How do you deal with level 3+ dungeons???

[OnyxWingz]

So up until now I've been able to safely grind level 1 dungeons to get most of my 11 roster party up to level 2 with some upgraded abilities while maintaining low stress. But now all 3 of my available quest locations tend to only offer lvl 3+ quests. 1 battle into my first level 3, my entire party got shredded, but I was luckily able to safely retreat.

But how the heck am I supposed to build up to this when I'm clearly not ready? I don't think I'm doing anything wrong...I have about 5 healers with good abilities, a couple lepers, the paladin dudes, hellions, the gun guys, etc. I do good damage and always come away from quests with good amounts of gold/loot. I'm just afraid to dive into a level 3 and lose all my gold/party D:

Advice?

(As an aside I think we should be able to keep unused provisions after quests to make things a little more manageable, and the sanitarium cleansings should be instantaneous in my opinion, not lock in your character for a week.)

[banded]

you should have apprentice level bosses avialable if you havent beaten them. if youre ableto beat them, youre definitely ready to be doing lvl 3 dungeons. make sure your characters are lvl 2 or lower for the bosses or tey wont go on the missions

youre going to love lvl 5 missions ;)

[grraf]

Skill upgrades&armor upgrades those are your priorities if u wish to safely do lvl3+ locations oh yeah and never bother sending anyone in without an occultist taging along...btw don't be bothering with lepers there's a good reason theyr called like that :-P

[banded]

vestal is fine too. depends on what you like. vestal is consistent OCC is risk-reward.

[grraf]

true enough 0+bleed is nasty when it occurs but then again the upper end of that healing is like 3x of what a maxed out vestal can pull... then again watching a fat assed boss crumble like cardboard under the hex&curse is priceless...and so is pulling the weaklings to the front line btw ;-)

[Unbroken Eclipse]

In my opinion, the two groups that have worked well for me are, in order from left to right.
(Also sorry for text wall ;c)

Group A: Vestal, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, Crusader.
For their skills, the Vestal can have any two random ones you might like. But she absolutely needs the two healing spells. For a third I like the stun spell she has, can be great for stunning those big baddies that do a billion damage everytime they so much as think in your direction.

Plague Doctor needs her aoe spells. The one that hits the two backrow can be extremely helpful to stop those enemies that like to give you a lot of stress, or just stop that skeleton from firing an arrow and criting your healer for 30. Her two front damaging abilities can really stack up the poison and soon the boss is taking 20 damage every turn just from poison build up.

Highwayman, The two most important abilities are his gunshot and his bleeding stab. Everything else is really just your opinion but those two are amazing for dealing out damage.

Crusader, Though not quite as amazing as the Hellion. He can dish out some serious pain. I recommend four abilities and only use those four. His basic sword slash has high base damage and just gets more ridiculous as you level it up and get him better weapons. His Two hitting scroll spell hits two enemies in the front row and it can absolutely crit. Trust me, its a huge stress reliever to you and your characters when you use that ability and watch him crit for 70 on both enemies. His stun can be invaluable against bigger enemies and even some bosses. THe main problem with it is its damage. At max level it can do between 5-7 damage. So you're trading off the large damage of your regular attack for a chance to "possibly" stun. And finally his lance attack. There will be times your party gets surprised or knocked around, ♥♥♥♥ sucks but you'll deal. If your Crusader gets knocked to the back row, lance forward and enjoy that huge damage to the backrow.

Group B: Vestal, Graverobber, Bounty Hunter, Hellion

Vestal is same as before.

Graverobber, now people have tried telling me that she isn't that great, but they're wrong. Here's what abilities to use and you'll see her rack in the kills. Firstly her pickaxe, doesn't do a lot of damage but sometimes you need that extra 8 damage to kill some big bad. Her knife throw is huge, can target anything and it can crit for huge damage. Use this to clear that damn stress giver in the back row. Dual knife throw is even better, hit both in the middle and watch as you crit them. And finally shadow fade. Can only be used in the front row but its amazing. If for some awful reason your Graverobber is in the front row, use this abilitiy. It stuns the enemy and pushes her back a row.

Bounty Hunter: His two melee attacks, the regular axe to the face, and the one that benefits off enemies being stunned. You rarely get to use that combo but still, being able to do a melee attack to any slot is useful. His other two abilities are mix and match but the grenade stun is amazing.

Hellion: Hellion is dream girl. She can mess up the enemy and not give a good ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ while doing it. Her regular basic attack is amazing, high base damage and it only gets better. Breakthrough is worth the debuff if you hit multiple enemies with it. And Swan Kick is why Hellion is always chosen for the Hag. Take Hellion for those hard to reach enemies and for having huge damage.


These are the two groups I always use. I've been using them since day one and I've rarely had problems with these combos. Get them to Lv. 3 and you'll have no problems with those Lv. 3 dungeons. Lv.5 on the other hand is a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ mess and good luck.

[banded]

Originally posted by Sol Invictus:

Highwayman, The two most important abilities are his gunshot and his bleeding stab. Everything else is really just your opinion but those two are amazing for dealing out damage.

i wont pick apart your post, but for your highway man i suggest this:
put him at the front with the moves point blank shot, duelists advance, open vein and grape shot blast. use his point blank shot in the first round. duelists advance whenever you feel like using grapeshot blast again. otherwise you can use open vein and grapeshot whenever you want.
a lot more damage output that way

[Unbroken Eclipse]

Originally posted by banded1:

Originally posted by Sol Invictus:

Highwayman, The two most important abilities are his gunshot and his bleeding stab. Everything else is really just your opinion but those two are amazing for dealing out damage.

i wont pick apart your post, but for your highway man i suggest this:
put him at the front with the moves point blank shot, duelists advance, open vein and grape shot blast. use his point blank shot in the first round. duelists advance whenever you feel like using grapeshot blast again. otherwise you can use open vein and grapeshot whenever you want.
a lot more damage output that way

I can agree with grapshot blast but I just feel like having one of the tankier characters up front is better for you. Though I'll agree and say I can see why you'd do it.

[No One]

Bears repeating:
You said upgraded 'abilities.' Armor and weapons are more important, especially level 2 armor and level 3 weapons. The first armor level is the biggest relative boost. Level 3 weapons give more speed on every class. (Lepers also get +speed at level 2.) A secondary breakpoint on armour is getting more than 30 hp, which is when food heals two instead of one.

[Jubeithar]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

Bears repeating:
You said upgraded 'abilities.' Armor and weapons are more important, especially level 2 armor and level 3 weapons. The first armor level is the biggest relative boost. Level 3 weapons give more speed on every class. (Lepers also get +speed at level 2.) A secondary breakpoint on armour is getting more than 30 hp, which is when food heals two instead of one.

Ability upgrades are equally important because they not only improve the damage/effects but also improve accuracy of the ability.

[No One]

Ability upgrades significantly affect heals and stuns. Maybe debuffs if they work like stuns. Five more accuracy isn't even in the same league as five health or one damage to every skill.

[True Guesser, Wand Bearer, etc.]

Good rule of thumb; until you upgrade equipment and at least 2 skills, your Hero level is in name only.

[grraf]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

Ability upgrades significantly affect heals and stuns. Maybe debuffs if they work like stuns. Five more accuracy isn't even in the same league as five health or one damage to every skill.

Bingo !!... id rather hit smth and ensure its more likely to bleed,bligth or stun rather then having +1 dmg on smthing likely to miss anyways :-)) and yeah second to ability upgrade and remap is the armour: hp&extra dodge means u can actually survive prolonged battles(read boss&vs high hp enemys) while weapon upgrades are a just a waste of money(my initial heroes only start getting weapon upgrades after 3rd level(and guess what.... i'm swimming in cash because of it and i rarely if ever find myself forced out of a dungeon untill every single room gets visited)

[Jubeithar]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

Ability upgrades significantly affect heals and stuns. Maybe debuffs if they work like stuns. Five more accuracy isn't even in the same league as five health or one damage to every skill.

That accuracy has a bigger impact then you actually think and skills do also improve the damage of the hero aswel (not all but most).

Point remains: the upgrades to armor, weapons and skills are equally important.

[No One]

The formula is 5/acc*base_average_damage For 'acc,' monster dodge matters. For level three, let's call it 15. Shorten base average damage to BAD
Crusader BAD: 9
Level 2: 5/65*9 = 0.69
Level 3 5/70*9 = 0.64
level 4: 5/75*9 = 0.6
Leper BAD: 10.5
Level 2 5/50*10.5 = 1.05
Level 3 5/55*10.5 = 0.95
Level 4 5/60*10.5 = 0.88

Hellions are the same as crusaders, anything with lower BAD will get lower returns. Anything with lower dodge - like apprentice missions - will get lower returns.

Weapon upgrades, all classes, even levels = 1, odd levels add speed too. That is, the only time it's better to get accuracy, on average, is on a level 3 leper going into level 3 dungeons who hasn't had any upgrades yet and doesn't have any accuracy trinkets. Plus lepers get mad speed from their weapon upgrades, and upgrading both chop and hew costs more than one weapon upgrade, by 50% apparently.

Let's run that again with a crusader with three weapon upgrades.
Crusader +3 BAD = 12, then level 2 is 0.92. However, level 2 skills are certainly a lot cheaper than level 4 weapons.

As for armour, crusaders get 7 hp, a boost of over 20%. It will save his ass.

[banded]

Originally posted by Sol Invictus:

Originally posted by banded1:

i wont pick apart your post, but for your highway man i suggest this:
put him at the front with the moves point blank shot, duelists advance, open vein and grape shot blast. use his point blank shot in the first round. duelists advance whenever you feel like using grapeshot blast again. otherwise you can use open vein and grapeshot whenever you want.
a lot more damage output that way

I can agree with grapshot blast but I just feel like having one of the tankier characters up front is better for you. Though I'll agree and say I can see why you'd do it.

but thats just it, point blank shot automatically puts you back into the second spot ;) if you pull a highway many with speed bonuses for first round (and trinkets that increase speed if you want), youre basically set to go first outside of a bad roll in turn order. you blow away the enemy front rank usually (big enemies left with a chunk of health missing) and youve moved behind your crusader/leper/hellion its a pretty safe gamble to be honest. plus, thats what healers are for if you do take some bad damage.

also a small typo. i meant use duelists advance when you want to use point blank shot. not grape shot :)