In the spirit of AWOL's new "A quick word..." series I'm going to talk a bit about scenarios in SWL.
Limitations of my observations
Solo Mode Only
At the moment due to a lack of there being a bunch of level 50 people running around I have only done solo scenarios at this time.
Only 2 maps
Since I have been queueing for them using the Group Finder the map that I get is random, so I have only done the Mansion and Castle at this time, I have yet to get hotel (if that's currently a map).
Only 1 build
I have only tried Scenarios as Blade/Pistol and only with one build (which I will include here if people ask)
Gear
I'm pure DPS except for 1 tanking tali (neck) am currently weaing all blues except for a purple headpiece and pistol. Of my blues the neckpiece is level 25, my blade is a mk2 havoc level 25, my ring has been ~level 5 for this testing and all other talismans are level 1 unless listed otherwise.
Anatomy of a Scenario
Enemy group composition
From what I've noticed there are less large groups of weak enemies that I remember from tsw (though this could be perception) and a lot more groups of 2-3 stronger enemies.
Survivor Group Composition
Additionally, there are 2 groups of survivors that are generally in the same room/area instead of 3 groups widely spread out. As such all of the enemies are trying to get to roughly the same place regardless of where they spawn.
Strategy
Goal/Rewards
The goal in the scenario as always is to finish with survivors still alive. What isn't the same is that before you got a rating based on the number of survivors you had alive at the end, while at the moment it seems to make no difference whether you have 1 survivor left or all 10. (As an example with 2 survivors left I got 2 purple drops and a green while on 2 attempts that had 8 survivors left at the end I got 2 blues and a green.
Speaking of Rewards, the items you get from the end of the scenario are all glyph distillates of varying quality/potency. I have yet to see the opportunity to get anything listed in a loot box, or receive any loot that is not a glyph distillate from scenarios.
Combat Strategy
I don't have a lot to say about strategy at this point due to the limitations listed above but there is 1 key thing I did notice. When I did have problems and fail or come close to failing, universally it was because I was not killing fast enough, not because I wasn't tanky enough even with the heavy weight towards DPS gear that I listed above.
When I get to the bosses I generally kite them pretty heavily to limit the amount of time they spend hitting me so that my lack of tanking talismans doesn't have too much opportunity to show itself as a weakness.
Even when I die in scenarios it's usually because I got behind on killing and got overwhelemed trying to pull too many things off of my survivors.
Bottom Line
- Gear should be blues - Purples, go for heavy damage so as not to let too many enemies build up at once.
Kite bosses when possible to limit damage dealt to you.
Build wise make sure you have some healing in your build somewhere for survivability, make sure you have some good ST hits for the tougher enemies.
Questions/Comments/Concerns
Please feel free to add in your own experiences/recommendations or ask any questions that you would like me to answer.
If this helps then I'm glad, if it doesn't then I apologize, especially if my method doesn't work for you and your weapons/build/playstyle.
