Survivor Difficulty

[Jonas]

Any one tried to play tips on survivor difficulty, that mode is hard as hell. Anyone have any tips, I am on Neptune's Bounty, just finished the taking pictures part, but now I am running low on Med Kits, EVE Hypos and money.

[The Infamous Cloaker]

You almost must use the shock plasmid and the wrench with the wrench jockey plasmids to get through survivor difficulity

[Jonas]

Kind off hard when the EVE runs out, doesn't have that much ADAM or choices of tonics at this point. Think I will have to just wander around and killing splicers for a while, and earn some money.

[MóònMonkey]

I guess the start is one of the toughest things. to kill the first splicers with just a wrench and like no pistol ammo is rly tough. but i guess it will get easier, as soon you get to upgrade your favorite weapons. Just kinda afraid about the first big daddy :D

[Wabbit.]

My tonics disapeared from slots! Don't know whats causing this, but its surely a bug, right?

[Rascal]

A useful tip you can do is load a save game with New Game Plus. Click New Game and then New Game Plus.

Try to save before every major fight/event. Note you'll autosave when going through bulkheads.

Be generous with your money and try to be fully stocked with the more useful ammo types as well as EVE. (e.g. 00 Shock for Big Daddies or Grenades for leadheads.)

Rosies will be your worst enemy at times becuase of the Rivet gun damage so be ready for them at all times.

Pick tonics for your wrenchs damage and speed. Never hurts to have a back up plan.

Hack everything you can and take pictures of EVERYTHING. Winter Blast is a more helpful hacking tool.

Save every Little Sister. No exceptions.

Electric Flesh + is a personal preference and can be helpful from Rapture Central Control and on.

Tonics stack onto eachother so pick ones that can be helpful at certain levels or moments.

Electro Bolt ++ and Winter Blast ++ are very helpful for both killing splicers and escaping situations. WB++ kill them if you have a lot of money for ammo/health.

For Steinman, just set him on fire and let him run around. Don't run into the surgery room unless you have to. Try to have a security bot with you so he gets distracted.

When you go to fight Peach Wilkins, Go directly to the turret on the other side of the room and hack it once it opens up.

Try to save or buy as much trap based ammo you can for Proving Grounds. Especially the Prox mines.

Atlas is pretty straight forward of a fight and fairly easy to dodge. Don't bother using plasmids on him they don't do too much damage or have much of an effect on him. Save your plasmids for splicers and security bots.


If you wanna go for the no Vita-Chambers achievements too then you should disable VC in the options menu. As far as I know so long as you have it disabled and if you die and reload you can still get it.

[Lusandar]

huh? don't get me wrong the wrench does terrible damage by default on that difficulty but frankly, it's really not that hard. 2 pistol headshots will kill most mobs, 3-4 shotgun shells will kill spiders and whatever those who throw bombs are called and you can halve that once reasearch is completed for a group. Big daddies seems to be the only ones to have really gained a noticeable amount of health.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

a tip i was told for handling the Rosies on Survivor since i struggled ( spending all ammo on just 1 and not even killin git), is to use environment,
basically you plan ahead, know wich/where what Rosie you want to kill is, use telekinesis to gather explosive barrels/flask, and drop them (dont push them) stack them around and then explode the Rosie so it dies fast
save Little sisters so you get Big Daddy as boddy guard, that sucker will help you clear a level, better than lightning bolt

stack melee dmg+speed tonics, (you can have both lvl 1 and at teh same time they stack), im doing like 1000% dmg with wrench, + ihave speed and Lurker, wich means one shot all splicers unaware and Wrench is now strong enough to handle/survive in close quarter combat with 3 splicer at a time when ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan
save EVO, for Lighting and WinterBlast only when it counts, if you can dont 1-2 punch them, just get Wrench lurker 1+2 and catch them off guard and one shot them, use telekineis to push them down (grab something big like a corpse)
hit them whiel they are down, later they get more resistant to lightning even with all lightnign upgrades in plasmid and tonics, but if you knock them down they ar easy prey
and remeber to swap out tonics for your needs, a level/stage might be hard combat at first, but once cleared only very few respawn, and then you can go loot, hack, stuff , or deal with Big Daddys, if out of explosives, select lightning tonics and use the Chemical launcher, expencieve as heck but will kill the Rosie with 1 aprox mag +-

and even tho it is tedious as heeeeell, use the research camera fully on the first levels you get it, after Arcadia, you should be done with all research but a few robots maybe, since you should spend time gettign "perfect" shots, at those single respawning splicers, once a level/stage has been fully cleared
takes some time, but is safer and easier than trying to go in when the level is fresh adn full, and you will want and need the rewards the full lvl 5 research gives

[ArononymouS]

*spoiler*




A tip for big daddies, if you chose to save the girls instead of harvesting, after 5 saved I think you'll get a tonic that will allow control of the big daddy.. Use it to help you clear out a level + reduce the health of big d, for when you want to deliver the final blow to him.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by Lusandar:

huh? don't get me wrong the wrench does terrible damage by default on that difficulty but frankly, it's really not that hard. 2 pistol headshots will kill most mobs, 3-4 shotgun shells will kill spiders and whatever those who throw bombs are called and you can halve that once reasearch is completed for a group. Big daddies seems to be the only ones to have really gained a noticeable amount of health.

dono what you playing, but on the later levels 2 pistol headshots dont kill anything, atleast not in my game, hell at tames 2 direct close up headshots with shotty upgraded with dmg part doesnt even finish them off
wrench+tonics, does it faster, the electric shotty can be "safer" since it stuns the splicers that arent immune, but i still prefer wrench and save ammo for teh real baddies

[Rascal]

Originally posted by Lusandar:

huh? don't get me wrong the wrench does terrible damage by default on that difficulty but frankly, it's really not that hard. 2 pistol headshots will kill most mobs, 3-4 shotgun shells will kill spiders and whatever those who throw bombs are called and you can halve that once reasearch is completed for a group. Big daddies seems to be the only ones to have really gained a noticeable amount of health.

Once you reach RCC the Leadhead splicers gain a HUGE health pool. The wrench can be good for saving on certain ammo and healing a little bit fi you have the Bloodlust tonic.

[Lusandar]

Originally posted by gNuff!~©~gNom3™:

Originally posted by Lusandar:

huh? don't get me wrong the wrench does terrible damage by default on that difficulty but frankly, it's really not that hard. 2 pistol headshots will kill most mobs, 3-4 shotgun shells will kill spiders and whatever those who throw bombs are called and you can halve that once reasearch is completed for a group. Big daddies seems to be the only ones to have really gained a noticeable amount of health.

dono what you playing, but on the later levels 2 pistol headshots dont kill anything, atleast not in my game, hell at tames 2 direct close up headshots with shotty upgraded with dmg part doesnt even finish them off
wrench+tonics, does it faster, the electric shotty can be "safer" since it stuns the splicers that arent immune, but i still prefer wrench and save ammo for teh real baddies

Of course the pistol isn't going to be able to do that by endgame; you'll have a much more powerful arsenal by then, my favorite is the camoflage+ crossbow headshot or wrench with the freezing wrench tonic depending on where enemies are. It almost breaks all the scripted enemy spawns in the game.

[gNuff!~©~gNom3™]

Originally posted by ArononymouS:

*spoiler*




A tip for big daddies, if you chose to save the girls instead of harvesting, after 5 saved I think you'll get a tonic that will allow control of the big daddy.. Use it to help you clear out a level + reduce the health of big d, for when you want to deliver the final blow to him.

while the first part is true and a big "Must",
what can happen after you hypnotize, is that the Daddy will return with low health, but the little sister will NOT return after hypnotize (1 reason is bug another is Little sister max amount), wich mean it can happen that while Daddy helpes you clear the level, thx, the reduced hp does nothing, since killing Daddy wont give you a sister to save/harvest
i had this happen to me multiple times, while having the daddy help clear the level was nice, kinda annoyin i didnt get the easy Sister i had hoped
one way to fix this is to quickly hypnotize another daddy that has a sister, and then when your "old" body guard Daddy gets a Little Sister you kill him, or you have the 2 daddys slug it out and finish of the Daddy

[IvanH]

The best Recomendations for an easy play through on survivor mod.

Some of the things I am going to say are repeats, but they are all necissary for an easy time of it. On my first survivor mode playthough I had 9 health kits and 9 eves the whole game, and on really tricky parts I NEVER went below having 6 of each. and even then I wasnt picking up a lot so I just back tracked and maxed out again.

First off, at the begining there is a thug that will drop a flaming coutch down a stair case you are going up. If you can kill him without taking any damage whatsoever, then you are ready for survivor mode. The main thing with killing him is to dodge and hit, then dodge and hit. It takes a while, which is why this mode requires patience.

People will say that the electric plasmid is the best for this mode, and I say differently for a number of reasons. One it uses almost all of your eve, and two it only really affects one person/turret/whatever at a time (unless there is water involved). The electric plasmid is only your friend at the begining, and even then you should use it wisely. For example training all of you enemys to run into water at the same time and then kill them all.

The two BEST plasmids without a doubt in the game which will do more fore you for less are the decoy and the telekinesis plasmids. Now the decoy takes a while to get used to but it is by far the most usfull in killing most everything (Big daddys are idiots, and always die when I use this one). Telekinesis is usefull in using your surroundings to kill things. (nitro splicers are too easy with this).

You should NEVER use electic plasmid to disable a turret one you have decoy, because if you use decoy you can distract everything and still hack every turret in the room.

Most important thing is killing big daddies. Mostly just find 4 or 5 explosive containers and put them in a pile and draw him into them then, bam, dead, money and adam. If there are no explosives hack a turret, stand by it, shoo the big daddy once, then place a decoy and let the turret do the rest. you will have to place 3 or 4 decoys, but you wont use a single shot, and you will have only used one eve. (BTW rocket turrets are my best friend for killing big daddies) Never harvest little sisters, mainly for the big daddy plasmid which will help you earn major money. This is how... Make sure first that there are two big daddies spawned, that are relitivly close to eachother. then use the big daddy plasmid on one. When you do your eeve will depleat completly, so usually use this when you are already mostly out. As soon as you use it switch to your weapon and you wont use one of your eves. Then go hack something for some extra eve(plasmid needed) and then go to the other big daddy with your following you every step of the way. when you find the other, just shoot him a little till your big daddy gets the message and attacks him. They will fight eachother and really you just watch. IMPORTANT, make sure that there health bars are relitivly the same, because when they are done fighting the last one standing will attack you. To keep there health bars the same you will just have to shoot one or two shotgun shots into one or the other. Once one is dead, and the other almost dead, you can easily deffeat the last one with two shots of electirc buck, and now you have like 100 credits. you can repeat this as many times as you want on a single level becasue they will eventually respawn. this is a good way to get a lot of gear early in the game.

Also side note. In neptunes bounty dont pick up anything. Peach wilkins will take your guns and amo about halfway through. you will get your guns back, but not your amo, which is not good, so dont pick up anything untill after you defeat him, and you will be in a good place for the rest of the game.

Hope this helps!

[M0butu]

the only way to take down rosies on survivor is letting them step on prox mines on top of a big pile of random explosives. just use telekinesis to put them in the walking path of the rosie. everything else will be an extremely tough gunfight. i need 6-8 medkits without explosives.

oh and get the chameleon tonic on survivor. u gonna need it!!!

[Lusandar]

Heh, electric jet on a flamethrower (with reduced fuel consumption upgrade) will kill any big daddy without it being able to fight back at all. It is stun locked until you empty the cannister. With electric eel 2, it takes around 120-130 and you can craft that ammo at any time. You can make more of that ammo than you could ever use.