How to be successful with Glowstick Vince in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals.
Context
This guide will be over the man who began it all, Vince Livings. Known as Glowstick Vince in Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals, Vince is responsible for the concept of Dark Deception and Dark Deception: Monsters and Mortals, as well as being the CEO of Glowstick Entertainment as a whole. With Chapter 4’s development finally coming to a close (releasing September 28th at 2pm PST for those who haven’t heard), it’s only fitting we cover Vince as the next Mortal, as he’s worked quite hard on Dark Deception as a whole the past few years. Maybe that’s why he’s a Power class? Who knows. However, unlike Nikson, video game creation can only get you so far in this game, so how good is Vince here? You’ll see if you continue reading.
Background Info
Glowstick Vince is a Mortal belonging to the Power class. This means he has the most hp and damage output of all the other Mortals in the game, but being really slow to compensate. To put the speed into perspective, Vince is slow enough that Power class Monsters are able to outrun him. That fact alone should imply that Vince is ill-suited to escaping on foot, as every Monster in the game is able to catch up to him rather easily. This also makes him, as well as 8-BitRyan and Prisoner Borisov, notoriously bad at escaping Phantom Malak, as they cannot outrun him and will likely die. However, he is JUST fast enough to run from the Super Brutes on Monstrum Madness and Pyramid Head on Silent Sacrifice, but because those are bosses, his attacks won’t do anything to them, but his Ult (details below) can negate their damage should he get hit by their attacks. Because of how slow he is, running away from encounters against Monsters is not going to work unless he has the speed boost item on-hand. This means he’ll have to put those arms to use and fight his way out. Because he’s a Power class, he has cooldown on his attacks, meaning you’ll have to time your attacks to get the most damage out of them.
Another good trait he has is that while he does drop shards upon dying, he only drops 15. This means he isn’t going to make much of a dent in the shard count should he fall in combat. This knowledge also discourages Monsters from facing him in the first place unless there’s no one else to target, as he has a solid chance to kill them and doesn’t give much of a reward for doing so. The threat of him on the Mortal team in Maze Escape is also highly beneficial to the Mortals in general, as Power classes in general can break up fights and rescue teammates who are under attack by forcing the fight into a 2v1, often forcing the Monster player to retreat, especially if Ults are ready. Speaking of Ults…
Ultimate: You’ll See
…wanna know what Glowstick Vince’s Ult is called? Well, You’ll See.
No, I’m not holding out on you, that’s actually the name of his Ult. It’s literally called “You’ll See.” The infamous phrase of Vince when he has to deny a question that relates to spoilers in the Dark Deception QnA livestreams. In this game, Vince is seen as a defensive character despite being made to bash skulls in, and this Ult is why. When activated, Vince turns into a living rave on two legs and erupts into green flames. When attacked, he will only take half damage while the attacker will receive full damage to themselves for 15 seconds. This means that if a Murder Monkey uses its heavy attack on Vince for example, Vince would only take 30 damage while Murder Monkey takes 60. This makes this Ult very useful as a get-off-me tool, and often will force the Monster to disengage, as they won’t want to eat their own attacks and kill themselves. The only exception to this is if stuns are available, as being stunned will disable You’ll See and leave Vince wide open to attack (shoutout to Jrquic1 for the info). This means unless items are in play, the only counter to this ult is Ducky Surprise, because real life Vince just had to make Dread Ducky as broken as possible in PvP.
Speaking of Ults, every other Ult not named Ducky Surprise is affected by this Ult. Murder Monkey and Brute get slammed with their own rapid hits and fire damage, Nurse is shut down completely if she doesn’t want to hurt herself, Agatha hits herself in confusion, among others. The funniest example, however, is the interaction with Clown Gremlin and Robbie’s clones. If the clones hit Vince while You’ll See is active, the clones will send the damage to the one who summoned them, meaning Vince can kill the two without even having to touch them. The same mechanic also applies with Phantom Malak’s damage too, meaning Vince has the easiest time negating Phantom Malak out of the three Power Mortals.
Maze Escape
In Maze Escape, Vince in a highly underrated Mortal in this gamemode. The reason for this is because he tends to be overshadowed by 8-BitRyan and his Ult, Heather, a certain police officer with a gun, and other meta Mortals. While 8-BitRyan is an offensive character, Vince is overall better than Ryan because of his defensive option in the form of You’ll See. Vince is not a Support Mortal, but he doesn’t need to be; the threat of You’ll See when Vince is engaged with the Monster player is often enough to leave him and anyone he’s trying to protect near him alone due to the risk of Vince attempting to purposely get hit and reflect the damage. You’ll See also gives him the ability to give the middle finger to basically every boss, all traps, all but one Monster Ult, and Phantom Malak if he ends up spawning. Overall, Vince is a very good Mortal to select if you want to go out of your way to harass the Monster player, especially if Mortals like Detective Evans are on the team as well.
In terms of his map matchups, he enjoys Silent Sacrifice and Stranger Sewers the most. While this seems counter-intuitive to most of the other guides I make since those maps are speed favored, that’s PRECISELY why he’s good on them. Those maps have a high chance of speedy Monsters like Nurse, Agatha, and Fiend appearing, all of which Vince absolutely destroys. You’ll See also gives him full immunity to trap and boss time, meaning he won’t have to worry about being harassed. The rest of the maps are self-explanatory under this logic. Similar to Detective Evans, Vince is good on every map, but unlike Evans, it’s because he’s able to negate trap and boss times for himself for 15 seconds and his sole purpose is to keep the Monster player busy while the teammates grab soul shards to open the portal.
PvP Matchups:
- Performs Well Against: Murder Monkey, Agatha, Clown Gremlin, Fiend, Nurse, Robbie
- Performs Decently Against: Gold Watcher, Malak, Brute
- Performs Poorly Against: Dread Ducky
The Power class Monsters are able to give Vince a run for his money due to their high hp and damage output potentially overwhelming Vince. However, they are perfectly managable if the Vince player knows what they’re doing. The only problem matchup here is against Dread Ducky. The duck can out-range Vince with light attack spam, while also being able to snipe Vince through You’ll See with Ducky Surprise. Other than that, Vince can pretty much body every other Monster in the game if he plays properly.
Teammate Viability:
- Performs Well With: Bierce, Dawko, Heather, Evans, Nikson, Borisov, PenPen
- Performs Decently With: 8-BitRyan, SuperHorrorBro, Cybil
- Performs Poorly With: Doug, Vince (himself)
The Support Mortals, PenPen, and Nikson all benefit from having Vince’s presence graced upon them, as all but Nikson have low damage outputs, Vince being able to provide more damage for them. Nikson and PenPen specifically lack proper ways to defend themselves; Nikson doesn’t have a beneficial Ult for this purpose, while PenPen can’t defend herself from ANYTHING (don’t. fight. with. PenPen. >:( ), so Vince being around can massively assist their longevity. Borisov is a fellow Power Mortal with the ability to slow down Monsters, allowing him and Vince to tag team and finish the Monster off faster. Finally, Evans being able to provide stun support means if the Monster gets stunned and Vince is near, that Monster has an extremely high chance of death arriving shortly.
Soul Collection
Oh dear…this is going to be a depressing topic.
Unless you’re Jellybean and/or can expertly play Power Mortals, or you just wanna challenge yourself, you should have ZERO business playing Vince in this gamemode. Power classes in general have it rough in this gamemode because their low speed drags them down and prevents them from completing the main objective, which is collecting soul shards to stay alive. Vince, however, gets it extra bad. When you play Borisov or 8-BitRyan in this mode, you have something that helps make up for your lack of speed. For Borisov, it’s speed control in the form of slowing down other Mortals. For 8-BitRyan, it’s being able to beat the snot out of anyone you DO manage to be close enough to, potentially finishing them off and lowering their shard count. What does Glowstick Vince have? NOTHING!!!
It is incredibly easy to lose in this gamemode due to the lack of speed, and since Vince can’t catch up to anyone without item luck and/or shortcuts (which is unreliable since the minimap hides Mortal icons here), it is near impossible to win against any half-decent player using a character such as Bierce or PenPen. If they do decide to engage, Vince usually comes out on top…but why would you fight Vince in the first place? He barely drops shards and he has You’ll See to discourage fighting him. That and the fact that you’ll outrun him anyway means running is always the right option when a Vince wants to square up with you, as he can’t do anything about it without the speed boost item. If you really want to play a Power character here, I HIGHLY suggest Borisov, as his speed control is what makes him usable here (and likely the best of the Power Mortals in Soul Collection).
Maps are the same…not that it matters…
PvP Matchups:
- Performs Well Against: Doug, PenPen, SuperHorrorBro, Nikson, Vince (himself)
- Performs Decently Against: Bierce, Evans, Dawko, 8-BitRyan, Borisov
- Performs Poorly Against: Cybil, Heather
Overall, he has a decent matchup spread against other Mortals. However, don’t let this fool you into thinking he’s good for the gamemode. The Soul Collection meta revolves around the ability to pick up shards as fast as you can (meaning, the Support class, PenPen, and Nikson are very much meta here). His low speed with nothing to compensate makes him widely considered to be the worst Mortal for this mode, even more so than Doug. Unless you don’t care if you don’t win or you want to play “Soul Collection: Hard Mode,” please stay away from Glowstick Vince on the character select screen.
Closing
Vince Livings here is a very polarizing character. His skillset is heavily lopsided towards fighting Monsters and overwhelming them to the point where they don’t want to fight him anymore. As a result, this makes him incredibly strong, albeit heavily underrated in Maze Escape, where he’s one of the best Mortals to put on a team. All the Power characters are tbh, but Vince is the best of them. However, it comes at a steep price. The price taking the form of being utterly useless in Soul Collection, where his low speed and inability to catch up to Mortals without resorting to items essentially makes him the worst character in the game in that gamemode specifically. Murder Monkey is to Shard Mayhem, as Vince is to Soul Collection. If you’re new to the game, get placed as the Monster in Maze Escape, and a Vince is in the match, just remember this: If he’s normal, then he’s clear for a pummel. If he’s green, run before he rips out your spleen.
Here’s to hope Chapter 4 comes out this time instead of being delayed again. Vince and the crew are posting a ton about it, so chances are it’s finally time…
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