Well, not a Dark Pits story (haven’t tried it with faction at level 500; level 200 done potionless is where I’m at), but I can try to show my experiences with All-Seeing Eye.
As of yesterday, it looks like this:
Darkstone at 25% hoard bonus
Team and bonuses:
Faction pet bonus was only +3/+3 when I did the playing
I had tried faction team with hoard level 100 a long time ago, saw it was…hopeless and left it at that. About two months ago decided to have another go and began investing in hoard level. Raised some, played some, raised some more and stopped at level 200 in the end of August. I decided to last through September on that (also 25% bonus since September 18 when we had Deeds of magic daily task) trying out different faction team lineups and then decide my next move.
In essence, level 200 hoard win is still luck mostly…and this faction is one of the few with actually functioning teams. First room is more or less okay (but losing the run right there is not unheard of); middle room or 2-room path (depending on what nasties await in there) stop the progress quite often; then comes the boss room - most of them ended with me dead and their troops hardly touched. I can let them hit me once, second hit (with anything) - I’m gone.
The way my win came was - getting lucky with Ocularen Leech explosions giving extra turn, full mana, explosions, extra turn, full mana, sky skulls in between, more attack steal and that turn ended with their Leech on 4hp and no good matches to take. Then I cast Xerodar, Leech is gone, subsequent skulls kill their Ocularen and I can steal some attack from their Mother.
But, as you can see above, even with those sort of weakish summons and enemy Xerodar they cut me down to only Mother and it took another chunk of luck to have their Xerodar end on full mana without extra turn and skyskulls.
Stat disparity at level 200 hoard is simply too big to be able to count on skill alone to win games.
People (me including) have already said things on other threads (for example, see below), but I might as well rant some more.
If I think about it, it would be nice to have hoard stat bonuses increased. Right now my finger-counting says that level 1000 hoard gives roughly the same stats for attack/armor/life (while magic is still lower) as the enemy team. If I’m dedicated enough to raise my hoard that far (which is a lot of expenses) I would expect to end up (at least) slightly stronger than the boss room for all my troubles.
I doubt, however, that there is anybody who can do level 1000 (the costs are just astronomic) for one delve, let alone multiple. Supposing even that gold is manageable (grind PvP 24/7 or whatever), there’s just not enough treasure.
@anon88626343 said it correct that portals should function like guild chests and stop dropping faction troops after you own four mythic copies. Half of shards would still go to waste (who could be mad enough to actually use those purses, rings, chalices for the hoard level we’re talking about?), but that’s one step in the right direction from, let’s assume, three fourths of shards being wasted, as it stands currently.
https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/hoard-quality-increased-from-50-to-300/58118
https://community.gemsofwar.com/t/city-of-thieves-is-literal-proof-yall-have-no-idea-what-youre-doing/57607