Havoc is a challenging game mode which requires much more teamwork than anything else in the game. But there are some things players can exploit to make their lives easier.

First, it's essential to keep healthy pacing in Havoc as being either too slow or too fast may cause more problems than usual. Being too slow may result in team's attrition due to lack of resources (health, ammo, healing items). Unlike Auric Missions, Havoc introduces hordes on timer so the more time players spend in a mission the more enemies they'll have to fight although timed hordes are tied to map progress so it's possible to 'exhaust' hordes by being too slow which a viable strategy if a team play cautiously and don't waste resources. Playing too fast, or simply rushing, will also make the game more difficult as Havoc has increased enemy density: more numerous elite patrols, increased amount of boss triggers and more frequent hordes. Rushing players are in risk of being overwhelmed by large groups of elites combined with bosses and hordes of chaff enemies. Yes, players are still able to speedrun maps abusing stealth and high mobility weapons as the game can't really do anything against it due to engine limitations and developers' oversight but playing this way is not fun at all as fighting through obstacles is the core of tide games. So the best way to play Havoc is to clear room by room whie also not being afraid of pushing enemies in coordination with a team. Don't be too slow, don't be too fast and analyze the situation to make good decisions.

One of the effective strategies in Havoc is pulling enemies towards a team instead of rushing into them. It makes everything much easier as the space behind is usually safe and enough for a team to move and dodge enemies. It also allows to fight dangerous elites without triggering bosses or hordes which are tied to map progression. Many maps have dropdowns which lead to dangerous sections with elite patrols and boss triggers so it's better to pull enemies especially because they are vulnerable during the climbing animation. Jumping like mad into masses of enemies is definitely not a good idea in Havoc.

After death players are respawned at the nearest rescue beacon but if other player is too close to a rescue beacon then a dead player will be teleported to the next spot which sometimes can be 3 or 4 rooms away. Even one player is 25% of the team power so clearing a map to rescue someone will be slower and riskier. To prevent it players can fall back as soon as a player dies to guarantee a nice respawn. But keep in mind that moving back 50 meters from the farthest point of a map reached by one of the players and having no active horde may spawn a wave of bulwarks (blockade) from behind.

Rescuing a teammate here is much easier than


in the next spot

If a player has low hp (1-20%) and there are no healing items it can be useful to intentionally go down and be revived in order to fully restore the rest of hp at the cost of one wound. Even 50% hp is better than nothing. Abusing this mechanic it's possible to recover full hp by going down, being revived and then using med stimm. But be careful as enemies deal corruption damage with melee attacks in Havoc so a negligent player may completely die trying to go down. It's also much safer to go down in a controlled situation rather than amid chaos when teammates won't be able to revive a player.

It's possible to exploit death mechanic as well. After death a player is rescued without any corrupted hp and also with half ammo which can be useful in a tough situation. It's especially useful for zealots who survived an overhead thanks to Until Death talent and now have 99% corrupted hp but there are no med stations or stimms to help them and medipack doesn't cleanse corruption without a veteran's talent (even with this talent only one wound is cleansed). In short, a player dies, a team goes back for a nice respawn, the player is rescued, no corruption, free ammo.

(HP bar colour is changed with Recolor Boss Health Bars mod)

Missions with Heinous Rituals modifier spawn Hexbound Daemonhosts surrounded by a circle of cultists. The cultists start to awake a daemonhost as soon as players are close enough and its hp bar starts to get fulled tick by tick. Once the daemonhost hp bar is full cultists die and the daemonhost is awoken. Unlike normal daemonhosts, hexbound one can kill up to 4 players instead of 1. So if a team can't kill the daemonhost it's possible to rescue dead players to prevent a team wipe.

Almost all missions have 5 rituals with the exception of Hab Dreyko where only 3 rituals can spawn.

The most important thing every player should know is that there are 3 stages of Hexbound Daemonhosts: inactive stage, slow ticking stage and fast ticking stage. Obviously, the inactive stage does nothing. During the slow ticking stage ticks are happening every 11.4s so a team has plenty of time to fight bosses, hordes or groups of elites instead of rushing a ritual and risking to make everything worse. So take your time, deal with most threats and then move to a ritual. In the fast ticking stage the rate of ticks is increased by 10 times so they happen every 1.3s which means that a team has to rush a ritual and kill cultists as soon as possible. Killing cultists slows down ticking.

Be careful as a lot of rituals are buggy and may trigger from far away forcing a team to move extremely fast and getting into tough situations.

Each map has boss triggers tied to specific spots of a map. Unlike Auric Missions, Havoc has increased amount of normal boss triggers + scab/dreg captains + twins. The more you play Havoc the more boss trigger placements you'll learn. Because they are tied to map progression and often can be close to each other it's important to move cautiously and try not to trigger several bosses as it makes things much harder. The best tactics is to move back as soon as you trigger a boss and hear its sound cue. As I said before, moving back generally makes everything easier and safer.

Besides full hp bosses, weakened bosses have a 5-10% chance (depending on Emperor's Fading Light modifier level) to spawn instead of a specialist enemy. A weakened boss spawn forces 8-10 min cooldown (again depending on Emperor's Fading Light modifier level) until the next weakened boss can spawn. Unfortunately, this cooldown is broken at the beginning of any map so this is the reason why the game sometimes throws several weakened bosses at the team.

It's also useful to know that scab/dreg captain's shield has damage cap so there's limited amount of damage which can be dealt per attack. It means that there's no point in stacking buffs like thrust or using high damage attacks when dealing with the shield. Chain weapons quickly destroy shields with special attacks as they deal damage in fast ticks. After the shield is broken it reactivates after some time or if a captain takes specific amount of damage though this damage reactivation cap can be bypassed with heavy hitting weapons like ogryn's pickaxes, relic blade or duelling sword especially combined with Skullcrusher blessing stacks which can increase damage taken by an enemy during a stagger animation by 80%.

Twins bosses, or lieutenants, often cause wipes in Havoc as they usually spawn in tough spots of maps, e.g. after dropdowns. They behave a bit differently from The Orthus Offensive mission as they don't have the shield mechanic like in this mission. Unlike captain's shields, twins' shields have no damage cap so they can be destroyed quickly, they also reactivate only on timer so it's possible to kill a twin breaking the shield only once.

There are two good strategies against twins:

1) As soon as players hear twins' sound cue (a shield activation sound) they should go back and wait for a melee twin to come closer. She's much faster than her brother (a ranged twin) so it will take him some time to catch up with her. When the melee twin gets closer the team must focus her and kill as fast as possible. It's very easy to do for 4 players. The ranged twin is annoying due to mines but less dangerous in general and almost defenseless in melee.

2) If it's impossible to deal with one of the twins fast, the team can split them. Twins are usually aggroed on players who deal damage to them so it can be abused in this strategy. Spliting them makes it easier because the melee twin is very aggresive and pressurizes players pushing them into corners or bad spots while the ranged twin throws tox mines working as area of denial. The amount of mines is not limited so they can easily cover huge parts of a map. Fighting the melee twin while also trying to not die to mines is definitely harder.

These tips won't win the game for you but at least you'll know what to do in different scenarios which is guaranteed to boost your winrate. Share this info with friends and teammates to make everything easier.

Here are some useful links with details about Havoc modifiers and hidden stat changes:

https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3318538305
https://steamproxy.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3375980903