Loops

[Nightbringer]

Hey, loops are supposed to just kill you?

Since I had managed to kill first boss in fifth loop before going down. My experience is that loop curses just completely messes up your build. Everything just gets nerfed to oblivion. Thus, most builds become obsolete on loops and you have to play completely differently. It looks like only dodge stacking might work and classes with two dashes will perform best.

But jeez, you die so quickly. I killed boss and could not figure out from what I had died afterwards. You become so fragile.

Btw: Do health regen reduction works on items which gives health back on use like potions? It is just flat 20 x loop or items which gives X health back via activation or lifesteal perform the better in the loop?

[MistakesMade]

Looping is a bit of a bragging rights reward, since you would have won your run by that point. You would need a very OP build to overcome the difficulty of loops.

Looping reduces your "healing" stat, which affects ALL forms of healing. Health regen, healing items, lifesteal, medic crates, shrines, etc.

[WumboWise]

Loops are almost an entirely different ballgame to the main game altogether. You need to build your character in very specific ways to overcome the debuffs you get from looping. Also enemies become extremely fast which means you need to be able to take out crowds in a matter of seconds.

[Nightbringer]

Yes, this is what I'm asking.

[Simonsis13]

Loop is simply meant to be much much harder than the main game. Ofc it is meant to kill you, the entirety of the game revolves around a bunch of enemies trying to kill you. Loop is no exception to that, moreso the pinnacle of difficulty. Given the massive difficulty spike that takes place during the first few floors, it is only natural that it first feels like it's only there to end your run. But trust me, it's completely doable once you get used to it. You don't even need to have a broken build if you're skilled.

But yes, any attempts to rely on healing/tanking are immediately exposed as inferior strategies and gutted to death.
The 18% healing are applied to any healing, regardless of regen, some items or lifesteal. That said, lifesteal still remains the best because your own damage constantly increases due to upgrade kits.

[Nightbringer]

So on what you have to rely on? If there is no healing, it is only matter of time when you will die.

[Simonsis13]

There is healing, just only 18% (ypu have to play a bit to reach that point) of it. What you have to rely on is proper positioning and good reflexes that allow you to take out enemies without them damaging you.
Alternatively you can assemble a broken build which just oneshots everything, but then you still need to be careful.

[Nightbringer]

That 18% x loops will become useless after fifth wave. 90% reduction in healing. Or does it scale differently?

I'm also asking what things I should seek to acquire early on in order to make a better build. So far only glass cannon builds seem to be of any use as items and player attack is not nerfed. Shield and shield regen also seem to be left in tact.

[Simonsis13]

It's not 18% x loops, it's just 18% and it caps there, i.e. you have 82% reduction.

It's true that class cannon builds are the way to go, because that's where the game pushes you into anyways (Shock impulse and twin link).

The only defense you can rely on are those that block all damage, such as dodge, plating, the module charge, the item refractor crystal or damage caps. But frankly speaking, the best defense is to simply stay in cover as long as possible.

Max shield will also do mostly fine for quite some time, but shield regen is just too slow.

If you want an easy exploit to beat loop, get mjolnir or play demo and get HE Grenade, that will quickly break the game, but aside from them you're mostly limited to "fair" strategies.

Which doesn't mean you have to play fair tho.