Small guide: weapons, enemies and trophies

[cris3f]

A guide for everything else that didn't fit in the farming guide.

 

There's a VERY useful excel file that you can use to keep track of your weapons, however it has a few serious errors.The weapons count is wrong and some of the Air Raider weapons classes too. I corrected the file and added more information, and a even more useful a check so that you can verify on the Battle Details that the number of weapons you have there and on your chart match. This will make tracking everything easier. I contacted the original creator of the file but got no reply. I have the new version, if you want it just contact me here I can send it attached in a message. This is not a trophy hunter game so I guess there won't be many requests for it anyway.

 

All trophies will come naturally except the Red Drones and the Transport kills. Don't bother killing specific enemies to get the trophies, it's not worth the trouble and you'll reach those numbers easily long before finishing the game. Focus on the 100% weapons trophy. This is the one that matters, and the most difficult one to get. My strong advice: don't use DLC missions to get the last weapons. Believe me the grinding for the 100% weapons trophy is HUGE this one you don't want to mess with or take risks.

 

Weapons total is 788. The 8 free to download weapons from PSN ARE included in this total.

 

Farming online is not very useful. It will increase somewhat your chances of getting better and / or more weapons, but you'll just waste a ton more time. It's fun, but it's very disorganized and beating the hardest levels on inferno online is a nightmare as usually each player goes after himself and this 99% of the times doesn't work out. Also in inferno the enemy scales in difficulty a lot making the game even more difficult. Orbs, flying vehicles, dragons and red ants become particularly difficult to handle. You'll get massacred several times by your partners (explosives...) and some always manage to piss ALL enemies at once.  To finish will require a few good partners. And you'll waste a long time in the end.

You can either do all levels online or offline. Don't mix, it won't count.

 

Don't piss all enemies at the same time. There are missions that turn into a nightmare if you do it, and are a piece of cake if you don't do it  (83, 71, 63,  59, 53, 50 to name a few). Explosives and rockets have the nasty downside of pissing a lot of enemies at once.

 

Try to get rid of active tunnel exits and transports as soon as possible. They're worse that bigger enemies, as they will create large amounts of hard to get rid of enemies until you do that. On most levels there's a limit to the total number of enemies that will be present at the same time and they'll stop generating them (mission 79 is an example). However as soon as you kill the generated baddies, they'll ramp production again.

 

The Wing Diver can stay on top of transports and inside large ones (quite funny in these). However on some maps they're so high that you can't fly to them. But this can be very useful, specially with large transports (Labyrinth of Light / Encircling). Using a high level, high damage weapon like the Hreidmarr, you can just stay on top or inside the transport while it's closed and shoot it in the top at your convenience. However be careful with emptying the weapon clip as the weapon recharge can bring you down, falling on top of pissed enemies without charge or in the water. Keep the last 1 or 2 ammunition and recharge the weapon while the transport is closed so that you have a full weapon charge and flying charge.

 

Use he EDF soldiers to your advantage. Sometimes you should get them to help, sometimes you should ignore them and many times you should use them as bait. Baddies will mostly focus on the player or EDF soldier that is nearer to them in a straight line. Sometimes you must also kill them as they will try to kill the last enemies you need alive to have time to pick weapons and armor crates. Sometimes you can and should even use your second carry on player as bait.

Remember most levels are easy with the correct strategy. If you find that the level is easy as pie with a character do it with the other 3 classes as a second character. it's much faster than finding the correct strategy for any of the other classes.

 

I managed all difficult inferno levels with less than 4000 on the Ranger, around 3500 for the Air Raider and Fencer, and 2500 for the Wing Diver. Now that I don't need them I've grown these values a lot (they will be very useful for the lower ranks I still have to do ...) because farming weapons in level 82 will provide literally tons of armor crates. Repeating myself, it's mostly the right strategy and using the best character for taking all other on a mission if it's very easy with him. For instance I lost a ton of time in mission 73 trying to do it with each character, then just figured a easy way to do it with the Ranger and did all others with him.

 

REALLY ULTRA MEGA GIGA ESSENTIAL ADVICE:  Leave the last weapons to be farmed for the Fencer preferably. If you like the character a lot leave them for the Ranger. Why? Simple, they're the ones with the best ratio between number of weapons and highest level weapon. Both top at level 85 weapons, the Ranger has "just" 186 the Fencer "just" 163. The Wing Diver is more difficult as she has 2 level 92 weapons and quite a few 85+ ones. The Air Raider is the worse as besides the measly 261 weapons he has a level 95 one. Stupid of me I left the Air Raier for last. I had 6 weapons missing and now I already wasted more than 30 hours farming for the last weapon (Rule of God :-( ) and it still hasn't popped. The lower levels and lower number of weapons will make the odds towards getting the prize of the last few weapons a lot easier for those preferable classes.

 

Best weapons for EDF, all characters

 

This is vary wildly in opinion, this is mine. I've used extensively 3 of the characters (easy to see who's out of the picture...) , with the vast majority of the weapons in each. I always played solo with 2 characters, it halves the number of missions to be made and it either doubles the armor growth rate if you use the same character for both,or increases on both types.

 

1 - ZEXR-GUN (level 79) - I always hated the Air Raider. Frankly its intitial set of weapons suck. He was the one I would always not even touch, he died miserably at its starting point. Then I got the ZEX launcher and got hooked, but it has major issues: explosives, which means it scatters enemies and can easily kill you too. The ZEXR-GUN however is almost perfect. It enables playing easily solo with 2 characters on inferno on most missions (up to 85) with some or extreme ease. If you can afford to get 2 and time things correctly you can have an endless supply of small waves massacre while doing whatever you want with the other character, or using sparely the Air Raider all the same. Only letdowns are the 20 secs realod time and the small firing range. And it's fantastic for most tunnel missions too.
Also this is the weapon you can use to make the deroys dance (fantastic with 4 ZEXRs,with 2 Air Raiders on Mission 83 Massive Mobilization, just seed them arounf a deroy before shoting him once, or you can try too but it's more difficult with the bigger brother on mission 65 Towering Beast or  72 Machine Sqaud).
A must.

2 - Epsilon Armored Blast Railgun E (level 84) - In every tips, advice and messages I read everyone talks and wants the Lysander Z. Problem was when I got it I wasn't that impressed. Then I found this gem. This beast. A reasonably fast and manoverable tank with a whopping 22500 damage "cannon" (railgun is more correct). With 25 of these babies ammo available. 4 times the power and 2 times the range of the Lysander. and even provides additional 30000 armor. Now you can wipe Argos with some ease instead of more than 40 Lysander Z shots. It turns several missions into a joke and farming ground. And just killl a few big guys and you can get a new one very fast. Fantastic for farming (see my other guide). Only issue? No 90 degree firing possible (crap, it would be great for 79, Encircling). It even has 2 crappy machine guns as a bonus (reasonable for dragons, ants and spiders), but match this with my number one hit and you've got a winning combination, light years ahead of everything else for most missions.

3 - Idunn FF (level 90) - From the beginning Idunns are the most flexible weapon available for the Wing Diver. Powerful and you can couple it with the Wing Divers mobility for a fantastic combination. Even better, on tunnel missions it continues through tunnel corners. Really powerful and low energy consumption. As with most Wing Diver it will recharge while you can use another pair or a different weapon. Only downsides? Careful while flying and firing it a lot as it can get you into trouble quickly. And you can shoot yourself badly, care is necessary with dead enemies, other characters and the lots of times idiotic EDF soldiers.

4 -  Monster-S (level 55) - A really correct name, it really is a monster. This weapon can be farmed easily on mission 11 on Inferno, the easiest place to farm. When I got it I largely ignored it at first until I tried it on  a inferno hector: 2 shots, it's toast. The weapon is wrongly detailed in EDF and most places. Having full charge on the Wing Diver energy pack this monster will shoot 3 x 6000 rays, delivering a massive 18000 damage to a baddie.Yes it will deplete all your energy and leave you in a bad position as you can only limp around but you can use another weapon to defend yourself (number 3 in the list comes to mind, or another of its lower level sisters, just refill it BEFORE using the Monster-S) during that time. It's by far the lowest level weapon that will enable you to do missions on Inferno that would be untouchable for a long time without it (mission 77 for instance, see my other guide)

5 - AF100 (level 75) - The weapon of choice for the Ranger in close combat. Fast rte of firing, large ammo, reasonable damage and good reload time. It's by far the most versatile of its weapons. Don't underestimate the AF99ST, sometimes its much greater range will be a bonus. And the Buffalo Wide will be a nice option on some cases too.

6 - Reverse Shooter X (level 77) - hidden in the mostly crappy special weapons for all the characters is this fantastic prize. It will replenish your armor with up to 3000 extra health. That is if you had a maximum of 4000 and currently were at 400, you would be restored to 3400 health by using it. If you had 2000 and currently were at 600, you would be restored to 2000. It adds 3000 health to your current value up to your maximum. Another bonus it does the same to other nearby players who "smoke" from the same cloud. EDF soldiers get their share too.. And it throws away nearby enemies (not a good option sometimes) Just aim to the ground near you and shoot. Even more fantastic you get 10 of these prizes.
As a funny bonus you have a carnival intermission if you shoot it while being chewed by a red ant or a dragon. It's funnier in the first case, but be careful in a important mission it can put you in a position that you can only get out by aborting the game. It can be helpful at times thought (mission 81...).

7 - MEX5 Emerald (level 77) - the best homing weapon for any character. You can lock on targets through walls, bridges, buildings and mountains at a reasonable range. And is  fast enough to reach most enemies,even inferno dragons, red orbs and flying vehicles. It will not kill them in one shot but it's really fast to reuse. The weapon of choice to snipe out all segments from deroys legs or all earth eater weapons. Can be used inside tunnels or under bridges with care, just level correctly before firing or will damage you if the missiles hit the ground or ceiling. Just target what you want by looking around then launch them in the correct position to avoid damage to yourself,they'll find their way. It's not easy but once you find the correct way to use them it's great. You can target earth eater weapons while under the bridge and shoot them without coming out.

8 - Fenrir 3WAY (level 82) - the only other really useful homing weapon. The Fencer ones are slow as everything is on him, the other ones for the Wing Diver suck, except the Psiblade α (powerful but slow, only one shot and big energy drain but useful on mission 77 until you have something better). Still has a large energy drain for sustained usage but it's useful on some levels.

9 - Lysander Z (level 90) - I got this one earlier than almost all other weapons on this list &except the Monster-S). I wasn't very impressed, although I did use it as I paired the Ranger with the Fencer when I got it. Then I received number 1 and 2 on this list, I changed the Fencer to the Air Raider, and you can do in the majority of missions everything a lot easier and faster. I think I only used the Lysander on 3 missions on Inferno and I've done almost all from 84 down to 30. The change of Fencer to Air Raider was to a much better and smarter relationship, as after all the Ranger is the only other character that can drive vehicles. Still the Lysander is with useful, as the other 2 better sniper gun are (the Hercules and Stringer J9).

10 - Caliban armored rescue vehicle Turbo S (level 76) - another hidden gem. This thing not only can outrun almost all baddies (except dragons) but also has a reasonable armor and the icing in the cake 20000 health points to replenish all characters. The biggest downside is that it's hard to drive and forget about using it off-road. Even small debris can be a headache, and with more it will be stuck (and probably massacred by baddies). No defense whatsoever, besides its armor.

 

There are other interesting weapons, the Stampede XM (really dangerous weapon). Volatile Napalm, Skytrap Wire, Hreidmarr, Gungnir (level 66 in 30 secs, level 80 is a joke with 2 Wing Divers with them). Fencer's machine guns, shields and some piercers, but you can do 99.5% of the game on all levels with these 10 weapons above.

 

 

Enemies

 

 

I'll give my opinion on the most difficult enemies to handle on Inferno from worst to bearable

 

Dragons - ouch. From idiotic enemies who just touch down in front of you to get murdered on earlier levels they turn into supersonic aggressive beasts that spit precise and damaging balls of fire and destroy you or tanks in a snap.They will also, unlike red ants, chew you to death unless they get killed by something or someone. So with the Air Raider either you get your ass saved by someone else or usually it's game over. Worse, they take a lot of damage and are not easy to kill. The missions with large number of dragons or dragon dropping transports are a pain to do until you find the correct strategy.

Spiders - the nimble spiders are a PITA, probably on par with dragons. The problem is they spread like hell, in several missions show up in huge numbers and worse their webs inflict tons of damage on inferno. In hilly terrain or around buildings it only gets worse. There are missions with huge numbers of them or originating tunnels and they're probably the most difficult missions of the game.

Black ants - yep, incredibly they're much worse than the red ones on inferno. The acid they spit delivers a large damage on inferno, with an astonishing amount on tanks (it must be an ant thing, tank hatred). They're faster and meaner than red ones on inferno, so don't underestimate them ever.

Flying vehicles - another deadly enemy on inferno. From annoying flying boxes they turn into massively obsessed pinky ray shooters that glue to you, will eat your health quickly and difficult to kill. Best way is ZEXR guns (but it will take time and many reloads), AF100, Idunn FF or Fencer's machine guns (Hand Gatlings preferably). For the last 3 just turn 90 degrees up and shoot to the sky as the flying vehicles will pass by over your head like flies and they will drop like them. However this is dangerous and the character can die easily. Else, just walk or even better run around to avoid them

Retiarius - yes, they're easy to kill, only issue is that on inferno they'll capture you with their webs from further than 1/3 of the map. So levels with lots of them are not that easy. Unless you're inside a tank, then it becomes a walk in the park... If there are no other enemies of course, or the tank is toast in a snap, and you too...

 

Everything else is more or less reasonable on inferno as long as you have the right weapons. Mission 85, Star Eaters is a pain to do as the number of earth eaters is massive and it's mostly patience and strategy (and time...).

 

Edited August 16, 2017 by cris3f
More useful info I forgot

[VirtualNight]

8 hours ago, cris3f said:

Cut cut

 

Hi, congrats for all your hard job, it will definitely help a lot of people who will throw themself into this nightmare.

I'm still far from the 788 weapons but I would like to have that file so that I can use it when I will need it.

 

Plus, to go through the Inferno mode I was thinking, from another guy's suggestion, to use the WD and team her with the 3 other classes, but does she have something helpful for ships and big enemies?

[cris3f]

The Wing Diver is versatile but armor grows very slowly and she gets damage much harder than anyone else. She's fantastic for some missions (22 is a piece of cake with her, a nightmare with the others and I lost a ton of time before figuring this out, also great on 79), awful for others. For ships and big enemies she can bring them down with the Idunns or ThunderBows (greater range),The Monster-S is fantastic from a distance (see my farming guide for 77, you can do it with the Monster-S alone, even kill all flying vehicles,although this will be a bore). Best strategy is shoot Monster-S from far, then approach with Idunn or ThunderBow while WALKING back (to avoid nasty surprises when the weapon recharges). However this will be difficult if you have low armor.

In my opinion doing most of the worse levels with her is very difficult. I used mostly the Air Raider to carry others for levels 50+ on Inferno, as it's a lot easier.

 

Farm Wing Diver armor in the level I advised. Use 2 Wing Divers, if you do it for 3 hours or so you'll get around 400 extra health for her. I did it first time with the Idunn-D Custom a level 25 weapon, a pretty low one. There's a limit for how much armor you can get in each game.

 

I just added more information to the guide, I'll probably remember more.

 

You must, or at least should, keep track of your weapons with the Excel file. The game only show you the weapons you have, not the ones you can get. It's extremely useful to use it. I was trying to add a feature to tell which was the lowest and highest level weapon needed for each class, but it's not working correctly, I'll remove that and send it over to you.

 

If you need help with a specific level just ask, probably better by personal message not to overwhelm the forum. Or if it's interesting information for others I can share it here.

 

Edited July 28, 2017 by cris3f