What am I missing with this team?!

[Lissandra]

Today’s specialty is Hall of Guardians. I was used a team that a user who has already got to 500 used.

The Great Maw
Alchemist
Hero (Dawnbringer)
Wrath

But the problem I’m having is just the inability to get the Great Maw active in time. Skulls are especially deadly at the level I’m at (330) and I don’t even need to say a word about Gargoyle now do I? If I take a skull, Great Maw gets silenced and can’t gain mana or use it’s ability if skulls fall and if I don’t take it, the enemy will one shot him… can’t win.

Just, what am I missing? Even with entangle at start, they still get a skull match after it wears off or Gargoyle just obliterates my team due to a lack of being able to get Dawnbringer up. The two sentries at the bottom are problematic and often get to 1000 when I pointlessly struggle on but often, it never works out.

Any tips?

[Razzagor]

Banner and Class gameplan maybe?

Sometime i forget to mention the banner i use and this makes quite a difference on the playstyle. A banner like Red++, Brown + and Blue - (i’m not actually checking banners right now, it’s just an example) means you should play to fill Alchemist as soon as possible with red matches. If the hero as a class starting with 50% mana like Titan then it might be a case where the playr might want to play around filling Dawnbringrer first with Blue and Yellow, so a Banner favoring those colors is better in this playstyle.

Sometimes “What’s good for the geese is not so good for the cockatrice.” and maybe the team’s strategy doesn’t suits you very well or you are simply getting more and more overworked with each defeat and is more propense to make mistakes…

Maybe take a break, look at this cute dancing eevee …

…and tomorrow you might be in a better state of mind to crack this puzzle

[Dust_Angel]

Mang
Keeper of Souls
Stormbrew
and I don’t remember what was the fourth troop. It was long ago. Sylvanimora, most likely, to keep them entangled.

Of course, it is much easier with Titan (barrier stun) or easier with Runepriest (barrier) but, with care, any hero class works (I think I was using Necromancer when at level 500 delve). After casting Stormbrew, you can take skulls once without fear and, hopefully, mang that Silent Sentinel’s armor and the rest should be more or less walk in the park. However, nothing saves from bad luck and bad starting board.

[Ashasekayi]

+1000 for the dancing Eevee

[Lissandra]

I was using the Hall’s own banner and over the plenty of times, have tried Archer, Bard and Titan but even Titan isn’t great in the third slot. No green or purple are needed yet I seem to get that a lot more or need to take a skull lest Great Maw gets taken down immediately.

Did find some success with Bard but that was a fluke if anything else… just tired of wasting all the daily entries and making no progress while others with the same team zoom on with no issues.

[Casper1875]

Looking at that team, the idea is to charge alchemist ASAP so that maw can cast.
Devour gargoyle with maw, then once maw can’t be charged or silenced it leaves yellow free for db & wrath to cast, turning maw into a battering ram.
Avoid skulls until maw has cast if possible
I’d also go titan & have dust storm trait active as well as gain extra brown mana trait…

[back]

You could also try a different team.

I used Timeknight’s Maw team above for a bit, then switched to teams that used kerberos, or mang with triple skull damage.

Past level 450 or so, I think I used
MC / glaycion / bloodhammer / aurora B:bright forest

At that level, I probably lost about 1 in 3 delves.

[Jonathan]

Essentially what Casper/Razzagor said. Fill Alchemist asap (using a different banner/matching strategy), to then fill Maw asap.

[Lissandra]

I need to change the team. It just doesn’t work.

1st attempt. Got to the boss then a 3 match for the enemy dropped a skull from the sky and killed the Great Maw… great(!)

2nd attempt. Alchemist died to Gargoyle in the first room… didn’t have a chance to get anyone active.

3rd attempt. Got to the boss, everything was doing fine until the board shuffled at no more moves and left a skull match PERFECTLY for the silent sentient… that happens FAR too often.

I hate delves, it feels like nothing but luck based at the higher levels.

[xolid99]

I did it with

TGM
Forest Troll
Trickster’s Shot - Titan +9 with enchanted and hunter’s mark.
Sylvanimora
Sorrowful Banner - edit, actually I used this banner in TOD with a different troop 1, must have used Guardian Banner.

I managed to get to about L 420 using various hero classes, but barrier on brown helps a lot, so when Titan it became easier.

You can win with 3 troops as well as 4 ok in this team, if you lose TGM.

Ideally you entangle Silent Sentinel with a 4 gem match but if TGM takes a skull hit, at 500 it most likely kills it. I think from memory Sentinel skull attack is 260, and my TGM had about 200 armour and life, so 1 skull it’s dead.

Forest Troll starts with 1/2 mana as does hero.

Fill TGM or F Troll. Spam FT - no green in AI team (this is very helpful for the first boss room and the final boss room). Matching browns helps hero as 1 brown match saves hero from Gargoyle first cast.

Devour Gargoyle with TGM. TGM afterwards has around 1200 combined armour and life, (more if sentry buffs GG) so can withstand about 5 skull hits from an unbuffed sentinel. Then just spam FT and Trickster’s Shot. Leave SS up, let it grow from ethereal sentry casts. Fire FT anytime, regardless of numbers of greens, you will take them usually and if it matches any it fills Trickster. Usually this is how you get 4 gem matches to keep entangle up.

TS hunter’s marks the first enemy, so TGM can skull hit for 300+ if you get a skull, so slowly SS gets in range.

So after devour, build to fire TS on Eth Sentry, then Arcane Golem - 380 damage approx after hitting them both - leave SS up. Eventually you will either have to cast TS and get the minimal gain of 2 magic as no armour left on anyone, or SS you haven’t skulled enough, so you will get some +magic when striking it.

Yes 1 sky skull defeats it, and in my game vs it, my first entangle wore off after 1 turn, but fortunately I got TGM full and another entangle up.

Getting to the boss room, check the middle room, if it is Kruarg, in slot 1, this does not work unless you are extremely fortunate. I think I had Kru around L430. He is immune to this strategy, so I am not quite sure what troop I swapped, but I had been using Mantis Shrimp in a similar team for Manticore and Kru rooms where they appear in slot 1 in TOD, but he was colour blocked out in the delve iirc. Leviathan and Chief block FT too, I’m not sure what I did in the delve to get past it, possibly avoided skulls and got Maw up and killed it first with skulls and TS.

Other rooms, the hardest room was Orc Warband as the veteran likes green, you have no red and Drake Rider and Fel Dras, loop red, but again, once you devour someone it becomes easier and TS will kill them one by one after it’s taken 3 full armours.

You need luck as well, I got a 5 match of yellow on turn 1 in 500 room.

I have a video of doing 500, but it’s kind of large

[Cindy]

What a great explanation! Thank you very much for sharing your wisdom with us.