All factions (so far) complete without potions.
Highest I’ve done a faction 500 with potions is 310.
The final one, Sea of Sorrow. I did to 180 in a recent faction event to gain shards.
Hoard 210 - 50% bonus
1 Nysha/Anu/Seasons - final room 3 x Nysha
Sea of Sorrow Banner
Hammerclaw/Sea Witch/ 2 x Deep King
Team can be a little flexible, I did use 2 Sea Witch/Mershark/Deep King to get beyond things like 2 Lamia or try to get past Ironbeards, but vs the final room, you need that Hammerclaw I think. You certainly need damage.
Path:
First room no issue, just have to watch their Mersharks and cast your Witch on who they hit, and on Hammerclaw.
Room 2 - Remnant/Hag/Poison Master/Magnus
Pretty steady, Hag cast attack on itself twice, so just threw all Sea Witch on a full Hammerclaw and filled both Kings. Avoided skulls from Hag and Magnus with submerge. All intact at end.
Room 3 - Fangblade/Naga Queen/Viper/Venoxia
Pretty easy really, more or less ignore casting Sea Witch all time, waited to fill Kings, Viper hit Witch so casts thereafter on her with full Hammerclaw. Then enrage for Hammer and Kings whittled them down.
Final Room same principle but with more care. Didn’t really have any bad luck for once, no real good luck.
Sadly not many images, just near the final one.
I managed to avoid Mershark beating me solo, which is what happens in this room, as their Deep King is blocked a lot. So I have tried my own Mershark to compensate, but decided to go all in on magic and see if I could beat them to the punch.
Strategy, fill Hammerclaw and Witch as fast as possible, leave Claw full, unless you are unable to fill Witch. Cast Witch on Claw for the enrage, try and fill both Deep Kings. Watch for their Mershark filling very easily.
Generally it always gets to the point where you are using Sea Witch to heal what Mershark hits. This then comes undone as missed blue and brown matches from Sea Witch’s cast, leaves one Deep King cast to team wipe.
Today, I got 2 Deep Kings off, before Mershark cast. It hit my witch twice, and splash twice onto top Deep King.
Got to a point, where I had a couple of skull traps vs taking out their Mershark or casting Sea Witch to save a Deep King. Went for the cast, on the weaker Deep King. Removed one set of skulls but Mershark with 5 true life left, killed Sea Witch.
Took skulls, and left Hammer full. Filled both Kings, their Deep King cast but didn’t kill me, just had 27 or so life left. I was able to cast 2 Deep Kings in a row, killed their Deep King.
So Hammerclaw and 2 Deep Kings vs their Hammerclaw with enrage. It 1 shot my Hammerclaw with a skull, then did same vs 1 Deep King. Left me grabbing calculator as could take a skull or cast, skulls were enraged and just enough to kill it.
I will now be able to start generating shards and hopefully get ahead of the curve for future factions, or at least give myself a chance to gain shards and treasures in between faction runs.
I won’t be able to fully complete the Tinkertown troops next week, but by playing the faction, should get close at the end of the weekend.
Factions?
I think the worst faction is Lyrasza’s Lair, not that it perhaps isn’t the hardest, but because it is just funless. Similarly Fang Moor is funless/souless.
Hardest faction, I would say Frostfire Keep, and it is also an enjoyable/challenging faction, which gets my vote.
I think the devs should look at some of the rooms, such as the Spider/Cocoon room being on the path there in Lair. It took me 2 hours to get past it on one occasion, and it summoned 40+ spiders. For sure, leave the hard rooms, they will require potions, but those rooms on the magicless factions could be changed. Keep the difficulty - fine, but the time element is unrealistic.
Also, as said before, having an option on daily runs to /shuffle the delve for a gem cost, would be fine. I also think, adding an extra delve attempt temporarily on say vault weekends, 1:4 weekends would be something that shouldn’t effect the bottom line maybe, and really be nice for players. The gnome tracker was a great addition, it would be nice to accompany it with the extra delve etc (after all it would reduce farming time, so a win-win?)
Other option, kingdom level somewhere gives an additional daily delve. 