[HAZARD 5] General Tips

[RADN3CTAR]

Just wanted to share a couple of tips that helped me reach a point where I can consistently clear Hazard 5.

1. Penetration is amazing! (that's what she said)

An obvious one but having a main weapon with some sort of penetration, either naturally like the M1000 or trough overclock, is a game changer.

2. Freeze status

Probably the highest contributor to my inceased success rate on Hazard 5 was when I realized that you can move freely through frozen enemies without taking damage. Freeze "trivializes" hordes as you can just freeze a path out to safety.

3. Supply Drops

In case you didn't know, the Supply Drop impact one shots mini-bosses on every difficulty level. This is very useful for the first two layers as you can focus on mining the map and "simply" lure the mini-boss to the supply drop and end the layer with a swift blow to the head. [It also hits the Dreadnought for 50% of it's health /wogitalia].

4. Movement and mining upgrades

Even though movement and mining don't make the damage numbers bigger they are the best upgrades IMO. I pick them up over everything else most of the time. Your mileage may vary depending on your playstyle.

Happy mining!

[JustSmile]

I'd love to see someone getting to H5 without learning the supply drop kills everything other than the Dreadnought, whose HP it "only" halves.

[RADN3CTAR]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

I'd love to see someone getting to H5 without learning the supply drop kills everything other than the Dreadnought, whose HP it "only" halves.

Some weapons like the M1000 and the "Thunderhead" autocannon can achieve it somewhat easily. However, most weapons are underwhelming, especially at low upgrade levels. So in most cases, on Hazard 5, the supply drop kill is your most reliable option. I'm positive future balancing updates will make more weapons viable to clear bosses without relying on the supply drop.

[wogitalia]

Supply drop also half kills the dreadnought which is the most useful. I'd argue if you need the supply drop on any of the other stages, except maybe the first, you're not going to make it anyway as you're not passing the DPS checks. Realistically you should be trying to keep the mini-bosses alive to farm and collect most of the time not needing help to kill them.

Cyro is definitely huge. The CC is needed often.

Thunderhead remains by far the best weapon, if you play half decently you'll win hazard 5 pretty much regardless of what else you choose with it (one cyro is needed).

The other hint I would give is to mine hard at the start of first stage, the XP return from mining and collecting the objectives is far better than killing monsters and you need it all. Those few classes with elite starting weapons make this easy but if you're trying the majority of the others then this is even more important.

[Metro]

Good tips. As I progress through Haz 4 I'm finding that movement and mining are indeed more important to upgrade than they were at lower levels. Without the minerals you will lag behind in terms of power/DPS.

[AvoidTheVoid]

I hate H5 I have to rely on gunner too much with his penetration kinetic build is so easy to pull off and offers waveclearing at every stage,but using the supply drop to kill the bosses is a must specially in H5 that spawns 2 of them and a ton of elites(which are all oneshot when you line them up correctly).However it nearly impossible to win if you waste time on mining metaprogression ores and skip the in run currencies at all,which contradicts the incentive to play H5 for the increased ore gain(which you shouldnt need anyway by that time)

[RADN3CTAR]

Originally posted by wogitalia:

Supply drop also half kills the dreadnought which is the most useful.

True, the supply drop definitely takes a chunk out of the Dreadnought's health. If you can time it right with it's jumps!

Originally posted by wogitalia:

Cyro is definitely huge. The CC is needed often.

I agree. Played at least 30 hours without knowing you could pass through frozen enemies without taking damage. Cold obviously causes freeze but the "slow" property also freezes.

Originally posted by wogitalia:

Thunderhead remains by far the best weapon, if you play half decently you'll win hazard 5 pretty much regardless of what else you choose with it (one cyro is needed).

It's definitely one of the best weapons. What makes the autocannon particularly good is that it has both penetration and decent range by default.

[neednitra69]

Penetration gang

[Femboy Thighs]

Imo, movespeed is just not worth it. Especially if you're running Cryo. What really matters is MINING speed. Mining speed is essentially movespeed, through walls. But it also has the benefit of, well, mining ore faster (duh). The more ore you mine the better you'll do, obviously. Meanwhile, normal movespeed is completely useless the moment you hit a wall, and doesn't come with any additional benefits like mining speed.

Of course, 1 or 2 movespeed upgrades won't hurt. If you see an Epic/Legendary move speed upgrade, take it as your only speed upgrade for that run.

Other small tips:

• You can fire guns like the Warthog/Minigun backwards while mining by gently tapping in the opposite direction you're mining in.
  
• Exploders are your friends. Getting near them makes them explode without needing to shoot them at all - simply walk towards exploders in a swarm and then quickly run away to blow them up. You'll get a feel for the "sweet spot" where you can make them explode and get away safely.
  
• Crit is absolutely busted. Once you reach 100% crit, which you should be trying to do on any non-DoT build, any extra crit can stack and make "super crits." Take the goggles artifact that gives you 30% extra crit and 100% extra crit damage at the cost of 30% normal damage if you're at 30-40% crit already. It will be a huge damage boost. Nitra powder helps to get Crit up even more.
  
• Foreman Driller makes great use of those normally-♥♥♥♥♥♥ artifacts that give you xp/gold/nitra for mining walls. Stack mining speed on him and you can spend levels just mining as much rock as possible, earning you an upwards of 25-50 gold/nitra per stage, which is huge.
  
• ALWAYS take Luck/Exp upgrades early on, if available. Stop taking Exp upgrades after level 25-30, as their usefulness falls off. The longer you can milk that xp bonus, the more value you get from the upgrade. Luck can be taken later than 25 and still be good, but similarly gives you more mileage the earlier you get it.

[JustSmile]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

Crit is absolutely busted. Once you reach 100% crit, which you should be trying to do on any non-DoT build,

As far as I know dots can crit. You still should not be doing dot builds on H5 in the first place, they suck arse, but if you want to do a "challenge mode" run so to speak, crit is strong for dots too.

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

ALWAYS take Luck/Exp upgrades early on, if available. Stop taking Exp upgrades after level 25-30, as their usefulness falls off. The longer you can milk that xp bonus, the more value you get from the upgrade. Luck can be taken later than 25 and still be good, but similarly gives you more mileage the earlier you get it.

I am 99% sure 6% XP is not worth it even on the first upgrade. Even if XP required for each level did not scale 6% would only add 3 levels by the run's finale assuming you get to 55 with 0 XP boosters, and one of those makes up for taking it in the first place. And well, XP required scales exponentially. I don't think exact XP formula was datamined, but I will be very surprised if 6% grants even one level.

Add to that how those first 10-15 levels are by far the most important for power since early game is the hardest part of a H5 run, you really can't afford to waste levels on things that do not strengthen you immediately and directly. With that in consideration I am iffy even on taking 9% - if it's early enough those 9% are likely to be worth it, it's early enough I really need power, not investment for power later.

[RADN3CTAR]

Originally posted by neednitra69:

Penetration gang

Giggity!

[RADN3CTAR]

Originally posted by JustSmile:

[...] And well, XP required scales exponentially. I don't think exact XP formula was datamined, but I will be very surprised if 6% grants even one level.

Add to that how those first 10-15 levels are by far the most important for power since early game is the hardest part of a H5 run, you really can't afford to waste levels on things that do not strengthen you immediately and directly. With that in consideration I am iffy even on taking 9% - if it's early enough those 9% are likely to be worth it, it's early enough I really need power, not investment for power later.

I can confirm that XP per level does scale incrementally. I tend to ignore XP upgrades because of it; unless I get offered an epic or legendary in the first 10 levels or so.

[RADN3CTAR]

Originally posted by Femboy Thighs:

[...] Exploders are your friends. Getting near them makes them explode without needing to shoot them at all - simply walk towards exploders in a swarm and then quickly run away to blow them up. You'll get a feel for the "sweet spot" where you can make them explode and get away safely.
Crit is absolutely busted. Once you reach 100% crit, which you should be trying to do on any non-DoT build, any extra crit can stack and make "super crits." Take the goggles artifact that gives you 30% extra crit and 100% extra crit damage at the cost of 30% normal damage if you're at 30-40% crit already. It will be a huge damage boost. Nitra powder helps to get Crit up even more. [...]

Damage over time effects (DOTs) can crit. Considering the meta progression crit/crit dmg bonuses, crit chance upgrades are the biggest increase to overall damage on most builds.