I Love/Hate this game - need advice to continue

[troche58]

I have played enough now that I can get to level 10 and have good stock of herbs and characters with 90+ on their primary attributes. Then the ♥♥♥♥ hits the fan on every battle - not even tried the Boss battle yet. Every encounter with a level 8+ enemy drains so many of my herbs and life's that I'm not ready for Boss.

I don't know how to prepare against enemies that always start before me and then do ♥♥♥♥ like death mark, petrify and massive curses rendering my squad useless. It feels like I would need to avoid every battle to level up and go straight for Boss and hope for best.

Maybe I'm not preparing enough and I need to explore map more and gather more stuff BEFORE I reach level 10 - which somehow keeping the scourges at Bay (as they get ridiculously tough at level 10)

I would love to continue this game if only it weren't so frustrating at the very end. Would love to know how to finish the "For the King" quest so I can try some others. Or are any of the other quests easier?

Playing in Apprentice still. If anyone has a Journeyman playthough on YouTube I would love to watch and learn

[pi73r]

If you have that much trouble on apprentice then you must be doing something seriously wrong. Apprentice should be an easy win no matter what you do. Just focus down single targets.
For the king campaign is relatively easy but the frost adventure is even easier since you can just freefarm there.
Your hunter should be usually killing 1 enemy before they even start attacking u. The evade/armor/ressitance stats should be high enough that you don't need to heal outside the miniboss battles.
Personally I just buy out the godsbread from towns and on apprentice I have like 20+ of em (and i won't need more than 5 usually) not to mention all the quest rewards big items. You should be killing scourges before they even activate.

[Qwesar]

If you made it to level 10, you're doing pretty good. Since you're in the late game, you want to upgrade your gear to get that fancy late game gear. You have to look at your money and look if its a big enough upgrade. Don't forget to use all your consumables on hard late game fights. The game gives you enough consumables for leader and boss fights.

[ajfusch]

As much as I love the game, it isn't THAT easy. It's normal if you lose say, 5 runs and only win the 6th. Unless you read the wiki and watch playthroughs beforehand instead of exploring the game by yourself. Also, some of the unlocks from the lore store really help and you need to get the points for that.

It's as the button at the start says: don't expect to win at first try.

As to your specific problem: Once all your chars are level 10, well equipped and you have a big bunch of godsbeard and golden root, don't waste resources on fights on the way to the final dungeon.

If you did the optional dungeon before that, you've gotten some helpful items. They are even more helpful, if you look in the wiki to see when exactly you need which ... (but it's kinda cheating, so decide for yourself if you want to do it).

[Collateral damage]

Just finish the objective and be done with it. If you play the first scenario, you will be disappointed by how easy it is (esp. on apprentice). I also stocked herbs and pearls and I didn't even need them. Random encounters are much harder than objective and you will waste more resources than you gain.
Though I don't recommend playing it afterwards. Don't ruin your experience, higher difficulties are nonsensical. And not because of what listed in the description, because rolls turn into xcom.

[troche58]

Where can I watch some good playthroughs? I watched one that was pretty informative - but he lost in the final battle too - although at least he made it to the final Big Boss. I've searched YouTube but not finding much recent and I don't know how valid some of the older playthroughs are

[ajfusch]

The mechanics haven't changed much (or at all?). The biggest change had been the nerfing of difficulties and the introduction of the houserules to make it even easier.

So for gameplay older vids should still work, I guess.

[Ahzi Dahaka]

The key is to prioritize your targets while making judicious use of buffs and debuffs. I'm especially fond of anything that manipulates turn order.

[Rianith]

IMO, For The King main campaign is maybe tougher than the others. Just replayed the watery one and that seemed easier as the time-pressure mechanic was gentler.

It is a difficult game to master,
I got to the boss tower on Apprentice first run and got creamed in the first room.
Took about a dozen more attempts to actually reach the boss and defeat him.
Journeyman level seemed impossible at that point, but after hundreds of hours of fun learning, we now play Master and win more than we lose. Still tough though.

As you play more, you learn how to move round the map more efficiently,
which baddies to avoid, what equipment/abilities are more effective etc
Basically the game rewards you for putting time into it, IMO.

Good luck learning.

[2st]

started recently, met the boss in the towr once and he beat me while he was 1 hit away to die.
what i understood so far is that the better you plan, the further you go.
plan wich battles to pick and when just avoid them.
manage the gear between characters wisely.
check the enemies stats before battle, learn the buffs and defs.
watch the turns rotation, it will help plan the battle.

[Qwesar]

If you guys are struggling on the last boss. Really read the late game weapons in the town market and night markets. Look for weapons with (Party) Evade Up (my personal fav), but also weapons with (Party) Speed Up or (Enemy Group) Speed Down. I really like Evade Up though, it only requires one weapon and lasts a few turns and really reduces incoming damage your party takes. Speed Up/Speed Down gives you more turns during combat, almost skipping boss turns completely but its harder to get that tri-fecta of weapons and if you fail a roll the boss will attack.

[pi73r]

Now I'm curious. What is the issue you guys are having at apprentice difficulty? By the time you got to boss tower you should have stored like 20+ godsbread, all kinds of herbs, party boosting items and 22+ attack weapons. If you have the armory items the fights before boss ain't much harder than regular fights and for the boss you will have more consumables than you will ever need even if you trolled during the fight.

[SpiceTravel]

10-/+ is absolutely meta for slowdown and cancel (?) ability. You just should have character with 90+ speed or start with an ambush. I use lute with mass slowdown and cancelation, do mass slowdown as a first action with my speed char. This strat is absolutely broken and makes the game easy af.

[troche58]

Thanks for all the great replies. There was a comment above by 2st about checking enemy stats BEFORE the battle. I assume though that this means AFTER you've made the decision to engage and it's just a battle strategy. I would love (unless I'm missing something very key) to know something about the stats of an enemy BEFORE i decide to enage. AFAIK the game doesn't have that. Do I refer to some secret wiki to know the stats of every type of enemy and try to memorize/refer to that?

I love the comment from SpiceTravel about having speed character with slowdown or cancellation. BUT...if you put 90+ into that then his actual Talent skill can't possibly be 90 and you need a TON of focus to make those slowdowns work. Is there a strategy there - as that seems like the key character to develop for the end game

[(ง ͡ʘ ͜ʖ ͡ʘ)งBonesMcSpook]

Because of how powerful some of the status effects can be. Finding items to counter them is important. Shrine upgrades help because you'll get more stats from the upgraded ones and can save you from an instant kill.
Finding a team comp that works for you is also important.
Playing with friends can also help cover your weaknesses because other players might try things and make them work that you would not try. An example is that I played a minstrel with 2 of my friends using muskets... So I ended up just helping them machine gun things.

Despite what other people say, you're not always supposed to beat the For The King campaign. Sometimes you wont find good enough items unless you're the kind of player that finds something to abuse to win. I mostly just play for the ride and try to make an interesting party. I've beaten every campaign other than For the King. I've come close 2-3 times however. I try not to play on the easiest difficulty but dont feel bad for getting your first win on it. Alternatively, using house rules to lower chaos frequency because I'm not a fan of time urgency is also fine. As well as slightly lower inflation. I prefer knocking both towards the easier side by 1 on normal difficulty. And for couch co-op games with friends I'll knock the chaos frequency down by like 4-6 because it can be hard to stay together when people are doing their own thing.

Unlockables help. Some of the item sets are incredibly powerful and can help a lot. Either with helping you through rough spots or help boost you to become more powerful in the late game. I mean all of them, not just items.

It might not be apparent how important immunities to the very dangerous status effects can be.

However, with Petrify being a new status effect, there might not be enough counters to it.

[Austrian Painter]

Maybe get those amulets that make one curse proof. They're just about in every town