Death Wish Lab Rats Guide

Ahh so the LabRats map is open all year? that gives you time to get that acheivment “Not Scary Enough”! Yes it is Possible!

This is a tried and true guide for Death Wish Lab Rats.

Intro

So you still do not have the Death Wish achievement for LabRats. But fear not, it is possible and even with randoms, and to give yourself the highest possible chance it all starts with the preparation.

Preparation

-Establish Coms: Communication is key! At least one person should be actively using coms, and everyone should be able to hear. It’s obvious, but there is no heroics here, and you NEED these people

-Builds: This is largely preference of the player, as long as it is DW capable it won’t matter, either armor or dodge centric can work (dodge requires more praising of RNGeesus then normal).

-Perk Decks: As usual, most perk decks are rendered useless in death Wish and especially this mission. The 2 still usable contenders are Armorer and Rogue. Muscle gives extra HP that will be kicked off you by Cloakers and the regen is too small to serve any purpose. Grinder may be an option, you have to remember to keep the damage up, and First Aid Kits that are used with this build may take away a valuable Dr. or ammo bag. Yakuza gives benefit for being at low health, but snipers damage heath and shields and will nullify any bonus. Gambler is not useful because you will not be picking up ammo. The best defense is to avoid taking damage either by dodge (Rogue) or armor (Armorer).

-Skills: To be blunt the more with inspire the better, at least 2 is necessary. Other skills in the Mastermind tree of import is Pistol Messiah, get that as high as your build will allow, and it may save the game. Everyone should have either enforcer, or fugitive skill trees maxed for the preferred defensive capabilities. Fugitives also give Swan Song, which will give you infinite ammo, and the ability to crawl back to the inspire. Technician is nice with bulletproof, and shock proof (If it works) and can give the players who opt out of Mastermind inspire more tankiness. And the Ghost tree should only be dipped in to get the dodge centric skills. Speed is not as important as you may think because it only allows you to run from inspire range faster.

-Deployable: Ammo Bags, Doctor Bags and lots of them. First Aid (muffins) should not be in this mission, even if using a dodge build. You will take constant damage, and will be downed regularly. Being kicked or tazed over will bring you to pitiful amounts of health anyways. There will be no time to ask one of a player during the mission. ECMs Feedback loop may seem helpful, but the coaker will not be effected. Turrets will be out of commission before they are able to waste their ammo. The turrets normally can be used to pacify the AI in other levels, but here the map is far too large and the group is always on the move and generating too much agro to make this feasible here. C-4 charges are just not numerous nor effective to justify the loss of ammo or Doctor bags.

-Throwable: Molotov Cocktails. Gives anyone the ability to stun enemies in a bad situation and gives area denial. Very useful.... moving on.

Primary Weapons

Primary Weapons:

Flame Throwers. You need at least 1 but no more then 2, and best used with the raw ammo type. Users of this weapon are not concerned with damage, their main concern is locking down specials until a team member either kills the target, or you move away from the area. Enemies on fire may not run, shoot, taze, kick, or melee for at least .5 seconds. You get the most use of the flame thrower by feathering it at that .5 second interval. This gets even more effective when at the upper platforms as the directions of attack are limited. Be aware of the long reload. Inspire spam teammates whenever possible to shorten reload times.

Piglet Launcher (flame rounds). Same purpose as the flame thrower, but in a lingering AOE. It can cover more ground then the flame thrower and has better range, has good ammo pickup, the only problem is its reload is also painful, and it’s even more frequent then the flamethrower. Also note that the burn effect procs a little after .5 seconds so titan dozers will still get an action before becoming stunned again.

Thanatos 50 Cal. Kills anything not dozer, dead. Dozers will take from 2 shots to 5 ranging from the greens to the titan variants. Without the flame weapons, the time it takes to kill with this weapon is longer then it would take the dozers to kill the team.

Vulcan Minigun. It has been buffed with the new weapon balance, but here it is not able to keep up with the demand. You sacrifice range for fire speed on a long range map, and are still not able to kill things faster nor conserve more ammo then other weapons. Reloading is also painful.

M308. This firearm has a nice balance of damage, fire speed, ammo conservancy, range, and reload speed. It is missing the ability to pierce shields, but with aim can shred normal dozers.

Crit Weapons. Using crits can make more weapons viable. A well build crti/dodge build can melt dozers without the risk of also melting teammates...

Secondary Weapons

-Secondary Weapons:

--- The ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RPG. The ONLY reason not to bring this is if you have pistol messiah. Can kill all but the titan dozer in 1 shot. Do not fire a second round at a titan dozer, let another firearm finish him off. Always choose your shots, you can down your team in one shot too if you’re not careful. If a titan dozer is in your face, let the flame thrower stun him and take him out conventionally.
---Degal/Interceptor 45/ Matever/ Bronco/ Peacemaker. Pick your poison. Usable only IF you have pistol messiah. Can deal nice damage, and kill up to extreme enforcer with one head shot. All specials will take 2 headshots, and the titan dozer will take upwards of 3 magazines (or all of your clips with the broomstick) which is not recommended. If you go down, kill someone ASAP, because the enemies will finish the job and then someone will have to save you.

Mission Overview

The flow of the Mission will be thus:

1- Kill the welcome party. -2- Throw the pills into the blender to call for the chems. -3- Get what chems you can and leave all others as you head to the top platform. -4- Survive wave. -5- Go as a group to chem collection area, to retrieve chems. -6- Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all chems are gathered. -7- Finish cooking. -8- Break and collect meth. -9- Call helicopter, and GTFO.


1- Know who is going to shoot the RPG before the door opens, it honestly won’t matter who is there at that point. DO NOT BE IN THE RPG’S WAY!

2- Fast player should be ignoring any enemy that survives and place the pills on the blender zip line. Other players can take a hostage to delay the assault wave for 10 seconds. Enemies will still spawn before the wave starts but you will have some time to get into position. You can split the team up so you have 2 on either side of the map and using 2 different zip lines, but be cautious.

3- Do not bother moving bags you are not carrying, you don’t have time. Take what you can and leave. Flamethrower leaves last as he is stalling for everyone’s escape. Do not worry about killing enemies here. Meet up near the Caustic Soda throw in point and dig in.

4- Drop deployables, throw chems on the lid you have to jump to reach to prevent the cops from stealing them. Call out specials, they can attack from the 2 tight ropes, and can crawl up the side of the structure. Flame thrower locks down any special that makes it to the platform. Plan which chem drop off point you will rush after the wave.

5-The cops will pick up all the chems you missed and conveniently move them to 1 of 2 locations. Either near the starting truck, or on the opposite corner of the map. After the wave you will have 10 seconds without further spawns, and should notice a lack of force on the extremes of the maps. Use the Towel to break your fall as a shortcut to reach the location in the corner, and the down zip line or jump down the platforms for the truck location. Cops will spawn before you can get back, but the flame throwers will lock down enemies as the rest of the team returns to the dig in spot.

6- Depending how the cops divide or if they steal the chems you may need 3 trips to get everything. Repeat numbers 4, and 5 until done.

7- During any wave you should be throwing in chems. Muriatic Acid is a bit more challenging but is not bad with cover fire. Hydrogen Chloride can be thrown into its vat from the caustic soda barrel lid. Wait for the wave to end once the cooking is complete.

8- After the assault use the Towel shortcut, and run to the meth. Break it up and throw it over. Return to the dig in point as before. Call the chopper and hold out. GTFO.

Enemies

Other then the Titan Dozer, and the spider you know these enemies well. These are just conciderations on how they should be treated in this circumstance.

Tazers – These guys will separate the team, waste ammo and down people totally, rendering pistol messiah useless, not to be underestimated. Usually will get you by surprise from above. Kill with EXTREME prejudice.

Shields – With the tools given these are not much of a problem. But beware, they can push players off the upper platforms. If this happens there is no hope for the fallen comrade.

Cloakers – more of an annoyance, as redundant inspire will nullify the threat, and communication will keep everyone alive.

Dozers – Kill them when seen. The Kill Dozers (black ones) are dangerous at any range, shotguns be damned. The Titan Dozers can be avoided if on the move, but when the group has dug in, call them out and all should focus them down. The one with the flame thrower will stall his advance untill the team can bring firepower to bear. Don’t use RPG’s if they are in range of the flamethrower.

Cpt. Winters – do not bother with him, he will eat your ammo and attention. But is of no threat himself, he stands in the center of the map and can’t shoot you unless you’re moving Muriatic Acid. Even then it’s for small amounts of damage. Pray he is late to work. He gives enemies 2x more damage reduction, but attempting to kill him leaves you open. If you must kill him use your throwables, and finish off with an RPG, Molotov Cocktails fire will stack with each other.

Spider- Is not a problem, there are only a few places he can show up, and you will not be near any of them. You can shoot him to make him flee faster, but its a waste of ammo.

Necro Cloaker – DONACDUM

Outro

And finally things to keep in mind.

-You will fail multiple times, this is normal. Do not take it out on anyone. I don’t care if he stood in the way of the RPG. By reading this you agree to these terms.

-DW Lab Rats Guide is original character don’t steal.

-DONACDUM-

`~WraithGear

[ WraithGear]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1esrEb9p0Wc

[MutantDemocracy]

"Inspire aced is the trademark of the Mastermind tree. Inspire basic is also useful to speed up your teammates when carrying bags (e.g. on Firestarter). Both the aced and basic variant have the same range of 7 meters. Inspire basic has a 3.5 seconds cooldown. It increases not only the movement speed, but also the reload speed by 20%. Reload speed is the inverse of the time to reload, so an inspired player with 50% faster shotgun reload has his time to reload multiplied by (1 + 0.2 + 0.5)^-1 = 0.59."

Taken directly from the long guide.

Get you facts right, before you respond stupidly.

[Dr. Robotnik's Nice Rice Device]

Inspire does have an effect on reload speed. It's a known effect of the skill, and has been for ages. Maybe you should get your facts right.

[Mike]

Inspire does NOT improve reload speed... gets the facts right BEFORE you make a guide... also you can kill the captain very easily by dropping like 2 molotovs or 2 fire grenade launcher ammo on him and letting the fire do the work....

[Col. Christman]

thx dude

[Pex]

Wow that takes forever.... I like my way better

[Cenobite, that Cute Pariah]

Sound advice. I've tried this and it works.