About that Lich

[Xeal]

So lately I've been seeing a lot of bashing on the Lich for kind of sucking and I can see it, the only real useful thing about them imo is that their gas cloud can strip a warden's (immune to debuffs) armor and resistance. Now, I ended up coming across some items that made me a bit curious. The first was an item that healed the unit to 100% when another died, another was an eyeball that gave them another action if they were the last unit alive. I'm pretty sure I'd seen other items that give some kind of buff when a unit dies but I'm either mistaken or just didn't have any on hand.

I decided to go with the heal and the eyeball and made like a yolo team on the fourth floor. I made a Lich, gave them a level 20 brain, and then I made three skeletons and gave them nothing, the intent being that they were disposable anyway. The lich has an upgrade to the ability that lets them kill a unit to heal the party that makes it not take an action, seeing as they were disposable and the Lich healed to full anyway, I took that one, worst case scenario, I do a full heal and then summon another skeleton. Naturally, I have Ire and Alchemy with a fury focus, a relic that gives 12 fury per round, and two levels in the graveyard so that I start with 20 (playing GAW).

I expected that fight to be a flop but it actually went relatively well. Granted, several units ended up escaping because armageddon was nerfed to ♥♥♥♥ and the skeletons do like no damage even with the buffs from the Lich ult, but it worked. The Lich lived through it, though the skeletons didn't which can get expensive if you're making new ones every fight. So that remains part of the experiment. I want to try something like this, but from the start, it will probably go absolutely terribly since I'd lack the means to reliably gain fury for a while, but part of it is that I want to see how essential those two items are, whether it's a complete RNG strategy that relies on finding those, or if maybe it's some kind of viable.

Likewise, I want to know if others have tried something like this and share how it went, what worked and what didn't. Obviously it's not the kind of thing you'd use as a main team to push through the map, I'm just wondering if the Lich is meant to be a different style of play like that. Because right now, it seems like people agree that they suck and need a bit of a rework which includes summoning the skeletons in front instead of behind. Playing a Lich is the closest thing to playing Iratus himself as a unit and it has my curiosity. My initial thoughts before starting another run centered around that idea, it's not going to work, not until I acquire certain items, talents, maybe even relics. What do you all think?

[Ghostlight]

2 other uses for Lich....

Have him at the back as a buffer only. He adds +14 Dread and +14 Attack to an Minion for 2 turns which is huge. This is especially good in combination with Blood Phantom using his damage reflect taunting aura as a key strategy, as the reflected damage depends on BP's Attack stat. Combine Lich buff with Amok spell on BP, and it's even more ridiculous. Enemies that hit multiple times (such as Dwarf Berserkers) will one-shot themselves against that.

Finally, go with a team of 3 and have Lich go through the cycle of Summon Skeleton / sacrifice Skeleton for huge team heal. Doing that, you can keep any 2 front liners alive almost forever. If you hold off saccing the Skelly till you know you need the heal, you can sometimes get a buff out of him as well.

[funkmonster7]

1 more use for Lich: recon.

You bring in a team of Lich - Skele - (tank, either Bone Golem or another Skele, or Widow maybe). Use Lich to summon another Skele, make sure your own Skele has its unique item. Use the summoned Skele to buff your own Skele/Golem, use your own Skele to buff your Lich. Use the Bone Golem to apply wards etc. Sacrifice the summon for hp if you want.

Just watch and monitor the fight as it goes on, collect info on your enemies (that you've never fought before). When you got enough info, wait until it's your summon's turn, and click retreat. Every minion will retreat on their following turn, with the summon being last but it is disposable anyway.

The other option is just bomb the crap out of the place. Your buffed Skeletons will not take too much damage, and hopefully your Lich has the less friendly fire damage unique item on. Otherwise, stress cloud is another good alternative.

Just don't kill anything, leave everything at death's door then retreat, bring your actual army to mop up.

I used this strategy in my first playthrough when I didn't know what each boss do.

[No One]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dz5ROm2KI68

[Kams]

I approached the final Templar Magister boss (2nd difficulty), and created a testing squad to see what the fight is about. The squad consisted of a Lich, two suicidal Bone Golems and a free spot. I also had a "summon" spell and equipped an item "+75% hp on minion death".
The Magister died to this team.

My issue with Lich-based teams is not that those don't work, but that they force you to have a free/suicidal spot in the squad leading to overall decrease in the minion's exp gain. (only 3 minions come out of each fight)

[Hieronymous]

I had fun with Lost Soul / Lich / Blood Phantasm / Bone Golem. There are probably better combos but I enjoyed the aesthetic of the party. The Bone Golem and Lost Soul were casting so much blocking and warding (especially once I found the Coward's Foot) and that + the Lich's Burning Skull made it fairly trivial to throw around firestorms and bone shrapnel. Only ended up losing 1 Blood Phantasm early on, and my Lost Soul in phase 2 of the final boss fight, but the Lich's skeleton summon and sacrifice for backup healing (+Blood Phantasm transfusion) proved pretty clutch there

Granted this was only on More Pain, which I had just unlocked. Good Always Wins and uh Eternal Harvest look like they really force certain optimal builds and that seems unfun to me so I'll probably stick with More Pain for now. Tbh I'm already a little sick of relying on the backline Lost Soul's blocks/wards but some enemies seem too dangerous and annoying. I should really experiment with more combos but I sort of hope support minions get expanded upon in the future (with updates or mods; though haven't seen much modding yet)

[Dorok]

The sacrifice of Lich is hard to exploit with a party of 4, this is pushing to use a party of 3. For using Lich at GAW I think I read some post mention the use. I agree that Lost Soul, Lich, Bone Golem and AOE Lich attack looks like an interesting option. This team has even good options to move enemies. Lost Sould is a very weird Minion but there's some bonus to enemies that certainly could be exploited, for example give more initiative to some enemies to manage their play order (give and remove on an enemy so it is last to play in enemy turn), or even just stack bonus on them to exploit through attack exploiting the bonus.

[Hieronymous]

Yeah, if you can cast Rite of Carnage + the AOE stress attack that raises enemy initiative followed up by the Lost Soul wrath spell that rips away buffs and debuffs from enemies to empower allies, it could be a very potent combo, though you'd i guess need the Coward's Foot or 2 lost souls, and for the enemies not to have any remaining wards

[rrrumble]

check party: lich-BloodPh-ghoul- with items on buff stats on minion death and for lich one item block on minion death... in case of emergency you can use Iratus magic to summon shade to sacrifice further.. so after round 3 we have ghoul and BloodPh damage150+... and also do not forget: BloodPh stance heal party and ghoul attack allies + lich sacrifice non stop... in sum we have nearly immortal party becoming deadlier each turn

[CriticalCore]

Found a pretty ridiculous build for lich with 2 Deathknights using Heart of Emptiness & 25% vigor recover per enemy death + the 65% reduced friendly damage on Lich. You can let your knights burn and take damage, as they'll recover HP on enemy deaths, keeping spamming rain of fire till the enemy dies while your DK;s heal.

Grab a double deathknight, mummy 3rd row + lich last with 65% decreased friendly damage, every Rain of fire gives you a +10 wrath and mana from the Heart of emptiness on both DK and the reduced true damage. The lantern of souls on both knights so while the enemy dies your knights heal to negate the friendly fire damage, mummy can remove fire if needed or hex otherwise proc the DK futile hope stance.

Pretty much keep DK's on their stances so the Ignition also procs stress on all 4 enemies and when mummy curses.

I ignore the suicide ability lol.

[phaoray]

I just had my lich use Toxic cloud, gave it the trait to strip enemies of their defense, and just used bride and others to move enemies all over the place and take loads of stress damage. Was a fun build.