Any tips for Moon Stairs?

[Rohomild]

I'm level 37 now on a Rollplaying character, so I thought I was ready to try and tackle the Moon Stairs. But, damn, I've been bouncing off it hard. The Mirrors spawn enough bugs to lag the game, the moths messes with my genome, and everything is just really hard.
Any good strategy to take when navigating the Moon Stairs? Or any item that's vital to use?

[I blame Earthshaker]

Yes, play in classic so when you die, you actually learn your lesson.

[Rohomild]

Originally posted by I blame Earthshaker:

Yes, play in classic so when you die, you actually learn your lesson.

For any other readers of this question, remember, don't be this guy. You're allowed to play any game whichever way you like to. It's not a competition. And if you don't have anything helpful or thoughtful to say, it's ok to just not say anything.

[Doctor]

I'll do my best to be helpful, I've got a decent chunk of time, and I've never actually been in the moon stairs more than twice. I recommend some way of escape, personally I bring some form of phasing, and just try and disappear through walls to throw enemies off. Though I suppose this doesn't really help combat-wise, it helps you live to fight another day, and keep your loot. If you have force bubble and a recoiler you can escape at anytime.

[Rohomild]

Originally posted by Doctor:

I'll do my best to be helpful, I've got a decent chunk of time, and I've never actually been in the moon stairs more than twice. I recommend some way of escape, personally I bring some form of phasing, and just try and disappear through walls to throw enemies off. Though I suppose this doesn't really help combat-wise, it helps you live to fight another day, and keep your loot. If you have force bubble and a recoiler you can escape at anytime.

Can you use a recoiler with enemies near if you activate force bubble?

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by aFFe:

Originally posted by Doctor:

I'll do my best to be helpful, I've got a decent chunk of time, and I've never actually been in the moon stairs more than twice. I recommend some way of escape, personally I bring some form of phasing, and just try and disappear through walls to throw enemies off. Though I suppose this doesn't really help combat-wise, it helps you live to fight another day, and keep your loot. If you have force bubble and a recoiler you can escape at anytime.

Can you use a recoiler with enemies near if you activate force bubble?

Combat status basically check if there is an ~8 tile or shorter path from the enemy to you. If there is not, you are not in combat.

Kill mirror bugs with low damaging stuff, possibly gas grenades. Rush to the mirrors asap to kill those. For gamma moth high DV, self cleanse, high toughness, EMP or some other CC is helpful. Both of those are also insects and reputation with those help. Having some form of reconnaissance or failsafe like precognition is also extremely helpful for basically anything and especially those sources that should better be seen before they do stuff.

It is probably pretty important to know what you have as options or if you are mutant or True Kin. Moonstair and in general late is definitely where role play mode becomes more annoying. For a lot of the things you can face now you'd have to manually reload, since they often don't kill you but mess with you in other ways like giving you permanent debuffs etc. I would in general suggest to play more safe and with a backup plan and escape route and probably also more utility grenades than before.

What is the other hard problems? Damage in? Tankiness of enemies? CC?

[Doctor]

Originally posted by aFFe:

Originally posted by Doctor:

I'll do my best to be helpful, I've got a decent chunk of time, and I've never actually been in the moon stairs more than twice. I recommend some way of escape, personally I bring some form of phasing, and just try and disappear through walls to throw enemies off. Though I suppose this doesn't really help combat-wise, it helps you live to fight another day, and keep your loot. If you have force bubble and a recoiler you can escape at anytime.

Can you use a recoiler with enemies near if you activate force bubble?

Yes! It has saved me so much! I think you can also world map too, as long as the bubble is up, with no holes.

ETA: World map won't help in the moon stairs, I forgot XD

[Rohomild]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

For gamma moth high DV, self cleanse, high toughness, EMP or some other CC is helpful. Both of those are also insects and reputation with those help. Having some form of reconnaissance or failsafe like precognition is also extremely helpful for basically anything and especially those sources that should better be seen before they do stuff.

What is self cleanse? Is it some item?

[Doctor]

Originally posted by aFFe:

Originally posted by glass zebra:

For gamma moth high DV, self cleanse, high toughness, EMP or some other CC is helpful. Both of those are also insects and reputation with those help. Having some form of reconnaissance or failsafe like precognition is also extremely helpful for basically anything and especially those sources that should better be seen before they do stuff.

What is self cleanse? Is it some item?

I think he means recuperating?

Quote from wiki:
"Recuperating is a side effect that some items or skills have. It does not appear in the active effects list, but rather it is instantaneous.

Recuperation works similarly to Regeneration's ability to remove negative effects, but it is a separate phenomena, and recuperation only removes certain effects (listed below).

Cause of Recuperating
Eating an arsplice seed
Have the the effects of an ubernostrum injector run out (when the torrent of life sweeps away)
An ubernostrum injector also removes negative effects similar to Regeneration level 1, in addition to recuperating
Sleeping in a hyperbiotic bed for at least 1 turn
A hyperbiotic bed also removes negative effects similar to Regeneration level 1, in addition to recuperating
Being inside a regeneration tank for at least 1 turn
A regeneration tank also removes negative effects similar to Regeneration level 4, in addition to recuperating"

[glass zebra]

Recuperating does not remove Mutating.

I meant some ability to remove debuffs, like the regeneration mutation does. A way to do this currently that is rather broken is to cook with starapple jam/congealed salve and some trigger. Healing-based cooking effects can have as a triggered effect "...one of your negative status effects is removed at random.".

I do hope they remove that from the game though, since it is broken powerful for such a cheap ingredients and is also one of the things that make the regeneration mutation rather costly for what it does. The regeneration mutation should imo be the one that handles stuff like that.

It is best to try to not get hit by that stuff in general, but for your next character regeneration might sound nice. If you still have mutation points, you could also try to get that one.

[powmark]

You shouldn't be that hard off at level 37 with most builds, but definitely make sure you have min/maxed some on equipment and have a great way to escape anything as there's always something special there for you. Honestly if you have enough strength just busting through the maze is a good way to move around. Pretend you are a level one character again. I;ve never been unlucky enough to be absolutely flooded with mirror bugs like it sounds you are maybe you can move a parasang or two away and it gets better?

Main thing is to always be able to back track to a known safe spot so you can recoil if necessary

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by powmark:

Honestly if you have enough strength just busting through the maze is a good way to move around.

I'd say that is somewhat risky to suggest due to spoiler reasons.

[Doctor]

Originally posted by glass zebra:

Recuperating does not remove Mutating.

I'm so sorry! I didn't know, I've never fought a Gamma Moth before, thanks for the insight!

[zyrax]

+1 to to bashing your way through the maze being dangerous

im in a similar scenario as yourself, (ie playing moon stair for the first time on a role-play mode character, but more like past tense-played at this point, for me) but i found the blood-gradient hand vacuum to be effective against the mirror ants in particular, since in the times i was using them, they healed me for about the same or more, as i was taking from said ants.

[John Snail]

Originally posted by I blame Earthshaker:

Yes, play in classic so when you die, you actually learn your lesson.

I get permadeath can help in overcoming bad habits, but a lot of late-game characters, which take tons of hours to get consistently, never even set foot in Moon Stair.

Whenever entering a new zone in Moon Stair, take note of what you can immediately see. If you see 2 groups of girshlings, tortoises, unimax, apes or monads, the zone is safe to explore. Otherwise be prepared to run from leering stalkers, or chrome pyramids (which have an indicator when they're present and also currently reveal their location when they teleport). Mid-game characters are also in big trouble if they see a gyre wight.

I'm unsure why everyone's talking about mirror bugs, I don't believe they spawn in Moon Stair? Is this underground or in ruins?

Originally posted by Doctor:

ETA: World map won't help in the moon stairs, I forgot XD

You can still fast travel to the center of a parasang! It's a helpful last resort.

[glass zebra]

Originally posted by John Snail:

Otherwise be prepared to run from leering stalkers, or chrome pyramids (which have an indicator when they're present and also currently reveal their location when they teleport).

Did they add the ability to teleport for chrome pyramids recently?