Insanely difficult?

[Donberry]

Anyone else find this game almost impossible? I've done over a dozen runs and I can't get past greed every single time. The first wave of enemies in Greed just instantly kills me because they apparently just have 5x more health than the enemies in the stage prior?

Like, my run will feel pretty strong, stage advance to greed, instantly lose run. I'm getting to the point where I just wanna give up and uninstall.

So uh, can someone tell me what the hell I'm doing wrong I guess?

[Lubibinho]

Heya

I won't know what you are doing wrong, but I can try to say some tips between general or if you want to only brute force on the beginning of the game
Hope if it helps. Right now I only need 5 achievs to complete the game, so I can say that it worked well (since that's basically how I play)
And sorry for any mistakes (specially grammar ones), not my first language

General:
--- The first character (intern Ruby) doesn't have any special ability. Try to unlock another character before you purchase cards on the promotion tab (the promotion tab is inside the rewards app if you don't know). I recommend the second one (John Fenriz, the Locksmith) since he starts with one more open structure slot (more structures = more damage = more survavibility) and can prevent you for discarding a card by paying one energy to lock it in the sacrifice area (if you can't use it well, no problems, the bonus structure helps already)
--- Beware of what your structure scales with. You can hover your mouse over an active structure to see what it scales with. Firstly structure bonuses affects both towers and garrisons. Tower bonus affect only towers. Garrisons bonus affect only garrisons. And the elemental (hellfire, holy and unholy) bonuses affects only the structures or actives that deal that type of damage. So it's not very rewarding for you to try and make some hybrid build with many different types of damage spread across towers and garrisons. It's better to focus more on one type of damage or structure
--- It's fun to sacrifice (combine) cards to get higher tiers (rarity) but you only get stronger by using cards. My recommendation is to try to always have one of the higher tier possible for you (even if it's only the green one) of the increased damage for your structure type and the increased damage for your damage type. That way while you are trying to get some better cards, you still can always get a little bonus here and there since you will have it in your deck. Also, it's almost always better to have four green structure than one purple structure, so focus first in filling all of your open structure slots before trying to combine or upgrading them
--- You can use your active cards. They will create an icon on the top middle of your screen where you can see the cooldown for it. They are always benefical, and only can create some problems if you are trying to get the tasks for doing a only one damage type run. You can manually cast them or you can right-click on the icon to make it auto cast whenever it can
--- Your deck will always fill with rocks ONLY IF you have less than 13 total cards in the deck + hand + discard. So you can sacrifice or banish them and they will come back if your deck is small and you can get stuck with no rocks to upgrade if your deck has 13 or more cards (so waiting for a rock to magically appear to save your day to sacrifice won't happen)
--- Look at the top left corner of the cards since there may be a symbol. It can say that the card is of a certain damage type (red, whiteish?, purple for hellfire, holy and unholy in order), if it will be destroyed (removed from your deck, not from the shift/run) after use or if you can only use it one time, removing it from your deck and not appearing anymore until the beginning of another shift. For example, structures of tier blue (3) or higher will be destroyed after use, but green (2) and gray (1) won't, so you can have one green structure and use it over and over to fill all your structure slots and upgrade then, so I won't recommend you getting rid of your principal structure green card
--- If you sacrifice two of the same card, you will be offered the next tier of that card (if it exists or if you have it unlocked), but it won't jump from green to purple, for example, to fullfil this
--- The coins you get inside the run is different and don't affect the money you use outside the run. The coins stay there, so feel free to spend them however you like

Build for beginners (what I did when I started and was struuggling)
--- Sunder tower. All six slots filled with them. Why you ask? It scales only with Tower Damage, Fire Damage and Tower Range. This makes it so easy to scale since you can focus on only those three and win. Also, it deals damage on EVERYTHING in it's line inside it's range, so you havea very much welcome and needed AoE or infinity pierce (what term you think it's better)
--- Whatever character you want works with this
--- Artifacts (end of level bonus itens): +Tower damage = +Fire damage > Structure slots > whatever you want
--- Always try to have at least one card (even if a green one) of Tower damage, Fire damage and Tower range (this one you can stop if you think the range is enough or if you hit the cap and is already targetting outside the map) so you can always try and upgrade a little every hand
--- Focus on getting all structures slots filled with a Sunder tower and what I said on the general tips
--- Also, when you reach the penultimate Circle of Hell Fraud be sure to pick the save slot before you reach the last Circle of Hell Treachery , so you are basically full stabilished on the run (so no worries about losing I hope) and can do the last Circle again and get the same money reward, even though you will do one level instead of a full shift, basically getting the double of money for the chore of one

[aquatorrent]

Standard game is pretty simple.
1. Focus on damage, be it tower damage, garisson damage, or elemental damage. As long as it affect the structure you are currently playing, go for it. Other power ups can be done as you go, but you need to get this as high as possible.

2. Upgrade your structures. Use the maximum amount of structures.

Depending on your current unlockable cards, you might need to continue playing to unlock more cards that support your run.

I compiled some info here as well if you want to read further. It is for torment, but it works well with the standard game which is way easier than that.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3475521424

[spacefree]

I was able to get initially to endless mode with postal guy by having full Garnison army and upgrading them to Max. In the end damage was several tousand percent high and the run ended after 90 min. Had similar experience like you before by using Tower mix setup.

[[E621] Balus]

I had the same roadblock and the answer really came down to specializing: Pick *one* element (Holy, Unholy, Hellfire). Early game, you're probably best to go with Unholy.

Then decide if you're doing (Unholy) Towers or (Unholy) Infantry. And stick only to that. Personally I recommend Towers.

Then maximize Range and Damage and Firing Speed. If you can up the chance of crits, go for it, but that's really secondary.

That should bag you your first win.

After that, do it again but with Hellfire. Do it again but with Holy.

After those first three wins you should have plenty of rewards and new cards to unlock. Frankly, IMO, I think unlocking cards is more useful than unlocking characters, but that's just a personal preference.

[dande48]

Don't mean to carry on the necro of an old thread, but here's what helped me:
- Playing a structure of the same type and level of an already played structure upgrades it. You don't have to manually do the upgrading in the UI.
- You spend the money you earn to unlock cards.
- The more cards you unlock, the easier it gets.