Hardest tier 5?

[Tmodloader]

What is it? 

[Darklegend222]

Crack-a-book. Not only do all the rooms have 20+ enemies, but there's barely any loot to gather and the POI is literally hardest to navigate as there is no set path at all once you get inside.

[Niil945]

That's odd, I think it's the easiest tier 5. The path seemed rather straight forward to me. It does have several locations with a ton of z's, but all the tier 5's seem to have that. The biggest difference to me is that instead of many small clusters of z's there are a couple rather large areas that have a lot. It's definitely not one to melee through, even if geared, but using an auto shotty or an m60 it seemed fine. Just make sure to bring enough ammo (even though you'll probably loot it all back x3 once you get to the end and from all the bags.

 

But what do you mean by hard? The z's? How complicated it is to navigate the POI? How large it is? It's going to depend a lot.

[PinkLed5]

Tier 5s aren't hard, at least not after the first time you do them and figure 'em out, they're just time consuming, at least when you main a stealth character.  I'll easily spend 2+ in game days on a single tier 5.  Gets exhausting pretty quick.

[Whorhay]

I'd say the book store HQ is the worst thus far in my experience. Large areas with relatively fewer choke points with tons of zombies that seem to be in sleeper zones that wake them all up at once. Your game stage will have a lot to do with how bad that is, in my games they are usually full of radiated zombies.  Combined with the game running like a power point presentation in the cities it can be pretty sketchy. Book Store HQ has been my only death in A20 so far where I stood much of a chance and wasn't just shafted by RNGesus.

7 hours ago, Darklegend222 said:

Crack-a-book. Not only do all the rooms have 20+ enemies, but there's barely any loot to gather and the POI is literally hardest to navigate as there is no set path at all once you get inside.

The floors are all wide open but the path from floor to floor should be pretty visible.

Scissor lift to 3rd floor, kill zombies > open stairs to 4th floor, kill zombies > stair well to roof, kill zombies > fire escape down, to a ladder in the elevator shaft, down to 2nd floor, kill zombies > open stairs down to 1st/ground floor, kill zombies > different stairs down to basement, kill zombies, loot room, open garage door to the outside.

[Darklegend222]

14 minutes ago, Whorhay said:

I'd say the book store HQ is the worst thus far in my experience. Large areas with relatively fewer choke points with tons of zombies that seem to be in sleeper zones that wake them all up at once. Your game stage will have a lot to do with how bad that is, in my games they are usually full of radiated zombies.  Combined with the game running like a power point presentation in the cities it can be pretty sketchy. Book Store HQ has been my only death in A20 so far where I stood much of a chance and wasn't just shafted by RNGesus.

The floors are all wide open but the path from floor to floor should be pretty visible.

Scissor lift to 3rd floor, kill zombies > open stairs to 4th floor, kill zombies > stair well to roof, kill zombies > fire escape down, to a ladder in the elevator shaft, down to 2nd floor, kill zombies > open stairs down to 1st/ground floor, kill zombies > different stairs down to basement, kill zombies, loot room, open garage door to the outside.

I'll have to go back through and try it again. Me and my three friends have never been able to find the right way. Once we get to the roof we immediately go down to the ground level and just break out the spikes in the front door because we physically can't find the way to go.

[Whorhay]

I think the fire escape I was thinking of is actually an access to an area with some AC units, if you go past those there is a ledge that leads around a corner of the building and to an open window into the elevator shaft.

 

And actually going from the 2nd to the 1st floor is a drop of two blocks in the busted up stairwell.

[Niil945]

1 hour ago, Darklegend222 said:

I'll have to go back through and try it again. Me and my three friends have never been able to find the right way. Once we get to the roof we immediately go down to the ground level and just break out the spikes in the front door because we physically can't find the way to go.

Once you get to the roof on one of the far sides is a metal rail staircase that goes down on the building exterior. Then you have to hop over the rail onto a tiny ledge that goes around the building to a broken window that opens into the elevator shaft. From there you climb a ladder down to the lower levels. It's easy to miss, particularly if you're used to the old version of the building.

[Niil945]

1 hour ago, Whorhay said:

I'd say the book store HQ is the worst thus far in my experience. Large areas with relatively fewer choke points with tons of zombies that seem to be in sleeper zones that wake them all up at once. Your game stage will have a lot to do with how bad that is, in my games they are usually full of radiated zombies.  Combined with the game running like a power point presentation in the cities it can be pretty sketchy. Book Store HQ has been my only death in A20 so far where I stood much of a chance and wasn't just shafted by RNGesus.

It was the first T5 POI I went into after A20 and it was a mess. Now though I run into the area, trigger the zombies, then run back a ways. I leave myself fallback points for when I need to reload as there are so many damn irradiated in there they can easily swarm me while mid reload. This separates the fast moving from the slow moving zombies and chokes them up making them easy fodder. The stairwell areas are a bit messier as while the bulk of them will run down the stairs some will just fall over the side and land behind you which can be a pleasant surprise when you start taking damage. When they have to come up the stairs it's a bit easier. I tried this building when pretty high level with all T6 gear and lots of bandages on the drone as a fort build while punching them down using heavy armor. While I was never really in danger of getting killed I did get every wound possible, broken arm and leg included, and walked out with around 50% infected heh. My drone was spamming me with bandages the entire way because the injuries reduced my max health under the trigger point but due to injuries I couldn't actually get above ~80 health. Off all the T5's this seems the quickest to do and the better geared one is the easier it becomes. It's definitely harder than most if you're just starting T5's just due to sheer volume of zombies in massive clusters but it's significantly smaller in terms of ground one has to cover to clear it.

 

That said to the general topic, I don't really consider any T5 worth the effort right now. I get numerous loot containers that have literally nothing in them and the loot room loot isn't good. It's usually just a massive amount of ammo. I know these are things they're working on fixing for 20.1. Even moreso considering Crack-A-Book was my go to location to hit up when book farming and they're far too rare to be worth the time now. The other large factories are still good if you want construction materials like cobblestone and concrete as they have tons of them and the Shamway Factory has a lot of food in it. I've done a building that was just a marked a factory and it was a bit mazelike and had zombies after the loot room that needed to be cleared but it wasn't too bad. Still not worth it loot wise but not terribly difficult to run. They cleaned up the apartment skyscraper with the pool and it's better. Still long and I end up always missing a sleeper or two that just never wake up even though I walk very close to them and kill their friends that I have to go back for. I haven't done the pharmaceutical skyscraper, the hospital, or any of the other new ones in A20 though.