Tips for Ruins Running?

[Habberdash]

Hey, so I've been try my hand at ruins running for a bit and I just wanted some help on a couple things.
1)  How do I deal with shadow monsters? I can take a crawling horror and a terrorbeak but two terrorbeaks or more is when things start to get difficult for me because of how much quicker they are. Should I just keep running or bring some cooked green mush with me or smth?

2) Kind of related to the second one but, when the nightmare cycle begins and there are tons of shadow monsters around, should I just kite them around until the cycle ends or leave the ruins or something?

Also any other tips you have is also fine, I'm trying to get better at doing these runs because the caves and ruins are actually my favorite areas of DST.

[Thomas_klei]

tbh i don't enjoy ruins running i suggest for the terror beaks that i believe there is a mechanic that 1 terror beak will get a speed buff to pressure you so i suggest running away far enough so you can quickly kite the one in front then carry on the process in till there is only 1 left to kite.

you should avoid fighting most of the shadow monsters in my opinion unless your trying to fight them or you have enough resources to do so e.g using a ton of rock lobsters or using cave fuel weaver to kill them. however if i had to suggest avoiding one mob it would be the shadow monkey's as they usually dense population of them making them hard to deal with

[Ressayez]

Character choice can help a lot when dealing with shadow creatures. The better in combat, the quicker they’ll be dealt with. You shouldn’t run in during peak to begin with though, which is how enemies will pile up. You’re going to want to stick to exploring and looting during the calm & warning phases, but once peak hits you need to find a relatively safe area (no nightmare lights, no fissures, no splumonkeys) and wait it out before you continue.

[Habberdash]

bump

[Brago-sama]

Well as far as non character specific tips go

•Consider burning Splumonkey pods down and killing them all off. This allows much more maneuverability within the ruins. They will regenerate back into existence when fuelweaver is defeated.

• let the rooks (rhino robot) break everything down for you. If enemies are spawned from a structure breaking such as clockwork mounds, broken ancient or statues they will agro into whatever broke the structure instead of you

•if you haven't yet gotten either a krampus sack or bundling wrap, consider setting up a small base of a fridge, 2 crockpots and a birdcage next to the lichen fields 

Cave worms provide ample meat, lichen counts as a vegetable. With that in mind, your mini base can chug out meatballs, perogi and bacon and eggs, allowing you to stay longer 

[Bird Up]

If there's 2 terrorbeaks, just run until one disappears. If you see one terrorbeak, kill it asap, or a second one could spawn. There's a mod that tells you when the nightmare phases cycle so you don't have to find yourself in monkey city when they turn. It can be a good idea to pick lots of blue mushrooms from the blue mushroom tree biome. Maxwell does pretty well maintaining sanity in the ruins because his dapperness.

[lakhnish]

6 hours ago, Habberdash said:

1)  How do I deal with shadow monsters? I can take a crawling horror and a terrorbeak but two terrorbeaks or more is when things start to get difficult for me because of how much quicker they are. Should I just keep running or bring some cooked green mush with me or smth?

You could bring Sanity food with you if you're currently uncomfortable with kiting your own Shadow Creatures. You could also wear a Nightmare Amulet on the surface to get some practice kiting nightmares, as Helicalpuma shows here. If you can handle the Nightmares from the Nightmare Amulet, you can deal with your regular nightmares. You can bait the attack of the nightmare and then hit again, which is the slow way of killing them that Heli is doing, but recommeneded if you're new to nightmares.

If you've got a handle on that, what you can do is attack, dodge, attack, which is seen in this video. Sometimes the first attack is a fake attack, which is allowing you to kite properly, other times it's an actual attack. It's a faster way of killing nightmares, but requires practice (and in some cases, good ping).

6 hours ago, Habberdash said:

2) Kind of related to the second one but, when the nightmare cycle begins and there are tons of shadow monsters around, should I just kite them around until the cycle ends or leave the ruins or something?

It's better to just avoid the Nightmare Lights, especially when there's a lot of them, unless you can deal with the Nightmares that spawn and want some more Nightmare Fuel.

You can make also Thulecite Medallion at any level Ancient Psuedoscience Station and either look at the colors of the Medallion or examine it to get a feel for when Nightmare Cycle starts/ends. Other people are able to do it without it, but I can't figure it out. Not only that, it has the added bonus of showing you where the Ancient Key is, and since Ancient Guardian is holding the Ancient Key, you'll know where the Labyrinth is.

Other than that, just make sure to carry with you a means of light, a means of healing, and armor. Avoid Monkeys cause they have the potential to stunlock you during Nightmare Cycle, and have some inventory for all the loot and pickaxes/hammers you'll bring when clearing the Ruins.

[Ressayez]

 

 

 

2

3 hours ago, lakhnish said:

You can make also Thulecite Medallion at any level Ancient Psuedoscience Station and either look at the colors of the Medallion or examine it to get a feel for when Nightmare Cycle starts/ends. Other people are able to do it without it, but I can't figure it out. Not only that, it has the added bonus of showing you where the Ancient Key is, and since Ancient Guardian is holding the Ancient Key, you'll know where the Labyrinth is.

There's clear visual and auditory indicators. Most obvious ones are the turf and ambience. The turf changes colour in accordance to the nightmare cycle, from a cool blue (calm) to grey (warning) to bright magenta (peak) to grey (waning). In addition to that fissures, statues and nightmare lights also have visual changes depending on what phase they're in. 

[Terra_Zina]

Character choice matters alot aswell. I highly recommend to start with Wx-78 due to his gear eating habit, and gears being plentiful in the ruins. Rush with him a few times untill you get the basic hang of the ruins. Then you can try with other characters.

Other good characters are:

Willow (just have a sewing kit on hand)

Wolfgang (because its wolfgang. need i say more?)

Wendy (just keep abigail alive)

Wigfrid should be good too, though I've never tried. Just keep a stack of jerky at hand and stay away from those evil bunnys.

[AdventZen]

Hey there,
The most valuable tip I can give you is to learn which fights to pick. Honestly that applies to DST in general, but this is specially true in the Ruins. If you see a Bishop or a Terrorbeak, always be on your toes, and try to lure them closer to an empty part of the map or a place where you know your fight will be 1V1. If there's more than one, stick to the strategy for Bishops, one at a time, while as for the beaks, try to sync their attacks (run away, then bait their attacks, if you ran enough, they'll attack at the same time, making dodging far easier). It's pretty hard, however, to have two of them on your tail, so for general shenanigans invoving at least one of them, lure them away from the angry crowd ASAP and deal with them alone. The kiting pattern is bait, attack, wait, repeat.

As for the Nightmare Cycle, I'd advise you to know your ground before anything else. If you have map-awareness, you know where the lights gather, so avoid that place in specific at the peaks, and focus on the more scattered-out lights/clockwork bases. If you don't have map-awareness, wait it out, the darkness of it all, alongside the nature of the cycle are the perfect scenario for an ambush by Shadow Creatures. You'll get plenty of fuel just by dealing with clockworks and mining statues, there's no need to cannonball yourself into an emo party. The only other main threat of this time are the Shadow Splumonkeys, which you should just avoid entirely. run, run and keep running.

Some random tips I didn't know where to fit in this thing:
-Shadows spawned from the lights will attack you no matter your sanity level, so bringing Blue Caps for healing won't affect much of the fight, the worst that can happen is having to fight another shadow after you beat the last one.
-Shrooms are abundant in certain cave biomes, so spending a few minutes to gather a stack of Blue and half a stack of Green in preparation might just save your life.
 

Good Luck!

[Viktor234]

Bishops, Nightmares, or (Shadow) Splumonkeys won't cause you any troubles if you have a BERNIE! next to you. He'll tank any kind of enemy for you as long as he has enough health. He can't dodge attacks, but he can tank up to 2000 damage (almost same as Thulecite Armor + Crown, health can be fully restored with 20% of a sewing kit), making him really useful against bishops or to farm Nightmare Fuel/Beard Hairs quickly.

[AN-0923]

Moggles are very useful from what I gather. 

[Rogueagent01]

14 minutes ago, AN-0923 said:

Moggles are very useful from what I gather. 

Personally i think that is the best tip possible, they make surprise attacks nearly impossible. They allow for superb situational awareness which will save your life more then anything else in the game.

[Be2014]

You can get the mod nightmare phase indicator it will give you a time of when the nightmares will begin so you can get to a safe spot.  Get a bush hat had hid from them. Ha Ha.

[Maxposting]

1 hour ago, Bee2017 said:

You can get the mod nightmare phase indicator it will give you a time of when the nightmares will begin so you can get to a safe spot.  Get a bush hat had hid from them. Ha Ha.

Or you know, use a thulecite medailon?

[Pluschi-Cal]

21 minutes ago, __IvoCZE__ said:

Or you know, use a thulecite medailon?

Why do that when you can just use yet another overpowered mod that makes content in the game useless? 

[Habberdash]

1 minute ago, Plushical said:

Why do that when you can just use yet another overpowered mod that makes content in the game useless? 

Because there is no "right" way to play the game, and for me using a mod where the indicator is constantly on the screen near my other stats is easier for me personally. I tend to lose track or get too focused(or lose focus) a lot of the time because of how my brain works so I would have a difficult time remembering to look at my inventory for the indication.

It costs 0$ to be considerate of other peoples reasons for using mods.

[Maxposting]

3 minutes ago, Habberdash said:

It costs 0$ to be considerate of other peoples reasons for using mods.

I don't think that we should use mods to you know replace actual content?

[Habberdash]

Just now, __IvoCZE__ said:

I don't think that we should use mods to you know replace actual content?

What did I just say? People use mods for a variety of reasons, accessibility, personal preference, etc. Like there is no "right" way to play DST. It doesn't matter if it replaces actual content or not, people will do what they want to make the game fun for them. For me it makes things easier to manage so I don't forget and make a mistake, complaining about people using mods that replace mechanics isn't going to stop people from modding the game to their liking.

[Pluschi-Cal]

2 minutes ago, Habberdash said:

Because there is no "right" way to play the game, and for me using a mod where the indicator is constantly on the screen near my other stats is easier for me personally. I tend to lose track or get too focused(or lose focus) a lot of the time because of how my brain works so I would have a difficult time remembering to look at my inventory for the indication.

It costs 0$ to be considerate of other peoples reasons for using mods.

Of course it's easier for you... it's easier for everyone to "ruin" a big factor of the ruins. 

By the way, that's how everyone's brain works. People do in fact, tend to lose focus on something, when they are focusing on something else. The point of the nightmare cycle is that it takes you by surprise. One moment you're just searching the village, another moment you're being eaten alive by Splumonkies. You take this away by having a timer on your stats, but you are still correct. There is no 'intended' way to play. Have it your way.

[Starlogy]

unrelated but

why

Edit: BRUH

[minespatch]

11 minutes ago, Starlogy said:

unrelated butwhy

They found a thread in art and lore that wasn't locked yet.

[Maxposting]

3 minutes ago, minespatch said:

They found a thread in art and lore that wasn't locked yet.

I didn't, It was THEM!

[reverentsatyr]

If you happen to have both a snurtle shell and a bee queen helmet, take it down with you to the ruins. When the nightmare phase starts, go right next  to a nightmare light and hide in the shell with the queen helmet equipped. The shadow creatures will ignore you, and you will quickly gain back your sanity.

[1bubbainpa]

19 hours ago, Plushical said:

Why do that when you can just use yet another overpowered mod that makes content in the game useless? 

And this is why I never recommended this mod, because I knew people would reeee about it.