How do I farm apprentice and veteran dungeons?

[Tazor]

Quite a lot of my guys have reached level 5 and 6. I am running out of level 4s and lower. Now they consider themselves too good for those puny veteran dungeons.

But going into champion dungeons without blacksmith and guild upgrades at level 5 feels like suicide. Very big difficulty spike when compared to veteran. The enemies will kick me right out the door in a few fights.

I don't have enough heirlooms to upgrade my buildings. I need to farm low level dungeons in order to be able to do high level dungeons. But I am running out of low level people.

Yes, I used the antiquarian on quite a lot of runs. Yes, my barracks are almost fully upgraded, level 4.

Was I supposed to lose more people? Week 57 lost 3 so far. Do I simply throw away my high level characters and get low level trash? Do I slam my head into champion dungeons until enough people die?

[CloudSeeker]

In champion levels you lose a lot of heros if you got the wrong tactics. If you rely on dodge you will have a hard time. Use the MMA and his 80% PROT. You also lose heros because of bad luck. It just happens sometimes.

What I should suggest is to get the Bank district. It will give you quite a descent amount of gold each week. Eventually you simply do not need to collect gold anymore which means you can collect only heirlooms instead.

What I should suggest is that you focus on what you need. Just run missions and grab as much as you can. Improve your tactics as they clearly are not working. Easy and medium levels allow you to get away with lot of bad tactics.

[RopeDrink]

Improve your tactics as they clearly are not working. Easy and medium levels allow you to get away with lot of bad tactics.

OP made no indication that they were struggling in combat, thus this isn't a really matter of combat tactics. OP's issue is regarding a roster full of heroes that cannot do lower dungeons, and being apprehensive about starting Champion while the heroes remain unupgraded, leaving only two options - sacrifice heroes to make low-level teams, or just dive into Champion with sub-optimal heroes.

Either option works. Just depends on whether you value the X number of heroes you might need to throw away. You can go into Champion with the mindset of fleeing if things go bad, but with the right comp and a solid playstyle, completing Champ with weaker heroes isn't impossible.

You also lose heros because of bad luck.

Maybe YOU do, but this isn't some universal truth. I hope this isn't another "RNG" comment in disguise.

What I should suggest is to get the Bank district.

Bank is one of many things people value differently. I haven't bought a bank ever since districts were implemented. I just don't see the point when I can make tonnes of gold manually and would prefer to donate those heirlooms towards upgrades - but others swear by it.

[PalmTree]

As far as I can see, you have two options:

1- Risk it and try to survive Champion missions with level 4 gear and skills. It is possible, but it's very dangerous demands your absolute best tactics to get out alive.

2- Dismiss your worst heroes to make room for a lower level team. It sucks, but that's probably your safest option.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Tazor:

Was I supposed to lose more people? Week 57 lost 3 so far. Do I simply throw away my high level characters and get low level trash? Do I slam my head into champion dungeons until enough people die?

I think the game does expect you to die more often than you actually do if you play it well, although this is one of those problems you hope to have.

Firing them to get a team of lower levels sucks, but if you don't do that, you really have to choose the other option of sending in underequipped less skilled teams.

If you do that, you need to triage it. Pick easy missions. I find the easiest missions for risk-to-reward are medium-length fetch/activate missions, especially using scouting boosts to increase the chance of getting all 3 mission objectives early.

That and have a keen sense for impending failure and avoid deaths.

Originally posted by RopeDrink:

Bank is one of many things people value differently. I haven't bought a bank ever since districts were implemented. I just don't see the point when I can make tonnes of gold manually and would prefer to donate those heirlooms towards upgrades - but others swear by it.

I wouldn't say I swear by it, because actually exploiting it well requires a very stingy and cruel strategy. But with a quite simple regimen of saving 5K gold every single week, no matter what, you guarantee having a 250K bankroll by week 50 and 12.5K free gold every week from then on.

Then get the Bank with the very first free Blueprint. If you save all heirlooms until then and liquidate them all you should be able to get it.

This presents something of the same problem as OP's in that it takes an extremely stingy strategy in the very early game (after week 20 the bank starts paying for itself). Your heroes are ridiculously underequipped and underskilled.

Save weapons/armor upgrades for those heroes who benefit most from them. If you have one skill you use all the time, upgrade that.

Save only the very best trinkets, sell everything else.

Bring Antiquarian on every single mission.

Throw away heroes with anything costly about them.

If you save up your money during the early stages by doing this underquipped/underskilled thing then you won't have that problem later in the game and the actually brutally expensive upgrades (the final ones to L5) are essentially free.

This even works well in Bloodmoon.

[POLINCHI]

One other option wich is like "mid term", is to send your guys with just enough equipment to survive a few rooms and collect some cash and heirlooms, and then scape from the mission.
This way you practice and get currency with the characters you have already, but without putting them in high risk. Its kinda a boring strat, but the only one i can think that might let you upgrade a little without risking or dismising characters for no real reason.
The only problem about this strat is to remember "overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer". Dont get cocky, know when to leave. Take more than you spent, but dont get greedy.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by POLINCHI:

One other option wich is like "mid term", is to send your guys with just enough equipment to survive a few rooms and collect some cash and heirlooms, and then scape from the mission.
This way you practice and get currency with the characters you have already, but without putting them in high risk. Its kinda a boring strat, but the only one i can think that might let you upgrade a little without risking or dismising characters for no real reason.
The only problem about this strat is to remember "overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer". Dont get cocky, know when to leave. Take more than you spent, but dont get greedy.

That's a pure emergency strategy and leaves you with massive amounts of stress and negative quirks that wreck your heroes. It ultimately costs more than it makes. You should instead try for missions you can actually succeed at on a shoestring, or at least have a better than even chance of winning, and these are medium length fetch/activate missions with high scouting.

These missions also often have financial rewards or buff you for the next mission, so your next mission might also succeed.

[Tony Twist's Thunderous Right]

If your choice is to either fire some folks or send underequipped teams in.....why not send in the folks you would fire? Worst case scenario, they die and the slots open up for the low level folks you need. Best case, a blend of skill and luck actually gets them through the mission. Am I missing a reason not to take that approach?

[PalmTree]

Originally posted by Bang-Maid!:

If your choice is to either fire some folks or send underequipped teams in.....why not send in the folks you would fire? Worst case scenario, they die and the slots open up for the low level folks you need. Best case, a blend of skill and luck actually gets them through the mission. Am I missing a reason not to take that approach?

Because missions cost money to go on. If that team wipes, you've wasted a decent bit of cash.

[Tony Twist's Thunderous Right]

Originally posted by PalmTree:

Originally posted by Bang-Maid!:

If your choice is to either fire some folks or send underequipped teams in.....why not send in the folks you would fire? Worst case scenario, they die and the slots open up for the low level folks you need. Best case, a blend of skill and luck actually gets them through the mission. Am I missing a reason not to take that approach?

Because missions cost money to go on. If that team wipes, you've wasted a decent bit of cash.

I suppose. But the way I see it, you've already invested quite a bit in these heroes to get them where they are. Just up and firing them seems so wasteful. I get that you can (and likely will) lose some money when they wipe, but I guess I just see that as a last ditch investment that might pay off.

[POLINCHI]

Originally posted by Skinny Pete:

Originally posted by POLINCHI:

One other option wich is like "mid term", is to send your guys with just enough equipment to survive a few rooms and collect some cash and heirlooms, and then scape from the mission.
This way you practice and get currency with the characters you have already, but without putting them in high risk. Its kinda a boring strat, but the only one i can think that might let you upgrade a little without risking or dismising characters for no real reason.
The only problem about this strat is to remember "overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer". Dont get cocky, know when to leave. Take more than you spent, but dont get greedy.

That's a pure emergency strategy and leaves you with massive amounts of stress and negative quirks that wreck your heroes. It ultimately costs more than it makes. You should instead try for missions you can actually succeed at on a shoestring, or at least have a better than even chance of winning, and these are medium length fetch/activate missions with high scouting.

These missions also often have financial rewards or buff you for the next mission, so your next mission might also succeed.

Yeah, i mean, its not something I would do honestly. I had a similar problem and i just sent my guys anyway and try to win. If i did great, but if i didnt, i practiced and could get new low lvl characters on the way. I leart a lot about the game that way. But i gave that option just as an alternative if he didnt want to sacrifice or dismis characters.

[Scrye Crow]

Goto DD workshop or Nexus an grab a "larger roster size Mod" and you can get more recruits