Ive b6. Make sure you hit the shifting earth events early on day two... except for the mountain top.een climbing the depths, deranking, and climbing the depths the past few weeks and I see all the things some of you guys are doing that are making runs harder than they should be. Here's a few tips you can use to make your life easier.
TLDR version:
Don't skip the starting camp, and try to get to level 3 at the first point of interest.
Stop chasing evergaols, especially at level 2/3.
Don't run across the map for an extra flask (you'll probably get it later anyway).
Prioritize getting good weapons and weapon passives and be a good teammate and drop good weapons for your team
Always try to include the castle in your run.
Make sure you hit the shifting earth events early on day two... except for the mountain top.
Night invaders are good for your runs, the earlier the better, and even better if you have a night invader relic.
Relics should include as much damage increases as possible and make sense for your build.
Make combat easier by watching youtube tutorials on the nightlord, block strafing and surge sprinting/jumping more attacks, staying with your team, hitting a close grace if youre triple barred, and using buffs and consumables
Playing your character well, including choosing a character that fits your team
You can stop there if you want, but if you'd like a detailed explanation as to how and why you should follow those tips, here is the long form version:
- Don't skip the starting camp, and try to get to level 3 at the first point of interest.
Thankfully, no one is skipping the starter camp as much anymore. But if you're tempted, just kill the mobs. It takes a few extra seconds and your level 2 stats are way higher than level 1.
If you start at a church, kill the two rats, then immediately run to the nearest easy trash mobs close to where you are. There's always trash mobs reasonably close.
Then you should go to the nearest easy POI like a great church or a fort. Dont just kill the boss. Make sure you kill enough mobs to get to level 3.
There a few reasons you should do this but the two most obvious are you need to be level 3 to effectively use the blue weapon you likely just acquired which will make the rest of day 1 much easier, and that if you do something next like night invaders or a field boss and you die, it's much easier fo finish them off at level 2 than at level 1.
- Stop chasing evergaols, especially at level 2/3.
Evergaols are generally a 50/50 chance to either waste your time, or give you mediocre rewards at best. A majority of the time, you'll get a choice between 10k runes and a dormant power that you don't need. A significant portion of the time, you will spawn a boss that's not even worth trying to kill or that will wipe your team at low levels.
What you wont get is useful weapons for your team, and you need good weapons and good weapon passives. There's usually a camp, a ruin, or an easy field boss right next to any of the evergaols. Go to those, take a few seconds to kill a couple of extra mobs, and youve already got your extra 10k runes. Kill the boss and thats a chance at three weapons for each of your teammates. Not to mention the red enemies arel also guaranteed to drop weapons.
Even if you have the evergaol relic on, if two of your other teammates don't, that extra 5% damage that you're doing can't compete with all of you having better weapons or a better weapon passive giving you 10-20% more damage or negation at full hp.
Also, stop opening the noob trap evergaol on the far eastern side of the map when you see that giant field boss standing right there. Now you have to try and dodge two bosses, before inevitably realizing you cant and now youve wasted time that could cost you a field boss or the castle.
I often skip evergaols altogrther unless there's nothing else worth doing in the circle or theyre directly on the way to another POI on day 2 when we all have good weapons and I know we're going to hit level 15. They also dont appear in the great hollow for what its worth.
- Don't run across the map for an extra flask.
Truly one of the most time wasting decisions you can make in a game where you have a limited amount of time.
You almost certainly need to get 1 church sometime during the expedition. The most you will need is 2. A 3rd extra flask is nice but nowhere nearly as valuable as hitting important POIs, field bosses, the castle, Noklateo, volcano, etc. Hundreds of runs in, maybe single digit times has an extra flask been the difference but hundreds of times, big damage was the difference.
If you do see a church on the edge of the map, make sure you route your way there such that you're tackling bosses ON THE WAY and not running across the map skipping high priority POIs and then missing them because the circle closed.
And often enough, that one church way across the map? The circle is closing there anyway and now youve cost yourself multiple chances at weapons, dormant powers, and runes when you were already going there anyway.
If you DO need to go to the furthest reaches of the map knowing it will be outside the circle and its the only church you'll get all run, do it by bird.
- Prioritize getting good weapons and weapon passives
Weapons that do more damage kill more bosses faster which get you more weapons to kill more bosses and to kill the nightlord. Seems obvious, but Ive often seen a lot of time wasting, and then teammates end up at the nightlord doing little to no damage because their inventory is largely useless.
The best way to get them is by killing bosses, namely field bosses, and killing red enemies if youre running right by them anyway. Then chests/seal stands/staff and bow racks if they're right there but dont waste all your time hunting for them.
Most weapon passives generally work while the item is simply in your inventory. I've played with teammates who clearly don't know this as ive seen them with an inventory of purple weapons with completely useless passives, and even a few times, dropping all their gear and going into the nightlord fight with a single weapon in their inventory. For the ones that require the weapon be in your hand, a little hand symbol next to the passive will conveniently identify that.
Your main focus with passives should be:
A. Some form of damage negation that's useful for your playstyle. Negation at full hp for squishier characters. Negation on guarding for guardian/sekiro executor, negation on taking damage/charge attacks for raider, etc.
B. Improved attack power for the weapon you plan to use whether that be melee, ranged, incants, sorceries, and the way you plan to use it, ie. Skill spam, charged attacks/spells, etc.
C. Quality of life passives like increased spell casting speed, continuous hp recovery, fp recovery after landing attacks, projectile fall off, etc.
- Always try to include the castle in your run.
You get 3 guaranteed weapons and talismans for your team for killing the basement boss. The rooftop boss usually gives great weapons. The crucible/banished knights and elder lion in the castle give a lot of runes and at least 3 total guaranteed drops.
If the basement boss looks tough and their are knights in the courtyard, dont be afraid to kill a few of the nights first for runes for quite a few levels and a couple of drops, level up at the grace directly north of the castle, then run back down to the basement for the boss. It's way better to do that than to waste time dying to the basement boss over and over.
If you're really quick and you got there early on day one, you can kill a few of the knights and both castle bosses before the circle is closing in on the castle, usually putting you around level 10+ on day one.
The trolls depend on the circumstances. How much time before the circle closes? How far is the circle from the castle? Is the lake boss available? Are the two field bosses near the northern ravine available? Make a reasonable decision.
If you do tackle the trolls and you came up throught the basement, take the WESTERN gate out and go to the north troll so you dont aggro the other trolls. Then the north eastern troll. If you approach the castle from the ravine, take the spirit spring up to the NORTHEASTERN troll first and lure it back closer to the rampart facing the north so you dont get blasted by the south eastern troll.
- Night invaders are good for your runs and even better if you have a night invader relic.
At least one night invader camps are guaranteed to spawn in DON, if not two, and each camp has 1-2 night invader.
Generally, you want to enter from the designated entrance, clear out any mobs that you could aggro, stand there and wait until the invaders spawn, reposition so you have room to fight, kill them, leave, and hit a grace.
With the relic equipped, thats potentially 30% more damage, on top of runes that are competitive with an evergaol and they typically die faster though i suggest you attack conservatively. Best of all, they drop guaranteed purple weapons, usually with amazing passives, that often will carry your entire run, AND YOU CAN USE THEM FROM LEVEL 1.
Meaning, that while they're always good for your run, they have exponential value the earlier you kill them. Which is again, why I recommend you get to level 3 at the first POI, then you can tackle night invaders a bit easier if theyre close.
- Make sure you hit the shifting earth events early on day two... except for the mountain top.
You CAN go on day 1, but remember, the first day 1 circle will not include the shifting earth so if there are valuable POIs elsewhere for instance night invaders, don't miss your opportunity to do them. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME ON DAY 1. Always Be productive.
Noklateo: Go there immediately on day 2. Maybe you get the 1 church in the south east if you need it. Always take the western route through the city. Watch a YouTube video if you dont know the route to get the guaranteed drops and the potential legendary weapon checks. If you go there immediately, you should always have time for astel and to get the special power. If you get a weapon like grafted or marias, immediately go dupe that for your teammates because thats priority number 1
Crater: if you cleared the castle on day 1, which you generally should always try to do, I generally head straight for the church in the crater, drop down the cliff and start killing the bosses on the way to the magma worm. Forge a legendary if one didnt drop. Take the bird up north, hit the demihuman queen near the western spirit spring. Jump up and hit the red wolf. Theres another field boss southwest of that. Drop back down into the crater for the black blade kindred and falling star beast if there's time. That order might change circumstantially depending on where the day 1 circle ends.
Rotted woods: the special power can only spawn in 3 places. The south western and the southernmost points are close together so if you check them first, that eliminates the need to check the fort to have it marked on your map. Kill bosses on the way to check for the power. The northern bird conveniently drops you off right at one of the checks though.
If you havent done the castle basement boss, you can do that immediately on day 2 if its on the way, or you can head straight to the rotted woods clearing bosses on your way to the special power
Mountaintop: YOU ONLY NEED THE SPECIAL POWER IF YOU'RE FACING CALIGO
You do not need to drop everything you're doing and head straight for the mountaintop power on day 2. The castle will always be inside the first circle on day 2. You can clear the castle basement and rooftop, and head to the various bosses on the mountaintop and get the power on the way to the circle if you absolutely need it. Again, a youtube video can show you routes to get the most bosses.
- Relics should include as much damage increasing passives as possible. Make sure they make sense for your build.
Extra HP is nice but in a game where you need to kill things faster, your relic slots are more valuable for damage. That comes first. Defense and quality of life should be slotted in where you can fit them but all six of your relic slots shouldn't be focused on survivability. Thats what weapon passives are for. Certainly include a post damage attacks recover hp +1 or +2 if youre playing melee but you definitely need to devote some slots to doing damage.
Otherwise, you will survive all the way to the nightlord, and you wont get one shot, but you will take so long killing the nigjtlord and you will eventually run out of flasks and hp anyway.
And with that, make sure you even have relics equipped. It sounds crazy but ive seen multiple teammates with no relics. Even in depth 3. If you switch characters, make sure you check at the selection screen. It takes two seconds. And for gods sake, beat all the nightlords in the base game first so that you both know what you're doing, and at least have a full set of guaranteed relics to work with.
- Make combat easier
Yeah, it's awesome if you can perfect dodge everything and never get hit, but if youre stuck, clearly that doesnt apply.
What can you do to make combat easier:
A. WATCH A YOUTUBE TUTORIAL ON EACH NIGHTLORD.
I kid you not, you will immediately be better at a nightlord after watching one video and seeing counters to all their moves that you may not even realize you weren't doing correctly. And get the best weapon you can find that's strong against the nightlord. Please dont use fire weapons on the dog or holy weapons on fulghor. Ive done it a few times when I couldn't find anything better and still won but dont make it harder than it has to be.
B. Block/strafe and surge sprint/jump.
Every weapon can be two handed and used to block 100% of PHYSICAL damage. So if you know an attack is coming and you dont think you have the timing to dodge it, just hold block. Its better to get guard broken than 1 shot. If you strafe around the attack while holding block, often times it will miss you completely. And, if you do see that you can perfect dodge the attack, hold block anyway. That way, if youre a little late on the dodge, at least you won't get hit by that attack.
Sometimes, instead of dodging or blocking, your best option is to surge sprint out of range of an attack or jump over it. Yes it requires some stamina management but it will save your life over and over.
C. Using graces after youre downed.
If youre double or triple barred and there's a grace in your immediate vicinity, take a few seconds to run and hit the grace, reset your bars to 0, and come back. It's much faster doing that than your teammates having to get you up again and potentially dying in the process. If you have a bunch of runes because you just killed something, like night invaders for instance, just go to a grace, level up, and lock in your runes, especially if you were triple barred. Trust me, its better to waste 20 seconds than lose 50k-100k runes.
D. Try to stay with your team.
Yeah, one teammate might run off across the map because they didn't read these tips. If your other teammates is doing something productive even if it's not necessarily optimal, its probably just easier to help them do it then get the team back on track by pinging the most obvious and optimal location next
E. If you find strike/holy/fire/etc weapons early, hold on to them even if youre not going to use them for the nightlord.
You will run into bosses that have a weakness to them and make them much easier. You can drop them later once you find better gear.
F. Consumables and buffs
Don't sleep on these. While unnecessary in the base game, consumables like flesh and crab can make DON way easier and have you killing bosses much faster. Pots and darts and such can take out early bosses in seconds giving you a head start on your runs. Twiggy cracked tears can save your runes if you want to try and finish a boss in the rain. Warming stones can top your health off for you negation at full hp or get you through a tough boss where you're out of flasks and so on. A good buff like shared order can also help you run through holy weak bosses. Same with body buffs cutting damage taken.
- Play your character effectively
Wylder should be making constant use of the claw shot. Guardian should have ult charge on blocking attacks to ult way more often. Ironeye should ALWAYS have mark applied(for gods sake please) Dutchess should restage big damage windows. Revenant needs use her summons to take aggro and use her ult to save the team or finish off a tough fight. Scholar should always have item effects conferred to all allies (i get scared when I see you guys pick scholar. I check your relics immediately)
Really get to know your favorite characters well but also be able to use more than one character. Look at what characters your teammates are picking and consider if you need to move to a character that does more damage or a character that can also attack from range or a character than can stay alive if your teammates are squishy.
If you're stuck and realizing you're not doing much or any of this, just making these changes alone should get you and your team to level 15 with a full inventory of good weapons and passives every single run and a good shot at the nightlord. Try to make good quick decisions about where to go and what weapons to pick up and drop and you should be able to breeze through the first three depths with very few losses.