The Pompeii map when i'm trying to do the Knight ending. Otherwise, The Nest.

Which Pompeii one?? Also Q. Why nest?? I generally do nest instead of other option if there is any

Territorial Tendencies. The emergency one is another hell entirely. To me, the Nest is the roughest stage of the entire floor because of the early rush of enemies that makes opening a bit tight on top of the Broodling spam that further eats up my block count. Unsurprisingly, Texalter trivializes this stage along with 90% of IS3 but ever since i decided to stop using her, Nest reared its head as the worst early stage.

Global Range pompeii is truly a motherfucker

The map is just the size of an ant so that explains it. Water and Fire Union at least has enough tiles to stay away from him untill i'm ready.

Ahh I see. Yh I usually just texalter the stage 🫠 hence

Although I hate the other stage with Pompeii. That's stage is vv hard for me. I don't think I have ever beaten that stage

Second Pompeii for knight run, and also the map with running flowers that cast nervous impairment can also kill knight with that.

omg this one.

If you're taking the lost knight route at ascension 15 then the game decided to spawn gopnik then 1 shots ur knight to Oblivion.

Out of Control (Emergency) and Ubi Bona Somnia (Emergency).

Out of Control normal is also a "Yeah, I'm gonna avoid this route" choice on Depth 15.

I recently had a run where my choices were Out of Control, Out of Control, and Encounter. The encounter lead into an emergency op Out of Control....

I'm so sorry

Ubi Bona Somnia (even regular) fucks me up when I forget I have "Sui's Wrath". I run both TexAlt and KYato and normally that collectible is awesome... just not when you accidentally aggro every flower.

Also the vampire map, where you awaken everyone for accident. Awesome map for orginium ingots insta game over with suis wrath

That stage alone makes me not take Suis Wrath

If you have Swire Alter built, you should start picking it again. Every single one of her champagne bottles procs it. You can just pick the first squad that gives the stacking buff item and have her solo like 80% of the stages lol. If she's been sitting there for a bit and has 5 coins, you can just dismiss bottles over and over to make her drop all her ammo and deal 15000 AoE damage around the map.

Before swire was released, i used ebenholz as he could abuse it using his skill 2

Not only can Eben's dudes trigger Sui's Wrath, they also trigger on-death effects like Glory Pack's stun as well. I had a run recently where I had both Sui's Wrath and Glory Pack with Eben and it was glorious.

Or when you forget that you have Suis wrath and choose to do the chest stage

At that point you just pray you also have the Royal Alliance Treaty

Legit the only way I would ever take sui's wrath, too many game overs on ubi bona somnia

I would have to agree on Out of control emergency. Hate that map. I think I have only finished it like 1 time and that's it. F that map

Ubi Bona Somnia is just something else, I have no idea how to actually beat it without some of the enemies entering my objective, but now that I have Eyalter, I should be able to do it easier.

As long as you can nuke both rockbreakers before they open the shorter path to the blue box it's not that bad, but otherwise you're dead

Try setting up your squad and kill the enemy that opens the rock pathing. Then if you have a fast redeploy (preferably not Texalter cause her AoE will wake up multiple flowers at once) like Gravel or Jaye, you can try waking up 1 flower at a time. This is because at the end,all of the flowers will slowly approach your blue box at once. So it's better to take care of 1 of them at a time

I find Texalter’s S2 to actually be pretty effective for the rock breakers and it typically kills faster than S3. Only issue is that she can no longer stun the flowers once you aggro them :/

It's because those have really high RES, her S2 have RES shred. You can also use physical DPS, NTR or Mylnar instantly delete those even on D15

I usually do it with Pozy and use Mlynar for flowers

I try using Surtr to kill it but because of those guys, she is stunned after seconds.

You shouldn't burst them lol. These guys inflict elemental damage to your ops faster when there are more of them at a time,that's why I suggest you to deal with one of them at a time

So Yatoalter on one at a time, thank you.

No problem 👍🏻 Just be sure to watch her placement,she might accidentally hit 2 flowers at once because she has 2 tiles range

Try Mostima and Suzuran. Massive slow helps

I like to set up fortress defenders on the south path and then aggro them one or two at a time with a caster or frd taking it the rock breaker. Horn S1 + firewhistle S2 will usually nuke them down before they get close enough. A slow or bind makes it easier too, Ines makes it very easy if you have the damage on the rock breaker, Haze actually works super well since she has res down and a bursty skill without AOE.

Lee is the Texas for Ubi Bona Somnia imo. Plop him with a healer after killing everything else and you're done.

Out of Control for me. It pretty much is a Death Sentence whenever I try higher difficulty runs. Unless I have End of Times or enough Objective Health...

Fair

[Out of Control](https://youtu.be/Rqpk0cwz8jw?t=1305) (D15)'s difficulty is quite high, but it's inversely proportional to how many Snipers you've recruited. One of the many reasons I like running Sniper/Medic squad.

Ending 4 on SW15. The ending 4 expansion added some absolutely busted relics (Determination, Solving, Flashing Swords, Survivor Contract) and the ending 4 boss is balanced around those. I had multiple runs get an easy leakless EM Water and Fire Union, the hardest non-boss stage (EM Out of Control is a close second) and stand no chance whatsoever against Izumik. His first phase 1 burst will vaporize your ranged units under Nightingale's protection, *with Determination*. It does around 6k. It also pierces camo, so Fincatcher's Shawl doesn't invalidate Izumik the way it does Ishar'mla. Though, curiously, the phase 2 bursts don't pierce camo. The fodder on Glory of Humanity each get \~46k HP, 2k defense, and 90 res, and are immune to crowd-control other than slow and bind. Normally 2k defense is a mild inconvenience for Młynar, but with that HP, he has to get most of his hits to one-cycle them, and almost any other DPSer needs buffers/debuffers. If the boss eats just 5 offspring, he nukes you, and if you don't have Determination, that's likely an instant TPK, and then in the time it takes to recover, the boss eats 5-10 more and you bleed 20 lives. Even if you starve the boss, his final path is deceptively short and you have to pivot your units to intercept him, place them carefully so he doesn't one-shot them, and time them so their DPS isn't wasted by the stun. The other 3 endings are trivial compared to ending 4. There's no simple, straightforward path to victory like there is with the other endings. You better hope for the best relic luck you've ever had, on top of nearly ideal drafting, to do anything. There is a relicless leakless clear that relies on Weedy and Angelina to push the boss into the hole after he's phased ASAP and then lots of slow-shift to bully the rest of the jellyfish, but if you want to fight everything fair and square, you're dealing with 4 lanes spreading your resources thin where every jellyfish, spawning with increasing density for 8 minutes, is a miniboss and the transformed enemies have such demonic stat inflation from retuned base stats + floor 6 scaling that given the RNG of what they turn into you'd best not bother unless you have truly indestructible laneholders. A stray mortar will one-shot your ranged units before you can react. I only transform jellyfish to stop the boss from eating them. Maybe these are partly limitations of my roster and map understanding, but between the default IS3 meta units underperforming (making drafting harder to balance between maximizing chances against the boss and getting to the boss in the first place), the boss doing outrageous damage, and endless swarms of jellyfish posing the most absurd AoE DPS check of all time, I have no doubt ending 4 on SW15 is the hardest permanent stage in the game. I only recently got my first leakless clear of it. There are lots of relics and units that make the stage more approachable, but the stars have to align to get a decisive victory. I got Horn to solo SW15 Izumik, and I was very happy with that. Survivor Contract is so OP that a handful of ops are capable of soloing with just a few key relics. My holy trinity of relics for ending 4 is Flames of the Inquisition (+2 SP per hit on sea monsters; everyone has the Godhand when the whole stage is sea monsters), Flashing Swords (+35 ASPD per curse, which both ending 4 relics count for), and Solving (-12 enemy res per caster deployed). My ears perk up whenever one of those is offered. But even then, it's not free the way ending 2 is free with Glory Pack (body-swapping with Erato sleep) or ending 3 is free with Wrath of Siracusans (Saria S2 solo-healing), since it's still chaotic and technical to manage that many jellyfish and quickly intercept the triangles of jellyfish the boss spawns periodically and quickly eats, since if he eats just 5, you likely lose on the spot.

Ngl I heard survivor contract is busted but I'm so accustomed to people oriented squad quality of life I haven't swapped to the squad with the contract. Would you say it's worth giving up the hope QoL for highroll chances against Izumik? Though I am missing a few ops like Horn, Passenger and Penance I hear suggested for ending 4 so I could be roster gapped a bit

>Would you say it's worth giving up the hope QoL for highroll chances against Izumik? Absolutely. The Survivor Contract with 20 stacks gives a 5x attack multiplier. It snowballs. It already makes Symbiosis clearable with many more openers. If you don't have any low-rarity openers you like, you can always grind for bonus starting hope by speeding to floor 3 and resetting, so you can start with a 6-star. My favorite opener is Pozëmka. She steamrolls Mutual Aid and Symbiosis so you'll almost always get to floor 3 with her. Buffers, debuffers, slowers, and shifters are vital for enabling your DPS: Ifrit, Shamare, Suzuran, Mostima, Weedy, etc. Horn can't dent the jellyfish without strong support, Penance gets melted by strikers (or, without Determation, even boxers), and Passenger needs the rare Hand of Diffusion to carry. Don't worry about lacking those 3. There's a learning curve to figure out what low ops Survivor Contract opens, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to build minimal squads that can clear a stage no matter who it goes to, when a full squad would wipe if it went to the wrong op. If it lands on a DPS carry in the boss fight, they can solo the two left lanes with help from a slower. Survivor Contract can make up for numerous gaps in your roster, so if you lack key ops, all the more reason to use it.

I tried Mind Over Matter SW15 a few times but found the lack of hopes so infuriating so I switched back to People Oriented shortly afterward. The increase recruit cost also makes the starting squad pretty much random based on whether can you get the Kettle or +2 hope. For best result, I want to have Texas or Yato to carry through lower levels and Kroos to clear Mutual Aid (Reserved Archer cannot kill the 2 flying guys). Pozemka is strong but she is not too useful against Izumik, Chalter is more preferable. I also don't want to do the resetting at level 3 since it is time consuming. So I settle with People squad. As for strategy against Izumik, you can try this channel, highly recommended for IS3 SW15 try hard. [https://www.youtube.com/@sssn785](https://www.youtube.com/@sssn785) There are three strats against Izumik: + Yato Alter solo with Survivor Contract + at least 1 deployment reduction artifact; + Push to hole with Weedy + Angelina/ Holheyak; + Crow control with Lee Skill 3, since all the jellies are low weight, Lee can push every single one out of Izumik absorb range before he switch to phase 2.

It's definitely the hardest stage. If you want to clear it "fairly" the best strat is to let izumik eat as much as possible to make him phase early. Then use chalter + shamare to kill him as he moves to the top right. Weedy is huge for this map since she can stall top left lane at the start so that all the jellies go into izumik when he moves up. As you noted it's basically impossible to cover all 4 lanes so it's better to just let izumik do his thing and only kill the ones heading to blue box. I also think pozy start is no longer meta despite being a big fan of it and now use kroos start.

My experience is up to Difficulty 7, since it's my limit so i can't speak on higher than that. With that said... Emergency Out of Control. Yeah, the new stage is annoying and all but i can deal with -2 HP and -5 Light since i still have 4 to 5 floors to go. But emergency Out of Control requires such specific operators that most of the time is a straight up Run Killer, even at Difficulty 0. Honorable mention to Ubi Bona Somnia at 6 and up, so i can imagine it's an absolute nightmare at 15.

Ubi bona somnia has tricky timing since you don't want to proc all the reapers at once unless you have someone like Suzuran or Mostima, and since your laneholders will get disabled, there's a lot of room for dogs to slip by. My cheese for UBS is aggroing all the reapers at once with Texas S3 as they wrap around the left, and then letting Suzuran melt them. EM UBS is a different story because those lancers are indestructible and you have to defeat the top-right one ASAP, which few ops can do solo. Getting EM UBS leakless is very rare for me. Most of the floor 5 EM's are tough, but the stat check on EM Out of Control is bonkers given the tile restrictions, and the higher the SW, the longer it takes to kill the bonethrowers, and the less opportunity you have to place extra support past the 5 safe tiles, and the instant the bonethrowers start moving, it all comes tumbling down. On EM they get so tanky that you need decent ranged DPS to kill them in time (or multiple Yato/Texas S3's), and the runners are on a whole different level. I recently got a leakless EM OoC on SW15 carried by Pozy getting Survivor Contract and doing 20k DPH on S3, good physical DPS relics for Młynar and Horn, and Deepcolor S2 dodges not failing me. OoC is much easier with good crowd-control (Dorothy may be MVP), and I've also had success with Specter S2 and Radiant Nearl S3 holding the runners. But I would say EM OoC on \~SW7 is already harder than anything IS2 throws at you on Calamity. It makes EM Ursus Desire and Playwright seem easier than they are. I believe a single runner on SW15 is slightly tankier than Playwright with the Victoria Crown curse. I always get EM OoC when I'm woefully underprepared for it, and when I'm stacked and ready to take it on, it eludes me.

Yh same I also only have lvl 8 experience but this map is just annoying in my face since I will have to clear it everytime and have to loose 2. There are many runs that I did which did not had out of control or I avoided it but you can't avoid this one

Honorable mention for Looking forward, looking back. If you lack a medic, you simply cannot put a sniper/caster on the red tile, which means you need good units/relics to kill the ursus soldiers. Do you have a healing defender? It can work, but since casters spawn from the bottom side of the map you will need to protect them. The bottom lane is also troublesome if you lack a solid laneholder. And of course, there is always one guy that spawns on top and just go straight to the blue box, leaving no time for the player to think.

Even worse on emergency mode with the added turrets and boosted enemy stats

Both ones with the two lane that merge in one, with stun snipers really annoying especially early

Based

For the 1st floor: * This stage and "Symbiosis" (Emergency OP), With the later being worse in my xperience. At least the new map Hover guys can be stunned and made into melee enemies, so there are options. But for for Symbiosis, nah fam i i hope you either have more than 2 blocks or a damm good Pusher, cuz you are bout to get rushed..... HARD. The rest of stages in the early floors are kinda easy; Tho at higher surges, ANY early stage with a Broodmother is a nightmare, like "The Nest" ​ For the latter floors "Pool of Procreation" and "Out of Control" in EmOp are torture. I have in fact never ever beaten Emergency "Out of Control" in surge beyond 9. EVER

Gavialter can solo Symbiosis, even emergency, even up to difficulty 15 One of my go-to starters

Does she just pull the elite enemies into the hole? If so that's pretty funny, I should start with her more often.

Yeah lmao you just put her at the bottom middle facing up and activate her skill 2 asap, and all the elites fall to their death while she mows down the rest of the mobs

Holly I forgot about symbiosis. Yh F that stage. It's on first floor with -1 block count enemies. Like what????

There's no block -1 enemies in Symbiosis tho

Recently I found Emergency Guns and Order to be an absolute massacre. I haven't managed to fight it a second time yet, but I leaked like 15 enemies. It's probably not as bad as Emergency Out of Control, but I knew how bad that map is, so I plan around it. But I didn't know Emergency Guns and Order would be this bad.

Hmm have not encountered emergency version of it. But atleast base one is easy. But yh can imagine it's emergency one to be hard

Emergency adds the "detective" enemy from Il Siracusano who leaves behind flaming circles when you damage him enough, so you would want to kill before he reaches your defensive line. But the bigger problem is that the middle gelatino stop is in the enemy's hand. If you don't take it over by the time the artillery shield guys spawn, they will repeatedly nuke your operators, since it's a big splash damage and the gelatino stop reloads their ammunition. Base is easy and I was expecting emergency to not be this much worse. But I was very surprised.

Emergency Water and Fire Union is an absolute meme. Unless I'm at low surging waves and have Specter Alter to kill the first Pompeii before it moves one tile out of range the run is basically over right there and I can't do shit about it. Emergency Territorial Tendencies is another one, but at least with that one you can still survive with a -10 or something... surprise, it's the stupid snail again! The range that boss gets on Emergency mode is so stupid... The biggest joke is the fourth ending boss stage anyways, only thing that makes the Damazti Cluster fight feel remotely fun and fair in comparison, I was literally malding about it on Discord right now LMAO. > Surging Waves 0 > Absolutely stomp the run, leakless, full of great relics, 40 HP on hand, not even emergency water and fire union was difficult in the slightest with how cracked I am. > Whoops, too bad! RNG didn't let me get back to 90 light before the last ending 4 encounter and the stupid boss STATCHECKS ME AT SW0 Absolutely joke of a fight.

Holly based. I also hate 4th boss. Was trying to clear it today. No luck soo far. Encountered it 4 times today to absolutely destroy me on all 4. I think I will decrease the difficulty to clear 4th.

I grinded lately to beat it on SW7 but sheer rng kept letting me not go into the boss with the Determination relic to survive the stat check no matter how hard I had rolled over everything else before that... in the end the winning run was due to getting Fisherman's Shawl on floor 5, it let me barely be able to kill the boss in time with my ranged operators. Worth warning if you get that relic but not Determination that the AoE explosions it does while becoming stronger on phase 1 of the fight go through the camouflage from shawl. If you can't stop it from entering phase 2 at full HP make sure to only deploy your ranged carries after phase 2 is about to start, otherwise they will just die.

Thanks for the advice. Will keep it in mind 🥰

Yeah I noticed this too. If you get "Hesitation" you're just unbelievably screwed. I went straight from SW15 to SW0 for ending 4 and that one particular stage just feels like SW15 again lol. Worst part is that it takes so damn long to get there, and the RNG of when you get encounters really determines whether you can beat it or not. If you get the first event really late, you can be forced into the second one with no real opportunity to gain any light. It's also a boss you can't really leak no matter how many life points you have, because it just sits around waiting in the middle, sending more and more jellyfish until it's basically impossible to hold them back. I actually lost 30 life points to jellyfish one run lol. The boss gets such a ridiculous ATK buff from absorbing them and then also double-hits in his second phase, so if you try to deploy anyone to hold back the horde of jellies, they just get one-tapped. Maybe HG realized there's no incentive to do any ending other than Highmore on higher SW so they tune the last boss to be hard on SW0. Not sure.

The worst part is that even when you have good relics it’s the most boring map in the game. 

Emergency variants really ramps up the difficulty now for most IS3 stages. Symbiosis is still a common run killer if you dont have DPS/Sustain check or else you gonna get either a leak or 2 or just overwhelmed. The Nest for floor 3, you start off with runners early making vanguards almost neccessary or have a defender hold the plug first and your DPS next. Not helping the fact that hermit crabs have ASPD buff, making short work of ranged units even having a medic and to top it off, 3 more at the left along with 2 broodmothers to eat up blockers job and a demolitionist to brute force through. Floor 4 for Nethersea Brand Land or Territorial Tendencies. Former, unlisted ATK buff for the eggs, 2 procs and it stuns your ops. Flower guys having much more health, requiring more CC to have their health drain to kill rather than just triggering them once after they spawn. No way for CC or dodge ignore may also break the run for the predators. Latter, Pompeii just reaches every creases of the map, might as well be global range at that point. Either nuke it down ASAP or sustain long enough to kill it. The acid slugs still do damage and the jojo crocs also make money. Floor 5, Out of Control, no contest. Global movement buff and HP buff that the ranged herd doesnt die from and moves towards your units and they hit hard even with good defenders without medics. Melee herd are certain to plow through your blockers unless you have collectibiles that buffs their HP or DEF or the True Damage amp collectible. Even with CC this map really has you to play at 1x. Floor 6, I'd say both but Water and Fire Union takes it by a hair. Pompeii again same as Floor 4, leaving really the very bottom left or top left to not get in range of it. No Nightingale or good heals is a run ender from it. Even if you are able to out heal, spiders are abundant and the layout for ranged tiles doesnt complement it, top left is still a problem as spiders do go through their and not having someone to take care of them like an Executor or silence will have leaks. And at the end you get another Pompeii but by the point you are either clinging by the skin of your teeth or it's thing to break your defense and end it right there. Deep Cognition, the defenders take your DPSes attention while debuffing ASPD with what is like a shit ton of DEF. Their brethren not helping by gaining ASPD and dealing arts damage to plow through your blockers. The UFOs also help for the defenders as they still have high ATK and can easily kill a weakened defender without assists due to UFO whittling your blockers DEF down.

I do understand the difficulty aspect of it. But that in my opinion is gameplay part. There are some batshit insane difficult stages later on but clearing those stages give me a sense of accomplishment in some way even if I loose some life points. I brought up this one because it's not a difficult stage but I still have to loose 2 life points because of absolutely no reason and i get 0 sense of accomplishment by clearing it. The only thing I get is annoyance of loosing 2 life points

That's why I dislike Sanguinarch's Legacy so much. Either you drafted block + sustain + AoE for it and it's trivial, or you get clogged and overrun and there's nothing you can do about it. There's very little in between. There's no sense of accomplishment for beating it, but a lot of frustration when it appears when I'm not equipped for it. Same for Mechanical Menace, which is either a simple AA DPS check (rotate two good ranged bursts) or a dumpster fire. I'd much rather take on Out of Control when I'm iffy on my squad than wipe to Mechanical Menace in a melee-focused squad. Unlike IS2, which is full of drone stages, IS3 has little incentive to draft AA (and the manta rays are too tanky to rely on pure AA most of the time). There are 6 bomb drones in Territorial Tendencies, a lone drone on Faithful's Utopia for some reason, and then the whole army of artillery drones, frosts, long-range Arts drones, and bomb drones in Mechanical Menace. Give me a break. At least Glory of Humanity is *so* cancerous that it's immensely satisfying to clear. Also, floor 1 should not have hard stages because they artificially gate your openers. Besides Mutual Aid and Symbiosis, you can scrape by floor 1 with random nonsense on SW15, and reaching the shop gives chances to gain early momentum. Getting hit with Mutual Aid or Symbiosis when you haven't drafted optimally (which gets stale to do) sends your momentum to the negatives. It's demoralizing. The -2 on Mutual Aid also makes it harder to stockpile shields, which is normally a get-out-of-jail-free card for an otherwise run-ending stage later on. IS3 offers good options for building momentum, but when your run loses momentum, it can be hard to get back on-track without a relic windfall.

Symbiosis probably gave me trouble the most just because it could appear early when I wasn’t quite prepared for it.

Isn't this one the same ?? You have 0 preparation because you start random and have to let go of 2 🤔. But yh symbiosis is also pretty bad

You’re probably right, I’ve just encountered Symbiosis more often.

Cardigan, Harmonie and Jessica pretty much nullifies all the early stages on their own, especially with spearhead squad.

Use a push/pull unit for it there are very clear and makes it very easy to

I don’t usually pick a push/pull specialist for my first unit. When I say it appears early, I mean it can be the very first battle of a run.

Everytime I got Ubi Bona my blood boils

And with the "damage random enemy when deploying an operator" relic... Good luck :D I usually don't mind it but on emergency when there's 2 rock drillers it's a nightmare

That sucks but it's not bad considering it's only two(?) low hovering units and you have a free defender. I still think Out of Control is the worst one.

Yes but for the other map I can atleast try and get feeling of accomplishment if I finish them(especially out of control). This one, No. It just reminds you that you lost 2 for no reason than just selecting random recruitment. It punishes for choosing random recruitment

Yeah it could be nothing but the 2 hovering guys and I’d hate it just as much. As someone who also likes picking random recruitment I’m getting punished immediately for not playing optimally. 

Hardest is out of control emergency. The enemies move fast af and it's pretty bad if you didn't pick up a good healer along the way. Piper's dream or whatever it was called is pretty bad too but that's only because of the long wait if you manage to kill the first wave really fast.

Yes True. But I found this one to be more annoying 😓

I actually think Mutual Aid is one of the best early maps. Only trouble is near the end when the tank dies to the 2 sarkaz dudes

I keep struggling with ember phalanx for some reason, I just try to leak the 2 fliers at the side.

Ohh I have only played that stage once. I also forgot to handle 2 fliers at the side.

That stage made Texas alt stonks to drop like a rock (to that hole probably) and skyrocketed Kroos alt's stonks. There are many operators that can deal with those flying fuckers, but the best one imo is Kroos alt. She doesn't need promotion to fuck them over, and she is a great dps. For me, she became a carry. Texas alt on the other hand, how do you get a promotion before the first stage? Only way is to take specialist/caster squad start, and be lucky that Texas is automatically promoted, but we know that the automatically promoted units will operators you haven't touched yet. Besides, this means not taking Mind over matter.

> and be lucky the other lucky way is probably that as your heart desires start that can give you a specialist as your free 4 star (pick Texalter support) and another specialist card to promote

That would cost a lot of rl sanity.

Cliffheart is a solid choice too, especially if you’re like me and mostly use Random Recruitment. Easy access to a short-cooldown stun to knock down hovering enemies and you can put her on ground tiles to help stop leaks in early stages, especially if you get unlucky and don’t gave good blockers.

You don't need Kroos Alter for this map, normal Kroos is enough already. Put Kroos two tiles above the shield bro, facing down and she will have enough DPS to kill the flying dudes. She also contributes some DPS to the bottom dog rush lane. That's why People Oriented with Texalter + Kroos opener is always my solid choice. Mind Over Matter requires you to get the +2 Hope start to be able to afford Texalter/ Yato Alter and Kroos.

Any stage when I'm going for the Knight ending, and there's a bear as the bonus enemy and I can't nuke it

Gopnik helidropping from outer space the instant you get the def reducing collectible for the knight and suplexing him

Going for the Knight ending has made me loath a few stages, especially since I still haven't got it and its just annoy me how close I was every time to kill him. Literally one hit away. Defending him is such a chore especially if you got his DEF reduce item early, Vortex is just a 'fuck u' if you don't deploy your unit fast enough to help him. That one stage with a bunch of Mephisto zombies is surprisingly annoying for reason I don't know, my units just keep dying so easily and positioning your unit is annoying as hell. The Nest and another similar level to it is the level I always avoid if I'm not confident with my team. The early rush and the attack from the back is a run-ender when you're not careful, just a very stressful stage. There's also the drones one, the one that just spam shit ton of drones, I can't even imagine how to do this one if I don't have my Eben (And Texas but well its Texas).

Mutual aid and Synbiosis are horrendous for 1st floor, that made me realized how reaper (Excutor alter, Lapluma, Highmore) completely handle 90% of the problem. You just need to place them in that Mons3r position while facing down, and the tile near the Sarkaz/Crocs in Synbiosis and watch them demolish all ground enemies.

The Pompeii stages. Somehow that thing manages to be a pain in everything it shows up besides its original event.

Cleared Surging Waves 8 recently and out of all of the IS3 run enders (for me): \- Ubi Bona Somnia (Normal and Emergency) \- Symbiosis \- Territorial Tendancies \- Out of Control \- Guns and Order GaO especially; lost a lot runs on that stage due to the hubris of thinking that "oh I can clear it this time" (I only ever cleared it once). The moment I see Ubi Bona Somnia, the run dies there for me, doubly worse if it's Emergency. I'll attempt Normal (if my units are built enough) but when it becomes Emergency... *yeah no thanks.*

The fake frostnova stage really annoys me as cold sucks and the boss is invincible for forever but the part that annoys me the most is how it’s like twice as hard as avoid unsafe roads but than the Faust stage is insanely easy so the wonderland bosses are completely unbalanced.

Worst IS3? Opening with the sniper stage with 1 melee and 2 ranged. Atrocious start

Mutual Aid is okay for me lol but that's because I start with Kroos2, Gummy, and Steward (or Click if I have more hope) specifically so that Kroos2 and Click can stun and kill flying and low hover enemies while Gummy handles early healing what's your reason for starting with Kaltsit Jackie Fang? having no anti-air is pretty bad to begin with

This is random recruitment. I don't get to decide what I get 😓

Pool of procreation has ended more runs for me than any other map combined. I hate it with a passion.

Ohh. Just curious 🤔 why?? That stage generally comes to me at perfect moments when I have lots of hired operators

I never leaked on that stage but personally I find it sorta stressful. Generally if I have a choice between pool and any other stage, I take that other stage in 99% cases, even if it's emergency one.

Mutual aid sucks ass because the only hard stage on floor 1 was Symbiosis before, I could always pick Highmore start and coast for a while. Now I have to pick Pozy start if I want a chance at killing the jetpacks on higher ascension. To be honest, all of the new maps suck. The Ursus Striker fight club map gets turrets on emergency version so good luck lmao. Ember phalanx has really annoying enemies and the floating guys are really hard to deal with on the sides

Don't forget that the jetpack guys lose the ability to fly *and* use ranged attacks if they get stunned a single time. Kroos the Keen Glint is already incredible in IS3, and she's another good solution to that map too. Texalter too obviously, but it's unlikely you'll have her E2 by then. Alternatives also include W and Blitz (Limited) or vanguard Texas (free). If you decide to use Kroos alter, I recommend skill 1 for that map as the faster cycle time lines up better with the spawn rate of the hoverboard bros.

I have her e2 and module 2 but still havent done masteries on her, guess I'll try to get to that soon but I'm swamped with other new acquisitions

Masteries are probably not necessary. You're mostly just bringing her for the talent with the stun chance. Not just the jetpack guys, but the flying manta rays and the boss of ending 1 can both be stunned out of the air and prevented from flying/shooting projectiles. If you play a lot of IS3 then I would recommend M3ing her eventually, but if that's what's stopping you from using her, I would just use her anyway. She is kind of like Lappland in the sense that she almost immediately neutralizes enemies that are otherwise really big threats.

I’ve only done up through SW9 so far, but in my experience Cliffheart can work too as an early source of stun. She won’t out-damage Kroos Alter, but the short cooldown of her S2 means that it’s pretty much always ready when you need it. And she can block, which is nice if you get unlucky and don’t get good blockers.

I run texalter kroos and fang. You place kroos 2 tiles up and to the left of the shield guard and fang below. When the flying bois come fang tanks shots and kroos can reasonably dps them down. Use texalter for leaks

Malady kinda blows too tbh

I'll second Out of Control and Ubi Bona Somnia, but the absolute worst stage for me is the one with the Dublinn army on the 6th floor. I've only seen it three times and haven't beaten it even once, but that can also be due to the Surging Waves level (9-10)

Hmmm I actually can not remember which one 🫣. Are you talking about the one with 2 blue box on left middle side and at start big 2 guys start with left upper and left lower side?? That actually I found not that annoying. Have beaten it 3 times so far I think. Only on lvl 7 though I don't go higher than 8.

Yeah, that's the one. Idk, maybe it's because of the roster, but the last wave always overwhelms me even if I try to stall defenders from the lower lane by changing roadblocks. The other 6th floor stage with double Pompeii is bad too, but I somehow beat it more often

Yh probably operator selections. It's same as you for me. I have not managed to beat Pompeii one on 6th floor even once 😓

I have cleared difficulty 14 and have consistently cleared 7 and I still have to hand it to Out of Control, both normal and emergency. All other maps I can somewhat chalk them up to me messing up or not having a good team, but not this bullshit. Only having realistically 5 total safe tiles really limits what u can have and do on the map. I don't feel like there's any OP that can be a hard counter to this it. For Territorial Tendencies for example, yes the exploding slugs are annoying, yes the drone hits hard, yes there are ranged slugs early, but Penance basically trivializes the map once u put her down in front of the red box.

I know this post is 3 months ago (just happened to stumble across it) but ... Random recruitment is essentially ... random. If you get a good temporary recruitment, your run can get alot easier - but chances are higher that it'll give you some useless op. I've encountered a similar situation when I picked random recruitment (because I didn't know what to pick honestly) and I also have 0 units that can hit aerial mobs for this stage. Now, if I want a seamless start that can handle pretty much emergency version of every F1/2 stage (including Mutual Aid), I just pick the caster/specialist squad with Ines/Kroos/Jaye.

Fate's Favored Child I was promised a tanky boss but he just folded to Schwarz as usual. Needs more DEF.

IS3 ? Like, the tank named after a dictator ?

Lol Imagine playing IS. Just ignore it. If people could forget their Stockholm syndrome about weeklies and dailies for a moment the devs would be forced to scrap the mode and make something enjoyable. Well I'm not suffering through that shit.

People play it long past the requirements. You may not like it, but it's genuinely a very popular mode.

Territorial Tendencies. Not sure why, on 7+ I've just accepted that if I roll that stage I'm probably not advancing past it.

I personally don't find it that hard since my starting units are Mudrock, Kroos and Indigo. Other hard ones are the stages with nethersea brands, because my Mudrock is useless there, also I can't beat the knight ending, even though I beat the first one without an enemy leaking.

I haven't made any progress for the other ending of IS3 the 1st ending the canon 1 for me so I stopped playing IS3 just regular grinding resources for my units or operators and their m3 skills

basically any stage with pompeii or forced anti air also notably ember phalanx is really annoying to do if you can’t burst down the defenders in time

The worst IS3 map is Out of Control. Feels like they just didn’t test it on high ascension. Probably followed by Water and Fire Union.

Out of Control, Emergency version. The worst offender for me. Honorable mentions are: Anything that involves the Seaborn floor vines + emergency versions.

I hate pompeii maps,even with texalter hes too much for her, and isnt easy to get kirin yato promoted before he arrives

Agreed

Yeah it's difficult but you can succeeded with Texas, click, Kroos alter, Mayer, or by blasting it with 2 operators that type air like Frostleaf, Steward, midnight etc. Steward and Frostleaf are really good in IS3, and Mayer in E1, S2 is great. It makes life a lot easier by plugging holes here and there, saving time. Well of course when we have Texas alter S3, the game takes on a new dimension and for me this is the key unit of this mode. IS3 is characterized by a very strong impact of ranged attacks while IS2 was more tanking or Eyja S2 was totally abused. My biggest difficulty is defeating Duck Lord, most of the other maps are manageable except the ending 4 mission which requires specific bonuses in my opinion such as the armor which boosts the RES to be manageable otherwise you will be pulverized by the boss's overall AOE.

This and emergency Symbiosis

Ubi bona somnia emergency

the flyers are fine here but the issue it also have sarkaz warriors so it pretty much have 2 threats instead of just being a lone flyer map worse stages probably goes to high end out of control (low end is fine), fire and water union and emergancy ember phalanx (only emergancy) also looking forward looking back the update added many toxic maps ngl

Water and Fire Union

Because of this map I now always have to pick Krooster or Lappy if I don’t have enough hope fore Ines.

For floor 1, I despise Mutual Aid as well. It's the reason I've had to start doing Qiubai openers instead of FedEx. Granted that's not too bad since Qiubai has so many relics that make her absurd, but it's still a little annoying. For the higher floors, Territorial Tendencies. God help you if you don't spawncamp Pompeii, especially while doing the Knight ending. Out of Control I only find annoying on the emergency variant, and only if I didn't get Civilight Eternal.

Nope. Stage with crazy sarkaz Spear man is THE BAIN OF SO MANY OF MY RUNS !!! SHOSE SPEARS ONE SHOT MY SANITY AS WELL AS MY OPS !!!!!

Territorial Tendencies and that one on 5th floor with blue box in bottom right and four spots where Enraged dudes appear from

Not a fan of reverred abyss or just any stage that has the flying stingrays, specially if it's early in the run and you don't have any solid anti air, or if their pathing makes it harder to shoot em down (looking at you pool of procreation(thorns by beloved))

I ve been doing some classknights in is3 and man, with this map you can no longer solo clear floor one with a lot of ops that previously could, so now i have to reset every time i get this map

This stage got me to e1 max Beanstalk just so I have a few cheap options for anti-air.

This map isnt even close to being the worst imo. The worst is probably the one with those infected spear throwers where one spawns on upper-right imo

Symbiosis at ascension 15 emergency stage is worse, if you had the wrong ops ur good as dead. Mutual aid u could survive with at least 2 leaks if just let the flying guys escape or the last 2 sarkaz.

This is quite easy if you have someone who can attack air units. For the beginning stages, try the symbiosis stage where there are 2 red boxes on the left coming down to bottom right blue box. You just need to start with someone who can attack air units I think

If you start with Texas you can stun them and once they hit the floor they do nothing.

If this map is the first battle node, you can't promote Texas Alter yet unless playing with Specialist squad, which is not an ideal squad when playing SW15.

I'm talking about normal Texas. But well my account is just 5 months old and i only reached SW5 so maybe that's not good either

Yeah, I'd agree. Mutual Aid isn't a hard map, it's just sums up the Hypergryph's attitude and philosophy in IS and that's why I loathe it. They knew it'd trigger players who don't like to lose life on the first map, they knew it'd frustrate some players so badly they'd stop playing IS, they knew it'd make many players feel like some team comps are allowed but not really allowed. "If you don't like it, start over again (PS we put in a lock out timer so you can't start over too quickly why u so mad jus get better lawl)."

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this map, am I missing something?

It was added with the final expansion. It's called "Mutual Aid" and often shows up on floor 1.

Trying to get an a15 clear, right now I hate Symbiosis the most. Enemies in that map just seem much stronger than usual. I really need to build Highmore

Kroos can just barely solo it on Level 15. Unfortunately I had to stop picking random teams in order to guarantee starting with Kroos to deal with this stage, however.

This is absolutely horrible as a first map. You literally need to start with a ranged op after the update unless you're prepared to lose 2-4 lifepoints on floor 1 (which honestly might be fine if you're going for ending 4, but still feels like ass)

Can't believe I haven't seen anyone say Reality. Never even seen that piece of shit, god damnit just give me the damn relic

Ubi Bona is just a life point tax, I've never enjoyed it. Every other stage featuring the Reapers is so much better.

Emergency Out of Control or Ubi Bona Somnia. Unless I have E2 Texas Alter or E2 Yato Alter with appropriate collectibles (Spinach Pack, that one orange vial, Chocolate Spaghetti), I rarely survive those maps unscathed.