Weekly Hive - The Line

Gears 5
#1

Ok, many things wrong with this Hive and the more I play it the more it’s pissing me off.

Reflecting Mulcher Scions with Clay? Nope, apparently Mulcher use their imagination to freeze you in this hive.

Cole with 100 or 135% melee res getting smacked by a Scion? Hope you like mopping the floor with your own body (° ͜ʖ °)

And this isn’t an issue exclusive to this Hive (Melee Brawl and Malfunction have the same nonsense with DBs/Imagos) but why is MELEE-damage part of freezing BULLETS?

Anyways, Coles Glow and Slow is pretty neat in this hive since Inner fire isn’t really needed and also allows you to use your Ult frequently and Trashball pro doesn’t seem to work.

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#2

Scions holding heavy weapons don’t do “melee” damage when attacking, they do heavy weapon damage as punches :rofl:

#3

I guess, but how does that make sense when they’re clearly hitting you with melee?

#4

It’s funny running 3 claytons on the hive, but other then that it doesn’t make any sense, the drop shot scion melee attacks are the only ones who won’t down your cole, try it out.

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#5

Heavy Deflect still stacks? Noice, didn’t test it yet.

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#6

Back in OP3 and 4, you could be immune to their melee (but not freezing Mulcher melee) and the charge attack they do would stun you but not hurt you.

#7

They’re freezing mulchers. See Clay’s freeze resist build we discussed in the other topic. Cole was fine in this hive in my experience. Didn’t use Glow ‘n’ Slow, just his meta build but swapped AtG for Perk Up.

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#8

And that excuses the bullets not reflecting?

#9

Fun fact : Deadeyes on The Split only down players with melee even with the freezing bullets enabled. At least, if it hasn’t been changed.

And every time I play The Line I hate it more because of how ridiculous and simply un-fun it is. Mostly because of the Mulchers but also the stupid messed up pod spawns and inconsistency in whether you get that annoying mid hive spawn in the tile with the lockers or not and that sometimes it will spawn easier things to deal with or give you like two Mulchers and a Buzzkill or two Buzzkills and a Dropshot or Mulcher(I haven’t memorized all the spawns possible for there). Not mentioning the Scions marching through the cloud of death to come up behind you.

Even if I finally get a good run going I’m barely enjoying playing it because it often takes way too long for the Scions not to pull some stupid BS that kills a player which then spawns in a pod way off on a tile that also can trigger another Scion spawn or attracts some from the next area.

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#10

I didn’t spend enough time trying the standard Clay build to focus on that. All I knew was it just wasn’t working. The alternative build we decided on focused on freeze resist and flash freeze. In between Cryo drops, I might’ve grabbed a Buzzkill too. The ultimate was only used to tank buzzkills or mulchers while I froze them.

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#11

I got lucky with randoms and got it first try. I was Brawler (ran Perk Up, Pyromaniac, Torch Tackle, Damage Dash and Inner Fire) and had a Marksman and Tactician.

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#12

Which is also very inconsistent, sometimes they leave you be and sometimes you have the entire hive coming up behind you.

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#13

You could completely avoid their melee? I was thinking of an alternative build too, but turned out I still needed Thrashball Pro to not embarrass myself.

#14

I had two other decent players, one friend and a random. We just had a spawn with like half a dozen or more Mulchers when we started over because the Pilot wasn’t using the Hammer skill… and then of course the first Dropshot would only spawn halfway through the hive and not be one of the first ones you fight.

I would probably use Blademaster on this hive more if it wasn’t for the Mulcher Scions and their stupid insta freeze kill melee. Brawler can make short work of one Scion by itself though, unless it’s an Ice Scion where you don’t have cover to hide from its beam to not get frozen(or before you have Inner Fire, providing you use it). At least, a single Mulcher seems to be stunned from a tackle long enough to roll back and hit it again before it starts firing. Dropshot Scions can be handled in numbers if you avoid their shots well enough.

I’ve found usually the Scions start moving up behind you once the lethal venom reaches them but sometimes they start moving earlier than that which can lead to an unwelcome surprise if you’re the only one to pay attention to/hear that Ice or Mulcher Scion coming up behind you. I’ve come to the habit of putting a few shots into them if it’s not Dropshots shielded by the barrier near the supply room on the right from the starting point, to ensure they die off in the venom. If you don’t go left to the room with the EMBAR, Markza and Longshot, well… those are liable to come from behind.

If at least they did it when you alerted them but often they’re not and still move to where you are.

#15

Lahni and Clay with Concussives works wonders. Clay stuns them, Lahni finishes them. Makes the hive almost enjoyable. Requires certain cards for both though.

#16

I have seen suggestions for classes that have a taunt card like In Your Face to be used in this hive so melee characters don’t have so much trouble with the Scions but usually I don’t like dropping an otherwise more useful card for them.

#17

Bait Armor / Concussives / Heavy Deflect / Freeze Resist and the 5th card is up to personal preference. Serrated Edge gives some extra oomph for the stun, Team Resist could come in handy, Blast Shield gives you more or less max possible dmg res.

Clays only role here is to survive and set up kills for Lahni.

Lahni uses Venom Blade / Thrill / Venom Res / Brawler / Shock Chain.
During the Ult you’re more or less safe as long as you’re hitting something and you can use Ult quite often thanks to the dmg you deal.

It can be stressful, but it works.

#18

Never used in yo’ face! either. I’ve never used it ever in any hive, actually, even the ones they recommended it, and we’ve managed just fine. So it causes the scions to completely ignore the melee characters as they’re slashing and tackling them? I suppose it would help a bit if that’s how it works. I don’t normally run Anchor in this hive, but Gunner and Pilot also have some card like that which doesn’t require headshots, I believe.

#19

I strongly suggest doing this hive without the health modifier if you only care about the rewards. Ran it last night by myself as Demolitions with both score boost cards (both lvl5) and got somewhere around -40 minutes.

You can pretty much do it as any class.

#20

Only works for a fairly short duration and on full health enemies last I checked. Not exactly great.

And with my experience from playing MMOs usually a taunt skill is intended for it to attract the aggro of the enemy it is used on. So yes, it works that same way in Gears, or at least it should. You headshot the Scion and at max level it’d be only looking to attack you for 7 seconds, plenty of time for a melee character to get hits in.

The easiest way is to probably just have a Fahz/Marksman get the Longshot and Markza with Icy Precision. Wipes the floor with Scions hard once it gets those weapons, and can clear out the big room before the exit in X-Ray as well.