Level 18: Creatures of Darkness

[Mjollner]

Can anyone beat this level? From what I can tell you just get frozen in place almost immediately after the boss spawns and there is literally 0 counterplay. I've tried getting evade thinking I was getting hit from the fairy fireballs but the slow just... happens regardless of what I do. I've tried summons to take aggro and homing and absolute storm which do wonders for killing the fairies but nothing seems to stop the slow from happening. Definitely a horrid game design decision for sure but I'd like to get past this so I can finish the rest of the game.

[NinjaFrog]

They have almost no hps and you can spam them. Get a lot of long range beams, the basic laser, etc and run around the outside and spin a lot killing them. The boss himself isn't very hard, so once he comes out you just have to try to focus fire him. I used a hybrid summon/laser build as the summons act as bait for shots too.

[Mjollner]

Originally posted by NinjaFrog:

They have almost no hps and you can spam them. Get a lot of long range beams, the basic laser, etc and run around the outside and spin a lot killing them. The boss himself isn't very hard, so once he comes out you just have to try to focus fire him. I used a hybrid summon/laser build as the summons act as bait for shots too.

Do you have a build you can share by any chance? Also what tier(s) were you focused on? It doesn't feel like there's much room here to go for anything past B tier without relying heavily on the RNG to get specific skills so I've been focusing on just maxing out C + D tier abilities and maybe 1 B tier if I can manage that.

[Mjollner]

Holy crap haha nevermind that worked THANK YOU! If anyone is curious as to the build, I used:

Tier D:
- Blaster 3
- Targeting Bonus 2
- Obedient Zombie 2
- Random Dart 2

Tier C:
- Summoned Creature Health 2
- Absolute Storm 2
- Tiny Slime 2

Tier B:
- Anvil 2
- Slime Minion 1

This gave Evasion 2 and Critical Strike 2 which was enough defense to not get locked down immediately and enough damage to burn things down before they became a problem. The Slime Minion being bigger than most was definitely useful for soaking up some of the errant fairy fire and Blaster 3 was a lot higher damage than I originally gave it credit for. Also being able to swing it around until it hit something meant no Blaster fire was ever wasted which was pretty huge for this map.

[Bone_Reaper]

it took me around 3 tries to get past the level for the 1st time back when i binged the update in 5 hours total for all levels form 11 to 20, and yeah 18 seemed like the hardest, but i never really got frozen in place, and didn't have too many problems, mostly it was an issue of my deck being heavily reliant on early damage, though i did changed it a bit and for me what worked was just your average targeted weapon build, and nothing of note honestly, i had a Flashes and the homing Eye launcher form the 1st shop to kill the mages, but generally after i got past the start it was not of note form other levels, since a generic mix of D to B tier targeted weapons with a level 1 of Bonus Bonus and Candy Bomb + Healthy Fat.

[SynthR]

Yeah, I'm not sure why the slow is cumulative to the point where you're frozen in place with no chance of getting out. A bizarre design choice.

[kseixas]

oh man this level... the amount of new mages that spawn at the same time as the boss doesnt give me enough room to kill them all before im freeze in place

[Bone_Reaper]

Originally posted by kseixas:

oh man this level... the amount of new mages that spawn at the same time as the boss doesnt give me enough room to kill them all before im freeze in place

are you running in a circle around the outer edge the entire time? Since i was never frozen in place while just pretty mindlessly doing that.

[kseixas]

Originally posted by Bone_Reaper:

Originally posted by kseixas:

oh man this level... the amount of new mages that spawn at the same time as the boss doesnt give me enough room to kill them all before im freeze in place

are you running in a circle around the outer edge the entire time? Since i was never frozen in place while just pretty mindlessly doing that.

yeah even if i kill every single one that spawn before the boss the moment the boss spawn new ones spawn with him and i dont have enough time to go around the map to clear before i have literally a bullet hell with nowhere to avoid them

[Hookworm]

My fool-proof tactic was: Pick 3-4 low tier weapon (D-C), level up to the highest you can get to maximize your hp and when the boss arrives, just stay near the cube like obstacle in the north. When the boss come, just move to the opposite side, this cube will block the rush, so he cant melee you, and your ranged dps will eat the dog faster than the map your hp. :D

[kseixas]

Originally posted by Hookworm:

My fool-proof tactic was: Pick 3-4 low tier weapon (D-C), level up to the highest you can get to maximize your hp and when the boss arrives, just stay near the cube like obstacle in the north. When the boss come, just move to the opposite side, this cube will block the rush, so he cant melee you, and your ranged dps will eat the dog faster than the map your hp. :D

worked thank you used targeted weapon and the bonus which is also D-tier so it makes it easier you just need to tank a couple of his ranged attack he wont get close to you

[KoshLovesYou]

I've sadly noticed that the big play for a lot of the harder maps just boils down to "use targeted weapon" it seems. It works, sure, but makes me look at all the other cool skills I'm not really able to use to progress.

[Bone_Reaper]

Originally posted by KoshLovesYou:

I've sadly noticed that the big play for a lot of the harder maps just boils down to "use targeted weapon" it seems. It works, sure, but makes me look at all the other cool skills I'm not really able to use to progress.

well it is the most effective build in the game flowed by Shot type cards. But other builds can work just fine on most levels, but they would need either cards you probably don't have unlocked yet, or a pretty high Meta progression to support it.