Operation guide: 5-10

Operation

Guide

Story

The final combat operation of Episode 05, 5-10, titled The Dark Before Dawn, is a challenging operation for players to face, pitting the player against hordes of HP-regenerating Possessed Soldiers and Junkmen supported by two of the Reunion's commanders, Mephisto and Faust; the former are capable of healing multiple enemies simultaneously and boosting the HP regeneration of Possessed Soldiers and Junkmen, while the latter's attacks can hit friendly units anywhere on the map which sometimes does critical damage, and to further complicate things, cannot be blocked in any way and periodically deploy Turrets around the map. Even worse, Mephisto comes with three Defense Crushers and two Spec Ops Casters as his escorts, and Faust is invulnerable for several minutes after he shows up on the battlefield.

Still, with the correct strategy, even players with underleveled Operators can beat 5-10, while those with overleveled ones won't break a sweat in beating it.

• Since Mephisto doubles the HP regeneration of Possessed Soldiers and Junkmen while he is alive, he should be defeated as soon as possible if the player's team does not have enough DPS to punch through the increased regeneration. This can be simply done by pulling him into the range of Snipers and Casters with a pull Specialist (their skills must be at least in Level 4); Mephisto has a weight of 3, so this might take a while.
  • Alternatively, the player can deploy an Operator, preferrably disposable ones like fast-redeploy Specialists, to push Mephisto from his position.
  • If Mephisto's healing does not cause a problem, he can be safely ignored, as he will not attack the player's units in any way, has fairly low DEF (only 200), and can be blocked unlike Faust, meaning any melee can simply block him and pick him off with ease once the other enemies are killed.
• In most scenarios, Faust's massive, global-range damage will be a larger threat than Mephisto's healing. Pay close attention to deployment orders; Faust can easily KO low HP, low DEF Operators (especially Medics and Casters) with his normal attack, and his critical attack is almost guaranteed to OHKO them. Deploy the strongest Defender (preferrably Cuora or Saria) last so Faust will always attack them. Alternatively if the normal attacks are not a large issue and only critical attacks pose a threat, disposable units such as Deepcolor's summons or Executors such as Gravel can be used to bait the critical attack- remember that Faust only uses the critical attack once every 4th shot so count his attacks.
  • Remember that Summoners have a limited amount of summons, and only Scene and Ling can replenish summons, keep that in mind when using Summoners for this purpose as they can only bait a limited amount of critical attacks. Magallan in particular cannot be used for this purpose once she has reached Elite 1, as her Optical Refraction Accessories talent gives her drones Invisibility, meaning Faust will not target them.
  • If the player has Mudrock, her Ward of the Fertile Soil talent is a great counter to Faust as he deals high damage per hit with a very slow attack speed, meaning Mudrock can essentially negate half of all his attacks with the Shield granted by her talent.
• Watch out for the Defense Crushers escorting Mephisto, who will start to move shortly before Faust appears. These heavily armored enemies can stun Operators after three attacks, rendering them helpless. Use at least two Casters to kill them before they can breach the line; Steward will be very helpful here since his talent Armor Break will have him prioritize the Defense Crushers over the others due to their higher DEF. Ceobe with her skill 2 "Really Hot Knives" is an even better alternative, as her Thresher talent turns their high DEF into huge damage output.

Strategy

This strategy uses SilverAsh skill 3 at level 7. SilverAsh with skill 3 is an extremely common operator assigned as a support unit so it should be easy to get him. Do note that it is required to have at least 1 operator at Elite 2 in the squad for the support SilverAsh to be Elite 2 with skill 3. If the player has Thorns but not SilverAsh, Thorns can simply be deployed on D6 or E7 with skill 3 to kill the defense crushers and Faust instead of SilverAsh

The team is composed of the following:

• SilverAsh at least Elite 2 Level 1 with skill 3 level 7
• 2 Medics - 1 ST and 1 AoE
• 2 Defenders, preferably at least one that can heal.
• 1 Skill-DP Vanguard
• 2 ST-snipers
• Optional: Fast-redeploy
• Optional: 1-block vanguard
• The rest are up to the player

Step 1

Deploy the Skill-DP Vanguard on D6 and an Anti-air sniper on C5 both facing right. Then deploy the AoE medic on E6 facing right. The medic needs to be placed down first to heal the Vanguard and SilverAsh who should be deployed on D8 facing right as soon as the DP is there. Activate his skill as soon as it is ready and retreat him once all the crushers, Mephisto, and the casters are dead.

Important Note: Once SilverAsh has been placed, the 2 enemy casters will target him. To keep him from dying, deploy any cheap melee unit with a decent amount of HP (such as Fang) on top of Mephisto to tank the casters.

Step 2

Place the ST-Medic on G6 facing down and the last AA-Sniper on E5 facing right. This must be done before Faust appears or else he will kill the ranged units.

Once the ranged units have been placed down, deploy a Defender on F5 facing right.

Step 3

As soon as SilverAsh is off-cooldown, retreat the vanguard and deploy him in that position. If the player has a healing defender, retreat the defender on F5 and place the healing defender there.

The defender should not die from Faust's critical hits and subsequent normal hits due to the AoE and ST medics healing. If Faust's critical hits (indicated by the purple bolt) are too powerful. Bring a Fast-redeploy operator (preferably Gravel as she is the cheapest) and place her once Faust has completed 3 attacks. The way Faust uses his critical hits is that every 4th attack will be a critical hit (unless he takes time summoning turrets). The player can count 3 attacks and then deploy the fast-redeploy to tank the critical hit. Alternatively, the player can also bring an extra medic to place on E4 if the defender can tank the critical hit but dies from the normal hits after.

Step 4

If at around 44 enemies, an enemy leaks past SilverAsh, bring any melee unit to take care of the leaked enemy.

Once Faust reaches E8, use Truesilver Slash. Faust should die and the level is basically over. If Faust does not die to SilverAsh and the player's ranged units, bring a powerful melee unit such as a single-block vanguard to take care of him.