Some general tips and tricks for new Extraction players. A big disclaimer on a few things:
- Most of my knowledge is from V1.0 and a bit later so stuff might have changed
- I’m aware there are many utilities but 99% of the time running an Impact grenade + shields/revive kit is all i needed to 133% complete the game
- Operator guides, mir, doesn’t seem really necessary since 90% of the time their special util doesn’t really come into play so i’d rather focus on the fixed variables instead
Allgemeine Hinweise & Tricks
- Impact grenades (NOT fragmentation) are probably one of the best tool to have (From my V1.0 understanding). It can be used to quickly clear patch of blinding spores, stun elites/enemies for takedowns, instant break through a wall to create a path amongst many others. The utility and practicality of the impact grenade is just really good compared to the other options
- When hit with blinding spore, you can actually impact/frag grenade yourself to remove it instead of waiting for your team to remove it from you. (Ebenfalls, melee your teammates that have blinding spores on them)
- If you get spotted and the enemy roars/alerts the area, you should almost always clear out the immediate vicinity then immediately search for nests that are continuously spawning enemies and creating black sprawl that impedes movement (This spreads indefinitely so with enough time it can cover the whole map)No.1 cause of death in this game is probably getting overwhelmed and having infinite enemies is going to be a problem. Clean up your mistakes as fast as possible before it spreads to all nests in the locale.
- Strongly dependent but the general consensus is always to carry a minimum of 1 silenced weapon for obvious reasons. Jedoch, i actually recommend carrying the sidearm as unsilenced and the main weapon as silence.First, I find that the noise the general pistol makes is actually not as loud and usually in doors it doesnt seem to cause an issue.
Zweite, 90% of the time you would most likely be in stealth so it’s better to have the main weapon utilized more than the secondary. The damage cost of having a suppressor also far outweighs the cost of having all of china knowing your location.
The exception to this is probably if you’re confident with your aiming and headshots as most enemies will pretty much drop from a single headshot despite the damage.
- For an easier time, go for either Sub Machine guns or Assault Rifles. The versatility in terms of ammo count, bullets to kill, range and accuracy makes it very easy to control and use.Shotguns tend to lack range, which is needed a lot of the times. LMGs are great if you trust that you wont be caught reloading when you most need it. Marksman rifle are mostly never worth it as a good chunk of enemies you face are grunts and it’s best case scenario is taking our elites/specials.
- The prime difference between difficulties in this game isn’t really the scaling of the damage enemies deal and hp that they have but rather the new enemy types that are introduced.I don’t remember the exact scenario, but at 3-4 bars difficulty, you are extremely likely to face apexes or smashers as common enemies whilst at 2, you might see maybe 1 in deinem 3 stage incursions (And probably none at 1 Bar)
I’d recommend familiarizing with 2 bars first as at least all enemy types will spawn allowing you some on hands experience on how they work/how to deal with them.
- In terms of enemy priority, i would always say Tormenter and Spikers are your first priority. These are one of the few enemies that actually have range attacks (Spiker’s being hitscan) and very likely the reason you or your teammate looses a chunk of HP when left unchecked.Apexes and Lurkers are probably the next annoying ones to deal with. Apex because they spawn more enemies and have a range attack that blinds you. Lurkers because they make enemies invisible. In this game you really do not want enemies anywhere near you and usually invisible enemies get a free damage on you before being killed.
The exception to the two rule above is if you have many grunts near you or other specials. Then focus on the more imminent threats first before zoning back to the enemy priority above.
- Sometimes Bloater and Breachers leave behind their bomb payload when they die. I recommend to just shoot and defuse this threat as majority of the time the chances of it blowing up and hurting your team far outweighs the chance to get a nice explosion that cripples the enemy.
- The UV light for the wall is extremely useful since it also highlights enemy weakpoints. Always look through walls to see if you can find enemies for free kills.
- Shoot the sprawl in front of you as you move to avoid the movement penalty (At least before you unlock the laser).
- The laser works best if you burn an area of the sprawl an then slowly move it forward instead of swiping it through (It basically burns in a bigger AOE given enough time to “Aufladung”)
- Utilize the ping. Ping special enemies, ping supplies, ping extraction or next area lock. The game has made voice coms mostly unnecessary with the use of ping.
Enemy specific Tips & Tricks
Nest
Just shoot them. The takedown exp benefits is not really worth it majority of the time and the risk of getting spotted whilst taking them down is quite high.
Always stop and search for active nests when the enemy alerts the vicinity. You can usually hear/see an audio prompt when an active nest is in the midst of spawning an enemy (But not when it’s still generating one)
Blinding Spores
Shoot them or nade them. Melee them if it latches on your teammate. If you get some on yourself you can always nade yourself to remove them. In the event that its probably gonna burst, go to somewhere isolated with your back against the wall when it bursts (Theres no way to reduce the blinding effect other than wait it out)
Schlamm
Not much to say, they kind of make some noise which usually indicates they are somewhere. If you’re taking damage but dont see anything near you, check your feet, it’s usually poking you. On death, it spawns a few of it’s kind which take 1 damage to kill so a sweep from the pistol is enough to finish them.
Grunzen
Get good with aiming for Headshots. In higher intensity scenarios, a short burst from a weapon can end them with ease. Always priorities killing them when there are a few alerted as a common death scenario is them overwhelming you while you are reloading.
Breacher
Shoot their back. Don’t shoot them when your teammate is nearby. If there is a corpse with an active payload, i reccomend shooting the payload anyway as leaving it unattended is more dangerous for your team than the enemy
Bloater
Same as above.
Spiker
Ziel mit hoher Priorität. Basically glass cannons as they can shred your team if they are providing covering fire and other enemies are occupying you. IIRC, when they are shooting, they cover their face and always shoots at your last known location, so its best to move out of the area ASAP. Shoot their body if you cannot get headshots.
Lurker
Priority target. When unalerted they usually just walk around making enemies invisible (So invisible enemies is an indicator that there is a Lurker in the area as well). Go for a headshot preferably. When alerted, will protect it’s head. Either melee it or nade it to get his face to open for a headshot. Body shots take quite a lot of bullets for some reason.
Sower
Shoot their stomach. Kind of annoying if he’s aggroed to you because his head shields it. Usually recommend body shots since the weak point shots are only really valid when he’s spawning the floor flashbangs or when he’s about to charge attack.
Rooter
Shoot the back of their neck. Only really a problem when they either melee attack you (Melee to push them back) or if they use their ability to root you. When you get rooted and need to find them, look around as they need a direct line of sight to root you. Andernfalls, look at the nearby floor to see the sprawls which should lead you to him. Recommend to just body shot most of the times.
Tormentor
Ziel mit hoher Priorität. Can floor dive to hide from damage while moving and leaving sprawl behind. Emerges and throws slow explosive balls of damage which when left unchecked can usually assault you from locations you didnt expect. You can actually weapon burst them down if you (je nach Waffe) unload on them whilst they are preparing to scream/alert the horde.
Zertrümmerer
Hauptsächlich, just shoot the weakpoint on his back. The takedown does a huge sum of damage but not kill him and the risk and maneuver involved is really not worth it. Depending on weapon, you can actually burst him down just by unloading on his weakpoint anyway. Grenades and certain equipments can cause him to get stunned/turn around if he’s facing you. A simple tactic when he’s chasing you is to situate yourself in a long corridor and let him charge towards you. When crashes the wall you get free shots into his back.
Apex
Priority target. Besides the blinding explosive ball, he calls grunts as backup which leads to the overwhelm problem. You can actually solo burst down an apex whilst it is not alerted with the right weapon. Wenn nicht, then just hurt it as much as possible and try to kill it ASAP. Otherwise for the most part work with your team to burst it down together. If alerted, try to keep track of where it went as it doesnt prefer to go into active combat but rather hide and spawn more enemies requiring you to hunt it down instead.
Objective Tips & Tricks
Biopsy
DO NOT KILL. Melee takedown some elites.
While the game recommends stealth for this, i recommend just nading them with impact/flash etc and quickly taking them down.
Decontamination
Destroy all green nests then take a sample. DO NOT attack the nests on sight. Once the first nest dies/gets alerted, all of them becomes active spawning indefinite swarms of enemies. Depending on difficulty and amount of players, there may be a lot of nests to deal with. Das Letzte 2-3 nests will always be revealed (Or all of them if you take too long).
Recommend to scout out as much as possible and coordinate to kill them together. Another trick is to plant explosives nearby and trigger them when the first nest dies to wipe out as many as possible.
Gateway
Protean boss fight. Honestly this to me is probably the easiest part of the game. There are ample amount of resources around. Just stick together and nearby corners/walls and take safe shots when possible.
Jagd
Kill elite’s friends then kill the elite. Depending on the friends/elite, can refer to the enemy guide instead.
Missing in action
Find and extract someone’s previously lost operator. Clear the surrounding area of nests/roaming enemies where the MIA operative is at. Clear the sprawls too if possible.
Reccomend to pull the operator for a second then immediately stop and shoot out all of regenerative flowers that open up before going back to pull the operator. If the team is coordinated, you might be able to just directly pull the operator with no setup whilst your team clears nearby problems.
Nest tracking
DO NOT DESTROY NESTS OR GO LOUD. Inject X amount of nests (Similiar to melee takedowns). Nests that become alerted are no longer useful, including nests you previously injected. Stealth or speed is paramount for this to work.
Reccomend to just slowly stealth, wipe threats and inject. Slow and steady wins the race.
Rettung
Find a researcher and extract the person. Stealth kind of important as alerted enemies will attack the researcher. While escorting the researcher, they cough which causes minor noise nearby, attracting enemies.
Reccomend to stealth up until you get to the researcher. Once held, you can rush your way to the extraction as the coughing mostly piques the enemy interest as opposed to causing them to investigate immediately.
Sabotage
Basically Search and destroy. Two pillars need to be planted and then defended until it has done destroying it. It’s important to note where you plant the pillar will end up causing enemies to congregate to that position.
Recommend to actually use the reinforced walls/defensive setup before planting in a way that exposes the enemies the most. Then either plan to have 1 teammate at each location whilst 1 flexes between the two. Alternatively you could have all 3 flex.
Serial Scan
STAND IN THE ZONE TOGETHER. Stand in and defend 3 random zones. This is the hardest objective to deal with, way harder than the protean boss, as being overwhelmed is extremely likely depending on your defensive zone. The locations of the scan can actually be known ahead of time based on the holographs in that area.
Reccomend to use reinforcements on 2/3 of the zones as having 2 strong fortification vs 3 mediocre ones is way better (Especially if you can funnel enemies into a tunnel. Bears repeating but STAND IN THE ZONE TOGETHER. More people in the zone = faster completion. The enemies will spawn indefinitely and quickly so there’s no point “Jagd” In diesem Szenario.
If only you are in the zone whilst 2 of your teammate are “Jagd”, recommend to step off the zone so the mission starts to fail so at least 1 of your teammate must come back.
Abschalten
Get and install nutrient nodes at a location. Basically start at the extraction zone and make your way to point B. You can make the mission easier by finding the point B first then clearing a path back to the extraction zone.
Recommend to just to travel in a group whilst each carrying a single node so once you reach point B you can instantly finish the mission.
Specimen
Lure and capture specimen at extraction. Usually a Smasher or Rooter. For smasher, it might charge you if you keep luring him from a distance, activate the capture system and have him charge into it for maximum insult.
Recommend to quickly find it then just aggro and slowly make your way back to extraction while making sure it’s still following you. You an active the capture system a bit earlier as it takes about 10 seconds for it to expire anyway.
Triangulation
Activates point A, B and C in that order in a short span of time. You can discover them early on by exploring the area but must start at A. Always emits a sound so look for and explore sound indicators to find it. Best case scenario is to have each teammate at a station. Activating one station will always reveal the next station location.
Recommend to at least have 2 stations ready to go then activate the first one and run to either the second or third one depending on which you havent discovered. You can opt to just active A whilst not knowing where B or C is as well since you have ample time to get to that location anyway.
