Vid as promised. All I have is a Festering Ground run from a while back a lil after I hit 30 on her. It’s Pre beam “nerfs,” from before the game started giving me 2.5k-3k mobs and beyond deed level specials every damn match, and I make some dumb mistakes but it’s still probably useful anyways. Only difference with the beam nerfs is you generally want to wait longer before triggering bursts when you can, but with proper gear the reduced 1st burst tier isn’t generally a detriment.
This was a decent pug group I had a bunch of successful runs with so I’m considerably less aggressive than I normally would be because I trusted them and never had to worry about their positioning. You’ll see me leave them to handle stuff on their own a few times and instead of hogging kills, I’ll try to Cc mobs whenever possible for them to drop with ranged without me having to interrupt my beam control (that’s kinda the ideal but in most pugs you’ll end up having to just go ham all the time in my experience)
Never played Sienna in V1 so you can tell I was still getting used to the “tunnel vision” of the beam staff a bit when I recorded this. I derp off an edge at one point and get downed once when I forget my surroundings & get stuck on a tree root trying to strafe dodge a Stormfiend. Got downed once when a static group w berzerkers noiselessly aggro’d; half my fault because I got close despite knowing they were there but I was expecting to hear them if they got any funny ideas.
My heat management in this is pretty good. Positioning is generally good but near the end I get a lil tilted after taking a weird stealth hit and start accepting more damage than I like to in order to kill more mobs XD There are a few times where I intentionally accept a weaker positioning to have more fun (ie. sitting where I have to juggle a wave from two directions instead of taking three steps back and funneling them all right into my blasts).
My defensive play in this is alright. You’ll see when I’m at risk of dropping I’ll go into a defensive state and get hyper cautious about my surroundings. How you deal with that situation is very map dependent: since I was in an extremely open area with nothing to kill, I turtled until I know for certain it was safe. In tighter quarters, with lots of fodder around, you want to get back to killing stuff as quickly as possible to max out on temp health. It’s a delicate balance but you get used to it fast.
It’s rarely worthwhile to swing your melee weapon because, unless you’re blocking, you should be using your staff. I take purely defensive properties/traits on my melee weapon (stamina + block cost reduction) with Off Balance, which is extremely potent and abusable. I use the sword because it has the best wide-angle CC of all her weapons and if I am swinging it I want to know whatever I’m hitting can’t hit me back (but really, don’t ever swing it, it’s not worth the risk and she hits like a wet noodle).
My burning head usage here is relatively smart but more conservative than needed. You’ll see me save it for special spawns a lot, which isn’t bad to do, but there are lots of times I could burn it to check ahead but don’t. Since its an already short cd with a further 30% reduction and can be boosted by wiggling the beam, you can launch it virtually anytime it’s available without having to worry too much.
Anyways, hope that helps. Sorry I don’t have a newer video. These open maps are more challenging in general, due to fewer choke points with which to punish your enemies, so I think it’s got some value for that as well (anyone can stand in a corner and beam/blast down a hallway).
