Another tip is that when you hear/see the harvester's tentacles, run in a diagonal. It would be hard for the harvester's tentacles to catch you whereas going in a straight line, you'd likely be captured by the harvester.

Is a Blitz Needle any good? Assume that I'm in a party of 4 on Elite, I have max CTR, and the party actually bothers to kill Scarabs and distract the Harvester.

5* Electron Vortex works miracles; it keeps all enemies in the same spot and shocks them when it's done.

I'm not sure how it works, but sometimes the "B" map glitches on instead of static. Maybe keeping the map on before the next level will make it show up?

From what I learned last year and taking the skills I gained at the end into this year,
this is my current basic strategy and to-do list for running into the Apocrean wilderness.
NOTE: I'm not putting anything here for equipment, this is more of a behavior strategy.

o) Don't speed through the first floor, it's rude and shows right away your not interested in helping your current squad.
Kill mobs and collect stuff, anything you find here like pills and vita pods will only make the sigil hunt easier.

o) I recommend only doing the minimum in the fiend arenas when they come up, these still give a bulk of players a lot of trouble.
This is usually made even more difficult as you need to fight with your sigil hunting gear, which is not always fiend killing gear.

o) When inside the plateau, remember that you have all the time in the world to collect your sigils and cooperate with your squad.
There is no time limit, break tombstones methodically, one at a time, and never break tombstones while running from Harvey.

o) When encountering the Harvester (aka Harvey), put avoiding him at top priority! Do not break tombstones while running from him!
Breaking tombstones while running will only create an excess of scarabs or souls that you cannot collect before he catches up.
Getting a head start is important, as the "wave" of tentacles will chase you rather far, and run straight for max distance from him.
REMEMBER! Harvey moves very quickly when he is in nobody's sight, he only moves slow while you can see him!

o) If scarabs pop out of a tombstone you break, it is your duty to at least make an attempt to kill the majority of them.
First, eliminating scarabs as you find them will greatly increase your chances of survival as time goes on.
The scarabs can sometimes have attack zones the size of a city bus, less scarabs later means easier sigil collecting.
Second, the more scarabs alive, the more laggy the area will become, until you slow you a crawl and are unable to continue.

o) When souls come out of a tombstone, try to avoid breaking any other tombstones until the souls you have are dealt with.
Many times have I seen knights purposefully or accidentally hit multiple then have way too many souls for them to manage.
This also helps to reduce losses when Harvey shows up, meaning you will overall abandon less souls in total if you need to run.

Lastly, those of you who have powerful enough Maskeraith's will find the Shadow Cloak to be useful in avoiding Harvey's tentacles. Just remember when using the cloak to try and veer off so you don't get caught in the tentacle "wave" as it passes by.
Hopefully this will help some of those who are still new or inexperienced in delving into the Apocrean wilds. . .

I use the elevator icon on the static map as a compass to show which direction I am at all times. Onto the strategy. I have one person set to distract the Apple-crea (they're both harvesters, haha) and the rest are split up, but if you have a bomber on the team disregard all that (except the distractor) and stick together. The distractor will also find puzzles and solve them if they have the amount of time before the Apple come after them. If not, they'll notify the team where the puzzle is on the static map compass elevator strategy.