Tips for Heroic (and the game in general)

[StraightVege]

The kinda crappy advice I've seen online prompted me to write this. I think the reason some people have trouble is that they don't understand the mechanics.

 

The CLN gun primarily reduces enemy health, while the NRG weapon mostly depletes the enemy's shield, and you're intended to quickly shift through the weapon forms, using each function while others are on cooldown, to efficiently stack damage/stunlock the enemies. This is MUCH more effective than pounding away with one gun type until you run out of ammo. Combo the enemies to death, and you'll have a much easier time on Insane and Heroic, where the bots seem to be near-indestructible.

 

My favorite simple combo is this, in rapid succession:

1. Mortar secondary fire (stasis bubble to freeze them), then stick 1-2 primary shots on/around them.

2. Grenade Launcher secondary fire (singularly to trap them again), then 1-2 primary grenades.

3. Rocket Launcher shot.

4. Return to Mortar and repeat.

 

This is what you should be doing 90% of the time. Get good at this vortex of death, and most baddies will melt. Later on, you can add more in, like a Rail Gun shot, and Shotgun secondary, for additional stun time. Use the L1 quick menu to swap guns, since it pauses the action.

 

The other 10% should be spent safely picking off enemies with the Smartgun through walls, when necessary. It works great on the humanoid bots, and all types of flyers. The secondary fire is also fantastic against bosses, and far easier than trying to guide rockets into their weak points. Does plenty of damage, too.

 

I recommend upgrading like so:

-Max out Grenade Launcher and Mortar first.

-Max out Smartgun and Rocket Launcher next.

-Dump the rest of your points into Health, Shield, and Ammo upgrades.

-After this, you're basically set, so buy whatever you want (I go with the Rail Gun and Shotgun).

 

If you collect all the secrets and other NANO pickups, you should be able to fully upgrade all four gun forms, and get some of the health/armor upgrades, by the time you reach Atlas (end of level 5).

 

Also, you should be dashing almost constantly—it really keeps you alive in the worst battles. If you ever notice that your shield is low, stop attacking, and dash around until it recovers; getting hit with a low shield is what kills you. The boss fights are so much easier when you stay mobile like this! You can literally just continually dash around the outside of the Atlas arena, while lock-on shooting him with the Smartgun, and never be in real danger. Same for the triple Scarab fight at the end.

 

Hopefully this helps someone!

[MatThaRiPP3R84]

Nice advice thanks. very fun game, recently bought the shadow warriors too, fun times.

[Baker]

How do the difficulty trophies in this game work?

 

Can I do a Normal playthrough first and do Insane on Ex Mode or is that locked at the highest completed difficulty? Can’t find an answer to this. 
 

Thanks.

[PooPooBlast]

27 minutes ago, Baker said:

How do the difficulty trophies in this game work?

 

Can I do a Normal playthrough first and do Insane on Ex Mode or is that locked at the highest completed difficulty? Can’t find an answer to this. 
 

Thanks.

I am not sure if you can as I just played on Insane mode for my first playthrough. Not only does it prep you for the level of damage that enemies will do to you on Heroic but it'll help you develop strategies and you get to learn the spawn points. 

 

As for heroic, just like shadow warrior, you start fresh with no EX option. 

[StraightVege]

Yeah, I also began on Insane, so I don't know. It's not that tough, anyway, and as stated above, helps you acclimate for Heroic.

[Baker]

On 29-12-2021 at 7:54 PM, StraightVege said:

Yeah, I also began on Insane, so I don't know. It's not that tough, anyway, and as stated above, helps you acclimate for Heroic.

Well for me this is a lot harder than Shadow Warrior. I’m halfway through the game on insane and my death count is already triple that of my entire SW platinum run. ?

 

Mostly because I don’t know what to expect, so my consecutive runs shouldn’t cause so many deaths.

 

Anyway I got a question and maybe you could answer it for me. It seems I missed one collectible in the first half of the game and I would just like to know.. How the hell do I pull up this screen?

 

 

If I look at the controls in options the touchpad should pull up a journal and I’m guessing this is it, but either both of the touchpads of my 2 controllers are broken or it’s the wrong button. No idea which other button it could be, or if it’s even possible on PS4. But it comes in handy tracking collectibles, so maybe you remember.

 

Thanks.

[Mellenthin]

I have to agree. In both of the SWs, all I ever used was the horizontal power attack - no exaggeration (a few rocket launcher shots at the end of chapter 16, sure).

 

For a game to flaunt as many weapons beside the sword, it's a bit embarrassing that you're not even required to fire a single bullet if you don't want to bother.

 

In HRR, it's the complete opposite where the sword is a death sentence and you have to juggle between various weapons depending of what you're facing. A stark contrast between the two titles, for sure.

 

I believe I died around 40 times or so in the first playtrough, and probably half or more of those were related to reaching collectibles.

 

As for the statistics, I think you can only watch them from the main menu. When you go for the collectibles, it's important you pay attention towards the debriefing screen as if not, you'll have to repeat s big chuck of the game just for that. And the touchpad is only for reading messages you come across.

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2022 by Mellenthin

[Dark_Overlord]

I've recently started playing this myself and I've gotta say the difficulty of this game is so greatly exagerated. 

 

Initial blind insane run I died 10 times

1 at turret boss - didn't realise about the infinite spawners

1 at Atlas - 1 hit instakill (125 on health and shield)

1 at double scarab fight in that tiny enclosed area (mini scarabs glitched and infinitely spawned)

5 due to me falling of an edge

2 from chain reactions (didn't realise I was too close)

 

so now I've started heroic and I'm up to the last few levels and haven't died yet.

 

For a game that is supposedly 9/10 difficulty going by other sites, I'm struggling to find how?  Dash is OP, whilst dashing you rarely, if ever take damage.  As OP says Stasis Bubble and Suction Grenade make everything far easier.  The smart gun loses a lot of it's punch against the bigger enemies on heroic, but it can still make the vast majority of the game eaiser.  I will say, RPG and stasis bubble for scarabs, depleting its shields is pointless.

 

EDIT - after getting to the final level I can say that the only hard part of the whole run is the 2 Heavy Scarabs (and all the little bastards) in the tiny enclosed area just before the final area.  This is the only part of the run I died on (3 times).

Edited March 12, 2022 by Dark_Overlord

[Baker]

How do I beat Atlas second phase on Heroic?

 

Dash doesn’t seem to work anymore and he just one shots me to death because I can’t out dash his projectiles.

 

It takes an hour to even get there, and after 3 failed attempts, I would like some tips for my 4th attempt. ?

 

Using Smart Gun for phase 1 and RPG for phase 2 btw. Or should I stick with Smart Gun?

[Dark_Overlord]

57 minutes ago, Baker said:

How do I beat Atlas second phase on Heroic?

 

Dash doesn’t seem to work anymore and he just one shots me to death because I can’t out dash his projectiles.

 

It takes an hour to even get there, and after 3 failed attempts, I would like some tips for my 4th attempt.

 

Using Smart Gun for phase 1 and RPG for phase 2 btw. Or should I stick with Smart Gun?

 

I can't remember exactly what I did (been a while now), but I vaguely remember at the second phase I used the pillars at the corner of the arena for cover and peeked out every so often to get shots off.

[Baker]

16 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

I can't remember exactly what I did (been a while now), but I vaguely remember at the second phase I used the pillars at the corner of the arena for cover and peeked out every so often to get shots off.

Yeah I just tried this. And it worked fine in the beginning. But I still get some splash damage and at one point I need to make a dash for a health pick up. And then he basically one shots me because I won’t make it..

[Dark_Overlord]

1 minute ago, Baker said:

Yeah I just tried this. And it worked fine in the beginning. But I still get some splash damage and at one point I need to make a dash for a health pick up. And then he basically one shots me because I won’t make it..

 

Are you spamming dash to get away?  His rockets pretty much go  in a straight line to where he aimed.

 

I think hiding behind the pillars required a bit of timing (and distance) to ensure his rockets always hit the pillar and you don't receive any damage.

[Baker]

Just now, Dark_Overlord said:

 

Are you spamming dash to get away?  His rockets pretty much go  in a straight line to where he aimed.

 

I think hiding behind the pillars required a bit of timing (and distance) to ensure his rockets always hit the pillar and you don't receive any damage.

Well it seems dash isn’t even working properly anymore in that phase for me. It’s weird. I have no problem dashing in the first phase but in the second it doesn’t work well.

 

Next time I’ll try to stay behind the pillar the entire fight and hope my shield and ammo replenish fast enough.

 

Thanks.

[Dark_Overlord]

2 minutes ago, Baker said:

Well it seems dash isn’t even working properly anymore in that phase for me. It’s weird. I have no problem dashing in the first phase but in the second it doesn’t work well.

 

Next time I’ll try to stay behind the pillar the entire fight and hope my shield and ammo replenish fast enough.

 

Thanks.

 

Try to keep a pillar or 2 full of armor/health/ammo, literally don't touch them till that part of the fight, might help you survive a bit longer

[Baker]

Just now, Dark_Overlord said:

 

Try to keep a pillar or 2 full of armor/health/ammo, literally don't touch them till that part of the fight, might help you survive a bit longer

Yep. I was thinking the same thing. First phase is easy for me now anyways. 

[StraightVege]

Sorry I can't offer worthwhile advice here, but so much time has passed since I played this (2020?!), that all I remember about the battle in question is spamming strafe dashes while firing Smartgun shots. Always regretted being too lazy to record some videos to accompany this thread. Best of luck, though!

[Baker]

Alright I beat him. Dash worked fine this time around so I could avoid his projectiles. Might have been a bug yesterday. In the end this mission took me like 8 hours. ?

 

Anyway, thanks for the tips.

 

It’s been a year since I played this but if I remember correctly it should be easier from now on until the final mission.

[Dark_Overlord]

24 minutes ago, Baker said:

It’s been a year since I played this but if I remember correctly it should be easier from now on until the final mission.

 

Congrats

 

The part with the 2 scorpions is bullshit on Heroic

[Baker]

25 minutes ago, Dark_Overlord said:

 

Congrats

 

The part with the 2 scorpions is bullshit on Heroic

Yeah. Hardest fight in the game for sure. Luckily the final mission is very short and it takes like 5-10 minutes to get there? Not 1 hour like the Atlas fight.

[Baker]

Pfff.. Did I just hit a game breaking bug on the final boss? I’m currently fighting him, in fact he’s almost dead but I can’t shoot any weapons anymore. What the hell is going on?

 

Edit: Yeah had to restart. ?

 

Edit 2: Alright done. ?

Edited January 22, 2023 by Baker

[hishomie1]

Curious if going through Heroic pops Colonel and Discoverer or is it separate?