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

General Tips

- It's a marathon, not a sprint. More DPS = shorter fights = less time for mistakes to happen, but max DPS doesn't necessarily equate to cleanest/safest. I've found a balanced approach is best, with everyone performing their roles to their utmost potential.
- You don't need to be some meta DW flurry spam group to do well. SM is all "about passing the exam," ie. knowing the mechanics and doing them. The better you do the mechanics, the easier your life is to the point you can completely trivialize most of the bosses. Mechanics come first, always.
- The DPS doesn't need to be max CR/SP as long as they're good at the mechanics and can do good damage regardless. The supports, especially the tank, should be, as you really want the toughest shields you can get your hands on. That said, the tank is the most important and beyond that there's a lot more flexibility. Don't think you can't do SM if you aren't maxed out yet.
- Robot Sidekick (and pets in general) is your best friend in here
- If a fight seems hard, one of three things is happening: 1. You're going about it the wrong way; 2. The tank needs to practice the dodge/counters more; or 3. Someone isn't carrying their weight (most easily noticed on Tank/Heal but poor DPS performance draws rounds out and slower rounds means more time for mistakes). Basically, having the right strategy is the most important thing but players still need to be properly geared/buffed and on top of their game.
- Maximizing Tank eHP through every available means is as important as being able to properly dodge. Stats do matter for the unavoidable damage in some of the higher rounds of this season.
- There's virtually no reason to 2-tank any round, especially from 26 onwards. 26-30, a DPS has comparable survivability to a Tank in a pick-up kite scenario (if the group was positioning correctly in the first place) and they will always already be the next on the hate list since healing is infrequent. All it does it makes rounds take forever, which means more time for wipes to happen. The "backup tank" should be a DPS who knows to stay at max range and run out of range if the tank dies, kiting in the opposite direction.
- Lasso of Truth to at least level 80 makes a huge difference on Freeze & Zeus.
- From R25 on, there stops being a good reason to not be Ice as tank. It's still doable as other tank powers but the dodge-or-die nature prevents most powers from maintaining their kits and gives Ice a significant advantage.



Quick Reference
Quick list of per-boss builds.




R1/11/21. Vandal Savage
Bio: Smells like your grandparents. Likes: The good ol' days. Dislikes: Hooligans. Hijinks.



Weapon: Staff

Tanking PvP Mechanics:
- Does uncounterable RA taps
- Feints Block into Lunge
- Feints Lunge into RA. Really loves doing this. Just roll away after he lunges you and the dodge immunity will protect you from the RA tap.
- Never (or virtually never) does normal lunges without being connected to a feint. If you think he did a normal lunge but you can't tell if he feinted Block into Lunge, don't block until you see the melee combo start or you risk granting immunity


Fight Mechanics:
- Has two common skull attacks, which he alternates. Random which one he starts on but it doesn't matter because the animations are completely distinct.

Pentathrust Skull attack: Very fast such that if you're in range, it's generally gonna hit you at least once. Will merc non-tanks but pretty safe for the tank at all rounds unless you soak the entire thing unmitigated

Ye Olde Tusken Dune Raider Skull attack: Slams the butt of his spear into the ground then pumps it into the air like you called his mother a bantha. Anyone not blocking will be OHKO'd.

- Every now and then he'll look away from the tank, throw his poop at someone, and jump at them. He will often follow this with a lethal (to non-tanks) pbAoE slam attack, a (lethal to non-tanks) frontal spear slam, or his (look if you're a non-tank just assume everything that hits you is always gonna kill you in here ok?) Pentathrust skull attack.
- At R21, Savage is capable of 1-shotting a tank that gets too close with a non-forecase head bonk (the same one he uses on nearby pets to decimate them).
- Will randomly 1-shot pets by throwing his poop at them (but this is a good thing because it keeps him busy)

Best Tactics:
Tank: Kite around the outside of the room while PvPing accordingly. He's pretty harmless, just react correctly to his Feints. Easiest weapon to tank this fight with is Rifle. If using other weapons, clip your lunges to avoid closing the distance every time you go to PvP him in order to ensure he does as many of his freebie knockdown feints as possible.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay spread out at mid to long range. If you ever see him turn and throw his poop, **** immediately.

Survival/Mitigation: People (stupidly) die in this generally by not GTFOing when he throws his poop or by not blocking his Tusken Dune Raider co-splay. Remember to block ever skull until you're sure it's safe. Everyone should keep their Soder off CD to pop immediately after Dune Raider goes off, which will hit everyone who's blocking for hefty %-based damage.Really, though, the greatest threat in this fight is boredom and it's easy for people to lose focus due to how mindnumbingly easy he is.

Tips:
- Uses Skull attacks less often when continually kited and properly PVPed


R2/12/22. Minotaur
Bio: Lost his tour group and now everyone thinks he's part of the show. Likes: Veganism. Dislikes: Prince Alexander, heir to the Throne of Daventry and future King of the Green Isles.



Weapon: One Handed

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- 100% incapable of blocking. Can be pre-emptively lunged with impunity. Seriously... you can trivialize much of this fight if someone other than the tank just spams rifle lunge on him non-stop... but the tank still needs to now exactly when to lunge to protect himself as well.
- Spams RA hold attack for heavy damage to tank. Will do it 2-4 times back to back. Always initiates combat with this after pull, so either clip your initial pull with Phase Dodge or immediately lunge him after pulling (while fully shielded).
- 100% incapable of feinting
- Does normal lunges followed by melee combos. You can walk away if you're moving when he lunges but the comboes track well and have a good range, so can be hard to pull off reliably Usually safe to roll but if you're not quick you'll eat the tail end of Flurry. High-end tanks can generally just block through them all, even at R22, if they want but it's not necessary.

Fight Mechanics:
- Fundamentally the same as Underworld Trials minotaur without the adds.
- Will occasionally throw beefy, slow-moving axes that deal heavy damage and Ground their target if they hit. Avoid them (they can be baited similar to CoUe Trigon's balls).
- Will summon orange spinning weapons around the room that follow a specific player. Avoid it and don't drag it onto other people.
- Skull attack - aims at a player and charges them. Tracking stops when he starts running. Aim him at the chains that spawn around the room.
- Summons holographic chains on the cardinal directions of the room (a chain spawns every other charge). Group has to get him to break the chain with his charge. Failure to break the chain results in increasingly negative consequences in the form of more and more deadly and aggressive behaviour from the Minotaur with each successive miss. If he fails to break a chain, he will immediately lunge for massive damage (almost always a KO at higher levels if it hits). The lunge is also capable of breaking the chain, however, giving players a second chance to stagger him if they missed with his charge (but this places the person baiting the lunge at risk, obviously).
- Will occasionally do a soft "lunge" that does low damage but causes a large knockback/stun effect and is generally followed by more deadly attacks on w/o it connects with

Best Tactics:
Tank: Loosely kite him around the room but try to keep him positioned such that you can get a good charge at chains when they spawn. Most important thing is to stay away and lunge his RAs. Strongly recommend rifle for this fight, as it allows for cleaner pre-lunging while staying at a safe range.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay away from Minotaur and dodge axes. Quickly identify and position to break chains.

Survival/Mitigation: The primary danger to the tank is Minotaur's RAs. Tank should always maintain at least low level mitigation while keeping most available to pop whenever Minotaur starts his throw spam.

Tips:
- Prioritize chains above all else. The Axe AoE is significantly less lethal this year due to the reduced tier such that they, while still dangerous, aren't a good reason to not get a chain anymore.
- Tanks can be the target of charge and should be ready to quickly aim him
- Minotaur's BBs can also be roll-dodged but it significantly easier to pre-counter them with a Rifle before their damage procs.


R3/13/23. Black Manta
Bio: Skips his anger management classes. Likes: Cold vengeance. Dislikes: Babies



Weapon: Dual Wield

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- PVP wise, easiest enemy to deal with
- Feints RA into Block (frequently). One of these Feints is fake and he won't actually block.
- Feints block into lunge (frequently). Feint lines may not always be visible so confirm he's actually blocking and not Feinting before countering as the Tank.
- Does normal lunges and immediately follows up with a DW combo. Roll away immediately.
- Sometimes his normal lunges will "bug out" and he'll land short of your block and start doing a combo. You can either walk away to negate it, or roll away (I don't recommend this until it's established he's in a long combo). Can block the combo but it gets riskier at higher levels.
- Sometimes successfully blocking his normal lunge has a significantly delayed response, which is more pronounced the farther he lunged, wherein the counter won't trigger for ~1s after the lunge is over. Stay blocked until you see him fall on his *** or roll away. If you stop blocking, the counter won't trigger.
- Does counterable normal RA taps for heavy damage (ignores shields).
- Does normal blocks infrequently
- This is another fight where Explosive Block is outstanding
- Once Manta is PvP'd Tank often has enough time to grab 3-4 bombs during bomb phase (but shouldn't have to as there's more than enough time for the group to do the mechanic).

Fight Mechanics:
- This is essentially a heavily watered down version of The Threat Below.
- Will occasionally press a button on his arm and summon a Manta Bomb at a random nearby position, sometimes in the air. You will hear a subtle beep as well. Stay away from these bombs, as they're lethal to everyone.
- He only has one skull attack: After a very short grace period, he will use his eye beams on a random player. You can either be out of range (this is unreliable, as it has a large range), you can pop Amazonian Deflection, or you can block it and a good healer can shield/heal you through it. Tanks can just block through it now that his tier has been lowered.
- Will summon a circle of bombs three times throughout the fight. At least every third bomb needs to be deactivated or it will kill every non-tank. Get the critical bombs then clean up the rest as best you can. Tank can help if he can get a counter off.
- Black Manta does Rocket Retreat for steam pbAoE burst damage. Will 1-shot non-tanks, is capable of killing tanks at R23, and will kill any pets around him.
- Will throw a grenade to punish any player's Supply Drop.

Best Tactics:
Tank: Kite wide around the room and PVP accordingly. Stay at max range. You can be targeted by eye beams so stay vigilant and do the mechanics for them as required (they're less lethal to the tank). If you're using a weapon other than Rifle, be extremely careful when lunging that you don't land on a bomb about to go off.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay at max range. Watch out for bombs. Do your best to not die to eye beams.

Survival/Mitigation: This is a fairly easy fight now that his tier has been lowered significantly. Just don't take unnecessary 1-shots from Rocket Retreat or Manta Bomb and react to his Eye Beams accordingly.

Tips:
- He can be very hard to land orbitals on. Explosive Block can help with this a bit.

R4/14/24. Johnny Quick
Bio: Plays an Australian on TV. Likes: Big things that come in small packages. Sadism. Dislikes: Children.



Weapon: Martial Arts

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Does unpredictable lunges, combos, and RA hold-hold-hold attacks. These will sometimes deal much higher damage than normal (as seen in the video where he randomly/buggily gets a 100% shield penetratic lunge 1-shot), so it's best to just immediately counter his RAs and roll out of his combos. Adopt a quick and reactive PVP posture when it comes to handling his normal melee and RA weapon combos.
- Usually runs around doing his bs, ignoring the tank, but will occasionally get quite aggressive and attempt back to back combos.
- His Tornado Pull attack is interruptable and extremely dangerous to everyone if left unchecked. His target for this is random and he can target pets with it, so the more pets out the less likely he is to target a PC.
- Rarely blocks, so it's a decent tactic for the tank to stand in the middle of the room and spam Rifle lunges at him (but being careful to specifically time the lunges at the right moments after each teleport and each post-teleport attack). At the very least, stay in the middle and reactively lunge his Tornado Pull and BB. You risk (rarely) granting immunity but you mitigate a huge amount of his most dangerous attacks

Fight Mechanics:
- Johnny 's main schtick is he'll pop a Skull then teleport to a random target (all pets are included in his target list) and do either air punches, spinny-ma-gig, or Tornado Pull. Tornado Pull is the most dangerous as it can down an entire group extremely quickly if they're too close together and it needs to be interrupted immediately.
- When he says "Tag... You're Dead," he's being an edgelord but also about to tether 2-3 group members together with electricity, drawing them together via constant CC and dealing lethal damage if they get too close.
- At 75%, 50%, and 25% health remaining, Johnny summons his afterimages around the middle circle of the room plus one afterimage in the exact center. Everyone needs to run to the center and kill the image there, then huddle up there until the rest explode.

Best Tactics:
Tank: Stay in the middle of the room so you're always in range to lunge immediately. Johnny is mostly "untankable" and you don't even technically need a tank for this fight.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay spread around the room. When he skulls, get ready to pre-emptively block and roll or run away, timing it so when he teleports there's no one there for him to pwn.

Survival/Mitigation: His Tornado Pull and Shuriken Storm are his most dangerous moves. Both are conal pbAoEs capable of 1-shotting any non-tanks who are too close to his intended target. The Tank may go long stretches without taking any damage but it's important to not become complacent at R23 as his PvP attacks can kill if uninterrupted/unmitigated.


Tips:
- Keep as many pets as possible out at all times. More pets = more targets = safer for everyone. This is a great fight for Grim + Quislet + Source.
- This is one of the easiest fights as long as the group positions correctly. Everyone needs to stay well spread out around the room so Johnny can't drop multiple people at once with his Tornado Pull if he manages to get it off.
- When tethered, in addition to staying away from everyone else, everyone still needs to avoid his other mechanics. This is extremely frustrating because of the way tether CC works but you can still lunge and roll while it's happening. You just have to spam the inputs as fast as you can.
- Alternate afterimage method: If you firmly press your junk against the outer wall exactly smack dab in the direct centerpoint between two of his outer afterimages, you will not be hit when they explode. This is useful to know if you somehow can't make it to the center in time, but don't practice this in general, as it's much easier and safer to just go to the center of the room as a team.


R5/15/25. Mr. Freeze
Bio: Frustrated that his wife keeps giving him the cold shoulder. Likes: Cryogenics. Dislikes: Cryogenics.



Note: R25 is the point at which it kinda becomes pointless to be certain Tank powers, as every boss from then on is a pure eHP battery check along with twitch-reaction 1-shots that make maintaining most tank powers' kits an outright liability.



Weapon: Rifle

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- After firing his Blue Balls off, he'll take two steps then do either lunges, diving lunge + melee combo, Rolling Barrage, or Flip Burst. If he's countered, he'll do it again when he gets back to his feet (and he'll do another a few seconds after if he wasn't countered.
- All of his combos will CC the tank when initiated. This makes it very important at R25 that the tank either premptively dodge or breakout immiately to dodge or counter.
- A Tank cannot reliably counter Freeze everytime. Everyone should help the tank by countering Rolling Barrage especially, as it can be lethal at R25.
- Will occasionally summon a Therminator golem which exclusively does Brawling combos.

Fight Mechanics:
- There are three furnaces in the room that can (and should) be quickly broken with attacks and kept broken as much as possible. These furnaces will cause Freeze to do his Devastating Attack to close them, which makes him a sitting duck for orbitals for an extended period. They also protect the group from his Freezing Rain attack and debuff any nearby Therminators.
- Devastating Attack has an ambiguously large range. Players can DPS during it but it's best to be at absolute max range while doing so.
- Freeze's Blue Balls he does before his PvP phase have loose chaotic tracking and will 1-shot any non-tank. They can bounce well across the room.
- Freeze's Therminators deal moderate damage and, at R25, are capable of sufficiently weakening a Tank's mitigation to make him vulnerable to Freeze's PvP attacks. They can also drop non-tanks in a few hits.
- Freeze will occasionally fire his Freeze Ray at the ceiling and cause room-wide Freezing Rain. This will ground everyone and dramatically debuff their movement speed. Everyone needs to roll to a furnace. The tank needs to keep aggro during this by rolling out to taunt Freeze then rolling back to a furnace Anyone who spends too long in the rain away from a furnace will be frozen in ice (this causes aggro loss if the tank is frozen).
- Freeze's most dangerous attack is his Primary Attack, which is when he makes large chunks of ice fall from the ceiling. The reason it's dangerous is because it's buggy af and will occasionally 1-shot people with no indication there's ice near them or that they've been hit at all.
- If a Therminator is not killed, Freeze will eventually buff it with a second beam.

Best Tactics:
Tank:
- A strong enough tank can constantly bait, soak, & punish Freeze's PvP attacks but Freeze's movement speed is extremely slow such that he's very easy to kite if a tank can't take his hits. His PvP attacks need to be pre-emptively dodged or they'll CC you. Alternatively, you can eat the CC then breakout immediately and dodge/counter (but another player should still be on top of lunging Rolling Barrage and Flip Burst. Breakout Protection is excellent for this fight.
- With a Therminator out, be sure to keep hate on both the golem and Freeze

Troll/Heal/DPS: Punish Freeze's Rolling Barrages and Flip Bursts, stay away from ice chunks, keep funaces broken, and don't get too close to Devastating Attack. One player should have a Lasso of Truth on (it only has to be level 80) to drag any Therminators to a furnaced to quickly eliminate.

Survival/Mitigation: As long as the tank mitigates or avoids Freeze's PvP and keeps hate, this fight is pretty tame. Rolling is especially effective here.


Tips:
- The more he's PvPed, the more likely it is that the group can lock him into an easy-mode Blue Balls > PvP > Repeat loop to dramatically speed up the encounter.
- While Lasso of Truth isn't mandatory, it makes the fight much easier by completely trivializing any Therminators that spawn.


R6/16/26. King Shark
Bio: Thinks Michael Phelps is weaksauce. Likes: Eating his meals on the go. Dislikes: Fork enthusiasts



Weapon: Brawling

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Uses normal RA BB, normal Block, and normal Lunge (potentially flowing directly into a melee combo)
- Feints RA into Block.
- If Shark pins a player and starts omnoming them, he can be Lunge countered.
- Has Deadly Block and will 1-shot any non-tank that accidentally lunges his block (on top of the fact that him getting blues is very... very bad).

Fight Mechanics:
- On Skull indicator, Shark will face a player and launch himself swimmingly at them. Everyone needs to evade, as if he connects with his target he will pin them and begin omnomnoming them (lungeable). If he doesn't connect, there is an extreme high probability that he will do a (lethal) pbAoE spin, stomp, or splash attack for massive damage + CC. He can and will target the tank with this attack.
- Spawns water spouts that wander the room and which are more of an annoyance than anything.
- Does conal pbAoE chum barf that follows the tank and can 1-shot anyone.
- Shark likes to kill-confirm. Every KO places the group at risk for a full wipe, as there's a wide window where, if he decides to charge, he has a 1:3 chance of charging the person doing the pickup and KOing them mid pickup.

Best Tactics:
Tank: Kite from beyond max range while carefully entering range to bait his PvP attacks then immediately role to avoid them before punishing with a counter. Maintain max distance. Easiest weapon to tank this fight with is Rifle. If using other weapons, clip your lunges to avoid closing the distance every time you go to PVP him. Stomp Smash now needs to be pretty much pre-empted in order to prevent its damage due to the loss of meaningful counter dodge reward. It is no longer possible to counter Stomp Smash's damage at all on King Shark. The dodge timing, however, is very forgiving once used to it, just don't do anything that'll create an animation lock when it's not safe when he's in his stompy phase. Breakout Trinket and Phase Dodge can help a lot in this fight but timing and skill are still the most important factors.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay at max range and be very careful not to lunge his block while countering him as you will die and give him blues. He remains vulnerable well after he PvPs, so there's no rush.

Survival/Mitigation: This is 100% a tank skill check at R26 and the hardest boss in this SM. If a tank can't correctly time their dodges in this fight, it's over. While a group can technically die their way through this, each death makes RNG a greater factor in success... so tanks should really practice this at lower rounds until they can consistently do it without being hit by Stomp Spash. There's virtually no reason for anyone else to ever die in this fight.

Tips:
- Don't bunch up and stay well clear of shark at all times.
- Master the bait & roll timing.


R7/17/27. Deathstroke
Bio: Buys his kids really nice Christmas presents because he wants them to love him even though he's not around. Likes: Depth perception. Dislikes: The children of better father figures



Weapon: One Handed/Staff/Rifle/Bow

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Almost all of his skull atacks are lungeable. Timed correctly/preemptively, a Rifle can double-stuff counter to keep him on his *** for twice as long
- His backflip is usually followed by a ranged attack, but not always anymore.
- Does Arrow Storm (lungeable)
- Feints block into lunge
- Does Rolling Barrage, which will usually CC you and require breakout. This is his most dangerous attack at R27 and the group needs to help lunge this
- Blocks normally
- Does normal lunges (just walk/run away when he does this and it cancels his follow-on combo)
- Has Deady Block

Fight Mechanics:
- Shortly after you start the fight, he will drop a supply drop on himself and do his rotisserie beam attack. Tank should move him about halfway to the center of the room and keep him pointed such that, when he starts turning his beam, the group will be able to safely follow it in a circle around him. The beam always goes clockwise. If anyone uses a supply drop during the fight he will do this again (unless they drop it at very specific times but it's really not worth the risk).
- At regular intervals he will activate Ikon Suit, which must be broken by damage.
- He will prioritize Sidekicks and Henchmen over the tank in addition to targeting pets in general with many of his attacks, making it extremely useful to rotate pets in this fight.
- Run away completely if he gets blues until they wear off. Any uncountered skull attack can 1-shot you at R27.
- When Deathstroke does his blue laser sight sniper rifle thingy that doesn't appear to do anything, he becomes immune to everything for the duration and cleanses all debuffs. It's very important the attack debuff be re-applied as soon as possible or he's capable of shredding the tank right afterwards.

Best Tactics:
Tank: Kite wide around the room and PVP accordingly, dodging and running out of range when needed. Never stand close as he can 1-shot with his staff melee attacks/skulls. Tanking/PVPing this with Rifle is easiest, as it allows for simpler pre-emptive lunges.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Don't get too close, and don't clump up. If he turns to face you with a skull, be prepared to dodge if he throws a knife at you as it will 1-shot if it connects. Every needs to be quick to counter Rolling Barrage at high rounds to protect the tank. Similarly, everyone needs to be carefuly not to lunge him when he's blocking as the Deadly Block will kill you and he becomes extremely dangerous if he has blues.

Survival/Mitigation: Rotate Sidekicks/Henchmen (and protect them for as long as possible by countering him). Lunge Rolling Barrage with a vengeance. Stay at max range.

Tips:
- Do not forget about the beam attack at the start of the fight. Do not forget about the beam attack at the start of the fight. Do not forget about the beam attack at the start of the fight.

R8/18/28. Lex Luthor
Bio: Salty about being turned down for the role of Jean-Luc Picard and has never gotten over it. Likes: Smarm. Green and purple. Dislikes: People who wear their underwear on the outside.



Weapon: Hand Blasters

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Prefers RA tap-tap-hold zappy-zaps but does do Solar Flame (but it's a special tap-tap-hold variant). Solar Flame's damage can no longer be counter so basically just roll as soon as Lex starts blasting at all to dodge it.
- Feints RA to Block
- Feints Block to Lunge
- Will Block normally, w/o feinting
- Will attempt all melee HB comboes if in range.


Fight Mechanics:
- Turns and laughs at target then does either green laser or missiles (Root followed by lethal bombardment). There is no skull indicator for this mechanic. There is a skull now but the tell is super obvious regardless.In either case, the group should run out of range to completely shut the attack down.

Best Tactics:

Tank: Keep Lex at outside of room. Stay at mid-max range, kiting as needed. PVP accordingly (still PVP stuff but be aware that Solar Flame now needs to be dodged by rolling as soon as he starts doing ranged taps due to the lunge changes breaking the intended PvP counter behaviour). Easiest/safest weapon to tank Lex with is Rifle, but any weapon will work fine as long as you don't stay close to him. Strongly recommend just running away from his lunges instead of blocking them at R28, as they do pretty steep damage and we want our shields topped up for his taps.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay at the very edge of max range, circling the room as needed in order to maintain position relative to Lex. If Lex turns to anyone and laughs, that person should run out of range immediately to negate the attack. If the attack was going to be bombardment, he'll instead do it at his feet.

Survival/Mitigation: Most damage is mitigated by zoning his skulls and the tank rolling as soon as Lex starts ranged taps. Expect his beam combo to get some BBs now and then, as it's a bit faster than Solar Flame. It's damage is totally manageable, however, and Lex is no more threatening with blues than he is without them.

Tips:
- If you're slow and don't move out of range of the mechanic fast enough, you'll get rooted by Lex' bombardment and you'll have to breakout before you can roll/run away. Sometimes people forget about the rooting component of the attack and die comically, rolling/running in place. Also, the damage field persists for a few seconds after the visual/animation fades, so don't hurry back to the same spot.
- If someone is killed by bombardment, do not attempt to revive them until the green LL logo has disappeared. Despite the missile animation being complete, the (lethal) damage persists until the aoe dissipates.
- The green laser will OHKO non-tanks


R9/19/29. Ultimate Soldier
Bio: Has seen some ****. Likes: Personal space. Dislikes: People invading his personal space



Weapon: Rifle

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Spaaaaaaaaaaaams mortar for hella damage. Needs to be lunged every time. (because of the lunge changes breaking the actually intended PvP counter system, this attack now has to be zoned and then dodged via roll once out of range[ while a non-tank lunges/I]
- Lunges (can and should just walk/run away from this to ensure we're far enough away to zone & dodge mortars later).
- Will attempt melee rifle combos in range (but if you're close enough for this to happen you're already about to get pwnt by Arc anyways).

Fight Mechanics:
- Occasionally summons a green shield that needs to be broken by DPS or he heals (it goes down easily)
- Occasionally points his Pez Dispenser in the air and launches an umbrella of baby blue Pez around the room. Keep an eye out for the bright blue spots on the ground so you're not near them when they explode (stuns and will 1-shot non-tanks).
- Skull attack is dependent on proximity. If no one is anywhere near him, he will always do flamethrower. If anyone is too close, he might instead do an extremely dangerous lighting attack that hits everyone with extreme range, 1-shotting non-tanks. Flamethrower's animation is misleading and he will kill players at completely different angles, sometimes even behind him. Do not assume you are safe because you're not physically in the blast zone.
- Occasionally summons easy-to-spot and avoid bombs around the room. Most dangerous to the tank.
- Has seizure-inducing portals around the room to blind the tank while he kites.
- Do not use Snow Devil while battle tanking this. If the Snow Devil ever blocks US' path in any way, US will either do a flying leaping lunge over the Snow devil at turbo speed combined with a clipped Mortar or already-half-way-through-itso-you'll-eat-the-tail-end melee combo or he'll teleport laterally.

Best Tactics:

Tank: The tank needs to know how to zone then dodge his Mortars or he will be constantly 1-shot at R29. Maintain aggro from beyond red-targeting range and be careful that he doesn't catch you off guard by clipping out of an attack into a lunge or Mortar. Kite wide and try to keep him out of the center, as if he reaches the center of the room it will become almost impossible to dodge his mortars. Phase Dodge and Breakout Trinket are very helpful in this fight for dealing with this clipping pump fakes.

Troll/Heal/DPS: There's technically no real point to having a healer in R29, as even though a tank can sometimes survive Mortar, everything will generally be a 1-shot. What's critical though is that someone, from max range (ideally with a Rifle), counters every Mortar so the tank can go back to the same position to taunt. This prevents US from getting tighter and tigher with the center to the point he becomes undodgeable.It's critical than no one get any closer than max range or they'll die by fire or trigger Arc. Do not trust his Flamethrower animation, as it can kill people in wildly different directions.

Survival/Mitigation: You survive this by respecting this angry vet's personal space. Stay far away and if you do get even mid-range for any reason whatsoever, take a sec and go back to max range. If the tank knows that they're doing, you will only lose this by not respecting his personal space.


Tips:

- Give the man his space
- Done correctly, this is one of the easiest fights and fastest fights.

R10/20/30. Zeus
Bio: Ruler/father/protector but all anyone wants to talk about is the times he gets drunk, turns into animals, and does some (terrible) freaky ****. Likes: Dat lewdness. Dislikes: Dat prudeness. People who know too much Greek history.





Weapon: Two-Handed, Brawling

Note: The below is specifically for R30. At R10/20 he can be face tanked.

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Does RA counterable taps for extreme damage. A fully maxed out and group buffed tank can survive 2-4 hits at R30 but the attack will occasionally bug out and penetrate shields + do abnormal damage for a 1-shot.
- Does a non-counterable version of his RA taps that does slightly less damage
- Does 2H Hammer Toss (for extreme damage at R30 on the return hit/BB portion of the attack) which can be dodged via a delayed roll
- Blocks normally (with Deadly Block)
- Feints block into lunge
- Lunges and attempts 2H combos (every melee combo is almost always lethal on the 2nd hit at R30). Has an enhanced lunge range and speed while using 2H.
- After he removes his storms, he puts 2H away and becomes Brawling.
- Does uncounterable blocks while Brawling.
- If target is outside of melee range, his only attack is to lunge them (but he will follow the lunge up with a lethal stomp, so it's important to roll away regardless of whether or not he was block countered).
- If his target is within melee range while he's Brawling, he will attempt Haymaker (and the 2nd hit is lethal at R30 so do not be in melee range during his Brawling phase ever)
- Zeus frequently gets invisible blues
- Will, rarely, do ranged taps followed very quickly by a hammer toss. I've only seem him do this once.

Fight Mechanics:
- Begins the fight with Source Storms circling the room. These deal the same amount of damage at R30 as they do at R10 and are a low threat as long as someone doesn't just sit in them forever. The storms also ground anyone who enters them and can (rarely) cause knockback.
- With storms out, Zeus will use 2H and (extremely) slowly walk towards his hate target while doing PvP attacks. He is capable of lunging from beyond max range, however, so stay on your toes.
- If anyone uses Orbital Strikes on him (except during his Source Blast) he will say "I will admonish you all!" and place white circles on everyone while will ground them and, if hit, stun and 1-shot them (this can be used to your advantage as Zeus stops what he's doing in order to do this attack and it counters towards his phase time, meaning you can lock him up doing his slow blasts back to back to back if you want).
- During this phase, Zeus will do a massive 360 pbAoE stomp with very ambiguous range that will 1-shot any nearby non-tanks and severely damage a tank.
- After about 30s of Storms/2H phase, Zeus will remove the storms, switch from 2H to Brawling, and put Arcs on the ground which deal moderate damage to non-tanks.
- After about 10s of Brawling phase, Zeus will begind to charge his Source Blast and must be lunged at least five times to interrupt it. Failure to interrupt will result in him hitting everyone in the room for 99.999% of their max health (which is easily livable as long as everyone is topped off but it's much safer to interrupt him). Orbital Strikes can be safely used during this lunge period without reprisal.
- Regardless of whether or not he was interrupted, Zeus will then go back to Storms/2H phase and repeat that cycle until he dies.
- At fixed health intervals, the DPS, Controller, Tank, and Healer Effigies around the room will come alive (always in that order and always in the same positions but sometimes with different models/names). After ~2-3s, they will draw their weapons and begin attacking. If they pulled/CCed before they draw their weapons, they will lose their weapons and be unable to attack (but they will still apply their respective debuff auras). We originally thought that to be a bug but upon further testing, the window on that is so extreme that a group pretty much has to be asleep at the wheel for them to gain weapons to the point you almost have to wait for them to lunge/kill someone and it appears to be fully intended. DPS Effigy reduces the damage of those affected to 1, Controller nerfs Vit, Tank nerfs Defense, and Healer nerfs Resto. Lasso is invaluable for these, as it lets a player prevent them from ever applying their auras to critical targets and it allows the group to keep them in range of the tank for taunts without them blocking LoS with Zeus. When the final add dies, Zeus does a buggy-looking like Brawling backhand thing that appears to be scripted similar to the "Lassos Out" part of FGSe. The adds spawn at the following health intervals:


- Depending if/when the Healer Effigy dies, Zeus may enter a temporary enrage phase where he has twice as many storms on the field (2nd set basically circling middle) until his next lunge phase.

Best Tactics:

Tank: Learn the correct dodge timing to be able to consistently avoid his hammer toss. At R30, it's safest to kite from max range and do a long, slow circle around the extreme perimeter while cycling shields. Keep Breakout Trinket available in case he does an extreme-range lunge, as failure to immediately roll will result in a KO. In general, even if they have their weapons, you shouldn't have to hold the Effigies but be prepared to taunt them while still holding Zeus if the group is having problems. Do not ever assume you will get a block counter when Zeus is lunging. He frequently gets invisible blues. Always roll away after he lunges no matter what, as the 2nd hit will almost always kill you. At R30, the Source Storms are significantly safer than Zeus is due to his buggy RA tap. Basically never be in red range on Zeus if you can help it.

During his Brawling phase, bait his lunges so that he ends up at the extreme perimeter of the room to make sure there's maximum breathing rook when the next storm phase starts. Also, when he's charging his Source Blast he'll slide towards whoever he has aggro on, so you can use that to fine tuine his positioning if needed.


Troll/Heal/DPS: Your number one priority is staying the hell away from Zeus during his Storms/2H phase. Counter him (carefully) when you can but never get close. Counters must either be clipped or done with Rifle, or his no-line feint taps will bait you for a stomp. During Effigy phases, a player should lasso the Effigy to keep it away from the DPS (or backup tank) to mitigate most of their damage (if they were allowed to draw weapons at all). Whether or not they have weapons, they're simpler than they seem as long as the Lasso person positions them well relative to the tank and the group stays mindful of Zeus' position. For obvious reasons, a DPS should not be lassoing any Effigy, a Controller should not be Lassoing the Controller Effigy, and a Healer should not be lassoing the Healer Effigy.

Survival/Mitigation: It's really up to the main tank to kite effectively. This is actually one of the easier fights when using the safest strategy. Unfortunately, though it's possible to fight him from in range the entire time, his RA taps bugging out makes it have a hefty RNG component doing it that way so it's best if the tank just plays it safe at max range and takes grandpa for a slow walk around the room. The only real risk is that this is the longest fight this Season, twice as long as any other fight.

Tips:

- Important: Rifle lunges do not count towards the lunge requirement to interrupt Source Blast (which is why they don't get knocked back on lunge). Also, one player with a Shield can solo interrupt him by breaking out of the first knockback and spamming lunge. The tank should absolutely have Shield for this fight so they can solo-interrupt Zeus while the group focuses Effigies.
- The Lasso person can drag the Effigy to Zeus leading up to the Source Blast interrupt phase so the group can land Orbital Strikes on both.
- This is the longest fight this Season and will take twice as long as most other rounds. As such, have someone set an alarm to warn everyone if they need to re-apply consumable buffs, as those wearing off is a death sentence.
- The devs are aware of the Effigies having their weapons removed if they're pulled fast enough and it appears to be intended behaviour, which makes sense in that these fights aren't supposed to have to have two tanks to do them and it takes a pretty beefy DPS + a Lasso of Truth to hold the Effigies otherwise. While people thinking it's an exploit is likely the reason we see so few full-run videos of R30, a good player basically has to try not to cause the behaviour as the amount of time you have to wait for them to draw their weapons is pretty extreme when you know exactly when they're spawning. As such, I recommend people not torture themselves and just disarm the Effigies, as even with their weapons R30 is significantly easier than R26/28.
- Due to the length of this round, a 200 Lazarus Pit Water can have extreme value.
- Contrary to what I do in the video, I recommend against using Robot Sidekick or Heartthrob while kiting and I recommend only summoning Henchmen/Pet at all during his Brawling phase. This is because, during 2H/Storms phase, they love to work their way beyond you while you're trying to kite and block your role, making it super risky/dangerous staying out of range while they're out. In subsequent clears I've replaced Robot Sidekick with Blizzard, popping it during his Source Blast charge.

Benched (Bosses Not Included in Current Season)

Vampire Lord
Bio: Goth ****** who worships dark power. Likes: Puppies. Dislikes: Twilight

Weapon: Hand Blasters

Supplies:
This is the only fight with virtually mandatory supplies, depending on the tier you're at.
@5 - No additional supplies needed
@15 - If the non-tanks don't have Radiant light to keep the shadow pets stunned, you're gonna have a bad time. It's "doable" without them but... don't.
@25 - Don't even bother attempting this without Radiant Light + Righteous Pyres for the pets. If you can swing it, extra Pyres for Lord are helpful.

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Does both RA tap tap hold zappiness and Solar Flame. Solar Flame can do massive damage (possibly bugged depending on what weapon you're using)
- Does normal lunges, followed immediately by a second hold attack about half the time. Can be rolled/walked away from or blocked.
- Does a lungeable skull beam attack (similar to tala's Absorb Heat animation) that, if left uncountered, will probably kill the tank
- If you time it correctly, you can double stuff the interrupt to his skull attack and get double the knockdown time (super valuable as it will re-knockdown even if he breaks out)
- Feints block into lunge
- Feints RA into block but hardly ever does the block part.
- Thanks to his slow lunge speed, Explosive Block is outstanding in this fight. You can pretty much tank him without moving most of the time while he bounces himself off of you

Fight Mechanics:
-This is essentially identical to the Darkness Rising version with the following exceptions: i) Pools can't be closed with Illuminating Light, ii) No adds aside from the shadow summons, iii) Shadow bat won't pick you up in its mouth like a chew toy, iv) shadow pools neither heal nor protect Vampire Lord
- He has multiple skull attacks, two of which are interruptable via lunge. He will either summon bats, summon bats followed by orbital strike, launch shadow juice out of his hands tracking the tank, beam the tank, or teleport to a pool and try to drag everyone in
- Summons a shadow pet at 80%, 60%, 40%, and 20% health. These need to be focussed and taken down fast

Best Tactics:
Tank: Kite around the outside of the room, being wary of the tanks. Do not ever move between Vampire Lord and your teammates, as this risks dragging his skull attack across them in a way that risks wiping the group. Easiest to tank this with a rifle, as it allows better pre-emptive lunging. When pets are summoned, your primary responsibility is controlling Vampire Lord. Let the group handle the pet with Radiant Light, Orbitals, and Pyres. Maintain focus on Vampire Lord and control the battlefield.

Troll/Heal/DPS: Stay in the middle of the room, slightly spread out while avoiding the outer edges of the inner circle. This is a tighter kite than usual and you don't want to be anywhere near Lord's face. Otherwise, he'll almost never bother you except to summon flying bats or orbitals on you, which are easily avoided. Make sure you have Orbitals, SC, pets, basically your full nut ready to dump on the shadow pets he summons. They're the most dangerous element of the fight and need to die quickly.

Survival/Mitigation: Solar Flame is his most dangerous attack and can wreck a tank fast. It needs to be reliably lunged and tank and healer need to be ready to hit their "oh ****" buttons to save a life.

Tips:
- Save your resources for pet summons and have your Light/Pyre ready in tray
- If blocking when he tries to draw you into his shadow pools, he can't pull you
- Tanks should intentionally let his pull hit them, at max range, and immediately breakout to gain free immunity and to trigger Breakout Protection


Ultraman
Bio: Ultraman's a real swell guy! The kinda you guy you'd wanna have date your sister! I can't think of anything bad to say about the guy and I don't want nuthin to do with no one who does! Capiche! Likes: Obedience. Dislikes: Red-heads

Weapon: Brawling

Tanking PVP Mechanics:
- Feints RA to block (doesnt always do the block part)
- "Feints" heat vision (no block after)
- Does normal charged RA for heavy damage
- Does normal lunges (often followed by immediate melee Hold attack, making it hard to roll away without giving immunity unless your latency is mega tight)
- Does normal blocks
- Does lungeable RA taps for high damage
- He'll routinely fly at a random player then immediately return his focus to the tank and do random PVPable attacks to him. Be ready to counter.

Fight Mechanics:
- Has all the same mechanics as in The Panopticon, but watered down for four players. Fewer owl mines spawn, Lasso of Submission dicipates slightly more quickly, dark red fire AoE is a lil less lethal. All still need to be avoided and handled.
- His normal attacks do very high damage to the tank
- He will frequently drop aggro, fly at random players, and do a lethal ground slam. There is no skull associated with this attack. The second he faces anyone but the tank, everyone needs to be GTFOing.
- He has a single target heat vision attack that's very similar to Black Manta's Eye Beams.
- He will summon a conal PBAOE of red bouncy lights for low-mid damage
- Does a wide laser blast
- Will randomly do freezing breath in a clockwise direction followed by heat vision, originating from the exact position ice breath finished, in a counter clockwise direction, ending approximately 5 degrees beyond the point where it began.
- Overall, this is the most chaotic fight

Best Tactics:
- Think of this fight as having 3 phases as follows:
1. Tank murder phase. Ultraman will go balls out with regular spike damage on the tank. If the tank dies here, odds of survivial drop.
2. Squishy murder phases. Ultraman forgets about the tank and crushes the squishies' skulls. Up to two people can die here without it being too big of a deal
3. Recovery phase. Ultraman slows his roll, letting you get people up
Then Back to phase 1. Rinse and repeat. Throughout all of this, he will be doing his random mechanics.

Tank: This is the hardest to tank. Every fight up til this one is your ***** but here, your capacity to dictate the terms of engagement are limited. Ultraman's PVP is varied and unpredictable, and his movement is chaotic. This fight has a very noticeable built in "grace period" right after he drops aggro and (probably) kills someone. Prior to dropping aggro, he will do everything he can to kill you, then you'll get a little breathing room, then he'll chill out a bit after he's sated his bloodlust on your squishies and (unless you totally **** up the post-squishy murder niceness buy derping the PVP and granting immunity) he'll stay chill for a comfortable amount of time such that revives can take place.

Troll/Heal/DPS: 1. Stay the **** away from each other. When he picks a random target his angry ground slam is happy to murder all three of you if you're bunched up. DO. NOT. CLUMP. UP. If there's a supply drop, take turns. Act like everyone has the flu. 2. Prioritize dodging mechanics over dealing damage. This fight is designed to kill you, sometimes unavoidably. It is designed like Black Manta such that frequent, instant death is a guarantee. If you die to something that could have been avoided, the person who's reviving you is going to eventually die to his phase 2 nonsense and you will wipe. 3. Recognize which phase you're in. Phase 1 = keep the tank alive. Phase 2 = **** and do your best to survive, evading his flight charges. Phase 3 = Pickup anyone who got wreckt in phase 2.

Survival/Mitigation: Aside from the above points, it's important to maintain a steady level of mitigation on the tank at all times during phase 1 with bursts of "oh **** button" when needed. Ultraman, like Johnny Quick, somewhat includes pets in his target list so keep you pets out at all times.

Tips:
- Buckle up
- Not a bad idea to keep a repair bot out. Only use it when Ultraman's on his *** or when you know it's safe. Same rules as Black Manta.
- This is basically a more abusive version of the Black Manta fight in that you're not meant to live. You're meant to recover gracefully.
- If you accidentally breakout of being icecubed, don't panic. You can jump on top of someone else's ice cube and negate all damage. You can stand behind as well but your positioning is more critical. You can also range the attack by running all the way away to the far wall (jumping on top of another person's ice cube is safer, if you're close enough)

Tank Build
Tank is the most critical role in SM and, in addition to knowing the bossfights to a tee, you should be built to maximize your chances of success. Since that's heavily PVP dependent with no sustained blocking and no adds (that you're ultimately responsible for) outside of trash waves, that means your tank build's gonna be a lot different.

Home Turf Mods:
Head: If you're Super Speed, and using it, Energized Dash Attack is ideal. Otherwise this is player's choice.
Neck: Fortified Assault, with extra in your inventory in case you want to switch to Fortified Blocking for Ultraman (if his lunge combos are messing you up more than his ranged attacks). Overall, Fortified Assault is BiS in SM since we spend most of our time kiting and waiting to PVP the bosses
Chest: Hearty
Legs: W/e one helps you, if any
Hands: Regenerative Shielding
Feet: Explosive Block. This makes boss fights so... so much easier. With PVP mechanics being so prevalent, you nets you a lot more time with the boss on its *** while allowing you to instantly reset him back to kite distance.

Artifacts:
Manacles of Force + Dilustel Refractor + Mystic Symbol of the Seven. This gets you max health, max dom, max resto, and max survivability.

Weapons:
Rifle vastly simplifies your job in 9/10 boss fights. The ability to PVP at max range while maintaining your distance is invaluable. It also has the best lunge "duration," allowing you to pre-empt, for example, skull attacks on bosses that often have lungeable skull attacks, completely negating all damage and allowing you to do a second counter before the window closes.

Loadout:
Maximum mitigation and survivability with a single, instant, ranged taunt. The more clippable your loadout, the better. Obviously this will vary from power to power but the goal is to be able to save yourself in those "oh ****" moments. SM is long stretches of boredom followed by near-death moments. If you can, Dash Attack is a good

Soder/Trinkets/Etc:
For most of the climb you can rock offensive trinkets/pets/etc but at a certain point, especially for certain bosses, you should have a 100% pure "I don't want to die, mommy!" setup. For that, I recommend you have an armoury with. Sidekick + Personal Dampening Field + Fiendish Brute's Tome + Heartthrob. Sidekick should be popped whenever available. Personal Dampening Field is a free, clippable, stacking 32k shield. Clipping Heartthrob to Fiendish Brute's Tome nets you an instant, massive health buff, which can be used defensively like an additional shield.

Unorthodox Min:Max

Use Robot Sidekick combined with the Soul Link Affinity. It's exceptionally reliable, gives you an extra 2% mitigation, ups group DPS with no additional effort, gives the bosses something else to target, and can body block.

You can't use supply drops or your group should be extreme cautious when using supply drops as each time you use one against Vampire Lord he will go immediately into his Shadow Vortex attack which pulls you in while doing the massive dot damage on you and will easily get you killed especially on 25 and most likely on 15.

Black Manta also has a supply drop based mechanic where he will fire a grenade towards a supply drop so if you use it don't have other group members run towards the supply unless they wait a moment then proceed to it and certainly don't just stand in the supply, take it and move out of it.

Amazon Deflection can absorb the heat vision up to round 26 where then you need a healer shield, a breakout trinket popped before amazon deflection.

Deathstroke also has a supply drop based mechanic where if you use a supply drop within a set period of time after he's done his initial laser spin he will continually do it just as he does in Hive regular/elite

Orbital rotations will not assist you at round 27 and probably not 17 because of the cooldown duration. The survival mode season one vendor has a trinket reward called the Green Crystal Turret Trinket which has the highest single target burst in the entire game and it only takes 2 of them to drop any ikon suit with players don't no damage themselves and they are only on 120 second cooldowns.

Successfully having the Minotaur break a chain will have him in a dazed state making it much easier for orbitals in addition to placing a incredibly amplified defense debuff on the Minotaur for the duration of the daze, greatly increasing the damage you do during that phase.

Quick Reference
Note: Even though we can easily face tank til the low 20s. I recommend (initially) doing even the low fights the way you would the higher rounds in order to practice dodging the mechanics.

Below is a quick list of, imo, most effective builds for each boss. Please note that "Beginner" is a bit of a misnomer in that the Beginner loadouts are meant for low gear/SP players who probably can't meat eHP checks and will need to reply on more effective dodging to survive (hence why they defer to Movement tank SCs). Basic is the best common-sense approach for a player that can actually meet the eHP checks but still wants a reasonable number of built in insurance policies/safety nets. Advanced is for a high SP player who's confident in their skill such that they'll sacrifice some safety nets for more burn.



R1-19/21:
Note: When still learning the fights, suggest treating them as though they're high rounds. When just farm, can go nuts battle tanking.

Depending on gear/SP/skill level, can safely battle tank til round 21 (but still best to use proper loadout for R20). I do Quislet + Source + Scepter w Snowball, Godwave, Snow Devil, Reflection, Robot Sidekick, Blizzard. If more tankiness is needed, can replace Snow Devil with Winter Ward and Scepter with Grim.

R22:
Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel

Beginner: Inescapable Storm, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash Attack/Perfect Poise/Dustoff
Basic/Advanced: Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Robot Sidekick

R23:
Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel

Beginner: Inescapable Storm, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash Attack/Perfect Poise/Dustoff
Basic:Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Robot Sidekick
Advanced: Replace Phase Dodge with Snow Devil

Note: Amazonian Deflection can also be used but I find it to unnecessary on tank this season.


R24:
Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel*
* Or Grim/Quislet. I still prefer Dilustel as his initial Shuriken Storm hits and lunge damage can spike quite high at times.

Beginner/Basic: Inescapable Storm, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Robot Sidekick
Advanced: Replace Phase Dodge with Snow Devil

R25:
Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel



Beginner: Inescapable Storm, Snowball, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash/Poise/Dust
Basic/Advanced: Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Robot Sidekick

R26:
Everyman + Manacles + Lazarus Pit Water*
* Or Dilustel

Beginner**: Snowball, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash/Poise/Dust
** This assumes you know your stats are too low such that it's impossible to survive any Stomp Smash
Basic: Snowball, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Robot Sidekick
Advanced: Inescapable Storm, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Robot Sidekick

R27:
Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel

Beginner: Inescapable Storm, Snowball, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash/Poise/Dust
Basic: Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Robot Sidekick
Advanced: Replace Snowball with Snow Devil

R28:

Everyman + Manacles + Dilustel

Beginner: Inescapable Storm, Phase Dodge, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash/Poise/Dust
Basic: Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Robot Sidekick
Advanced: Replace Phase Dodge with Snow Devil

R29:
Quislet + Source + Grim + full DPS gear/augs/SP spec while in Tank role

Note: If your stats are high enough you can survivie some mortars with a pure tank build but they're easy enough to dodge with the right setup we feel it's better to just go no-heal + full battle tank and end the fight faster

Snowball, Godwave Strength, Phase Dodge, Robot Sidekick, Blizzard (optionally can throw a shield on bar for an extra clip)

R30:
Everyman + Manacles + Lazarus Pit Water

Beginner: Inescapable Storm*, Snowball, Winter Ward, Hard Light Shield, Reflection, Dash/Poise/Dust
Basic/Advanced: Replace Dash/Poise/Dust with Blizzard

* This can technically be replaced but we still want this on the bar despite rarely using it, in the event that something goes awry with an Effigy and we want to not just get aggro but fully pull it off the group for a bit.

What a great resource.

I've always been sad that DCUO doesn't have a comprehensive Wiki with blow-by-blow breakdowns of every major instance/boss fight in the game in the way that a game like FFXIV or WoW does. This would be a great first step towards such a database!

Thank you for this, i took a year off the game and when i came back i power leveled to level skipping over much of the bosses for sm so i end up having a lot of trouble because i simply am not familiar with them. Lex, Quick, And Baron were easy and i have a feeling i wont have trouble with ultraman with how often i spammed pane and i have had no difficulties with them but the others are a different story.

I was tanking earlier today and Deathstroke kicked my *** because i had no idea what he was going to do, the thing that killed me most often was his vskull where he drops to one knee pulls out a pistol and does a beam that stuns. Can he be lunged out of this or is it best to get out of the way? I am also fire with artifacts/augments that aren't max which doesnt help

Great guide.

Edit: Does RA mean range?

You should be lunging Deathstroke out of everything. Rifle is ideal for tanking him as it lets you start your lunge the moment before the skull disappears & the attack starts and interrupt before any damage is done, followed immediately by another lunge for a second interrupt on the same vulnerability window. You should never be anywhere near him, staying at max range as much as possible.

The only skull attacks he has that aren't counterable are his beam at the beginning and Shock Staff (which he'll only do if someone is too close).

RA = Ranged Attack

Minor addition: As tank, doing mechanics properly as per above, you can get away with not using Protector's Serum for quite a long time. That said, your mileage will vary and a good rule of thumb is to start using it when single hits begin making you and the healer **** their pants. Even at high SP, I don't recommend going without Protector's Serum from 15 on. The ehp gain makes a noticeable difference.

Side note: The only frustrating thing about tanking SM is how there comes a time we basically must use the Data Chip food. DPS obviously should but don't technically have to and, in my experience, often don't, without negatively impacting success. Other roles have even more flexibility.

I tanked without a serum until like R27 if not even later. It only gives you around 2k defense and while yes it is good to have it is definitely not a must have especially not for lower rounds like 1-20

Not saying you can't, just feels like it makes life easier. Can do without, but at a certain point I'd rather just take it.

Forgot an important point for Ultraman: If a member is down and he starts his freezing breath, if you start the revive before you're frozen the revive will succeed. Also, I prefer Fortified

Point for Minotaur: When tanking, don't be afraid to use Dash Attack's movement boost to quickly reposition if an AoE is uncomfortably close to you while he's doing his charged RA spam. That's the combination of factors most likely to cause problems in general. While you can simply move and let someone else handle the lunges, just popping Dash trivializes the situation, lets you get clear instantly, and gets you back on point.

Tank Loadout addition: I actually prefer Fortified Blocking for King Shark and Ultraman. Any latency makes rolling post-lunge pretty risky vs Brawling and while I can sometimes get away with it, the slightest bit of lag will mess it up. Scattershot and his BB can be dangerous, but the combo damage is more prevalent.

(I might eventually send Mepps changes to the OPs but with how shortlived this content is and how long this took to write I may let it stand. Don't have a ton of time to dedicate to SM and even less with the people I'm primarily running with, due to scheduling, so I apologize for omissions/updates scattered through the thread.

So rifle is actually perfectly fine for US, if not ideal... SM is just a buggy *********** mess with US and UM in particular having completely inconsistent glitches that seemingly changes dramatically from day to day and group to group and subtly from hour to hour.

FYSA a few of enemy behaviours and best tastics are different from when I posted the video, especially US/UM, for whatever reason. Most of the info is still useful though.

Additional tip that virtually everyone has overlooked: Lazarus Pit Water is OP af in SM, especially in the longer, higher rounds where it's basically up as often as you need it to be and it has the potential to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat where you'd otherwise lose 40+ minutes of work. With the potential exception of DPS vs Vampire Lord (due to the soft DPS checks on his shadow pets), the more people who can run it the better. I keep it in my primary boss loadouts then have backup "He is Risen" loadouts that I quick swap to to replace Lazarus w w/e artifact I want. Don't just insta-pop it though; do revives like normal with Water as a last resort, to be popped at the last second if it's in doubt that someone can reach the cog in time. Even if you know you're going to die as soon as you get up, you'll still get another 10s window where hopefully a teammate can revive you.

I need a team to cart me through repeats of it. I just managed to hit 253 to get in the door.... HELP, PLEASE! When I ask for it in game the response is always the same.. "I don't know you, so no." Honestly I never thought I would get sick of playing, but because of how the community is there, I am beginning to feel the.... Drain. I go by Exileant in the game as well. Pubs are not working and I am running out of time I need the Shadow Wolves. MEPPS AND FRIENDS! GET OFF THE TEST SERVER AND PLAY MORE!!!! It has been years.

Adding some quick tldr notes for each boss. Have solo fire tanked everything up to 29, then switched to ice because the add/US damage jump there combined with Fire Soul bugs, US's multiple bugs, and the tendency for US to get lil server hiccups make trying to fire tank 29 an exercise in frustration. That said, Fire tank should be fine for 30.

20-30 Bosses' Key Points

Flex Luthor - Handle same as previous iterations but tank needs to be on top of pre-empting Solar Flame (not in one-shot territoty yet but getting there)

King Shark - Tank needs to pre-empt PVPing Stomp Smashes, keeping in mind he'll spam it several times in a row. The biggest challenge here is just getting used to King Shark's use of brawling, which differs slightly from Ultraman who you're still going to have muscle memory for from 20. KS leaves more time for roll-out but also requires different Phase Dodge timing. His Chum Barf(TM) is now lethal to tanks after ~1s. As tank, do not attempt to block break him... his feint brackets often bug out and even when they don't the room's mechanics severely occlude them and make it so attempting to block break is the riskiest thing you can do. If you see him block, you block until you're 100% sure he's actually just blocking and not feinting a lunge (this is best practice in general in SM, as the feints are buggy).

Vandal Savage - The only difference here is that his Pokey Stabs(TM) Skull attack should now be avoided, as it's moderately lethal and the dot it applies is pretty potent now

Johnny Thicc - Same squishy **** he's always been but his tornado attacks are a lot more lethal. Also, if you let him get off an uninterrupted MA ranged combo it can wipe anyone in a ~90degree arc where he's facing. More important than ever for the group form a triangle around the room with the tank in the center, lunging his BS w/e needed.

Vampire Lord -

Same basic approach as 15 but it's now pretty important to PVP Solar Flame properly or pre-emptively, as it can one-shot. Similarly, when he teleports, the entire group should run out of range every time. Even with strong DPS output, there's enough time between pet summons that everyone's Orbital Strikes will be back up and the DPS will have 100% SC again, so pet burn is still fairly tame and coordinated assault can deal with the pets within 3-4 Radiant Lights. As able, tank should still taunt the pets while being careful to PVP Vampire Lord, communicating with the group to pop the 4th Radiant Light if needed (use Dash Attack for this to get in and out quickly w/o risking Vampire Lord using Black Splooge Blast(TM) in the direction of the team.

The biggest strategic challenge this fight presents is how to handle the manner in which he summons his pets. Snake is by far the tankiest and most dangerous, so Snake popped first or last is ideal. Similarly, the ideal pet summons occur with consecutive pools being used. This means the most dangerous possible situation is if the second pet is summoned in the middle pool, enabling Vampire Lord to teleport to either side and pull/DoT everyone while they're trying to keep the pet CC'd/murdered, wiping unprepared groups as this is hard to deal with reactively. The easiest way of shutting his BS down is for people to put Pious Aura in their Utility Belt before the 2nd pet spawn; he'll summon -> group hammers pet like normal -> VL teleports -> pop SC group shield + pious auras -> VL pulls but gets shut down completely by Aura and shields -> laugh while killing pet. Once the second pet is dead, everyone can safely remove Pious Aura from their belts but still needs to run away from his teleports/pulls

Black Manta - Same as always but his melee combo finishers are now unliveable. Tank should kite/pvp like usual, using roll/PD to mitigate his melee bs and Amazonian Deflection to deal with eye beams (I didn't use it but I suspect Man-Bat form would make escaping his melee significantly easier). Explosive Block is more valuable here than anywhere and helps land Orbital Strikes more reliably but when you see him feinting into lunge, take a few steps back towards him (his lunge range is slightly dwarfed and if you're at or near max range there will be a semi-dangerous delay before the block actually procs and bounces him). If the tank does go down, do not attempt to revive if Black Manta is near the corpse or there's a solid chance he'll Fart Jump(TM) away and kill you.

Deathstroke - Same as always but his bullet spray is now extremely dangerous. Other than that, PVP like normal and pre-empt his bs.

Minotaur - PVP like normal and pre-empt his bs. His melee combo is still livable but you're better off just eating the tap tap tap part then popping PD for the HOLD (choppity chop) part then immediately blocking near the end of the animation to try and get a free bounce proc. As long as everyone communicates where the whirling hammers are and the hammer target kites it appropriately, this is pretty straightforward. Tank should keep Dash Attack in reserve for either getting out of risky-looking situations where there's a hammer closing in or Dash should also be popped if there's a chain up and the charge targets the tank, as Dash will allow you to quickly spin him to face the chain. The more people who pop henchmen during/immediately after the charge the better, as they'll encircle him while he's staggered and bodyblock him against the wall for their full duration if done correctly.

Ultimate Soldier - Mortars are now extremely lethal. You need to either roll away or lunge him when you see the white mortar shells at about the height of your head. Too soon or too late and you'll take full damage. Phase Dodge should be kept in reserve and Amazonian Deflection can be used to ignore mortars. He'll occasionally enter a mortar spam phase where he'll keep taking a few steps forward then mortaring over and over until he's PVPed; this is dangerous because he can really cut into the middle of the room if he's not put on his *** in a timely fashion. Expect this fight to take ~25-30min, therefore expect server lag bs to result in several seconds of weird behaviour at some point during every attempt (I actually do encourage the use of Man-Bat form for 29, simply to mitigate the fact that lag can/will result in bs Arcs w/o it while running from his lunges). Everyone who can should use Grimorium Verum and as many pets as possible in general, as it makes him stop and flame the air way more often.

Ultraman -

Just remember that Ultraman will pretty much always do Ice Ice Baby(tm) followed by Scatter Shot followed by 2x slow charges, with PVP attacks delaying one or both charges. Until you've seen his second charge, no one should be doing anything that can at all prevent them from immediately GTFOing from a potential charge (including DPSing). Just be cool until both charges happen, stay spread out, then go to town after charge two as you're safe until his next Scatter Shot -> Charge phase. Always go into a defensive posture after he Scatter Shots and don't resume offense until charges are done.

Because of how much time you spend dodging or waiting to dodge in this fight, most of your damage is going to come from pets and from Orbital Striking his derpy *** while he's freezing. This, combined with the fact that pets soak Scatter Shot, means that the more pets people run the better. Anyone who can remotely swing it, including MT, should have Robot Sidekick. Your best offensive artifacts for this, by far, are Grimorium Verum and Dead King's Scepter (especially Dead King's Scepter).

Once you've got the above elements nailed down, he's pretty straightforward. He's also still extremely luck-dependent in that he's always capable of doing some dumb bs like lasso someone -> charge/kill the lasso target -> do PVP attacks delaying second charge, forcing team to begin res before it's safe to do so -> finally charge again, interrupting or killing person doing res -> invisible Swoop Attack someone at the other end of the room, killing them instantly. Fun stuff. Because of this, everyone should be running Manacles. It isn't needed but think of it as an insurance policy. Similarly, the more people who run Lazarus Pit Water in the event that people can't res in time, the better (have a second armoury to switch to once Lazarus Pit Water is activated/spent). If everyone has both of those things, it will heavily mitigate the RNG aspect of this fight.

For tank, the only truly important artifact is Manacles. At 30, I run Manacles, Lazarus Pit Water, and Dead King's Scepter. If I have to activate Lazarus Pit Water I then switch to a different armoury where it's replaced with Grimorium Verum. If you're nervous you can still run Dilustel + Mystic Symbol but in my experience, if your manacles isn't up there's not a lot of living by the skin of your teeth, ie. if you go down you go down hard enough you're not gaining anything with them.

Pickup order is important. Off tank should maintain somewhat of a readiness posture, helping to PVP Ultraman and being ready to insta-res any non-tank who goes down, topping shields up and popping Dash Attack to become the ultimate first responder. If the main tank drops, off tank needs to grab Ultraman instantly and kite him away from the corpse. Lastly, expect Swoop Attack to bug out 1-2 times per fight, instantly killing any random target w/o animation/movement from Ultraman (it's hella buggy and hella cheap).

Well, there is a wiki since long before the game had been released and it's still active, but its contents can only be as good as users/players daring to add to it.

Sorry for necroing the thread, but is there any chance this could be updated for current SM?