S4 League Arcade Mode Ultimate Tutorial

S4 League Arcade Mode Ultimate Tutorial by WAZAAAA8

Hi everyone. This is the first Arcade Mode walkthrough ever released! This shows many tricks to successfully win it in solo mode!

Moderators, please don’t delete or lock this topic (there’s nothing wrong in it…). If there’s something that you don’t like, just edit it.
I’d like to thank Skynord which helped me out editing some screenshots to make them look better (if you see a pro editing in a picture, he made it… I use Paint lol).
If you are a troller or a flamer, please GTFO or refrain trolling/flaming/spamming, because I don’t want this locked.
This guide is still incomplete. I’ll work on it later.

EQUIPMENT
Costumes infos:
■Accessories: You don’t need many SP and EXP bonus since you get 0 EXP at every match. Unequip them if you have perm items.
■Faces: You don’t need many SP and EXP bonus since you get 0 EXP at every match. Unequip them if you have perm items.
■Gloves: More HP are useful!
■Hair: More Def is useful!
■Pants: More Def is useful!
■Shirts: More damage is useful!
■Shoes: More HP is useful!

Skills infos:
■Anchoring is unavailable in Arcade Mode;
■Bind is useful against human bosses;
■Block is unavailable in Arcade Mode (what a pity… you could have wallglitched all the time with this one :);
■Detect is 90% useless in Arcade Mode, since only the Afro guy and the last boss become temporary invisible;
■Flying is unavailable in Arcade Mode;
■HP Mastery: The best skill for this mode. In Arcade Mode you need to survive and HP Mastery is the most useful skill for it;
■Half HP Mastery: Well, you may want to use the full HP Mastery.
■Invisible is unavailable in Arcade Mode;
■Shield is useless since enemy’s bullets go through it;
■Skill Mastery: You don’t need a lot of SP in Arcade Mode. If you think that you will avoid bullets by dodging and walljumping, you’re wrong since the monsters have an auto aim.

Weapons infos:
■Close-ranged weapons: Not the best decision counting that you are an easy target and you need to move and jump all the time to survive… Plus, most of the enemies don’t even suffer the Knockback effect of the melee weps. So forget about PS CS and bat. If you absolutely want to use a sword, guess what you must choose… yeah, THE COUNTER SWORD! While revenging (right click) it can block the usual melee attacks stunning the opponent and the SHOOP DA WHOOP from teh big white boss robot (it only saves you from the knockback effect, see later)
■Long-ranged weapons: I have never tested the Rail Gun or the Cannonade… I personally think that these are useless in Arcade (but maybe some fullcharged critical Rail Gun shots may take down a good amount of HP to some bosses eheh)
■Installation weapons: Forget about them! You can’t use the Sentry Gun (those bastards…) or the Senty Nell in Arcade Mode.
■Mental weapons: YOU GOTTA LOVE THESE! Mind Energy is extremely useful to heal your teammates, and Mind Shock is epic if you want to heal yourself while attacking enemies (in solo mode).
■Heavy weapons: Gauss Rifle and Heavy Machine Gun… I think that they’re ok. If I should suggest you one of those, choose HMG for its huge clip.
■Shooting weapons: SMG, Smash Rifle, Semi-rifle and Revolver, Handgun, Burst Shotgun.
The Smash Rifle is an epic win weapon for the Arcade Mode. Great power and 50 ammo clip. Plus, it has a melee attack (the right-click) that can knockback opponents… useful when like you have to protect your idiot NPC friends.
The Semi-rifle has a low damage, and you don’t need much aim to kill slow targets… so you should opt for SMG.
Revolver, Handgun and Burst Shotgun look pretty useful because of their pushback effects, so you can choose one of them if you wish.

My fauvorite and strongly suggested equipment:
Solo mode: Submachine Gun-Smash Rifle-Mind Shock—HP Mastery
With teammates: Submachine Gun-Smash Rifle-Mind Energy—HP Mastery

GET STARTED
Before starting, you should keep in mind several things:
-My suggestion is to take the power-ups dropped from normal enemies only when you have to face one or more bosses.
-Use the Mind Shock to heal yourself IMMEDIATELY if your HP are not full.
-Mind Shock is suggested for every solo match.
-Mind Energy is suggested for every team match.
-Remember that most of the time, you may prefere to kill first guns monsters instead of close-range ones.
-Be careful when a heal recharger is dropped by an enemy. Don’t be stupid taking them involuntarily. Keep in mind that there is not only the +30HP recharger, but +60 and +90 too (90 is rare), so take them only when you have lost at least 60 HP.

Quoting something smart to do with Arcade Mode (lol he beat me to it):

heavenwrathv wrote:

Zimonada wrote:
…is there a greater PEN profit from Arcade or something? <_<

Roughly 16 pen a minute if I’m not mistaken. That and if you go in with rental weapons that have 1 min left you can use them the entire time (you should earn roughly 1.8k from completing all of Arcade mode).

(Post link: viewtopic.php?f=206&t;=159819&start;=10#p1738581)

STAGE TRICKS
Arcade Stage 1
Time limit: 15 minutes

You may find that wallglitching behind this tree may be useful to protect yourself against shooting-enemies.

This is the very first stage of the Arcade Mode.
The first part of this stage starts with easily killable melee robots, then shooting robots, and finally the two red robot bosses.
Remember to kill first the monsters that use shooting weapons, and then the melee users, because they’re more dangerous… you just have to walk and jump to dodge melee hits.

There are two robot bosses that will appear at the end of the level (if there are still some normal robots alive, kill them)… try to perfrom criticals shooting right in their robotic faces. These are how the bosses look like. If you come near them, they may perform a melee attack which causes you knockback. First use all your bullets on ONE OF THEM, and then kill the other.

Arcade Stage 2-1
Time limit: 15 minutes
This is the first part of the second stage, there are no bosses here. It’s always in the same map (well technically Arcade Mode=one big map lol) where you have fought the robots before.
This level has only two kind of enemies: the blue girls with PS, and the yellow SMG girls. Kill the shooting-users first, and then the melee users.

Arcade Stage 2-2
You’ll fight again the yellow and blue fangirls, and three bosses… two of them use SMG, and the third uses a PS. What to do? Usual stuff. First normal shooting-enemies, and then melee.
When you have killed all the normal enemies, firstly, kill one of the SMG bosses; secondly, the other SMG boss; and lastly, the PS boss.

Arcade Stage 2-3
Three CS SPAMMER NOOBS bosses and the usual yellow shooting girls will appear at the same time w00t!
Remember to kill FIRST the girls that are using shooting weapons since they will stop respawning if you kill them all.
Bosses time! These guys are pretty easy to kill. Focus on ONE of the BLACK bosses, after that kill the other black guy, and finally the RED ONE WITH BLACK CS (he has more health than everyone else in this level).

Arcade Stage 3-1
Time limit: 15 minutes
Same map.
There are no bosses here, but there are too many white kickass robots ready to shoot ‘ya face… I hate this level.
You just have to keep in mind that you must kill the shooting-robots first, and then the melee ones.
Arcade Stage 3-2
Always the same map w00t! Don’t worry, it will be the last level here.
SPIDERS AAAAAAHH KILL THE SPIDERS I HATE SPIDERS!
Now, if you’re one of those guys that jump like monkeys in S4 and enjoying doing it, you will surely like this level. What you basically do is running through all the map and kill the spiders that are chasing your ass.
If you are a CS freak (and only if you’re playing the easiest difficulty for Arcade Mode… the higher difficulty, the more HP and damage the monsters have) you will surely love jump attacking with CS and onehitkilling like 5 spiders at once. Don’t waste your time with light and heavy slashes, they will make you fail and look stupid.

Arcade Stage 4-1
Time limit: 25 minutes

These are the various kind of enemies in this stage:

This is the first level where you have to watch the ass of one of your friends.
It is based on waves of monsters coming from left and right (sometimes two SMG users will respawn from two rocks in front of the guy to protect, and most of them will give you power-up bonusses), and the guy to protect is in the center.
Same tactic. Kill the shooting-guys first if any of them are alive, and then spiders or PS guys. Remember to care about the monsters attacking your friend!!!
An good spot to kill enemies! (I took the picture from Tysonx‘s topic, thanks to him viewtopic.php?f=196&t;=159819)

Arcade Stage 4-2
“GTFO, this is not your territory!”
“OMFGz CAPTAIN GUARD IS IN THA HOUSE!”

This is probably the easiest stage of the Arcade Mode, but if you think that this is a killable boss, you’re wrong (00.03% damage inflicted with a critical Smash Rifle attack at the easiest Arcade difficulty…). When the stage begins, you must RUN immediately far away from him, or he will destroy you with his HMG. If you don’t want to run away, get ready to receive 60 seconds of pure ownage for you and your coins.
Once you ran away from him, he won’t follow you and the stage will terminate after one minute.

Arcade Stage 5
Time limit: 20 minutes

It’s time for the ultra-famous Afro Samurai Mr. Monk!
Ok, this stage is kind of easy. The boss and the normal enemies will respawn at the same time. The girls using SMG will respawn forever, so don’t waste your time on them.
This is the tactic I suggest:
Stay in the area of the green circle in the picture, just jump and move around that area to avoid some bullets/Katana’s attacks and focus on the boss. Remember to keep killing at least those three respawn places of these girls, because they’re very annoying (follow the picture, the third girl to kill is behind me so you can’t see her, but remember to kill her since she’s the most annoying enemy)… good chance for a power-up/HP healing drop from them.

An easy but crazy way to beat the Afro guy is the “provoke tactic” (that’s how I call it, lol). It’s simply based on coming near him, letting him attack you, and while he is performing the attack dodge it by simply walking back (all this process must be done while shooting of course). Be careful, his attack ranges are pretty high and this is dangerous ^^
Don’t let this happen:

After you beat the Afro once, a short movie will show up. After that, he will regenerate his health and fight you again.
This time he will have his maximum health halfed, but he can become 100% invisible (not like the normal Invisible skill… he is totally invisible and that’s a bit of a problem, lol).
If you’re lucky enough, you can get a Detect buff from normal enemies so you can see the name on his head. You can also spot him using the Mind Shock since it has an autoaim!

Arcade Stage 6-1
Time limit: 30 minutes

Ok, another easy stage.
Waves of Mind Shocks, spiders and snipers are attacking the big white friendly robot, and the stage starts with 60% of his total health.
The good things of this level are that you don’t need to bother too much to protect the big robot, since he has a loooooot of HP and he won’t die. And plus, the robot will help you killing enemies! So you should care about your health only.
Now some infos about how the enemies act:
-EVERY Mind Shock user will attack the robot, but if you come near them, they will attack you.
-MOST of the spiders will attack the robot, but you may be the target of some of them.
-MOST of the snipers will attack the robot, and the snipers trying to attack you will fail because they’re too stupid for that… they will shoot with cannonade their own feets since they are located in a mountain roflmao, test it and get ready to LOL at their stupidity. But be extremely careful about the guys on the mountains using a Cannonade: KILL THEM IMMEDIATELY ON SIGHT because their damage is very high on your friend
So, what’s the strategy? Stay where you see the stickman in the picture. If you do it, the Mind Shock users will ignore you, and the Snipers will miss with their lazors. Start moving around only when spiders aim at you, and go back there when you have killed them all.

Arcade Stage 6-2

“OMFGZ MY ROBOT HAS LOST ITS CONTROL BECUZ OF TEH VIRUS HELP ME PL0XXX!!!!!!”
“Oh boy… not another boss”
Ok, the force is strong with this one.
The normal way to survive at this boss is supposed to make you run for all the map taking cover behind some breakable rocks when the robot charges his SHOOP DA WHOOP… good luck if you want to do it, but I’m gonna teach you an alternative way.
It is actually simple as hell… it’s based on camping on a tree and killing the boss from there. Follow the picture’s instructions and jump on that tree. It may be difficult the first times, but if you have a CS, landing there will be a joke.

NOTE: If you have low HP like in this picture, This is a very good moment to kill every spider (they respawn forever) until they drop enough HP Recovers to fill up your health.

Arcade Stage 7-1
Time limit: 50 minutes
See 7-2, I am LAZY.
Arcade Stage 7-2
Protip: use bind on Infected Taejo

Nukamol wrote:I find 7-2 to be stupid easy compared to 7-1 because there is only one enemy that attacks Kitsch, which is Taejo.
The trick to 7-2 is to lure him away by getting somewhat close to him, but make sure you are closer to him than he is to Kitsch. Upon this he’ll decide to attack you instead. Taejo’s two buddies do not have weapons, but they do have bind. This makes them quite the nuisance, especially given that they respawn indefinitely. However they always drop hp+, so bear this in mind for when either you or a teammate are low on health.
Binding Taejo can work, but it is much harder to bind than it is to bait Taejo, IMHO. A strategy using both could be superior, but I simply use my hp15+

So here are my strategies for 7-2
Solo: In the case you somehow got to this point all by your little lonesome (holy crap!) always stay with Taejo so that he ignores our emo crybaby Net Sphere Scientist friend and follows you. You may want to kill one of the binders so you have some health handy but other than this, concentrate on getting criticals on Taejo and you should have him down before long. Beware of binds. In the case this happens, it would be a good idea to get something that can melee so that you can smack em in the face and knock him down. By the time he gets up your bind should be long free.

Team: Have at least one person do the above strategy. Now depending on how many people are on your team, you may want to divide the tasks of defeating Taejo and holding off his Binders. If your team is:
-2: One person should attack the Binders so that there are health powerups, and less interference. In the case the Binders are dead and waiting to respawn, this person should attack Taejo.
-3: One does the above, the other two attack Taejo.
-4: You could have either two of them attacking Taejo with the other two attacking binders, or three attack Taejo with the remaining one attacking binders.
No matter which one you choose, everyone should have a high contribution rate unless one teammate is dedicating themself to healing.

This replaces my guides temporary since I am too lazy to make a guide for the stages I skipped. Thanks to Nukamol for that.

Arcade Stage 8
Time limit: 45 minutes

CONGRATULATIONS!… Welcome to the last stage!

In this stage you have to fight the final boss.
This boss has more health then any other (without counting the Captain Guard). It can summon living creatures like spiders, and some guys that can heal him with Mind Energy (if you see any of them, kill them immediately). He has also an huge charged AoE attack that hits every target on the whole map, stunning and damaging you. 90% of his attacks will be slapping your face with his huge dark hands.
This is one of the easiest stages ever. There is a very simple trick that can let you win easily.
I hope that you will understand this picture.

Guess what? This is a permanent eSper chip! (but the actual bonus in this picture is a mystery for me duh)

Now some technical details offered by your dear WAZAAAAA about Arcade!

ARCADE MODE POWER-UPS
These are the various power-ups dropped by enemies. I’m just listing them.
Heal buffs:
A. 30 HP Recover
B. 60 HP Recover
C. 90 HP Recover

Attack buffs:
A. Attack power +50% for 20 seconds (0.5)
B. Attack power +100% for 30 seconds (1.0)

Defense buffs:
A. Defense power +50% for 20 seconds (0.5)
B. Defense power +80% for 30 seconds (0.8)

Speed buffs:
A. Movement speed +30% for 20 seconds
B. Movement speed +50% for 20 seconds

Other buffs:
A. Unlimited magazine for 20 seconds
B. Detect for 40 seconds

ARCADE ITEMS REWARD
EDIT: This is based on S4 Korea’s Arcade Mode. In EU it’s different! You get a Capsule item (random amount of PEN, a Costume and an eSper Chip) so this is useless!
These are the ranges of score needed in order to acquire better items. Pretty cool thing I did for you, huh?
1-STAR grade reward
Minimum required score = 0
Maximum required score = 1200

2-STARS grade reward
Minimum required score = 1201
Maximum required score = 1500

3-STARS grade reward
Minimum required score = 1501
Maximum required score = 1800

4-STARS grade reward
Minimum required score = 1801
Maximum required score = 2100

5-STARS grade reward
Minimum required score = 2101
Maximum required score = 2400