Build guides?

[Realm Imp]

I'm having troubles in getting score above 60k. Any guides or tips on getting higher score than this would be much appreciated for the community. thank

[Ross]

Hi Realm Imp!

Currently, the run score heavily rewards high aggression and risk taking, which is granted as score bonuses whenever you win the battle in fewer turns than the indicated par value. Builds that optimize winning in as few turns as possible should help increase your score.

Which strategy you choose to use depends a lot on which character you like to play. I'll bring your thread to the attention of our Discord so they can help share some specific tips.

Or if you like you can ask them directly by joining here: https://discord.gg/d20studios

~Ross

[mr.kitty]

Things that can win on the first turn will MASSIVELY boost your score, esp on bosses (use satchels for those ones). Gotta do some serious math for perfect efficiency every battle and always take the 1st-turn win over saving cards every time. Also Scribe still OP atm.

[The Grand Mugwump]

Using a campfire lowers your score unless that was changed with the score reset, so being recklessly aggressive will also lose some points.

[Realm Imp]

Originally posted by The Grand Mugwump:

Using a campfire lowers your score unless that was changed with the score reset, so being recklessly aggressive will also lose some points.

also noticed that using gold lowers score

[Ross]

Originally posted by Realm Imp:

Originally posted by The Grand Mugwump:

Using a campfire lowers your score unless that was changed with the score reset, so being recklessly aggressive will also lose some points.

also noticed that using gold lowers score

True, true. The intent was to reward bonus score for excess gold reserves at the end of the run, since pre-treasure trove, there wasn't enough inventory to spend it all. But, since it tracks the points earned from gold in real-time, it will technically lower your score for spending it. However - keep in mind that recruiting mercenaries, while it will cost gold, will yield a much higher points payout than holding gold as you get points for completing the encounter.

[Lykurgos]

I have managed a number of 60k+ scores, although nothing above 70k, and the 100k+ scores will require something very distinctly different to what I can offer as tips.

1. Biomes.

Taking the Snow and Tundra biomes offers greater score potential. There is also some randomness, since both the Snow and Tundra biomes have underground boss caverns with several additional battles, therefore score opportunity, which only appear some times.

2. Summoner customisation.

A high risk initial config may be helpful. For example, taking no spell/unit cards, and instead taking 3 high value artefact satchel cards. Which exactly will depend on the Summoner. I find these work very well:

Scribe: Nigh essential to enable high card output per battle without a need to rest after every battle

Healing widget: Thing which heals your party for 5 after every battle if you have no healers. This does not directly help in battle but does mean you can take a few more risks and heal up ready for the next battle, and also rest less often.

Cast from Deck: Being able to cast a card from your deck each battle offers huge tactical advantage, especially for spells like destroy / control minion or raising a dead minion or Guardian, for examples.

Damage on cast: Combined with a deck emphasising spells, the thing which does 2 damage to the nearest attacker when you cast has high consistent output.

Steal card on damage: With a melee Summoner, being able to steal a card when you damage a summoner with an attack can accelerate battle resolution very quickly. Sometimes it . . . hurts you instead e.g., stealing and casting a damage spell on yourself.

3. Guardians.

Barbarian excels. So much so that playing for score without him is a kind of handicap. You *could* guarantee him by taking the artefact card that enables you to add any Guardian to you deck. Better to be lucky, and be able to recruit him as a Guardian within your first biome. Then, as much as you can, acquire cards, a second Guardian and satchel cards that let you boost the Barbarian. For example, the Bard Guardian can add 2/2 each turn. The Angel unit can give the Barbarian another turn with +3/3. Any weapons which add pierce or + damage are great. The spell that doubles base damage is fantastic.

Other Guardians which are very viable *if* not having the Barbarian are:

Insect Thing (I may edit this later): The Guardian which can attack twice if the target is at 3 hp or below can one-shot often

Succubus Demon Spinny thing (I may edit this later): The Guardian which performs a spin attack with lifesteal. Great damage output and survivability.

4. Battle Approach.

Since you need lots of early turns wins, the place you enter the battle tile matters a lot. For example, if you need to close into melee with your Summoner and Guardians, you often want to enter on the long side (north / south / top / down) of a tile rather than the sides. Also, ideally, use you one free 'scout and retreat' to observe the terrain and re-enter in a way which gives you the best possible positioning.

5. Fate Encounters

It is worth attempting ALL the Fate Encounters, including those you do not care for the result of, because whilst there is a tiny cost (100 points, for one die) the expected value from each is usually very positive.

For example, if you spend 1 die (100 points) for an encounter with a 60% chance of failure and 40% chance of success, but the success gives 500 points, then the expected value of a 1 die attempt is 200 points.

6. One-shot kill cards.

Cards which destroy minions outright or the one that takes over control seem high value, since in some Elite and Boss battles, certain minions can be highly problematic e.g., minions that heal and remove debuffs.

[Realm Imp]

Originally posted by Lykurgos:

I have managed a number of 60k+ scores, although nothing above 70k, and the 100k+ scores will require something very distinctly different to what I can offer as tips.

I appreciate your input man, very helpful for us struggling in getting high scores. Thanks

[hbm001]

I got a 90k+ score by getting lucky and finding the barbarian early on.

Winning on the first turn gets you a huge amount of points. In order to do that, starting with the horn of haste (+3 movement on first turn) and the mana stone (+1 mana per turn) was very useful as it allowed for huge damage potential on the first turn.

The glyph artifact that steals and plays a card from a summoner when you hit them was also very useful, as it makes a lot of early elite fights trivial and allows for rapid wins against elites and reducing damage potential of bosses.

Having such strong first turns also allows for you to not use many cards and not require scribe as much. This also reduces how much damage you take, which allows for loyal minions to survive and stack up for even more first turn damage. I ended the game with two loyal guardians, a storm dragon, an ice elemental and a dragon that heals everyone for 3 when an ally unit die. I beat the Butcher on harvest within a few turns. One turn for the barbarian to kill all the minions and a few more to focus down the Butcher with there being no space for the Butcher to put down enemy units around himself.

[Realm Imp]

Originally posted by hbm001:

I got a 90k+ score by getting lucky and finding the barbarian early on.

Winning on the first turn gets you a huge amount of points. In order to do that, starting with the horn of haste (+3 movement on first turn) and the mana stone (+1 mana per turn) was very useful as it allowed for huge damage potential on the first turn.

The glyph artifact that steals and plays a card from a summoner when you hit them was also very useful, as it makes a lot of early elite fights trivial and allows for rapid wins against elites and reducing damage potential of bosses.

Having such strong first turns also allows for you to not use many cards and not require scribe as much. This also reduces how much damage you take, which allows for loyal minions to survive and stack up for even more first turn damage. I ended the game with two loyal guardians, a storm dragon, an ice elemental and a dragon that heals everyone for 3 when an ally unit die. I beat the Butcher on harvest within a few turns. One turn for the barbarian to kill all the minions and a few more to focus down the Butcher with there being no space for the Butcher to put down enemy units around himself.

That's a pretty good run, I tried using pyromancer with +1 fire damage satchel card and that boosts its spell atack but its hard when fighting elites and mini-bosses since i cant do much damage unless they are just minions cause i can just blitz them. its really hard to fathom how the top scorers managed to get 300k score

[Lykurgos]

Originally posted by Realm Imp:

That's a pretty good run, I tried using pyromancer with +1 fire damage satchel card and that boosts its spell atack but its hard when fighting elites and mini-bosses since i cant do much damage unless they are just minions cause i can just blitz them. its really hard to fathom how the top scorers managed to get 300k score

That score may have been reached using options no longer available after multiple patches.

I do not know if it was done this way, but I think there used to be an approach which combined the Pied Piper artefact (up to 5 0 cost animals become loyal on summon) with the Starling animal (+1/1 to all minions) when it was possible to get the Starling at 0 cost. I may have the details wrong, but there was something like this, and it enabled you to enter battles with a 7+ team of highly buffed units, and achieve first turn kills on many fights.

[Realm Imp]

Originally posted by Lykurgos:

Originally posted by Realm Imp:

That's a pretty good run, I tried using pyromancer with +1 fire damage satchel card and that boosts its spell atack but its hard when fighting elites and mini-bosses since i cant do much damage unless they are just minions cause i can just blitz them. its really hard to fathom how the top scorers managed to get 300k score

That score may have been reached using options no longer available after multiple patches.

I do not know if it was done this way, but I think there used to be an approach which combined the Pied Piper artefact (up to 5 0 cost animals become loyal on summon) with the Starling animal (+1/1 to all minions) when it was possible to get the Starling at 0 cost. I may have the details wrong, but there was something like this, and it enabled you to enter battles with a 7+ team of highly buffed units, and achieve first turn kills on many fights.

Actually the top 2 players before the reset reached 100k to 300k even after the reset. I'm not entirely sure if they are doing that but kudos to them for finding out ways to get the highest score possible

[Lykurgos]

Example 60k+ Build: Priestess 69k

Returning to offer some specific example end-game builds with images.

Summoner Priestess in this run began with no units or spells, and instead took the artefact satchel cards for Scribe, a Guardian of choice, and +3 first-turn move. The Guardian of choice was Barbarian, and a Time Bomber was picked up during the run.

Through fortune and choice, her deck was filled with many cards that buffed the Barbarian, including spells to double base power and increase speed. Two Angel units were able to give the Barbarian a second turn with +2 attack. There were two Enchantress units that do 3 damage to 3 units, which helped to reduce higher health units to be killable by the Barbarian in one attack.

Many of the non-Summoner battles in this run were cleared in 1 or 3 turns, via the Barbarian kill-chaining everything. Very fortunately, the final boss battle was up against the Withered Boss, and the Barbarian was able to clear out everything except the Boss in one turn, enabling full focus on the Boss thereafter. The result was a 5 turn completion, versus a par 17, scoring 4005 points.

Picking up the Artefact Satchel card that gives 60 gold per battle early helped, with a bank of 5625 unspent gold at the run end, worth 5625 points.

The main limiting factor in this run, the reason it did not score more highly, was that Summoner battles were only marginally better than par. The Barbarian could often clear out minions, but the deck and team lacked anything that would take down the higher health Summoners quickly. Also, many of the fights in the Snow biome feature high health minions, such as 16 hp Ice Elementals, and this team did not perform well against them, sometimes even approaching a team-wipe.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501750

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501776

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501765

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501647

[Lykurgos]

Example 60k+ Build: Conjurer 89k

This is my personal best :-)

Initial picks were no units and spells again, and the Artefacts for +3 move on first turn, 5 loyal 0 cost animals and stealing / casting a cast when injuring an enemy.

Despite Conjurer being a relatively weak melee Summoner, the steal / cast worked very well thanks to her Lunge ability. She was often able to hit enemy Summoners whilst the Summoner was surrounded orthagonally by other units.

This build excelled against enemy Summoners. Both Guardians had knockback, and the Rock Giant inflicts vulnerable. Many Summoner battles were resolved quickly by the Rock Giant inflicting vulnerable on the enemy summoner, and the Skeleton Giant and several other units, including the Conjurer, also hitting, with the bonus damage from vulnerable, on the first turn. Sometimes, a kind of cage was formed of knockback units, which very quickly killed enemy Summoners thanks to each knockback enabling a free attack from surrounding units.

The deck was loaded with solutions for quickly eliminating or mitigating single problematic non-Summoner units. There were 2 x Touch of Death to kill adjacent minions, a single target Freeze, a takeover card (apply 3 armor and take control of a minion next turn) and 2 x cards that apply -2/-2. Often, in Summoner battles, the minions were ignored, in favour of focusing on quick kill of the Summoner.

Also very helpful in this run was acquiring 2 x Loyal Demon Puppies. These provide a free card when they die & return, which can be used to increase mana and are sometimes useful to cast directly. Also very helpful was being able to cast 1 card per battle from the deck, which enabled consistent use of the minion one-shot-kill cards.

The Pied Piper 5 x 0 cost loyal animals artefact was a poor initial pick. I discovered that the Conjurer +1/1 buff to summons does not remain applied to summoned units that become loyal i.e., 1/1 rats became 2/2 when summoned, but reverted to 1/1 once they became loyal and remained for subsequent battles. Unsure if this is a bug or feature.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501556

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501530

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501544

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501514

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3037501490