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Beat Dota 2's Siltbreaker campaign with these tips
Valve’s first narrative campaign in years is tough as nails, but we’ve managed to defeat the beast – here’s how.
When Valve announced that they were going to release a co-op campaign for Dota 2, fans got, well, hyped. Outside of the occasional event game modes, which were loosely described as co-op, there's never been too much in the way of non-standard matches from Valve. Then, when the secretive games company said that this would include some kind of narrative, the whole games industry took notice.
People speculated for a long time on how it would play and waited patiently for it to arrive. As is to be expected with Valve it was delayed slightly, but now Siltbreaker is here and, for the most part, it’s great. The story actually makes sense (say what!?) and, while a little simple, is certainly better than some lore updates Valve have tried to add over the years. The gameplay is similar enough to core Dota that it's easy to understand, but different enough to make it feel like a completely new experience.
The one sticking point that most people seem to complain about is the difficulty. Siltbreaker is hard as nails – there’s no way anyone would be able to complete it without putting in some serious time. Some foes can kill you in just one hit, while at other times you’ll find yourself engulfed by a mob of low-level monsters that can do serious damage. Beating it is really quite the achievement, let alone with three stars.
To help you master Dota 2’s first ever co-op campaign and defeat Rhyzik, we’ve come up with some top tips to help you out.
Practice makes perfect
If anyone manages to beat Siltbreaker on their first-ever attempt we’ll be amazed. While on the surface it looks similar enough to Dota, it’s actually a very different game and requires a different style of play. That’s why you need to be okay with dying a lot early on in your journey to the deep.
To begin with it'll seem like even the first area is impossible to get through, but give it another few attempts and you'll figure out how the mobs move, how much damage they do and how to avoid their attacks. Here’s a bonus hint: the wolves won't send out their ranged attack if they’re close to someone, so have your tank take them down quickly and the projectile claws will stop flying your way.
Once you beat the first area a few times, it'll be easy to make it through from there on. After a few runs you'll be running through the first area in no time, and after a few more you'll take down Lucius Longclaw in seconds. The more runs you do, the better you'll get, so don’t rage quit after you die the first time.
Heals are your best friend
You'll take a lot of damage in Siltbreaker. That’s a fact. There's no way you'll ever complete it without taking any damage and checkpoints are certainly limited. That means that you need to find a way to heal in the middle of the areas. The best way to do this is to make sure you have some kind of healer on your team – Witch Doctor is easily the best, but Dazzle and Abbadon are also solid choices. Being able to heal means you can last a lot longer, and in the areas such as Trial of Gallaron it can save you if you screw up and make a mistake. In fact, with a good healer you should never fail in the Trial of Gallaron.
Get the right team composition
Having some kind of healer is all but mandatory, but it’s also a good idea to think about your team set-up before you go into the match. Picking four melee heroes is not going to go well for you, and at the same time picking four heroes that have no nuke potential isn’t going to work out either. You really do need a varied line up, and you should try and stick to it as much as possible. We love to run a Witch Doctor, Drow, Abbadon +1 (Lina, TA, Jakiro, Windranger, Troll, SF etc) line-up and have had some success with this strat.
Grind those artifacts
This is probably our biggest gripe with the Siltbreaker campaign. For those of us mere mortals who aren’t 9k MMR pros, completing the campaign without getting some lucky artifact drops will be nigh-on impossible. These items will randomly drop at different points in the campaign and are incredibly rare, especially in the early stages. But they're perhaps the most important items in the game, as they can be used in every run that you make. Some give impressive stat bonuses, while others have special active abilities to take down those big enemies. You have to continuously grind to get the best artifacts before you can realistically make a final run to the finish, so make sure you go in prepared.
Communicate
Communicating in Dota is something that rarely happens effectively in a pub game, but it can help you gain an advantage over the other team. The same thing is true in Siltbreaker, where communication can be the difference between winning and losing. Chances are you can run through the early stages pretty easily, but once you start to hit the more challenging bosses you need to tell people what you’re doing. If you're the tank, but need someone else to take the aggro then you need to let them know, otherwise they may be caught by surprise and your run might end. Just a simple word or two to let people know what you're planning to do could be the difference between a win and a loss.
Take these tips on board and you’ll be battling against Rhyzik in no time. Siltbreaker certainly isn’t the easiest game out there, but give it some time with these tips and you too can conquer the challenge.
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