This game is ridiculously hard/unbalanced.

[Seal Clubba]

So I am about 11% in and some of these fights are difficult AF, for example the current mission I am on is the first one for Khepra where you have to collapse the tunnels, I only have 2 priests and against never ending re-enforcements of Necrons, not to mention the Deathmark necron teleports instantly across the map and halves my priests HP or insta-kills my servitors.

Can anybody give me some tips on making these fights more manageble, I mean it would be great to have more priests and blackstone to upgrade them, but this game just throws you right into the fire it seems like, with very little opportunity to upgrade in order to keep up with the Necrons.

[Jinn]

Interesting. This is the first time I've seen someone saying that the game is too hard rather than too easy.

[Partisan]

Originally posted by Seal Clubba:

So I am about 11% in and some of these fights are difficult AF, for example the current mission I am on is the first one for Khepra where you have to collapse the tunnels, I only have 2 priests and against never ending re-enforcements of Necrons, not to mention the Deathmark necron teleports instantly across the map and halves my priests HP or insta-kills my servitors.

Can anybody give me some tips on making these fights more manageble, I mean it would be great to have more priests and blackstone to upgrade them, but this game just throws you right into the fire it seems like, with very little opportunity to upgrade in order to keep up with the Necrons.

Most essential tipp for the beginning is get the following skills:
Enhanced Weapons for +4 range, Enhanced Analytics for the free CP and Cognition Freedom for free shots - take a mission that rewards you a heavy weapon (anything that has a CP cost to shot) - from there on its like switching on god-mode. with the bigger weapon you will be able to one shot Deathmarks everytime and with the range buff and the general high range of ANY heavy weapon they will never be able to teleport out of range. The end.

[Jinn]

Ah, I get it. There is a brief amount of time near the beginning of the game that is difficult, then the near-unavoidable over powered ease kicks in.

[Shrinkshooter]

All you need to do is play maybe 4 or 5 easy missions, tops, and once you have a couple tech priests ranked 3 or 4 everything starts becoming a downhill slide into a cakewalk. People are right, from everything I've seen it looks like it's simply far too easy of a game; it doesn't seem that way at first, but after you've done a half dozen missions it begins to show.

I think one of the main problems is you get stronger while the enemies don't. Their numbers increase only slightly as you go on, and their difficulty remains completely the same, so by the time you're at 30% awakening or so you're laughing at everything that comes at you.

[Jolly]

Originally posted by Partisan:

Most essential tipp for the beginning is get the following skills:
Enhanced Weapons for +4 range, Enhanced Analytics for the free CP and Cognition Freedom for free shots - take a mission that rewards you a heavy weapon (anything that has a CP cost to shot) - from there on its like switching on god-mode. with the bigger weapon you will be able to one shot Deathmarks everytime and with the range buff and the general high range of ANY

RNG, ftw. If you don't get that kind of reward offered, then suffer. I almost felt like restarting my first game because the rewards for both of the first missions were garbage.

A tip I'd add that I didn't grasp at first is that - fill out your entire squad with fodder. You only see "one" because it's the TYPE of fodder, not that you only have ONE. Click that one fodder unit 4x and fill out your whole squad. Either it wasn't mentioned or my brain was numb from the general onslaught of tutorial text.

[Gogopher]

i found the game rather easy...lvl 1-4 was a little tough since i had no idea what i was doing...but after that it was smooth sailing...hell the final battle took me 4 tech priests to kill the enemy and that was only because i had poor luck with my inititative order...killed them in one turn with 0 damage to me...

in fact i failed to fill any of the damage canticles...basically while i really like the game it wasnt hard at all...i would say that over 90% of my battles took place in less than one round...

Hint: learn to use CP's...learn how to collect them, maximize them, and when u do u will find that u can one shot an entire map with one tech priest maybe two (hint aoe guns ftw)

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Originally posted by Jolly:

Originally posted by Partisan:

Most essential tipp for the beginning is get the following skills:
Enhanced Weapons for +4 range, Enhanced Analytics for the free CP and Cognition Freedom for free shots - take a mission that rewards you a heavy weapon (anything that has a CP cost to shot) - from there on its like switching on god-mode. with the bigger weapon you will be able to one shot Deathmarks everytime and with the range buff and the general high range of ANY

RNG, ftw. If you don't get that kind of reward offered, then suffer. I almost felt like restarting my first game because the rewards for both of the first missions were garbage.

A tip I'd add that I didn't grasp at first is that - fill out your entire squad with fodder. You only see "one" because it's the TYPE of fodder, not that you only have ONE. Click that one fodder unit 4x and fill out your whole squad. Either it wasn't mentioned or my brain was numb from the general onslaught of tutorial text.

Mission rewards are static. Choose the mission that gains you good rewards. First mission was a hassle, but got me posphor serpentis. Easy from then on, first skill investment was dominus 1 (+4 range on ranged weapons). So literally NO RNG here. The only thing that is random are the things you can find via encounters, afaik. Was confirmed by dev in another thread.

[Turbo Torsten]

I wonder: does the +4 range also work on stuff like the flame-throwers?

[Centurion Teri]

Originally posted by Turbo Torsten:

I wonder: does the +4 range also work on stuff like the flame-throwers?

Yes

[Turbo Torsten]

That's crazy, seems like my pyrophile enginseer got some upgrades coming.

[Mack]

With those upgrades the final tier flamerthrower & 'grenade launcher' weapons can cover an entire small map. It actually makes them harder to use because your dudes wil get in the way so I ended up switching to the end game "hit everything in a straight line" gun because you can still get multiple hits but with precision. Although one map where the enemy start packed in a nice little blanket I was able to bathe in fire on turn one was fun.

And yeah, if you pick those three upgrades (free weapon, +1 cp, and then you can just upgrade the shooting tree), you also get access to a couple equipment slots that will give you a point or two into the physical & energy armour.

And since most of the support items are useless barring the specific damage increases that a couple classes have, I ended up filling every other slot with med gear. I sailed through the game. The final boss was a cakewalk. I didn't even really need the abilities I had with my full medic specced dude.

You can tank necron warriors & immortals, you'd have to get hit 3+ times from the other units to die, which doesn't happen unless you are really really dumb, you can wipe out most enemies easily, and if you do get hit, you'll have 1CP health packs, free small health packs, and if that still isn't enough, you can keep a canticle as a last resort backup.

To use the XCOM comparison, a level ~10 tech priest properly built heals better than a battle med specialist, tanks like a grenadier wearing a RAGE suit, and can spec melee like a ranger or shooting like a sniper.

[FightingFirst]

Hmmm if anything I would say it is too easy. I havent died once (apart from when I got into a room and it didnt allow me to spawn so it auto defeated me).

[Vaginox]

I'm finding the game easy. I'm at 40% ish awakening. I'm not sure how you or others are building their tech priests but I found that going wide early on makes for a strong techpriest. Some of the level 1 skills are just amazing.

Gaining +1 cognition every turn is an absolute must and allows you to rack up actions like no tomorrow. The one that allows you to use a weapon without the cognition cost is similarly amazing - letting you fire those heavy weapons far more often than usual. A bit further down, getting +1HP a turn improves survivability and also helps with repair costs.

Also give everyone a power axe. I don't know about enemies later on but axes = free damage. When you're done firing, just plant your priest next to a warrior/immortal. Free attack when they attempt to move away. The opportunity attack is also a solid defense against scarabs and flayed ones, allowing you to kill them for free when they approach.

The only fight so far that gave me pause is Ekropis. I was backed into a corner and my servitors/skiitari were all down and I was just hanging on with self repairs taking on a seemingly endless horde of crons. But he ran out of swapping dudes, entered my range and I deleted him with concentrated Volkite fire.

[Vacca]

Originally posted by Vaginox:

Also give everyone a power axe. I don't know about enemies later on but axes = free damage. When you're done firing, just plant your priest next to a warrior/immortal. Free attack when they attempt to move away. The opportunity attack is also a solid defense against scarabs and flayed ones, allowing you to kill them for free when they approach.

i dunno if the necron ranged units dont have a melee attack or something, but I found that they always move out of your range when in melee and then try to fire. leads to some massive attacks of opportunity damage. tbh the ai would fare much better just trying to hit the priests in melee. necrons aren't good at close combat but at least they can do something with the bladed part of their guns. dont warriors and immortals have a melee attack or something? are they ranged only?

[bogi7]

got an Explorer with a lvl3 power axe, twin arc weapons, CP gain, free shot, CP steal and crit gloves. With the angered spirit prayer i just blasted the final boss in one go... it's a good laugh, but a bit too easy when the mission difficulty states "praise the Omnissiah!"
other than that, just love the game.
Did the last mission with "just" 5 tech priests. All at levels 11-13.
I split them in 3 groups. 2x2 with a Dominus and a jack of all trade ( i try to keep the basic no cost pistol for those free coup the grace shots), and the explorer on his own hunting prime targets and scanning. Worked a charm.