Howdy, A touch of background: I've been searching the forum for .. an unspeakably long time, unfortunately .. and I keep seeing people speak poorly of Ruby Demon Portal's difficulty. However, I also see these are ancient, often beta period, posts and threads. Like some, I had no problem with Ruby Demon Portal during the Campaign; I went a good few adventures past it before finally losing for the first time, and in fact, (like some people I've seen ask in World,) I had actually wondered if CH were very pen-and-paper-RPG-like, where I'd need to hire adventurers to replace characters who died, thus I played super defensively. (If anyone in MP remembers a year ago trying to teach me that armor is not the end-all-be-all, you can see why it took some untraining. Lol. Thanks, peeps!) Back to the point. I beat Ruby Demon Portal on my first try, yay. This topic is not in the least bit discussing the normal adventure's difficulty. (I don't know if its difficulty got changed between beta threads and now.) The thread title already gives away more than I'd like before one even clicks through and reads the poll, but if you're a player who likes surprises and hasn't finished the campaign, I still recommend you just don't even read the rest of this post or probably thread. Then again, why are you reading the Feedback and Suggestions forum if you don't want spoilers! You silly, daring creature, you. Spoiler: Some more background: I'm enjoying the quests. I play them alone. We all have our preferences, and that's just one of mine; in short, I like role-playing my Campaign party, and I like problem-solving, and I haven't wanted the Campaign to be a MP experience for the most part; I'd not even mention this moot part, but I predict someone would belabor reasons to change, and it's just unnecessary. The point is, I'm playing quests alone and enjoying. Except Ruby Demon Portal's 1 HP Quest. I've been playing it since last year. I've never gotten past the second battle. I've reiterated my party a good few times, but I've sometimes been down to just *one more hit* when I chase a beast all around the map for a few turns and finally die. Yesterday or so, I finally had two Reliable Mails + one Reliable Hide (and I think one Officer's Harness), plus a racial Move and a finishing attack. Sorcerous Blast beat my 1 HP tank. $:^ | (I've also used things like Shimmering Aura, but the rolls fail eventually. I've gotten furthest with Reliable. Fwiw, I'll post my current party with which I've seen the closest and most intuitive near-successes.) Spoiler: current party [SRC] Will Level 20 Human Warrior Unbalanced Doloire Nifty Halberd The Strongarm Sturdy Armor Spellthwart Shield Fool's Coif Bertha's Big Clogs Unskilled Human Unskilled Martial 2 x Bludgeon 1 x Obvious Maneuver 2 x Nimble Strike 1 x Quick Reactions 4 x Weak Chop 1 x Officer's Harness 1 x Penetrating Lunge 3 x Reliable Mail 1 x Reliable Hide Armor 1 x Backbiting Strike 4 x Walk 1 x Weak Strike 7 x Strong Hack 1 x Lifesaving Block 1 x Barge 1 x Able Bludgeon 1 x Weak Block 3 x Missile Block [SRC] Quinn the Stout Level 20 Dwarf Wizard Staff Of The Misanthrope Greenspark Staff Stone Of Shards Stone Of Shards Glowing Bangle Glowing Bangle Robes Of Illusion Bertha's Big Clogs Novice Ferocity Untrained Electromancy 2 x Deadly Spark 2 x Little Zap 3 x Defensiveness 2 x Stone Spikes 2 x Bungled Bolt 2 x Charge 2 x Spark 2 x Acid Blast 1 x Reliable Mail 1 x Reliable Hide Armor 1 x Flimsy Block 2 x Hot Spot 1 x Walk 1 x Officer's Harness 2 x Spark Generator 2 x Wall Of Illusion 2 x Reflexive Teleport 4 x Flash Of Agony 2 x Powerful Spark [SRC] Solstice Level 20 Human Priest Vigun's Blessed Blade Vigun's Blessed Blade Battered Holy Mail Spellthwart Shield Bertha's Big Clogs Medallion Of St. Beldar Medallion Of St. Beldar Medallion Of St. Beldar Unskilled Human Untrained Piety 3 x Righteous Frenzy 2 x Stab 3 x Misguided Heal 6 x Strong Hack 1 x Defensiveness 3 x Reliable Mail 5 x Surestrike Blessing 4 x Walk 3 x Entangling Roots 1 x Officer's Harness 2 x Altruism 3 x Missile Block Yeah, sure, there are likely better builds, even using my available inventory, but this should be able to do the trick. Also yesterday or so, my last attempt led me to World: Thank you, @HisRoyalHygiene, for causing me to reevaluate this challenge, thus deciding to post it here. Spoiler: The issue at hand: Maybe ThetianKnight and I are in the minority. I don't know. That's why I posted the poll. To repeat my quote from above, "I believe the second battle is literally just poorly designed (or *not* designed) for 1 HP due to terrible, terrible beginning placement." To clarify, I'm not saying I believe the battle is poorly designed, period. I'm saying I believe it's poorly designed for 1 HP -- if it were designed for 1 HP at all. Therefore, since I definitely don't want to ask for major changes like "nerf mobs plz" or "change the uncalled-for starting spots which pretty much absolutely require you waste your round 1 first turn losing a move to hide (before Gary moves on his first turn, thereby generally requiring you to duck for cover on your second turn, too)" or any other myriad design headaches, all I ask is that you remove the 1 HP quest -- and perhaps replace it with some other quest. Hey, maybe that could be another poll. Assuming people are not enjoying this adventure's 1 HP quest like I think might be the case, what might you suggest to replace it? The current list: No Party Deaths Only Handicap Items Party at 1 HP Priests Only Sooooo, wizards only? Some race only? (I'm not even trying to push for new quest types like QD or Solo or Itemless. Or wait, is Solo already extant? Anyway.) I know there are other quest types; I've just (sadly) spent waaay too much time on this already, and my brain is sapped, and I just want to be done with it already. Is it fine with just three quests? (What to do about players who already beat the 1 HP quest? Many design options there. Meh.) Regards,
I agree with all of your ideas. While removing 1 hp from this quest could be the answer it throws up a couple of small problems. Every other adventure has a 1 hp quest, wouldn't it be weird if this one didn't? And where would we stop? I remember some of the geomancer adventures being ridiculously hard for their level, not to mention the perennially painful lvl 18s For the record, it IS beatable, though I think I did it in co-op, where the added card draw is very beneficial. I tried for the longest time, with a range of different builds, to do it solo. I don't think I was successful
Oh, for some reason, I was thinking an earlier adventure did not have a 1 HP quest. Hm. That lines up with some other comment I read (and which confused me) somewhere in the forum hours ago (don't ask me where, ha ha).
As Flaxative mentioned elsewhere, the default quests are: 1hp, no death, handicap and lower levels. It's definitely harder than many quests, but doable. I think it's fine. Regarding deck: Spoiler I forget what I actually did it with, it was a while ago. Personally, I prefer blocks/nimbus to armour for 1 hp quests (except immunities), especially if you can't negate the biggest attacks. You might want to add more life-saving blocks to your priest (Rusted Angel Mail, and spend the token on nimbi), and Sacrificial Axe for cycling. I'm not sure about your choices for arcane and divine items, cycling items might be better, such as Sensate's Ring, Armorbane Pendant and Shuddering Relic. Reflexive Teleport is a little too unreliable.
with the right epics/legendaries you can get a lot of shimmering aura... what is the max damage to expect on ruby, isnt it mostly like 2? 4 and 6 being rather rare? You wait around til you get auras and then hope for the best. Ofc you are dead whenever it is sourcerous blast and your two shimmerings fail. But it might as well take a few blows here and there. lifesaving always only eats one attack... not sure i would dedicate other slots then the shield to it. I dont care much for quests, but this got me curious. Ill have a run at it later.
Following this, I had an interesting idea and went over to the test server to try it out (it would be nice to be able to redo quests...). Got three elf priests, got them to level 2, and equipped them each with: Sacrificial Axe, Possessed Shoes, Rusted Angel Mail and Shuddering Relic. It worked pretty well. Breezed through the first battle, four restarts on the second (some sloppy play though), and two on the third. Definitely less gold wasted than the first time I did it.
It's harder than other low level 1HP quests for sure, but it is by no means the hardest 1HP quest. As far as I know, none of the adventures were designed for 1HP quests (or any quests), they were designed as regular adventures. Quests are an add on for those who really want to up the difficulty level. Adventures are designed to be beatable, quests - they just result in whatever difficulty the combination produces. Spoiler: Deck design discussion This seems like a flawed approach to the nature of CH to me. "I have decent-ish X deck, if Y quest can't be beat with it, then the quest is too difficult." CH is all about having to customize a deck to deal with certain challenges and difficulties of a battle. Sure for general adventures you can mostly slap together a decent "general build" and play any adventure of that level range with it. But quests are supposed to be more difficult. They should require a more thoughtful custom tailored build. It's even possible they may not be beatable with War/Wiz/Pr, but may require more exotic combos. This is the nature of CH, and quests just push it to the higher notch of difficulty. Spoiler: General critiques of your deck It's a 1HP quest - why are you using humans or dwarves? Unless you're getting a really strong advantage with your racial skill, elves give you a movement advantage with every turn at no difference in HP. (And I've heard there's a pretty decent tokenless elf skill.) Why healing on the priest? It's worthless for 1HP. Conceivably you're using them as finishing attacks, but if you want to have ranged attacks just bring another wizard. Spoiler: My winning deck way back when I can't remember for sure, but I either went with two Lvl 4 elf wiz and 1 human priest, or all three as Lvl 4 elf wiz. Load up the wiz with firestorm and resistant hide. Draw a hide (or two) and play hide-and-burn. The priest is there simply for card draw (leadership, inspiration) to get to the resistant hide faster. EDIT: If it's not obvious, the priest is expendable. EDIT: For what it's worth, Ruby Demon Portal already became easier - prior to Aug 2014 it actually required beating four battles.
allright, my run thaught me this - stage 3 is where the hurt is. You have all the time in the world in the first two stages, but number 3 has 2 kinds of pressuring aspects - the victory squares and the fire sprite in the center eventually drawing fireball - thats good night for the run. It was the main reason for close to 10 restarts. I went with shimmering aura/missile block melee team centered around the idea to deal the crucial 10 dmg in one blow. The fire sprite and the fire imp dont grey out, so you would take care of them first ideally. The fire imp is easier to reach, after that i lured the arcane imps with a protected character, so they would grey themselves out. Once they are done in by the team, you can go after the sprite. Spoiler: the team Cedric Level 20 Dwarf Warrior The Strongarm Rickety Polearm Massive Harm Sparking Shell Spellthwart Shield Shimmering Hood Vira's Shoes Raging Battler Novice Bruising 3 x Controlled Overswing 3 x Missile Block 1 x Weak Block 1 x Walk 2 x Reaching Swing 1 x Thick Hide Armor 1 x Simple Strike 1 x Reliable Mail 6 x Shimmering Aura 1 x Lunging Hack 1 x Bludgeon 1 x Quickness Aura 5 x Strong Hack 2 x Bruiser 1 x Weak Strike 3 x Able Bludgeon 2 x Blind Rage 1 x Penetrating Cut Grizzly Level 10 Human Warrior The Strongarm Rickety Polearm The Strongarm Sparking Shell Spellthwart Shield Shimmering Helm Vira's Shoes Trained Command Novice Bruising 3 x Missile Block 1 x Weak Block 1 x Walk 1 x Attack, Soldier! 2 x Reaching Swing 1 x Thick Hide Armor 1 x Walk, Team! 1 x Simple Strike 1 x Quick Reactions 6 x Shimmering Aura 1 x Lunging Hack 1 x Bludgeon 10 x Strong Hack 1 x Dash, Team! 2 x Bruiser 2 x Weak Strike 1 x Penetrating Cut Irenicus Level 22 Elf Priest Cudgel Of Wrath Sacrificial Axe Glowing Hide Armor Spellthwart Shield Xalanen's Boots Shuddering Relic Shuddering Relic Shuddering Relic Wariness Manifold Healer 1 x Skip 3 x Missile Block 2 x Healing Dash 1 x Blind Rage 2 x Triple Heals 1 x Thick Hide Armor 1 x Scouting Run 5 x Vulnerable 1 x Invigorating Touch 1 x Shimmering Aura 3 x Mass Frenzy 1 x Reliable Hide Armor 1 x Strong Hack 3 x Enervating Touch 2 x Talented Healer 1 x Officer's Harness 2 x Unholy Frenzy 3 x Controlled Overswing 2 x Pressing Bash The cantrip healing dash priest didnt do too good in the last stage. Also i said goodbye to the blazing shortswords i used in the first two stages. Some misc stuff i learned: -Sacrifical axes x2 is indeed a good idea, since you can use the pressing bashes to attack and disconnect line of sights in one go. 6-8 damage might even be enough to kill when the brain burns softened the imps up. If you do what i do and run manifold healer, the triple heals are still good to cantrip end rounds. -If you pass once first round they will move a bit and you can usually close in safely while staying out of line of sight. - If you run quick reactions and it draws you a missile block, you are still toast. (thats curious to me since i recently noticed that the demonic power selfdamage is bumped to 6 when you get a raging strike among the drawn cards). - Double shimmering is exactly as reliable as you would expect. I once lost because i was foolish enough to attempt an unholy frenzy buff on a double shimmering character. it works, but don't call your luck.
I just ran the RDP 1 hp quest on the test server using one retry on the third map. The imps got some pretty serious attack upgrades at the same time as Strench. Avoiding LOS can be important even when wearing resistant hide. Level 4 Elf Wizards still did the job, though. Spoiler: Deck (x3) L4 EM A Level 4 Elf Wizard Staff Of The Inferno Brin's Storm Locket Brin's Storm Locket Firehide Robes Glimmer Boots Electroporter Novice 8 x Firestorm 1 x Dimensional Traveller 1 x Resistant Hide 2 x Counterspell 2 x Ember Burst 1 x Hardy Mail 1 x Spark Generator 1 x Squeamish 1 x Run 2 x Combustible 1 x Spark Inductor I go with Brin's in demon portals, because I love sucking their brains out if they pop into LOS. As always, you'll need luck to augment your skills. Edit: Tried it with another test server account, and it took many retries. The attack upgrades that came in at the same time kobold Avengers were changed to Lungers definitely make this more difficult than it was when it was first released.
I meant to respond to this some days ago, but I've been feeling pretty miserable lately (even missing work today). Thank you for all the feedback, peoples. The current poll results: 0 call it a cake walk 6 (46.2%) beat it after some tries - difficulty is fine 2 (15.4%) beat it after many grueling attempts - difficulty is astonishingly high 1 (7.7%) (only I, ha ha ha,) tried repeatedly and failed - in contrast to other successful quests 3 (23.1%) beat it not, but tried not that many times yet either 0 simply have trouble with all quests 1 (7.7%) played it not at all Also, I thank you all who took the time and effort to go run this and experiment with builds just for the sake of replying. Above and beyond. $:^ ) To address multiple concerns all at once, (including some of my choices for race and items,) I'll just give this very short reply. I understand and now concede: Whereas the Campaign can be role-played through, the quests often require Munchkinning. (Ironically, I had already given some of you-all's same advice to people asking in World about it. "Elf wizards rock. They have no HP disadvantage." Etc.) Just a couple quick notes on this particular build. @Killer74, my reason for having Reflexive Teleport isn't based upon its 1/3 chance of rescue (although that's a little icing on the cake); more functionally, it's a tokenless Teleport with Stone Spikes. Same with other cards like Surestrike Blessing: skipping armor and blocks is never necessary with these monsters, but it's included with solid damage attacks, it can proc Altruism, and it can give me free facing changes (for blocks) without Move cards. More in-depth, though, to @Scarponi: You addressed where I wrote, "Yeah, sure, there are likely better builds, even using my available inventory, but this should be able to do the trick." I ask you to please keep my whole post in context. The topic's title ends in a question mark. Someone else's statements -- after months by myself beforehand -- caused "me to reevaluate this challenge, thus deciding to post it here." "Maybe ThetianKnight and I are in the minority. I don't know. That's why I posted the poll." 'Maybe we should ask BM to change it or something. But then, people win it, thus "who am I" and all that.' "Assuming people are not enjoying this adventure's 1 HP quest like I think might be the case, [suggestions based on that premise]." (emphasis in original) My point wasn't, "I slapped something together and it doesn't work; therefore, the quest is too hard." My point was, "My mindset has worked elsewhere but not here, and I've just figured it was my own fault for the past several months, but then another regular (exhibiting more skill than I) said something, too, thus I figured I should ask out loud because, hey, maybe it is too hard." If I can't win something, I generally assume it's my own fault. It was only many years later when reading about how flawed (and why) E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial was for Atari 2600 before I realized it wasn't merely my fault -- it's beatable but broken. I never a threw a joystick yelling, "It cheated!" $;^ D Ironically, nowadays I play Super Mario Kart for Super NES with the full knowledge that it does cheat -- that it's literally designed to cheat -- yet somehow I'm okay with that. $}^ J And yeah, Misguided Heal for the hilarious win. $E^ b (Not to mention, depending on battle context, desperate attempt at Altruism.) Regards, folks, and thanks again.
For most quests (certainly nearly all non-1hp ones) you can do them with a wide variety of characters/equipment. Even for a lot of the 1 hp quests you have a variety of choices, for this one there are four quite different builds in this thread alone that have worked; so to an extent you can role-play them. Yes, you can't do them with any old thing, and it'll require some fine-tuning. I'm not really sure about "Munchkining", but if you could do them with anything it wouldn't be very hard. If the aim of the quests is to provide a decent challenge to some of the better (/stubborn/completionist) players, it is bound to leave some behind (that said, I would say the majority of the quests is within the capabilities of most players). I have a few 1hp quests left (and I haven't even unlocked the nightmarish AotA ones), and it'll probably be a long time before I get finishing them, but I had fun doing all the ones I could, and trying the ones I couldn't.
I did this quest back when Ruby Demon portal had 4 battles instead of 3, and it may have been my bad items at the time but I do remember it being a bit of a luckfest. In the end I beat it the same way I beat the level with 7 Trog wizards: Give three elf wizards as many traits as possible, resistant hide, and 2x reliable mail boots, and hope they draw as much armor as possible as fast as possible. Of course, that might not work as well today, because arcane imps used to use sparks instead of blasts.
Back in the day I was too poor to use Firestorm, so that wouldn't have helped. Also, I'm not entirely sure if I beat it before or after the first minor token got lowered from level 7 to 5, so I may not have had reliable armor.
Ahh, I see. I had limited time when I was replying so my apologies for missing your overall expression. I know you're usually pretty jovial about these things; I didn't mean to come out as accusatory as I probably did. Carry on, and let us know when you beat it!
Thanks, Scarp, all's well. $:^ ] Okay, so, funny story. Funny to me anyway. After my concession, I decided Sunday to just skip that quest and move onto some other things. I found a level .. 5? 6? quest requiring three elves. I went with some of my [SRC] favorites, Myx'd Mess'zh, F'talitie, and Disseev'r -- 1/1/1, all level 1. I beat it with a touch of challenge, but nothing special. That sparked the idea ... since I have Club this week (because Darkblood Glaive, yaay! heheheh) maybe I could play these three through the Campaign. I'd been wanting to try the Campaign with my near-year's worth of items anyway. I started playing. I started role-playing. $E^ } Around the time they got armor and blocks (aside from boots), it hit me ... I could try this party in Ruby Demon Portal. $F^ J I finished off the Lizardmen -- Mass Frenzy + Flash of Agony hitting every monster and zero allies is ridiculous, and as fun as taking down the whole Slub Gut battle in one round, lol -- bringing all three elves to level 4. I then sought the Portal -- straight to the 1 HP Quest. First battle. Why do I have Minor Heals? Weird. Beat it very simply, as per usual really. Oh, whoops, I forgot to equip a Divine Skill. $:^ P Changed that... Second battle. The dreaded second battle. Spoiler: second battle's party, I think [SRC] Myx'd Mess'zh Level 4 Elf Wizard Staff Of The Inferno Brin's Storm Locket Brin's Spiked Rod Firehide Robes Bertha's Big Clogs Novice Pyromancy 6 x Firestorm 2 x Ember Burst 2 x Firestarter 1 x Officer's Harness 1 x Walk 2 x Stone Spikes 1 x Resistant Hide 2 x Counterspell 1 x Ember Spray 2 x Combustible 1 x Reliable Mail [SRC] F'talitie Level 4 Elf Warrior Blocking Axe Blocking Axe Xander's Mail Bullseye Shield Bertha's Big Clogs Novice Slicing 1 x Weak Chop 6 x Flimsy Block 2 x Reliable Mail 6 x Clumsy Chop 1 x Walk 2 x Catch Arrow 2 x Slicer 3 x Officer's Harness 1 x Missile Block [SRC] Disseev'r Level 4 Elf Priest St. Portia's Maul Dark Chain Shirt Bertha's Big Clogs Gray Prayer Beads Gray Prayer Beads Untrained Piety 1 x Hardy Mail 2 x Altruism 2 x Armor Of Faith 1 x Officer's Harness 3 x Consuming Spear 2 x Reliable Mail 3 x Strong Bludgeon 2 x Spear Of Darkness 2 x Entangling Roots 1 x Sapping Spear 1 x Defensiveness 1 x Walk My goal: Disseev'r would help a little with armor, maybe take some hits, and hopefully deliver some hits. F'talitie would paint a huge Bullseye on herself (oh wait) and buy the others time to carry out the plan; if she also hit somebody, cool. Myx'd Mess'zh would roast from afar. I originally intended Disseev'r to go all cantrip nuts here, but I wasn't thinking about there being no tokenless Talented Healer item. The turnout: Disseev'r in fact kept F'talitie alive long enough to gain armor. F'talitie's hilarious amount of blocks also aided that goal. Myx'd mostly flitted between some rocks. Disseev'r died, but Myx'd found her Resistant Hide and began the storm. F'talitie stayed out of the way. An Acid Imp, the hideous monstrosity, lobbed a single 1-damage armor remover, killing Myx'd prematurely. The next round, two Imps died to Brain Burn. $E^ ] Another round or two, another Imp loses to Brain Burn. Only one Arcane Imp left -- at low damage -- but with two constantly visible Sorcerous Blasts in-hand. $:^ | F'talitie with her Reliable Armor x2 Officer's Harness x3 (lol) ran around hiding, waiting for a final Brain Burn to finish the job; Clumsy Chop + Slicer would do it, but she was trying to play it safe, what with those visible Blasts. Finally, Gary moved his pawn to the right spot, pushed me to a bad place, came back around on me, and a Sorcerous Blast missed the Harnesses. Flimsy Block wouldn't be any help against that of course, and I'd already discarded the other blocks multiple times. Lost on round 20. The turnout: They did their thing again. F'talitie tanked like a boss. I don't recall if she lived this time when the final imp died. Maybe 4-6 rounds total, I don't recall. Yeah, one retry, it was that ridiculously simple. Third battle. During the waiting period of the previous battle, I saw I could have trouble due to VS management in the final -- which ppl here also mentioned as the true difficulty of this quest. I switched up one weapon for sure. I maybe swapped something else, but I don't recall. Spoiler: third battle's party, for sure [SRC] Myx'd Mess'zh Level 4 Elf Wizard Staff Of The Inferno Brin's Storm Locket Brin's Spiked Rod Firehide Robes Bertha's Big Clogs Novice Pyromancy 6 x Firestorm 2 x Ember Burst 2 x Firestarter 1 x Officer's Harness 1 x Walk 2 x Stone Spikes 1 x Resistant Hide 2 x Counterspell 1 x Ember Spray 2 x Combustible 1 x Reliable Mail [SRC] F'talitie Level 4 Elf Warrior Nifty Halberd Blocking Axe Xander's Mail Bullseye Shield Bertha's Big Clogs Novice Slicing 4 x Weak Chop 1 x Able Bludgeon 2 x Slicer 3 x Officer's Harness 3 x Clumsy Chop 2 x Nimble Strike 2 x Catch Arrow 3 x Flimsy Block 1 x Walk 2 x Reliable Mail 1 x Missile Block [SRC] Disseev'r Level 4 Elf Priest St. Portia's Maul Dark Chain Shirt Bertha's Big Clogs Gray Prayer Beads Gray Prayer Beads Untrained Piety 1 x Hardy Mail 2 x Altruism 2 x Armor Of Faith 1 x Officer's Harness 3 x Consuming Spear 2 x Reliable Mail 3 x Strong Bludgeon 2 x Spear Of Darkness 2 x Entangling Roots 1 x Sapping Spear 1 x Defensiveness 1 x Walk The Fire Imp drew Brain Burn first turn. Hooray for small decks: Myx'd drew Resistant first turn. Still, Arcane Imps. F'talitie went first just to prep for next round; she was defenseless but had a Nimble Strike ready (for evasion or desperate attack). Disseev'r darted ahead with his Reliable Mail and immediately began soaking up enemy fire. Just fire. The Arcane Imps couldn't see him. When he'd beaten the Fire Imp to death, Myx'd came up finally and Ember Bursted smack in the middle of the opening portal and its three demons. Next round. Blocks and Armors kept the front targets alive -- until the team decided it was time to sacrifice for the good of the land. The portal must be closed. Firestorm! Firestorm! Win. Still round 2. Embarrassingly easy. $F^ D lol I changed my vote. I would've said "after many grueling attempts" except that the option describes difficulty, too. I changed to "difficulty seems about right -- or maybe kinda hard, but still fine." Yep, all it took was changing one's mindset, conceding to use fully new characters (outside all-one-race/class quests) in Campaign. Much to my surprise, I was still able to role-play it. That was a nice bonus that made it not feel like a mere completionist puzzle (which would still has its merits I realize). New current poll results: 1 (5.9%) call it a cake walk (+1 from last report) 9 (52.9%) beat it after some tries - difficulty is fine (+3) 2 (11.8%) beat it after many grueling attempts - difficulty is astonishingly high (~) 0 tried repeatedly without success - in contrast to other successful quests (-1) 4 (23.5%) beat it not, but tried not that many times yet either (+1) 0 simply have trouble with all quests (~) 1 (5.9%) played it not at all (~) Thanks again, folks -- and thanks to Robauke for linking a 1HP tips thread to everyone's methods here (including my own now). (On that note, I apologize but also find it funny: before starting this thread, I diligently searched for "Ruby Demon Portal" -- but not for 1HP quests in general. Ha. Ho boy.)
ok i managed to do it easily. i did die on the 2nd one, but only took 1 reset to get it done. this is my build 3 elves staff of the inferno x 2 , brin's storm locket x1, azgul's orb x 2, magma scepter x 1, firehide robes, drow rapidity, electroporter novice, glimmer boots staff of the inferno x 2 , brin's storm locket x1, chartwell's ring x 1, azgul's orb x 2, magma scepter x 1, firehide robes, drow rapidity, electroporter novice, glimmer boots staff of the inferno x 2 , magician's hat x 3, magma scepter x 1, firehide robes, drow rapidity, electroporter novice, glimmer boots the strat was, smoke so they can't range me afar. use firestorm and firehide. if no firehide, just move 1 elf at a time to get far from the others before firestorm suicide. this should weaken the enemies enuff to send the next kamikaze pilot. 3 kamikaze elves firestorming 1 at a time is enuff to get the job done. On the last stage, i also used the ember burst to cook the highest hp enemy more. also u need to be lucky that the enemy doesnt aoe magical attack your group, so i start off by moving my elves up 1 at a time, hiding them behind obstacles. just like the earlier stages, i send 1 elf away from my team mates, to suicide firestorm (with firehide u dont need to die, but if u dont have it, just suicide is fine) I soloed this using my own troops. co op... it depends who you play with. Some people are reckless and have no plan and have no teamwork and will just do whatever without working with the team strat...... *rolls eyes, other times u get team mates that know their stuff and do their job properly without having to babysit them. so up to u if u want to co op. i just mentioned i soloed this using my own team of 3 :} PS: on that last stage, if u pass long enuff, the ai will move those demons to the center. which is where you want them to be. the main thing to watch out for is if the boss decides to aoe burn you, which can hit you from your starting position if you are not careful or unlucky.
You absolutely need to draw firehide robes for the 3rd map, preferably multiple copies across your team. As such, it is (like some other 1HP quests) mainly down to luck when you get the right draw at the right time for this one. I eventually beat it with two priests with lots of card draw and one fire mage.
