Elderlicht Apocalypse 3 difficulty advice/rant

[enzeru]

Wow the spike in difficulty from the other maps on Apoc 3 is just ridiculous on this one - the other ones I cleared in 1-2 attempts but this one I've bashed my head against almost 10 runs now.

I just don't understand how you're supposed to get past night 11 when the weakest enemy you get are the splitters, and it's 4 skulls on both ends - even with 6 heroes I'm nowhere near surviving that one. Fully upgraded ballistas (that are worse and more expensive now thanks to the latest patch) barely get through their armor - and if you don't have unblockable attacks you're gonna need to spend 2-3 actions to kill them unless your character is built to deal with exclusively Splitters I feel.
But guess what, now you have Bulkys, Boomers, the bats and Hunters to worry about, not to mention every wave comes with 1-2 elites each pod.
Oh and the tons of Twisted on the nights before that I don't understand how to deal with if you don't have a caster with tons of resistance reduction and pray that they only spawn in the lane where you have that 1 hero (they won't).

That along with the ruined action economy due to dealing with at least the dangerous ghost fires and mist censers that prevent your ballistas from firing, I just can't see how you're supposed to do this one. I have everything unlocked (except for 2 hidden equipment that I can't figure out how to unhide -> unlock (Steel Armor and Devil Armor)).

Advice I've read has been for 3 momentum focused 1H sword dudes and a couple poison casters with Sadism, but the stars haven't aligned for that at all. I dunno. I don't mind a challenge but this difficulty spike feels like it should be Apocalypse 6, not "just" 3. Anyway, end of rant.

I tend to focus on getting my money and villagers maxed out first, then go Scavenging camps, after that I get more heroes and lastly I build and upgrade the crafting buildings. Now with the new patch and ballistas being much worse, maybe I should try to focus on getting the - now cheaper - walls up and getting better items from crafting earlier than focusing on scavenging camps? Because I was still on lvl 3-4 items on night 11 now, and I feel like I'd need to be at endgame gear to survive that ♥♥♥♥.

[Act Chill]

For long maps, economy is key. If you focus gold mines asap, night 4 will be the hardest night and then down hill from there. By the end you will have lvl 5 weapons in both hands with good buffs. Think 80% damage, 100% crit, 300% crit damage, +2 mutii hit or +4 propagate (at a minimum). Used to have +4 hit AND +6 prop before 1.0 release nerf. That is like 200+ base, 800+ when you crit (100% chance to do so) = 1 hit everything. For the 6 heroes I tend to send them in kind of a circle around the map versus trying to keep them in a a zone. You should be 1 hitting most units with aoe or multi hit attacks. Only the strongest units should take more than 1 hit. Single target attacks were buffed so it shouldnt be hard. There is a perk to greatly buff your damage against them.

If you dont go pure economy, at least build production buildings that are semi economy and you can take the better items to use. Something that greatly helps early is not filling all equipment slots. Sell helms, pants, trinkets, whatever isnt really helping you. In some cases I have heroes with just 1 weapon only (he is naked). Any money you get first couple levels is exponentially paid back later.

[Aestrea]

I don't think his problem is end game, the end game is very easy. Elderlicht's difficulty is the beginning and the curve to the end game. It helps to have block/armor/hp and pure poison build with an almost full poison perk line for tanking the big waves with druid rod for ensnaring groups early on. This build requires no critical, no damage upgrades, no mp, absolutely nothing but perhaps a shield early on and of course the poison perk line.

Tanking in elderlicht is very important as you won't be able to put out a lot of the fires on some nights. Just don't go full glass cannon on everything and i'm not talking about the perk.

Once you hit like night 8, make sure you can see what's coming each wave and reroll them so they are not something you have a hard time killing with your heroes.

[enzeru]

Thanks both, good tips all around and stuff I haven't considered before - like selling useless gear at start and get some proper tanks in there. Gonna try some new stuff in another run