Arena of Ikar (Endless) - share your best Tier/Wave reached

[Lunar Umbra]

Late game with all upgrades, discovered a new strategy to initially stack rerolls and wait for opportunities to upgrade to all Ancient armor. Having six passive abilities is quite wild. Got to Wave 41, where the boss had so much health I had fallen behind on damage output while going for defense/survival.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3380331502

It can get very RNG, eventually had to settle with a set armor piece while trying to hold out for a desired passive ability attached to ideal armor. I was attempting to go all out on Whirlwind to have the ultimate buzzsaw.

Edit February 24, 2025: With the updated Demo some significant changes have been introduced. So, new records https://steamcommunity.com/app/3238670/discussions/0/603015872060184991/?ctp=5#c603023217322370460 will be distinctly different compared to the original Demo. Even more RNG, good luck...

[Stukov]

not maxed abilities, only 1 tier 3 ability. I did up to wave 28

[Yaimao]

I didn't have everything maxed when i did that run and i didn't test if i could get multiple versions of the same passive skill from gear at the time, the important ones were maxed but some were not, i only managed to get to wave 34 with an axe throwing barbarian that uses archer skills and fire mines.

[Lunar Umbra]

Managed to reach Wave 42;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3381243961

I've noticed the boss types are random throughout, with some being quite a bit more difficult than the others.

Arcane Guardian is a tedious one. It responds when blocking attacks be spraying out the damaging spell orbs. So getting in melee range with Whirlwind rapid attacks will trigger enough spell orbs to almost instantly kill you if they are not avoided. Takes a quite of bit of patience with enough ranged damage abilities, permitting time to weave through the spell orbs that do get triggered.

The other type of boss that is really difficult are the melee with extremely fast movement speed. They need high movement speed and movement ability usage to keep them from getting in range.

The most challenging normal enemy swarm are the skeletons with a staff casting spell orbs. Tracking of the orbs and good positioning is the only way to keep lives. That difficulty is compounded though by the movement speed of melee mobs that are just so fast at these higher waves where collision can get you stuck in a swarm.

I have not been able to get past Wave 22 with Hunter, the defense and movement abilities pale in comparison to Barbarian with Leap. Since both Hunter movement abilities are dash types, collision can be a problem in swarms. On the other hand the passive of Leap recharging if 5 enemies are hit permits high evasion while maintaining most of your damage output.

[Hedning]

How do you refund or get more gold upgrade?

Anyway I just did 35. Leaping all the time. Only trouble was this boss since he didn't spawn enough enemies to constantly leap: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3381350416
he didn't kill me, but he basically took all my lives together with an earlier one who caught me off guard with not enough move speed.

Also I feel leap is not well balanced, because it's not that fun with enemies that are on you instantly, but you avoid all damage by basically bunnyhopping. I'd rather die on an earlier wave, before enemies get stupid.

[Lunar Umbra]

Originally posted by Hedning:

How do you refund or get more gold upgrade?
...

If you mean the Primordial Soul Coins (Gold) for upgrading Abilities, the third Ritual "Coastal Cave" spider boss at the end always drops a gold coin.

For a strategy of getting Ancient Armor, then forego getting two Artifacts (purple armor drop) instead choose a skip to gain a reroll when picking up any subsequent drop. Similarly any white armor drops and bad initial roll on green soul fragments skip to stack rerolls or choose gain rerolls if it shows up. Finally leave the blue armor drops on the ground for upgrading with 5 rerolls. I recommend having an extra reroll or more just in case the RNG doesn't present you with an ideal piece of armor.

[KellyR]

Only tried it once, got to wave 29, with a two handed axe. The spider boss that spawned on that wave finished me off.

[Hedning]

Originally posted by Lunar Umbra:

Originally posted by Hedning:

How do you refund or get more gold upgrade?
...

If you mean the Primordial Soul Coins (Gold) for upgrading Abilities, the third Ritual "Coastal Cave" spider boss at the end always drops a gold coin.

For a strategy of getting Ancient Armor,...

I meant the gold soul coin, thanks.

[Sunami]

wave 16 Hunter
wave 33 Barbarian

Regenerating low HP bars barbarian seems META

but most of the sucess comes from that 15% boost x HP bar missing plus some healing scrolls chance, every other choice pales in comparison

[Sunami]

ah reached a record wave 41 with a barbarian thrown axe crit/speed build

[Swift_Talon]

I made it to wave 40 with Throwing Axe Barbarian Veteran of War and oops all Spike Balls.

[Lunar Umbra]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3381834815

Managed to get wave 27 with Hunter. I didn't think a solar damage focus would work that well (fairly decent screen clearing). Went with Disengage for more potential projectile splitting, though I feel Fire Traps could have been more consistent damage triggering on swarms.

Hunter is quite a glass cannon with the higher wave damage instantly taking multiple lives if caught in a bad position.

[Swift_Talon]

I made it to 32 with hunter, used leap, power shot, and all burst shot armor.

[Lunar Umbra]

Originally posted by Swift_Talon:

I made it to 32 with hunter, used leap, power shot, and all burst shot armor.

Similar success to wave 32 with leap;
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3382457944

Though, I completely missed picking up Healing Souls from Armor and Soul Fragments. I wonder how much further I could have maintained if I had healing pickups.

[fodder]

Originally posted by Hedning:

I meant the gold soul coin, thanks.

for re-roll/upgrade? randomly appears as a choice from picking the blue/green gem thingy (the big ones)

no idea what those silver thingys are for.. it says upgrading tier... what tier and where?

[Hedning]

Originally posted by fodder:

Originally posted by Hedning:

I meant the gold soul coin, thanks.

for re-roll/upgrade? randomly appears as a choice from picking the blue/green gem thingy (the big ones)

no idea what those silver thingys are for.. it says upgrading tier... what tier and where?

This was confusing to me at first too. At the bottom left you have a scroll that opens up a list of everything basically. At the bottom of the list are clickable icons representing the different upgrades you can get. Click them to open up an upgrade menu.