Hello mr.Dreamer sir, I've defeated Mouthpiece and now I'm going after Playwright. I was wodering if you had any suggestions before I start bashing my head against this particular wall. Regardless I hope you're having a good day!
Hey, congrats on the Mouthpiece clear!
Alright, so, The Playwright:
Playwright needs two distinct Encounters to unlock in a run, and his fight takes place in the Sixth Floor. This means that, in addition to preparing for Playwright, you must also gear up to fight either Phantom or the Big Sad Lock. When it comes to Mouthpiece, the Phantom -> Mouthpiece routing is the most obvious one since Big Sad Lock requires burning through Encounters to trigger, and is diametrically the opposite fight to Mouthpiece's (fully static vs. the single most dynamic boss in Arknights). For Playwright, you'll still want Phantom -> Playwright, simply because burning through Encounters is wasteful when those could be Battle picks, BUT the thing is, set-ups for BSL actually work very well against Playwright, so BSL -> Playwright is actually pretty viable, if such a routing suits your fancy.
Now, let's go over what Playwright and his map, New Chapter, demands of you:
As you can see, this map is quite large and 'honest': What I mean by honest is that it makes no secret as to what the boss' route will be, if you simply look at where the arrows lead: Playwright will spawn from the upper left, reappear on the upper right after taking the staircase, and finally, he will appear on the lower left, where he will then start walking towards the Objective. Otherwise, we have no paratroopers, and all units come from where you expect them to come from, based on enemy spawns.
Now, let's talk about the fight itself: New Chapter is very heavy on incoming damage. This is in start contrast with the other IS2 bosses, which pace themselves into "enemy burst" phases that only occur if you don't manage the enemies before they become an issue, such as the Scarlet Singer carousel to the right of the Phantom fight. New Chapter continuously sends copious amounts of Arts Damage your way the whole way through: Winterwisp Blood Shamans, Winterwisp Blood Magisters, Originiutant Alphas, and Playwright himself all are heavy Arts enemies. So, a good bulk-to-dps ratio is essential, because if you only have bulk, you'll not be able to actually kill in time, and you'll leak enemies because you'll simply not have enough Block to contain the continuous stream of enemies, and if you only have damage, you will buckle sooner rather than later due to Playwright's constant bombardments and enemies that explode into sizable Arts damage when they die. The lower right spawn only produces Theater Golems (four of them) so don't fall for it: Just one or two units can handle the Golems (remember, Theater Golems are actually pretty fragile!), the rest of your team should focus on the main lane.
So, with the context laid bare on the table, let's talk about the guest of honor: The Playwright.
The Playwright has global range and will attack with a Cross AoE once every four seconds. Meaning, his regular attack hits the main target and all adjacent (not diagonal) allies. His Skills include:
A map-wide attack that hits every single unit in the map, creating a Cross AoE Arts explosion on them after a short delay. This hits with 80% of The Playwright's ATK. Playwright uses this 10 second after spawning, and will use it every 20 seconds after the first cast.
The Playwright will target the latest deployed Operator with a debuff that permanently halves their Attack Speed and that also deals Damage Over Time equals to 4% of their Max HP as Arts damage. Operators with this effect that are retreated will have their redeployment time increased by 50% and the tile they were using will become unavailable for the rest of the fight (think of FrostNova's black ice). He will use this every 20 seconds, and if the latest unit is already afflicted by this, he will instead target the one deployed before that one, and so on. He cannot use this on Summons like Mon3tr, Thunderers, etc.
And arguably his strongest ability: Enrage. When Playwright's HP falls under 50%, Playwright enters Enrage, engulfing himself in blue fires and getting the following effects: All of his damage +50%. Double DEF (total: baseline 2000 DEF). RES increased by 80% (total: 90 RES), and he will combo his skills shortly after entering enrage, with the map-wide attack shortly followed by his debuff. His cooldown for both abilities becomes 15 seconds instead of 20 seconds as well.
He is also unblockable and like the other end bosses, will take 30 Lives if he makes it to the Objective.
His baseline stats, before any IS modifiers, are: 80000 HP, 800 ATK, 1000 DEF and 50 RES.
Between his global range, map-wide skills, and immense bulk, Playwright is an ever present threat for as long as he's alive.
Now with all of this in mind, let's talk about solutions:
Arts mitigation, such as Nightingale, are immensely powerful in this map, since all relevant damage is Arts.
AoE Healers, like AoE Medics and Bards, help a lot with the constant damage and global attacks as well.
You want tough laneholders with DPS capability to hold lanes and also kill in time before you start leaking enemies. Centuriors, Dollkeepers, Juggernauts, the works. You also want heavy duty Ranged damage to help them, ideally, damage type doesn't matter.
If you can, you want to kill Playwright as soon as possible. With good DP generation, like a Flagbearer or two, you can actually set up a spawncamp burst on the upper left, where Playwright spawns. Pozyomka and Schwarz are popular choices, having hefty Physical damage and being specialized ranged Physical assassins. Moreover, Playwright is vulnerable to Hand of Choker! Meaning, the moment they get get him to 30% HP, they will instantly kill him. Regardless of the method you go with, you want to kill Playwright as soon as possible.
You have to save your Skills/burst for Enrage. Playwright becomes immensely bulky during Enrage, with a baseline of 2000 DEF and 90 RES. Arts damage, thus, is not good against him, and you'll want to rely on Physical or True instead. For Nearl the Radiant Knight users specifically: You can't True Damage Playwright with her, because he is unblockable, and blocking is her True Damage conditional! Bring S2!
And the most important thing: Do diagonal set-ups. Don't put units next to each other, or your formation WILL explode, due to Playwright's entire kit relying on Cross AoEs. Mind your deployment order as well, because you will need to have a sturdy unit take his autoattacks, and you don't want your important units to be afflicted with half Attack Speed. For this reason, Vanguards help a lot with this fight, giving you the freedom to set-up fast and however you want.
The main thing with Playwright is that he's makes you juggle a lot of plates, but once you understand what each plate entails, he's not too hard, assuming you prepared accordingly. If you kill him very fast, then the map just becomes a heavy-damage but otherwise very manageable map. If you neglect him, he'll really make your life hell by whittling you down little by little, initially, and then, whittling you down REALLY fast. Don't let him do that. Obliterate that catboy immediately. No mercy for the French and their Arts damage.