Over 40 hours in and still struggling to win.

[Aggressor]

I reviewed the game, and while it's fun, damn this is hard on Normal and above. Possibly the hardest to beat I have played since the 80s NES games. I am not sure I'll be able to beat this one.
I have some suggestions for the devs:
1. Can you let us just sell our stuff at the shops? If you are short 1 credit for a good weapon there is no way to get it.
2. Can you guarantee a heal station on each planet? If you take damage- and you WILL take damage, you will only have 2 healing cards which will only cover a little healing.
3. I know it's a rogue-lite but can we carry just a bit more over from a failed run? The sense of progress will keep a lot of players going, where I am ready to give up on winning on normal.

[DearSaintMary]

Have you tried to not take any damage on some planets where there is no heal stations?

[Aggressor]

You can avoid fights, but then you will be under-levelled in the final stages. To get money and gear you must face the commanders and lieutenants to move forward. I guess the issue is that a single bad encounter where 3 or more characters have low health, is a disaster for the final beheamuth .

[Feyda]

There are some game-changing items and strategies. For example the Peacekeeper implant allows light attacks to hit the back row which is really really nice. Also learning the Stagger system is pretty critical. Try not to waste stagger counters with weak staggers. Used team comps that have one or two heavy stagger units and damage dealers that use moves that have no stagger.

[悠悠]

Don’t try to win by restoring your shield while playing this game
Pushback and no pushback firepower is the main axis of this game
Mainly reduce the number of enemies and attack each round
The team starts with tanks + no pushback firepower + large pushbacks
The next planet supplements 2 no pushback firepower or 1 big pushback 1 no pushback firepower
After understanding the game mechanics, the game is actually very simple

[Aggressor]

Sounds good. I would like to read a good strategy guide if anyone has one. I do enjoy the challenge, and I don't want a pushover boss fight . I accept having to think hard about how to win and put down the game for a month to come back later. With this one, I know I will need some outside help.

[BROKENEN]

Sounds like your situation is similar to mine. I managed to beat it once i understood the mechanics of the game.

[letir]

Originally posted by Aggressor:

2. Can you guarantee a heal station on each planet? If you take damage- and you WILL take damage, you will only have 2 healing cards which will only cover a little healing.

If you taking so much health damage that even healing cards cannot help you, on normal, you doing something very wrong. If you push and kill enemy fast enough, they shouldn't be able to get anything but chip damage.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2227370139

Common strategy looks like this:
1. Pick most dangerous attackers at this turn (AOE, strong attacks) and use strongest stagger attacks on them. Do not waste their stagger meter with weak attacks.
2. Try to get killshot on the less dangerous enemies by focus-fire. The less opponents, the better.
3. If one of your units targeted by several opponents and predicted to take big amounts of damage, consider blocking. While they focused on heavy defence, other charaters have good chances to reduce enemy numbers.
4. Try not to take crit hits from enemy. Better go for fast attack, block or redirect enemy with taunt.

[Bonzai101]

There are so many elements to the game, it's hard to give targeted advice.
Can you elaborate a little, around where you are getting to before you usually get taken out?
Also, there is some gear that you may want to specifically unlock, that makes life alot easier, complimenting good team composition (mentioned in the guide above).

[Aggressor]

I was starting out with the archon, valkyrie and saboteur. Planet 1 usually goes well and I add the aegis if available, or the rifle guy. Planet 2 is a problem if I have no healing and a single fight goes badly. I was using a lot of Archon AOE followed by the saboteur bomb for massive damage.
On Planet 3, everything needs to go absolutely perfect with a healing spot available or I end up facing the behemoth with low health, and it will slowly whittle me away.
I typically get heavy shielding and armor , and try to go for AOE damage with cataclysm and extra fury generation.
The best I did with that was to reach the final boss after the first one, who had two adds with insane AOE that just wiped the floor with my squad.
I did read you guide and recently started a run with: Aegis Valkyrie and Enforcer. The first planet seemed to go better, as long as I made smart moves with pushing back and damaging the weaker enemies.
I feel like this composition could suffer from lack of healing, and if I get into trouble in a single fight I will fail. We'll see how it works out...
BTW thanks for making that guide!

[Bonzai101]

Originally posted by Aggressor:

I was starting out with the archon, valkyrie and saboteur.

Ah, I can see you struggling with that comp, the Archon's AOE can be a bit of a double edged sword without a good amount of +stagger.

Originally posted by Aggressor:

On Planet 3, everything needs to go absolutely perfect with a healing spot available or I end up facing the behemoth with low health, and it will slowly whittle me away.

Have you tried the Gunslinger, mainly for stagger and debuff's early on, but if you get a shield item + echo later, you can use her to restore shields to the whole party.

Originally posted by Aggressor:

I typically get heavy shielding and armor

While useful, shield regeneration is alot more important than the actual amount of shields and armor is only useful until it gets destroyed which can happen a bit to easily imo.
The single most important thing if you ask me, is stagger, it allows you to control the flow of a fight.

Originally posted by Aggressor:

The best I did with that was to reach the final boss after the first one, who had two adds with insane AOE that just wiped the floor with my squad

Having a stun or two handy can be VERY useful for that last boss, otherwise you just need to hunker down and defend for a turn like that.

Originally posted by Aggressor:

I did read you guide and recently started a run with: Aegis Valkyrie and Enforcer. The first planet seemed to go better, as long as I made smart moves with pushing back and damaging the weaker enemies.
I feel like this composition could suffer from lack of healing, and if I get into trouble in a single fight I will fail. We'll see how it works out...

Aegis should be taking the bulk of the damage, and if you can get her a shield item to make her fury ability restore more shields she is very hard to kill and should be taking alot of the damage making it through.

Originally posted by Aggressor:

BTW thanks for making that guide!

You're welcome, let me know if you think it's missing anything specific!

[DAVOS CENSORSHIP 2030 FTW!!!]

The invincibile team: Vega/Aralah Punisher Spectre, Dalen Disruptor Saboteur with peacekeeper implant activated and Brakin Interceptor Paragon for mass delaying everyone later.

Always start with peacekeeper on Saboteur so you don't have to worry about delaying the dangerous enemies on the back ( The ones that usually use one shot AOE ). Get the best delay sword and gloves for Paragon and the best Damage rifle and Sword for Spectre since its gonna be doing the most damage to the boss and hitting hard with AOE later. Saboteur doesnt need anything but delay gear. Always win with this even if i get really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ gear and no events. Once you get the mass delay siphon stab running and both area of attack skills you'll be raping big ass groups in few turns. Mostly 2 if you get good damage gear. Also one of the fastest teams. Your 2 starting chars should go lvl 3 relationship with Saboteur so you'll have a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of Stun Combos and Stagger, this is what saves you if you get a really ♥♥♥♥♥♥ run.

[henry1234562]

In this game, offence is the best defense. Although you eventually need 3 front line, and you need at least 1 at start, you don't really need healing. Most of the battle should end with damage only on shield. If an attack will give your team large damage, you should try to stop it, and the best way to stop an attack is kill him before he use it.

Easy picks are Spectre , Saboteur with peacekeeper and any front line. If you haven't unlock Spectre , then Enforcer is good enough. After 1st behemoth , if your front line has decent stagger, then go for damage. else go for stagger. and after 2nd behemoth you should choose 3 guy at front to leave a space for bomb after 3rd behemoth.

I started with Paragon + Valkyrie + aegis before, And is a easy win. Valk+Aegis can take care of stagger with peacekeeper and some impalement has light attack has taunt + instant light attack.
Valk + Para also deal decent damage, and all 3 of them are tank, means you have alot of space for your bad decision. So if you really struggle to win, you can try this 3 tanks start.

[letir]

Originally posted by Aggressor:

I feel like this composition could suffer from lack of healing, and if I get into trouble in a single fight I will fail. We'll see how it works out...
BTW thanks for making that guide!

Healers are not mandatory. Standart healers are worthless until 3rd planet, because their most useful skills are ususally on 6-8 lvls. Before this they are mostly liability.

As long as you have dedicated specialsts in stagger and damage, you can kill enemies before they kill you. Ofc you would need to use right items, abilities and combo attacks in the tight spot, but this is a part of learning curve.

[Pingularity]

One tip for this is that if an attack staggers, it will still chip away at the enemys allowances for stagger even after they are broken.
Sometimes its far better to just have everyone defend if the enemy is too low on said allowances than to take more damage just to get a few extra hits on them.
Id say tanks or anyone who can protect others are far more mandatory than healers. You definitely want at least 1 protector, because Justin is the 6th unit as a fightless carrier of a bomb. If he dies in any of the ISS fights, the bomb detonates too early and its game over again. .

[Graven]

Some tips:

Don't level up characters right away, level acconding to the gear available.
Focus on your 3 starting characters to stack the affinity meter, so you can get combos and as many passive traits as possible.
Don't use the shops early on, save money to buy get better gear later.
Look carefully around the map, so you can get as much exp as possible.

I managed to do 3 runs already on normal, once you get the hang of the game, you will be at least reaching the ISS ship everytime.