Beginners Guide to DESYNC

This guide will help you if you are having troubles beating the game. Special thanks to Evilagram for helping me simpify the tips and tricks, as well as some feedback.

Preface

DESYNC is a skill based arena shooter that is more based on planning and execution, rather than reactions and execution. It is generally vague about how you should play it, so people are left with the impression that the game is bullocks rather than challenging. In here I will talk about several concepts of the game that will help you beat the game and get better at it. This guide would spoil mechanics that are not explained in the game, so if you enjoy finding out how the game works, play it without reading it. However, if you feel stuck or frustrated this guide is for you. ;)

Most important tips and tricks

I will write down the main tips and tricks in here, in case people don't want to learn about how the mechanics works and only want tips that will help them improve, a.k.a. tl;dr:

- Use the dash to move fast, not just dodge
- You can dash many times in a row as long as you have stamina
- Don't get hit and keep doing Attack Sequences (combos) to max out your Attack Rush meter so you move and attack faster
- Some enemies attack instantly if you're too close, remember this and exploit it.
- Enemies always spawn in the same place, remember their spawns to be ready for later waves.
- Some ranged enemies shoot where you're about to move. Keep switching directions to make them miss.
- Stagger enemies to stop their attacks and crowd control. All combos stagger too, like EVADER.
- Overkill enemies to get more health by weakening them, then hitting them with a strong attack.
- Teleporting enemies always teleport directly behind you, so you can see or hear them and dash forwards
- Facehuggers can be shaken off by shaking your mouse

For more information on each and every of those tips, check the rest of the guide.

Movement and positioning

Movement and especially positioning are the most important tools for playing this game. Many enemies are faster than you so the focus is not only on dodging enemy projectiles, but also being in a safe position from melee enemies. There are several things that allow you to survive and position yourself and they are:

Dash

First I will cover the dash. The dash can be used only on the ground. It allows you to cover space fast and grants you invulnerability to melee attacks. The dash have 2 bars associated with it, they are under your Attack Rush meter, which is under your health bar at the bottom left.
The upper bar tells you when you are able to dash, when it is full you can, and while it is charging you can't. The bottom bar (stamina bar) determines how fast the upper bar recharges, and it depletes when you dash, while it regenerates as time passes. At full stamina bar you are able to use 2 dashes one after another with almost no downtime, and after a very short time a 3rd one as well. This allows you to use 3 rapid dashes to cover a lot of distance. (This is especially useful at one projectile attack the first boss have, which everyone have problems with.)
You don't want to constantly use dashes to maneuver around, because the stamina bar will deplete and you won't be able to use rapid to escape a situation, where melee enemies are close to you. Yet you still want to use the dashes to move as they let you get to a better position much quicker.
Another important thing about the stamina bar is that it instantly recharges to full at every kill. This allows you use rapid dashes non-stop as long as you keep on killing enemies. This way DESYNC lets you play very aggressive and rewards you for it, if you are able to pull it off.

Attack Rush

Attack Rush is the second most important mechanics of DESYNC you need to understand to do well. Attack Rush is the bar below your health bar. When you do Attack Sequences, it charges up, and when you get hit (excluding self-damage) it starts to deplete fast, until you get another Attack Sequence (it depletes at a slow rate in general). Attack Rush grants you increased movement speed and dash speed, so when you are at max out bar you are at the fastest speed you can get in the game. Generally you are very slow compared to your enemies, but at max out bar you are able to outrun all most enemies. Attack Sequences fill up your bar pretty fast so it isn't that hard to get to max. You have to keep it that way by avoiding getting hit, and in the case you get hit, immediately get another Attack Sequence to regain your bar back to max. In short try to keep the bar max out as long as you can and you will do much better.

Pathfinding

In here I will talk about the pathfinding of the melee enemies (as it is not as important as the pathfinding of the ranged enemies). Melee enemies go straight towards you in the shortest path available for them. They are also not cooperating with each other which means you can bottle-neck them. Bottle-necking is when you fill a choke-point of the map with enemies (usually a small choke with 1 enemies) . This will force all enemies to to go around thought a longer route, thus letting you deal with less enemies at a time. Another important thing you need to know is that enemies can't jump up to a higher platform and jump down to a lower platform - they need ramps to maneuver vertically. This means if you jump down from a higher platform they will have to go around thought the ramp. This let you to create distance between you and the enemy. (There are many higher platforms from which you can jump off, but not jump back on so you may think of them as 1 way paths available only for you (except if you use rocket jumping for some of them.))

Enemy Attacks

Enemies in DESYNC may have deceptive range so be careful of it and try to learn the ranges. When you get into enemies range of attack the enemies with start an attack, first there will be a brief telegraph of the attack (almost unnoticeable for most enemies). After that the attack will hit and the enemy may continue into a string if the attack is a string and the enemy have a string. Most of the time you have to dash as you get into your enemy range to avoid their attack. Another thing you can do is walk into range so that they start their attack and at the very moment exit their range. This way they will whiff their attack right in front of you - it is a useful way to deal with solo enemies without using dashes. Also when an enemy gets into a string it won't move until it finishes its string so you can bait their attack so that they get stuck in one place for a while. This can be used in combination with the enemy pathfinding to bottleneck the enemies, by baiting an attack in a choke-point.

Enemy Spawns

DESYNC uses a wave spawning system. Enemies will always spawn in the same places at the same time from when the wave starts. The waves in DESYNC comes after you killed either all enemies from the previous wave or a several enemies. For example in the first level encounter 3, 2 hammer guys will spawn in the first wave. After you kill one of the them, the next wave will start spawning - after you kill everyone from the next wave (and you don't need to kill the second hammer guy from the first wave) the next wave will start spawning. Another important mechanics of the spawn is that you can delay a spawn by having an enemy or yourself on top of the spawn. This way the enemy won't spawn until the entity is removed from the spawn. There are 3 ways this can happen:
the entity dying;
the entity moving away from the spawn;
the entity losing its physical hitbox (enemies don't collide with the player or with each other when in air, thus they lose their physical hitbox - so if you launch an enemy that is blocking a spawn, the enemy would spawn).
It is very important to learn where and when enemies spawn in DESYNC as the game don't have a lot of audio clues to tell you where each enemy is located. Because of that you can't play the game solely on reactions and reflexes, but rather based on a plan, formed from the the predictable pathfinding of the enemies and their spawns.

Projectile Avoidance

In DESYNC several enemies shoot projectiles. There are several types of projectiles:
Normal projectiles that you can dodge, but not dash thought (you can't dash thought any projectile);
Homing projectiles, these are projectiles that home towards the player. They are very slow and change direction slower, so you have to be a bit more careful when you dodge them;
Tracking projectiles - enemies in the game would predict where you will be if you keep on moving in the same direction with same speed. This means if you keep dashing in that direction that will predict that you will keep on dashing in that direction, not limited only to walking. These enemies won't shoot their projectile at your current location, but at the location they have predicted where you will be. This type projectiles are fast and enemies telegraph that attack quite noticeable and you have time to react. The way to dodge those projectiles is to abruptly change the way you move, either direction or change the speed. Those projectiles are easier to dodge at higher distances. Don't confuse them with homing projectiles - if it is fast then it is not homing.
Destructible projectiles - those projectiles can be destroyed with any attack from your weapons by shooting at it. Most notable example is the tracking projectile of the knight enemies.
Artillery projectiles, they deal splash damage and will fall at position you were in when they were shot. You can avoid them just by not being in one place.

Jump

The jump is not as useful in DESYNC as it may be in some other games. After you jump you can't dash (but you can dash before the jump and combine them to cover a bigger distance in mid air). This makes you vulnerable as you can't dash to evade enemy attacks. After you land you can't immediately re-jump, but you can dash. The jump is used to jump over fooderbots, get on a higher platform to re-path enemies to you or rocket jump which I will cover in the next paragraph.

Dash Rocket Jump

DRJ is executed by inputting dash THEN jump and then you shoot a rocket at your legs, directly below. The rocket is there to just give you vertical momentum, it doesn't seem to be giving a lot of horizontal momentum if any. Because of that you should aim directly below to get the greatest vertical momentum. The dash isn't necessary, but it allows you to cover a lot more distance horizontally with it. This trick is usually used to get to a higher platform you can't normally reach.
P.S.: You can also jump and dash off enemies heads when they are on the ground, so you can DRJ on their heads and then DRJ again. Mostly for style, but sometimes you can reach a place you normally can't with that :3.

Offence

The offence is also quite important for beating DESYNC, and it is also an important tool to surviving.

The first and most simple thing is to not overuse time or resources on killing an enemy. Attempt to remember the exact amount of shots an enemy have to take to die. This will allow you to use more time on other enemies, rather than shooting the dead. This is harder to do with rapid fire weapons, but luckily most weapons are semi-automatic.
Second important thing is the stagger. Another more common way to keep an enemy in place rather than baiting an attack is to stagger. Staggering is better than bating, because while staggered enemies can't attack. However be careful as as they exit their stagger state, if you are in their range they will immediately attack. Staggering can be done in several different ways:
Dealing enough damage;
Using a weapon attack that staggers;
Preforming an attack sequence on them. Most Attack Sequences involve killing enemies, so the most useful Attack Sequence for staggering enemies is EVADER. It requires you to dodge an enemy attack and then damage an enemy in a short period of time after the evade. This can be used to get multiple attack sequence on several enemies to stagger them all.
The last thing you can do to enemies is to move them around. This is especially important to send them into traps or to execute a specific attack sequence. Not all enemies can be moved around, and those enemies would usually get staggered when you try to launch them or knockback them. An important thing to know about the traps is after a trap is activated they can't be activated again in a brief period of time. (Example: if you knockback an enemy with a shotgun into a spike trap, you can walk thought the spikes without taking any damage for a brief period of time. After that period the trap would be ready again and it will activate and hit you).

Drops

Drops are important part of the game as you can't pick up health or ammo from around the level, so the only way to regain health or ammo is from drops. Each enemy would drop a random ammo type, with a slightly less chance to drop pistol ammo. This means that if you want to play with 1 or 2 specific weapon, rather than 3 then it is best to remove the 3rd weapon to not get drops for it. There are also several Attack Sequences that use the pistol, the only weapon that regenerates it ammo, that give more than 1 ammo drop from 1 enemy. The other drop type is the health drop ( the green thingy), which you gain it from overkilling enemies. When you overkill enemies their corpses rip into pieces. You can also overkill an enemy after you already dealt the finishing blow, but in a short time after it. The higher the overkill damage the more health drops you are gonna get from 1 enemy. The last way to regain health is by completing an encounter, which returns you to full health.

SYNC

Some enemies spawn with a sync, those syncs are:
RED(STRENGTH for more damage);
YELLOW(SPEED for faster movement speed and attack speed);
PURPLE(DULL slows down the play when in a certain range);
BLUE(STABILITY for higher health and also they can't be launcher or knocked back).
There are 3 ways to desync an enemy. The first way is to have a specific Attack Sequence chosen for them in the desync terminal. When you to execute that specific Attack Sequence on them they would lose their SYNC. Another way to desync an enemy is using the Pulsar side-art, alternative fire. The last way is using Nutatior core to desync all enemies around you. All different ways deals a lot of damage and give you desync time. desync time is a brief time in which everything but you and your projectiles is slowed down.

Enemies

In here I'll talk about enemies that require a specific approach to beat or at least are very hard to beat without it.

Teleporting Enemy

I've seen people have problems with them, even thought they are not that hard to deal with. When you see them disappear from distance them will teleport behind you and deal huge amount of damage. What you have to do is keep an eye of them as they telegraph when they will teleport. By the time you see them disappear - dash forward. This way you will crate enough distance so that they can't hit you, no matter what your attack rush level is.

Shield Enemy

This guy have a shield you can't destroy or shoot thought. You can make him set his shield aside for a while by staggering him. There are several ways to stagger him:
Splash damage - for example using the rocket launcher alt-fire by shooting next to him;
Shoot him in the back by screwing his pathfinding (as it will normally move towards you, so you can use the bottle-neck to make him go the other way);
The shuriken trap (the alt fire of the shotgun). It is the way you can use early in the game. You have to shoot the trap into his health or at the location he will walk over. The shuriken trap will stagger him and allows you to shot him freely.
The last way to deal with him is to shoot at him the moment he attacks you as he have to set aside to do that.

Face Huggers

For those cute guys you just gotta shake your screen and they will fall off and die. If you keep them on for some time you can get the DELAYER Attack Sequence, and get ammo from them :)

About me

I'm holding the highest scores at all the Aberrations with S+ as well in DESYNC (some of the S+ records were beaten by some of my S rank records). If you have troubles with any of the Aberrations you can check here for some video reference:
DESYNC - Aberrations S+ WRs
I also post skill videos of DESYNC - runs and combo videos.
If you have any questions on the game just ask me, I plan on doing other guides in the future again.

[LaCroíx Boí]

There's a beginning and end to this game? lmao

I will come back and read this when I'm "done" with it but honestly this is maybe one of my favorite titles because as someone who doesn't enjoy shooters. This feels like the best parts of a (enter your fps of choice) campaign. Stoked to revisit this thread :3

Honestly tho it is like superhot in how it's just a fever dream i love to come back to randomly when nothing else feels like what I "want to play" Such a great idle Title

[Timetoshroom]

i'm around rank #25 global and i held the world record for Stridulitron for so long until you stole it from me :(

[::Egan::]

Oh I found you have to use the mouse to select the object even though it doesn't say to do that, and only shows controls for A and D to spin the sphere and that right click opens/closes the menu. For other noobs like me.

[::Egan::]

how do I start playing? I dont know where to even go in the opening room. I see an elevator and a big triangle sphere, but it doesn't let me do anything with this? ?

[CabalCrow]

toxic overload? Is that an achievement, an attack sequence? Do you mean PLAGUE or Toxic overcharge?
If it is Toxic Overcharge I think it is using the altfire of the toxic sidearm point blank (maybe the enemy should also be poisoned before hand) to kill the enemy with a toxic attack, rather than the poison itself.

[Monkey Time]

hey do u know how to get a toxic overload? i cant figure it out

[CabalCrow]

The game saves automatically. You also cannot save in the middle of a level.

[特立独行的猪]

Can U tell me how to save the game,my Englishi is not good so i can`t find itthx

[CabalCrow]

You get fragments either thought 1 time pickups scattered thought the levels, or by desyncing enemies, so to farm fragments you just go to a level with a lot of synced enemies and you desync them. There aren't really best weapon upgrades, it all depends on what you want to do - frankly the non-upgraded version is good enough. Each upgrade have a trade off, so if you get additional damage it might come at the cost of attack speed for example. You can chose what kind of upgrade you are gonna get, but the trade off is random, so be careful what you put in your weapons.

[Vérontó]

Can you farm fragments or you jsut get them during the new levels? Which weapon upgades are the best? When you add an upgrade to your weapon the right and left side bars what do they mean? The right adds but the left takes away or both adds bonus to your weapon?