Strategies for the new Difficulty level

I was going to make some comments about this is in the difficulty poll thread but Shantara warned about hijacking the thread so Ill start a new one. I'd like to hear how people are changing their style of play to deal with the new difficulty level. One of the things I see myself doing is setting up narrow confined kill zones where monsters won't be able to dodge my shots. The days of mixing it up in a wide open room with multiple monsters is over for me (at least with my mid-level LA player.) I'm also much more conscious about letting things spawn behind me. You need to be aware of where monsters might spawn, especially nali. Also, the lightning artifact works just wonderfully for hitting fast moving monsters. You can really steal quite a few kills or weaken the monster enough so that only one flack hit is needed to finish them off. This is one aspect of play where the LA player is at an advantage. While other players are missing with their shots, the lightning arti fact never misses. "60% of the time, it works every time"

shimmyNshake

A suggestion I have come to metal skaarj. When using the flack cannon I have noticed that they flip into the air and perform something similar to a dodge and a backflip. It used to be that you could aim your flak at the metal skaarj but now that they can anticipate the movement of the flak, my best bet would be that you have to try and anticipate their movement and read where their going to do. Afterwards the spot they land, hit them for all their worth.

Good ideas there shimmyNshake, and a good thought for a thread.

Medic link chains seem to work well - especially if there is just one front guy and the back of the chain is out of harms way. Any damage to the front guy and he gets healed fast.

Get a poison mini, spray all the enemies, and duck back behind cover. After 4 seconds they have lost 40% of their health. If they are still far enough away, repeat. Makes them easier to finish off.
If you have LA, double the mini, fire, then switch off the double. The monster will then lose 75% of their health in 4 seconds. Takes 2 secs adrenaline, but lets you finish them off quickly.

Ideally work in teams. Perhaps one guy doubling a poison mini and hitting them when they are far away. Other people to finish them off when they get close.

Instant hit weapons like the mini partially reduce the effect of the dodging, depending on your ping. Long distance use the secondary fire as it is more accurate.

If you have to use a rocket launcher, go for splash damage rather than a direct hit.

Keep laying mines for protection if they sneak up on you.

The 2 areas that I have had to change or in the process of changing with the new difficulty is to watch your back because of nailis and the dodging.

I have to break my habbit, but on levels that are not full of titans I am trying to stick more towards the wall. This has helped with naili's coming from behind. The dodging, if I have a great slower weapon (weapon speed is already maxed) such as flak, I do what insane recommended, but I also use the alternate flak, which gives more damage in a radius. If my weapons are average across the board and I will go with a faster weapon (lightning, shock) and that seems to work better.

I know I am much lower player then 98% of the players, but that is my 2 cents.

Insane Maniac wrote:

A suggestion I have come to metal skaarj. When using the flack cannon I have noticed that they flip into the air and perform something similar to a dodge and a backflip. It used to be that you could aim your flak at the metal skaarj but now that they can anticipate the movement of the flak, my best bet would be that you have to try and anticipate their movement and read where their going to do. Afterwards the spot they land, hit them for all their worth.

On thing I have noticed about the metal skaarj, they seem to usualy dodge to their right, that is your left. If you throw a flack ball at the upper left hand portion of their sholder from less than 4 body leingths away, you usauly hit them.

Another interesting thing is that monsters that the avril does not lock onto will tend to ignore it, it also does enough damage to kill most of those monsters in one hit.

I guess this would be geared towards LW mainly, but the Avril is your best friend. Not only does the avril lock onto the pesky lightning skaarj, but a well placed shot will take anything below a brute down in one shot (including brutes). Also, a simple avril and flak combo is very effective against queens, titans and warlords. If you can throw in a LG with that you will be mowing down titans. I'm mainly just an avril to flak combo'er (not on fro or 320's level yet), but I'm starting to throw the LG in there. You need speed switcher for this to be truly effective though. I also throw my assault, bio, mines, grenade launcher, rocket, sniper as soon as i enter a game. Also, if you are in an indoor map throw the painter. I find getting rid of weapons that you don't use along with speed switcher will make combos second nature.

You don't need speed switch to pull off combos, A good configurable multi-button mouse of trackball will work.

I use a Logi-tech 7 button. one of the buttons changes the configuration of the others. I use them to pick spacific weapons.

Of course speed switch makes the whole process faster.

I hear people saying that having binds is an excuse for not needing speedswitcher, but truth is with binds, it helps even more.

And not only is it good for combos, but it also works exceedingly well at saving my life - by switching to the trans super-quick and allowing me to run when necessary. (See waves 12 and 16)

Speedswitch is one skill which I (almost) can't live without.

I'll second the call for a good multi-button mouse and playing with some weapon configs. I'm a medic, so I don't get my hands on an avril often, but I love swapping between flak and shock, as the flak is great for long range stuff, and they both have their own alt fires with some nice big radial damage.

So I programmed the two thumb buttons on my Intellimouse Explorer for flak and shock. Seems to be working well so far.