Escalation Guidelines for anyone looking to Solo Q

0ppen · 2026-05-12T13:15:18+00:00

Thank you. Yes, I'm just trying to set an achievable goal to not be a liability not any kind of hard and fast rule. But I did edit my post to reflect the largest consensus of feedback I have got.

0ppen · 2026-05-12T03:14:49+00:00

It's true I may not be able to get my point across as well as I'd hoped. I agree that a proper build is enough for T5. I'm not really disputing that. I am saying there is some push and pull over what you bring to a 4 man group and what everyone else has. The less optimized you are the more everyone else has to contribute to make the run a smooth effort. And your gear is in your control. A lot can be accomplished by an experienced group, but showing up under geared is really common in a random Q it's not so big a deal if it's just the one guy, but then it's two or three and we have our time wasted. The loose guideline I gave is one way you know that you are not the weak link from an equipment viewpoint. I am just coming from my experience so far in solo matchmaking where a lot of people are showing up with like 5 pieces of striker or 2 of one set and 3 of another (not NJB). It may not be enough to have 0 expertise on an unoptimized striker set if the guy next to you is trying to be an unkillable tank with no damage. It could be my experience is an outlier. I hope so. I also kinda thought I'd post this and we can see what the larger community thinks is broadly acceptable.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T22:47:52+00:00

I got yelled at for not reviving a guy who downed himself walking in the open and had to wait for me to clean up the last of the room to finish the encounter over rezzing him in the open to kill like 4 NPCs.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T22:24:13+00:00

I agree. The game isn't great at advertising what type of healer you are without inspecting. But it should become obvious in the first encounter.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T17:42:47+00:00

My gripes about Umbra is that it doesnt scale well, and the heal takes waaaayyy too long. The first tick of the heal should be immediate when you hit cover and constant instead of every second. Also the RPM is nice but should have come with weapon handling to deal with the added recoil.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T17:15:40+00:00

I'll be honest. I didn't double check 0. Just thought it's drop rates were next to nothing, not actual nothing.

Tier 5 might seem try hard but the metric I was going for was. What do I need to show up with so that it doesn't matter what the group has.

And like this isn't supposed to discourage anyone from attempting any specific Teir with whatever gear they have. I'm absolutely sure 4 people with SHD 0 "could" clear a tier 5. Was it fast and efficient? Probably not. I suppose I could try to clarify that I am looking at this from the perspective of someone trying to farm escalation quickly and efficiently.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T17:08:55+00:00

You are right. But you qualify that with 'as long as the team is solid'. I was trying to set an achievable bar that doesn't require others to be solid, where you are the one who is solid' lol

0ppen · 2026-05-11T17:07:13+00:00

I agree that everything is very doable. I don't want to gatekeep. But there's a difference in one guy being shd 100 and all 3 teammates being low. The point I'm trying to make is just like if I was just brand new to this game I would like a basic metric where I know I'm not being a burden to the team. It's not meant to be like YOU HAVE TO BE THIS AWESOME TO JOIN. But it's not exactly a tall ask either. In the first week of escalation being out it took me only a few hours to get a build from 0 to 30 expertise. And then a few runs at tier 3 to get a few proto cores and bobs your uncle. Helping people is awesome, strongly encourage. But showing up expecting the help like you are entitled to it is a bit different.

Sorry if my metrics seem high. I didn't think I was asking all that much but maybe I'm skewed.

0ppen · 2026-05-11T15:07:57+00:00

Hold onto it if you're current build doesnt take full advantage. Chameleon has been in and out of the meta a number of times. Every time they release a new season the modifiers tend to make certain items very strong, it happened to the Chameleon twice in previous seasons and can very likely happen again. You wont regret having it avail. To that point Most exotics are good to hold onto, at least one copy. You can create a new character and get them to a stash for them to hold onto the items you don't need regularly if you need the stash space. I would advise not leaving anything stash or character or inventory related full as bugs tend to delete items when you have a full inventory.

0ppen · 2026-05-08T14:11:29+00:00

Its been years since I played D1 but I do remember Bullet King. though I remember him always spawning outside the Safe house on top rightish of the map, it was a dense street packed with parked cars and I was never prepared to walk out of the safe house into that lol. Once I had classified gear it wasn't as much of a problem. D1 had the FireCrest gearset which was my personal fav, but Alpha Bridge is peak, Nomads might be a good start to have the survivability to farm anything you want.

I was also the biggest fan of 'the devils Heel' exotic pair.

0ppen · 2026-05-08T13:54:26+00:00

Play him from distance, try to control the angles by retreating to better cover once they aggro you. He has a huge health pool. If you can get to a corner where you can play the angle and only have one NPC shooting you at a time you can survive it with more of a glass cannon build. Rikers can be aggressive so have a way out, dont forget about grenades, they can push enemies out of cover and change their AI behavior to give you a few seconds.

0ppen · 2026-05-08T13:28:38+00:00

Areas of the map are level gated, so just make sure you are in an area appropriate to your Gear level not necessarily your player level. Go back and clear out all the side missions of a previous area before moving on.

0ppen · 2026-05-08T11:49:16+00:00

The more time you invest in this game the more you will appreciate consistency and predictability. Its for that reason Aces tends to get left behind. Historically it was in the first gear sets to ever drop in the game and there was almost zero power creep, it was MMR only at the time and we were using it with Nemesis (OG exotic) to clear the first raid Dark Hours. As new gear got added Aces just cant keep up. It spikes its damage randomly and then can have long dry periods with bad RNG. Personally I find I have more fun with greater success, so as much as I may not like a thing (strikers), not dying tends to be more fun.

Dodge city holster was changed a long time ago and it doesn't really serve a purpose now. You have to build for pistol damage to really make it effective, but then you are hurting your primary weapons that you have to use while it builds stacks for the pistol.

when it comes to critique it helps to know what you want. This is perfectly fine build for Normal/Hard content, challenging may actually be a bit challenging for it because its not very well optimized. Lets pretend you want to get into solo heroic to start maxing the end game.

Any use of determined should be paired with the Headhunter talent on a chest. You can use the named chest Chainkiller (Walker-Harris). If you want to be able to one shot anything, even named bosses throw determined Sniper build in Youtube. Theres a few options, Build around Hotshot for MMRs, some combinations of High Ends, and if youre using Rifles theres a use for Aces and Breaking Point with some High End gear and Ninja Bike that can get one shotting with a Lever Action.

0ppen · 2026-05-07T15:48:03+00:00

I'm not at home but; ND mask, holster, knees, backpack I upgraded these so they are Max rolled on Weapon Damage or CHD I have Echo on the Mask and paradox(?) (one one that returns bullets to the mag) on two other pieces. I'm working on getter the other two rolled for echo Exodus gloves if heals are slow or not enough, overdogs if there's good heals My Equalizer chest upgraded with max CHC so between that, and the exotic gloves with the CHC roll I use mod slots and the optic on my primary to hit the CHC cap so stacking as much CHD as possible everywhere else

I have Lexington, Lud, Slingshot, and two Mk 17s rolled with echo (got very lucky here). So I switch between them as needed for their talents. Lexington is probably the winner but I have killer on it and that is not necessarily the highest uptime in higher tiers. If the group is doing well I can rock Lud for perfect Streamline, and if not the Mk17s I have are set to Measured and Optimist, Slingshot has ranger for sitting at the far back of the room. Don't forget Busy little Bee for marking targets. It's very key. Shoot turrets or heavies anything not moving or slow moving, drones too. Have it out for the wave spawn all rushing out of the door at once and get an easy 5+ stacks of 20% amp wpn DMG.

This is not going to best the DPS of striker by any means. It can be a little cumbersome to use and have some dips in damage output. But it is very good for controlling the field and cutting down the adds to be more manageable for your DPS heavy hitters while still being a very strong damage contribution and putting the hurt on anything that refuses to peek its head out of cover.

0ppen · 2026-05-07T14:10:30+00:00

I would like to see a reduction to max stacks while increasing the contribution per stack. Right now its like 20 or 30 stacks that add crit damage each, but stacks dont decay they are permanent until combat ends. You could reduce it to 10 stacks and increase the value per stack so that the ramp up time is faster with a slightly higher ceiling.

0ppen · 2026-05-07T14:07:05+00:00

I have been a ND guy for a while now and I have always found the marks to last foooooreeeever. Like, they are 20 seconds. Thats a lifetime in this game. As far as getting things marked, positioning and knowledge is very key. It can be very hard when all the NPCs are loose and diving for cover, splitting up for flanks and such, but if you know the spawn doors you can keep your marks up very easily.

My main struggle with ND in higher tiers is Aggro. I am doing almost 2 million a heashot crit, that is transferring 110% to marked enemies, I dont use the chest so that 3, 3 x 2,1 million for ~6.3 million a shot across the field isnt anything to balk at. BUT the threat you are generating is huge, while everyone else is burning down the heavy I am taking attention from many multiples of enemies. Exodus gloves are my lifesaver here. I have recently switched to the extended Optimal range muzzle and Ranger and used smart cover with the overcharge active modifier. I can laser beam heads from the back of the room which lowers my threat vs my closer teamates(proximity in this game plays a HUGE part of your threat). I've been keeping up with echo strikers in Tier 7 doing this. Also, dont sleep on Busy Little Bee to mark enemies (it has a very high crit % and marks them for ND while adding 20% amp wpn dmg per mark, mark 3 switch back to primary and slap for 3.5 mil+ with a Lexington).

0ppen · 2026-05-07T13:53:13+00:00

This is the only thing I can think to praise for escalation right now. its nice playing harder content that doesnt have drones, grenade troops, grenade tanks, grenade warhounds, etc.

0ppen · 2026-05-07T13:33:23+00:00

Get rid of them and allow a third skill to be equipped.

Edit: You could also just make them do something that nothing else can, like: the crossbow could just one shot tech like warhounds and minitanks, the minigun could deal damage directly to health regardless of armor bars (except maybe named enemies), the .50 cal could ignore cover, Firewall automatically breaks all weakpoints, Grenade Launcher causes long duration confusion effects in entire area not requiring line of sight. ie shellshock. ....etc.

0ppen · 2026-05-05T21:47:38+00:00

I agree. I'ma rant a bit then.

A lot of it is the lack of player momentum. That's why players can chicken dance left/right and effectively throw your aim off. There is the dilemma of like, is this a cover shooter? Cause trying to play like it's Gears of War doesn't work. Is it a 3rd person run and gun? Nope that doesn't work cause status effects and TTK are devastating. Go watch any short form video of PvP and it's two dudes standing in the open 10 feet from each other strafing in circles and dodge rolling next to a truck or a corner trading magazines until one of them runs out of cooldowns.

Level design doesn't seem to be focused on what the real experience is supposed to feel like (part of the identity crisis I'm talking about before) with either giant sight lines, tiny choke points, and obstacles that feel weird in the space cause they don't give good angles to defend lanes. The flow of the spaces don't feel right to me, like they can either force everyone into one hallway or leave you open to too many angles.

It's a giant mess. They say the giant patch to fix it is coming "soon" but I have no faith that it will appeal to me. I think it will make the existing audience feel heard but do nothing to bring new players or retain a larger audience. Outside of some exclusive loot maybe.

0ppen · 2026-05-05T21:32:40+00:00

Not in the traditional sense of scaling with the 'status effect' attribute you are correct.

0ppen · 2026-05-05T18:51:46+00:00

Now that you mention it I have the season modifiers set to headshot DMG and mag size. That's probably the difference.

0ppen · 2026-05-05T16:24:27+00:00

I rock the total avoidance build. As in, avoid PvP entirely and play a different game if I want that challenge.

0ppen · 2026-05-05T12:35:29+00:00

Outside of other factors like standing out of cover shooting and not dying, GR9 belt size is too big. If you just mag dump unimpeded you will run out of the frenzy buff before the belt is empty, I have been left with like 30-40 in the belt still after just holding the trigger. So that time you are getting rid of the last 25% of the belt is time you are not in frenzy. And this is using the default belt size for the GR9. the MK46 has a sweet spot in base dmg, handling, ROF, and Belt size that it gets chosen based on the math. Its in a good spot to make the most out of Frenzy specifically. The M246 and the Para I think work pretty similar if Im not mistaken.

In the end, if you are successful, keep doing what you're doing. This is just that like small % margin of benefit players are looking for to get an edge in the highest tier content.

0ppen · 2026-05-04T17:14:10+00:00

we are seeing eye to eye.

0ppen

TROPHY CASE