Universal Heroes Paradox (by Duksu Han) - WinterBleu -

Took a quick look. Good start
And feel free to copy anything I post that you consider useful, permission happily granted.

 

Anoop's "Dark Hole" skill - targeting problem

I noticed that Anoop's "Dark Hole" skill has a serious targeting problem:
Not sure which mechanics you use under the hood. But it appears that the spell is targeting the position of an enemy, and not the enemy itself.
Also, its windup time seems to be longer than that of e.g. Meteor.
So, most of the time the spell is wasted, because by the time it goes active, the enemy unit already has moved on or is dead.

Is there something you can/want do about that? Was that intentional, that you did it with this drawback?

 

I did pay attention this time: the Fire/Ice AoE spells do target a lot better.
Especially the Icemage's Lightning does a fantastic job as crowd-cleaner.

And more playthrough impressions:
- I have to revise my opinion on Trinkets being overpriced:
That's really just an issue in the first Shop, where you can skip buying Trinkets anyways.
In the second Shop, I could stock up quite nicely already, even if it wasn't enough Gold to fill all 8 slots with good stuff.
And by the time you reach the third Shop, you should have enough in the bank to buy everything you want/need right away.

- As expected, I hit another wall with the Stage 20 Boss. Had to grind up to level 30 this time, before I managed to take him down.
- Next wall came up in Stage 24. The enemy groups were too large to dispatch quickly. And the Mages are so squishy, they fall to a few hits.
Had to work them up 2 more levels (to 32/33) to get through that one.
- Surprisingly, the Stage 25 Boss after that was a piece of cake.
- And Stages 26-29 were pretty okay, too.
- I do expect that the end bosses will give me a real headache. They dish out a lot of hurt, and can take equally much in return.

And got another question:
Do critical hits and +skill effect apply to the Cleric, too? I.e. does a normal "attack" crit result in more HP being healed? Same goes for "+x% Skill Effect" and "+x% Skill Critical Chance".
Because if yes, it might be worth investing in them.

 

Hero upgrade paths - Cleric, Mages

My take on how to spend your skillpoints for the Cleric and Mages, and why. Overall, this worked pretty well so far.

General information:
- First Active Skill unlock is on level 10. Always improve those, they are really worth it.
- On level 15 & 25, you get 2 Active Skills unlocked. Best save the skillpoint on level 14 & 24, so you can upgrade both A.S. on level 15/25 immediately.
- Magic Armor (+7% Defense/Skillpoint) I find pretty useless on the Mages. You have almost no defense to start with. Even max. +63% of 16 Def is only 10 more Defense points.
- Decide early on what you want your Hero to focus on, and plan skill distribution and trinkets accordingly. E.g. if you want fast normal attacks with lots of boom, it's not advised to invest skillpoints into -Cooldown or +Skilleffect.
- Before you unlock all 3 actives, focus on buying trinkets for your Heroes who rely on normal Att.Power and Speed. Only exception is the Cleric, see below.
- Keep in mind that the Cleric's Groupheal spell takes a tiny bit to fire off, it's not instant. Don't wait till you are on your last breath with using it.

Here's my take on things:

1) Cleric:
You want her to be able to pump out Groupheal as often as possible asap.
As soon as you can, buy her the Hat that gives -0.6 Cooldown (second shop). Don't forget you can equip 2 of them.
I maxed "First Aid" first, for more overall healing power. Then "Haste Spell" and "Proficiency" for shorter cooldown. Currently working on maxing "Inspiration" to speed up her normal healing, too.
Note that if the +Skilleffect and +Skillcrit Passives also affect healing, it might be better to invest in those instead of Inspiration.

2) Fire Mage:
By far the biggest boomstick in my arsenal. I focused her on Attack power and speed.
At level 37, she has 322 Attack, highest value of my 3 damage dealers.
I maxed Madness first, as it gives +3% Attack per point. Then Inspiration for more Att.Speed. Followed by Perfect Spell for a whopping +45% Skill Effect total. Now working on Proficiency to reduce skill cooldown.
For trinkets, at early/mid-game she can be low priority. I gave her the Witch Cat and Mysterious Claw (which you get as stage rewards). At Shop 3, I upgraded her to 2x +20% Att.Speed.

3) Ice Mage:
This guy has some great Active Skills, and Passives to support that.
I maxed Inspiration first, though, to give his normal attack some bite, too.
Then it was all Actives support, with maxing Haste Spell (-Cooldown) and Perfect Spell (+Skilleffect), in that order. Next is Proficiency for even shorter Cooldown.
Same as the Cleric, make giving him -Cooldown trinkets 2nd-highest priority right after the Cleric.

4) Dark Mage:
In my opinion, he offers the most variety in upgrade paths.
With his Lifedrain skill, he's the one Mage you have to worry least about healing with.
I maxed Cursed Spell first, for more draining goodness.
Then I followed that up with Inspiration for more Att.Speed, and Staff Mastery for more Att.Power.
However, I do think that focusing on Actives could be equally valid; especially given that his second special Passive is Lucky Strike (+Skill Crit).
For me, that was devalued a bit by Dark Hole's aiming problems. And I didn't want to have all 4 Heroes focused on Actives.
Trinkets-wise, I gave him +Att.Speed items to get more Lifedrain out faster.

 

@Winterbleu:
Thanks for the compliment
And thanks a lot for the fast reply. Have to think about respeccing her then, replacing Inspiration with the +Skilleffect passive.

More progress report:
- 2nd to last boss was surprisingly easy, didn't break a sweat.
- Level 40-41 now, and almost managed to beat the last boss, too. First try at level 39 I died to the giant Knight and his minions.
- Not too different from my first party, actually. They ended with: Anoop Darkmage lvl 39, Lael Cleric 42, Durahan Darkknight 39, Edan Paladin 41. Going by the early/mid-game experience, I expected a lot more grinding for the Mages, at least up to level 50.
On second try I didn't see my Healer was standing in the dragonfire. When I noticed, it was too late Still was really close, though. Level 45 should do it easily, I guess.
- Overall, once I got past the initial speedbumps, it was much easier than I expected from a party of squishies

When I complete this one, I'll give the Spartan and Archer a try. As Cleric is a must, I still have one free slot. Didn't try Xerom fully yet, so he'll be there unless someone has a good/fun suggestion on whom else to bring along.

Still thinking on how to manage without the Cleric.
Maybe Paladin, Darkmage, Darkknight. Not sure about the 4th spot, though. Lugh, because he gets a lot of HP? Another Mage for more boom, but with the risk that he dies a lot?

And of course, another question:
Is there better equipment than what you can buy in the 3rd Shop, e.g. from the Arena?
In any case, a 4th Shop with another tier of stuff would be a nice goldsink.

 

Mage playthrough completed. Just beat the last boss, and quite easily too.
Only had to level up once more, and most likely that wasn't even needed.
Final tally:
Anoop Darkmage lvl 44, Fila Firemage 43, Lian Icemage 43, Lael Cleric 44.

Onwards to another no-Cleric attempt putting Spartan/Archer/Cleric/Xerom on the backburner.
Will go with Anoop, Durahan, Edan; and first try with the Spartan in the 4th slot. If that doesn't work, I'll fall back to Lugh.

 

Thanks this looks good I got to 490 wave this time with Spartan Paladan ice Mage and cleric. Just wondering maybe list out the prizes for motivation to push through

 

You did a great job with balancing there indeed, very well done!

New team is all-melee, no Cleric; and damn, that's tough. Details to follow.

 

More skill targeting issues

I already wrote about Anoop's Dark Hole targeting problems.
Now I noticed that it is even worse for Lugh (Knight) and Leon (Spartan):
I frequently (at least once per stage) see that they fire off their main active skill anywhere but in the direction the enemy is at.
Leon seems to do it more often than Lugh, but that could also be a perception error; it is more easy to spot because he lunges with spear forward.
Typically it goes like this:
<-- LEE . L is Leon, EE is 2 enemies, the arrow is where he fires his skill to. Easily noticeable that he can't hit the broadside of a barn with a huge "SHOOT ME HERE!" target painted on it

With Lugh it's harder to spot, but I think it goes something like this:
.....EE
....L -->
What happens is: Lugh fires off, but in the split-second the skill takes to activate, the enemies move upwards just a little, and the skill completely misses.

 

The problem isn't targeting (which is near impossible anyways in the hilarious chaos that ensues with such a melee in the old sense fray) , I think. They always have a target they are already attacking when I fire off their skills.
With Leon it's really the most obvious, and I think that's a bug:
Like I tried to show in the earlier post, sometimes he really turns *away* from the enemies right in front of him and fires his skill in the *other* direction.

 

[BUG] Hero gets stuck moving in place, or moves randomly

Another one I noticed because it's more obvious with all the walking around a melee party does:
Sometimes, the following happens:
1) At least one Hero wanders off in a random direction, most common seems to be topleft corner, for no apparent reason. I definitely did not command him to go there.
2) Hero gets stuck walking in place. Comes up at random, or at the end of #1.

In both instances, they just keep walking and do not target enemies, i.e. change course and move toward the nearest enemy.