Deathgarden Cooperative Guide for Runners

In Deathgarden, you’re either a team of five runners attempting to complete a series of objectives while avoiding a relentless, dangerous hunter who’s out to get you — or you’re the sole hunter going after the runners. If you’re a runner, you want to do your best to not only complete the round’s objectives, but you want to make sure you’re helping your team out as much as possible to ensure they don’t get caught.

Being the best on your team of runners doesn’t mean anything if your teammates are struggling to outpace the hunter. After having played several rounds in Deathgarden, here are some excellent things to keep in mind to assist you in getting your team of runners to succeed.

Mark Every Component You See

There’s plenty of useful resources all over the map for your team to utilize while attempting to evade the hunter. Such as ammo, health, and upgrade crates. Unfortunately, they’re not easy to see and your teammates may run past them if they’re in a hurry — especially if the hunter is nearby!

The only way to ensure your team notices any of these resources is to mark them using your standard arrows. Hitting them with the arrow lights them up for everyone on your team, enabling them to see it from anywhere they are in the garden. To make sure you’re always highlighting these resources, you need to regularly reload at an ammo crate to replenish your arrows. Remember, these arrows do not harm or bother the hunter. Do not waste it on them. You’re given these arrows to mark objectives and useful crates you see in the garden.

You’re encouraged to mark resources and objectives in the garden because this is how you acquire NPI — the resource that powers your special, class-based arrows. Once those run out, you’ll have to complete objectives or mark resource caches to gain more.

Knowledge is key in Deathgarden and keeping your teammates informed about what’s available to them, along with what you’re doing, will ensure you have a higher chance of success.

Develop A Distant Buddy System

In cooperative games, normally you want to stay close to your teammates to help them out while attempting to conquer your foe. Because of the way Deathgarden works, though, being too close to your teammates can prove problematic. The hunter would have two runners to shoot at instead of one. If you both go down, this gives the hunter two notches for their bloodpost, meaning your entire team suffers. Staying close is not an option in Deathgarden. 

The best way to help your teammates is to keep a safe distance away from them. You’ll see a soft, white outline of them as they move throughout the garden, ensuring you can always locate them if they go down or attempt to go for an objective. You can support your team best by keeping your distance and jumping into action when they need a helping hand — remember, you can’t always hold their hand. This only leads to the hunter taking down multiple runners at once. 

However, if you notice a teammate near an upgrade or ammo crate you should go to them to acquire those resources at the same time. This way you won’t waste time attempting to find another nearby and you won’t have multiple resource caches going on cooldown.

Divide And Conquer

An added benefit to splitting up while playing as runners is you can focus on capturing different objectives at the same time. If you have a teammate attempting to capture pillar B, see if you can find pillars A or C and go for those. The hunter will have to choose which of the objectives they want to attack, but if they react too late one of the points will go to your team.

There are two game modes you can play in Deathgarden, point capture and key capture. Point capture forces you to stand at a pillar and capture it, whereas in key capture you have to find objective caches hidden on the map. Once you’ve obtained a charge from one of these caches you take it to one of the three objectives — you need three charges to capture a pillar in this mode.

Because of the way the map is designed you’re encouraged to divide the hunter’s attention as much as possible. Focusing on a single objective will only make it easier for the hunter to take down multiple runners at the same time. Runners are agile and were designed to move more quickly than the hunter. Make it difficult for your opponent to protect a single point and bounce between objectives.

A great way to get this strategy across to the rest of your teammates is going to parts of the map they are not. For example, if you’re noticing you have at least three teammates on one side of the map, and you’re in the middle, go in the opposite direction as them. While you’re over there, locate an objective and start taking it. This way you’ll draw the hunter’s attention towards you, but this frees up the rest of your team to handle any objectives they’re near. Just make sure you leave yourself enough time to escape before the hunter arrives to deal with you!

Specialize in Two Roles

A team of runners has three classes to choose from before they enter the garden: support, torment, and control. While knowing about each class is good, you should make sure you’re proficient with at least two of them to make sure your team composition varies each match. Having too many of one class may hinder you. 

By becoming efficient with at least two of the three classes, you can seamlessly change between your preferences to accommodate your team. To do this effectively you may need to hold back and accept your role right before the gates open to the garden. 

It’s recommended to always have at least two support classes on your team, but you do not want more. Having more than two support runners means you’re giving up much-needed aggressive abilities your team will need to disrupt the hunter and escape them. It’s better to have at least two covering the entire team as they scour for objectives, though having too few forces the only support runner to watch out for everyone — with four players to watch, it may prove too much for some.

Turn On Voice Chat

For whatever reason, this setting is automatically set to “off” in the options menu. You won’t have to search for long in your settings to find it. It’s on the first page. All you have to do is click the box and there you go! Communicate with your teammates about the hunter’s location, where they’re headed, and craft a sneaky game plan to outwit your opponent.

Because the voice feature is automatically turned off, not everyone uses voice chat, but when they do and you have a pair of people talking on your team, you’re going to get a lot more done. It’s better to have it ready to go than constantly communicating to your teammates through the game’s text. Luckily, voice chat is not required as the arrows make useful resources in the garden apparent to everyone on the team.

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And those are some of the great useful tips you can use during your first match in Deathgarden as a runner! Make sure to communicate to your teammates as much as possible through voice chat or by using your arrows.

For more on Deathgarden and other games being released this season, keep it here at GameSkinny!