Help! last level, NG+, extreme

[randy]

I can't deal with those wave 4-7 armor & porcupine creeps charging direct from green spawn point to Azra.
Any hints?

[coyot]

For starters, maximum coverage by rangers optimised for raw damage (Sharpshooter, maybe range focus, rapid shot and blackout), a few knights optimized to knockback and stun (possibly with Swing disabled to minimize the number of porcupine hitbacks), ice mages with high chill/freeze/sleet to slow the bastards down, Slow Start/Slow End books. Definitely no berzerkers, healers with disabled group heal and possibly also attack skills (so that they just inspire and Aid like crazy). A devouring dragon or two at the end.

Giving your best equipment to those who will make the best use of it, of course... Good use of targetting options on all defenders. Play at 1/4 speed, if a defender is close to dying from porcupine, temporarily disable his melee attacks.

[MyrddinEmrys]

I won the last battle on NG+, extreme using pretty much exactly the opposite strategy that coyot is suggesting (which is not to say that his won't work, but rather that mine does too).

Be warned: my method for the last level involves a LOT of micro!

Since almost every enemy is either immune to freeze/chill or has 70% magic damage resist, I don't use ice mages at all.

* I put one berserker and one knight in each of the three lanes to debuff armor and apply bleed (start at boost 3, optimize EFFECTS). Be sure to dis-enable the berserkers when cultist priests go by!! Put the knights in the corners with the best reach.

* There are two nice corners next to the bottom places where Eztli can position himself that are perfect for healers (boost 5, only Aid and Zeal active, although I twice manually re-enabled group heal because there were lots of injured and I don't like wasting psi on heal).

* Start with 2 maxxed rangers near the center (but still w/in the healers' AOE). Later on, you'll slap another healer near the center and place all of your rangers to cover Azra. (side note: use slow end any time you focus your kill zone on Azra)

* The doesn't really leave you any psi for putting melee near the Azra. You can either put one ice mage there to slow down those enemies that *can* be slowed down, or put dragons there for long-term max damage (dragons may be inefficient, but a lvl 60 dragon at boost 5 can dish out a SICK amount of damage). Two knights and two berkzerkers near Azra is also a decent choice, but be careful with procupine! Your six rangers should be doing almost all of your damage.

* I mostly killed Eztil himself with special placements of dragons with max bite/epic halitosis. After about wave 20, surviving the waves should be really easy, so you'll have leftover psi to throw random stuff at him.

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The only difficult waves are the 5th (first set of cultist priest+) and the first level where the swimmers make a beeline for azra. In both cases, frenzy+pushback should make all the difference. Oh, and if you ever let your berzerkers attack the porcupines (cultist priest+), you'll have to restart the level. It uses lots of micro, but once you get past about the 12th wave, it gets easy.

EDIT: my first book was slow end, and I don't think the second book mattered much. Slow start is a decent choice because it gives your knights more time to debuff armor. Psi shield is also a decent choice. Maxxed Crystal actually does decent damage (I used it three times to avert disaster at the last second), and even though losing psi is really bad, you will still get a gold star.

[coyot]

I must admit that I posted a rough generic advice at how to deal with porcupine creeps in general, not anything specific for that map. I'll share my experience once I find time to do a full playthrough with a big squad.

[Ohlmann]

For this lane (the green that allow to get to Azra directly - hope I don't misunderstand which one :p), ice mage are a must on this lane, since the big cultists can be slowed down and have an helluvah lot of life. Just don't boost them above 3.

But still, it's not them that cause too much trouble.

First thing first, you MUST boost Azra two time at start. Your pal will heal and frenzy your troops, making the level doable at all.

Put an ice mage, 2 knight (one from each side ; they are blue divider to kill anyway), 1 dragon at start. Add another dragon and maybe a knight after (but you may run out of knight, so not alway the better idea) and organize your bowwomen so that they all can fire on this lane. (and on the right one, because thoses also refuse to die - in fact they often cause me more trouble than the green one).

And unlike what Myrdin say, just don't bother with berserker. There is specific place where they are useful, but not at the start of lane where archer can do the job.

[coyot]

I think that on this level, slow start AND slow end would be very powerful combination. And a berzerker that can hit two spawns and give them bleed IS a good thing without any doubt.

[Ohlmann]

I think that on this level, slow start AND slow end would be very powerful combination.

It is. Slow end work on mob that are near your pal, by the way

And a berzerker that can hit two spawns and give them bleed IS a good thing without any doubt.

It isn't without any doubt, because you have to turn them off way too often, especially since the 110% speed boost make them explode on the blink of the eye. Especially if they can hit two spawn, since you will have to turn them off all the more often.
Also, theses spaces are (at least for three of them) ideal placement for archer. So there's that.

[coyot]

Hmm.. the game fails to load with my big party save so I can't give it a go right now... but I think that I could squeeze at least two bleeders there without really giving up on good ranger coverage. Also, bleeders don't need to be boosted, so I'd probably not bother to disable them , just resummon them when they croak. (I guess that there'd be enough other defenders to summon and boost to the max before I'd start rolling with PSI.
I'd most certainly want to have at least the green spawn covered by bleeders, because the difference between ranger bleed and zerk bleed is BIG.

[larsiusprime]

@coyot:

Got a bug number for the problem you mentioned? I'll take a look at it first thing on monday.

[coyot]

Bug 567. I didn't want to bother as it's a save originally from build 0.9.39, and I cannot swear that I haven't manually touched it either. But it most certainly worked at some time.

[randy]

Thanks for the tips! I finally squeezed some time and beat the level.
Turned out I have underestimated rangers for the whole game. I was thinking rangers have the worst attack growth and mediocre dps/psi. I have neglected rangers and pass the game so far with no more than boost 3 rangers. It is the very very last level (ng+ ex) made me realized that ranger is a good alternative from over-investing in particular lane with uncertain waves. That very last level is a ranger stage.

This is how I passed the level; well positioned boosted rangers covering paths to Azra, spread out ice mages provide coverage to rangers firing fields, expendable melees for debuff, leave Zelemir undefended creeps won't go from red to Zelemir, anything else would be solved by unlimited psi income.

[FRAQ]

Thanks for the tips! I finally squeezed some time and beat the level.
Turned out I have underestimated rangers for the whole game. I was thinking rangers have the worst attack growth and mediocre dps/psi. I have neglected rangers and pass the game so far with no more than boost 3 rangers. It is the very very last level (ng+ ex) made me realized that ranger is a good alternative from over-investing in particular lane with uncertain waves. That very last level is a ranger stage.

This is how I passed the level; well positioned boosted rangers covering paths to Azra, spread out ice mages provide coverage to rangers firing fields, expendable melees for debuff, leave Zelemir undefended creeps won't go from red to Zelemir, anything else would be solved by unlimited psi income.

mmmmh, i still have big problems to get this working. would be great if you could post a screenshot how you start and maybe 1 or 2 more how you develop the later defenders positions. I have 200 stars and all bonus items are upgradet. so it must be my tactics which are wrong.

[coyot]

Or your character builds? Levels like these really tend to demand very good decisions

[FRAQ]

Or your character builds? Levels like these really tend to demand very good decisions

sure, that`s a possibility, too. if we take your tactic for that map, what would you recommed?

[coyot]

Well, with randy's strategy, it'd go with
* rangers optimized for raw damage (sharpshooter, most likely range although it might not be necessary - if your ranger is shooting all the time, he doesn't need more range - rapid fire, maybe blackout. Poison (and targetting strong with !) to the one that will get the poison bow). (So, if you can afford to have every spawn covered by a bleedzerker, don't waste skill points on deep shot)
* Ice mage that will wear the anti-worm staff - max area damage skills, ice spear/shard, don't bother with chill and freeze. Support ice mages that will try to keep the enemies in the rangers' killzone - max chill and freeze, max ice spear / shard maybe, and don't bother with boosting them high.
* Support berzerkers have only one job, get everyone bleeding to the max, so speed, max rage, flurry + madness, boost to level 2-3. Expect to lose them often, so regen and evade would make them even cheaper.
* Knights - armor break, knockback, low-tier damage skills, stun maybe.
* Dragons - near spawn if you'll have room, strong bite+poison. Near Azra if you'll have room, nommers. Roar can be useful at both ends.
* Healers should by now be pretty uniform, just switch off group heal and possibly offensive skills unless you need them, so that they don't waste time on other things than Aid, which is quite powerful and very very fast.

Of course, make good use of all the unique items. Give them to characters with the appropriate skills, give them to those that will be boosted first, and make a good use of the advanced targetting options so that they'll distribute their powers.

[Ohlmann]

Also, do put at least one archer, possibly more, with maxxed Deep shot. It will allow you to actually put bleed on all enemy, instead of only the one who are not near a cultist when they spawn. Which mean, a tiny amount of them.

(also, you'd better not trying to use cheap zerker for trying that. There is several position where they will actually don't die : the one where they only face water and are next to water abomination path, like the lone square on the south east corner and the water path on the south west, near the green highway ; or on portion where you are supposed to have destroyed the spiked cultist way before, likely the south-west zone or the path to Zelemir. The south-west zone in particular should have a lot of attention, because of the high number of naga you may have to kill.

You should try to find by yourself what work well, it will be both more rewarding and less frustrating than trying to copy another people strategy.

[FRAQ]

@ coyot & Ohlmann

I took both of your advises.

coyot, basically all I needed was a little adjustment of my rangers. that was all that was missing. funny. I just kept the rest of my characters they way they are. So I also gave some thought about Ohlmanns post. After I adjusted my rangers, I kept working with my own old strategy that made me able to beat that level in every game mode and difficulty level so far.
Thx to both of you.

I finally received now one more obsidian skull (very tasty). but what to do with it? I´m pretty sure that I upgrated already everything. So at the end 4 stone skulls and 1 obsidian skull are left? is this right?

[coyot]

The character builds are all about optimizing effects . If you spend scrap on an expensive weapon and give it to a character, it figures that you want that character to multiply the weapon value by having the highest possible raw damage output (which doesn't necessarily mean raw damage skills). You don't want that guy to worry about setting enemies bleeding if and when you can achieve the same effect (not dependant on damage) by 50-150 PSI worth of a support character with the right target setting.

The same applies to weapon specials. If you give an ice mage anti-worm staff, don't punish her by chill and freeze to her basic attack. Make sure that she has mainly area attacks with serious damage in them. Leave chilling and freezing in killzones to 60PSI newbies that don't even need any armor/weapon for it.

Similarly boosting range is usually seen as a good thing - but if your unit is busy hitting targets pretty much all the battle, maybe the extra range isn't needed at all and even something like 5% extra damage caused is enough. With the skill reset now reasonably priced, do not be afraid to adjust your skills to suit a particular battle.

[Sentinel]

Where do you find the slow start and slow end books? I have furious start and furious end, but I haven't found those.

[That Guy]

Books come as rewards for challenges (click the bonus button on the world map). iirc slow start becomes available about halfway through the regular game and slow end becomes available about halfway through new game+.