Delves Blackboard

[xolid99]

@igniteice

Silver Necropolis : There are only two ways to do damage with this team: Skulls and Vanya. Bone Golem can gain Armor and Attack, but the enemy gains much more Armor and Attack, and the entire enemy team is immune to death mark, just like you are, so Bone Golem’s death mark is useless. The only benefit of Vanya’s Bless is that it makes you immune to mana drain (and of course in the fights along the way, helps you avoid things like Entangle, Silence, Stun, Etc.) Unfortunately, this match up is simply a race against time. You’re trying to kill the enemy team before they skull match you to death (their Bone Golem hurts a lot) and get a couple Vanya hits in. Necrocorn is pretty useless here, so right off the bat you won’t be running with a 4x bonus. Creating 10 gems of one of two colors is pretty low and random and can backfire. Draugr is nice but the drain doesn’t work if the enemy is also blessed. You can use Vanya to summon more troops, but extra troops don’t help you if the enemy Vanya is killing yours. This is obviously a delve that you can simply beat by increasing the hoard level to ridiculous amounts. More Life/Attack/Armor and of course Magic will win you the fight. It’s simply a matter of sinking gold into it. No strategy involved, you just need to do more damage then them and survive longer. Without better stats, your Bone Golem can’t gain attack/armor faster than the enemy and they will slowly chip away at yours. And of course the troop you summon from Vanya is random so it might be useless and all that attack you built up is gone

Silver N

This one is a bit hectic, but the theory is deny Vanya yellow, explode yellow with Bone Golem, away from being matched (very important), cast Necro on Bone Golem. Make BG as big as poss, deny Vanya more than 2 casts.

I did it at my 5th attempt this weekend after levelling this old one to 500 normally. Had 3 x Lamia rooms in a row, so made it to boss twice intact (did once with Lamia but used 3 x Vanya to beat it and only had Necros in boss room and 1 Vanya).

You do need to calculate Vanya’s damage when trying this one. Her normal damage is 130 + 4 per blessed troop. Let’s say you need 142 x 2 to be safe. 3 casts and all over for sure, 2 casts beats you at hoard 100, which I tried first off. I did it by getting Bone Golem higher than 2 casts of Vanya and 912 attack in meantime. Skulled all four AI troops down, after 3 replacement AI troops slowed me down. That’s the other issue, if Vanya summons another BG - it slows you down, and add in AI Necro looping. In one game it looped 6 times, 4 Necro’s, 2 Draugrs, thankfully that was room 1 without a Vanya and no harm done…

Crypt Keepers

I used 2 Morana, Grave Seer and Spectral Knight. I did it on about my 2nd or 3rd go. Knight I preferred one, to soak up excess purple and kill their Knight asap. Also more helpful in none boss rooms than a 3rd Lady M, imho. Others have used Nightshade.

City of Thieves

King of Thieves in 2nd slot. Tomb Robber is expendable at boss, KOT can grow behind her, AND Cedric will always get a shift in, putting him up top when you get there. Tomb Robber only when 100 gold, concentrate all fire on AI first slot, then after killing, skulls or 4th slot. Tier V rooms are extremely tough, I’d say borderline impossible without Cedric gold, or a gigantic hoard, especially Glaycion rooms.

Hall of Guardians

Is a great delve imho, best strategy, very rewarding to beat it. First one I beat.

Like the ideas, and the spreadsheet

[igniteice]

Look at the bottom of my post.

[awryan]

@igniteice

Look at the bottom of my post.

Didn’t get that far due to all the strategy discussed prior. So if I don’t read it… What makes you think the devs will?
They’ve made it very clear… short and concise… If you write novels they are just going to skip over your manifest. I’m sure it’s all good info. It’s just better to be somewhere else.

[Magnusimus]

Off-topic

@igniteice

Mirrored Halls : This one is all about which troops you can pick up along the way

I disagree—and I know I’m in the minority here—but for this delve I do think it’s easier to win with the troops provided rather than rely on doppelganger—he’s a red-herring.

I beat the level 500 delve pure-faction with 100 hoard and no other benefits—no kingdom levels past 10, no medals equipped to troops (and only Gaard medals equipped globally, lol), etc (admittedly, I probably had a fair amount of guild statue bonuses).

My strategy was two copycats and two mirror queens, always. Replace what you lose with what you need. Allow your reflects to kill the opponent by attrition, and target their reflectors so you don’t die by said attrition. Always kill their best first, as summoned replacements are weaker—keep this in mind for your own team, too (replace your roster with strong replacements, rather than weak ones). Will take you over an hour, probably—but it’s a reliable way to go, ruined only by inexplicable skull cascades or copycats that refuse to copy.

Back on topic:

For delves I’d like to see the following:

1. the next round of mythics being faction-oriented (or allowing any mythic to be used in its own kingdom’s delve, at least, for more options)
2. have delve traits be percentage based rather than static. Hear me out:

• still wouldn’t break PVP or other parts of the game, because it’s in-delve only AND only helps YOU, not the AI
• makes the useless 9 life from my Grave Seer, say, be instead a not-so-useless 9% of my hoard bonus (currently 5) added to 9% of my base life (currently 7, with Yasmine medals able to make it closer to 9), which would be 12 (or 14) instead at Hoard level 100; ie, immediate, small benefit
• Every increase of hoard then makes that one troop a little stronger rather than implementing any change that would grant a global increase that the devs don’t seem to want to give; ie, more incentive for increasing hoard levels

3. Allow daily sigils to be used to increase hoards instead. Disallows any income from the sigil, but saves the player gold and treasures long-term. Not sure how much a sigil should be “worth”, but 1 level per daily set means a player would have to invest 3 months’ worth just to have a single kingdom be at 100. Hardly seems economy-breaking to me.
4. Allow the faction weapon, obviously
5. Allow the hero in any capacity—unrestricted weapon, would be even better, but might make things too easy, if I’m being honest.
6. Grant the player a “pity treasure” or small amount of chaos shards every time they fail to clear a delve. Might help people actually having enough to increase their hoards.
7. similar to @ChunkyMono (I think?)’s suggestion [EDIT: this was actually @igniteice, as Chunky points out. Thanks!], a bonus of faction renown should be delve-specific bonus stats. I propose that the stats already being granted by total renown be multiplied by # of maxed factions. So my 2 attack, 4 life, 3 armor, 0 magic becomes +6, +12, +9, respectively, when I’m delving. This of course means the rich just get richer—but it also means maxing a faction has a benefit beyond simply having another maxed pet
8. what @ChunkyMono actually suggested (iirc): make a “universal” hoard, where a portion of each respective hoard is pooled and applies its bonuses to all. 1% of each hoard for a lot of people would still only mean 1 “free” level from each faction, meaning only 10-20 “free” levels of hoard bonus being applied to a given run.
9. More daily attempts for those who want them, now that there are so many factions it’s mathematically impossible for those behind to catch up without blasting Faction Assaults. Do not nerf payouts to account for the change.

Might pop in later if I think of more, but I’m starting to get frustrated that none of my neat ideas will probably get seen, let alone implemented

[ChunkyMono]

@igniteice

Total Renown should have more rewards, like bonuses to Hoard Stats or starting bonuses/potions to delves.

• 10k Renown: Hoard Stats increased by 10%
• 20k Renown: Hoard Stats increased by 20% and Delve troops start with Enchant.
• 30k Renown: Hoard stats increased by 30% and Delve troops start with Enchant and Barrier.
• 40k Renown: Hoard stats increased by 40% and Delve troops start with Enchant, Barrier, and 25% Skull Damage Reduction.

An excellent plan, perfectly executed. Faction renown should count for more than just ingots and gold. I like how you think. 40k renown doesn’t happen overnight.

Any thoughts for 50k Renown? Perhaps add Blessed here.

[Lorien1973]

Explode 2 gems at the start of the match.

More likely to be implemented is to make it not “total faction renown” but rather “faction hoard level” - every 50 levels gain a bonus similar to gem shop (enchant, explode, etc.)

[igniteice]

@ChunkyMono

Any thoughts for 50k Renown? Perhaps add Blessed here.

@Lorien1973

More likely to be implemented is to make it not “total faction renown” but rather “faction hoard level

10k Total Renown: Explode 1 Gem at the start of battle.
20k Total Renown: Explode 1 Gem and Enchant all Delve allies at the start of battle.
30k Total Renown: Explode 1 Gem, Barrier and Enchant all Delve allies at the start of battle.
40k Total Renown: Explode 1 Gem, Barrier, Enchant, and give Armored to all Delve allies at the start of battle.
50k Total Renown: Explode 1 Gem, Barrier, Bless, Enchant, and give Armored to all Delve allies at the start of battle.
60k Total Renown: Explode 4 Gems, Barrier, Bless, Enchant, and give Armored to all Delve allies at the start of battle.

Hoard Level 125: +1 Delve Attempt per Day for this delve
Hoard Level 150: +25% Faction Hoard Stats
Hoard Level 175: +2 Delve Attempts per Day for this delve
Hoard Level 200: +50% Faction Hoard Stats

[Lyrian]

@igniteice

The amount of gold required for Delves is simply too high compared to the cost of leveling Kingdoms, because the cost gets higher and higher as you go.

I literally just wrote about why this is a thing yesterday.

Please allow us to use Orbs of Growth for class exp

QFT. Shaping this thought a bit more, newer currencies and game modes that have been introduced into the game are highly subjective to diminishing returns in comparison to the amount of effort applied to a player’s advancement in a given mode/event/thing. For growth orbs, the drop-off is binary. Either the player can use the orb, or they cannot. Once a player has leveled up all the troops they can, these orbs are worthless. Their diminished value becomes zero. On the other end of the scal…

The hardships you are experiencing are working EXACTLY as designed because of diminishing returns on Hoard investments. This design is not accidental, nor is it an designer “error”.

I hate to be the Debbie Downer in this thread, but any requests for bonuses that circumvent event delve shop purchases in the future have a literal zero chance of being implemented. Not even “you’re telling me there’s a chance” low. Literally, hard zero.

Depending on your perspective on the matter (glass half full/empty), players are either being heavily incentivized to invest in new faction and Tuesday delve events to clear them to avoid the consequences of normal delve play [half full]. Or, you can view the long, slow daily grind as “punishment” for failing to invest in Delve event shops [half empty]. Either perspective comes out the same in the end.

It is intentional that at your Hoard level that only 4% of your chaos shard pulls have any value towards raising that Hoard and it is intentional that the devs want players to spend millions (potentially tens of millions) of gold to raise Hoards at that level to clear PF 500 runs.

It’s been suggested (may no longer be valid) that eventually there will be Power 16-20 for kingdoms that will provide the next faction Hoard boosts. Expect to pay great/insane amounts of Imperial Deeds if that is the case as the massive roadblock preventing players from obtaining these boosts.

EDIT: Just saw the requests for extra delve runs per day. That won’t happen, either. It’s part of the “pain” of running normal non-event delves without gem spending. I wish though.

[igniteice]

If players always kept ideas and suggestions to themselves on the fear that the devs will never implement said changes, we’d still be stuck with that god awful +2 Red Mana on Sunspear change.

[Magnusimus]

@Lyrian

It is intentional that at your Hoard level that only 4% of your chaos shard pulls have any value towards raising that Hoard and it is intentional that the devs want players to spend millions (potentially tens of millions) of gold to raise Hoards at that level to clear PF 500 runs.

If this is the intention, then for people like me they’re failing because I refuse to make the investment—I know there are numbers I don’t have that show people are caving (just look at all the gems spent on opening weekend!), but these suggestions are for when that well is dry

If even just a few tweaks were made, I’d be far more likely to spend my gold and/or treasures on hoards. But I am literally currently sitting on huge stockpiles of both because maxing more than one faction, at this point, has almost no value to me—I have one fewer magic and armor than someone like @ChunkyMono with 44k faction renown; re: I don’t care.

It’s better for me to just save up for whatever the next new thing is. If that ends up not being worth the cost, either, my stockpiles just grow until something actually valuable does show up.

If it never does, joke’s on me, I suppose—unspent gold has no value—but if the day ever comes when I’m no longer willing to wait, my guild will at least have a pretty major windfall in LTs. Might even have to stagger them out across a few days to make sure the mailboxes aren’t too flooded to receive the goodies

[Megaqwerty]

Easy and instant solution to this problem: make faction events weeklong. Is this the ideal solution? No, but it gives us more time to do the fights with potions and is 7 times better than what we have right now. The devs can also implement this in an instant versus everything else on here. To balance this, provide less sigils per day (ex. 1 sigil per day) and/or increase score requirements. New faction weeks only have one faction event.

@Lyrian

it is intentional that the devs want players to spend millions (potentially tens of millions) of gold to raise Hoards at that level to clear PF 500 runs.

This isn’t the point of contention. It is obvious that hoards were intended to be gold sinks and the gold sinks that the game needed to reduce resource rates without nerfing legendary tasks.

Hoards didn’t work as a gold sink because their design is flawed so most players simply ignore hoards. This is why epic tasks were created: because the intended gold sink failed to function as such. If the hoard leveling mechanics were more reasonable, players would want to invest more in these hoards. If players do not engage with a sink, the sink can’t drain resources: just like a supply and demand curve that allows for lowering prices but increasing overall profit, making hoards more equitable could increase player spending overall while also having the side effect of getting people to shut up about delves and pure factions.

I only started doing PF 500 starting with Lyrasza’s Lair and thus have only done it and the Deep Hive. Aside from Werewoods, I feel like PF500 in the current game is acceptable if and only if faction events are sufficiently long to allow for completing these events over multiple days. Weeklong faction events would fix the current problem of reaching level 500 in a single day when even doing so over three days is too much for many players.

This change would cost the developers nothing while encouraging players to spend more gems. At least from the ones that are happy to spend gems but do not do so because doing an entire faction event in one day is ridiculous.

There needs to be an emphasis on encouraging spending gems for these events because end game players will do these once at release and never touch the content again.

[Fleg]

We don’t need more days added to these events, we need the actual events themselves to take less time.

@Fleg

Delves should increase level by 20 each time. This…will cut in half the time that delves currently take. Give less sigils in shop tiers to compensate.