Seraph Guide v0.1 ============== == Overview == ============== Since Seraph has procedural level generation, this guide contains no walkthru. Instead it is a strategy guide for optimizing builds and choosing upgrade orders. It contains some tactics for playing, but that is not the focus. Unless otherwise stated, this guide is mainly focused on higher difficulties (7+) and Survival Mode, because what works for those situations tends to work for everything else as well. Table of Contents: (copy a line & paste it into search to jump to that section) = 1. Blessings = = 2. Oaths = = 3. Transmutation = = 4. Monsters = = 5. Scoring = ================== == 1. Blessings == ================== Ratings: A - Good choice. Pick when available. B - Decent choice. Pick to fill a role, or if nothing better is available. C - Mediocre choice. Avoid picking unless necessary. D - Bad choice. Do not pick. F - Awful choice. Shouldn't even be in the game. BLESSINGS L1 L5 DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Blessed Ammo (B) 20 80 10% chance for bonus damage (2m AOE) A Danger Close 20 25 %Damage bonus within 4 meters A Ethereal Barrier 60 40 Barrier every X seconds B Sacred Projectiles 50 100 Damage over 3 seconds B Deadly Grace 10 15 %Damage bonus for 1 sec after Blink B Healing Exorcism 5 10 Smiting Heals X% health C Blessed Air 50 100 Double Jump deals damage (2m AOE) C Bloodlust 5 10 5% stackable damage bonus after kill for X secs C Crit Healing 25 20 30% heal on crit every X seconds C Chilling Rounds 80 60 Slows enemy movement to speed for 2 sec C Piercing Light 100 150 Increased Damage% after Pierce D Touch of Mortality 100 200 Smite Damage D Zeal 60 100 Accum damage from moving, discharge on 1st shot F Demonic Litany 10 15 %XP Bonus ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Strategy: Choose 1 Blessing for dealing Holy Damage (HD) to help with Purple Elites: Blessed Ammo (B), Sacred Projectiles, Blessed Air Choose 1 Blessing for dealing General Damage (GD) to help with Blue Elites: Danger Close, Deadly Grace, Bloodlust Choose 1 Blessing for Defense (DF) to help extend Seraph's life: Ethereal Barrier, Healing Exorcism, Crit Healing, Chilling Rounds Choose the last Blessing depending on what Difficulty you can handle: For <7 choose another Offensive Blessing, or a 1 point wonder For >7 choose another Defensive Blessing, or a 1 point wonder These are the 1 point wonders (1W) where additional investments beyond the 1st point are almost useless, so you can raise other Blessings higher instead: Danger Close, Deadly Grace, Piercing Light (only if using Railgun) Do not get these Blessings: Touch of Mortality, Zeal, Demonic Litany Analysis: --A Tier-- Blessed Ammo (HD) scales very well with difficulty due to it's splash effect and large damage. Danger Close (GD)(1W) is always good because the bonus is big enough to matter and the condition is easy enough to fulfill. Don't waste any more points after the first, though. Ethereal Barrier (DF) is mainly great because when it blocks an attack, it also prevents your difficulty multiplier from getting penalized. In terms of life extension alone it is on the weak end of things; it's main purpose is for score. Outside of Survival Challenges I would rank this lower. --B Tier-- Sacred Projectiles (HD) has some unusual drawbacks. When you die/resurrect, there is a tendency for its tick damage to finish a monster off, which is actually a bad thing. Firstly, it denies you the ability to claim the Greater Motes before they degrade. Worse, for elites which need to be Smited it has the ultimate effect of healing the creature. Despite that, I consider it the 2nd best in it's category, because it's the only other option that has decent damage. Deadly Grace (GD)(1W) is fun and easy to activate. It should be an iconic skill for the game. Unfortunately the damage just isn't enough to make it top tier. Upgrades to the skill being a waste of points don't help that problem. Healing Exorcism (DF) doesn't shine until you reach higher difficulties where elites are abundant. It doesn't require you to do anything you wouldn't do otherwise, and gives a decent amount of healing, especially at higher Ascendencies when you are getting tons of health from the Knowledge Oath. --C Tier-- Blessed Air (HD) deals a decently large amount of damage at a predictable pace, but that pace is slow, and it's more dangerous to activate than Danger Close. Bloodlust (GD) is just a bit too weak to pick. In lower difficulties the monsters aren't stacked tightly enough for you to get much benefit from it before the timer expires. In higher difficulties the monsters have too much health to keep the buff maintained. Even if you could find a way to solve the puzzle of maximizing this Blessing, in it's best case scenario it only reaches about the same strength as Danger Close. Crit Healing (DF) is gated primarily by cooldown. The ostensible hoop you have to jump through of getting a Crit is actually inconsequential. To optimize it you should switch to Railgun each time the Blessing comes off cooldown, to get a decent amount of healing from it. But keeping track of that is frankly mind numbing, and amounts to another constraint for a Blessing which really isn't that good in the first place. What you can do is combo it with Piercing Light, which gives you the Uber Railgun build, but this combo isn't reliable even when you get all the pieces in place. Chilling Rounds (DF) only slows monster movement, but since Seraph auto-aims that's not super useful unless the enemies use their bodies to attack. Enough of them don't, particularly among "hard" monsters, to make this a weak pick. Piercing Light (1W) is only good with Railgun; otherwise its a worthless Blessing. Even with the Railgun its value can be questionable, since you are locked into 1 weapon all the time and certain enemy combinations avoid lining up unless you use all your blinks for 1 shot. But did you forget you have to keep dodging and can't double-blink wastefully like that? --D and F Tier-- Touch of Mortality (HD) is no good. The problem is that it puts Smite on cooldown. It can be used against Purple (Tainted) monsters or other hard targets, but if that kills it.... then it's going to revive.... because Smite is on cooldown. Plus it's incredibly dangerous to use, even worse than Blessed Air on that front. The moderate damage isn't worth all that risk. Zeal (HD) just doesn't do enough damage. Carrying it in between fights it gets you about 1 activation worth of Blessed Ammo, but it doesn't splash, and that's not enough to end the battle. Once you are in continuous fighting mode, it only does about 1/3 as much damage as Sacred Projectiles. There's not much upside for how lacking this Blessing is in average utility. Demonic Litany (-) is a skill that was presumably added for high risk, high scoring Survival mode. Except that it is banned from Survival mode. This makes it a useless skill that has no purpose. The 1 point you invest into it will only be returned to you about 15 floors later, except now 1 of your Blessing slots is Demonic Litany and you can't fix that. You went thru the whole game with a "blank" Blessing, and the only reward was an extra +25 HP near the end. Congrats! ============== == 2. Oaths == ============== Ratings: S - Best. Upgrade first. A - Good. Upgrade after all of S tier. B - Decent. Upgrade after all of A tier. C - Mediocre. Keep 2 levels behind S tier. D - Bad. Keep 2 levels behind A tier. OATHS + CAT DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- S Knowledge 3 H2 Max health per Shard A Split Fire 5 M1 Damage bonus when aiming at 2 targets A Pistol Mastery 2 M2 Damage bonus for Pistol A Potency 3 D2 Health per Orb A Resilience 2 D3 Physical Resist A Sanctuary 2 D3 Unholy Resist A Soul Stealer 1 D5 Life per kill A Academia 5 H1 Extra Mote chance per kill A Miracle Proficiency 4 H3 Miracle Cooldown Reduction B Critical Accuracy 2 M1 Crit Chance B Life Seeker 1 D3 Health Orb per kill chance B Dashing 3 D4 Blink Recharge Rate B Fleet 2 D4 Move Speed B Sentinel 4 H4 For Miracles & Blessings: Holy & Healing boost B Remnant Protection 2 H3 Damage Resist for 1.5sec after Miracle B Spark 3 H3 Crit Chance for Holy Damage B Origin's Touch 1* H5 Enemy max HP reduced by this amount (Holy Dmg) C SMG Mastery 2 M2 C Rifle Mastery 2 M3 C Shotgun Mastery 2 M3 C Devastating Accy 5 M4 Increases Crit Damage Bonus (from 50%) C Blessed Ammo (O) 2 M4 Chance no ammo will be used per shot C High Velocity 2 M5 Pierce Chance C Strength 10 D1 Starting Health C Destiny 2 D2 Max Health per Level C Life and Death 2 D4 Orb chance from lockers C Deadly Movement 5* H2 Blink Damage C Enhanced Precision 1 H4 Incr Crit Chance for 2sec after collecting Mote D Scavenger 3 M4 More ammo from pickups D Replenish 5* H4 Blink Recover chance on Smite ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Indicates that the base value for incrementation does not start from 0 Analysis: --S Tier-- Knowledge. I took a snapshot of my health at level 9 in Ascendency 1 and calculated that 20% of my total health was coming from Knowledge. The other 2 HP Oaths, Strength and Destiny, accounted for 10% together. If you're wondering where the remaining 70% came from, that was base health. Knowledge was already twice as good as Strength and Destiny combined. And it only goes up from there, as Ascendencies greatly increase Shard drops. In a snapshot from Ascendency 4, over 30% of my max health at level 11 came from Knowledge. There are no other Oaths in the game that give you a 30% benefit to anything important. A 10% overall bonus is good enough to make it to A tier, and Knowledge gives 20%+ --A Tier-- Split Fire. Can be applied when using Pistols, Auto Pistols, and SMG. It's a pretty big damage bonus, but it does come with a downside in that you're not focusing anything down when it's active. Pistol Mastery. I use the basic Pistol most of the time, so this is close to being an unconditional damage bonus. *Need to test if it applies to Auto Pistols or Revolvers Potency. There are several sources of Orb drops, and this synergizes with all of them. It can be thought of as 3 Health * Number of Orbs per level, and if you compare that to other healing options it is difficult to match. Resilience. What's better than healing? Not taking the damage in the first place. Especially useful with higher level wards. Sanctuary. Same as Resilience, but for a different damage type. Soul Stealer. The number of monsters killed per level can be quite large, so this provides substantial healing. This can be related to Potency via Life Stealer and Soul Stealer is slightly stronger (although there's also Life and Death, but that's pretty negligible). Academia. Motes give experience and also score. Those motes aren't coming back if they weren't generated. Miracle Proficiency. This lets you cast Miracles with less risk and also synergizes with Remnant Protection. Plus the size of the mod is rather large. --B Tier-- Critical Accuracy. A small damage modifier, but an unconditional one. Life Seeker. Weaker than Potency or Soul Stealer, but still helpful. Dashing. Helps you Blink more. Not bad. Fleet. The move speed isn't very noticeable, but walking faster is always nice. I might move this up to A tier because of its impact on Daily Missions. Sentinel. A large modifier, but it doesn't apply to many things. You may consider different Blessings to maximize this Oath. Remnant Protection. A good way to get some extra defense in long fights, but less essential than Resilience or Sanctuary. Spark. Like Critical Accuracy, it is a small damage modifier that you don't have to do anything to benefit from. Origin's Touch. Basically reduces enemy Max HP by a small amount. Yet another tiny damage mod that you get for free. --C and D Tier-- SMG, Rifle, Shotgun Mastery. 3 separate Oaths which collectively counterpoint a single Oath: Split Fire. Yet the collective are both weaker and costlier. SMG actually gets to double dip! (*need to check if Railgun benefits from Rifle) Devastating Accuracy. A synergy for Critical Accuracy. Even less damage. Blessed Ammo (O). Extends your magazine, and especially useful if you always use the same weapon and don't switch. High Velocity. More damage than Critical Accuracy when it works, but requires uncommon situations before it works. Not a high enough activation chance to work adequately with Piercing Light. Better at higher difficulties when mosters are more densely packed. Strength. Not much Health, but it can help if you are having trouble getting started on a higher difficulty setting. Destiny. An obvious comparison to Strength. The switchover point where Destiny becomes better is Level 6, which is approximately when you fight the Herald. Just depends which part of the game you find harder. Life and Death. Just doesn't generate as much healing as other alternatives. Deadly Movement. This Oath would be really cool if it was any good, but the damage is just pathetic. Still comes in handy occassionally, but not really. Enhanced Precision. I believe multiple motes have a stacking effect for this Oath, even though the tooltip is written differently and suggests that they do not. Even assuming I'm right, this is still a difficult benefit to trigger because what's not there when you kill an enemy? One more target to use this damage buff on. With 2 second timer it's too short to carry over between encounters. Scavenger. More ammo. I mainly use basic Pistols and just overflow until the hard levels. By then, the small extra supply won't make much difference unless you can use every weapon, and they are all adequately leveled, which they won't be. Replenish. It's not especially bad or anything, it just doesn't do much. And most of the benefit comes from the first point. ====================== == 3. Transmutation == ====================== GUNS Shots/sec MAT DAMAGE* ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Pistols B 10~13 13~18 18~24 . C Assault Rifle G 16~18 23~26 . A Autopistols O 10~13 13~18 . B Railgun 2.22 Pr 74~78 96~102 . B Revolvers Pk 26~36 36~47 . C Shotgun 8*shell B 11~12 14~16 . B SMG R 12~15 16~21 . ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *Listed Damages are all from Ascendency 2 with no Oaths, except Assault Rifle Lv2 which is from Ascendency 4 **TODO: fill out the rest of this table Analysis: By extrapolation, about +30% damage bonus per upgrade, although SMG may get more. This means even a maxed out Ascendency is worth less than a weapon upgrade. A subweapon which is 2 or more levels behind the basic Pistols can be weaker than Pistols if it's not used to it's strength. Relying mainly on basic Pistols is a decent strategy as it is one of the few weapons with auto-fire, and the only one of those which is accurate at long range. Upgrading this weapon should be a top priority. Autopistols are the best subweapon, as they don't require you to change playstyle from basic Pistol. They just deal damage faster. Slightly less accurate than regular Pistols, but no real weakness. Assault Rifle is bugged and only appears on your first game after each Ascension. Don't bother with this weapon! (It would actually still be terrible even if it wasn't bugged, due to it's abysmal ammo supply and meager DPS) Railgun is extremely powerful with Piercing Light Blessing. Without that, it's still the best non-auto firing weapon. Revolvers are decent if you can deal with the constant tapping of the shoot button, but I find that it distracts too much from dodging, miracle rotation, and blinking to be worth the mental tax. Due to it's mat component, Shotgun is situated poorly, making it difficult to buy. It's not even that great of a gun since most weapons are powerful at short range. Compare to SMG. SMG is basically a less consistent version of Auto Pistols. Due to its huge accuracy falloff and rapid ammo burn, it deals more damage at short ranges, but less damage at long ranges. WARDS MAT PROTECTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Amethyst G Physical and Unholy Resist B Diamond Pk All Defenses B Emerald O+Pr+R Unholy Resist and Health B Jasper B+O Physical Resist and Health A Ruby B Physical Resist A Sapphire R Unholy Resist C Topaz O Health ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MIRACLES COOL MAT DESCRIPTION ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- B Comet 8 O 50(100) + 10(20)*meters damage with large knockback A Embrace 10 G 100(200) damage for maintaining distance for 1 sec A Lightwell 15 Pr 150(250) damage in vertical pillar B Sigil 10 R 50(100) Damage to all nearby enemies when you hit them A Orb 8 Pk 50(85) outbound damage, 2x return damage as boomerang C Repel 10 B Reflect objects 8m(12m?) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analysis: All wards are useful, although if you have to give one up to save its component for a miracle or gun then go ahead and do so, especially for Topaz wards. Health bonuses from wards are not diminished by resurrection penalty, but the game applies the resurrection penalty inconsistently so that might be a bug. Shards still give full health value from Knowledge while resurrected, making them technically more potent when picked up a these times. Nonetheless, that's the main advantage of Health wards, since the bonus is so small. Orange is the most heavily used component in Wards and is also used to make Autopistols. So the corresponding miracle, Comet, can get crowded out. Blue is used for main pistols and also heavily used in wards. So again, the corresponding miracle and subweapon, which are Repel and Shotgun, are difficult to commit to. Neither one is very good anyway, so not much loss. Red is also heavily used for wards, and has a pretty good subweapon, making the Miracle Sigil a difficult fit. This leaves your miracle options as Orb, Embrace, and Lightwell, which are the best ones anyway. Orb is the least damaging of these 3, but most reliable and it pairs well with anything except Comet. It is easy to use as its your starter. Embrace is very good for mass damage on high difficulties, but can sometimes be unreliable if you have to dodge too much. Require LOS to initiate but not to maintain. Lightwell has great damage potential, but has a long cooldown and can be weak if you can't get the enemies to move around. Due to the cooldown, you need to make good use of each Lightwell you make, and the easiest way to do that is to stand near it and walk back and forth across it as needed to get enemies to walk into it repeatedly. In lower difficulties, this is extra work for about the same result as anoter Miracle, but once everything is leveled it pays off. It's hard to do other combo builds (such as Piercing Light) with Lightwell because optimizing Lightwell is like a 1 piece combo that dictates a lot of contraints on how you play. With Lightwell, though, there's a good payoff. Comet deals the most damage of any Miracle, it has a quick cooldown, and is one of the few Miracles that deals with blind verticality. So why isn't it rated higher? Well, some of it's problems have already been discussed such as the crafting pressure and lack of good combo Miracles. However there is one last problem: The worst monsters tend to be difficult to pin down with Comet. Voids block your casting in a large radius, so you can't just jump+blink and Comet back down. Snipers fly and rarely float to the ground. Razazel stays off the ground. Comet is in the unenviable position of being a high skill-cap ability which works better in low difficulties and worse in high difficulties. The things that are threatening in high difficulties just can't be dealt with using Comet. I still didn't rate it as low as Repel because it still has a quicker cooldown and does damage, while doing a similar deflection effect, but that says more about Repel's weakness than Comet's strength. Sigil is excellent in lower difficulties because it's range is enormous and there are no LOS restrictions. It's arguably the best Miracle of all before Difficulty 7, but its damage just can't keep up with the higher difficulties. Repel is pure defense and if you pick it you are going to have a problem dealing with Purple Elites because Miracles are the main source of Holy damage, and Repel doesn't do any. *Anyway, I need to test it more since it might help disperse challenging packs, and if it can keep the pressure off against Summoners it could fill a valuable niche. Here are my suggestions for when to start spending Shards on upgrades: ITEM LEVEL REBIRTH # ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Pistol 3 0 Miracle 3 1 or 2 Subweapon 3 2 or 3 Pistol 4 3 Ward 4 3 or 4 Subweapon 4 5 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Analysis: You will craft less per Ascendency in either of 2 situations: (1) If you don't play many Daily/Weekly Challenges then you will accumulate more crafting mats, but be short on Terminescence. (2) If you do very well in Daily/Weekly Challenges (at least Top 25%) then you will accumulate Shards quicker. This is very hard to do from low Ascendencies. Lack of crafting mats will prevent you from crafting as much before you Ascend again. ================= == 4. Monsters == ================= Ratings: Lo - Low Threat. Rarely need to adjust your strategy for them. Med - Medium Threat. Need to keep track of them, but not too difficult to handle. Hi - High Threat. Adds constraints on how you can deal with everything else in the area, but won't necessarily stop you. VHi - Very High Threat. Focus on dealing with this first when possible. It can cause a game over. MONSTERS MIN MAT GOOD MIRACLE BAD MIRACLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lo Leaper 1.0 B Sigil, LWell Med Mage 1.0 O Orb, Embrace Comet Lo Walker 1.3 R Orb Med Winged 2.5 Pr Orb, Embrace Med Healer 2.6 G Sigil Hi Sniper 3.7 Pk Sigil, Comet Hi Void 5.0 Any Comet ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOSSES MIN HP GOOD MIRACLE BAD MIRACLE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Med T Portal - ? Orb, Comet - Med Herald 4.0 4000 Orb, LWell Embrace, Comet VHi Razazel 5.5 6000 Repel, LWell Orb, Comet Med White 1.0 500% - - Hi Purple 4.0 800% LWell, Embrace Repel, Sigil VHi Blue 5.0 500% - - VHi Red 5.0 500% LWell ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BOSS POWERS COLOR SKILL ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lo Fireball Orange Single Projectile Med Ring Blue Vortex Bomb on self Med Star Yellow Reflect projectiles Hi Water Spray Red Wall of Projectiles Hi 3 Balls Purple Homing Missiles VHi Diamond Red(?) Summon ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Monster Strategy: TODO Boss Strategy: -For Portals to Terminus, Comet and Orb can both be used to deal damage to the Portal itself, but no other miracles can. The portal's spawning occurs at specified amounts of damage taken, so use your basic Pistols to shoot it to avoid getting overwhelmed. -For Leiutenants and White Elites, it boils down to which powers they have. A useful tip is the icon on the creature tells you what ability it is about to cast: --Orange Fireball: Doesn't change the fight much. Jump or blink, same as a Leaper but faster. --Blue Ring: Keep your distance. Blink away if it starts casting, sometimes it takes 2 blinks. Winged Teleporters and Voids can be dangerous with this skill. --Yellow Star: Stop shooting for a few seconds while it glows purple. Just run away and come back. --Red Spray: Wait a half second for it to cast the spell, then blink toward the boss. If you blink away you will blink into the wall. Jumping won't help in the higher difficulties, but if you can hide behind a barrier that works. --Purple 3 Balls: If there aren't any Snipers or Voids around then you can just run in circles and blink when they get too close. If those creatures are around, you need to maintain a big distance between you and the boss so you can get to another room quickly enough to reset all the projectiles and area denial. Find a big room to fight in where you can do lots of dodging. --Red Diamond: If it's just an elite then it's OK because they get a weaker version of this skill. On leiutenants this skill can be devastating at higher difficulties! It summons 3 at a time, and gets free casts each time it resurrects. Bum rush the boss with your strongest weapon and both miracles. Herd the adds away from the boss and focus all your damage on the boss. Keep it up until you die. Rinse and repeat, until one of you can't revive anymore. -Against the Herald, just walk away from him while shooting. When he crowds you into the wall, wall jump->jump->blink over him and go the other way. Blink away pretty much any time he uses an ability. Blink back if it was an orb burst. ezpz! -TODO: *Razazel -Against Purple (Tainted) monsters, you need to focus on dealing as much Holy damage as possible. That means Miracles, certain Blessings, and Blinking. Using both your Miracles will be enough to kill them until higher difficulties. Once it is not, you need to learn how to start actually dealing with them. When a gaggle of them bunch up into a blob it becomes almost impossible to kill anything near them until your Miracles recharge, so just run away and wait for your cooldwons. If you can isolate one then just blink back and forth over it's face, timed to avoid it's attacks of course. In this case you don't want to run away because it will often follow and apply it's protection aura to the creature(s) you find. Purples can be especially dangerous in a section lockdown. -Blue (Armored) monsters get 1 random boss mod, and can become quite dangerous at higher difficulties. The best way to deal with them is to switch to a subweapon and burst them down, but they can get enough HPs that it will chew through your ammo if you always do that. For weaker Blues like Leapers or Healers I would just stick with basic Pistols so you don't run out of ammo when you need it. Remember that activating Miracles still gives you Remnant Protection even if it doesn't do any damage. -Red (Bloody) monsters are very quick and their AI makes more decisions, which is generally dangerous; HOWEVER, it does make them more vulnerable to Lightwell since they are pretty much always moving, even for variants which normally just sit still. Woe betide you if you get a level with Red Voids though, because they can come out of nowhere and keep sealing your Miracles everywhere you go. The main strategy for Reds is to isolate them and fight them separately. Since they are so quick, they can often overshoot your position which makes them easier to divide and conquer. The problem is that even 1 on 1 they can be quite dangerous because the dodge timings are all different, except for sniper shots. ================ == 5. Scoring == ================ The main thing that you need to know for survival is to understand how scoring works. Score is based on difficulty. Seraph features a dynamic difficulty, but it only increases, so that's not really dynamic is it? Well, the dynamic part is that you can control how quickly it rises by using the difficulty pips. Difficulty pips are displayed underneath the Difficulty number in the UI. They fill up by collecting motes or killing monsters. Each pip takes approximately one more monster kill than the one before it. When you get hit you lose half of your pips. Difficulty pips also multiply the amount of points you get while they are active, and this is the secret to increasing your Survival score. So to summarize the above: Score is based on difficulty, difficulty comes from difficulty pips, and difficulty pips are based on dmg taken. So to get a better score the main thing you need to do is avoid getting hit. Play safely. Play thoroughly. Play slowly. Is this the most fun way to play? No. But it gets you the most points. This table shows the Score Multiplier based on how many Difficulty Pips are illuminated: 0 pips x1.0 1 pip x1.1 2 pips x1.4 3 pips x1.8 4 pips x2.5 5 pips x3.5 6 pips x5.0 To maximize score, it is best to stay at 6 pips until you get close to the difficulty you want to play at, and then last as long as you can with low multipliers. Don't gradually raise the difficulty with a medium number of pips, unless you just crafted a good Miracle or weapon upgrade that raises your potential. Note that in the Halls of Pilgrimage there is a minimum difficulty increase of 0.20 per level (it might be 0.25 in Survival). It can be hard to raise the difficulty that much at that point in the game, so you might get overwhelmed. That's not a big deal if you raised the difficulty adequately in the early stages. It might be argued that if you don't die in Halls of Pilgrimage then you didn't raise the difficulty high enough, because you left something on the table. You should commit suicide vs. Razazel because you will fall thru walls after looping and your score won't get posted if that happens. Try to get 3 Million points and 5.0 Difficulty by the end of the Prison Deck sequence. You will need at least Level 2 Pistol to do this, but it is achievable from no Ascendency. You must learn the Difficulty Pip system to accomplish this and will need to take very little damage, but it will put you in a great position to reach the top 50% for the week. Sometimes the leaderboards refuse to load, so I included some estimates for what score to aim for in competitive modes. Note than Treasure Hunter tends to have a higher score than other dailys, since it has less things that can lower your score: DAILY SURVIVAL Any Effort Top 75% Any Effort 2.5M Top 50% 5M 4.0M Top 25% 9M 4.2M Top 10% 15M EOF