Stygian Mode

[Sogetsu]

Hello people!!

After around 130+ hours, finally im ready to do the last road to redemption ~ and is the last achievement i need too xD, so i want to ask for your help guys!!, im pretty sure Stygian is the hell... so any tips, warnings, teams, pray if you think i need do it (?), etc! i really appreciate guys ♥ ♥

Cheers!!

[Enfild]

Main problem in stygian is time, you have only 86 weeks to finish, and only 12 death limit. So you must play safe and fast, bring your most robust teams, and upgrade most usefull buildings first ( Stagecoach for at least 4 heroes, and then armory and guild, sanitarium will be usefull later, tavern, abbey, nomad, survaivalist, you can not bother at all). Keep an eye on special quests that make sanitarium or stress treatment free. Avoid short quests, as not profitable, remebmer, your time is limited.
In dungeons remember that all your foes have 20% more HP, deal more stress damage as well as normal damage overall, and you will need more torches, because hallways drain light faster.
But in the end, it is not vastly more difficult then normal mode

[kill rock stars]

The death toll limit is the harsher one, 86 weeks is more than enough to finish your campaign if you don't screw around and do stuff like attempting red bosses.

Your main goals should be to get stagecoach to a bearable condition(20 ppl max and 3-4ppl/week should be enough) then focus on upgrading the blacksmith and guild to at least lv4(lv5 armor is is STRONGLY recommended, weapons are important too but it takes a lot of time to grind so if you want to do it really fast you can risk and go 4/4 equip). There's more than enough time to get both your blacksmith and guild to lv5 though if you want to pace it.

Once you've done it, run your DD squads(which should be already prepared, preferably with some quirks locked) into champ dungeons until lv6, maybe take the time to grab pen and musket ball and then just to to DD.

After I finished normal mode it took me about 65 weeks to finish Stygian and my strategy was far from best and economy(especially deed grinding) used to be more harsh before the update so if you have a good strategy and get good heroes at the start you can do it in sub 50 weeks I think which is what I'm aiming for rn. There wasn't brigand incursion back then though, so be ready to lose any 4 heroes because you can't afford to fight Vvulf without top gear/MaA and even then it's pretty risky.

[Sir Francis]

The least weeks record for stygian is 26 weeks IIRC.
That should somewhat set the scope for the time limit.
You really have to build good teams from the ground up, another reason why no death should ever happen.

[timmy]

1. FIRST get the stagecoach to 4 heroes a week and a max roster of around 21.
2. Focus primarily on upgrading your blacksmith and guild.
3. Some people upgrade the sanitarium for locking in quirks, but I get along fine without it. It'll slow you down a few weeks, but it's up to you. Do make sure to upgrade the disease half of the sanitarium though.
4. Do long dungeons as much as possible, they give the most loot and XP per week.
5. Boss dungeons are NOT required.
6. The Vvulf event can only be triggered if you have 4 or more lvl5+ heroes. Use this wisely.
7. This is personal preference, but the Jester, Crusader, Grave Robber, and Plague Doctor become vital in Stygian mode, the former two for stress relief and the latter two for curing diseases.

[Panfilo]

1. Blacksmith weapons/armor up ASAP. Prioritize weapons over armor at level 5 because most heroes will get +1 speed on their last weapon upgrade l.

2.Get the guild up accordingly.

3. Unlock the ability to obtain pre-leveled heroes from the stagecoach as this saves a TON of time and money early on. Get your Barracks up as well to have more heroes to rotate between.

4. Use busts on sanitarium over Abbey. You need to minimize needing to use stress recovery buildings in stygian because of the cost and risk of the hero going AWOL on you. But with 3 sanitarium slots you can run medicine recovery quests in Weald (which also coughs up deeds which you'll need for blacksmith) and lock positive/remove negative quirks for free. If you have a critical hero with a grab bag of negative quirks it can be important to clear them off when you can. This is also why stress management becomes more critical. Less dungeons you flee from or complete with lots of stress, less chances of negative quirks.

5. Since champion has a big jump in difficulty you really want to try to have the heroes be appropriately equipped to minimize getting afflicted (or dead).

6. Remember you have 86 weeks. That means you need to start DD by week 82 at the latest, meaning at that point you need 16 level 6 heroes all with level 5 weapon/armor/skills.

I feel like the death limit is more punishing for time and money wasted losing a few high level heroes vs losing a dozen total. Better to flee dungeons than risk losing someone, 86 weeks is very doable if you focus on the task at hand.