All-Melee Party: General Play Advise So I didn't go with Anoop, and went with an all-melee party instead. Our heroes obviously are Lugh, Leon, Durahan, Edan. Details on how to level them up come in the next post. First of all, if you want to try this: This is tough. You WILL die a lot. It's a real challenge to play without the Cleric. Be prepared for a lot of grind. Some general advise first: - As I posted earlier, there is a movement bug where Heroes sometimes get stuck or move off in a random direction. This can - and sometimes will - kill you. Be on the lookout for it, and immediately order them to where they should be when it happens. - Keep your party together and focus enemies down: Quite frequently each Hero targets a separate enemy, or the group splits in 2 and 2. Sometimes it's not a problem. But sometimes you really want them all to focus on one enemy, so be prepared to intervene and reroute them. - Some ranged enemies (Hello Bomb Goblins!) are a huge pain, and you want to take them out with priority. Like the dynamite-stick throwing Goblins in Stage 2 and onwards; those are even more nasty because they do AoE damage. Whenever possible, rush and kill them first. - Buying weapons & armour: You always want to skip the earlier tiers, and go right for the best the Shop has to offer. Saves you a lot of Gold. - Buying trinkets: Don't. Well, almost. Skip anything you won't really need/use and go straight for the good stuff, like the big +HP Amulets or the Lifedrain trinkets. Also, don't forget to sell everything you don't use. Gameplay progress and grind: You have no Healer, so you need to be way more overpowered than when playing with the Cleric. Again, if you don't feel like grinding a lot, don't try this at home, kids - Even the Stage 5 boss is tough in this setup. But you should be able to defeat him with a bit of grind, and without investing into trinkets. - Stage 10 Boss: Now, this guy does need proper preparation already. Everyone needs to have the best weapon & armour from the first Shop. Also, you will need the +60HP Amulet of Health for at least 2 of your Heroes. Note though that it's better to grind for XP a bit more, and save the Gold for the second Shop that opens when you beat Stage 10; instead of buying 8 of the Amulets. Stage 9 Challenge is where I did my grinding, despite the fact that you need to move your party to the right by hand now and then. - Super Happy Fun Shopping Time: Second Shop is open now. Go buy the best weapon and armor for everyone immediately. After that, gradually replace your trinkets with 2x +4% Lifedrain Bag of Devouring for everyone. Best is to save up 400 Gold, so you can buy 2 at once and outfit one Hero in one go. Lather, rinse, repeat. - Stage 20 Boss: A good stage for grinding in preparation for that guy is Stage 18 Challenge. Easy to win, short, good XP and Gold rewards. Around level 28 (maybe even earlier), your Heroes can survive the Stage without Lifedrain trinkets. When you reach that point, replace the Lifedrain with 2x +10% XP Gain Exp Stone. Expensive at 300 Gold apiece, but definitely worth it. And that's where I am currently, grinding up for the Stage 20 Boss. I hope/guess that level 35 will be enough, 3 more to go. To be continued...
All-Melee Party: How to upgrade your Heroes Now, on to "how to best upgrade your all-melee party's skills". In general, you need to focus a lot more on survivability and defense than when playing with the Cleric in your party. Naturally, this comes at the cost of damage potential: These guys can't hold a candle to my earlier all-Mage party in the "lay down the hurt" department. This of course makes Stages last longer, so you need even more staying power to last through. Here's how to get there: - Grind, lots of grind - The current upgrade path goes till level 35, which is where I almost am at now. I will update this post when I get to higher levels. - Dodge only pays off at high/max levels. I tried to focus on Dodge instead of HP with the Spartan, and it didn't work out well. Much better to go for extra HP first, and save Dodge for further down the line. - Of course, the usual about upgrading your Active Skills applies. Don't neglect those, you'll need them. Lugh the Knight: Max Chivalry first, for the +5% HP per point. Next, go with Agility for more Attack Speed. I chose this to get more use out of the Lifesteal trinkets. After that, you have a choice: Go for more attack power, or more defense. I chose the first, and started upgrading Might for more Attack Power. If you want more staying power, I'd pick Vitality (+4% HP / point) over Guardian or Dodge. Edan the Paladin: Max Holy Knight first, it's the same as Lugh's Chivalry with a whopping +5% HP / point. Same as with Lugh, I went for Agility next. For Edan I chose Vitality for even more HP as third skill to max out. Durahan the Dark Knight: So, this guy has Lifedrain. Go for it, right away. Which translates to "max out Vampire Heritage first". As with the other 2, max Agility next. I followed this up with Vitality for more HP. Leon the Spartan: Vitality first for more HP, followed by Agility. Guardian for more Defense as third skill to upgrade. You could go for Sharpen Spear of course, for the whopping +6% Attack / point. However, I do not recommend it: the lower armour makes the Spartan more squishy than the other 3, and in my experience so far he really needs the extra HP. And that's it for now, stay tuned and join us again next time for another episode of "Melee Mayhem"
Thanks! Always welcome! And thanks again for checking. I know this is a nasty thing to hunt down, so no rush. Of course that takes time
@Nullzone / Great article! All melee's party is seems quite tough. Spartan seems not that very useful in this combination not much as mixed party.
Thanks! Definitely brutal, not having a Healer is damn hard. But while this didn't work at all with using only the 4 Mages (*way* too squishy), it's tough but doable so far. The Spartan actually isn't bad. At first I thought that he can only use light armour is a huge negative. But it's set off by him doing more damage, so I think it evens out. And I assume on high levels , say 50+, he'll really shine. Then he has enough skillpoints to get either both Dodge skills or Sharpen Spear and something else.
It's great to know Spartan's potential unfolding by growing. it seems more stages make him more valuable character. I got it.
So I just got this gem and was wondering from you'll's experience whats the best lineup to play with? I understand a healer is a must but what are the other 3? Right now I have healer and Dulahan the dark mage dude and the archer. Thoughts?
Nice surprise to see you around here, confusedkender Regarding party composition: Paradox seems incredibly well balanced, better than Battleheart actually in my opinion. Pretty much everything works, so you can choose whatever suits your playstyle and tastes best. If you read the rest of the thread, you'll find several good party compositions. nkx has a real winning team with Spartan, Paladin, Icemage and Cleric; check his post on page 11.
Whoops, looks like I ran into an inventory bug. All my Lifedrain items disappeared from storage No problem rebuying them, but still not ideal. Also, quick progress update: Level 35 was indeed enough to beat the Stage 20 Boss. Upward and onward!
Thanks Null! Yeah I was gently perusing the other pages. I was waiting to pull the trigger on this until I had some more expendable money. Two kids are expensive for Christmas (; I can only imagine what more than 2 is like. I see you are the resident pro on this game congrats on your write-ups bro very well put together. Yeah I was curious about the balancing on this one compared to BH. I played through BH more than once and loved every minute of it. I'll try different combos because it seems like there are PLENTY of champs to pick through so far. How many are there total? I'm not too far into the game yet so just wondering if I focus on a couple and then replace them later or is the gist of them just fine to stick with. Thanks again and Merry Christmas to all!
Plz, Don't forget to equip the accessory when you get it. It will never disappeared once equipped. I'm really waiting for my quick fix get passed App Store review.
I had them in storage, because I bought the +XP stones for everyone to levelup faster. No worries about it, rebuying them was perfectly doable UPDATE: Awh, crap Now all items I had in storage disappeared, including my XP stones. I think it happens when you have more than 10 items in a category (weapon, armor, trinket) stored. They and one more item were still there before I played the Arena twice. It's not a huge problem, though. Now that I know, I can plan accordingly. Just need to grind a bit more to get enough Gold to upgrade my trinkets now.
@Kender: I know what you mean, one kid already is like a financial black hole It's 10 Heroes in total: 4 Melee, 4 Mages, Cleric, Archer. Playthroughs go fast, I clocked 3.5 hours for my Mages. So go ahead and experiment to your heart's content In general you should be fine with whoever you picked, especially when you have the Cleric with you.
And another progress update for my Melee Party: Once I made it past Stage 20, it was a walk in the park right up to the final boss battle. Even the Stage 30 boss, where I expected to hit another wall, went down easily. And I made it halfway through the final battle on first try. Killed the King, only to succumb a few seconds later. Playing Arena now to level up more, with suprisingly good results. Leon and Lugh always die around Stage 20-30. Durahan and Edan make for a great killteam, though. Even with the other 2 dead, they survived till wave 63 Hoping to get some high-end equipment from the Arena while leveling up.
Melee Party - Won! In a final update on my melee party playthrough I bring the news that I just completed the game with them. It took far less grind than I expected, the final result actually is just a few levels above my parties with Cleric: Lugh Knight level 44, Edan Paladin 48, Durahan 47, Leon 47. I expected level 60+, at least. The main difference was that you have to do most of your grinding early on, before Stage 20 as mentioned earlier. And not in smaller chunks spread out over the whole playthrough, with a small spike at the end. Equipment: All had the best armor and weapon from the last shop. I only played Arena twice past wave 60. And got a +300HP Holy Grail both times. Durahan, with his innate Lifedrain, had 2x +20% Attack Speed "Medal of Champion". The other 3 each used 2x +6% Lifedrain "Blood Diamonds". I think it should be possible to do a no-Healer run with only the 4 Mages, or 3 Mages and the Archer. But I also expect that this would take even more early-game grind, which is just a tad too tedious compared to late-game Arena-leveling that I do not want to do it again soon. Almost forgot: Planning skill progression ahead got way less important past level 35. I filled up whatever I was working on, and then invested mainly in more survivability (HP, Dodge, Defense). With the noteable exception of Leon, who was the main damage dealer with his maxed +6% Damage skill. Total playing time: 5h 30m; short and sweet overall, despite the drag of grind before Stage 20. The grind also accounts for the longer playing time. My first game was 4h 30m, mostly due to experimenting around. 3 Mages + Cleric was the second playthrough, and the fastest with 3:30h. With the right party, under 2 hours might be doable, but rather demanding I think. @Winterbleu: Do you have any new content planned? A new campaign, where you start from level 1 with different Heroes I'd pay for without a blink. And everything else as well, of course. But campaign would be on top of my wishlist
@Nullzone / I can confirm there's no more inventory issue anymore with fixed version which is included in next release. Before then, plz. Equip your valuable item and sell unused item for keeping away from this issue. Sorry for this inconvenience.
@Nullzone / I'm reading your writing but not enough time today cause it's Christmas day. By far, I'm impressed that Melee Party has the potential almost same as Mage Party eventually.
Thanks, good to hear that's fixed already. No worries, merry xmas! And a question for my fellow players: What do you think is the best party for Arena in terms of speeding through to wave 61? They only need to survive till then for item farming, not going for records like nkx
So I swapped my first playthrough's party and replaced them with Fire, Ice, Dark Mage, Archer. And it works, too Admittedly, I cheated a little by giving them equipment from the last shop. But that only makes it a bit easier and saves a few levels of grinding. Just beat the Stage 20 Boss, with not everyone being level 35 even. Two of them died, but still pretty good. I estimate that with normal progression lvl 35 *might* work already, and lvl 40 should in any case.
