kind of sad eventually the blessings just become the potion only, would've loved a party with a fuck ton of hp, lmao. but i'm doing quite well.. although had to abuse a few bugs to do so.
You are supposed to eventually lose but definitely not like this. What happened just before it locked, is that after a reward or a new battle failing to start? What bugs were you exploiting, I see there's 2 Difficulty indicators there, and 2 hydrims?? I will prob add a few more blessings / curses but enemies will always eventually outscale the player.
this was actually an older bug before difficulty was even a thing, you could spam the play button fast enough and it would activate and appear again, allowing you to pick starters twice. i tried this with difficulty when it got added... but failed to. but this update made it easy to do so. hilarious glitch, lovely how it actually functions well in game. i like using 2 hydrims and a tizik or 2 tizik and a hydrim, as it basically makes a mana generator for the whole party (and easily makes the buffed ones reach 999 speed and def fast) could you please keep the glitch in the game or make it into some silly sandbox gamemode where you just get to mess around, i love breaking games and i'm sure a lot of other people do too, lmao.
also i see a softlock as a win for endless mode tbh, i outlived the game.
Hi Jay -- this is a very cool game; It runs on Wine, except for one thing: Once you mouse-away from the window you can no longer click or drag anything. The mouse-over events continue to fire, but the buttons don't work. ... also the sound/music settings and window position don't save. if they did then restarting would be less of an issue ;-) had a great time, just thought i'd let you know!
thanks, and that's good to know! I have no way of testing for Linux so everything is made without taking that into account. Settings in the menu currently dont save anywhere, so thats normal tho lol
looks like mana can't go below 10 .. and if you try, you loose the nut. bug? p.s. that run was a great deal of fun, please don't nerf tuskal, he's great for learning about the other guys!
Yep mana's current limit is 10, though I am still considering making that even higher. There could probably be a message when you hit the limit, or just return the food if you are at the limit. Also thats a really impressive win with only 2 monsters :D but also probably shows why Tusk is too strong lol
i got to fuse 2 smithed rares into him really early. that made it possible to try for a 2 monster win with super as a backup. if you nerf him, super will be get used like what? once? twice? per game. as is you can try to roll 2 monster combos that make it to lvl 2 and gamble on events. anyway, i don't think i could have done it without fusing a dmg and regen rare. also, yes, declining the food would be it :-)
Well done :D, yea atm you typically get to use the super once in zone 2 and once in zone 3, unless you have some super boosting items ie Royal Banner, Charge Stone, Transcendent Band. I do intend to introduce more items that interact with Super tho.
I think thats a really good point, unneeded food is probably better to sell than to get a minor boost out of on a monster that doesnt use it well. Im happy to see Slagg doing well :D, those are some really good items too tho
Oh wow! You soared through it! 13 minutes? XD Well done" Skimander with Mega Dancing Leaf, Tenacious and Aquatic sounds awesome! Can you show the screenshots of the team together like I do in my posts next time? I like to see what items are leftover, how much aura remains, what synergies are active and what blessings are active, other than the monsters themselves. It's pretty interesting! :D
Super well done. Very aggro also!
EDIT: Later seen the other post with the various screenshots. Like that, but for every monster and "team screenshot", if you want! It's not a must of course, I just like to read and see the various things used XD
Yeah I saw it in the other post ahahahah, amazing! I only found the scythe once. When I find legendary items MOST of the times I find the circlet of acuity, followed by that Prism thing and the Sensei's weapon. The other ones are very very rare, compared to these three (and especially the circlet). Does this happen to you too?
I had a run with two harvesters today won obviously it was pyris/wyrm. One from the event in zone one the one with the green patch and a chest in the last zone. Heart of the Ocean on tizik is a win usually for me. Harvester on mudgil or skimander with cursed axe or harvester.
Got that sensei weapon for chip but lost. Krog/chip didn't have enough damage even with the legendary they got mauled in zone two.
What about raising the drop rate depending on the zone? :D
Also, do all the legendary have the same drop rate? I still did not find two of them I think. They are missing from my compendium. No idea what they are. I found: Circlet, Kensei, Prism, Idol, Scythe.
I saw both of the missing one, that left thing is a massive shield and the other is a 100 speed
item had that with chikita my entire team had 60 speed
EDIT: Just won with a chikita mudgil team. Got living armor (heals you for your def every 5 seconds and gives HP) made mudgil the designated tank no freak items otherwise.
They all have the same drop rate, with the best chance at legendaries from zone 3 treasure chests. Dave is correct, the 2 missing items are the Legendaries Bloodguard (Defense focused) and Bloodmist Mask (Speed focused).
I did it! I DID IT! AN AGGRO TEAM WIN! WITH STRIGEYE AND CHIKIA AS STARTERS!
Man it was SO FREAKING HARD!
I needed 1:23 hour of time to REALLY think every position before starting battles! Lots of time I had just an inch of life before winning the battle. Goddamnit.
Man I'm so happy. And only with Tenacious Synergy active. Basically it was a raptor team ahahah, with tailwind from Parra and synchronized assault and coordinate from Chikia.
The key has been positioning in every battle and calculate when to swap monsters and where, really. And for the final boss, I spent like 30 minutes on a forge right before the final mana crystal to evolve Strigeye, to decide what to forge. I chose to merge the Crystal Vial with the Heart of the Ocean and give it to Strigeye because its Wrap Up would have been essential to reduce the General Dragon Boss's speed and def. Comboing with the debuff from the Frostbite Tulwar, its speed was really suffering and that was barely enough to take the win!
Man I'm so satisfied. WAY harder than the other strats I used in the past.
I don't wanna do this ever again, lol XD
EDIT: Oh, also, the "fun" part is that I clicked on a supportive egg, to give some defense/healing to Chikia and Strigeye, but I received Parra! FREAKING PARRA! No new Synergies, no healing... Damn. But it worked anyway!
Sometimes I had to gamble with its Windwall, I have to say, but what do they say? Luck favores the bold? :P
EDIT 2: Wow, I only noticed now that that took exactly 1:23:02, which is exactly 1:00:00 more than the last win. Crazy.
EDIT 3: Also, why does it say "Items merged 20"?! I definitely did NOT merge 20! o.o And I don't think I sold 20 either there... I merged and sold quite a few, but I don't think 20... ?
EDIT 4: Oh! Also again, I want to add that, when you choose Strigeye in Calamity mode, you have to avoid the "?" encounters as much as possible, because those goddamn chests/vases with like 10 hp are THE WORSE. Strigeye wastes a lot of time attacking them instead of actual enemies! XD I hate it! Ahahahah
EDIT 5 (Yes, I can't stop thinking about this run): Do things like "Frostbite" or "Wrap Up" stack with themselves? Like, if I have two Frostbite Tulwar and two monsters attack the same enemy, does this have two "frostbite" active? Does this happen with a single monster attacking fast enough to do so? Does this happen with an ability like Wrap Up?
Very impressive, especially with the squishier aggro monsters. I like heart + vial to make a spammy healing item. So the merged number is incorrectly counting each time it displayed a merged item preview in the forge instead of when you actually paid for it (this is already fixed for the next patch). But think of all the cool treasure you get from Strig opening those boxes :D. About the debuffs, both of those do not stack with themselves, instead they refresh the duration. Atm I dont have a good way to indicate which debuffs stack and which dont. For instance Gheists curse is also a refresh, but Karakais -Def stacks independently without refreshing duration. I did try to word the Tulwar in such a way that implied it didnt stack, but I dont think thats possible with everything.
Yeah, Heart+Vial was amazing! 14 hp every few seconds was basically essential in the last boss battle.
About Strigeye, yeah, they are very cool, but I would still like to attack enemies first and boxes after XD
About the stack and the names, I get it. It's not easy. Uhm... Maybe you could simply put a "(stack)" next to the effects that stack? And the others are implied that refresh, not having stack? Dunno, just an idea. For example, Pyris' Ignite was also weird to understand in the beginning. I did not understand it stacks until I saw its ability that make explosion, in which it says they stack. Also, it's not clear to me if same name effects from different sources stack, like Pyris Ignite and Dragon Scale Ignite. Are they the same effect? Does Dragon Scale combo with Pyris?
With pyris you can see all the little numbers popping up at the same time :D, but yea theres a few named effects that come from different sources that are still the same. Ex Dragon Scale is the same type of Ignite as Pyris' so it can help with the explosion ability. The other big one is Windslicer which applies Zephyr stacks that Parra can use for their abilities too.
Yeah, Parra is amazing. This is the first time I used it with Windwall instead of Shine Thief, because I needed a little bit of tank effect (that did "combine" with Strigeye's Ensnare, that can make the enemy do zero damage). It worked in the end! :D
Started with the good old Skimander-Chip team, then found Hydrim in a supportive Egg and obtain all three Synergies shown above.
Skimander is so freaking strong my god. When you give it something that raises its speed it's amazing.
I'm just sad, at the moment, that I can't seem to win with other monsters like Urso, Krog and the others on the bottom of my personal list. I can't find good strategies for them.
Calamity really is unforgivable, though. You make one placement mistake before and during one battle and BAM, you are gone. Eh.
Problem is, I'm competitive, and once I won at max level I don't like going back to easier ones XD
Question: Why does the final boss give you prizes like items and food?
Skim has a bit of exponential scaling because high spd = more attacks, but also for him it means more damage as well :D Also about the final boss rewards, it was easier to just leave it treated like a normal battle atm since it doesnt really impact anything.
Congrats, I had two succefull ridiculous runs yesterday. In one the entire team had 60 speed due to a 100 speed item on chikita in the end the wyrmlet had 1500 hp too.
This pyris wyrmlet team was my most ridiculous thing so far I think....
Mudgil skymander. Legendary weapon stage one with three synergies . Felt like cheating as well.
Heart of the ocean on stage one on tizik feels like cheating as well. Tizik scutter start. Tizik just needs some extra mana and he goes. I think some mana on hit and banners would do the trick too.
Damn, you really speedrun the whole thing! Always 13 minutes? You are a fast thinker XD I take my time ahahahah
I love how your strategies are mostly different from mine. This game is very fun. Also, you seem to make some combo work that I don't find working well for me, which is awesome! When a game allows players to do well with different styles, it's amazing.
The first team with Pyris and Wyrmlet is MEAN ahahah. I love those two together.
It's also funny how you used Woad but with the Radiant Tome XD Mudgill+Skimander sounds great.
The last team is bonkers to me. I would have never think it would have worked o.o Maybe I'm undervaluing Tizik. Happy to know it is usable.
The scutter tizik combo fails if I don't get mana regeneration early to be honest. Heart of the ocean does it for sure that was my first calamity win or maybe a combination of a banner with another mana generation item could do it too. The mudgil skimander combination is reliant on a early weapon or speed item for skimander but they don't have to be rare I think, otherwise they are very vulnerable and certain encounter are a wipe.
Give 'em the ol' Snap & Zap combo :D also Harvester on Mud is scary. Has anyone managed to merge 2 legendaries yet? Also do you remember what version of Wyrm's Latent Power you went with?
Unfortunately no, I could not merge 2 legendaries together. Most of the time I don't find any, or I find one, and when I find 2 they cost too much to merge or one of them is the prism, which I really don't like to use (+45 str is great but its ability doesn't sound worth it, honestly :/)
I go for str or int, food and items usually are more impactfull, most consentiquential is how wyrmlet winds up her/his mana generation and the aura for HP thing
After a week of playing at every difficulty level and with many many combinations, I have a first general impression of the "Monsters Tier List". It's quite hard to place them, because this game requires combinations and combo skills, and a singular monster alone can not be thought as "if I have it I win". It's more about synergy than singular parts. And that's very fun. Also, the game is actually well balanced and every monster is very good and fun to use, even the ones that are harder to use well.
This tier list is especially thought to reflect the monsters use on Calamity mode (Lv 5 difficulty). On lower modes the tiers change for sure. I feel that lower difficulty modes allow the player to be more reckless with the defense, while higher difficulty modes NEED defense, because monsters struggle to do enough dmg to bring the enemies down before falling to their attacks.
This tier list, also, does not totally reflect my favorite monsters to play with, because I want to talk about what I found being stronger, not necessarily more fun. (Maybe another post). On top of that, I'm not thinking at all about speedrun here, just winning the game.
Finally, this post is just MY PERSONAL OPINION, of course. I humbly think I'm a good roguelike/lite-strategy games player, and I understand a thing or two, but: 1. I did not play for years at this game, just one week. 2. I'm just human, lol. Don't get mad at me please and thank you, I just want to give some feedback because I'm in love with this fun game.
Now, let's go.
BEST MONSTER: Tuskal is broken. It's the only one for which it DOES apply the "If I have it I win" rule. Using it is like playing in easy mode. It just needs someone to shield it. Sometimes it doesn't need that either. It's a super fun concept that I would love to see polished, but yeah, I think it needs some nerfs right now. The fact that its ability gives you Super is bonkers! XD
BEST BY CATEGORY
Since every monster occupies a different role, I thought it was best to differentiate between them, instead of mixing them, which does not make much sense to me.
I also want to say this before: The game is very balanced overall, for the monsters, and there is not a big margin from the best monster to the last ones, except a few exceptions maybe. So if I say Pyris is the best aggressive it does not mean that Mudgill or Scutter are useless or weak. They are very good with their own strats.
BEST AGGRESSIVE: Pyris. With Mabek as a VERY close second (I'm still unsure, actually). Pyris is just very good on the aggressive side, on the long run. A little fragile on calamity mode and it NEEDS to be shielded by someone else in the beginning, but damn if it hits hard and wide. Its best features are the following: Magical synergy, which is the strongest one for me. Insanely good with Karakai. After that, the possibility to choose between crowd control and focus dmg when it evolves. Burnout gives out TONS of dmg and it's terrific when you give some offensive item to it. But the other ability that gives fire everywhere is insanely good too. Love it. If you don't have some other crowd control monster to dmg more enemies, go for crowd with it. Otherwise, go with Burnout.
Best monster to combo with: Karakai.
BEST DEFENSIVE: Karakai. It's hard to say what's my favorite monster, but Karakai for sure is in top 3 or even top 2. Both for the godzilla design and for its gameplay. It's the ultimate shield and, on top of that, it's freaking MAGICAL for combinations. Enemies require lots of time to bringin it down and when it evolves in the end and gains Moonbeam it just destroys everything. Absolutely the best. Love it. Give it tons of mana regen and def with items and you are good to go.
Best monsters to combo with: Pyris, Wyrmlet, Parra (all the Magical) and Kabu.
BEST TECHNICAL: I'm quite uncertain, because there are lots of Technicals and lots of good ones, but I'm in love with Woad. It's strong and very useful. In the beginning, when you start playing this game, it feels counter-intuitive because its ability can damage other monsters too, but if you use it as a shield for the group its a very useful ability! And on top of that it has the Haunted ability, which is the best one after Magical, for me. And on top of the top, it has also the Nature ability, which is the third best one for me. I will talk about the "combination abilities" (dunno their actual name, it's not in the game) in another post, but for now let's just say that Woad is VERY good with them.
Best monsters to combo with: Mabek, Hydrim.
BEST SUPPORTIVE: Hydrim. I mean, wow. It has three "combination abilities" (and one of them is Nature and another one is Aquatic, which is not top three but still not bad at all) and IT HEALS LOTS. It's great. It can not tank that much alone though, so you can't easily use it in place of a Defensive monster or someone that can tank, like other Supportive like Groak and Gora can do. You can do that on later stages, maybe, but not starting in the beginning. Not easily at least. This said, Hydrim not only heals a lot, but it heals the weakest monster at the moment, so it saves lots of wounds and losses. Love it.
Best monsters to combo with: Woad, Skimander.
CLOSE SECONDS
Here are some monsters that I found very strong and valuable in general, almost top (some of them could be top and I would not be surprised to discover so later on).
Mabek: Mabek is just great. It's versatile, with 20 in every stat and a good 150 hp to start with. Even if it is aggressive, it can easily be used to tank dmg along with someone else, like a supportive monster. On top of that, it can be placed in a way to attack further enemy if it receives their dmg, thanks to its ability. Did I also mention it has the combination ability Haunted? <3
Kabu: Kabu is a defensive monster that can hit like an aggressive one. Its ability allows it to hit like a truck often enough and, also, it's veeeeery cool to see it come back from 0 hp thanks to its ability. Give it lots of Vitamelon to raise its hp and boy if it's a good tank for the team.
Wyrmlet: Wyrmlet is AMAZING on the long run and I almost put it as top technical, but it's VERY hard to use in the beginning. If you find it later though... oh boy. Its latent power can become more than one thing when it evolves and I particularly like "Arcane" and "Ice", for more dmg or speed control. They are very effective. "Magical Acceleration" and "Power Overflow" are also incredibly good to choose when it evolves. Did I also mention it has three combination abilities and one of them is Magical? <3
Skimander: Skimander is WEIRD and I love it. It's subtly powerful, with it's weird ability. You have to time it right and strategize a little, but the switchy stuff it can do is very useful to avoid making monsters suffer too much in one place. Use it in combo to the player's ability to switch with a cooldown and it can be really great. Requires a bit of cleverness, but works well. Also, the fact that it heals in the back is fantastic.
I especially like the Skimander/Chip combo, making Chip activate its Rumble a lot!
Did I also mention it has Nature? <3
Gora: Gora is not bad at all. It heals and can be a discreet tank, and on top of that it stuns and poisons enemies, which is great. Did I also mention it has Nature? <3
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Here are some still very good monsters that I find cool to use but not tops of the tops.
Mudgill: Mudgill is hungry, lol. It just attacks, a lot. It does a BIG amount of dmg and it's great. Its big weakness for me is that it can be hard to use, since it continues to attack the healthiest one. In general you want to bring down enemies FAST, so that the opposite team has fewer attacks and effects in the field. Mudgill doesn't quite do that. Or, better, it does that, but it requires someone else to finish the job. It's also not the heartiest one on the field, even if not the more fragile, and it does not have the best combination abilities (Aquatic is not bad at all, let's be clear, but there are better ones). This said, with Tenacious active can do TONS and TONS of dmg, so it's still very very good, it just requires some more planning.
Scutter: It's good. It can take some hits and you can make it specialize in crowd control or focus dmg. It's simple and easy to understand. Noice.
Slagg: Slagg is very good, it's not top or close second just because there are better Defensive monsters. Its ability to slow them all is very good too and the ability to gain new hp when it's halved is actually great! It does not have the best attack for me, though, so I feel like it needs some very good dmg dealer to play well with it.
Chip: I don't exactly know why, but Chip doesn't always work for me. This said, when it works, DAMN if it works. It's also a very cool monster to use for the swap strategy, together with Skimander, and it's very fun. But the best tactic is the Replica one. Its last ability, Replica, is just great. Make the strongest item you can do merging some Rare ones you find and give it to it, leaving another monster without one. Amazing. Great ability. Also, make sure to Rumble when you use it.
Parra: Parra it's fun and can be quite strong with nice focus dmg, but it requires someone to take the hit instead of it. It's also Magical, which is always very nice.
Chikia: Chikia solves the problems of monsters like Mudgill and Tizik and it's great when you need to divide the dmg you are going to receive but you are scared of not focusing dmg enough, thanks to its active ability. I needed a bit of practice with it, but now I understand its power. Clever girl. It's not very hearty in the beginning though, be careful.
Gheist: Surprisingly good. It seems weak at first, but its curse is very good for me. Especially against heavy hitters and bosses like the cannon one. And on top of that it's Haunted! <3 And its mana stealing ability is subtly very cool and can save lives!
OKEY DOKEY
These monsters are good but they did not strike me as amazing, at Calamity levels. Still very usable though, like basically any monster.
Krogg: I don't know what is it about Krogg, it's just... underwhelming? It feels like its abilities should be stronger, compared to the other supportive and defensive monsters. I'm unsure. Not bad bad, though, let's be clear. It's also able to give some good dmg control with its Slam ability. Dunno. Maybe it just doesn't click for me. It's not bad or useless, but I feel there are better monsters. Sorry Krogg </3
Urso: Urso is very strong on lesser difficulty modes, because you have the time to keep your food and give it to it when it's evolved, thanks to Gourmet, but in Calamity mode it struggles to start. This said, it's still a good defensive monster and can be used to direct some monsters like Mudgill to attack the ones you want, or simply when you split the dmg due to position, so it has some good uses.
HARD TO USE / HARD TO START WITH
As I said, in Calamity mode I feel the need for defense and these guys lack that, while also having some other troubles. They are still usable, and also fun, but I find them hard at Calamity level.
Strigeye: I used it a lot on lesser level, because it gives TONS of dmg and, on top of that, it automatically strikes the weakest enemy, which is great, but on Calamity it just... dies! XD It's supposed to heal itself attacking, but it dies before that! It can be very useful finding it later on, I feel, when you already have some hard monsters to take the bront of the dmg, but good luck starting with it. You need to have some luck with some good items to do so, I feel. Also, it has not the best combination abilities, so...
Seras: Later on it becomes a menace, but at the start it struggles. I don't quite know why, looking at its stats... maybe it's slow because it gives dmg thanks to poison. Hard to say. If you find it later on, like Strigeye, it can be strong though.
Tizik: Tizik feels quite strong on lesser difficulty levels and quite weak at Calamity mode. The random attack really is hard to use and it becomes a matter of luck very often. On top of that, I think it has some of the worst combination abilities, so... Dunno. It's very fun to use, but hard on Calamity, for me.
CONCLUSIONS
This game is great. I hope to spark some discussions or thoughts for devs and players. I just wanted to share my thoughts. Despite the tier list, I repeat: the game is balanced and, more than that, fun to play. I will play around more with those I see as "weaker" at the moment, and I'm sure I will find more strats. Also, even if I put some monsters on top, the players still needs to think well to use them. For example, despite putting Pyris and Hydrim on top, I think starting with the two of them is hard on Calamity, because they can't do or take enough dmg and you risk to die.
Very interesting indeed.
It's a very deep game and it would require lots of time to write down an extensive analysis on every aspect. I'm amazed it's here for us to play for free. Thank you thank you thank you! <3 :D
Skimander gets attack % + for each speed above the enemy in the frontrow. Just some speed items and he hits like a truck. How well his damage scales with speed was a suprise to me because I never properly read his kit.
Tizik can translate his entire intelligence into speed for one adjacent monster.
Tizik partners relatively well with scutter for the bonus and turns skimander into
Wow this is a very comprehensive post! It definitely shows how you've been getting all those calamity wins. I also like that you picked up on some of the subtle strategies I hoped would be useful such as Mabek can sit in the back and eat ranged enemies that hit it. Im actually surprised to see Krog and Urso below the birds, though I definitely havent thoroughly tested every strat on the higher difficulties. Really good read, could almost be used as a quick guide :D
Happy you enjoyed my thoughts :D For sure I'm enjoying your game even more.
I'll try Krog and Urso some more, I'm sure there are some strats I'm missing. The birds you mean Parra and Chikia? Do you think they are weak atm?
Also, I'm curious now, in your testing and thought-process, which team-combos do you think are stronger? Don't answer, of course, if you think you would spoil the fun for us players XD
Oh, also, is there a name for the "combination abilities"? Like Magical, Haunted and such? I didn't know what to call them.
Ok so this is a quick list of my perceptions of strength, though this is mostly based on normal mode and often around testing a specific monster. I do feel like they might be weak, or at least not up to their full potential.
As for fun combos, most have already been talked about, even a few I never considered but theres a fun one with Scutter (Stealshell) + Seras (Slippery) to stack up a ton of Def on scutter and give him a Shattershard to deal tons of dmg with it. Also Bone Ring on Slagg, plus can include another healer like Hydrim. His decent health can be converted into alot of damage.
The "combination abilities" are called Synergies :D
Oh wow! So different from my perception! Very interesting... Very very interesting... The Scutter/Seras combo does also sound very fun.
I'm personally having difficulties winning with Urso and Krogg in Calamity mode. In normal mode everything is possible, basically, but Calamity is really another matter.
Woad and Mabek at the end of the list is bonkers to me! XD They are incredible for me.
There is one thing that maybe I didn't explain enough: my perception was based a lot on "starting with them", in calamity mode. Because if you, for example, find Urso later on, when you can immediately evolve it and give it food, then you are good to go (still not as strong as others for me, though), but starting is tough.
In general, I'm personally having trouble at the start, for calamity. Less trouble (but still challenging) in the middle and trouble again in the end, with the final boss and some normal/elite enemies of the 3 zone.
For these reasons, the initial stats and strategies are way more important for me than the middle/last ones. Even I die early, in the end, or I don't, most of the time.
I havent actually done a ton of runs with the newest monsters too. Mabek was feeling like they might be alittle too clunky to make "work" atm but maybe not! Woads biggest drawback in my eyes is actually his low speed. Alot of my perceptions are in the context of no items too which isnt completely accurate. Also calamity's most punishing aspect is only having 2 wounds at the start, it might be too low cause it means you cant lose even 1 fight.
Minor bug report: I had the Lucky power. I clicked on the "reroll" icon to reroll the items in a chest. The icon disappeared but the items didn't change.
My first lv 5 win! Yayyyy! Spooky Haunted Team for the win. And a full Technical team too!
I started with Woad and Gheist, which I love more and more the more I play, and the Haunted power helped a lot. I was not that lucky with the items (are the strong ones harder to find in lv 5 mode?), but I did find the Higgsomething Crest soon enough and slapped it on Woad to give back some dmg.
Later on I found my beloved Wyrmlet and the dmg ramped up from there. Finding Wyrmlet later is better than starting with it, since the first stage is quite fragile, very often. Later I found the Magus Hat and Wyrmlet benefitted a lot from it. And merged with the Repulsor gave a lot of Def to everyone!
Voss came close to destroy me, VERY close, but I snatched the win! :D YAY!
Lv5 is VERY hard, but it is supposed to be that way, so I think it's fine. There are some combinations that don't seem to work at that level though, at least without finding good items immediately.
Oh, it's good to mention that I did give almost every food to Woad and only later to Wyrmlet too, to ramp up its Int. Gheist was my good supportive buddy (even if it's technical, lol), but basically starved all the way XD But it's fine. It's a ghost, it doesn't need to eat! :P
Jokes aside, I really think Haunted team works quite well. And Gheist seems weak but it's not. Curse is very strong and comboes well with the Higgsomething Crest, making Woad a Judo Master using the enemies strenght against them XD
I started with Chikia and Scutter for the Tactician and "just 'cause" and it went very well! This time I got very lucky with the items though, and the events were positive or neutral, so it was ok.
Even if it's aggressive, Scutter can take some blows. Later on Scutter and Kabu made the shield of the team while Chikia ramped up some dmg with the Finisher.
I was SO lucky I found not one but TWO Iron Will! XD I sacrificed Kabu 's and Chikia's Abilities but they were often immune to dmg, which was great.
One key decision was to give Twin Claw to Scutter, so that it could attack two enemies at the same time, for crowd control.
A good run. It's fair to note that, before this, I lost like 4 or 5 in the first zone XD
In calamity mode, it's often "die early or die at the end".
I was quite surprised to win this run. I did not think Chikia could work this well, but it did. Very often I had to divide the dmg the enemies did: a little bit to Kabu and a little bit to Scutter. Doing so, very often the two of them attacked different enemies, which was annoying and not optimal. Chikia helped with that redirecting the attacks.
Only towards the end I gave Chikia the Iron Will, because against the final boss it was not that important (I found the spiky dragon one).
Thanks, I like to change stuff and try new things. Your game is very deep, it's very fun to find new combos. I hope I'm not bothering with my posts and comments. I usually binge-play games for some days before changing and now it's Vanguard Monsters turn :P I wanted to share my thoughts, both for the joy of sharing and as a thank you for putting this up on web for free.
I'm a game designer too (but for tabletop rpgs) and I'm always happy when people take time to give me some feedback, telling me what they like, what they would like to see, what doesn't work and what does work pretty well.
If I have time, maybe in a few days I'll make a "final" post with my general thoughts of the game, before disappearing or, at least, stop making this comment section my own notebook XD ^^''''
Thanks again! It's also very nice to see the developer(s?) take time to answer the comments! :D
Third Calamity Win! And PB time record for calamity.
I'll be brief: Started with Woad and Hydrim for nature combo and later on luckily found Mabek in a random egg (not chosen paying mana).
It was already strong with the mass healing of nature, but then Spooky got in and boy it was a good run. Not perfect like the other one, but I really find fun the spooky team, like already said. Mabek could be my favorite for design, and Woad for gameplay. It's very interesting to use.
Got lucky enough with the items too.
The spiky dragon final boss could almost do nothing! Too much healing!
In general, I feel that the meta on calamity requires builds that are not ALL aggressives. It just doesn't work. Or at least not for me. There is the need of some hard monster able to take dmg, or some combos that heal A LOT. Or something like that.
This team is very well balanced, I feel. Supportive, Aggressive and Technical, with Nature and Haunted.
And another Calamity Win B-))) I'm getting the hang of this hard mode now.
Magical team for the win.
I started with Karakai and Pyris for Magical combo and it went very well. Pyris can do some very good crowd control with its Ignite and Karakai takes dmg while lowering def and damaging around. Later on I was lucky enough to find Heart of the Sea and Scutter in an Aggressive Egg, so I had Aquatic too.
In general, it was very good. Good items, good combos. I feel like Scutter did not do that much, and the protagonists were Pyris and Karakai.
Karakai is really strong. I find it works well choosing "Calcify" and "Unleashed". The other abilities seem fine, but these feel better. Especially Unleashed.
Love this little Godzilla baby <3 It's one of my favorites for sure.
Initially it happened to me too, but I saw that if you switch it at the right moment with another monster you can barely win without it dying. This happens very often, on calamity, for me. I put a "shield monster" to take most or all the dmg, I keep a strong dmg-dealer in the back and then, when the shield one is going to die, I switch them to avoid that. The poison is hella tricky because you have to switch them before, or divide the dmg.
I hate the little poison monsters. They are the worst XD
Very often, I find them more difficult than the "elite" ones.
Are there monsters with which you don't have this problem? Other bulky ones? Maybe Woad with a supporter that heals it? Healing is another strat I found that works well against them
Tuskal just shreds most things. With karakei both monster die, I too do the switch thing snail and bug tank are fine but with karakei I have to switch too early he simply is not as tanky against poison so both die.
Skimander frontrow damage scales insanely with speed not as holistic as tuskal but I think it can be more powerfull.
With my skimander builds I usually killed myself in recent runs either to the switch debuff or leeches because his damage was so insane.
Yeah, Tuskal is broken, I was thinking "monsters aside from it" XD
I don't know, I find Karakai very good in general, but against poison for sure Slagg and Kabu are easier to use thanks to their comebacks mechanic, I agree. But if you have someone that gives enough dmg, with Karakai, against anyone else Karakai really shines, tanking lots of stuff with its enormous Def.
Skimander I agree it's awesome! Tricky to use, but awesome. Love it with Chip to do Rumble dmg and stun around.
Level 5 difficulty. Battle against the cannon boss who becomes stronger and stronger. I had Urso 3' stage with Shattershard. I chose "Shakeoff" as his 3' stage ability.
Basically, everytime I was hit by the cannon boss and I should have died, I didn't. My theory is that, even if it hit me with 500+ damage, the 25hp heal of Shakeoff activated before death, letting me staying alive indefinitely.
Question (bug?). The storm event gives you the option to lower 5% health to gain +1 Mana regen. When I choose it, I always lose more than 5%, if I'm counting correctly.
I had Chip with around 670 health and I lost around 124. Isn't 5% around 33& or something like that? Am I missing something? I did not have any item who gave it health. And this happened in the past.
Don't know if I'm bad at math or if the event is not working as written. In doubt, I report it.
Question: Are you planning on making a sub-reddit for the game? It could be fun :) I know you recently set up the discord and I was wondering if reddit was interesting to you.
Random Idea: I did not have the chance to use it but... Silent Vow + Ripper = Infinite Rip stack? Does it work that way? I never use Silent Vow because I understood it doesn't let you cast anymore (I think?), but reading the effect of Ripper gave me this idea. Dunno. Hope I can find them together and try to merge them during a run.
Yea, you will not cast while using silent vow unless you have other effects that generate mana such as Hydrim, or Energy Banner etc. That's a combo I had not considered but it sounds really awesome
Ooooh, now I understand. From the wording, I thought that silent vow "set the mana regen to 0" despite every possible bonus. So it just sets the base one. That's different. I was never using it because I thought it automatically and always block casting.
Uhm... I used Silent Vow while having the Magical combination, but it didn't work. The monster didn't gain mana. Is it right that way? I don't understand how it's supposed to work from the wording.
This is correct, Mana Regen is set to 0, even from other items. You can still gain mana through items and abilities that directly give it though. Like Energy banner says all adjacent monsters gain 2 mana, that is unaffected because it is not regen.
Ahhh now I understand. Mana regen and mana "gain" are two separate stacks. I see.
Is there a way to see how much mana regen a monster have? I still don't understand if there is. It could be handy to calculate how much time is needed to cast, sometimes, especially on calamity mode, where one mistake is fatal.
A fun run indeed. I wanted to start with Parra and Karakai to try the Magical combination. And it's... magical! The +1 mana regen is great and the +10 dmg not bad at all with Parra's zephyr mechanic. Karakai is also very durable and with items like shattershard or what's it called is... amazing. So much dmg from its defense.
Very fun. Also easier than I thought.
I found Skimander later and I was not happy in the beginning (I love its mechanic and design, but I did not think it was gonna work with the first two monsters), but I made it work with a nice help: I merged the Hunger Armor with the Living Seed, so that it could heal everyone. Combo that with its ability to heal itself while in the backrow... well, heal everywhere! It's great.
I've already said it in another comment, but I repeat: I very often find myself ending with three final stage monsters. I struggle to use less than three and more than four. Does it happen to someone else?
Another Magical run, with Ignis and Parra. I found Krog later. In general, I enjoyed it less then the precedent one. It was more difficult, in the sense that it didn't combo that much between monster's effects. It was nice to have Parra's Tailwind help Ignis spread the fire, though.
Not much to say, except that Dragon Scale is amazing and Hunger Armor is very hard not to pick when I find it. That thing makes you immortal.
Oh, also, when I find the black snake pact dealer, I almost always choose the wisdom pact, because the other ones are hard to use. You have to have very specific teams for the other ones. Or at least this is what I feel.
So yea the general trend or meta atm is 3 tier 3 monsters. Im considering further buffing 4-monster synergies to open up the potential of larger teams, cause the sheer stats of tier 3 monsters is hard to pass up. Also Im glad to see magic teams too, theyre a fun challenge :D
Third run, third win. I'm getting the hang of it. Soon I will try harder difficulty modes.
Anyway, I wanted to try Urso, which is very weird, but also interesting. It does not seem that strong, and I don't think it's the best one, but its Gourmet or what's it called it's surprisingly strong on the long run. It is a risk, since you have to give everything to it, but damn if it becomes a murder machine. And a bulky one too.
I gave it a Vorpal Blade (+ Root because I had it, lol) and it hit HARD.
A team of heavy hitters, capable of taking blows. Myke Tyson squad basically. I only took a wound in the final battle against Voss.
Anyway, I still think Urso is not the greatest (and probably one of the worse, I think), but in general I think the game is pretty balance, from what I've seen. In the sense that no monster is absolutely useless or unplayable.
I found not one, but two Pulverizer in the first 4 tiles of the run and I slapped them on Chip and Tuskal. Later on, I merged them in a Mega Pulverizer, gave Replica to Chip and BOOM, two monsters with Mega Pulverizer. Nothing stood a chance. Nothing. I lost one wound just because I chose to do so during an event, lol. Tuskal is OP. It just pulverized everything on its path. It's amazing. With a monster to take the few hits that pass through before Tuskal destroys everything, it's already strong, but it's also able to stand some blows by itself and becomes more powerful for that.
Just... woah.
For sure S tier. I'm simply speechless. I've already seen it in a past run, but this one just totally convinced me of its power.
This was a very interesting run. I wanted to try out Wyrmlet, which I was not very familiar with. Its first stage is quite weak, I feel, but damn if it grows. I instinctively raised up its Int since its active ability works with this stat, and I'm SO happy I did that. I can not be sure, but if the abilities you can choose when it evolves are always the same, I feel that Int could be the best option. Magical Acceleration + Power Overflow is great. On top of that it's magical, so if you pair it up you obtain even more mana regen.
And here is the sacred mega combo I used in this run: BONE RING + CIRCLET OF ACUITY!!! Wyrmlet just continuously casted. Countinuously. And with 150+ Int and Power Overflow it just kept destroying everything.
I won even after messing up my route and missing a Shard to upgrade Karakai.
Final Boss Note: Humble feedback. I think the tentacle final boss is the easiest one of the three. The spiky dragon and Voss are quite scary sometimes, but I've never had much trouble against cthulu's brother. But maybe there are some builds that suffer against it and I'm missing them by luck, dunno.
Anyway, very interesting indeed, Wyrmlet. I thought it was weak, since the first runs I could not go very far with him, but now that I'm getting the hang of the game, I understand its power.
I have to admit, I struggle a bit with Chikia. It looks strong on paper, but I don't know, it does not totally convince me. Maybe it's just not my thing. I have to try the swap combos with it, though.
I managed to win this run, but I lost two before to try Chikia. It seems very weak on the early stage. It can manage to do a lot of damage, but it's weird. Not easy to set up.
So with Chikia, 2 of his abilities lend towards larger teams. Both the active and the tier 3 abilities are stronger the more monsters you have on your side. Whether or not that is enough to make him feel as strong as the others Im not sure though :D
I'm having some trouble with level 4 difficulty. The closest I've been so far it's final boss against Voss, losing here. I even had double moonbeam on Karakai, but it was not enough. Damn XD
It's hard. I'll try again. I can't imagine the level 5! I'm not a hardcore roguelike gamer, but I humbly think I'm good enough with them (beaten all of Slay the Spire before and games as that).
But it was with Tuskal, lol. It's also my absolute record for ""speedrun"" and no wounds suffered. And I didn't even have great items. I had a Energy Charm + Ripper, which is not so much. I just gave lots of food to Tuskal, lol. Slagg also helped taking the bront of damage most of the time. I found egyptian croc god later by chance and I messed up: I did not have enough mana to get a superior mana crystal (I had 147 mana! Ncunwecuaicuebxevrincaienqvunveovwyaho!) so I got an egg and found Oadd or what's it called. But that did not matter because Tuskal, of course. Lol.
Yeah, Tuskal is broken... The most broken thing about it, aside from sheer strenght, is the fact that its ability gives Super. I could almost use it every battle, at a certain point, because it recharged very fast!
Yay! I managed to win level 4 difficulty without Tuskal and with a bizarre team. I struggle way more than with Tuskal, of course, but I feel it was a good strategy. I started with Mabek and Gheist and the Spooky ability helped a lot. I found Krogg later and used it as a shield and sacrifice for Mabek.
In the beginning I was planning on using Gheist as a sacrifice, since it's almost designed to die with its last ability (which I did not take), but Krogg's ability gets better if it misses health, so I wanted it to be the shield and take damage for the team. It worked well.
I always manage to find Circlet of Acuity, in some way or another. It's the legendary item I find most of the time. I dropped it on Gheist to curse a lot (in more than one way XD). It worked well against the spiky dragon final boss.
I love Spooky team. It's very fun to not care about monsters dying, or at least care a little bit less, thanks to the POWER OF SPOOKY NECROMANCY >:)
I'll count this as my actual first 4 lv win, since the last one I "cheated" with Tuskal
Minor "bug" report: Sometimes, when I find myself into a fight through an event or not from the map, I can't see the attack lines between enemies and monsters. Luckily, changing a monster's place makes me see them again. Nothing major, but I wanted to report it.
Also, minor feedback/suggestion: I would love an option to see the map even before starting a fight or choosing one of the options of the events, or buying/forging stuff. In a game like this planning ahead is important and sometimes I forget what the map looked like and I can't see it in those moments. I don't know if it's by design or if I'm missing the option to do so, but I don't like it very much, I have to say XD
I also noticed that, in the fullscreen mode, the icon that shows the cooldown to swap monster is in the middle of the field. There is written "broke" after "fullscreen", so I imagine you already know there is something that doesn't work, but in doubt I report it.
EDIT: I was wrong. Lots of the UI changes based on the zoom I'm using for chrome. That's why it was there. That's weird.
sadly those are part of itchio and I cant control them. You full screen the game (in the options menu) or download the standalone version to avoid them though.
Thank you for sharing! Is there a downloadable version for Mac too? Or do you plan to share it on steam, one day, for mac?
Oh, also, little thing: there are some mistakes in the descriptions here and there, like "it's" instead of "its" or "this" without "monster" following it. Maybe you already knew but I wanted to point it out. It's a very very cool game, if you plan on selling a more refined version it's important to hire an editor to check the descriptions.
I understand, thanks anyway ^^' I'm really enjoying it so far! The monster and enemies designs are great! And I LOVE the customization you can get during the run. Particularly the idea to choose a different buff when the monsters evolve is awesome.
My favorite monsters, for now, are:
- Mabek. It looks sooooo cool! And it's also pretty powerful (at least for what I've seen, I'm not following the meta for optimized runs). I like the Last Wish/Dying Breath theme and effects. Straight up from egyptian mythology. Love it.
- Seras. I did not like the first phase, but I like the hydra evolution a lot. The "Flanikin Manouver" is also very fun to play with Chip and Skimander. Swap team is cool.
- Skimander. Typhlosion + Axolotl for design?! Love it! And the swap is interesting. Not immediate to understand how to use it properly, but with Chip is a little simple combo that I enjoy playing.
- Gheist. SPOOOOKYYYYYYYYY
I'm sure I will love lots of other ones when I will see their final evos.
Thanks again for sharing it. Wish you good luck with the development! :D
Im glad you picked up on Mabek, theyre inspired by Ammit in egyptian myth :D. Swap team is one of my favorite concept builds, but Seras is def weak in its first stage(maybe too much).
Put this item onto my guy to make him 100 str and the tomb didnt open. when i first opened the event he didnt have 100 but i gave him a str instead. this event is already really hard to do so having it update the stat check constantly would be nice. like i have only achieved it once in my 100+ games.
hmm ill look into that, they already should update in response to using items (for instance if you eat all your food during the Help the Old Monster, it gets locked out). this is a good time for me to finally buff this event at the same time since the requires feel like they should warrant a better reward
very nice also i'm working on a tier list maker so that it may be easier for you get an idea of the meta. ill post the finished work here. i would suggest making a separate discussion for it so that people can post there.
i understand his power however i find him more of a annoyance then anything as i tend to follow a much more trinity style when making my comp. like the only time i enjoy using skimander is when i can get him a abilty replacement.
now one thing i think you havent noticied is the power of wyrmlet his two best forms are the str and balance ones. str one is my usual as it gives insane damage poetential and can easily make enemies have no mana.
ya'll really sleeping on my boy snek. like, before t3 he is kinda bad. but t3 is literally s tier. bruh give him hydrastrike and his poison goes through the roof. i've seen his poison doing hundreds. literally ripped through the final boss in seconds.
After playing again with it, I agree. It's pretty cool. I don't know if it's S tier or something like that (too soon to say), but for sure it's strong.
it was the dragon guy with the tail im pretty sure. i mean i would love to talk meta at some point as i will say supports are probably it. you may notice krog is in basically all my teams its because he is great scaling, healing (chrous), Aoe damage (slam), and can frontline decently well.
Did it again just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. only main issue is how weak the early game is. this time it was against the abyss borer (had to check compendium). my opinon on hunger seed has also changed i used to think it was terrible but now i see its actually very good.
oh uh, another thing pressing tab seems to open up some console,didya leave that in on purpose or is that unintended? (sadly can't figure out how to abuse it lmao)
Ive considered exploring that, the biggest hurdles are resolution and lack of hover functionality. It would require the way tooltips and dragging work to be completely overhauled
yea I think thatd be the only way, also tooltips would prob need repositioning to the opposite side of the screen cause right now monsters close to the edge the window overlaps where you would have to tap.
Scutter and Tizik got +4 mana regeneration early. Basically luck.
My core strategy to the game is to first get a small elite team up (start monsters to the max) instead of spamming eggs. Had fun in the endless mode in the old version sad that it is gone.
really impressive, I like seeing how each team is similar and different. Tuskal *miiight* be the strongest monster after seeing everyones winning teams.
Really glad to see this is still being updated, because I've thoroughly loved what's available here. Interesting that monster synergies aren't shown at the beginning of the game anymore.
Also worth noting that I'm almost at 100 runs (the vast majority of which were abandoned before a game over lmao) and I've only managed to find the elusive Chip ONCE. Even when I did I still didn't manage to even get it evolved at all. The search continues!
Are you playing on the download version? Theres a new update out 2 days ago. (synergies not appearing was a bug that was fixed, and Chip has entered the normal pool officially and will appear the same rate as everyone else now).
Edit hold up, Chip's spawn rate might only be normal in the Egg event but not the team select at the start, I'll need to investigate quick.
Double Edit: YOURE RIGHT HE WAS STILL EXLUDED FROM THE STARTING POOL OOPS, he was only added into eggs and the sense at the normal rate, putting out update right now
LMAO nice. I was wondering if there was something up with spawn rates.
One more thing to note: the new Time Keeper enemy continues to softlock the game when encountered for me, as it for whatever reason just breaks the UI.
yeah same for the 3 knight and poison guy fight and 3 archer and poison guy. basically any fight with 4 enemies is a instant loss if they happen before you get a aurite or an egg. i would suggest maybe doing what slay the spire does which is your first 3 fights are much easier.
yeah i feel like some of these normal fights are overtuned all the sudden. on turmoil i just ran into 3 axemen , a archer , stabber and scavenger. i still only have my starting team.
sorry about that, a few encounters accidentally got combined. Put out another quick update so they should be back to normal. If any still feel out of place let me know (One of the final zone 3 elites still looks pretty strong in my files).
Is there a way to support this game's development? It's genuinely one of my favorite games to play right now and I'd love to see it be the best it can.
thank you, reporting any iaaues/bugs/imbalances is a really helpful. I would one day like to get it on steam for a low price. with more features so keep an eye out if that sounds interesting :D
Ok another quick update addressing the issue with a late game battle that would softlock the game, as well as an issue that was causing some fights to spawn less enemies than intended
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wow on my first day back from my Vanguard Monsters hiatus
well that crocodile has a knife, no one could stand up against that :D
I love the last update!!
:D
kind of sad eventually the blessings just become the potion only, would've loved a party with a fuck ton of hp, lmao.
but i'm doing quite well.. although had to abuse a few bugs to do so.
You are supposed to eventually lose but definitely not like this. What happened just before it locked, is that after a reward or a new battle failing to start? What bugs were you exploiting, I see there's 2 Difficulty indicators there, and 2 hydrims?? I will prob add a few more blessings / curses but enemies will always eventually outscale the player.
this was actually an older bug before difficulty was even a thing, you could spam the play button fast enough and it would activate and appear again, allowing you to pick starters twice. i tried this with difficulty when it got added... but failed to.
but this update made it easy to do so.
hilarious glitch, lovely how it actually functions well in game.
i like using 2 hydrims and a tizik or 2 tizik and a hydrim, as it basically makes a mana generator for the whole party (and easily makes the buffed ones reach 999 speed and def fast)
could you please keep the glitch in the game or make it into some silly sandbox gamemode where you just get to mess around, i love breaking games and i'm sure a lot of other people do too, lmao.
also i see a softlock as a win for endless mode tbh, i outlived the game.
I'll check it out! I did have some ideas for a "free" mode of sorts that doesnt have the same restrictions, just lots to figure out.
ah, neat!
i love it when devs use bugs for new ideas!
one Seras's upgrade kills another?
Yea, there are a few abilities that antisynergize with each other, this one happens to be the most
omg hooray, finally endless mode. many thanks to the developer, so much content has been created. Already looking forward to many sleepless nights :)
:D hope you enjoy, and always open to feedback!
I'm simply too good. Solo wyrmlet. kneel to your wormgod.
join the discord for tips lol
(not sponsored i just like this game)
2700 HP xD
Hi Jay -- this is a very cool game; It runs on Wine, except for one thing: Once you mouse-away from the window you can no longer click or drag anything. The mouse-over events continue to fire, but the buttons don't work. ... also the sound/music settings and window position don't save. if they did then restarting would be less of an issue ;-) had a great time, just thought i'd let you know!
thanks, and that's good to know! I have no way of testing for Linux so everything is made without taking that into account. Settings in the menu currently dont save anywhere, so thats normal tho lol
looks like mana can't go below 10 .. and if you try, you loose the nut. bug? p.s. that run was a great deal of fun, please don't nerf tuskal, he's great for learning about the other guys!
Yep mana's current limit is 10, though I am still considering making that even higher. There could probably be a message when you hit the limit, or just return the food if you are at the limit. Also thats a really impressive win with only 2 monsters :D but also probably shows why Tusk is too strong lol
i got to fuse 2 smithed rares into him really early. that made it possible to try for a 2 monster win with super as a backup. if you nerf him, super will be get used like what? once? twice? per game. as is you can try to roll 2 monster combos that make it to lvl 2 and gamble on events. anyway, i don't think i could have done it without fusing a dmg and regen rare. also, yes, declining the food would be it :-)
Well done :D, yea atm you typically get to use the super once in zone 2 and once in zone 3, unless you have some super boosting items ie Royal Banner, Charge Stone, Transcendent Band. I do intend to introduce more items that interact with Super tho.
Kabu/Slagg dual Tank calamity run. With early pulverizer plus vorpal blade and massive body slams.
carrots to sell for later item merge
heart of the ocean really paid off in the end
I think thats a really good point, unneeded food is probably better to sell than to get a minor boost out of on a monster that doesnt use it well. Im happy to see Slagg doing well :D, those are some really good items too tho
skimander mudgil is pretty good combo for calamity provided you find a half decent weapon, the skimander tanks it is a bit dicey early on
Oh wow! You soared through it! 13 minutes? XD Well done" Skimander with Mega Dancing Leaf, Tenacious and Aquatic sounds awesome! Can you show the screenshots of the team together like I do in my posts next time? I like to see what items are leftover, how much aura remains, what synergies are active and what blessings are active, other than the monsters themselves. It's pretty interesting! :D
Super well done. Very aggro also!
EDIT: Later seen the other post with the various screenshots. Like that, but for every monster and "team screenshot", if you want! It's not a must of course, I just like to read and see the various things used XD
Sorry I didn't make screenshots of those things. It really was nothing special but did another mudgill skimander yesterday.
Got this legendary pickaxe thing for mudgil in zone 1 and it was a breeze.
Yeah I saw it in the other post ahahahah, amazing! I only found the scythe once. When I find legendary items MOST of the times I find the circlet of acuity, followed by that Prism thing and the Sensei's weapon. The other ones are very very rare, compared to these three (and especially the circlet). Does this happen to you too?
I had a run with two harvesters today won obviously it was pyris/wyrm. One from the event in zone one the one with the green patch and a chest in the last zone. Heart of the Ocean on tizik is a win usually for me. Harvester on mudgil or skimander with cursed axe or harvester.
Got that sensei weapon for chip but lost. Krog/chip didn't have enough damage even with the legendary they got mauled in zone two.
The Master's Sai I feel might be a little underwhelming/uninteresting for a Legendary. It sounds like it might just also be the weakest.
EDIT: wow its stats are even lower than what I had thought too. I might rework it or tack on 15 Spd.
I had actually been considering preventing legendaries from appearing in zone 1 lol
What about raising the drop rate depending on the zone? :D
Also, do all the legendary have the same drop rate? I still did not find two of them I think. They are missing from my compendium. No idea what they are. I found: Circlet, Kensei, Prism, Idol, Scythe.
Are the other two missing because this is a demo?
I saw both of the missing one, that left thing is a massive shield and the other is a 100 speed
item had that with chikita my entire team had 60 speed
EDIT: Just won with a chikita mudgil team. Got living armor (heals you for your def every 5 seconds and gives HP) made mudgil the designated tank no freak items otherwise.
They all have the same drop rate, with the best chance at legendaries from zone 3 treasure chests. Dave is correct, the 2 missing items are the Legendaries Bloodguard (Defense focused) and Bloodmist Mask (Speed focused).
Calamity Win AGGROOOOOOOO!!! :DDD
I did it! I DID IT! AN AGGRO TEAM WIN! WITH STRIGEYE AND CHIKIA AS STARTERS!
Man it was SO FREAKING HARD!
I needed 1:23 hour of time to REALLY think every position before starting battles! Lots of time I had just an inch of life before winning the battle. Goddamnit.
Man I'm so happy. And only with Tenacious Synergy active. Basically it was a raptor team ahahah, with tailwind from Parra and synchronized assault and coordinate from Chikia.
The key has been positioning in every battle and calculate when to swap monsters and where, really. And for the final boss, I spent like 30 minutes on a forge right before the final mana crystal to evolve Strigeye, to decide what to forge. I chose to merge the Crystal Vial with the Heart of the Ocean and give it to Strigeye because its Wrap Up would have been essential to reduce the General Dragon Boss's speed and def. Comboing with the debuff from the Frostbite Tulwar, its speed was really suffering and that was barely enough to take the win!
Man I'm so satisfied. WAY harder than the other strats I used in the past.
I don't wanna do this ever again, lol XD
EDIT: Oh, also, the "fun" part is that I clicked on a supportive egg, to give some defense/healing to Chikia and Strigeye, but I received Parra! FREAKING PARRA! No new Synergies, no healing... Damn. But it worked anyway!
Sometimes I had to gamble with its Windwall, I have to say, but what do they say? Luck favores the bold? :P
EDIT 2: Wow, I only noticed now that that took exactly 1:23:02, which is exactly 1:00:00 more than the last win. Crazy.
EDIT 3: Also, why does it say "Items merged 20"?! I definitely did NOT merge 20! o.o And I don't think I sold 20 either there... I merged and sold quite a few, but I don't think 20... ?
EDIT 4: Oh! Also again, I want to add that, when you choose Strigeye in Calamity mode, you have to avoid the "?" encounters as much as possible, because those goddamn chests/vases with like 10 hp are THE WORSE. Strigeye wastes a lot of time attacking them instead of actual enemies! XD I hate it! Ahahahah
EDIT 5 (Yes, I can't stop thinking about this run): Do things like "Frostbite" or "Wrap Up" stack with themselves? Like, if I have two Frostbite Tulwar and two monsters attack the same enemy, does this have two "frostbite" active? Does this happen with a single monster attacking fast enough to do so? Does this happen with an ability like Wrap Up?
Very impressive, especially with the squishier aggro monsters. I like heart + vial to make a spammy healing item. So the merged number is incorrectly counting each time it displayed a merged item preview in the forge instead of when you actually paid for it (this is already fixed for the next patch). But think of all the cool treasure you get from Strig opening those boxes :D. About the debuffs, both of those do not stack with themselves, instead they refresh the duration. Atm I dont have a good way to indicate which debuffs stack and which dont. For instance Gheists curse is also a refresh, but Karakais -Def stacks independently without refreshing duration. I did try to word the Tulwar in such a way that implied it didnt stack, but I dont think thats possible with everything.
Yeah, Heart+Vial was amazing! 14 hp every few seconds was basically essential in the last boss battle.
About Strigeye, yeah, they are very cool, but I would still like to attack enemies first and boxes after XD
About the stack and the names, I get it. It's not easy. Uhm... Maybe you could simply put a "(stack)" next to the effects that stack? And the others are implied that refresh, not having stack? Dunno, just an idea.
For example, Pyris' Ignite was also weird to understand in the beginning. I did not understand it stacks until I saw its ability that make explosion, in which it says they stack.
Also, it's not clear to me if same name effects from different sources stack, like Pyris Ignite and Dragon Scale Ignite. Are they the same effect? Does Dragon Scale combo with Pyris?
With pyris you can see all the little numbers popping up at the same time :D, but yea theres a few named effects that come from different sources that are still the same. Ex Dragon Scale is the same type of Ignite as Pyris' so it can help with the explosion ability. The other big one is Windslicer which applies Zephyr stacks that Parra can use for their abilities too.
I think about para and his scaling with aura. One rare drop sold and he gets 40% damage after the first evolution.
Yeah, Parra is amazing. This is the first time I used it with Windwall instead of Shine Thief, because I needed a little bit of tank effect (that did "combine" with Strigeye's Ensnare, that can make the enemy do zero damage). It worked in the end! :D
Finally a new Calamity win. It's been a while.
Started with the good old Skimander-Chip team, then found Hydrim in a supportive Egg and obtain all three Synergies shown above.
Skimander is so freaking strong my god. When you give it something that raises its speed it's amazing.
I'm just sad, at the moment, that I can't seem to win with other monsters like Urso, Krog and the others on the bottom of my personal list. I can't find good strategies for them.
Calamity really is unforgivable, though. You make one placement mistake before and during one battle and BAM, you are gone. Eh.
Problem is, I'm competitive, and once I won at max level I don't like going back to easier ones XD
Question: Why does the final boss give you prizes like items and food?
Skim has a bit of exponential scaling because high spd = more attacks, but also for him it means more damage as well :D Also about the final boss rewards, it was easier to just leave it treated like a normal battle atm since it doesnt really impact anything.
I understand, thanks!
Congrats, I had two succefull ridiculous runs yesterday. In one the entire team had 60 speed due to a 100 speed item on chikita in the end the wyrmlet had 1500 hp too.
This pyris wyrmlet team was my most ridiculous thing so far I think....
Mudgil skymander. Legendary weapon stage one with three synergies . Felt like cheating as well.
Heart of the ocean on stage one on tizik feels like cheating as well. Tizik scutter start. Tizik just needs some extra mana and he goes. I think some mana on hit and banners would do the trick too.
Damn, you really speedrun the whole thing! Always 13 minutes? You are a fast thinker XD I take my time ahahahah
I love how your strategies are mostly different from mine. This game is very fun. Also, you seem to make some combo work that I don't find working well for me, which is awesome! When a game allows players to do well with different styles, it's amazing.
The first team with Pyris and Wyrmlet is MEAN ahahah. I love those two together.
It's also funny how you used Woad but with the Radiant Tome XD Mudgill+Skimander sounds great.
The last team is bonkers to me. I would have never think it would have worked o.o Maybe I'm undervaluing Tizik. Happy to know it is usable.
The scutter tizik combo fails if I don't get mana regeneration early to be honest. Heart of the ocean does it for sure that was my first calamity win or maybe a combination of a banner with another mana generation item could do it too. The mudgil skimander combination is reliant on a early weapon or speed item for skimander but they don't have to be rare I think, otherwise they are very vulnerable and certain encounter are a wipe.
Give 'em the ol' Snap & Zap combo :D also Harvester on Mud is scary. Has anyone managed to merge 2 legendaries yet? Also do you remember what version of Wyrm's Latent Power you went with?
Unfortunately no, I could not merge 2 legendaries together. Most of the time I don't find any, or I find one, and when I find 2 they cost too much to merge or one of them is the prism, which I really don't like to use (+45 str is great but its ability doesn't sound worth it, honestly :/)
I go for str or int, food and items usually are more impactfull, most consentiquential is how wyrmlet winds up her/his mana generation and the aura for HP thing
last version in another run 1821 HP
why is there no full screen button when you play in browser?
theres one in the options menu, its just fullscreen messes up the ui abit atm
MONSTERS TIER LIST AND THOUGHTS
After a week of playing at every difficulty level and with many many combinations, I have a first general impression of the "Monsters Tier List". It's quite hard to place them, because this game requires combinations and combo skills, and a singular monster alone can not be thought as "if I have it I win". It's more about synergy than singular parts. And that's very fun. Also, the game is actually well balanced and every monster is very good and fun to use, even the ones that are harder to use well.
This tier list is especially thought to reflect the monsters use on Calamity mode (Lv 5 difficulty). On lower modes the tiers change for sure. I feel that lower difficulty modes allow the player to be more reckless with the defense, while higher difficulty modes NEED defense, because monsters struggle to do enough dmg to bring the enemies down before falling to their attacks.
This tier list, also, does not totally reflect my favorite monsters to play with, because I want to talk about what I found being stronger, not necessarily more fun. (Maybe another post). On top of that, I'm not thinking at all about speedrun here, just winning the game.
Finally, this post is just MY PERSONAL OPINION, of course. I humbly think I'm a good roguelike/lite-strategy games player, and I understand a thing or two, but: 1. I did not play for years at this game, just one week. 2. I'm just human, lol. Don't get mad at me please and thank you, I just want to give some feedback because I'm in love with this fun game.
Now, let's go.
BEST MONSTER: Tuskal is broken. It's the only one for which it DOES apply the "If I have it I win" rule. Using it is like playing in easy mode. It just needs someone to shield it. Sometimes it doesn't need that either. It's a super fun concept that I would love to see polished, but yeah, I think it needs some nerfs right now. The fact that its ability gives you Super is bonkers! XD
BEST BY CATEGORY
Since every monster occupies a different role, I thought it was best to differentiate between them, instead of mixing them, which does not make much sense to me. I also want to say this before: The game is very balanced overall, for the monsters, and there is not a big margin from the best monster to the last ones, except a few exceptions maybe. So if I say Pyris is the best aggressive it does not mean that Mudgill or Scutter are useless or weak. They are very good with their own strats.
BEST AGGRESSIVE: Pyris. With Mabek as a VERY close second (I'm still unsure, actually). Pyris is just very good on the aggressive side, on the long run. A little fragile on calamity mode and it NEEDS to be shielded by someone else in the beginning, but damn if it hits hard and wide. Its best features are the following: Magical synergy, which is the strongest one for me. Insanely good with Karakai. After that, the possibility to choose between crowd control and focus dmg when it evolves. Burnout gives out TONS of dmg and it's terrific when you give some offensive item to it. But the other ability that gives fire everywhere is insanely good too. Love it. If you don't have some other crowd control monster to dmg more enemies, go for crowd with it. Otherwise, go with Burnout.
Best monster to combo with: Karakai.
BEST DEFENSIVE: Karakai. It's hard to say what's my favorite monster, but Karakai for sure is in top 3 or even top 2. Both for the godzilla design and for its gameplay. It's the ultimate shield and, on top of that, it's freaking MAGICAL for combinations. Enemies require lots of time to bringin it down and when it evolves in the end and gains Moonbeam it just destroys everything. Absolutely the best. Love it. Give it tons of mana regen and def with items and you are good to go.
Best monsters to combo with: Pyris, Wyrmlet, Parra (all the Magical) and Kabu.
BEST TECHNICAL: I'm quite uncertain, because there are lots of Technicals and lots of good ones, but I'm in love with Woad. It's strong and very useful. In the beginning, when you start playing this game, it feels counter-intuitive because its ability can damage other monsters too, but if you use it as a shield for the group its a very useful ability! And on top of that it has the Haunted ability, which is the best one after Magical, for me. And on top of the top, it has also the Nature ability, which is the third best one for me. I will talk about the "combination abilities" (dunno their actual name, it's not in the game) in another post, but for now let's just say that Woad is VERY good with them.
Best monsters to combo with: Mabek, Hydrim.
BEST SUPPORTIVE: Hydrim. I mean, wow. It has three "combination abilities" (and one of them is Nature and another one is Aquatic, which is not top three but still not bad at all) and IT HEALS LOTS. It's great. It can not tank that much alone though, so you can't easily use it in place of a Defensive monster or someone that can tank, like other Supportive like Groak and Gora can do. You can do that on later stages, maybe, but not starting in the beginning. Not easily at least. This said, Hydrim not only heals a lot, but it heals the weakest monster at the moment, so it saves lots of wounds and losses. Love it.
Best monsters to combo with: Woad, Skimander.
CLOSE SECONDS
Here are some monsters that I found very strong and valuable in general, almost top (some of them could be top and I would not be surprised to discover so later on).
Mabek: Mabek is just great. It's versatile, with 20 in every stat and a good 150 hp to start with. Even if it is aggressive, it can easily be used to tank dmg along with someone else, like a supportive monster. On top of that, it can be placed in a way to attack further enemy if it receives their dmg, thanks to its ability. Did I also mention it has the combination ability Haunted? <3
Kabu: Kabu is a defensive monster that can hit like an aggressive one. Its ability allows it to hit like a truck often enough and, also, it's veeeeery cool to see it come back from 0 hp thanks to its ability. Give it lots of Vitamelon to raise its hp and boy if it's a good tank for the team.
Wyrmlet: Wyrmlet is AMAZING on the long run and I almost put it as top technical, but it's VERY hard to use in the beginning. If you find it later though... oh boy. Its latent power can become more than one thing when it evolves and I particularly like "Arcane" and "Ice", for more dmg or speed control. They are very effective. "Magical Acceleration" and "Power Overflow" are also incredibly good to choose when it evolves. Did I also mention it has three combination abilities and one of them is Magical? <3
Skimander: Skimander is WEIRD and I love it. It's subtly powerful, with it's weird ability. You have to time it right and strategize a little, but the switchy stuff it can do is very useful to avoid making monsters suffer too much in one place. Use it in combo to the player's ability to switch with a cooldown and it can be really great. Requires a bit of cleverness, but works well. Also, the fact that it heals in the back is fantastic. I especially like the Skimander/Chip combo, making Chip activate its Rumble a lot! Did I also mention it has Nature? <3
Gora: Gora is not bad at all. It heals and can be a discreet tank, and on top of that it stuns and poisons enemies, which is great. Did I also mention it has Nature? <3
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Here are some still very good monsters that I find cool to use but not tops of the tops.
Mudgill: Mudgill is hungry, lol. It just attacks, a lot. It does a BIG amount of dmg and it's great. Its big weakness for me is that it can be hard to use, since it continues to attack the healthiest one. In general you want to bring down enemies FAST, so that the opposite team has fewer attacks and effects in the field. Mudgill doesn't quite do that. Or, better, it does that, but it requires someone else to finish the job. It's also not the heartiest one on the field, even if not the more fragile, and it does not have the best combination abilities (Aquatic is not bad at all, let's be clear, but there are better ones). This said, with Tenacious active can do TONS and TONS of dmg, so it's still very very good, it just requires some more planning.
Scutter: It's good. It can take some hits and you can make it specialize in crowd control or focus dmg. It's simple and easy to understand. Noice.
Slagg: Slagg is very good, it's not top or close second just because there are better Defensive monsters. Its ability to slow them all is very good too and the ability to gain new hp when it's halved is actually great! It does not have the best attack for me, though, so I feel like it needs some very good dmg dealer to play well with it.
Chip: I don't exactly know why, but Chip doesn't always work for me. This said, when it works, DAMN if it works. It's also a very cool monster to use for the swap strategy, together with Skimander, and it's very fun. But the best tactic is the Replica one. Its last ability, Replica, is just great. Make the strongest item you can do merging some Rare ones you find and give it to it, leaving another monster without one. Amazing. Great ability. Also, make sure to Rumble when you use it.
Parra: Parra it's fun and can be quite strong with nice focus dmg, but it requires someone to take the hit instead of it. It's also Magical, which is always very nice.
Chikia: Chikia solves the problems of monsters like Mudgill and Tizik and it's great when you need to divide the dmg you are going to receive but you are scared of not focusing dmg enough, thanks to its active ability. I needed a bit of practice with it, but now I understand its power. Clever girl. It's not very hearty in the beginning though, be careful.
Gheist: Surprisingly good. It seems weak at first, but its curse is very good for me. Especially against heavy hitters and bosses like the cannon one. And on top of that it's Haunted! <3 And its mana stealing ability is subtly very cool and can save lives!
OKEY DOKEY
These monsters are good but they did not strike me as amazing, at Calamity levels. Still very usable though, like basically any monster.
Krogg: I don't know what is it about Krogg, it's just... underwhelming? It feels like its abilities should be stronger, compared to the other supportive and defensive monsters. I'm unsure. Not bad bad, though, let's be clear. It's also able to give some good dmg control with its Slam ability. Dunno. Maybe it just doesn't click for me. It's not bad or useless, but I feel there are better monsters. Sorry Krogg </3
Urso: Urso is very strong on lesser difficulty modes, because you have the time to keep your food and give it to it when it's evolved, thanks to Gourmet, but in Calamity mode it struggles to start. This said, it's still a good defensive monster and can be used to direct some monsters like Mudgill to attack the ones you want, or simply when you split the dmg due to position, so it has some good uses.
HARD TO USE / HARD TO START WITH
As I said, in Calamity mode I feel the need for defense and these guys lack that, while also having some other troubles. They are still usable, and also fun, but I find them hard at Calamity level.
Strigeye: I used it a lot on lesser level, because it gives TONS of dmg and, on top of that, it automatically strikes the weakest enemy, which is great, but on Calamity it just... dies! XD It's supposed to heal itself attacking, but it dies before that! It can be very useful finding it later on, I feel, when you already have some hard monsters to take the bront of the dmg, but good luck starting with it. You need to have some luck with some good items to do so, I feel. Also, it has not the best combination abilities, so...
Seras: Later on it becomes a menace, but at the start it struggles. I don't quite know why, looking at its stats... maybe it's slow because it gives dmg thanks to poison. Hard to say. If you find it later on, like Strigeye, it can be strong though.
Tizik: Tizik feels quite strong on lesser difficulty levels and quite weak at Calamity mode. The random attack really is hard to use and it becomes a matter of luck very often. On top of that, I think it has some of the worst combination abilities, so... Dunno. It's very fun to use, but hard on Calamity, for me.
CONCLUSIONS
This game is great. I hope to spark some discussions or thoughts for devs and players. I just wanted to share my thoughts. Despite the tier list, I repeat: the game is balanced and, more than that, fun to play. I will play around more with those I see as "weaker" at the moment, and I'm sure I will find more strats. Also, even if I put some monsters on top, the players still needs to think well to use them. For example, despite putting Pyris and Hydrim on top, I think starting with the two of them is hard on Calamity, because they can't do or take enough dmg and you risk to die.
Very interesting indeed.
It's a very deep game and it would require lots of time to write down an extensive analysis on every aspect. I'm amazed it's here for us to play for free. Thank you thank you thank you! <3 :D
Skimander gets attack % + for each speed above the enemy in the frontrow. Just some speed items and he hits like a truck. How well his damage scales with speed was a suprise to me because I never properly read his kit.
Tizik can translate his entire intelligence into speed for one adjacent monster.
Tizik partners relatively well with scutter for the bonus and turns skimander into
a monster.
Like in the other comment, it sounds awesome! I'll chek out this strat! :D
Wow this is a very comprehensive post! It definitely shows how you've been getting all those calamity wins. I also like that you picked up on some of the subtle strategies I hoped would be useful such as Mabek can sit in the back and eat ranged enemies that hit it. Im actually surprised to see Krog and Urso below the birds, though I definitely havent thoroughly tested every strat on the higher difficulties. Really good read, could almost be used as a quick guide :D
Happy you enjoyed my thoughts :D For sure I'm enjoying your game even more.
I'll try Krog and Urso some more, I'm sure there are some strats I'm missing. The birds you mean Parra and Chikia? Do you think they are weak atm?
Also, I'm curious now, in your testing and thought-process, which team-combos do you think are stronger?
Don't answer, of course, if you think you would spoil the fun for us players XD
Oh, also, is there a name for the "combination abilities"? Like Magical, Haunted and such? I didn't know what to call them.
Ok so this is a quick list of my perceptions of strength, though this is mostly based on normal mode and often around testing a specific monster. I do feel like they might be weak, or at least not up to their full potential.
As for fun combos, most have already been talked about, even a few I never considered but theres a fun one with Scutter (Stealshell) + Seras (Slippery) to stack up a ton of Def on scutter and give him a Shattershard to deal tons of dmg with it. Also Bone Ring on Slagg, plus can include another healer like Hydrim. His decent health can be converted into alot of damage.
The "combination abilities" are called Synergies :D
Oh wow! So different from my perception! Very interesting... Very very interesting... The Scutter/Seras combo does also sound very fun.
I'm personally having difficulties winning with Urso and Krogg in Calamity mode. In normal mode everything is possible, basically, but Calamity is really another matter.
Woad and Mabek at the end of the list is bonkers to me! XD They are incredible for me.
There is one thing that maybe I didn't explain enough: my perception was based a lot on "starting with them", in calamity mode. Because if you, for example, find Urso later on, when you can immediately evolve it and give it food, then you are good to go (still not as strong as others for me, though), but starting is tough.
In general, I'm personally having trouble at the start, for calamity. Less trouble (but still challenging) in the middle and trouble again in the end, with the final boss and some normal/elite enemies of the 3 zone.
For these reasons, the initial stats and strategies are way more important for me than the middle/last ones. Even I die early, in the end, or I don't, most of the time.
mabek got the damage output of a tank without the survivabillity
woad got interesting stats and kit but tough to work around it even kills weaker
monsters if you feed it with intelligence too much
I havent actually done a ton of runs with the newest monsters too. Mabek was feeling like they might be alittle too clunky to make "work" atm but maybe not! Woads biggest drawback in my eyes is actually his low speed. Alot of my perceptions are in the context of no items too which isnt completely accurate. Also calamity's most punishing aspect is only having 2 wounds at the start, it might be too low cause it means you cant lose even 1 fight.
Minor bug report: I had the Lucky power. I clicked on the "reroll" icon to reroll the items in a chest. The icon disappeared but the items didn't change.
Ill look into it! There technically isnt anything stopping it from rolling the exact same items, though extremely unlikely lol
EDIT: ok the update that buffed the Sealed Tomb rewards is actually what broke it, rerolls dont do anything atm, but will be back in next patch
Omg, it could have been that! ahahah
I see, thanks!
Lv 5 Win!!! :DDD
My first lv 5 win! Yayyyy! Spooky Haunted Team for the win. And a full Technical team too!
I started with Woad and Gheist, which I love more and more the more I play, and the Haunted power helped a lot. I was not that lucky with the items (are the strong ones harder to find in lv 5 mode?), but I did find the Higgsomething Crest soon enough and slapped it on Woad to give back some dmg.
Later on I found my beloved Wyrmlet and the dmg ramped up from there. Finding Wyrmlet later is better than starting with it, since the first stage is quite fragile, very often. Later I found the Magus Hat and Wyrmlet benefitted a lot from it. And merged with the Repulsor gave a lot of Def to everyone!
Voss came close to destroy me, VERY close, but I snatched the win! :D YAY!
Lv5 is VERY hard, but it is supposed to be that way, so I think it's fine. There are some combinations that don't seem to work at that level though, at least without finding good items immediately.
Oh, it's good to mention that I did give almost every food to Woad and only later to Wyrmlet too, to ramp up its Int. Gheist was my good supportive buddy (even if it's technical, lol), but basically starved all the way XD But it's fine. It's a ghost, it doesn't need to eat! :P
Jokes aside, I really think Haunted team works quite well. And Gheist seems weak but it's not. Curse is very strong and comboes well with the Higgsomething Crest, making Woad a Judo Master using the enemies strenght against them XD
Love it. Very happy about this win.
This game rocks.
Well done, and not the type of team I was expecting for Calamity! None of the items were OP but they were all solid which I think is just as good
New Calamity Win and NO WOUNDS SUFFERED!!! B-)
Kabu, Chikia and Scutter!
I started with Chikia and Scutter for the Tactician and "just 'cause" and it went very well! This time I got very lucky with the items though, and the events were positive or neutral, so it was ok.
Even if it's aggressive, Scutter can take some blows. Later on Scutter and Kabu made the shield of the team while Chikia ramped up some dmg with the Finisher.
I was SO lucky I found not one but TWO Iron Will! XD I sacrificed Kabu 's and Chikia's Abilities but they were often immune to dmg, which was great.
One key decision was to give Twin Claw to Scutter, so that it could attack two enemies at the same time, for crowd control.
A good run. It's fair to note that, before this, I lost like 4 or 5 in the first zone XD
In calamity mode, it's often "die early or die at the end".
I was quite surprised to win this run. I did not think Chikia could work this well, but it did. Very often I had to divide the dmg the enemies did: a little bit to Kabu and a little bit to Scutter. Doing so, very often the two of them attacked different enemies, which was annoying and not optimal. Chikia helped with that redirecting the attacks.
Only towards the end I gave Chikia the Iron Will, because against the final boss it was not that important (I found the spiky dragon one).
Very happy ^^
I really like how different every team you post is :D
Thanks, I like to change stuff and try new things. Your game is very deep, it's very fun to find new combos. I hope I'm not bothering with my posts and comments. I usually binge-play games for some days before changing and now it's Vanguard Monsters turn :P I wanted to share my thoughts, both for the joy of sharing and as a thank you for putting this up on web for free.
I'm a game designer too (but for tabletop rpgs) and I'm always happy when people take time to give me some feedback, telling me what they like, what they would like to see, what doesn't work and what does work pretty well.
If I have time, maybe in a few days I'll make a "final" post with my general thoughts of the game, before disappearing or, at least, stop making this comment section my own notebook XD ^^''''
Thanks again! It's also very nice to see the developer(s?) take time to answer the comments! :D
Third Calamity Win! And PB time record for calamity.
I'll be brief: Started with Woad and Hydrim for nature combo and later on luckily found Mabek in a random egg (not chosen paying mana).
It was already strong with the mass healing of nature, but then Spooky got in and boy it was a good run. Not perfect like the other one, but I really find fun the spooky team, like already said. Mabek could be my favorite for design, and Woad for gameplay. It's very interesting to use.
Got lucky enough with the items too.
The spiky dragon final boss could almost do nothing! Too much healing!
In general, I feel that the meta on calamity requires builds that are not ALL aggressives. It just doesn't work. Or at least not for me. There is the need of some hard monster able to take dmg, or some combos that heal A LOT. Or something like that.
This team is very well balanced, I feel. Supportive, Aggressive and Technical, with Nature and Haunted.
And another Calamity Win B-))) I'm getting the hang of this hard mode now.
Magical team for the win.
I started with Karakai and Pyris for Magical combo and it went very well. Pyris can do some very good crowd control with its Ignite and Karakai takes dmg while lowering def and damaging around. Later on I was lucky enough to find Heart of the Sea and Scutter in an Aggressive Egg, so I had Aquatic too.
In general, it was very good. Good items, good combos. I feel like Scutter did not do that much, and the protagonists were Pyris and Karakai.
Karakai is really strong. I find it works well choosing "Calcify" and "Unleashed". The other abilities seem fine, but these feel better. Especially Unleashed.
Love this little Godzilla baby <3 It's one of my favorites for sure.
He's becoming too powerful, I need to add a harder mode lol
lol jk, Im already working on a new mode
Oh my god ahahah, a HARDER one?! XD Love it. This one is tough though! I swear! XD But I would be happy to accept the challenge!
karakai dies to poison enemies for me early on nearly always
Initially it happened to me too, but I saw that if you switch it at the right moment with another monster you can barely win without it dying. This happens very often, on calamity, for me. I put a "shield monster" to take most or all the dmg, I keep a strong dmg-dealer in the back and then, when the shield one is going to die, I switch them to avoid that. The poison is hella tricky because you have to switch them before, or divide the dmg.
I hate the little poison monsters. They are the worst XD
Very often, I find them more difficult than the "elite" ones.
Are there monsters with which you don't have this problem? Other bulky ones? Maybe Woad with a supporter that heals it? Healing is another strat I found that works well against them
Tuskal just shreds most things. With karakei both monster die, I too do the switch thing snail and bug tank are fine but with karakei I have to switch too early he simply is not as tanky against poison so both die.
Skimander frontrow damage scales insanely with speed not as holistic as tuskal but I think it can be more powerfull.
With my skimander builds I usually killed myself in recent runs either to the switch debuff or leeches because his damage was so insane.
Yeah, Tuskal is broken, I was thinking "monsters aside from it" XD
I don't know, I find Karakai very good in general, but against poison for sure Slagg and Kabu are easier to use thanks to their comebacks mechanic, I agree. But if you have someone that gives enough dmg, with Karakai, against anyone else Karakai really shines, tanking lots of stuff with its enormous Def.
Skimander I agree it's awesome! Tricky to use, but awesome. Love it with Chip to do Rumble dmg and stun around.
BUG REPORT
I was immortal. Lol.
Level 5 difficulty. Battle against the cannon boss who becomes stronger and stronger. I had Urso 3' stage with Shattershard. I chose "Shakeoff" as his 3' stage ability.
Basically, everytime I was hit by the cannon boss and I should have died, I didn't. My theory is that, even if it hit me with 500+ damage, the 25hp heal of Shakeoff activated before death, letting me staying alive indefinitely.
Here is some pics I snapped at the moment:
ahh that was an old bug I thought I fixed, I think I got it now
Question (bug?). The storm event gives you the option to lower 5% health to gain +1 Mana regen. When I choose it, I always lose more than 5%, if I'm counting correctly.
I had Chip with around 670 health and I lost around 124. Isn't 5% around 33& or something like that? Am I missing something? I did not have any item who gave it health. And this happened in the past.
Don't know if I'm bad at math or if the event is not working as written. In doubt, I report it.
oh no you are absolutely right, it was incorrectly doing -20%..........
Question: Are you planning on making a sub-reddit for the game? It could be fun :) I know you recently set up the discord and I was wondering if reddit was interesting to you.
no plans atm, we're still pretty small
Random Idea: I did not have the chance to use it but... Silent Vow + Ripper = Infinite Rip stack? Does it work that way? I never use Silent Vow because I understood it doesn't let you cast anymore (I think?), but reading the effect of Ripper gave me this idea. Dunno. Hope I can find them together and try to merge them during a run.
Yea, you will not cast while using silent vow unless you have other effects that generate mana such as Hydrim, or Energy Banner etc. That's a combo I had not considered but it sounds really awesome
Ooooh, now I understand. From the wording, I thought that silent vow "set the mana regen to 0" despite every possible bonus. So it just sets the base one. That's different. I was never using it because I thought it automatically and always block casting.
Uhm... I used Silent Vow while having the Magical combination, but it didn't work. The monster didn't gain mana. Is it right that way? I don't understand how it's supposed to work from the wording.
This is correct, Mana Regen is set to 0, even from other items. You can still gain mana through items and abilities that directly give it though. Like Energy banner says all adjacent monsters gain 2 mana, that is unaffected because it is not regen.
Ahhh now I understand. Mana regen and mana "gain" are two separate stacks. I see.
Is there a way to see how much mana regen a monster have? I still don't understand if there is. It could be handy to calculate how much time is needed to cast, sometimes, especially on calamity mode, where one mistake is fatal.
Currently its not displayed anywhere since it rarely changes. Everyone, allies and enemies, have a base of 3 mana per second tho.
Thread for my runs. I'll post some runs with random thoughts here, for feedback :)
A fun run indeed. I wanted to start with Parra and Karakai to try the Magical combination. And it's... magical! The +1 mana regen is great and the +10 dmg not bad at all with Parra's zephyr mechanic. Karakai is also very durable and with items like shattershard or what's it called is... amazing. So much dmg from its defense.
Very fun. Also easier than I thought.
I found Skimander later and I was not happy in the beginning (I love its mechanic and design, but I did not think it was gonna work with the first two monsters), but I made it work with a nice help: I merged the Hunger Armor with the Living Seed, so that it could heal everyone. Combo that with its ability to heal itself while in the backrow... well, heal everywhere! It's great.
I've already said it in another comment, but I repeat: I very often find myself ending with three final stage monsters. I struggle to use less than three and more than four. Does it happen to someone else?
Another Magical run, with Ignis and Parra. I found Krog later. In general, I enjoyed it less then the precedent one. It was more difficult, in the sense that it didn't combo that much between monster's effects. It was nice to have Parra's Tailwind help Ignis spread the fire, though.
Not much to say, except that Dragon Scale is amazing and Hunger Armor is very hard not to pick when I find it. That thing makes you immortal.
Oh, also, when I find the black snake pact dealer, I almost always choose the wisdom pact, because the other ones are hard to use. You have to have very specific teams for the other ones. Or at least this is what I feel.
So yea the general trend or meta atm is 3 tier 3 monsters. Im considering further buffing 4-monster synergies to open up the potential of larger teams, cause the sheer stats of tier 3 monsters is hard to pass up. Also Im glad to see magic teams too, theyre a fun challenge :D
Third run, third win. I'm getting the hang of it. Soon I will try harder difficulty modes.
Anyway, I wanted to try Urso, which is very weird, but also interesting. It does not seem that strong, and I don't think it's the best one, but its Gourmet or what's it called it's surprisingly strong on the long run. It is a risk, since you have to give everything to it, but damn if it becomes a murder machine. And a bulky one too.
I gave it a Vorpal Blade (+ Root because I had it, lol) and it hit HARD.
A team of heavy hitters, capable of taking blows. Myke Tyson squad basically. I only took a wound in the final battle against Voss.
Anyway, I still think Urso is not the greatest (and probably one of the worse, I think), but in general I think the game is pretty balance, from what I've seen. In the sense that no monster is absolutely useless or unplayable.
I have to try higher difficulties though.
Tuskal is just broken. Like... immensely broken.
I found not one, but two Pulverizer in the first 4 tiles of the run and I slapped them on Chip and Tuskal. Later on, I merged them in a Mega Pulverizer, gave Replica to Chip and BOOM, two monsters with Mega Pulverizer. Nothing stood a chance. Nothing. I lost one wound just because I chose to do so during an event, lol. Tuskal is OP. It just pulverized everything on its path. It's amazing. With a monster to take the few hits that pass through before Tuskal destroys everything, it's already strong, but it's also able to stand some blows by itself and becomes more powerful for that.
Just... woah.
For sure S tier. I'm simply speechless. I've already seen it in a past run, but this one just totally convinced me of its power.
DOUBLE MEGAPULVERIZER >:D
but yea tusk is in my sights for nerfs lol get those op runs in while you can lol
Ahahahah, ok got it. I figured as much. It's really fun, but yeah, a little too easy maybe.
This was a very interesting run. I wanted to try out Wyrmlet, which I was not very familiar with. Its first stage is quite weak, I feel, but damn if it grows. I instinctively raised up its Int since its active ability works with this stat, and I'm SO happy I did that. I can not be sure, but if the abilities you can choose when it evolves are always the same, I feel that Int could be the best option. Magical Acceleration + Power Overflow is great. On top of that it's magical, so if you pair it up you obtain even more mana regen.
And here is the sacred mega combo I used in this run: BONE RING + CIRCLET OF ACUITY!!! Wyrmlet just continuously casted. Countinuously. And with 150+ Int and Power Overflow it just kept destroying everything.
I won even after messing up my route and missing a Shard to upgrade Karakai.
Final Boss Note: Humble feedback. I think the tentacle final boss is the easiest one of the three. The spiky dragon and Voss are quite scary sometimes, but I've never had much trouble against cthulu's brother. But maybe there are some builds that suffer against it and I'm missing them by luck, dunno.
Anyway, very interesting indeed, Wyrmlet. I thought it was weak, since the first runs I could not go very far with him, but now that I'm getting the hang of the game, I understand its power.
I have to admit, I struggle a bit with Chikia. It looks strong on paper, but I don't know, it does not totally convince me. Maybe it's just not my thing. I have to try the swap combos with it, though.
I managed to win this run, but I lost two before to try Chikia. It seems very weak on the early stage. It can manage to do a lot of damage, but it's weird. Not easy to set up.
So with Chikia, 2 of his abilities lend towards larger teams. Both the active and the tier 3 abilities are stronger the more monsters you have on your side. Whether or not that is enough to make him feel as strong as the others Im not sure though :D
Uhm, good point. I'll try a larger team and see what happens. Anyway, I like the raptor/t-rex vibe from it, design wise :D
I'm having some trouble with level 4 difficulty. The closest I've been so far it's final boss against Voss, losing here. I even had double moonbeam on Karakai, but it was not enough. Damn XD
It's hard. I'll try again. I can't imagine the level 5! I'm not a hardcore roguelike gamer, but I humbly think I'm good enough with them (beaten all of Slay the Spire before and games as that).
I'll try harder!
My first level 4 win!
...
But it was with Tuskal, lol. It's also my absolute record for ""speedrun"" and no wounds suffered. And I didn't even have great items. I had a Energy Charm + Ripper, which is not so much. I just gave lots of food to Tuskal, lol. Slagg also helped taking the bront of damage most of the time. I found egyptian croc god later by chance and I messed up: I did not have enough mana to get a superior mana crystal (I had 147 mana! Ncunwecuaicuebxevrincaienqvunveovwyaho!) so I got an egg and found Oadd or what's it called. But that did not matter because Tuskal, of course. Lol.
Yeah, Tuskal is broken... The most broken thing about it, aside from sheer strenght, is the fact that its ability gives Super. I could almost use it every battle, at a certain point, because it recharged very fast!
Yay! I managed to win level 4 difficulty without Tuskal and with a bizarre team. I struggle way more than with Tuskal, of course, but I feel it was a good strategy. I started with Mabek and Gheist and the Spooky ability helped a lot. I found Krogg later and used it as a shield and sacrifice for Mabek.
In the beginning I was planning on using Gheist as a sacrifice, since it's almost designed to die with its last ability (which I did not take), but Krogg's ability gets better if it misses health, so I wanted it to be the shield and take damage for the team. It worked well.
I always manage to find Circlet of Acuity, in some way or another. It's the legendary item I find most of the time. I dropped it on Gheist to curse a lot (in more than one way XD). It worked well against the spiky dragon final boss.
I love Spooky team. It's very fun to not care about monsters dying, or at least care a little bit less, thanks to the POWER OF SPOOKY NECROMANCY >:)
I'll count this as my actual first 4 lv win, since the last one I "cheated" with Tuskal
congrats, also spooky teams I think have a fun dynamic to try to play to. Seems like they might be good too :D
Minor "bug" report: Sometimes, when I find myself into a fight through an event or not from the map, I can't see the attack lines between enemies and monsters. Luckily, changing a monster's place makes me see them again. Nothing major, but I wanted to report it.
Also, minor feedback/suggestion: I would love an option to see the map even before starting a fight or choosing one of the options of the events, or buying/forging stuff. In a game like this planning ahead is important and sometimes I forget what the map looked like and I can't see it in those moments. I don't know if it's by design or if I'm missing the option to do so, but I don't like it very much, I have to say XD
ty for the report, I'll include the fix in the next patch. Ive been considering adding a way to see the map at any time, may have to finally do it
I also noticed that, in the fullscreen mode, the icon that shows the cooldown to swap monster is in the middle of the field. There is written "broke" after "fullscreen", so I imagine you already know there is something that doesn't work, but in doubt I report it.
EDIT: I was wrong. Lots of the UI changes based on the zoom I'm using for chrome. That's why it was there. That's weird.
yea I havent worked out appropriate adjustments for resolution yet so it breaks the ui. Its playable, just wrong and bad atm lol
sadly those are part of itchio and I cant control them. You full screen the game (in the options menu) or download the standalone version to avoid them though.
Sorry about before. I figured it out (I can be pretty stupid sometimes). I love your work so much!!!1!11!!
that's ok, I get frustrated by it too, also thank you!
Just did some quick bug fixes and just made a discord. Link at the top of discription.
Thanks for the fixes, but I lost all of the data :( My compendium and run histories are gone! Is it normal? Does it happen with every update?
I play on the web version
sorry but yea for the moment since theres no progress between runs the saves are temporary between updates
I understand. Well, it's here for free for us and it's awesome, so I think we really can't complain. Thanks again!
Veeeeery hard but veeeery fun. Well done! Love it!
Im glad youre enjoying it! :D
Thank you for sharing! Is there a downloadable version for Mac too? Or do you plan to share it on steam, one day, for mac?
Oh, also, little thing: there are some mistakes in the descriptions here and there, like "it's" instead of "its" or "this" without "monster" following it. Maybe you already knew but I wanted to point it out. It's a very very cool game, if you plan on selling a more refined version it's important to hire an editor to check the descriptions.
yea one day I'd like to put a larger on steam. In regards to mac, I dont have one to be able to properly make a build for it.
I understand, thanks anyway ^^' I'm really enjoying it so far! The monster and enemies designs are great! And I LOVE the customization you can get during the run. Particularly the idea to choose a different buff when the monsters evolve is awesome.
My favorite monsters, for now, are:
- Mabek. It looks sooooo cool! And it's also pretty powerful (at least for what I've seen, I'm not following the meta for optimized runs). I like the Last Wish/Dying Breath theme and effects. Straight up from egyptian mythology. Love it.
- Seras. I did not like the first phase, but I like the hydra evolution a lot. The "Flanikin Manouver" is also very fun to play with Chip and Skimander. Swap team is cool.
- Skimander. Typhlosion + Axolotl for design?! Love it! And the swap is interesting. Not immediate to understand how to use it properly, but with Chip is a little simple combo that I enjoy playing.
- Gheist. SPOOOOKYYYYYYYYY
I'm sure I will love lots of other ones when I will see their final evos.
Thanks again for sharing it. Wish you good luck with the development! :D
Im glad you picked up on Mabek, theyre inspired by Ammit in egyptian myth :D. Swap team is one of my favorite concept builds, but Seras is def weak in its first stage(maybe too much).
Put this item onto my guy to make him 100 str and the tomb didnt open. when i first opened the event he didnt have 100 but i gave him a str instead. this event is already really hard to do so having it update the stat check constantly would be nice. like i have only achieved it once in my 100+ games.
hmm ill look into that, they already should update in response to using items (for instance if you eat all your food during the Help the Old Monster, it gets locked out). this is a good time for me to finally buff this event at the same time since the requires feel like they should warrant a better reward
very nice also i'm working on a tier list maker so that it may be easier for you get an idea of the meta. ill post the finished work here. i would suggest making a separate discussion for it so that people can post there.
Skimander gets 5% damage for every speed you give him. Tizik can give skimander one speed per intelligence during the buff.
Kabu works well with krog for massive slams. The tree can give you two food every fight if you let the front die negating it with haunted.
i understand his power however i find him more of a annoyance then anything as i tend to follow a much more trinity style when making my comp. like the only time i enjoy using skimander is when i can get him a abilty replacement.
now one thing i think you havent noticied is the power of wyrmlet his two best forms are the str and balance ones. str one is my usual as it gives insane damage poetential and can easily make enemies have no mana.
The main thing Im noticing you guys agree on is that Tuskal is op and Gheist sucks xD also Tzizik is a solid 2nd place which makes sense.
ya'll really sleeping on my boy snek. like, before t3 he is kinda bad. but t3 is literally s tier. bruh give him hydrastrike and his poison goes through the roof. i've seen his poison doing hundreds. literally ripped through the final boss in seconds.
After playing again with it, I agree. It's pretty cool. I don't know if it's S tier or something like that (too soon to say), but for sure it's strong.
Support only win on turmoil. no wounds during final boss never even dropped below half.
Well done, could this be an end of the Aggressive meta? O: Which boss btw?
it was the dragon guy with the tail im pretty sure. i mean i would love to talk meta at some point as i will say supports are probably it. you may notice krog is in basically all my teams its because he is great scaling, healing (chrous), Aoe damage (slam), and can frontline decently well.
I may finally have to make a discord, I am very interesting in what mons people are favoring, and I suspect a few which might be too strong/weak
Did it again just to make sure it wasn't a fluke. only main issue is how weak the early game is. this time it was against the abyss borer (had to check compendium). my opinon on hunger seed has also changed i used to think it was terrible but now i see its actually very good.
New legendary speed item + Chikia speed average is amazing. leads to the entire team having like 50+ speed
How many times have I played? I think two hundred 😂
Pls make a mode where there is no end would be cool
YES
oh uh, another thing
pressing tab seems to open up some console,didya leave that in on purpose or is that unintended? (sadly can't figure out how to abuse it lmao)
lol indeed that is my secret console. it doesnt work here tho sry
are you planning on making a mobile/apk version? since it's only touch controls that could potentially work very well.
Ive considered exploring that, the biggest hurdles are resolution and lack of hover functionality. It would require the way tooltips and dragging work to be completely overhauled
tooltip on tap, drag on hold?
yea I think thatd be the only way, also tooltips would prob need repositioning to the opposite side of the screen cause right now monsters close to the edge the window overlaps where you would have to tap.
yeah that would work well!
oh no im a week late to the new updates also i like the new jars they have the best stats
Trying calamanity out.
Scutter and Tizik got +4 mana regeneration early. Basically luck.
My core strategy to the game is to first get a small elite team up (start monsters to the max) instead of spamming eggs. Had fun in the endless mode in the old version sad that it is gone.
Tuskal Carry with bulk tank partner.
This run was Tuskal with a chikita as partner.
really impressive, I like seeing how each team is similar and different. Tuskal *miiight* be the strongest monster after seeing everyones winning teams.
Tizik and Skimander got an insane syngery. Finally managed to get through with the team quite amazing to see it go.
Really glad to see this is still being updated, because I've thoroughly loved what's available here. Interesting that monster synergies aren't shown at the beginning of the game anymore.
Also worth noting that I'm almost at 100 runs (the vast majority of which were abandoned before a game over lmao) and I've only managed to find the elusive Chip ONCE. Even when I did I still didn't manage to even get it evolved at all. The search continues!
I've really enjoyed updating it as well :D
Are you playing on the download version? Theres a new update out 2 days ago. (synergies not appearing was a bug that was fixed, and Chip has entered the normal pool officially and will appear the same rate as everyone else now).
Edit hold up, Chip's spawn rate might only be normal in the Egg event but not the team select at the start, I'll need to investigate quick.
Double Edit: YOURE RIGHT HE WAS STILL EXLUDED FROM THE STARTING POOL OOPS, he was only added into eggs and the sense at the normal rate, putting out update right now
LMAO nice. I was wondering if there was something up with spawn rates. One more thing to note: the new Time Keeper enemy continues to softlock the game when encountered for me, as it for whatever reason just breaks the UI.
Hmm thats not good, I cant seem to get it to happen. Is there any chance I could get you to send me your log file?
hey the 4 archer normal fight in the first act is way too hard i have lost everytime to this fight no matter my starting team.
yeah same for the 3 knight and poison guy fight and 3 archer and poison guy. basically any fight with 4 enemies is a instant loss if they happen before you get a aurite or an egg. i would suggest maybe doing what slay the spire does which is your first 3 fights are much easier.
yeah i feel like some of these normal fights are overtuned all the sudden. on turmoil i just ran into 3 axemen , a archer , stabber and scavenger. i still only have my starting team.
sorry about that, a few encounters accidentally got combined. Put out another quick update so they should be back to normal. If any still feel out of place let me know (One of the final zone 3 elites still looks pretty strong in my files).
okay thank you it seems to be back to normal. thank you very much for the quick response.
Is there a way to support this game's development? It's genuinely one of my favorite games to play right now and I'd love to see it be the best it can.
thank you, reporting any iaaues/bugs/imbalances is a really helpful. I would one day like to get it on steam for a low price. with more features so keep an eye out if that sounds interesting :D
Ok another quick update addressing the issue with a late game battle that would softlock the game, as well as an issue that was causing some fights to spawn less enemies than intended
Had a pretty good run but was stuck here when the game gave me no way to start the fight
thank you, this image helped alot with tracking down the broken battle