Overview
Dungeons are endless caverns of danger and loot that are considerably harder than the story-line content. Read up before venturing forth, perhaps to your doom.
Introduction
Guide is WIP – will update and add more as I progress.
Not knowing what I was really getting into I decided (foolishly?) to start dungeoneering right from level 1 because of the sweet, sweet loot and I like a challenge. I don’t think that The Castle intended this, but the option is there if you’re hard enough.
Dungeons are endless cycles of pre-made maps filled with tough enemies and loot boxes. The dangers are much higher than the campaign but rewards are also much higher. It appears to be that dungeons are intended to for post- or mid-campaign play as the enemies start at about level 5 on floor 1, which will be very difficult for a starting character.
Layout and floorplans
The start room will always have a transporter in it, this room is generally ‘safe’ and you should return here to heal or change equipment.
The dungeons are almost flat tree- or star-like in layout consisting of small rooms linked main thoroughfares, so much simpler than the handcrafted story maps. This both good for fleeing through easily but also has the consequence that enemies can path to you just as easily. In story maps it is relatively easy to lose a pursuit by ducking through multiple doors or spiralling vertically to throw them off. In dungeons they will pretty much follow you everywhere as long as they have aggro and are in leash range.
Tactics and strategy
If you run off and open all the doors on the level you will get swarmed. While well-equipped or over-levelled characters for this floor may be able to get away with this, if you’re under-levelled this is a good way to killed right quick. Dungeons spawn all kinds of enemies (much sooner than found in story) and have more mutators (legendary, resistant, tough, epic, etc.) than in story.
You first plan should be to get as much armour as possible seeing as you start with a limited amount. The more armour you have (and over-armour if you can get it) the more damage reduction you have and longer you can survive.
Generally, if you don’t open a door, they won’t come out unless you make huge amounts of noise like explosions on it. So a careful and disciplined approach is easiest if most time consuming. Clear all the nearby rooms one at a time, clearing the level one part at a time and ensuring you always have a safe route back to the transporter.
(boss/badass group pic here)
This is also important as when you approach the exit or after certain triggers (level clear time-out? location?) enemy reinforcements arrive. This is either a boss or really nasty group much higher-level than the floor enemies that will spawn near you and chase you down. Don’t flee from them into an unexplored area or it’s brown trousers time and probably death. Find the biggest kill zone (below) that you can and have at it.
I’m not sure what the exact triggers for this are. Sometimes it seems to happen at certain points in the maps, other times it was random. I’ve had it happen twice while standing still in an empty room or looking at the vending machine.
(Add kiting pic here)
Prioritise the bigger rooms with central pillar/obstacles as they make excellent kiting/kill zones to draw them in to for grenades, shotguns and AoE like fire. If you prefer long range remember where the long hallways are and set up kill zones for sniper/crossbow fire or DoTs like fire or poison. Beware Rocketeers which are very fast firing and accurate and will stuff a rocket up your scope in the blink of an eye. Both them and Evil Eyes have huge splash damage areas so ensure you stay well away from walls as you strafe away from incoming.
Asides from the usual kiting and circle-strafing you can also ‘LOS kite’. Enemies that do not have line of sight and are a certain distance away will return to their spawn location, just by you stepping backwards from leash range and releasing aggro.
Stairs down are also great kill zones for grenades and crossbows due to the huge projectile drop meaning you can effectively hit enemies like grenadiers and they can’t hit you.
(add dead-end pic)
It’s an obvious tip, but do not ever flee into the small dead-end rooms. They provide zero to almost no cover and have no blocks to jump on for vertical strafing. If you get followed in by several heavy enemies (grenadiers, gunners or rocketeers) well, you’re almost certain to die. Enemies (none I’ve met anyway) do not self-damage so don’t try to get cute edge-strafe/snap shooting them in here. They will just step around, body block you into a corner and then turn you into a bloody smear on the wall. All in glorious slo-mo vision…
Safe areas tie in with your healing ability which is based on a cool down. Ensure at all times that you are in good health and your abilities are off cool down before exploring new areas. There will be heaps of enemies, guaranteed. Having heal off cool down also allows you to escape Certain Death as below. (I’m not sure but I think Danger is more likely to proc if you are currently healing.)
When you are in DANGER mode the game goes into Matrix-like bullet time mode and slows down time enormously. During this time you can do almost anything as weapons swaps are instant. This means you can place explosives precisely with minimum risk as well as line up piercing shots, exactly duck cover, weave enemies like Legolas, etc. Yes you can fool with your inventory in danger mode. Be quick.
As a side effect while you are in Danger mode you actually cannot die from DoT (damage over time) and even though you may be on -200 hp and still taking DoT damage when you exit danger mode you will be set at 1hp. Don’t start another fight until you are healed and your danger mode has cooled down. You can start danger again from 1hp but I don’t recommend it.
Dungeons are very likely to spawn enemies far higher then you, when this combines with Legendary consider restarting the level as you will do around 1 dmg per attack. Unless you are a psycho like me and enjoy taking down a L14 legendary at L5 with a L1 starting weapon (took 10-15 mins, all my ammo all my AP and all my health)
Resupply and Logistics
There’s a couple of ammo restores around but use them sparingly. Once they’re gone there’s no more more ammo and you will need to buy some or exit the level to restock (see below).
It’s basic advice but don’t pick up potions you don’t need – you can only have so many action points and excess is wasted. There’s only so many potions per floor and once you run out of potions and action points you have no more healing/special abilities. At that point you might as well give up, or it’s super-grindy red wanding things while on 1hp. 🙁
There can be shops on the floor which offer good deals and some things for sale you won’t find easily in story mode at level. A good place to spend your hard-earned cash or to get rare materials for crafting. If you run out of armour, health or AP, you can refill those here for cash.
It’s also worthwhile setting your inventory to the ‘Weapons‘ tab so in a pinch you quickly can hit ‘I, doubleclick, ESC’ to swap out an empty weapon for different one. No, the game is not paused while you fool with your inventory…
You are not safe at the transporter either. While you can kite around it to block incoming fire it doesn’t give that much cover and using it requires a second of channelling. The game is NOT paused either while the network interface is open. You can be killed by trying to escape, so make sure the area is clear before using it.
As always in Revulsion, if you transport and return, a significant amount of the enemies (and armour pickups) in the level will respawn, so you need to weigh carefully the risk of dying while trying to complete the run against leaving restocking ammo/re-equipping and saving and then having to fight everything again.
You can also use this to your advantage if you’re under-levelled for the floor. By restarting the level instead of completing it, you get a difficulty advantage (and more drops at this level) whereas the next floor may be very difficult or impossible. This allows you to “train up” your character and gear, or amass cash/material before starting the next floor.
I have found only one fast travel station per floor, so make sure you remember where it is. If you have to run for it, press M to bring up your map and follow it home.
Loot
(WIP – in development)
Due to the higher level and increased enemies you will get much better drop chances than usual. Each enemy room will have 2-3 loot chests, a potion and there’s usually 2-3 ammo refills per floor.
Loot can include:
- High-level items
- Rare crafting materials like Berserker gems
- Rare blueprints like Transmutation BP to turn 1 Animus into 5 crafting gems
- Legendary case drops from legendary foes
Exiting the dungeon
“I heard that”
It’s not immediately obvious but once you have started a dungeon run it becomes your current mission and you cannot divert back to story mode. No other nodes are available to travel to except Sanctuary.
To stop, choose the third option from the transport interface to return to Sanctuary and make all destinations available again.
.
.
.
You may resume your dungeon run after exiting:
Say Tera-what?
Guide icon is a scene from “Three Robots” by Blow Studio[www.imdb.com], an episode from the animated series “Love, Death + Robots” on Netflix.
Not for kids! (Excessive high-level sexual content, death, violence, mayhem and aliens. Also robots)