So, what am I doing wrong?

I have my characters to level 5, and I seem to have hit a wall as far as advancing. I can't seem to reliably complete level 3 or 4 adventures, and I'm stuck repeating the same fights over and over trying to get gold to buy some better gear I'm hoping will pop up in one of the stores, maybe at some point?

It's been suggested I try multiplayer, but I haven't gotten to the tutorial for that yet, so I really don't know what I'm doing. Tried to get a casual game going, but I just sit there waiting... Missed out on the first Treasure Hunt because I got thrown in at level 5 and just couldn't handle the skeletons at all.

My party is: Human Fighter, Elf Wizard, Dwarf Cleric. I've been collecting piles of low-level loot and tried experimenting with stuff, but all of the good items seem to require talents. My biggest problem seems to be just not drawing the cards I need consistently; it seems like I'll have one round where one of my characters either can't get where they need to be or else can't actually do anything once they're there and once I lose one character things tend to go downhill pretty quickly. I've had several fights that I was simply blasting through and then suddenly none of my armor will activate and I have no heals left and a character just gets blasted down...

Anyway, there doesn't seem to be any way to do a spoiler block, so I'll omit actually listing all of the gear and skills I have for now...

 

None of the four level-3-or-4-adventures, huh? That's . . . a remarkable challenge (for suggesting strategies), as those four are about as varied as can be.

Lair of the Trog Wizard -- Strategically, this is similar to Caverns of the Troglodytes. If you could handle the challenges of the latter (range-2 enemies, terrain), how are you doing now?

Highway Robbery -- Yeah, Block cards mess with people. Are you good at bypassing Blocks?

Ruby Demon Portal -- People complain about the last map, but not generally the ones before it. Also, many of these enemies use weak Burning cards, so those Flimsy Block cards you mentioned SHOULD be helpful. Are you getting stopped at the last map?

Dungeon of the Lizard Priest -- Fast enemies who also attack at range 2, plus other horrible things. Let's work on the other adventures before this one.

So, thoughts?

 

If hes struggling with all those my guess would be he is lacking reliable armor on his warrior at least.

 

Gear can certainly be a problem, especially at lower levels. MP rewards may help a little, but they seem fairly random.


From what you're saying, it sounds to me like you need to focus on mobility and positioning more, especially for your Warrior. This was a problem I had when I first started out and hit that level as well. For Warriors and Priests, Step and Range 2 attacks will give you a little extra reach. However, you may want to consider thinking about broader tactics as well. The best position for your characters may not be next to enemies. For example, if the AI passes first, you can force them to waste that turn moving up to you instead of attacking if you move away. For ranged enemies, you can often utilize blocking terrain to move forward with being attacked, though it may take a round or two more. Also, ranged melee attackers generally like to stay at range; you can use this to your advantage against enemies like Trogs to get them to burn their move cards. Finally, look for choke points where you can limit attacks against you - enemies that can't attack are basically wasting turns. Along those lines, keep in mind which minions have attacked and which have not. You can use them to your advantage as well.

 

Some general newb questions:
1) What happens when you run out of cards? Do you reshuffle or what? I don't recall this being explained in-game and I haven't noticed...
2) What happens when you take a higher-level party through a lower-level adventure? I just noticed that some of them are grayed-out... I get popped into the character setup screen, and I don't think I get XP, but again this isn't really explained in-game.
3) Likewise, is there a rhyme and reason to item pricing / talent requirements? I'd assume that higher level / rarer items will cost more, and items with talent reqs would be better overall, but the prices seem inconsistent, I think? Should I be re-checking the stores to find bargains or what?Are there versions of the same item with and without talent requirements? (And you get your first talent point at what level? I was kinda hoping 5, but no such luck...)

Ah, OK, I will try a ranked battle and see how it goes.

Yeah, I kind of feel like I don't have the gear to go for a ''build'', but also there's a lot of low-level gear that I'm just flat-out avoiding at this point. Anything that deals damage to me seems like a bad idea, since I seem to end many battles with only a single character standing...

Yeah, unfortunately I don't have that much of a consistent problem (that I can identify) other than that I don't seem to end up drawing the cards I need. I can get through these adventures, but not consistently. And I'm certainly not playing perfectly, but I find myself looking at my cards and just being at a loss too often for my liking.

My warrior currently has 7 Stabs, 2 Shifty Stabs, and a Lunging Hack, but the terrain kills me and the Trogs often end up 4+ squares away when I have them in my hand, I have to discard and they draw another hand full of damage. idk, he has 31 cards in his deck, 20 attacks and 2 traits, and yet still seems really inconsistent at dealing out damage. Turns when I have the cards to attack with I don't have the movement to reach and vice-versa.

My Wizard has a number of Hard To Block attacks, but it's really the Brutes that mess me up. The first one you encounter, by itself, seems to either go down in two turns after doing not much of anything or else just blow through my characters. The final encounter is just brutal, I can't usually completely avoid the brute and have to sacrifice a character to slow it down, then he usually beats me up really bad before going down, and the Priest can often finish me off after that... I have won the battle, but it just seems like I've had much more trouble than I think I should.

Ah, see, I wasn't aware that you could block ongoing damage... I think I may have discarded my blocks when they could have been useful. I have the Cover Shield now, not sure if the Missile Blocks would work (does it count as magic?). Mostly the Imps just spread out and I have to either split up to try and deal with them or else group up and then I get sprays from the one I'm engaging plus ranged attacks from the others I think? I haven't actually mad it to the last encounter in that dungeon, I don't think.

lol... Lizard Priest I actually managed to claw my way through. (I think I just liked the cover-art so much I had to keep trying, lol...)

I have the Reinforced Hide Armor now, but I was running with the Sharp Shell before that (it just seemed like a better choice than the Chain Scraps, I think?, or whatever I had before that?) But with the Rusty Armor on the boots I only have a total of 4 armor cards (and 3 blocks), and there seem to be several enemy attacks that force me to discard armor (Imps in particular, iirc), whereas I can't really do the same (I'm so glad the Wizard's Workshop is grayed out now... not that hard but just really long, boring fights).

Terrain and movement are definitely an issue for me. I have a bunch of Stabs and Shifty / Lunging on my Warrior, but it never seems to be enough. Even my Wizard has serious problems, with a lot of range 2 attacks, and I end up waffling back and forth about cones. Passing against the AI never seems to work out for me - if I have a bunch of attacks I want to use it just seems to pass as well and I have to discard them. I've thought about trying to delay a turn at the start of each fight so I can stack my hands at least a little, but it never really seems to work out for me.

 

Let's see if I can answer these before someone else posts! Whee!

. . . Nope, Pengw1n beat me! Oh well.

Reshuffle, as he said.

Your XP depends on relative level, like this.

The price you get when you sell an item is based on rarity ONLY. Among other things, this is intended to make all adventures in the game worth replaying. The price for buying in the store is generally based on rarity, but it is multiplied if you're trying to "jump ahead" in power levels and buy something several levels above your highest-level character. Like this.

What exactly? And you can use those buttons in the top right of your text window to make something a "card" or "item" link, like so: Arcane Feedback, Obscure Stone. This way, we can advise: for instance, if suffering a little Arcane Feedback would get you some REALLY AWESOME cards, it's probably worth the risk.

For this and other comments, I'd go back to the "try movement" advice. Not just YOUR movement, but THEIRS: see the cards on that Obscure Stone? A single Force Bolt will keep the Brute a square away from your Warrior; whom, you just told me, has good range 2 Attacks. Anything you can do beyond "movement means getting me next to the enemy" makes you more versatile.

For instance, you mentioned short range on your Wizard. That's perfectly okay IF you are in control of everybody's movement: watch how the enemies move and prepare your own moves to leave them standing inside your range. To be clear, here's a basic one that just depends on your default Move card, and no special equipment:

Your Priest and your Wizard are standing next to each other. A range-1 enemy stands a few tiles away on the Priest's side. Don't play any Move card: instead, do anything else and wait for the enemy to step next to your Priest. Your Priest, in response, will play a single Move card to get to the exact other side of your Wizard. The enemy is now at range 2 for your Wizard and you are safe. What do you do if the enemy has a spare Move card and closes with your Wizard? No problem: your Wizard hasn't moved yet, and steps anywhere at range 2 that looks good to you. You are now safe again.

Ah, so you ARE having problems with Armor, too. See Wavering Faith (discard), Penetrating Zap (Penetrating ability), and so on. I find The Wizard's Workshop to be fun (love those mechanical sound effects) and a good source of loot!

Does this help?

 

I hope so!

Thanks to everyone for being so helpful in responding to all of my newbishness... I'm trying to digest all of this / waiting to have time to actually try a few more adventures... I'm kind of fearing that I'm going to 1) spend a lot more time grinding out gold to buy more stuff, and 2) going to have to be swapping gear around a lot to deal with different adventures, as well as failing through them to figure out whats up...

 

I'm a little late to the party but I had the low-level-blues too for a little while, I can share some of what worked for me, and see if it will help:

* Re-run low level adventures with a different party. 3 wizards is *fun*, 3 priests sucks a lot less than you might think. The lower level adventures give exactly the same amount of gold as the higher level ones, along with a lot of loot that could be useful. You're still grinding here, but it's a lot more fun when you're seeing different aspects of the game and getting xp.

* There are a number of ways to deal with blocks:

• You can lure them out with mass attacks especially chops and fire-cones, where you can proc multiple, and things like Bad Medicine where you probably have it to get something else on your card. Sometimes you'll want to stockpile attacks for a round.
• You can hit people in the back. Step-cards are amazing for this, and elves are neat, but what you really want to do is try to get a character on either side of an enemy so you can hit him the back, he turns around and you can hit him again in his.... other.... back. Hit him in the back again.
• You can bypass them with ground-altering attacks

* Some of the drawbacks are not as bad as they seem, and you can work around most of them. For example, Squeamish characters can be a little annoying sometimes, but you can usually just have them attack before someone else, and if they're a fire mage or a healer you don't care at all! Defensiveness can be very limiting on some maps, but it usually comes attached to quite long range cards, so especially as your mage is elven, if you can favour longer-ranged, or hang onto good cards for a couple of turns, it's often fine.
I had Arcane Feedback in my deck for the longest time, and only got zapped by it a couple of times - you just hold back for a turn and discard it. I've only just recently (like around level 14ish) got staves good enough that I stopped slotting Unstable Bolt. I even discovered unstable bolt because I was trying out Defensiveness
This applies to the two-sided cards as well. Misguided Heal is awesome, and Wavering Faith can be useful. Violent Overswing is a monstrously big card when you get it.
Try out some bad cards, and see whether you can make them work. The gear with the bad cards on them often have really sweet stuff to balance.

 

I haven't had a huge amount of time to play the last few days, but I finally managed to make it through the Ruby Demon Portal, and re-ran some of the lower-level dungeons. The Portal was a bit annoying - I lost my second try from being disconnected, and then I kind of only accidentally won the last battle; all of the enemies ran off of the objective squares away from my Fighter this time, and then a couple of turns later I didn't realize that I was 1 star away from a win and almost gave up...

That's a decent idea. My issue with re-running low-level dungeons is that it takes too long and I don't get much out of it. I end up spending all the time I have for the game getting a bunch the same items I've already got / seen.

I don't feel like I'm having that much trouble dealing with the blocks or armor on the monsters. They can be annoying, especially when you get a golem with three or four armor cards and you have to sit through the die-rolling animations for every single attack, but at that point if I have any attacks at all I'm going to be out-damaging it and it's just a matter of slogging through to the win.

I haven't tried Defensiveness or Misguided Heal because I haven't seen them on an item that otherwise seemed worthwhile. I guess Misguided Heal would actually be better than Minor Heal if armor stopped some of the damage? Would blocks activate against it, and if so what would happen? Bad Medicine I can't see using - am I missing something? Violent Overswing is actually really awesome, I wouldn't consider it a drawback card at all, but Wavering Faith seems way too situation, I tried it for a bit, but didn't really seem to be getting anything out of it. My Wizard actually has a couple of Memory Losses now, and it seems like it should be good, but in play I seem to just end up using it to stall instead of passing (because of the range on it) a lot. Actually, I have two Kobold Killers , and as soon as I can slot Focused Bruiser I may try equipping both of them.

 

Defensiveness is on a common bangle that gives hot spot... which at low levels is basically the best spell in the game.

Misguided heal: this is a great heal if you have any decent armor on the character. Blocks never activate against friendly fire.

Bad medicine is very useful as 4 unblockable damage against a full health character. It's a good opener. Even against a damaged character it's still 2 unblockable damage.

Wavering faith is a good armor remover, as armor is often the oldest card in the enemy hand. If you use it as the last card in your priest's hand you don't lose an extra card.

 

Misguided heal was my go-to heal until I started getting the +4 heal cards. A guaranteed 2 heal, with the potential to heal 4 if armour blocks the damage--it was great. It also has the ability to finish off weakened enemies.

I found bad medicine was only useful as an opener on undamaged enemies, but the 4 damage is nice.

Area denial attacks are great for controlling enemies and killing goblin brutes (hot spot)--just get them to burn all of their movement cards then you guarantee 1/3 of their health is gone.

Force bolt is essential for controlling the field early on.

Don't be afraid to retreat!

 

There's a menu option that speeds up animations, including die-rolling, that you might appreciate.