Champion Run Tips

by u/walshypooo

I noticed starting today a lot of the community seems to have progressed up to champion runs. I wanted to make a thread about tips we've picked up so far in VT/VT2 to help ease the initial pain of getting to this difficulty. Feel free to add your own tips as well. Thanks!

* Voice comms are easily the best way to consistently achieve a successful run. If you have a mic use it! If you have solid game understanding especially. Tell your team where to bunker down against that horde, where to hold a boss, that you see that leech, etc.
* Trust your teammates to do what they are supposed to do. This one is a bit trickier especially with the bad habits vet naturally creates. If there is a Sienna lighting up a horde and managing it fine you don't have to run in there and melee; you're just getting in her way and all of a sudden you're taking damage, her rhythm with the horde is messed up, and suddenly that horde is on top of you when it was being managed just fine before. Trust your team to do their jobs and focus on your own.
* The second you hear that horde spawn find a choke immediately. Whether this is a doorway, narrow passage, or corner you absolutely need to get out of the open. The only way you should lose to a horde, without boss/specials messing everything up, is if you get caught out of position.
* Understand that in most cases, while holding a good choke, two or three heroes can usually hold it off. What they can't do is watch behind them for specials/spawns. Many times as a Sienna main I understand my team can handle whats directly in front of them holding that barn ledge or whatever. I just 180 and watch the stairs behind us. Often times a horde wave comes from that way or a special pops up and I deal with it immediately before it becomes a threat. Sure I lose out on some "sick stats" but I keep the run clean.
* To go along with this integrate some of your fps knowledge or learn it in this game with the concept of keeping your head on a swivel. Force yourself constantly look behind you/around you until it becomes a habit. Once it is a habit those special spawns don't seem as terrifying since they will never get the drop on you.
* You should probably already be doing this, but if you aren't: ping. Regardless of who ideally should be grabbing that special on your flank don't leave it up to them alone. If you hear a special spawn, and you are able to, turn towards the sound and spam that ping key. Find that bad boy asap.
* Pick a spot and stay there using small movements to adjust your position as necessary when required (during hordes). Excessive movement especially strafing side to side limits the angle/consistency of your ranged damage dealers. Find your angle and hold it. If you start getting overrun then move! If you're holding that ledge just fine though stay still even if it means less kills on the stat board.
* If you play as one of the aforementioned ranged damage dealers don't just stand directly behind your team in a line and try to hit those shots over their heads. Pick a side, grab an angle, and shoot the bulk of the mob. If a small amount get to your IB that's fine, he can handle it, focus down the mobs behind that group on top of him. Limit the amount of enemies that can reach him thus avoiding potentially getting surrounded.
* Holding block before you revive causes you to block while you revive. Even if there is no reason to just do it anyways so it becomes a habit and not something you have to think about. This comes in handy so often helping with those clutch revives.
* On another note about revives; make sure you assess them in the same risk/reward manner you would with other aspects of this game. It sucks, but sometimes the revive isn't a good idea or isn't possible. Don't throw away the level trying to keep that grim alive or even worse for no reason. Sometimes its better to let someone die rather than panic and res your way into a full team wipe.
* Remember that the only thing which determines your xp and loot at the end of a map are heroes alive, tomes, loot dice, and grims. View the game itself as a war of attrition fused with risk/reward management vs the AI director. You don't need to kill everything on the map. Randomly fighting into a pack that you didn't need to pull can lead to you or a teammate getting hit once. That leads to one less hit before that potion is needed or someone goes down. Assume every run is a 2/3 boss run and navigate the map accordingly. You're on champion, we all know that we can kill trash. (Pulling unnecessary packs also wastes time and since hordes are on some kind of timer you're effectively adding time to completion on a map thus being inefficient about your grind if you want to look at it that way as well.)
* Be flexible with your ideal build. A basic understanding of what each class/weapon does and how to play with/around them is super important. Before a game even starts know what you need to bring to the table to supplement your team comp. If you see your team has an IB, Pyro, and Waystalker there is a good chance you'll be fine against hordes but may struggle against armor and bosses. Grab that BH or Huntsman, or at the very least a strong armor piercing weapon to make sure your team is capable of handling whatever the game throws at you.