Tournament experience / strategy?

[RayBat]

Hey, I am by far not a pro player - I just casual play this game a bit. I like the tournament idea and tried it out. I just started a normal game, no permanent death and took the characters that work best for me. But from my first impression this tournament seems very hard.
Even after trying out some other characters it seems impossible to beat a boss. I always have to save money to skip the fight, because not once I had a chance. I have no idea how to beat any boss here. My characters are as good as they can be and have positive perks.

I made my way to 265 points in the ladder, but it blows my mind that somebody was able to get over 5000.
What is your experience here? And am I doing something wrong?
My best team typically includes priest, fire mage, mace fighter as core characters.
Looking forward to your comments!

[Dr Evil]

The devs have said a lot of the crazy high scores are cheaters.

I've found success with curse builds, managed 355 so far. I use; summoner back line, executioner tank and ghoul's for enemy back line assassination.

Summoners are great against bosses when you stack cursed damage multiplier, burning damage multiplier and that sacrificial item that increases damage. i aim for 2-3 summoners by the first boss

Give you're tank the 8 second invulnerability item, by the time it runs out the boss will be 80% dead.

I've hit a wall with the ice spider queen though. you get 5 units to kill a 22k hp boss that deals 3k damage every auto and spawns level 9 spiders en-mass.

[RayBat]

Originally posted by Black Jesus:

The devs have said a lot of the crazy high scores are cheaters.

I've found success with curse builds, managed 355 so far. I use; summoner back line, executioner tank and ghoul's for enemy back line assassination.

Summoners are great against bosses when you stack cursed damage multiplier, burning damage multiplier and that sacrificial item that increases damage. i aim for 2-3 summoners by the first boss

Give you're tank the 8 second invulnerability item, by the time it runs out the boss will be 80% dead.

I've hit a wall with the ice spider queen though. you get 5 units to kill a 22k hp boss that deals 3k damage every auto and spawns level 9 spiders en-mass.

Thank you! I will try it out with curses. But the spider has been my end in the campain as well, it seems overpowered :-).

[Velth]

I also consider boss fights owerwhelming in the tournament mode - after 2nd boss i tend to skip them for gold; more reliable than sinking lives trying to win them... (reached 470 points so far).

[RayBat]

Originally posted by Velth:

I also consider boss fights owerwhelming in the tournament mode - after 2nd boss i tend to skip them for gold; more reliable than sinking lives trying to win them... (reached 470 points so far).

Nice! With the tactics of Black Jesus I made it to 285. How were you able to get to 470? Curse build as well?

[Velth]

1x curse, 2x summoners, 2x executors for melee, 2x healers, 1x skeleton frost mage, 2x pyromancers. (for 11+ just add more pyromancers or summoners)
for gladiators and items I'm buying everything that is discounted 40% or more; you can sell it when it's no longer needed without losing gold.

as for perks I aim for gladiators with both fit and powerful and fitness addict (especially for healers and summoners) - than you can just spec them for 2x stamina 1x health 1x int and 1x agi (for max cd reduction) - with additional int for every 30 stamina and 40% faster stamina regen they would rarely ran out of it

[Blowfeld]

Currently sitting at around 600 points, and have a very diverse group. I have a few class cannons, tanks and regularly buy new stuff. Good times so far, even if one of the bosses bugged out and moved out of the arena and threw stones at me from where my melees could not reach him ^^

[eaerion]

I'm currentnly in a middle of run with 940 points and 4 lives. Bosses are easy. All you need to do is to immobilize them and drain stamina. Best for stopping bosses is Brigand and archers with stamina draining trait. Also summons (dog items) are great as the boss will focus them and waste stamina on killing them. Don't bring any close combat champion. Best start for me was warrior + archer + shaman later transfered to fire mage and brigand. Good traits is must have. The best trait in game is extrovert and other percentage buffs to main attributes. In later game always remember about invigorator. Early you may think that vampire is cool, but no, later everything will be about killing enemies before your shields are down. Buy shield books and necklaces for dps. Give up on worg or mana assasin. The best backflank invaders are berserker and mace wielder with invisibility. The best tank is fire mage with 8sec shield. She is always targeted first. Good luck!

[RayBat]

Thank you all for your impressions and tipps! Trying it out right now... :-)

[RayBat]

Hey eaerion, you were absolutely right with your build. Archers and the perk "energy vampire" kill all bosses, even the big ice spider. I am at 850 points, 4 lives left and still going :-). Thank you for that strategy!

[eaerion]

You're welcome. My run is completed. Over 1000 it started to be a grind. Infinite gold, nothing to spend it on, high level champions you can hire usually suck as they have their skills poorly assigned (not always though), no difficulty change, no new items in a store. I made it to about 1400 and gave up on setting personal orders for champions. A fight between my proud army and a bunch of clerics lvl ~150 ended up being too difficult without a proper focus. Anyway good experierience and I enjoyed seeing my progress on finding tactics for hard battles with every single run. I will definitely retry when there's some more content.

[Blowfeld]

Yeah, I am at 900 something points and limited to never use more than 1 of an archetype. But it starts getting tiresome as I constantly need to replace some of my fighters as they just level up to slow and then switch equipment. I think I will break 1000 and then call it a day and wait for the mode to become more interesting. Especially with bracketed items and just some re-arrangements when you "update" shop, it just becomes boring after a few hours.

[RayBat]

I made it to 960, then I got overrun ... but it is a great strategy and I am looking forward to new content. Thank you guys :-)