1 million + in Survival: tips

[Whateverman]

My highscore (solo) is ~360K, and I can NOT seem to do any better - so I'm looking for scoring strategies.

I've not maxed out all of the crystal purchases yet, but I maxed out the starting perks/inventions (Eccentric and Tesla Glove) before any of the others. I'm slowly working my way through them with the dailies and crystal grinding.

My question is for the people who've hit over a million in solo (or at least those who've done much better than me). Do you stick to a specific weapon? Are there specific things you choose when levelling up in game? +Damage vs +RunSpeed, or things you absolutely avoid? I've been focusing on damage and fire rate, with health regen and a few other things - but whatever I choose, I can't seem to do any better...

Thanks in advance...

[Streetwise Hercules]

I go defense early, while the monsters are weak enough to kill with starter weapons. Dodge, Regen, even an Extra Health. The only Offense I care about in the first 4 lvls is Bullet Sharpening. Survival is the only place I use Lightning Cloud and Radiate, get those early if ya can. Then, look for shotguns. You may see people saying that extra barrel is bad for shotguns, but don't listen. Extra Barrel/Hasty Reloader...especially on the Repeater. A good mix of perks by lvl 10 should see you through to 12...oh, and Practice-practice-practice.

[Whateverman]

Thanks, SwH.

I often do go with the repeater (or something similar) and extra barrel. Unlike you - and this may be the issue - I avoid defense except for Regen.

I typically hit lvl 10-12, occasionally 13. I often last 6-10 minutes, so my ninja avoidance skills are decent. Still, my score is typically in the 200K range (I'm currently 103 on the solo leaderboard) - and I'm struggling to figure out how the rest of the soloers get significanty higher.

I'll try your suggestions. Thanks for 'em!

PS. quick question: how many of the upgrades have you purchased? Are you completely maxed?

EDIT: nevermind answering that. I saw on the Eldritch thread that you've already unlocked everything

[MuftyRiots]

The only useful weapon is the repeater shotgun with a bunch of reload speed and at least one each of the piercing and ricochet perks. This combo allows you to stun lock any enemies and knock them out of their attack animations. This along with a couple of movement speed perks you rarely have to use your teleport. After that it's the luck of the draw but never pick up teleport or item perks & you will need a couple of max health upgrades or else you can get 1 hit killed by the big guys later on. The avoid damage perk is unreliable but can be a life saver.
Also, remember to check the 5 free perks from the crystals that you've rolled. If they're bad then restart the game.

The most important tactic is to never stop moving. I just run laps around the edge of the arena, keeping as many enemies in the centre of the map, clearing a path with the shotgun. You can't always kill everything in your way but with the shotgun/reload/piercing combo you can rub against enemies with them being unable to attack you. Collect the mech parts and either use it or hold onto it depending on your situation. I usually use the mech as soon as I get the parts and then collect and pop all over again. It gives you something to do after level 13 when it takes about 20-30mins to level up due to the exponential XP requirements.

[Streetwise Hercules]

Originally posted by Whateverman:

Thanks, SwH.

I often do go with the repeater (or something similar) and extra barrel. Unlike you - and this may be the issue - I avoid defense except for Regen.

I typically hit lvl 10-12, occasionally 13. I often last 6-10 minutes, so my ninja avoidance skills are decent. Still, my score is typically in the 200K range (I'm currently 103 on the solo leaderboard) - and I'm struggling to figure out how the rest of the soloers get significanty higher.

I'll try your suggestions. Thanks for 'em!

PS. quick question: how many of the upgrades have you purchased? Are you completely maxed?

EDIT: nevermind answering that. I saw on the Eldritch thread that you've already unlocked everything

I avoid the reactive defenses, the ones that do knockback and spray energy pellets, those depend on getting hit. Dodge is great (even after you die), and Regen is a no-brainer. I just noticed the active perks bar yesterday...I never suggest quitting, because it looks/feels like losing. In Survival, I regret putting crystals into the Mech armor, because the weapons don't improve very well, and by lvl 10 or so, I'm better off on foot. Explosive teleporter can be fun, but only if you can spare a perk for one rank of Faster Teleporter

[Halfshell]

I'm still relatively new to this (still only have 1x of crystal perks) but I have had the most success so far with Revolvers and the Supplier perk. Revolvers are lack luster until you can get 2x extra barrels and Ricochet but since they have innate piercing they don't require Sharpening to be effective and pierce deeper with it. They also have the highest per bullet damage which counters the Spawn of Dagon's high health (I have the most trouble with them). Once you get 2x Hasty Reload and 1 of the 20% faster shooting speed they feel alot better than Repeater Shotguns imo.

Supplier is great because of room clears. Without excessive extra barrels theres just an unkillable horde of Spawn of Dagons whereas 1 or 2x of Supplier can net you a Nuke or an ability which bails you out of a tight spot. Otherwise the Mech can be exploded for a mini-nuke effect.

Also: Learning where to stand to affect the mobs pathfinding is key. Whether they go up or down as their shortest path to you will mean alot less enemies in your way to evade around.

I still keep dying around 100k, 160k is record so maybe take my experience with a grain of salt. I don't know if I'm going to grind for the crystals needed to fill out my perks.

[MuftyRiots]

Originally posted by Fishercat:

I'm still relatively new to this (still only have 1x of crystal perks) but I have had the most success so far with Revolvers and the Supplier perk. Revolvers are lack luster until you can get 2x extra barrels and Ricochet but since they have innate piercing they don't require Sharpening to be effective and pierce deeper with it. They also have the highest per bullet damage which counters the Spawn of Dagon's high health (I have the most trouble with them). Once you get 2x Hasty Reload and 1 of the 20% faster shooting speed they feel alot better than Repeater Shotguns imo.

Supplier is great because of room clears. Without excessive extra barrels theres just an unkillable horde of Spawn of Dagons whereas 1 or 2x of Supplier can net you a Nuke or an ability which bails you out of a tight spot. Otherwise the Mech can be exploded for a mini-nuke effect.

Also: Learning where to stand to affect the mobs pathfinding is key. Whether they go up or down as their shortest path to you will mean alot less enemies in your way to evade around.

I still keep dying around 100k, 160k is record so maybe take my experience with a grain of salt. I don't know if I'm going to grind for the crystals needed to fill out my perks.

If I draw the supplier perk as one of my starting five, I always restart the game.

[Whateverman]

I just tried the revolver tip, and had difficulty reaching 100K. I died at 50K pretty easily.

I've heard Supplier works once you're up to lvl 10+, in that the pickups become a necessary part of stauing alive. I'll try this a few more tries - maybe starting with the repeater but building towards the revolver...

[Halfshell]

@MuftyRiots: I assume because of more weapons to avoid? Seems like a small price to pay honestly.

Edit: Yeah Revolver is definitely bad to start with. But it also tends to drop less at high levels.

[MuftyRiots]

The supplier perk becomes less effective over time. After a certain point the nukes barely damage the mobs to be useful anymore. Even health pickups become useless when the Dagons can kill you in one hit.

The only weapons that I can reliably break 1mil are the repeater shotgun and the gauss rifle as the fire rates on these are enough to knock packs of Dagons out of their attack animations.

[Halfshell]

Oh so they scale that much? Thats pretty harsh. Its pretty much just firerate that matters at that point. Thats a real shame because I wanted to try Ball Lightning to see if it could clear everything, but theres no way even with a perfect build if they have that much health.

[MuftyRiots]

The most important perk becomes movement speed due to how fast the enemies get & you just try to avoid taking a hit while hoping they die from poison rounds. It stops being fun when it's taking over 30mins to level.

I've never had any luck with Ball Lightning outside of the normal maps. It works for a little while with a bunch of fire rate and barrel upgrades (reload doesn't seem to have any effect), but you run faster than the bullets which makes it a bit rubbish for survival.

[Whateverman]

I tried the Revolver strat a few more times, and will probably try a few more. I haven't been able to break Fishercat's 160K record with it.

Either way, though, it looks like I'm stuck with my 360K record. I know some of the ultrahigh scores on the leaderboards are either hacking or spoofing, but there are a bunch of people at 1 million +, and I can't help thinking there must be some combination of weapons/perks or scoring strategies which make it possible.

[Whateverman]

My survival skills are decent. I just ran Survival for twelve and a half minutes. Unfortunately, most of the time was spent running and avoiding damage; I only got 186K score.

No, I wasn't able to execute much of a strategy, though I focused a bit on Special Mastery and Supplier. Still, even with a few Repers and an extra barrel and ricochet (sp?), the repeater shotgun wasn't taking down more than the little guys.

Looking at the Leaderboard, you can see people with a much higher score in a bit more than half of my time. Excluding hackers, there must be some scoring strategy I'm missing.

Thanks for all the feedback. It's nice to hear other people are generally stuck at the same score (roughly)

[Halfshell]

Well with Revolver I try to set it up so that I have a better hit angle. But with Repeater the strat is to keep moving and stunlock guys out of attacking. I prefer Revolver because its doing more damage. It pierces deeper and because bullets are bigger and more damage per bullet it tends to hit harder. Repeater only hits the first guy with a good spread and each other target gets hit with less and less due to 50% pierce and high spread. So theres no way to get Revolver to 1mil if I understand the scaling correctly.

So more on my Revolver strats: My goal is to clear out the Dagons. Everything else is popcorn and dies easily, focus fire Dagons whenever you can. You need an Extra Barrel early and ideally 1 of Hasty Reload. By 10 you want at least 2x Extra Barrel, 1 Hasty Reload, either another Hasty Reload or faster firing speed, Ricochet and 1 of Regen and Movement. After this, this build relies on finding offensive perks and careful positioning. Stand near chokes to maximise your pierce, imagine you are playing with a Gause weapon but with better damage.

Unlike MuftyRiots I take advantage of the center frequentally. I usually circle clockwise, try to gather everything in the top left side of the map and move right. Taking my time to dodge and maximise pierce along the way. Move to this spot:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397104736

This is a good overall spot. If you move up and to the right a little, everything besides the bottom right spawn will pathfind from your top and from your left. I can usually sit here for a minute firing upwards. Slowly kite down while maximising shots and once things build up, rapid teleport to here:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397104818
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397104875

The choke here is godly, but you need Ricochet to get full effect. This is usually where I can clear the level if I have a decent build. You occaisonally have to maneuver and/ or shoot upwards because theres two spawns up there.

Just did a few runs for screenshots and ended up with an 89k without Hasty Reload or Ricochet so I think the strat is solid up to ~200-300k. After that Its likely that things will just stop dying and you'll want a Repeater.

Edit: Honestly its getting tiring resetting for Revolver not spawning, or missing 1 perk.
Also personal best was 150k, mb for misremembering.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397104954

[MuftyRiots]

Played for the first time since 1.04 and it's worth noting that survival has been rebalanced since the last patch. XP chokes out at level 13 and any score over 300k is pretty much the old 1mil.

Did manage to break the spawn limit on the enemies though. 400k survival run with only about 15 enemies that spawn at a time.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397397466

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1397392816