Stygian is unbalanced and boring

[wakey wakey]

Because you're kinda forced to run a high dps and speed party so like 90% of the classes are useless if you don't want to rely on savescumming.

I've started a few runs with playing around with different classes until I realized all you need is pure burst damage and speed. It's just stupid as hell once you realise that you can actually kill the whole enemy row with certain combos in a single party turn.

If you play Stygian the normal way(non boss dungeons) with a healer and tank it's completly bs. Enemies kinda put your heroes with a single hit into death door and start first if you don't have everyone on speed 10+. Even with 20%+ protection you go down in no time.

The issue is if you stack high speed damage classes with speed trinkets and quirks you always have the first turn and be able to kill everything on the enemy side in the first round.

Is this really intended? I mean this is not balanced at all because Healer/Tanks and most low speed dd classes are outright useless on stygian when I can just lunge/throw/grape shot the whole enemy line to death before I even have to deal with health/stress damage, ignoring tank/healers and just stack damage dealers with high speed.

That's the next thing, the whole death door mechanic is utter ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥t even if you get to that point most of the high speed classes have a rather high dodge value. Most of the time you dodge 3-4 times and have 5+ death door proccs before anyone actually kills you. Because of that heals even matter less. I am in week 17 on Stygian running around without any heal(except crusaders for my 3 grave robber 1 crusader teams and have 0 deaths till now)

Sure I have to lvl at least one MaA for vvulf but that's all I need for tanky dudes, and even that I could ignore If I just sacrafice freshly hired dudes.

In the end this game is not difficult at all it just forces one into overpowered setups on Stygian which are not really fun(okay tbh the first few times 2/3 turns stunning and giggling at 60+ crits where actually fun ^^) and effectively making most classes completly useless.

[Connatic]

It's fine for a game like this to have optimum strats and heroes, not using them can just be another layer of "hard mode" right?

It's just disappointing that over all, the buff and debuff mechanics are super situational or borderline useless. It becomes a noob trap and heroes look deeper than they actually are.

Would be nice if there was a way for those abilities to get buffed, instead if adding a Stygian mode that makes them more worthless.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by Connatic:

It's just disappointing that over all, the buff and debuff mechanics are super situational or borderline useless. It becomes a noob trap and heroes look deeper than they actually are.

Would be nice if there was a way for those abilities to get buffed, instead if adding a Stygian mode that makes them more worthless.

Oh buff and debuff mechanics are overall useless right!
Who cares about the Cove -20 DODGE trap, drinking holy water before tough boss fights, debuffing the dreaded rabble of ruin of the prophet with Occultist to almost null damage, over 60 DODGE Shrieker, the 4 spiders blitzkrieg team of death that could be mitigated with the USELESS Arbalest's rallying flare that remove stuns and marks, using battle ballad on last turn for a chance to have more speed in the next fight first turns, I could go on but you don't need another one of my text walls.

Buff and Debuff mechanics have their powerful applications and are kinda balanced (in our favor) I think, so until devs will nerf them (no way they're gonna buff them) it is up to you to find those uses. If the best your strategic mind can think is "just smash 'em fast!" well good for you if it works, but don't overjudge mechanics you don't fully understand.

And

Stygian makes them all the more useful (my theory), 20% more hp on monster means less oneshots, 20% more damage means more need to debuff it (unless you plan to stun 4 enemies multiple turns), but that's just my opinion.

[No One]

I beat my first stygian run using fixed parties, all but one party on a 'use every class once' theme. (Sixteenth class was a second highwayman. Last party was HM OCC ♥♥♥ MAA.) One person died, on week twelve, before I got my parties set up. Killed most champion bosses, but ran out of time before finishing all of them. Stalled the living hell out of everything, though. Did you know the plague doctor is a viable main healer? Intensely boring, but viable. ARB HM BH CRU is surprisingly fun, though I can't take them to the champion weald.

Sounds like OP hasn't reached champion dungeons yet.

Tanking and debuffs are useless in regular difficulties too, it's just not obvious because the game is so easy. They're totally overshadowed by stuns. Weakness 5 = 40% damage * 2 turns = 80% damage reduction. Stun = 100% damage reduction, no delay. Vulnerability is overshadowed by whistle AND by +acc trinkets.

That said, yes stygian is unbalanced. Basically every hero is two hits away from death's door, so any HP less than full is basically 1 HP. Which means either very inefficient risk or very tedious stalling. If they want HP to be a burst bar, they should have made HP automatically recover to full at the end of a fight.

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

debuffing the dreaded rabble of ruin of the prophet with Occultist to almost null damage

I killed champion stygian prophet with HWM VES ATQ MAA. Yes, my antiquarian party.

The shrieker is the only good use for battle ballad.
Instead of having an arbalest, have a party that isn't slower than the spiders.
Weakness curse is a good way to deal with downtrunk smacktree. Would be good for stalling but the OCC is for healing during the stall.

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

tough boss fights

The only tough boss is the champion shambler, who is completely optional.

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

Who cares about the Cove -20 DODGE trap

Considering it is the only one of its kind, that is hardly representative now is it?
That is indeed how the Buffs and Debuffs should have been designed.

[bigpenc]

I would disagree with the general idea that anything besides dps comps aren't viable.

I beat Stygian in 49 weeks with every single party being arbalest/vestal/bountyhunter/manatarms and only one death from 4-spider-no-counterplay-ambush. I'm not sure what the overpowered zerg/burst/speed team is, but Stygian is certainly doable with standard tank/heal setup, and no stress healer in my case.

Some level 3 dungeons, and certainly all level 5+6 dungeons, I use mark debuffs, even on some non-tank enemies. Marks are insanely powerful, especially when you have two characters that can mark, and two characters that have high bonus vs marked (arbalest + bounty hunter is disgusting, and they can selectively debuff vs high dodge or high prot as needed). Man-at-arms is broken, and i almost never use his regular attack. Guard/stun is a must, bellow is great for lvl 1 and 3 dungeons, and dodge buff stacking is beyond viable in the late game, esp if your man at arms has a dodge trinket and is perma-guarding a squishy vs harder hitters (think treebranch smackdown or revelation dungeon).

Im certainly no expert on the other classes or party makeups, but this particular party is viable for everything in the game, Stygian included. The only thing it consistenly struggles against is party rearrangment, so high level shambler and a few bosses are dicey. Give it a try.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by No One:

Tanking and debuffs are useless in regular difficulties too, it's just not obvious because the game is so easy. They're totally overshadowed by stuns. Weakness 5 = 40% damage * 2 turns = 80% damage reduction. Stun = 100% damage reduction, no delay. Vulnerability is overshadowed by whistle AND by +acc trinkets.


I killed champion stygian prophet with HWM VES ATQ MAA. Yes, my antiquarian party.


The shrieker is the only good use for battle ballad.


Instead of having an arbalest, have a party that isn't slower than the spiders.
Weakness curse is a good way to deal with downtrunk smacktree. Would be good for stalling but the OCC is for healing during the stall.


The only tough boss is the champion shambler, who is completely optional.

You talk like debuffs and stuns are mutually exclusive. I never tried stygian but darkest champion runs were enough to understand that a single turn and usually neither two turns of stunning can't guarantee the death of all your enemies, the time you spend stunning, you don't spend damaging them, and unless you always run Plague Doctor and Hellion togheter (or even with them) you can't stunlock all enemies for 2 turns consistently AND kill them.
two of my favourite debuffers (Occultist and Vestal) provide some stuns too (a bit less reliable than, say, those of the Bounty Hunter, but useful nontheless), the objective of debuffs is: when the enemy strike, it must do the littlest damage possible, how you do it (all out debuffs or stun-debuff combos) is up to you.
Oh and BTW at max level equipment any debuff attack deal way more damage than any stun attack, and have better crit chances for stress heals, so a little more damage and flexibility out of them.


I usually kill any level of the prophet with a party that revolve around a buffed to heavens and hell crusader spamming holy lance from rank 4, buffed by a rank 1 plague doctor with emboldening vapours, the other 2 just think about healing and shuffling the crusader back, just for the fun of it.
I never needed to debuff rubble of ruin, but I'm happy to know that it is a solid option.


The shrieker is the only good use for -DODGE debuffs too.


the spiders thing was just for pointing out that a skill comunity-wide labeled as almost useless like rallying flare have a use that not everybody might catch at first glance, so who knows how many of this little hidden pearls this game keeps only for those ready to exit the comfort zone?


The OCC and every class in the game can excel in many not always obvious roles, I sometimes fancy me with some frontline Occultist, even in champion runs, and it worked. The game gives you the tools, you and (most importantly) THE SITUATION decide what is good or not, there are no "don't do this, it's bad". well maybe rank 4 MaA is an exception, he's wasted there _:-) I would rather reposition a rank 4 Leper XD


Never killed a champion Shambler in 270 hours, and unless they force me to do it for an achievement, like hell that I'll try.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by Paranoia:

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

Who cares about the Cove -20 DODGE trap

Considering it is the only one of its kind, that is hardly representative now is it?

Considering that some general consensus define -4 DODGE on some trinkets a rather crippling malus, -20 DODGE for a crapload of turns it's enough to make you regret for that last healing herb wasted on hellion self debuffs, and it is a core element of 1 of the 4 dungeon you travel in for most of the time, so I would give it a little more credit for highlighting how much the debuff mechanic can mean.

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

Considering that some general consensus define -4 DODGE on some trinkets a rather crippling malus, -20 DODGE for a crapload of turns it's enough to make you regret for that last healing herb wasted on hellion self debuffs, and it is a core element of 1 of the 4 dungeon you travel in for most of the time, so I would give it a little more credit for highlighting how much the debuff mechanic can mean.

It would, if that singular trap wasn't indeed the only one of its kind.
Most of the rest of the Debuffs are indeed highly situational. Hell, some of the Skills are pretty much useful on about grand total of two Bosses in the game.
Indeed, some, like Flash Powder of Antiquarian, further suffer from the fact that enemy odds to hit are not exactly a known factor, so the effect it has is pretty much unknown.

And who the hell uses herbs on Hellion self-Debuffs? Especially in Cove where the Curios with Herb-interactions are many.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by Paranoia:

And who the hell uses herbs on Hellion self-Debuffs? Especially in Cove where the Curios with Herb-interactions are many.

I do, to negate the downside of her camping skills, or to guarantee consecutive full damage "Bleed Out"s if I need them, I buy a few more herbs whenever I use her (or a Jester if I might need to Finale on turn 1 and 3 without waiting for the debuff to expire). See? More options!

[No One]

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

You talk like debuffs and stuns are mutually exclusive.

They are. Every turn you're using a debuff, you're not using a stun. Any turn the enemy is both a debuffed and a stunned, the debuff is wasted.

[KillTheHostages]

your achievements say u havent beat the game on Styngian, or beat it at all with the default settings, kinda takes away some of your complaints about not being hard enough.

When u have heroes use speed trinkets what are you giving up? scouting? ie ancestors map. accuracy? ie sun/moon rings. typically the speedier heroes are a lot more squishy which isnt can suck in pretty much all the darkest dungeons.

there are valid uses for all heroes which make the game not lack party variety in my honest opinion, even now 250+ hrs in im finding new team compositions that are challenging and rewarding.

[Panfilo]

PROT is massively useful, because stuns can fail to stick, attacks can miss, but all self-buffs apply 100% of the time. The more direct damage you suffer, the more cost effective PROT is on a hero.

[LaserGuy]

PROT doesn't help against stress though.

Originally posted by Villager:

your achievements say u havent beat the game on Styngian, or beat it at all with the default settings, kinda takes away some of your complaints about not being hard enough.

When u have heroes use speed trinkets what are you giving up? scouting? ie ancestors map. accuracy? ie sun/moon rings. typically the speedier heroes are a lot more squishy which isnt can suck in pretty much all the darkest dungeons.

For me, it's usually Stress damage taken. My favorite trinket combo is probably Berserk Charm + Sun Ring. +25% DMG, +3 SPD, +5 ACC, +25% Stress. Sun Ring + Crescendo Box or Ancestor Candle are good alternatives if you need a bit more ACC. Generally +3 Speed will more than mitigate the +25% stress.

[figbyfigbyfigby]

Originally posted by No One:

Originally posted by figbyfigbyfigby:

You talk like debuffs and stuns are mutually exclusive.

They are. Every turn you're using a debuff, you're not using a stun. Any turn the enemy is both a debuffed and a stunned, the debuff is wasted.

I know that I'm debating with a player with way more hours spent in this game and experience than me, and that the word of a player that have won stygian counts more for sure, but this time you talked like you run champion expeditions with 1 charachters party. stuns hardly last more than 1-2 turns on a single enemy, debuffs aren't a thing if not focused, so these 2 flavours open up 3 scenarios:

1 - focus on multiple trinket buffed stuns and strike hard with speed and damage bursts.
2 - focus on multiple trinket buffed debuffs and play safe with healing, stress healing and stalling tactics.
3 - bring a balance of either of the previous 2 and adapt to the situation.

Enemies recover from stun with buffed resistance, so some players prefer to gamble (with high chances of success of course) for a 2nd turn stun, some prefer to debuff, stun and debuff again so that even if the enemy attacks, it'll hardly matter.

Thinking that stun is mutaully exclusive with debuff, or really anything is mutaully exclusive with anything is discouraging at best, it may induce other inexperienced players to lose part of the content just because it is considered useless by 90% of the comunity without more detailed reasons.

[The Yeen Queen]

I believe the old Dark Souls d00d response applies here: git gud.