My vote
Winner of the contest gets to wonder why more than any of us, as you why they continue to support and play Gems of War.
Will leave personal story in the comments below.
My vote
2 Likes
Basically that crap dragon tells you everything you need to know.
The AI could only summon good ones, I get one of you worst.
I hit retreat after I realized that the for 11 unblocked Mana. The AI could do over 100 damage to my first 2 troops at the same time. While I’m trying to do skull damage and 100 damage to one single troop for 15 Mana.
Good thing that you devs are at least able to consistently make pure Faction troops that have no business being used as pure Faction teams. 
First run at 500 with Tier 7, 3 times = “bad luck” 
30 minutes wasted.
P.S. There’s a special place in hell for the individual(s) who program the game to allow constant skull storms during Delves. It’s 
to see a match 3 skull cascaded by a follow up 3 skulls in a row. 
3 Likes
Coral Cave would probably be the worst middle room.
Coral Golem does nothing. Nyx does nothing. Mosasaurus does nothing unless they’re submerged, which they aren’t. Vodyanoi does nothing unless they have blue mana, so it only has some value against Glass Golem (the chance of hitting Doppleganger with Vodyanoi is near 0).
The baby dragon rooms are pretty bad, but you could always wait to see what they transform into before stealing their troop. Admittedly, I’d still keep my Doppleganger and try for a Legendary room. If the battle goes long, I’d probably do 2x Copycat, 2x Doppleganger and sort the team out from there.
2 Likes
Didn’t even make it to the middle room this time.
2nd attempt: fail “bad team”
Using 3 stealth troops means the mirrored queen gets targetted on any cast thanks to Copy Cat spawning an extra turn 90% of the time.
1 Like
3rd attempt…
Kraurg devoured on the second skull damage by them. Down hill after that of course.
Going to take a break in hopes of more friendly RNG. Complete RFG right now… Another 30 minutes wasted.
1 Like
Don’t even try with faction team if middle room has crap. Wait for Fenrir, Glutmaw or Shadow Hunter etc.
1 Like
-
Icy Coven as the middle room. Used my normal delve team.
-
Viper Nest. I tried a combo of Naga Queen and Venoxia but they copied my Mirror Queen twice in the last room. My Venoxia and Mirror Queen eventually died due to too many reflects.
-
The Iron Gate as the middle room… this will probably a waste of time but I’ll give it a shot with Lady Ironbeard. Update: It almost went well, but I lost my Dwarven Gate during the middle room, making any direct damage dangerous in the last room.
-
Icy Coven… no thanks. Update: I gave it a try anyway and didn’t even make past the room.
-
Fell Nest. I guess I’ll gamble on some dragons? Update: I lost that gamble.
-
Dark Cabal! Time for some devour. Update: Holy crap, RNG was on my side for once. The middle room itself was relatively easy because their Sacrificial Priest killed Gluttony and another troop. In the final room, my 1st slot Gluttony pulled off 2 devours in a row! I skulled the Golem to death (after 2-3 failed devours), then had successfully devoured their Doppleganger before it transformed.
This is all too reminiscent of City of Thieves.
2 Likes
It works if you get two Dwarven Gates. Takes a hell lot of time, but eventually you have a good chance at winning.
1 Like
Sadly I realized that too late. I used one Doppleganger for Lady Ironbeard and the 2nd for Dwarven Gate. By the time another slot was free, their Dwarven Gate was dead. 
1 Like
I tried Faction team x2 at 300 without potions and failed miserably. Both times Copycat & Mirrored Queen failed to copy 3x. Once vs Viper Nest and once vs Worm Tunnel. Quarg devoured Copycat to help speed that loss so…I’d vote worm tunnel.
I have Thick Head Room on 500 (with potions)…recommendations for Doppleganger target? Dwarven gate? Golem for true dmg? The dude who summons gates? Other guy (Dark monolith i think? Bad with names)
Thanks in advance
1 Like
Bullette Room was pretty bad too. Grabbed a bullette then realized 3/4 troops in room couldn’t be devoured.
Had a rough go with Iron Gate as well.
Attempt 3 with Wild Pack’s Den/Fenrir was easy peasy.
1 Like
This certainly was an interesting one. I had one fail, then the second time:
-went to Coral Golem room. Copied that V word character (sorry spelling escapes me) but alas! Was killed by the identical troop before I could finish off the room.
-so now I’m stuck with two Mirror Golems, copycat, Queen for final battle
-somehow this is still doable. First order of business is to kill the Queen with my own queen shots. Then the golems. Then kill original copycats as they keep reproducing like bunnies. I kept trying to make a copy of the Queen, but kept failing. Eventually everyone on the opponent’s side fell to skull damage and my original Queen.
So all in all still doable with only faction Troops the whole way. Just…a 40 minute affair.
I copied the Dwarven Gate, gave up after 15 minutes after Ancient Golem killed my third and last Mirror Queen…with Barrier and reflect, as were the others. Gem blows up barrier 1st, ok. True dmg kills troop, ok. Why does Golem still have barrier…unless I’m wrong. I’m probably wrong. Still as frustrated as…
Dwarf room is doable. I did it with two gates, just need to keep barriers up and hit Lady as much as possible to get her armor under yours. It does take quite some time, but it is doable. If you can get into final room as long as Dop does not transform into Gate you should not not have too much trouble. The key is to try and kill and mirror queen(s) at the same time so you do not get an endless amount of high level troops. I left the glass golom alone and let that thing get 1000 armor. Also the room you did not mention which has shadow hunter & dragon is tough. I tried to copy the hunter since it would hit for 600+ and that and the dragon would be a good combo, but that first troop just gets too much purple and the mirror queen dies.
The level 500 delve should be difficult and it is, this delve is different because you have to scout ahead and plan based on the 2nd room and there is going to be some randomness, just have to prepare and figure out the best plan of attack based on what you get. FWIW I like Mirror queen/Dop/copycat/Mirror Queen as my team going into the delve.
1 Like
Ancient Golem can dispel with its cast, meaning barrier and reflect goes away before it does its true damage.
2 Likes
Difficult… Sure.
Time consuming… No.
I’m paraphrasing, but Sirrian or Nim said there’s too much to do each day in GoW. Factions like this don’t help at all in that regard.
It’s exhausting to hear their philosophy but their actions being the complete opposite of that philosophy.
Makes me wonder who is actually in charge of things.
3 support troops and one single Target striker is bad design. The troops are a great idea. Paired together is a bad design.
3 Likes
I beat the last room with a single bullette and a single glass golem to start the battle.
Ancient Golem is a nasty, nasty troop in F500 delve. In fact it’s borderline if anything causes as much grief as this dude.
In a golem team, it can make 107 true damage. As a result, pre faction bonuses and T3 kingdom bonuses, this would make it capable of 1 shotting all of your troops at 100 hoard. The team with Dark Monolith, makes less, something like 82-84 true damage per cast.
It sits at the back needing 12 mana. It is unblocked if I recall in some of the teams. It has impervious. It dispels enchants or barriers when casting, gains bonus from exploding blue gems and can partially refill self on explode.
In other words you can’t stop it casting, you can’t suppress it, you can’t negate the damage unless having troops with spell armour and you can’t deny it sufficiently for it not to seriously effect your delve strategy.
It can reel off 115 true damage in a cast and always sits in either slot 3 or slot 4, making it very difficult to hit in some of the factions we use. Like say Hall of Guardians or All Seeing Eye, so you have to chew through at least 2, often 3 troops to hit it. So in the room with Dark Monolith, Dwarven Gate, Anubite Warrior and laddo, you have to contend with 2 x stoneskinned troops, a barrier and a summoner before you can get close to him.
Another room from memory is Golem, Archon Statue, Ancient Golem, Dark Monolith. This is easier as he is in 3rd slot, albeit Dark Monolith in 4th slot can be a headache, but at least that can be somewhat managed (not true damage, don’t let it lose it’s armour too soon).
I think there is a third room as well, this is the one where he can also be tough. Obsidian Golem, Lava Elemental, Coral Golem and Ancient Golem. I think that is the composition, someone will correct me, but I think this is where he gets the most damage.
The other issue with this troop is it says it randomly targets, so that can hit stealthed troops, but also, from experience it always seems to strike where it hurts the most. Time and again over last few days, virtually every cast has struck Watch Mother in ASE.
It really is evil with those huge stats.
2 Likes
Agreed. I simply gave up as each battle took so much time. We should not have to battle for 45 minutes for 1 room. The troops are fabulous, serious kudos for Copycat for sure, it rocks in PVP, but combined in the manner they have is a complete turn off for game play longevity.
And, that’s the point, it’s certain that the delves should be hard, but resummoning like this and Stonesong Eyrie is not something we should have to endure. It’s really time that Devs had a good long hard look at delves, but of course with the 1000’s of gems and cash spent, it works for them.
2 Likes