Shatterline

Shatterline

122 ratings
Expedite your Expeditions - Updated for Charlie
By Bunray
Want to do better at PVE? Don't know what character to use or what perks? Want to beat Objectives with ease?
High resolution icons courtesy of Kya's datamining efforts.
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Fast Tips
• Getting KO'd increases contamination.

• Getting KO'd increases difficulty in general. Try your damnedest not to get downed.

• All objectives that AREN'T timer based have FINITE adds. If you kill all glassheads or strafers, they will not respawn unless you do something to progress the objective. Usually that's breaking a shield, or capturing a spot.

• Cats give you an amount of "ult points" that can range from ~10% ult charge to 50+% ult charge depending on the character, plus a full ability recharge. Do not shoot the cat!

• Reaching a supply drop while enemies are running towards you will kill all active enemies that are not within the drop's range.

• If you are in LMS, do not go straight for a revive. Sometimes, it is better to kite for a whole minute.

• Main priority for drops is to get a form of healing, your main synergy (feedback loop or unstable charger), and a gun you're comfortable with.

• Favor secrets where it's immediately visible if there is a drop pod, rather than well hidden ones that waste a bunch of time.

• Adamants all have the same weak spots and they are on their right boob and back (your left if you are facing them).

• Shardskins lurch forwards so shoot a little lower to hit their weakspot on their stomach.

• Almost all encounters will be outside of your guns' effective range, so range bonuses are important.

• There are sound cues for a lot of things (leap attacks, active server, imminent explosions), play with headphones and learn them!

• Unstable charger makes your ult charge random, but always faster than default.
Fast Rankings
Characters
Perks
Guns
Preliminary Considerations
Expedition mode has a fairly different flow from PVP. Here, getting kills isn't the metric like in TDM. Playing the objective is, but there also is a big element of getting to the objective.

Thus, I'd say PVE is a two phase game:
Traversal Phase (Get to the objective, improve your abilities, don't die)
Event Phase (Clear the objective, don't die)

Most of the match will be traversal. You'll spend around 20 minutes just running around getting bins. With that in mind, there are maxims to follow.

You don't need to do everything.
You don't need every loot drop.
You don't need every secret.
You don't need to kill every enemy.

What's important is doing what needs to be done. Get the perks and guns you need to perform decently. Get secrets if you're lagging behind on good drops. You can go around or cancel encounters. Trying to get everything will waste a lot of time, which leads us to...

Time is of the essence.

Time wasted is difficulty increased. Sure, clearing drop encounters reduces contamination, but that's to make sure you keep on the move. Secrets do not do that, and secrets are purely random. You are more likely to get a Cat or nothing at all. Waste time, and you'll get Contamination Mutators earlier, which means all objectives will be harder from now on.

Have a route to your objective that gets you through many supply spots without meandering too much. This leads us to...

Know the Map.

There is, at the moment, only one map. The weather might change, the time of day might change, but it is always the same map. Secrets are always the same. Supply spots are always the same. Map knowledge will save you tremendous time going from point A to B.

Knowledge in general will make this much easier, which in turn leads to...

Know the Game.
What synergizes with your character? What attachments will get you the best performance against PVE enemies? Did you know you can change attachments on the fly midgame? And character?

Gamesense is a huge part of skill in PVE. Knowing the enemy attack animations, knowing the ranges, knowing how to aim your throwables, and so many other things, will make this much, MUCH easier on you and your team.

Bottom line: OBSERVE, PRACTICE. Do not settle for "doing okay". Ask yourself how you could have thrown that axe better. Ask yourself how you can navigate between these Supply points faster. Ask yourself how to improve, and you'll progress faster.
Picking a Character
Before you Choose

The most important thing to keep in mind when running Coop is that there things your character can do, and there are things your character can not. The most important part of choosing your character is to patch as many gaps in the team composition as possible.

Those are the important roles for PVE:

• A Healer/Support (Pill, Malva)
Keeps the team healthy and revives them when they inevitably get slapped in the face by an Adamant and get cheekily shot in the butt by a stray Shardskin.

• DPS/Horde cleaner (Ram, Kite, Strix, Orbit, Mongoose)
The meat of the team. Kills things. Kills lots of things. Disables shields, picks off snipers, etc. AOEs and damage spikes galore are the name of the game.

• Climber/Door Breaker (Strix, Kite, Brisa)
You'd like to have someone that can open Exo and Blast doors, and access Climb spots. Almost all Climb spots can be accessed with Crystalline walls. Only Kite can access all secrets by himself. Strix needs her Wave Grenade to be able to do the same.

You probably noticed there is some overlap. Let's go ahead and name the best choices.



Best Picks

PILL

These two pieces of kit right there are the best for PVE.
The bot is a free revive that requires no attention.
The grenade is a long stun that trivializes any enemy.

Pill's ultimate is used as a battery for his amazing utilities. Pill will serve as the team's main reviver and support, and make the most out of Feedback Loop, which will allow him to use his skills extremely often. His ult is also ludicrous, doing insane damage to Stilts and keeping their shields down. All in all, his kit is pretty much flawless.

RAM

Ram's damage is completely off the charts. With the best damage tool in the entire game (the axe), he is able to trivialize Shardskins and Adamants, and make shorter work of bigger Strafers. He is also an excelsior boss killer.

His ult is an instant horde cleaner with good positioning, allowing for very fast encounter clears.

Ram can open Exo doors, and if you use explosive axes, Blast doors. Keep in mind that the explosive axes are less damaging and cannot be recovered, so I do not recommend them. Suck it up and learn to hit crits on the Adamants.

Gravity Blast is fine and can be used in a pinch to kill glassheads at melee range, or stun an Adamant. Just keep in mind that you can't stun a leaping Adamant, or a pouncing Gardener. It also does ~50% damage to Stilt shield, so you should definitely use it for that if you're safe.

If you are super acrobatic, you can "climb" some Recon-only walls with Ram's ult. It does not work for all of them, however.

Ram's skills all charge pretty fast, meaning he is rarely without a damage tool at his disposal. Use his ult as much as possible, it does insane damage to basically everything. Thus, Kill Ult Charger and Unstable Ult Charger, as well as Manual Therapy do wonders.

KITE

Kite gets a special mention for being the only character that can access all secret supply drops by himself. Climb + Mine means that Climb Spots, Exo Doors and Blast Doors can all be accessed with his kit alone.

Not only that, but Kite's mine is truly insane. With fast charge even without Feedback Loop, and the fact that it instantly kills Stilt shields! (As long as you throw it properly and hit it close to its head.) That alone makes fighting them much easier. He can also clean up most encounters with a single mine, just like Ram can with his ult, although its range is a little smaller.

His Prox mines are so much worse in utility that you shouldn't use them. The Wall Grenades drag aggro and can be used as platforms, making them very versatile.

Kite's Ult is very powerful and does a ton of damage, although there are better ults. Unstable Ult Charger is recommended, as it is quite slow to charge. Manual Therapy will keep him healthy.




Honorable Mentions

MALVA

Malva is basically a slightly worse Pill in terms of immediate utility. She has better heals, but everyone should either avoid damage entirely or self-heal somewhat effectively. The problem is that she doesn't have Medbot, and her ult is... Fine, I suppose. It doesn't solve the fact you don't want anyone to be revived by an actual person picking them up from the ground.

The main thing is both her throwables: Medkit ends burns and is an instant 150 health. This can help a lot in some situations. Pinscher draws aggro and can do extra damage, on top of being surprisingly hardy.

With Feedback Loop you can quickly resummon drone and throw medkits everywhere, ensuring minor injuries are always patched up. Her Heal Grenade isn't bad at all, being much faster at the cost of healing less and only having two at a time.

The issue is that you'll often get killed on extremely short notice where you won't have time to heal at all. She mostly excels against strafers, which usually don't ligmatize you instantly.

STRIX

Oops! All Defense! While her throwables are too geared towards defense to be really useful outside of Server Room, she gets a bit more credit due to her absolutely insane Minigun DPS.

Her deployable barriers are huge, ensuring she can make a lot of express cover and revive people safely. They also pull aggro, which helps quite a bit. On top of that, you can use them as impromptu platforms to scale some walls/ledges.

Her Fire Wave grenade instantly breaks Blast doors and is a pretty decent explosive, although it recharges slowly and its area of effect is too small.

Again, the issue is that there are characters that are better at the job.



Less Honorable Mentions

Orbit

Orbit's Ult does a ton of damage in a decent radius and can help him revive in a pinch, or clutch a desperate situation. It can also instantly end a Shardskin platform encounter, or instantly "pop open" a behemoth. The instant heal is a godsend in dangerous situations as well.

The fast recharge and considerable utility of his ult makes him a pretty respectable pick all on its own. His dash helps him get out of range of Adamant jumps and such attacks.

Otherwise, his drone is an ok aggro pull, but his grenade takes too long to be active. He'd be top tier otherwise.

Brisa

Her ult is alright. Pinch weaker than kite's, but solid. Her mine is the worst ability in PVE, as it is a placeable with a tiny radius which then takes time to deal damage over time. On top of spawning a big obstacle.

You can use cloak to revive or run away pretty reliably.

Her shock charge does very limited AOE, which is much less important than the fact it instantly breaks Stilt shields, at the cost of having to get close to it.

She suffers from having a very mediocre kit against a whole roster that does everything better than her. She is not entirely a bad pick, but you can have an easier time with other characters.

Mongoose

Mongoose is all about explosive AOEs. His ult does a ton of damage to hordes and is great against several encounters.

Problem is that his ult also takes a century to charge, and his smokebomb is a huge liability to your team on top of hardly doing the job it is supposed to do. He also doesn't really have anything else going for him than bombs, which Kite does more reliably, with faster recharge.

His flashbang is literally just a worse version of the Kite mine for shieldbusting. It recharges slower, flashes your teammates, and generally isn't good against most encounters. It also stuns enemies for a very short duration that barely matters at all, which Pill does better without any friendly fire.
Picking your Guns
Use the guns you are comfortable with. However, there are things you should keep in mind.

RANGE
A lot of guns have poor range. This is usually just a small detail. For shotguns, this is death. Avoid shotguns outside of the Berlington and the Black Hawk, as some bosses would need you to get real close and personal to them. Do not get close to bosses if you can afford it.

AMMO
You WILL run out of ammo against some bosses. Keep this in mind, especially when using Rifles (both kind) and SMGs. You should always have Backpack Ammo of any rarity, because the final boss will rarely, if ever, drop ammo.

YOUR PISTOL
Get one that does not suck. That means the Culverina and Springer. The Earl is too weak and has a small mag. The Svarog doesn't hit hard enough unless you have the Cossack mod, and you're using melee cancels to keep the buff up, or it is well accessorized.

The Lupara is funny but the range is going to bite you in the butt before long. If you're super good you can use it to nuke Stilt shields fast (and get turned into a shishkebab). Let Kite handle it instead.

PIERCING
Bolt action rifles have piercing. That means that armored enemies take some damage from shots that miss crit spots. Shotguns and the DMRs have a very small amount of it, especially the pump actions.

This should never matter, instead, you should git gud.

ATTACHMENTS
Selenium ammo if you have it is always good. Otherwise, prioritize things that will get you the most consistent DPS.

Attachments that look ridiculous in PVP (small buff on double kill???) actually get a lot more mileage in PVE. However, I still do not recommend them, as they synergize poorly. Consistency is better than possible bursts.



Ok but do you have a tier list?

Not one I am too confident in, but let's go anyway!

Assault Rifles

Use one if you play as Malva to maximize Ult availability.

The Pilum is by far the best. Huge mags, high damage, consistent hits. Extremely good, but rare.

The Zenith, also rare, but has great attachments, such as AP Rounds and Knockback Ammo, which stacks! It requires more skill than the Pilum and has smaller magazines, however.

The Conciliator is a solid pick for its consistency.

The Legatus's ROF and damage, especially with the Diver Mod, are fairly decent. The Pacifier is quite alright. Generally, all ARs are worth using.

SMGs

The Cinetech is an amazing allrounder that combines big mags and good damage with comfortable handling.

The Centurion is very fast to reload and has great range. However, it only shines with its burst fire and extended mags accessories, which make it apply slow on hit and make the best use of its long range.

The Tornado is pretty stable and has a huge mag while still reloading quickly. While it has less damage overall, it is better than the Firespray.

The Drachen is extremely reliable but suffers from smaller mags and slightly shorter range.

The Firespray runs out of ammo too often due to its low damage and range combined with huge ROF. If you use the smoke mags, impale yourself on the nearest maypole.

Shotguns

Almost the Semiautos are basically a safety hazard. Their range is too short to justify using, with the exception of the Gevaudan, which hits really hard, really fast, and reloads quickly. The SAS and the Brute will get you killed unless heavily accesorized.

Bleed ammo does not affect PVE enemies, sadly.

The choice is thus Berlington or Black Hawk. The former is fast. The latter hits much, MUCH harder thanks to Incendiary Ammo. Pick whichever you prefer.

Sniper Rifles

The Impala and Dragonfly are more or less equivalent, although I favor the latter's comfortable aim.

The Presarm is pretty alright, but suffers from damage dropoff. Consider it more of a chunky AR. Improved bolt mitigates this somewhat.

The TWD X-Treme is excessively slow, with a very small mag but its damage its high. It requires very, very good aim, but the payoff is there if you can land your shots. Keep in mind it has no crowd control abilities. Strongly recommend against using it unless it has all the accessories it needs.

The Reaper is... Special, however. It is a straight upgrade to the TWD, with 5+1 shots and higher piercing damage. With the right perks, it is capable of obliterating basically any enemy instantly, and trivialize bosses completely. Nonetheless, you should NEVER assume you will get the stars to align, and grab it as soon as you see it. Take it if you have the requisite perks, namely Sentry and/or Infinite Mag.
Picking your Perks - Best Picks
Perks are going to be the backbone of some synergies, which means that some characters absolutely need some, while others do not care for them.

There are perks that are universally useful, and some that are kind of garbage and not worth using.

MUST HAVES

Strife
Strife is a "destroy this Adamant or Shardskin" button. Any Strifed enemy will draw aggro away from your team and then suicide once other enemies are dead. This is, effectively, an instant kill and an instant pressure valve. Everyone can use it at the same time. This means you can effectively insta-disable three dangerous enemies with a few pistol shots if everyone has it.


Always grab Strife.

Bloodthirsty
Bloodlust immediately triggers fast health regen on melee kill. This turns any smaller enemy into a medkit. This will be your main healing method. Finish off enemies with melee if you can afford to do so, and keep yourself topped up.


Always grab Bloodthirsty.

Any Rarity of Primary Weapon Backpack
You will need ammo. Sniper Rifles really want Blue/Purple/Gold, but try to get Green at the very least. You will need ammo. Do not run out of ammo. You may not get scavenger, so always get one.


Always grab Ammo Backpack.

Scavenger
Remember how having ammo is good? This makes enemies drop a lot more of it. This makes final boss bearable, too.


Always grab Scavenger.

Purple or Gold Health Increase
Health is your most precious resource. You can get up to +100 health with Gold, or +75 with Purple. This can mean one more slap from a glasshead that would have ended your run otherwise.


Always grab Rare or Legendary Health Increase.

PILL, KITE: Feedback Loop
10 second cooldown Stun. The stun lasts almost 10 seconds. Revive Drone in less than 30 seconds. This perk is your core synergy. Get it as soon as it shows up. Keep your Ult charged so that it always runs.


Always grab Feedback Loop as Pill.

Unstable Ult Charger
Massively ramps up your ult charging abilities. Random % per tick, but always better.


Always grab Unstable Ult Charger.

Sidearm Overcharge
Takes down half or all of a Stilt shield depending on pistol, and can open exo / blast doors! Also does a bunch of damage to Adamants, Minotaurs, and basically everything.


Always grab Sidearm Overcharge.



Picking your Perks - Other Picks
GOOD PICKS

IF Contamination Bar is 50% or more: Decontamination

At most this will be one less mutator to deal with, or it triggering after one of the two final bosses is dead.

Health Increase (Green, Blue)


You want more health, as stated above.

Empowered Sidearm/Primary

Huge boost to damage output for free, although I do not recommend getting Empowered Primary with a weapon that has very small magazines, such as shotguns and bolt action rifles. (Having Infinite Mag solves this.)

Any kind of Armor


Remember how rocketeers and Minotaurs suck? Blast Armor mitigates that problem considerably. CQB Armor is a godsend when Increased Melee Damage is in play, and is generally a huge help. Kinetic Armor is the least useful of the three, as the most threatening enemies with guns are shotgunners and snipers, and those are generally easy to avoid.

Manual Therapy for Ram, Kite, Mongoose, Strix, Malva


Heal when using your main damage dealers. Always useful. Some characters have trouble getting kills with their abilities, so don't bother in that case.

Vampiric Shot


If melee for Bloodlust is too risky, get this. The more options you have to heal, the better.

Infinite Mag and Sentry
(Ideally both)


Infinite Mag basically makes any gun usable for extended periods of time, as long as you mind your safety radius. Sentry kills your momentum, but double damage is HUGE. Combining both means you can put up ludicrous DPS with any weapon on any character. Worth using but remember you can't move while aiming.

Those perks make the bolt actions worth using if you can land shots with them.

Invigoration and Chrono Discharge for Ram, Orbit, Kite, Strix, Malva


Makes your ult help everyone else. Former is a radius heal, latter is a stun grenade. Can let your team get out of trouble in a hurry.

On Kill Ult Charger

You're going to get kills, so you'll get more ult charge. Not really a priority unless you find a Purple or Gold one.

Charged Knife


If you need to stab something, chances are there are other things behind it that need to die and get stunned too. Just be aware it increases attack delay.

Homing Missiles


A solid damage addition that triggers on hits, those are basically Orbit stingers, but much, much faster.

Slide Bomber


Does as much damage as a mine and has basically no cooldown. Careful, you can kill yourself with it!



MEH PICKS

Protective Barrage, Counter Discharge


Will mitigate your ass-beating if you get swarmed every so often. It's nice to have, but you should mostly learn not to get into those situations at all.

Marksman Ult Charger


Never a priority, because that is a fraction of your kills. Decent if your aim is sharp and it's Purple or Gold. Otherwise, pass.

Feedback Loop as everyone else


Generally you'll be using your ult as soon as it is ready, so you won't get a lot of mileage out of this.

Happy Bullet


Like Sidearm Overcharge but fussier. Not really a big deal against things that really need to die.

Thunder Foot


It removes fall damage. Which is only a problem if you're doing the leap down the city area to the seaside area. It's also bugged and sometimes doesn't soak fall damage at all. Might be due to health increases after getting it.

Crystalline Soles


Can kill splinters and glassheads (except elites) in a single slide, but the cooldown is kind of long and you'd rather slide away rather than towards enemies.


POOR PICKS

Manual Therapy for Pill

Your grenade doesn't deal any damage. Idiot.

Laser Saw


Barely has any range! How are you supposed to hit anything with it?

Emergency System


Ah, yes, a perk that creates a wall that blocks all your teammates' shots, ensuing running glassheads and adamants can safely get to your position!
Oh and it doesn't stop AOEs.
Or sniper fire. Whoops!

Smoke Grenade on Mongoose

DO NOT (unless to get it out of the loot pool, or you have a daily).
Contamination Mutators
Some are much worse than others.

"Good Rolls"

Incendiary Ammo and Strafer Shield if no Strafer Objectives left

The final boss spawns NO ranged enemies. This is a free slot when going for the Envoy.

Fireflies

Hilariously slow and low damage. Tend to blow up in whole groups. Pretty much a free slot, IF you don't forget about them.

Explosive Residue

Very telegraphed and easy to avoid, also kills enemies for you.

Crystalline Hawks

Very telegraphed and easy to shoot down, and even charges your ult with the relevant perks!

Crystalline Whirlwind

Slow and doesn't track. Easy to walk out of.



"Bad Rolls"

Artillery Strike / Meteor Shower

Very telegraphed but annoying to avoid.

Eruptions

Not telegraphed and sets you on fire.

Static Charge

While you do get notified for the debuff, and it does damage to everyone, it's basically anti-teamplay for ten seconds.



"Horrible Rolls"

Incendiary Ammo

Hey, have you got Server Room soon? Oops, there goes your run. The burn lasts very, VERY long, and while it can't kill you, anything else will after that. This also applies to Shardskins and Splinters, which can make Transmutator really miserable.

Increased Melee Damage

Now any basic Glasshead can end your run! Oh, and Adamants can now one-shot you if you died one too many times.

Strafer Shields

Makes any fight against them really agonizing, especially if you get unlucky, and a Minotaur spawns with one. Have Server Room left to do? Pain.

Healing Anomaly

Think Ball Lighting, but it poops on your damage instead of stunning you. Kills you less, but definitely makes it harder to keep up with enemies. ESPECIALLY bad with Stilts.



"AWFUL Rolls"

Ball Lighting

Beyond irksome. Will slow you down at the worst times, and just never seems to stay away. Plus, takes your precious ammo away to push off.

Chasers

Chasers are the worst. It's an instant kill enemy that can phase out, is hard to see during final boss, and will grab your LMS healer out of nowhere. Having them spawn reliably can make a run really unpleasant and slow.
Objective Walkthrough - BOSSES
This describes the general flow of each objective, and what you should keep in mind when doing them.

GRINDER

Grinder is extremely simple.
Enemies spawn in a circle around it. Three fire pits are placed in a triangle around the Grinder.

A bomber dog will spawn from one of them. Shoot it, grab spine, disable grinder shield. Have everyone unload into the Grinder as hard as possible.

You can clear it in 3 minutes and two cycles with proper armament and ability use.

TRANSMUTATOR

Transmutator is very easy, and mostly a huge time waster. That is, unless dodging splinter fire isn't your thing... Or Incendiary Ammo is in play. Or it's one of the last objectives, and the homing of the projectiles becomes really excessive.

Transmutator spawns 2 groups of 3 Splinters on each side. It will randomly spawn burning runners from four locations (2 left, 2 right). Shoot the burning runners to damage the Transmutator shield.

The burning runners show up when purple lightning bolts come out of the transmutator.

Once the shield is down, wait until its animation is finished, then unload into the core. It has a lot of I-frames on shield breaking, so you can waste abilities by going too fast.

You WILL have to do this in three cycles (or more). At critical health, the Transmutator will spawn a Shardskin along with the Splinters, but it spawns slower than the rest of the group.

POWER STONES

Felt Grinder was too easy? Meet Urchin: Its bigger, much, much worse brother.

Urchin itself is a non threat. The threat is the spawns it's going to toss at you every time a stone restores. Dedicate some time to clear out spawns, then synchronize to break the shield.

First, kill all the adds, then pop the stones quickly and slam on the Urchin.

Urchin is only vulnerable when ALL stones are destroyed. When a stone breaks, it will regenerate after some time. As it gets hit, it will teleport around the arena, increasingly far and frequently as it takes damage. Careful when throwing projectiles as to not waste them.

Thus, if you desync, STOP, WAIT, and then work on wearing down the stones before breaking them all at roughly the same time.

Urchin does not have any other defenses, so good sync means you'll kill it very quickly. Teamwork is everything for this one.

It has a damage gate at around 30% health left that will insta-revive all the stones at once, meaning you can do this in two cycles at minimum.

CYBORG STILT

Cyborg Stilt is literally just a Stilt with Strafer support.

Keep moderate distance from it. Have Kite or Ram use their abilities (mine & grav) to tear down the shield. Sidearms also do more shield damage. Once the shield has popped, whale onto the Stilt with everything you can.

Keep in mind that a Strafer Capsule will regularly drop based on health thresholds, and it will contain upgraded Minotaurs near the end. You want to clear them as soon as they arrive with Ram's ult or other powerful AOE, so they don't end up swarming you because you're doing too much damage to the Stilt at once.

Shoot the Stilt on the back of the head or in the mouth. Throwing axes work wonders here. You CAN jetpack into it, but it takes some serious finesse.

You can kill the Stilt in 2 shield breaks with extreme optimization, but you'll generally need 3.

PHANTOM CORE

Survival Gauntlet for all but one!

The concept is easy, surviving is not. A spitfire will shoot at you regularly. You get plenty of cover. The problem is the increasingly stronger spawns that will show up with every shield break, like Urchin.

Unlike Urchin, Phantom Core fires back, and spawns more enemies. While you don't need to synchronize the shield breaking, surviving is still quite harder. Adamants go to the red realm if they reach their portal. They spawn in counterclockwise cycles.

Send the person with the least utility (and not your medic!) to activate hotbeds in Red World. You can tell it's off if the lightning bolt stops. Tell your team the core is about to be open to coordinate damage.

KOSCHEI THE UNDYING

What's worse than a Stilt? One with unbreakable shields, of course!

Koschei is actually fairly simple, since there is plenty of cover. While the adds are plentiful, you can kill all of them before popping Koschei's shield. So you should do that, so you can focus on killing it instead of juggling.

Kill everything then steer Koschei towards one of the gold bulbs to pop his shield. The AOE is pretty generous, but it doesn't go through the pillars. Make sure Koschei is totally exposed to the AOE to be sure.

Otherwise, he is just a normal stilt. Glassheads are less annoying than strafers, so you'll be fine.
Objective Walkthrough - SURVIVAL
FUSION REACTOR

Fusion has a static flow that is easy to manage.

First of all, localize all three consoles. Between each is a triangle spot outside of the main platform. One of these will be struck by lightning, and Strafers will come out. Mine/jetpack the group to clear them.

Strafers will come from the points of the main platform. Those guys are weak, but keep their numbers down. Eventually shotgunners and grenadiers will spawn.

Once the console is active, have someone activate it. Everyone else should cover them from the mines that will spawn on both sides of the main platform's point. Repeat the process for each console.

If the orb gets into a weird position, have someone bait it back to somewhere safer. Make sure only one person is shooting at it to prevent odd trajectories, and do not throw grenades or explosives at it.

Shotguns have massive orb knockback, which can help with "holes in one".

SOIL SAMPLE

Adorable little scoop drops from the sky. Make sure it doesn't die.

It can be either Strafer collection, or Glasshead collection. You can tell from the structures around the truck.

The truck in the middle of the area will spam mines if Strafers are attacking. Destroy them.
Pods will regularly drop. Check for the drop marker and have people ready to use AOE to clear them out ASAP.

Glasshead version has less telegraphed and campable spawns, so you'll need to stay on your feet to deal with Adamants and ESPECIALLY Gardeners.

SHARDSKIN SAMPLE

Have Ram? Very easy.

Have everyone cover Ram or whoever has a very strong crit damage projectile or gun. Every so often, enemies will spawn. Kill them to protect your hunter.

An electrified cloud will signal the spawn of a Shardskin. Kill it with a crit shot or an axe to the stomach, grab the sample, and run back. With this routine you can clear this very quickly.

Once the box is full, the event is NOT over. Adamants and a gardener will spawn, so pay attention.

SERVER ROOM

Cramped and dark means it is quite difficult. There is a method to it, but it requires more skill than all the others.

First of all, pay close attention to the catwalks around the arena. If you see any laser beam, kill its user. You want to kill any rocketeer as fast as possible.

Immediately ping the blue capture area to your teammates. They only appear facing the center area, and are never behind the servers. They also emit sound so you can listen for them.

You'll want to capture the first 3/4 servers quickly. After that, do a cleanup pass, especially for the catwalks, and the pyros/minotaurs. Capture the last server, and get ready to face an entire squad of Annointed Minotaurs.

Focus on taking them down one at a time. Call out missile areas. Spread out, but make sure to regain control of the area progressively. Try not to bait them into the rest of the group. USE YOUR WALLS.

It is tense, but you can do it if you know what to prioritize. You don't need to kill ALL the enemies at the end. Just most of them.

STRAFER VAULT

Vault is very slow and kinda buggy.

You have a compound with a center area and two side areas. The center area has the computer, and the sides have the samples you need to collect.

The side areas spawn mines at random. Once you enter a sample area, the door closes, and several weak strafers spawn. It's not a difficult fight, but you'll have to do it alone, as the other players are going to defend the computer afterwards. Reminder that you cannot be revived.

Once you collect the canister, you can't sprint back to the console.

If guarding, watch the catwalks for snipers, and kill the reservoir-less pyro with the objective icon ASAP.

Be extremely careful about the laser grid in the corridor immediately before the sample vaults. They deal 120 damage. Just wait and regen and time it properly.

There is little danger unless Incendiary Ammo and Strafer Shields are in play. The enemies are generally weak. The main problem is being in a rush and killing yourself while you are solo collecting the sample.
Bossfight Walkthrough
The boss arena, while always the same, has different dynamics based on whether you get Behemoth or Queen.

Regardless, ALWAYS KILL STILT FIRST. Stilt has massive AOEs, and can instant kill from up close. Kill the Stilt first before you engage the other Boss and cause them to attack harder.

Again, ALWAYS kill the Stilt first.

STILT

Kill it first. Seriously. Anyway.

The shield will soak up all your primary ammo, so don't use your main guns. Secondaries do as much damage, if not more, and you have a lot more shots with them.

Use these Shieldbusting Tools:
  • SIDEARM OVERCHARGE. Universal, easy to pull off. Kills it in two shots at most. Synchronize!
  • KITE'S THROWABLE MINE: Instant kill.
  • BRISA'S SHOCK CHARGE: Needs to be close, but instant kill.
  • MONGOOSE FLASH GRENADE: Instant kill but messy to hit properly.
  • PILL'S CRYSTALLINE SHOTGUN: Does a lot of damage to it, but it's better you keep it ready if you have Feedback Loop.
  • BRISA AND KITE'S CRYSTALLINE GUNS: Does a ton of damage to the shield. 3 shot kills or so on good crits.
  • RAM'S GRAVITY BLAST: Two shot kill.
  • RAM JETPACK: Extremely hard to hit but does a huge chunk of damage to it.
  • ORBIT SYRINGE: Needs you to be VERY close, and better saved for later.

Once the shield is popped, unload into the Stilt as much as you can. Shoot the mouth, sides of the head, back of the head. Everything else takes reduced damage.

After some damage, the shield will instantly restore itself. It should do this a second time, but only with a partial refill. Again, use the shieldbusting tools, and kill it quick.

Make sure you clean up its AOE crystals ASAP. They do a lot of damage and slow down.


BEHEMOTH

Behemoth's main issue is his huge, homing AOEs. They are annoying to dodge without the help of well timed slides, or dashes. Thus, be prepared to soak damage.

When he is fully armored, he will throw projectiles at a slow rate. Ignore him and kill Stilt. Once Stilt is dead, shoot its weak spots, preferably with sidearm overcharge to break them instantly.

Or you can hug it with Orbit and pop your ult to instantly break all of them at once.

When it is in its "molten" phase, it will be on a timer, or a ~70% damage threshold. Shoot at it with everything you have, but aim for the soft underbelly. Armored spots still take reduced damage.

When it gets shot at enough (that threshold is pretty low), it will dig, and dash towards a player, likely hurting them. It will also attack with fire waves, which home in, but slow enough that you can slide away from them. You can also stand between them and be safe.

Once it takes enough damage or enough time has passed, it will enter its "fog" phase, and spawn a bunch of enemies. Kill them as they appear, and repeat the pattern.

Blast Armor can help mitigate its damage, but try not to get punched by it.

QUEEN

Queen is hard to hit, and her projectiles are annoying.

She will regularly fire purple orbs that home and zap at you. You can shoot the orbs down, thankfully, and they have low health, so they're easy to get rid of. You'll just be busy fighting Stilt at first. (Kill it before you shoot at her.)

The more you damage her, the more frequently she'll attack. She'll also fly around and drop large purple circles. Get out of them or get hurt really bad.

Unlike Behemoth, Queen has three fog phases instead of one, but they are a little shorter each time. The main difficulty is that she flies about, so you'll end up missing shots. Having less health and a easier to hit crit spot is nice, however.

Do not get too close during her fog phase. Her shield will damage you.
Bodybuilder Specifics
Bodybuilder is all about staying alive. You get some extra perks to make up for the fact you start with less health, and don't get Health Increase perks.

Have a Medic and Healing Perks

More than ever, this is mandatory. Dying is bad. Dying in Bodybuilder is ESPECIALLY bad. You lose healthcap, you lose perks, and the game becomes harder.

Get the perk for your gun, and stick with it.
Don't spread over too many guns. Your pistol will alway give you healthcap. Shotguns give more health at lower rarity than other guns. In any case, get kills, and don't die.

Other Perks

High priority
Overcharge
Full healthcap buff. Unstable Charger: 2 and Feedback Loop: 2 at the same time? Gold, if you can stay alive. Less effective all around than unstable, but any buff to recharge is very good to have.

Titan
Double health cap? That's a given, especially with Die Hard and/or Maniac to preserve it.

Fast Metabolism
Another healing method. All healing methods are good. The more you can recover HP with the better. Also the ONLY way to regen on normal kills.

Chain Lighting
Full healthcap buff. Multiplies your damage output in crowd control scenarios. Extremely good for dealing with adds in most objectives.

Die Hard
Only lose half your healthcap on downs. It will happen. It's nice to have.

Maniac
Double Healthcap gain. Like Die Hard but in reverse.

Mid priority
Munitions
Ammo on healthcap gain kills. It's fine. There are better ammo perks.

Low priority
Marksman
Full healthcap buff. Makes all your headshot kills explosive. It's basically Slide Bomber: 2 but harder to use. It's fine but not high priority by any means.
Charlie Expedition Mode
Ah, the new "Destiny Instance" type expedition! A whole new game! Kinda.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good
• Things are a lot more freeform. You can go anywhere you want and do whatever you want. Commit exactly as much as you like.

• You don't -have- to fight a final boss. In fact, there is no final boss! It's a dungeon now, and it's not even guaranteed.

• There's much less downtime, since you have no cutscenes anymore.

• You can get obscene amounts of Season XP.

The Bad

• You get far fewer blueprints.

• Expeditions can take really long if you don't home in right away on the hard sectors... but that means you're less ready for them. My first exped took 110 minutes! Expect longer matches all around.

• To get that season XP, you must NOT engage with the mechanics of the mode: In order to get max rewards, you need 1000 Red Salt. That means no bins, no decontams for most of the game, and definitely none of them past 2 skull difficulty. Gotta learn to speedrun!

The Ugly

• the dungeons ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ suck lol

• You MUST learn where the secret bins and stashes are to get any decent rewards. Like, this is mandatory. Not a "cool thing to know". Memorize those secrets ASAP, and go for them aggressively. That also means you MUST have Kite or an Exo and someone with bombs.

• The regen changes means that Malva is MANDATORY in order to not have a horrible time.

The Gist of It

What to do? Follow this flow and you'll be fine:

• Route to a 3 or 4💀 sector ASAP, AND:
○ Perform as many Activities as you can on the way, but focus on portals and secure containers.
○ Collect as many secret bins and Chosen Caches as you possibly can.
○ Collect all the red salt deposits you can.

• Once you are in higher 💀 sectors:
○ Do all the activities you can find until you reach 1000 Salt

• Extract.

That's it! Anything else is purely for weeklies and accolades. Don't bother spending time trying to farm blueprints. It's extremely cost-ineffective and ball-busting.
Charlie Expedition - Events
Activities

Portal Cube

Floating crystalline cube. One player must come close in order to open it up, causing them to be put in stasis and unable to fire. Once the orb is destroyed, jump in the portal and murder everything.
Mechanics
  • The event is timed. Only spawns when active drop salt.
  • Enemies spawn to a ceiling. Faster kills = Faster respawn. Kill as much as fast as you can.
  • Harder sectors have bigger enemies and every enemy drops more salt.
  • You can get a Chosen Cache at the end, which can lead to a lot more red salt, too.
  • The Chosen Cache appears if you kill enough enemies.

Secure Container

Trailer with Sample boxes on it, covered in big tentacles. Shoot the exposed parts to remove the tentacles, then interact with the box.

Mechanics
  • Very short and pays out immediately on completion.
  • Spawns one VERY aggressive group of strafers that will pelt you with nades and rockets.
  • Strongly recommend you go for them every time you can.

Soil Probe

A green Soil Probe like in the corresponding boss event. Defend it until it's done.

Mechanics
  • Drops Salt every 25% of the timer. Drops lots when done.
  • Basically a stronger Soil Probe that takes longer to complete.
  • Use skills that taunt like walls to release tension.
  • Focus down the adamants! At 💀💀💀 and above they come in groups.

Crystalline Battery

A dead glasshead that requires you to find 4 batteries, then leads to a cache. Takes too long and has poor rewards.
Mechanics
  • The cache ONLY appears when the event is cleared.
  • May not even reward you with salt at all.
  • Look for purple beams for the battery and cache.
  • Also reveals all caches that are close enough to the corpse.

EMP Locker

A spire that drops 3 EMPs when interacted with. Activate them all to get the prize.
Mechanics
  • It's on a timer, and it's quite short. Coordinate ASAP to get all the EMPs.
  • Can drop the EMPs so far they fail the event because you get out of its active range
  • May contain nothing. Or a gardener. Because lmao. At least the gardener gives you salt.
  • Just don't.

Bosses

Identical to the boss section of the guide. They're just the same, 1:1.

Dungeons

Final Boss

The Behemoth Fight. Or Queen Fight. Except with more health.
Mechanics
  • Behemoth now has THREE phases instead of 2 minimum.
  • Gives you three caches, so that's 9 caches total.
  • Takes too long and is hard.

Strafer Vault

ONLY found in the "underpass" section on Sector Bravo. Guaranteed if you have the Secret Quest.
Mechanics
  • Described in the boss section. Still terrible and time consuming.
  • Same rewards, 3 Caches.
  • Really not worth your time and frustration.
  • Only do this for the secret Quest accolade.

Horror Maze

Hey what if strafer vault was EVEN WORSE???
ONLY found off-shore on Sector Delta(?), requires a block puzzle to access. Just step on the panels and you'll see one shard light up on the platform. Light two shards and it'll move. Make it stop in the center. Line up the first three and you're done.

Mechanics
  • You start walking super slow and with no weapons.
  • Reach the center area to recover guns & speed.
  • If near a Chaser, stop moving and crouch. It might work. Sometimes.
  • There are crates. If you crouch near them and the red light isn't on you, you're fine.
  • Once you have guns, bodyblock/kill chasers for your teammates.
  • When everyone is equipped, destroy all the chaser nests to power the lift again.
  • THERE ARE A LOT OF SPAWNS. Expect 12+ Adamants at once at the end.

53 Comments
⛧ $P00KY DA $CARY ⛧ 24 Aug, 2023 @ 4:56am 
Man, what a fenomenal guide for a noob like me.

Played for some 20 hours, did a lot of Expeditions, and got dragged into a dungeon, just after I started getting comfortable with Orbit, after a few upgrades on him.

And dang that was hard, but we made it, and with no deaths! I was lucky, and had a very experienced player to copy the mooves of, a good team comp, with tank, heal and dps and a benevolent RNJesus.


Now with this guide, I can actually understand why and how he/she did everything, throughout the run. From choosing which objectives to complete to how he/she handled the bosses! Thanks a lot, this is a treasure-trove of info!
Rinch-0 12 Jul, 2023 @ 11:40pm 
(ENG)
thanks brother, it will be a lot of text but for the new ones it will be very useful so that they do not wonder what should be done on the expedition

(ESP)
gracias hermano, sera mucho texto pero para los nuevos les va servir mucho para que no se pregunten que cosa se debe hacer en la expedicion
Oelonyx 3 Jul, 2023 @ 3:52am 
my B, skimmed over it
Bunray  [author] 3 Jul, 2023 @ 1:35am 
I already describe what the secret quest is.
Oelonyx 3 Jul, 2023 @ 1:18am 
pls add the below with a spoiler bar
Mariusdan 12 May, 2023 @ 4:00pm 
thanks for youre guidence
Bunray  [author] 12 May, 2023 @ 3:09pm 
Secret Quest is just pure RNG, you have to be in sector Bravo for it to appear. After that, clear the dungeon.
Mariusdan 12 May, 2023 @ 2:39pm 
amazing and detailed guide!! :steamthumbsup:
do you know by any chance how to do that secred Quest ?
JJGRINCH 8 May, 2023 @ 9:01am 
Moongose in tier D... ok