Picayune Dreams – Flawless Achievement Tips

Tips to Obtain Flawless Achievement

Setting and Other Stuff

• Overdrive 3, 5 is harder at the start and just devolves into a slideshow latter on with the build i’m going with.
• XP to canisters should be off, parasight can’t grab those, they can grab the regular XP just fine.
• Auto upgrade on full build should be off, can’t prioritize.
• Having low screen shake / hit flashes / weapon visibility is worth considering for clarity , low spec as well even on top end current hardware.

Loadout

Obviously need the full 30 points here, I’ll mention a few “don’t” inbetween.

• RGB Genetics, kinda mandatory and generally helpful though an early rainbow enemy can certainly ruin your day.
• Magnetosphere, incidental but still useful.
• Leech Education, the central point of what makes the strategy I go with work.
• Solenoid Infusion, almost superfluous to be honest but might help a little tiny bit in area 3 if you’ve not got athe build up yet.
• 5th Generation Network, not super useful but useful enough early on.
• Shocking Results, makes early game easier.

• Expert, same as above.
• Connect Call, not absolutely mandatory but very useful in the first three areas.
• Pickup Line, convenience mostly.
• Experienced Handler, an absolute no, you do not want that here.
• Remnants Of What Was, Hitory statues are what you’re gonna be wanting mostly, Discipline can be worth and Excution can help if you ‘re stuck with a bad enemy type (as in anything with projectiles)
• Driller Enhancement, some very good ways to kickstart a run here.
• Black Atomization, mandatory it’s how you prevent getting overwhelmed.
• Fast Core, most useful of the 5upgrades that get you to the rest of that skill tree.
• Stack Overflow, i’m not even sure it actually helps any here but overheat is about as useless.
• Skull Crushing Distance, barely helps in the first area probably can be replaced.
• Feeling Lucky, very useful since you’re gonna be pummeling stuff at insane cooldown levels with absurd quantity of projectiles.

• Nitrous, probably helps.
• Rainbowsplosion, helps early but hurts a bit latter since the early part is worse I’d go with it anyways.
• Critsplosion, on hit AoE damage is also a very good thing to have in that build.
• Overkill, again if you’re gonna be fring that much stuff it’s bound to kill bosses faster so it’s a yes.
• Dumb Luck, no, negative synergy with Rainbowsplosion, if you’ve already blown a rainbow with Rainbowsplosion nothing much is left on the field and spawns are slowed for a bit so you get more damage to fire at nothing (unless you get unlucky and kill a rainbow without triggering the chain explosion, which is not a thing beyond area 1).
• Salt The Wound, you will have the Flamethrower so it would be foolish to not have that also unlock on hit status effect for everything perks.
• Battery Lick, main useful one, if you have spare points Poison Brew is the other one you want, followed by Blue Skin and Matchstick.
• Spaghettification, more survivability is good.
• Quantum Hole, not really useful, probably better to go with No Worries honestly.
• Scavenger, extra safety net.
• Marathon, incidental but helps early.
• Exponential Expedition, honestly not that useful, at the point where you actually start getting the effetcs it loses most utility since you’re not gonna need to be moving, could replace with Gaiden but the second boss can be a bit harder without it sometimes
• Bullet Time, very damn useful depending on how lucky you are with the build you’ll spend most of area 2 and 3 using that.
• Confidence, purely for early game dodging and boss 2.
• Reroll, maybe if you’ve got one point left, not mandatory or useful just reset the run if you don’t get the right weapons early on.

Upgrades

If you already have all the big ticket items you can just pick whatever to complete the build, the build is centered on 6 items, anythign else is just there for early game help.

Core, meh not gonna be useful post area 2 but indecent enough early and good to speed up the process towards a full set of upgrades so you don’t get the useless stuff as often.

• Chain Belt, good early on.
• Dagger Glove, not good enough in area 2.
• EYE2, nope, surprisingly terrible.
• Injection, absolutely but lower priority than other upgrades.
• Energizing Battery, second most important passive.
• IV Bag, about as useful as extra health on a no hit run would be (that would be not useful at all btw).
• Pleonexic Crown, replaced by parasight + the perk making it collect XP.
• Legsaw, by the time you get it to a level where it’s useful it ain’ useful anymore.
• Missile pack, mandatory.
• Parasight, literally the most important thing here for that to work, it’s gonna be bad until you hit 15-20 stacks though.
• Yoyo Pack, not useful enough early on to be worth getting.
• Hunter’s Bow, probably one of the better early choice for damage.
• Halo, even less useful than the IV Bag.
• Horn, i’d avoid too risky.

• Hydroscillator, no.
• Flamethrower, yeah best early game thing you can get.
• Snow Globe, one of the lesser melee range option.
• Plasma Globe, not useful enough early on.
• Static Satellite, the less of the big three for that build but still worth it.
• Wicked Walkman, actually not bad at all once the swarm closes in on you starts really helping worth getting 10-15 stacks early on.
• Soul Spear, meh.
• Defense Turret, meh and can get you hit on upgrades since it takes time to redeploy.
• Shinobi Equipment, not good enough early on.
• Strike Call, actually semi useful with 10i-15 stacks to get hte rest of the build up to speed.
• Angel Wings, could have been useful but isn’t enoguh not a bad build filler though sicne it instantly hits from any range.

• Demon Wings, nah.
• Digiwathc, if you can only pick one passive that’s the one you pick.
• Overcharged Engine, you ain’t gonna be moving for most of the run, you don’t need movement speed.
• Volatile C4, one of the lesser of the on hit / on death upgrades, however pick that one, the other two have issues that are not gameplay related.

• Fire Lighter, same as above.
• Frosty Cone, same as above but midly more useful.
• Electric Eel, if you manage to get 6-10 stacks of that boss two is a non issue the one on hit effect ypu really want over everything else.
• Element Crystal, not anywhere near useful enough to be worth using.
• Shrapnel Shells, absurdly powerful latter on, however your framerate will tank so hard it’s no worth using just for that.
• Telecom, seven more powerful but even worse framerate issues, we’re talking seconds per frame territory on high end hardware.
• Slime Spikes, either that or Chain Belt, or both if you feel like it.
• Ultrabuster, not great not bad, slightly less useful than Core.

Area Selection

• You almost always want modded areas over normal ones unless the enemy type is particularly bad.
• Small enemies is the worst one, low benefits with much higher risks.
• Parasited enemies is second worst but only really bad in area 1 / 2.
• Paradox areas are great latter on, they spawn insane ammounts of stuff leading you to get equally insane ammount of XP, starting with one is very very rough however, doable though and gets you a slightly better start, area 4/5 paradox are really really good though and can get you an extra 0-100 levels
• Exploding enemies is very good, safer than regular in area 2 /3, you do have to pop a blackhole earlier on if you get pressured too much though.
• Large enemies is the safest and there’s no reason not to go there, especially if you get chain belt and large enemies is your first area.

Any area including droid / Snipers is a nogo.

Early wibbler is kind of sketchy, as are Face and Cornchip (though less so).

Statues are mostly not very useful, except History, you want History over even modded areas especially early, it’s basically extra levels with no extra difficulty, I’d almost advise doing it twice in the first area, not like you need blackholes for anything else there.

General Tips

• At first you’re gonna have to aggressively chase enemies / XP, more levels early = more firepower to kill more stuff to get more XP faster.
• Don’t spec too hard in passive early, only lock them in, if you don’t get a good selection always prioritize shot speed early on, then some shot size, then starting from area 3 hard into cooldown.
• You want a good AoE early in area 1 (Flamethrower counts) and you want some death zone near you for late area 1 / area 2 (Flamethrower isn’t enough here), you do still have to build up your Parasight (20-30 stacks for area 3) / Missile Pack (15-20 stacks for area 3) / Static Satellite (20 ish stacks) however
• Having 5-10 stacks of Electric Eel into boss 2 is great, you then jst have to move aay fom it in a straight lline and it’ll get stunned enough that it can’t catch you., same deal with boss 3 except you go diagonally.
• Once into area 3 you absolutely want to focus on Parasight and Missile Pack and also passives, if you do not have agood choice stacking Flamethrower, Hunter’s Arrow, Wicked Walkman is also good
• Shot size over 250% and shot speed over 300% are good goals, after that focus on other things first; cooldown you can get as much as possible though, if you don’t end up with 400%-700% you’re doing it wrong.
• Everytime Fish / Skull / Glove are introduced or upgraded it’s a jump in difficulty, keep your bullet time engaged and finger on the blackhole button, if it gets too spicy pop one
• Once into area 2 move as little as possible, use bullet time as much as possible.
• If you’ve done everything right the Parasight will shower you with XP and by area 3 the enemies will start not being able to get near you, then fail to even get onscreen as you accumulate levels
• Boss 4 is the one sticking point that can get you even if you’ve done everything right, you can if lucky kill it prior to it even shooting at all, but i would not risk getting too close (or too far because it teleports on top of you guaranteeing a hit), pop a preemptive blackhole as soon as the bullets get remotely hard to dodge and check his life in hte mean time then act accordingly (I’d pop another blackhole immediately if you can’t kill it while invulnerable.)
• Do not immediately use grenades, keep near one to substitue a blackhole, and make extr asure you don’t get curse, not early at least, late curse is just extra XP (though sometimes you get unlucky)
• Unless you just used one, use a magnet as soon as possible once you spawn one.