Insta-kills from Elites

[Sando]

Some pretty nonsense stuff around those enemy riflemen, where they can shoot through walls where you can't return fire.

Then you get the elite version, with the energetic perk. Appear from the mist, shoot immediately, move again, shoot again. Kill your hero without you even knowing they're about to appear. Aside from investing all your points in armour, health, dodge etc, what the hell are you supposed to do about this?

Before V1 at least you could restart the night, now it's a straight restart the whole run

[Bumc]

You still can alt-F4 out of fight, but really not camping the edges for squishy characters is the way to go. Also, it doesn't cost much to invest in defensive stuff, just build an armorer or two and it'll fix itself eventually.

Also hunters (outside energetic which is kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on anything) iirc don't move and shoot their charged shot in the same turn, so if you're out of their range they target a wall or something useless.

Other than that yeah, hunters gotta have the highest kill count out of all mobs.

[Tactical Drongo]

hate those, I am pretty glad I havent seen them in a few runs - they are also pretty nasty if they show up in groups in the middle of a huge wave

[Aestrea]

I wouldn't say invest in dodge because that's a very bad stat to invest in that scales much better with skills and potions. If they fired at you at near maximum range, it's very easy to get guaranteed dodge with some kind of dodge buff.

Also if your heroes are close to the edge and not super tanky, it's time to push back that mist or make sure another hero is close by to take the hits.

[BurntFaceMan]

Originally posted by Aestrea:

I wouldn't say invest in dodge because that's a very bad stat to invest in that scales much better with skills and potions. If they fired at you at near maximum range, it's very easy to get guaranteed dodge with some kind of dodge buff.

Also if your heroes are close to the edge and not super tanky, it's time to push back that mist or make sure another hero is close by to take the hits.

investing in dodge can be worth it when a hero rolls with dodge perks - even with just two blue rolls in dodge, you can then stack other sources of dodge on top of that to get absurd percentages.

Think of it this way, a character with 0 dodge who gets ten extra dodge is only getting a 10% benefit from that increase, but a character with 50 dodge who gets 10 extra is seeing a 20% benefit to the amount of hits they're taking - and a character with 80 going to 90 is cutting the amount of hits they take in half.

[Aestrea]

Originally posted by BurntFaceMan:

Originally posted by Aestrea:

I wouldn't say invest in dodge because that's a very bad stat to invest in that scales much better with skills and potions. If they fired at you at near maximum range, it's very easy to get guaranteed dodge with some kind of dodge buff.

Also if your heroes are close to the edge and not super tanky, it's time to push back that mist or make sure another hero is close by to take the hits.

investing in dodge can be worth it when a hero rolls with dodge perks - even with just two blue rolls in dodge, you can then stack other sources of dodge on top of that to get absurd percentages.

Think of it this way, a character with 0 dodge who gets ten extra dodge is only getting a 10% benefit from that increase, but a character with 50 dodge who gets 10 extra is seeing a 20% benefit to the amount of hits they're taking - and a character with 80 going to 90 is cutting the amount of hits they take in half.

You don't seem to understand that we're talking about talking range attacks and having just 50 dodge will guarantee you that you already dodge it because of the range dodge multiplier malice. You can achieve 50 dodge with potentially a single skill (lvl5 longbow). Anything higher than that by that point is not a good investment and easily stackable especially with blessing perk. The 10 you invest in the base character is really better invested into anything else and that's if you get a rare one or just equip a piece of gear for that offset if you seriously needed it.

[BurntFaceMan]

Originally posted by Aestrea:

Originally posted by BurntFaceMan:

investing in dodge can be worth it when a hero rolls with dodge perks - even with just two blue rolls in dodge, you can then stack other sources of dodge on top of that to get absurd percentages.

Think of it this way, a character with 0 dodge who gets ten extra dodge is only getting a 10% benefit from that increase, but a character with 50 dodge who gets 10 extra is seeing a 20% benefit to the amount of hits they're taking - and a character with 80 going to 90 is cutting the amount of hits they take in half.

You don't seem to understand that we're talking about talking range attacks and having just 50 dodge will guarantee you that you already dodge it because of the range dodge multiplier malice. You can achieve 50 dodge with potentially a single skill (lvl5 longbow). Anything higher than that by that point is not a good investment and easily stackable especially with blessing perk. The 10 you invest in the base character is really better invested into anything else and that's if you get a rare one or just equip a piece of gear for that offset if you seriously needed it.

I get you're talking about a specific use case, but I'm talking about having a hero who can rely on dodge to mitigate most damage, and why never investing in dodge isn't exactly a rule of thumb.

[Nordil(Hun)]

Dunno i either just kill em or move out of their range. (Teleport scroll khm.)

[Flavalicious]

I reroll any wave with the AI riflemen or boomers in em. Failing that pushing back the fog is the next best thing. I also got in the habit of building towers that i sit in by default for the extra protection

[Wintersend]

Rifle's really aren't all that threatening. You have time to kill them and can always just back off. You can check their range easily, just hover outside of that and you are fine. Or kill them. They're fairly dangerous but not all that durable. Just as others said, don't keep your squishies near the mist. I usually put them far enough back a regular clawer moving out of the square closest won't get to melee if someone doesn't have much defense. So about 6 squares back, adjusted for if there's obstacles. And outside of charged shot Rifles aren't that bad damage wise.

[Sando]

Thanks for the tips - but how do you keep your heroes away from the mist on a map like Elderlicht? In this case, I had waves coming from 4 directions, and 4 heroes. The only alternative would be letting multiple enemy spirits roam freely. When the elite spawned (without warning) I had no opportunity to get away.

[Flavalicious]

Originally posted by Sando:

Thanks for the tips - but how do you keep your heroes away from the mist on a map like Elderlicht? In this case, I had waves coming from 4 directions, and 4 heroes. The only alternative would be letting multiple enemy spirits roam freely. When the elite spawned (without warning) I had no opportunity to get away.

im working on that map now. So far energy potions and items with teleport have been carrying the day. On day 10, and ive got a few characters built with 13+ movement and mana based teleports. Action potions for extra uses to ban the spirits. Its rough going but im barely holding on. Whole map plays differently then the previous two, cant really hide behind the walls lol

[TripSin]

Finally had this happen to me. Energetic elite appears out of the mist and proceeds to immediately two-shot a hero dead. And yeah, does not feel good.

Feels like how in olden days Bulkies could boulder stun a hero straight out of the gate before you even knew they were coming. Thankfully, the devs listened and changed that so Bulkies don't do their boulder attack on the first move which I think was probably a good choice. I feel like in a similar vein it would make sense for energetic elites to not attack twice when they first get out of the mist. 1 attack and 2 moves when appearing and then 2 attacks and 2 moves after they've come out of the mist would be better I think.

The problem is that they are the only thing that poses that kind of lethal threat when first appearing out of the mist and they are very rare. Most of the time you won't even see one in your run or you might not be so unlucky that when they appear you have a hero in range who can't survive taking two hits from them so it doesn't make sense to play against the possibility of them appearing (e.g. playing more cautiously with your heroes who out forward in the field).

But alt+f4 is a thing, so there is the option of just doing that and replaying the night.