Star Guardian Invasion:Onslaught Guide

Here's my 'easy' win guide.* *Note: The game mode will still be difficult and success rate will still heavily depend on yours and your teammate's skill levels. The strategies in this guide are to assist you in beating the mode and assumes you have basic knowledge of how to play the game. It also assumes that all of your teammates can play the game at a decent level. Always have a Soraka or a Poppy.

Soraka's Build Order: R>W>Q>E > > > >

Poppy's Build Order: R>E>W>Q > > > > Your choice of Health or MR As long as you have at least 1 adc with one of these you can win pretty consistently (I've gone up to about 60% winrate with the Soraka build in particular, in both pre-made and solo)

As for missions, the NO ADC mission is easy enough, just have Poppy, Soraka, and Lulu, and have Lulu follow the same build as a Jinx would. The last 2 can be any of the remaining 4 Star Guardians as you already have your main comp for surviving and dealing damage. My personal recommendation is to grab Janna for that extra utility as her R can be very clutch at times, but it is ultimatly up to you.

The NO UTILITY is far more difficult, best choice is to have all 3 ADCs, Lux, and Syndra (As much as I love Ahri she isn't too good in this mode) Miss Fortune should rush a into , from there it's up to them if they want more attack speed or more damage. Jinx goes into into / at the boss you should have all that plus and , you can get a instead if you wish although the extra damage from is nice. Also if you find you don't want the bonus damage from then you can opt for a instead. Lux goes full support getting and and your choice of an AP heavy item or , boots should be Syndra builds any burst ap items they prefer and Ezreal follows a build similar to Miss Fortune.

NO MAGE is the easiest of them all as you can just have Poppy, Soraka, Miss Fortune and Jinx with your final choice of either Lulu or Janna (Janna is preferred if you get the RNG for the Rek'Sai heavy "Escape" map)

And finally, the mission for playing as Lux's team and Ahri's team is relatively easy as you will have Poppy and Soraka respectively. Lux's team is easier with more utility but Ahri's team can still pull through with some skill and possibly some luck due to the higher damage output.

Now for the actual strategy, first things first, target priority. I'd say about 50% of failures are due to prioritizing the wrong targets the other 50% is due to having no idea what to do, and of course, a few losses are just bad luck. Now as a general rule of thumb, you should prioritize the enemies in this order: Invicibilty Sentries>Massive Groups of Voidlings>Large Vel'koz>Kog'Maw>Small Vel'Koz>Kha'Zix>Large/Medium Groups of Voidlings>Skarner>Rek'Sai>Cho'Gath>Voidlings>Rift Herald Boss Yes, The Final Boss should be the least of your worries, its attacks are easy to avoid making it much less of a threat than all of the other enemies it spawns. As with every general tip, this should be taken with a grain of salt, there will be times where it is far more important to kill off some Kog'Maws than it is to kill a Large Vel'Koz.

Now the #1 Rule, no matter what map you are on, is very simple but also a lot easier said than done. The Rule is this: Stay Alive. There is no time limit, you get some extra points for going fast but you can get an S without speed running it for the final mission. So take your time and avoid damage as much as possible only attacking when it is either safe to do so or you can kill off a significant amount of enemies without dying.

Rule #2: Another straight forward one, on any map that features an unusually high number of Rek'Sais or Cho'Gaths, STAY AWAY FROM EACH OTHER. If you group up too closely you risk having all 5 of you get permanently CC'd to death. So keep your distance, stay together to help with damage output and protection, but keep enough distance so that if one of you gets CC'd you aren't all incapacitated.

Rule #3: Following off of that last rule, stick together at all times. If you spread too far apart you will lack the ability to burst down high threat targets fast enough and you will easily become overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemies, the only exception to this is the one map that has small Vel'Kozs all around the entire map, and I'll get more into that later.

Rule #4: Save your CC. Try to avoid using your CC as damage output, on maps with Kog'Maws only use it to interrupt them, keeping in mind all forms of CC (including snares) stop them from shooting unless you hit them at the exact moment they engage. On maps without Kog'Maws use CC to give you small windows of space to reposition and get out of bad situations. Poppy's W, in particular, can stop Kha'Zix jump and both Rek'Sai's tunnel and large leap. Poppy's W can also stop the Rift Herald's dash. Janna Q and R, along with Lulu R, can also stop dashes although they require much more precise timing. Soraka's E can stop a Kha'Zix from starting their jump but more importantly, it will pull a burrowed Rek'Sai out of the ground and the Rek'Sai will not move until the snare after the silence has run out. Soraka silence is particularly good and stopping groups of Kog'Maws from shooting, however, keep in mind that the silence will not damage Invincibility Sentries and a Kog'Maw that is protected by one can not be stopped until the Sentry is killed.

Rule #5: Don't waste Health Packs. I cannot count the number of times someone has grabbed a health pack while we were all at or near full Health and Mana, which resulted in us all dying moments later. Just because it is there, does not mean you should grab it, if someone is dying and it will save them, then grab it, or if your whole team is lacking a decent amount of health and/or mana, then grab it. See the idea? Only grab the packs when you need them.

Rule #6: Reviving a Teammate, isn't always as important as staying alive. If you are in a situation where you are the last man standing and 4 Kog'Maws are about to engage next to you, then standing still to revive someone may not be of your best interest, of course, there is the chance of being able to revive them and using the small window of invincibility you both get to "GTFO", but this rarely works out, especially in the later rounds. So even if you teammate is spamming "Assist Me" pings, sometimes it's better to do a lap around the map, then revive them, it's not like their body is going anywhere.

As one last tip, this isn't so much of a rule but is good advice, try to coordinate with your teammates to kill some of the enemies right as they spawn. This will make dealing with the rest of the enemies a fair amount easier.

Onto the maps, I won't go through every variation of each map but I will try to go through the more difficult ones. You may also find that with large maps I will tell you to run around the map in a big circle. This is a tactic originally used by people in Call of Duty Zombies to avoid being hit while also gathering enemies up to all be killed quickly with AoE. The method is a little different in Invasion than it is in Zombies but the principle is the same, avoid damage, kill things faster.

First and foremost I seem to find a lot of people who don't know what to do on the large map with 2 Big Cho'Gaths even though I find it to be one of the easiest. So with this map the idea is simple, stick together and run around the map keeping both Cho'Gaths together, just keep away from them and kill everything else while throwing some abilities at them occasionally, once everything else is dead (or almost everything else) chain your CC to hold them down and just try to melt them as fast as possible, if CC runs out just continue to kite. If you ever have the icon for Tahm Kench's passive on you along with a line connecting you to the large Cho'Gath, then stay away from that Cho'Gath at all costs! If you get too close the Cho'Gath will "eat" you making you un-targetable and unable to take any actions, you will have your health be drained while you are like this and you will not break free until after you die or the Cho'Gath that you are inside, dies.

Next up is the same map, except this variation spawns an unreasonable amount of Vel'Kozs all over the map, all at the same time. The most effective strategy I find with this one is to have your strongest DPS (Jinx for example) pair up with your best Utility (Soraka) and go counter-clockwise around the edge of the map starting with the top. The other 3 players are responsible for taking out the Vel'Kozs in the middle of the map then proceeding to go to the top of the map and work their way around the edge of the map in a clockwise direction. Staying near the edge of the map helps with avoiding all the bolts as the Vel'Kozs on this map do not aim at the players and just shoot in formation. Killing the Skarners first on this map can help as if you leave the Skarners till after the Vel'kozs spawn they can end up dragging you into multiple bolts, killing you very quickly.

For any of the variations of the "Hold your Ground" map that is in the central plaza area, just try to have everyone spread out near the edge of the circle running around the edge all in the same direction with your highest DPS in the middle. This tactic isn't perfect but it can be of some help if you are struggling with this map.

For any of the "Hold your Ground" variations on the small bridge map, coordination is key. It doesn't need to be LCS pro team coordination, just enough that your whole team focuses 1 target at a time. This will kill things much faster than if you split your damage amongst multiple enemies. In this map, health packs like to spawn outside of the safety circle, so having someone with a shield on health pack duty may be beneficial, of course, if you are closest and your whole team is dying, then you should probably just grab the health pack. For the most part, this map isn't too difficult, just irritating as every variation has a large number of Rek'Sais. There is one variation that has some Vel'Kozs spawn and then 1 large Vel'Koz near the top left of the safety circle, try to coordinate with your team a bit to burst the large Vel'Koz as quickly as possible, if left alive for too long you will quickly regret it.

One of the more difficult maps is the one in the central plaza that spawns an unruly amount of Kog'Maws and Vel'Kozs of both sizes. Since all of those enemies are rather squishy, try to coordinate a bit with your team to burst the groups of them down right as they spawn, if you are unable to kill Kog'Maws right as they spawn or they have Invisibility Sentries, simply run away from them and try to get them to group together, then use any non-CC abilities to kill the Sentries then use everything you have to burst the Kog'Maws as quickly as possible.

And last but not least... well, actually... I would consider this map to be the least liked map out of any map ever. That's right the "Escape" map. The aim of this map is to stay in the circle until it reaches the end, at which point a star will appear and you simply have to touch the star to complete the map. Sounds easy right? Well, there are 3 variations that make this exceptionally difficult and I will try my best to guide you through beating them. First, we have the variation with the large Cho'Gath, this is the easiest of the hardest. For this one, if you have a Poppy and/or a Janna, it's pretty easy as they can just keep the Cho'Gath far away and just grab the star the second it spawns. Without Poppy or Janna, it becomes much more difficult due to the fact that if Cho'Gath gets too close your entire team will be devoured and will die. With this variation, killing Cho'Gath isn't the best route, simply CC him until you can grab the star as the rest of the enemies that will spawn pose a minimal threat. Next, we have the variation that spawns a huge number of Vel'Kozs at the end of the map that will constantly shoot in formation. Once the safety circle reaches about half way 1-3 large Vel'Kozs will spawn and start firing lasers at you. If there is 2 or 3 the lasers will be in a fixed direction, however, if there is only 1 then the Vel'Koz will sweep the laser across the map. This map is pretty straight forward, if you have a Poppy, just have them stand at the front of the circle and every one does their best to avoid the bolts while Poppy tanks any that could pose a threat. If you have a Soraka then have them sit at the back of the circle while everyone else tanks the bolts for her as she should have by this point and can just spam heal, if she doesn't have then simply follow the Poppy strategy with the tankiest person in the front and Soraka will heal them as best she can. The Skarners on this variation, pose a minor threat but can be dealt with pretty quickly. The final variation is by far the hardest out of any variation on any map. This is the variation that spawns a ridiculous amount of Rek'Sais, Vel'Kozs, Skarners AND Kog'Maws with the occasional Cho'Gath and/or Kha'Zix. Beating this variation requires a lot of skill, coordination, and luck. Janna and Poppy are both VERY useful on this map as they can push all the Rek'Sais away for a brief period of time, this should be done when you are nearing the end and the number of Rek'Sais goes from a slightly manageable 10 to an insane 20. Try your hardest to stay separated on this map and kill the Kog'Maws as quickly as possible as they will shred through your entire team in an instant. If you find that you are getting this variation a lot you can try getting 's and 's, although I don't recommend this as gold is very limited and grabbing those items will harshly limit your damage output as a DPS or your Utility as a Support. With any variation of this map, if a teammate dies DO NOT TRY TO REVIVE THEM! 9 times out of 10 it will just end up in both of you dying, the only exception to this is if they die at the front of the circle and you manage to get a break long enough to revive them. Other than that you should never be reviving people on this map.

Now I will go over the boss fight although typically this is the easiest part. The best strategy is to simply run circles around the map avoiding the Boss's attacks as best you can and killing other enemies first before attacking the boss. If you have to ability to do so, it may be beneficial to have someone on "Eye Duty", what they do is simply follow the boss around (so long as they aren't the target) and attack the Eye whenever it is visible, though this strategy can be risky as depending on who is performing the "Eye Duty" and what your team comp looks like, it can cause major weaknesses amongst your team. Since the enemies the Boss spawns are completely random there is no real choreographed strategy for beating them, simply just do your best to avoid dying and try to kill the Boss over time.

Well, that's all the info I can think of right now. If I think of anything else I will try to add it to this guide, same goes for if I discover a new strategy or build order for a champion. If you have any questions or if you are looking for a fellow Star Guardian please feel free to ask.

For those curious, here is my personal ranking of the "Usefulness" of each of the Star Guardians in this mode.

1. Soraka
2. Poppy
3. Jinx
4. Miss Fortune
5. Janna
6. Lulu
7. Lux
8. Ezreal
9. Syndra
10. Ahri (Ezreal, Syndra, and Ahri are all kind of the same as they each have their own strengths, weaknesses, and play style, but in all honesty, they just don't compare to the other Star Guardians as they don't bring enough to the table.)