Crimson Wilderness and [Spoiler] Battles Difficulty

[Rhinkalis]

So, having gotten the other ending back in the day when it was the, well, only ending on Expert, I've found myself bumping the difficulty back down to Normal for the Golden Friendship runs basically because it feels like a lot of team comps like... Potentially can land in positions where clearing the Crimson Wilderness and/or the Azar fights are deterministically impossible.

Now, I know technically you don't have to do either of those, you can pay the credits to the hedgehog to skip to the "Red Friendship" level, and you actually get the gold friendship in the conversations prior to the Azar fight, but like, going into runs just intending to use the hedgehog and die at Azar... Just feels lousy?

Granted, I have the ultimate issue with the Crimson Wilderness less that it's difficult, but that it's a very... Not interesting sort of difficult? The enemies are fast, and do tons of damage, and there doesn't feel like there's much of a "tactical" approach you can make other than just making sure you have a lot of stuff that ignores taunt? Like, while Azar can be a massive pain the ass, his fight has a character to it that you can consider, you can decide how your particular team comp is going to deal with and build towards, even if maybe you fail, but Crimson Wilderness feels more like... Numbers vomit and so I just kind of hate it.

I'm more than willing to hear, like, tactical advice on this one, but failing that I just kind of want to vent, see if anyone else has found it the same? I know some people have done the full gold friendship grind, did you try to clear the Crimson Wilderness with every team, or did you just used the hedgehog to skip it?

[Ohko]

Remember that in the crimson wilderness your fainted characters will auto revive at half health after each fight, so you can afford to be more aggressive in the fights. But I'd say more generally that the fights are a dps check, so if your teambuilding is too heavy on heals and defense that might be why you are having trouble. Make sure your starting 2 characters have a synergy between their skillsets, and then try to have at least 2.5 damage focused characters (the tanks and supports can be built so that they are contributing a ton of damage too, like Lian with counterattacks or Sizz with Eve). And 1 character with stuns.

For example, in my last run I started with Leyryn and Ilya, to focus on discarding cards, small hand sizes, and cycling. Then got Joey to be mostly healing with occasional burst from self destructing healing drones, and Lian for damage, some mitigation, and stuns.

If you are just going with 4 completely random characters every time then yeah you might have trouble with the hardest content.

[Pars'd / 2]

First off, you can build for CW, to an extent since you only have 3 stages of prep instead of 5.
Second, CW requires the most tactical approach for several reasons:
- There're only 5 enemy patterns. Each has its own miniboss and what they do (aside from targeting) is 100% predictable on turn start.
- Because of auto-rez at fight end, you are encouraged to tactically sac units.
- Basic skills becoming class skills means you don't have to fully draft and if you know every person's kit, you can gamble on getting a skill you wanted but weren't offered.
- Only 2 normal fight + boss means you can portion your consumables for fights. You should actively be thinking about consumables & scrolls to bring to CW.
- Same boss every time means you know what specific things your comp wants before going in. If you don't have confidence, just don't go in and carry the triangle to the replay screen.
- The numbers vomit means you actually have to manage your health and that you can't build comps that spend 2 turns just on setup. It does suck when you open with both blood mists though. You get healing after each battle for a reason.

If anything, White Grave has more bs because there's basically 0 counterplay against Deathbringer & Snow Golems aside from kill them fast or hope your dps doesn't get nerfed dmg & miss/stunned to oblivion.
For reference, I have cleared CW with everyone multiple times; if you join the Discord, you'll find that most people who've been playing since early access for a long time have done the same and usually go CW every run.
Btw, every team comp, (even 4 dps or 4 tanks) can beat max difficulty CW and PM but some comps are more reliant on getting good luck with loot/drafts.