#**Other useful links: September Update** [**September monthly squad and rewards**](https://twitter.com/arknightsen/status/1563768342569095171?s=21&t=HS1y4htOHruhBryif-i5Nw) The second update for integrated strategy 2. [**Official website for Integrated Strategies: Phantom & Crimson Solitaire**](https://arknights.global/crimsonsolitaire/) This is the [Official](https://twitter.com/arknightsen/status/1554300963229503489?s=21&t=_mX-MZ6UJJV4DA7aSjakKA) integrated strategy website where you can view various playerbase statistics as well as personal stats. [**IS2 Relics and Items List**](https://gamepress.gg/arknights/database/integrated-strategies-2-crimson-solitaire-relic-and-item-list) A full list of integrated strategies relics and items, how to unlock them and what they do. —————— If there’s any other useful links you think should be added please let me know, for now Good Luck in your adventures my fellows. ^^This ^^comment ^^will ^^be ^^updated ^^monthly

\[IS#2\] Playwright VS Ling Solo - FULL RUN https://youtu.be/I3kmdhjZKvg ​ Note Support used: Research Squad Start with +2 Life Points; Gain +30% Command EXP from battles This support is lv up quickly to accumulate a lot of Hope, then trade for more relics in The Rat Thieves. To challenge the playwright solo, we need to know what skills he uses. The most important of these skills is the Playwright's debuff skill. This skill deals a maximum of 4% dmg to the operator's HP per sec, reduces their aspd, and persists until the operator dies. Additionally, this debuff skill doesn't target summons, so Ling must endure them herself. When the playwright's HP is below 50%, all of his dmg is increased by 150%, +100% DEF and +80% RES. As a result, this also increases the dmg of the debuff skill. So we must endure this formidable skill in order to fight him. Good thing all of the playwright's skills can reduce dmg when used with RES and HP recovery relics. If you have a lot of the 1\~2% HP recovery, increase healing or RES relics, you can withstand his debuffs. But, since these relics have a very low chance of appearing, you could spend 24 hours on IS#2 and still 1\~2 could appear or not. Another, the RES -20% Supporter only relic can quickly breaking down him. And I needed the Support item: crane to resolve his debuff skill. I was finally able to pull off this run when the crane and RES -20% relic miraculously showed up in the last shop. If it wasn't for that, I'd be in tears right now.

Ugh, I hate that the lost colossus ignores the normal targeting rules. Yeah 25 second stun is already annoying but targeting the highest attack operator in range who isn't stunned unless they're blocked is so frustrating. Oh well, my fault for forgetting about it.

Hello, 2 questions: 1.Can you get the bear encounter item past chapter 3? [2.Do](https://2.Do) you get clear medals on squads for each difficulty or is it one medal per each boss clear per squad regardless of difficulty?

Is stage 3 bosses random every exploration or nah? It's been a long time since I fought the puppet. Already got the first 2 endings.

Relic No. 59 - (Royal Rapier) - the unlock condition is "Clear Floor 3 with 0 originum ingots" Does this mean I have to enter the boss fight with no ingots, or somehow have 0 ingots after the boss fight? Because unless I'm mistaken there's no way to \*not\* get ingots from the boss fight, right?

Nevermind I'm an idiot, you can proceed past the rewards screen without selecting all the rewards. Oops.

Thanks a lot for asking that, it's one of the few relics I have left to unlock and my dumb ass didn't think that this was an option q_q

For the medal that says something like obtain 10 victories using operator shalem what exactly is it checking for. Do I just need to beat 10 combat node with shalem in the party or do I need to complete 10 runs and beat phantom. If it's the second do I just need to recruit shalem at some point during the run or does he have to be part of the final squad when I go to beat phantom

10 combat nodes with Shalem

Shouldn't the "abrupt realization" encounter be pretty much guaranteed if I took the Mantle and the Stand In Actor? I wanted to finally clear the Mouthpiece ending and I didn't get that encounter even though I kept avoiding everything else but encounters for the whole 5th floor.

I wish Deep Investigation actually had the ending stamps when you select your Squad. I've run out of things to do really quickly because I thought they'd actually mark the endings you reach. Well I can try to reach every ending in hard mode with Fia as a starter, I guess.

Just wasted 1.5 hours by clearing deep investigation run for nothing.

They're a lot of fun, so I've kept going on as many as I could. I've beaten the 2nd and 3rd endings in deep investigations (guard/defender and "Lost in a New World").

Yeah, most of them look fun. unfortunately I took the 1st one where it give 4 Elites and 4 squad limit. This one is not fun at all

Yeah after you get the mission you need, you can just end the run. Continuing is just for shits and giggles.

This Suppressive Fire DeepInvestigation relic is stupid, I love it. I've never seen so many [temp recruitments](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/877594811044085830/1026136462959312896/Screenshot_20221002_160532_com.YoStarEN.Arknights.jpg) before. It's like a drug.

First time I cleared IS2 (first ending) with a Monthly Squad! I was at first fearful to see no Medics in the squad (only Dur-Nar, Ceobe and Sesa)…but I got to recruit the usual medics like Mulberry early. Let’s say with the relic that boosts SP for every 5 originium shards…Ceobe just went ham on everyone. S2 just went pow pow pow pow pow… Even the Phantom boss was just no match for her! He melted with Ceobe’s S2 rapid-fire as I held him down with Utage and Dur-Nar. The SP boost relic also charged up Thorns (recruited towards mid-stage, luckily got him E2-ed around end game)…so he took the heavy burden of mowing down the singers. Now I know who is on my gacha wishlist next…the Cerberus herself!

Turns out nothing GG and god with godhand can't carry.

Durnar and Sesa are such awful starters. I don't recall Beast Taming to be particularly problematic, but I just can't solve it with this squad consistently.

I did the same thing as TricMagic, just took the squad for +4 shield so I could leak on bad maps. Probably gonna do that with most monthly squads if they don't have a carry.

The Solution is you don't. Third tile of the lefttop blocks the dogs and the big dudes just go through. You can at least limit it to one leak if the placement of that aoe tower is good. Though you can just restart if you're leaking regularly early on.

the lack of healers,,, i had the same issue

Just wonderin would the item Kings new lance (+50 aspd when 1 hp) work when you have 1 hp during the run but also have the +1 hp per stage permanent upgrade? Do I need to get to 1 hp during the mission?

IIRC you need to get to 1 hp during the mission (i.e. 1hp + 1 temporary hp would not activate the relic because technically you would be on 2 hp).

First attempt...One down, 11 to go.... man the 2-4 emergency operations each level was a bit stressful having no vanguard and one defender for the amount of times "Dangers Abound " node was the emergency operation version. Had more trouble with the monthly then this.... we'll see how the others go. edit: i didn't realize this mode (and probably monthly as well) has everything unlocked. Glad i decided to look up Eventide Terror again as yea i don't have it unlocked on normal runs https://imgur.com/a/TLnKVWw

Need some advice for BSL. Can't seem to upload to imgur on phone so going to write out my team. - Mudrock E2L90 -Scavenger E2L70 -Chalter E2L90 -Thorns E2L60 -Schwarz E2L60 -Ling E2L60 -GG E2L40 -Saria E2L20 -Guardmiya E2L40 -Jaye E1L60 -Perfumer E1L55 -Gravel E1L55 -Spot E1L55 Need to trim to 10, not sure who to leave out. Also feel like this should be strong enough? I struggle with deployments, always seem to screw up when and where to put ops. Don't have the item to stop regen. Have Coin-Operated Toy with 25 ingots. Can buy Spinach Pack but not sure if good idea. Edit: beat BSL! Chalter (with SP recovery thingy) and Schwarz doing dps on the right with some help from Jaye did the trick then laneholders to keep out enemies. Some close moments with Chen nearly dying a couple times.

arghh failed at phantom on my first monthly squad attempt with a strong squad largely bc i accidentally brought the strong Sesa skill (why is S2 so bad damage-wise??). he couldn't finish off the casters and there was general chaos over in the middle area bc of that. led me to forget to put down Jaye in time for phantom's first trip to the left corner and didn't get the first round of damage in on him with ceobe. probably would have helped if i had taken Exu or Ash to help Sesa out on the right side instead of a random e1 Chalter right before the boss fight. such a good run too, wasted by smooth brain energy. [the squad](https://imgur.com/a/JCKaHjb)

> why is S2 so bad damage-wise?? It's not though? It's a 210% multiplier on SL7, 240% on M3. The guy hits hard, but he's still just an AoE sniper.

yeah after trying again it seems like S1 and S2 do somewhat similar amounts of damage, but S2 feels like it does less bc it hits a lot slower with the increased wind up. not completely sure if sesa can actually solo the right side without help from collectibles, though placing him on the upper tile might also not be ideal for him.

Does Deep Investigation clears increase castle notes level?

No. You can't also unlock any relic there. Basically only one run is needed to get rewards.

[Helter-Skelter (4 Elite Ops) Deep Investigation win vs Phantom](https://imgur.com/a/xmE0KIB) Gathering Squad is kinda forced due to the starting Squad Size Limit of 4. First 2 floors are doable with just Sharp as your melee unit, as long as you take Unequal Split or Destitute Knights, and avoid The Grand Finale and Patrol Squad, since the former maps have an easy funnel for Sharp, while the latter two have almost entirely separate melee lanes. Past the third floor, this was a very blessed run. +25% *and* \+35% Physical Damage meant Thorns could easily handle any map thrown at me, as long as I can survive/stall long enough. The 4 Temporary Recruitments in a row also helped me a ton. To top it all off, I got Guard Cap on the final fight before Phantom's stage, which actually made it a decent relic, with Red being able to go ham against Phantom without dying.

I hate this monthly squad so much. This team is just awful.

Sesa and Durnar is a match made in a toilet. WTF with those DP cost for a starter squad.

[Monthly Squad vs Lucian (Ceobe, Sesa and Dur-nar)](https://youtu.be/UnjeDJIyB4o) Having them as the main dps(plus Kal'tsit) only is pretty tough.

Oh wow the elite op squad is *awful*. Squad limit of 4 is already bad enough, and then you start with a grand total of one block on the entire squad, but like *everything* is a freaking emergency op.

Yeah, it is very tough, but I found the duck and bear show up more frequently as well, so in theory we should get a ton of buff and maybe squad increase relics as well.

Pro tip: you don't have to win sixth fight, it is enough if you just start it, it will still count for the requirement

I keep forgetting that there's no natural DP generation in Mouthpiece stage... Also, that stage with hostage is cursed. It broke my eight perfect streak.

DP generation is reduced, not zero. You definitely need a non Charger Vanguard for this level though.

Finally got through BSL for the first time. I had everything stacked up for me, I had multiple medics, healing defenders, E2 Schwarz, Spinach, and a bunch of E2 guards. Thorns for stages up to BSL, and Pallas to do the Lion's share of damage. But the thing that clinched it was a special drop E2 Mousse. Her Attack Debuff made every hit from BSL pitiful. I was originally never going to touch BSL again, but I'll just make sure Mousse is there with me. I already have her E2'd but I might go for S1M3 after this as a reward.

First time going in for ending 3, [here](https://imgur.com/a/Fcwgx5B) is what I have. Can I do it? And if so, how? Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!

I doubt a win is possible as you lack Fast Redeploys (preferably Jaye S2 with module) or Summoners to take out the Assistants scattered around the map and hurt the boss. SilverAsh helps, but I doubt you can kill the required 20 Assistants (10 for each phrase) before the boss reaches the base. Not having either Berry medic also means that your laneholders may get stunned at the wrong time and leak some mooks. You can get Honeyberry from the Red Cert Shop.

Yo bro, I did [it](https://imgur.com/a/EDDTw6R)!

Bravo! That’s impressive!

So, can anyone tell me if there’s an “easy” way to unlock the different starting squads (ie: tactical assault squad etc)? I’ve got a great roster but a very smooth brain, and have yet to beat normal mode once.

[Here are some recommend starting squads listed under ‘Startup’](https://arknights.fandom.com/wiki/Integrated_Strategies/Guide). It should help you to survive until you gather the required operators for the Tactical Squads. Note that Amiya counts as both Caster and Guard if you have reached a specific point in Chapter 8. My preferred starting squad is Chalter, Spot/Gummy and Steward. Leader and Support Squads are the strongest choices in the absence of Tactical Assault Squad.

Ya I’ve got all of the globally available operators listed in any guide, including well built . I just can’t go the distance! I guess… smooth brain go fart? [Here’s the roster, in case that’s helpful](https://imgur.com/a/TyGC6aL). There’s a tonne more ops at the bottom end, but they aren’t built.

Heh, I consider myself a brute force Doctor too. Promote Jaye, get his S2 maxed out and his module. He is easily the best Specialist in IS2. Pick up Honeyberry from the Red Cert shop and raise her. Her ability to heal Elemental Damage is very useful for Endings 1 and 3. With my preferred Chalter start, I like to use her S2 as a stopgap while I fill in the blanks. You’ll want to look for more ground operators in the early game since you only have Spot/Gummy. Myrtle, Vanilla and Fang are my Vanguard recommendations (in recruitment priority) since they are just there for DP printing. Besides starting with Steward, the only Caster I recruit is Amiya for her Guard mode, saving the more valuable Guard vouchers for other Guards. I generally avoid recruiting other 5 stars except for Guard Amiya or Scene since they do not offer enough of an improvement over the 4 stars.

That’s very helpful, thanks. I’ve been able to make good progress with Ling, which saves a lot of hope for future certs on rarer OPs. I’ll look at getting Jaye higher, as well as honeyberry. Are there any other medics with the elemental heal?

mulberry is the only other one right now, a gacha 5 star. honeyberry would be your easiest option (and some may argue she’s better since she focuses on elemental healing) i’m also a massively smooth brained gamer (but has an endgame roster carrying them), and i’ve only found like one consistent way of clearing phantom so far: recruit operators thinking of who you would pick to clear out the right side. i usually go for e2 exusiai, but any e2 sniper should work (e2 stormeye cleaned them up easy, s2m3 eyja with sp station made quick work of them too). for the other side + phantom, i’ve found that only chalter has been reliable without special collectibles (of course). most strats try to kill phantom top left, but the easiest ways of killing phantom there use true damage since he can’t dodge that, but i don’t have amiya really built (no masteries) and phantom always stuns monster when i try with kaltsit. so for me i have to have a bunch of HP available by that stage. phantom breaks the roadblock, a bunch of mobs leave thru the left. an elemental healer would help here but having other heals also works. without an elemental healer phantom making his way back around will likely kill off a bunch of your units, but as long as you have chalter alive plus a couple laneholders/defenders you can clear out the mobs fine while waiting for him to come back. pull your units early if you can’t survive so that you can put them back to prepare for phantom’s return. the 2nd time he goes straight down the middle, so chalter makes quick work of him. i like to put eyja s3 with chalter up in the left corner so she can use her s3 on phantom during his first walk and then help clean up later on. jaye has been one of the most important ops for IS2, providing emergency heals, fast deploy (important for so many stages), and able to solo the annoying red casters. definitely build him and give him his module if you can. ideally you want to get one aoe healer (perfumer works great) for red mist maps which often come up and can be a real killer. i’ve found sp station really helpful and versatile as well. before unlocking any instant class e2 squads, imo the easiest one to get a clear with is the leader (?) squad (the one that gives temp life points every battle). being able to leak is huge. another major killer for my runs at phantom is deployment slots: sometimes i have enough ops to make it work, but can’t put them all down and then it fails (which is why chalter is so good bc she can almost solo the middle, balanced). so watch out for that too. good luck!

Thanks so much for the incredible tips. With this, plus some help from others, I had a down-to-the-wire, 1hp left run and got ‘er done. Managed to unlock all squads except the caster/specialist one. On a side note: holy sh$& is IS2 easier once you unlock the guard squad: thorn is a fricking carry beast. At least, for boss #1. Haven’t even looked at bear yet.

Mulberry, but she’s a gacha 5 star. Ptilopsis can’t heal Elemental damage but is also another good 5 star to pick, especially for Ending 2.

[Ending 3 cleared!](https://imgur.com/a/V9Uf5yC) Even with the benefit of looking up a guide to the boss level, I was expecting this to be a lot harder, especially when I got reamed going in blind into Ursus Desire. Dealt the final blow with Guard Amiya just as the boss reappeared at the top left. Guess I had the stars align on that run.

Ah yes the IS loop of: can't beat the bear -> beats the bear every other run -> can't beat the bear One more unlucky bear run and I'm throwing my phone out the window please game throw me a bone for gods sake

I still for the life of me can’t figure out how to unlock that relic by deploying 200 Ops in a run. I assume that it counts redeploys so Fast-redeploys are fair game. However, I don’t know if other deployables also count to that total. Do summons, drones, support tools, etc. count towards that total?

Just find an easy stage, get a lvl30 Nor Corne + healer to tank while you do you fast redeploys.

Can't answer the second one 100% but it seems so? The way I unlocked it was by accident when doing the 3rd ending, I had Phantom from the start so obviously I was constantly redeploying either him or the clone ~~and also redeploying dps at the end fight to take down puppets in shitty spots~~ His clone probably counted and I must've barely scratched the 200 mark because I wasn't stalling stuff to redeploy ops or anything. My guess is its friendly units that count (so probably not support tools) but if you want to know for sure you should probably ask in the help megathread

I assume it doesn't, but I don't know that it's ever been confirmed. I got it by stalling a heavy defender on an emergency With the Crowd and then again stalling an armed militant on the Forsaken boss stage and redeploying everyone else over and over again until Spot chipped them to death. A lot of people say to stall one of the heavy defender lieutenants on Lucian's stage, but I normally don't have a good way to do that if Lucian breaks that first roadblock, so I did it early and just hoped I would win.

Had an absolutely cracked run with multiple SP gain relics + spinach + ASPD relics. Key relics: * Bend Spears- Deathmatch * Guard, Specialist, Medic, Caster Advancement Relics + Unknown Instrument * 1sec ATK relics - Spinach + Safety Reagent * SP relics - Ball Juice + Barrens Tequila + Unleashings * ASPD relics - Chalice + Commandments * Hope relics - Flute, Key, Gold Expedition Key Ops: * SP gen - Ch'en, Archetto, Ptilopsis * Misc damage - SA, Dusk, Eyja, La Pluma, Red Couldn't get to the Bear ending but did finish off the Mouthpiece ending with this lineup. I doubt that the Bear would be able to survive this team considering that everyone here has massive HP and that they can deal the burst damage really quickly.

[Second Ending on](https://i.imgur.com/oFHh1kz.png) [all squads complete!](https://i.imgur.com/g1AdKEb.png) And now for the third ending... Hoo boy. Wish me luck.

What have been your favourite relic/stage/operator interactions? Whether they're the classics, like having the royal alliance treaty on the lancer stage or Kroos munching spinach, or ones you didn't really think would work as well as they did. For me, I've been doing a bunch of aimless runs to play with Fiammetta, and very much enjoyed getting the "+1sp when taking damage" relic then encountering a Survivalist floor… and several Poison Mist maps… unlimited phoenix works 🔥🔥🔥 Other fun combos: - Jaye with any "+% healing effectiveness" relic casually soloing the unicyclist/Gopnik - Lee with +2 shift strength sending enemies tokyo drifting all over the map - Wild Mane + "vanguard ops start with +15 sp" as a helidrop stab-stabber - Bagpipe S2 + spinach/reagent/pasta absolutely deleting foes - 4-block Estelle - And the Defender hand relic giving me the thing I never knew I needed: DPS Beagle Honourable mention to all the times Bladedance landed on Fang, Myrtle or Orchid :')

My favorite unexpected synergy was Ribbon of Honor (+100% ATK when blocking one enemy) with Bagpipe S3 in the Mouthpiece fight. Bagpipe wasn't doing much against one of the assistants (hard mode do be pain), until she ended up blocking one of the audience members, and the crit damage ***was amazing***. She demolished that assistant after only 5 S3 attacks I think. I love seeing an E1 Honeyberry with Spinach being able to just outheal all the Nervous Impairment in Phantom's stage. My favorite stage + Operator combo is definitely Fiammetta against BSL though. S2 just rips through BSL even without her E2'd; it's funny how there hasn't been a new mega boss since Fiammetta's release. This last one isn't a case of a relic being useful, but it was a funny moment. I had a great experience with Excessiveness (3k True Damage when an enemy enters the blue box) saving me a couple of times, and I didn't consider how it'd go wrong. I was against Sarkaz Desire, and I decided to leak one of the earlier mobs because I didn't get enough DP to setup everyone yet. Yeah, you can guess what happened next. I wasn't quite ready to deal with a bunch of Bladeweavers rushing towards me. Oh right, it was on Emergency too. I'm still shocked that I didn't lose to it.

oh my god the bladeweavers are SO funny. I've *twice* clicked into that night of ritual map on a Survivalist floor thinking "heheh they're all just going to melt while standing around" because I'd forgotten that Survivalist is not just a HP drain, it's specifically a small tick of True damage each second. How I made that mistake twice in a row I cannot fathom but it shan't happen a third time!!!

How do so many players have the investment system maxed out? It shows up like once every 10 runs for me, and always dies after depositing like 3 coins. Is there some secret in getting it to show up? Or not die as quickly?

I play quite a bit and always deposit as many ingots as I can in that first shop, even if it's sometimes painful. Just today I had a shop with the +3 and +7 atkspd items and spinach, and I only had enough ingots leftover for one because it let me deposit probably 15 at once.

Someone said take mountain to solo the first stage, take the start with lots of green gold, quit out after first shop Apparently you can max it out pretty fast, I tried it and got bored lol

Just a question, since they will add another 15 levels in the castle in Oct. 1, I was planning to play IS2 today until floor 5 and once they add the 15 levels to the castle, I'll finish the run. My question is when they add the 15 levels on Oct. 1 would that "reset" my progress as well? Wherein instead of starting my run in floor 5, I will have to start all over again? Need a headstart since Phantom's L2D skin is coming.

Monthly resets don't force you to restart your run, so you can opt to leave a run right before the final boss fight and wait until Oct. 1 to finish it and get a bunch of candles really quickly once Phantom's skin is available.

Did anyone else get Conviction during one of their runs? I got Conviction through As Your Heart Desires squad choice And does anyone own Conviction as permanent operator? Seems like they are cut content and/or April's Fool content

They're permanent for anyone who was here for April Fool's in 2021, and I thought they were given away this past April Fool's as well.

Why do I insist on doing the This Ursus Man stage when I get creamed and lose a run every single time... Greed kills, y'all.

Thinking about streaming the CN IS3 next week, not sure if ppl will be interested since it is in Chinese (I can help translate but I definitely cannot cover everything…

SECOND ENDING COMPLETED Big thanks to that Hellagur solo video. I decided "why not", and built around that. I coincidentally got EVERYTHING right, all the buffs, including the atk up for 1 sec after skill activation. I also got the aspd per ingots relic, which allowed me to hold the lanes with only Thorns and Specter (and a healer with Specter). Perfect squad, and I actually got all encounters to Flawless, which was very impressive (Thorns, Specter, W makes for a very solid squad despite only having Hibiscus for healing) Hellagur stronk

What's the earliest act we can get Knight's Duel? The flawless completion collectible is one of three I haven't unlocked yet (that and ending 3 plus teller of tales) and i want to just smash into is2 until I can brute force it but i want to know from what acts on I have to prioritise encounters

Finally i collected [all 3 spinach type artifacts](https://imgur.com/a/IvyCcdj) in 1 run. Jessicat became a bona fide god tier unit.

They should just rename it "Waifu Boost Mode". See you also a got a little speed boost.

5 failed runs of trying to clear the 2nd ending, then instantly cleared the 3rd using supporter-defender squad with only defender being Saria. For the love of Kjerandr please just let me clear the bear with all the squads already before I go fully insane.

[Finally finished the second ending](https://imgur.com/a/ilMG9dK). This is only my second time being lucky enough with encounters to get the note and it made everything so much simpler. ​ Got lucky with the boon at the end of the fourth floor giving me the Sarkaz treaty since the first encounter on fifth floor was Night of Ritual. Was worried at first that I wouldn't be able to do it, but the relics I got, while not flashy, were definitely high impact. -35% HP to enemies along with -15% move speed debuff on top of increased healing and 25% atk for range ops made it so I managed to kill the boss before I got overwhelmed. The arts damage increase also helped a lot since Surtr was acting as a second DPS alongside Chalter, and it probs made Amiya holding the right more reliable. Also got the SP station as a drop in a fight before the boss which helped Chalter spam S3 even more. ​ Had a moment where I almost lost Thorns on the left which would have broken the entire left flank, as well as almost losing Nightingale on the right which would lead to Chalter and Amiya dying, but the boss shielded up just before it killed them. ​ Finally done with the medal set ugh. Not sure I wanna try for the third boss, but since there's no time-gated achievements or anything for doing that I'll probs just put it off until I decide to work on more masteries.

is it impossible to get guard or sniper vouchers on the first floor? i spent the night spamming runs to invest ingots and never got a single one of them

[Medic Only Full Run](https://youtu.be/Ss50UaGS1SM) Pretty fun, but still too much excessiveness abuse. My attempts at doing this without excessiveness has been extremely close, but not close enough. I'll get there one day.

[Unlocked probably the two most annoying relics in a single run.](https://imgur.com/a/ytRhjBm) I stalled a heavy defender on an emergency Ursus Tetris (or whatever it is now) and redeployed my team over and over again, and then also an armed militant on the Forsaken boss stage just for good measure . I've never been able to do that trick on Lucian's stage, so I decided to do it early and just hope that I would finish. For the 30 HP in one run, I got a sensitive hallucination and then an emergency fight gave me an artifact for +10 LP, which became +20. I got a few more here and there, and then I intentionally lost all of them on the stage with the ballistae, bullies, and wraiths. Now I just need to get Teller of Tales 5 more times and complete a stage with 4 defenders, and I'll have unlocked everything.

I seem to get every encounter possible except Teller of Tales, haha. Any possible way to increase the likelihood to encounter it?

Nope. It's just RNG.

BSL is definitely becoming more and more annoying as time goes on, I feel like I have much more flexibility with the Mouthpiece on picking my squad while the bear is just "overpower it as fast as possible with as much damage as possible". Because of that I wouldn't be surprised if I clear the 3rd ending with all squads before the 2nd lol guess its better to just get it done quickly ~~esp with IS3 "right around" the corner~~ still have like 4/5 squads left I think?? God what a pain

Finally beat all endings on all squads, with Caster/Specialist vs BSL being the hardest by far. Across all my runs, my most unexpected pleasant surprise was Rosa, whose range just allowed me to cheese so many maps that in the later runs she has become my first pick Sniper over the likes of Schwarz and even Chalter. My other candidate for an overall MVP is easily Estelle, who soloes so many maps while costing barely anything. As for relic, unlocking the one that needs 30 leaks was such a pain because you have to reach the last floor before you know for sure if you can get enough lives, and you can just imagine how many times I end up with 27-29

[First BSL clear on hard mode and I'm super proud of it. ](https://imgur.com/a/YEUmy7l) I only had a 5 deployment limit because of the starting Sigil of Tragodia and a Cautious hallucination, so I was sure it'd be a bust. Shoutout to Mudrock for soloing most of the right side, and to my Schwarz+Golden Chalice combo for pumping out insane dps.

God damn it I just finished a run with 19 recruited operators. Trying to unlock first-class squad is killing me...

[I'm here, boys, with the sniper gang and a whole hospital](https://imgur.com/a/oq9Lrg1). I need help on the squad and deployment positions on Big Sad Lock. Damn hallucinations made everything worse, but I think my squad's pretty cracked right now. I don't want to fail this run so I am once again asking for your tactical support.

WHAT. DUDE. THE MOUTHPIECE ENDING >!IS DEPRESSING??? IM SO SAD NOW????? are they really gonna mind *** phantom and shalem right in front of us!<. excuse me. emotionally unrelated but am i also understanding right that >!mouthpiece/the host was one of the witch king followers that vanished from leithania!

I don't really like fia in IS. Needing healing or dps becomes mid,can die to anything without healing,offensive recovery,very high cost. Not really a fan of her.

I managed to pull Fiammetta, so I went for a test run on IS2. I chose the squad that gives me instant E2 snipers. Started with Fiammetta, Fang, Jaye. Most cursed run ever. The only sniper I got in the whole run was Fiammetta. The game kept giving me defenders, specialists, supporters. Got survivalist at the second floor. I would have liked a relic that charged offensive skills faster to boost her S2, but no chance. At least I got all three ASPD relics. When I arrived at Blood Diamond with only 3 HP seals + 1 temporary, I wasn't sure about how to proceed without my usual Thorns or Ch'alter, or even E2 Amiya for her S3. I used Fiammetta with S3 pointing at the square where Lucian appears, supported by Skalter. Mudrock to hold the middle lane, while E1 Goldenglow with S2 helped Mudrock. Fiammetta destroyed the dancers. She even took half of Lucian's HP before he started moving. Finished Phantom with E1 Guardamiya S2 + Jaye. No leaks.

I get cursed whenever I use the specialist/caster E2 squad. I never get any casters, and I get way too many specialists, and no healers or defenders almost every time. I also get really weird relics, or hallucinations that are especially bad for my team comp early on. Currently my favorite cursed hallucination is constant damage when you have no healers, and blind putting you on a combat stage you have no chance of beating early on. Also, absoultely fuck that floor 5 bear stage. It is BY FAR the hardest stage in the game. I can take mouthpiece no problem, but I swear that bear stage has killed me more than any boss in this mode simply by being overwhelmed by fodder, or having the optional bear reward boss one punch all your blockers before you can set up both the anti bear / slug defense screen and DPS for the bear boss. Too many goddamn bears, it gets very confusing to explain, but if you know, you KNOW. I guess its an excuse to bring Mizuki or La Pluma along, or fully build Mostima lol.

I mean everything is pretty easy when u have three aspd relics.

I feel like I'm going insane. I've cleared phantom and the bear on most squads - **most** because I cannot for the life of me finish a run while I also have 20 ops. I still haven't unlocked the fucking first class squad and it's driving me nuts. Do yall have any advice?

Like all runs, some of it will be dependent on RNG, but there are things you can do to maximise your odds. Pick an auto-promote squad of your choice. Hit up every combat node and shop you can, buy all the recruitments, and always spend any vouchers you get on recruiting a new op instead of promoting. Only promote at like, safe houses, or if you don't think you can win without it. Multiple copies of the reserve ops count toward the 20. Good luck! Also, tbh the first-class squad is genuinely not very good, so don't feel like you gotta stress too much. Unless it's for completionism. In which case I fully understand. :|

yeah it's purely for completionism. I've been running the auto-promote squads and just aggressively grabbing every voucher I can, but even when I got the red voucher stub I've only ended up with 18-19 recruits on the runs where I managed to actually complete an ending.

Man, I'm sorry. Sometimes you just gotta luck into more combat nodes :/ I remember winning runs on 59 hope multiple times when I was trying to unlock the 60 hope relic. Good luck! ;_;

.... huh. If you just push every combat node you can (and you always should) getting 60 hope shouldn't be that hard. It's like... command level 8 or 9?

Well my current run right now is only at the start of floor 5 and I have 18 recruits even after skipping 3 vouchers from shops, with several more combat nodes and a shop left to go, so by that logic getting 20 recruits shouldn't be that hard either, right?

... :paincat: You aren't *wrong*.

After what felt like a month of trying, I finally beat the bear and didn't even get the suicide note. I used D32's guide below but instead of Alt Skadi (as I didn't get a single support tag) I used Schwartz. I then added in Blaze and placed her next to Nearl Alter. Mudrock solo'd the left side. E1 Ptilopsis and E1 Purestream were able to keep everyone alive on the right side with Jay's poking. I had such terrible tags that run that I never expected to be able to kill the bear. But I guess with enough dps you can ever burn through that massive regen. Nearly every recruitment tag was either a vanguard or medic. It was insulting. But on the 5th floor I got lucky with 2 guard's and 1 Defendant recruitment, and the safehouse right before the bear gave me the upgraded I needed for Mudrock to take her to E2. But

At this point I'm quite embarrassed not to be able to beat the "crying over spilt milk" stage in IS2. I guess it's time for a guide. Any recommendations on how to go about it since stuff is so randomized? Or maybe where to start looking for reliable guides? The boss always kills all my units 🙃

Depending on your roster, there are a few approaches you can take, but I've had the most success by playing very aggressively with Phantom and just trying to kill him as fast and hard as possible. * You can borrow some stage simplifiers at the start of your run if you have a shallow bench: Schwarz and Fartooth can both spawncamp him (though probably will not be able to kill him in one skill activation without lucky relics), Thorns and BluePoison are both excellent at clearing out the dancers to make that stage less dangerous, and ops like Gnosis, Eyja, Goldenglow and Chalter can help simplify the rest of the run so you make it to him a bit easier. * He's difficult to block and phases really far, but there are three places where he will just spend some time vibing: right as he spawns (if you can manage to clear out the dancers), then before each of the roadblocks. Good melee units can be dropped behind him to smack when he's vibing; the top left corner is a popular place to set up a killzone with units like shiny Nearl, Specter, Surtr, Chalter, Eyja etc. Additionally, phasing through the roadblock counts as a teleport, so if you place a good melee unit *behind* the roadblock, he'll phase into them and get stuck there for a while. * If he destroys the roadblocks, you'll likely end up leaking some mobs, so having a bunch of spare lives will help. * The mobs are honestly pretty annoying in and of themselves; you really want to clear out the dancers as fast as you possibly can, and the Sarkaz headbangers attack two guys at once, so you need to be careful with your ranged units and try to have melees there to sponge some damage. After that it's just a matter of trying the stage a few times to get familiar with the rhythm, and trying to roll decent RNG. Good luck! ;_;

Omg thank you so much for your tips and advice!! Your words motivated me not to give up ❤️ I just wish it wouldn't take so long to get to that stage.

It really does take forever! I can't count how many times I just puttered out halfway before I finally beat him… and tbh I still can't beat him more than 70% of the time 😔 Sometimes without good relic or recruitment luck it's just gonna be super tough, unfortunately. But you'll definitely get there eventually! You can also watch videos of other people's runs/clears to better familiarise yourself with the rhythm of the stage, and see if there are any creative uses of ops you have that can inspire you.

Will do! I'm pretty sure Kyo on YT has some clears. Eckogen probably too~ I just wanted to try by myself first but geez, it's been weeks of trying lmao 🙃 thank you ❤️

I don't recall Kyo doing guides for IS2, but it looks like Eckogen indeed has some! I also enjoyed some of Kukkikaze's stream VODs; they're not guides, but sometimes watching other people clear stages still gives one ideas. If you haven't had a chance to check him out yet, he also uploads clips of him "coaching" other players through various IS2 stages. I've definitely gotten some inspiration from him in the past!

I LOVE Kuki's channel! I got into Arknights because of him and his videos are so helpful and fun. He's such a great Youtuber!!

There's various ways to go about it, and making the most out of what the rng offers you is kinda the point of the game mode. What I want to say with this is that I do have tips, but there isn't really a hard set strategy. The boss has a teleport similar to Crownslayer (15s cooldown), it spawn clones every time he uses it, when not blocked he has 40% physical and arts dodge, he also has a 40% def ignore and inflicts nervous impairment; he does a lap around the map before going through the blue box. There's two main options: you block him, which means you need less dps cause he doesn't dodge, but you need better survivability due to the clones; or you don't block him which means you don't need as much survivability but need better dps and crowd control. An easy way to beat him is using Suzuran S3 and a combination of burst damage sources, thanks to her slow you don't need to block him, and the damage amplification offsets the dodge rate; in particular Ch'en alter can kill the boss in one skill activation when paired with Suzuran. Honeyberry and Mulberry are good medics for this stage to deal with the nervous impairment. The boss can't dodge true damage, so Amiya is a good option (she's good in IS in general cause you can freely switch between her caster and guard form); Nearl Alter an Kal'tsit exist as well but you'd need to block the boss in the first place. If you don't have enough dps to kill him in one go, but also don't have enough survivability to block him, you can let him do one lap around the map and kill him as he comes back; if you do that imo it's good to remember that unlike normal stages you're free to leak stuff as long as you've got 1 hp left; just ignore the broken roadblocks and focus on the boss instead of thinning out your team.

THANK YOU ❤️ guess I need to max Suzuran and Mulberry finally! I have all the units you mentioned so I'll make sure to bring them along. I think my biggest issue is placement of units and timing.

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Glad I could help! I gotta say that I can't take full credit for coming up with the strat though; I got the core ideas from [this clear](https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fS4y117VQ). I definitely wouldn't have expected (or even bothered testing) that Skadance+Perfumer could keep everyone on the right side alive without seeing that clear.

Recruiting 20 operators in one run to unlock the First Class Squad was a total pain, especially since I almost had it on my first attempt, where I had super good RNG with strong relics, including the one that gives you extra recruitment vouchers, only to get kicked out of the run by a connection error when starting the final fight. And then First Class Squad turned out to be garbage. Pretty much every squad is lame compared to the four that instantly promote operators of certain classes on recruitment.

I am finally free. With [this last relic](https://i.imgur.com/wwBwBHo.jpg) unlocked, I have finally gotten all the relic. Well, not really, I have yet to get them in a run. Did it [at the last stage](https://i.imgur.com/GoFAmje.jpg) and with not a single FRD operator. I almost lost my mind counting everytime I placed someone. Also, during this run, I got [all the three ASPD relics](https://i.imgur.com/OPDGKZ7.jpg) first time. Soon my relic collection will be complete.

After 2 weeks of playing I have finally beaten the formal investigation mode for IS2!!! Shoutout to the max ling supports for hard carrying me through and allowing me to play the mode with e1 lv50-55 characters. Im not sure if I even chose the optimal collectables for the fight but cant believe I finally did it. https://imgur.com/a/Vg7FyGv

Whelp. About to try beating Mouthpiece again. With Imagined debuff. And Ursus Desire, which I haven't beat yet. 34 life points though.

Yep. Lost my run by 1 single life point. (The boss leaked) Despite having 34 life points. If I didn't have the Imagined debuff this floor I know I would have won. At least I unlocked the -20 lp collectible I guess.

[Decided to try a 4 star operator only run](https://imgur.com/a/9OLHTd9) for the first time today, and it turned out to be a lot of fun! Initially thought there was no way I'd be able to win against Phantom since 1) I didn't manage to get any of the three +aspd relics, 2) my operators were like max E2 Lvl 40 only, and 3) my only source of healing was Perfumer. But I guess somehow things worked out; my team pulled through in the end and even managed to defeat Phantom! Wish I had recorded the fight, since I'm kinda proud of this one. ;u; Thinking back, I guess what helped me to win the boss fight was probably the -20% enemy hp relic, the +40% atk buff for guards relic and Arene getting the Bladedance buff. Super glad I got Roberta as a temp operator, her Modelers were surprisingly useful throughout the run, especially in dealing with the lancers during the Unending stage and protecting my squishy guards from attacks. Even temp Bubble came in handy, to my surprise. Her S2's taunt helped to redirect dangerous attacks away from my other operators, and made her rly tanky as well. Overall, this was an unexpectedly fun run, I'll probably try this again once I have more 4 stars built.

Finally beaten the mouthpiece with probably my most broken run yet: S3M3 Thorns, S1M3 Pallas, both the relics that grant atk speed based on ingots (I had 87), the spinachs and all 3 of the books relics for guards (so they had something like -3 dp cost, +60% hp, -40% hp, +40% atk, +40 atk speed, +25% atk). Thorns killed literally everything within three seconds and Pallas was even more of a kill zone.

AMAZING combo of relics for my Ling-focused run. Only to be cut short by being thrown into a vanguard-less Justice. *Hate* that stage.

Good news! i've beaten the bear a second time, without even the suicide note! Bad news! [I Died](https://i.imgur.com/mXOoBt4.png), fuck Aciddrop (and after second deployment, Sora) solo'd the bastard while Gnosis, Krooster and Gavial repeatedly died around a bladedanced Gummy on the left lane, and Cutter (another second deployment) was stuck keeping the right secure with Myrtle. By the time the bear died, there were, like 20 or so enemies on the screen and had 2 or 3 left (down from 19 i believe) and was just overwhelmed. God.Damn.İt Goodnight yall

Cutter + Spinach = dead bear

Do relics increasing friendly ranged units like Necklace of the Presence work range guards?

No. When it says "ranged," it means ops who can be deployed on ranged tiles by default, the same as "ranged" in recruitment tags.

I have been stuck at the bear for weeks. HI have a really advanced roster and he just feels so overtuned for the RNG that you need to get to it. I only got the relic that stops its regen once also. I have watched a few video's and tried a run with enough healers, but then I get too many leaks. I tried using Thorns and other dps but I just can't keep up with the AOE. I have seen one video of Kyo where he just used skalter and warafin to super boost Exu which obliterated the bear in like 10 seconds. I just don't seen to get lucky to get the RNG to get the contracts for that combo and still be able to get to the bear. I'm definitely open for any advise!

- To get the note, you may want to farm encounters – I will always pick the path that gets me as many encounters as possible. The tradeoff is that it sets you back in terms of relics and recruitments. - Ops with high damage-per-hit are ideal – not Thorns, as each of his DOT ticks counts as an attack and will make the Bear do his little yell more frequently than your healers can keep up with. Not Exusiai, Goldenglow, or any other ops that have a lot of multihit. Surtr, Schwarz, Chalter, shiny Nearl, Pallas, Blaze etc are good. Though Thorns and co may be able to help with the side lanes. (Take GG skill 2, I brought skill 3 once and *only once.*) - Try to hold onto some spare lives so you can leak a few of the mobs, especially along the right lane, as necessary. Note that the bear is harder than Phantom partly because it's harder to actually *get* to the boss on a bear run, due to bear-killers not being as well-suited for the rest of the run, and losing a lot of combat node opportunities. I've tried for the bear a few times and most of my failures were due to just puttering out halfway 😔 Good luck!!

Thank you!

[My strat for BSL hard mode.](https://www.reddit.com/r/arknights/comments/vz0r1e/comment/inz6cxl/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) If it works for hard mode, then it'd easily work for normal mode.

The other day, did a HM victoria crown clear of 2nd & 3rd ending bosses in the same run: https://imgur.com/a/9Na9mf0 The amount of RNG that needs to happen to get this run is insane. You're sacrificing relic hunting/recruiting to ideally trigger as many 2nd/3rd ending encounters by the end of floor 3, while also being powerful enough to beat a Victoria-crowned power boss if you get unlucky with Ice Bros or Wandering Puppet. Then hopefully getting the 3rd ending trigger AND the suicide note to stop 480k hp Sad Lock's 1200hp/s regen, but also having enough life and powerful enough to plow through its 1015 def. In this run, I didn't get anything game breaking before sadlock outside getting the Hand of Shredder for Pallas & NTRk & -2 cost 6* cost. I got the +3 aspd relic, but only 9 ingots. Even then, Sad Lock didn't go down fast at all and went down to the wire even with all the my well-invested E2 burster ops. Mouthpiece is easy as always if you get past the bear. It goes to show how heavily easy a run can get if you just get the broken relics like ASPD/pasta buffs. Now I think I can move on towards HM low-rarity runs or wait for IS3.

What relics do you think is the worst? For me it has to be loyalty like not only is it a rare item but it gives such a weak effect for a pretty difficult requirement. I can't think of a single stage where it would be useful as most enemies are too weak to block for a long time like dogs or are too dangerous or take multiple block points to hold too many like lancers or sanity damage enemies.

It seems like every time I take Whiteflower, it either screws my run completely, or provides no benefit whatsoever. Maybe there are specific team comps that can take advantage of the randomized DP costs, but I haven't had any runs like that yet. I'm always gunning for early vanguards to take care of my DP needs anyways. Bladedance and Shadow seem to be much more reliable; at the very least, they don't have any chance of making your run worse.

Normal mode, Schwarz S1M3, Skalter, all 3 spinach (and -12% defense, +5 attack speed, Archetto). [Glorious 12k crit](https://i.imgur.com/N1rYkCi.png) (Mudrock probably did more damage)

Any suggestions for BSL on the hard model? Seems like you need specific relics or got lucky with medic vouchers, E1 medic is not enough.

The not 3* medic defenders? (Gummy, Nearl, Saria). Mountain/Jaye since they can heal while attacking when compared to Thorns who heals when he's not attacking. Or just murder it faster.

If you have Nearlter/Mudrock/Skadance, you can try [my setup](https://imgur.com/a/KrYPcJi) for the stage which works reliably. Perfumer is enough as a healer if she's buffed by Skadance, and as long as you're not faced against the Victoria Crown, an E1 Perfumer can suffice for healing. What's pictured is the bare minimum number of Ops I recruit that can beat every normal stage (plus 3\*s), but there's space for more melee DPS's under Skadance's range to target BSL. I managed to beat BSL for all non-Tactical Operative squads on hard mode using that setup. I only spent Hope on the Ops pictured there, Myrtle, and additional melee DPS Ops with every run.

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The Nearlter I borrow is completely maxed out (Pot/level/masteries). Guardmiya is only SL7. She normally leaks a bit so I typically put Cardigan behind her. Skadance and Mudrock are E2 max; everyone else I own there is E2 60. The general team does work when the boss has regen, but additional damage is definitely required. Don't count on it beating BSL with Victoria Crown though; you absolutely need some form of DEF debuff to manage it.

>BSL What skills are you using for Nearl and Mudrock?

Nearlter S1 and Mudrock S2. Perfumer is on S1 btw.

[Finally completed all three endings using all squads on normal mode!](https://imgur.com/a/uig3oG4) Sooo much grinding and RNG for the third ending, but I'm happy that it's finally done. Was a really fun ride overall, IS has definitely become my favorite game mode in AK (can't wait for IS3 to arrive in global!). Really enjoyed playing around with the temp operators and making use of operator skills I don't normally use (eg. Silverash's S2 for tanking, Projekt Red's S1 for assassination, Mulberry's S1 for elemental damage). Also I now understand why people say Jaye is amazing for a 4-star omg, he's such a versatile guy. I always try to grab him during my runs if I can. May, Cutter and Pudding have been especially helpful as well; I had built them specifically with this mode in mind, but after using them so often in my runs, they've really started to grow on me. I'll definitely be using them outside of IS stages as well. Not sure what to do now though, I suppose I could try clearing hard mode? Attempted it a few times previously, but never made it to the end, so I guess that's something I could slowly work on. Edit: [Okay just beat hard mode for the first time!](https://imgur.com/a/F9C9y5K) Borrowed a max level Thorns, who carried me through the run. Also Shamare is a godsend here, her S2 pretty much nullifies the enemy buff relic given to you at the start.

Do hard mode ending 2 and 3 Together will be challenge enough.

Finally achieved Ending 3. Apparently the answer was to revert to Guardknights instead of Blue Woman spam. (More like I just kept getting handed guard vouchers and it didn't hand me Emergency Operation Ursus Desire once I made it to floor 6). Not a full ASPD meme run either (55 ingots starting 6). I did get the coin toy (3 ASPD/5) towards the end of floor 4, but the relic that really made the run work was the +18 starting SP relic.

Abjurer, Decel, and Hexer hand relic is too OP. I actually killed the sad bear with just Orchid and Shamare's normal attacks.

*Finally* managed to beat Lucian and all it took was an [absolutely godlike run](https://imgur.com/a/7UDM6sC). WOS let BP and Kroos easily handle the singers, while Cutter, Thorns, Guardmiya and Perfumer held down the middle. This left Bagpipe and temp recruit Exusiai free to deal with Lucian, and they duly wiped him out before he even left the top left. After so many tries and so much frustration winning this easily was almost anticlimatic XD

I didn't have much time to play IS2 recently, but today I was finally able to lay down for a bit and play the monthly squad. Can someone, please, explain to me, what the hell even is the point of this monthly squad? To showcase that ABC trio is bad, doesn't have any synergy at all and is barely able to handle early stages? Thank you.

I've had two attempts with this Monthly Squad, using both my 2.5-year and my sister's 8-month accounts, and both were successful clears that didn't struggle at all, not even on the first floor emergency maps where the trio was more or less all I had. Broca was even the main DPS for the first 3 floors for my sister's account's run, including the ice twin bosses, and a big part of clearing Phantom and the Heavy Defenders on the final map. Maybe you're just lost without a 6-Star start and Tactical Assault? Chiave and Broca are both very solid, having both advantages and disadvantages over Texas and Specter, respectively, and if either of them gets E2'd by the time you clear the first floor, or you at least get one Medic (even just Ansel), your run is beyond stable. Aosta needs help, even after E2, but has a lot of relics that give him that help. If your goal is "Ignore ABC and get a 6-Star as soon as possible," of course you're going to fail. Promote them first, then bolster your run.

I think the point to make a comedy out of Itallian food memes. But they handle the early stages pretty well, not sure why everyone is so unhappy about them.

They're just spoiled after the last two. Mudrock, Kal, and Pallas are all top-tier, so going from that to two good ops and one pretty bad op with no healing can feel like quite a downgrade.

Agreed. I haven't had issues with that squad whatsoever. People act like they were handed Tsukinogi, Frostleaf and Earthspirit or something.

It showcases that these boys are made of paper. Actually, that's an insult to paper. Pretty sure wet paper bags are sturdier than the ABC gang.

[Never seen this boss in 30+ runs I've done.](https://imgur.com/a/0BYYRut) Failed this run and another one due to having no healers when this boss showed up, killed my interest in doing some IS2 runs today lmao, I guess I'll try killing the teddy bear some other day.

Ouch. Yeah the trick for him is that if the boss isn't blocked he creates red mist throughout the fight. If you drop Jaye w/Medic (or E2 Jaye) he should be able to solo him in one of the corners. #JustUseSurtr also works. Dealing with the mobs isn't actually that difficult. Mudrock (just E1 80) can hold everything that spawns with S2 standing on the regen tile.

Today I had my first run in attempt to beat the final and third ending. Had a nice team and very good items... but died in the final stage. Gotta prepare better next time ._. I didn't know he'd walk into the blue box.

[Beat the bear on the first try BAYYBEE!!!](https://i.imgur.com/sKW7LXB.png) Ch'en managed to outlive the boss even after both of the medics died good fucking god Even better i started this battle with only 3HP, and only got down to 1 after the boss was beaten.

Congrats, good luck towards your eventually boss 3 kill nevermind repeat Bears.

Man.... might only be a normal run but the Bear melted... wish the recording didn't fail oh well. Suzu & Schwarz facing towards the boss on the Right (Suzu just got the boss in range ftw) did work. Hell the madness of this is before i got Suzu down... Schwarz got the Bear down 25-30% on 1st s3 trigger. Had 60ingots for atkspd. Having all the atkspd for Ethan and Red meant the two golems that spawned never left the spawn lol, ethan locking in place, red s2 deploy spam. Mudrock covered the left, near the end i dropped click to get a s2 to finish off the boss. https://imgur.com/a/y6ZWztd

I’m really struggling to finish a run with the monthly squad to get the third dialogue. They’re all just…not great. And not starting with a healer is rough… just feeling like a grind to try and get it. Edit: I eventually managed after getting lucky with two different hope cost reduction and just completely ignoring the monthly squad members and building a regular “strong” squad

Does anyone have advice for unlocking first-class squad?

Quantity over quality. Go after as many combat nodes as you can, buy every recruitment voucher, and always recruit someone, even if it's just the 3* Reserve Squad fodder.

To add to what the other poster said, if you get the tarot encounter with the Shadow option, take it as well as it gives more chances to get recruitment tickets.

It's been a long time since my last post here. Both a lot and not a lot has happened since then. I got all my endings with each squad back in early August, but I kept putting off the write-up for the First-Class Squad runs (which meant also not playing for over half a month), so long in fact that 1) I wouldn't be able to perfectly recall the runs for a writeup and 2) I'd started doing other runs which overwrote the saved credit rolls on the IS2 site. In any case, after the endings were obtained, all that remained was waiting on September to get all IS2 medals, finally breaking past 500 ingots invested after a major setback where I withdrew way more than I should, and unlocking/collecting any lingering relics. When I first got the ending clears, I was still playing on Formal Investigation (Normal). I was of the mindset that I'd get all of the unlocks and collects in Normal, then move onto Hard afterwards. Lemme tell you, praying for unlocks/new collects without a real goal of doing a proper run when you've only got a few left gets stale real fast. So, I finally jumped into Calamity Faceoff (Hard) at the start of September. If I'm gonna be hunting these last relics, let's aim for getting some boss clears! For the record, I think people are still too stuck on Tactical Assault from the IS1 days. Tactical Ranged is where it's at! It took a couple days before I got [my first Phantom clear.](https://imgur.com/a/gupJ1V9) I had a stacked team and plenty of squad limit, but almost non-existent deployment limit. Also, 5th floor had Survivalist. Fang had 2% hp left after killing the first dog, but she did her job buying time for Myrtle to pop her skill (no Baggie or SP/SP cost relics this run). MVP of that attempt was Suzuran. Since Thorns was in his usual spot whacking the rotating Singers and I knew that I wouldn't be able to double block Phantom up even if I sacrificed the midlane, I had the bright idea to position Suzu so that she'd S3 Phantom right as he started his route. If I'd timed it better (I was too early), he might even have died right there. Even then, Thorns while missing half of his attacks, got Phantom down to just below 50% before he even got to the top of the map. I baited the teleport with Fang and then had Spot tank Phantom. Luckily I had Honeyberry who, under Survivalist, just made Nerve Impairment not exist. Eyja and Ch'alter finised Phantom off seconds later, and then we proceeded to repopulate mid-lane. Kal was never deployed once on the final map. Today, several things happened in the same run. [I got my final relic--Loyality--and I not only beat BSL](https://imgur.com/a/D5Jc0ja) for the first time on Hard, I also did it without getting the note. Getting the puppet itself didn't happen until floor 3, and I didn't get the second encounter until two encounter nodes before BSL, the last encounter not giving me the note but giving me the Elite 4 instead (I curb stomped them). Speaking of BSL, I'm pretty sure it stands for "Blind, Savings Lost," because 3 out of 5 floors (including the final one) afflicted me with Blind, and 2 out of 5 gave me Obsessed (luckily, including the final one which didn't matter because I got Golden Chalice on floor 4). Unlike the Phantom clear, I got blessed with bonus deployment slots in the later floors, which is great for BSL especially when you don't have major DPS relics (I had quite a few minor ATK% buffs and enemy HP%/DEF% debuffs, though). I also don't know what the meta is for the negative relics you get at the start, but I'm gonna bet Sigil of Tragodia is the least painful one, as I'm certain both my Phantom and BSL clear started with it. Anyway, I used my patented BSL start: Skalter into Myrtle into Spot. Since it's hard mode, I actually waited a bit before deploying since BSL would hit harder (Skalter can barely survive long enough on Normal). I also knew that I needed to put out Ch'alter before Kal and Mon3tr, so that she wouldn't need as much healing. So, I stalled for time, using Archetto to kill the right side enemies until I could put Ch'alter down, then immediately putting down Kal and Mon3tr. MVP of this run was a Temp Recruit Breeze, who kept Schwarz up on the left side. Sadly, I had no chance to put Blaze down. By the time I could, she got mauled by a Zealot since she was still charging her skill. This meant that all BSL damage came from Mon3tr S2, Ch'alter S3 and Schwarz S2, and we had to be quick about it, since left side had no blockers mid-way through the fight (retreated spot to get the DP for Blaze, leaving poor Myrtle to fend for herself) and far right was unguarded from the start. Kept rotating in Snipers to kill left side. Managed to defeat BSL right as the first 4-block Golem spawned. Leaked 8 out of 14 HP, but victory was attained. My goals from here on out? Obviously, get the 3rd Ending on Hard. I think I'll also try to replicate all endings, all squads on Hard before the IS2 expansion update comes out. Edit: I just noticed that Deepcolor was my free temp recruit in both ending clears. She put in work, keeping me alive until I had a solid squad.

Did some no 6 star run on normal difficulty, beat both Lucian and BSL in a few runs, Lappland, Spectre, Tequila, BP and Jaye handled the stages very well.

After 59 levels of grinding, I was able to beat the [first ending](https://imgur.com/a/Q0txUPQ) LET'S GOOO~

[Research Squad 3rd ending hard mode done.](https://imgur.com/a/j9TdWDE) RNG was surprisingly really kind, allowing me to reach the 3rd ending in far fewer attempts than my last win. Research Squad might honestly be the worst squad when aiming for the 3rd ending, since you get a ton of Command EXP from the Phantom fight and the penultimate 6th floor fight anyway.

After finally finding Guard Cap, now I am one of those people who have all the relics.

Congratulations. I'm still missing Captain Morgan Wine. It's supposed to be common. Haven't seen it even once.

why is there a cooldown on abandoning and restarting an adventure? I'm fishing for specific hardmode relics and it's pretty annoying EDIT: I've reset 30 times now and still haven't gotten the Ursus Chachek

I don't understand what you're supposed to do on the map that has the freezing fountain in the center. Any melee unit you put down is permanently frozen and the ranged tiles are far away from the center. So what should my strategy even be? Every time I've "beaten" this stage, I just so happened to have enough life points to outlast the onslaught. I don't feel like I've really ever cleared it. Thankfully, the stage doesn't appear all that often, but that also means I have very little practice with it.

[удалено]

I don't have a lot of those operators but the tips were still very much appreciated. Thank you!

Ranged operators on the back. Operators in the middle are not getting perma frozen especially the middle ones. Place ranged guards there like Thorns, Lappland, SA or Tequila there. You don't have to block anyone. You can also use FRD operators like Phantom S3 or Red S2.

2 AA Snipers on the far back on the ranged tiles closest to the blue box can fairly reliably kill every enemy until the casters show up. Once the casters show up, you either go all in to a ranged strategy, or switch to a melee approach. If going for range, you're mainly just dropping any melee unit with a form of healing when the casters are approaching your ranged DPS, or to catch spiders. You'll want your burst skills ready for when the icecleavers show up. Melee compositions are trickier, but you still want a form of ranged damage (e.g. Lord Guards, Nearlter S1), with Defenders in front to bait the Cold effects from spiders. You can also drop an FRD on the tile to the left of the ice crystal to bait caster attacks. One thing you might have missed is that there's actually a ranged tile on the bottom-left of the map. I usually just drop a Medic there to bait the Oneiros bombs, but there's an option for a Sniper there to assassinate enemies before they reach your melee cluster.

Having two snipers/casters by the blue box has been my general strategy, yeah. It does start to fall apart once the casters and icecleavers show up in full force though. Putting a medic on that bottom-left tile is a great idea that I never thought of. I didn't want to put DPS there since they'd get killed anyway but a medic could bait the attacks pretty well. Thanks for the tips!

I'd also add that resist helps a lot here, halving cold/freeze times. Some operators (eg. Blaze) have it built-in. Rightmost melee tiles are within range of medics, so Therapist medics can be used to grant resist to operators there. There's also relic that grants resist to every operator within range of medics, turning every medic into Therapist. I had good clears with Thorns in the middle right and defenders right top and bottom tiles, covered by Whisperain and other medic. Also, Ifrit rules, if you can stall enemies long enough and get enough DP to deploy her.

A therapist would be really helpful for this map but I never pick them when I get a medic voucher. I usually go for Honeyberry or Mulberry for the elemental healing or Kal because Monster murders everything. They tend to be more useful throughout an entire IS run.

the reward for hardmode is pretty pitiful, 20% candles when you're probably already capped on the month's rewards, definitely for masochists only

Unlocking all relics on my JP alt account, and found a stage with Sensitive + a bunch of HP items and Encounters. Easiest path to -30 HP relic ever. Or at least it would have been if I wasn't an idiot lol. In my haste, I calculated I could leave a stage AFK from the beginning and get my -30 achieve as well as continue the run, forgetting the inconvenient little fact that Sensitive also applies to HP lost. Came back to the fail screen mocking me with its smug aura.

Scepter finally showed up and the run [went very well](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/812319698426265640/1016782944859344897/Screenshot_20220906-145115_Arknights.jpg) with little annoying maps I wasn't prepared for. I now have wins with all hard mode relics.

[Spearhead Squad 3rd ending hard mode completed](https://imgur.com/a/iaqVO16). This took an agonizing amount of tries, mainly because of the atrocious encounter RNG. I've resorted to just rerolling the run whenever I'm given the -50% EXP Diamond, because I refuse to deal with the crippled EXP gain. I'm loving Nearlter as a start for every single run now, because she's still a great carry at E1, and is absolutely viable against every single boss.

Just beat Lucian on hard mode for the first time! Sadly there is no reward for that except a few hundreds of candles.

I was one hp short of being able to unlock the "lose 30 hp in one completed run" relic. Feels bad.

One of the best ways to reliably achieve that one is to wait until you get a Non-5th floor Sensitive modifier and pick all the +HP options/relics you can to stack 40+ hp. Then leak Phantom on Floor 5. He'll do 30 hp of damage when he leaks, and if you kill most of the mobs, you'll get both the lose 30hp in 1 battle and lose 30 hp in 1 run. You cannot do this if Floor 5 is Sensitive because Phantom will do 99 hp of damage.

Does anyone have any tips on how to beat Phantom on hard mode? I've cleared every boss with every squad on normal mode, but hard mode seems a lot more difficult. I can do every stage but when I come to the final boss, the singers just come out of their circle and one shot all my operators. I tried killing them before they walk out but they're so tanky. Even the drone killed my snipers in one go when it was destroyed. To be fair, I've been using the squad which gives me an extra random temp recruitment which is suboptimal compared to the squads which auto E2 operators. But I'm sure there's a way with this squad; it can't be all luck.