Team Building and Progress Advice

[Nine]

Hey everybody, I am looking for some general advice as well as help with some more specific questions. I really appreciate anybody taking the time, forgive me the post got rather long...

At this moment I am making my way through Underworld Hard as well as Battlefield Madness and while the first nodes are rather easy I struggle about 4 and 5 nodes in - and struggling actually means I hit a wall. While Troopers help, my Team on its own gets either killed off by Gunner Bomber Boys or Trolls.


So my first rather broad question is regarding Team building and how to improve my current Characters: Where do you see room for improvement?

Getting what I consider some really really lucky pulls from souls my current team looks like this:

Samurai Eddie (5 Stars/Level 69): Two Health - Overwhelming (4/23 and 3/30), three Strength - Fierce (4/23,3/28,3/28), one Strength - Safeguard (4/27).

Speed of Light Eddie (4/80): Two Health - Ward (3/25,3/10), one Health - Mystical (4/23), one Holy - Power (4/22), one Holy - Arcane (3/10).

Wicker Man (4/77): two Guardian - Safeguard (3/28), two Strength - Fierce (4/27,3/28), one Energy - Overwhelming (4/23).

Masked Harpy (4/76): one Holy - Power (4/31), two Boost - Bulwark (4/22,3/25), two Shock - Arcane (3/27,3/23).

Warrior Golden Son (4/62): two Energy - Overwhelming (3/14,3/18), one Energy - Mystical (3/20), two Burning - Fierce (3/20).


As the third Eddie I prefer Fear of the Dark over Soldier at the moment due to my lack in decent Sentinel Characters. He wears two Iron and three Health Talismans which are all mid three Stars since I have switching around a bit lately making it difficult for me to judge him - he was interesting with an Energy Set.


Up until recently I used a team of SE, Wickerman and Masked Harpy which focused excusively on damage (and the occasional buff) and switched to SoL whenever the damage taken got to great or to prohibit enemy buffs. Worked great up unto the Point where the damage gets too much to heal it or the enemy team is able to heal themselves when my only burst damager remains the Wickerman.
Now I got the idea to try Energy Set on the Golden Son and what should I say: The damage is incredible. Devastate and either Ronin Slash or Furious Charge nearly every round blows much of what I encountered away. The questions would be if this is valid later on or too easy to counter. Since I am still experimenting the Talismans on the Golden Son aren't really leveled which makes him kinda squishy and once he is gone the fun is over. The probably even more severe problem might be the actual really boring strategy of doing the same thing basically every single round with only slight adjustments...

Alternative Characters I have gotten so far (and I consider worth to mention): Desert Warrior (had quite some fun with his dot-depending true damage before I pulled other characters), Magus Allied Soldier (pulled today, yay), Wickerdog Queen, Undead Axis Gunner, Sentinel Corrupt Rescuer, Pharao Sun Spirit, Assassin and Warrior Soulless Demon (having absolutely no problem getting red characters from Souls as you might see...)

Alternative Talismans: Several Blind Sets, a Stone Sets (only Ward), Ascension Set, Freezing Set (considered putting it on the Harpy), several Assassin Sets, a Void Set, another Energy Set.


Going form there I'd also be grateful for suggestions where to spend Ironite and especially Trooper points. I consider buying Winter Souls, not because of the event characters but because of the possibilty to get Gunner/Asssassins and right now I would spend my Trooper points mainly on blue Souls since from what I've seen the Magi are preferrable over most Sentinels and the price for yellow/purple Souls seems rather steep to me at this point.

I hope the background wasn't too specific and you got some advice for me. I read quite a lot on the forums while I was locked out from the game for 10 days so I hope I got the basics covered but you never know - great thanks by the way to anybody contributing here.

I'll end with some more specific questions just thrown out there:

1) What should be my priority for leveling and evolving Talismans?

2) Is it possible to acquire Guardian - Fierce Talismans at the moment?

3) Where can I get Guard Talismans?

4) Is there some more or less reliable place to get Talisman XP-Runes?

5) Is Roulette the main reason most here consider Soldier Eddie pretty great? I feel I am missing something about him

6) Is a team relying on burning procs headed by Wicker Man Eddie viable?

7) Last but not least I would welcome suggestions where to spend Skillshard. Considering their price I am kinda hesitant to spend them without knowing their acutal use on a character

[Nifelheim]

2) Is it possible to acquire Guardian - Fierce Talismans at the moment?
Yes through secret locations
3) Where can I get Guard Talismans?
They hasn't dropped in awhile, but used to be allied kingdom
4) Is there some more or less reliable place to get Talisman XP-Runes?
Generally the higher the stage/difficulty
5) Is Roulette the main reason most here consider Soldier Eddie pretty great? I feel I am missing something about him
I never use roulette. He's popular to me for his decent attack and being a gunner. His fury used to be great.
6) Is a team relying on burning procs headed by Wicker Man Eddie viable?
It's ok but I would revisit that idea later as you get stronger


7) Last but not least I would welcome suggestions where to spend Skillshard. Considering their price I am kinda hesitant to spend them without knowing their acutal use on a character
I wouldn't use any until your character is at level 100, and then on the Eddie you use the most

Reply is in the quotes

[mjmxiii]

I think most of us have been at this point of the game. Took me a long time to figure out why I couldn't progress any further. I didn't beat those levels until I started leveling up my main characters. I would take a closer look at the DEF stats of your team and try to work on talisman combo sets that boost you up to 500 DEF or better... (Speedy, Masked Harpy and Warrior Golden Son are cool but weak defensively).

After that try getting as far as possible in the Lord of Light dungeons and start leveling up your core 5! Winning these levels (7 through 10) will give you what you need to level up those 4* toons. I'd focus on that as opposed to building up talismans. Finding the materials to level up your team is easier than the hunt for Talisman runes. I found it beneficial to have one of each class in my core 5. They remain my "go to" team to this day...

Scary (FotD), Grimey (Grim Reaper), Grunt (Soldier), Golden Ass (Mr. Purple) and Warrior Troll (No nickname, he's a troll).

Also, be aware that the Trolls will kill you, your FotD has a move called 'Spread Terror' that blocks beneficial effects and really ruins the enemies day. It won't disable the passive abilities (this is the part where the person who has The Prisoner will tell you to use him because his passive ability blocks enemy passives) but it will prevent enemies from boosting themselves up. Once you build up FotD, he will give your team a big defensive boost. I would recommend starting the rounds with FotD and hitting the Trolls (or any enemy that can boost performance) with that skill I mentioned.

This reply will get really long if I start on Talismans... look at my team, see how I'm trying to build sets for each character? It's a process that will take time (or ironite) to achieve and I'm still (always) learning but hopefully it might help you see the different ways to use them to boost chars as best as you can to optimize their skill set while also boosting the right stats. Be happy if you can get the ones you use at 3* max at the point you're at without buying the Talisman packs.

Best to use skill shards on the char you use the most but remember that they apply randomly and may not boost the skill you use most. I made the mistake of not identifying that I was wasting them on the wrong characters so hold on to them if you aren't sure where to go with them.

I would spend ironite on the Talisman and Power Up Packs and not much else if I were you!! Save those Trooper points for Skill Shards!!

[Nine]

Thanks a lot for the replies, especially for the amount of detail you went into, mjmxiii.

Prioritizing character leveling over talismans comes kind of suprising to me, but given how hard it is to come by a decent amount of xp-runes it probably makes sense. However, I cannot judge how well the farming of 3*-shards will go.

I was aware of spreading terror and in fact used the similar SoL-ability (which is practically costless with the downside of being cleanseable, but that's not really an issue from what I've seen). I highly doubt I would have gotten as far as I did without it.

Glad to hear from both of you that it was a good choice to keep the skill shards.

I have to admit I already discarded one advice the two of you agreed on and spent Ironite on 10 Winter Souls. While the Talisman packs seem kinda interesting I feel that the Character Power up packs are ridiculously priced for what they include. Buying 3 packs to evolve one single character from 4* to 5* doesn't sound like a good deal to me.

Turns out luck struck again and while I got two more harpies and two more cultists I now have an Assassin Golden Son in my possession (additional to that I got a Snowman, a Gunner Bomber Boy and a Gunner possessed Rockets, plus an additional Warrior Golden Son and something I don't remember. For me it is a pretty decent mix). I have a maxed one in my Trooper list so I broadly knew what I could expect and I wasn't disappointed. Loving him since the first match and quickly beat purple LoL VIII, IX and X with him (from the Achievement Soul I got a Gunner Corrupt Droid).

The Team I am using mostly now is consisting of the two Sons plus SoL-Eddie for Support. Unless the opposite team can dispell, it seems basically unkillable while still dealing some decent damage.

Not only because of the new Characters there are some more questions that came up in the meantime:

What is general opinion around here on the Gunner Bomber Boy? Seems there is not too much written about him in Character discussion but the Sentinel version seems to be the favoured one? I tried him in LoL and his Power ability seems really nice with a DoT-heavy team, although I was kinda bumbed it consumes the burns on use (contrary to the Desert Warrior). Not sure how good he is in a three man team...

Can anybody offer an evaluation of the Void Talisman set? Tried it on the Assassin Golden Son and immediately liked it - since it procs every time he uses the basic attack.

How exactly do proc chances of Talisman Sets, e.g. Burning Talisman stack? Either set has an independent chance of proccing? Resulting in the chance of getting a void Shield with a single attack when using to sets of 1-(0,65*0,65)=0,5775 as opposed to the individual chances just being add up (0,35+0,35=0,7)?


If anybody has further suggestions regarding character synergies they are most welcome.

[Nifelheim]

Void is ok, I have vampiric on mine. You can add me as a friend, he's my leader card and will help you through any stage.

[mjmxiii]

Yeah the Power up packs only give you half of the materials needed to power up your char. But it is a much faster method than farming. I guess that goes the same for Talisman packs... I gotta say that I do really enjoy playing the game so the grind has never really bothered me!

Void is cool but I think all purple Talisman are pretty cool when you have the right mix (3 shield, 3 barrier) on one char. Get that mix going with the Assassin GS and your team will become more formidable.

Using Vampiric and Assassin Talisman on my golden son and Assassin and void on my troll.... it takes one strike from each to advance on most levels..

[Nine]

What I see it is actually three packs, one yields 2 3*shards of the 6 needed. Which makes 1350 Ironite for a single 5*char, meh.

The Assassin Golden Son is amazing, he is now the first character I was able to evolve to 5*. I just finished the Beast on Hard without any Troopers due to him(although I needed two revives. One after an unlucky dispell at wave three and one at the beast just before I could take the killing blow). Too bad neither magic nor physical charge work on him.

I'd add you, Nifelheim, if you give me your complete ID - or simply add me ingame.

After my good expirience with Souls I got a second ten (didn't spend any ironite on anything except an occassional revive before, so I had a fair amount):
7 times chars I already got, and I really haven't gotten that many, including 2 SoL, another Warrior Golden Son and 3-4 Harpies (get them all the time). Additional to that I got a Desert Rider, which is pretty underwhelming to me and not one, but two Coalgiver Eddies. Not gonna complain about the char - especially with a lot people wanting him - but this feels like a joke. No more bought souls for me...


Ending with another question: Are there nice alternative combinations than SoL/Samurai Eddie and Warrior GS to pair with Assassin GS given what I have available?

[mjmxiii]

Smart to level up that GSA asap... the first thing I have to suggest looking at your team, is to replace the Shock Talisman you have on your GSA with the two Assassin shield you got sitting there. He's a true damage char that will benefit greatly from the 15% boost in ATK and MAG. It would also boost his DEF stats a bit which helps you not having to cast his Endure power all the time.

Out of the rest of the available chars you have there are two I highly recommend you also focus on...

1) Wicker Man is a DEF team booster that also has high ATK number and hits all enemies. If you don't use him too much, you should try him out more.

2) One thing I like about Soldier Ed is that he is going to run into more chars that have a neutral effect attacking him. It's only when you run into Assassin chars that he might have trouble and if you use the right talismans he is one of the more versatile Eds in the game.

Other than that you are well on your way!

[Nine]

Thanks again for the advice, really appreciate it!

I now replaced the Talismans, although I actually I think I'll put them back on if I farm LoL again to provide Dot's for the gunner. Basically one-shotting the final boss in the second turn is too nice to give up

I do like the Wicker Man and used him a lot, first in a Team with Samurai Eddie and the Masked Harpy, then with SE and WGS. The all warrior team was pretty much the first team with real synergies I had and I probably will go back to the Wicker Man once I am not that dependent on the energy from WGS. Having that in mind I am now facing the question if I wanna evolve Wicker Man or WGS to 5*. I got enough shards for one but since I spent 130 SoT yesterday for just one purple 3*shard, the final one, I am not going to grind for 5 red ones today. I'll probably go for GWS but not sure yet.

Regarding Soldier Eddie, I get while people like him but I have to say I am not the biggest fan somehow. Maybe it is because I had much more Power problems when I first used him. I somehow like Roulette but with SoL on the team the healing is overshadowed and I find the buffs to be too unreliable. Roar seems to me like wasting a turn with 25% to not waste it. Now that I got AGS I have no need for Endure from him although Immunity is great - too bad it only affects one ally. The problem I have now is that I cannot really judge his offensive potential due to a lack of well suited Talismans. I have a maxed on as a Trooper, but I am afraid that is not really representative. I'll give him another shot for sure at some time, at the moment I feel he doesn't add too much to the team. Except for his Fury which is great. Maybe that alone is a reason to get him in. Keeping the buffs up with SoL could have some potential.

[MadMax]

Samurai Eddie is excellent at the front of of a red team, and I had a similar problem and lineup at your level. Red teams fall short without some kind of heals, and I found as many troopers as possible with hell hounds and used them for progression. I still use a maxed hell hound on my red team.

The wicker man actually has excellent synergy with Samurai and a hell hound, so you have a great team in the making.