Avalanche vs Custodian Tips Please

[Grasshopper]

I have not won this game with the Avalanche yet.
Here is what I think I should do:
Missiles in both missile bays.
Get the Paint Target sub system.
Get Lasers.
Get Resource Bays and Resources.
Knock out the Custodian's PDC.
I can beat every ship I come across except the Custodian!!!!

Last Time I didn't have lasers. I had Mass Driver Mark 2 and it was decent. Still didn't win. Any advice is grateful.

[VisionofFire]

There's multiple ways to win.

Simplest though is to have good scaling on your missiles via stacking Triangulate and/or Missile Lock, and a way to generate Fireflies (Missile lock does this by default, Ammo Pod if no Missile Lock). Normal ships die to your regular missiles, Custodian is beefy enough you'll likely deplete your regular missile cards. Generated Fireflies provide you offensive gas in the back half of the fight, throwing a full hand of like 10 damage Fireflies for 1R each is 50-70 damage per turn.

As always Inferno has examples of defeating the Custodian with all ships, and also has a commentated Avalanche run explaining decision making. This will give you a ball park of what an offensive setup that beats Custodian looks like. Inferno tends to prefer a high resource setup and railgun.

https://www.youtube.com/@InfernoIV/videos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTtwYmV9bbA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1Q3PaOKgi4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGWm0rYeSf8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhWM3525tWw

From my own collection, some (older) examples of Custodian fight, slightly out of date but they more or less demonstrate missile scaling that will kill Custodian. Triangulate was nerfed to take an extra turn to fire since these videos, so Missile Lock is better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAXOS5w4tIk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em8z6GGo0UI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-2K91jjuOk&t=4975s

[Grasshopper]

Thanks VisionofFire! I've been skipping triangulate because I didn't realize it was that powerful. I also haven't been stacking. I'll try again and let you know how it turns out.

[Grasshopper]

Hey VisionofFire, it worked! I played one game on Ascension 0 and kicked the Custodian's butt. I felt sorry for him. I turned it up to Level 7 and lost because I went into the final fight with only the base missile Launcher. I think if you don't get a second missile launcher or pod by a certain point then you should restart.

Thanks for the tips.

[Boom Stand]

Late to the party on this one. I've had success with the level one laser you get given at the beginning of the first sector and just the initial launcher. I am very selective about which cards I take for my weapons and try to have just two Repeater Pulse cards and Paint Target for my laser bank. For missiles I try to get at least two, preferably three Prep Volley cards with both Triangulate and Missile Lock. I turtle, tag with lasers, and prep a volley every turn. The missile defense of the boss gets overwhelmed and it turns into a turkey shoot.

[Grasshopper]

Originally posted by Boom Stand:

Late to the party on this one. I've had success with the level one laser you get given at the beginning of the first sector and just the initial launcher. I am very selective about which cards I take for my weapons and try to have just two Repeater Pulse cards and Paint Target for my laser bank. For missiles I try to get at least two, preferably three Prep Volley cards with both Triangulate and Missile Lock. I turtle, tag with lasers, and prep a volley every turn. The missile defense of the boss gets overwhelmed and it turns into a turkey shoot.

That's really sweet. I never thought of just having two Repeater Pulse cards. It makes sense!