Survival Mode Made Easy: Tips, Tricks, Tactics, and Quick Reference to Help You Succeed

Sure when I have time. Much of this still holds true except Vampire Lord and Ultraman but on US PS/PC atm the lag is making lunge immunity not always prevent damage fysa. Should improve over time. Lunge immunity has been completely removed from the game making countering most BBs impossible. Many bosses that used to have a critical counter now have a derpy roll requirement mechanic instead.

Thanks, much appreciated.
We figured out Mister Freeze yesterday with a few wipes, but Zeus is such a pain in the butt.
For the rest it's been extremely helpful!

Note that the counter profiles on many boss' block breaks now appear to be broken in that even if you perfectly counter you'll still eat full damage. Eg. Lex' Solar Flame damage does not appear to be meaningfully preventable because of the lunge changes even in the best case scenario (with lag further exacerbating this) and most other standard BBs now need to be pre-empted with a Rifle to have a shot at actually stopping them before the damage proc occurs.... As such, it kinda defeats the purpose of actually playing as intended instead of just doing full mitigation + evasion cheese, eg. Ice > shield > tag > run > repeat (that won't work for every boss but it trivializes much of the field). I don't intend to switch powers unless absolutely necessary but... yyyyeeeah... if you can't eat a BB without dying, which I don't think many players will be able to if they aren't Ice at high levels, you're gonna have a bad time this year.

Great information here, well done. Can you explain the lunge changes?

Basically instead of just fixing the lunge exploit they just removed the entire counter system in that we don't actually "counter" BBs anymore, we just knock the target down and eat full damage as though it was never countered, even if they get countered before starting the animation in many (but not all) cases. There are still some bosses who need to be countered (Deathstroke), but it's not possible to counter King Shark's Stomp Attack or Lex' Solar Flame without taking full damage which, if allowed to connect, is 9 times out of 10 a 1-shot from full health with max defense, max sp, max stats, max arts, max consumable buff stacking, and the most shielding/mitigation/health buffs and damage transfer humanly possible. Basically they designed it to force us to do it an extremely arbitrary and specific way with zero conveyance with the only way to figure it out is to grind through one boss and do trial & error. On bosses like that, you basically have to bait the attack then roll, with the dodge window on the roll being more forgiving than the protection window on lunging ever was. It's pretty derpy. I'll upload videos of different bosses to show the correct timing.

Edit: Gradually updating stuff as I go but basically if something still does its damage when we "counter" it now, we have to roll.

+1

If you don't bait & counter King Shark like this while kiting, he will eventually reset. It doesn't matter if people are constantly hosing him from within range... it doesn't matter if you're actively taunting him.... the only thing that matters in the entire fight is that you pop into range and cheesily exploit the stupid AI by baiting his PvP then knocking him down. You can also technically just roll around non-stop but there are small gaps in the dodge window and it's honestly just easier to practice it at a low lvl until the tank has the roll down pat.

Nothing to do with the thread really but I’ve always wondered this

With earth and fire when you block you seem to lose your tank mechanic but with rage, ice, atomic your mechanic stays when you block? I’m no expert on tanks is that normal. Seems so much easier actually rolling with ice and rage vs the other powers because of that alone

They all lose them a split second before block defense kicks in afaik. It's technically the worst on Ice because they go from +110+% DEF to 0% DEF then back to +100% DEF. The stuff we don't have to dodge this year seems to be specced such that it doesn't matter if it connects during that window anyways but it's still a derpy and annoying quirk that shouldn't exist..

Every round after 25 looks to be a straight up gimmick/knowledge/AI-exploit check. Don't even bother attempting 26+ until the tank practices on the lower-round equivalent bosses until they can consistently dodge the scripted and predictable one-shots Eg:

Deathstroke is predominately the same as he was last year but it's a bit more important this year that there always be pets out to bait his non-skull flip attack and staff attacks. Other than that we just have to expect specific PvPable non-skull attacks based on which weapon he has out at any given time.

Lex requires rolling away when he starts doing RA taps. Failure to dodge will result in being KOd by a Solar Flame.

Ultimate Soldier can be solo tanked without anyone ever being hit with the following method:

- Tank loadout must include a long range taunt and either an extremely short-duration taunt like Frost Snipe or a breakout trinket (or equivalent clip power that allows immediately followup movement/action)
- Healer should be either using Rifle or a weapon where the lunge can be clipped while still getting the knockdown.

The tank must do their best to kite from just beyond red-reticle targeting range. When US mortars, the tank rolls away with the following rules:

1. If the mortar begins while the tank is inside red-reticle targeting range, the tank must roll out of range and then do at least one more roll before the mortar lands to avoid damage;
2. If the tank is outside of red-reticle range, they only need to roll away once

At the same time, the healer lunges US (without getting close to him) to knock him down so the tank can run back into position and taunt. The knockdown has nothing to do with preventing the damage, as once the mortar has been fired the damage can only be prevented by the tank's positioning & evasion. If he isn't knocked down and he's allowed to keep walking forward and repeating this cycle, he'll cut an increasingly narrow kite path and eventually end up near the center of the map, where it's very hard for the tank to avoid mortars. It's very important he be knocked down to stall this long enough for him to enter lunge-spam phase so the tank can re-position US on the room's perimeter to keep a wide kite path.

The toughest part of this is maintaining aggro when US enters his lunge-spam phase, as the tank will be forced to roll away non-stop to prevent Arc from happening and any cast with any sort of animation time will result in either an Arc or a mortar. It's important that a taunt be thrown then immediately clipped so the tank can keep moving away. If the tank does lose aggro, it's not an immediate threat but it does make the tank's life harder for a bit until they can get him back to the outside of the room.

Note:
- Suggest practicing this at level 9 or 19, as I'm doing in the video, before attempting it at 29, as the boss behaviour is identical.
- We grabbed pugs for low level climb today and just decided to try this on a whim, so the Troll is the one doing the lunging and he's using HB, which is not even close to ideal but helps demonstrate why you need to be able to do a long-range lunge. In practice, you'd want the Troll buff/battle Trolling with the DPS as if the tank has this down, there's no risk to the group and you can just get the fight over with quickly.

Thanks for that info on lex. I was running a low art/sp tank alt and thought I was holding the group back since I'd get 1 shot while countering solar flare. Made it up to r10

Np. His only attacks are that and lunges so pretty much all you have to do is, the second you see his character model move at all for an attack, roll. He may sometimes BB with his HB beam but it won't kill and Solar Flame should always miss.

For King Shark, any KO whatsoever has a solid chance of wiping the entire group. This is because there's always a chance he goes into charge mode, in which case there's a 1 in 3 chance he charges the person getting the res (and there's about a 5+s overlap where he can start the charge and still kill the res at which time he will sit there and confirm both kills). If he starts a charge early enough it can be baited away but at the end of the day that's not always going to be doable. As such, more so than on any other fight, it's pretty important that it be done as cleanly and quickly (but still as safely) as possible. The more KOs, the more luck is required for winning.

Suggest baiting his PvP attacks and rolling laterally instead of away from him. If you roll away and go out of range, he cancels his feints so you can't punish them. That means fewer knockdowns which means fewer interrupted mechanics and it also makes it harder to taunt.

Noted Saddly no phase dodge;_; And amazonian deflection is kind of *** for bbs

You don't need to have phase dodge at all.

Thanks for the tips!

Deathstroke 27:

- Needs to be aggressively pre-countered/punished every time. Group should support tank by backing him up on lunges but they need to be careful not to lunge if he's blocking (generally fatal). Immunity = **** until he can be countered again.
- Need to protect/preserve Manacles proc at all cost to keep in reserve to help survive Rolling Barrage.
- He really dislikes pets, especially Sidekicks it seems, and will often stop to focus them. The more the group can keep a Sidekick out, and the more pets they can keep out (without sacrificing critical artifacts), the better.
- The quicker the group can counter Rolling Barrage the better. Rolling Barrage is the wild card of this fight.




Lex Luthor 28:

- Dodge the instant he starts doing range taps and punish
- Do not counter his block feint into lunge or regular lunges, just calmly walk/run away
- Still rotate shields like normal, as his taps can hit very hard
- Everyone should run out of range when he Skulls

Any tips for dealing with Mr Freeze on R15 & 25?

Sorry for not being as detailed as AVTV, he pretty organized and an amazing player
Mr. Freeze boss fight start with 3 frozen furnaces, try keep them unfroze but you have all the time of the world to do it.
Im not sure about your role, but r15 vs r25 is a kind of a big jump, still I will try to explain 1st the mechanics and only then what u supposed to do/what I was doing.

General/Boss Mechanics
During the fight Freeze can launch 3 ice balls, make sure to not let one of those ice balls explode underneath you.
After a while Freeze will teleport to one of the furnaces and do a massive ice explosion make sure you are out of the range when that happens.
Based on Mr. Freeze HP additional Ice Golems will appear, try to keep them always near a unfrozen furnace so it receives more damage, I will mention how to deal with them later.
Between the rounds freeze will make it rain, when that happens every player needs to get close to a furnace in order to prevent from getting caged by ice.

DPS/General Perspective
I don't think there is alot of dps's in this higher rounds, but I will use this to explain some stuff.
When the tank dies, if you running solo tank the boss will target someone. So I highly recommend to run as fast as possible out of the boss range and figure it out who is being chased by the boss. (If you die I can assure someone else will and the group is likely to wipe, so don't blame others blame yourself )
On freeze fight in particular make sure to burn the Ice Golem and only then Freeze.

Heal Perspective
In this SM the healer is/should be the lunge master. Every time the boss does an empower ranged attack the healer needs to lunge the heck out of that boss.
Due how aggro works on SM(I dont know why) the healer must be ready to pick up the tank when he dies, since the boss wont target the healer.

Troll/Battle Troll/Battle Tank Perspective
In this boss is recommend the use of the artifact lazzo amulet/lazzo if you are a troll.
Ideally you want to bring the Ice Golem to nearest furnace, so it can be burned faster.
The battle troll can help with lunges depending on the group setup.
Warning: If you a troll/battle troll only pull the Ice Golem if the tank already aggro it, otherwise you gonna be dead meat.

After the Ice Golem is defeated, this player can/should help the healer with the lunges.

Tank Perspective
Just like the previous rounds in this round you wanna stay always at max range. Take advantage of the healer countering the boss to safely apply aggro and then get out of boss range.
The

Rolling Barrage

if it hits you is prob a one shot, so everytime you see an empower ranged weapon attack try roll and hope for the healer to counter it.
If there is no troll to get the add, I highly recommend to tank the add as further as possible from freeze ideally near a furnace, but don't be afraid to run from one furnace 2 another.
When is raining , I highly recommend to kite the boss, around the map alternating between furnaces.

After blue balls he'll take two steps then do a PvP attack, then a few seconds later he'll do another one (or right after he stands up if he was countered, or after he gets back in range if his hate target was out of range), etc. If properly countered he can just keep doing that for extended periods and he'll either redo blue balls + PvP, or he'll another mechanic. He always precedes his PvP phase with blue balls so he's very easy to predict as the tank should always know exactly when to dodge. Best if another player can lasso Therminators to furnaces for killing (they go down fast) while the tank keeps them and Freeze taunted. Really the only threat in the fight is his sometimes invisible Primary Attack (the ice that falls from the ceiling) that can bug out and just randomly kill someone even if the mechanic isn't active.