Polaris Freelance 10/10 Video Notes

Overall strategy for the rotation: With Dualies and Proshot I should be able to carry most waves without a special. Rapid should normally be fine too, but it is a bit harder than the other two. And finally Carbon, the noodle roller, is just too slow at everything, so specials will be pretty much reserved for it, no matter what wave number it even is. This idea works especially well on Polaris because there effectively is easy access to all parts of the map. Which brings me to: how to play Polaris, anyway!?
Well, on previous rotations I have learned the hard way that some randoms can't be trusted to kill Scrappers that they have stopped themselves, so I will from now on do that for them and move on to the next thing. Play early spawns aggressively if a single random so chooses, generate free early eggs and hope my randoms distract themselves with running them. (For real man, it's indefinitely harder to get them to do that on Bay because no one likes returning to Bay basket, it's just so fucking terrible...) As they are occupied, I can freely watch what happens on the map as I am running those far eggs myself and then decide for myself what I'm gonna do with every boss that I see. Always act on Stingers, Flyfish and stationary Drizzlers in whatever way seems appropriate, poke Scrappers to get their guaranteed aggro, try to snatch Maws from busy randoms. And finally, with Eelheads, it's rarely a good idea to lure them the full distance, so I will commonly kill them halfway up and that also makes the eggs good enough that it is likely we are getting at least 2 of them into the basket. All in all, it's pretty much the same strategy as Spawning Grounds except the walls are higher and we have rails.
After the 10/10, I passed the 800 mark with only 2 losses (never done so before!) and got Freelance-only 999 in a total of 52 games (new PB) and with a 0.9 death average (think that's a PB too, best previous death average to 999 I can remember is 1 flat). Could have been less games, messed up quite a bit in that last third and it's never getting easier up there compared to the early parts. Maybe next time. It's my favorite map and probably my best map, I will most definitely do another Freelance run on it one day. Sub-50 the dream, it is doable, and all I'm asking at my skill level!

Game 1: Wow, first wave was already a bit of a mess. Didn't find lures for a long time, waited a bit too long for something I wasn't gonna do anyway which then made me miss a Scrapper about to drop down, and then death to failing the Scrapper stun in endgame. Sometimes the start is always the hardest!? Wave 2 was just as lucky -- pressed the Splashdown a split-second too late, ruined. Had to take the gamble with the last seek then, and only that ended up securing the win. And wave 3...the early Splashdown there was actually a little experiment. It was an idea for how one can possibly deal with the Stinger/Eel combination as a weapon that can't kill either fast/easily. Doesn't quite apply to Splattershot Pro, I would say, but it did work and saved time regardless, just means I don't have another one. Clean wave!

Game 2: Clean wave 1. About wave 2, I want to say that this far Stinger spawn more often than not is a death trap and you should really never go there on solo. I just wanted to try it out because I had Dualies and ink, wanted to see what happens out of mere curiosity. (And if the infamous wall of Scrappers had happened...I can Ray out of it. No, I definitely didn't think as far when I played, haha.) Anyway, not worth going there ever, don't do it. Ah yeah, and then this death to Eels, I remember it well...simple mistake. I had the option to retreat to the rail and maybe use that to try and detangle them, but didn't think of that option and that got me killed. (Also, nice panic Ray, lol. Don't remember that one as vividly, probably thought I had like Splashdown when I played.) Owe the randoms one for that. And finally, clean wave 3. Bit slow in the decision making sometimes but that's about it. Polaris cannons is a fun and spicy wave.

Game 3: Wave 1 was interesting, let's put it like that. Carbon wasn't in rotation forever, definitely needed some time to get reacquainted with the noodle. Death was a rough one, the missile was actually visible but it was hidden beneath the ledge, so I simply missed it when I played. Clean mid-tide wave 2 once again, and a semi-scary wave 3 for missing too many shots for comfort with Rapid Blaster.

Game 4: Good.

Game 5: Mostly clean waves 1 and 2. In the previous game and also here there have been some overly aggressive plays with ranged weapons though. It is a bad habit and it's especially hard to get rid of it because one does it all the time when going for highscores...which is what I mainly do in Salmon Run these days, as my YouTube shows. In wave 3, I learned the hard way that an Eel pretty much is as long as the map, so 1v1ing an Eel with Ray on high tide: bad idea, don't do it! Luckily enough, my randoms were there for me again.

Game 6: It's never a real Freelance session without finding Wosie or sev. These guys and others come somewhere right after Marty in the power rankings of EU Freelance legends. Ate a super stupid death in early game because I wanted to deflect-kill that Drizzler...was as affordable as it gets I guess, since I did have Wosie and I had the noodle, hardly anyone would notice a difference to me being alive, right? Rest was not great but good enough, really.

Game 7: Oh yeah, there is one prime example of my overall strategy for the rotation: "Carbon is by far the worst weapon of the set, so all specials shall belong to Carbon." Had I known that Rapid would help me there, I could have saved that Splashdown no problem, but I didn't know, and so I did the only right thing at the time. Scary ending to wave 1 because I fell down and then even died to what probably was in fact my own missile, but once again, my randoms showed some gratitude for having me and secured the wave for me. Rest was overall good too. Wave 3 has a cool Splashdown play, but it also meant I had to prioritize survival near the end and just hope that the other guys please find the quota somewhere.

Game 8: Good old Freelance Griller shitshows! Getting early quota was excellent, tried to my best ability to play it safe from there...and almost messed it up too, haha. Anyway, about the part before quota, I want to give a special shoutout to Marty for the Griller stun assists. I've seen him shoot behind them with Clash, so I simply replicated that with Rapid as best as I could. In wave 2, there's another example of the "Carbon = specials" strat: rather than sitting around doing effectively nothing, I just went for that Flyfish double to take some pressure off the field. Later almost killed myself because I didn't see that Eel in time from my camera angle. Clean wave 3, just did...that to myself after the game, lol.

Game 9: The second Ray was silly, of course the Stinger would be on me. Following that, the wave snowballed a bit and I had to trust my randoms to deal with it somehow, since I was without specials now and first thing had to rely on them reviving me. Rest was clean except for like forgetting that Dualie fastfall is a thing.

Game 10: Good!

All in all, this probably would have been a 1/10 with the same mistakes but worse randoms. I will make no judgement whether my Bay 10/10 was better or not, got blessed by good randoms there too. Anyway, on the quest for 10/10 all maps, turns out I got the "quota maps" out of the way, only the "slaying maps" left to do. Just need a good weapon set combined with a good day, then maybe. I do have 9/10 on all of them, just a matter of time.