[VENT/RANT] RNG at it's finest.

[0x6495ED]

Been grinding groups for like two days, saving up money and generally getting my best group ready for a medium mission, reducing stress, removing sicknesses, removing the worst quirks.

Today they were ready, all prepaired, top notch trinkets geared, upgraded weapons and skills. Bought plenty of bandages tools for the trip. It was time!

Second room, first battle... holy ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ crap what a nightmare. Started out with the enemies getting the supprise on me (Torchlight 100, of course...) Kept missing and missing and missing. The enemies kept critting and critting and critting.

Managed to pull through somehow. All heroes above 100 stress, 4 sicknesses accumilated, barely any health left, deaths door debuff on 2 of 4.

Retreat from missing, get more bad quirks, realize the amount of work to get them ready for the next mission, quit game, post on forums, internally rage.

This game is as fun as a slotmachine sometimes. There is NO way the RNG isn't weighted heavily in the enemies favor. Heck Popo from 100% Orange Juice is fairer than this game.

[LaserGuy]

What party were you using? Which trinkets? What enemies did you run into?

[0x6495ED]

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

What party were you using? Which trinkets? What enemies did you run into?

Classic party:

Vestal, Plaugedoctor, Highwayman, Crusader

I can't remember the trinkets name, but they were decent enough.

Monsters were:

Two swine butchers, drummer and swinespitter-thingy (hence all the sickness)

I wasn't ♥♥♥♥♥♥ by the trinkets (none of them had an accuracy impact), party setups or even the monsters, I was ♥♥♥♥♥♥ for constatly missing and the enemy constantly critting me.

[LaserGuy]

Well, ACC-boosting trinkets (notably Sun Rings and, to a lesser extent, Focus Rings) are very important as you progress to higher level areas. This is particularly true if your skills are underleveled, since that's where your ACC comes from.

As far as the party goes, it's a decent team, but it is VERY vulnerable to ambush. Vestal and PD are weak in the front two rows; Crusader is weak in the back two rows (better if you have holy lance equipped). HWM is okay as long as you bring Duelist Advance. A bad shuffle can easily make you lose a whole round, maybe even two. Worth bringing a trinket that improves scouting (you should do this anyway since scouting is awesome) or at least reduce ambush chance with a party like this.

In general, I hate the Warrens and avoid it whenever I can. Maybe give the Ruins a try for your next attempt at this difficulty level.

[Warchild698]

The Warrens are no place for Crusader and HWM. Bring some bleeders there.

[h0b0king]

I understand the ambush and the crits messing things up - you did the right thing retreating - there may have been ways to mitigate this all via party build, and/or way to fight it better (trinkets 'meh') - but I don't think that's a worthwhile point.

The thing I would say is that you're likely hampering yourself if you think of the game as 'grinding groups' to get a 'best group' ready for a mission. Try building a nice big roster, get a feel for various party combos, and don't be too quick to dispose of heroes - the rewards from sucessful missions are really helpful. Having a lot of heroes at your disposal makes for more fun in my opinion - and having heroes with a 1 or 2 resolve level should make apprentice dungeons far far easier.

One of the other keys to switching from green to yellow or yellow to red dungeons is to start with the short runs. If for no other reason then to get a feel for the new pace and the way danger works at the new level. That might not have helped much in your RNG disaster described above (but it might have - you can complete some short missions with very few fights), but it will help in getting a grip on lesser disasters.

[0x6495ED]

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

Well, ACC-boosting trinkets (notably Sun Rings and, to a lesser extent, Focus Rings) are very important as you progress to higher level areas. This is particularly true if your skills are underleveled, since that's where your ACC comes from.

As far as the party goes, it's a decent team, but it is VERY vulnerable to ambush. Vestal and PD are weak in the front two rows; Crusader is weak in the back two rows (better if you have holy lance equipped). HWM is okay as long as you bring Duelist Advance. A bad shuffle can easily make you lose a whole round, maybe even two. Worth bringing a trinket that improves scouting (you should do this anyway since scouting is awesome) or at least reduce ambush chance with a party like this.

In general, I hate the Warrens and avoid it whenever I can. Maybe give the Ruins a try for your next attempt at this difficulty level.

Accuracy for sure is useful especially in higher difficulties, it was a LVL. 3. Yeah, shuffle was bad, would probably what would be the biggest problem (next to not being able to hit).

Originally posted by warchild698:

The Warrens are no place for Crusader and HWM. Bring some bleeders there.

True, that would be very useful if I would manage to hit anything. I'll make sure to bring some bleeders.

[wusch]

This here is not really connected to you Post OP but that are just some hints from me to hopefully improve your game experience

And bring stuff for trinkets (Holy Water, Keys, etc.). Curios can be very dangerous if handled wrong and better don't put torches into strange places without being VERY good prepared or you will get your ass handed.
One tip from my side: Do not try to only use certain groups. Of course building groups is great but you need, in an case of emergency or lack of patience be able to use other combinations of heroes.
Do not be stingy with your money on equipment and skill upgrades. To put it with Wayne June: "The Cost of preparedness... measured now in Gold, later in Blood."
Look beyond the charakters pure ability to dish out damage. The Jester is, while not that good in terms of damage, flexible with is positions, can move from position 4 to 1 and back again in 2 turns and dealing a nice bit of damage and debuffing. The Antiquarian is bad at dealing damage, not good at all in healing and posioning, medium in buffing and only good in getting protected. But she is great at raising money. Always use her when using curios and you will make a lot of money and hey, a high level antiquarian gets very dodgy and a decent amount of HP.

And if you ever want to see a really mean dungeon, pay the Darkest dungeon a visit but beware, it is to a level 6 Hero with full upgrades what a level 1 Dungeon is to a Level 0 Hero. ;)

[0x6495ED]

Originally posted by wusch:

This here is not really connected to you Post OP but that are just some hints from me to hopefully improve your game experience

And bring stuff for trinkets (Holy Water, Keys, etc.). Curios can be very dangerous if handled wrong and better don't put torches into strange places without being VERY good prepared or you will get your ass handed.
One tip from my side: Do not try to only use certain groups. Of course building groups is great but you need, in an case of emergency or lack of patience be able to use other combinations of heroes.
Do not be stingy with your money on equipment and skill upgrades. To put it with Wayne June: "The Cost of preparedness... measured now in Gold, later in Blood."
Look beyond the charakters pure ability to dish out damage. The Jester is, while not that good in terms of damage, flexible with is positions, can move from position 4 to 1 and back again in 2 turns and dealing a nice bit of damage and debuffing. The Antiquarian is bad at dealing damage, not good at all in healing and posioning, medium in buffing and only good in getting protected. But she is great at raising money. Always use her when using curios and you will make a lot of money and hey, a high level antiquarian gets very dodgy and a decent amount of HP.

And if you ever want to see a really mean dungeon, pay the Darkest dungeon a visit but beware, it is to a level 6 Hero with full upgrades what a level 1 Dungeon is to a Level 0 Hero. ;)

Curios I feel pretty confident about, I know what nearly (if not all) curios does. Otherwise a lot of good advice here! Thanks!

[LaserGuy]

Originally posted by August Strindberg:

Originally posted by JellySlayer:

Well, ACC-boosting trinkets (notably Sun Rings and, to a lesser extent, Focus Rings) are very important as you progress to higher level areas. This is particularly true if your skills are underleveled, since that's where your ACC comes from.

As far as the party goes, it's a decent team, but it is VERY vulnerable to ambush. Vestal and PD are weak in the front two rows; Crusader is weak in the back two rows (better if you have holy lance equipped). HWM is okay as long as you bring Duelist Advance. A bad shuffle can easily make you lose a whole round, maybe even two. Worth bringing a trinket that improves scouting (you should do this anyway since scouting is awesome) or at least reduce ambush chance with a party like this.

In general, I hate the Warrens and avoid it whenever I can. Maybe give the Ruins a try for your next attempt at this difficulty level.

Accuracy for sure is useful especially in higher difficulties, it was a LVL. 3. Yeah, shuffle was bad, would probably what would be the biggest problem (next to not being able to hit).

Well, if you're getting a lot of misses, that means your ACC is too low. With the right trinkets support, it's possible to get to the point that you never miss except on the very dodgiest of enemies.

Originally posted by warchild698:

The Warrens are no place for Crusader and HWM. Bring some bleeders there.

HWM has a decent bleed attack. And even without it, he's not terrible there. The advise of bleed to Warrens/Weald and blight to Cove/Ruins overlooks some very useful other synergies. For example, GR and PD are both great in Warrens, both for reliable back row attacks, and for being to cure disease on the fly. Likewise, Hellions are great in all areas, despite the fact that they're a "bleed" class.

[Enfild]

You have yet to learn the dungeons, but this was the most interesting part of the game for me, hard, but fun, in some strange way.
Reminds me my first champion run, it was a disaster, heh. And it put an end to my bolster-riposte strategy.

[0x6495ED]

Originally posted by h0b0king:

I understand the ambush and the crits messing things up - you did the right thing retreating - there may have been ways to mitigate this all via party build, and/or way to fight it better (trinkets 'meh') - but I don't think that's a worthwhile point.

The thing I would say is that you're likely hampering yourself if you think of the game as 'grinding groups' to get a 'best group' ready for a mission. Try building a nice big roster, get a feel for various party combos, and don't be too quick to dispose of heroes - the rewards from sucessful missions are really helpful. Having a lot of heroes at your disposal makes for more fun in my opinion - and having heroes with a 1 or 2 resolve level should make apprentice dungeons far far easier.

One of the other keys to switching from green to yellow or yellow to red dungeons is to start with the short runs. If for no other reason then to get a feel for the new pace and the way danger works at the new level. That might not have helped much in your RNG disaster described above (but it might have - you can complete some short missions with very few fights), but it will help in getting a grip on lesser disasters.

Thank you!
This was probably the best response so far. I haven't activly played since 2F Hellions and a Jester was the meta (Iron Swan, Yap and Break Through, Hack), but I am by no means new to the game (which for some reason everybody assumes?). Back then 2-groups of above composition and then expendables where the standard.

I could have micromanaged every part of my composition, it most likely wouldn't have mattered, bad RNG luck is going to be bad, and I most likely wouldn't be able to get enough ACC to compensate for that (not this early in the game).

[h0b0king]

Yeah I play a bit different then some I guess, I try to have a 20+ hero roster by the time I'm hitting the green bosses, and I only dispose of heores when I really have to. The thing is that the kind of disaster you're describing is so so so so rare, (the probabilities are really in the players favor) I'd just write it off as a narrow escape.

As to group - yeah there are a lot of good ones these day, and the problems with the "Red Hook" as I beleive that one's called are: the weak damage of the Vestal, a lack of enemy push/pull abilities (unless the PD is doing that) all around, a lack of movement ability among the heroes. The slow speed of the Crusader and the Vestal don't help either. Those puke pigs are awful and pigs in general can do some damage, but the big one stuns easy (MMA is good for stunning with his wave shield trinket), the hook ones and puke pigs have no staying power.

Other then the Vestal and the Highwayman's pistol shot (both aren't that effective) there's not much damage for rank 4 there either. I tend to use the highwayman in a lunge, point blank shot way (kinda limited though as point blank is a bit special use) and that coud work there. Also the Occultist can be very effective (offensively! Debuff those Swinetaurs) - in the Warrens there's plenty of enemy bleed anyway so on the rare fail it's not that bad. A Hellion is also good in the Warrens with a rear rank attack, good damage generally, a bleed and a self cure.

Still the thing for me is playing around with lots of groups, and finding out what works for me.

[Satoru]

I'd agree with h0b0kihng in that breadth is better than depth with respect to risk mitigation

Given that any number of maladies, catastrophies,etc can befall your team at any point its' better to be wide than tall. Its easier to recover from the loss of even a full party if you're wide. If you're tall, that loss is catastrophic.

[Multihog]

Even with the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ RNG possible, I never had any problems with level 3 dungeons. Level 5 on the other hand.........