Remnant: From the Ashes - Adds and Managing Game Difficulty

A guide to dealing with adds during boss fights and managing difficulty within a campaign.

How to deal with adds and control game difficulty.

Seeing lots of people struggling to deal with the adds, and yes, it can be crazy in some fights, particularly the three pillars fight. That said, I've beaten every boss repeatedly so I thought I'd start a thread offering suggestions on how to deal with the adds. These are just a few tips on strategies I've noticed that help.

1. Learn the boss: The first couple times with the boss, you're likely to wipe, that's okay. Try to survive long enough to learn the boss mechanics, and when the boss is summoning add waves.
2. Prioritize adds: You usually have a few seconds to kill off the adds before they get close to you. Use it wisely to kill the adds before they get close.
3. Prioritize exploding adds: Be aware that some adds will explode, learn which is which. You need to either kill them before they get close, or roll-dodge away before they explode. If you kill them at range they often take out the other adds in the process.
4. Spatial awareness #1: Roll dodge away from other adds, not into them.
5. Spatial awareness #2. Get used to panning your camera around, my one real gripe, given the lack of mobility and number of adds, is the positioning of your character on-screen and camera angles. This should really have a Shadow of War third-person view option. It's often difficult to know when something is behind you, so get used to watching your back, and be sure to watch the back of your co-op partners.
6. Hunter's Mark: Get hunters mark if you're really struggling. It lets you see adds through walls so you know where they're coming from. You also crit more, which is helpful.
7. Keep moving: You should constantly be moving toward new positions during the fight, standing still is a good way to die. Use the arena to your advantage.
8. Gear up: Make sure that your armor rating matches your weapon rating. Your highest-ranked item will determine the difficulty settings.
9. Be aware if you're ready for the area: The first time you enter a new area, check your character sheet advanced stats. At the bottom of the sheet, it will tell you how your weapons and armor compare to the difficulty of the zone. If you have a diamond in both, you should be okay. If you are under-geared, then you can gear up and come back. Once the difficulty for the area is set, it stays that way until you re-roll the campaign, so you can overgear difficult fights.
10. Rattle Weed: If all else fails, you can get the Rattle Weed weapon mod by killing Shroud (an optional boss) on Earth. If he didn't spawn in any of your Earth dungeons, go back to Ward 13, go to the crystal, go to World Settings, and re-roll your campaign until you get him. Rattle weed will draw all of the adds and the boss to it, charges quickly, and has reasonable health and duration after the recent buff. It makes dealing with the adds so much easier.

In short:

Difficulty for each new area has a minimum gear score, and is set based on the highest level item you own. You can check how your gear compares to the area at the bottom of your advance stats on your character sheet.

Materials drops are set based on the average of all items you own, and each tier of iron unlocks at each +5.

Edit: When you re-roll your campaign at the Ward 13 stone under World Options, you can choose difficulty (normal, hard, nightmare), if you're struggling, best to set it to Normal. But be aware that zone minimum difficulties will then be scaled up to your current highest-level item.

Guide by Thiadon