Legendary Scenarios for Djinn Grips and Profit! Confirmed to work to actually get Demonic Djinn Grips in SWL! Mark II, since the forum spindled and mutilated the first version yesterday
A new-fangled how-to scenario guide written with defensive geared tanks (WE EXIST!) in mind as well as just people who want tips on how to outsmart much of what the Council of Venice throws at them. You really donât have to be super duper geared to DPS perfection in order to manage scenarios just fine.
Now that Anima Allocation is out, everyone can adjust their stats as they see fit to get the perfect balance of attack rating, health, and heal rating. I use about 85 dps 15 tank with the build belowâheal rating isnât useful to increase the healing sources have.
Iâm sure other builds would work to succeed at scenarios one or two levels higher than the game would ordinarily allow you to try, but this is mine. Since this is tank oriented and tanks often have hammers and shotguns, it wouldnât be hard to switch out the blade skills I have for skills form those two weapons.
Chaos/Blade
Turmoil
Winds of Change
Pandemonium
Evulsion
Tsunami
Impale / Exhume Spirit
with the passives
Contradiction
Fractured Existence
Mass Evulsion
Paradoxical Restoration
Resonance Cascade
Gadget: Purification drone.
Turmoilâs added hate gets everythingâs attention fast; I tried non-hate basic skills but they didnât grab monsters fast enough for me. Interrupting attacks with aggro doesnât seem to happen in SWL, but otherwise grabbing hate is very quick.
Winds of Change also adds hate, but more importantly, with its passive, it debuffs enemies so they will heal you for 3% of your health every hit for three seconds. Very useful when youâre surrounded.
Pandemonium is damage, AoE stuns, and with its passive it drops three AoE that also stun and do a lot of damage, and it also pulls things to you. Unfortunately, it tends to transfer what is in front of you to behind you, so it takes some getting used to. Itâs a great chain stun for bosses.
Mass Evulsion is pure, delicious crowd control. It has a decent range, so you can use it to yoink five or six critters across the room over to you, or to long distance aggro a pack that you canât yet reach. Naturally, its stun and purge are also useful.
Tsunami is single target damage that also builds up Chi for Chi Overflow, a three second heal over time that heals for 7% HP each tick. Being five energy but a 2.5 second channel, it can be used off-hand more often than it might seem.
Impale Spirit / Exhume Spirit exposes a group, as well as hindering the initial critter hit. It can also be used to grab a monsterâs attention from range.
Paradoxical Restoration heals you each time you generate a Paradox, while Resonance Cascade causes you to generate one Paradox every second while in combat, as well as keeping your chaos enigmas on you rather than the enemy.
New My Gear: Iâm using almost all tank oriented gear. Just picked up a Mark of the Starspawn which certainly isnât hurting my survivability in scenarios, given itâs a 4.5% heal after being hit five times. The only talisman I specifically use for scenarios is a Tumultuous Sash, which keeps the paradoxes rolling; I have a crit glyph in it to help out with damage, since most of my gear is defense or evade. The other talismans I have donât hurt, but if they help, itâs pretty subtle and not what Iâd recommend for someone building for a good scenario deck!
The weapons though, I think they help a lotâOtherworldly Artifact of Havoc for paradox all day long and Anima-Touched Blade of Recovery for both extra damage and a pretty sweet âleechâ effect. Now that Iâm doing Elite 8, my glyphs are much better than they were, but most of them are still defensive!
I also bring a few of those purple attack and HP potions from the apothecaries, if it turns out I need them. Itâs just enough to keep me a teensy bit ahead in killing things. I put them on my quick slot bar so if I die, I can use another quickly. Any time I hit a new elite tier, I start using potions until my damage catches up, and it usually does about half way through the tier. Iâm at E8 right now and having no issues.
Supply drops are interestingânow that we have a quest item inventory, all the supply drop items go in there, and they persist after leaving a scenario. So if you donât happen to use one, or you cant find a box in time, you can save it for the next scenario.
The Scenarios:
In general, donât be afraid to fight near the survivors; a couple of them are armed, and not with pea shooters either. They will help you. Go ahead and give one Bear Arms if you get a supply drop. Just donât fight on top of them and make sure to keep Filth mobs away from them. A Castle scenario with Militia will turn the survivors into an elite fighting force that will tear apart anything that gets in the room with them, so be really careful to keep filth critters and swarming mutators outside the foyer!
The bomb pick up is very fast, so you can usually manage it even in a fight. Exorcism takes longer, so if you have monsters on you, stun them all first. That should buy enough time to extract the ghost.
Focus fire the Commander Mutators, they are squishy and killing their minions is futile until they die.
Monster wave types:
Filthy humans are part of every wave, so youâre going to end up exposed sometimes by their Palsy. Make sure to kill them away from survivors, as they leave a damaging puddle behind.
Ghouls, Hotel: These guys are going to corrupt and afflict constantly. Many of their normal attacks cause damage over time debuffs. Corruption means you get less from your healing, while afflicts tick damage over time. Cleanse is great here. Ghouls canât be hindered.
Running circles around them still forces them to cancel Monstrous Swipe. Spite now places three stacks of Corrupted on you. Their AoE is very clear now, so easier to stun or dodge; if you get hit by it, it puts exposed on you.
Locusts, Hotel: First, they drop poisonous AoE everywhere, but worse, they frequently cast Regrow, which can heal a big one by half and top off a small one. That makes locusts last a fair bit and make them tend to build up. Casting Regrow causes them to glow white, so if you see several glowing, you can stun them all to stop it.
Cultists, Hotel: These guys come in a variety; fire cultist will AoE afflict, female cultist AoE damage, male Atenists use very damaging ranged AoE while female Atenists have massive knockdown cone attacks.
Mummies, Hotel: The smaller mummies tend to put afflictions on you, while the larger ones can cast hindering AoE, buff themselves, or shield and heal themselves. Shielded mummies need to be hit from behind, impairs donât always break them out of it. Most of them are ranged attackers, which can make them tricky to corral in melee range. Many of them also use short range cone AoE.
A note about mummies on the second wave: If you have four or five of the big ones that like to put up Walled In, donât bother trying to kill them before the boss. Or before you loot. Just get the final boss killed, get your loot and go.
Demons, Any: Rakshasa nibble, incubi can cast leech buff on themselves that heals a nearby succubus as well as hit hard and create damaging AoE, succubi can hinder you and hit from long range, while hell soldiers tend to AoE expose. Some hell soldiers can put up reflect shields which are quite dangerous; purge them ASAP.
Werewolves, Castle: Theyâre fond of AoE stuns and AoE afflicts. Itâs not hard to get a bunch of afflicts built up on you fighting them, so cleansing and fancy footwork is useful. Werewolves often come with a variety of buffs, so purging them is useful.
Deathless, Castle: Self-buffing, reflect-shielding, self-healing, and ranged makes Deathless very dangerous. Line of Sight them into small rooms so that you can hit them all. Try to stop them if they cast Unholy Denial, itâs the reflect shield. Bloody Vespers is their heal, Circle of Sulphur places an AoE on the ground that buffs the Deathless in it so their attacks hit twice. All of these casts make Deathless dangerous. Try to pull them out of their Circles. Fortunately chain stunning Deathless is safe and effective in SWL, so take advantage!
Fauns and Wisps, Castle: Fauns are annoying ranged attackers that also have afflicts and AoE stuns. Wisps like to cram themselves in corners and snipe survivors from a distance. Use the Castle terrain to get them to come into range.
Vampires, Castle: Vampires can AoE stun, AoE debilitate, sometime cast heals on themselves. Keep them away from survivors so they donât AoE all over them.
Akâab, Mansion: They dash everywhere but most annoyingly they can put a strong hinder on you, making it hard to get out of their dashes and move from place to place.
Scarecrows, Mansion: Scarecrows with dolls can afflict you while scarecrows with shotguns use huge cone AoE for knockdowns and damage. They are resistant to stuns, so positioning them away from survivors and moving out of AoE is important to keep you from being chain stunned.
Spirits, Mansion: Ghosts are awful still. They are ranged attackers in a scenario where it is difficult to use terrain to force them closer. Some cast reflect shields on one another (purgeable); others cast large damaging AoE, strong hinders, and cast ranged leeching Ghostly Draining which heals them. Too many built up at once can be very dangerous.
Zombies, Mansion: Most zombies are run of the mill, with some afflicts and AoE, while cultist zombies will drop AoE around and place unpurgeable absorption shields on themselves, making them last a lot longer than most.
Draug, Mansion: Draug tend to come in a variety, with a few stunning AoE from melee draug, a few ranged AoE from ranged draug. Thereâs nothing stand out awful about them.
Fungus, Castle: Fungus are all about giant AoE and afflictions. It can be tricky keeping their AoE off off survivors in the small space of the Castle. Worse yet, the medium sized fungi cast a large AoE that is about the same size as the occasional ghost AoE that shows up when CoV dude adds roaming ghosts.
Hotel:
All waves have an easy choke point at the front, back, or side doors to the lobby.
All bosses spawn outside, in the front or the back. The pattern seems to be thus:
Back: Jinn
Front: Lava Golem
Either: Ghoul Shaman, Ghoul, Male and Female Cultist, Scorpion
If you have ten survivors at the end, the jinn will always show up.
Mansion:
All waves have obvious choke points. The upper-left wave can sometimes hide a ninja that snipes at a survivor from behind the corner of the house. Lower-left and lower-right can sometimes split so half go down into the pool and half donât.
The wraith always spawns in the lower right corner.
Draug and bears spawn in the pool, almost on top of the survivors; the revenant spawns on the lower left, zombie upper right, and the akâab has several spawns.
After the first wave, camp the pool in case of Bear.
Castle:
Most waves have a clear choke-point, either the stairs or one of the doors into the foyer. The northernmost upstairs spawn sometimes splits, heading for the stairs or the lower door; if the situation allows it, spawn camping them will prevent that.
Bosses always spawn outside, up the stairs. Most of the time they come down the stairs outside, but occasionally will go inside.
Bosses:
Jinn: Keep an eye on the back yard at the end if wave two; if he casts Unstable Eruption on a survivor, it can easily kill several survivors around the afflicted one. Keep him far back in the back yard! Interesting thing about fighting him at an elite or so higher than you is that it starts to be much better to let him cast his AoE and interrupt his normal attacks. He attacks slowly with a long wind up animation, and usually attacks two to three times in between casts that are easy to avoid.
If youâre playing duo, itâs possible to have both characters in melee without one of them being killed by the otherâs Unstable Eruption, but it takes a good judge of just how far back both can be and still hit him, a learned tanking trait for both players.
Padurii: Make sure to kill her wisps, or let the survivors do it (though make sure they arenât in her fire aura while they do it). Her hindering AoE doesnât do much damage. Yellow wisp gives her a fire aura, red wisp a 100% absorb shield, green wisp heals her, while blue wisp cleanses her of debuffs.
Wraith: Chain of Fools is its most damaging attack. The rest can be avoided with timely dodges. Enshroud can be impaired or purged; while it is a reflect shield, if youâre not doing a lot of damage, it doesnât hurt.
Akâab: Itâs possible to force it to cancel Royal Jelly by jumping up and down the sides of the pool. It is a massive channeled heal, and happens far too often to stun. Which means, you either have to out-damage it, out-last it, or line of sight it. Personally, I go for out-lastâŠitâs a long fight since neither can kill the other, but you need survivors, not dead bosses.
Zombie colossus: It has a few easy to avoid AoE.
Revenant: The revenantâs Flickering Ambush is a three hit burst attack, which means if you hit it with Winds of Change just as it pops up from Flicker, it will do its damage but also heal you for 9% of your HP, making it potentially heal more than it hurts.
Bear: Zombie Bears are a good reason to stand in the pool at the end of wave 1, because they spawn in pools and your survivors are right there. It afflicts you with every Bear Biteychomp, places large bloody AoE, and drags poison all over. On top of it, it periodically enrages with Ursinity, preventing it from taking damage and making any attack a one-shot for ten seconds. Kite it around the pool and be careful!
Draug: A big clawed Draug, thereâs nothing really exceptional it does. Just donât stand in Deep Blast.
Draug Lord: Its Gold Chain can hurt a fair bit, as can its Pulse Wave.
Ghoul: The main feature of this boss is its Frenzy, which like Ursinity and Lumbering Rage, prevents damage and makes it one-shot people. Otherwise, it can cast large AoE, corrupt you with Spite, and afflict you with Monstrous Swipes.
Ghoul Shaman: This one likes to afflict and corrupt. Keep it far away from the survivors, as it has a huge doughnut shaped AoE. Cleanses are useful!
Male Cultist: Keep him outside the foyer, as he drops bloody AoE and his attacks chain.
Female Cultist: She summons flame spirits that can cast AoE and heal themselves, and she can AoE afflict.
Golem: To be kept outside! It casts so many avoidable small AoE that using stuns when itâs not casting means this boss shouldnât spend much time at all actually attacking you.
Scorpion: It can afflict you with a stacking debuff that can turn into a root, so cleanses are useful. Donât stand in its poisonous AoE, and stun or hit it in the back when it spits poison.
Werewolf: It periodically Howls, summoning up to two smaller wolves that column dash around. It has a few buffs to start, but if you purge those and have good footwork, this one just takes time to kill.
Werewolf Jerk: The far less accommodating version of werewolf boss. It has an unpurgeable buff that allows it to start freezing you; at ten stacks, youâll be an ice cube and sitting duck. The debuff can be cleansed or carefully mitigated by stunning the werewolf while you can attack it, and letting stacks run off while kiting it around the courtyard platform when it is buffed with Lumbering Rage.
Vampire Lord: This guy spawns close to the survivors and likes to blast them all with a big bloody AoE as well as the huge obnoxious leeching Lord of Veins. Which is a sure fire way to lose a bunch of survivors. Donât let him do it! Tag him and run outside, or fight him in the side room. Stun Lord of Veins or dance around the circles. Ranged players can lure him onto the platform then shoot him from a safe distance, using hinders and whatnot to keep him there.
Vampire Commander: Take him outside and avoid standing in his AoE. Leech Bomb is easier to avoid than the other, which leaves a hard to see puddle behind.
Vampire: The big lumbering brute kind. All his AoE are easy to avoid; he leeches sometimes, but most annoyingly uses a fast Impaling Strike to give himself a substantial defence buff. Purge it, stun the cast, or endure a glance-fest.
Zmeu: Tends to spawn almost on top of the survivors, but is big and dumb with slow AoE. Take it outside.
Fungus: It afflicts, and if that stacks high, itâs hard to heal through. Cleanse is really useful. Its other casts, both AoE, arenât quite as bad as the afflict.
Fungus Creeper: The three legged kind, it drops AoE that afflicts and Chaos Spreads, which chains and leeches. It is ranged and tries to keep its distance, so make sure it doesnât kite you somewhere you donât want to be.
Wendigo: It will frequently buff itself and expose you. The cast that matters is Lean Winter, which is a strong channeled heal. Interrupt it!