Delves: Strategies, tactics and tips

I don’t want to get into talking about how hypothetical future leaderboards will work because they aren’t here today and I have already wasted a lot of my life with worry and anxiety about the future.

Keep in mind my complaint isn’t “you have to spend gems to LB” because as people who reflexively defend everything point out you need a lot of sigils. My complaint is ‘with enough potions, your troops, kingdoms, traits, and factions don’t matter’.

A smaller leaderboard could be better. I’ve played games where the top spots were unattainable without spending a lot, but the player base was happy because the somewhat lower tiers still had exceptional rewards and were reachable. Right now GoW only feels like it doles out worthy rewards to about 50 players.

I don’t care if someone can buy the #1 spot if I know I can fight, for free, to get a #100 spot that feels like it gives me a relevant reward. For comparison, in the other game I mentioned, the prizes for fighting to the tiers I always tried to reach started with something as strong as an Orb of Ascension, and if I could get past that tier it turned into 3 Orbs and quickly escalated. Current LBs don’t really dole out that much to anyone but the very top.

ooooh daaaamn

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Great work! What team did you use? Can you go a bit into your strategy?

I am uploading the whole 30 min video from start to finish

^ this was the team
I was sacrificing Redthorn to get Treant and buff his magic with Dark Dryad. If she stays alive long enough to hit magic buff twice, it was always manageable to get to the final boss. I’ve done a lot of times before Today I got luckier with entangles and enemy Redthorn didn’t get mana to cast too many times so I survived with all 4 troops and got Treant to 600+ attack!

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I bought Tier 7 five times. Did all rooms until 250. Got bored and did mins until 400, when I saw the finish line, and did all again. Had enough for 1st try pure win with 2 tries to spare. Good enough for 40ish on PS4 leader board.

And here it is

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youre alder gives treants…? mine almost never has xD

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I feel like your video is missing a Helloooooo Everybody, but congrats :slight_smile:

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5 tries had been done. Still not successful. Goddamnit! :rage:

It’s definitely possible to beat Level 300 here with just Hoard Level 100, as TheIdleOne have proved. In the Boss room, your 2 Vanyas can only survive 3 of thier AoE hits, so it will be a bit tight. But as long as you can keep them from ever matching yellow gems, you should be able to prolong the match long enough to win it, even if their Vanya keep getting Blessed by her own trait and Necrocorn’s cast.

My last match today was so close. Survived first room with no problem, passed random ridiculousness of Dragon Hatchery by giving them Deathmarks, and won with still no casualties. Things were going so well in last room. Got hit twice by thier Vanya, but managed to kill most of their troop first before 3rd hit, leaving only lone Bone Golem. Both my Vanyas were still alive, but random one-hit skulls soon take my first Vanya away. Match was frustratingly slow, dued to lack of Draugr summon and my inability to keep my Bone Golem survive long enough. Got to this point, and quite certain I would win it. Then of course, this happened… :sob:

For Level 500, while I think it’s possible, it might be too optimistic to win just Hoard Level 100, and can only take 1 (or 2?) AoE hit. It will rely too much on luck. Would need more stats to survive a bit longer of better odds.

Well for floor 500, you can take 2 hits, each cast is like 128? before boost ratio. It hurts and you don’t want to be on the receiving end of it though lol. Getting the hoard up to survive 3 hits will make it a ton easier, but would be pricey on the hoard cost though.

Mainly the strategy is to play keep-away with yellow, preferably over the well being of your top slot. If/when it dies, you can just resummon. Depending on risk assessment, if you think you won’t get skull cascaded, its best to let the AI murder your first slot if you’re close to refilling Vanya and just cast to replace the dead troop.

If the match goes too long, almost no amount of Bone Golem buffing is surviving 1,000 dmg :stuck_out_tongue:

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2 hits seems like promising bet. Gotta try that a bit when I reach there, then calculate how much hoard level I will need for better odd, and make my decision.

As I said in previous post, my strategy is now not mcuh different than yours. Wish we have +2 Yellow/+1 Purple Banner.

I used to match all the Purple Gems, which make Vanya fill up quicker, but Bone Golem casting less.

I almost kill original Golem first in one try.

Matching Yellow gems make Bone Golem cast more, reach one-hit attack quicker, and harder to kill. But I agree, taking out their Vanya is your top priority. You can fight with random skull cascade, but can’t survive full AoE.

Also, I mentioned buffing my Bone Golem for its attack stats, not ability to survive. You need some strong skulls attack to outpace its healing, and shorten the match, thus reducing the risk.

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Be careful. Actually killing the enemy Bone Golem is dangerous, as its one less troop blocking mana to Vanya. If either of the other troops decides to spam purple after the Bone Golem is dead, there’s a high chance Vanya gets filled quickly.

Its what caused me to fail a run with potions lol.

What team did you use?

I got it on my first try with

Golem
Draugr
Vanya
Vanya

I was using draugr to mana drain golem or vanya depending who was about to cast first or who was blessed

Potion really help for sure

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that’s what I used.

AI casted Vanya once on barrier, then I killed Golem, then the AI casted Vanya twice within a few turns before I could finish it off (the loopy troops were still alive).

Was a… doh. moment.

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I mean killing it after other 3 troops are dead, so it’s one last threat. :stuck_out_tongue:

It’s the problem that lose my run today, even after long 30 minutes dual with it and 19 life left.

I use that now as well. Used to stick Draugr on last spot, but as it doesn’t even block Vanya, It’s perfectly okay to be there on 2nd.

Unless you got Rock Worm room in the middle. In that case, you might as well give up instead of switching up slot though. Lol

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I would say I am struggling to clear Silver 300 but the actuality is that I’m giving up on the faction team. Managed 250 but I just cannot be bothered now. It can wait until the devs’ actual fix comes through, like almost every other faction so far.

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It was quite straightforward for me during the faction event, thanks to the potions (and perhaps a good amount of luck during the attempt at level 300. Took a hefty amount of gems—Tier 6, IIRC—but clearing level 300 with the faction team was my target for last weekend: I can get to level 500 with a non-faction team at my leisure, and then wait on the actual solution to the 500-faction-team problem.

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My thoughts exactly. I’m just waiting it out. Doesn’t work now, don’t care. Miss a day, don’t care: reaching 500 in faction N happens way faster than faction N+1’s release - which is also (one of many reasons) why I’m steering clear of Tier 7 buys.

… Cleared Sea of Sorrows with potions. Needed to experience a hard delve with potions to see how functional they actually are.

Yeah, uhm… the only way to fix the delve faction team is to delete the challenge entirely.

Potions can’t overcome RNG bs where most of the delve rooms counter out the faction team (Dwarves vs Sea of Sorrow, really? Lamia room, really??)

When you get to the boss room, its populated with high damage low mana cost troops which if unblocked on 2 colors fill so fast that’s hard to stay on top of it.

You know what really ends runs though? Any gem spawner which nearly all factions have. Just takes one flick of the Sayanara Sucker button to end a run.

I can’t imagine 5 room factions with potions; too much could go wrong. The Warrens and Fang Moor both look highly unapproachable.

I had one battle where the enemy Giant Toadstool cast, transformed my top troop and created gems that filled Glitterclaw whom proceeded to cast to hit the top troop, refill itself, then cast again to kill the troop.

Its easy to say Faction team stats are underpowered, but even if the faction team were given double value for stats, it doesn’t get around the fundamental problems of delves. Want to feel the despair of playing the faction team? Sea of Sorrow vs Magnus. Even when you win, it doesn’t feel like you win.

I wanted to propose a possible fix, but there just isn’t any. Even potions don’t really cover it without going to extremes. (Actually, its worse than that. You don’t want 1,000 attack and face The Warrens, or Lamias lol.)

Edit: I guess the answer is buy even more potions!!..

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Thanks for trying it out, TheIdleOne.

It does prove my point though. SoS really is the worse Faction right now for beating with Faction team, that even Potions doesn’t help much.

As you said here, the problem is not just troops’ stats. Its low-mana/high-true-damage style make it ridiculously hard to beat. Combined with random gems spawning strategy, so many things could go wrong, so it definitely will.

I have a different idea about TW and FG though. Even with 5 rooms, TW’s team can mass submerge/barrier themselves, so it got some random protection to work with, while FM’s team can create loops that you have some control over, and attack stats can go very high very fast with Potions.

Getting Kryptonite rooms in the middle will always be a tough problem. It could help by spending more gems for better luck with rooms combination next run though, so yay?