All Feats Advice

[Ange23X10]

A friend and I are trying to all feats the game co op. Having trouble with most expansion maps and second half of regular campaign. Would love some input.

[DoomyDoom]

Well, it would help to give an example of what you're doing, what guns/perks you use, how you build etc. I mean, general advice I can give at this stage is "take perks/guns with clear purpose and synergy, build killzones rather than tower lanes, don't die", and that's about it... If you can post what doesn't work for you, I can try to explain why it doesn't, and what can be done.

[Neit]

As DoomyDoom said, it would be best if you could describe characters/builds you are using, or mentioning specific maps you are experiencing problems with.

But still I'll mention several regular mistakes I see people doing almost everytime I join 5 FoS game:

1. Building too many towers - I see on regular basis that people keep building and building until they reach tower limit, which is in 90% of cases waste of perfectly good resources that can be used way more effectively. Most maps can be effectively handled by building 3-6 towers, usually containing EXACTLY 1 Range Spire and 1 ACP (in multiplayer games 1 Slow Field dispenser and 1 AMP can be added to the list, depending on situation) supported by few other towers, depending on map. If you feel like building more than 1 of those (RS, AMP, ACP, Slow Field), you are most probably doing something wrong.

2. Not taking Phoenix or at least 1 core perk - While on most maps Phoenix isn't necessary, it's a good start if you die too often or if you are intending to kite a lot. As for core perks, I mean mostly Shocking Revelation and Resilient Core. There's simple rule of thumb which one is better choice: If you are struggling with one or two particular wave, it's reasonable to pick to pick Shocking Revelation and build your killzone near the core. If you keep leaking several lumes per wave, then Resilient Core is pretty useful. In multiplayer games, it's usually good choice to have 1-3 Resilient Cores (since they stack), or 1 Resilient Core and 1 Shocking Revelation (Shocking Revelation does not stack!).

3. Having towers spread out instead of focusing them together in one killzone - This is very common especially on lower level maps, people keep building towers randomly, not taking advantage of support towers which usually results in failure since lumes can slip past the defenses easily. Almost everytime having 1 Range spire with 1 nearby ACP can do more damage than 12 Focus Towers spread around the map and this mistake is very related to first point. Anyway, having 1 killzone near the core (or more specifically one killzone that covers stragglers that reach the core) is very effective stragegy, especially combined with Shocking Revelation as I already mentioned. Also remember, that even mines and slow fields can benefit from Range Spire.

4. Blocking tower shooting path with another tower - This is most common in relation to AA towers or Violators. If you build a tower that is blocked by another towers, then pretty big portion of damage one of those towers could do is lost. If you have Violator firing once in a while completely missing each other shot, then there's not much use in having that tower at all. Same goes for cluster of AA towers, where 3 towers covered by other 3 same towers simply hit those towers, doing absolutely no damage which makes them to be utter waste of resources. In this game, less is sometimes more (see my first point).

Those are not rules set in stone, some of them don't apply all the time and I'm pretty sure someone shows up and points out obvious mistake in this wall of text that I'll have to correct, but take it more like guidelines. Maybe this doesn't even apply to you, so if you try to provide some more detailed info about strategies you are using, people might be more of use to you and give you more relevant advice.

[Ange23X10]

We have been mostly using Core Does 2000 Dmg, Core Heals 10%, Core Stunes, Juxtaposition with Drone Launcher and experimenting with alternate weapons as Skye. Focus, Drone, Amp, Cannon, Slow Mines. The killzones we have been using, I guess moreso for character builds what would work best. It appears we just need to add and APC in the mix and buff it.

[Neit]

Well in most cases the ACP can mean a big difference. If you build it near Range Spire it can easily do as much damage as 10 other fully upgraded towers. ACP can also easily cover almost whole map in most cases making it very effective tower vs any ground units.

EDIT: I suggest watching last wave/overall damage of the towers you build, so you know whether they are at least a little useful. I've seen situations where ACP built during 7th wave managed to do more damage than all other towers combined for all 7 prior waves.

EDIT2: Unstable Core (the 2000 damage perk) gets pretty useless if you combine it with Shocking Revelation, because that AoE stun actually makes everyone to hit the core way less often, so you are basically wasting a perk slot.

[DoomyDoom]

Drone Launcher + Juxtaposition combo was specifically nerfed last patch. It's still okay-ish, but most likely not nearly as effective as wherever you got that strategy from. In other words, DL videos/guides are most likely outdated. Compare against last patch date to be sure.

3 Core perks is a very excessive setup. The fallacy works like this: you go into the game with the mindset of "everything goes wrong and they are at my Core" => you take Core perks => you deal less damage and have less utility (e.g. no slowing perks) => they get to the Core => "everything went wrong" happens. I seriously suggest getting out of this mindset and taking a risk. ~270 game hours after I stopped using Core perks in solo/duo game, and I still find exciting things here.
In solo and duo play it's much more efficient to focus on doing damage and kiting. Maybe make one of you have a "tanky/cc" setup, like Haigen with something like G2 Companion or Reinforcements or Slowing presence, and the other one goes all out with long range Sweet...

[Ange23X10]

Give me a loadout you would suggest.

[DoomyDoom]

Originally posted by Ange23X10:

Give me a loadout you would suggest.

Well I've done all sorts of crazy things... Slums with only Cannons+Amp, Slums with Friendship lasers +Amp, Jellyfish Cove with Gatlings+Range+AA, The End with no equipment above level 18, Power Relay with Gatlings+Amp... Cluster with no damage towers... and lots of other stuff.

Character-wise, common damage builds include Long Range Sweet (LRSpecialization, LRSuperiority, Exposure rounds), Drone Skye - the nerfed one you're already using, Gatling Skye (Gatling laser+Juxtaposition+Hollowpoint Rounds/Spray'n'Pray = over 7.5 k damage with stacked passive on alt fire), Drone Sweet (also nerfed, but still among the best Soaker killing things)... Haigen does well with fun things like Circle Saw and Shotgun + Slowing Presence... Simo - I don't play him much, the classic is Sniper + SMG + Hollowpoint rounds + some other dmg perks...

[Ange23X10]

Thanks I will give these a try next time we play!

[Ange23X10]

Not working too well.

Using 1 ACP, 1 Range, 1 Amp.

Skye Autumn - Drone/Gatling Laser
Juxta, Hollowpoint, Spray Pray.

Haigen Hawking - Shotgun/Circle Saw
Spray Pray, Pheonix, Slowing Presence

We don't even have enough time to get the ACP to high enough range.

[Neit]

On what maps have you tried it?

I am not sure that having amp with only one damage tower is that useful choice.

Also, while ACP is pretty much the most powerful tower in game, that doesn't mean it's instant win, usually you'll need other towers as backup.

[DoomyDoom]

Amping for 1 tower is utterly pointless, unless you're doing survival. You see, ACP is the kind of tower that needs a lot of dedicated effort (read: recources + having to defend waves largely by hand) to "come online", so to speak. It's the best tower for scaling with infinte waves, sure. But when you have a limited set of HP you need to burn through in a short period of time, scaling doesn't mean anything. You need damage right here, right now, from wave 1 to wave 10, and what happens beyond... well, NOTHING happens beyond.
Basically, what to build is a matter of linear vs quadratic scaling, if you want. Linear is higher early, but quadratic inevitably trumps it at some point. Question is, do you get to that point? No, at least not in low player count campaign runs.
Thus, you want damage first. To that end you just build a few level 3 towers and THEN amp for them when your core damage-dealing setup is laid out. Also, I have 0 idea on how Spray'n'Pray iteracts with Drones, but my gut feeling and experience with how this "lowered accuracy" *cough* *cough* works says "expect flat miss chance for every shot". Better swap it for something else with direct damage in it.

[Ange23X10]

For insance, we tried Field last night. Did the ACP thing suggested, didn't get near the end. Tried with Focus Amp, Range and Cannon and got perfectly all the way to final wave and then Boss/Soakers ended us.

[DoomyDoom]

Originally posted by Ange23X10:

For insance, we tried Field last night. Did the ACP thing suggested, didn't get near the end. Tried with Focus Amp, Range and Cannon and got perfectly all the way to final wave and then Boss/Soakers ended us.

Problem with Soakers = take Sweet. Her passive makes them stack up crit modifier and pop real quick.

[Ange23X10]

I have tried everything, solo, with others. Every perk suggestion, builds from most recent FOS videos, every tower build. I know I am not playing that poorly, I am doing eveything the videos contain. This is probably one of my all time favourite games and I can't do ANYTHING to complete it.

[DoomyDoom]

I was horrible at this for my first 50 hours or so... I've literally spent a MONTH on my first 5Fos Sokol win (Granted, I've played the game on 5 FoS ever since I unlocked chapter 2). Then I figured out how to properly think and act and the game became an open book. Just relax and maybe drop a feat or two for now.