Delves: Strategies, tactics and tips

Thanks for the great breakdown.

I get that Hive Mind boosting magic once leads to a win (since that’s going right to Shahbanu), but did you hit any bad streaks with Hive Mind not boosting magic? I’m guessing such streaks ended up not being fatal, but I dunno. Maybe I’m underestimating the ability to completely disable a troop the way Hive Mind does.

Colossus I ruled out because the chance for Shahbanu to create brown - can she be consistent looping on colors that she doesn’t herself take? I could see some brown-centric teams being worth a try (with Ethereal Sentry providing your attack, for example). It seems like more work than it’s worth, but again, the magic steal is good.

Generally how I did the run, only did 1 full run with it, was fill both Shahbanu and Hive Mind before casting first Hive Mind to neutralise the main AI damage dealer and then cast Shahbanu.

Literally I would cast Shahbanu 4-5 times and then Gavel would kill. At that point most had high damage and in the image I showed Gavel got only 1 magic boost from Hive Mind, rest from Shahbanu.

It’s the same when using Shahbanu vs Life and Death, cast on Gavel or Finese, then fire Gavel.

Shahbanu is not that much of an issue with 1 rogue colour. My team of Finesse/Shahbanu/Gavel includes Mercy which has green. I can lose the turn sometimes but when using a yellow storm and lightning strike and casting on yellow, it’s possible (common) to cast 10 times in a row or more.

I’ve had 3.5K T3 pvp runs with that team.

Of course Mercy can also convert to yellow if you miss a beat. I might try Colossus and see how it goes.

I tried Servitor in T3 pvp and it was not easy. The abundance of dual empowereds vs anything that doesn’t use one at least is tough. It did fare well vs Life and Death tbf, but vs Tina/ZG or Queen B and co, not so.

I also tried Colossus with Wild Queen and that was better but slow. More of a defensive troop.

I may revisit Servitor but with Hive Mind and a supporting cast, but I think it’s more of an explore option than pvp right now.

The main issue is finding room for cleansing and starting fast. Not such an issue in explore 12 for the most part.

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That makes sense, I would figure that speed is paramount with Shahbanu in pvp, you probably can’t afford to run troops that don’t help get her up and running quickly.

Good to know re: rogue colors. I remember you saying one is ok, but having two of an off-color like brown (e.g., on an Earth’s Fury/Colossus team) would be a lot worse I’d think.

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Apparently Bone Golem isn’t a requirement for this. Who would have thought…


I feel like such a badass right now.

Okay I should be less ambiguous about this …

You absolutely do need a Bone Golem. Trying to do this without a Bone Golem would be like trying to rock climb wearing boxing gloves and roller skates, only not as rewarding.

My initial team was Bone Golem, Necrocorn, Vanya, Vanya. Unicorn Banner (+2 purple +1 yellow -1 red).

Bone Golem is the wall, obviously. First room is fairly easy. The second room can be rapidly accelerated by getting Bone Golem to deathmark things. My second room was everyone’s least favorite room… Bulettes. Between incidental losses and being swapped, I eventually settled with Bone Golem Draugr Vanya Vanya.

Not much to say about the boss fight, I got very lucky with the 1hp. Proper mana denial would mean the opposing Vanya never cast at all. I did lose a number of troops to the 1000 attack Bone Golem they had out, whereas mine never really got started.

Oh! And I only have one Nysha Medal.

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Potionless delving is, by far, the best aspect of this game. Also the worst. :slight_smile:

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Finally did a pure faction run of The Warrens! I had been trying for a very long time with Hoard Level 199 and using different numbers of Luna. I had tried using Lapina Knight, 2x Luna, and Bunnicorn, then I tried 3x Luna and Bunnicorn, finally I tried 4x Luna. And when I say try I mean I tried 3 runs a day for multiple days with each team.

So today after using 4x Luna twice and failing, I narrowed down the problems…

  1. Anymore than 2 Lunas and the yellow matches are too unpredictable because of multiple explosions creating more falling gems, and specifically, more falling skulls.
  2. The less unique troops, the less bonuses:

  1. Lapina Knight has 25% skull damage reduction which is actually quite useful. And also she gives you a guaranteed beneficial status effect.

  2. I needed more stats overall, so I bumped the hoard level from 199 to 220.

I did stream it, but unfortunately I had my archiving turned off, so I don’t have the video. Here’s the team I used:

One of the enemy teams I fought against was Sheggra, and Trickster was essential for that, because it allowed me to flip him to the front and whittle him down.

I had all my troops going into the Boss room. I took out the enemy Luna first, then Lapina Knight. I too lost those troops, but that was after I killed theirs. Then I just skull matched them down.

Now I just have Mirrored Halls, Fang Moor, and Lyrasza’s Lair left for pure faction runs.

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Must admit to scratching me head with Lyrazsa’s Lair…

You have a 1 in 3 chance of casting a spell that does damage with 1 troop of the 4 faction troops, Lyrasza.

So, your only method of winning is raising attack on your Dementicore’s and skulling down. You could argue that you have about a 1:100,000,000 chance of winning running anything else, which is generous imo :stuck_out_tongue:

If you have no other damage, how do you actually beat infernal armour?

Infernal armour crops up with Bone Naga and Wall of Bones.

Walll of Bones gains 125 armour boosted by undead allies and enemies, so usually gets about 140+armour if it casts. It starts with 900+ health. To hit it with skulls at 250 hoard with 50% bonus, you do 120-128 skull damage give or take medal choices.

So, with infernal amour reflecting 25% of skull damage, with 128 attack, it’s hitting me for 32 a go. As soon as that raises, it’s usually 72 attack stolen - 200 attack and 50 damage a go. It outheals one skull hit each time it casts.

So, it needs to be hit 8 times without it casting at all for enough to = take it to 0 from starting health. In that time, without any other damage, it will hit your troop for at least 240 and probably 320+ damage from your own hits. There is zero chance it won’t cast as it is 10 mana cost, and purple. Lyrasza has a purple and blue storm, so it’s going to fill AI a lot. It also has Grave Seer in the ranks an empowered green to purple converter…It also has Skeleros waiting to double skulls and blow up your team.

So, I can stop Skeleros by using Dementicores on it, with luck 1 in 2 casts will drain or silence it. I can slow down Grave Seer, but it usually self enchants itself (or Wall of Bones if you don’t hit it) and Wraith, I can possibly ignore to some degree. I can’t do anything about Wall of Bones, my only option is hoping Lyrasza will cast her spell 100% of the time and knock off 160 health, but of course Wall of Bones self heals that.

Yesterday I came up against it in the path to the boss. I looked at the first 2 choices, and it seemed the only option from what else was on offer - Golems which always take out the first troop.

Today it was the below

The room was Marilith/Scale Guard/Tai Pan/Bone Naga

It was one of the first rooms, created at the start of delves.

I can’t win this battle without stealing attack. I can’t use any other troop than I have because it is impossible.

Just spent 5 minutes avoiding skull hitting it, each Lyrasza cast was a board shuffle. I had to kill 3 troops to get here and my own skyfall skull killed me… as my 1 in 3 chance of spells with Dementicore raised my attack.

I can’t not raise attack because I can’t kill anything without it… I’'ve shut it down to 31 attack and silenced it, and just died by skyfall skulling it.

The problem is by avoiding 2 more rooms on the run to the boss, your options are limited because out of all of the available rooms, most are also impossible.

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Yesterday i managed to do Amanithrax pure 500. Took me arround 2-3 weeks of trying (not much, especially that there were days where i didn’t do any delves).
First battles were easy → no undead rooms or other troops immune to disease so few m4/m5 and Gobtruffles started lopping. Only the second to last battle- right before Boss Room, made me a bit worried, because it was Vampire Hive ( Vampire Lord Nosferatu Wight Lady Sapphira).
My Mushroom Man, cast few times and bumped his attack to the level where he was able to mostly 1hit every enemy + Gobtrulles managed to loop few times, so it wasn’t that bad, as undead fights usually are. Got to final room with full squad.

Final battle was a refreshing experience - usually it was enemies getting m4, enemy gobtruffle looping, random skull drops killing my team etc. This time none of that crap happened:
As my Mushroom Man got filled i managed to do few m4/5 and disease a bunch of enemy troops. That alone allowed my gobtruffles to make a short loop → enough to fill Fungomancer.
After 1st looping was over enemy Gobtruffle was diseased and my Fungomancer transformed him into mushroom man. Next few matches and my Gobtruffle got filled again and started looping.
Near the end of 2nd loop i managed to kill enemy Mushroom Man. And as loop brake Fungomancer transformed enemy Fungomancer into Mushroom Man. At this point victory was almost secured: my full team vs enemy: Toadstool + 2 Mushroom Man. Toadstool cast led to some random skull skyfalls which killed my Mushroom guy :sad:, but he was soon avenged with Gobtruffles doing their 3rd and final loop with Fungomancer dealing the final blow.

Team used:
Mushroom Man
King Gobtruffle
King Gobtruffle
Fungomancer

Dont’ remember banner used, but it was +2green +blue, or Amanithrax banner.

Hoard lvl 100 (with 50% bonus), and additional 25 (20life, 3attack,2magic) stats from Artifact.
So that makes a total bonus of 175 stats added to base team.

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Mirrored Halls, surely?
Good point is there are two ways to go about it. First time I beat potionless with full faction team (Glass Golem/Doppelganger/Copycat/Mirror Queen) by cloning Gluttony and then just (luckily) devouring them - it was with just hoard 111 and no bonuses.
Second time I used Mirror Queen/Copycat/Mirror Queen/Copycat just replacing any troop I happened to lose with exact clone. Took around an hour of my time in total with hoard 111 and 25% bonus.

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I’m actually working on Fang Moor with 199 Hoard Level. Mirrored Halls is at 100 and Lyrasza’s Lair is at 104. The reason I’m working on Fang Moor is that it has the most rooms to the boss (4 rooms), whereas Lyrasza’s Lair has 3 and Mirrored Halls only has 2. This is important for Delve Tuesdays, because if I want to simply throw gems at either of these last two delves and power through to 500, it’s far easier to do that with a short distance to the boss. Fang Moor would take much more time to get to 500.

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To win any delve invest in gems , heavily in gems, nothing in this game that a gem invest wont resolve in your favour

I’ve just started trying for Depths of Sin pure faction 500. Currently at 125 True Hoard (100 + Level 12). I’ve thus far been thwarted by Shadowblade and Venbarak rooms. Having played around for these few tries, I think I’ll scout ahead and only attempt it if the middle room seems doable.

In the first room I was able to rush kill their first Ironjaw, and then let their Infernal Machine summon a much weaker one (first giving my own Ironjaw a little bit of health buff, just in case). This weaker one then mana blocked the 2nd Ironjaw, preventing it from building up lots of health, making the first battle just that little bit less obnoxious (having to slowly whittle down those 2 Ironjaws).

  • This isn’t really to do with winning, just making the whole Pure Faction experience slightly more bearable, which I think is the real key to success here :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:.

I really wish we had unlimited Faction-only Delve runs, but just with no Delve Chest rewards (to prevent the possibility of unlimited low-level farming). They generally take long enough anyway that you can only fit so many into your day (and if they don’t, then your Hoard is a high enough level that having unlimited Faction-only runs isn’t going to ruin the game balance).

That is the best strategy no matter which pure faction team you are running. TDS Room is okay, unless both it and Egg spawn baby dragons, but I avoid Venbarek. And Shadowblade has ended numerous delves.

Best of luck to you.

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Finally :stuck_out_tongue: :heart_eyes:

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Lol, must have done it same time :slight_smile:

Lyrasza’s Lair complete…

Such a nightmare RNG faction, and I think I may have earned it with some of the bad luck over past 3 weeks or so.

Hoard 270

Team was always 3 Dementicores and Lyrasza/Unicorn Banner.

Medals 2 Seasons/Anu

However, having failed at boss previous delve, (only had Lyrasza), I looked at the map and saw Bulette room. Decided to put a Chaos Hound in 3rd slot, to maybe see it end up in first slot, by being shifted, then use it when AI low on attack perhaps and get the death mark on skulls to work.

So, 2 Dementicores/Chaos Hound/Lyra

First room is easy, out of there no issue.

Next room was Dire Wolf/Cu Sith/Warg/Barghast

Not too bad a room, Cu Sith is annoying with Mana Shield and Agile, but made it through, losing top Dementicore.

Room 3 - Bulettes

Dementicore carried me a lot here, stripped all attack from Rock Troll, but got shifted 3 times so back to top. I managed to get to Rock Spirit with 47 health and 45 attack, and it killed it with the spell. Cast hound and killed Rock Spirit.

At this point I was going to quit. I actually paid no real attention, I think I summoned a 2nd Chaos Hound at the end vs the Bulette’s but anyway it was either 2 Hounds and Lyra or 1 Hound and Lyra to start…

So, no chance of winning, crash skulls/cast Lyra with abandon/cast Hound.

So I skulled down their Dementicore. Still no chance really as Lyra’s first cast was AOE, but summoned a Hound. Killed Crazed Troll with death mark on skulls, after trying not to reapply it, and their Hound summoned a chaffe Hound. At that point, I though okay, I can resist it’s skull hits, just try and get Hounds…

So get to here and switch video on :stuck_out_tongue:

Then kill the Hound with skulls and death mark Lyrasza and looking okay…

It evaded the death mark… It cast it’s AOE again and killed my Lyrasza, but I get to here…

Which before long got here, the skulls I cast back fired more than once…

and

1 left - potionless. Not even tried SoS yet factionwise, so hoard has to go up with Priest Chalice’s as got no shards or any othe treasures until next week… :stuck_out_tongue:

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I also think this could be a good idea, but with a tweak to make it economy-feasible: level 500 runs cost no sigil to play if using a Pure Faction team.

Boom, done — no risk of people farming (probably—who wants to do level 500 runs over and over when it’s hard to have any reasonable rate of success/rewards, either because of time investment or failure rate or both?), and no limit to people who take delves seriously to try getting the win.

If anything, it would probably help the economy, as delve-diehards would probably spend a lot more time trying and a lot less time gold farming…

…and all the same might still be true even if 500s were free no matter the team used, but that I’m less sure about because chaos shards could be farmed with Mang and Shield of Urskaya, etc… at that point…

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Thanks for the detailed breakdown Xolid. Kingdom level 14 as well?

I tried to resist going to 14, but sadly capitulated :slight_smile:

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No shame in that lol, probably less work than doing it the old-fashioned way (via hoard leveling). I only asked because I hadn’t heard of anyone doing Lyrasza’s with a hoard level less than 300.

Guildmate @Dust_Angel did Lair at 200 ish hoard. :grinning:
Other that and @Texugo-928 no one else has posted doing it without potions afaik.

I did find it a really poor faction though.

It should never have been released as it was, without at least one troop with a guaranteed damage cast.

Against any room with one source of strong damage it is tough, with 2, ridiculous and futile.

Most factions, even Werewoods has something to work with.

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