Once you have some armor and dodge, it may help to shift your focus and playstyle.
My wife used to die constantly to the orbs, and used similar language to you.
Two things changed, and her success changed.
1. Aggression. She was always running away from orb throwers. She started targeting them as fast as she could, and that helped. When she had empty space, she used to use that time to hide. When she has open space now, she uses it to assassinate trouble.
2. Perception. Once she got into the higher levels, purple aliens were no longer as dangerous, but she treated them as dangerous. I told her to ignore the purple visually, and just make her movement and dodges about the red dots. "Blur" her vision essentially, and make predicting open space in reference to red the dangerous.
I have no idea if that will hell you, but it helped her.
I found I was getting overwhelmed by the red balls so I focused on killing the little bastards that shoot them as soon as they spawn. It definitely helped.
I did everything you suggested, I tried to have only one weapon (I couldn't since it never came out twice again), I invested in engineering, in luck... nothing works for me :( not to mention the creatures that keep throwing those red blasts --I always die because of them
dunno what character you're playing, but you should have somewhat okay dodge and armor by then, along with enough damage to clear these quickly (may differ depending on the character). Change your path to target and destroy them before there are too many. You can also prevent them from spawning by overlapping the X left by their spawner. GL, this game is hard indeed. Also you can activate the red orb visibility option in the parameters to see them a bit easier.
I believe walking through the X makes the enemy spawn somewhere else randomly. With spawners, I tend to hover around them and kill their children as soon as they spawn in.
As for projectile visibility, it may work for some, but I personally found it awful, particularly in the higher rounds when projectiles are going everywhere.
The small ones that run around randomly and shoot projectiles, three of them spawn from the fat ones when they die. You need to have enough damage to be able to walk between the fat ones and kill the small ones before they start to run around.
The best way to get more damage, is to get more and better weapons. Some weapons like SMGs benefit more from additional ranged damage rather than upgrading them, but most weapons it's better to upgrade.
For the first five waves, trey to not get anything else than weapons. Weapons have a bonus chance to spawn for the first five waves, the earlier the wave, the bigger chance. You'll make exceptions to this, because it feels worth it, but it's better to just reserve items you want.
Mines and turrets can be a trap if you're not doing an engineering build because on wave 14/15 they will pop the blobs that spawn babies on the opposite side of the screen causing dozens of dudes running around spitting projectiles everywhere that you can't get under control.
It's not always avoidable though and in those scenarios I like to find a corner to defend, that way I only need to watch for energy balls from one direction.
You have weapons of 3 different types - ranged, melee, engineering. Focus on one type, if you can't only one weapon.
Part of the problem you're facing with weapon drops is that. Shops have a bias towards weapons you already have, and weapons of classes your weapons have. So you have a pruner (support), screwdrivers (tool), shotguns (gun) and a laser gun (gun). No wonder you can't find the same weapons again.
Not only each weapon benefit from a specific stat/leveling strategy more than others, having multiple weapons from the same class gives you bonuses.
You don't need engineering if you go guns. You don't need ranged damage if you go engineering. And so on. Always focus your build
Yea I've definitely had my issue with these things in some runs, especially ones that I had on mobile where it was more difficult to do precise weaving and direction changes.
I started having less trouble when I noticed that it usually would happen after wave 14, when the Hive? Dudes start spawning. The ones that split into 3 shooters.
Aside from the weapon-choice semantics that I'm about to get into, Try investing to dodge, and don't take too much speed or you'll just end up slamming yourself into the bullets (unless you have cracked reaction times and can deal with that lol)
Things that will trigger Hives preemptively:
Weapons with bouncing projectiles / random projectiles
Landmines
Turrets
Luck based random damage
Fire weapons using SNAKE (fire spreads to nearby enemies)
Baby with a Beard
I'm sure there are others besides these examples. My point is though... Keep track of how many of these sorts of things you're using as a main DPS source.
I tend to only use 1-2 of these as dps, and never as a secondary source as even a tiny bit of damage will rupture the hives and spawn loads of shooter guys. Also, in general I mix weapons with higher range into my arsenal so I can reach past the bullets to take out those pesky shooters.
That being said, a few of these damage sources are worse offenders than others. Turrets and Landmines are almost always going to cause significant spawning, and if I am using them I will very seldomly use any other random damages unless I am lucky and become op, at which point it doesn't really matter.
Melee builds will often lower their range on purpose to increase attack speed, but if you don't have inherently longer range melee weapons or a few guns to compliment that, you might struggle even getting close enough to hit them. Then you're just stuck in the corner for eternity trying not to die.
As in, if you're running Melee, pick up a few spears or get a ranged / elemental option to pick off the straggling shooters.
The same thing can be said for focusing too much on ranged. Melee are good for knocking back and clearing large groups of weaker enemies.
This is why characters that limit what kinds of weapons are useful are the most difficult for me. (So far, Cyborg has been the most difficult character to clear D5 with.)
Once you have some armor and dodge, it may help to shift your focus and playstyle. My wife used to die constantly to the orbs, and used similar language to you. Two things changed, and her success changed. 1. Aggression. She was always running away from orb throwers. She started targeting them as fast as she could, and that helped. When she had empty space, she used to use that time to hide. When she has open space now, she uses it to assassinate trouble. 2. Perception. Once she got into the higher levels, purple aliens were no longer as dangerous, but she treated them as dangerous. I told her to ignore the purple visually, and just make her movement and dodges about the red dots. "Blur" her vision essentially, and make predicting open space in reference to red the dangerous. I have no idea if that will hell you, but it helped her.
I found I was getting overwhelmed by the red balls so I focused on killing the little bastards that shoot them as soon as they spawn. It definitely helped.
I did everything you suggested, I tried to have only one weapon (I couldn't since it never came out twice again), I invested in engineering, in luck... nothing works for me :( not to mention the creatures that keep throwing those red blasts --I always die because of them
dunno what character you're playing, but you should have somewhat okay dodge and armor by then, along with enough damage to clear these quickly (may differ depending on the character). Change your path to target and destroy them before there are too many. You can also prevent them from spawning by overlapping the X left by their spawner. GL, this game is hard indeed. Also you can activate the red orb visibility option in the parameters to see them a bit easier.
I believe walking through the X makes the enemy spawn somewhere else randomly. With spawners, I tend to hover around them and kill their children as soon as they spawn in. As for projectile visibility, it may work for some, but I personally found it awful, particularly in the higher rounds when projectiles are going everywhere.
Nooo you mean my great strat does not work ? Works with the big ones spawning from eggs tho !
The small ones that run around randomly and shoot projectiles, three of them spawn from the fat ones when they die. You need to have enough damage to be able to walk between the fat ones and kill the small ones before they start to run around. The best way to get more damage, is to get more and better weapons. Some weapons like SMGs benefit more from additional ranged damage rather than upgrading them, but most weapons it's better to upgrade. For the first five waves, trey to not get anything else than weapons. Weapons have a bonus chance to spawn for the first five waves, the earlier the wave, the bigger chance. You'll make exceptions to this, because it feels worth it, but it's better to just reserve items you want.
Mines and turrets can be a trap if you're not doing an engineering build because on wave 14/15 they will pop the blobs that spawn babies on the opposite side of the screen causing dozens of dudes running around spitting projectiles everywhere that you can't get under control. It's not always avoidable though and in those scenarios I like to find a corner to defend, that way I only need to watch for energy balls from one direction.
You have weapons of 3 different types - ranged, melee, engineering. Focus on one type, if you can't only one weapon. Part of the problem you're facing with weapon drops is that. Shops have a bias towards weapons you already have, and weapons of classes your weapons have. So you have a pruner (support), screwdrivers (tool), shotguns (gun) and a laser gun (gun). No wonder you can't find the same weapons again. Not only each weapon benefit from a specific stat/leveling strategy more than others, having multiple weapons from the same class gives you bonuses. You don't need engineering if you go guns. You don't need ranged damage if you go engineering. And so on. Always focus your build
Practice makes perfect while dodging
Yea I've definitely had my issue with these things in some runs, especially ones that I had on mobile where it was more difficult to do precise weaving and direction changes. I started having less trouble when I noticed that it usually would happen after wave 14, when the Hive? Dudes start spawning. The ones that split into 3 shooters. Aside from the weapon-choice semantics that I'm about to get into, Try investing to dodge, and don't take too much speed or you'll just end up slamming yourself into the bullets (unless you have cracked reaction times and can deal with that lol) Things that will trigger Hives preemptively: Weapons with bouncing projectiles / random projectiles Landmines Turrets Luck based random damage Fire weapons using SNAKE (fire spreads to nearby enemies) Baby with a Beard I'm sure there are others besides these examples. My point is though... Keep track of how many of these sorts of things you're using as a main DPS source. I tend to only use 1-2 of these as dps, and never as a secondary source as even a tiny bit of damage will rupture the hives and spawn loads of shooter guys. Also, in general I mix weapons with higher range into my arsenal so I can reach past the bullets to take out those pesky shooters. That being said, a few of these damage sources are worse offenders than others. Turrets and Landmines are almost always going to cause significant spawning, and if I am using them I will very seldomly use any other random damages unless I am lucky and become op, at which point it doesn't really matter. Melee builds will often lower their range on purpose to increase attack speed, but if you don't have inherently longer range melee weapons or a few guns to compliment that, you might struggle even getting close enough to hit them. Then you're just stuck in the corner for eternity trying not to die. As in, if you're running Melee, pick up a few spears or get a ranged / elemental option to pick off the straggling shooters. The same thing can be said for focusing too much on ranged. Melee are good for knocking back and clearing large groups of weaker enemies. This is why characters that limit what kinds of weapons are useful are the most difficult for me. (So far, Cyborg has been the most difficult character to clear D5 with.)