My Guide to Playing Advanced Mode

Battleborn Battleborn Campaign Discussion
#8

Definitely appreciate what you’re on about here, and would like to contribute:

Work critical spots. On advanced, you need to be hitting crits, not just hitting. This is why I’ve been successful with Toby in advanced. I don’t even feel like my Toby game is THAT great, but he packs powerful crits.

Contrariwise, this is why I don’t really like Ambra for Advanced. Her Staff locks on, but it can’t score crits. Guys in advanced just have too much life and hit too hard for her to drain them out successfully.

Reyna I DO like in advanced because she heals in bursts. Overshield and 300+ health, instantly. It’s much more likely to save a friend than Ambra or Miko’s healing-over-time. If you have her Lore Legendary, the Snazzy Timepiece, she can also tick-heal people back to full in between encounters. Plus her Priority Target is REALLY useful for helping your friends in laying out the big boppers of advanced.

Mostly, advanced just forces you into playing roles more intently. In normal, most every Battleborn can handle any kind of bad guy, even in swarms. In advanced, the increase in damage and life means you need to know your role, and stick to it. This can be hard in PUG groups.

It also can get difficult if someone goes freelancing for kills or loot. If somebody runs right into the teeth of the enemy, you may just have to let them use up a life. Too many times you see somebody Leeeeeroy Jenkins their way in, and if you go in for the revive, you’re in a body bag too. So is the guy who goes to revive you. This happens altogether too much on Heliophage advanced, or the Thrall fiesta at the beginning of Sentinel. Somebody goes and triggers ALL the various clusters, and before you know it the party is wiped. Bottom line: stay within arms reach of each other. Not so close that one AoE from a Thrall Brute KO’s 3 of you, but close enough to get revives and NOT trigger new clusters of baddies from swarming on you.

1 Like
#9

I would talk about Pheobe or El Dragon with this in mind. If you can’t reach end game because they are dragging you down then what’s the point of having them? About 80 percent of my Advanced modes end in the first 10 minutes of the game.

That said it also depends on how many people you have. I don’t think either of those champions could survive with a five man group. At least I’ve never seen it.

I only put Ambra there because I’ve literally never picked her without someone saying “ugh, Ambra”

#10

I’ve done it many times with them and really without issues. I have them both around level 8 and mostly just played advanced story with them.

#11

Then that’s great, as I said before It’s about skill with many of these characters. If you’re not having issues with them then totally ignore me. But others might get on and be wondering why they can’t be effective with those characters.

#12

My pvp record is just hovering around 50% I might be a bit about average, but I’m not pro or anything like that.

I just don’t think those characters are hard or bad. I have friends that also play them that are average gamers like me and they do fine with them.

#13

I don’t really play El Dragon all that much, but I’ve played Phoebe successfully on nearly all the advanced missions. I find it’s very much about True Strike mobility, jab and move. That and, of course, landing criticals.

One of the things I find important in advanced story as a melee character is “turning” baddies, especially the big whoppers like MX Elites and Thrall Brutes. As you swing on them, pivot around so they’re forced to either show their back to you or your ranged friends. These guys have crit spots on the back, so with this kind of mobile flank you can ensure that at least one of you is working that spot. With her teleport and True Strike’s sidestep, Phoebe is quite good at this.

1 Like
#14

For the most part I agree, but I would stipulate that most people aren’t scoring crits with every shot. Skill level plays a huge part in this game and I wanted to make a guide to help the people that make me want to punch through my television.

I would argue this about Ambra, if you are playing her for single target damage you are playing her wrong. I average about third place in damage every time I play her because she is an AOE character to the bone. Your sunspots can heal allies while increasing damage to enemies by 16%. When played right small mobs are a nothing to her and your team will thank you for it.

But like I said, it’s all skill based at a certain point.

#15

Oh, I feel you about Ambra, don’t get me wrong. I make it rain sunspots when I play her, advanced or otherwise. :wink: I still just prefer Reyna and Alani as healers on most advanced missions because of the increased offensive potential via scoring critical hits more easily and the fact their healing comes in bursts as opposed to ticks. Miko has very strong tick-healing, and its crit damage is very nice, so I feel it is a good choice too.

As for it being skill-based, I fully agree. I’m just recommending the #1 INDIVIDUAL skill I feel is important for advanced success: work those crits!

#16

I totally agree that Pheobe has great damage potential but I find her worth dependent on other people for survival. I can only speak to my own personal experience seeing her played but more often than not I have to waste most of my time as a support reviving her until the user inevitably leaves out of frustration.

I can really only speak to my own experience, things are likely different depending on what platform you are on and also what characters you frequent. Personally I’m a support main on the Xbox so my view is jaded by people who refuse to fight inside of a sunspot that is keeping them alive.

#17

I can only really speak from my own experience on the Xbox. I would love to see people doing well with every character, and I’m sure they exist. I just haven’t really seen either of them used very effectively, and by effectively I mean within the top three on damage.

#18

I’m on PS4, and I don’t really have a main, per se. Even a main class/category. I’ve played just about everybody, I’m a sucker for variety.

I think the main problem people run into with Phoebs is trying to play her like the other melee guys. You don’t have the security blanket of Rath’s lifesteal, or Gal or Bolder’s shield, or the overall survivability.

Best way I can think to describe Phoebe is not as a melee character, but as a ranged character with VERY short range. So just as wouldn’t just try to stand up in a shooting rangefest with a mobile shooter like Orendi, Marquis, heck, pretty much anybody but Monty or ISIC, you can’t just wade into a horde with Phoebe. She needs to stick and move, and if you see a herd, hunt like lions or wolves do: peel and kill individuals, as opposed to standing in front of them and letting the wave break on you.

She DOES need the team to understand this is how she wants to work, so they’ve got to stay mobile as well.

#19

I only ever really play with randoms which is likely why I’ve never seen a Phoebe do very well. There are just some characters that need coordination to work properly.

That said, there are for sure characters that DGAF about synergy like ISIC or Montana with gear. I had a damage competition with a random Montana and that was basically how I got through The Experiment on Advanced.

#20

[quote=“TheRAbbi, post:7, topic:1540618, full:true”]Played exclusively solo.
[/quote]

Even advanced/hardcore solo runs are nothing like advanced/normal group runs. Solo is pretty much cake no matter what you’re doing of who you’re playing with. This is going to sound bad, but solo experience has negligible applicability to team play. Enemies are way tougher, spawns are bigger, different enemies spawn, and rezzing your friends is a legitimate concern (learning to rez allies without dying in the process is a skill you have to practice).

Not to sound rude, but I would definitely try running some group missions before trying to give out advice on how to move into advanced diff in group play.

3 Likes
#21

Top 3 on damage isn’t really a good way to evaluate combat efficiency. A clumsy OM can get top 3 damage just from Fragcendiary-ing waves. Doesn’t mean he’s producing well to help the mission, or at least he may not be performing as well as other characters who are timing their skills more aptly and making the right kill at the right time. I mean, if that Oscar is fragging slow-moving waves of Skulks while Scavens are feasting on Wolf Sentry, he’s not really helping, is he?

Remember, the best way to heal damage is never to take it in the first place. On advanced, concentrating fire is also important. A player’s damage may suffer from team-firing on threats, maybe they could have done more picking their own guy to concentrate on, but if you can knock down a big target 30% more quickly, that’s 30% less attacks that threat has launched.

1 Like
#22

My favorite example of this is on Renegade. A level 10 Miko with the mushroom damage helix can do an utterly obscene amount of damage (I’ve had that mushroom, alone, solo an entire lane), such that as Miko I ended up doing twice the damage of the next closest character, who was killing much more dangerous things than my mushroom was.

Total damage is important, but it isn’t nearly as important as damage placement.

1 Like
#23

Agreed. But seriously, practicing missions on normal, with an eye on doing group/advanced runs, is pointless. One needs to crank difficulty as high as it goes. And yeah, even that might not approach what’s going on with a group. But normal/normal, ‘easy mode’, is NOT the way to prepare.

And that’s what I’m trying to get at.

(No worries. I’m sure you’re not trying to be rude, and so I try to read your posts as constructive & helpful. Hopefully, you understand that I intend likewise just to be helpful/constructive. :wink: )

#24

[quote=“TheRAbbi, post:23, topic:1540618, full:true”]But normal/normal, ‘easy mode’, is NOT the way to prepare.
[/quote]

Eh, I think normal mode in a 5 man group is more useful prep for advanced mode in a group than advanced mode solo is.

About the only thing that solo normal mode is good for is familiarizing yourself with the map (learning spawn points/triggers, chest locations, etc), which is actually very useful, and I’m in no way disparaging it for that purpose. I’ve met plenty of people that are experienced with advanced but end up complicating everything because they don’t know the map well; best example of this is the start of Sentinel where a lot of people will run around breaking all of the shards immediately, which just makes everything more difficult because they’re triggering every other spawn and getting us swamped. If they just took it slow and cleared out one area before moving on to another, it would be cake rather than the oft cited “omg, this is so hard”.

2 Likes
#25

That said (and I SORTA agree), I’d just as soon do it on advanced when preparing map knowledge.

MIND YOU, my opinion here is colored by not having played group since beta. But normal/normal is just silly easy. Best way to discover what a map truly has to offer, is to HAVE TO. Learn or fail? “LEARN, I choose YOU!”

For what relatively little Advanced does for difficulty in solo, I’d still take that extra prodding to expand my approach to the map and find more advantageous positions.

THEN, run it in normal with team to get a feel for how difficulty ramps up. Apply expectations for MORE ramping based on the change from normal to advanced in solo.

Prepare accordingly. Optimize gear loadouts. Determine appropriate helix progression. Go forth. Succeed.

#26

I’ve not played Solo PVE since my first week of owning the game. I was totally unfamiliar with most of the characters as I worked to unlock them, and wanted to understand basic functions. So beyond that, I really only see solo play as being useful as setting up precise conditions for Lore Farming.

Battleborn is a team game in every sense of the word. Each of these characters fits a role, each has weaknesses the others have to patch. That’s why I’ve never seen a team do well with too many of one kind of character, and why the most experienced players tend to pick their character last. Unless they have a dedicated main they’re just genius with, they recognize the best course is to identify what’s missing and pick that.

1 Like
#27

Battleborn is both a solo and team game. Proof? Ask everyone who plays solo. :wink:

It’s poor prep for team efforts, but it’s a start. And when you’re looking at hinky ping, or just a lack of online presence (PC master race, reporting!), sometimes solo is the sole option.

And for learning direct combat with the toons, it’s good. For learning to heal/shield, or otherwise support, it lacks. You can get a LITTLE of that soloing a private PvP game, but mostly that’s where one needs to wade out into the surf.