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That’s not a problem. I’ll accelerate your learning process so that you can start clearing tough brutal-difficulty rooms sooner. Just follow the steps below.
1. Gather information
Don’t be scared of the spammed traps and whatnot. They can’t catch you if you’re moving fast and using your head. Unless you get snared by a claw or fly into a guard’s face or travel through the line of fire of a trap for an extended period of time, you’re going to just evade everything. Really, you can grapple circles around a lot of killboxes while all hell is breaking loose and you won’t take damage. It’s about using your movement and jumps and knowing that where you’ve just been is dangerous territory.
Do just that – get inside, fly around. Gather information. Identify the traps that you’re dealing with. Identify the different threats that make up the whole. Where are the sentinels? Where are the guards? What can be shot at without losing your bolts?
Pro tip: If you die inside the killbox, do not immediately respawn. While you’re dead you can still turn your camera around and look at the inside of the room! Use this opportunity to gain a ton of info and strategize your next attempt.
You can also use flash shields to give yourself a little bit of breathing room – but I don’t recommend it.
Note: If the killbox has a very low ceiling, just try to gather as much information as you can muster without entering the room. There’s less information to gather since there’s not much verticality involved.
2. Clear the biggest threats first
What obstacles in the room have the largest arc of fire – what’s shooting at you no matter where you are? What’s modded with obnoxious effects like the lingering sentinel AoE or flamethrower napalm? Figure this out, and destroy these obstacles first.
How?
The same way you gathered info. Swoop in, eliminate one target, swoop out. Take a breath. You just made the killbox that much easier. One trap destroyed might not feel like much, but it is permanently gone (unless your run restarts).
Don’t be afraid to use your sword. You can get in close on ranged traps much more often than you think. Your sword deflects nearly everything, and you have the ability to choose your timing. Wait for a gap between shots, zip in, crush the target, and get back out. Alternatively, peek out, fire a bolt to destroy the target, then get back into cover and wait for the shots to stop flying at you. Then get out and grapple just to secure your bolt before you return to safety.
Repeat this process until you’ve created more safe ground on which to stand.
3. Clear limited traps
If it’s not a flamethrower, sentinel, piston, or modified spike trap, it’s gotta stop shooting at you after it fires once or twice. Grappling through the line of fire of un-triggered traps is safer than you think a lot of the time. Just waste their charges, and suddenly you just have a room half-full of inactive traps. Of course, this doesn’t apply to guards.
4. Engage what remains
If you’re here to clear the killbox and not just grapple through it, then at some point you’re going to have to face the obstacles that are left. Maybe there’s 14 enforcers that are all on islands surrounded by corrosive cubes. There’s nothing left to do here but git gud.
Get comfortable with the rhythm with which guards (and guards modded with increased fire rate) shoot at you. Know what it looks like. Bait their shots, strafe away from where you’ve baited them, and swoop in for the kill. You might die in a single hit, but your custodian is actually a monster, especially with liberal use of the grappling hook.
Sample killbox clear
Watch this spur-of-the-moment recording I made. Watch how I apply the steps above to beat this killbox. This resembles what your gameplay will look like with practice and practical application.
Special Scenario: Genmat Surprise!
The above steps are great for solving more “open” killboxes – but what about when the killbox is wave 2 spam right on top of the genmat? You don’t have time to gather much information – you need to act now!
The protip in section 1 applies here: If you die, use your camera to examine your surroundings before you respawn. You won’t get another chance to look at this setup until you reach the genmat on your next life.
The unfortunate reality is that you might just be screwed without Flash Barriers (or, heaven forbid, the Arc Barrier weapon – seriously, Flash Barriers last way longer). It’s for this reason that my default consumable setup is Flash Barriers & Phoenix Pod.
If you’ve made it this far into the guide, hopefully you have already developed the killer instinct to watch the most obvious places for wave 2 traps to spawn and murder you right on top of the genmat. Fun fact – Holocubes are not the only traps that disguise themselves as bedrock! Wave 2 sentinels will ALSO look like bedrock before the genmat is grabbed!
The instant you pluck the genmat from its housing, you should be IMMEDIATELY launching your melee / ranged rampage against any and all traps in your vicinity, attempting to apply priority. You have precious seconds to leverage here in order to create a safe place for you to stand and evaluate your next move. Don’t waste this time on impalers adjacent to the genmat if there’s a sentinel, flamethrower or bolt wall staring you down!
The good news is that if you keep your head, you actually have plenty of time. Why? Well, those scary wave 2 traps take a couple seconds to start warming up before they detect you – so don’t throw out that Flash Barrier right away! Whack n’ blast traps until you know they’re about to shoot you. Now it’s time for your Barrier. Now, you have several more seconds with which to carve out your territory.
Addendum: Don’t get tilted
You signed up to play a game where other players are trying to kill you with their creations. The expectation of the game is not that players are out to make their bases fun by your subjective definition of what “fun” is, even if that’s an accolade you can hand out afterwards. They’re out to beat you. Stay cool.