Hey everyone. Currently I am coming close to my first vana run, and I need some advice of what gear to bring along. My current gear is a Heavy Demo Suit and Helmet, A sudaruska, 4 star needle gun (Can't remeber the name) and a barborous thorn shield. In my inventory I have a 5 star Rocket hammer, A dark retribution bomb, and a Flourish (2 star). Any suggestions?
Oh, forgot to mention with these loadouts i seem to die really fast.
I think you should switch out the Sudaraskara for the Rocket Hammer, since the elemental damage will decimate the majority of the enemies in Vana (Slags and Trojans mostly). I don't think you're gonna be soloing this, so bring a friend along who has a Shivermist on hand (It help's stop the slags pouncing on everyone so much and stops Vana from ramming). I don't think there's anything wrong with your loadout...
You're gonna die.................................................................a lot
You could probably do with some fire resistance on that gear; upgrading your Heavy Demo to Volcanic would help out there, since the majority of things down there will set you alight if you're not careful. It is fairly easy to walk into slag breath if someone else is using haze bombs, since the haze renders the slag breath near-invisible. Shadowfire and fire traps also feature heavily, as well as a few Red Rovers and the occasional Oiler.
It will help you considerably if you're paying attention to the attack patterns, as Poopsie mentioned, but even the best of players can occasionally be caught out by lunges from below, or suffer from lag.
You might wish to get a Shivermist Buster at some point to make use of that CTR bonus from your demo helm, but it isn't vital. The hammer, being an elemental sword, will probably serve you better during FSC than your Sudaruska, since most monsters are either weak or neutral to elemental damage (the only exception being lit Oilers, which don't turn up especially frequently). However, I would advise you to get used to the way that hammer works, since comboing blindly is liable to get you killed - the second swing of the sword will, as you've undoubtedly noticed, launch you forwards in the direction you're facing. It can hit up to three times on stationary enemies in your way, but then again, it can also land you into spike or fire traps if you're not being careful with it.
Barbarous Thorn Shield wouldn't be the greatest defensive choice, but it will stand up to attacks well enough to do for the moment, and doesn't urgently need replacing (although if you're more focused on using bombs, you might possibly wish to save up for tokens for the Crest of Almire, since it's a better choice defensively).
As long as you pay attention and ask questions if you're not sure about something, then you should be fine. There are all sorts of other assorted tricks and tips to a good run, but they're not really the kind of thing that I could explain in a post; you'd be better off watching videos of FSC runs on Youtube to get an idea, or by following someone who's using them during a run.
Also, good luck!
The gear is a mess. Demo without bombs?
Well, there are worse things to wear, you're just wasting potential.
remeber to hit on slags about 1/2 a square to their side, so if they decide to jump you they'll miss. (slags tend to lock on to you if you stop moving for a second ,then hit the place you were). oh, and you won't be able to stop slag's attacks all the time with a sudaruska.
i would suggest making demo into volcanic, upgrade needle to blitz, at least make a shivermist or electric bomb if possible, also a fire resistant shield like 5* owl or volcanic plate always good. flourish is okay if u have it at final flourish but only the first part of vana i would say if you have another person with shivermist let them use it and hit him with the needle gun alot.
before you learn what to do (monsters and the place), i strongly advice going with guns and/or bombs (the freezing one).
you can use the vana runs profit to make a real set for it. vog cap and coat, a sword like combuster or glacius (made from brandish), that is fast, have a very good damage and an awesome charge attack. specially combuster, that moves the mob away from you. with the right timing it can even push a zombie so far that even after the jump he will not reach you!
blitz needle is perfect for vana, with one close charged shot you kill a trojan right away
when u are going at vana u must know that u need shadow and normal defense and fire resist.u need elemental sword and blitz or shiver.i strongly recommend blitz cuz u can kill vana without freezing him.
To clarify a bit, you don't need shadow defense for the Vanaduke fight. Indeed, it is common to do FSC in Vog Cub, which has none. The depth-28 fight is mainly normal, elemental, and fire. There are a few zombies there, but they're hardly the problem. Shadow defense can help in the earlier levels of FSC though.
One thing i don't understand as well, is why do you have bomber equipment why you don't even use bombs. Best what you could do is get some other gear, perhaps some wolver or gunslinger would not hurt. I always suggest having more then 2 weapons for FSC, if you don't want to use weapon slot upgrades i can understand, but you are limiting yourself then. I am going to give you a list of 4 weapons which are very good to use
1- First of all, that rocket hammer is pretty good, you could switch it out for an avenger or brandish class some time, but that is your call
2- Pulsar class guns, when used in groups these things are just pure massive destruction. A lot of people dislike them cause people blast them in their sight, that is just something to work on, just don't blast enemies to others :P
3- Shivermist, ah the good ol' shivermist. Though it is not really needed, it can be usefull from time to time. Especially for first time vanadukers it can be an amazing thing to freezelock vanaduke himself while others attack him.
4- Autogun class, best weapon to use against vanaduke for moderate vanadukers. Do upgrade it into the blitz needle though.
Basically this is my own equipment what i use:
Weapons: Glacius, Polaris, Blitz needle and Shivermist / Nova Driver
Armor and Helm: Shadowsun or Snarbolax equipment
Shield: Crest of Almire or Swiftstrike Buckler
Trinkets: With snarby i use 2 gun damage trinkets, with shadowsun 1 gun damage trinket and 1 speed trinket
Though i have a lot of charge UV's i don't need trinkets for that, but you could decide to pick one of those some time.
bring Blitz need or Polaris it helps a lot trust me!!!
In my opinion the best loadout for me would be (to get an idea of what your looking for):
Helm: Snarbolax cap
Armour: Snarbolax coat (together = damage bonus very high - if u dont want to have to do snarby sl to get them you can always use skolver, but a lot less defence)
Shield: Swiftstrike (the asi high helps a lot but if u want to play it safe bring crest of almire or grey owlite)
Weapon 1: Divine avenger
Weapon 2: Voltedge
Weapon 3: Blitz
Weapon 4: Electron Vortex
Trinket 1: Hangun focus mod
Trinket 2: Elite sword focus mod (or use heart pendants if u want extra health)
Tbh its all about your play style i prefer lots of dodging and quick attacks with high damage but you have to make your gear around your own style.
Also it helps to have fire resist on your armour, though you can go without, and charge reduction on voltedge/blitz/EV is very useful.
Hope this helps :)
trinket slots are unnecessary and expensive. 100ce may not sound like much, but for two trinket slots you could carry an entire extra weapon, or craft a piece of gear to 3* which doesn't expire in a month. Trinkets are fine for lockdown, but beyond that you're better off worrying about weapons and armor first.
Trinket slots are not expensive (50ce minumum) and are though unnecessary, quite useful. You do however need to craft trinkets yourself. Generally focus modules, slash modules or quick shot modules etc. They are very helpful, especially focus modules. Heart trinkets are also something you might consider.
Weapons are generally useful too, but with how the whole arsenal stations system works, weapons and armors are next to nothing to worry about.
i dont see the last guys saying, but here goes:
yes, normal and elemental defense are the best (and fire resistance), as are the main damage in vana. but as there are a LOT fo zombies in the earlier levels, go for a normal-shadow shield, so you can hold the zombies hits with shield and dont need to worry about the shadow damage they do. after running to vana you ll get tokens which are good to exchange for blackened crest, a normal-shadow shield
Oh right, I forgot they're 150ce not 100ce. So they're even more expensive than I thought. Whether you pay in mist or CE it's still energy you could be using for more important things.
With the right gear, trinkets are, at best, unnecessary, and at worst, completely superfluous. Using the various Wolver sets (and bts) gives you, for example, sword damage bonus maximum, which renders slash modules worthless. Granted, not everyone has that set, but it's better to have a fully functional piece of armor than a trinket that you have to pay for every month that does relatively little.
I would rather buy trinket slots than weapon slots. You can go to any places with only two weapons.
Trinket is unnecessary indeed. But it still helps greatly. I specify uv boost whenever I use specialized weapon.
For example, when I use skolver set + hammer, I will take asi trinket (I get asi vh + damage max), with brandish I will bring ctr trinkets to get ctr max. Whenever I use gunner set, I will get ctr/dmg trinket (my gun uv total would be ctr max, asi vh, dmg vh without considering the uv from weapon).
You can definitely buy from other players, always cheaper than 150 CE. I believe the average is around 90 CE or below.
But make sure you already prepare the trinket beforehand.
Most likely you just need to recognize how monster attack patterns are. Any gear wouldn't matter so much even with negative fire resistance.
Because you only have heavy sword, I strongly suggest to get used to first swing -> shield cancel only. Until you get a good feeling (by that I meant you are sure not getting hit by monster after finishing attack) then try the second attack later on.
Rocket hammer works better at FSC than sudaruska but remember don't just bluntly click spamming the combo. Zombies usually jump at furthest range (just dodge walk on his side then attack), breath at middle range (you can poke him to cancel), slap at near range (dodge aside as well then attack).
Whenever trojan target you, trojan wouldn't attack you if you keep moving around, when you stop then it decide whether trojan just walk (out of range), dash (far range), slam (near range) or charge (any range). On basic, all his attack pattern is moving forward except charging, you just need move a bit away. The most vulnerable time is when he's attacking, so just dodge then attack, but the most important thing, let someone with 5* needle kill it in one shot, don't flinch him, since it will interrupt needle bullets.
Vana is basically just oversized trojan.