I used the bomb dude, Gadget or whatever his name is, powered up to level 2. Everyone else was at level 1. Also I may have had the other items somewhat maxed. My strategy for the power ups was to max the bomb & ice first since they give a much neaded break on the later levels. Also I used all 4 buff options. Speed may seem like a negative but it gets you out of tight jams quicker. You definitely need the faster shooting buff though and the health. The shield is a give and take because most often on Depths 1 a shield will drop pretty early on in the level. So it's not as important as health & attack speed.
Even with maxed out characters this game is still brutal. Uthers lv 3 ability (heal on hit) is pretty nifty though. It makes sure that if he is the leader he will never die of random projectiles shot at him thus costing you the whole game.
I get the need for simplicity but Bosses and some larger areas would've been really cool. Also character specific items or Activated abilities with the nice.
I do lead with Uther. One question: How the hell is progress between the iOS and the OS X version not synced??? Do they really expect me to grind on both devices?
Anyone else have a problem with the arena not updating? When I click on "in guild" it always says will update shortly but I never get to see my score.
My hope is that if the game does well enough, the brothers Marsh might add back in some of the material they decided to cut via updates. I assume they could always keep the styles of play (short and quick vs longer and more complex) separate, just by making them distinct game modes. The original mode for a fast session or two, and a new mode for the bigger areas, loot hunting, etc. They might not wind up going that way, but it'd be cool to see.
Sure that's happened to me many times. In the end I place where I should on the leaderboard. Currently I'm 45th in the TA1 guild with 152 kills. Hopefully that holds since we are in first right now and I spent all my coins last night trying to unlock the last character right after unlocking the second and third to last characters. I gotta earn some coin so I can at least have a full compliment of buffs before trying the tournament again.
I think the person from Nimblebits, who was responding to this thread, said that they decided to drop iCloud sync after their experience with it on their previous game. I understand that iCloud is fault-prone and messy, so can't blame them.
My thoughts on characters, buffs and gameplay. Vitality Buff - will always help out against stray shots, and gives a slight buffer for your line. Useful, but not always necessary depending on how often you lose your line. Swiftness Buff - I rate this as a damage increase buff. The reason for this is due to how attacking in this game works. Your characters attack when they get into range of a target. The faster your line passes by the enemy the faster you are dealing damage. 100% useful to have this buff above all other ones, if for nothing else than to get used to the speed so you won't get surprised later on. Shield Buff - I think of this as an extra continue buff. It's possible for shields not to show up at all and I would rather not be dead before the first one drops due to stray shots that you cannot avoid. Additionally, the shield appears to give a 1s immunity so I've bumped a wall before but veered away from it quick enough that I was alive but lost only the shield. Attack Buff - This really shines in the later stages where you start getting overwhelmed as this is the only way to boost your damage. In the early stages, it's rare to get overwhelmed by numbers because I couldn't kill the enemies fast enough. Usually my deaths early on are due to me running into things, my own line, the wall, the enemies, etc. By depths 1 I usually start using this if not earlier. Picking a leader - I choose the leader based upon the criteria that they need to be able to take a lot of random stray shots. Any one with medium armor or higher will do. However I do prefer people in the melee range due to the screen size limitation. I would rather not have to spend the time to angle my line far away to shoot at enemies off the screen. I'll leave that to the rest of the line. I would also leave Ulther out of consideration because of how his attacks work. They are slow and very straight. It's too easy to miss an enemy while running head on against them thus missing a chance to hit the enemy. I find that as part of the line he is fine because I usually pass my line by parallel to the enemy such that he usually gets a chance to attack when he turns with the line. Slash, I would also leave out of lead position due to having light armor. His attacks are fast but they don't do that much damage. This makes it easier to run into enemies that still have some health left whereas someone else might have killed the enemy already. This leaves Ulrich, Bones and Ember (I just got Gurzog so haven't had a chance to test him out) Of these I usually use Ember because of his attack being omni-directional and having medium armor. This gives him slightly better reach on the sides when you pass by enemies compared to Ulrich and Bones. I usually try to stick with the same leader unless I want to test out a character. The longer you can stay alive in a game, the bigger your score and the more gems you earn. This means that you can level up another character purely through gems instead. This is in contrast to starting with someone weaker and lower level who I would not be used to using and who will die easily for me. Of course having fun and variety is equally important so playing another character isn't out of the question. Gameplay Tactics - I try not to run in straight lines unless the area is clear. The best way that I find to start an attack is to create dense loops. This has two effects that are important. The first one being that this allows more units to attack in a smaller area thereby stacking on damage faster. The second one, and this wasn't obvious when I first started playing is that damage is spread across all the units that are hit. So if the demon in depths 1 does his aoe and hits 5 players all 5 players split that damage evenly. This increases the survival rate of the units. However there is one problem with this tactic and that is if I don't start the formation early enough the enemy has a good chance of running through and taking out multiple units. Towards the later levels, ie depths 1, forest 2, etc. It seems to become more important to clear out as many enemies as you can quickly. This means no staying back to pick up gems. Items are still good. The reasoning behind this is similar to the attack. Enemies seem to spawn at a set time regardless of what else is still alive on the map. The more enemies in the area, the more my damage gets spread between all of them reducing my ability to actually kill something. Waiting to use a bomb in a cleared area can be bad in this case. Sure I will kill most things that come nearby, but if the rest of the area is too filled I will still get overrun if no new items drop that helps me kill them. My current progress is 13/15 units recruited, levels are 1,1,1,1,2,2,1,2,1,2,1,1,0 (Bones, Gizmo, Arcane, Ember)
I can confirm that the speed buff is amazing. Once you get used to the pace there's no going back. I try to for the first time today and got to courtyard 2 which was way beyond what I got to last time. Not only does it double the speed of your game but essentially doubles your power because your attacking more.
True. I was going to point that out but you covered it. ... IF I didn't favor Gizmo for my main character to progress with, his 3rd tier ability to explode upon death would be a solid tactic in the later levels because if he dies while someone else is leading, typically it's closer to when I'm about to. That could be a good second chance at surviving. Still, I've got 6 to get to level 2. It was 4 but then I unlocked two more characters. As basic as the game is, I think an argument can be made for choosing any character as the leader. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, it's just which one fits your playstyle better. I love the Gizmo as the bomb is omnidirectional and is typically rather intelligently fired leaving only a little clean up for the others. But it can be just as great having Gizmo at the back of the line doing cleanup work and protecting the back of the snake.
Nice posts, but I don't agree with some of the points you make. As said by others before me, Uther is much less effective the farthest he is along the line. As a leader he can be used quite effectively, giving a big damage to a line of enemies before the other heroes take them for good. Another strategy I think it's useful towards the tougher levels (from Depts 1 on) is to make a curly line to keep the heroes close, and this also maximizes the efficacy of Uther. In general, I think that a good leader must have a 100% target accuracy, so this takes out all the ranged heroes (except Gizmo, who despite having a ranged weapon, almost always shots on target, and Ember who has a nova-like skill). You can't afford to have a leader who misses his target every other shot.
191 kills in toucharcade1 Don't know if I'm in the top hundred because it has not updated. BTW Anyone have luck using gurzog? Ps I definitely find the arena to be the most fun part of the game. It's quite challenging and intense. And I like the functionality of the guilds although I wish it were fleshed out a bit more.
Anyone know if Ember's level 3 %25 attack boost helps him out enough to be worth it? He's already a beast in the lead, and I know more power is never a bad thing, but I'm wondering if a different character might not benefit more from a third-level boost (like Faenel or Slash).
grits, that's better than me so you should be in the top 100. What happened to the original TA guild? It's gone from the top 10.
@kaply: great post. Thks I totally overlooked the speed buff, tried it after looking at your post. And you're right, it's the most important one, as more speed means more attacks, and easier collecting of gems and powerups. A bit tricky at first, but as grits said, once you go Swiff, you can't go back!
