A quick overview of general gameplay and a few tips for solo play, regarding classes, their abilities, and weapon load-outs.
The Mortals & You – In-Match Progression
A key factor to be mentioned however is that higher rarity weapons do NOT come with increased DPS, with the exception of the Crossbow. This is due to the fact rarity only ever improves recoil, magazine size and reload speed (thus the Crossbow, as single shot-reload weapon profits a bit more). And given most weapons can easily kill you in a single, un-upgraded magazine, higher rarities merely allow you to win fights whilst missing more often.
It’s other progression mechanic, however, is Resonant Blood and it’s slots.
There’s 4 types of Resonant Blood (I’ll abbreviate to RBlood), which can each be stacked up to 3.
However, you only start with 3 slots for RBlood total, meaning you can only max out one type of blood at most. Executing players or Entity Soldiers will grant you another RBlood slot, up to a total of 7.
Therefore, whilst it’s easy to grab two guns out of the back of a van or a storefront to be sufficiently equipped to win a gunfight, ‘gearing up’ on RBlood requires getting a tad more involved than just grabbing a sniper and hiding on the crane.
The reason why RBlood is powerful is specficially because it’s effects become more pronounced the higher it’s stacked, and that it’s the only way in the game to increase the DPS of weapons, although for melee only.
The types are
- Purple “Melancholic” – +10/25/50% Cooldown Reduction on Mobility Skill (aka the shared clan skill)
- Green “Phlegmatic” – +10/25/50% Cooldown Reduction on Unique Skill
- Pink “Sanguine” – +0.5/1.5/3 health regen per second (with no wind-up, even mid-combat)
- Orange “Choleric” – +10/25/50% Melee damage
As you can derive from the values, there’s little benefit in spreading out your blood point slots, because having 10% less cooldown or more damage on a weapon will make very little impact, but having 3 points in Choleric means you will outdamage anything in close range (including the shotguns), or having 3 points in Sanguine will cause you to soak a few hundred points more than you should when rabbit’ing away.
Note that the type of Rblood you want to stack strongly depends on build, this is just the general advice that you near always want to focus one category first.
Core Gunplay Advice
First of all, a reminder of basic information:
- All vampires have 200 hp. 250 with armor equipped (which you should consequently always assume when picking a fight), Entity troops have 275 hp and Civilians 0.1 (maybe a tad less even). The highest single-shot damage is a crossbow headshot, for 180 damage, followed by sniper rifle at 160 and Double Barrel Point Blank for 120. Rapid fire weapons deal anywhere from 15-30 damage per shot.
- Healing ‘items’ aren’t more potent than in any other Battle Royale, but any civilian can serve as a quick full heal, and so does executing enemy players. Additionally, there’s a potent healer, and one of the RBlood types can be stacked for a notable speedy self-regeneration. Consequently: All enemies you will face will usually be at full health, unless you 3rd party (= join into an ongoing gunfight).
- Whenever you are downed, you start crawling about and regenerating. Yeah, no bleed-out whatsoever. To kill you, you will require another 200 damage to be dealt, or a melee execution to be performed (which takes 5 seconds and is interrupted by damage). Otherwise, you get back up with 50hp after 20 seconds (though there’s no invulnerability, so you may just get downed again). Downed enemies can still crawl about, move to fall off roofs, hide in bushes or, in the case of the Muse, teleport.
- All vampires can freely climb any obstacle, can sprint reasonably fast and have some form of burst mobility tool (of varying potency).
- The map is an urban one, with plenty of street corners, countless chimneys to provide cover on roofs, and even a modest bit of cover and bushed on open areas.
The result: The majority of RELEVANT combat occurs at close quarters range.
Sure, you CAN pick a vantage point and snipe people… but you cannot ever one-hit a full health target (and you cannot usually refire before they are in cover), and even if you manage to pick off somebody, you almost certainly won’t be able to finish them from your position… so they will just regenerate, go suck a civilian and be fine again.
Sure, you can snipe them and then let somebody else go for the finisher and listen to their sweet screams echoing through the streets… but that kinda just proves the point
that you need to get up and close to actually reduce the number of enemy players. Which, coincidentally, is also one of the only ways to earn RBlood slots and to ‘level up’ within a match.
This doesn’t mean Sniper Rifles are pointless to use, but it means you have to come up with a build/strategy that involves getting in close sooner rather than later. Sniper rifle headshot into leaping ontop of the target King Kong style for example.
Therefore (though this tends to apply to many Battle Royale) don’t open fire unless you can actually finish the target. There’s little point in ‘wearing them down’ when there’s infinite walking medpacks on the street, and especially in solo you’ll be 3rd partied constantly if you keep giving away your position with both audible and VERY visible gunfire.
If you spot an enemy, track or trail them, and only engage if you are certain you can down and finish them (either by virtue of standing next to them, or because you can down them in an area where they cant take cover from your finishing shots).
Additionally always plan an exit strategy. Never assume you will assuredly win a gunfight you initiate. All it takes is one miss and the enemy will come out on top (and keep in mind that having the most rarity-est weapons will not give you much of an edge). And even if you don’t miss, and stand over the enemies broken body reaching for his neck, you might still find yourself suddenly coming under impolite fire that will interrupt your snack time.
Always have an idea on when/where/how to bail, and even if it doesn’t always work out, you’ll still survive a lot more that way… and after surviving, all it takes is one quick refreshing hug to be right back in action.
Maintaining the Masquerade – Or how to make your own Hot Zone
You ‘break the Masquerade’ by either doing Vampire stuff in front of civilians, or by killing a civilian regardless of circumstance. This includes
- drinking blood from another civilian (or a downed vampire)
- shooting a civilian (note civies are made of paper and die of any single point of damage)
- having a scared civilian run into a smoke cloud left by one of your crossbow bolts
The result will be you becoming visible to all players for 60 seconds, both on the map and as a pretty fancy orange figure on-screen through walls.
This is lethal.
Even if you set up an ‘ambush’ and manage to get one or two people coming after you, you’ll probably have a full hand of ‘3rd parties’ joining in after that.
The best chance to survive is usually running to a corner of the map that is hopefully less populated, and hiding in a position that provides cover from preferably seven sides. Or, you know, just don’t break the masquerade.
Addendum: Note that civilians are very short-sighted (though they got keen ears for gunfire), and will only notice you when you are within 10 meters in a narrow cone of view or so. You will see when you have a civilians attention by a white glow surrounding his head. As long as that is there, don’t bite somebody else.
Addendum #2: Civilians you have just bitten will be ‘stunned’/mesmerized for a good 10 seconds or so, thus after snacking on somebody, you can do pretty much whatever nearby and they will not care.
The lesser problems civilians can provide you with is seeing you being a not very proper member of society. This includes climbing up walls, doing superhero-landings (note that you can avoid them by landing crouched/sliding), using any kind of vampire ability (yes, creating shockwaves by punching the air is apparently not supernatural enough to break the Masquerade) and firing weapons.
However, this spot only appears briefly on the minimap as a red circle, and you are not revealed with a body outline.
Something the game doesn’t tell you, but which is kinda obvious if you think about it, is the fact that Civilians, even if they don’t actually spot you firing, will still get startled by gunfire they only heard, or by a lunatic sprinting past them with an axe, and consequently start [/i]screaming and running away[/i]. And since any vampire can see civilians with their Heightened Senses ability, and civilians always run away from the source of their scare… go figure that other players will be able to use ANY startled civilians to track your approximate location (and the panicked screams will even tell them precisely when to start using Heightened Senses).
Heighten your Senses, Trust your Instincts!
You click button. You see loot and civilians. You drink loot and gather civilians. Easy right?
But, additionally
- enemy players will be shown as well, if they’re in direct line of sight (no sniffing them out through walls or around cover), and glow bright orange (and yes, I may have mistaken an enemy player for a Choleric civilian once).
- you will get a circular indicator of any loud noise made. This goes for all noise you can currently hear, thus extending well past the regular scan range (but not quite map-wide, as apparently gunshots only travel a couple hundred meters). Bonus: Some abilities (notable the Brujah ones) trigger noise indicators, too.
- you can see panicking civilians that have been startled by players or gunfire (always caused by players). Thus you can tell where an enemy player is, even if only by approximation. Bonus points if the civilian got startled by a stealthed Saboteur. Because yes, that can happen.
But there’s also a few caveats to the ability:
Whilst it does highlight individual loot pieces, across medium and further it usually only lights up that blue “Loot here!” aura… but that aura will be there regardless of whether there are still any items on that spot. So the scan doesn’t technically locate loot, but ‘locations where loot has spawned at the start of the match’ (or where a player has died and dropped their inventory).
Another weakpoint: It actually worsens your vision, especially long-range. Essentially with all that fancy contrast and highlighting, you will be utterly unable to see actual enemies moving about even in your plain line of sight (as long as they are far away enough not to be scanned, or if you’re scanning around cover).
Also note that the scan does not pick up stealthed enemies (of either variety),
In the end, the key use for Heightened Senses is to either look for the right kind of RBlood, or to pinpoint the source of gunfire you’re hearing. Avoid using it too frequently, and preferably don’t use it mid-combat alltogether.
Cheeky Breeky Czech Style – How to be stealthy
This holds true for any shooter, and Bloodhunt isn’t any difference. Therefore, here’s a couple of tips on how to avoid drawing attention to yourself, thus giving you the advantage in both not getting shot, and getting to pick when to open fire on an unsuspecting enemy:
The actions most easily drawing the attention of the enemy are, in approximate order;
- (Repeated) Gunfire
Straight forward. Firing a ranged weapon makes a fair amount of noise, able to be heard across vast distance (though Silenced SMG and Crossbows are not as loud). This gives away your approximate direction to any enemy in hearing range, and alerts them to your presence. Furthermore, any enemy using Hightened Senses will see your precise direction (though not distance). Lastly, all weapons leave VERY notable tracers, thus anyone looking directly towards you whilst you fire a weapon will be able to easily tell your approximate or even precise location.
Thus, only firing singular shots (which are less likely to be seen or scanned), using crossbows (who do not leave tracers), or only firing in enclosed areas (where the tracers won’t be visible across half the map) will improve your Sneak Stat. - Sprinting on Shingle Roofs
No joke, the sound you create when moving rapidly across any of the MANY shingled roofs of Prague is not only loud, but as well very distinct; moving across a flat stone roof (f.e. hospital) is effectively indistinguishable from somebody sprinting across the street. Thus this specific sound will give enemies a lot of information.
Try to avoid sprinting on those roofs whenever possible, utilize jumping or sliding instead. - Climbing
Tied in volume with sprinting, climbing does produce a less consistent, but still distinct sound. In general, if you scale a wall everybody nearby will know ‘somebody is scaling a wal’ and if you’re climbing up to another player’s position, that player will know somebody is coming up, likely even the direction you will come from. As a silver lining, due to the way the 3rd person camera works, whilst they will hear you approach, you will be able to see them first whilst approaching the edge of the roof. - Enviornmental (Stealth) Hazards
Almost everything on street level is trying to reveal your position.
Civilians will, at best, start chatting you up, at worst, start screaming and run away from you, giving enemies a clue to your location.
Almost ever car has an alarm that will go off if you jump onto the car or hit it with any kind of weapon, creating a rather loud “Somebody is here” notification.
And Entity Soldiers, once startled or shot at by you, will proceed to mark your location rather precisely with their laser pointers for everyone else to see.
Therefore, be wary of civilians (though it’s hard to avoid all of them), avoid triggering cars and don’t needlessly aggro Entity.
To make yourself more stealthy, outside of avoiding above, your primary option is to make frequent use of sneaking and sliding. Essentially, sliding is the lower-volume, less-control variant of sprinting, whereas sneaking (crouching) completely masks your footsteps, regardless of surface. Note that sneaking will also make you a perfect target for an enemy that has already spotted you, so keep in mind to always put a rooftop in between you and whatever direction you might expect enemies to come from.
Another good, if probably obvious, piece of advice is to make use of cover, particularly by using the slope of roofs to both be obscured from the other side, but yet be able to peek over it by virtue of 3rd person camera.
An alternative way of stealthing is to simple walk on the streets. The important bit here being walk as opposed to sprint: Walking is a bit slower, but makes a lot less noise, and will probably keep your approach hidden from hostile ears. And at times even eyes, because walking around on the street is exactly what startled civilians do, and from a far, unless you carry a large weapon, it will be hard for an enemy to tell the diference.
But even if you don’t intend to take it slow, sprinting along streets can still be fairly stealthy, because everyone and their sire tends to stick to rooftops (why wouldn’t you, if you’re an all-jumpy vampire?), leaving the streets remarkably empty of opposition. Additionally, streets offer much more limited sightlines… of course, with the downside that you give everyone who wants to engage you a free defensive height advantage.
CLASS – Brujah Brute
Difficulty: Low
The Brute is simple and straight-forward, same as his abilities.
Soaring Leap is a simple, but fairly efficient mobility tool that lets you leap into a direction of your chosing, regardless of circumstance, cancelling all your current momentum and even being useable mid-air. On the downside, that’s all it does, with no further mobility attached.
You can use it to close the distance to enemies, bail from a gunfight gone downhill or to chase down a fleeing target.
Just be wary of using it to shortcut travel times by the one or other second, it’s best to always reserve your mobility tool for actual combat (or escape from it).
True Grit is similarly simple and passive. You gain health regen when already injured severely. What makes this passive nice is that it’s fairly unconditional (in terms of ‘somewhen you will end up hurt and it will trigger anyways’) but it’s also fairly weaksauce in that it neither allows you to automatically top off after long-range harassment, nor will it really save you when you’re already brought low enough to trigger it to begin with.
Shockwave Punch is, again, simplistic and straight-forward: Whenever there’s an enemy in close-medium range, probably shooting at you, there’s little reason to not throw this out. It will soak some damage, deal some damage and briefly knock over the enemy player, giving you a slight advantage.
Beyond that, you can use it to simply cover your back whilst trying to escape, or to clear the streets (accidentally) of any nearby civilians. Lastly, note that the punch is a rather narrow projectile ‘projecting’ the shockwave effect. This means you can send a punch just barely past a corner, and it will reliably hit whoever is standing behind that corner.
Build/Playstyle: Ambusher, Gunner
With Soaring Leap, the Brawler has a natural edge in mobility to allow for enforcing close range combat, or kiting away from it. Plus the Shockwave Punch only really works at those close to medium ranges.
CLASS – Brujah Vandal
Difficulty: Low
Soaring Leap is a simple, but fairly efficient mobility tool that lets you leap into a direction of your chosing, regardless of circumstance, cancelling all your current momentum and even being useable mid-air. On the downside, that’s all it does, with no further mobility attached.
You can use it to close the distance to enemies, bail from a gunfight gone downhill or to chase down a fleeing target (though that job usually goes towards your Earth Shock).
Just be wary of using it to shortcut travel times by the one or other second, it’s best to always reserve your mobility tool for actual combat (or escape from it).
Adrenaline Rush deceptive, but probably one of the single-most powerful abilities (let alone passives!) in the game.
Keeping in mind that most combat happens in close quarters range, this perk will essentially be active almost always mid-combat. This means the Vandal is the only character who gets a significant boost to her effective hp, meaning, barring any other factors, she will always win a straight 1on1 against a non-Vandal up close.
Additionally this perk allows for a unique synergy with any forms of hp gain, such as Sanguine RBlood.
Earth Shock somewhere half way between a leap and a crowd control skill. It’s default use includes being applied to the enemies forehead for minor damage and a short knock-up with an even more brief stun (disabling weapon and skill usage). This not only sets up enemies for an easy hit or two (preferably from a melee weapon or shotgun, but additionally adds to your surviveability (by virtue of preventing the enemy from attacking).
This move is also a great chaser, to be used when an enemy tries to disengage from a fight they’re losing by using their mobility tool. Even better if they drop to street level in a futile attempt of escape, setting themselves up for a free stomp.
A secondary use of this skill is as mobility tool, since you can use it to slam forwards into a wall you would otherwise have to climb back up to. Not nearly as potent as your Soarling Leap, but still better than what the Nosferatu get in total.
Build/Playstyle: Ambusher
The Vandal’s strongest ace is her Passive, which only applies in Close Quarters, whilst having two mobility tools, one of which usually puts her into Melee range anyways.
CLASS – Nosferatu Saboteur
Difficulty: Medium
Vanish is the core skill of the Nosferatu (as represented in-game) and contender for one of the most frustrating skills to be up against.
It combines a few seconds of complete invisibility with a brief burst of speed and instant activation. Albeit the initial disappearing effect will briefly move into the direction you were heading to, potentially giving a pursuer a clue to your new location. Plus, it neither removes your hitbox nor collision, so constant fire or bumping into the enemy can give away your plan as well.
Generally best used NOT for mobility, but as an emergency escape button (and arguably the most potent in the game). The speed boost you get isn’t worth putting your unlife at risk, and it’s basically useless for vertical traversal.
Alternatively, you can use it from cover to quickly relocate into an unsuspecting enemies face, or turn tail, launch the skill, and then moonwalk up behind the enemy thinking you fled.
Unseen Passage is a passive that appears amazing on first glance, but is actually a lot less useful on second.
The key idea is to stay crouched, and thus stay semi-invisible and be able to sneak… well… up on someone? Who’s probably jumping around or at the very least on a building? When climbing will instantly give away your stealth? Add to that the delay for actually activating the passive, and this is a tool utterly unsuited to any kind of offense.
But okay, it’s certainly great for sitting around on a good vantage point without being visible? No, not really. Especially against the skybox, your semi-invisibility will stand out like a sore thumb. Thus the best vantage point would be closely tugged against some form of cover high up, so that enemies cannot see your shilouette… but then you don’t need to be invisibile to not be visible in first place.
Worse yet, what this perk DOES achieve, is giving you a false sense of security. Sneaking along a roof (or across an open area) whilst being ‘stealthed’ makes you a great target for either a sniper or basically anyone behind or above you who will have no trouble catching up to a crouching target.
The problem, really, is the fact that the stealth does leave enough visible to move pixels, which is easy to notice for anyone who isn’t moving themselves.
Also, if you pick up anything, throw a Sewer Bomb, or use a consumeable, you instantly become visible again. Same goes for taking any damage.
So, this perk is best used in complement to already seeking cover, not as replacement.
There’s two niche use cases though: With this passive, you can freely decide to chill out in a bush on the middle of a plaza. Usually this would reveal you to vampires scanning for RBlood (as bushes don’t obstruct line of sight, you will be marked in orange), but this passive hides you from the scan.
Secondly, you can use it to sneak past Entity guards relatively unmolested. Just be wary of an enemy player seeing you do that, and giving them a hint by pinging you with a shot.
Sewer Bomb allows you to strategically set up lethal traps to… briefly annoy your enemies. Really, the concept is nice and fits well with the saboteur, but a key weakness of the ability is the fact everybody tends to move at sanic speeds. Thus, an enemy sprinting past a laid bomb (because yes, it does not slow or cancel sprinting) will take about 2 or 3 ticks worth of damage (5 per tick), summing up to about one pistol shot worth of damage. This completely disqualifies the bomb from being used mid-combat, as basically doing anything else is usually more valuable.
Outside of direct combat, you can use the bomb as area denial (lob it at cover, shoot it, flush the enemy out), or as a warning system though. A last potential use is to be employed as finisher grenade if you want to take out a downed enemy without either getting close or firing shots (or possibly from behind cover).
Note that you can have multiple (at least 3, need to confirm how many in total) bombs deployed at any one time, thus you could potentially stack them up for a stronger and maybe even relevant ambush… but given anybody can climb past any chokepoint, I’m not certain how you would predict, a minute ahead, where an enemy will come through and then place several bombs in such a way that he isn’t out of the AoE and back in new cover within a second or two.
Additionally, you’ll find that these mines are INCREDIBLY easy to spot, both because of their large, distinct shape, but as well because of the red glowing light (only visible on hostile mines). So don’t rely on them doing any good in the open, they’ll always need corners (roof edges work, too) to be placed.
Build/Playstyle: Ambusher, Ganker, Sniper
Without any key mid-combat ability, the Saboteur is at a disadvantage in any open combat, thus it’s critical to focus on being the one to open combat, in favorable conditions. Going the snipe&dunk route is usually a safe way to play (albeit you lack the burst mobility for the actual dunk), but like the Prowler, you can simply go for a full on Hit&Run Ambush style play, too, thanks to Vanish being key to that kit (albeit then again you should probably just play Prowler instead).
CLASS – Nosferatu Prowler
Difficulty: Medium
Vanish is the core skill of the Nosferatu (as represented in-game) and contender for one of the most frustrating skills to be up against.
It combines a few seconds of complete invisibility with a brief burst of speed and instant activation. Albeit the initial disappearing effect will briefly move into the direction you were heading to, potentially giving a pursuer a clue to your new location. Plus, it neither removes your hitbox nor collision, so constant fire or bumping into the enemy can give away your plan as well.
Generally best used NOT for mobility, but as an emergency escape button (and arguably the most potent in the game). The speed boost you get isn’t worth putting your unlife at risk, and it’s basically useless for vertical traversal.
Alternatively, you can use it from cover to quickly relocate into an unsuspecting enemies face, or turn tail, launch the skill, and then moonwalk up behind the enemy thinking you fled.
With the Prowler, you as well have the option of quickly chasing down a blood trail unseen, frequently allowing you to catch an enemy mid-healing (preferably with a shotgun raised).
Sense the Beast is a very potent, albeit highly situational passive. In a highly ironic way, it’s a solid hard-counter to Vanish.
The problem is that any enemy without Vanish would probably not be able to escape you, even when breaking line of sight, anyways (assuming they even get to try).
Buuut, knowing that your enemy can’t escape also gives you the option to go in, fire off your sawed-off, and then back out again. Innately planning to perform that Hit&Run, regardless of outcome, means you will be able to perform it at peak timing, and you can still reevaluate the situation once you’r back in cover, enemy downed or not.
And IF you end up against an enemy with Vanish (and that kinda seems to be the Solo Meta right now), have fun Vanishing right on his bloody try and executing him with a weapon of your choice (I recommend Melee for style points).
Scouting Famulus is as potent as it is risky to use. Travelling in a straight line, you can easily ping any point you can see, even across the map, with a potent range and an insane duration (north of 2 minutes, possibly capped by distance to you rather than duration). Note that you can only have one swarm of bats deployed at a time.
Throwing the swarm even into the approximate proximity of an enemy will usually tag them reliably, and for a good ten seconds or so, giving you a huge advantage in mid-range combat.
However, the massive downside of the skill is that the projectile is slow, glowing red, noisy and leaves a trail that can easily be used to figure out your hiding spot. Furthermore, once deployed, the bats are extremely visible and noisy… so whilst it works as a deterrent, don’t expect anyone to walk into it’s area of effect after initial deployment.
Another downside of the skill is the fact it’s unique and VERY noticeable, thus giving away your class’s presence to anyone with eyes. Which will as well remind the enemy that they can run, but not hide, thus increasing the odds that they will fight you to mutual destruction or set up an ambush whilst fleeing, in the knowledge that you WILL chase down their trail.
Likewise, be wary that using your bats is a great way to alert a previously calm enemy to your presence, ruining your own chances at a surprise attack (which is kinda the key thing about Nosferatu).
A redeeming factor however is the ability to piss off enemies and to chase snipers off their high lookouts. Alternatively, your glowy twirly bats are as well a great way to ping a high-visibility location to everyone on the map, calling attention to a pesky’s sniper position (or simply serving as a distraction to divert attention to that area).
Build/Playstyle: Ambusher, Hit’n’Run, Gunner
Using your combo of Vanish and Sense the Beast, you make for the most lethal of Ambushers and can even set up bats for a follow-up if your target was not seriously injured. Alternatively, the ability to sneakily reposition and mark enemies behind cover makes you a capable mid-range, roof-controlling combattant.
CLASS – Toreador Siren
Difficulty: Medium
Projection/Dash is the Toreador stand-in for a ‘mobility’ skill, albeit it’s a bit more situational and less simple to use than the others. A key factor here is that it doesn’t actually net you more range than a Soaring Leap, and a lot less momentum, too. Worse, to actually utilize it’s range, you have to wait two seconds after activation and THEN teleport, which makes it the least responsive mobility skill, too. It’s only real mobility advantage is the fact you can use it to teleport a relatively good distance straight upwards.
However, the skill’s strength clearly lies in it’s versatility: You can use it to mindgame the enemy into thinking you will be teleport when you don’t. You can use it to escape into two different directions at once, giving you a relatively good chance at escaping a confrontation, assuming you don’t end up getting gunned down first. Or you can use it to launch a highly aggressive attack, before warping back onto the high ground you came from.
Additionally, you can theoretically combo it with BEAUTYTHINGY to teleport yourself as flashbang into an enemies face… but you might as well just drop on them whilst channeling for the same effect, without wasting your only escape move.
Kindred Charm got to be one of the weakest passives in the game. In theory, it allows you to more easily nibble on civilians… but in practice, they are usually spaced out enough so that you don’t even need that, and most masquerade breaks will come from a civilian you didn’t notice, rather than one you assumed would be far away enough… and since you need to walk past a civilian to apply your charm, that one will still have seen you. Additionally, the speed increase in drinking blood is barely noticeable and very unlikely to be ever relevant.
Really, the only benefits of this passive are that it will generally reduce the number of panicked civilians giving away your position,
and that it allows you to use them as very amusing meatshields: Once charmed, the civilians will not react to gunfire, thus allowing you to use them as stationary cover to pepper your enemies from. And any retaliation of the enemy would then trigger a bloodhunt on them, which is as useful as it is hilarious.
Blinding Beauty is basically a channeled flashbang centered on yourself. Fancy in theory, very questionable in practice: The skill deals 20 damage and applies a obscuring screen overlay to enemies for ~2 seconds. But the problem is that, to use it, you already need to channel it for a second, and tend to slow down, losing all momentum as you do so. This means that you spend one second of not damaging the enemy, in return for the enemy continuing to shoot you, just with less accuracy for an approximately same-length period, assuming you actually survive that long.
You can’t even really use it as an escape move, because if you start the cast whilst on low health, you’ll already be downed by the time it would go off, and even if you do, your projection will take too long to travel a meaningful distance during the blinded period.
The skill’s only practical use would be as initiation whilst sliding to or dropping at an unaware enemy… but in that case I would probably still rather unload the Double Barrel instead of dealing 20 damage. The enemy will be panicking and blindly leap off after either anyways.
Build/Playstyle: Ambusher, Sniper
Either playing up into the enemies face as intended, or as gimmick sniper using disposable meat cover, you’ll still find the Siren lacking behind any other class that could play the same role.
CLASS – Toreador Muse
Difficulty: High
Projection/Dash is the Toreador stand-in for a ‘mobility’ skill, albeit it’s a bit more situational and less simple to use than the others. A key factor here is that it doesn’t actually net you more range than a Soaring Leap, and a lot less momentum, too. Worse, to actually utilize it’s range, you have to wait two seconds after activation and THEN teleport, which makes it the least responsive mobility skill, too. It’s only real mobility advantage is the fact you can use it to teleport a relatively good distance straight upwards.
However, the skill’s strength clearly lies in it’s versatility: You can use it to mindgame the enemy into thinking you will be teleport when you don’t. You can use it to escape into two different directions at once, giving you a relatively good chance at escaping a confrontation, assuming you don’t end up getting gunned down first. Or you can use it to launch a highly aggressive attack, before warping back onto the high ground you came from.
Also, you can use your projection to heal… yourself I guess? (Confirmation needed on whether it might legitimately double the heal.)
Final Act a legitimately useful passive, allowing downed you to tank yourself (you can’t pick yourself back up with the heal) when being targeted for ranged damage (or in a gas cloud, more likely) or, more importantly, allowing yourself to teleport once whilst downed. The latter is the usually more useful application, allowing you to make a sudden warp for cover, or maybe waste the enemies time by warping away as he moves in for the execute. Just be sure to trigger the teleport before the animation starts, or you’re toast.
Alternatively, you can use it to deny the enemy an execute, by teleporting yourself into water or into a group of Entity soldiers. (The latter actually had me survive and win the round later, once. Appears Entity does not aggro downed vampires, and only shoots them when they have previously aggro’d the vampire whilst they were up.)
Don’t rely on the passive and overcommit, though.
Rejuvenating Voice is a great teamwork skill, allowing you to send out a burst heal of 30hp, followed by a channeled heal over time, all occuring in a modestly large AoE around you, plus in the same radius around your projection.
Shame you’re playing solo.
Regardless, it’s still a useful skill though, because just double-tapping the key will give you an instant refresher of 30 hp at almost no time cost, and castable mid-fall or -slide. Having that extra bit of health can be a nice advantage even mid-combat,
and once you’re out of line of sight, you can even be a cheeky bastard and channel it just behind cover, clearly visible and audible to the enemy who just took cover from, letting them know that all that damage is already as well as gone.
Just be wary that the skill is anything but subtle: You emit a VERY well visible red aura whilst channeling, easily allowing enemies to pinpoint you around corners, in cover, and possibly from afar.
And in the end the skill is entirely unsuitable for outhealing incoming damage to yourself, and thus shouldn’t be used beyond the double-tap in active combat.
Build/Playstyle: Gunner, Sniper
With the delayed mobility on projection, but the potential to turn every rooftop cover into a free health dispenser, the Muse is remarkably well suited to simply staying away from enemies that would require her to traverse quickly.
Build & Playstyles
Thus, Builds / Loadouts / Playstyles strongly orient around what kit of weaponry you bring, rather than what class you play: If you have a Sniper Rifle, you can snipe.
Though it is to be noted that some classes naturally have an ability kit that synergizes better with some of those Builds.
The bread&butter of Battle Royale. You don’t challenge your enemies openly, but preferably attack them with no warning, from behind, whilst they’re distracted. Note that I initially considered separating this build into two seperate ones, one for ‘waiting and laying ambushes for enemies’ and one for ‘actively stalking and then pouncing onto an enemy’… but except for the Saboteurs relatively harmless Sewer Bombs, there’s not much difference in terms loadouts or classes… so I might as well handle them as one build.
The key to this Build is having some way to reliably get close to enemies (sneaking can only get you so far), and having a close range weapon that can unload a lot of damage quickly (read: Shotgun), before the enemy can retaliate.
The Double Barrel is arguably the most potent weapon for that job, but it suffers from the fact you need to be standing in the enemies face to deal full damage, and even then it’s ‘only’ 2 shots of 120 damage each… not enough to kill a regular 250hp opponent. Since you want to finish the enemy quickly, before he can retaliate, you’ll either want a T3 Double Barrel for it’s speedy reload, or preferably some other backup weapon to finish off the severely wounded enemy.
Therefore I would recommend the Tommy Gun as second weapon, given that it has the highest close range DPS of the automatic weapons, yet can also be used to some effect on mid-range. But Assault Rifles or LMGs will do in this slot, too.
For RBlood you should decide on whether to rely on the shotty, or go for melee instead: A Katana with 3 Choleric RBlood is almost as lethal as a Double Barrel, but doesn’t need to reload. If you forego melee capabilities, you should go for Melancholic to have a more readily useable mobility skill. This holds especially true if you rely on your mobility skill to engage the enemy (Brute), or to get away from others (Nosferatu). Note that the Vandal is kind of a special case, since she both has two mobility moves (thus isn’t as hard-pressed to get the cooldown reduction for either) and her passive synergizes greatly with Sanguine RBlood, making that one a priority.
Similar to the Ambusher build above, in that you want to get in, deal damage… but then actually get out regardless of what your enemy is doing. This playstyle almost mandatorily requires Vanish, and without the Prowlers tracking ability, it’s might cause a lot of enemies to escape their doom. Thus the Prowler is easily the most proficient class at this playstyle.
Weaponry wise, you will usually want to use the Double Barrel for maximum up-front damage, but since you don’t intend to stay around to finish your enemy right away, you can forego bringing a close-range backup and instead pick a longer-ranged weapon. Keep in mind that a Sniper Rifle headshot will ALWAYS put an enemy under the treshhold for your tracking ability, making a Hit’n’Run follow-up all the more potent.
For RBlood, as is Nosferatu style, you should prioritize Melancholic to half the cooldown of your main offense and defense tool. Second, I would recommend Sanguine to automatically heal up in between your hits (and because the bats have a low cooldown, whilst you don’t really want to stick around for melee either).
Essentially the ‘run of the mill’ shooter style, a Gunner build foregoes a focus on instant close range destruction, and instead goes for a more regular ‘sustained DPS’ route of things. By using weapons that have amply large magazines, and more range than shotguns, a Gunner can utilize cover and high ground ideally to outdamage his opponents, before moving in for the kill.
This playstile is best done by classes who can work well with cover, and the usual roof-top based terrain that cover is found in.
For Weaponry, your mainstay will usually be the Assault Rifle or the LMG. Both can lay down accurate, mid-range fire and bring enough damage to murder opponents who can’t get into cover in time.
As secondary, you can bring basically anything, from a Sniper to bolster your long-range, to a Shotgun to be more formidable if the enemy closes in. Another valid choice would be to simply bring a second of your primary weapon… because why reload a LMG when you can simply pull out a second?
RBlood focus depends on your class once more. Melancholic for Nosferatu shenanigans, Phlegmatic for Brute to reduce that low cooldown of his shieldy punch even further. Sanguine is a possibility to save on consuming supplies during prolonged engagements, but keep in mind you will, ideally, be in cover and able to freely slurp supplies anyways, and you do not want to start a minute-long firefight with plenty of coffee breaks just to get 3rd partied.
Sounds straight-forward enough, but doing it right is an art for itself: Next to actually requiring the ability to score reliable headshots on probably moving targets over large distances, you as well need to pay attention to the map in order to get into a good position without being seen.
Once there, picking the right target and the right timing are crucial. Just randomly pinging people will merely draw you ire and attention, ideally you’ll want to snipe somebody healing ‘in cover’, to then move in for the finishing execute (as otherwise you can’t build RBlood).
The obvious weapon of choice for this is the Sniper Rifle, being the only scoped weapon in the game, and with high stopping power to boot… but if you’re feeling particularly funny, the Crossbow works well, too, since it’s harder to pinpoint, and can pepper the enemy with less accurate, but far more entertaining gas clouds.
As a secondary, any kind of close-range weapon is recommended, as chances are encounter that isn’t you sniping people will be someone climbing up your tower/crane, and Shotguns and similar work best in persuading them to go back down.
RBlood focus is rather loosely defined, since you barely need any of your skills (and certainly not melee), to do your job up in the clouds. That said, Melancholic on Nosferatu will improve your surviveability, as will Sanguine save you supplies.
In the end, keep in mind that with 2 ranged weapon slot, 1 melee weapon slot, up to 2 fully maxed RBlood types and a set of more or less versatile classes to pick from,
you can easily service multiple of these playstyles in a single loadout. They’re more of a generic suggestion to be itereated upon to find your personal playstyle (and to be adapted to whatever the Red Mist’s movement, and the loot you find, dictates).
Thanks to [TAG]Alblaka for his great guide, all credit to his effort. you can also read the original guide from Steam Community. enjoy the game.
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