Starborne: Frontiers – Nightmare Vault Guide
Quick Guide to The Vault
By Tommmo.
Nightmare Vault
- Your composition will change depending on affinity.
- “Tanks” to use are Hermes/Hayyan as ideal, but with lesser gear use Anemone/Vindicator for surviability. These are Affinity dependant.
- Have your tank RESIST the hull shred (208 Security favourable affinity, 250 Neutral. If possible avoid poor affinity… swap your tank)
- Have your Tank in a SOLO lane
- Every unit needs 100% CR (DPS and Tanks). Aside from synergies with Valerian/Wisteria/Crocus and Hermes passive, consistency is key. You need to constantly identify what your failure point is (i.e Boss AoE kills a DPS, or Tank dying to 1shot etc) and you cannot do this without consistency
DPS units to use are Valerian/Crocus/Wisteria. Use any 2 dependant on affinity. although plausible to use crocus on poor affinity (I do), he needs a LOT of tuning to do so, so i dont reccomend it initially. Just understand that without crocus, your damage will be fairly hard capped around 9mil, regardless of affinity.
Debuff/Buffers are incredible for boosting damage. Ideal word is Curator as a shield breaker with Asphyxiator going before boss. reducing CR, Out dmg and attack from boss will give you SIGNIFICANTLY greater survivability. he has fantastic hacking to meet requirements easily (mine literally has 584 hacking). Similarly Asphyxiator will BOOST the damage you deal. IF you are struggling to stay alive still, trade asphyx for a tank and use them as your main, with hermes/hayyan as offtank/second line.
Advanced
Offtank Swapping:
Most of my tuning week to week is actually swapping gear between my secondary units to icnrease/decrease their HP. If you are using Hermes and everyone has 100% CR, you can ensure that he applies Cheat Death every 2nd turn comfortably. This enables the following loop:
- Boss 1 shot Hermes triggering his CD
- Hermes HEAL himself to X, reapplying CD
- Offtank (affinity dependant, usually a swap between curator/crocus/valerian) has GREATER max HP than Hermes charge heal, meaning boss 2nd attack will hit them instead
- Boss 1 shot offtank lane triggering their CD
- Hermes heals self and offtank lane to full
- Boss AoE, dropping offtank lane to <40% HP
- Hermes Reapply CD
- Repeat…
Once you are getting 25+ rounds on nightmare, this is the only way to stay alive longer, as boss DMG even with resisting debuff will be hitting your tank for 70k+. I’ve used this method to survive up to round 60 before.
Crocus Specific Tuning
If you have crocus… his CHARGE detonate counts as DIRECT DAMAGE. but it SCALES from the DOTS. So Asphyxiators Inc Dot Dmg Up III Debuff will scales the DIRECT damage of the detonate… this ALSO scales with any “Inc Damage Up III” from other units…. i.e, the 2 will stack for crocus….
Similarly, the implant that “increases damage dealt by X% per debuff” will scale Crocus detonate, as it counts the debuffs and applies damage before removing them. This sees my detonates go from 1.3mil -> 2.2mil from the implant alone.
With refit 2+ crocus can fairly comfortably get security as well as hackign requirements…. I’d HIGHLY suggest you get security on him to resist the debuff and see his detonates increase by 40%.
Forgoing Decimation for debuff resistance is WORTH it in this case.
Vault Boss Speed and Hacking Requirements
Click to enlarge…
* The Hacking needed for Affinity Advantage/Neutral/Disadvantage when the Vaults High Security Mode is active. Relevant when you want to use a Debuffer (like Curator) to apply a Debuff while Shooting the Bubble.
** The Security needed to resits the Hull Shred Debuff from the Vault Boss (not required).