Oh yeah lol. My Adana is only lvl10 and I still got it on the first try…
It still sucked, but I still got it.
2 Likes
I set out this week to settle all chunky delve business. And initially things were looking good. Well, not good, but acceptable.
Tinkertown (Hoard 100)
I started with Tinkertown. Naturally, the enemy smashbot in boss room killed over 9 troops (I lost count) before it finally self-destructed. And after I had taken the enemy Tink down from 1000 health and armor to mid 500s health at the 23 minute mark, it summoned 3 reinforcements.
But surprisingly, the battle only lasted 2 minutes longer. 25 minute boss fight is nowhere near as bad as I had anticipated. On to Stonesong Eyrie.
Stonesong Eyrie (Horde 123)
Our Guild bonus this week is actually +6/+4/+8/+8 thanks to GW week. I thought that plus the Artifact bonus would give me a fighting chance vs those evil Harpies. And truly, once the path opened up thanks to a beneficial Sacrifical Priest (He executed all three allies, and my Harpy Mage assassinated the Ancient Horror that spawned), I anticipated a long drawn out battle for the final room.
I could not have been more wrong. 1st Turn, enemy Queen Xochi blows up the board, and skyfall skull cascades kill 1st 3 troops. Uh, ok. So much for that. I guess if I had barriers from a delve Tuesday, and too much time than I care to imagine…on to Werewoods.
Werewoods (Hoard 156)
I cleared the first two rooms with team intact. At one point, a bird was down to 3 hp, but transformed into a Torbern. (Thank you RaIders for completing all basic tasks this week). But the 3rd room proved disastrous, as is tradition with such a lousy faction.
2 daily attempts left at this point. Do I want to try another here, or see just how bad Lyrasza’s Lair is potionless? On to Lyrasza’s.
Lyrasza's Lair (Hoard 100)
I didn’t truly expect to defeat this Delve with a Hoard of 100. I just wanted to remember how awful it truly is. 1st room was ok. 2nd room, don’t do the Ghostly Tomb. Morthani’s Will kept repairing its armor. Hate this faction. Whatever.
Last attempt and all three tomorrow will be spent on Sunken Fleet. Maybe I get lucky there.
Tl;dr: Pure faction runs suck.
5 Likes
Those last three factions suck, I will not attempt them again. Tried maybe a few times for Stonesong, only 0-2 times for the others. (Tinker Town, on the other hand, I only did once … because there was no try, there was do.)
1 Like
I’m not a masochist; I just tend to forget that isn’t cotton candy spawning from Queen Xochi’s talons: It is fireballs, and it burns, badly. I also have a difficult time admitting defeat.
And so on Sunday, with the Artifact bonus set to expire, I returned to battle the Harpy Queen once more. Actually, twice more. The first one was another unremarkable, 25 minute battle of frustration. Bladewing missed one and only chance to kill the Queen, and yet I continued the fight for 25 minutes? Maybe I am a masochist.
Second run, I fought thru Cedric’s Room, and almost had that fool drained the whole match. Unfortunately, he did pull my Bladewing to the front, and rather than risk having him shuffle my team 3 more times, I ended it then and there.
In the Boss room, Bladewing killed Queen Xochi on first cast, but failed first cast vs enemy Bladewing, and ultimately died, as did a few other troops. But a second Bladewing summoned upon killing the Harpy Mage with Skulls. Oh lucky day.
After that, I figured it was all but won. Only question was how long would it take.
25 minutes?
45 minutes?
Nope, but 55 minutes is a lot quicker than 5 hours, so I’ll think I won, even if I lost so much time. I upgraded my Hoard to 145. It seemed more reasonable than the 300s recommended for Werewoods, Lyrasza’s Lair and Sunken Fleet. Orpheus Medal because Guild Wars was still active, and 2 Seasonal Medals because that’s all I got.
My Queen and Harpy Mage were both at 1000 health before I lost my final Harpy. I tried to avoid storms unless all 4 troops were charged, and I also tried to get rid of Armors before getting kills. I thought if I could get another Bladewing the battle would go quicker, but I never did. Still, Skull bashing worked in my favor for once, as did Queen Xochi and her Mages getting extra turns from the storms.
And what did I get for my troubles? A starving chicken. Maybe I can feed it some cotton candy. Yo Queen, a little help? Ouch. It burns, it burns. For the Horde.
7 Likes
I could link the bin chicken song but its not PG. You are responsible for looking it up at your own risk! *nod*
3 Likes
Worth noting for Eldrazhor, if you don’t like the middle room, you can take the outside to do 5 battles for the pure faction. Not sure if that’s a good thing, but its an option.
3 Likes
Beat 300 without potions. (199, 50% etc etc)
I might tap out early, don’t think I’ll be doing 500 successfully without potions. (I mean I probably could with enough attempts, but … I’m not going to)
- For the love of your own sanity, bring Orpheus medals.
- All 4 faction troops are Immune to Web, so without Curse, the Web is meaningless (Deep Magus)
- The faction is hyper flimsy, as between spell casts and some sneaky skulls, you’ll lose your top guys even while trying to get Deep Elven Rogue’s spell to lower attack.
- Deep Magus underperformed (naturally), while I find myself digging Deep Elven and Tomb Spider. I might swap Deep Magus for Matron Velenne.
I skipped 100/200 so… I don’t have more info on the run yet.
3 Likes
So you brought one of each troop? I doubled up on Deep Huntsman, expecting to lose troops to skyfall skulls. On the one hand, I didn’t have a way to reduce the AI attack, but on the other hand I had basically six troops available if it got that bad.
Deep Magus Edit: Deep Huntsman is a lot less exciting when it can’t bleed explosions into the other color. Yay, I explode 40 gems! Boo, the single purple gem exploded and not the 14 green gems!
1 Like
I brought:
Huntsman
Huntsman
Rogue
Deep Magus
I’m going to try Velenne over Magus at 500. Magus is too wimpy with half-magic with no potions for my liking.
Rogue did very good things for me. Shrinking attack was nice, but the 3 status effects are also really nice, especially if you can land a Hunter’s Mark. (or gamble a Death Mark)
1 Like
from my earlier attempt @180, failed with:
Rogue
3x Velenne → just not enough match4 for that passive to trigger
currently did lvl 350 with:
2x Rogue
Velenne
Deep Magus
Rogues are cheap (12 mana cost) and they inflict 3x negative status effects, which quite often are deathmarks… which proc much more often than Velenne instakill… (at least that’s what got me on my 1st lvl 180 attempt)
Doing with potions, because i can. If i ever get bored i might try it potionless (still got some earlier pure factions runs to do potionless…)
In an unexpected twist of fate, I did manage to beat Eldrazhor Pure Faction 500 with no potions, Hoard199, 50% hoard, 3 Orpheus Medals on my 2nd try
I’d say if you’re going Hoard level 100, you may as well do it with potions and save yourself the headache. Its not the worst to deal with without potions though.
Deep Huntsman
Deep Huntsman
Deep Elven Rogue
Matron Velenne
Trident Banner (+2 Blue, +1 Green, -1 Yellow)
On my first try, I lost a Tomb Spider and a Huntsman in room 4, so I didn’t go into the boss room with enough troops (Tomb Spider, Rogue, Velenne only). I still almost pulled it out, but their last troop managed to take out my last 2 troops. Small heartbreak, but oh well.
On my second try, Huntsman number 1 died in the first room. Surprisingly, that’s fine.
Deep Elven Rogue is the MVP of the faction, as you can lock the enemy team’s top slot down long enough for the rest of the faction to shine. When Rogue triggers a Deathmark kill, that also feels very good.
Tomb Spider does amazing things and is a close runner up on MVP for the faction. Hunter’s Mark + 2x Skull damage to Webbed enemies (curse + web provided by Huntsman) does major damage. Not only that, Tomb Spider lets you use Red Mana. Since it has no skull reduction, I wouldn’t rush getting your Tomb Spider to spawn though.
Velenne can also play a vital part, when sometimes it can just land an instakill from out of nowhere.
Huntsman is a good setup troop that can apply Curse/Web on the top slot when the enemy is about to cast something, or just reset a board that has run out of good matches or just has too many skulls.
My middle room Glaycion, Winter Wolf, Ice Troll, Snow Guardian
I don’t think its worth going around the outside (5 room delve) this time around, as Tomb Spider’s 4x damage and Web can kinda compensate for the middle room’s higher stats. Glaycion was ganged up on with Attack Debuffs, Web, and Hunter’s mark and I got enough webs going to slow their other troops down. Good times.
In the boss room, this is what happened:
I mauled their Huntsman
I hailmary casted my Velenne on their full mana Velenne and pulled off the instakill
I landed a Deathmark on their Tomb Spider and the Deathmark actually managed to kill it
At some point, my 0 attack top slot Tomb Spider died from a combination of their Magus pokes and skull attacks
At some point, their Rogue landed a Deathmark and killed my Huntsman, even though I had 3 Orpheus equipped
I killed off their Magus after that and eventually won with a Deathmark on their Rogue.
15 Likes
I’ve only tried potionless 100 and 200 so far, but both runs were vs Sheggra room (Volcanic Shaft), which is ideal for this faction.
On a troop by troop comparison, I would say this faction is more enjoyable than Crypt Keepers. I’m too burnt to do the maths, but I hated the enemy Spectral Knight more than I hate the Rogue. And 0 enemy skull attack is better than 65% Skull Reduction (which goes away if Lady Moranna gets stunned).
Is Velenne’s pct any worse than Moranna’s, which required a board full of purple? At 200 my Velenne insta-gib’d twice, which may have just been streaky rng. (A 3rd troop died to Death Mark). But I’m open to the possibility of a potionless run at least. I’ll see how 300 goes Sat/Sun.
Maybe Hoard 100 isn’t realistic, but I upgraded Crypt Keepers past 100 (155). Thanks for your inspiration, @TheIdleOne.
Edit: I just noticed your troops have all medals. Well played.
Velenne’s boost ratio might actually be bugged currently. It only goes up when the enemy troop is webbed and doesn’t react to curse at all.
(Tested with Faction troops or Matron to see a max of 16%, tested with Malcandessa and Enraged Kurandara to test individual parts of the boost ratio)
Based on wording, Velenne can be compared with King Bloodwood which gets a similar boost ratio based on entangle and bleed and gets both sets of boost ratio.
So the answer to your question is probably yes (on paper it looks worse, but who knows whats going on in the background), though she still has a knack of landing occasional instakills.
1 Like
Velenne’s boost ratio is totally bugged. It uses the state of the AI team for determining the boost, for both player and AI. I have screenshots I will be posting in a separate thread shortly.
I have seen a +24 boost in one of my matches, but I didn’t screencap that. That suggests that the game is indeed tracking both curse and web.
Edit: I just looked at my thread, and it looks like you were right about curse not counting. At a guess, that means her boost ratio is coded to count all webbed troops, regardless of side.
2 Likes
Well one thing is for sure, this QA team is consistent. Just not the consistent that you would deem professional.
2 Likes
I purchased Tier 5 Seven times. Hoard Level 100 with 50% faction bonus. Faction Pet Upgraded to Legendary. One of each troop.
I attempted Pure Faction at levels 100, 200, & 300 outside of the event. Losing my single attempt at 300. I then did 300 & 400 previously in the event to try and practice an approach to tackle 500. Relying on the Instant Kill seemed very unreliable, so I chose to go the route of removing all enemy Attack and hopefully last out the battles. This run was my first attempt at 500 PF and I’m thrilled it worked out, even if just barely escaping with the victory. Good enough to earn 60k Renown and rewarded with +1 Armor.
9 Likes
Faction mirror match on floor 300 (tier 4 potions and my last sigil) devolved into “everyone has no attack, who dies to deathmark first”. Not really too happy with this faction… and I won the thing.
2 Likes
This was how I won at 500. It’s a viable strategy, but you risk dying in real life before the death marks trigger.
4 Likes
Pure faction was very easy at 500, albeit I have +42 from 6 Potion of Power. However, that had nothing to do with how I won. Basically… as long as you keep the enemy webbed and their attack lowered, there is relatively nothing that can kill you. Deep Elven Rogue is the best troop you have, since it eliminates Attack on enemy targets – extremely important.