Hitting the Endgame Wall

[Handy]

I'm at day ~350+, gone through several crises no problems to speak of with a Cultist run. Killed the Ijrok, got it's sweet armor and clever (not sure if it's static or random), have many cultists at 4-5 candles and the prophet. I feel good. So I say hey, lemme go take a swing at the library/kraken/black monolith. I don't feel good now.

I've looked up the tactics, I understand them generally, but I can't put them into action. I feel like the bros I have are just not good enough for those encounters. Most of my guys are levels 12-15, so we're past the point of being able to substantially change them. How do you all recruit? Is there a framework you use? Cultists is a little weird because of the restrictive recruiting, but I feel like I've got some good guys, but either the stats aren't high enough or I've just perked them out badly.

Pretty much all of the front line guys have colossus, recover, fortified mind, rotate. About half are shield bros and have shield mastery, sword mastery, battle forged and indom. The other half are 2H w/ Hammer/sword/axe mastery, bersek and killing frenzy. Cultists aren't great with ranged guys, and it doesn't seem like the encounters I'm having trouble with are going to benefit massively from ranged bros.

I see a lot of guides saying you need to have 50+ resolve, and I'm able to get there with a lot of guys, but in generally I'm just dumping matt,mdef,fatigue with a few opportunistic hp picks. I've been trying to pick up some extra bros, but man they just suck so freaking much... what's the lowest bar for "I will accept a guy this crappy and no worse..."

I don't have any duelists and I don't have any hybrid guys, although with my captain, I've got another polearm bro and a longhammer bro. The lack of these roles is, mainly, I think due to me not understanding how they are valuable and how to use them/build them. I have one nimble guy and it's left me thinking that I don't understand how the perk is meant to be used. I don't have any melee bros with Adrenaline.

Any advice on what I need to do differently? I've tried some Google, and at this point it's not clear which of the written guides are still relevant after years of patches and the videos seem like a bit of a crap shoot -- very difficult to tell if there's good stuff in it until you've sunk like 30 minutes into it.

Thanks!

[msunavygrad]

Watch this video of Beggars and Cripples taking on the BM, your team can do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvGirKkEUHs&t=12s

[Cat®]

I find myself in your position as well. My advice is to skip the locations because, in my opinion, they are awful nightmares from which we hope to wake one day. But if you are intent on doing them; just be willing to lose people. You only need one person to walk away alive, that might be the cost with your current outfit. Character specialised to deal with the Monolith will perform better at the Monolith; stands to reason. If you haven't got that then expect to struggle. The legendary locations are the areas of the game where there is a right and wrong way to play the game, up to you if you're willing to commit to that or not. Personally, I don't see the effort worth the reward.

[Heron]

I've been there too. Most people who did Monolith probably have been.

My early Monolith companies had a lot of jack of all trades builds with 1h and shield. Although they were solid bros and well equipped they didn't perform well in Monolith because they lost the damage race and got overwhelmed eventually.

After a few runs I found that it comes down to bringing lots of famed items and, most importantly, high damage builds with one or two really good tanks for the North and a Bannerman. That works for me.

In practice it means either 2h or duelist frontliners (with QH and a bagged 2 tile weapon in the current meta) and a sturdy backline that can hold its own against necrosavants. Nowadays I usually run a mix of early and endgame bros for the 1st crisis and rotate out the ones not good enough for late game once I can afford it.

From my experience your best bet is to start fresh and regard your current run as a learning experience. I think it took me 4 tries or so before I made it. A couple of clears later I can now do Monolith quite consistently and the focus shifts towards how many days it takes me.

[Biggus Dickus]

--- I cleared the Black Monolith last saturday and just lost 1 bro:

https://imgur.com/gallery/DE5OggZ

--- My roster were 15 level bros:

4 bros using 2H hammers
2 bros using 2H axes
2 bros using 2H swords (because of the AoE attacks)

4 shield bearers with 70+ defense (Sorrel who died was one of them) all of them had polearms.

--- Equipment:

I had 5 blessed waters and all of the brothers were using bone plates.

All of them had named weapons, shields and helmets, 11 of them had named chest armor.

Some of the shield bearers had secondary named shields.

All of them used iron will potion.

All of them were eager or in good spirits.

I had i think 4 war hounds with armor (2 of them had heavy armor - i got bored and didn't make for the other 2)

--- Strategy:

The priests, the Conqueror and some legionaries always start on the top of the map, that's very important.

Use your best defensive bro (taunt is very useful here) to halt the advance of the top part of the undead army, that is his only goal, this bro is probably going to die, release his dog as well, it's another target. Death is part of a mercenary job description. Sorrel (my bro) survived 5 turns and by that time not a single miasma hit my main force and i had cleared most of the main undead army.

Blessed water is OP to this fight because the legionares have 55 HP and the blessed water does 60 dmg in three turns, so in worst case scenario i could have had 5 easy kils, in the best case scenario i could have had something around 10 kills.

Another great thing to do is take a step back, so the undead when they reach you cannot attack on that turn.

In my experience (cleared BM 2 times now) the necrosavants only start attacking on turn 3, bring nets and dogs to help fight them. I didn't have nets and they were a pain in the ass. Remember that they have nine lives.

About the Conqueror, don't fight him directly, i used 2H polehammers and olny attacked him like 2 or 3 times to finish him off quickly. Remember that he cannot the stunned or disarmed, bu the can be dazed, that helps.

The last thing is a little bick of luck, i tried 3 times on this saturday and of the first i lost 5 bros, the secod i lost 2 and the third i lost just Sorrel.

[Handy]

Thanks very much for these! My condolences re: Sorrel -- I saw the obit.

A few questions that are coming to mind. What day are you all on in the runs you're referencing? Obviously I could squander 300 or play a tight 80, but you seem to have a TON of, ostensibly, useful named items. I have the bounty hunter, I have torn up many of the way out locations (Ork and Gob cities I've steered clear of), and I have an ambition to get a full named sets that has sat there for literally 200 days because I cannot, for the life of me, find a named shield (and I'm not in the habit of chopping up champions' shields. I've been checking armorers as consistently as I can while doing missions. Where you get all that red? I tried the minstrel but the tips at the taverns were sh*te.

The other piece on composition -- is there a good video or site that any of you would recommend that is current on "This is what a duelist does and the cornerstones of how to build a good one"? There's a meta here that is beyond my ken currently. Trying to figure out which advice is built on Nimble v1, v2, v3... vN spins my head.

@Biggus -- When you're chopping down hella armor guys with polehammers are you using standard attack or destroy armor (or whatever it's called)? Also 5 holy water... 3 from temple, 2 from... random monk encounters?

[Heron]

I'm usually stocked up with famed items and good recruits sometime between the 1st-3rd crisis, roughly around day 140-200. In the past it was more like day 300.

It depends on how fast I manage to outscale camps and go on wilderness trips to get all that sweet loot. If things go very well I hit the wilds as soon as day 30 and start tackling large camps around day 50. Better players than me do it faster.

In regards to famed items:

Originally posted by Handy:

(Ork and Gob cities I've steered clear of),

There's your problem. You want to raid the biggest camps possible as far away from civilization as possible to maximise your chances of getting famed item drops. Raiding the small stuff too is advised of course, but the big camps are where it's really at. Seas of Tents, large Chosen camps, you name it. You can get multiple famed items in one large camp if lucky.

Supplementary methods include champion hunting with the bounty hunter, scanning for tavern rumours from day 1 and doing caravan escorts / patrols to increase the chance of finding famed items in shops.

[YuMMz]

Originally posted by Handy:

A few questions that are coming to mind. What day are you all on in the runs you're referencing? Obviously I could squander 300 or play a tight 80, but you seem to have a TON of, ostensibly, useful named items. I have the bounty hunter, I have torn up many of the way out locations (Ork and Gob cities I've steered clear of), and I have an ambition to get a full named sets that has sat there for literally 200 days because I cannot, for the life of me, find a named shield (and I'm not in the habit of chopping up champions' shields.

Make sure you pay attention to tavern rumors. Do so as soon as you can feasibly start spending the 100 gold for extra rumors. Once I started doing this, I started getting famed items way, way earlier. Then when you feel confident, go camp hunting.

Originally posted by Handy:

@Biggus -- When you're chopping down hella armor guys with polehammers are you using standard attack or destroy armor (or whatever it's called)? Also 5 holy water... 3 from temple, 2 from... random monk encounters?

If you get a monk early and just let him ride the reserves, he is usually good for 2-3 holy water events by the time anyone not named Turtle is ready for Monolith.

[Malarky Enthusiast]

Originally posted by msunavygrad:

Watch this video of Beggars and Cripples taking on the BM, your team can do it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvGirKkEUHs&t=12s

This. Just make a team with beggers and cripples.

[Handy]

Originally posted by YuMMz:

Originally posted by Handy:

A few questions that are coming to mind. What day are you all on in the runs you're referencing? Obviously I could squander 300 or play a tight 80, but you seem to have a TON of, ostensibly, useful named items. I have the bounty hunter, I have torn up many of the way out locations (Ork and Gob cities I've steered clear of), and I have an ambition to get a full named sets that has sat there for literally 200 days because I cannot, for the life of me, find a named shield (and I'm not in the habit of chopping up champions' shields.

Make sure you pay attention to tavern rumors. Do so as soon as you can feasibly start spending the 100 gold for extra rumors. Once I started doing this, I started getting famed items way, way earlier. Then when you feel confident, go camp hunting.

Yeah, I was paying super close attention at taverns (with the minstrel), buying all the rounds, taking notes but I never got any item locations. Are the rumors supposed to say "Oh, there's an item here" or just "there's a location here"? I got none of the former, lots of the latter.

[Heron]

Originally posted by Handy:

Originally posted by YuMMz:

Make sure you pay attention to tavern rumors. Do so as soon as you can feasibly start spending the 100 gold for extra rumors. Once I started doing this, I started getting famed items way, way earlier. Then when you feel confident, go camp hunting.

Yeah, I was paying super close attention at taverns (with the minstrel), buying all the rounds, taking notes but I never got any item locations. Are the rumors supposed to say "Oh, there's an item here" or just "there's a location here"? I got none of the former, lots of the latter.

They're like "There is a special piece of equipment somewhere north / in a Barbarian camp nearby / ...".

You should have no problem to identify a rumour when you get one if you read the full text.

[bb_boogaloo37]

I've beat those legendary locations in beginner mod, and took me over 2000 days in the game. I think the most difficult one is the Kraken, it's all about the map...
And here's my strategies:
1. Before the Monolith, I obtain the thunder sword and holly water first.
These two stuffs kill undeads faster.
2. Carry shields. If your bro is in danger, shields will keep them safe by greater chance.
3. To deal with fear effect, bring your flag.
4. Bring your dogs. If the vampires are killed once, unleash dog to bite.
Either dogs kill them, or buy you some time.
5. To add up resolve, you make your bros participate in arena. 12 wins will add 10 resolves.
6. Axes, hammer, and mace are highly efficient against ancient deads.
7. Drinks the blue potion (second will) before fight, it adds 3 fatigue recovery in whole fight.
8. You may bring some flash pots or smoke pots to help bros dodging.
9. You need to calculate and keep an eye on who move first. Because "waiting" gives you initiative penalties, and that makes your bros move later than enemy.
10. Use two handed hammer on the emperor. It's highly effective on his armor.
Once his armor is at zero, you will make great damage on hp or critical hit.
And now is about bros:
1. My whole team is above 20 lv. Some of them are 28. (That's why I played 2000 days.)
After lv11 you will get only 3 point every lv, I put points on defense and hp.
(because the annoying gas, you need hp.)
2. Put bros with higher melee defense in the front, use hammer and mace.
3. I have a sword master with thunder sword and he's lv 25.
4. Almost every bro has adrenaline perk, it makes you move before vampires.
5. Rotation! Please use rotation once your bro is in danger, get him out and shield up!
6. I have 3 bros with "rally" perk, in case they get scared or moral check.
7. Armor of the Ijirok regenerate 20 hps every round, and it will make a bro great tank.
And for the most important one:
Don't be afraid of getting one or two bros struck down in Monolith.
If you have a surgeon follower or win 12 fights in arena, them won't be dead but just have a permanent injury. I got a lv 29 bro struck down in sunken library and he just lost one ear! (wtf one ear, stand up and fight!)
And on a second thought, if your bros have wrong perks. It's better to get them sacrificed in battle rather pay them tons of severance payment. (No hard feelings. :p)
Hope this would make some help to you.

[Nerdgasm]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2262575855

[Stud McChad]

Originally posted by Nerdgasm:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2262575855

I was just about to link this Guide in here. Awesome Guide for begginers, easy to digest & very effective.

Great work Nerdgasm.

[anaphylactic god]

i doubt any amount of tips and tricks will help you.
adjusting to someone else's tactic feels like trying to wear shoes two sizes smaller.
you can take best BB players and give them worst, most desparate fights and they will win them anyway, but if you try to do exacly the same from the same save file - it will all comes down like a house of cards. Just keep playing and deeper understanding will come with time and experience.
p.s. and dont forget to play expert

[Handy]

Hah! I barely beat Lorekeeper last night save scumming to refine tactics on beginner. While yes, you have to make your own game work for you, there are frameworks that can help you shave a couple hundred hours off the learning curve. Thank you all for the guidance, will continue