Madman Tactics

[h0b0king]

Since the last patch I've been reading a lot of complaints about the Madman - he's just too much to deal with. Too much stress, to hard to hit, too long a debuff, too hard to understand, too mad.

I don't get cheerful when I see a madman pop up opposite me, but I don't think he's the end of the world either. Now I underestimated him when I first enocountered him, following a dog pack in the Wealds, at the green level, and he ruined my run - when I retreated I had one afflicted hero (starting at maybe 50 stress for the fight) and two dead 0-levels I was trying to train up. Running and dying from dogs - most shameful.

Now though I've thought about it, met the madman a few more times and I've learned to deal with his special brand of infectious insanity.

the madman is a rear row stress attacker with low HP, a decent dodge and a pair of intense stress attacks - including a dreadful AOE stresser that hits every hero for a full 10-20 stress. Needless to say the key is keeping this guy from mumbling his mad rants and stressing everyone out. Luckily he's pretty easy to stun, and while he has a good dodge (43 in a Red Dungeon!) he goes down quick. The obvious answer to the madman is to terminate his with extreme prejudice.

You should have 2-3 party members a round that can hit him even if he's lurking in the back row, and using an Occultist (they are very useful in a variety of occassions and while thier heal isn't always reliable it's fine over a few rounds - try it out) or bounty hunter to pull him into range isn't a bad idea (especially if it pushes back a melee enemy you will need to ignore.

So focus on the madman, and stun him if you can. Any ranged hero should be able to reach him, and most have fairly high ACC chances so you shouldn't miss him too much with heroes like the Arbalist, graverobber, houndmaster or occultist (those tentacles aren't so bad). This is the first and only real point.

Other than pulling, stunning and focusing on the madman first he doesn't demand much strategy, but having fast heroes that can stun him or hurt him is helpful. Slow teams dependent on the crusader and vestal pairing may have trouble with the madman as they tend to suffer stress under most circumstances as they get hit more often. Fast teams that can hit the rear ranks will find the madman less dangerous.

As to his debuffs - stress in general has gone up a little in the last patch - meaning stress buffs (stress resistence) is useful to a degree. This doesn't just help with the madman, it helps in general. Spend 2 points of respite on a stress resitence buff next time you camp - watch it work.

Finally remember that herbs can clear debuffs. They also have several curio uses in almost every dungeon.

That's what's worked for me, I hope it (or another tactic) works for you as well.

[Reedo]

Whatever you do, his 43 Dodge are still insane. I mostly don't have a lot of trouble with him, but high dodges like that just invite RNG to be against you. I didn't manage to kill him for three rounds once, only landing one hit out of six-eight. That's frustrating. I know RNG is in my favour as often as not, but having a 57% chance to hit sometimes feels like you could hit the wall instead.

[Arcangelo]

My only concern with the Madman (before the last hotfix) was that I met him twice on the first short mission in the Ruins just after the tutorial. I focused fire on him both times, he managed to afflict my Vestal anyway (fortunately, she became Powerful).
First room (3 enemies + 1 Madman), corridor (2 battles, first one had 3 enemies + 1 Madman), 2nd room (empty), 2nd corridor (2 battles).
I completed the dungeon with 2 Afflicted (PD and HWM), Vestal with 90+ Stress and Crusader with 40+ Stress. But I have experience.
For a newbie trying the game for the first time, however, it could be really frustrating.
Game is harder now and I'm fine with that, I can handle it after 100+ hours.
But Madman (20 Dodge) and Collector are just a bit too much for lvl 0 heroes. They should appear on lvl 1 or 2.

[Rio]

His Dodge is BULL. I did one run where my guys had him down to one more blow and he dodged like 20 hits in a row (Not exaggerating). This was the apprentice dungeons too 0-1. He basically single handly ruined my dungeon run. High doge + aoe stress + speed and his hp isn't that bad. I don't care about any of that but his dodge is too high.

There needs to be something where an enemy can only dodge so many attacks in a row without getting a Tired debuff and losing dodge points. This is needed even more now that 1 enemy left punishes you even more.

[FreyaMaluk]

To be honest I don't find him that difficult to deal with. You just need characters with high ACC or someone who can buff ACC. I do focus first on him and then take care of the rest regardless which kind of enemies they might be. Just a thing of planning a good strategy. My best team to take him down quickly: Hellio - BH - Jester - OCC

[h0b0king]

As to the madman's dodge I beleive it's far less than 43 at lower levels, and 43 is high, but not astronomical - as Arcangelo points out it's only 20 in a green dungeon. Additionally there are plenty of other creatures with high dodges, the crone in the Weald for example has a 30 dodge, a stress attack and a nasty mark accuracy debuff (as well as a rarely seen double blight attack).

Thre madman is currently novel. I underestimated him on my first encounter as well and didn't realize how dangerous he was, and that's the point. Most of the complaints about the madman, the endless demands to nerf the patch changes (often to below the difficulty prior to the patch), and are anecdotal from the first couple of missions after either starting the game or starting the patch. I note that no one who complains about the patch is complaining about the hero buffs or the minor disadvantages to enemies it give (have you notied that the Bandit Bloodletter's Point Blank Shot reduces his speed now?) It takes time to adapt and find a strategy that works. As FreyaMaluk points out a good team (have one hero with a good accuracy) can tear down most enemies if one thinks a bit.

Originally posted by Pernicious:

There needs to be something where an enemy can only dodge so many attacks in a row without getting a Tired debuff and losing dodge points. This is needed even more now that 1 enemy left punishes you even more.

Wouldn't that be "unfair", "artificial" and "the game cheating"?

[Arcangelo]

Maybe I was really unlucky the other day (2 Madman and 4 battles in 2 corridors in the first level seemed a bit overkill xD), but today everything seems just fine. Devs nerfed Apprentice enemies.
My only concern was about the higher difficulty for new players but Devs are tweaking the game, so it's ok.