Into the Deep - how to combat the difficulty

[TraceofHatred]

I want to preface by saying this is by no means a complaint, just looking for honest tips and advice on how to beat it. Admittedly I've only attempted it 3-4 times thus far, but I've been having some consistent difficulties. The first few quests are pretty easy and can be completed within a couple turns. Once the water temples turn up, the first revealed one (usually lvl4) is fine, and my party is close to level or just below at this point.

But when I actually set out to look for the other water temples is when things kind of fall apart. Every enemy and dungeon is level 7 or higher even though I'm usually only 3-4 by this point. I've tried going in different directions, but this marks three attempts this has happened to me. Am I rushing or doing something wrong? Now, I am getting higher level loot earlier in this campaign than others it seems. Does that affect enemy level? Or does it just scale based on player level?

I've defeated the frost dragon no problem, and I got to the final bosses on both other campaigns before dying to them (Still working on those ones in the side, don't worry.) but I'm just having a lot of trouble with this one. It feels like I'm not high enough level and just get rapidly ambushed but it also feels like I've more than cleared the starting island and all sidequests so there's not much else to grind and level with really, and that's fine you have to lose some to get better. I just don't feel like I'm getting much better. x'D

What do you guys usually do when trying to conquer this game mode? Is there are a recommended Realm to go to first? I know I can tweak house rules to make it easier and I'm not really worried about achievements, but I was worried this might disable my ability to unlock the treasure hunter (my main incentive for playing this mode!) - Just trying to fill the last couple spots in my lore store and try out that juicy new class.

[玩家一]

don't meet the murloc.buy a boat and sails abroad,battle the monsters and save the items.Town will not refresh,when you are ready go back to meet the murloc and start your mission.You can beat master easily.

[TraceofHatred]

I'll have to try that strategy, thanks dude!

[Andra]

Does this work? I'm only a few turns in and haven't met the murloc, yet my calender says the great flood event is coming in 10 days or so. Seems even if I ignore the murloc and go sailing, i'll still collect flood tokens and lose the game

[TraceofHatred]

Hey there Cavalyn, I'm still in progress with this strategy because I've been playing another game alongside it so I can't confirm if it worked as intended yet.

I think all this strategy is meant to do is give you x amount of turns to collect items and equipment for very cheap (before refresh), then come back and steamroll the water temples / campaign despite the difficulty spike i mentioned. Since Items and Equipment are much more important than level when it comes to facing difficulty. I don't think it will stop the flood tokens, but it should take about 45 turns for the Flood Tokens to fill up, so you should have time to at least hit up some of the towns before you need a water temple. Though that would certainly seem risky and I can see your point there.

My issue is less about the flood tokens accumulating and more that no matter what I do, the dungeons off the first island always seem to be much higher level than I am which makes it virtually impossible to clear the mobs or temples to begin with (ex: Me lvl 3-4, world: 7-8) It doesn't matter if I clear all the flood tokens I can because I literally can't interact with anything on the board because it's all so over leveled for some reason.

[Rianith]

Finally beat Into The Deep on master level, but only by following the sneaky tip about delaying speaking to the fish guy at the start. You can't get any quests in towns sadly, but you can go round killing stuff, buying godsbeards etc cheap and leveling up for a while before progressing the main quest. This tactic seems to delay price rises for the rest of the game which is a huge boon.

For folks struggling getting going, the game is definitely winnable on apprentice or journeyman without dodging the fish guy early on, but levelling at the start is much harder than the other scenarios IMO.
Make sure you grab all hero statues you see and grab town quests that give party xp.
And be patient, picking on-level fights etc. Prioritise getting better boats as they not only are more durable, but they move much faster. Ditch the raft ASAP.
One key thing to note is the flood water mechanic is not as vicious as chaos. You can let the flood water build to level two without worrying about reducing it till then,
as it doesn't affect the game till three = auto loss.
Also be aware that high-level areas are commonly sometimes right next to low-level areas. Avoid.
Some classes work better or worse when you are mostly at sea.
EG herbalist ain't gonna get many herbs,
and sea movement is based partly on talent not speed...

One party that worked well for me was Monk/Treasure Hunter/Hunter. Good luck.

[TraceofHatred]

Originally posted by Rianith:

Finally beat Into The Deep on master level, but only by following the sneaky tip about delaying speaking to the fish guy at the start. You can't get any quests in towns sadly, but you can go round killing stuff, buying godsbeards etc cheap and leveling up for a while before progressing the main quest. This tactic seems to delay price rises for the rest of the game which is a huge boon.

For folks struggling getting going, the game is definitely winnable on apprentice or journeyman without dodging the fish guy early on, but levelling at the start is much harder than the other scenarios IMO.
Make sure you grab all hero statues you see and grab town quests that give party xp.
And be patient, picking on-level fights etc. Prioritise getting better boats as they not only are more durable, but they move much faster. Ditch the raft ASAP.
One key thing to note is the flood water mechanic is not as vicious as chaos. You can let the flood water build to level two without worrying about reducing it till then,
as it doesn't affect the game till three = auto loss.
Also be aware that high-level areas are commonly sometimes right next to low-level areas. Avoid.
Some classes work better or worse when you are mostly at sea.
EG herbalist ain't gonna get many herbs,
and sea movement is based partly on talent not speed...

One party that worked well for me was Monk/Treasure Hunter/Hunter. Good luck.

Thanks for the additional tips. I had no idea better boats actually improve movement too, I thought it was only the HP it increases. I'm definitely not Master Difficulty good yet, but I'll do my best to get this under my belt. Monk/Hunter are core parts of my party too, so hopefully it works. That's a good tip on the herbalist though. I usually use her, but I'll have to reconsider.

[玩家一]

3-trapper-team is good this map.they fight well and move fast.

[bloodfire]

I only tried it once casually on apprentice difficulty and beat it easily this morning on the first try. I don’t have any great strats yet but it doesn’t seem to play too much different than say ice adventure strategy wise. There are all kinds of cool new monsters and toys added though which is awesome. I played through with a blacksmith/trapper/busker. For the final fight I had the pirate ship to fight the sea king and I had 1 boat repair kit on each of my guys so I didn’t sink. It was a cake walk, but I’ll play it on the harder difficulties and see if I get any better ideas and get back to you.

[bloodfire]

I played it a second time... this time on Journeyman. This time around I noticed it has “chaos” but in the form of the flood and there aren’t reduce chaos missions, but it was still a cakewalk (I did not even see the water the first time around in apprentice). I beat it without losing a life or sanctum. My team was level 12 when I faced the sea king and he was a breeze. Early in I rushed movement by using focus to save some turns and got into the water. I just muscled through early fights that were over my head with party heal until I was about level 4 and then did the level 4 water dungeon because it was what I could see. Then I swept back to do a see cave and the level 2 water dungeon then back for the level 6 water dungeon, scourge, and more sea caves, then the level 8 water dungeon, 2 more scourges and some sea caves, then all the pirate coves and remaining sea caves to get greenbeard’s pirate ship. I skipped all the regular caves with the exception of the first one even though they capped out at level 10 late game. I didn’t want to waste the godsbeard. For the sea king I just kept smashing perls to keep focus up and focus peirced him down very quickly. I had 6 party heals remaining and 5 boat repair kits and like 10/14 health on the boat. Pretty easy. I’ll try expert soon...