Robo's Way of Hive
I will update this section as my strategy evolves.
Ringsets
Many people's first instinct is to grab a bunch of AoE rings and mob it. This strategy is fine for early waves, but by wave 50, the amount of lightening bugs mobbing you will be enough that you won't be able to do damage fast enough while still keeping up with healing yourselves. If you're trying to get as far as possible, come ready for the later waves, not the early ones.
The ringsets that I have found most successful and have gotten the farthest with are as follows
The high DPS of the three swords is nice for waves when everyone has a strider of their very own. Some people prefer to switch mantis out for hot foot, and a bit more AoE is nice though not essential. I leave it up to the individual.
Everyone should bring meat and wish. The only buff you won't need is Fleet Feet, since there's not much room to run around and the willpower boost isn't that important. At least two people should bring cat, but three is optimal since it misses so much. Those who don't bring cat should bring a passive or bandage, whichever is their preference.
Kill Order
Lightening Bugs (Pink buggies)
Walkers (White four legged alien)
Landstriders (Black and Green alien)
Note: I don't include shockroaches (white bugs) because generally slash/hotfoot AoE takes care of them. Death roaches (bomb buggies <3) are not on the list because all you can really do is avoid them until they explode.
Save a Strider Strategy (Hooray Alliteration!)
During higher waves, the crew
should not kneel between waves. There isn't enough time to fully recover stamina, and Deathroaches run out and explode before the words pop up warning us of the next wave. So starting between waves 40 and 50, I will start designating a strider to save. This strider stays cat'd and untouched by the crew while we kill everything else. Once everything but the strider is dead, the crew rests while the catters carefully make sure he stays cat'd. When the crew has refilled their stam/health, the strider is then killed.
When to Use Cat
Cat striders as much as possible. This way they're not spitting AoE bleed effects at you while you kill everything else. During earlier waves, striders are really the only thing you need to use cat on. You don't need to cat walkers; it just takes up time while they run away from you and you gotta chase 'em.
Around the same time that the "save a strider strategy" goes in place, you may notice that the lightening bugs start mobbing you and healing each other fast enough that it takes several tries to kill them. When this starts happening, R4 cat a few times to separate them from each other and keep them from healing. One person can kill a lightening bug fairly quickly when they aren't healing themselves and each other.
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