'Kill Deserters' (Deep Desert) is one of the Landsraad Tasks that can be awarded by one of the Great Houses each week in the Landsraad. It is an elimination task that involves killing a certain number of enemy NPCs.
This guide will show you where you can find the Deserters, as well as advising on the best route or methods to complete this task quickly.
Each Deserter grants 23 Points per kill (assuming no loss buff etc) so you will need to kill 457 for the Tier 4 reward (usually a Mk6 Schematic) or 609 if you want the Armor Swatch.
Note: There are two 'Kill Deserters' Tasks, you can identify the Deep Desert task by looking at the top of the Task for the 'Found In...' information, as shown below:
Where to Find Deserters
This is actually one of the most challenging 'Kill [x]' quests because unfortunately Deserters are only found in the Deep Desert, beyond row A. This means that there isn't really any easy or reliable way of farming them, outside of visiting the Deep Desert POIs.
You can find a list of all of the active POIs in this week's Deep Desert using our Deep Desert Map.
In short, you will find Deserters in either Wrecks or Testing Stations, from Row B of the Deep Desert onwards. You might be able to find one or two Testing Stations in the PVE section each week but mostly these POIs will all be PVP enabled.
Easiest Way To Complete The 'Kill Deserters' Task
If you are playing solo, the easiest/safest way to complete this Task is to kill the Deserters inside the Deep Desert Wrecks. Each Wreck contains a bunch of enemy NPCs and you won't be 'locked in' to a combat situation inside a Wreck like you would be with a Testing Station.
If you are playing as a small group or as part of a guild, the easiest way to complete this Task will be to clear all of the POIs in the Deep Desert, including the Testing Stations. Each Testing Station usually has around ~50 enemies total, sometimes more.
It's also worth noting that the enemies in Wrecks and the combat section of a Testing Station have a much shorter cooldown than the loot, so you can run them more than once between each loot cycle.
Pro Tip: We put up full guides & layouts for all of the Deep Desert POIs each week, including all of the loot tables.
Deep Desert PVE Tips
If you are playing solo in the Deep Desert, I would advise using a melee build for PVE content. A Mk6 melee weapon can cleave through the melee enemies in two hits and the heavies in 3 hits with slow blade attacks.
I would also advise speccing into Skills which have Stagger, great examples are Knee Charge, Shigawire Claw and Crippling Strike.
Take your time in the Testing Station combat rooms. Deal with melee enemies first, then unshielded troopers and then finally with the heavy machine gun and flamethrower enemies. Avoid getting pinned down.
Rewards
Wondering if the reward for a Landsraad Task is worth pursuing? Check out our Landsraad Rewards page which segments the rewards by their power level.
