Strategies for the Rainbow Wood

[Ashe]

Okay, so I just lost my most successful run ever to those damnable sludges. Found the body with the Eater's Flesh and was making my way along the path, but got swamped by a horde of sludges, and wasn't able to get away effectively because of the quickness debuff and their overwhelming numbers.
I've been there before and anticipated the sludges but I guess just got unlucky. Was level 31 with around 300HP, had 14AV and around 25DV but once they started hitting me with life drain, that was it.
Oh well, live and learn. I'm just kinda wondering what kinds of strategies others had for making it through this section. I was thinking next time bringing along a flamethrower or something like it might be a prudent choice, since crowd control seems vital. I had an eigenrifle on me but that doesn't help much when you have several sludges on you.

[Percussigant]

Yes, that is a potentially run-ending part of the main questline, in good part because as you mentioned the game does not often challenge you with overwhelming numbers the way sludges do. You need to come prepared in more specific ways than a good meal and a couple tonics.

I know a guy who used a hand-e-nuke to just completely clear out the zone and answer overwhelming numbers with overwhelming force.

Missile launchers might also do a fine work.

Flamethrower could help if you're lucky enough to not have too many slimes to handle at once, but it seems a bit chancy to me. Same goes for grenades, anything short of several MkIII or a hand-e-nuke doesn't look like it would hit them hard enough imo.

I personally did it by befriending oozes, which made the entire Rainbow Wood much less stressful, but admittedly I had to use 2 blank Schrodinger pages and was lucky enough to kill a legendary they hated to boot.

Or if your character has mutated gigantic balls you could simply speed yourself in Pax Klanq's lab and then leg it far enough to use a recoiler. I wouldn't try.

[ephemeraltoast]

Honestly I feel that the Golgotha anti-crab strategy is best here: don't fight, just run tf away. Use whatever tools you have to avoid combat. Stay on the outskirts of the map screens, sprint as much as possible, use +quickness +move speed food/gear, use Phasing or Shade injectors to escape if you get surrounded. Just run.

[duckman]

Mafeo's story about using a gyrocopter backpack to fly over the place is genuine good advice. Mid level wings or antigravity boots are more reliable, but they can't hit you with their pseudopods while you're flying. Still have to avoid their spitting, though.

[Percussigant]

Aren't you at risk of falling all the time though ? Pretty sure the gyro behaves like low level wings in that regard. And you still have to break through Klanq's fully walled off lab.

[duckman]

Originally posted by Percussigant:

Aren't you at risk of falling all the time though ? Pretty sure the gyro behaves like low level wings in that regard. And you still have to break through Klanq's fully walled off lab.

That's why I added more reliable alternatives after. I was just saying that Mafeo specifically used a gyrocopter backpack.

[Hy5dra]

Been awhile since I did the rainbow wood and WASN'T some sort of Chimeric Monstrosity, but couldn't you rely on stuff like Holoprojectors or portable walls? Maybe even an obfuscating lens?