 4 spawns.
And there always a chance to get one or few monsters in each spawn replaced with Filth Infected. They have significantly more health and do fast and high damage to you. And worst part - they leave pool of Filth upon death, so don’t kill them in close proximity to survivors.
Power-Ups
There are positive things in scenarios as well - Power-Ups. They spawn at specific spot on special platforms each ~1 minute and 40 seconds.
Red Fist - double damage
Shield - 75% damage reduction
Yellow Cross - healing over time effect.
After a while you might find only Damage Buff useful, so when you does not see a Damage Buff on platform, pick up whatever useless buff there in hope that Damage Buff will spawn there instead in 1 minute 40 seconds.
Save Damage Buffs for Bosses.
Also note that every monster have a chance of dropping one of the Power-ups upon death. Such dropped buffs stay on the ground for ~40 seconds.
Positive events
After killing the 1st boss there is one of the positive events occurs to help you on wave 2:
Reinforcements - one of heroic NPC’s that you might met before will spawn and will assist you with killing spawns. They do high damage, but they have very low health displayed (though they are really unkillable and can be used to kill Bosses).
Militia protocol - arming 3 of the Survivors - that is a significant boon, especially if you are using armed survivors as assistance in killing spawns (described further), though Survivors will melee weapons tend to have suicidal tendencies running in AoEs…
Turret defense - few turrets will spawn across the map, few near survivors. They do help … a bit.
Supply Delivery Protocol - one of the best , and it must be used with care. It spawns 3 boxes on the map in random locations (with a blue glow that can be seen through walls and ceiling), if you break all 3 and pick their contents you will get 3 consumables - Turret (like in Turret Defence), Bear Arms (like in Militia protocol but for just 1 survivor and you have to target him ctrl+tab to use it one), Medkit (huge AoE that heals all Survivors in it’s radius). You may want NOT TO USE THEM right away and save them and keep them for really tight situations when guano hits the fan. Keep in mind that they will disappear from inventory and bank if you buy Blue Turret or Medkit from vendor in Sunken Library. if you complete the story mission “The Venetian Agenda”, upon exiting the scenario, it will remove Turret, Bear Arms and Medikit you have. Also keep in mind that each one is unique item so you can have only one of each.
Assistance Drone - spawns deactivated healing drone in random spot on the map, interacting with it - will activate the drone. It will follow you, while providing a minor healing effect to you, and will eventually die. Not a big loss really, provided you have taken care of self-healing when you was making your build\setup.
Friendly Snipers - friendly snipers (unkillable) will spawn across the map and they will occasionally shoot spawned monsters. Doing very high damage. They are also do high damage to Bosses.
Scenario Maps
There are 3 Scenario maps in game - Mansion, Hotel and Castle.
Hotel
is the most comfortable one due to how spawn point of monsters are located in relation to Survivors position. There aren’t much running to do. Only bad thing - player re-spawn point is very far from action. So if you die during the boss fight on High Elite - kiss goodbye few survivors, or simply auto-fail the mission on E10. That is trade-off for being
Possible spawns - locusts, cultists, demons, mummies, ghouls.
Notable annoyances in regular spawns - self-healing on Locusts (Interraptable), shotgun cultists (insanely high HP takes ages to kill if you low on DPS), in Incubus+Succubus pair spawn Succubus will restore health fast until you kill Incubus (dude with big sword), single strong mummies that cast directional shield that regenerates them health and will stay like this for quite long (just kill the FAST before they do shield, or if shielded - go behind them and do damage in their backs), ghouls are immune to slow and stun effects.
Wave 1 Bosses - Fat cultist (nothing notable, just dodge AoEs), Scorpion (try to stay behind him, and have cleanse on ready - he have nasty slowing poison), Fire Cultist (just interrupt Calling of Flame to prevent spawning of the fire spirit adds), Ghoul - just stay away during Frenzy, Ghoul Shaman - take him away from entrance he have HUGE AoE that might hit survivors inside the Hotel.
Final Bosses - Giant Mummy casts delayed damage effects on you that will do significant damage when timer runs out, so just kill him fast. IF he stuns you - go behind him as soon as stun is over. Lava Golem - get him away from entrance to survivors ASAP and be ready to LoS or Interrupt his HUGE circle AoE (it’s very fast) - it does high damage and most likely 1-shot you on high elites. Jinn - same as golem - get him far and to the side of entrance to avoid damaging survivors with his huge AoE (or be ready to interrupt it), puts a high damage DoT on you and have 2 (run-out and run-it) AoE attacks. You might consider kiting him around barricades when low on health or waiting for important cooldowns. He is doing insanely high damage on high elites, and on duo high elites tend to kill players in couple of hits.
Mansion
Involves a lot of running, and quite nasty when you get Enemy Snipers hazard if you uncomfortable to deal with them. That pool in the center can be of Huge help with kiting bosses, since they can’t jump (and can’t use abilities while chasing you).
Possible spawns - zombies, draug, ghosts, ak’ab, scarecrows
Notable annoyances in regular spawns - cultist zombies that casts shield on each other, draug + sorceress that tend to spread making it tricky to hit both with AoE, Red Ghosts - have channel attack that damages you and restores health to them ( visible red line - interrupt must have for them, good luck if you get Behemot red ghost… that immune to CC), PTSD trigger from Ak’Ab for oldTSW early access players, shotgun scarecrow - insanely high HP and immune to CC (90 % of time) - good luck 
Wave 1 Bosses - Zombie Hulk (nothing special, just avoid AoEs), Draug Berserker (on high elites LoS or interrupt Water Spike - it deals high damage), Revenant (annoys you with disappearing act, even after being interrupted - repeats it). Undead Bear - keep him away from Survivors (green ground effect kills them in seconds on high elites), stay away from him during Ursunity (or prevent it by sending him on long route with pool jumps), Draug lord - just does his big AoEs which is easy to avoid, can be fooled with pool jumpig as well if you suddenly low on health.
Final Bosses - Specter - be on look-out for Chain of Fools attack , it can 1-shot you on high elites (so have interrupt for it or LoS it with a Tree), Wendigo - interrupt Winter Lean to prevent regeneration and use pool to kite him, Ak’Ab - interrupt Royal Jelly to prevent healing, also advisable to interrupt Calling or you will have to deal with small Ak’abs as well. pool will help you to kite it.
Castle
You will hate it at first, and probably will hate it forever for quite a number of reasons. It have 2 spawn points right next to survivors (which is sucks on epic level), it have spawn point on second floor that tends to spread spawn monsters on 2 different routes (unless you intercept them next to stairs), it have Fungi, and it have Vampire Mage boss. On bright side - everything is withing hand’s reach, also kill-box in main hall will surprise you in a good way (2 or more armed survivors will kill anything that you miss very fast - just hope that it’s not Filth Infected). Also player re-spawn platform is Perfect place to kite short range and melee bosses, since they can’t jump
Possible spawns - (censored) Fungi, vampires, werewolfs+wolfs, Deathless, Infected Satyrs+ Wisps, demons
Notable annoyances in regular spawns - (censored) Fungi - every one of them (save for packs of 4 small critters) will put DoT on you, pair of Seeders will also put HUGE AoE that puts DoT on you and survivors, and huge single Fungi will put ground damaging effect as well (nerves of steel and a lot of Cleansing will help to deal with them), packs of 4 weak vampires that spread randomly like cockroaches when they engage you making it hard to AoE them (they just annoying as hell because of that), single strong vampires will restore a lot of health with most of their attacks - keep them at distance, slow them, stun them, do your best DPS, lure them to main hall to add survivors high damage to yours), werewolfs are fine, Deathless - pray to whatever so you don;t get a single high HP deathless with Behemot enhancement they have insanely high health even without it (let survivors help you with it ), Satyrs and Wisps are fine.
Wave 1 bosses Nazivampire - just put Alucard costume on and have fun (don’t forget avoiding his AoEs), Winter Werewolf - he have Frenzy and he puts staking freezing debuff on you, both can be avoided with spawn-platform jumping, Summoner Werewolf - spawns unkillable wolfs that will try to knock you down, easy to avoid, can be easily tricked with platform jumping. Vampire Brute with ball on chain - just avoid AoE attacks, platform jumping helps immensely Giant Fungi Incubator - will put DoT on you if you put DoT on it (like monsters in SF Lair), Giant Fungi - noting special, just don’t step in it’s ground AoEs.
Final Bosses - Paduri - easiest one, all you need to do is either kill wisps fast or separate her from Wisps, after that it’s slow stupid and weak boss that can’t do anything special (even her green ground effect is just a slow area), Zmeu (troll) - slow and stupid and does AoEs, probably even easier than Paduri, especially with platform jumping. Vampire Mage - very nasty one, you need to keep him in Castle court or in the north wing of Castle AWAY from survivors - he casts insanely huge AoE bombardment (interuptable), and casts long lasting blood ground effect that will heal him if you step on it (doing very high damage to you) the only boss that almost immune to platform jumping due to very long range of attack.
So, you are still reading this? Here is the bonus for you!
Tricks
Helpful Survivors
There are always 2 armed survivors who deal significant damage to spawns. You may and should use them to deal with spawns faster, all you need to do - to lure spawns in the range of the armed survivor. Pros: - spawns go down a lot faster, especially in Castle where spawns will be in range of 2 armed survivors Cons: - be careful with Filth Infected, and mutated spawns with Infected mod (spawns suicide-bomber locusts). So use this trick carefully.
Manual Healing of Survivors
If you have active healing ability and a tiny little bit of free time - heal wounded survivors. It may save their lives when you screw up later in same scenario.
Learn spawn points and routes of spawned monsters
Natural thing to do, so you can choose interception points in more favorable for you manner. Though spawn point on second floor of northern wing of the castle that will send it’s spawns on different paths… though it’s not a big deal if you fight spawns in the main hall with Survivors.
You do have healing potions
Use them if you have them. Re-spawning and running back may result in few survivors dead, and on higher elites you will need (5 and them 8 of them alive to succeed).
Use anima potions
Supreme Anima potion may last for 3 scenarios providing you with a significant health and damage\healing buff. Distilled anima Health and Attack or Health and Healing is your budget option, they are cheap, they are very useful. Use them!
I hope all this will help you
P.S. to Moderators - sticky please if you deem this thread worthy! I will keep it up to date with every relevant change.
