How are you supposed to survive your first run?

[Juan]

Newbie to Arcanium, but I've played many other card battlers.

I'm baffled by the fact that you start with two characters that have zero defensive cards, and sometimes you'll have only enemy nodes in your way, which means there's zero ways to avoid getting damage on those who aren't the lion, save for his own taunts/ defensives.

Is there a mechanic I'm not seeing, or is the game designed for you to die endlessly before you get a chance at completing a run?

Playing in normal, btw.

[PrimeSonic]

At present, there's only a single dedicated Healer type hero, that's Angorn (the stag).
Combine with a tank (Leon/Shinzo) and one damage dealer (everyone else) and you'll be starting with a good, balanced team with extra defensive abilities.

The game does have a bit of a learning curve if you aren't used to roguelke deckbuilders and their conventions, but you'll pick it up.

Your first priority should be to get better abilities and asses your team's strengths.
Once you feel comfortable in the normal battles, try taking on an elite battle and start improving your team with artifacts.
Remember to mouseover the icons in front of elite enemy mobs to see what special ability they have.

If you're able to handle an elite battle, then try a shard battle.
Not only do those give you a free team heal at the end, but also guarantee a special, hero-specific heirloom artifact.

The leveling system, at present, seems to only lock away the extra Ultimate abilities.
You should be able to complete your first run using the ones you get at the start (sometimes those are the best).

So, it's a learning curve, but you can make it.
And a good way to get started is with choosing a team with extra survival.

[Juan]

Originally posted by PrimeSonic:

At present, there's only a single dedicated Healer type hero, that's Angorn (the stag).
Combine with a tank (Leon/Shinzo) and one damage dealer (everyone else) and you'll be starting with a good, balanced team with extra defensive abilities.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer, and for your detailed advice, I'll do my best to put it into practice :D

[Remington]

Originally posted by Juan:

Originally posted by PrimeSonic:

At present, there's only a single dedicated Healer type hero, that's Angorn (the stag).
Combine with a tank (Leon/Shinzo) and one damage dealer (everyone else) and you'll be starting with a good, balanced team with extra defensive abilities.

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer, and for your detailed advice, I'll do my best to put it into practice :D

Juan, thanks for the message. Arcanium differ from other Roguelike card games in that Healing is abundant throughout the runs, to compensate for some Heroes lacking innate defensive capabilities. You will take a lot of damage, it is expected and part of the balance/meta. Thanks to our exploration system, you can freely visit the Inn at the Capital tile to heal repeatedly. You can also heal after Shard battles, or by finding Campsite tiles. Many abilities offer healing as well, and soon we'll introduce more Heroes that have access to healing as well. I hop that this helps a bit :)

[Juan]

Originally posted by Remington:

Originally posted by Juan:

Thank you very much for taking the time to answer, and for your detailed advice, I'll do my best to put it into practice :D

Juan, thanks for the message. Arcanium differ from other Roguelike card games in that Healing is abundant throughout the runs, to compensate for some Heroes lacking innate defensive capabilities. You will take a lot of damage, it is expected and part of the balance/meta. Thanks to our exploration system, you can freely visit the Inn at the Capital tile to heal repeatedly. You can also heal after Shard battles, or by finding Campsite tiles. Many abilities offer healing as well, and soon we'll introduce more Heroes that have access to healing as well. I hop that this helps a bit :)

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Thanks to the advice on the previous post, I managed to finish a run without too many hiccups on normal difficulty. My modus operandi was to take as many non-combat nodes as possible, and prioritizing healing/ tanking cards at the beginning, and only once I had some not-too-squishy characters I started going more fully on the offensive side. Taking the shards with the extra difficulty turned out to be a winning proposition as well, due to the healing + extra loot :D

[Alive Deadman]

So, I just came back from playing my very first run in normal, and I just completed it. First time, no retry, starting team and all.
Just to be clear, I've played a TON of card building roguelikes, so I think that helped me understand the builds and how the characters can be played pretty effectively.
The biggest problem is that you NEED to transition your early deck/strategy into a highly efficient/refined one coming lategame. I had my fire mage ditch the low damage/burn cards the moment she hit 4 mana into very powerful cards that did massive amount of damage/burn but left her totally open.
My tank ditched all "pure" damage into cards that gave him buffs/armor or inflicted blind to the enemies. Taunt was specially good since it allowed me to protect my two damage dealers.
Finally, the cat fencer, she's the one that will be your boss killer. I managed to get poison crit/poison applying items so she was criting turn 1. Added to that were the skill to regain 2 fury every time you used an ult and she was able to hit her ult two times per turn.
Also get potions. Invulnerability ones/AP restoring ones are the best to chain massive amounts of damage.

That's all I can think that allowed me to beat Normal in my first run. That and knowing when to just press the boss or kill the side minions. Sometimes it's better to focus on the boss for 3+ turns than to wither as you try to kill the minions.