Scenarios

Introduction

Introduced with Issue #8, Scenarios are a completely fresh type of content which offer virtual training in the headquarters of The Council of Venice.

Scenarios challenge your combat prowess, both tactically and build wise.

The better you perform in Scenarios the more Aureus of Initiation you will be rewarded with. These tokens can be used to purchase new epic gear, certification to the upcoming Tokyo play field, tool kits which are used in the crafting process for making the new Augments and vanity items in the form of clothes or a title.

Scenarios also have a chance of awarding you with augments, the drop rate is affected by the difficulty and group size. The higher the difficulty and the bigger the group size the better the augment drop rate will be.

This guide will attempt to provide you with Tips, tricks and information on how to increase your success rate within scenarios.

Preparations

You will need a build specifically created for tackling scenarios. Repair your gear before entering a scenario as there is no possibility to repair your gear within.

Expect a single scenario to take about 25 – 30 minutes to complete successfully. It is recommended to bring with you in order to increase your chance of success:

* [Energy drink – Leech] (Low quality drinks are very cost efficient and work nearly as good as higher quality drinks.)

* [Healing Kit] (Can be purchased at the Rogue coder in the Sunken Library) A healing kit can be used to Heal a group of survivors for a moderate amount of health, they cost one Aureus of Initiation but healing kits often pay for themselves!

* [Epipen] and [Weapon specific Ambrosia] (Quality 7 Epipen/Ambrosia can be purchased from venice vendors in any of the mission zones for 4000 pax each)

* [Turret] (Can be purchased at the Rogue coder in the Sunken Library) Places a Turret that will attack all nearby enemies, can be destroyed by AoE and mobs with no hate on other targets (Golem event, bosses). Costs 2 Aureus of initiation, you will only want to use this for waves you generally have trouble with.

In order to fit all of the above in an accessible place during combat i strongly recommend making an additional bag which you should pin to the screen and use as a shortcut for consumables, the standard shortcut bar simply isn’t enough!

In addition to the consumables you bring yourself, a supply crate with 3 different stacks of 5 mines each will be randomly located somewhere within the zone.

Supply Crate contents

[Explosive Proximity Mine] This mine allows you to instantly dispose of any Enemy surrounding the mines position, this mine also hurts you and the survivors for a moderate amount of damage. This does however NOT work on bosses for obvious reasons.

[Entangling Proximity Mine] This mine roots everyone surrounding the mines position, including you. Its effect can no longer be removed by right clicking the icon at your buff bar.

This mine applies the state hindered which can be exploited as normal.

[Freezing Proximity Mine] This mine impairs everyone surrounding the mines position, including you. Its effect can no longer be removed by right clicking the icon at your buff bar.

Put these on one of your shortcut bars as they are all very useful and can mean the difference between failure or victory, Platinum or Gold.

Warning: Moving survivors and active pets will trigger nearby mines.

Power-ups

Within scenarios you will also encounter several power ups, here follows a brief description of each and every one of them.

All stimulants drop from slain enemies.

Aggression stimulant (Red) Doubles your Damage output for several seconds.
Vitality stimulant (Yellow) Grants you a healing over time effect for several seconds.
Celerity stimulant (Dark Pink) Increases your movement speed for several seconds.
Resilience stimulant (Blue) Reduces damage taken by 50% for several seconds.

While Celerity stimulant (Dark pink) can be dropped. It will also spawn on fixed places near survivor camps, these stationary stimulants buff everyone nearby. Try to use this buff when necessary, not randomly. It respawns a few minutes after being used.

What to Expect

Once you (and your team members) enter the simulator you will be teleported to the instance, once activated a cut-scene will appear. If you’re new to scenarios make sure to watch the cut-scene to get an idea of what the map looks like.

Once you or one of your group members runs towards the fight area of the where the scenario holds place, a timer will start allowing for 45 seconds to get ready for battle. It’s recommended to look for mines, while looking for mines take note of any blue lights, this is where survivors will spawn.

With each survivor that spawns, a single Enemy will spawn next to it with every intention of hurting the nearest survivor. Your goal will be to kill all enemies as fast as possible, the longer it takes for you to take the enemies away from the survivors the more damage they will sustain.

Some of the survivors will spawn wielding an assault rifle (does not apply to nightmare difficulty), while often helpful they can also cause mobs to fixate on them as such often becoming one of the first survivors to die, healing survivors through normal means is possible but at greatly diminished returns.

Scenarios exist of 3 waves

Wave 1) Before wave 1 starts you are expected to seek all survivors and kill their assailants, the survivors will then gather up at their assigned spawn points and must be defended at all costs. At the end of Wave one a Boss will spawn, this boss will make its way to you so try and wrap up any unfinished business (leftover enemy mobs) So you can focus on this new threat.

Wave 2) Killing the boss of the previous wave will activate one of the special events listed later in the guide and this event will persist throughout the wave.

You will either face more of the same type of enemies or a different type of enemies, Once you make it through this round another boss will spawn.

Wave 3) Another special event to deal with, this time there will be no map specific initial enemies, instead there is a chance to get one of the wave 3 specific mob types. Defeating the final boss ends the simulation giving you an overview of what you dealt with and how many survivors you managed to preserve. If the timer ends without you killing the Final boss you will still succeed but you won’t receive any loot.

Mob Types

Mobs in scenarios can be categorised into the 5 different classes listed below.

Each of the mob classes above can also be further categorised into colours. A normal mob of its class will not have a circle at its feet, however, weakened mobs  and extremely weakened mobs can be identified from the coloured circles at their feet.

Blue circles around their feet means that they aren’t at full power, average strength mobs. Often seen when several spawns occur at the same time. Can be any type of mobs.

On rare occasion several mob types spawn at the same location.

Green circles around their feet means that they’re extremely weakened, they make up what they lack in strength with numbers, attacking several camps and being capable of spawning duplicate or several of the previous mentioned mob types at the same time. Weaker mobs while easier to dispose of can also contain Filth infected entities, as these mobs die faster chances are higher that they will explode near survivors, highly recommended to take great care when pulling them off survivors.

Filth Infected entity

These mobs can spawn as replacement for any mob type that normally spawns, they apply exposed and explode into a large patch of filth that does a lot of damage over time and corrupt you with the filth debuff. The filth debuff corrupts (up to 50% less healing, 5% per stack), deals damage over time and has a hindering effect.

These are mobs that can easily ruin your run, they must be killed away from the survivors or your survivors will take a large amount of damage.

Active Dodge and Dashing

Active Dodge and dash abilities are going to be an important factor in being successful in scenarios. Active Dodge serves many purposes.

Creating a distance between you and your enemy

Dodging is faster than moving normally.

Creating distance between you and Melee oriented enemies will reduce damage taken when necessary. Dodging can of course also be used to get closer to ranged enemies.

I personally recommend binding active dodge to a key instead of just double tapping a movement key, as there will be a lot of movement in scenarios.

Avoiding player targeted abilities

By dodging at the very right time, you can actually avoid player targeted abilities from being casted entirely.

This can be tricky as it needs to be done within the last 33% of the enemies cast bar. 

This is particularly useful for avoiding impairs without having to use impair abilities that have a rather long cooldown timer.

Unit Collision

Normally you can’t move through enemies, enemies will sometimes stop you from avoiding AoE, or simply stand in the middle of a doorway keeping you from getting out.

Active dodge and dashes ignore unit collision making it possible for you to move through enemies with ease.

In and Out of Combat

The game either recognises you as in a state of combat, or a state in which you are not in combat.

In scenarios this is related to being on the hate list of an enemy, and being within a certain distance of that enemy. This means that if you create enough distance between you and the enemy that is chasing you, you can be considered out of combat.

Being out of combat has several advantages…

1) Sprint! Always activate sprint when you get out of combat, being ready to move is always helpful since enemies may spawn on the other side of the map.

2) Tacos, or other out of combat regeneration items, fills your belly and health pool faster than your normal out of combat regeneration. Use when running for the next hostiles.

3) Debuffs end faster, stacks of debuffs fall off completely or 1 stack per second depending on the debuff. Sometimes its a good idea to let the survivors tank some incoming mobs for a few seconds in order for you to get out of combat and get rid of Accursed, Filth Debuff or Corruption.

Interludes and Special Events

Additional supplies

This event spawns additional supply crates at random places within the Map that can contain various helpful goods and one not so very helpful surprise.

Content of each crate is one of the following

[Turret] Places a Turret that will attack all nearby enemies, can be destroyed by AoE and mobs with no hate on other targets (Golem event, bosses).

[Bear Arms] I too was greatly disappointed to learn that this item does in fact not provide you with the arms of a Bear, instead using this on a survivor will allow them to bear arms, in the form of an assault rifle.

[Healing Kit] A healing kit can be used to Heal a group of survivors for a moderate amount of health. Might be smart to save this for when the survivors really start to get low health, instead of using it when they’ve just lost a small fragment of their health.

[Uncommon Augment] It’s one of the green augments, useful.

[5 Mines] One stack of random mines picked from the mines you obtain from the initial crate.

[Effigy X55 Golem] If you’re unlucky a golem will spawn that will attempt to apply the state afflict increasing its critical hit chance against you.

Saw off is a wide cone that hits for a lot of damage and applies a damage over time effect, it’s recommended that you move out of it!

Puncturing wounds is a casted ability that deals a moderate amount of damage

Hostile or friendly snipers

Once you hear the announcement “Interloper incursion, friend or foe” either friendly or hostile snipers will spawn.

Snipers that are friendly will deal damage and hinder your enemies, this may slow them down enough to pile up with other groups so try not to wait for mobs to get to you or it may end up becoming a disadvantage instead.

Snipers that are hostile will attempt to deal damage and apply the state hinder to you.

Once a sniper starts aiming at you there will be a red indication on your screen.

You can avoid being hit by sniper shots in several ways:

* Active Dodge: this will avoid all targets locked on you.
* Dashes: active abilities that cause you to dash make you immune to the sniper shot if used right before the ability hits, so wait a second before dashing.
* Line of sight: walls are your friends. Look at where the laser indicator is coming from and get something in between.

Another way to combat this event is to stand at choke points, stopping enemies at the paths they have to cross to get to the survivors in Hotel is easy, unless you’re alone and get several waves active at the same time.

Hazardous weather

weather forecast, there will be heavy weather conditions limiting visibility with a minor chance of death.

What occurs when this event activates is largely Dependant on which map you currently reside in.

Persistent filth patches

Random patches of filth that slow you down and deal a low amount of damage to you.

Once again active dodge and dashes are your friends.

Betrayal sequence

This event turns several survivors (how many depends on the amount of living survivors) into hostile enemies that will focus fire on nearby survivors.

When there are 2 minutes left for the current wave to end new survivors spawn randomly across the map, you will want to gather them whenever you get the chance (if in a group one of your members running around to help the survivors is a good idea). They refuse to move while they are engaged in combat, so you will have to dispatch any enemy that is attacking them.