U33 Overhauled Elimination: 2 new Dreadnoughts and a rebalance of the original

3 years ago

Part 2 of this 3-part blog post for Update 33: New Frontiers, this post will focus on the new Dreadnought fights that you'll have to take in order to complete Elimination missions. I highly recommend fighting the new Dreadnoughts in Solo mode first if you can, the new variants are really fun and challenging fights if you're alone! Also worth noting: Critical Weakness modifier no longer applies to Dreadnoughts. They still have a 2x Weakpoint on their abdomens, but you won't get 10x damage anymore.

Glyphid Dreadnought (aka "OG Dread")

Although you're probably pretty familiar with the mechanics of the original Dreadnought after countless Elimination missions before U33, don't underestimate this enemy! The devs increased its movespeed, its base health, its health scaling at Hazard 5, its shell health, decreased the amount of health damage it takes before it automatically regrows, gave it 3 seconds of invulnerability after regrowing its shell, made it enrage at a higher health proportion, let it shoot 2 Fireballs in a row when enraged, AND increased the radius of its stomp attack to 8m! This is much more lethal than you're used to, especially if you have muscle memory of how big its Stomp attack is. Prepare to get downed a couple times as you adjust to the new intensity of this fight. You don't have to learn any new mechanics, just adapt to the new settings.

Dreadnought Hiveguard

If you know what a Phased Boss Fight is, then you're pretty much ready to fight the Hiveguard. When it first spawns, it will begin Phase 1 by roaring and summoning some Glyphid Sentinels to attack you while occasionally lobbing Fireballs at you like a mortar. You have to kill all of the Sentinels to push the phase, but be careful: they drop Sticky Goo when they die so don't let them die close to your team. Looks are deceiving here, Sentinels do not have Armor; just aim for the bright abdomen to get Weakpoint damage. Once all of the Sentinels are dead, the Hiveguard will roar again and expose three vulnerable body parts: one on its head, and one on either side of its body (each gets its own yellow healthbar on the HUD). Break all 3 of them to push on to Phase 3, but watch out: during Phase 2 the Hiveguard is able to fire 3 mortar Fireballs in a row. Phase 3 is the last one before the cycle repeats, and it's your team's window of opportunity to actually damage the Hiveguard's main healthbar. The Hiveguard will roar to summon some exploding rocks, and them slam down to launch them outward in a straight line. After 3 rock attacks (or enough damage dealt to its health) the Hiveguard will close up its abdomen and start the cycle over again by summoning more Sentinels for Phase 1. After a few cycles you'll start getting the rythm and soon enough the Hiveguard will be dead.

Dreadnoughts Lacerator and Arbalest (aka "the Twins")

These enemies will keep you on your toes the whole fight; there are a LOT of attacks to dodge. Unlike the OG Dreadnought and Hiveguard who have Unbreakable Armor, both the Lacerator and Arbalest are only covered in Heavy Armor like Praetorians. This means if you have a weapon that does bonus Armor Breaking, you'll be able to crack their shells even faster to access the weakpoint on their abdomen.

Lacerator Arbalest
  • Dark orange-tinted armor
  • Likes to get up in melee range
  • Rock Wave attack that always happens right, left, middle.
  • Flame Breath attack
  • Burrows underground and then appears beneath a player to knock them into the air
  • Yellow-tinted armor
  • Likes to stay at range
  • Prefers to fire 3 delayed-explosion bombs at players that cover a wide area
  • Can also fire 5 Fireballs at once in a single volley

The Lacerator's special attacks all have good visual cues to watch out for -- if the it stops moving, is facing you, and raises its left foreleg (on your right side), it's about to the the Rock Wave attack. Step left to dodge the first one, then right to dodge the other two. If the Lacerator inhales like a Praetorian does before doing its Acid Spray, you know that it's about to use its Fire Breath attack. In general it's better to strafe to one side, but in a pinch you can run out of the range of the fire. Finally, after it burrows there's some dirt particle effects that move underneath the player it's about to knock into the air. If you see those particles underneath your own feet, sprint as fast as you can away from them. If you start in time, you won't get knocked around when Lacerator unburrows.

In contrast, the Arbalest's special attacks all have good audio cues to listen for. You already know what it sounds like when an OG Dreadnought winds up for its Fireball, and the Arbalest uses the same sound for its 5 Fireball volley. On the other hand, if you hear a high-pitch squeal that sounds like superheated metal, stop whatever you're doing and sprint in a straight line away from the delayed-explosion bomb that just landed near you.

If your team is focusing one of the twins down harder than the other, they'll both burrow, appear next to each other, link up using a Warden's purple beam, become invulnerable for a few seconds, and equalize their healthbars. You can strategically use this pause to regroup or resupply if necessary. After killing one of the twins, the other will become much more aggressive until it's dead. Because the Lacerator is a melee-ranged enemy, it's very common to have to deal with an enraged Arbalest. Think of a hostile BET-C spamming its bomb attack while shielding itself, but with more bombs thrown a further distance for a longer time. That's the enraged Arbalest. Try to finish it off as quickly as you can.


So yeah, those are the new miniboss fights that we have to deal with on Elimination missions now! The first cocoon that you pop has an equal chance to be any of the 3 variants, and you can't fight the same variant twice in a row. On 3/3 Elimination missions it is possible to fight the same variant on the 1st and 3rd cocoons, but the 2nd one is guaranteed to be different.

On to part 3: everything else being added or changed in Update 33!

Rock & Stone!
-MeatShield