Want a challenge? Fight the Trackers and Legion factions on Adaptive mode

[Ninth Hour]

Although I have 490 hours in the game. it is only in the last 50+ hours that RNG saw fit to spawn a string of assassination missions involving Trackers and Legion troops.

After hacking through so many enemies like wheat, my army of 20+ level 11 mercenaries and bears finally met stiff resistance. What makes those two factions so troublesome?

1) Trackers: in a word, bears. An Average Assassination mission, at my level and troop number, invariably spawns 26 to 28 foes, at least 3 of which are level 12 bears with 2200+ HP. Even with my advanced party and careful attention to initiative order, they are a huge pain to whittle down. Not uncommonly, they survive long enough to inflict substantial damage. While I have yet to lose anyone in these battles, I tend to emerge with severely damaged armor. Akhedian steel allows you to tank a lot but it has its limits.

Also, there is a Tracker unit that, when killed, will spawn a slightly lower level bear (at level 11, it still has 1600+ HP). So that is usually another 2 or 3 bears that you will eventually have to fight. I can affirm that fighting 5 or 6 level 11 to 12 bears is as lovely as it sounds. And the human troops are pretty tough too- unlike other Factions, Tracker units actually use their throwing weapons.

On the flip side, these battles offer ample opportunity for animal poachers. Because they are so difficult to kill, the best way to remove bears from the field of battle is to capture them, rather reduce their HP to zero, which they will survive anyway.

2) Legion: Just look at the Factions buffs. Anytime you outnumber their troops, they automatically gain Protection (-30% damage taken) and Brutality (+30% damage inflicted), making the fight more grueling, the more of them you kill. They also gain Deflection (-70% damage) if they are adjacent to an ally, In the beginning, you will not notice this effect because they outnumber you but the more successful you are, the harder the fight becomes. It is not uncommon for them to later have both Protection and Deflection up, because they cluster together, meaning that even your most powerful attack will at times inflict 1 point of damage.

And at level 12, their tanks and line troops are insanely tough. Emissaries have 200+ Armor, 150+ Health, and 22+Guard. Standard Legionnaires have 300+ Armor and 200+ Health, and 30-40 Guard. Hotheads have 450+ Armor, 200+ Health, and 50 Guard.

All other factions have their own share of annoyances but I find these two especially challenging. Alazarian troops are a close runner up but I find them a little easier to defeat, overall, than Tracker and Legion enemies.

[nick8627]

where do you find legion enemies? I am trying to get loot from them but am having trouble finding any legion troops to fight. Is there a way to tell if vanquish or assassination missions are legion enemies? Thx!

[Ninth Hour]

There's no consistent way to tell if the Legion will be involved in the mission. Guard, Legion, Deserter, Brotherhood, Inquisition and Alazarian targets are usually described as [leader name's] "troop" or "squad".

But typically there are some keys words in the contract description that will give a hint to the affiliation of the target, If no hints are given, it is a Deserter or Outlaw band.

Tracker targets seem to always have [Leader name's] "pack", so they're easy to identify.

[brannor]

Go hunt level 14 missions in Drombach. That'll test your company more than a horde of level 12s. But then, it really only matters if you don't have an army of level 14 white bears...otherwise the only challenge would be guards...

[nick8627]

Thanks for the reply. The bears can be slightly trivialized by bleeding. Once has bleeding effect, use the weapon that 100% triggers the oil, oiled with bleeding oil, which will trigger the bleeding effect (25% health loss upon trigger). Plus because you can apply 2 oils to a weapon, also apply unstable oil, which will trigger an AoO + 50% total health loss with 1 attack. Have a couple more ppl with similar oils, and the bears are easy, not to mention pikemen which can stop the other ones from approaching.

[Ninth Hour]

İlk olarak nick8627 tarafından gönderildi:

Thanks for the reply. The bears can be slightly trivialized by bleeding...

Well that is in fact a big part of how I beat them. My Poisoner, with hand bombs and crit rate of 65%+ does 400+ damage to bears with the initial explosion, even before the bleed kicks in. And many of my party members have Infectious Oil. It is not uncommon for then to inflict 800+ DOT damage per round. But even after all that, the Bear will survive at zero health because of its Berserk quality.

I have no issue defeating bears. But they do hang around long enough to put big dents in your armor, which you then have to spend time and money repairing.

[nick8627]

I used the infectious oil a lot too! I guess our play styles became pretty similar towards late game. I completely understand/agree with what you said 👍 I just finished the last fight in Drombach and it took me a couple tries to figure out a strategy to not lose any of my units. Playing on adaptive, expert mode with avg unit lvl ~9.5ish it gave me a decent challenge. I'm thinking it's likely because I couldn't bother grinding my units up to lvl11 to gear them up with crafted armors when I had finished pretty much everything else in the game.