Gimme tips..

[XP]

I'm on diff 3 and manage to reach very last boss, I think I'm quite lucky because I get epic set item which gimme 40 armor for free at very early on stage 2. but other than that I always feel I lack of damage or very squishy.

can someone gimme tips for timing exploration or how to get stack of multiple items? so far, my run always only have maximum 7 items.

[Aetemes]

Ok, it is great that you are able to gauge what is missing, and that you already figured out how helpful armor can be. Having damage would make a huge difference for sure. Also sustain health item/talents helps a lot (Holy Grail is an easy obvious one).

So if the damage part is what's missing, how to get that depends highly on the character you are playing (a lot depends on that lol).

But a "general all purpose" build is to go for Golden Eggs/Excalibur Legendary, and max the talents that actually boosts your damage significantly first (ideally all of them). Things that help you gain gold, like leper coin/hope diamond, or even discount shop prices helps you get there.

Hungry Grass is a good item to also find early (but loot the health orbs, and don't die lol).

Vitality Philosopher Stone/Ogre Blood is also decent all purpose, but it's imo a lot harder to pull off.

Eternal Roses/Dash reduction and charges, gives you a lot of crit chance to work with especially with characters that have dash damage abilities or even innate crit bonuses like Scarlet/Beowulf, and you can squeeze more value from grimoire's bonus crit damage. (Btw any excess over 100% crit chance becomes bonus crit damage).

Horn of Plenty is great to get stars/crit chance, from, and the max bonus is a reasonable all around nice boost.

Bloody Mirror (reverse power with armor), can be good if you see it early, and then get armor from Grimoires/whatever.

But it is important to know your character and "what it can work with", because you can't just get these items at will, and what actually boosts your "good damage" output varies depending on the character. Sometimes what I find first talent/chest wise steers more into a direction of a build.

Some tips in regards to looting, is when you open a legendary/cursed chest, whatever shows up as options, will not show up in another chest if left opened without picking anything.

So let's say you get a Red Well/Key Boss/Quest Boss, if you open one, and you don't like what's in it, maybe don't pick anything or reroll, and do the rest to further eliminate the chance of these things you don't want popping up in them. (This I believe does not work for normal chests).

Normal chests, it might be an idea to just not loot anything in hopes you get stars first to reroll whatever you didn't like. Or maybe you'll find a "combo" you can work with after looking at all the chests.

This can be tricky though, cause you need to mind the timer, sometimes you gotta pick something bleh if you feel you won't have time to go back to loot this chest or whatever. So you have to judge.

The Tamatebako legendary (spelling?), really helps you zone in what you want better, if you can get it early it can help alot.

That being said, I dont think you super have to get "maxed stacks" of items to be able to finish a run, but this where the hero specifics come in to know what combination would make you "float by just enough".

Scarlet can utilise attack/power/crit amplifiers well because she also has good innate talent choices for them. But some characters/buiilds you can't afford to be wishy washy with items like that, or can utilise different things like cd reduction, maybe charges on a skill then a Balor's eye.

Also some heroes talents just make a huuuge difference, Piper's Chorus/Carmilla's Distortion, stuff like that maxed quickly helps you snowball much faster so you can access more power ups easily.

The new Sacrifice altars area a decent damage boost, try to play around leaving a well to heal you up, or having a way to regen health like Holy Grail or a talent. But sometimes they don't show up at all.

Lots to say lol....there are no guarantees power up and sometimes a run just feels crumby and I just reset, usually chapter one is where I really gauge if this seems like it's gonna go well or not. But again character experience helps you come up with "creative" work arounds.

[XP]

Originally posted by Aetemes:

This can be tricky though, cause you need to mind the timer, sometimes you gotta pick something bleh if you feel you won't have time to go back to loot this chest or whatever. So you have to judge.

wow, that alot tips, thanks. Somehow, I manage to beat diff 3 with rat king build and diff 4 is build different X0. many enchanted enemies stack together and the healer is much more than diff 3.

Can you tell me, when normally you take grimoire or quest on stage 2-3? some threshold like you should have certain power or certain armor, if I can't reach it better to not challenge it?

[Aetemes]

Originally posted by XP:

wow, that alot tips, thanks. Somehow, I manage to beat diff 3 with rat king build and diff 4 is build different X0. many enchanted enemies stack together and the healer is much more than diff 3.

Can you tell me, when normally you take grimoire or quest on stage 2-3? some threshold like you should have certain power or certain armor, if I can't reach it better to not challenge it?

Nice congrats!

Uhhh, Quest and Grimoires definitely can be scary, especially if your character does not have an easy time dealing with them at that point.
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Grimoires wise, it is an idea to just zip through them get the acces to their teleport and move on and try to postpone them as much as possible, because you can just tp right ontop of them and start them, and get a feel if you have "easy good cleave damage" at that point or not, and can you eat a few hits cause it's a lot of stuff coming at you. The more "power" you have from other stuff, the much faster/easier you can clear them, and I usually really go for either armor/rerolls. Sometimes bonus critdamage/gold if I have characters/items that take advantage of that well.

Sometimes you might want to clear them "earlier" just to maybe get some stars for a chest that'd you'd like to reroll "right now", and the power you could gain from a good roll would help you snowball the entire map...so depends lol. But yeah don't open if you feel your cleave is crap is a good idea, and night time is probably a better time to do them, cause snakes/starfish spawns are a lot more annoying at daytime.

(Chapter 1 has some better at day time - pigs/trees, but Chapter 2 and 3 I don't think there's a better at day encounters?)

Chapter 3 grimoires -green grimoire especially- leave this till fairly later (unless you feel strong), these can easily end the run imo. I dunno if they still spawn Gargoyles, I think they do, that's scary lol. I feel yellow most of the time feels easier than green grimoire lol.

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I'd say quest wise on chapter 2 I usually go for it around level 7, after doing green/yellow points of interests?

How much stagger can you spam, vs how much damage can you apply when boss is "stunned" is what I am usually concerned about, some can apply good damage without stagger. I definitely try to do it though and not postpone it, the xp for the level feels very significant. Consider also visiting the cave around the end of day time, incase the room before boss has snakes/starfish.

Chapter 3, I'd say I leave that potentially till even after red points of interests are done, so "later" than chapter 2. I probably already have upgraded the ultimate, feel "tanky", it depends how much you snowballed, but the knights can be very scary, and I try to make sure boss dies before it starts lasering the tree or whatever, so I need to feel "fairly strong" as it is.

So ya, usually I end up doing Key Boss/Quest after doing everything else for the most part. Again though you gotta judge for yourself, sometimes I do them much earlier...sometimes I don't do them at all cause I just can't go for them cause of bad luck, cause wasting time on them and "failing" is not a good idea imo- you get no reward at all, might as well bang my head against a red chest/well or something instead, the chest won't go no where.

[XP]

Originally posted by Aetemes:

So ya, usually I end up doing Key Boss/Quest after doing everything else for the most part. Again though you gotta judge for yourself, sometimes I do them much earlier...sometimes I don't do them at all cause I just can't go for them cause of bad luck, cause wasting time on them and "failing" is not a good idea imo- you get no reward at all, might as well bang my head against a red chest/well or something instead, the chest won't go no where.

BROO!! I finally did it!! thanks a lot man by all the tips!!

my first character to beat diff 4 is piep piper, with full dmg and special build.

be honest, I don't know how to star of fate until I see the VOD in youtube xD. like you say, star help to roll what we need to synergy my combo and I start to snowball the area, I quite surprise since I can clear all events in stage 2 and 3.

if I can add something from my run is, raven santuary is quite helpful for beginner, since I die 4 time in run (in stage 2 field, stage 3 field and boss, and baba yaga) xD

be patient on using dash, and knowing enemies pattern, make sure dash in right moment into safe place.

and more important, knowing enemies hp, which one is lazy low hp and which one is annoying. if I see healer and I can't burst it, I will leave it and scout another area until I find easy enemies like wood, wolf warrior, etc.

but as piep pipper I think all starting skills is imbalance, since only freezing trap is worth to take, others need to buff to compete with freezing trap in diff 4.

overall this is very amazing game, at first I think this is co-op game, and impossible for solo, but proven wrong.