Complete Guide to Invasion : Onslaught, to all extents (S+ On all 5 core missions obtained)

I've been playing TONS of Onslaught because boy, is it a fun memory of the days of old with massive, major raids on dungeons in MMORPGs. Anyway, here is a complete guide to dominate the Invasion. Not just win, DOMINATE. Here is my rap sheet from a ton of games playing this carrying noobs though it as the team captain to help them get their full rewards - http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Steelflame Once I got the strategy down, I could win almost every game except for a few cases where someone, even one exceptional case where we had a teammate playing the entire game with 2k ping (That Jinx game before the two remakes. I had 280K damage at the end of it. It dragged on WAY too long).

This guide is divided into 4 sections. Champion Builds, Strategy, Notable rounds (And score mechanics), and Side-notes.

Builds

First thing to note. Invasion is NOT Summoner's Rift. Things play differently here, and the optimal build is often radically different from what you might expect if this was normal League gameplay.

General - ADCs frequently will be built on-hit. You don't have enough time to build up the Crit power spike, and the nerf to Lifesteal means that it often isn't worth it compared to on hit healing. There is one major exception to this rule, MF. Mages should gear toward instant max pen via Sorcs-Haunting Guise, as there is no MR growth on enemies, they all have 30 MR, other than the boss, which has 75. With the Wits on your ADCs that drops to 50. Your 30 pen drops that to 20. Damn near true damage for the final boss, and true damage for literally anything else just by yourself even as early as the very start. You don't even need pen runes, and using AP per level is more optimal. Supports focus on Ardent Censor. This item defines the ADC meta, because it's on hit damage/heal works with Rageblade, and bypasses the lifesteal nerfs in the mode. ADCs use Frevor, mages DFT, and supports Stoneborn Pact. There are no alternatives for optimal. Literally none. There are some... alternative rules that will pop up based on how you are using the champ (Such as Syndra "tank" using Stoneborn) in the No X challenge missions, but this is due to the constraints of the mission.

Traps - Several items are a trap in this mode. This is the Void Staff and Last Whisper line. Void staff sucks because no enemy other than the boss has more than 30 MR, who effectively only has 50 MR. Last Whisper sucks because literally no enemy in the mission has a single point of bonus armor, only base armor. Gold gen boosters, masteries or runes are also traps, as you have fixed gold at the end of each round. If you gain gold-mid round, it is subtracted to the value you get at the end of said round.

Runes - while an optimal rune page is optional, it does help significantly, especially with how your armor and MR take a hit at later points in the mission to the Fading Light debuff.

• AD champions - Scaling AD or Lethality reds, scaling hp and armor yellows (mix), scaling MR blues, scaling AD or Lethality Quints. Can sub out some scaling MR blues for scaling CDR blues for Poppy, Ezreal, and MF (Same as mage setup for her blues).
• AP champs - Scaling AP Reds and Quints, scaling HP and Armor seals, scaling MR and CDR blues (scaling CDR blues to 11%, rest MR).

Champions

- Contrary to how you'd play normally, Ahri is optimally played as an ADC surrogate in this mode. Start Wits End, work toward Rageblade, and get Bork in time for the final boss. End build should look like this . Make sure you use Fervor as your Keystone, with the arpen mastery, not Mpen. You'll actually kill Cho'gaths and Rek'sais sometime this year, and still have great kill times on Kogs and Koz's.

- Primary build - Standard support (Use Stoneborn Pact). Bind yourself to your ADC (Jinx, ideally, Ahri secondarily), and sit on their ass. . Boots are whatever floats your boat. Sit on ADC, and shield and protect them. Stoenborn Pact triggers Ardent, and gives more on-hit heal to your ADC. As Lulu's ult doesn't benefit from heal/shield power, the only boost you get from it is your E or Redemption. Not worth a 8% (Or in Redemption's case increase roughly 18%) increase especially compared to how much impact Stoneborn has.

• Secondary build - Look at Ahri build. Literally the exact same. Use this for cases where you already have an Ardent support and need another Marksman replacement.

- Primary build OR - DFT, Sorcs+Haunting Guise to open. If you have good AA carries, build Morello as your first major item, otherwise build Liandries. Get whatever you didn't get earlier. Rabadon or Rylias after that. Never EVER fall for the noob trap of Void staff. Because no enemies have more than 30 MR other than the boss (who effectively has 50 MR after your wits end carry hits them a few times) you'll never run into a case where it is actually granting you any actual penetration. Q>E>W. 1 point in W at start. Also. NEVER EVER GRAB THE SHIELD GUYS. EVER.

• Secondary build - Stoneborn Pact, start Rylias . Build Sorcs-Liandries, then Abyssal Mask. Grab a a bit of armor after. This build is far more bulky, and helps for the cases you don't have other sources of bulk, while still outputting good damage, and granting the stoneborn heal to your carries. You'll lose a bit of damage, but can still output fairly decent damage thanks to your decent bases and the roughly 200 AP you should have, and the Abyssal mask amping your damage by 10%. Q>E>W. Also. NEVER EVER GRAB THE SHIELD GUYS. EVER.

- Stoneborn Pact, - Your build is a bit flexible, but this is fairly standard. You may drop Knight's Vow if your support Lulu already has bound the ADC, and there is only one ADC champion, for instance. You may not finish Warmog, and instead the Spirit Visage, if you have a Soraka, perhaps. Depends on the situation, and flexibility only helps you. Max W first, E second. 1 point in ult, and max Q. Your job is CC, not damage. Ult CD redux on ranks is only minorly helpful on boss, and comes at the cost of your consistent Q damage.

- Stoneborn Pact, . If you don't have a few HP per level runes, you may need to replace the cloth with a Ruby, but IIRC you SHOULD have enough HP even without. W>E>Q.

- Primary - Copy Syndra's primary build. Max EQW. Do this build if you have several supports already, such as during Burning Bright. - Secondary - Support build. Feel free to copy the Lulu build. Max W first, then E, then Q. Ult rank when you can, always aim to execute a mob with it to reset the CD by 50%. Lux is notable because she is the only support-esque champion you can use in the No Utility champion challenge.

- The wildcard of the ADCs. Builds radically different due to her unique kit. - Fervor, . Reason for build - BC is actually really good in the mode, especially if you have other champions filling the ADC role on the team, just few people can use it optimally. BorK helps her take down the bulky targets she usually falls flat on, such as Reksai or Cho. Death's Dance bypasses the Lifesteal reduction mechanic, and lets her Q heal her for several hundred HP. Great during the boss fight. R>Q>W>E. Ult priority targets in each mission (varies mission to mission), and be a solid general damage dealer. Later on as other ADCs are reaching full steam, her BC will let her shred the armor of the boss significantly, majorly boosting output during the times you are able to sit on the boss.

- Stoneborn (But Windspeakers does work on her better than other supports, so you can use it if you prefer, but only do so if you only have a single ADC you are focusing on amping to the max) , with high AP after (I think you can squeeze in a Rabadon, but not 100% sure). Goal is to amp your highest AS carry with your E shield, and turn them into a god. Ult to get your team out of sticky situations (Such as when you get piled on by Reksais, or to heal your team midway through a Velkoz walk to help your team make the final stretch).

- Frevor, . Lower DPS than the other carries, but more bulky to physical damage, and can help peel. A good option for no utility runs. If you have high fervor and rageblade stacks before ult, massively increases damage. Similar ult cases to MF.

- Fervor, /. Highest DPS you can get in the mode by far. Near mandatory for S+, although you can get it without her if your team is perfectly on point. A good Jinx is as close to a solo carry as this mode has.

Team Strategy

General Team strategy

• Priorities - You'll want to ensure you have a hypercarry DPS for just about every mission. This usually will be a Jinx, but Ahri and Lulu will sometimes fill in for this, such as during the no Marksmen challenge. Supports protect the carry, mages will burst high priority targets, and tanks will try and soak aggro. Hey, this sounds almost like how you'd normally play League!

• Target priorities - Most of the time, your highest priority targets are Vel Koz > Kog'Maw > Skarner = Kha'Zix > Rek'sai > Cho'gath. There are some missions where there are exceptions, but its fairly infrequent. Don't forget to clear out the mini-voidlings to though, they may die easy, but if you don't clear em out they can easily sneak in a kill on you, as they actually do fairly decent damage, especially when grouped up on you such as during a few of the missions that spam them at you such as the Kog'maw or Vel'Koz rings. Make sure you don't forget em.

Specific Mission Strategies

• Burn Bright -

Easiest of the 5 missions, Burn Bright pretty much tells you "Hey, you need to beat this mission with 5 specific champs, but don't worry, these guys are near optimal for the gamemode as a teamcomp!" This mission is the entry way to the Onslaught. Look to the strategies above for specific champion builds, and just as a refresher, the champ list is . Overall, this team is by far the easiest to get your entry way, although it is a bit hard to get an S on this comp mostly due to the lower damage output you have due to having 3 support champions making kill times a bit of a slog, but it is a VERY safe comp. You should both get your A rank mission, and clear this one fairly easily so long as you are building your team right, and follow the general per-map strategies below.

• New Horizon -

This one is a bit harder. You don't have the luxury of Poppy tanking for you, and are overly stacked on damage with 4 carry champs and only a single healer in Soraka. I generally recommend making Syndra go the "Tank" Syndra secondary build from up above here, so that between her and Raka your team has enough bulk to survive. Team comp to help remind you - . Still very winnable, thanks to having a decently rounded teamcomp.

• No Marksman -

This mission ties with No utility for the hardest mission, mostly because on this one you don't have the luxury of using Jinx. The closest replacement is Ahri, so treat her as your primary carry. is about what I'd consider a near optimal comp for it, but you can swap out Lux with Syndra or Lulu with Janna fairly easily. You can potentially use Lulu as the AD secondary build, but I'd prefer the support build generally.

• No Mage -

Probably the easiest of the No X challenges. . You can replace MF with Ez potentially, but I prefer MF. Same with Lulu for Janna.

• No Utility -

This one is the hardest of the 5 challange missions (Although saying that, it is ironically the mission I got my best score of 6.1k with, partially due to what makes it the hardest). No utility means you don't have a Poppy to tank, or any of the supports to amp your carries. You have to use Lux as the closest thing you got to a support. Team comp is , and either or . The core thing that makes this mission hard is you have NO room for error. Your clear times will be very very fast, but its hard to keep people from going down. If people do go down, you'll lose rapidly and have to restart. I recommend the Tank Syndra build from above if you are not 100% confident, although if going for the challenge of getting an S+ on this, damage Syndra is also an option. This team comp is all about killing everything ASAP, and you'll kill even Cho'gaths in almost no time.

Score Mechanics and Notable Rounds and how to beat them

How your score is decided, and what it takes to score that elusive S+

• Score is a factor of 2-3 things, depending on the specific round you are playing.

1. Every death takes 50 points away, up to a cap. After 4 deaths, you'll lose out on the maximum number of points you can lose to deaths in a single round, which is 200. The only exception is follow the circle maps, which have double the penalty and score max loss from deaths, at 100 points lost and 400 total that you can lose.
2. Time. For any mission where you are not on a follow the circle map, you are on a timer. The longer you take, the more points you lose. Make sure you kill Skarners and Khas quickly on such maps, because otherwise they will frequently hide in the darkness or run away and burn down your timer, costing you points. The timer is on a per-mission basis, and you can't really see it, but the objective popup in the top right tells you what the S timer is and how long you took when you finish a round. If only it told you how much time was on the clock for that S though... try and keep track is all I can say, and don't waste any time when you can help it. You may want to save your burst ults for later stages of a round to help ensure you burn through the final spawn wave in time, but it depends.
3. Bonus points. Some follow the circle maps will produce special bonus points for killing all of the boss monsters along the way. It isn't much, but an extra 50 points is an extra 50 points.

Score requirements for getting an S

The minimum score to get an S is 5000 points. An S+ is 5400 points as far as I know (It may be lower, but I doubt it. I've never seen it below the 5400 cutoff). Obviously the S+ is only for style points, as it only takes an S to get max mission rewards.

Kill things fast, and don't die. It's that simple. Optimally, if you are perfectly playing through the first 7 rounds before the boss, you should end up with around 4000 points, give or take 100. Most rounds are worth 600 points (Some can potentially get up to 700+, and others are nearly impossible to kill in the time they say you can kill it, so you'll only get 400-500). The boss can reward up to around 2000 points, if you make a very very fast kill with no deaths, but even 1-2 deaths won't hurt your score that much, and 4 deaths is the max for points lost to deaths (although you'll struggle to make the kill speed needed to negate that in that case). The boss is the only place where your score is virtually unlimited for that round, and can make up for a few bad rounds in other places. So long as you have around 3300 points before the boss fight, you can possibly recover on the boss to still score an S for your total mission score.

One final important note for score. Retries do NOT hurt your score, and fully reset your score for that round. If you see a round absolutely flop for some reason (Velkoz road where you fail to kill everyone at the start for instance, or just a high death Velkoz lazor bridge, or maybe just a round where your team did it stupidly slow when you normally wouldn't have because of poor team targeting on important targets), you may just want to have everyone suicide and take another try at that round.

Notable rounds

Everyone knows some rounds are far harder than other rounds. There are a few tips and tricks that can optimize to help make them easier to survive.

1. Kogmaws from FoW (Round where 4 vels spawn at top left, and the area closes on you). Simple trick is to kite back to the top-left corner while team focusing one of the chos or Rek'sais, and once the kogs chase you out of the FoW, turn on them and kill them all, then finish the remaining chos or reksais. Fairly easy round that shows up by round 1-2, but still.

2. Any variant of the Velkoz death bridge - Watch for the spawn of the first small velkoz. In about 20 seconds, lazor koz spawns. Have someone with an instant CC ready to go, such as Soraka's E silence. CCing the laser guy just as he uses his laser puts it on cooldown for several seconds, giving you some time to clear other stuff before you cc him again to stop the laser again.

3. Late game velkoz heavy circle walks - Devote the time to kill the koz's at the start. Never let one make it, even if you have to take some of the void damage. If you have someone like MF, Jinx, or Syndra, this is a good spot to pop ult. Just never let one of the ones behind you survive or everything gets 3x harder. If you have a tanky frontline with good MR with several shielding supports (example, you have an Ahri who started Wit's End or a Poppy with a Negatron cloak with a Janna and Lulu supporting), having them sit in front of the team between them and the shots while the supports chain shields on them can be a viable strat to help prevent the need to dodge.

4. Vel'koz circle on the really big map - Go either clockwise or counterclockwise as a team, burning through all the koz in order. Make sure you do it as a team, as you want to go quickly and not get picked off by the Skarners pulling you through several shots. Later missions will spawn added chogaths, and the latest version of it will spawn a final wave of Khas and cho around the time you should be finishing the last few Koz's. If you find they are already spawned before you kill them all, it is implying your kill speed is too low and you screwed up elsewhere earlier on. On the verison of the map that starts in the top right and spawns the boss chos, leave one guy to clear out the "respawning" koz's, while the rest of the team kites the boss cho's back focusing on one at a time to the other side of the map, where there are some more koz's. Kill those, and as you do, another cho should spawn. Continue as prior, kiting to kill. Never ever let the cho catch the person who is marked to be eaten. Prioritize killing skarners near the marked targets, as they will happily pull them into a cho for a hard to resist kill.

THE BIG BAD

There are several core details to remember when fighting him.

His spin attack can be dodged in one of 3 ways, and another way can migitate the damage you take if you can't dodge it.

1. Just run around him. If at close range and you react fast, you can lap him and not get hit.

2. Dodge behind a pillar, obviously.

3. Flash the sphere line. Its your flash CD, but that can save you several hundred to thousand damage, especially if you are in a position where the spin attack is otherwise unavoidable.

If you can't dodge it, instead run strait through at a diagonal from a distance. You will still take a hit, but most people can survive one or two hits. Tanks can even take a few more.

Spawning patterns and tips. The boss doesn't have any fixed spawning patterns, but will actively spawn people more frequently if taking damage. If you apply a massive burst of damage, the boss will enter an enraged state and spawn even more rapidly. Watch the boss for the lines between her and the stuff she spawns. If you see the line fly off into the distance, check your minimap INSTANTLY. If its Vel'koz's that spawned, instantly back off the boss and go kill them. If its chos and Rek'sais, you can afford to leave them for the next spawn wave. Once you have a few sets of mobs spawned, regardless of who they are, back off the boss, and clear them out. Even if they are not a risk to you now, all it takes is a single bad spawn set to spawn with them to throw things completely out of your control and cause you to chain-wipe.

Side notes

Ultimately, what matters most isn't your team comp or builds even, but how your team acts. Optimal builds with terrible planning on what you do as a team will get you nowhere. Voice coms helps, but is NOT required. I've gotten several S+ with no mic in play. You just need everyone to know what they are expected to do, and to be proactive on the pings to tell people to check the map. If you ping what you are planning to do, and the team knows to pay attention to those pings, it makes a world of difference. Try and leave a single person as a designated shotcaller on the team and they be the only one who pings, guiding what you all do (Except for the cases of people pinging velkoz spawn in the boss fight, everyone should do that to ensure it gets noticed ASAP).

Finally, ask for any clarification where needed. I may have forgotten to list a few of those rounds in the section talking about rounds, if there is any round you can think of you having an issue with ask and I'll add it.