Giants still too OP

[[RTGDFM] yoguy107]

Okay, thanks for thumbing around the confusion spores effect, that has never really bothered me. The tree branch smack down attack however, that will wipe your team faster than you can say LOOK AT THAT DAMAGE! I'm sure you're aware that the health of the average hero at level six is somewhere between 50 and 80. A regular tree branch smack down hits for 30-40, and crits for 60-70. Two heroes insta dead after 4 yes 4 crits in a row. No misses on the Giant's part. Like come on, and they aren't even mini bosses so the loot is trash. What's worse, in a short dungeon, you run into at least 3 of them with stupid stress inducing helpers constantly just irritating the back of your mind. You want to attack them but you get dead heroes really fast. If you don't attack them your stress becomes stupid high <- STUPID HIGH! Please for the love of god there needs to be something done.

[Sky Marshall Sanders]

debuff their damage, debuff their accuracy, heal your characters on death's door? I can't imagine a situation where you have a decently put together party and you can't prevent a hero from dying to a single target attack.

[[RTGDFM] yoguy107]

Originally posted by Sky Marshall Sanders:

debuff their damage, debuff their accuracy, heal your characters on death's door? I can't imagine a situation where you have a decently put together party and you can't prevent a hero from dying to a single target attack.

I had a good team. I healed my dudes off deaths door but again those minions in the back still do damage. What happens to me every single time is that I get confusion spored and blighted to oblivion. Then right when the giant is about to die, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, all in a row and stunning my dudes on top of it. combined with blight and other minions attacking my dudes there is no chance. Even if i would have debuffed its damage it wouldn't have helped.

[Madmax]

You might want to try killing the adds first. Particularly if the giant comes with stress dealers. In addition, if you have a hero with +stun chance trinkets, you can considerably mitigate the Giants' damage (because they only get to act once every other turn). Finally, keep in mind Treebranch Smackdown only targets the first two ranks. If you have Man-at-Arms in one, have him guard the hero in the other one, you've considerably reduced the amount of incoming damage.

[aardvarkpepper]

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

I had a good team

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Two heroes insta dead after 4 yes 4 crits in a row..

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

you run into at least 3 of them with stupid stress inducing helpers

i kno rite when u are fiting 4 giants at a time sometimes that rng just gets better of u also when they have like 3 or 4 stress inducing helpers, like 7-8 enemy it just too much

u had a good team, they just rng u to deth

y gaem y u do dis

damage debuff or stun? gaem pls.

there was nothing I could do

[[RTGDFM] yoguy107]

Originally posted by Madmax:

You might want to try killing the adds first. Particularly if the giant comes with stress dealers. In addition, if you have a hero with +stun chance trinkets, you can considerably mitigate the Giants' damage (because they only get to act once every other turn). Finally, keep in mind Treebranch Smackdown only targets the first two ranks. If you have Man-at-Arms in one, have him guard the hero in the other one, you've considerably reduced the amount of incoming damage.

Helpful. However, what if you have no stun on the team? What if you don't have a MaA? There are times neither of them find ways into my team (stress heal run, farming stuff, etc.). And can you best mitigate the effect of confusion spores since I'm asking questions?

[Madmax]

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Helpful. However, what if you have no stun on the team?

There's enough heroes with stun abilities that this shouldn't happen. If Giants are giving you trouble, make sure you have at least one stunner in your Weald teams. If you don't have stunners, your best bet would be to try and mitigate damage in other ways (damage debuffs, high dodge characters).

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

What if you don't have a MaA?

You can always try to stack PROT on your frontline guys. If you bring an Antiquarian, you can have her in rank 2 and use Protect Me on whoever is on Rank 1.

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

And can you best mitigate the effect of confusion spores since I'm asking questions?

The best way of dealing with confusion spores is by having heroes with re-shuffle skills (Shadow Fade, Rampart, Holy Lance, etc.) Some of which (Shadow Fade/Rampart) serve the dual purpose of moving your hero back into a better position AND stun the Giant.

Ultimately, you can't expect to bring any four heroes to the Weald and come off unscathed. Particularly at Champion level, you need to consider the kinds of monsters you'll face when building your team. As a result, you might need to tweak your current party combinations when going into the Weald, or stick to other areas for the parties you have that don't have the tools to deal with Giants effectively.

[NotMeth]

Giants are terribly predictable. Worst case scenario is he either uses Confusion Spores or Treebranch Smackdown on the first round, which I never really experience since I bring a lot of good Stun Heroes while I'm on the Weald (Houndmaster, Melee Plague Doctor, and Lunge+Fade Grave Robber).

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Originally posted by Sky Marshall Sanders:

debuff their damage, debuff their accuracy, heal your characters on death's door? I can't imagine a situation where you have a decently put together party and you can't prevent a hero from dying to a single target attack.

I had a good team. I healed my dudes off deaths door but again those minions in the back still do damage. What happens to me every single time is that I get confusion spored and blighted to oblivion. Then right when the giant is about to die, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, all in a row and stunning my dudes on top of it. combined with blight and other minions attacking my dudes there is no chance. Even if i would have debuffed its damage it wouldn't have helped.

The problem here is that his minions are still alive when you should have offed at least one of them the first round (Two if you're real good) I assume that you tried attacking the Giant first to no avail? Yeah don't do that, why would you try and kill something for multiple turns when you could have killed something else in one turn or less?

[!?!]

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Helpful. However, what if you have no stun on the team? What if you don't have a MaA? There are times neither of them find ways into my team (stress heal run, farming stuff, etc.). And can you best mitigate the effect of confusion spores since I'm asking questions?

What the hell is your "good team" if you have neither CC nor protection?

Houndmasters alone have all of those things in their kit.
Just mark and rofldamage them down, marks that reduce prot for luck.
Now that damage dealers dealing damage isn't just a nice thought but a reality, it's totally doable.

Abominations don't much care for shuffles and can stun and self-heal as well as do tons of damage.
Houndmasters care even less and can mark, bleed, stun, self-heal, protect and do good damage.
Headhunters can stun, mark and deal a crapton of damage.
Highwaymen punish any aoe attack with their new riposte and don't care a lot about reshuffles either.


If you're doing a "stress heal run" at anything above lv0 dungeons, you have nobody but yourself to blame, especially in the weald.
Oh and Maa is actually a bad idea since he prolongs fights.
You don't want fights to go on long enough to get your 4 crits in a row.

[quantumbanana]

Stun is a fairly common skill among classes so I don't understand why you wouldn't have at least one person who can stun in your team? Abomination, BH, Crusader, GR, Hellion, Houndmaster, MAA, Occ, PD and Vestal can all stun enemies in Rank 1 and 2 (except PD, whose Disorienting Blast cannot target Rank 1 but Giant is size 2 so it doesn't matter here). With +stun trinkets you can keep the giant from acting while your party kill off his companions. I don't recommend occultist's stun as it requires him to be in the first 2 row, rendering him unable to use Abyssal Artillery and Wyrd Reconstruction. Vestal's stun is not that great either if you equip her Haste Chalice or Sacred Scroll (also her accuracy is terrible). Houndmaster's Blackjack, BH's Flashbang, and Hellion's Barbaric YAWP are the most reliable stuns.

As for debuff, occultist's Weakening Curse works best for me. I normally have occ cast it on the giant on the very first round, so even if my stunners fail to stun him or my party got shuffled, I can still mitigate some incoming damage. To ensure Weakening Curse works, equip him with his trinkets that gives him +40% debuff chance. Leper's Intimidate and Vestal's Hand of Light can debuff damage and accuracy, but I wouldn't recommend using them without a +debuff trinket.

[Sunwave]

"What if I don't have X, or Y, or Z to deal with the giants."

Then you took the wrong team to the weald. Simple.

Also, the minions should be LOOOONG dead before the 4th treebranch could ever hit you. Since that means you had at least 3 turns to kill them.

[Madmax]

Originally posted by quantumbanana:

Houndmaster's Blackjack, BH's Flashbang, and Hellion's Barbaric YAWP are the most reliable stuns.

PD's Disorienting Blast is pretty reliable too, particularly given how easy it is to find trinkets that boost the PD's stun chance.

Originally posted by quantumbanana:

Leper's Intimidate and Vestal's Hand of Light can debuff damage and accuracy, but I wouldn't recommend using them without a +debuff trinket.

Hand of Light has the same problem as Hands from the Abyss in that it requires the Vestal to be in Rank 2 (which means no Dazzling Light, Divine Grace, or Judgment).

[quantumbanana]

Originally posted by Madmax:

Originally posted by quantumbanana:

Houndmaster's Blackjack, BH's Flashbang, and Hellion's Barbaric YAWP are the most reliable stuns.

PD's Disorienting Blast is pretty reliable too, particularly given how easy it is to find trinkets that boost the PD's stun chance.

Originally posted by quantumbanana:

Leper's Intimidate and Vestal's Hand of Light can debuff damage and accuracy, but I wouldn't recommend using them without a +debuff trinket.

Hand of Light has the same problem as Hands from the Abyss in that it requires the Vestal to be in Rank 2 (which means no Dazzling Light, Divine Grace, or Judgment).

I agree with everything you said. I initially put PD's Disorienting Blast on the list, but then removed it because the base chance at Level 5 is only 140%, whereas the ones I mentioned have 165% base chance at Level 5.

And yes, debuffing with a vestal is far from ideal. A position 2 vestal is much worse off than a position 2 occultist, thanks to her low speed, low accuracy, low defensive stats and limited utility in that position. Mace Bash and Hand of Light only target the front two rows, and Illumination... well her low accuracy means that she can't hit any target that requires a dodge debuff, but hey, free torchlight.

[X AE A-12]

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Originally posted by Sky Marshall Sanders:

debuff their damage, debuff their accuracy, heal your characters on death's door? I can't imagine a situation where you have a decently put together party and you can't prevent a hero from dying to a single target attack.

I had a good team. I healed my dudes off deaths door but again those minions in the back still do damage. What happens to me every single time is that I get confusion spored and blighted to oblivion. Then right when the giant is about to die, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, bam crit, all in a row and stunning my dudes on top of it. combined with blight and other minions attacking my dudes there is no chance. Even if i would have debuffed its damage it wouldn't have helped.

So the giant is up, not stunned, the mooks are in the back, alive, what did your team DO exactly?

[DuckieMcduck]

Originally posted by RTGDFM yoguy107:

Originally posted by Madmax:

You might want to try killing the adds first. Particularly if the giant comes with stress dealers. In addition, if you have a hero with +stun chance trinkets, you can considerably mitigate the Giants' damage (because they only get to act once every other turn). Finally, keep in mind Treebranch Smackdown only targets the first two ranks. If you have Man-at-Arms in one, have him guard the hero in the other one, you've considerably reduced the amount of incoming damage.

what if you have no stun on the team? What if you don't have a MaA?

Then you did not have a good team for the Weald and shouldn't be going there at advanced levels expecting not to rely on the RNG.

With the new update having shuffled all the Heirloom rewards there's literally zero excuse for you to have done what you did.

Originally posted by chris:

Oh and Maa is actually a bad idea since he prolongs fights.

If you have a Jester on your team it's actually beneficial to find a giant. The MaA gets punted about, receiving almost no damage, while the Jester calms everyone down.

[Fast Johnny]

Yeah, it's a simple formula: MaA protection, Occultist weakening curse and someone with a bleed ability. There is also no reason why the giant can't be stunned. I find it helpful to kill any enemy that is with the giant that can mark or curse your party, although being marked isn't bad if you have an MaA to throw a protect. That with the weakening curse should be enough. To address the prolonging the fight thing: you have three, or at least two others to pound on the giant while the MaA protects one turn. Also, the longer the fight, the better the chance of more loot.