Evolve Tips for Difficult Characters

Evolve Stage 2 Tips for Difficult Characters by LocoPojo

Hey all, me again with another quick strategy dump. Today I want to talk about some of the characters that are considered difficult or underpowered and what to do with them. As always, these are mostly quick dives made on low sleep, but hopefully I can share some things from my almost 1000 hours of Evolve that are useful. These are my particular playstyles with these characters, but of course, other strategies can be valid! The best thing you can do is play.

Torvald

Look, I don’t know what to tell you. This assault does a lot of damage if you know what you’re doing, and while I’m happy he’s getting a buff today, it’s icing on a very rich cake. If you’re having some issues dealing damage with Torvald, I have some simple recommendations for you.

• Number One: Buffer your reloads with swaps. Weapons reload when you aren’t using them, and Torvald has a sizeable amount of damage to deal in between. The correct pattern to fall into as a starter is Grenade -> Shotgun -> Mortar -> Shotgun -> Grenade -> Shotgun -> and so on, although you can lead mortars if you think you’ll hit a surprise salvo. Your primary damage dealer is your shotgun, but if you pattern in Mortars like this they’ll increase your damage a lot without any downtime. Once you get into this pattern, you can start riffing on it a little, but just doing this often turns bad Torvalds into good ones. As you start to fire your shotgun, swap into ironsights to tighten up the grouping – you’ll rarely need the mobility and you’ll be switching weapons soon anyways.
• Number Two: Aim for your medic. Or rather, whoever the monster is focusing at the time. When you pull out a Mortar, you want the projectiles to land where the Monster is going to be a few seconds from now. If there’s a medic or support, it is probably a guarantee that the monster is on its ass. Other great targets – corpses the monster is attempting to camp, and anyone stuck against a wall.
• Number Three: Get low. Torvald is the only hunter who doesn’t want to be on elevated ground, because if he is down low and aiming up, his mortars fire not at an arc but straight at the monster. You can pop a Goliath on top of a low cliffside with 600 damage worth of mortars before he has time to react, with a little practice. If you’re underneath a Kraken (and this is actually why Torvald is AMAZING against Krakens) you can aim at the ground a few paces behind it and all of your mortars will pop up directly into the Krakens facemeats. On the high ground, firing mortars INCREASES the time that they take to land, and also decreases their accuracy and reliability to the point where they’re barely worth firing at all. Stick to the low ground when you can, and brutally punish anything that dares rise above you.
• Perk Recommendations: I recommend Bounty Hunter on Torvald in the second slot and maybe even go as far as Item Swap in slot I. Torvald’s basic patterns involve an insane amount of hotswapping since he wants to be outputting mortars, refreshing marks, and shotting guns in the interim. You will do more damage taking these than by taking damage or reload perks. Dealers choice for the third – I find Rocket King by itself is perfect for getting Torvald exactly the height he needs to block rocks with his face while also being the all-around best general pick.

EMET

EMET’s getting a pretty sincere rework right now, but people still use him wrong in general. He’s a medic who can do his job with the minimap open, a grandmaster strategist over the board who scarcely need concern himself with the peasantry he is healing. Here’s some thoughts on that:

• Number One: Buoy, then heal. EMET’s buoys heal burst for more than he does, and so if you toss one out first and immediately tap the heal burst button, you’ll heal yourself for more than you would normally. Always make sure a buoy is within range of someone who needs a heal before bursting. You can trigger them while they are in the air, so when running away from a monster, jump, huck and burst in the same motion (the jumping prevents the slowdown you would normally incur). I eventually mapped my 4 key to the right click on my mouse so I could easily roll from one to the other.
• Number Two: Utilize momentum. Here’s where EMET gets crazy: his buoys don’t actually follow the line they’re showing you, unless you are standing still. If you jump, jetpack burst, or walk forward, EMET’s buoys pick up the extra momentum. You can huck buoys hundreds of meters this way, and understanding how this works is a key to placing dead accurate buoys and getting them over obstacles that would otherwise prevent your success. Which leads nicely into:
• Number Three: Get Away. EMET doesn’t need to be anywhere near a monster to do his job – indeed, he’s happiest when he’s not anywhere near a monster. As EMET you want to be largely as far out of the fight as possible while still having placed bouys. Ideally, you want a high position overlooking the battle where you have clean line of sight on the monster but aren’t largely threatened by it. EMET can even coordinate with Kala to place three buoys inside a dome, then teleport out and happily heal away from 300 meters. You can keep a close eye on your buoy coverage through your TAB minimap – also they make a distinctive sound when destroyed, either by the monster or by you placing one over the limit.

When it comes to the Relay fight, you might not even want to be there. EMET can set up three buoys, then perch well out of the monsters smell range and huck healing buoys in to replace those damaged – although once the dome goes up, he’s blocked out and will have to rejoin if the monsters savvy enough to wreck the buoys. If you work with this, not only are you healing your team, you’re also in a position to easily plant revival beacons out of the monsters sightline and hundreds of meters off. Just have a plan to get back to your hunters if the monster decides to single you out.

• Perk Recommendations: EMET pairs well with Jump Height when tossing buoys and dodging out of fights, and as a Medic he loves Rocket Man trees for all the usual reasons. He can up his HPS substantially by taking Class Cooldown perks. Divide your perks carefully based on your playstyle but keep both in mind as options.

Kala

Kala’s my absolute favorite, and by far the most technical character in the game. She’s a hotbed of raw annoyance for the monster, and can make even a rough engage go well for you if you’re working her right. Here’s a couple quick tips:

• Number One: Mine, don’t Missile. Kala’s Banshee projectiles have two states – a mostly worthless missile form and an armed mine that deals tons of damage and seeks unerringly. The mine part activates as soon as it impacts any surface. When you are Kala, you don’t want to aim at the monster. You want to aim at any surface that can, itself, aim at the monster. Look for any spot that, were you a fly on the wall, you would have line of sight to the monster at, then stick your mines to it. For extra credit, aim somewhere that doesn’t have line of sight to the monster (but will very soon) then get your armor reducer out and gleefully combo with yourself. Kala can harrass monsters from insane distances with mines, punish players who are trying to bait you into bad positions, and really just do a lot of damage. Always use the mines.
• Number Two: Reduce with Caution. The Armor Reducer is most powerful when it is used BEFORE or AFTER a dome. If you do it in the middle of a dome, that’s fine (sometimes that’s more damage than you’d normally get if the monster gets a strike), but you don’t usually want to eat so much health that the dome immediately drops. This gets you into a situation where you did the bare minimum amount of damage to the monster possible and it still has a ton of armor to prevent you from doing more as you chase it across the map. Instead, try to cut the reducer short in domes so you keep at least a minute on the timer, and go nuts with it in any situation where you can’t dome or haven’t yet domed.
• Number Three: Teleports Are Better than Jetpacks. Don’t tie yourself down with this stone-age equipment – always be looking for ways to subvert the jetpack meta. Toss your first teleporter in a convenient location early on, then throw the other one all the damn time while walking about. Make sure one is up in a dome as an easy place to escape to for critically wounded players or truly annoying EMETs. (then make sure it’s up for when they want to come back). If teleports are close, jump into them any time you’re even remotely damaged and rob the monster of a strike. When a Stage I or II monster leaves a dome, head up the teleport brigade and try to round one other player up with you, so that you have a nice division of two teams to cover a huge area of the map (and often cut the monster off as its out of traversals and ripe for the armor reducer). Even if you don’t have a long range porter, placing two teleporters as little as thirty meters apart can still provide an incredible tactical advantage in a straight up fight for dodging skills and removing aggro. Do not forget these, they are important.
• Perk Recommendations: For Kala, I recommend Jetpack perks and Celerity perks. You’re fragile, and you’re going to have to deal with that. Don’t get too greedy with Capacity for your reducer or Reloads for your mines, not until you have a strong grasp on the character and how to stay out of trouble.

That’s it for now! And now I must sleep. I’ll be posting some Kala/EMET/Torvald games up tomorrow on my Youtube channel if you want to check them out – but I highly recommend you try these guys for yourself if you’re seeking a challenge! Happy Evolving!