How does collapse work/How to survive it?

[Rusalka]

I've played this game super chill, mostly rainstorm for a long time. The other day, I decided I wanted a bit of a challenge, so I tried Monsoon, and right on the stage with celestial portal, I got absolutely wrecked by Collapse and died. What a bummer! No fancy skin for me. I had about 900 health, but it seemed to kill me immediately (it probably didn't, but that's how I perceived it).

I'd never seen Collapse before - I had to look it up. It seems there are a lot of strong opinions on it here, whether it is fun to play with or not, but really all I care about is how it works and how to survive it. Here is what I would like to know:
1. How is Collapse applied?
2. Can you avoid Collapse before it's applied to you?
3. What strategies are used to avoid dying to it?
4. Because I'm a Bandit fanatic... anything I should know about how to survive collapse while playing Bandit specifically?
5. Does Collapse only occur on Monsoon?

Thank you!

[Drae.]

1) Collapse is applied by Voidtouched enemies (purple-like variant of a normal enemy) that spawn in the Void Seeds.

2) You can avoid Collapse by using the Blast Shower or using Void Fiend's utility ability.

3) Pray and heal as much as you can to avoid dying. If you see stronger enemies that are Voidtouched, try to carefully wiggle their hp down from distance.

4) Not much i can say about Bandit myself, just like any other survivor, try and avoid getting hit by Voidtouched enemies at all cost.

5) No, as stated before, Collapse is applied by Voidtouched enemies on any difficulty.

[Rusalka]

Oh, interesting! I thought got Collapse from a void beetle guard, but it seemed to be from very far away. Any attack from a void enemy can apply Collapse?

[Drae.]

Yes, any kind of an attack from a Voidtouched enemy will most likely apply Collapse - worst case scenario from my experience was a Voidtouched Xi Construct that applied 5 Collapse debuffs with its laser across the map. Void enemies themselves - like Void Barnacles, Void Jailers, etc. cannot apply Collapse. As a bonus note - if you see a Void Seed, close it as fast as you can.

[Rusalka]

Thank you! Makes sense. I appreciate the advice.

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by 『D??ra?e.】:

3) Pray and heal as much as you can to avoid dying. If you see stronger enemies that are Voidtouched, try to carefully wiggle their hp down from distance.
ulty.

I'd add: Medkits are your friends here. They're an excelent healing item overall, but they heal you two seconds after you take damage. Collapse applies damage three seconds after you take damage at 1.0 proc coefficient from a voidtouched. Therefore you heal with medkit before you take damage from it. If you get to 90% health of more before collapse triggers you survive no matter how many stacks you have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDrujkw_idQ&ab_channel=LeviathanTheEsper
In the particular case of the video I think a single medkit heals you what you need to survive that attack, but after some stages you'll need more healing. 12-16 medkits are kind of what you need late game.

Also there are exceptions. There are enemies that leave you a little more room for mistake. In particular:
Stone Titans: Their collapse hits really hard but the laser has low proc coefficient (15% chance for collapse) so it won't always trigger it. If you take cover chances are you won't be collapsed, and besides that the voidtouched laser is even weaker than normal (Voidtouched enemies have decreased base damage).
Xi constructs: Same. They shoot you from afar so you want to be careful but again, their shot has between 0.2 and 0.5 proc coefficient per tick so you may not be collapsed if you find cover fast.
Clay Templars: Their rapid fire has 0.05 proc coefficient so there is only a 5% chance to get collapsed when they hit you. You can take a few hits and you're more likely to die from their raw damage than from collapse.

[Rusalka]

Interesting, I have to admit I've never really been into proper builds (don't need to in Rainstorm!) and I've used Scythe and Leeching Seed a lot more than Medkit. I'll have to try with some of those and see how it works.

[Leviathan]

Yeah, scythes and leeching seeds do what they're supposed to do, but medkits are white items and thus way more common. They're also more consistent healing early game. You don't have a ton of choice on the items you get, but you do have multishops and 3d printers and that way you start making your build.

[Rusalka]

Yeah, that's fair. I use Command a lot (who doesn't want to feel OP sometimes lol) so that helps. I've just not spent the time to learn a God build. Pretty happy with the goofy one I use when we have Command, anyway!

[Sharticus:DestroyerOfToilets]

Collapse needs a nerf. A SINGLE stack will kill a full health Huntress. It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Have it bring her down to like 10 hp, fine. But instant death from a tiny slip up that wouldn't insta-kill ANY other survivor? Grade A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

Collapse needs a nerf. A SINGLE stack will kill a full health Huntress.

Nope.

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Have it bring her down to like 10 hp

That it does:

Originally posted by Leviathan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDrujkw_idQ&ab_channel=LeviathanTheEsper.

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

fine. But instant death from a tiny slip up that wouldn't insta-kill ANY other survivor? Grade A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

But huntress is precisely the one who has nothing to worry. That's the reason you have Phase blink, so that you can dodge and not get collapse. I think it has been around 100 hours (besides those tests) since I last got collapsed with huntress. And it's not like I'd die from getting collapsed. It's just that if you dodge you don't even have to worry about that.

[Sharticus:DestroyerOfToilets]

Originally posted by Leviathan:

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

Collapse needs a nerf. A SINGLE stack will kill a full health Huntress.

Nope.

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

It's ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. Have it bring her down to like 10 hp

That it does:

Originally posted by Leviathan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDrujkw_idQ&ab_channel=LeviathanTheEsper.

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

fine. But instant death from a tiny slip up that wouldn't insta-kill ANY other survivor? Grade A ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

But huntress is precisely the one who has nothing to worry. That's the reason you have Phase blink, so that you can dodge and not get collapse. I think it has been around 100 hours (besides those tests) since I last got collapsed with huntress. And it's not like I'd die from getting collapsed. It's just that if you dodge you don't even have to worry about that.

I got nicked from a mile away by a void templar, got 1 stack, and it popped before my blink was ready. I got murdered by something that was completely out of my control.

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

I got nicked from a mile away by a void templar, got 1 stack, and it popped before my blink was ready. I got murdered by something that was completely out of my control.

So... wait. You got hit for 21% of the base damage of a clay templar ONCE, got the jackpot for the 5% chance to get a single stack of corruption and didn't manage to survive? I mean even when the enemy gets to level 99 that's just 69 damage. which is less than 10% of huntress health at any point close to that (in fact, it is around 10% of huntress health at around stage 6-7 when you're arount level 24). Doesn't really look like the situation was completely outside your control.

Don't use your blink to "avoid the collapse damage", because you don't get the iframes mercenary gets. Use it to dodge the actual attack inflicting collapse. Also, don't use blink. Use phase blink. Normally against a clay templar you need to either get very close, get very far, or use cover to make him stop shooting, but as huntress you just can also use phase blink (or even blink but the higher coodown and inability to dodge sideways are not good) to move behind him and mess up with his tracking.

Voidtouched enemies have a very clear visual cue (they're literally shiny dark purple), and clay templars are slow and also have visual and audio cues for when they spawn, when they move and when they wind-up their attack. Also if they can attack you can pretty much see them, it's not like they shoot in arcs.

[Dreams of Fury]

Originally posted by Leviathan:

-snip-.

Pre-void I had a huge tendancy to pick up glass 9 out of 10 runs, based on a small sample size of my friend group its a common thing.....unless they just started doing it cause it worked for me....so I assume most other players did the same, since the addition of void touched I have stopped getting it, he could have been in that situation or had already taken some damage from a nearby source on nearly the same frame thus collapse killing him.

[Leviathan]

Originally posted by Dreams of Fury:

Originally posted by Leviathan:

-snip-.

Pre-void I had a huge tendancy to pick up glass 9 out of 10 runs, based on a small sample size of my friend group its a common thing.....unless they just started doing it cause it worked for me....so I assume most other players did the same, since the addition of void touched I have stopped getting it, he could have been in that situation or had already taken some damage from a nearby source on nearly the same frame thus collapse killing him.

Yeah. I usually don't grab glass unless the run is going pretty badly. Because it's not only collapse. Getting glass is really fun and it works, until a mini-boss hits you. Then you're dead.

And since currently there are so many ways to improve a run without grabbing glass, well...

But yeah, the choice of grabbing glass or not is yours.

[Sharticus:DestroyerOfToilets]

Originally posted by Leviathan:

Originally posted by TimeTurner:

I got nicked from a mile away by a void templar, got 1 stack, and it popped before my blink was ready. I got murdered by something that was completely out of my control.

So... wait. You got hit for 21% of the base damage of a clay templar ONCE, got the jackpot for the 5% chance to get a single stack of corruption and didn't manage to survive? I mean even when the enemy gets to level 99 that's just 69 damage. which is less than 10% of huntress health at any point close to that (in fact, it is around 10% of huntress health at around stage 6-7 when you're arount level 24). Doesn't really look like the situation was completely outside your control.

Don't use your blink to "avoid the collapse damage", because you don't get the iframes mercenary gets. Use it to dodge the actual attack inflicting collapse. Also, don't use blink. Use phase blink. Normally against a clay templar you need to either get very close, get very far, or use cover to make him stop shooting, but as huntress you just can also use phase blink (or even blink but the higher coodown and inability to dodge sideways are not good) to move behind him and mess up with his tracking.

Voidtouched enemies have a very clear visual cue (they're literally shiny dark purple), and clay templars are slow and also have visual and audio cues for when they spawn, when they move and when they wind-up their attack. Also if they can attack you can pretty much see them, it's not like they shoot in arcs.

I repeat. He was a MILE away. I didn't even SEE him until he already hit me. Also, I was like level 4 in the acidic swamp area on Monsoon. Zero healing, no damage reduction, and all of my survivability was coming from a PSG that I picked up. There was NOTHING I could have done to change what happened. There was no Audio Cue, no Visual Cue, and Blink was on CD, so I couldn't have dodged it if I TRIED. He literally nicked me, and the collapse finished me off in one shot.