Cephalopods/Strategies

Major portions of this article may not be up to date. You can help Dead Ahead Wiki by changing all outdated info.

This page is used for sharing strategies against Cephalopods.

General Strategy

Cephalopods provides one of the hardest challenges to players, being a very difficult boss to defeat. However, with the introduction of items, it is overall less difficult despite the enemies' stats being significantly higher.

General notes:

• All enemies in this level are buffed, including deceased player units’ transformations, having no pauses in their movement and inconsistent double attacks. This means that their actual speed and damage output have increased and are more dangerous than previous encounters.
• Undeads are a threat if they get too close to the bus, since it takes 2-3 shots from Bill’s rifle to kill an average undead, so it is advised to burn the corpses that are in a unfavourable position or stacked near each other using Red Barrel, being the best option overall.
• Send out more than one melee unit to deal with Blue Runners in each swarm, unless it is Mechanic with special ability unlocked. However, paying attention to not trigger the Egg prematurely is also needed when range damage is lacking.
• Mind the cool down of barrels if they are brought along, since Charged Zombies comes quite often and can destroy barrels in 2 hits (one if they happen to possess the Red Aura buff).
• While it's already expected that a few Energy Drinks and Fury buffs will be needed, it's still recommended to save up on as many as possible before the fight, as it's likely that a lot of retries will be necessary on the path towards defeating Cephalopods;

It's curious to point out that the entire level can be completed without using buffs at all. However, it can be not as much difficult as stressful to pull off, and is only recommended to try if you already have a good understanding of the fight and things you should do.

No matter what kind of strategy you choose for the fight, some general tactics towards it stay the same:

• Phase 1: During the first phase, it's critical that enemies don't heavily damage the bus, to be precise, players should reattempt the level if the bus’s health drops below slightly more than half, since there isn’t a chance of it surviving through two more laser hits from Phase 2 and 3. While Blue Runners are fairly dangerous, make sure to never let Undead get too close to the bus either. Use Red Barrel to burn their bodies to ashes whenever possible. To deal with Charged Zombies, simply drop barrels on them. Melee units can work as a final resort to save the important ranged units, however, they are rather best used for protecting the bus.
  Instead, the best way to hold enemies off is the Turret, should there is a lack of reliable range units on the field. Place it as soon as you are able to, no matter if your units needs the support at that moment or not, and position it in the middle of Cephalopods, or in the middle near the bus if there is too much corpses in the middle of the battefield. When Generator becomes available too, place it to the rightmost of Cepha, or close to the bus if you need courage.
• Phase 2: Begin applying strategy dependant tactics as soon as Cephalopod's phase transition attack ends, if relevant. Be very careful, and don't rush it; never forget that after a laser an electric bolt soon follows. Use Fury buff if you feel like it. In the best-case scenario, you should be able to reach the 3rd phase without Cephalopods firing another bolt. It isn’t too much to worry about even if you failed to do so as long as you didn’t used up all your resources (courage, rage, units prepared to be deployed). Make sure to watch your courage meter, as you'll need resources for the 3rd phase.
• Phase 3: This part is essentially the same as the previous phase. However, a minute timer will appear in the top-middle of the screen, counting down the seconds before Cephalopods unleashes its bus-destroying beam. Either spam or damage should be increased, so using either Energy Drink or Fury buff respectively is highly recommended. Reserve Red Barrels for Charged Zombies and Undead.

Strategy 1: Melee Rush

Current viability: Less preferable. This strategy can be considered "budget", since it relies on essential units, but it's much more prone to get screwed over by RNG.

Deck

• Redneck/Private Rodriguez/Berserker: Level 12 min., 13 recommended.
• Policeman Diaz/Lester/Sonya: Level 13 min.
• Mechanic: Level 13 with special ability unlocked;
• Red Barrel: Level 10+ min.
• Turret: Level 12+ min.
• Generator: Level 8+ min.

Process

• Phase 1: At the very beginning, you should wait till Undead get past the Eggs, and then send out Mechanic to deal with them and take Energy Sphere's hit. After that send out your ranged unit, and continue with the general strategy. Once the coast gets clear, you might want to start sending out melee units in slow numbers, and at best a single other ranged unit. You can't allow yourself to overdo the damage output in this phase, as it becomes much more crucial in the following ones.
• Phase 2: Start sending out all your melee units. Keep in mind that thanks to the doubled damage output you'll likely reach the 3rd phase very quickly. Because of that, don't waste your non-melee units and reserve them for the last phase, and don't send out melees whose input is unnecessary or if they'll be doomed to die from a laser.
• Phase 3: Simply repeat the previous step and you should be able to reach the victory before the timer ends. Since now you are on the edge, it's safe to exhaust your courage savings on melee unit spam.

Unit reviews

Since introduction of items, namely prep time reducing ones, nearly all units are now usable, and the ones that are already good becomes excellent. Here is a overview of units performance in this stage (as an individual unit, ignoring team synergies most of the time)

Redneck: Not the best disposable melee unit, but still has his uses in specific strategies.

Farmer: Frail with slow attacks, but the special ability greatly improves his overall output and crowd control.

Lester: A better version of Farmer, having all his advantages and improved DPS but just as fragile.

Mechanic: Really only useful with his special ability which allows him to wipe the floor with the other zombies.

Jailer: Mediocre and with slow critical hits limiting the effectiveness of his stuning ability.

Specops: Not very useful due to low DPS and long preparation time.

Saw: Decent, but might not be able to handle the enemies well due to his critical hit's slow animation.

Berserker: One of the best units here, given his versatility as a strong melee unit. He is typically employed against the boss for his raw DPS.

Builder: Not very useful due to his slow attacks.

Pepper: With her special ability she can give the inspiration buff, otherwise she's not doing much.

Chopper: Pointless. Everything in this stage hard counters him.

Firefighter: Immune to the electric bolt, but that's all he offers.

Sheriff Charlotte: An alright pick, but needs a lot of setup since she offers no crowd control. Her special ability and the eggs' presence however allows her, when used properly, to stack her damage to the point where Cephalopods is nuked in one hit.

Glenn: A spam unit who is no better than his cheaper counterparts due to Energy Spheres, Blue Runners and Cephalopods neutralizing his effectiveness entirely.

Policeman Diaz: Can wipe out swarms and damage the boss, but needs protection against Energy Spheres.

Grenadier: There's no point to use him here simply due to the Blue Runners and Energy Spheres, not to mention everything here is nigh-invulnerable against his grenade.

Gunslinger: Too slow and weak for his own good. Might be better for the 2/2 Jailers synergy if you don't think Sniper will do much.

Private Rodriguez: A powerful melee fighter with many uses. Works best when the 2/2 Marines synergy is active.

Sniper Polina: Does good ranged damage, but is overall too slow for the stage and can't get rid of support zombies.

Welder: The enemies in this stage are just too strong to ignore.

Carlos: An overall great ranged unit whose special ability can torch the Undeads into oblivion. He can still do decent damage to everything else.

Guard: Has nothing to offer, acting as a worse Builder.

Medic: Useless due to the overall extreme damage output of Blue Runners, Undeads, Energy Spheres nuking units and Cephalopods.

Flamethrower: Can only be used to kill off Undeads.

Soldier: His durability is nice, but tanking is infeasible here.

Cap: Terrible ranged unit overall and needs a well-established presence of friendly units to work.

Sonya: A powerful ranged unit that excels at crowd control and can hold her own. Only gets better when paired with Rodriguez.

Ranger: A decent unit with lots of crowd-control. His special ability ensures the Blue Runners will never stand a chance.

Willy: Completely useless due to poor stats and the boss' stun immunity.

Austin: Not worth bringing as he's better off used on easy stages instead when better alternatives also exist.

Swat: Similar to Carlos and is overall decent, but not necessarily the best.

Light soldier: Offers very little to what was working on the stage already and is overall just dead weight like any other damager.

Carol: Can teleport to enemy swarms and block them briefly, but isn't worth bothering.

Agents: Contributes nothing other than perhaps for strategies revolving around Police-themed decks.

Queen: The worst thing that can be brought on this stage. Doesn't do much in melee and the grenades are inconsistent, even if they can torch Undeads.

Turbo: Though usually good, she simply can't function against swarms due to her slow critical attacks.

Cashier: Can decimate support enemies in this stage with his extreme critical hit bonus. Can also deal decent damage to the boss due to his good base stats.

Red hood: Gets shredded because these enemies are too aggressive for him to handle.

Paramedic Nancy: Decent support, just watch out for Energy Spheres.

Builder Abby: Just a single use turret. Could matter when it did, but after that not much more.

Rogue: If his agility issues are worked around, he sees great use with his high damage and stun perk. He wouldn't stun the boss, but what he offers is still too good to ignore.

Lionheart: good at burning corpses, terrible in other occasions due to his slower attack pattern.

Dr. Miller: Does very little due to dealing terrible overall damage, despite being fire immune.

Dr. Kane: Fire immune and boosts damage of other friendly units against anything that isn't the boss, great to have if you can back him up.

Dr. Norman: Fire immune, slows enemies to a crawl, gets to Egg without having to melee it. Transformation isn't that problematic if you use him well.

Juggernaut: Despite his abilities, he is only marginally better against crowds.

Rage items

Empty Barrel: Cheap and useful way at dealing with Charged Zombies or to provoke Eggs, yet quite frail. It is outclassed by red barrel aside from the cost.

Red Barrel: Does what Empty Barrel does, but much better. Torches Undeads like no other.

Medkit: Could have been more useful if Energy Sphere wasn't in the stage.

Nitrogen: Only used for specific strategies to stun-lock the boss.

Molotov Cocktail: Does what Red Barrel does, but much worse. It doesn't even stop Charged Zombies, making it a huge waste.

Generator: Blocks enemies, gives courage. Simply decent, but not a necessity.

Turret: Pours hot lead downrange, shredding the zombies like paper. Works best with Red Barrel.

Drone: Not worth using due to low damage.