IS3 question: how do you deal with emergency Out of Control on higher Waves numbers with any sort of consistency? Or like, even at all, outside a run with perfect collectibles?
The bonethrowers start strutting toward the exit with around 35% of their big ass HP bars left, and they just about onehit even my strongest units, so it’s extremely difficult to get any damage on them before they decide it’s time to head out and take your whole squad with them.
I can’t even begin to imagine how I’d build my squad to accommodate this stage given all the other killers you have to deal with and the strain on your resources. Any advice?
On higher Waves, like 12 and above, the best strategy is really to avoid Out of Control as best as you can. Dealing with it with no losses on higher Waves is pretty difficult, it is in fact one of the hardest maps, period, due to the way the stat multipliers just send the very high stats of the berserkers into space, and it's a pretty demanding map in terms of roles. It's not impossible but when doing Out of Control at highers Waves, always be prepared to lose a few Lives if it means clearing, as opposed to trying to not lose any and crumbling entirely. Taxes Omertosa and Kirin Yato S3s are good due to their ability to deal good damage safely, Fortresses (Horn, Firewhistle, Ashlock) are very good since they can be more freely deployed than ranged units (who initially only have the right tile and the mid upper tile) and have great range and damage, making them good at killing Bonethrowers. Paired with other damage dealers, Muelsyse Melee S3 and Eunectes S2 are great since they Stun blocked enemies for the duration of the Skill, making the rushers way more manageable. Pozy S3 is extremely good here due to the Typewritter. Trapmasters like Dorothy and Robin kick their asses with CC mines due to their high Physical damage and ability to keep them in place, as well as Out of Control having great Trapmaster tiles. Global attackers like Goldenglow and Ambriel work well on lower Waves, but not too well later unfortunately, due to their ballooning RES and HP being too much for them, respectively. Shifters have a bit of a hard time since the rushers' only real big lane to push them far into is the upper row which is well covered by Bonethrowers, so they only really pay dividends if you have ways to kill the Bonethrowers relatively quickly.
In terms of gameplan, you usually want the center and upper right Bonethrowers eliminated ASAP, while throwing excess means of damage at the left ones. Secure the right side to cover for fodder, take the right ranged tile and aim left or up to kill the Bonethrowers with a Marksman or anything that can reach (Fortresses can do this from Melee tiles), and use the mid upper ranged tile to the left to target whichever Bonethrower you aren't attacking first (I recommend aiming the top ranged unit to the right so that way they have better coverage of the rushers once the times comes). From here on, it really depends on what you're packing, but you ideally clear the map from right to left, and save skills as best you can for rushers. If you don't think you can avoid losing Lives, just pop skills to kill the earliest rushers and deal with the situation as it evolves.
Certain items make this map MUCH easier, like Civilight Eterna (their innate health loss is in fact True Damage, and it is amplified by Civilight), reduce enemy HP items in general (their innate health loss is a flat value, Bonethrowers lose 350 HP per sec, Leaders (aka rushers) lose 500 HP per sec, and their big HP pools makes the % based reduction good), Glory Pack if you have plenty of Fast Redeploy units like Executioners and Merchants (essentially lets you stunlock them!), Fincatcher's Shawl literally wins you the map instantly and is the best Out of Control item unless you have no ranged units at all, End of Times is, well, for obvious reasons, really good for this map lmao, and anything that extends CC duration especially if you combo with items that inflict damage while CC'd assuming you have consistent sources of CC. There's more utilities but those are the ones I rely upon personally.
Higher Waves Out of Control, not even the Emergency version, is an infamous run-ender. I personally handle it by sacrificing a few lives early if I can afford it to the first couple of rushers so I can bring out a strong latemap composition into the field, take out the second pair of mid and upper Bonethrowers, and then open the map up with units fresh and ready to cover the killer upper lane. I wish I could give you Magic Killer Strat but it's a difficult map that you never know really well what you'll have going into it. Hell, I try to make my Operator examples in these of varying rarities, but you can see how I mostly used 6* Operators as examples.
