Illuminate important question

[靐]

TL;DR: are illuminate spawns during city missions overtuned?

Okay, so I have not played this for some time and hey new faction? Set diff 5 to test the stuff and jesus the endless spawns during city missions. Like you clap a single zombie and then there are 50 more from all over the place. Okay prob they did something to the game so I gotta check the bugs. Nope, everything is super easy at 5, can do it with broken arms and one eye. So, my question is, the illuminate spawns are overtuned or am I disabled or what? Trying to explode their ships near primary and it takes ages cuz there are literally endless hordes after hordes. Yep, also some hl2 strider and flying armored dudes with noscope oneshots. Taking down that jamming spire seems like idk task for now cuz, again, there are some annoying dudes guarding it and god bless you when you start shooting stuff. Yes, also, I was taking down every drone I saw, but still. Ah, yes, also diff 5 "protect the flag" literally spawns some numbers on you.

Whats the best strat around em? Rush into, do what you can, disengage till they f off and repeat? Using arc thrower with nade launcher pistol cuz feels like it is pointless to bother with hl2 striders. Again, with bots/bugs you can simply go in, shoot everyone, def spot and go out.


Edit:

Okay just an update for anyone finding this thread. The big mistake was bringing eagle strikes for me, swapped them with minigun turrets and works great even at 10.
My load: sickle, nade pistol, impact nade, arc thrower, guard dog, two minigun turrets.
The tactic is usually to place 1-2 turrets near the stuff you want to assault and go around and do the objective. Turrets shred everything and also agro mobs. Arc thrower can stunlock everything (even harverster). Just was able to duo missile launch mission with that.

I would say illuminate by far the easiest faction now by a mile. You can minigun/arc thrower everything, there are no insta reinforcements from enemies and you have op sam sites.

[靐]

And just a bit of example of kills: around 500-700 for illuminate while ~200 with bugs for the same time. huh?

[橘光]

definitely overtuned for lower levels now you mention numbers, I think they're still 500-700 on diff 10 for squids. if you struggle I suggest using the machine gun, dive down and shoot their legs.

[KaraPenguin]

The zombies go down in one hit with any weapon to the head, so high fire rates are *really* good against the squids. Harvesters have a bit of a hard to spot weak point in the upper parts of their legs and lower body. The Overseers are dangerous but aiming to hit them in the same spot over and over works wonders to shred through their armor with even light pen.

If the Voteless zombies are really giving you a lot of trouble, you can also fairly easily kite them around in light armor and avoid fighting them until they're all grouped up for a nice explosive or eagle to clear them all at once.

[靐]

Nah, the issue is that it feels like there are infinite numbers to me. Shooting them is not an issue but I feel like it is pointless. I kill 30 and then 30 more to come. huh? Even sickle does job against zombies and I also have las dog on me. Arc thrower just shreds them all, but, again, more to spawm from all over the place. Yes, also, playing solo, prob it is not balanced for 1 guy?

[Faaxen]

Zombies die from coughing babies, and deal basically no damage.

For Bugs you're killing about 200 units, these are 200 units that can actually kill you back.

For the Illuminate you're killing about 50-100 Overseers + Harvesters which can kill you, and then the rest is just zombies and watcher drones which are just kill count fodder.

[Sir Harlz]

So the game spawns patrols when you look away, that is why you will sometimes turn around and see a huge patrol where there wasn't one before and no way it got there so fast. Illuminate have city maps, lots of blind spots for the game to spawn a patrol on top you.

I still don't like the patrol system, I hate how sometimes you can get bogged down in a endless battle but not a "fun" battle, a slot where you are not really in any danger but you're stuck killing off wave after wave because they just won't stop spawning. It's too constant and it becomes a chore, instead of having epic confrontation it's just a endless stream of nuisances. So, overtuned in my opinion.

Keep in mind a endless battle can be fun af, having to keep moving as a "voteless" horde chases you is fun but when I see 10+ elevated overseer's with their massive hp pools incoming or I am constantly getting blinded by purple, it stops being fun and becomes annoying.

[StellarSkys]

they don't stop coming, and thats kinda the point.

a lot of the higher diffs in general you need to learn to keep mobile and moving, and against the illuminate that lesson is needed. just keep moving, you don't need everything dead to move. yes there is metric tons of voltless, and they won't end as long as they have ships to poor out of. you just need to keep moving, don't get bogged down.

[Cryptic]

They aren't overtuned.

Trust me. I'm a random on the internet.

[Krarus]

they can definitely be overbearing for newer players

my build is Blitzer + Nade Pistol + Starter Frag Nades/AMR + Guard Dog + MG Sentry + Tesla Tower

Blitzer has infinite ammo and can als0 one shot just about every zombie + stun Overseers that get too close.
Nade pistol + Frag nades are my goats for ship clearing since the frag nades can one shot the shields when cooked and thrown right at the entrance while nade pistol will not bounce off it.
AMR can one shot Overseer heads and jetpacks as well as one shot the Harvester's horns above its eye that generates its shield + take out its leg joints in only 3-4 shots.
Guard Dog helps with all the zombies and Overseers.
MG Sentry and Tesla Tower are only there when i need serious firepower such as reinforcements or when im doing an objective + Tesla lasts extremely long even with an entire illuminate drop on it on its own.

[靐]

Okay just an update for anyone finding this thread. The big mistake was bringing eagle strikes for me, swapped them with minigun turrets and works great even at 10.
My load: sickle, nade pistol, impact nade, arc thrower, guard dog, two minigun turrets.
The tactic is usually to place 1-2 turrets near the stuff you want to assault and go around and do the objective. Turrets shred everything and also agro mobs. Arc thrower can stunlock everything (even harverster). Just was able to duo missile launch mission with that.

I would say illuminate by far the easiest faction now by a mile. You can minigun/arc thrower everything, there are no insta reinforcements from enemies and you have op sam sites.

[アンジェル]

Originally posted by 💀:

Okay just an update for anyone finding this thread. The big mistake was bringing eagle strikes for me, swapped them with minigun turrets and works great even at 10.
My load: sickle, nade pistol, impact nade, arc thrower, guard dog, two minigun turrets.
The tactic is usually to place 1-2 turrets near the stuff you want to assault and go around and do the objective. Turrets shred everything and also agro mobs. Arc thrower can stunlock everything (even harverster). Just was able to duo missile launch mission with that.

I would say illuminate by far the easiest faction now by a mile. You can minigun/arc thrower everything, there are no insta reinforcements from enemies and you have op sam sites.

You can have that even easier if you want. Make sure to try other weapons too. Here is my suggestion for you:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3388259347
though, it might not fit everyone with the playstyle. You can check the video to see how easy it feels.

[Albireo]

I have found one of the best weapons for Illuminate to be the stalwart and the walkers. Stalwart just never runs out of bullets and can reload while running. Just crouch or dive and open fire, extra points for an engineering kit armor or other stabilising passive. Works on everything but the harvesters. Walkers on the other hand the key is to never shoot at the zombies. Just walk around and make street salsa saving bullets for all other targets, Always fun too to auto cannon the spawners from a few blocks away.

Being that new plays have access to both they have some solid kit available.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by Albireo:

I have found one of the best weapons for Illuminate to be the stalwart and the walkers. Stalwart just never runs out of bullets and can reload while running. Just crouch or dive and open fire, extra points for an engineering kit armor or other stabilising passive. Works on everything but the harvesters. Walkers on the other hand the key is to never shoot at the zombies. Just walk around and make street salsa saving bullets for all other targets, Always fun too to auto cannon the spawners from a few blocks away.

Being that new plays have access to both they have some solid kit available.

Stalwart feels like such a bad pick. You can bring mg instead and be able to down harvesters and don’t need to waste a stratagem slot since every city map has like 5 mgs in them. So you can bring another call in. And opening enough space to reload is trivially easy.

[Faaxen]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

Originally posted by Albireo:

I have found one of the best weapons for Illuminate to be the stalwart and the walkers. Stalwart just never runs out of bullets and can reload while running. Just crouch or dive and open fire, extra points for an engineering kit armor or other stabilising passive. Works on everything but the harvesters. Walkers on the other hand the key is to never shoot at the zombies. Just walk around and make street salsa saving bullets for all other targets, Always fun too to auto cannon the spawners from a few blocks away.

Being that new plays have access to both they have some solid kit available.

Stalwart feels like such a bad pick. You can bring mg instead and be able to down harvesters and don’t need to waste a stratagem slot since every city map has like 5 mgs in them. So you can bring another call in. And opening enough space to reload is trivially easy.

Honestly don't even need a support weapon for voteless specifically, any high mag low/medium damage Assault Rifle works more than fine for headshots or simply spraying.

[靐]

Yeah I can agree that MG is super great here, but I have an OCD on having infinite ammo and arc thrower just makes funny zap noises. Feels like you are slapping a fly with a magazine lmao. And with guard dog you can simply run pass everything. Turrets are just for distraction / dps. Honorable mention is orbital laser (idk its name, the yellow autoaim one) cuz can snipe ships.

Also I have noticed diff 10 is not that popular. Rarely had 4 players, most of the times 2.