Cove supposed to be harder than others?

[Sunwave]

So... I am quite new to this game. I have about one full party of lvl 3 heroes, and one of each class around lvl 2, so that tells you roughly how far. Not very far. XD
Anyway, I have huge trouble with the cove. I have no trouble with any quests in the other areas (so far) unless I make stupid mistakes. But the cove just has those high-damage fish things that wreck your level 1 or 2 heroes in a two hits. I've lost both my healers from simply being surprised while having 2/3rd health, and getting critted + bleed.

How are you supposed to deal with this high damage? I mean, lvl 3 heroes can't even go on those quests so it has to do with my tactics. I keep high light to prevent surprise but it still happens, and wrecks me instantly. At least in the cove, b/c high damage.

[Shajirr]

Max upgrades. First get max upgrades and only then go to Cove.

It is the hardest area out of 4 initial ones. Those spear users can target any row and deal very high dmg just as you mentioned. Plus you have giant enemy crabs later on which place an incredible amount of bleed.

My advice is to bring a Plague Doctor - she can stun 2 last rows, 2-3 times in a row if you give her 2 stun trinkets, and she can cure bleed. This will make your experience in Cove much, much better. And bring bandages.

[Melodious]

Occulists are great in the Cove with debuffs. Houndmaster is a great choice too to remove PROT.

[Shajirr]

Originally posted by Melodious:

Occulists are great in the Cove with debuffs.

Occ does nothing to the crab that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds through. And debuffing spear users is a waste of time mostly, is is just better to outright kill them faster by placing Occ on row 3 and using his dagger skill.

HM is good I agree, at least 3 enemy types have protection there.

[quantumbanana]

Plague Doctor is a must in the Cove. You need to use blight to kill the fishies since they have high PROT and high bleed resistance. Occultist is also essential because of his +25% DMG vs eldritch attacks. (If you have Eldritch Killing Incense trinket equipped plus have Eldritch Slayer + Eldritch Hater quirks locked in on an occultist, the Cove becomes a cake run.) Because some enemies attack shuffle your party, I'd advise against bringing a Leper unless he has great move resist. (I still don't, since Lepers have the lowest bleed resist out of all classes; with low bleed resist the bleed DoT can stack up to 30+ bleed per round) A MAA guarding a squishier hero is also a good idea; his increased PROT mitigates the incoming damage.

Speaking from experience, I'd just leave the vestals back in the Hamlet. She can't cure DoTs and she can't outheal the damage. Your party loses damage output by having a dedicated healer, so you're better off having PD blighting and stunning the enemies while occasionally curing the DoTs to keep the party off Death's Door.

[bulbatrs]

Originally posted by White Spirit:

Originally posted by Melodious:

Occulists are great in the Cove with debuffs.

Occ does nothing to the crab that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds through. And debuffing spear users is a waste of time mostly, is is just better to outright kill them faster by placing Occ on row 3 and using his dagger skill.

HM is good I agree, at least 3 enemy types have protection there.

I'm yet to meet a crab in green cove that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds... pls stop bullshiting
cove is a bit harder, but not that much harder. just make sure to take some stuns (pref 2 stunners if having trouble with stun trinkets) and you will be fine even with lvl 0 party

[dnrob7]

No way is Cove the hardest. No. Way.

[Shajirr]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

Originally posted by White Spirit:

Occ does nothing to the crab that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds through. And debuffing spear users is a waste of time mostly, is is just better to outright kill them faster by placing Occ on row 3 and using his dagger skill.

HM is good I agree, at least 3 enemy types have protection there.

I'm yet to meet a crab in green cove that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds... pls stop bullshiting
cove is a bit harder, but not that much harder. just make sure to take some stuns (pref 2 stunners if having trouble with stun trinkets) and you will be fine even with lvl 0 party

I am talking about the late game too. And there it is that much harder, but all depends on party composition of course.
Still, I wouldn't take lvl 0's to Apprentice Cove if I had a choice.

[Melodious]

I always thought the Weald was the hardest but then again I haven't really done the Champion dungeons yet

[Sunwave]

Thanks for all the tips. Some things seem so obvious after hearing/reading it, and some things I didn't know. I have only one plague doctor but he's level 3 already XD (Because the stuns/shuffle are too awesome) so he couldn't come with.

It seems I'm just not equipped to deal witth them right now (my heroes' skills list are a mess) so I'll do the easier dungeons for now.

Wish me luck! XD

[SMOK3YMkPott]

OKAY now i feel better about my failed cove attempts
>went in with a level 0 team to buff them up
>activate the torch relic because the void is curious
>fight shambling beast thing and just barely escape
>gain achievement
>abandon quest immediately

[Arcangelo]

Plague Doctor and Occultist shines in the Cove. Blinding Gas and Abyssal Artillery skills make wonders.

[Ghin]

Most of the Cove enemies are Eldritch type, so bring an Eldritch Slayer's Ring on your smashy type characters. High speed really helps here (like everywhere) so that you can kill the low HP and high damage enemies fast. I'd suggest a party like Man-at-Arms, Grave Robber, Vestal, Plague Doctor. Plague Doctor is great because most of the enemies are weak to stun and blight. Grave Robber is also great here because she can easily hit the back row jerks and can make heavy use of Shadow Fade. Vestal's crappy stuns come in handy here. Try to clear the field as quickly as possible rather than healing over damage. You can Guard someone if they get low.

Really, it's up to you, but Cove is really begging for Plague Doctor to bomb it to death.

[DuckieMcduck]

Originally posted by bulbatrs:

Originally posted by White Spirit:

Occ does nothing to the crab that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds through. And debuffing spear users is a waste of time mostly, is is just better to outright kill them faster by placing Occ on row 3 and using his dagger skill.

HM is good I agree, at least 3 enemy types have protection there.

I'm yet to meet a crab in green cove that applies 10 bleed for 3 rounds... pls stop bullshiting
cove is a bit harder, but not that much harder. just make sure to take some stuns (pref 2 stunners if having trouble with stun trinkets) and you will be fine even with lvl 0 party

The giant crab does 10 bleed damage in the Champion Cove, as opposed to 8 in the Veteran.

The apprentice levels can be beat with any stupid party composition, specially if you get good RNG. Basically if your strategy is very flawed from the start you will be exposed once you step up a notch or two, like trying to out-heal the enemy damage output, which simply doesn't work in the latter dungeons, instead of mitigating it by using debuffs/protection moves/pulls/stuns or even out right bumrushing them before they can attack.

[Antorius]

I've never had a particular problem with the Cove in the hero level 0-2 range. Not sure why. To be sure, the enemies hit hard, and you should bring ample bandages too. Grave Robber is a good character to bring with her blight attack and high dodge. Hellion is decent because of self-heal/bleed remove, and the ability to cherry pick the caster mob in the back with Iron Swan. Bounty Hunter + Arbalest is a killer combo generally, and in particular, again, for marking/pulling/sniping those nasty casters -- and the Arbalest's heal is pretty decent, too, not to mention her AoE damage reduction attack. I'm not sure why people are recommending Hound Master because many of the mobs in the Cove have bleed resist.

[aardvarkpepper]

u need to git gud

Originally posted by Sunwave:

So... I am quite new to this game. I have about one full party of lvl 3 heroes, and one of each class around lvl 2, so that tells you roughly how far. Not very far. XD
Anyway, I have huge trouble with the cove. I have no trouble with any quests in the other areas (so far) unless I make stupid mistakes. But the cove just has those high-damage fish things that wreck your level 1 or 2 heroes in a two hits. I've lost both my healers from simply being surprised while having 2/3rd health, and getting critted + bleed.

How are you supposed to deal with this high damage? I mean, lvl 3 heroes can't even go on those quests so it has to do with my tactics. I keep high light to prevent surprise but it still happens, and wrecks me instantly. At least in the cove, b/c high damage.

okay buncha things hm ya

try not to use a ton of items. If you're making an exception and have a specific reason to use a load of items then okay sure make that exception. But it's poor practice to get used to spending gold. if you're really outclassed then do full light run prebuff with holy water use camping buffs or whatever as you need to, use bandages and antivenom and medicinal herbs liberally. normally don't even think about blowing all that gold that way, maybe if you hit a new level of dungeon or a boss and you're really struggling and you just want to get over that hump then maybe okay.

probably you're not stunning. There's different ways to play especially at low levels that you can get away with sure okay. But say like this. You leave two enemies alive so antistall doesn't activate, stun one, heal up hit points and stress. You risk getting enemy critting you and doing load of damage and stress damage sure but more or less you can push on recovering this way. Starting with 2/3 health yeah, if you stun/heal to recover maybe you don't start near that, maybe you start near full health instead.

another thing about stunning, typically if you want to kill an enemy you need at least two hits, or a hit into crit, so you need some combination of speed and damage maybe crit whatever. But stunning is a lot easier. If you hit and you don't kill, even if you don't deal damage by a long shot, stun still neutralizes enemy damage output for that turn. Less enemy damage output means your targeted healers have less to deal with so you can recover a lot better. Too, it's less dependent on your managing to finish an enemy before they can attack, if you stun and the enemy would go next round well okay they just don't go instead then maybe you can pull off another stun

also it's pretty friggin weird you would have serious problems on apprentice cove. if you have armor upgrades, skill upgrades, skills that work well together, should be lot less of a problem. like really, okay cove is probably pretty nasty okay I can see that but it shouldn't be like omg teh strugalz are real you know?

also git gud