I tried to do that but spearmaster is so difficult, so I ended up beating rivulet first

i stand by this point too. the campaigns flow really well as spearmaster -> rivulet -> saint, it's weird that spearmaster and rivulet are switched around

@@greenuparrow idk if it's actually on purpose, but the last two campaigns mark the "beginning" and the "end" of the story respectively

I agree. It also just fits with timeline. Also that, if you play rivulet before spearmaster, you might not understand parts of the story.

Agreed wholeheartedly

I love your pfp

I like to think that the "core skill" isn't something obviously mechanical like finding food (Gourmand), navigating/exploring the map (Rivulet), or avoiding predators (Saint) but a less tangible but arguably the most important skill you can acquire to become a really solid Rain World player... mindset. This mindset is best illustrated by the fact that there are two ways people typically play Monk. The developer intended way, having higher rep so you can explore the map and beat the game, if not necessarily more easily, but certainly with less frustration from being molested by lizards, centipedes, and spiders oh my. Then there is the *other* way people play monk, Banana Boy the Destroyer of Worlds, the player who take that higher rep and abuse it so you can fulfill the "kill everything" mentality every one of us had when we first popped out of the tutorial shelter as Survivor, and turn Monk who on paper is the worst slugcat in the game for combat (bar Saint who can't even throw spears) and turn him into *the* best slugcat in combat relative to their campaign's spawns and difficulty. By the end of your first Survivor run some players are able to grasp that playing timidly is *not* the optimal way to play, and that being aggressive and running by lizards, jumping from pole to pole as best you can and killing any lizard that gets in the way will get you to more places faster, and paradoxically with fewer deaths. This realization is also borderline required to complete Hunter, otherwise you will probably have either too slow a route to get to the echoes in time (you're playing ultra-safe and waiting out predators) or not enough karma to progress your route to begin with (you're getting caught running away from *very* aggressive lizards when standing your ground may be more effective). The reason Scavengers are the exception to this though, and why they're a "punishment" in other campaigns, is that even the most aggressive Hunter or Spearmaster will struggle to overcome the fact that, at the end of the day, Scavengers are just *you* but *better* in the ways that matter, and so most players will gleefully let themselves be extorted by the neurotic bastards and throw around those pearls at them all willy nilly. Artificer's campaign forces players that have made the realization that being aggressive is better to ram their heads against the wall that is Scavenger kill squads, and go back to cautiousness and timidity when it is appropriate since despite all of Artificer's tools, Scavengers are just *you* but *better...* or you can take the forbidden route *and double down* and realize you are not being aggressive enough! That you *are* better than the Scavengers and that what you're doing is right, you just have to be smarter about it, the same way you wouldn't rush into a Red Centipede when you have a perfectly good spore puff just waiting in your stomach. Duck below cover as they slowly approach you and stab the first one who tries to climb the garbage mound in the eye, go in and out of pipes to minimize the number you have to fight all at once, stay in the vertical so they can't use their better horizontal throwing, throw grenades like you're the AI from Call of Duty, and above all else *give no quarter* and gladly accept every death you receive, so long as it resulted in the deaths of yet more Scavengers. All of this isn't to say that Artificer still isn't hard as nails even when you make this switch, but that mindset is probably the "core skill" that you are looking for, and that's where the "fun" is to be found by the few of us who unironically enjoy Artificer's campaign... though I'm probably just deluding myself, Rivulet is way more fun than Artificer let's be real.

I would say Arti's corresponding "core skill" is combat. I've had moments where learning felt very accomplishing, like when I figured out it's a great idea to stun a scavenger, spear it, then pull the spear and spear it again since scavs can sometimes survive the first hit. The lack of failure consequence is honestly a good thing too - with scavengers throwing instant death spears everywhere (on top of regular enemies), the path of combat Artificer expects will make death a common occurrence. Imagine how much more annoying it'd be if you had to both put up with all that danger and CONSISTENTLY SURVIVE to retain enough karma to use gates, rather than just use a scavenger's karma instead.

@@moronribbons5774Personally, I think that while Artificer absolutely lines up with combat as a core skill, Spearmaster fits that a lot better. Spearmaster's combat is much more in-line with Survivor or Hunter - all you have is a bottomless supply of spears and your own skills. Artificer doesn't work like that, her campaign is mainly about fighting Scavengers in particular. And Scavenger combat certainly *is* a unique skill all its own, but it's not exactly a core skill.

@@denpadolt9242 That's a fair point, but I found myself enjoying yelling obscene taunts at lizards slowly crawling at me just to flip them backwards for me to shove a spear up unsavory places quite often, lmao On top of that even enemies like vultures were nothing since I could just keep stunning them. I suppose Arti isn't really a perfect focus on basic RW combat due to how much her skills change it up. I noticed one issue I really had to work my way around was how often doing the concussive blast caused me to pick up the limp body of an enemy that would otherwise wake up in a second and bite me.

@@moronribbons5774In my opinion, Artificer being built around no punishment for deaths is actually one of the main ways that Artificer is not fun, because it means that the game becomes a game of repeatedly bashing your head into the brick wall that is scavengers until you find the next shelter, and in my experience the times in other campaigns where you’re stuck in one shelter repeatedly dying until you find the next one are the points when Rain World is at its least fun, so a campaign where you’re doing that the whole time is one I’m almost certainly not going to enjoy.

True

good

Yeah parrying is so useful and what truly elevates artificer in terms of combat. Scavs have no recourse when you drop in from above and stun them for just long enough to spear

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mrOEbNJyy7Kul58.htmlsi=W1ALV5qYwzWmIIGR

@@alpal4245 Useful? It's more of "Awesome, but Impractical". Shockwave has a very short window in which it can block spears, on a 1-HP Slugcat. One mistake, and you restart the cycle. All that when you could just be launching into the air and above the dangerous Scavs, and be dropping bombs.

@Pe6De its not useful to actually parry its use comes from stunning the scavs. Stunning gived you full seconds to attack and is especially useful for isolated individuals. Just drop in, parry stun, kill, move somewhere safe

@@alpal4245 Ah, okay then. I always call it shockwave so I assume that when folks say it's a parry, they refer to using it to deflect spears. It's definitely great for stunning Scavs, that I agree with and used throughout the campaign.

I think it really depends, I hear from a lot of people that it was the opposite actually. Either way, it really does embody wrath lol

In my experience I loved it

i thought it was very fun

After 5 cycle of death, you best believe i tapped into my inner artificer

All of rainworld gos by this philosophy for the most part

I actually started playing only a few months ago, and I had a blast with Artificer’s campaign. The other campaigns I completed before hers were Monk, then Gourmand, then Hunter (I held off on playing Survivor because I wanted to unlock Outer Expanse lol) In those three previous campaigns , I always played nice with the scavengers because it just made the overall campaign an easier experience. As I progressed and got to Hunter’s campaign, I had gotten enough of the basics down to begin enjoying combat. So Artifcer’s campaign, for me, was a great way to test my previous knowledge and unleash havoc upon the world pft. So far, I’ve spent the most time playing her campaign compared to the others simply because I wanted to see how many scavengers I could kill by the end of it. It was… strangely cathartic to launch grenades on scavenger tolls. Laughed like a damn maniac Again though, I’m typically amore friendly in literally every other campaign. I highly doubt I’ll ever be this aggressive while going through the other campaigns. Artificer’s playthrough, for me, was a way of fighting back against the world that had so frequently done everything in its power to quash my existence. It’s pure catharsis to climb to the top of the food chain after all the previous struggle. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy the other campaigns! I just tend to embrace different mindsets based on the slugcat I’m playing (even though I became a somewhat violent Monk on my very first playthrough once I figured out how to kill vultures and lizards…)

I went into downpour blind, I had only completed the original campaign once, and tried hunter but didn't understand it. Even though I could only see most areas once, I could see the cool changes in the world between campaigns. I really loved downpour even as a newer player

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mrOEbNJyy7Kul58.htmlsi=W1ALV5qYwzWmIIGR

I did arti first and still loved it

the change i would like them to make to scavangers is giving them a telegraph the problem is the thier spear come out of nowhere and are and instant kill the king vulture has a telegraph and it feel amazing dodging thier hookshots i think doing that with scavangers would help masivly i really loved this campaign in fact its my second favorite so far behind hunter and that is mostly because of the new karma gates i hate them so much its the dumbest progression system in any game ive ever played

While i agree that more scav types would be nice, i also dont see why they would need less hp?

I don't like that sometimes they will survive a spear hit and kill you but thats probably a skill issue on my part

@@voidburgers yeah thats a skill issue. One time i was playing around with scavs in sandbox mode and i pinned one to the wall, it survived, it then took the spear out of itself and speared me instead, fucking wild, right?

@@ZaynIsLameish I hate it when that happens

@@voidburgers Nah, it's just a silly game design. Especially if it happened on Arti, who is meant to deal enough damage to instantly kill a Scav with a spear.

I kinda figured while editing this (waterfront and braids being optional, going the wrong direction at start ect.) but I let it all stand since the complaints about the areas themselves still hold water, regardless of how "on the main path" they are. Planning on doing a super quick semi-speedrun of the campaign again on the correct path just to see how it feels, so hope I enjoy it a good bit more

I agree with the artificer being too much of a combat focused slugcat. What people don't usually acknowledge in regards to the scavenger spawns is that they are literally the only enemy aside from red centipedes or red lizards that even stand a chance against artificer's frankly overpowered abilities. Artificer could be done much more enjoyably if they actually nerfed their abilities to not make any non scavenger enemies a joke and definitely add some more paths within metropolis atleast to encourage being smart with the fights you pick. Right now artificer feels like a spectacle power trip more than anything and this is especially noticable when you attempt an expedition with them and compare it to hunter. The latter is a balanced and well thought out slugcat made to fit the world it inhabits, without fun being compromised and having quite fun changes to the slugcat deck, while artificer is when watered down a hunter with explosions and extra scavenger spawns.

The shockwave is good as a stun, but I don't understand why everyone keeps mentioning the parry part. Isn't it literally impractical on a Slugcat that still dies to one spear hit? Why'd I bother trying to parry instead of jumping over a Scav and dropping something on their head, when the latter is almost always the option? (Also, shockwave got weird input to trigger.)

Yeah lmao his campaign is comparable to a custom slugcat made by a twelve year old Go there,go there,go there. Thats his entire campaign

Idk I liked his campaign cause the infinite spears meant everything can be killed pretty easy, I spent a bunch of time in chimney canopy just killing stuff it was that fun The only really deterring factor for me was moon being practically inaccessible from waterfront and no way to store your (spoiler item)

@@splatstuff if you liked inf spears then you like the cat,not the campaign

@@graycatsaderow that doesn’t mean it doesn’t contribute to the campaign fun factor, what I forgot to say is I like that the campaign scales the enemies up so I can actually utilize those large amounts of spears instead of if I used spearmaster in arena or another slugcats campaigns

​@@graycatsaderowthat's literally every campaign, go to moon, go to pebbles, go to subterranean, etcetera.

Not telling you anything else

You should have found the echo in metropolis that gives you two more karma, from there get the one in chimney canopy

@@Eat_shit--die_mad I thought the ending locks you as the lowest carma, doesn't it?

I also really hate how the scavs spawn one by one from monster dens (that they can hide back in), typically at the exit of whichever room you're in, instead of just spawning at the beginning of the cycle and moving around the region like other enemies (and like scavs in other campains). Because of it, you can never correctly assess the risk of pushing through, as you might kill the five scavs in front of the exit only for two more to spawn more or less right on top of you and spear you in the back.

*Buzz sound effect** scavengers can have max of 10 Karma Their karma level depends on your max karma level elites has more likely to have higher karma

Shaded, Industrial, Chimney, The Wall imo is the easiest way, but you could always just go up the leg in shaded if you want

Do NOT go through the toll as OP did - use that very open area after the first shelter to find the shaded citadel from there. It's on the top right, and usually there's a free scavenger corpse on the way.

Update, i beat artificer. I just went through the leg, memory crypts was a breeze with explosive jump and you can just maul the regular spiders. Red spiders suck tho.

This is true for any other slugcat. That scavengers are them but better. It is not true for artificer who has abilities to counter each of scavs strengths. Scavs fight in groups, unlike you- Arti has bombs that can take out groups of enemies. They can throw spears at way more angles than you- you have a double jump for both dodging and giving you more angles to throw at. plus a deflect. They can survive a spear hit, you can’t- arti has the ability to make explosive spears that guarantee kill them. They can carry multiple weapons on their backs- artis stun parry auto disarms them. All of the scavs typical advantages have counterplay. I’m not saying that to say that anybody who dislikes fighting scavs or artis campaign is inherently wrong (although I liked it personally) I can still see how it would feel frustrating or repetitive. But NOT unfair or imbalanced, arti has the tools to keep the tides even if you use them all right. (Though I will say offscreen spear throws are just unfair, blatantly. Scavs should really only attack if you’re on screen. But rain worlds camera in general results in unfair offscreen moments, that’s not just artificer).

Speaking of changing water levels, I may have completely forgotten I went through drainage system. As for calling it unfair, in retrospect "frustrating" would've been a better word. It was super easy to accidentally bump a wall or take a corner not-quite-optimally enough and die in a way that felt much stricter than the rest of the game. I'd compare it to an area where you had to do really tight platforming with insta-kill pits between every other room. In summary: skill issue, mb

That 100% isn't the route your supposed to go at all, trying to go through garbage wastes is suicide

saints campaign is freaking amazing don’t disrespect it like that

@@anapple9726 He do be tonguing the land until he doesn't

Mb on that, went through drainage system. Forgot that was an area that existed, kinda mentally combined it with garbage wastes I guess.

@@bobtheguy6485 Funny that you forgot that; both pre-Hunter Drainage and Waterfront's passage to Subterranean have fluctuating water levels so it's remotely possible for Artificer to traverse.

If you're talking about the little pop that deflects spears and stuns scavs, then yes, I used it occasionally. Not super well though, generally used it as a panic button right before flying away and stunned myself by over-popping. Seems super strong though