Is DLC2 possible with the Wing Diver Offline?

[Hibuki]

I'm currently trying to beat DLC2 with my Wing Diver on Hard difficulty (Armour 1450). Each mission seems impossibly difficult and if I beat it, it's because I barely scraped by.

Right now I'm stuck on the first mission with the tower of Bee Hives (Mission 5 or 6) and am getting wrecked regardless of weapon combinations that I try...

I understand it's supposed to be hard, but this level of difficulty seems more appropriate for Hardest or Inferno Difficulty... If the rest of this mission pack is worse than this, then I will need to farm more Armour...

[Plumber]

The difficulty setting is just one axis; the other big one is the missions themselves, and there's no question about whether DLC2 has the most challenging missions that EDF6 has to offer. It's scaled well beyond the standard campaign with the expectation that you're already intimately familiar with the game's mechanics and ideally have heaps of armor and powered-up weapons.

It's a staple of EDF for the DLCs to have brutally difficult missions mixed in with the occasional breather or farming level. In prior games, due to the way armor/weapon limits worked, some missions were actually harder to clear on lower difficulties. EDF4.1 God's Army on Normal comes to mind...

[Hibuki]

Originally posted by Plumber:

The difficulty setting is just one axis; the other big one is the missions themselves, and there's no question about whether DLC2 has the most challenging missions that EDF6 has to offer. It's scaled well beyond the standard campaign with the expectation that you're already intimately familiar with the game's mechanics and ideally have heaps of armor and powered-up weapons.

It's a staple of EDF for the DLCs to have brutally difficult missions mixed in with the occasional breather or farming level. In prior games, due to the way armor/weapon limits worked, some missions were actually harder to clear on lower difficulties. EDF4.1 God's Army on Normal comes to mind...

I see, interesting. I played through EDF 4.1 but I played on Hard difficulty throughout - didn't try the DLCs there though.

I guess it's farming time for EDF6... Just beat the Bee Hive mission but had to drop the difficulty to Normal. On Hard it's just too difficult to dodge and manage the Wing Diver Energy while also shooting the army of Blue Bees...

[Shadow_Actual]

Also, fourteen hundred armour is nowhere near enough to compete on Hard in VoM. You need to at least double that figure to even have a chance - my own Ranger has two thousand and isn't nearly tanky enough to win most expansion levels.

[Hibuki]

Originally posted by Shadow_Actual:

Also, fourteen hundred armour is nowhere near enough to compete on Hard in VoM. You need to at least double that figure to even have a chance - my own Ranger has two thousand and isn't nearly tanky enough to win most expansion levels.

Thanks for sharing that - I simply beat the entire game + first DLC on Hard directly (didn't bother with Easy and Normal) so I was expecting to have enough Armour for DLC2 as well (I even abused DLC1 Mission 1 a bit to farm Inferno gear) but it seems you are expected to farm more Armour... Well, maybe I'll replay the Campaign on Hardest difficulty, that should give me enough Armour (hopefully).

[Shadow_Actual]

I kind of doubt it, honestly. One of the series' weaknesses has always been the degree to which you're expected to grind if you want to get anywhere in higher difficulties or the expansions. If you want to compete in Hardest and Inferno, you should be aiming for at least four or five thousand armour. If you want to be safe on Inferno, double that figure. And even then there are things that will make all that armour just... disappear. EDF is not shy about killing you.

I'm told that level 97 in the vanilla campaign is good for farming armour. It's a bit time consuming, but you can get a lot of crates in that time. And while we're talking, what levels in the first expansion would you say are good for farming weapons?

[Awac]

Some of the early Lost days missions are good but rest quickly boils down to just 360 attack all around you. super lazy and have none of the charm of the EDF6 missions.

Imho both DLC's are bad and not worth the money.

[Blackmagemasher]

Originally posted by Awac:

Imho both DLC's are bad and not worth the money.

What is wrong with them?

[Awac]

Originally posted by Blackmagemasher:

Originally posted by Awac:

Imho both DLC's are bad and not worth the money.

What is wrong with them?

They are lazy design wise. Pop you in map, spawn a bunch of enemies have them attack you.
No story, no objectives.

VoM is even worse, its just a "simulated" world where the AI spawns in units.

[cowbell]

I had 3000 armor by the time I beat DLC1 on Hard. This is another beast. Hardest is when it becomes downright unfair.

Originally posted by Awac:

They are lazy design wise. Pop you in map, spawn a bunch of enemies have them attack you.
No story, no objectives.

VoM is even worse, its just a "simulated" world where the AI spawns in units.

You didn't even play the DLC if that is your take.

[Hibuki]

Originally posted by Shadow_Actual:

I kind of doubt it, honestly. One of the series' weaknesses has always been the degree to which you're expected to grind if you want to get anywhere in higher difficulties or the expansions. If you want to compete in Hardest and Inferno, you should be aiming for at least four or five thousand armour. If you want to be safe on Inferno, double that figure. And even then there are things that will make all that armour just... disappear. EDF is not shy about killing you.

I'm told that level 97 in the vanilla campaign is good for farming armour. It's a bit time consuming, but you can get a lot of crates in that time. And while we're talking, what levels in the first expansion would you say are good for farming weapons?

DLC1 Mission 1 plays itself - you just need to collect the crates. It doesn't give a lot of drops but it allows you to farm level 100+ gear very easily. Even with that gear, DLC2 is quite difficult...

I'm also a bit peeved that there is no Thunder Crossbow 5 (like there was in EDF5)... The high level Thunder Crossbows that we are given cost way too much to be efficient for clearing... Having said that, they are quite powerful in terms of damage - I wouldn't mind slightly lower damage if it means lower energy cost per use.

[Zephyr]

I've seen someone do that mission, in hard, with a 500 armor Fencer.
So, chances are that you are going at it wrong, because it's very much possible.

But then again, you rely on gear, you rely on farming and you rely on armor as your posts shows. Which in turns shows you have a lack of knowledge of the core concepts of the game, some of which have been here and very little changed since multiple games.

Thunder crossbow, while good against bees, is mostly a static weapon, and if you are solo, you are going to have very limited time to allow yourself static shots unless you can find a relatively safe spot. You are going to absolutely need to kite horde, and while bees are some of the hardest enemies to kite, it's not like it's impossible. What you need is something cost efficient with a decent range and decent damage you can fire on the move. What you need it to use the buildings a lot because bees have trouble navigating them and will often land on them, which in turn, reduces the amount of aggression you have to deal with. What you need is a way to take out multiple nest at once so you limit the amount of stuff that will come at you when the spawning occurs. This can be done with some of your tools too.

I will let you figure all that out by yourself. But just WATCHING that mission in one video, I've learned a lot of about it and enough at least to have a battle plan for when I will play it.

Good loadout, good method, good execution. That's how you succeed. If you go without the 2 first, you can't even expect the third one to save you. This has never changed.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I checked your profile, and I hope you will forgive me playing little detective, but I like to understand things better. You have only 15% completion. You are nowhere near qualified to play DLC2. As I always put it, when it comes to EDF, when you are under 60% completion, you haven't finished the tutorial. Completing the campaign on hard with all classes is the BARE MINIMUM to begin understanding the game. You will need more runs to begin to perefect your knowledge. DLC1 and 2 in gneral implies you have finished the main campaign on hardest. DLC1 is a little more forgiving, but DLC2 certainly assumes that. Yes, to play it on hard. You are tackling something you are not ready to do by any stretch of the imagination. Go back to learn your fundamentals.

[Hibuki]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

I've seen someone do that mission, in hard, with a 500 armor Fencer.
So, chances are that you are going at it wrong, because it's very much possible.

But then again, you rely on gear, you rely on farming and you rely on armor as your posts shows. Which in turns shows you have a lack of knowledge of the core concepts of the game, some of which have been here and very little changed since multiple games.

Thunder crossbow, while good against bees, is mostly a static weapon, and if you are solo, you are going to have very limited time to allow yourself static shots unless you can find a relatively safe spot. You are going to absolutely need to kite horde, and while bees are some of the hardest enemies to kite, it's not like it's impossible. What you need is something cost efficient with a decent range and decent damage you can fire on the move. What you need it to use the buildings a lot because bees have trouble navigating them and will often land on them, which in turn, reduces the amount of aggression you have to deal with. What you need is a way to take out multiple nest at once so you limit the amount of stuff that will come at you when the spawning occurs. This can be done with some of your tools too.

I will let you figure all that out by yourself. But just WATCHING that mission in one video, I've learned a lot of about it and enough at least to have a battle plan for when I will play it.

Good loadout, good method, good execution. That's how you succeed. If you go without the 2 first, you can't even expect the third one to save you. This has never changed.

EDIT: Out of curiosity, I checked your profile, and I hope you will forgive me playing little detective, but I like to understand things better. You have only 15% completion. You are nowhere near qualified to play DLC2. As I always put it, when it comes to EDF, when you are under 60% completion, you haven't finished the tutorial. Completing the campaign on hard with all classes is the BARE MINIMUM to begin understanding the game. You will need more runs to begin to perefect your knowledge. DLC1 and 2 in gneral implies you have finished the main campaign on hardest. DLC1 is a little more forgiving, but DLC2 certainly assumes that. Yes, to play it on hard. You are tackling something you are not ready to do by any stretch of the imagination. Go back to learn your fundamentals.

Ok, wow, I see some constructive feedback but I also see a bunch of speculation and assumptions :D

It says 15% completion because I beat Hard with the Wing Diver and am not interested in playing the other classes (Maybe Ranger later on). I generally play EDF for the mobility and fun that the Wing Diver provides.

The video you watched with a Fencer beating it - what difficulty was it on? Because I also beat it with my skills/gear but it was on Normal difficulty. Hard simply sent too many opponents for me to deal with given the options my Wing Diver has. Additionally, I've noticed that Fencers have a lot more mobility than the Wing Diver - based on what I've seen, they have a limitless number of dashes that can be horizontal/vertical. The Wing Diver is limited by her Plasma Core and her ground dashes are pretty bad so I am forced to use aerial dashes instead. As you can imagine, aerial dashes and flying in general consume Energy - when you add a weapon to the mix, it gets very difficult to manage dodging the horde that that mission throws at you without having difficulties with energy management too.

Regarding the Thunder Crossbow - it's not static at all. I used Thunder Crossbow 4 for most of the game (after I got it) and was flying+using it with decent efficiently. I've cleared many a bee that way. However, when I got to the DLCs, I noticed that the damage was starting to drop off so I was waiting/farming for a better Thunder Crossbow (namely version 5 which turned out to not exist here...) but instead was given a Thunder Crossbow DZ (or something like that - the level 71 Thunder Crossbow) which does offer great damage but is very "static" as you put it because of the high energy cost.

For now I am farming Hardest difficulty of the Campaign with my Wing Diver and will experiment with different weapon types in the process. Later on, I will continue with the DLC.

[Euer_Endgegner]

DLC 2 is not for Wing Diver. Nothing more to say.
Wing Diver get the worst Weapons there.
Fencer is King in DLC 2.
And the last Mission on DLC 2 will break you.
1450 Armor is nothing in the DLC´s.
Both DLC are much harder than Maingame, maybe even unfair.
But lets try to help you: Try out every weapon you have. Not joking if its sounds so.
Lightning Bow can be good, maybe you have a good 3 way Fenrir for the wasps.
Wing Diver got only 2 good plasma weapons: the lv 15 (7700 damage)
and lv 55 (22 000 damage)
Support: Gleipnir is weak but it hits. Or you try out the shields you have. One shields let you shoot but dont hold long, the other one holds longer but blocks all attacks.
If nothing helps: to get stronger maingame weapons play mission 40,5
(?????? unchanging days) lv 90 weapons possible

[Blackmagemasher]

Originally posted by cowbell:

You didn't even play the DLC if that is your take.

I think you nailed it.

(If he was to complain it was all token locked and on install already....I would have at least understood)

[Vℓα∂y]

Here a really short video of known JP player beating that stage with 150 diver on inferno. If you don't want to watch video I can tell this strategy can work with any class on that stage. The game spawns you with NPC, you can take them to any dense part of a city surrounded by good cover. Leave them there, if you have trouble getting them into doorways, spam oooooooh command that you should have on quick chat menu. NPC will stay still and they'll be easy to push. Next step is to find some corner of map that far away enough while still spamming oooooh entire time so npc don't move, next step safetly just sniper all bees with anything that's not a launcher. Edit to add context, you gotta make sure you kill NPC rangers with rocket launcher as they can ruin this strategy quickly.

When Blue Death Queen spawns, make sure to focus on that immediately as that enemy can destroy buildings with its giant spikes depending if your sniper has fast enough dps to kill little ones first before big one.

I'll be honest this level reminds me a lot of first dlc level in EDF4.1, there's very similar strategy there you can do by using buildings and cover to make it way easier.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31W7hXqbaP0&t=258s&ab_channel=%E3%82%8A%E3%83%BC%E3%81%B5%E3%81%83%E3%81%82%E3%82%8C%E3%82%82%E3%82%93

For Fencer, you can take any shield, use side convertable thruster to turn everything into dash, use light mortar with tower shield, and you can handle any group of bees directly head on. Light mortar is very great for bee with shield while dashing your pretty mobile and light mortar is also good tool for dash cancel as you can fire anytime during any part of the dash.

Not too sure if Wing Diver can take on that bee of groups directly without high armor. On that level even on hard mode they almost seem like a inferno tier on terms of speed and deadliness. Most of her cores are nerfed except sky high core being only one that lets her move her around like an EDF5 diver.

I've tried the levels after that one too personally. I think one where you spawn on top of tower is legit hard. After that most of dlc2 levels seem pretty simple to me except for the all of cave mission ones and the uhh final level.

I've watched his other videos too, I personally think wing diver is not that bad at dlc2 just maybe a less engaging and more boring playstyle, she ends up with some really strong long range weapons while having mobility on higher difficulties that are spammable and you can fly from building to building picking anything off with ease. You gotta make sure to abuse emergency cooldowns and try using shields to block some of more annoying projectile spammers enemies like blue androids. On hard mode I would say shields is not really needed. On hardest and they get much better because you can throw out multiple shields.
Lightning weapons are handy too for being able to ignore kruul and kraken shields.