Enduring War fake difficulty

[Talon Rose]

Whelp.

You know the one.
Tiny corridors stacked with large enemies with AOE harassment, a Gas spewing enemy that hurts everyone for -1 health per turn, a minimum of 3 turns to safely even reach it (4 if you deal with the Butlers fast enough) while a wardrobe infinitely spawns enemies behind the gas mook.

Got to here with perfect play, 2 OP weapons, nicely levelled characters and a diverse enough roster - including a strong front line jumpy tank, 2 archers (Hobbler \ piercer respectively) and 2 Mystics.

I got here - on standard - and got sat on. I haven't hate-Alt-F4'd a game like this in a long while after my strongest units just fell over dead. None of my fighter's 6 armor pips were disturbed when she died. But then, just getting to the gas mook alone means they're guaranteed to be half dead - since, you know, there is no healing in this game.

( https://gamerant.com/wildermyth-how-to-heal/#:~:text=How%20to%20Heal%20in%20Wildermyth,healing%20is%20the%20Aid%20ability. )

Sooooo I'm either never touching Enduring War again, breaking out Cheat Engine to combat the absolutely baffling design decision inherent in this fight, or I just stupidly throw myself at the RNG and hope I always get crits while the enemy always misses. None of these sound fun.
If this was a difficulty or two higher, I'd be less pissed off about it. But *standard* ? Otherwise the game has been rewarding how I've been doing things up to this point.

Main issue really is the amalgamation of nonsense you deal with in this fight. The -1 HP per turn to everyone gas mook is possibly the worst, since it *forces* you to bumrush it, while enemies intercept you, block you, punish you for coming close (Which...you sort of have to?) all the while ranged enemies infinitely spawn behind all that and join the "fun". I legitimately don't understand how you can be expected to have 8-9 hp characters (at best) at this point, lose around half that health to get to *one* of the problems then be in near or literal 1-hit-death range of several units.

I heard the Moth campaign had a really nasty start - anything similar like this?

[Du-Vu]

Are you using your mystics to make a line through the middle to turn off the gas as quickly as possible?

[Talon Rose]

Originally posted by Du-Vu:

Are you using your mystics to make a line through the middle to turn off the gas as quickly as possible?

Hiya!

Certainly *tried*. The two Butlers in the exact middle aren't making anything easy. I tried to Zealous leap over to the gas mook, but of course then my exposed Fighter was getting eaten alive by the Sommeliers. Sure they have 3 HP and 1-2 armor, so as long as she hits they die but um...you know. OW.

[Nathan Panda]

IMO, Age Of Ulstyrx and Enduring War are campaigns that are supposed to be played on Tragic Hero as the most difficult setting. Walking Lunch is out of the question since these two campaigns don't start you out with a legacy hero.

As for your question, the best way to take out that gas spewing machine would be a job for your mystic and ranged hunter. You should be able to take it out by turn 2 the latest with an interfusion, following by a flanking ranged attack with your hunter.

My party composition was 3 warriors, 1 mystic and 1 ranger. I recruited a mythwalker (level 5) warrior as soon as I can to give some much needed support to the normal heroes.

I'd highly suggest playing some three chapter campaigns to build up a legacy roster, before trying out the main campaigns.

Otherwise you can still play the campaigns, but perhaps stick to adventurer difficulty because RNG really hates fresh heroes.

[Talon Rose]

I haven't learned which is which, but whatever the "default" - hence standard difficulty is. Should be a fair challenge, right ?>.>;.
Legacy heroes...if I roll a really really good hero and finish a campaign, I can import them into other campaigns or? Not quite sure how all that works.
Cheers for the tips!

[Chaoslink]

Another thing that can help is not to underestimate the speed stat. Having incredibly fast heroes that can cover tons of ground is pretty strong. The wolfcall ability is probably my favorite in the game. You just gotta rush in. I don’t really remember that fight being all that bad. Sure I lost a few HP to the poison, but that’s about it. Maybe your defenses weren’t up to the task when it comes to their attacks? I often have a one hander and lantern on my warriors to give them that extra spell protection on demand.

[Talon Rose]

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Another thing that can help is not to underestimate the speed stat. Having incredibly fast heroes that can cover tons of ground is pretty strong. The wolfcall ability is probably my favorite in the game. You just gotta rush in. I don’t really remember that fight being all that bad. Sure I lost a few HP to the poison, but that’s about it. Maybe your defenses weren’t up to the task when it comes to their attacks? I often have a one hander and lantern on my warriors to give them that extra spell protection on demand.

Heya.
Yeah, I value the speed stat quite a lot. Tend either get a leapy warrior if I can or make the Mystic in particular zippy so they can interfuse with the right objects. Ranger's the last priority since I run them as bow users and the range extension gets nuts later on. If nobody really needs a speed boost, I try to keep them all next to each other so there isn't the one really slow guy in "OMG RUN" missions.

I do feel slightly insulted when you ask about my defense despite the post mentioning a 6-armor fighter who keeled over with all his armor intact :-P
The one hander may be an idea. Those 2 "OP weapons" i lucked into? Tier 3, and both 2-handed ...

[Tank Lady (Sicilian King)]

I'd really like to avoid sounding "git gud" here if I can avoid it, but... I'm not sure what the fake difficulty is here? I feel like that phrase is usually used when the appearance of mechanical fairness masks underlying asymmetries in favor of the AI (like how in 4X games, "higher difficulty" means "we give the AI more stuff"). Here, it just seems like you were ill-equipped for this particular situation, for the reasons brought up by the other folks in the thread.

Which isn't to say your concerns aren't valid! It's just that, semantically, it seems like a weird way to express them.

(My own tip: concerned about Sommeliers? A hunter with Archery and a high-warding hero can team up to take most of them out on the enemy turn! Bonus points if the hunter has Rogue to avoid being targeted themself.)

[Trekopep]

I can definitely see how two butlers might be rough in that mission. The only specifically placed enemy in that map is the wardrobe in the back, so how many calamities the morthagi have and what monster cards you draw can certainly have an impact on difficulty. If you reload a save from the overland and enter the mission again, there's a chance you'll get a slightly easier group of enemies to go up against.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by ChillNaga:

Originally posted by Chaoslink:

Another thing that can help is not to underestimate the speed stat. Having incredibly fast heroes that can cover tons of ground is pretty strong. The wolfcall ability is probably my favorite in the game. You just gotta rush in. I don’t really remember that fight being all that bad. Sure I lost a few HP to the poison, but that’s about it. Maybe your defenses weren’t up to the task when it comes to their attacks? I often have a one hander and lantern on my warriors to give them that extra spell protection on demand.

Heya.
Yeah, I value the speed stat quite a lot. Tend either get a leapy warrior if I can or make the Mystic in particular zippy so they can interfuse with the right objects. Ranger's the last priority since I run them as bow users and the range extension gets nuts later on. If nobody really needs a speed boost, I try to keep them all next to each other so there isn't the one really slow guy in "OMG RUN" missions.

I do feel slightly insulted when you ask about my defense despite the post mentioning a 6-armor fighter who keeled over with all his armor intact :-P
The one hander may be an idea. Those 2 "OP weapons" i lucked into? Tier 3, and both 2-handed ...

6 armor with no warding doesn't mean much when you're being attacked by magic though does it? Like those Sommalier enemies that the Wardrobes will spam at you, the fire aura the Butlers have or the fire the flame belcher things deal... You need both defenses. Its why I love Earthscribe Mystics. If you can get some stones to infuse with, you become so tanky its ridiculous, plus you can give allies tons of temp health. If you can stack effects for more interfusions too, its gets crazy. I think I had an Earthscribe with 5 maximum once, on maps with stones everywhere that character was literally unkillable.

I think I did that poison map twice now and both times it was a breeze. I tend to build myself less for raw damage and more for action economy though. If I can't hit multiple enemies in one turn, it isn't a good build. That action economy helps you in those fights with swarms of enemies. No sense in using a 12 damage attack on an enemy with 2hp and 2 armor is it? Not when you can deal 7 damage 2-4 times instead. Its what makes the Wolf transformation so fun. Build with battle dancer and wolf call and your whole team can just steamroll through maps.

Whatever that melee ranger talent is that gives you an extra attack on melee killing blows... that one is friggin amazing. Especially with that artifact dagger with the range of a spear. I've chained that into 5-6 extra attacks, ending with a bow shot. If you can simply attack all the enemies in the ranger's range so they get backstab criticals, its amazing what they can do in melee with that talent.

If you're not having luck with getting healing talents or anything for that room, having high stunt chance and leaf enchanted weapons is a good alternative, especially when building for action economy. Mix in a rivalry or two and I've had characters build up 6-8 temp health in just 2 turns. I actually try to avoid the plate armor or any of the tankier armors in general since the speed reduction and loss of damage potential is just too much. A few extra shields aren't as valuable when the enemy gets turns to break them.

Rangers also tend to have the highest speed. Because of this, they're ideal for diving deeper into the enemy lines. One talent that is almost a must for me (two actually) is the fox strides or whatever its called that gives speed until you activate for guaranteed dodges and the flashbang. The flashbang can be self targeted to enter stealth and when upgraded it can even stealth your whole team. That was actually one of my strats for one of the two poison room fights, put everyone in stealth and rush through while a tanky mystic with Tinker cleared a path.

Don't take this the wrong way, as I really don't mean it negatively. You sound new. I get the feeling that you haven't played long enough to really experiment with all the different abilities and that kind of thing to really have strong synergies planned out. There's nothing wrong with that. I didn't see the value in certain abilities early on when I started playing and I don't expect other people to either. Those aid spells are pretty good in a pinch. After having cleared something like 12-15 campaigns, I've only ever had a map failure once and that was a chapter 4 or 5 map with a secondary team of 4 with 2 new recruits that weren't geared. I've had a few close calls and very few maims and only one death.

[Chaoslink]

Originally posted by Tank Lady (Sicilian King):

-snip-

(My own tip: concerned about Sommeliers? A hunter with Archery and a high-warding hero can team up to take most of them out on the enemy turn! Bonus points if the hunter has Rogue to avoid being targeted themself.)

Yeah, I love that combo too. Anything that can just destroy the action economy and allow you to dish out crazy amounts of damage through flurries of attacks instead of single massive attacks. Fire or Leaf enchants on that ranger work wonders too if you have the stunt chance.

[Syrris]

Attack Scenery is rarely necessary, but this is one mission in which it's very useful: a non-slowpoke warrior should be able to get into place to knock out one of the barricade pieces between the near and middle parts of the path, letting the others run through. The turn after that, a combination of interfusions and bow (or ranged theme) attacks should easily take out the gas-spewer.

Remember that warriors can use bows too, and they should have one for situations where you need to hit something that you can't get close to. It helps a lot when dealing with wardrobes, too...

[Tank Lady (Sicilian King)]

Originally posted by Syrris:

Attack Scenery is rarely necessary, but this is one mission in which it's very useful

Or Raider, which is basically "Attack Scenery but better" (and on upgrade becomes "Ignite+ for warriors"). IME one of the most consistently fun—if difficult to build around—skills out there!

[Talon Rose]

Originally posted by Trekopep:

I can definitely see how two butlers might be rough in that mission. The only specifically placed enemy in that map is the wardrobe in the back, so how many calamities the morthagi have and what monster cards you draw can certainly have an impact on difficulty. If you reload a save from the overland and enter the mission again, there's a chance you'll get a slightly easier group of enemies to go up against.

Useful information, thank you for that.
Assumed that the gas spewing enemy was entirely unique since it showed up at an act finish battle, so I'd have to deal with at least that. With this in mind, let's reroll things...

[Trekopep]

Originally posted by ChillNaga:

Useful information, thank you for that.
Assumed that the gas spewing enemy was entirely unique since it showed up at an act finish battle, so I'd have to deal with at least that. With this in mind, let's reroll things...

Right, yeah, the gas spewing one too. (Sorry, should've been more clear)

[Du-Vu]

Yeah, with the calamities it sounds like you've gotten, lots of Butlers early on, it could be tough. But since you mention your fighter getting eaten alive -- there is always the bonus for a character dying to consider. Not an easy choice to make, but with a big climactic battle like this one, a lucky draw there could also be the edge you need :)