Hello, welcome to my guide. Here I'll describe my opinions on weapons, enemies, towers and perks so you can have an idea and maybe decide what do you want to use to kill lumes and then some. Loadouts are also suggested and I have link of several videos of them working on 5 Feats of Strength solo.

How up to date is this guide?

It covers all changes made up until v1.4.35299, the last major update which added new perks for owners of Last Stand DLC and hotfixes here and there.

While there are absolutely no plans for any big changes here there will always be small things like some typo fixing.

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About my opinions on the equipment, tower, perks, enemies and stuff of the game. Anything that is considered a big part of the game I'll be exposing and stating my opinions and overall tips as well.

This guide is aimed at new players and anyone else searching for some information or perhaps another point of view about any weapon, enemy and tower as well.
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Not about Survival. I give some off-handed tips, but let get this out of the way: I. DON'T. LIKE. SURVIVAL. I find it pointless and boring beyond belief.

I'm not going on advanced strategies or any exceedingly numerical explanations either. I feel one of the things that kills the fun of ANY game is treating it like a science instead of a fun time killer.

This guide is also not about me stating "this is the best weapon, this is the best tactic, this is the best loadout". I will state MY preferences overall, but never going to flat out say "this sucks", I'm a somewhat experienced player in this game, but you never know when you'll meet someone who might surprise you with that tactic you could have never think of.

I'm not going to say "this is the best character" or "this is the best perk". This game has a lot of combination possibilities and you might surprise yourself with the potential of turning a character you previously thought it was useless into a powerhouse with the right combination of perks.


The lumes will be ready for you. Will you be ready for them?
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I can't, and won't, tell you outright how to beat the map and I won't just tell you to pick a set of perks, weapons and towers since your playstyle might be different and you may not use them in the same way I would.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLS7CYzATG6xBt_mLLDCy3eENYAoVMTvfZ

For the first 15 maps, all maps of the main game, save for Introduction (as you can't have 5 Feats enable there), there's videos using builds without any DLC perk, weapons or towers, but you must be at very least Rank 15 to use some of the combinations I use.

LOEK III awaits. Will you be the next person to 100% it?
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Because I like the game and want to give my insight on it as well. Besides I always like sharing my experiences with others when possible.
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Better late than never. Now go sass someone else.
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Hope may ride alone, but it doesn't mean she doesn't accept a bit of help.

Responsibilities:

The whole shebang.

Guide creator, author, image editor, formatting editor, etc.

Someone who likes the game and decided to document the basic stuff to help out other players.

I also wrote another comprehensive guide on more games, which happens to be of the same genre, Action-Tower Defense, as well:
http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2555082930 http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=321647347 http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=482075212 http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=621968802 http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=729779266
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Responsibilities:

Guide adviser and researcher.

Responsible for checking several in-depth aspects of the game and how certain perks and weapons work beyond their normal uses.

Seasoned player who contributed to this guide mostly indirectly as I got most of the information out of threads from him in the Community Hub from time to time.

He was also responsible for a several perk and tower testings as well, information which was added later into this guide.

DoomyDoom is also the credited for two excellent loadouts (builds) suggestions of this guide: Close Quarters Combustion and Plasma Vanguard.

He also wrote guide about basic and advanced strategies for every map in the game which has a lot of hints and tips for 5 Feats of Strength maps and tend not to use the Focus tower as much as I do. His guide also contains a lot of mazes and ideas for new players seeking for guidance through 5 Feats of Strength or veterans looking for a change of pace.

DoomyDoom's guide:
http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=429468153
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• Unreality for the "Full Circle" (aka "Penetrator Rounds except viable") build.
  
• Death is Your Faith and Muddy for being great co-op partners.
  
• Anyone else I forgot to mention.

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Sanctum Gamepedia[sanctum.gamepedia.com] for providing high-quality images, crucial info on all stuff I wrote, and save me a lot of freaking time.



Coffee Stain Studios for obvious reasons (the developers of this game for those who don't even pay attention to the logo).

P.S: Make Sanctum 3 happen and please don't become a MOBA make Sanctum 3 before the world ends. Thank you.

The guide is split in several sections with DLC content having its own dedicated section to make things easier to find and identify.

1. 💡 Hints and Tips:
   In this section I'll explain some of the gameplay basics and give out a bunch of advises based on my experiences with the game. It won't be anything "HOW TO WIN AT THIS GAME", but hey, maybe they can help you a bit.
   
   
2. 💬 Characters:
   Here I'll explain the characters and their unique traits and a little opinion overall with a few hints on weapons and perks.
   
   
3. 👾 Lume Logbook (Enemies):
   Unlike many tower defenses Sanctum 2 doesn't provide an outright explanation of what you're about to fight, which is something really bad in games like this where information is as important as firepower since some enemies can be quite dangerous if you don't know them and a small heads up can avoid a lot of headaches.
   
   
4. 🔩 Towers Table:
   This is a tower defense game after all. Lots of towers, lots of toys to use to make lumes go squish, boom and dead, very dead.
   
   
5. 🔫 Weapon Warehouse:
   This is also a FPS game as well, knowing a bit about the tools of your craft is always good, after all you can't make all types of food with one type of pan nor fix all types of machines with one tool.
   
   
6. 💎 Perks Pack:
   A huge list of what you can use to customize your characters even further giving them more traits and combat prowess, this is what will define your game style and how you'll defend the Cores from the enemies.
   
   
7. 💽 Loadout Suggestions:
   For people looking for friendly hints about builds and perks, this is the section where I tell in detail my choice for perks and weapons to fight the horde of enemies. Keep in mind that these are nowhere the "best" combinations or the strongest builds, merely the ones I find the most comfortable to play with.
   
   I also provide videos showing these loadouts can work in 5 Feats of Strength for the skeptical.
   
   
8. 💻 5 Feats of Strength Solo Walkthrough:
   Mostly video based, this walkthrough aims to show how I, using my methods (adapted or not), beat the maps. Keep in mind this section is here to give you pointers, not to outright tell you how to win the game.
   
   
9. 📑 Perk related achievements:
   Lots of achievements requires you to play in maps with certain characters with certain perks. I dissect them here and show them in a simple series of images which ones you need, the minimum rank you must have and the DLCs needed for each one.

Sanctum 2 is a pretty hard game and several maps from Giant Trees and Swamps are really freaking difficult and can be almost impossible to finish by a player without a good set of perks. Playing on Easy not only lets you prepare and know what you are about to face but also gives you much needed experience to rank up.
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A little tidbit for people curious about the EXP awards that pops after a wave, taken directly from one of the creators of the game:

Originally posted by @ockeffs:

Ok, so all of these are awarded after every wave. Some are always possible to get and then there are some that are only available in multiplayer games.

Basic

• Core Guardian: Don't let the core take any damage.
  
• Head Hunter: Weakspot accuracy of at least 70%.
  
• Immortal: Don't Die.
  
• Nimble Fingers: Perform 10 perfect weapon switches.
  
• One Trick Pony: Never switch weapons. *** NEGATIVE EXP "AWARD" ***
  
• Big Game Hunter: Kill a boss. You can get more than one of this.
  
• Perfect Aim: Only hit weakspots.
  
• Untouchable: Don't take any damage.

Multiplayer only

• MVP: Deal the most damage.
  
• Mostly Harmless: Deal the least damage.
  
• Most Deadly: Kill the most enemies.
  
• Punching Bag: Take the most damage.
  
• The One That Counts: Get the last kill.
  
• The Doctor is Out: Get the last kill while all your allies are knocked out.

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Rank (or level) is merely a requirement to open up new weapons, perks, towers and slots for them. Rank DOES NOT MAKE A CHARACTER STRONGER PER SE (limited perk slots notwithstanding). So if you are Rank 10 and a Rank 50 does more damage than you it's not because of his (numerically) higher rank, he just has more stuff at his disposal to make combination of perks and weapons that will result in more raw damage than you.


Judging someone's skill based on their rank is also pretty dumb. Even if they are unskilled, teaching someone can earn you a gaming partner and, who knows, a friend.
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About every map of the game has timed building phases. Ones that you have anywhere from 1:00 to 1:30 to build your maze and spend your resources. That time can be deceptively short and you may find yourself rushing to build everything, especially on 5 Feats of Strength.

ALWAYS keep an eye after finishing a wave. You don't want to discover you're in a timed building phase when the 15 second alarm starts beeping.


This little thing here is responsible for a lot of rushed mazes and tower buildings.
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Damage isn't everything. Players that underestimate the usability of perks like Exposure Rounds, Slowing Rounds, Synergy and Slowing Presence are normally those who will suffer the most throughout the game.

While Slow perks DO NOT stack, perks like Synergy DOES, so does certain Core perks like Unstable Core and Resilient Core (Shocking Revelation is excluded).

Example 1: Slowing Rounds and Slowing Presence, S. Rounds gives 20% slow on enemies you hit and S. Presence slows enemies by 25% if you are close to them. Only Slowing Presence will work since it has the greatest effect. If an enemy steps inside a Slow Field or a Kairos slowing sphere and those give an effect that's above the 25% slowdown of Slowing Presence, the effect of the tower will be the only that will be working against the lume. Got it?

Example 2: Synergy will increase the enemies vulnerability in 30% against towers. If all 4 players have Synergy and bombard the same enemies they'll take a grand total of 120% increased damage versus towers. Neat, isn't it? The same applies to Exposure Rounds.

Example 3: Unstable Core deals 2000 damage per player with this perk. If all 4 players have it, each time an enemy touches the Core they'll take 8000 damage. Resilient Core works in a similar fashion, it heals 10% of the Core's health per player (400), so if a team of 4 players have this perk equipped the Core will get back up to impressive 1600 health back. However Shocking Revelation DOESN'T stack.

Don't ever underestimate what a helping hand like Slowing Presence can do for you. A good support perk sometimes is the difference between victory or defeat.
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Jumping on bases may give you a feeling of safety, but don't get fooled: 99% of aggressive lumes can and will attack you even if you're there. The only enemy that can't really do much is the Heavy Pup.
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You see that bar seemingly indicating how many AR-Mines you can carry? That's for show. I'm not sure of the limit, but I've carried up to 10+ mines already. So don't be shy about picking all of them all at once.


Just one more...
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You can use your secondary fire even if you don't have enough "bullets" for it.

For example, most savvy players like to spend almost every bullet of the Assault Rifle and then launch a grenade at the lumes before swapping to another weapon. Or a last batch of poison darts from the SMG. Or a last lightning bolt from the ETK-Tesla Prototype. You got the idea.
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I'm not kidding on this one, especially if you are playing in level with pits like Giant Trees. I lost count of times on how times I saw players using Battle Rifle or REX firing like crazy and how they would shove me or any other player into a pit, a lume spawn point or into a group of Walkers of Hoverers (which pretty much means death).

I'm not exaggerating here. I already had to kick players mid-way through matches because they just wouldn't damn mind where they were shooting with those weapons.
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Sandbox isn't just a mode where you kick up the resource income by 2000% and watch your tower literally do millions of damage with a single shot. Sandbox can be used as a testing mode to help you develop new mazes and strategies.

Look at this big screen, it shows about everything you need to play the game. Now let's dissect this thing down below.



Represents how many waves of enemies you'll face and how many are left.


A mini-map showing the entire map, scale may differ from small to bigger maps. The blue and white circle shows your Core and the orange triangles the lume spawn points. You can magnify the map with TAB (default key).

The mini-map will also show the path lumes are intending to take (via orange dots and a luminescent line outside the map) and your current maze with lighter blocks being tower bases and darkened blue being places where you can build them. Grey areas are impossible to construct on, sometimes they are just ground and others just obstacles.


Shows how many players are in the game (up to 4), which character they are playing as, how many resources, bases they are carrying and their current rank.


More people means more resources. Bases will be divided between you all, so combining and strategizing mazes is crucial to win in the harshest maps.


Shows how much Resources (money) you have.


Tells how many tower bases you have left to build mazes.


Maximum number of towers you can build in a map is always 15. While this is difficult to reach in solo games it's fairly easy to top it on 3 to 4 players matches. Or Survivals.


Shows what towers you currently have equipped. You CANNOT change once you start a map.
You will unlock new tower slots at Ranks 3, 5 and 9.

One of the most important aspects of Sanctum 2 is the fact the game very rarely gives you a map where the route of lumes is defined. 99% of cases you must build your own maze so enemies will walk right where you want them to.

Knowing how to build good mazes is often the mark that separates beginners from experienced players.
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Park is the first real level of the game, but The Gate is where the game takes away your training wheels (and on 5 Feats of Strength pushes you downhill without brakes on top of that). The map has three lume spawn points and a Core to protect.

So, do you start building from the enemy spawn point? You'll find out how much of a bad idea that is by Wave 3 there as the third spawn point is quite close to the Core and even if you defend it, Wave 4 onward sends lumes from all points which pretty much means you're screwed.

The solution? Start building as close as possible to the Core. This strategy may sound like a no-brainer for some people but it took me a while to think about it and The Gate used to be a difficult map to me because of that.


Funneling enemies into one path is a very useful and powerful tactic to deal with multiple enemy spawn points.
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Try to force lumes to take the path where they'll have to face the towers twice as I depict in the screenshot below. Not only it increases the damage efficiency of your towers but also gives you more time to keep them under pressure and help you control the situation.


Example, in The Gate, of a maze that forces enemies travel twice around the towers. Whitened areas with blue dots show where the Lightning towers will activate. Tactics like this can be particularly powerful with Synergy around to help you.
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That depends. Contrary to many seasoned players who grew to have a disdain for simplistic mazes such as this, straight line mazes can be effective, but the greatest threat for them are Rhinos. Some players likes to make a giant straight line and then a segment full of twists and turn to ensure Rhinos will get to the killzone before anything else.

Straight line mazes are particularly useful to pick off Hoverers and Armored Heavies. Since you need them to stay as steady as possible, a maze with twists and turns makes fighting those enemies a chore.


Give your mazes a literal twist sometimes.
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Mazes like this are done for a couple of reasons, but the main one is to screw with Rhinos and force them to brake and slow at every turn possible.

Another good reason is to help clump enemies for area attacks, something straight line mazes are not as good at.


Example done in Construction Site. The last wave has a lot of Rhinos and if you only do straight lines they can easily rush through it barely taking fire from your towers.
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Sounds boring? It mostly is. But some maps, like The Wilderness and The Smasher, are downright cruel and will not give you enough tower bases to build your maze or even cover the Core properly, so you should cover key points and then sell the bases (not towers if you have Hardcore activated) and build everything again, just watch out if the wave has limited building time!


The Wilderness is the perfect example of a map that requires you thinking a little outside the box. After Wave 3... The rest is story.


Another example in Outpost. Wave 3 (and only Wave 3) has A LOT of Rhinos, so a straight line maze is borderline suicidal. After that, however, it's fair game and even recommended since there will be lots of Hoverers in some waves.
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Killzone or killing zone is where most of your towers will be. It can be where all lume spawn points converge or in a specific spot in cases of maps with two Cores.

Killzones are important as they give you a much needed firepower support to kill tough lumes quickly or help control very large crowds of smaller enemies.


I really can't recommend doing this. It may be my preference, but I'd rather have a maze with a specific killzone, somewhere with an AMP Spire and towers surrounding it to kill alongside the other players. It would make a lot easier to keep enemies debuffed if someone is carrying Synergy or Exposure Rounds as well.


Killzone in The Smasher, it could be a little farther from the Core, though. A good killzone will be the difference between victory or defeat in 5 Feats of Strength.

This one can be tricky. A lot of towers don't have the firepower needed to handle enemies in 5 Feats of Strength, but ones like Lightning are powerful enough to be a force to be reckoned with in numbers and Makeshift Cannon has a chance to stun an enemy for a few seconds which can be useful in numbers and on level 1 as well.

You may want to have a lot of level 1 towers in case you're using perks like Tech Junkie, which gives you damage boost if you're close to your towers, or Engineer, which makes YOU give tower damage boost as long as you are close to them.

In all other cases I feel it's better to act as a meat shield and crowd control and let the towers finish whatever is too tough to deal with on your own or at least deal with fast enough.


Building a lot of towers to upgrade them later won't work for solo plays since you don't get a lot of money, but on co-op everyone has enough resources to put even the 15 tower limit to level 3 sometimes.
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That's another tricky question. Overcharge in question is the action of pouring resources into a Level 3 tower. It'll increase its power and effectiveness further but on a much lower scale than before.

On solo this is rarely viable as in most maps you barely get enough resources to set up a decent defense against hordes or enemies, but maps like The End, Cluster, Jellyfish Cove gives you a lot of resources. Most of times I like to overcharge AMP and Range Spires, towers that when overcharged affects everything surrounding it.

On co-op Campaign maps (especially with three players or more) it'll be almost inevitable that one or two towers will end up overcharged, so there's that.


AMP Spires and Range Spires are my favorite towers to overcharge due the fact they help everything around them.
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Towers have field of view, which means if you put one tower behind another, its range will be affected and it'll stop firing if the enemy goes in front of an obstacle, probably another tower. Walls, environmental objects and anything can obstruct the field of view of your towers, so take that in consideration.

Of course towers like Violator and Anti-Air have the advantage of not only having the biggest range among all towers but they're also suspended quite high in the air which makes something getting in their field of view pretty difficult.


The outlined Focus will have its damage potential somewhat reduced since the other Focus towers around it will get in its field of view.
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You know that little thing which has a crosshair icon and it says "Default" when you look at a tower's status? It's the targeting system and will tell which enemy that tower should prioritize if more than one if within its shooting range.

Now lets pick slow firing towers like Violators, Lightning and Mind Control Spire. Would you rather your tower to waste one of its shots on a small Runner instead of a massive Armored Heavy? No? Then press "F" (the default key) to change the priority to "Most Health" so the tower will fire on the enemy with highest health.

Just make sure this doesn't backfire on you-- Soakers tend to draw fire of your towers and shield other smaller, more fragile enemies because of that. If you are intending to take Soakers down on your own you can set the tower to "Least Health" so it won't aim at it if the Soaker gets close to a tower with other enemies around. On the other hand Bobble Heads will gladly draw fire of towers set to that mode, so you've gotta watch out for them as well.

Remember:
Least Health problem: Bobble Heads
Most Health problem: Soakers


This can be more useful than you imagine.

5 Feats of Strength is the biggest challenge Sanctum 2 has to offer. You can play them from the get-go, but I wouldn't recommend so since the game becomes very difficult with it.

Each feat adds another global trait to lumes or gives you a disadvantage to you. You may play with one, two or three feats together, but most achievements are only unlocked if you beat maps with all of them activated at once.
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Titan Slayer:

Increases the health of enemies by 50%

Titan Slayer is self explanatory; enemies will be tougher and soak up more damage than usual. This affects every type of enemy, from the smallest Runner to the meanest Walker Patriarch, so be on your toes when you have to face tough game like Walker Warriors, Hoverers and Screamer Matriarchs.

Impeccable Accuracy:

Enemies will move 40% faster.

No secrets here either. Enemies moving faster means they'll stay for less time within tower range meaning they'll take less damage, which is, as you may guess, very problematic. Combine that with Runners and Brood Mothers which are already fast to begin with and they can speed through most towers, especially if they come in large groups.

Hydra Hunter:

Enemies will steadily regenerate their health.

Enemies will regenerate their health at a steady pace (150 per second according to the official wikia). This Feat of Strength punish a particular style of game that is to leave enemies bruised and leave them. If you start attacking a lume, make sure you'll have enough time to finish the job or at least be close to your towers.

Sweet's natural ability will decrease the enemy regeneration in 50% while they are burning, which can be very useful.

Beast Tamer:

Enemies will attack 100% faster.

This Feat of Strength is a lot more dangerous than it appears to be. Enemies attacking faster means you can't quite stall them in front of your towers as easily as you used to and when enemies that hits hard (Screamer Matriarchs) or do something nasty (Hoverers) attack faster, that means you really need to be careful when fighting close to them.

This feat also obviously means that lumes will destroy the Core faster if they get to it, so it enforces even more that you should never let them reach it.

Hardcore:

Respawn disable until next phase unless you have Phoenix perk equipped.
Resources gathered from selling towers cut by half.

The nastiest Feat of Strength without a shadow of doubt. Harcore ramps up the difficulty of the game to a whole new level by itself and once you see all your job gone to waste because you got careless and killed at the worst moment possible you'll understand what I'm talking about.

You don't have a lot of room for mistakes here. Unless you don't want to use a perk slot for Phoenix, it's imperative that you learn to play safe and don't take needless risks when fighting enemies, especially the dangerous ones.

Keep in mind that you'll be severely punished for selling towers as the game will return only 50% of your resources in total. So more than ever you need to create strategies without changing towers from place to place.

I don't want to sound something like you'd read in a tacky, corny motivational poster or booklet, but this is true. Dying on the last wave of a map because you slipped for one second IS infuriating and frustrating but see it as the game's way telling you that the gloves are off.

The game will probably stomp on you a few times once you reach The Gate and will force you to step up your game if you want to get those achievements. It's quite normal to think it's impossible to finish it solo, but once you pull out that victory you'll gain the confidence to keep going.


Crap happens. Take is as a lesson and avoid doing the same mistakes that might have condemned your previous match.
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I'm serious. Before you go for 5 Feats of Strength, try the map with all feats except Hardcore.

Hardcore kicks the game to a new level of difficulty almost on its own as not being able to respawn when you die (unless you have Phoenix equipped) and punishing the player for selling towes with a 50% resources cutaway can REALLY put you in difficult situations if you don't plan ahead.
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Even if you bring Shocking Revelation, Resilient Core or Unstable Core every mistake is a lot more costly than it would ever be on a regular match.

If you don't want to have to bring Phoenix in your perk selection don't jump in the middle of Walkers, don't go playing with Hoverers on edges and don't ignore Screamers trying to goo you to death. All it takes is a wind of bad luck to die and see everything you did gone.
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Remember that if you sell a tower with Hardcore feat on you'll only get 50% of the money back which can actually hurt you more than you realize. So, if needed, consider waiting for one or two waves before you start building towers.
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If you want to ensure the integrity of your Core, especially in case something goes wrong - and trust me, something might go wrong on 5 Feats - it's always good to consider building towers as close to the Core as possible.

It's not always possible and not always the best tactic, but in some maps like Train Station the lumes are almost guaranteed to reach the Core and having towers to help you in a pinch can be very well the difference between victory or defeat.
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5 Feats of Strength is no joke and will make you feel that some maps are downright impossible. I'll show how I beat these maps, but nothing prevents you from finding your own way or adapt my tactics to yours.

Some maps like The End, SOKOL and Jellyfish Cove took me a lot of retries to beat the first time on 5 Feats of Strength.

When I say don't give up I mean it. I already finished maps with something around 300 to 200 Core health left. Until the game ends and you see that Defeat screen, don't stop showering the lumes with gunfire.


When everything seems lost, will you give up or push forward?
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Don't be afraid of taking or dodging one or two hits from the lumes to force them to stay in front of your towers. Unlike most games, Sanctum 2 doesn't actively punish you if you get hit (you can even get the "Punching Bag" extra exp in co-op) and the perk Hydra Blood turn you into a tank, especially if used with Haigen.

Stuff like Walker Warriors, Screamers and Screamer Matriarchs are somewhat slow to attack even with Beast Tamer feat active, so you should always consider taking one punch, one Hoverer wave or keep dancing in front of Screamers to keep them under your tower gunfire (and yours as well, of course).
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Things are not going your way? Get out of your usual strategies.

This will often lead you to see things with new perspectives. Never have tunnel vision and if something goes wrong, think about it and re-do your maze and test another tower. You never know what you'll learn on your own.

Politeness and common sense are two of the best things to avoid trouble and pointless arguments in the game. Sanctum 2 isn't competitive, but it can be a really freaking hard game and no one needs someone weighting down the team because they are just too stubborn (and maybe stupid).
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I'll just leave this here, I wouldn't write something better about this issue:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

That's not dedicated servers. That's just players banning you from a game hosted by them (all of the games are locally hosted by one of the players in this game) for whatever reason.

Some people suddenly realise their match is public because they didn't change settings (or indeed didn't know they can change settings to private).

Some people don't like having players with levels on an opposite end (e.g. lv 50-ies ban low levels because "useless" or something, lv. 10-s ban 50-ies because "they will just ruin my game" or something... both sentiments being short-sighted but that's beyond the point).

Some people react poorly to other players building stuff they didn't ask for. That generally IS considered a bad tone in this game's community though, so if you do stuff without asking you've got only yourself to blame.

Some people may decide to get rid of a player they consider a liability (aka playing really badly, hitting allies with explosive weapons and getting them killed, dying often with Hardcore Feat on etc). If host is not willing to accomodate poor performance - tough luck.

Lastly - these bans only last till that particular player quit the game, so you will be able to join their games next time they play regardless.

Honestly - just keep looking. That's all you can do sans having some friends.

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Nobody likes to stay around someone who thinks they're the best player of the world.

Don't go bossing people around either. Giving some friendly advice is one thing, refusing to hit "Ready" because others aren't "obeying" your orders is another. If you think your way to play is the only way to win, why do you even bother trying to play co-op?


This guy. DON'T BE THIS KIND OF GUY.
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If you intend to do it, ask for permission and for the love of crap, DON'T go selling towers (especially if Hardcore feat is on!). That is one of the things I hate the most when someone enters in a Public match and if I am hosting I am still polite enough to warn the person doing it-- others are not so kind and doing this will probably get you kicked from the match without a foreword.

If you think it's hopeless, there might be always another game to join at the lobby rather than argue with a stubborn player.
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Just to make it clear: SELLING AR-MINE DISPENSER ALSO ERASES EVERY MINE CREATED BY IT, IT DOESN'T MATTER IF THEY WERE 3 OR 33. Now do you understand why this gets under my skin so easily?

I'm serious, this kind of crap generally makes me want to ban the person from the game on the spot. Unless the player is a beginner this is the kind of mistake that I have a REAL hard time looking the other way since it destroys the strategy I had to deal with a Patriarch or a Hoverer Queen and the like.
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This sounds like a no-brainer, but I've played with so many people who just enters, hits "Ready" and never spends a single resource or a base, and they even get mad if you ask them or just ignore you.

This kind of stuff makes me kick the person before the wave even starts. An extra player means enemies MUCH stronger and those resources and tower bases are more valuable than ever.
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I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Are you expecting everyone on your team to say "Way to go! You're the best player out of us here!" by doing the most damage or killing the most lumes? Are you expecting to get a cookie for seeing that little bit of extra experience? Do you have an inherent necessity to feel better than everyone?

It's tiring and annoying to see people who only cares about raw damage rather than using a bit of teamwork.

Acting as a support with perks with slowing and other with defense decreasing are just as important on co-op. It won't kill to bring Core perks if no one did too.
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Read the one above? Got that needless competitive idea out of your mind? Great.

If you're entering a game after it already begun, take a look at the perks everyone is carrying. Bringing stuff like Shocking Revelation, Exposure Rounds, Slowing Rounds, Synergy or acting like a tower support with Engineer or having other support perks can and will help your team more than you can imagine.


Look how much health enemies can have on a 4-Players 5 Feats of Strength game. Do you REALLY think things will work out for you if you go the "loner" route?
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Keep an eye on the overall battle. You never know if one Bobble Head slipped amidst the chaotic gunfight or a Brood Mother is about to reach the Core. While you might have a tower behind to cover your back it's better to be safe than sorry.

Also, if something like a Patriarch is on the field you should prioritize him and get whatever is hitting the Core only if you're about to lose as the damage the boss can cause can very well make things even worse for you.

You're gonna need way more AR-Mines to get this guy...

There's something hilarious about everyone ganging up against a Walker Pup, though.

Time to choose which character you'll play as.

Do you prefer to be a high damage dealing character?
Maybe a support one?
Or perhaps you enjoy a bit of both?

In any case Sanctum 2 has a total of 5 character at your disposal, each with their own abilities, pros and cons you have to work around or work with in order to get the best potential out of them.

Naturally perks can change wildly the style of each character and mixing up traits or further enhancing their own natural abilities can give you maybe powerful, maybe strange or even strangelly powerful results, but this is something to talk about in another section of this guide.


There's no such thing as "the perfect choice". Find out who suits your playstyle the best and become a lume exterminator that can take on the 5 Feats of Strength.

"Killing vermin, one tower at time!"

Main Weapon:
Assault Rifle

Natural Abilities:

• Deals 2% more damage on each hit, each stack lasts 5 seconds. Up to 50 stacks (100% damage bonus).
  
• Has Double Jump.

+ Powerful (but not so easy to keep) damage boosting passive.
+ Versatile, can don the mantle of support or attack if needed.
+ Double jump gives her a lot of mobility in the battlefield.

- Takes some practice to master.
- Natural ability can be difficult to keep at its best without proper weapon and perk setups.
- Passive also has a very short duration. A small break between enemies can easily drop you to zero stacks.

Skye is a versatile character and on terms of raw firepower her natural ability makes her the most powerful character of all five available in terms of DPS (damage per second). However if we speak about DPH (damage per hit), TSYGAN and SiMo can easily outclass Skye (and anyone else) by a large margin.

Having a fast firing weapon like the ETK-Tesla Prototype or the Sub Mini-Gun will help Skye in early game as those weapons have extremely high fire rate and can quickly top her natural ability. Later on (if you have the DLCs) the Plasma Rifle or the Drone Launcher can be extremely powerful options for it as well, also giving Skye the ability to destroy most problematic enemies with ease.


In terms of perks Skye has the luxury of being able to pick about anything and not feel useless. From perks to increase her damage to support perks like Synergy and Exposure Rounds, everything can work if you're creative with Skye.

Tower here, tower there...

Main Weapon:
REX

Natural Abilities:

• Each time Sweet damages enemies she'll set them on fire and burn for 4% of the original damage done every second for 6 seconds.
  
• Jumps have greater height and are much easier to steer and control.

+ Her burning ability is very powerful and useful when used well, especially against Soakers.
+ Extremely efficient as support. Her burning damage triggers debuff perks even if Sweet hits enemies with infinite armor (Hoverers, Bobble Heads).
+ Very agile and easier to control than anyone else.

- Not very beginner friendly due to lower raw firepower.
- REX without Tactical Juxtapostion is very hard to use properly due to its very small magazine.

Sweet is a powerful character when used correctly. At first her ability to deal 4% of her original damage for a couple of seconds seems to pale in comparison to Skye's potential 100% boost or Haigen's easy 35% boost when close to enemies. But it's easy to forget that every time she deals damage her skill will active, so that can add up pretty quickly with the right set of weapons and perks.


The weapon choice for Sweet can be anything from low damage to high damage, but my favorite weapon for her is the Plasma Rifle. It has decent damage and fire rate on its primary fire and plenty of crowd control with its secondary. Also, try to use the secondary fire around (not at) a Soaker, you'll be surprised how fast you can kill them like that.

Weapons like SMG (especially the secondary fire), Ballista, Drone Launcher and Smatter Band can be extremely powerful to use debuff perks and keep as many enemies vulnerable as possible.

Thanks to Sweet's natural ability, she's also *the* best character to carry support perks like Slowing Rounds, Synergy and Exposure Rounds as her burning damage WILL trigger debuffs allowing her to keep lumes weakened for much longer than any other character in the game.

There's also an interesting finding about Sweet's burn found by Aurani:

Originally posted by Aurani:

For some reason Tactical Juxtaposition, despite lowering the base dmg of your weapons it doesn't reduce the burn's damage, but it still gets buffed as normal when using Hip Fire + Exposure Rounds, it doesn't seem to deal higher damage when hitting weakpoints either

What's the best thing in this game against those annoying Soakers? Assault Rifle? ETK-Tesla Prototype? SMG?

I'll tell you what it is: none of that. It's Sweet's passive ability. By far!

Try using weapons with really fast firing rate with Sweet against those things, you'll be amazed how easily they demolish or at least make them vulnerable for your towers or someone with a high weakspot damage gun.


Is that the sun? No, it's just Soakers getting roasted. Do you like yours medium-rare or well done?

Main Weapon:
Sniper Rifle

Natural Abilities:

• SiMo deals more weakspot damage and it increases if he keeps hitting them, each stack lasts 10 seconds. Stack up to roughly 8 times.
  
• Accuracy is better (suffer from less crosshair spread after each shot).

+ Potential for extremely high damages with his natural ability.
+ Excels in taking care of problematic targets like Hoverers and Bobble Heads like no one else. Even Soakers if you have high fire rate guns for him.

- Requires the player to have good aim, and knowledge of enemy weakspots, to put his natural ability to good use... Or a Soaker.
- Overshadowed by others in 5 Feats of Strength due to his ability being limited to weakspots, thus turning him into the least effective character for crowd control.

SiMo is a character meant to single out problematic targets and potential heavy threats like Hoverers, Bobble Heads and Armored Heavies. Good players can easily take out even bosses with him in a relatively short time. His natural ability to deal increased weakspot damage is nothing to scoff at and can be devastating in the hands of an experienced player.


Weapons for the robot? Sniper Rifle is natural and even his first, and up until Rank 40, locked choice. Ballista is a powerful weapon for him thanks to its high damage and scope, Nailgun also deals increased weakspot damage is also good for him and the Plasma Rifle is also a great option with its scope and high weakspot damage.

Conversely weapons like the Grenade Launcher is almost useless for SiMo since it's almost impossible to score weakspot hits with it. REX is also a poor choice for the same reason.

In terms of perks SiMo may or may not have limited choices. Marksman will further enhance his naturally high weakspot damage, Slowing Rounds (or even Slowing Presence for players who likes more personal approaches) can be useful to help keeping targets steadier and other perks like Upper Class and Steady Aim com be used to great effect if you can find a good place for sniping. Don't get me wrong, though; you shouldn't play SiMo as an unmovable sniper. He can be just as powerful moving around and picking key targets.

"Ugh, right... Focus this time!"

Main Weapon:
Shotgun

Natural Abilities:

• Deals 35% more damage if he's within 2 blocks of an enemy.
  
• Has 50% more health than other Core Guardians (225 instead of 150).

+ One of the easier characters to play as.
+ Enhanced health lets him tolerate more hits before biting it.
+ Natural damage boost is very easy to use.

- Naturally prone to dying a lot more if the player is careless.
- Fighting Hoverers with him might be annoying.
- He doesn't grunt in pain if he gets hit. Sounds minor but sometimes you may not realize you're taking damage.

Haigen is a front line combatant, this is enforced by his primary weapon, the Shotgun, which will become significantly weaker, to the point of uselessness, if he attempts to fire it from afar.

Haigen is an interesting character in that in the hands of an inexperienced player he's little more than a meat shield at best and cannon fodder at worst, but in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing he's one of the most versatile characters of the game, being able to support teammates or being a powerhouse on his own.

Haigen naturally has an easier time around lumes since he can take more hits than usual, this allows him to stall lumes longer in front of towers, especially if he has Slowing Presence with him, and weapons like Gatling Laser, Circle Saw or anything that requires you to be close to the target to deal damage synergies very well with him.

Perks like Slowing Presence and Against All Odds are just plain made for Haigen. If you combine both with Corpse Explosion and the fact lumes will be gathering around you like flies on a dung you'll be surprised how powerful he can be on several situations. Stuff like Desperate Measures, Explosive Exchange and Spiked Armor are also interesting choices for daring players, Hydra Blood is also an interesting choice that will make Haigen really tough and difficult to kill (provided you back off to recover).

Sanctum 2 doesn't severely punish players for taking damage and Haigen can take more damage than usual, his function isn't just to get in the face of lumes and blast them to kingdom come with his Shotgun; Haigen's best ability is how capable he is to stall lumes in the range of your towers.


Haigen's health pool compared to Skye (and any other character).

"Retaliation time."

Main Weapon:
Ballista

Natural Abilities:

• Deals massive damage on last shot. This damage modifier is equivalent to 0.25x the magazine size.
  
• Moves faster.

+ Capable of great damage with her natural ability.
+ Versatile in the hands of a capable player. She can use her passive to crowd control or single-out enemies with the right weapons and perks.
+ Head Start + TSYGAN = Fun.

- Not suitable for beginners or trigger-happy players. The player must know which targets to pick and where to aim to be anywhere decent with her.
- Due to the above TSYGAN can be very difficult to use properly, especially in 5 Feats of Strength.
- TSYGAN has a severe problem as she is littered with small to major glitches here and there that might never get patched.

TSYGAN is the trickiest character to use properly, using her natural ability to deal more damage with the last shot in her weapon is not as easy as it sounds and after a couple of matches you'll realize how bad the situation can turn because you missed that key shot. On the other hand, if you master her, she becomes very powerful and useful in either crowd control or picking off bosses.


TSYGAN has a lot of weird interactions with perks and weapons, with Tactical Juxtaposition + Head Start making REX's secondary potentially deal full damage for every single projectile (explained in excruciating detail in the "Full Circle" build for her).

Voltaic Hand Cannon and Plasma Rifle also has a strange property if TSYGAN has Tactical Juxtaposition equipped; if you fire the last secondary fire while others are onscreen, EVERY projectile will gain the "last shot bonus" from her passive, but in Voltaic Hand Cannon's case you need a very large map for this to work properly.


The glitch in action.

Since the game lacks a proper explanation about them, I decided to put this section of the guide first. So, before we move on towers, perks and weapons it's always good to know the types of enemies you'll face so you can decide better which tools you'll use to slaughter them.

I'll provide a table of details about the enemies I'm about to cover as well:

Example:

Indicates how much punishment a lume can take before dying. I will only mention their base health and 50% added from Titan Slayer feat from single player.

The health of lumes will more than double on the first player that joins your game (a regular Walker will have from 5k to 11k Health) and of that raw total, if Titan Slayer is active, another 50% will be added. The Health may vary if more players enter midway through the game, but they'll progressively scale to its maximum health possible (if there are enough waves left).

I tend to consider anything above 5000 / 7500 as tough since the most common types of lumes have that much health.

How dangerous I consider the enemy to be. Its danger level can go substantially higher on 5 Feats of Strength where it becomes stronger, faster, regenerates its health and if you die you won't respawn unless you have a certain perk with you.

Self-explanatory. This indicates the exact amount of damage the enemy will deal if it starts hitting the Core.
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Part 1:

• Walker Pup
  
• Walker
  
• Screamer
  
• Runner
  
• Brood Mother

Part 2:

• Splitfly
  
• Armored Heavy
  
• Soaker
  
• Snorker
  
• Rhino (Charger)

Part 3:

• Walker Warrior
  
• Screamer Matriarch
  
• Hoverer
  
• Bobble Head

Part 4 (Bosses):

• Walker Patriarch
  
• Super Heavy
  
• Hoverer Queen

Introduced in Road to Elysion DLC:

• Healer
  
• Mutator
  
• Fiskeplaske (Boss)

Introduced in Ruins of Brightholme DLC:

• Jumper
  
• Infected Explorer

Introduced in The Pursuit DLC:

• Heavy Pup
  
• Bliskebaske

Introduced in The Last Stand DLC:

• Spore Pod
  
• Spore Keeper

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Walker Pup
  
• Walker
  
• Screamer
  
• Runner
  
• Brood Mother
  
• Spitfly

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Walker Pups will be the most adorable things you'll kill and explode in this game. They are small, they are squishy and easy to kill, but in later levels Pups may attack in very large numbers and without proper crowd control weapons or towers you risk getting overrun by them.
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The most common type of lume you'll face during the entire game and probably one of the most well-rounded. They aren't the fastest, the sturdiest nor the strongest, but you should never underestimate them when they come in double digits.

Walkers are aggressive and will actively seek and attack players on sight. While they can't hunt you if you go over tower bases, these things can be surprisingly difficult to take down if they come with something to back them up.

The main threat Walker posses is the fact they come in large groups on most late maps and if you don't have a good way to kill an enemy with 7.5k Health (single-player with Titan Slayer), you'll get easily overrun. Weapons with area damage like REX, Gatling Laser, Plasma Rifle, Ballista or with piercing effects like Voltaic Hand Cannon, ETK-Tesla Prototype and the Sniper Rifle's secondary fire can be good against them.
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If you have sensitive ears and is expecting a monster that shrieks like a rabid 8-year old... You're in luck. Screamer doesn't actually screams and that is merely an informed flaw. That said, the Screamer does spit a ball of goo to attack instead of trying to punch your lights out. The weakspot of this lume is located in its back, this makes hitting it when playing solo quite tricky.

Screamers are dangerous in the fact they tend to attack staying behind while Walkers or other things can shield them from harm. They also attack the Core earlier and in some levels like Shortcut they can attack it much, muuuch earlier than you had anticipated.

This lume is almost as common as Walkers and they can be just as problematic if you are careless around them. The good point about them is that they just love to stop on their tracks and try to spit goo at you which somewhat decreases their threat to the core if you know how to work around getting shot while fighting other lumes.

The Screamer AI is a bit odd as well, sometimes you can see it will attack you on sight like Walkers, but if you don't fire exactly and directly at it other Screamer coming might just ignore you as if you weren't a threat at all.
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Every game needs a critter that is small, fast, annoying and incredibly unsatisfying to kill, Sanctum 2 has this thing.

While Runners are very easy to kill, like stomping cockroaches, they are just as agile and can, and most likely will, unintentionally dodge your gunfire making you miss even a shot from the REX.

Most towers kill these things with ease, but obviously you should not rely on Violators or Lightning towers to kill packs of them. Weapons with area attacks like the REX, Ballista's secondary fire, Gatling Laser's secondary fire, Assault Rifle's grenades, are great options as they don't require a lot of aiming.
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What happens when a Runner work out, drink plenty of juice and doesn't skip leg day? They become a Brood Mother, bigger and beefier versions of those pests which are still annoying and highly unsatisfying to kill.

Brood Mothers however are a credible threat as they are study and speedy enough to go through towers and reach the Core. They also love to force you to run back and deal with them.

It's not rare to see players that finds these things so damn annoying they pick Unstable Core just to avoid having to run all the way back to the Core just do deal with a single Brood Mother screwing with it.

On co-op these things becomes strong enough to pose as a credible threat as a Brood Mother with Titan Slayer and at least 2 players can have almost the same health of a regular, vanilla, Walkers (close to 5k).
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Spitfly is the only aerial enemy of the normal game, but whenever these things appear it's certain that you'll have a headache dealing with them unless you have Anti-Air tower unlocked which may take a while.

The main threat Spitflies posses is that they have the worst tendency to take shortcuts, often making a B-line to your core completely ignoring your maze by flying over it. Needless to say that depending on how you've set your towers this can REALLY wreck your strategy and force you run everywhere covering defense gaps this enemy loves to abuse (we're looking at you, Roadworks).

Remember that they are ranged enemies like Screamers and will attack the Core earlier. Spitfly's attack will slow you down if it gets you which can be quite dangerous if you are tangling with other lumes, the worst thing is that it doesn't even actually needs to hit-- if the attack lands anywhere close to you, you'll be slowed.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Armored Heavy
  
• Soaker
  
• Snorker
  
• Rhino (Charger)

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And/Or shoot its butt.

Big, tough and slow like molasses going uphill. They have a thick armor that will reduce any damage by 300 points, which means a lot of stuff will not even make a dent on this guy unless you shoot its glowing red rump. I'm serious, the butt is its weakspot.

Heavies also have a lot of health, not as much as Soakers, but enough to become a serious problem if you don't have any tower that pierces its shell. Speak of which, they just love to tank the damage from your towers in blissful ignorance while other smaller, more fragile, enemies slip by. Make sure you never let them reach the Core as they'll cause 150 damage per hit.

Tower like Gatling, Scatter Laser and others with low DPS have no hope to stop these things and neither you do if you have rapid-fire weapons (with some exceptions), so if that's the case, your only hope is to shoot its rear (I hope you also did NOT bring Hip Fire with you). As it goes without a doubt, the Armor Shredder perk nulls Heavy's biggest trait but it's a fairly late game perk and you must have The Pursuit DLC for it.
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Sweet's ability is even better.

Also known as: Target practice. Soakers are slow moving things that take inordinate amounts of gunfire to die and will always explode in a spectacular fashion when it does.

The most annoying problem Soakers tend to cause is to that they draw the attention of your towers and act as a meat shield while other, more fragile (and sometimes not so fragile), enemies past through mostly unharmed.

Still, one of the most amusing things is to fight these things with Sweet and a rapid fire weapon and see how fast they grow to maximum size and how ridiculously high your damage will be against them. Naturally SiMo also has an easier time dealing with them as not only they take way more weakspot damage than other lumes.

Beginners tend to view Soakers as headaches and pests, seasoned players see Soakers as assets; cunning players can use Soakers to their advantage in several ways:

• Keep Skye's passive maximized with Drone Launcher or Plasma Rifle.
  
• Keep SiMo's passive at its top condition with similar methods.
  
• Use them as living bombs for Corpse Explosion users.
  
• Use them as damage source with Headache.

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Snorkers are treacherous enemies that normally moves at a moderate pace, but will charge at any potential victim and suicide bomb itself causing a lot of damage if you don't move away from it.

Without Feats of Strength, Snorkers are just a nuisance, but with Beast Tamer and Impeccable Accuracy they become extremely dangerous as they move fast and their explosion is almost instantaneous.

The biggest problem with these things is that they just love to get you while you are busy killing anything else. You may hear their high-pitch "scream" before they explode and you'll learn to hate this sound.

Snorkers also do a lot of Core damage if they get to it, they are easy to dispose of, but if they do reach it, say goodbye to 120 Core health.
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Rhinos are enemies made to punish mazes with long straight lines. The more room they have to run without turning, the faster these things become and the faster the stronger they hit and even at medium speed they can knock down a Core Guardian in a single hit. Also keep in mind they can run in diagonal spaces, so make sure you have them to actually turn as their AI is not stupid enough to fall for 1 block turns most of times.

It's always best to either stay on top of tower bases or at least out of its way. NEVER attempt to kill a Rhino from behind, Rhinos never come alone and another Rhino can easily catch you off guard running over your sorry body.

Rhinos are also sturdier than regular lumes, so watch out for them. Softening them for your towers is always a good idea. As they tend to get clustered in corners because they become so slow, weapons that hits a large area are great options to get them.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Walker Warrior
  
• Screamer Matriarch
  
• Hoverer
  
• Bobble Head

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Bulkier, meaner versions of your daily Walker. As their name implies these guys are actually prepared for a fight and can take considerable amounts of punishment before going down, if you have to fight more than one on your own you're probably going to have some trouble.

Warriors are notorious for their jumping attack to close in to its target if he gets hit by gunfire, the attack is ridiculously telegraphed but will hurt a lot if it hits. If the Warrior is close enough he'll do a double-punch attack, you can use this to your advantage and stall him in front of your towers, just watch out not to overdo and get yourself killed.

Their leaping assault never fails to amuse me and yes, they CAN jump over bases if you somehow lure them that way. It's rare, but it can happen.

Since Walkers Warriors are sturdy they become a serious problem on late maps due to the fact they not only attack in larger numbers but also come with stuff like Screamer Matriarchs or Hoverers. Towers with high DPS like Focus can deal with them if they are given enough time to warm up, some people prefer to use Lightning or ACPs too. As for yourself, just make sure to dodge the leaping assault and not get punched too much.
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The elite version of Screamers and one of the most dangerous enemies of the game. Matriarchs are nothing to scoff at and even in small numbers can turn the tide of a battle in favor of the lumes.

Screamer Matriarchs have the same spit attack of their regular counterparts, but they hurt a lot more on direct hit and has some splash damage, so you may get killed by surprise if the goo explodes close to a wall or any obstacle that you happened to be close.

Dealing with Matriarchs is about as hard as dealing with regular Screamers. If you have room you can draw its attention (i.e: fire like crazy at them) so it'll start attacking you, then you can keep dodging and killing them, it's best if you can do it near your towers.

Keep in mind Matriarchs have 75 armor, while hard hitting weapons aren't affected too much, weapons like SMG, Assault Rifle and the like will have its damage potential severely hampered.
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This is one of the most dangerous enemies of the game, Hoverers have a lot of traits that makes them extremely problematic and are often the reason of failures for beginners in 5 Feats of Strength.

Hoverers are immune any frontal gunfire bar Drones, so you must attack them from behind and the good thing is that they have a large weakspot there.

Hoverers will blast a pulse of repelling force to attack and this has a deceptively large range. On levels with pits, like in every Giant Trees level, they are extremely dangerous as their attack throws the player VERY far and can easily chuck you into a bottomless pit, a lume spawn point or into a group of very angry lumes, if more than one hit you at the same time be ready to see your Core Guardian hit escape velocity. You also risk getting hit from behind while you are busy killing them, be very wary of Rhinos if they show up on the same wave.

Another problem is that very few active perks can harm them; Desperate Measures, Electrical Outburst and Biological Warfare are the only few. Perks Explosive Exchange, Spiked Armor, Static Discharge, Corpse Explosion are useless against these things.

Many weapons work well against Hoverers, but you may have a hard time using weapons like REX, Grenade Launcher and Circle Saw properly against them. Just make sure to do it at mid distance enough not to trigger its attack and fire away in its back.

Cunning players can also hit them with explosive weapons even when facing them from the front: aim at the ground, at their "feet" almost behind the Hoverer, do it correctly and you'll score damaging hits on it (although this won't be anywhere as high as if you had shot it in the weakspot).

Most towers can hit its back reliably and you can even force them to turn their back by getting close to them, but always watch your step as you can easily get blown into a pit, a lume spawn point or into a group of very vengeful lumes. Unlike what it looks AR-Mines can hit Hoverers as long as they don't stop in front of it to endure the explosion (try avoid setting them on corners for the same reason).
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I know a lot of people who like to mock and dismiss Bobble Heads as a minimum threat that should be ignored until the last moment. People like this are not aware of how treacherous this thing can be, especially in groups.

Bobble Heads are immune to all towers but Drone and weapons can only hit them by hitting the very tempting red thingy on its "head". The Drone Launcher is the only weapon that can damage it via body shots.

The biggest issue with Bobble Heads is the fact they tend to draw fire from your towers and if any tower besides Scatter Laser and Drone goes for him you'll have one less tower doing actual damage to more dangerous lumes on the map. Don't ever underestimate the headache these things can bring if left unattended.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Walker Patriarch
  
• Super Heavy
  
• Hoverer Queen

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Walker Patriarch is generally considered the most dangerous boss of the game due to the fact he actively seeks to destroy tower bases to form a B-line towards to your Core. He's also pretty big and surprisingly tricky to anger and force it to chase you down instead of your carefully crafted maze.

Whenever you know the Patriarch is coming you should prepare yourself and prioritize him over anything in the map. He's tough enough to soak a lot of damage and by the time you kill him he may have created a giant hole in your defenses which in most cases can easily mean defeat.

The biggest issue about this boss is how damn unpredictable he can be at times. While you literally have to get into his face and shoot to draw his attention towards yourself, if a tower happens to be shooting it he might turn around and advance towards it to break the tower if you can't deal more damage than your tower is doing. Also when Explorer Conscripts are into play he might get distracted by them for little to no reason.

DO NOT get close to him if he's close to an important segment of your maze or close to your towers. Getting within melee range of the Patriarch will trigger a devastating hand-slam crushing attack that will destroy A LOT of stuff around him (G-2 Companion, Reinforcements and Roboticists CAN trigger this). After that he'll gladly chase you around trying to punch you across the entire map (I'm serious), so if you want to kite him, make sure to turn around and run, not just backpedal.

The most efficient way I found to wreck this thing quickly is to arm a trap for with setting AR-Mines on top of tower bases, or alternatively in the route I know he's going for, and let it explode himself on them, luring it on the mines if necessary.

Appears in:
1-4: The Gate (Wave 8)
2-3: Cliff Lodge (Wave 10)
2-4: Outpost (Wave 1)
3-3: Roadworks (Wave 10)
4-2: The Labyrinth (Wave 7)
4-3: The Wilderness (Wave 7)
4-4: The End (Second and forth/fifth, alongside a Hoverer Queen, boss to appear)
5-3: Jellyfish Cove (Wave 10)
6-4: SOKOL (Wave 11)
7-3: Bog (Wave 10)
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If you thought Armored Heavies were big, tough and slow, you haven't met one of these before. This boss is very slow, but more than makes up in sheer resilience and health. Its weakspot isn't a giant glowing spot on its rear, but smaller parts on its legs and since his walking cycle is kinda clunky it's quite difficult to get consistent shots while it's walking, however you do get a generous window of opportunity if he decides to attack.

The Super Heavy is aggressive and will charge its attack and aim on its victim for a few seconds before locking on and firing a massive blast of energy that will one-shot any player or allied NPC unlucky enough to get hit by it and destroy towers and bases over a large area. So for your own sake stay away from your maze and if you are intending to make it shoot so you can stall it, do it where it won't cause too much material and collateral damage. Moving behind him once he's past a certain point in your maze (and no more enemies will be coming) is a good way to stall him.

You CAN prevent the Super Heavy from shooting if you get behind cover or out of its view range fast enough, but never tempt to do it just to stall it as the risk is usually not worth the consequence of failing.

Make sure to watch out for him on levels that have Explorer Conscripts as the Super Heavy WILL attack them and you might get caught off guard on the explosion. The same goes when using perks like G-2 Companion, Reinforcements and Best Friends Forever or even a tower like Mind Control Spire.

Even if you use specific setups to kill armored enemies like Armor Shredder, Drone tower, Focus tower, Drone Launcher, etc., the Super Heavy has a lot of health and often comes with a lot of backup to protect him.

On a last note if the Super Heavy is near the Core get away from it and go behind the boss, if you are crazy enough to make it shoot that massive blast on the Core it'll tear whooping 500 points of its health, the greatest amount in a single attack of the entire game, surpassing even the Fiskeplaske's barrage of attacks.


Picture showing more or less the size of a Super Heavy's attack. You probably don't want that hole in your maze.

Appears in:
2-4: Outpost (Wave 9)
3-1: Train Station (Wave 6)
3-3: Roadworks (Wave 7)
4-1: The Depths (Wave 10)
4-3: Abandoned Lab (Wave 8)
4-4: The End (Third and sixth boss to appear)
7-1: Dam (Wave 10)
7-4: Last Chance (Wave 10).
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The Hoverer Queen is a beefed up Hoverer with smaller weakspot and a nasty trick up to its impenetrable front shell: it can deactivate towers with her attack.

The good news is that she is passive aggressive, she'll only attack if you get in her way, and she's also affected by AR-Mines like regular Hoverers, so if you can, you should lay them around and save yourself a lot of trouble.

Naturally precise weapons like the Sniper Rifle or the Plasma Rifle do well against her, but the Drone Launcher also does wonders softening her since Drones pierces all types of armors.

Fighting the Hoverer Queen requires caution as if you make her attack while towers are nearby, you can put yourself in a REALLY bad position and the Queen's attack throws you just as far as the regular Hoverer's.

Appears in:
3-2: Canopy (Wave 10)
3-4: Abandoned Lab (Wave 10)
4-1: The Depths (Wave 9)
4-4: The End (First and fourth/fifth boss, alongside a Walker Patriarch).
6-2: The Slums (Wave 10)
7-2: Field (Wave 10)

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Healer
  
• Mutator
  
• Fiskeplaske

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Healers are flying enemies that goes to patch up wounded lumes and will "latch" on them with a green healing beam. For obvious reasons they are enemies to be prioritized as you don't want to fight an Armored Heavy/Walker Warrior getting a nice portion of his life healed all the time.

Healers are flying enemies, so if you have access to the Anti-Air tower, please do yourself a favor and bring it. Seriously, it'll save you of a lot headache. The fact they tend to bunch together to quickly patch up a heavily wounded lume makes that tower and area-hitting weapons effective against them.

If Healers are the last lumes on the map, without any other hostile lume alive, they'll simply self-destruct and end the wave.

All in all they aren't at the top of the kill list. The lume below is and for a really good reason.
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I hate Mutators. If I could watch every single one burn to a crisp I would.

Mutators are passively dangerous enemies that will give permanent health boost to its friends and on top of that a small bit of armor, buffed lumes can be easily identified by their red colouring over them and a "+" beside their name and the fact their health will be basically doubled on the first mutation, on top of that buffed lumes will gain a small amount of armor on each mutation, that can and will add up and you easily notice if you fight a heavily mutated lume. If you leave Mutators unattended you'll be facing lumes with thousands of hundreds of health which won't be even slightly fun to kill.

Mutators will prioritize unmutated targets before mutating a target that is already buffed. The cycle tends to repeat with Mutators buffing lumes with the least amount of mutations. Keep that in mind. If a Mutator goes for a lume like Soaker when there are tons of Runners and Walker Pups about you were just unlucky.

Explosive weapons like REX, Battle Rifle and Plasma Rifle's secondary fire can be doubly effective in dealing with Mutators for two reasons: 1) doesn't requires you to get close and risk getting hit by other lumes and 2) you don't need to aim perfectly at the mutating goo to destroy it. Win-win.

If you don't hate Mutators, just play Jellyfish Cove on 5 Feats of Strength. If you don't come back frustrated then I may be just whinny.

As it is with Healers, Mutators will self-destruct if there are no other aggressive lume on the map.


And guess what? Titan Slayer wasn't even enabled here.
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The Fiskeplaske is a slow, flying, giant, boss level, lume that appears only in Laser Bridge. He will slowly fly (hover?) towards the Core, but he's one of the toughest enemies in the game and is only vulnerable in four specific spots (head, rump, left and right sides) that he keeps randomly changing when he gets damaged enough. No towers besides Drones can harm him and even them you must be careful with the placement as several lumes appear with the boss and they can easily draw the deployment of the Drones before they can aim for the boss.

Fiskeplaske's attack is a barrage of semi-homing projectiles that are somewhat easy to dodge, but hurts plenty if all of them lands. If he reaches the Core he can destroy it in a matter of seconds as each full barrage of its attack will take 400 Core health.

The Drone Launcher is one of the best weapons against it as there is no need to aim and search for its glowing vulnerable part. Weapons like the Plasma Rifle and Sniper Rifle are also good against him since they deal high weakspot damage.

The biggest issue when fighting this thing is the fact you'll also have to deal with ground forces that consist of Screamer Matriarchs, Walkers, Walker Warriors and more. By the time you finish dealing with them the Fiskeplaske might be dangerously close to the Core.


The Fiskeplaske. Notice the red weakspot.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Jumper
  
• Infected Explorer

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Jumpers are lumes that can jump over 1 segment of blocks and sort of make a straight line to your Core. If you make a 2 thick block line they'll act as a regular lume and go around it.

Besides building a 2 thick line (watch out for diagonal lines as well), building something on top of the base is another way to prevent them from taking shortcuts, or simply re-route them to stay in front of your towers, Gatlings, AR-Mine Dispensers are good options as they only cost 100 resources to build.

Jumpers are treacherous in the fact they can ignore most of your main killzone if you are not careful with them and they also can bump into you, which won't actually deal damage, but can quite easily push you into a pit or a group of very angry lumes ready to pummel you to death.


Jumpers have some behavioral quirks. Learn how to manipulate them and they become a lot less unpredictable.
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Infected Explorers (a.k.a Zombies) are human turned lumes that have twice as much health as than they appear to and this makes them once of the most annoying, and dangerous, enemies of the game and quite possibly the reason Ruins of Brightholme is considered one of the hardest DLCs of the game.

They are not fast, they are not tough, they don't even hit too hard. So, why are they so dangerous?

Because you must kill this thing twice to keep it dead, first it'll down the Infected Explorer and they'll fall and start crawling, in this state they'll still be able to punch you and if you don't kill them fast enough they'll get up at full health and you'll have to start all over. Combine this with the fact these things tend to attack in numbers comparable to Walkers and the fact they have the same amount of health and you'll quickly realize how problematic they can be.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Heavy Pup
  
• Bliskebaske

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Heavy Pups are akin to Walkers as well, except they have armor that will reduce any damage by 300 points, and they come often in packs. Take note that unlike their adult counterparts these guys are aggressive and will headbutt you to death if they have the chance. Their attack doesn't hurt a lot, but since Pups never come in small numbers things can get out of hand if you are too careless.

Their threat level will depend whether or not you brought something to deal with their thick armor. Conveniently you get the Armor Shredder perk in "The Pursuit DLC" (though it's the last perk to unlock) where they appear alongside Bliskebaskes. With that perk on they barely become a threat bigger than Walkers to you, but without it you better have something to hit hard and in a large area, or else they will power through you defenses.

Using perks to increase your damage like Fast Hands, Against All Odds, Tech Junkie and the like will often give your guns enough strength to deal relatively well against Heavy Pups (unless you're using low DPH weapons like the SMG).
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Bliskebaske are slow flying enemies with a very tempting glowing orange weakspot that is just yelling "SHOOT ME HERE!". The catch about this enemy is that if you shoot it, it'll curl up into the strongest armored enemy of the game bar Hoverers, Bobble Heads and the Fiskeplaske. You can say this thing is more or less like a Soaker in reverse.

A curled up Bliskebaske has tremendous 750 armor which 90% of damage sources of the game can't even hope to pierce. So the Armor Shredder is a very tempting pick if you are going to fight these things.

Oddly enough Bliskebaskes won't curl up if the Anti-Air tower hits it. At least not immediately, which often gives this already powerful tower more than enough time to bring it down.

On a last, unrelated note, I like the design of this enemy. It looks funny, kinda cute even.

Threat Levels:
Very Low < Low < Moderate < High < Very High < Extreme

• Spore Pod
  
• Spore Keeper

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Remember how Spore Pods would attack en masse on Sanctum 1 and basically force you to invest a crapton of resources on Anti-Air measures? Well, for those who missed it they are back just for that again, though now, thankfully, you don't need to spend over 1000 resources in Anti-Air measures to counter them. And unlike the last time, their bulge in the back isn't their weakspot, the reddish-black "eye" is which is much harder to hit.

Spore Pods are enemies I rarely worry about taking down personally on solo matches, I just put one, or two, Level 3 Anti-Air (sometimes more in multiplayer) and forget they are even coming, I do space Anti-Air towers a bit to avoid overkill, though.

If Spore Pods do reach the Core they'll start act like they're having seizure and self-destruct on it, you have a second or two to kill them before they actually harm the Core and the Rolfinator Cannon (on Arc and Radar) is usually a good last-ditch effort to get them.
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Spore Keeper is an annoying enemy. It'll attack you by leaping and hovering in the air and spitting an explosive, homing, projectile on you, and by the end it'll stomp on the ground causing more damage to unaware players.

The funny thing about this enemy? You can shoot its projectile back at it, and if you do it, the Spore Keeper will take around 2k damage and be stunned, Spore Keepers can stun themselves even if you don't bounce their projectiles back and it explodes when you are too close to one, but they won't take damage this way. More than one can be stunned if they are close enough.

What's more problematic about these things is how much health they have (30k on Single Player with Titan Slayer enabled) and the fact they tend to attack the Core a bit earlier than expected, not in the same distance as Screamers, but they don't need to stay within melee range to spew its attack. Spore Keepers are not uncommon on "Last Stand DLC" and they often hit you with their explosives because you're too busy killing other enemies.

As it is with any decent tower defense game, Sanctum 2 has loads of towers at your disposal to destroy, annihilate and blast lumes to kingdom come. From old fashioned explosives to short lived mind control, you should make your chooses carefully to balance your arsenal as while overspecialization can be fun, it also might be your undoing.

Part 1:

• Cannon
  
• Gatling
  
• Lightning

Part AR-Mine:

• AR-Mine Dispenser

Part 2:

• ACP (Automatic Crowd Pummeler)
  
• Kairos
  
• Drone
  
• Violator

Part 3:

• Rocket
  
• AMP Spire
  
• Scatter Laser
  
• Focus

Road to Elysion DLC:

• Slow Field Dispenser
  
• Range Spire

Ruins of Brightholme DLC:

• Makeshift Cannon
  
• Rupture Mine Dispenser

The Pursuit DLC:

• Friendship Laser
  
• Mind Control Spire

The Last Stand DLC:

• Anti-Air
  
• Orbital Strike Relay
  
• Rolfinator

• Cannon
  
• Gatling
  
• Lightning

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Cannon is the very fist tower you get and a curious one. This tower is a jack-of-all-trades tool; it starts off as a relatively strong level 1 tower, but the more you upgrade it the slower it becomes, however each new level brings substantially more firepower and range to it.

As the own game description mentions this tower is versatile. You can either set a bunch of Level 1 Cannons around or upgrade it to have heavy hitters for you to punch through even the armor of tough stuff like Heavies.
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Gatling is a weak, but rapid-firing tower that will shoot constantly at enemies. It doesn't have a lot of strength, so armored enemies can lower its effectiveness quite a bit unless you upgrade it. Some of the toughest enemies like Armored Heavies and Heavy Pups however will just shrug off the attacks of this towers unless you overcharge it immensely.

Gatling is perfect versus small enemies like Runners and even Brood Mothers, it also is a great option to soften Soakers, if you don't have any weapons to deal with them properly, and other types of enemies with little armor.
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Lightning is the complete opposite of Gatling: slow firing rate but packs a mean punch and is one of the best choices to deal with well-armored foes of the game. If upgraded the Lightning will bounce to two up to three targets on its maximum level, but the lightning bounced will deal less damage on each enemy it jumps to.

Lightning is often best placed mid to near the end of your killzone as you wouldn't want it to waste one of its precious shots on a small Snorker or Runner that came spearheading the pack of lumes. The range of this tower leaves much to be desired as well, so keep that in mind if you're intending to put it in corners or between other towers.

This tower is one of the few I find useful to place as many as I can even on level 1 as it deals a good amount of damage and the fact it fires so slowly makes it less than stellar on its own even on level 3.

• ACP (Automatic Crowd Pummeler)
  
• Kairos
  
• Drone
  
• Violator

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ACP is an area hitting tower that will strike everything going close to it with a shockwave caused by its massive jackhammer. While it is expensive to upgrade, it's also one of the best tools for crowd control, however it lacks enough strength to cause severe damage against heavily armored enemies.

This tower cannot harm Hoverers, one of the most problematic enemies of the game, so always watch out for them.

A common tactic that used to be employed on 5 Feats of Strength was to set an ACP with Range Spire and overcharge it to no end. How effective this is after this tower's raw power was decreased is up to debate.
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Kairos is the first support tower you unlock and will throw slowing spheres on enemies that gets within its range. It's a good tower to have to give you support and can be useful to lump groups of lumes together.

Vs. Slow Field Dispenser:
While Slow Fields have the advantage of being able to be set wherever you want to, they also slow down you if you enter in it, Kairos suffers from no such drawback, however the sphere's slowdown is slightly less effective and it may not be shot in an advantageous position.
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Drone is an interesting "tower" (looks more like a dispenser to me), it will send one up to three drones (depending on its level) after the lume that goes near it, the drone(s) will stay showering the lume with damaging rays for something around 15 seconds and then self-destruct. Remember that each level the Drone tower is upgraded it'll deploy another drone which can substantially increase its damage.

This tower is unique that it pierces armor of enemies, it is the only tower that can hurt Bobble Heads and can be a great helping hand against Armored Heavies, Heavy Pups and Hoverers.

Just take note that its range plain sucks. If you have a way to build a maze where the lumes will pass through it twice within its range you can increase a lot its effectiveness.
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The biggest, meanest tower with the highest damage per shot... Which also happens to be the one of the slowest. If upgraded at least once a Violator can one shot a lot of lumes without Titan Slayer feat activated and will wound a lot anything it doesn't outright kills. Keep in mind the Violator is the tower with the worst crowd control capability of the game, hence why most experienced players frown upon seeing this tower.

To get the best out of a Violator it's imperative you set its target system to "Most Health" targets or at least "Closest" as a default Violator will most likely waste its shot on a small Runner or Brood Mother, or worse, on a Bobble Head.

While the Violator has undoubtedly the highest damage-per-hit (not even surpassed by Orbital Strike Relay), it fires so slowly it ends up having some of the lowest damage-per-second of the game.

It is a very good option against Armored Heavies and even bosses due to its colossal range. It can even hit Hoverers' back, but really, you shouldn't count on it for that.

Awesome? Undoubtedly. Practical? Eehhh, I'll let you decide.

• Rocket
  
• AMP Spire
  
• Scatter Laser
  
• Focus

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Rocket is a long range tower that specializes in dealing with crowds of enemies like Walkers, Screamers, Rhinos and the like. If you learn to use this tower properly it can become a powerful asset to you.

Rocket is another tower that becomes much more powerful when upgraded. Every level adds not only more damage to the missile, but also adds another rocket launcher to the tower multiplying its damage by 2 and 3 respectively.

The rockets launched by it are somewhat delayed, so it might miss targets that moves too fast like Runners, Brood Mothers and charging Rhinos. Against Walkers and Screamers it's always good to consider taking a punch or taunting the Screamer into attacking so you can cluster them together for one big rocket shower.

Rocket tower will never damage a Hoverer and fares poorly against Soakers despite its high damage. It is a good option against bulky stuff like Heavies if you upgrade it.
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AMP Spire is a support tower that will increase the strength of all adjacent towers. At its maximum level its range increases and so does its utility.

Should go without saying that this tower is incredibly useful, although sorta expensive in some single player maps. On co-op matches where you get at least twice as much increased resources (and enemies becomes twice as strong) it's a very good idea to bring this tower to help deal with enemies.


Area that a Level 3 AMP Spire can affect. The blocks marked in orange ARE NOT affected by it even though you may think so.
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Scatter Laser is a tower that will never lock on against one enemy and will keep firing at random enemies that goes within its range, thus this tower's target cannot be set.

While the Scatter Laser is somewhat cheap to build and upgrade, it's not the best option for people looking for sheer firepower as this tower doesn't have high damage-per-second. However this tower is versatile and can help you avoid trouble with lumes that tends to make towers waste too much time on them like Armored Heavies, Soakers and Bobble Heads.

Also, don't be fooled by the projectiles fired by this tower, on level 2 and 3 the Scatter Laser has a higher fire rate than it appears to and you can notice by either watching the rate the lumes' health decreases or the sound it makes.
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Focus is the last tower unlocked by people without DLC and is worth the wait. This is the tower with some of the best damage-per-second and can be extremely useful on 5 Feats of Strength if you learn where to place and certain tactics.

The cost-effectiveness of this tower is superb. There are very few towers which you can spend as many resources as in the Focus tower and get the damage output and range it gives.

Focus takes a while to "warm-up" and reach its maximum potential and once it does, it can easily damage through the armor of Armored Heavies like hot knife cutting butter. Hoverers are also not totally safe from this tower as while the tower will not damage its front, once the Hoverer turns its back to it the Focus will possibly be warmed up and ready to deal a lot of damage to it.

Never be afraid to take a punch from Walkers or get Screamers to attack you so they can stay in the range of the Focus, you can always force Hoverers to turn their backs to the towers too, but watch your footing before you do that.


Placing Focus towers on U-turns tend to be a great option to extended the damage it does.

• AR-Mine Dispenser

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The AR-Mine Dispenser is simple, cheap and VERY useful tower/dispenser that will create powerful, one-time use only, mines that can be used to take out dangerous enemies like Bosses. It can affect any ground enemy, even Hoverers. The quantity of mines generated after each wave (up to 3 mines per wave) and explosion radius increases as you upgrade the Dispenser.

It is wise to save up mines and set them only when you know a particularly dangerous enemy will appear or if you are not sure you can handle everything on your own. However if you only choose to build AR-Mine Dispensers you'll have lots of it by the end of the map and if you know how to set them properly you can make even hellish difficulty maps like SOKOL and Jellyfish Cove MUCH easier.

The mines are mostly used by me to get the hulking, and extremely problematic, Walker Patriarch. I always set a trap for him either luring him into a path full of mines or setting the mine on bases I know he's going to smash to make shortcuts. Mines also can hit Hoverer and Hoverer Queeens but it does have some finicky elements like if you slow down a Hoverer the explosion might hit its front shell instead of the squishy back and do nothing to it, so keep that mind.

The AR-Mine Dispenser DOES NOT STACK MINES. You can pick them even during the combat phases, but if you forget to pick the new batch of Mines before the next building phase they're gone. Period.

On a last note, Ruins of Brightholme and Last Stand features Jumpers, annoying buggers that will take shortcuts over single segment of tower bases. You can either build a second line to prevent them from doing that or you can build a tower on top of it to counter them (even if Dispensers barely raises the height of bases, apparently Jumpers are technophobes.). AR-Mine Dispensers are perfect for this due to the fact they are among the cheapest towers of the game costing only 100 resources to build (with Gatling and Anti-Air costing 100 as well).

The values here will show the exact amount of mines (from a Level 3 Dispenser) required to instantly kill a boss on regular terms and boosted by Titan Slayer with 50% more health. Keep in mind these values are for single-player only. On co-op the first player may cause the bosses to grow much stronger depending how late he/she drops in. If 2 players are in a game from the start of the map the health of lumes basically doubles.
You can use one less mine to heavily wound them, but you must make sure to finish them off.


If you use the mines correctly you can trivialize most Bosses or difficult waves.

To finalize there's some odd findings: AR-Mines deployed are affected by your perks and passives. Which means an AR-Mine laid by Sweet will trigger her burning debuff and anything else she may be carrying like Slowing Presence or Exposure Rounds. As far as I'm concerned, and confirmed by DoomyDoom as well, perks like Hollowpoint Rounds does affect AR-Mines which exponentially increases its power if can make sure the mine will be your "third hit". I still need to test and confirm about Haigen, though.

And another one by DoomyDoom:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

You can stack AR-mines on top of YOUR OWN HEAD to remove the need to predict Patriarch's pathing. The trick is to pick mines, aim up, jump and throw them just before you've reached max height. The mine will stick to your head and will be able to activate if you jump into a lume. Repeat until you have enough.

In MP throwing mines on top of another player is tricky - you must hit a very specific spot for them to stick.

Also mines used that way might disappear if you're subject to extreme vertical displacement (rocket jumps, air vent jumps etc), or hit some form of terrain with your head (ceilings), so take care.

I feel the need to inform that, if for whatever reason, you attempt to do this during combat phase, wielding a gun, this will not work maybe because of character collision detection being different from the one in "idle" animation during the building phase.


No, using mine as a hat to headbutt lumes with explosive results wasn't a joke.

• Slow Field Dispenser
  
• Range Spire

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Slow Field Dispenser will produce up to three Slow Fields so you can place them in strategic positions to hamper the progress of lumes. It's somewhat expensive to get it to level 3 on solo matches, but it's often worth the investment and can be a very useful asset when used properly.

Take note that overcharging this Dispenser will not increase the slow effect, only the range.

Cunning players can even force lumes like Walkers and Walker Warriors to attack while they are in the Slow Field standing one step or two out of it so they won't be affected.

The slow effect can be negated with Khronos Device perk, but that is one of the last perks you'll unlock and is only really worth it on Survival matches where you are bound to increase the range of Slow Fields to ludicrous sizes.
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Range Spire is another support tower and helps your towers to fire from a farther range than they normally should.

Almost every tower becomes more efficient with the Range Spire affecting it, even AR-mines will have their explosion radius slightly increased by it and can effectively become smart bombs hitting a large area with the Range Spire buffing the AR-Mine Dispenser. It goes without saying that towers like Focus that requires to keep firing on the target to increase its damage is another perfect match for the Range Spire.

Exceptions are Rupture Mine Dispenser which does not have range at all and maybe the Makeshift Cannon against fast targets as though their projectile are fast they still have travelling time and can easily miss moving targets from afar.


The total area a fully upgrade Range Spire affects.

• Makeshift Cannon
  
• Rupture Mine Dispenser

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Makeshift Cannon is an odd tower. It has a chance to deal critical damage and stun enemies but it also has a chance to de-activate itself for a couple of seconds. This tower however can be versatile, not quite as Cannon, but still useful on level 1 and rather powerful on level 3.

While this tower lacks the power to take down heavy targets, if you place lots of them on the lumes' way to the core (considering there is only one way) you'd be surprised how often they can get stunned if they are not in massive numbers. This can be helpful to lump enemies together for area damages with your weapons.
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Rupture Mine Dispenser is another oddball among towers and dispensers. It deploys metal things that looks very much like bear traps and if any lume steps on it, it'll take damage for a couple of seconds; the farther it travels, the more damage it'll take. Only ONE rupture mine may be attached to the lume and if it goes on another they'll simply ignore it.

Naturally Rupture Mines are predators for annoying things like Runners and Brood Mothers as they'll die almost instantly upon stepping on it, but it can also be very useful against Walkers and Screamers as they move considerably faster with Beast Tamer feat on.

• Friendship Laser
  
• Mind Control Spire

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Friendship Laser is a curious tower. This one is unique in the fact it gain more power if another Friendship Laser is around, although they can't forward firepower.

This tower is quite cheap and easy to get to level 3, but they are best used in couples (triples at best) around sections of your maze. But make sure to keep in mind this tower isn't top of the line in terms of damage even with another to increase its power.
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This is a very curious tower and quite expensive. It'll convert one lume for a short time (2 seconds minimum) for your side and that lume will fight for you, if the lume is passive (Runner, Soaker, Armored Heavy) it'll be stunned and rendered motionless for the duration of the mind control.

Mind Control Spire has some interesting uses like putting it so an aggressive lume will attack others and force them to attack it (like Walkers, for example), this often leads to groups of lumes bunching together allowing you and your towers to attack all of them at once.

Bosses are unaffected by this tower, but they'll turn against any controlled lume, so be careful with it as a converted lume may inadvertently cause it to attack and destroy your towers and maze (Walker Patriarch and Super Heavy) or jam your towers (Hoverer Queen).

• Anti-Air
  
• Orbital Strike Relay
  
• Rolfinator

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Anti-Air is one of the most useful towers of the game despite its overspecialization since it's also extremely good at it. As the name implies this toy here will only aim at airborne enemies, but will deal massive damage to them.

During solo matches a single fully upgraded Anti-Air is usually enough to deal with anything that dares to take the air route to your core. Only few maps have enemies attacking in such numbers that you'd need to place more than it (maybe Laser Bridge and Arc).

Anti-Air has a gigantic range as well, so thanks to this quality you can place it in the middle of the map to cover all angles, but watch out for walls as the field of view is very important to get maximum efficiency out of this tower. If you build more than one make sure to space them properly to prevent overkills.

Anti-Air can hit ground enemies, but that's a rare occurrence and only happens when the air enemy is flying close enough to the ground, or if the enemy is big enough. So never rely on this happening to survive.

• Spitfly
  
• Healer
  
• Fiskeplaske (it will NOT harm it)
  
• Bliskebaske
  
• Spore Pod

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This is the most powerful tower of the game aside from the sheer raw damage of AR-Mines and Anti-Air (which only target airborne enemies). Think of this tower as a short range Violator.

Orbital Laser will fire a delayed laser beam that after a few moments will nuke the ever living crap of whatever it targeted, to cut it short, it hits REALLY hard and can kill 90% of enemies (with base health Titan Slayer or not) in a couple of seconds but fires so slowly that you might fall asleep while waiting for the next laser to fall on the head of enemies.

Despite it's massive power, the orbital laser is not a tower for beginners, this tower require players to know what they are doing to be even remotely useful. You must know which lume it will target and keep said lume standing still or at least slowed down so the laser can hit it as many times as possible. Using towers like Kairos and Slow Field Dispenser are great options for this and for aggressive kiting (baiting enemies into attacking you) Slowing Presence and Hydra Blood might be of great help.
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Rolfinator is the only manned tower of the game and it appears only on Arc, Radar and Last Stand maps. It fires to laser in a "X" pattern which can cause at maximum 2500 (5000 if both shots hits the target completely) damage to the lume it hits. It has 20 shots and if depleted the tower will only recharge on the next wave.

This tower (turret?) can be extremely useful to take out groups of small lumes and soften Spore Keepers and bruise even dangerous targets from afar. Just make sure you aim well as it holds only 20 charges per wave.

Before anything I'd like to leave a huge thank you for the people maintaining the Sanctum Gamepedia[sanctum.gamepedia.com] as most numerical information was blatantly ripped taken from it as I was too lazy to format tables for every single one of them.



The raw damage dealt by the weapon if it hits a non-weakspot part of an enemy.
Armor or perks are not taken into consideration.

Essentially how fast the weapon fires.

How many bullets, charges, energy, etc, the weapon holds. Basically how many times you can fire before having to reload. Pay close attention to the secondary fire, as almost every single weapon consumes considerably more ammo for it.

The damage sustained fire deals, usually the higher this is the better.

How long it takes for the weapon to deplete its clip if you keep the fire button pressed down. Good to measure how fast the weapon actually fires when you compare to the magazine size and shots per second.

The added ouchies caused by the gun when you hit a lume weakspot, usually their glowing bits.
The bigger the number the better. Fast firing weapons tend to deal less weakspot damage as it'd be broken beyond belief if a gun like the Assault Rifle did the same weakspot damage of the Sniper Rifle.


Below there is the raw list of weapons presented in the game. There are a lot of options to chose from (although quite a number of them are DLC content) to create your own style of lume termination.

Part 1:

• Voltaic Hand Cannon
  
• Battle Rifle
  
• ETK-Tesla Prototype
  
• SMG

Part 2:

• Assault Rifle
  
• REX
  
• Sniper
  
• Shotgun

Road to Elysion DLC:

• Gatling Laser
  
• Ballista

Ruins of Brightholme DLC:

• Circle Saw
  
• Nailgun

The Pursuit DLC:

• Drone Launcher
  
• Grenade Launcher

Last Stand DLC:

• Plasma Rifle
  
• Smatter Band

• Voltaic Hand Cannon
  
• Battle Rifle
  
• ETK-Tesla Prototype
  
• SMG

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Rank to unlock: 1

The Voltaic Hand Cannon is the first weapon available for you alongside your primary gun, but don't underestimate this weapon because of that.

The primary fire will fire a blue orb that will pierce enemies in a straight line and this is what actually makes this weapon remarkably powerful in the hands of a seasoned player-- I'm not quite sure what's the pierce limit, if there's any. One explample of how powerful the Voltaic Hand Cannon can be is by using it with Skye and hitting several Walkers or Screamer, but you do need a good straight line for that, so watch out for Rhinos.

The secondary fire will launch a golden-ish orb that is stronger and will slowly home on enemies (the homing range isn't very big, so watch out), but will lose its piercing ability. This can be particularly useful to hit enemies in problematic positions such as too far or on high grounds.

TSYGAN has a strange and devastating glitch with this weapon: with Tactical Juxtaposition if she fires the last shot all projectiles on screen will have the bonus, this can be only done with the slow secondary fire projectile and in very large maps.


TSYGAN's glitch with this weapon in action.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 5

Battle Rifle is an explosive weapon. Which means if you hit an ally it'll send him/her flying around, take note of this as you can accidentally send your partner in harm's way if you're not careful with it.

The primary fire is good to use on single lumes and will hit more than one if they are close enough, but the explosion size is disappointing to say the least, it's nowhere as good as REX's and the enemies must be really close to each other for the splash damage to take effect.

On the other hand this weapon has a very strong knockback effect and with Tactical Juxtaposition you can pin down lumes like Walkers, Screamers by constantly firing at them (especially if you have Slowing Rounds or Slowing Presence too).

The secondary fire is very interesting. It shots a small explosive that won't explode right away even if you fire it in the face of a lume, the explosives deal higher damage than the primary fire and will go off either automatically after a period of time or if you hit them with a gunfire of your own. Using it with other weapons like the REX or the Assault Rifle's secondary fire is a sure way to explode them when you want without much trouble.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 8

Formerly known as "Ghost Buster" due to its cool effect in Sanctum 1, the Tesla weapon returns still having a high fire rate but with limited range. This weapon goes well with Skye, Sweet and Haigen for these reasons. Although unlocked early this weapon should not be underestimated and it can be a good asset for players with little options and even better with the right set of perks.

The primary fire will shoot a stream of lightning, with limited range (around 4 squares), and will damage more than one lume if they are bunched together, the area of effect is pretty small, though. This weapon shines in the fact it's a great early game crowd control against pests like Runners and Walker Pups which attack en masse in some maps like Outpost, and one of the few non-DLC guns with crowd control quality.

The secondary fire will blast a bolt of lightning that will bounce to another target as soon it hits which can be moderately useful against less numerous targets. The lightning bolt has infinite range and can hit far away targets as long as you know how to deal with the crosshair spread.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 14

A weapon with an absurdly high fire rate capable of mowing down small to medium threat lumes with relatively ease. The SMG works quite well for Skye, Sweet and Haigen (since you'll most likely want to get close and unleash its entire clip in the face of the lumes).

The primary fire will fire bullets at frenetic pace, if you try to use even at mid distance or hold down the trigger and fire away you'll be surprised how inaccurate this thing actually can be, so try not to jam your finger on the fire button.

The secondary fire is a bunch of poison darts that will steadily deal damage to the enemy for something around 12~15 seconds. Poison darts should be viewed as a support tool rather than something to deal heavy damage. Each poison tick will activate debuffing perks like Synergy, Slowing Rounds and Exposure Rounds and, in case of Sweet, her burning ability.

In game stats.

• Assault Rifle
  
• REX
  
• Sniper
  
• Shotgun

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Rank to unlock: 20

This is Skye's primary weapon and one she'll be with at least until hitting Rank 40. The Assault Rifle is meant to combine with Skye's natural ability to deal more damage on each hit and it does a good job at that.

The primary fire is what you'd expect, bullets flying where you're pointing at and dealing a good amount of damage. The Assault Rifle is pretty accurate and players with trigger discipline can easily deal with Hoverers and Bobble Heads with it.

The secondary fire will launch a hard hitting grenade on enemies. This is great to use after you've unloaded almost the entire clip of the weapon, also while Skye's ability is stronger, and hit lots of lumes for lots of damage at once.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 20

REX is Sweet's primary weapon and will deal damage over a somewhat large area. With Sweet this weapon is meant to "spread the joy" of her burning ability among other lumes, essentially killing the small trash before they even have the chance to stir up any trouble.

This is another explosive weapon, so mind where you fire when you're playing co-op or else you can shove your partner(s) into bottomless pits or groups of very angry lumes.

The primary fire is simple and direct: a rocket that will explode over a good area causing decent damage. The rocket has a good knockback effect, so mind yourself while firing it, you don't want to fire and push yourself into an embarrassing death. But the other way is also possible, a good way to get distance quickly from lumes is to simply jump and fire away.

To use the secondary fire you must first target a lume and let the REX lock on it. After releasing the button the REX will fire missiles that will break into smaller projectiles and home on its target. This is extremely useful against single targets and also covers the REX's deficiency against flying enemies as well. Just make sure you have enough space to fire it, or else the small projectiles might not even reach its target. Also keep in mind that this severely reduces the punch of REX and without Armor Shredder this won't even make a dent on well armored enemies.

On a last note, this weapon can save your skin if you get stuck in the scenery because of an unlucky landing after getting pushed away by something, the REX has such recoil it can force you out of certain spots. It's worth trying it before selecting "Suicide" in the game menu.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 20

The Sniper (Rifle) is SiMo's first and main weapon. It has abnormal weakspot damage and can easily demolish lumes when used properly, especially for a good SiMo player. The Sniper has a nasty recoil when fired, so it may take a while to get used to it.

The primary fire is a single, extremely fast moving, projectile that will hit its mark almost instantly. Perfect against Bobble Heads, Hoverers, Armored Heavies and anything you can easily hit the weakspot.

The secondary fire is a piercing shot that will diving into a cone shaped spread that will hit anything behind the lume you hit. It can be hard to use properly, but on straight lines can be very powerful.

While a powerful weapon the Sniper Rifle leaves much to be desired and is one of the reasons SiMo is so overlooked in 5 Feats of Strength maps, especially by people who don't own the DLC content, save for very few maps. The low ammo count, the unwieldy recoil and the situational secondary fire are reasons to leave this weapon as soon as you unlock the primary weapon swap at Rank 40 and/or swap it for the Plasma Rifle at Rank 34.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 20

Shotgun is Haigen's first weapon and as stated in his character sheet it goes very well with his natural ability and is capable of doing serious damage to lumes, but loses a lot of damage if you attempt to hit anything beyond 2 blocks of distance, attempt to do it far enough and if you hit anything you'll only see zeroes.

The primary fire is your standard, 8-pellet, spray of bullets, the closer, or the bigger, the enemy is, the better. Medium range shots are not out of question, but remember: the Shotgun will lose a lot of effectiveness.

The secondary fire will charge stacks of the remaining shells in the Shotgun's clip. You can fire with 2 bullets charged or all of 6 (or 3 with Tactical Juxtaposition) for massive damage. Charging the Shotgun is one of the most efficient ways to deal with Armored Heavies without having to move to their backs, although a fully charged Shotgun hitting the weakspot is granted to deal enough damage to seriously wound a Heavy.

Since this weapon shots 8 pellets per blast it's also a viable option for Skye to keep her passive up, also being quite powerful. Sweet can make use of it for her burning ability (especially when charged up) and even SiMo can make good use of this gun if you are daring enough and understand how to aim it properly.

In game stats.

• Gatling Laser
  
• Ballista

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Rank to unlock: 18

Gatling Laser is an interesting weapon good to deal with singular and groups of lumes when used properly.

The primary fire has a fast rate of fire and will cause small additional damage on each hit. This helps substantially anyone dealing with Soakers quickly, also being a great option for medium ranges as the accuracy of this weapon is very good when zoomed in. Just take note that unlike Sweet's burn the small damage tics caused by it will not activate any debuff.

The secondary fire is a chargeable area attack. Keep in mind that charging more of it does not mean the attack will become stronger, merely with better range. For this reason you should test and measure how much charge you need for each situation. Against Armored Heavies I just like to get in close and keep using fast attacks (1 to 3 "bullets") for nice and easy damage.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 25

Ballista is TSYGAN's main weapon and it works both as a Sniper and a decent crowd control weapon when used correctly. Ballista is unique in the fact you can charge its shots to increase its damage and accuracy dramatically, however it takes something around two to three full seconds to fully charge either mode of fire, so keep that in mind. Tactical Juxtaposition DOES NOT quicken the charge time unlike what many people think.

The primary fire of Ballista is a blue bolt that will hit only one target and will stick to it and it has above average weakspot damage. A mid charged bolt has pretty good accuracy against enemies up close, but an uncharged bolt can fly anywhere on the screen.

The secondary fire is a pink bolt that will pulsate waves of damaging energy around where it lands - be it a lume or a part of terrain - so it's pretty versatile. You can purposefully miss your mark and hit around a base so enemies passing through it will get hit, or just stick it to a group of Walkers who thinks going charging together towards your Core is a good idea. A peculiar trait of the secondary shot is that it will ALWAYS hit the weakspot of Snorkers, so it's a great weapon to wipe those pests out from a safe distance.

In game stats.


The secondary fire shockwave will NEVER miss Snorkers' weakspot.

• Circle Saw
  
• Nailgun

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Rank to unlock: 21

Circle Saw is the first (and only) "melee" weapon of the game, it's one of the strongest weapons of the game, but it might be highly unpractical per se; this weapon requires perks and some practice to use properly. Naturally Haigen has a much easier time handling it thanks to his natural abilities, Skye can also do a lot of damage since the primary fire of this weapon hits really fast.

The primary fire will spin the saw and mow down anything that gets close to it, you WILL get hit before you kill anything, so use it with care. Just keep in mind that fighting Hoverers with this will definitely NOT work well.

The secondary fire will fire the saw and if it hits an enemy the saw will also keep dealing continuous damage to the lume you hit, nothing too big, though. Take note that the secondary fire is VERY inaccurate, the crosshair takes forever to realign and the saw also has a bit of travelling time, so hitting far targets will be difficult.

Perks like Hydra Blood, Spiked Armor, Desperate Measures and Frightening Visage can turn this weapon into a very powerful tool to mow down groups of lumes with ease.

In game stats.


"Mowing down lumes like weed."
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Rank to unlock: 24

Nailgun is an odd combination of a fast firing weapon with the ability to deal above average weakspot damage like the Sniper and the Ballista. It has very poor crowd control capability on its own as it can never hit more than one enemy.

The primary fire will launch a bunch of nails, the weapon has a big crosshair spread, even with SiMo, so it's not recommended to hold the button and fire away if you are intending to hit the weakspot of an enemy repeatedly.

The secondary fire will make the nails stick to a surface and if any lumes steps on it they'll deal damage. The nails will hit only one lume before disappearing and will not harm Hoverers. You can use this to arm "traps" near the end of your maze to catch stragglers or in the middle to screw with lumes. It's also a good option in case you want to stand still and wait for lumes as you can keep arming nails while they get to you.

Beware that certain things like G-2 Companion and Roboticist can trigger the nails of the secondary fire and make them go to waste (it won't harm them).

In game stats.

• Drone Launcher
  
• Grenade Launcher

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Rank to unlock: 29

Drone Launcher is a weapon that emulates the Drone dispenser. This weapon is unique in two things, it pierces ANY armor (even from Hoverers and Bobble Heads) and the drones it launches homes towards its target (somewhat slowly) voiding the necessity of aiming. The drones will fly even through walls if necessary which is also pretty useful.

The primary fire will launch the Drones, if you want for them to go for a specific target you must keep the crosshair on it, but bear in mind that if there's an enemy too close to you the Drones can make a 180º turn and go for it instead.

The secondary fire will detonate all launched drones via signal, the explosion isn't very big, but can blast out low threat enemies. The secondary fire is not very useful, in most times letting the drones swarming the enemies will result in more damage and I don't think there's an actual limit to how many drones you can launch and swarm the same enemy to justify its use.

Tactical Juxtaposition can increase the utility of this weapon exponentially as the perk only affects the weapon, not the drones, giving the Drone launcher 12 drones and faster launch speed.

In game stats.
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Rank to unlock: 31

Grenade Launcher is exactly what you expect: an explosive weapon that can deal a lot of area damage. This weapon isn't as easy to use and control as one might think, though.

Using the primary fire will launch a grenade that will bounce once before exploding, if you know how to do it you can launch it right in the face of a lume so it'll bounce back to the ground and explode right there.

The secondary fire launches a heavier grenade that won't travel far and won't explode immediately, it'll burst into smaller bombs and explode everywhere around where it landed. It may take some planning and practice to put this to good use.

This weapon is very good against crowds, the size of the explosion of the primary fire is good, but the secondary fire can destroy groups of lumes with ease given you plan and fire ahead (especially if Impeccable Accuracy is on). However due to how this weapon behaves this is among the worst options you can pick to fight Hoverers, Bobble Heads Soakers and any flying enemy of the game, so take that in consideration.

In game stats.

• Plasma Rifle
  
• Smatter Band

_______________________________________________________


Rank to unlock: 34

Plasma Rifle is an excellent weapon, I'm not going to lie or be shy about it: it's by far my favorite weapon in the game since it's one of the very few that is useful in the hands of practically any character.

This weapon features two much needed things in normal and 5 Feats of Strength games: the ability to single out enemies with its primary fire and the ability to crowd control with its secondary fire. Master it and the Plasma Rifle will be a huge asset for you.

The primary fire will fire a plasma ray that will deal higher than average weakspot damage which is great against Hoverers, Bobble Heads and Heavies.

The secondary fire will launch a plasma sphere that will travel a bit before stopping completely. This attack is unique in the fact that if you explode it with gunfire of your own it'll deal way more damage than if a lume had bumped into it. The secondary fire is also insanely good against Soakers if you fire near it (not at it); just test it with Sweet and you'll realize how powerful this can be. This maneuver can also be used as Skye to quickly maximize her natural ability, but keep in mind that if the enemy has even a bit of armor (like Walker Warriors, Screamer Matriarchs and Rhinos), this will not work.

All in all the Plasma Rifle is a good replacement for the Sniper Rifle. It does what the Sniper Rifle does but better and it has crowd control capability to boot. Once you unlock this weapon there's little excuse to use the Sniper Rifle again (at least until you get Rank 40 and be able to swap your primary weapon).

In game stats.
_______________________________________________________

Rank to unlock: 35

The Smatter Band is the final weapon you will unlock in the game. It can also be a weapon which is great against single targets and groups of them, however using it requires way more practice and finesse than the Plasma Rifle.

The primary fire will launch small, blue, firecrackers that must stick to lumes; if they land anywhere else they won't even detonate and will make a silly sound before fading.

The secondary fire is a delayed, bulkier, firecracker and will NOT stick to lumes and will bounce on them if you attempt to do so. Even after the explosion starts there's a small delay before the lumes starts to take damage, so watch out for that.

This weapon can be a really good asset for people who can plan ahead and is capable of doing serious damage to groups of lumes if used properly.

In game stats.

Each character has its distinct traits or lack of them, but what will make them truly unique is your selection of perks.

The number of perks you'll have access to can be overwhelming at first, but as you play and test them you'll find your own style and, finally, a combination that suits you for the hardest challenge of the game: 5 Feats of Strength.

• Hollowpoint Rounds
  
• Static Discharge
  
• Resilient Core
  
• Unstable Core
  
• Marksman
  
• Hip Fire

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Rank to unlock: 4

First things first: this perk activates every once in three HITS, not shots, so if you fire a missile from the REX and hit several enemies the game will consider whatever enemy it hit as third and this enemy will take the increased damage.

Despite being the very first perk to be unlocked this is deceptively powerful, especially with fast-firing weapons or heavy crowd control as the if you hit, let's say six targets, the perk will trigger twice since there's no cooldown on it.

Skye and SiMo in particular tend to benefit more from this perk and cunning TSYGAN players can deal MASSIVE damage with it.
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Rank to unlock: 4

A decent beginner perk. It helps a bit with crowd control in early stages of the game, but can be easily replaced later on with more efficient perks.

This perk has a curious effect on TSYGAN which is covered in her perk loadout "Full Circle".


Notice the small damage bouncing to the left Walker.
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Rank to unlock: 5

A great support perk that will help immensely in certain stages, especially if you don't have access to a great set of perks yet.

By itself this perk heals 400 core health per wave completed, but the core will never go above its natural 4000 health. This perk stacks if other players are carrying it, so it'll heal 800, 1200 and 1600 core health respectively if all 4 players have it equipped.
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Rank to unlock: 5

Another Core perk and this one is also used to help you keep your Core in good condition. Almost any enemy that attacks the core (except those I've mentioned) will take damage if they so as much scratch the core, Screamers and Spitflies included.

This perk can be a good asset against pesky Runners and Brood Mothers (or most medium threat lone lumes) that may slip through your defenses. It saves you the trouble of having to go all the way back abandoning the front lines just to kill that one lume.

Again, this Core perk stacks with more players using it and will deal anywhere from 2000 to 8000 damage to enemies that hit the core.

On a last note, this Core can be a lifesaver if you die with Hardcore feat active, unless a lume that is immune to this perk is around you can stay watching your core getting beaten and hope there'll be some left for the next wave for you to protect.

Surprise, surprise...
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Rank to unlock: 6

A perk that you'll naturally use on SiMo to increase further his already higher than average weakspot damage, but is also useful to all characters.

Marksman is self-explanatory, it makes hitting the glowing red spots on lumes hurt way more than it should and turns the job of killing Hoverers, Armored Heavies, Soakers and Bobble Heads into something quick and surprisingly satisfying.


Left: Without Marksman - Right: With Marksman
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Rank to unlock: 6

A powerful perk with a great cost in exchange. Raw fire power at cost of weakspot damage.

Hip Fire is a double-edged thingamabob, while it makes every attack hurt much more, it'll completely disable your weakspot damage which means the enemies that requires a lot of hitting in their weak points will become A LOT of trouble (especially Armored Heavies). So think, consider, ponder and measure carefully if you want to use this one as Hip Fire tends to bring unforeseen consequences to the unprepared.

All in all, Hip Fire is particularly powerful for area hitters like REX's primary fire, Gatling Laser's secondary fire, Ballista's secondary fire and Plasma Rifle's secondary fire-- anything that hits a lot of enemies and will most likely never hit any weakspot at all.

If you ever give SiMo this perk you deserve every bit of problem that's coming to you.

Hip Fire may not look so attractive once you realize you have to tangle with Soakers, Hoverers, Armored Heavies...

• Corpse Explosion
  
• Phoenix
  
• Rymdskor
  
• Plumber Shoes
  
• Overcharge
  
• Against All Odds

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Rank to unlock: 7

One of my favorite perks for crowd control and can be devastating when used correctly, especially in maps where lumes cluster together like Construction Site, Com Tower, Canopy, Laser Bridge and so on.

Corpse Explosion will deal 1/4 of the lume's base health as damage around a small area where the enemy died, so if you have wounded enemies they can die to the Corpse Explosion which will trigger a second Corpse Explosion which can trigger a third Corpse Explosion and so on.

Keep in mind the lume will cause damage relative to its base health, so this perk becomes quickly obsolete in survival matches.

Chain reactions.
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Rank to unlock: 7

Rise from ashes and bring it back. Phoenix is often used as a crutch for new players who clicks on the "Suicide" option at the menu to resurrect and lay down waste on the lumes close to the core, which can be effective... Until you decide to play with Hardcore feat of strength, in this case you'll have to wait the regular 10 seconds before respawning.

Phoenix can be a lifesaver in both cases. Returning instantly from getting killed in a bad moment in a regular match is very helpful (you get a healthy attack boost to boot), and coming back from an accidental (or not) death with Hardcore can save an entire map from defeat.

All in all, Phoenix should be viewed as a safety perk more than something to rely on.
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Rank to unlock: 8

A mobility perk and allows you to emulate Sweet's movement with a double jump (triple in case of Skye). This perk has few utilities during the fight against lumes other than to give you the chance to scram before things get worse for you, but good players don't need perks to do that and know when to fold 'em before it's too late.
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Rank to unlock: 8

[Insert Italian plumber joke here]. Now that we got that out of the way... This is another rather silly perk. While it does good damage, you'll almost certainly get punched by Walkers or blasted away by Hoverers for your trouble if you attempt to use this perk.

It's a good toy to mess around in regular matches, but on 5 Feats of Strength lumes becomes too durable and fast to use this efficiently.
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Rank to unlock: 9

Overcharge is a good beginner's perk to add more damage to the pool while you don't have access to stuff like Against All Odds (though this is unlocked on the very next rank), Fast Hands and the like.


Shocking.
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Rank to unlock: 10

A perk that emulates Haigen's natural ability and turns you into a powerhouse the more lumes are surrounding you. Against All Odds can be somewhat risky to use at its full potential but if you learn how to use it alongside perks like Corpse Explosion you might be surprised how effective it can be.

Naturally Haigen can use this with a bit more tranquility as he can take more hits and get this damage upped to impressives 95% (35% from his natural ability and 60% from this perk).

• Adrenaline Rush
  
• Tactical Juxtaposition
  
• Shocking Revelation
  
• Exposure Rounds
  
• Slowing Presence

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Rank to unlock: 10

Another mobility perk. Honestly I have no idea why would someone choose this perk over anything that can give you either more damage or offensive support, only being able to move fast is just not enough to deal with tough lumes. You can run, but your Core can't.

If this perk would give you something like, at very least, 0.5% damage boost alongside the movement increase this would be a top tier perk.
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Rank to unlock: 11

Tactical Juxtaposition will reverse (kind of) the fire rate and damage style of weapons in the game. Slow and powerful weapons like REX will become far faster, but with considerable lower firepower and weapons like the Assault Rifle will become slower but stronger, especially its secondary fire but with even smaller clip (only 1 grenade).

This perk is very divisive among players and is a matter of pure personal taste and experience with weapons. As a person who loathes slow firing weapons and most my favorite weapons being slow by nature I tend to use this perk a lot.

Test and taste is word of rule here.

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Rank to unlock: 12

In my opinion this is, quite possibly, the best Core perk of the game. Shocking Revelation will cause all lumes in the map to be stunned if any of them so as much scratch the thing, be the light tap of a Runner or the massive hit of a Super Heavy.

Don't underestimate how useful this perk can be, especially in the beginning as you might not have a lot of damage perk options to chose from. Shocking Revelation IS a lifesaver and will often give you a small, but very sharp, edge in the fight in case something goes wrong and a lume reaches your Core. You should be careful and not rely totally on it, though.

Since this game lacks a lot options to stun or freeze enemies, Shocking Revelation is the go-to perk if you want to play safe and are not quite sure if your defenses will hold up against the number of enemies you'll have to face.

Those 3 seconds of breathing room can be more precious than you think.
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Rank to unlock: 12

Exposure Rounds is a damage support perk and at first you may think "only 15%?", but this perk can be good to help you deal more damage and also give your towers a small helping hand.

On single player Exposure Rounds is kinda meh, but on co-op, with at least two people having it, this perk becomes very useful and powerful as both of you and your towers will deal 30% more damage (if both players hit the same lumes).

Some interesting, and important, notes from DoomyDoom:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

I did a bunch of tests aaaaand... it's actually almost broken. It does increase damage, but for 0.5 seconds instead of 5.

Simple test - take Tsygan (no native damage bonuses) + Assault Rifle (lots of weak bullets). Shoot Walkers on Park on semi-auto with ~1 second spacings - you get 180 damage/shot. Shoot faster than 0.5 seconds between shots - and after first bullet for 180, you get 207 damage until you make a 1 second pause.

I also initially tested with SR (on Tsygan), and it was exactly what led me to the discovery. Spaced out shots didn't work, but trigger-spam did. So I switched to AR and confirmed it.
As a result, I guess, Sweet is the only character on whom Exposure Rounds are even remotely usable due to burn DoT debuff renewal.

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Rank to unlock: 13

I'll be frank here: I love this perk. A lot. Slowing Presence is one of the most useful perks of the game and goes well with about everyone depending on your choice of weapons. Enemies will get noticeably slower (even with Beast Tamer and Impeccable Accuracy on) and can be very good to keep them steadier for weakspot shots or leave them vulnerable in front of your towers for longer.

Haigen has a field day with this perk. Since this one only works if enemies are close to you (about 2 squares of range) it also helps identify when the enemy will be ripe and ready for a faceful of shotgun pellets.

As I noted, this perk works well for everyone as long as you are willing to take the, somewhat manageable, risk of getting punched and hit by lumes a few times while shooting and retreating. Learn how to use Slowing Presence and work around its quirks and it'll help you very well even into 5 Feats of Strength maps.

• Engineer
  
• Penetrator Rounds
  
• Slowing Rounds

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Rank to unlock: 14

Engineer sounds great on the surface, because "hey 25% tower damage just for standing close to it?" Which would actually be great... If the range wasn't so horribly short for it to activate. You must be within 2 blocks of the tower so it'll get the boost. You can notice the damage change of the tower by hovering the cursor on it.

This is one of the perks that limits your mobility if you want to make the best use of it, which I'm not particularly fond as low mobility and 5 Feats of Strength typically don't mix well.

However this perk does go along very well with Tech Junkie (unlocked way later at Rank 34) which increases your firepower if you're close to any tower. Engineer also does stack with Tinkerer and is further enhanced with AMP Spires, so these are things to be taken in consideration.
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Rank to unlock: 15

This one is a tricky beast, it's not easy to use but can be very strong in the hands of a player with good aim... Or a weapon that spew bullets like crazy. A lot of people think this perk should be used with something like the Sniper Rifle, but weapons like Shotgun, SMG and Gatling Laser can be just as effective as they don't exactly require a lot of aiming.

Penetrator Rounds is easier to use if you mount a long straight line to funnel lumes and keep them somewhat steadier for weakspot hits, but watch out for Rhinos.

An interesting correction from DoomyDoom about this perk: it does work with the Ballista.

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

Piercing Rounds absolutely do work with Ballista (primary at least). It's hilarious to see 11k damage to the guy behind the one you critted for 5.5k (tried just today on Train Station).

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Rank to unlock: 16

Slowing Rounds is a long range version of Slowing Presence, however it has a pretty short duration and can be a bit difficult to use since its effect wears off so quickly.

However Sweet can put this perk to very good use. Why? Burning damage. Each burning tick will renew the Slowing Rounds effect and combing it together, this perk will last around 8.5 seconds.

While Slowing Rounds isn't as effective as Slowing Presence, (that 5% can be somewhat easy to notice if you compare them) both perks are great options depending on what character you intend to use and both are great assets against lumes, especially if you intend to fight them with Beast Tamer and Impeccable Accuracy on.

• Consuming Rage
  
• Core-Tower Synergy
  
• Long Range Specialization
  
• Synergy
  
• Core Guardian

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Rank to unlock: 17

A damage boosting perk that will increase your damage the more you take. Putting this perk to good use is very, very risky, especially if you play with Hardcore feat activated, and is overall not worth the risk as you need to be basically at 1 HP to get the full bonus of it.

Haigen has an easier time with this perk since he'll be at decently high health to get its 50% bonus, but even then using this perk it's toying with luck and all it'd take is a bad jump or failing to get away from that Walker or Screamer to die.

If Consuming Rage gave 100% bonus it'd still be too dangerous to be worth the risk.
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Rank to unlock: 17

This is one of the very few perks I actively avoid and consider close to worthless. On the paper this perk looks and sounds awesome since having all towers doing more damage if your Core was beaten would be a great, if risky, trade-off. But the biggest problem about this perk is that it only lasts for one wave.

Example: If on Wave 1 your Core lost 20% of the HP, on Wave 2 all towers will have about 12% more firepower. However if on Wave 2 your Core took zero damage, on Wave 3 your towers will NOT have any damage boost.

That said, this perk can be very powerful on co-op, possibly also in Survival, if you have more people with Resilient Core and have a fine teamwork going on as, hypothetically speaking, if you have a 4-player match ongoing and all have Resilient Core and one has this perk, you can possibly let the Core get 40% of its health chipped away and then have it restore to its best condition.
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Rank to unlock: 18

A great perk for Sweet and SiMo (if they use an explosive weapon), this perk can be very useful and decently easy to use as most maps have enough room to make you at least a good percentage of the bonus from it.

It will cancel the accuracy penalty from Spray 'N Pray as well.
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Rank to unlock: 19

This is a good perk that can very well help you and always stay useful. Using it normally means your towers will probably to the heavy lifting for you, or at least kill the toughest enemies. Towers like Focus, Rocket and Lightning becomes even more powerful when this perk is working and will help you kill tough stuff like Walker Warriors, Screamer Matriarchs and Armored Heavies quicker.

Weapons that deals area damage or pierces enemies are the best choice to use this perk as you can very well spread the effect to more than one at a time. Also, remember that each burning tick from Sweet's passive ability also activates this perk, prolonging the effect quite a bit.
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Rank to unlock: 20

This is an odd perk, it grants you bonus if you are close to a Core, however you can only attain the maximum bonus from it if you stand right on top of a Core.

Putting this perk to good use can be tricky as it might require you to stand still and fire away at distance and it can serve as a "last ditch effort-crutch" to help you get rid of lumes hitting your Core. This perk goes hand in hand with Steady Aim (unlocked at Rank 38) as it also requires you to stand still to earn more damage bonus.

All in all I don't find this perk reasonable for 5 Feats of Strength (save for VERY specific setups and maps) since I don't find it worth trading your mobility for damage.

• G-2 Companion
  
• Trickster
  
• Tinkerer
  
• Electrical Outburst
  
• Fast Hands
  
• Spiked Armor

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Rank to unlock: 21


G-2 Companion is a curious perk that will give a robot companion to aid you in your fight against the lumes. He can jump over tower bases, is as fast as a sprinting player and will quickly regenerate health if left out of combat for a couple of seconds. You can also set G-2 behavior to Defensive (will only attack lumes that gets too close) or Aggressive (will actively seek targets) to fit your style.

The G-2 can either be used as decoy to keep enemies under tower fire for longer or to take the heat off your back for a while, but watch out as the little thing can inadvertently bring unforeseen problems like drawing the fire of a Super Heavy, triggering the Walker Patriarch's area slam attack or even making Hoverers attack earlier than expected blowing you away if you are not paying attention.

On a last note, G-2 will respawn even with Hardcore feat on, so he can help finish weak lumes in case you had an untimely death, alongside your towers and maybe Unstable Core as well (if you brought it).


Your loyal robot buddy.
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Rank to unlock: 21

Trickster is an interesting perk that allows you to move to a direction by double-tapping it, you can use it to sharply change the direction of your jump as you are about to land or to any other side to avoid any incoming attack or get away from a lume that's getting too cozy around you.

Unlike other movement perks Trickster also gives a bonus to your damage, albeit low.
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Rank to unlock: 22

Tinkerer is a nice perk that can be very useful depending on your strategies. If you're the type that tends to build not many towers and try to set them on maximum level then this perk is perfect for you.

Using this perk with towers with already high damage like AR-Mine Dispenser, Focus, Lightning, Rocket and Violator makes them even more powerful, but if you are intending to use support towers like Range Spire, AMP Spire, Mind Control Spire and the like you might have to plan forward and build them first as if you build a support tower, it'll take one of the three slots of enhanced towers.

Keep in mind that if you build a fourth tower the first tower you built will lose its bonus and if you build a fifth the second tower you built will lose the bonus and so on.

Note the subtle bluish aura in the central Rocket towers. Towers enhanced by Tinkerer perk will share the same effect as they were boosted by a Range or AMP Spire. The three central Rockets are enhanced, the other two are not.


Anti-Air Level 3 by itself (base damage: 1000) powered by Tinkerer perk and another with an additional AMP Spire Level 3 boosting it. As you can notice the boost is quite considerable.
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Rank to unlock: 23

Electrical Outburst will cause a moderately sized electric explosion around the lume you hit and will deal more damage over time after that. This perk triggers only once and if you use an area hitting weapon like REX the game will decide which lume was hit first and cause the explosion on it, every enemy close to it will take 1k damage plus the addidtional damage over time (by itself the perk causes something around 2435 damage).

It is one of the few perks that can pierce Hoverers and Bobbleheads' infinite armor (alongside Desperate Measures and Biological Warfare).


Electrical Outburst in action.
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Rank to unlock: 24

An interesting damage perk that is my universal choice for basically every character in the game. Fast Hands gives you healthy 35% extra damage for merely swapping weapons, but you must start reloading your gun for the perk to activate.

Something the game doesn't tell you is the fact this perk can stack on itself, but only for a couple of seconds and possibly enough for one or two shots depending on the weapon you have equipped. This is easier to notice if you use fast firing weapons as you may realize after swapping guns twice your shots were suddenly dealing even more damage than usual.
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Rank to unlock: 25

Spiked Armor turns you into a punching bag... That will hurt back anyone who attacks you, this includes projectile attackers like Screamers and Spitflies, but not Hoverers for some reason. Haigen is naturally prone to get more hits, so Spiked Armor can be useful for him.

All in all, this perk has a somewhat dubious efficiency since getting hit once for 2k damage is hardly worth it, especially on 5 Feats of Strength, and can be quite dangerous to boot. If this perk had the ability to hit through Hoverer's armors it'd be a slightly better choice.

• Explosive Exchange
  
• Thor Module
  
• Long Range Superiority
  
• Parthian Tactics
  
• Desperate Measures
  
• Bloodletter
  
• Collateral Damage

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Rank to unlock: 26

An interesting perk that will cause a short range explosion when you swap your guns (provided you wait the 3 seconds), the blast will hit up to 2 squares of distance but the farther you are from an enemy the less damage you'll deal. You can only do the full 2.5k damage to the enemy if its basically close enough to punch you in the face.

Give the lumes an explosive surprise.
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Rank to unlock: 26

Thor Module is an interesting perk, it causes the tower that killed the enemy to emit a pulse that will damage everything running around it and it has a small cooldown.

While useful, this perk can be quite hard to control when you use even two or three towers since only the tower that delivers the killing strike will cause the perk to activate.


Thor Module working.
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Rank to unlock: 27

This perk can be a good choice for players who likes to stay behind and pick their targets from afar. It's a good choice for SiMo and Sweet but can be very useful on anyone as long as you keep you distance from the enemies.

This is a good perk to go along with Core Guardian (Rank 20), Long Range Specialization (Rank 18) and, maybe, Steady Aim (Rank 38, The Last Stand DLC).
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Rank to unlock: 27

This perk is more difficult to use than it appears to, especially on 5 Feats of Strength with faster enemies, as you must keep yourself in top condition to do a lot of damage. It's very easy to get hit by lumes and lose the effect of Parthian Tactics temporarily and sometimes it's just better to get in the way of a lume and take a hit to stall it in front of your towers or simply so you can shoot it more.

A good perk to bring along would be Frightening Visage or Hydra Blood which helps you either avoid getting damaged or recover faster.
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Rank to unlock: 28

Desperate Measures is a great perk for Haigen as it is quite probable that he'll take a lot of beating from lumes while fighting them. Take note of the description, it says that it'll deal 2.5k damage to lumes around you over 6 seconds, which means the damage won't be dealt all at once.

This perk is more useful than it appears as it is one of the very few things that can actively harm Hoverers and Bobble Heads ignoring their armor (also being a good choice to soften Heavies). It has a good range and a nice and short cooldown to stay useful.

Spiked Armor (Rank 25, Road to Elysion DLC) and Hydra Blood (again) are great perks to go along with Desperate Measure (using all of the three will even net you the achievement "Street Justice"), Slowing Presence is also a great option to ensure your safety if things get a bit too dicey.

And an extra benefit noted by DoomyDoom:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

Desperate Measures is so damn good because it stacks both on itself (fully independent DOTs) and with most +X% damage buffs (Haigen/Skye Passive, Hip Fire, Hollowpoint Rounds, Fast Hands etc). +X% affects each tick if it would affect any other damage you deal with shots (i.e. affected enemies near Haigen will get ticks of 135 instead of 100 as long as they are in range). Easily confirmed as DM dot ticks are visible.

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Rank to unlock: 29

Bloodletter is a good perk with a pretty big damage boost, but it can be somewhat dangerous to use on certain maps and if the wave has only a few, and strong, lumes, you're probably not going to activate it once.

That said, if you already have a damage perk equipped like Fast Hands or Hip Fire and lots of lumes to kill, especially if they come like crazy as Walker Pups, Runners and Snorkers tend to, you'd be surprised how powerful this perk can be. While the duration doesn't stack, 12 seconds can be more than enough to turn the tables against lumes overrunning your defenses.
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Rank to unlock: 30

Collateral Damage is a perk that can go hand in hand with Bloodletter as both are somewhat similar and depends on you killing a lot of enemies to keep them going on strong. Collateral Damage does stack on itself, although it has a limit (around 100 to 120% from what I tested).

Considering other options that are unlocked earlier (Hip Fire, Against All Odds, Fast Hands), Collateral Damage pales in comparison to them as you don't need to kill enemies to activate them and they all give more damage boost and are easier to keep up as well.

• Zeus Module
  
• Frightening Visage
  
• Headache
  
• Reinforcements
  
• Best Friends Forever
  
• Tech Junkie
  
• Armor Shredder

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Rank to unlock: 31

Zeus Module is another tower perk, unlike Thor Module this perk is focused on a single target. The perk will activate as soon the tower hits the first lume and normally keeps hitting the lume that is the furthest inside your maze (or the one closest to the core).

Although this perk seems alright it has way too low damage and a somewhat long cooldown to be of any worth in 5 Feats of Strength, there are a multitude of perks that can easily outclass its damage potential via tower damage or even player damage.


Fury from the skies.
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Rank to unlock: 32

This is one funny and tricky perk. It makes the lumes ignore you if you kill one of them, but it has a limited range and lumes that are entering the map will not be afraid to go after you, and for some reason Hoverers will not be affected. It activates even if you kill a Runner or Walker Pup, so you can become virtually untouchable if you always have something to kill.

This perk can make weapons like Circle Saw much safer to use.
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Rank to unlock: 32

Headache is an odd and difficult to use perk, it causes the weakspot damage done to a lume to hit everything around it, but this is not always easy to do and with Impeccable Accuracy on.

If you use this perk you'll learn to love Soakers as they can be treated as living "damage spires" causing every hit you do to jump to stuff going beside it.


Headache in action.
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Rank to unlock: 33


Reinforcements is an odd perk, it brings a Shield Explorer close to the place where you killed the lume so he can take a few hits for you before getting punched/goo'd/blasted away.

If you can kill lumes fast enough they can serve as a decent way to stall enemies. But watch out as they can bring problems like triggering Hoverer and bosses attacks way earlier than expected.

Take note Hoverers can chuck Explorers into positions where they will be useless (out of bounds but not enough to kill them) in a way you can't even drop bases on them, this will decrease the utility of this perk. So consider bringing an explosive weapon to move them around if you're going to use this perk.

"I want my mommy!"
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Rank to unlock: 33

Best Friends Forever will spawn Shield Explorers around your Core to work as the final line of defense between you and the lumes, this perk can be useful in some cases since stalling things like Walker Warriors, Screamer Matriarchs is always good, but Hoverers can easily chuck them out of the lumes' way and render this perk ineffective at holding them.

Your last line of defense.
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Rank to unlock: 34

Tech Junkie is similar to Engineer, except now it's you who gets stronger instead of your towers. At least now the perk tells you the range of effect.

Like many perks that either requires you to stand still or limits you movements to gain bonus I'm not a big fan of Tech Junkie even though the damage bonus is very generous, though you can create a long line of level 1 tower to keep you buffed.

In any case Engineer is a good perk to combine as you and your towers will benefit the closer you are, Tinkerer, Exposure Rounds and Synergy are other perks that goes along well with Tech Junkie.


More or less the range of Tech Junkie.
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Rank to unlock: 35

Armor Shredder is a perk that helps immensely versus every armored enemy in the game, mainly those that have a thick armor like Armored Heavies, Heavy Pups, Super Heavies and Bliskebaskes as no matter how much armor they have this perk will grant you the ability to completely ignore it.

The biggest issue is that enemies with infinite armor rating like Hoverers (front armor), Bobble Heads (body) and the Fiskeplaske (anywhere except his weakspots) still won't receive any damage even with this perk equipped. Of course if this perk pierced those armors all of the enemies mentioned would become a complete joke to kill.

Normally you'd be seeing only zeroes here.

• Roboticist
  
• Overkill
  
• Hydra Blood
  
• Steady Aim
  
• Spray 'N Pray
  
• Biological Warfare

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Rank to unlock: 36

This perk is somewhat similar to G-2 Companion as it grants you a(nother) robot ally during the fight, but instead of a melee attacker you get a long ranged, and considerably more fragile, SiMo unit to help you, he'll spawn close to the place where you killed the first lume, but You can set where he will stay by pressing F (default key) close to it and sending it to places, but keep in mind he won't go to most places outside the lume's path.

The orange SiMo (which looks pretty cool actually) will fire away at pretty long distances and has a quite decent aim, but like all AI controlled units it'll almost never hit the weakspot of Bobble Heads and unlike G-2 he'll never chase enemies. This SiMo unit also has a bad tendency of keeping his back turned from incoming groups of lumes which can delay his reaction at times.



"Ready when you are."
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Rank to unlock: 37

Overkill is a perk that will carry the damage that exceeded the lume you killed into your next shot. Let's say you killed a Soaker, it had 5k HP left and you dealt a 15k killing shot on its shiny bulge, this means your next shot will deal 10k damage to the unfortunate lume that gets hit.

This perk isn't easy to use, but it can be a good asset for players with really good aim.
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Rank to unlock: 38

Hydra Blood is pretty much self-explanatory, it decreases the time you must wait to start regenerating your health and it also increases the rate it recovers making you very hard to kill provided you retreat to safety before you get killed.

Perks like Against All Odds, Slowing Presence, Desperate Measures, Spiked Armor, Explosive Exchange and Parthian Tactics goes well with Hydra Blood as they need you to either get very close to the enemies or literally take one in the face for them to take effect.

After a few more tests in co-op I realized the information about Hydra Blood being more powerful in co-op was only half-truth: it might be a glitch caused by some unknown factor as of yet. While you'll become stronger the effect doesn't always happens and even if it does it'll go away if you die once during the match. So, don't rely on it.

Also, some notes from DoomyDoom regarding this issue:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

As far as I'm aware, that's actually a bug. No clear reproduction steps yet (besides getting hit by stuff, duh). Comes in 2 varieties: sometimes health regen delay may get either reduced to a couple seconds or to almost instant full heal. Returns to normal Hydra delay if killed or suicided.
I've seen both varieties with the same amount of players. Instant heal most certainly IS a bug, no matter how you look at it.

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Rank to unlock: 38

Not much to say about Steady Aim. It's a perk that requires you to stand immobile which is really not my thing. But if you do find a good place to stay out of harm or anything that could move you (like the fist of an angry Walker) this perk can be useful.

Obviously weapons like the REX renders this perk useless as the thing will recoil you backwards which counts as movement and this will nullify the bonus granted by this perk.
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Rank to unlock: 39

Spray 'N Pray trades accuracy for firepower, the boost is considerable, but so is the accuracy drop. If you use this perk you'll soon realize that you can easily miss even mid distance shots as the game treats as if your crosshair is always fully spread.

All in all this perk can be very powerful for weapons that doesn't require a lot of aiming such as: ETK-Tesla Prototype, Ballista's secondary, Gatling Laser's secondary fire, Circle Saw, Drone Launcher, Grenade Launcher and Smatter Band's secondary.
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Rank to unlock: 39

This is another odd perk. Biological Warfare will cause a cloud of poison to burst from a lume you killed via weakspot shot and will cause quick ticks of 100 damage to anything that goes through or stay in it.

This perk, among others, is good to use in casual matches, but on 5 Feats it becomes easily replaceable and damage-wise obsolete since it can't quite keep up with Hydra Hunter's regeneration (150 HP per second) and there's the fact Impeccable Accuracy makes lumes blaze through the cloud so fast it can barely do any decent damage to them unless you actually force them to.

This perk however does harm Hoverers, so, there's that. If it didn't actually need you to kill a lume with a weakspot hit it would be a lot more viable and useful.


The poison cloud generated by this perk.

• Upper Class
  
• Warming Up
  
• The Doctor is In
  
• Dicey Shootin'
  
• Khronos Device
  
• Head Start
  
• Radioactive Core

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Rank to unlock: 40

Upper Class is a tricky perk that sounds awesome with that huge bonus, right? Except you need to be on a REALLY higher ground to get all of it.

Standing on top of your towers will net you a small bonus already, nothing really big, though, also remember that towers firing will bounce you around, so try using stuff like AMP or Range Spires.

Some player use "rocket jumping" with REX and Battle Rifle to get a portion of the bonus as well. A bit weird, but it works.

While in most maps there are a lot of places to stand on a higher ground, only few between some really do have a really good place to stay on top and still give you enough view and clear space to control the battlefield from that far.
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Rank to unlock: 40

Warming Up is a peculiar perk that almost emulates SiMo's natural ability, it will give you a boost in weakspot damage for each time you don't hit one. If you use this perk a couple of times you might come to realize how hard can be not hitting the weakspots when you actually want to miss them.

This perk naturally goes well for SiMo since he already has enhanced weakspot damage, one of the best ways to max it is using the Ballista's secondary shot and hit everything around (only Snorkers are hit by the area damage) and them use the other weapon to mow down the rest of lumes as fast as possible.

Sweet's burning passive will NOT trigger this perk.
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Rank to unlock: 41


Another oddball in the perk list. The Doctor is In is a healing perk and provided you kill fast enough it can be a good option to replace Hydra Blood and prevent you from having to run back to heal up, it can be used to heal nearby allies, but the range is VERY short, so don't count on it to keep them alive.
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Rank to unlock: 42


Dicey Shootin' is the perk with the highest damage bonus of all perks in the game, but it comes with a big problem: each shot has the risk of dealing no damage at all and if you know how luck work in video games you should be wary of the risks in this perk as the chance to deal no damage in the worst moment possible can happen.

Using weapons like Assault Rifle, SMG, Drone Launcher and others with very high fire rate is the best suggestion for those going for this perk.
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Rank to unlock: 43



Khronos Device is a perk that was more or less made to aid people who ventures in long Survival matches, the kind you overcharge a Slow Field Dispenser to the point it can take half of the map and is all but impossible to avoid getting into one.

This perk also shields you from the slowing effect of Spitflies' attack as well.
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Rank to unlock: 44


This perk emulates more or less TSYGAN's natural ability in reverse and if you use it with her, her first and last shots will deal massive damage which is quite nice.

Head Start can be a good choice for other characters as well, but personally I find it to be perfect and even more useful on TSYGAN as it sort of "completes" her and gives her a good edge to keep her powerful and useful on 5 Feats of Strength.

Another problem with this perk is that if the secondary fire of any gun (all but Voltaic Hand Cannon) uses more than a single bullet the shot WON'T get the Head Start bonus which decreases this perk's usability by a large margin.
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Rank to unlock: 45

The last Core perk of the game. Radioactive Core causes the lumes that gets close to it to take damage, although the game claims its range increases the more damage it takes it's barely noticeable.

While it's not a useless perk, Resilient Core, Unstable Core and Shocking Revelation are still better options to chose from for Core perks.

• Hold Your Fire
  
• Concussion Rounds
  
• Limiter Removal
  
• Blaze of Glory
  
• Stabilizer

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Rank to unlock: 46

This perk is an oddball, but it can be useful on the right situation. Using this requires planning and probably good aim. If you can hold your own this perk can be pretty good, especially for heavy hitting weapons like REX, Gatling Laser's secondary fire, Ballista's secondary fire among others.

Perks like Slowing Presence, can be helpful to keep things under control while you wait for this perk to hit its maximum potential. Tactical Juxtaposition can increase even further the damage of fast firing weapons.
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Rank to unlock: 47

Concussion Rounds could be one of the best perks of the game, but I consider it to be highly situational as 1) you must hit 2.5k damage which requires a strong weapon 2) 2 seconds of stun for 12 seconds of cooldown is not nearly worth in most cases.
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Rank to unlock: 48

Limiter Removal is an interesting perk that can be very powerful if used at the right time, it makes the tower more powerful for a short period, but after its duration ends the tower will deactivate for the rest of the wave. There is no limit to how many tower you can put in overdrive with this perk.

This perk can be useful and make level 1 and 2 towers get a much needed damage boost and you can use it right when lumes are in the middle of your maze, just make sure you'll have enough time to kill all dangerous enemies or else this will backfire horribly on you.

Limiter Removal can be particularly powerful on AR-Mine Dispenser as you can set it in overdrive and make its already powerful mines even more powerful as long as the enemy set them off while the Limiter Removal is working.


Towers enhanced by this perk will have a sharp red glow.


As soon Limiter Removal burns out they deactivate...
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Rank to unlock: 49

Blaze of Glory is a perk that will give you more or less a second chance in case you slip and let lumes beat you to (almost) death. The range of the 5k damage is something around 2 squares adjacent to you and on single player, without Titan Slayer on, 5k is enough to down Walkers and Screamers. Just watch out for Hoverers as they are immune to this perk.
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Rank to unlock: 50

Stabilizer is the polar opposite of Steady Aim; you must keep on the move at all times and standing still for a second nulls this perk.

While I'm not a fan of perks that requires you to me immobile or standing still, Stabilizer can be a bit difficult to use since you can inadvertently stop for a second just to aim and lose all of its bonus.

Gun, turrets and skills galore.

This is the section where I'll detail my choice for perks and weapons to fight the horde of enemies.
I want to make it clear: these are my personal preferences, combinations I found, or were told, to play and found them to be suitable for normal games or 5 Feats of Strength.

Enough said. Joke builds are better off staying with you, the purpose of this guide is to give pointers and directions for people flying solo as I did for most of the game. If a build is not all that good for co-op it'll be noted.

No. But they are my personal recommendation. You can use either or any of them with whatever character you feel like, but I can't guarantee their efficiency if you pick a different character.

In this section I'll give loadouts that requires lower Ranks to use. New perk slots are unlocked at ranks 4, 8, and 12. More perks means anything from more firepower to better Core protection or something like making lumes exploding violently and harming anything close to them.

Long story short, more perks means more fun.

I re-made this section and put some of these loadouts to help people without DLC on 5 Feats of Strength, or those who aren't at Rank 40 yet (and because they need DLCs to be used). Keep in mind the Rank 40 suggestions tend to be more viable, flexible, for obvious reasons.

Every build has videos to support the fact they can in fact solo 5 Feats of Strength, at least all maps of the main game, which is more than enough to get you to higher ranks.

Varies

Your choice

Unstable Core
Resilient Core
Shocking Revelation (Rank 12+)


+ Helps a lot in early game if you get swarmed.
+ Co-op friendly.

- Hoverers and Bobble Heads are immune to Unstable Core.
- No damage perks.

This is the most basic thing I can put here. To cut it short, you use these perks to help you in early game as lumes might reach your Core while you're learning the ropes. Obviously this set of perks are not viable for 5 Feats of Strength maps unless you REALLY want a challenge.

Between Unstable Core (2k damage to the lume hitting it, except the ones I mentioned) or Resilient Core (400 Core Health restored per wave finished), it'll be completely up to you what you'll want to use. Shocking Revelation is one of the most useful perks giving a map-wide stun for 3 seconds (with 10 secs of cooldown) if any lume hits the Core which is more useful than it apparently seems.

When in doubt for a perk, Shocking Revelation or Resilient Core are the ones to go, trust me, if you get in a co-op game and bring one of these with you when no one else did, people who knows half their stuff will be thankful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nm1i9W2ZqI&index=12&list=PLS7CYzATG6xBt_mLLDCy3eENYAoVMTvfZ
This video shows how useful Core safety perks can be. Shocking Revelation ensures you and your towers will have time to kill enemies and prevent you from getting swarmed and Resilient Core heals it back to top condition.

Assault Rifle (SMG, ETK-Tesla Prototype)

Shotgun (SMG, ETK-Tesla Prototype)

Hollowpoint Rounds (Against All Odds)
Corpse Explosion
Slowing Presence


+ Good for solo and co-op.
+ Great damage potential with crowd control using Slowing Presence and Corpse Explosion.
+ Flexible build.

- Unlocking Shotgun requires Rank 20 to use and swapping primary gun requires Rank 40.
- Using SMG and ETK-Tesla Prototype as secondary guns will make killing Armored Heavies a royal pain.
- Hoverers can become a problem if they come in large numbers depending on your choice of towers.

A simple build with Hollowpoint Rounds there to increase Skye's damage, Slowing Presence to keep lumes nice and slow and Corpse Explosion to help cover the lack of an area hitting attack (unless you use ETK-Tesla Prototype). This build looks simple and basic-- and it is; point your gun at the lume, fire like crazy, swap your gun, rinse and repeat stopping only to find the next victim.

Make sure to watch out for Hoverers as these weapons are not exactly the best choices to take them out quickly. Armored Heavies can become a serious problem if you don't have the Shotgun unlocked yet too, Assault Rifle can hit decently strong on their weakspot, but SMG and ETK-Tesla Protoype can't, so you'll take a long time to kill them without help of your towers (and that's if you got something to help).

And, yes, this set of perks can be identical to the one I use as Haigen. But Skye's higher damage potential makes this even more powerful in contrast to Haigen's durability.

Assault Rifle (ETK-Tesla Prototype)

Voltaic Hand Cannon

Tactical Juxtaposition (Against All Odds)
Corpse Explosion
Slowing Presence


+ Jack-of-all-trades. Kills a bit of everything well.
+ Particularly strong against clusters of Walkers and Screamers if you use straight line mazes.
+ Impressive firepower for a DLC-less build.

- Requires long straight lines to work. In other words: WATCH OUT FOR RHINOS.
- Soakers and Armored Heavies can be a problem without towers to aid you.
- Hordes of small critters like Snorkers and Runners can become a problem without towers as well.

If you started playing as Skye the first guns the game hands to you will be your tools of trade. Sounds basic, boring and lazy? You're 1/3 right: it's very basic.

The secret of this build to work is to use long, straight line, type of mazes so you can have as many targets ready for the Voltaic Hand Cannon to bore and deal damage, the more enemies you hit, the more powerful Skye becomes, and you'd be surprised to see how fast you can build stacks with the Voltaic Hand Cannon, but never forget the secondary fire has homing properties, use it to hit enemies that are in obnoxious positions or too far from you.

Thanks to Tactical Juxtaposition you'll have 12 shots to build Skye's passive. Slowing Presence helps cluster enemies in corners so you can hit them with the Voltaic Hand Cannon or blast one grenade from your Assault Rifle. Corpse Explosion can be traded for anything else you want, from more firepower to another perk.

This build is not without its share of problems, though. Rhinos are the worst nightmare for straight line mazes, but you can put twists and turns and something like a Focus tower to get them, but there are other things like Soakers and Heavies to look out for as well; since this build isn't particularly focused on singular targets or crowd control, you'll probably need help of your towers to get rid of them quickly. Lastly, hordes of those cockroach things, Runners and Brood Mothers, can be a headache since neither of these weapons are known to be good at hitting lots of small moving enemies and you get only one secondary fire from the Assault Rifle which definitely won't be enough in most cases.

It might take some getting use to for some people to learn how to use this build properly, it's not the most powerful build you'll see, but it's far from being useless in 5 Feats of Strength.

Without Tactical Juxtaposition.

REX

Battle Rifle (ETK-Tesla Prototype, SMG)

Tactical Juxtaposition
Slowing Rounds
Shocking Revelation (Corpse Explosion, Exposure Rounds)


+ Prolonged debuff to help you and your towers.
+ All around build. Useful on solo and co-op.
+ Decent crowd control for a DLC-less build.

- Hoverers, Heavies and Bobble Heads will be annoying.
- Explosive weapons. You MUST watch out where you are aiming or else you'll send your co-op partners flying everywhere.

DLC-less build made for an aggressive Sweet. The lack of Plasma Rifle and Fast Hands hurts but after using this build and earning a solid victory in The Depths I figured it's very useful and has respectable firepower even without any damage increasing perk (unless you choose to swap Shocking Revelation).

REX and Battle Rifles are my choices as both weapons works very well under Tactical Juxtaposition (I have a strong dislike of slow weapons in general).

Slowing Rounds works perfectly for Sweet and her prolonged debuff capability with her burning damage to help handle enemies especially when playing with Impeccable Accuracy on.

Shocking Revelation is an optional perk, depending on how brave, or how safe you want to play you can either bring it with you or pick anything else you'd feel like. But in maps like Train Station, The Depths and The Wilderness I'd never go without it with a DLC-less build or at least Corpse Explosion.

Sniper

Any (Assault Rifle, SMG, Shotgun)

Marksman (Static Discharge, Hollowpoint Rounds)
Corpse Explosion
Slowing Presence


+ Very high damage weakspot damage. Kills Soakers, Hoverers, Armored Heavies, Bobble Heads, even bosses, extremely fast.

- Poor crowd control in comparison to other characters.
- Lowest non-weakspot damage of all characters as well.

Not much to talk about more than I already described in SiMo's character sheet. He's great to take off things like Hoverers, Bobble Heads and Armored Heavies and kill them quickly, if you have good aim Walkers, Walker Warriors will be easy pickings for you.

To be honest, SiMo is an oddball. Like Haigen his primary weapon has near zero crowd control capacity as Sniper has way too low ammo and two shots for its secondary is not nearly enough to make a huge difference in most cases. So I normally give him either core perks like Resilient Core and Shocking Revelation alongside something else like Slowing Presence, Corpse Explosion and the like using him more as a support-attack character.

Weapon is something that will be up to you. A good high fire rate gun to top his maximum passive, or something just as powerful as the Sniper (Rifle)? Your choice.

Shotgun

ETK-Tesla Prototype (Battle Rifle, SMG, Assault Rifle)

Corpse Explosion
Against All Odds
Slowing Presence


+ Easy to learn and use.

- Hoverers will be annoying to fight.

Technically this perk combination is identical to the one I use with Skye, but when playing you'll soon realize you'll have pros and cons since Haigen has different natural abilities, like his enhanced health and fixated damage bonus when near enemies.

This set of perks put emphasis on Haigen's abilities with Slowing Presence making enemies close to you slower and Against All Odds further increasing your damage the more enemies are surrounding you. That alongside Haigen's ability can net amazing 95% boost in total which is more than enough to kill a lot of stuff quickly.

Corpse Explosion can be swapped for anything you'd prefer over. But I prefer it as a crowd control tool since most non-DLC weapons have VERY poor crowd control capability.

ETK-Tesla Prototype is a good area hitting weapon and in case tough stuff like a Heavy pops up you can charge up your Shotgun and give the big one a faceful (rumpful?) of buckshot to them. Also since Shotgun is horrendous to kill small, numerous, trash like Walker Pups, Runners, Snorkers and the like you really want to have something to sweep the field and clean everything up.

...

Down below are the loadouts I created, or heard of, which I use mostly for 5 Feats of Strength maps. Most of them requires at least Rank 40 as you must swap your primary weapon for something more efficient or that matches the loadout better. You also need the DLCs to use these loadouts.

Plasma Rifle

Gatling Laser (REX, Battle Rifle, Ballista, Smatter Band)

Tactical Juxtaposition
Slowing Presence
Corpse Explosion (Fast Hands, Armor Shredder, Bloodletter, Against All Odds)


+ Extremely versatile. Can take down crowds or single out enemies efficiently, not being mediocre at either.
+ Suitable for most characters.
+ Versatile perk wise as well. You can swap Corpse Explosion or Slowing Presence for whatever fits your needs if the situation calls for it.

- Takes some practice to use well.
- Plasma Rifle's secondary fire must be used to quickly gain stacks. That means waves with lots of Armored Heavies, Screamer Matriarchs, Hoverers can bring problems.
- Plasma Rifle's secondary fire may crash the game (no, I'm not joking).

Build taken from the forum. Credits to DoomyDoom.

I'll just quote his instructions on this one, they're simple and clear:

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

- Spray secondary Plasma Rifle Orbs above enemies' heads. Make sure to move around so they don't collide with terrain or each other, or they explode. Those orbs will constantly hit enemies in ~1.5 blocks' radius for minor damage. This damage stacks Skye's passive really fast (+2% damage per hit up to +50%) as long as the damage is > 0 (i.e. doesn't work on armored enemies without Armor Shredder). Orbs explode when shot or on contact for even more damage.

- Switch to Gatling and use its secondary fire. It hits everything in AoE around you, including above and below. Note: the amount of charge increases range, not damage.
This hits all the enemies for a huge chunk of damage (~5k with no bonuses, ~6.7k with just Haigen's Passive, 10+k with stacked Skye's passive and some other damage perk like Against All Odds ) + orbs explode to finish off whatever is alive. Most regular enemies die from that, notable exceptions being Warriors and Matriarchs (obviously, tanks, bosses etc can urvive + doesn't work on Hoverers).

- For Hoverers/Bobbleheads - straight up kill with Plasma primary. For Soakers - let plasma orbs and Gatling's primary DoT stack their multiplier first, then finish off with Plasma primary.

That's that. It'll feel weird the first couple of times you use it, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be surprised how effective this loadout can be.

Another strength in this build is how versatile it is since chances are you'll be able to keep Skye's 100% damage increase quite easily.

Alternative perks can be anything you'd prefer. Synergy, Against All Odds, Fast Hands, Tech Junkie, Engineer, Slowing Rounds, Exposure Rounds... Be creative and adapt this thing to your liking if my suggestions didn't make your taste (as it should be with every build).

If the map has too many armored pests you can opt to pick Armor Shredder as well (remember that this perk doesn't pierce infinite armor like Hoverer's frontal shell or Bobble Head's body).

* Ballista

* Gatling Laser

* Hollowpoint Rounds
* Electrical Outburst (Corpse Explosion)
* Fast Hands

+ Suitable for many characters.
+ Versatile, can deal heavy damage to single targets and groups.

- Not good for Skye due to low hit and fire rate.
- Not good against groups of heavily armored enemies (Heavy Pups).

A set of perks I ended up while trying to find something suitable for an aggressive SiMo that didn't rely heavily on weakspot damage since taking advantage of it with the Impeccable Aim feat is nearly impossible.

Hollowpoint Rounds is much more useful and powerful than one think since a 100% boosted damage hit per 3 attacks can add up really fast. Any damage will trigger it-- from normal hits to Electrical Outburst or Sweet's burning passive.

Fast Hand is an universal damage perk and helps increase the damage rate of both weapons that can hit groups of lumes or singular ones. If you feel you're taking too long to empty the weapon clip fire the secondary away and swap to trigger it again.

Electrical Outburst hits an area around lumes, its 10 second cooldown may look like a lot, and sometimes it is, but it can cause serious damage if enough enemies are lumped together without needing to kill them. It can be replaced by Corpse Explosion if you want to, though.

Ballista (Plasma Rifle, REX, Circle Saw)

Gatling Laser

Slowing Presence (Phoenix, Blaze of Glory)
Desperate Measures
Hydra Blood


+ Desperate Measures affects Hoverers and Bobble Heads which is VERY helpful.
+ Powerful and useful on solo with or without Feats of Strength.
+ Superb for co-op as Haigen can act as a tank to help other players.
+ Slowing Presence and Hydra Blood turns Haigen into the perfect tank.
+ Excellent crowd control.

- Requires extreme caution and knowledge of Haigen's health limit to use, especially if Hardcore is active. Be extremely careful with Rhinos.
- NOT a build for people looking to rely on heavy gunfire to kill. The biggest source of damage will come from you getting hit (Desperate Measures).
- Low player damage potential due to lack damage boosting perks.
- If the wave has no aggressive enemies the only way to activate Desperate Measures will be through self damage; if that's even possible.

Originally posted by DoomyDoom:

Desperate Measures is so damn good because it stacks both on itself (fully independent DOTs) and with most +X% damage buffs (Haigen/Skye Passive, Hip Fire, Hollowpoint Rounds, Fast Hands etc). +X% affects each tick if it would affect any other damage you deal with shots (i.e. affected enemies near Haigen will get ticks of 135 instead of 100 as long as they are in range). Easily confirmed as DM dot ticks are visible.

This is extremely important to note since both Haigen and Skye can make Desperate Measures deal more damage than it is supposed to deal and remember: this perk his an area around you, not only what damaged you.

This set of perks is almost identical to "Street Justice" save for Spiked Armor which was traded for Slowing Presence to help cluster enemies so Desperate Measures will do its work.

Desperate Measures is powerful when used in conjunction with other perks like Hydra Blood as it enables you to recover much faster and not only stall, but also harm enemies in a small area around you (2 adjacent squares more or less) when they hit you, just watch out for enemies like Screamer Matriarchs as their attack is very strong and stuff like bosses can also be hard to deal as the Patriarch will send you flying across the entire map with one punch.

The greatest trait of Desperate Measures is the fact it pierces any armor; Hoverers, Bobble Heads, Armored Heavies, Heavy Pups - nothing is safe from this perk - and it can be very useful to soften and help you deal with them.

Also remember: ANY damage will set Desperate Measures off: be it from the lumes or outside damage sources like lume spawn points, heat vents in Canopy or the toxic sludge in The Slums.

Hydra Blood is mandatory here, you must have that decreased delay to start recovering health and increased health regeneration if you want to put Desperate Measures to good use. You can go without it, but you'll soon realize how much more difficult things will become.

Slowing Presence is a safety perk, you can very well swap it for Phoenix or even Blaze of Glory if you are looking to play safe (or more aggressively) since getting hit a lot with Hardcore feat active can be unsettling for some players.

Weapons can be any of your choice in reality. I just feel more comfortable using Ballista and Gatling Laser as both of these guns have area attacks and helps the clean up against most targets.

As a last, unrelated, note, I love this build. If I don't use "Blazing Support" on co-op I'll certainly use this as not only has good offensiveness it also sports a very aggressive support by stalling lumes and damaging them, not even counting the damage you can also cause with your weapons.

Drone Launcher

Gatling Laser

Tactical Juxtaposition
Spray 'N Pray (Against All Odds, Fast Hands, Hip Fire)
Corpse Explosion (Slowing Presence)


+ Very efficient on solo with or without Feats of Strength.
+ Kills reliably almost every type of enemy in the game.
+ Easy to learn and use.

- Hoverers can be a headache even with Drone Launcher.
- Poor crowd control against masses of Runners and Brood Mothers.
- Loses effectiveness in co-op.

This used to be one of my favorite loadouts and one that faithfully helped me earn some of the 5 Feats of Strength achievements back then. It takes care of almost everything with speed and efficiency.

You must use the Drone Launcher to build up Skye's damage stacks as fast as you can and then blast an area attack with the Gatling Laser's secondary fire for massive damage. This combination can hit up to 10k damage (even more with other perks) in a single hit which is more than enough to kill Screamers, Walkers and groups of most low to medium tier lumes when playing solo.

Just be careful as the Gatling Laser secondary fire with Tactical Juxtaposition has a nasty recovery time and for a short period you won't be able to run or swap weapons.

Tactical Juxtapositions is mandatory for this build. Without it the Drone Launcher is slow and unreliable and the Gatling Laser loses a lot of its power.

Spray 'N Pray is a perk that can be easily replaced by Against All Odds or Fast Hands if you don't want to lose your accuracy. You can even place Hip Fire if you don't care about missing the weakspot damage bonus, and quite frankly unless you're fighting Hoverers, Bobble Heads or Soakers you won't be doing a lot of weakspot hitting (especially if you have Spray 'N Pray).

Corpse Explosion is there to further enhance your crowd control capability, but you can set it aside in favor or something else like Slowing Presence as well, it's all up to your tastes and what you want to do.

REX

Plasma Rifle

Tactical Juxtaposition
Fast Hands
Slowing Rounds (Corpse Explosion, Exposure Rounds, Slowing Presence)

+ All-around build, kills a bit of everything well.
+ Great crowd control.
+ Well balanced for solo and co-op.
+ Adaptable for most characters.

- May require some practice to use properly.
- Firing the REX nonstop can throw the player in harm's way.
- Plasma Rifle's secondary fire may crash the game (no, I'm not joking).

This is a simple build I've created while messing with perks and trying to find something suitable for an aggressive Sweet. It can be easily adapted for other characters from Skye to SiMo and even TSYGAN or Haigen.

REX and Plasma Rifle is a set of weapons with versatility in mind. REX is a heavy area hitter (especially with Fast Hands or Hip Fire) and will easily demolish large groups of Runners, Brood Mothers, Walkers and Screamers. Plasma Rifle has both functions with the primary fire being a precision attack which is great to hit weakspots and the secondary attack is a plasma sphere that will explode on contact or if you fire at it; just keep in mind that if you explode the plasma sphere manually the explosion will cause a lot more damage than normal, so you can do stuff like fire plasma spheres somewhat to the side and explode them with the REX for massive damage.

Tactical Juxtaposition is always divisive. Some people love it, others hate it, but I personally hate using the REX and the Plasma Rifle without it.

Slowing Rounds is used against group enemies to keep them vulnerable in your tower killzone. It's very useful also to scram when a situation is not going your way or if things starts to get a bit too dangerous. If you feel like Sweet won't do enough damage you can put another damage perk, but my preference goes to Exposure Rounds as it increases her burning damage and the damage towers will do to enemies by 15%.

Fast Hands is my favorable choice for "damage boost" perk. Spray 'N Pray isn't very good as a missile from REX fired with it can go everywhere but where you want and the same goes for the Plasma Rifle, besides you need that accuracy to deal with Hoverers and Bobble Heads properly. Hip Fire is another viable option, but remember that your weakspot damage will be disabled and against stuff like Heavies this can bring some unforeseen problems.

ETK-Tesla Prototype (Ballista, REX, Grenade Launcher, Plasma Rifle)

SMG

Exposure Rounds
Slowing Rounds
Synergy


+ Excellent for co-op.
+ One single hit on any enemy means: 8~9 seconds of 20% slow/15% less defense versus players/45% less defense versus towers.
+ Viable on solo matches even on 5 Feats of Strength.
+ SMG and Sweet is basically a Soaker wrecker. Even tagging a Soaker with four batches of poison darts can leave it seriously vulnerable.
+ Requires only Rank 19 to use (although REX will be mandatory until Rank 40).

- Low player damage. Towers, and your partners, probably will do most of heavy lifting for you.
- Player needs to keep an eye on the battlefield and go after enemies that are not debuffed. Not very recommended for beginners.
- Not recommended for solo levels where you must do heavy crowd control mostly on your own (Outpost, Abandoned Lab, The Wilderness, SOKOL...).

Let's get this out of the way first: picking this loadout means you will not be doing significant damage, let alone killing. Your job using this build is to make enemies vulnerable and keep them that way so by the point they reach your partners and towers they'll be afflicted by your ailments.

It's well established among all Sanctum 2 seasoned players that Sweet is *the* best character to use support perks as she also has the burning debuff which not only prolongs the effect of all perks listed here but also hampers the regeneration of Hydra Hunter.

Any good area hitting weapons like ETK-Tesla Prototype and Ballista can be used to hit several lumes and keep them debuffed. Explosive weapons like Smatter Band, REX and Grenade Launcher can be good choices as well, but watch out for the explosions as you can push your allies into harm's way if you aren't careful.

SMG is an interesting weapon here. It can be used to wreck Soakers or at very least leave them to die horribly by your towers or companions, but the true star of this weapon is the normally overlooked secondary fire: the poison darts. Using them will basically tag your target and mark them for death, the poisoning will prolong Sweet's debuff even longer and a target hit by it can remain debuffed for painful 21 seconds - PLUS the raw duration of each debuff - at very least.

On a last, unrelated, note this is my favorite build for co-op. I'm one of those rare people who actually likes to take the mantle of support. It's an ungrateful and more often than not overlooked job, but someone has to do it, right?

Gatling Laser

Nailgun (Plasma Rifle)

Slowing Presence
Penetrator Rounds
Hollowpoint Rounds (Fast Hands, Marksman, Corpse Explosion)

+ All-around build, kills a bit of everything well.

- Demands good aim to deal with crowds of certain enemies.
- Not suitable to kill mass crowds of small trash. Make sure to bring the ACP tower.

SiMo has trouble in 5 Feats of Strength due to his passive being limited to weakspots, but he's very capable of doing a lot of damage, especially in straight line mazes.

Slowing Presence is here as a safety, aid perk to keep lumes steady and allow you to hit their weakspots.

Penetrator Rounds is the main crowd control perk, it's very tricky to use, but SiMo's natural passive work wonders with it and in straight line mazes even the thickest crowd of Walkers will easily fall to it. Keep in mind Screamers and Rhinos are the biggest headaches for this build.

Hollowpoint Rounds is your damage perk, it can be swapped for something else (sans Spray n' Pray) to increase SiMo's damage in case you're not able to score weakspot hits often.

...

Ballista (Plasma Rifle)

Gatling Laser

Slowing Presence
Corpse Explosion
Spray 'N Pray (Against All Odds, Fast Hands, Hip Fire)


+ Very efficient on solo with or without Feats of Strength.
+ Reliable damage and efficient support or co-op.
+ Excellent crowd control.

- Takes a bit of practice to use it properly.
- Not very effective against Soakers.

An interesting loadout originally created by DoomyDoom to deal with the problematic map SOKOL.

This set of weapons and perks are perfect to deal with small to medium threat lumes, the Ballista may seem like a strange choice for Haigen, but its secondary fire can be very effective if you use it point-blank against crowds of enemies. Gatling Laser is for even greater crowd control with its secondary fire as well, the area laser can be used either in short bursts on in one single attack. Note that charging more of Gatling Laser's secondary fire will not increase its power, just its range.

Slowing Presence is one of the best skills for Haigen as it synergies perfectly with his natural ability, at first it may not seem to make a lot of difference with Beast Tamer and Impeccable Accuracy on, but if you make a comparison, you'll realize how useful this perk can be if put to good use.

Corpse Explosion will kick up your crowd control capability up to a notch or two, if you can lump groups of enemies together every enemy that dies will deal a portion of its base health as damage and that can trigger a massive chain reaction.

Spray 'N Pray is my skill of choice for damage on most cases. But if you can't stand the accuracy decrease you can easily replace it for Fast Hands (only less 5% bonus damage, but you must keep swapping weapons), Against All Odds (you'll most likely be surrounded by enemies, so it's good) or Hip Fire (watch out as you WON'T have weakspot damage bonus).

Ballista

REX (Battle Rifle, Voltaic Hand Cannon, Plasma Rifle)

Tactical Juxtaposition
Head Start
Static Discharge (Corpse Explosion)

+ Amazingly versatile damage-wise when mastered.
+ Impressive crowd control against problematic small trash (Walker Pups, Runners, Snorkers and even Brood Mothers on solo).
+ Massive damage versus single targets, to the point it's sheer overkill in solo matches more often than not.

- VERY tricky to use. Careful judgement and quick thinking is crucial to make the most of this build.
- Requires use of two major glitches from Head Start and Static Discharge; it's hard to tell if this will get patched one day.
- Does not take out large groups of Hoverers and Soakers quickly. Beware of that.

A really interesting perk loadout created by Unreality.

It's very powerful and fun, but it's also probably the trickiest build to use in this whole guide.

Alternative name: "Penetrator Rounds except Viable".

This build can be named "Glitchphage" or something because two of the biggest things here are glitches that will eat lumes alive and turn TSYGAN into a really mean killing machine.

Using the Ballista:

Ballista with Static Discharge and Head Start is a second but just as important combination to note here.

The first and last shots from it will deal raw 10k damage to 12k on weakspots. The catch here? Static Discharge will kick in and hit twice as hard instead with half of the force (200% damage instead of the usual 50%). This will kill most regular lumes on single player even with Titan Slayer (+50% Health to all enemies) enabled and the best thing is that Static Discharge pierces even infinite armor which means even Hoverers will get killed by it.

For the Ballista, after the first bolt is shot, you can waste the rest of the clip quickly with the secondary fire so you can fire a buffed last shot with another possible 20k damage with Static Discharge. If you can work around this and make sure you can kill something close to bosses so Static Discharge will target bosses, this will absolutely destroy them.

Make sure to waste the Ballista shot at odd numbers (11, 9, 7, 5, 3...) so you'll always end with 1 last bolt to trigger TSYGAN's natural passive.

Using REX:

It's imperative to know that this build only works if you combine the Ballista with something else, let's pick REX for instance.

For reasons I can't explain any other weapon will not make REX secondary fire as powerful as it is if you swap the Ballista for something else.

One of the more important things to also know is about the REX secondary fire with Head Start combo-- Due to a weird glitch it makes every single homing shot from the REX cluster shot to gain the buff of Head Start dealing up to massive damage. Each shot will deal around 1080 to unarmored targets so this can be used to heavily bruise even Armored Heavies or Super Heavies.

Using Smatter Band:

The Smatter Band is an alternative for REX if you need precision over raw power and range like in Laser Bridge or The Slums.

The same rules of Ballista applies here: fire the first shot at a lume (or else it'll fizzle out) and blast the secondary where the lumes will walk around, or save the last explosive for a particularly annoying target.

Additional notes about Corpse Explosion:

TSYGAN's glitches with this build causes Corpse Explosion to deal 100% damage instead of 25% which turns an already potent perk into a truly devastating one as long as you don't waste your shots.

Additional notes about Static Discharge:

For whatever reason Static Discharge only gets it's damage doubled instead of halved from TSYGAN's Ballista, any other weapon doesn't seem to trigger this odd effect. I have no clue or any idea of why this happens.

As Unreality details below, this thing does so much damage it's pure overkill on solo, but can be very useful on co-op.

Lastly Static Discharge can hurt Hoverers, but it must bounce to its vulnerable back for it to work which is immensely tricky to pull off and not something you should rely.

Originally posted by Unreality:

It's a build that I use commonly but mostly in co-op. In co-op, at a certain point every player gains about 1.8x damage (for some reason) and Lumes can get up to 4.8x as much heath. This works out perfectly because Lumes with 5k base health, super common Walkers, Screamers and anything that flies, go up to 36k with Titan Feat.

The Ballista Static Discharge will do 36k damage with the co-op damage bonus. For the same reason why the "Heavy Hitter Leader" is the best build in solo, you do just enough damage to one shot most Lumes.

It is not a good idea to fight on the front lines because most of those Lumes are taking residual damage from other players and towers. Instead the build excels at finding a vantage point and scanning the field for high threat Lumes or Lumes who will die to 36k near another that preferrably has less than 18k health. For maximum efficiency, this needs to be done in the split second that the Ballista is charging.

A problem to mention is the REX Secondary Fire mechanics. While the output is unrivaled, it's pretty rare to find targets that can actually take it.

Usually it just ends up being Bosses, Armoured Heavies and Soakers, of which are hilarious because they at least double Static Discharge damage from the Ballista shot.

Another problem is anything with Infinite Armour, which mostly comes from playing on co-op. The Ballista is not hitscan and even if you hit them, latency will usually slap you down.

I usually call the build "Penetrator Rounds except Viable" because it looks like Penetrator rounds except you don't have to line yourself up to get run over by a Rhino and you don't get screwed over when the game refuses to register your weakspot hit. As for the magical damage increase in co-op, I suspect it has to do with Tactical Juxtaposition bur it's hard to test.

Also, I can't believe I forgot to mention that the build can perform much better solo with Corpse Explosion in place of Static Discharge. Static Discharge doubles down on TSYGANs fundamental problem, overkill.

It turns out, Corpse Explosion damage can scale and, it turns out, enemies exploding for 100% of their base health is pretty good. Of course it still doesn't scale well into co-op but you have Static Disharge for that.

Bonus:
Two GIFs uploaded by Unreality, which I couldn't upload directly due to file size limitations.

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429898201

https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1429894024