Survival Mode: A Non-Cheating Guide to High Waves and High Scores

Survival Mode is both the easiest way to grind for new gear, and a way to test your abilities. However, it can also be extremely hard for those seeking the Wave 20 achievement and maximizing point gain per run for grinding or high scores requires both strategy going in and understanding of the game's mechanics.

Without cheating (and perhaps only minor cheesing of the game's systems) this guide will seek to explain how to reach both high scores and high number of waves cleared in Survival Mode. My experience is primarily on Holy Grounds since it is the fastest and easiest grind spot for high point totals, but the guide tends to apply to every Survival battleground. Rearmed Trials is an exception to weapon choices, since you cannot pick your weapon for it, but the mechanics part of the guide will remain the same.

Mechanics

Before we get into builds and a suggested progression of weapons and abilities to use, lets start with the mechanics of Survival and understanding why the rest of the guide works so well for it.

First off, high combos mean higher scores. This means going for a high score and going for high number of waves cleared are two different things. Why you ask? Because high combos are most easily achieved when you hit the enemies more times before they die. This means that to maximize your score, you want LOWER weapon damage. The best weapons for getting high combos and still killing enemies have high Attack Speed (The >>> below the sword icon) but low Power.

Obviously taking longer to kill enemies lowers your chances of surviving a wave... thus, going for a higher Score means making reaching higher Wave Clear numbers harder. Until the end of this guide where with skill (and a lot of patience) you can essentially clear INFINITE waves, you won't be getting a high score on the same run you are trying to clear high wave numbers.

Another reason swing speed is important is because it means less startup time for attacks. This means the time between combos is shorter, and as long as you are hitting enemies they are either blocking or being stunlocked by the damage. Both you and enemies can be stunlocked by damage until you get Anti-Flinch.

Elites are some of the most dangerous enemies because they can initiate a charge from outside your range and get a hit on you despite being damaged... they will of course be stun locked if you can hit them after this animation ends, or at least be forced to block, but either way they can kill you even when comboing large groups. This applies to ANY enemy that can hit from outside your combo range whose shot may not be blocked by swinging at them... Skulls and the sometimes Serpents shooting you come to mind.

This is precisely why Holy Grounds is the best Survival map for grinding and unlocking gear... no monsters, no bosses. The Elites are the only true threat once you unlock the two most important passive buffs, and they still have to get in melee range... even in a pack of enemies you can see them getting in range to charge you and usually see them telegraphing the move as well, making them easier to deal with than massed Skulls.

Equipable Skills

From most important to least, these are helpful skills for Survival.

AntiFlinch
The icon looks like a triangle, and this is the MOST important skill for survival. Why? Because the number of enemies attacking you means without it, getting hit once means being comboed to death past wave 6 or so. Anti-Flinch makes it possible to escape somehow, with a dodge, active skill like Teleport, or something that knocks enemies down. Often the character will use a counter that takes a short time and knocks enemies down when pressing the Block button before allowing you to dodge roll away... this is a blessing and a curse as you will take damage during it but it does a good job of immobilizing the enemies for a short time, giving you a bit more time to get away. Without Anti-Flinch you are most likely going to be juggled to death quickly.

Leech/Auto-Heal
Survival is all about endurance and living longer to do more. The sheer number of enemies makes Leech better, especially since being hit stops Auto-Heal, but it takes a fair bit longer to unlock Leech so early on Auto-Heal is your best friend. Regardless it helps immensely to have a means of restoring your health.

Teleport/Jump/Floaty
Dodge roll USUALLY goes through enemies,but often gets stopped by specific attack animations which can get you killed even with Anti-Flinch. Teleport, and earlier Jump, don't suffer this issue and you can easily dodge roll off to the side to avoid landing in the pack of enemies again even with jump. Teleport is better but has a (thankfully relatively short) cooldown once all charges are used, so which is better between the two is debatable. Floaty allows your dodge roll to go over the heads of these enemies, and can be considered the poor man's version if one doesn't have an active skill slot to put the other two in on their weapon.

Strong AoE attacks
These are optional but really help when going for high wave clear numbers or in a bit of trouble and needing breathing room. Projectile is useful early for knocking a few enemies on either side off their feet early on, and has the benefit of a low cooldown. Fireball is better but comes much later. Power Wave and Ultimate Strike are the best for actually knocking whole waves down and doing massive damage, especially as you can rush in and start hitting some of them while they are still down. Handy Rock can also be good but requires building up a large number in the arena to really be effective.

Suggested Weapons

General Tips
Ability wise, all good Survival weapons have the ability to have both AntiFlinch and Leech/Auto-Heal. The best also have at least one active slot for Teleport or Jump.

Stat wise, the most important stat of all is Attack Speed bar none. The more you lock enemies in damage and block animations the longer you will live.

As mentioned before, Power should be low for high Score in order to maximize combo numbers, but high for high Wave Clear.

If it wasn't obvious looking at the final sword unlocked (Master Blade), it actually sucks compaired to other weapons unlocked shortly before it. Ultimate Strike is a nice active skill and all but it has NO passive abilities or other active abilities that can be slotted. It sucks in Story Mode and in Survival Mode. It may have maxed out stats but other weapons come close and have much better abilities attached and ability slots to boot. It's a pity too, it could have been the best weapon and probably should have been since it is the last one to unlock. Stick with my final weapon listed below if going for the most powerful weapon possibly.

Suggested Weapon Progression
These are the weapons I found to be most effective choices once unlocked, starting with the lowest level and moving to highest. While these choices are subjective, I got a Score of over 60,000 using the Mystic Relic once unlocked, easily unlocking what was left to unlock. Also, it should be mentioned that until every weapon and ability is unlocked, this guide focuses on high Score and only after Score does it go into a good wave clear weapon.

Rising Dawn
Very early game before you have access to AntiFlinch, the Rising Dawn has Jump and Auto-Heal. This can allow you to run away constantly till you hit half health, take some pot shots at enemies, and just jump again and again trying your best to avoid taking a hit. It is easily overshadowed later but early game this was a favorite of mine for having solid stats for its level and good survivability tools only marred by your low health pool when using it.

Shark Steel
Three Passive slots and middling stats in every area make this a solid weapon, though you sacrifice Jump to equip it. This really doesn't come into its own until you acquire Leech unfortunately, but it makes an impressive combo farmer for how early you unlock it once you do. The Harm's lack of a third passive slot makes the tiny stat increase it gives simply not worth replacing the Shark Steel with.

Downwind
This is practically a straight upgrade to Shark Steel. Floaty is like a poor man's Jump, while Revive helps for obvious reasons, and it has two free slots for AntiFlinch and Leech. As icing on the cake, it has noticably improved attack speed and life over Shark Steel.

Mystic Relic
This as far as I can tell is probably the best weapon for a really high score. You can easily milk more than 300 points from wave 1 using it, and I got a high score of over 60,000 on Holy Grounds with it. Teleport and Floaty is a strong combo for avoiding damage and getting out of bad spots, the attack speed is nearly maxed out while the damage is really low making for great combos and stun locking, and it has slots for AntiFlinch and Leech, with Leech only becoming more effective with higher attack speeds.

Phantom Chaos
I consider this to be the strongest weapon in the game. All stats are nearly maxed out, and it has Teleport and Leech attached along with a spar Active and Passive skill slot. Slap AntiFlinch in the spare passive slot and your damage dealing skill of choice in the Active and go to town. It doesn't matter whether you are in Story or Survival mode, this sword is incredible.

Strategy

General Strategy
First off, having enemies on both sides is bad. Roll, jump, teleport, do what you need to do as enemies spawn to keep them all on the same side if they spawn behind you. You don't combo lock enemies you aren't hitting because they are behind you. The Projectile skill is actually fairly useful early on for knocking enemies behind you down so you can wasily get past them.

The next part really depends on how far you are. Generally, when just trying to combo and get points, you're going to just be swinging into the crowd constantly. If you dodge roll away and come back fast enough it won't reset the combo, meaning when you see elites charging you can roll back from them and immediately resume hitting them.

When in a corner, you do need to get to the other side of the pack to keep doing this. If you're both fast and are lucky enough for the enemies to all be grouped tightly together at the time and don't have to take a lot of damage to get them grouped like that, you may be able to resume combo from there with the Teleport skill, but chances are you won't be able to and it's generally safer not to try.

Expect to die when going for high point totals around waves 6 to 8, 9 if you're lucky. It doesn't matter. Your combo sizes matter more for score and as long as you've been racking up really large combos clearing waves you're fine.

Infinite Wave Clear
With this strategy you can clear a literally infinite number of waves, you just need a great deal of patience.

First, you want the Phantom Chaos. Its combination of stats and skill slots makes it perfect for this. The next part depends on whether you've unlocked the third character. You unlock them by collecting all 40 relics in Story Mode. Either way you want AntiFlinch in the second Passive slot.

About the third character: This character makes this much easier due to how their dodge works as well as the massive range and attack speed passive boosts they get, as well as run speed and being able to move quickly in air like they can on ground (though not falling still requires dodging again or using a jump or teleport... they can dodge up to 4 times without touching the ground).

If you are not using the third character, you want to put Jump in that second ability slot. This is used primarily when Teleport is on cooldown and you need to avoid being hit. If you are, you can put Ultimate Strike or Power Wave in the slot. Ultimate Strike does more damage but scatters them meaning some work dodging and grouping them up again for the survivors.

Now it's a matter of a lot of patience and a lot of cheese. As you reach higher waves the enemies have more HP and start dealing massive damage when they hit you. Your job is to get hit so rarely your Leech and the orbs they drop can keep you alive. Land, get a few hits in, go to the other side of the wave or dodge back to avoid the certain mass of Elites coming your way, repeat. Over and over.

This is certainly faster and easier with the third character, because they don't need Jump thanks to how their dodge works. They can just constantly switch sides of the arena until Ultimate Strike charges up and then go directly above the mass of enemies and use it. Rinse and repeat. This makes it possible not only to get the Wave 20 achievement, but to literally reach as high a wave as you want to in Survival as long as you have the patience.

Enemies have a ridiculous amount of health at this point and so it will take awhile no matter what you do, but this way you can survive indefinitely and just keep chipping away at them as long as you want. Technically you could also get infinite Score this way too, but thanks to how slowly Score will climb doing this you're going to be at it for a long, long time. Still, this is for those who really want to go as far as they want/can in Survival.

[سوسسوس اموعوس]

nevermind i got it

[سوسسوس اموعوس]

when does the downwind unlock i've been grinding for a while now and i still haven't gotten it

[Prismwind]

Sure, you have permission. Glad you like my guide so much. :)

[I'M BATMAN. (Honest)]

Hey, uhh, I'm not really sure how to contact you other than this, because you'd probably ignore a random friend request out of nowhere. So, there's this big guide I'm working on with a bunch of stuff, and for the survival section, I feel that anything I could ever do would pale in comparison to this amazing guide. So, can I please have permission to link to this guide for the survival section? I'll give you credit, of course. Thank you.

[Eloquent]

Thank you! I reach 20 wave!)))