Can't beat it even on easy?

[Brids17]

I don't understand how people are claiming to have beaten it by run 3, I'm on run 9 and I've only managed to reach the end twice and both times I wasn't even close to winning, despite being on easy with all modifiers on. I've tried following the tips of various guides and while I've seen improvement it still seems stupidly difficult. The long run time is especially frustrating to keep failing.

I've been building for mobility and damage, avoiding useless perks, avoiding weapons said to be bad, keeping two weapons on all heroes, only using barricades and not wasting villagers with mana or health. I really don't know what I'm missing here, especially with people complaining of the game being too easy. O_o

[Inkie]

I mean, i'm sure there is a lot of advice that would help you... but it is impossible to tell what advice you need. if I saw you play, i'm sure I would know.

[Vambran]

You start to snowball once you unlock more meta upgrades. Go for the action point unlocks first.

[Gunner]

Game becomes trivial once you hit slow traps and learn to use hand crossbow/bow

[captncookie]

General advice to beat the game would be :
- Make sure you have a Seer and pushback the fog.
- You can hire up to 6 heroes.
- Equip high level weapons ; this is done via crafting. Weapon base damage is the single most important factor in your character effectiveness.

If you have 6 char with level 4-5 weapons on each, I don't see how you can't beat the game on easy.

More niche advices :
- Single out strong skills such as Dagger3, Handcrossbow4... and combine it with Specialist perk (currently they are busted due to propagation/multihit being broken making them much stronger skills than others).
- Build one hero with high single target damage for the final night. Momentum+Sword, Dagger, Longbow maybe. Set up several portals at all corners of the map, that's where targets will spawn.
- Lock a hero on a weapon class only if you rolled important stats (propagation, multi, bunch of poison...). As such, avoiding niche stats such as isolated or opportunistic makes you more flexible until you find a good weapon.
- Druidic Staff is able to hold an entire side by itself.

[Ion]

With a melee warrior having dagger, multishot (as much as possible) is very easy to kill the bosses, if you reach the 12 night, make sure you have at least one champion who can move very fast and within reach of the corners to unleash all the hits. Assuming that poison only deals 30 dmg and with just +1 multishot, the two hits give free 120 poison dmg that ignores block, and it can only scales from there. With this I've one-shot the boss and never hit them with anything else, allowing the rest to defend. Oh, and the night ends right after beating the fourth big plant so... give it a try!

[XartaX]

It's not particularly hard after a couple of unlocks. You should have at least +2 AP and unlocked the main building types by the time you hit night 12 on your actual attempt. Make sure to have gold mines up and running fully upgraded ASAP and you will notice a turning point around night 7-8 where the game becomes trivial assuming your build doesn't suck.

Could write a detailed guide if you're interested.

[Brids17]

The gold mines might have been the problem. I totally underestimated how good they are. I'm on night 8 and feeling stronger than ever.

[MajesticIX]

Best to jump to normal--you have more enemies which means more essence so you can unlock the stuff needed to win. Get gold up early and fast as it compounds. Should be the first thing you invest money into early on. Then the Seer at day 3, inn day 4. Then focus on equipment upgrades. Check the store if anything crazy pops up but that is a solid strat to start.

[XartaX]

That's way too early really. Seer day 4, and before that you should be maxing out all your gold mines and houses. You don't need an inn before you get attacked from opposite directions which is way later. When you get attacked from two adjecent directions one hero can perform double duty and look out for both sides (preferably a long ranged character of course). And those four should be fine until you get attacked from three directions.

[Brids17]

I finally did it. I can't believe it was as simple as building and maxing out the gold mines. It made it so much easier it's insane. Perhaps beating it on normal is a possibility for me after all. Thank you for the help! =D

[XartaX]

Good job :)

By the way, when you get attacked from three sides, the middle side always seems to be the weaker one. Which means you do not have to use the seer ability to see wave strengths before the four directional attacks. At that point you want to know which flanks are easier because that's where you want to put a single hero.

[Kiesel]

It's a grinding game.

[XartaX]

Originally posted by Kiesel:

It's a grinding game.

Depends on what you mean by grind. You don't need to grind to beat it really. I'd say it's far less grindy than other roguelites. Sure there are tons of ♥♥♥♥ you CAN grind, but none of it that is hard to get is necessary to beat the game. You can beat the game on run 2 (especially with the change to essence gain from run 1 this patch), although it's insanely hard. Run 3 or 4 is manageable.

[just.dont.do.it]

Originally posted by Kiesel:

It's a grinding game.

Not really. It's possible (and has been done) to beat it on second attempt.
Getting unlocks reduce the difficulty, until you arrive at a level that's beatable with your strategy. Then, you can try improving by deleting the saves, restarting, and trying to beat it with less attempts and less unlocks.

[just.dont.do.it]

Originally posted by Brids17:

I don't understand how people are claiming to have beaten it by run 3, I'm on run 9 and I've only managed to reach the end twice and both times I wasn't even close to winning, despite being on easy with all modifiers on.

Bear in mind that all non-economy modifiers (less enemies and +1 hero) *actually* make later nights much harder to tacke, not easier.
Less enemies mean less XP, and so your heroes will be quite underleveled by the final night. +1 hero means the same, as XP has to be split to 4 heroes instead of 3.

I'd suggest you disable them if you want the easiest possible game. Keep economy modifiers on and switch off the rest.