This is the worst adventure, it's unfair, it's impossible (et cetera)

I stopped playing about a month ago because I only had the two monkey missions to choose from and a paid dungeon. I came back to try the game again as there had been a big update but the monkeys are still ridiculous. I think most people would just abandon the game at that point, especially as it's free to play. My guess is that people will have a lower threshold for giving up on a challenge when they have made no investment.

The monkeys need a serious re-think.

 

Yeah, the monkeys. As I said in another thread about overall game difficulty, it's not just that they're hard opponents - they're just plain frustrating to play against. After my first party beat the free campaign I started a second party, and I dreaded having to fight those wretched monkeys again. In fact, I hated them so much that when the time came for a third party I just skipped over the monkey adventures entirely...though I still had to fight a few in the tree adventures and such. Other fights are challenging, but fighting the monkeys just feels like work.

 

So I'm not sure if that was just pure luck or if reading these "Temple of Terror is so hard" threads clued me in to all the monkey's tricks, but I went into the fight prepared with all the tips I could get. I had plenty of block (used 2xBlocking Mace + Rageblood Dagger) on my warrior with some added mobility and penetration. My cleric had been using blocking and card draw for the first two maps, but switched to healing for the last map since it looked like I had really needed some against the monkeys. I had four copies of Impenetrable Nimbus, which ended up being critical, but two copies came from the Duality Mace which is a common item. My wizard had three copies of Firestorm and two copies of Wall of Fire, and while the Firestorm was ok for testing if the monkeys had blocks, it usually ended up weakening me along with my opponent and I think stacking more copies of Wall of Fire might have made for an easier time.

I went into the module completely psyched out and I was ready for having to manipulate every AI exploit available, but in the end I didn't think the last battle was as hard as the earlier ones with victory squares and/or Flying Monkeys. I saved my big attacks for the Hell Mantis and I always stayed out of melee range (with Bash and the like) so I am not even sure what sort of attacks the Mantis has. I can definitely see why monkeys are hard to fight and they remind me of Mom (the AI) with all their blocks, dodges, card drawing, and armor, but they fall to the same exploit she does. Stick Impenetrable Nimbus on a character and stick him out there as bait to soak up the attacks.

For me Impenetrable Nimbus was key, along with the usual Wall of Fire/Hot Spot AI exploitation. Duality Mace and Blistering Stone are common items that show up in the Goblin Bazar all the time, though, so it doesn't take very long to acquire them. I'll have to play the map again and see if I just got amazingly lucky draws this time round. (I just finished my first time playing the module.) Hopefully this helps someone who might be struggling.

 

Interesting - that's not the approach I use for the monkeys...I do own one Duality Mace, but I've never used it. I rely on mobility and discard to avoid the monkeys' blocks and making sure I can't be stabbed in the back/pickpocketed. Maybe I'll give Punching Bag With Nimbus a try at some point. Though I would expect eventually the AI might be tweaked to not fall for that trick.

 

I am utterly stuck at The Viscous Tombs and the Garnet demon portal. I've tried to do either 10+ times and failed utterly. I am about to ask someone to do them for me because I simply stopped playing because of how hard they are.
Tried changing my decks but that didn't change much. Any tips to grind XP and gold? Maybe if I get an orange orb I might be able to use the better gear I have.

 

I don't recall those being particularly difficult but it's been a while since I played them. Can you do other dungeons and level up?

For the Tombs you obviously have to make sure that you can damage both skeletons and slime which have complementary resistances to physical attacks (I think the slimes resist bashes while the skels resist pierce & slash), but magic works on both. Try something like lava tiles which have a high magic damage output.

 

Can't use orange orbs here; the level cap (on both adventures) limits you to 6 blue.

For the Tombs, remember that Only Bones and Amorphous Body are armor cards, so give your wizard as much armor destruction as you can. But that won't help much, since it's Garnet that unlocks the next map.

Garnet and Cockroaches (unlocked by Garnet) defeated me more than any other maps in the game. I used elves (to rush them with Elvish Mobility) and as much magic defense as I had (Shimmering Aura, Resistant Hide, Missile Block). But the fourth map was still freakishly hard.

 

For grinding XP, pick the highest-level adventure you enjoy and can beat without too much trouble, and play it often, I guess. For grinding gold...play everything from level 1 up, every day? You should be able to pretty much walk through the early stuff now that you have three characters and higher-level items. Even fights where your level is reduced and you can't use items with power tokens, your level 6 and 7 items will let you breeze through adventures that were a struggle when you were starting out. And hey, you might get a cool rare item that will still be useful to you later in the game.

Other people seemed to have advice for the Tomb, so I thought I'd go back to the Garnet Demon Portal and see what the problem might be.

General advice: It's often better to kill a group of characters than one or two from multiple groups. So in an adventure like the Garnet Demon Portal, with two or three varieties of enemy in every fight, if you manage to kill something, try to kill its friends next. Also pertaining to multiple groups, if you're having trouble moving your fighter in to hit things because they keep running away, try if possible to move adjacent to characters from two different groups if they're standing near each other. One might run away on the next action, but the other will be stuck there where you can hit them. Also, in maps like these that are full of blocking terrain, try to chase down an enemy who has already acted. You might put yourself out of range of another, active enemy in the process, and it will be one less hit you take. Of course, if you have your choice of which enemy to kill, always kill enemies that haven't acted yet.

The adventure as a whole: Missile Block is your best friend ever in this adventure. There are some great shields for that at lower levels - Maple Shield is an uncommon level 7 that I quite like, since it gives you two Missile Blocks and the third card is a Jarring Block, which is also pretty reliable. Forget Parry and things that only work vs melee, because I don't think any of the enemies are running a single melee attack. If you can't give both your fighter and your priest (assuming you have those) at least 2 Missile Blocks each with their shields I'd suggest trying the low-level shops.

I didn't see any armor the whole adventure, so just go for massive damage and forget Penetrating and anti-armor cards. Cards that discard in general (Wavering Faith, etc) might still be useful, but I wouldn't focus on them much. Also I wouldn't bother with Chops, because you'll rarely get two people to stand still next to each other for you (possible exception is the last room with its Objective Spaces). Bashing enemies away is counterproductive this time around. One enemy the whole fight used a Dodge on me, but I didn't see any blocks, so don't worry too much about maneuvering behind things. With enemies like this that run away and shoot at you, attacks that let you step are great...but they're pretty much always great, so I'm not sure how useful that piece of advice is.

Round 1: 2 Arcane Imps, 2 Frost Imps, 2 Lightning Imps : It seems hard not to be in the line of fire of at least one enemy, but each time you move try to make sure you're going in the direction you want to go but also that you're getting out of the line of fire of something that hasn't acted yet. Most of these enemies don't appear to teleport, so you can herd them into corners or surround them from either side. Even if it takes two characters to kill one, that's one fewer shooting at you in the next round. Purge will knock off the encumbering cards stuck on you by the frost imps if you have access to it.

Room 2: 3 Lightning Imps, 3 Fire Sprites

Armor is your friend against burning damage, and with three enemies handing it out I'd prioritize armor for this fight. I like Reliable armor because it puts me less at the mercy of randomness, but if that's not preventing enough damage feel free to aim higher and try your luck. With so many small-value batches of damage being thrown at you it doesn't seem worth the risk, though.

Room 3: 2 Frost Imps, 3 Arcane Sprites

Now we're getting tricky. Mind Drain and Memory Loss make it hard to rely on your armor. Also, these cards hit your new turn's movement card if you haven't used it. Make sure to prioritize who needs to move just in case the movement card gets erased from your hand. Did they have those cards in round 1? Probably, but I didn't see them in that first fight.

Room 4: 3 Lightning Imps, 2 Fire Sprites, 1 Acid Sprite

Wow, it's tough to close on these guys, and they can ping at you while you're advancing on that narrow opening. I hid behind walls round 1 to see if I could draw some armor. If you have one character who actually did draw armor they can move into the square viewable by just about everything and soak up hits before the other characters move out. Once again, I'd try to avoid being in the line of fire of active enemies as you get closer to them.

Lightning Imps have Teleport, so cornering them is tough. The Acid Sprite can melt off your armor, so I'd try to kill him first if you can. Then you might be able to rely on armor against the Fire Sprites, at least, while you take on the Lightning Imps.

Room 5: 2 Fire Sprites, 2 Acid Sprites, 2 Arcane Sprites. Objective spaces!

Killing things and staying alive is more important than fighting for the objective spaces. The more things you kill, the better your chances of holding the space later, anyway. They need to hold the center for a lot of turns to beat you that way, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Chops might be practical for this fight as the enemies cluster in the center of the map, but I wouldn't break a winning formula that's gotten you this far just to put them in. Turning squares into Lava or Spikes can be extra handy here. Just like last fight, I'd say kill the Acid Sprites first to preserve your armor...followed by the Arcane Sprites to preserve your armor. Man, I love armor.

 

Armor is, by and large, very good in the single player game. Especially any armor with Keep and a low die threshold. I had almost forgotten that because it's generally much less useful in multiplayer where I spend my time now.

 

I'm stuck fast on Morvin's Revenge. First of all you have OMG COCKROACHES EVERYWHERE and they seem to always have Resistant Hide which shuts down fire and lightning, making my wizard largely useless. There's little room to maneuver, so you face hordes of bites. They're tough to kill in numbers because 5 hp + armor means that melee is slow and unreliable. The door is tough unless you have fire. And Morvin himself throws poison around.

More arcane for the wizard? No wizard at all? I'm thinking of replacing the wizard with a dwarf warrior, because who cares about movement when there's nowhere to move.

EDIT: And never mind. Lots of Blocks, more heals, and some Mighty Hacks ended things nicely.

 

This (and Garnet) gave me more trouble than any other dungeons in the campaign. I finally beat it by giving my wizard all the armor destruction and Firestorm I could (always double check that all the Hides are gone before Firestorming). Giving your warrior and priest lots of 7+ damage attacks also helps (I had a Dark Drewg's Mace, which I now call "Roachstomper").

 

For Garnet Demon Portal I primarily focused on Missile Block and Path Of Knives is amazing, since the sprites are so skittish you can pretty easily get them to kill themselves for you. I think i also used Hot Spot, Impenetrable Nimbus, Wall Of Stone with some long range sparks. Priest had heals, group moves and drain attacks, warrior had high damage cards for the 1 hit KO if i ever got close enough, otherwise i just had him tank for the wizard.

 

I must have tried Goblins in the Woods level 2 thirty times now. It seems like no matter what combinations of people/items I use (that I have, anyway) I just can't beat it. And given I'm woefully bad at multiplayer, it seems like I either troll through lower level dungeons for more items, or I just give the game up. The only strategy I've been able to find involves "using walls" - but of all the items I have that create walls, they all require major tokens, and my guys don't have major tokens, so I can't use them. Oh well. Given that there's no other adventures for me to do to move forward, I guess I'm stuck here.

 

I think I had my warrior focus on chops and armor, frenzy for my priest, and maybe lava for my wizard. Bashes and force spells may also work well.

 

Honestly never had a problem with any of the monkey adventures. I find that if I load up my warrior with heavy armor and a bunch of chops, she can basically take out all the war monkeys by herself. They swarm all over her, and then she tears them to pieces. The other characters can assist by boiling armor, healing, or even just zapping monkeys in the back. There's almost always a war monkey facing the wrong direction, so if you don't want to feed them cards you don't have to.

Considering how horribly dangerous the Trees are, I was extremely relieved to find a simple mop-up operation against War Monkeys in there.

Regular War Monkeys have basic armor cards that are 4+ and prevent 2 damage; they have an acrobatic block that shifts the monkey and the attacker when used; they have the simian reflexes card that gives them a chance to draw a card whenever they are targeted from the front. And of course, their basic move card is a 3 square free move.
Monkey attacks all do five points of damage, and some of them have a rider if they attack you from the back.
Flying Monkeys have a different set that is mostly geared towards ranged combat, most notably "Duck", a ranged block that lets them keep the attack card they blocked.

This is all pretty good, but it's also pretty disorganized. If you go after them with pretty good armor and a plan, you can wipe them out. That plan could be based on fire sprays, step-attacks, cone of cold, or just heavy focused damage. Once you accept that you're absolutely definitely going to be stuck in the middle of a pack of war monkeys (unless you lay down an emcumber effect right away), it's not actually terribly difficult. Also remember that your facing changes when you make an attack, so try to target enemies that haven't acted and are currently behind you.

-Frank

 

Whirlwind Enemies and Winds of War are very useful in the monkey adventures and any adventure with some blocking terrain and/or slow moving enemies. My favorite tactic:
- concentrate all range attacks, keep the group close, keep close range attacks, don't keep moves
- the second round, go for the kill on a few enemies
(use but don't wait for burn damage: one dead enemy is better than two burning enemies)
- when your health gets low, use WE or WoW, swarm the single monster that ends up close and/or heal up for one or two rounds while running to a choke point
At the war monkey levels your wizard should be able to get 4 magic items with one WoW card each.

I am stuck at the wyvern level and just reminded myself I have not tried the WoW tactic yet. Unfortunately the wyverns have very long range attacks, which is the one problem WoW does not work as well for. But I am still going to give it a try. Nothing else seems to work.

 

Well I just finished campaign for the 2nd time now (1st time was in beta) and it was pretty fast and easy.I could have finished it in the 2nd of 3rd day after the release.I'm lucky I focused more on Mp and got some great items,my warrior had 4 cards with 14 dmg and 2 with 17,priest 2 with 14 and other great stuff and the mage did pretty well with his lightning stuff.

 

What is the main problem you're having with the wyverns?

If it's their armor, just make sure you have enough anti-armor cards. Boiling Armor, Dissolve Armor etc.

If it's catching them, make sure you have good boots (preferably with Sprint or Wild Run), step attacks and team moves.

If it's the amount of ranged damage the wyverns do, make sure you have good enough armor. The best options are of course Resistant Hide for the wizard and Grounding Plates for the fighter but even regular armor cards like Reliable Mail will help a lot. Grounding Plates can take a little luck to find though.

(Haven't yet gotten to that fight after the launch but this is what I remember from beta...)

 

Don't change a thing. My party is level 18 right now; what I've discovered is that when a fight seems easy, it's because I have an answer for everything the bad guys brought, purely by accident. When a fight seems hard, stepping back and analyzing has always shown that the enemy was exploiting an advantage, and I wasn't countering by playing on their weaknesses. Those berserkers hit like trucks -- but while they're approaching, those Raging Strikes make them beautiful Ember Burst targets. Those ogres are nightmares in melee -- if they can get there! That cursed dog in Lord Batford's Manor is the living avatar of some old god of death -- but when he runs out of cards, the priest doesn't have to be out of heals; the mage doesn't have to be out of terrain effects to hurt him for standing still; I don't have to rely on Parry when Dodge would have worked beautifully.

Please don't "balance" the game to the point where it doesn't require strategic thought; it's often more enjoyable than the tactical play.

 

I did the wyvern adventure with no special armor and a party one level higher than the adventure. A mage with four Boiling Armor and a lot of lava effects will work wonders. Remember that if a clutch of five hatchlings are all sharing the same cards, one Boiling Armor strips them all down to the skin. Plan target priority accordingly and pour damage on in one or two rounds before they can draw more armor.