DRG 6x2 EDD: "Frightened Ghost" - cinematic fps (true solo scout)
Channel: ojb
Date: 2023-07-14

No deaths, no bosco, completely blind. Featuring min clips m1k + double barrel boomstick + pheromone grenades in Azure Weald. Obligatory low framerate warning :(

My first completely blind 6x2 EDD, and it was a deathless one too! Been meaning to attempt one of these for a while now; my "Open Ceiling" dive from a while back was the first I did without running vanilla, but I knew the modifiers going in and the first layouts due to failing a few times. This one I'm happy to report I succeeded in doing completely in the dark on the first try, which was pretty cool.

To those of you coming to the channel for the vanilla runs / can't stand the low framerates / longer run times of these modded shitshows, I'm sorry. I imagine the vanilla playthrough will return next week. I don't have any data on who watches what, or if it's the same people watching both vanilla and modded stuff, so I really don't know what everybody is here for to be completely honest.

Boring preamble aside, this dive was pretty rough on the framerate front. Three back to back hot drops which are always a bit crazy on 6x2. Stage 3's drop was the absolute worst, but luckily I had nitra to burn and nitra indeed I burnt.

Stage 1 had my nemesis low grav making it tough to aim and probably the lowest frames of the whole dive, so if you've made it through that mess, it's mostly smooth sailing from there (jk, it only went downhill). Not too much to say about the start as aquarqs are pretty straightforward, low grav means most enemies don't exist, and my usual strategy of "pull eggs as they time with the first swarm" seems to work out fine for how I play with phero spam. I lingered a bit in the stage to gather more nitra and made sure I walked out with full grenades and HP, as you never know when the next stage is a hot entry.

Stage 2's main egg cave opened up to the drop pod so it was also hot. This stage had the most annoying breeders as I didn't quite want to commit down into the main area until I knew it was mostly clear - I had to rely on potshots when they floated past in view from the top. I've found daredeviling into the main cave in modded is a one way ticket to using iron will, at least when you're at my 30fps training weights handicap. So as I tend to do on eggs, I took my time to clear and then lazily made my way down the coward path.

I personally don't find elite threat all that dangerous of a modifier outside one major exception: elite mactera. Elite grabbers are quite scary, but usually not deadly as they tend to take you far away from any threats. Unfortunately, their pathing is RNG so sometimes you can get screwed so it's better to play cautiously and not get got in the first place. I think I only saw one elite grabber, but lots of elite tri-jaws which honestly are easier than regular elite mactera for me lol (I don't know why, but that's just my weird and unusual opinion on it - bigger hitbox maybe?).

That being said, with elite threat having the chance to go really poorly if I rolled bad on spawns, I kept it to like 2 eggs or 2 mules at once, and didn't go crazy aggro on the stacked waves just in case. I coordinated pulls a wee bit because phero's get better when stacking enemies, but not as much as I probably could have gotten away with. Definitely played it safe and was rewarded for that safety by not dying.

Finally stage 3 was an absolute mess. The spitballer firing line, the endless swarmer waves, the swarmer swarm, just yuck. Not a great loadout for this particular situation and if you were looking for an excuse to run firebolts you definitely should take those instead. My strategy (which I built on the fly and realized what could work as I did it lol - no real preplanning/analysis here as I've never done a swarmer refining before) was mostly just to try and wait for a big bug (preferably a praetorian or a bulk det) to kill swarmers for me. Praet spit is gorgeous, but both take fire spread very well because their hitboxes are quite generous. This meant leaving a lot of swarmers alive and obnoxious until I could comfortably bring them together with phero's on a big bad to wipe them. This meant more dangerous resups as swarmers don't mess around in 6x2 in the anklebiting department, and also more difficult aiming as my framerate was constantly tanked by having so many stupid lil bugs around.

Overall stage 3 was the toughest stage this go round. Stage 1 didn't really feel like modded especially with that breeder getting hit by the minehead at the start. Stage 2 was made easy by going slow. Stage 3 was a nightmare.

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Loadout:
23112 Minimal Clips
12233 Double Barrel
Pheromone Grenades

Perks: 
Dash / Iron Will
Resupplier / Deep Pockets / Born Ready

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Highlights:

0:00 Build
0:44 Stage 1
4:32 Eggs timed with swarm
7:20 Let's play "Spot the stingtail"
17:47 Stage 2
32:56 Mule waves
47:28 Stage 3
1:20:14 Starting pump
1:28:19 Final stats page