A Mugwump's Guide to Vespula

A guide focused on aiding the reader against Vespula by providing detailed explanations of phases, known mechanics, and tips for her various phases.

Guide Overview

Hey there! Thanks for showing interest in my "little" (ha) guide for dealing with Vespula. Within, you will find explanations of what Vespula does, the tricks she has up her sleeve, and some suggested methods for dealing with them.

Keep in mind that these are methods that work most consistently for me, and sometimes even I can't follow them in a fight because stuff happens; and Vespula is awesome for doing that. The most important things to take into this fight are an observant mind and quick reflexes, as she mixes things up enough in her later phases to prevent any "sweet spots" from forming for any appreciable amount of time.

As you read, feel free to post any feedback or thoughts of your own on dealing with Vespula's phases. I hope you find this guide to be useful as a reference or just a starting point for your own strategy!

Phase 1

What does this do?

This is a relatively straightforward phase for Vespula. She will curl into a ball, and a seemingly endless swarm of wasps will spawn. The wasps will not stray far from her, sticking to a loose circle around Vespula. Vespula is only able to move at a slow crawl under her own power, and the wasps are capable of pushing her around. causing them to rarely be a perfect circle. Vespula is also immune to all direct damage while curled into a ball, but don't panic! Slaying wasps will reduce her health, and to pass this phase, you will need to slay 150 of them.

Kill it with Knowledge!

Phase 1 is excellent for showing the basics you're going to need for phase 3.

• You will want to make sure that Vespula and her swarm do not catch you with your back to a wall.
  
  
• The wasps fly in a clockwise circle. The most effective position and place to aim for killing them before they can fly past is where they appear to be coming straight at you (as in the image above)
  
  
• Try to keep a few inches ahead of the wasps until you've got an eye for how they move. Your shield is somewhat forgiving, so don't be afraid to get closer to them for a half second to pick up any stray power drifting towards you.
  
  
• Make sure to lead Vespula clockwise around the edge of the arena. This is good practice for later and making the oncoming wasps hit the wall will mass them together and slow them down.
  
  
• Save the powerup drop for later! It will not despawn on this map, and it can be extremely useful for battery pickups in phase 2, 3, or 4 if you wait for it to become accelerate.
  
  
• When you are near 150 wasp kills, move so that Vespula is between you and the wall. This will cause her to toss the battery into the wall behind her instead of a far corner of the arena when she loses the first phase.

The more aggressive among you may note that Vespula will not prevent you from moving through her during this phase. It is EXTREMELY ill advised to get close to her in any of her ball form phases though, as the wasps will cease whatever pattern they are doing and come crashing down on you for daring to touch their queen.

Specialist's Corner

Holly's cannonball can be devastating against the wasps when aimed well, but you'll find that ball form Vespula has a bad habit of smacking them out of the air before they can wreak their full wasp annihilating potential. You'll want to aim at the approaching wasps and give Vespula a wide berth with your cannon ball. It is also extremely important to remember Holly's cannonball will rip through the wasps just as well at half charge as it will at full charge. Use that secondary as often as you can for maximum wasp splatting results!

Phase 2

What does this do?

In this phase, Vespula will alternate between two attacks, as well as use a melee attack if you get too close to her. While firing, she will move towards the edge of the arena and then follow clockwise along it until the end of phase 2.

• The first attack is five red flowers fired straight at her target (six in the first volley at the start of phase 2). They travel fairly slowly in a straight line and will very rapidly deal damage while in contact with you.
  
  
• Flowers are able to be deflected by Coral's plasma field and will deal modest damage to Vespula when passing through her. The petals on the flowers won't hurt you, but it is dangerous to push your luck any closer towards the center of the flower.
  
  
• Vespula's second attack fires three blue orbs with a curved trajectory towards the center of the arena regardless of her target's position. Each orb will travel about 2/3's of the screen before bursting into 5 clusters of 5 projectiles in a pentagram shape (each cluster pointed toward the pentagram's vertices).
  
  
• The orb will almost always knock you down on contact, but the smaller projectiles will behave normally and take chunks out of your shield instead. The projectile clusters are affected by Coral's plasma field.

It's a trap!

Unfortunately, Vespula is as cunning as she is lanky and flings the battery in the exact opposite direction after losing phase 1. She will almost immediately begin firing red flowers at you afterwards. Care must be taken to not be standing near her or be running straight towards her or you willl very likely be knocked down before you can process what just hit you. Going after the battery is not as important due to its timer lasting longer. If you are observant, you can grab the battery as it drifts closer to you and do not need to go hunting it across the arena.

If you're having trouble killing her in time for the chain timer (especially as a character with a short damage range), you can take the powerup we were saving now when it hits acceleration (yellow) to make the battery come to you or firepower (red) to knock Vespula down faster. This is why we've been saving the powerup afterall, to help recover from bad spots and/or keep the chain going! If you're quick enough at putting some stylish new holes in Vespula, the acceleration may even last long enough to make retrieving the phase 3 battery much easier.

Kill it with Knowledge!

Vespula will switch back to firing flowers at her target at around the time the orbs detonate, causing the area in front of her to become rather congested with bad stuff. The best tactic is to follow the pointers below

• Keep strafing (moving sideways) to avoid the approaching flowers.
  
  
• The best opening in the orbs is between the first and second one fired.
  
  
• The projectiles from the orbs can be easily avoided by standing near the orb when it bursts. They move much slower and give more time to react when they first spawn. It is also useful to remember that they will always burst in the shape of a pentagram, and you can plan your positioning in advance with this.
  
  
• The orbs can be completely avoided by standing near the arena wall. This limits your options for avoiding the flowers and projectile clusters, but it can create a precious opening for short range characters.
  
  
• When Vespula is low on vitality, try to finish her from her left (the direction she is moving in). This will make her fling the battery counter clockwise into a much more manageable position for the next phase.
  
  
• Still pretty handy even though batteries last long enough to drift to you most of the time now. If you defeat one of Vespula's phases while a battery is still on the ground, the next one will NOT spawn.

Specialist's Corner

Coral and Cactus need to play a bit more aggressively for this phase due to their short range secondaries and should be comfortable with moving between flowers.

• After the orbs have passed you, begin strafing clockwise (the direction Vespula is moving in). You'll need to hoof it to avoid the flowers at the range Coral and Cactus need to be at.
  
  
• As Cactus: While strafing, keep burning her with your flamethrower. After the third flower, or when you've reached the point marked by Coral's plasma field in the images below, begin strafing back towards the orb's sweet spot.
  
  
• As Coral: Similar to Cactus above except you're strafing clockwise to drop your plasma field in Vespula's path. This can be tricky since the field can deflect the projectile clusters and flowers unpredictably.

Phase 3

What does this do?

In phase 3, Vespula will return to her ball form and the wasps will come swarming in once again. This time the wasps are serious about pounding your face into the cold, white box ground and have come up with some new tricks, which they will alternate between every 3 or 4 seconds. They've also decided to mix things up by flying counter clockwise this time. You're going to need to smoosh 180 of the wasps to thwart them this time around.

• Which state the wasps will start in is uncertain. They seem to follow their own internal clock even when it isn't phase 3.
  
  
• The wasps huddle around Vespula in a very tight circle.
  
  
• The wasps will accelerate and rapidly increase the size of their circle around Vespula.

Kill it with Knowledge!

There's two ways to retrieve the battery based on how you ended phase 2. If you successfully followed the advice before, the battery will have flown off to Vespula's right (counter clockwise). Even with such an ideal situation, you're going to need to work fast!

• While giving Vespula some alone space in her ball, run over and grab the battery. (remember if you get too close to her, the wasps will come crashing down)
  
  
• Start running counter clockwise along the edge of the arena while gunning down the wasps in the oncoming side of the circle until you've reached the distance shown in the images above.
  
  
• If you're trapped in the circle, wait near the edge of it for the wasps to start collapsing in towards Vespula. Swap your weapon for brief invulnerability or fire into the oncoming wasps as you run through the approaching ring to escape. (weapon swapping to escape shown below)
  
  
• Once you're safely out of the wasp's furthest reach, continue leading Vespula along the edge of the arena in a counter clockwise direction. This masses the wasps coming at you together into the wall and slows them down to boot!
  
  
• Don't outrun Vespula or she will start cutting through the center to reach you, which will put you in a very, very bad situation when the wasps start circling at maximum distance. Getting knocked down in phase 3 will also cause Vespula to move towards the center of the arena, almost always resulting in the rest of phase 3 being very messy.
  
  
• If you're caught in the wasps, remember to switch between your primary and secondary weapon. This will give a split second of invulnerability and is invaluable for escaping the circle of wasps if you get caught in it.
  
  
• When you are nearly done with killing 180 wasps, attempt to maneuver so that Vespula is between you and the nearest wall. This will help with battery pickup next phase.

If the battery didn't go counter clockwise (to Vespula's right), it's going to be a bit messier to pick up. You do NOT want to dive past Vespula to retrieve it in this situation. Instead, do the above pointers without grabbing the battery and, if possible, nab the powerup if you've saved it to this point while it is on accelerate. This will aid in keeping your distance and fetching that covered up battery. It is also possible for the battery to drift towards you without accelerate, but don't rely on this. If you can defeat phase 3 Vespula quickly enough after picking up accelerate, it will be extremely useful for phase 4.

Phase 4

What does it do?

While phase 4 is not as crowded and messy as phase 2, it is much trickier. Vespula is more generous with the time between each attack, but it will still be difficult to avoid them. Upon starting phase 4, she will move towards the edge of the arena and move counter clockwise along it.

• Vespula starts out by firing 2-3 vines (depending on if the third one hits the wall) with the middle vine centered on her target.
  
  
• The vines will seek their target but don't turn very quickly.
  
  
• The vines will only deal damage while they are glowing red. The damage is dealt very quickly, making it seem as though they are one hit knock downs.
  
  
• Vespula will fire a blast of projectiles towards the center of the arena. They are lines of 3 projectiles with a small gap between them and cover most of the area in front of Vespula. These are affected by Coral's plasma field.

It's a trap!

Like phase 2, Vespula is especially mean with the battery on this phase. She will almost always chuck the battery to the far end of the map. With the longer battery lifetime, just be patient and let the battery come back to you. Chasing it will make the vines much more dangerous.

Kill it with Knowledge!

While the vines move quickly and seek you, it isn't enough to make it terribly threatening at medium range. The blast can be quite devastating at close range, which makes surviving this phase very reliant on how close or far you are from Vespula when she uses each attack.

• The vines can be avoided by strafing a bit to the side. Try to aim for a gap in the approaching vines.
  
  
• You don't want to be close to Vespula right before she uses the vine attack, as they travel fast enough to hit you even while strafing at close range.
  
  
• It is also dangerous to be close to Vespula before she does the blast attack. Moving away from Vespula while she is firing the blast will give more time to move into the gaps. You'll want to move back to your original vine dodging distance immediately after getting through the blast.
  
  
• The blast can be avoided by standing near the arena wall. It is much easier to do this on Vespula's right side (the counter clockwise direction she is moving in) due to the blast giving more space there.

Specialist's Corner

Coral and Cactus once again have a tough time on this phase due to how little time they have to get close to Vespula before she sends off her next attack.

• Stand near the arena wall as Vespula uses her blast attack, preferably on her right side (the direction she is moving in). This provides a good opening to deal close range weapons damage.
  
  
• Strafe away from the wall before Vespula uses her vine attack, aiming for the space between the two vines closest to each other.

Phase 5

What does this do?

Vespula enters her ball form yet again, but the wasps have had it with you! This is the most unpredictable phase for Vespula and can be very dangerous as a result. They have also decided to move clockwise once again. Defeating 180 of them will complete the phase.

• The wasps will huddle very closely to Vespula on this phase while flying at extremely fast speeds.
  
  
• Every two to five seconds, the wasps moving in your direction in the circle will launch themselves outwards. This is the extremely unpredictable part. They will sometimes launch themselves at you, sometimes lead your movements, sometimes go flying off like a wild shot into some empty part of the arena, or a combination of these.
  
  
• Wasp launches last a half second to a full second. That's a lot of wasps streaming out into the arena!
  
  
• Launched wasps are dangerous when going out and returning to the swarm. Keep an eye out for them as they return to the swarm around Vespula.
  
  
• Ball form Vespula is capable of moving extremely fast in this phase. Watch out for the swarm suddenly leaping at you due to Vespula's jerky movements.
  
  
• Another powerup will drop in this phase.

Kill it with Knowledge!

Due to a lack of any significant patterns, the help I can give here is more limited than the other phases. However, a few tricks can put the odds in your favor.

• Stay close to the swarm. The wasps will cover less space when launched close to the swarm and be less able to react to your movements.
  
  
• Keep strafing from side to side. Don't stop moving or the wasps will launch straight at you faster than you can react.
  
  
• Change directions often (usually once every half second works for me). The wasps can often be fooled to launch off in a direction you were heading.
  
  
• Watch the swarm carefully, especially the wasps on the approaching side of the circle. They will often bunch up a split second before launching.
  
  
• You can thwart a launch by putting Vespula between you and the point the wasps are launching from. This is extremely easy if she's moved out into the middle of the arena.
  
  
• The powerup that drops in this phase can be extremely helpful for finishing it if the wasps are giving you trouble, or it can be saved for phase 6.
  
  
• If you have the firepower drones, you can kill almost all of the launching wasps before they can reach you.

Phase 6

What does this do?

This is the final phase of the fight with Vespula, and she is pulling out all of the stops. When phase 6 begins, Vespula will move slowly about the central area of the arena while spinning.

• A ring of wasps will spawn around Vespula and maintain themselves for the duration of phase 6. While not as thick as the swarms summoned during her ball forms, they can still harm you and block shots aimed at Vespula from outside their ring.
  
  
• Vespula will initiate phase 6 by raising her arms into the air to summon 4 homing vines in a crosshairs pattern from phase 4, strongly discouraging fighting her from a distance. They will travel diagonally from her when they are summoned.
  
  
• Vespula will extend her arms out and launch 13 pairs of red flowers from phase 2 in opposite directions in a spiral pattern.

Kill it with Knowledge!

This phase is extremely tricky, even with the powerup from phase 5 (if you chose to save it or couldn't reach it before).

• Be ready for the vines at the start of phase 6. They are managed just like in phase 4 by strafing enough to fit between them.
  
  
• The spiral pattern of the flowers can be navigated by moving along with it in the gap created between the flower pairs.
  
  
• The spiral moves faster than you, so you will need to deal with fitting between the flowers when they catch up to you. This is easiest by backing up a little to give yourself more time to fit between the flowers.
  
  
• The flowers can be easily avoided by standing near an approaching flower. They spawn at set intervals, so the next one will miss you if you're close enough to the previous flower.
  
  
• Vespula will launch the vines diagonally when she finishes her arm raising animation. You can avoid them by keeping an eye on which way she is facing and strafing accordingly. (image below)
  
  
• If you saved the powerup from phase 5 (or even phase 1), now is the time to use them. Firepower or shutdown are the best choices for this phase.
  
  

Conclusion

If you've read this far, then thank you for your time. Feel free to provide feedback or thoughts and have fun knocking over Vespula! (Seriously, because you'll go bonkers otherwise)

[RigellooStarz]

the game was so basic now it's better texture wise

[The Grand Mugwump]

I never actually got far enough away from Vespula to check Starch's missle range. The wasp streams in phase 5 get pretty ludicrous at that distance, but it would be manageable for somone with enough primary power levels or a firepower drone. I personally prefer staying close to Vespula in phase 5 since I can change directions about every second and throw the wasps way off with their attempts to lead me.

[Sylaris]

Great guide!

As a tip with Starch while the bug is still in the game:
It's possible to use Starch's missiles in phase 3 and 5 even with the bug. The missiles have a max range. So, once you get used to where they'll stop homing and crash to the ground you can place their crash points in the circle of wasps. It's a pretty good distance, though. In phase 3 it's not so bad to keep Vespula positioned on the side and use them. But, in phase 5 it will result in the streams of wasps being pretty huge as they try to get you. Although, you have more time to dodge the streams of wasps and they will be dying faster - so, it's a trade off.

Once the bug is fixed it won't matter and Starch will probably play fairly similar to Lemon on Vespula.