SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Share and discuss strategies for playing the game, and get help and tips from other players.

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Mabuse
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Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by Mabuse »

Hello, i read with interest what you wrote, about the slow-calculation-problem:
there is already a version coded with increased prices of player damage/strikes and reduced enemy HP.

works well while keeping original game balance and will reduce calculation time.
it basically reduced enemies HP by around 30% and the player damages, so wesnoth calculator dont need to calculate so much. in later games stages the calc time will still be significant, but much later. perhaps only at the last boss.

only reason why i wasnt uploaded yet is that i wanted to include an item-drop sytem and im buys with RL, but this topic has raised my motivation gain to do something about it. :)


------------

ofc i always happy to see strategies that differ from mine:


and thats how i set up:

first of, i prefer definately mages, clerics and warriors
(mage classes most versatile, warriors since they can combine slow with other specials)

alignment i would alwyas chose neutral OR lawful
(neutral is easy to handly, lawful is good for heroes with default-fearless and i prefer lawful since your hero gets an attack bonus when the enemy is weak (most enemies are chaotic) so your hero is tsrong when enemy is weak makes more sense then wait until your hero is strong but enemies are also strong)

traits i always chose resilient on 5 player expert start, on all other occasions i always go for the most damage (strong, dextrous) trait, since then i get REGENERATION abilty immediatly.

terrain training: very important.
one of the important decisions is wether to train FLAT ground OR get the AGILITY ability.
Cavalry, Trolls, Dwarves, Woses, Drakes always get the AGILITY ability
other heroes may train flat ground as well.
then i always train caves, hills + other like: mountains, woods AND/OR specials depending on map: sand, swamp, frozen

Armor: at start i may get rid of some low armor penalties, but not pay to much gold here
later you get rid of all penalties of course. DAUNTLESS is a great ability. if i plan to purchase it i try to make the maximum use out of it, also using the CUIRASS-SHOP-ITEM - so i get blade, pierce and impact to 20% then i add the cuirass (gives +5% each) and it doubles up to 50% on offense.
all other to a minimum of 30% so they double to 50%.
everything which is higher or equal to 40% by default gets increases to 60%.
the remaing slots are distributed to get some more 60%, 70% or even 80% values.
(but not higher, else ites may be wasted)


weapons:
by default you can say you need a mundane weapon (blade, pierce or impact) and COLD and/or arcane or fire. so you have 3 weapons. 2 mundane weapons maybe good good also. of course you take into accunt what your fully upgraded unit may have as weapons.

warriors/clerics get a net, mages a shield or torch

goal is to have all weapons you need but less weapons as possible.
upgrading weapons is alsways costly, buying weapons also costs money.
default weapons that are not needed get always sold.
default weapons that are useful will always be preferred over shop weapons.
(example: a dwaven warrior with default balde and impact will use blade and/or impact and will not buy a pierce weapon)
(example2: a mage may stick with his fire weapon (or arcane if he levels to a white mage) and get a cold weapon as addition, but will not add arcane)


enhancements:
the most important point in the shop. here you will leave the most money.
its all about the strikes and damage. at start try to get 5 strikes for your main weapons.
later you may prefer a 4:1 (damage:strikes) ratio.
i prefer the offensive game-type, so i spend not so much money in HP, but later you really need to get some points here ofc. at some point sou will notice when your HP drops to fast, then its always tiem to think about armor+dauntless and increase HP
moves: i think you rarely need more than 13/14. better use the money on damage/strikes/specials

weapons specials:
not buy them at start. later upgrading/maxing out weapons to do more damage/reduce damage taken is crucial. the trick is to upgrade the wepaons in the right order and the upgrades in the right - right when you need the damage. often after killing the first boss you start to slowly upgrade your weapons.


abilities: i never have enough ability points.
i always get REGENERATION, some get AGILITY, DAUNTLESS, STUNNING SHILED USE, HIT AND RUN
wizards: always get: MAGIC MOVE, MAGIC HEAL, SUMMON DEMON, maybe an ATTACKSPELL

when soloing: i would always buy SOULSTEALER or DIVINE REWARD

often its some trade-off. but i never have points to by skirmisher or some other fancy stuff.


example dwarven warrior (4 ability points):
REGEN, AGILITY, STUNNING SHIELD USE, HIT AND RUN

example paladin Cleric (6 points):
REGEN, AGILITY, DAUNTLESS, MAGIC MOVE, (MAGIC HEAL (free)), 1x ATTACK SPELL, SUMMON DEMON



in any case i get as less abilities at start as possible, i only buy REGEN and AGILITY at start (and soulstealer), and spend only the most needed other things (though terrain training get often maxed out), NEVER weapon specials at start, and maximise damage/strikes. i only buy few HP at start.





conclusion:

well, that is my style. it is pretty conservative.
i am happy though that others prefer and found out other things that might work.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
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iceiceice
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by iceiceice »

Interesting. I think I choose similarly to you on most things you have mentioned, esp. prefering Dauntless over Steadfast. To my mind the most efficient way to play is to make as strong offense as you can and rely on positioning abilities like hit&run and cyan potions for defense. But that is just a preference I guess. It is interesting that you think of this plan as conservative :).

The one thing that I think I do significantly differently is when to choose agility. When I began to play I would choose agility often on most of the units you mention. However when I began to play Temple of Bones, my philosophy is that since so many of the demons and late game enemies have the Superiority trait, it doesn't make sense to shoot for > 40% defenses. The only reason is if you think it helps alot in the early game -- I find that once you get used to playing with 40% its not that big a deal. So now I actually do this on all maps. As a major benefit this frees up extremely valuable ability points, which are especially needed on a warrior.
Mabuse wrote: example dwarven warrior (4 ability points):
REGEN, AGILITY, STUNNING SHIELD USE, HIT AND RUN
So this means that you do not choose dauntless on your berzerker unit? It would seem to me that dauntless is pretty essential. I guess that you pay the 125gp for the extra point?

In my style to build this unit I would choose soul stealer over agility, then when I need to buy dauntless, I would use the 125gp extra point, but soul stealer will have paid more than this cost by this point in the game most likely. If it is 5p and I don't think the dwarf will get so many kills then maybe I don't get soul stealer, and don't even buy the extra ability point except maybe at the very end when it doesn't matter.

As a side remark, I feel that there is a further drawback to choosing agility on a dwarf, because you are never pressed for terrain training points on a dwarf. As you mention one of the major benefits of agility is not needing to train flat ground. However as a dwarf you already essentially have a bonus terrain training point for free, because you get 1mp in forests. Consider: on ToB for example, you may terrain train all terrains save snow and forest as a dwarf, and then you will have good defense in all forests for free, since every forest tile is also either a flat, hills, or swamp tile. So at that point it is pointless to train forests anyways. (I can't remember if I learned this from reading your previous posts or figured it out myself XD)
Mabuse wrote: terrain training: very important.
one of the important decisions is wether to train FLAT ground OR get the AGILITY ability.
Cavalry, Trolls, Dwarves, Woses, Drakes always get the AGILITY ability
other heroes may train flat ground as well.
then i always train caves, hills + other like: mountains, woods AND/OR specials depending on map: sand, swamp, frozen
When shooting for 40% def rather than 50, I usually end up building both wose and paladin unit with the Cave Explorer trait as well, as this gives me the maximum number of terrain training points to use on increasing my mp costs and getting 40% in the most places possible; usually you can afford 2 of the 3 swamp, sand, shallow water, which is pretty good. On any of these units I would likely build a warrior and choose REGEN, HIT&RUN, DAUNTLESS, STUNNING SHIELD, and possibly SOUL STEALER or forgo the fifth ability point as described.

Edit: In terms of alignment I generally agree with you to choose neutral, unless you have free fearless in which case you should take lawful. However I sometimes find that with a Warrior on Temple of Bones I choose to begin as neutral and then take the cursed ring, and use the extra ability point for fearless. I mainly do this to make it much easier to zerk bosses which have melee drain, such as Gorgon Sorceress; I'm not sure if its really worth the cost though. I especially like to do this to a paladin, since he becomes a good Gorgon Sorceress killer, and he's right there anyways since he killed the lich. I don't think I take the cursed ring other than for this reason though.
Mabuse
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Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by Mabuse »

very interesting.

especially what you say about the terrain training stuff.

well, im most of my wesnot-time busy with developing somthing for SX so i can definately learn a lot from good players. that was always the case in the past and i greatly benefit from that and try to take that expeirience into account - when designing new maps and - when playing for myself.

:)


btw, yes, dauntless is pretty essential, so i really would buy the extra ability point which is of course a downfall of that build. perhaps your approach makes more sense ;)
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by Mabuse »

btw, yes, dauntless is pretty essential, so i really would buy the extra ability point which is of course a downfall of that build. perhaps your approach makes more sense ;)
on the other hand that boost is of course to enhance early game erformance, so in the end its a trade of.

since you replied to the dwarven warrior i must state that you are absolutely correct.
training flat instead of getting agility may be better. in any case its worth a try

for other units with overall weak defenses agility may be more useful.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
roidanton
Posts: 90
Joined: September 7th, 2012, 10:41 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

I'm currently playing ToB with a Fencer Warrior. Actually tried this with a Paladin before because of its great resistances, but had a big problem with terrain training. I'm not a big fan of playing on 40% terrains and also like a fast, quickly moving units, which means you need either cave explorer or agility. Not sure how many training slots you get, you may actually have to get cave explorer to fix the huge number of >= 3mp terrains.

For traits, I almost always choose intelligent - unless the unit needs cave explorer. My reason is that you never have enough abilities and they're so limited. As a Mage, I strongly prefer a unit which does not need cave explorer or agility, so I can get intelligent for it. And I may even prefer not to get soul stealer to save the ability point. In Cantar, I had the choice between Hurrican Drake (perfect moves + defense everywhere, 50% fire defense) or Inferno Drake (needs cave explorer, rest can be fixed with terrain training, has 80% fire). With the ring of resistance, this unit could get 85% fire res, which is really great on that map. But I didn't get soul stealer, so I could get two of the magic attack spells.

Playing lawful is not an option for me because you can't get skirmisher with that and I use that a lot - so I started with neutral, then picked up the cursed ring and bought fearless. Even with the Fencer - which has built-in skirmisher - I would still like to use the cursed ring to become immune against drains and poison.

The great thing about the Warrior class is that you can add Slows to other things. I'm not a huge fan of bersek, but magical raged slows is extremely powerful. You need to be very careful with charge, though - while it is super powerful early in the game, it can quickly make the weapon unusable when the enemies get stronger.

About buying weapons, I think I actually bought way too many weapons in the past. For ToB, I would get fire, arcane, cold, pierce and impact. While this optimally addresses the different opponent's weaknesses, it gets extremely expensive to fully upgrade them with specials later in the game. And I was also too afraid to buy weapons later in the game, when I actually need them and have the gold to afford them. You'll eventually reach the point where you'd want to put raged slows on your main weapon - and then stop using your non-raged ones.

When there's a choice between buying a magical weapon or a non-magical one with higher strikes, I'd always buy the non-magical one now and add magical to it when I need it. For my Fencer Warrior in ToB, I bought ranged net, fireblade (useless after you're done with plants and caves, I'd buy a torch next time), iceblade (have not used this very much at all), rune hammer (same), enchanted sword (you need that because of the undead's high blade resistance).

I added magical to the Fencer's built-in blade very early, even before killing the Naga boss, sold the crossbow.

For abilities, I went with Warrior Neutral Intelligent, got Regen, Steadfast, Soul Stealer and Hit&Run after killing the Naga Boss, then picked up the Cursed Ring and got Fearless. Together with Steadfast, I got 20% on blade, impact and pierce. These were all the abilities that I could get. There was still the 125 gold ability point and the one that you get in the Temple Library and I planned on getting both Stunning Shield Use and Dauntless - not sure in which order yet.

Regarding Steadfast vs. Dauntless - I would strong prefer Dauntless if I had to pick one - and almost always get Dauntless first if I could get both. However, Fencer is different - it's such a great defensive unit due to its super high terrain defense - adding Steadfast early turns it into a "Defensive Boss Killer"! Seriously, I had a huge problem with Eye Demons, tried a lot of different things - buying Pierce Weapon, high Health, high Damage, high Strikes - until I finally found the most successful strategy against them: don't attack them, just step onto a mountain tile next to them and let them suicide into you! At that point, I had about 350hp, 60% fire res and 50% rest on defense, magical raged slows on my main weapon.

Getting Stunning Shield Use before Dauntless turned out to be the best option for me - it allowed me to attack a high-level boss, take Blue Potion, kill creep next to it to un-slow myself, then kill boss. And as an alternative, I could attack, take Red Potion, hit&run onto 70% defense, end turn. I would survive the counter attack, with enough hp left to kill it without healing first.

After arriving in the Temple, I also added Rage (but not Rage Slows) to the Arcane Sword.
roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Regarding Damage vs. Strikes - I have done some experiments with that this afternoon and still didn't figure out how the opponent picks its defensive weapon.

For instance, both the Eye Demon and the Abyss Devil have two weapons: one has slows, the other one more strikes and damage. From what I figured out so far, you need to have a certain amount of base damage on your weapon to make it defend with the slowing weapon. High damage, not high strikes. For the Abyss Devil, the threshold was effective 38-14 magical raged slows (effective means after taking in account resistance, time of day and dreadful sight, so the real stat of the weapon was something around 85-14). That's 532 damage, 37-15 (= 555) did not do the job. I had the same resistance on both weapon types and it kills me when it uses the non-slows weapon. There was zero chance of me killing it with my attack, it would always have around 200 hp left. After taking a Blue Potion, my second attack would kill it, even when I'm slowed.

How is it picking the weapon that it defends with? Surely, I deal less damage to it when it's using slows against me, but I would take too much damage from its non-slows weapon.

I'm currently on turn 110 and my main weapon has 92-15 melee-blade magical raged slows. Yeah, that's a ton of damage compared to strikes, but after resistances and dreadful sight it's actually just around 35-15 effective. The only other weapon that I upgraded is the Arcane Sword, it now has 96-13 melee-arcane magical raged (I did not add raged slows because I didn't need it yet). After picking up the armor, I now have 90% cold and fire resistance, 50% rest (bought: 25% on blade/pierce/impact, 60% cold/fire, 30% arcane) and 603 hp.
roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

iceiceice wrote:Interesting. I think I choose similarly to you on most things you have mentioned, esp. prefering Dauntless over Steadfast. To my mind the most efficient way to play is to make as strong offense as you can and rely on positioning abilities like hit&run and cyan potions for defense. But that is just a preference I guess. It is interesting that you think of this plan as conservative :).
Well, you can do the math here - if you're able to always position you in a way where at most two opponents can attack you, then dauntless gives you a lot because you're attacking more than two enemies per turn.
iceiceice wrote:The one thing that I think I do significantly differently is when to choose agility. When I began to play I would choose agility often on most of the units you mention. However when I began to play Temple of Bones, my philosophy is that since so many of the demons and late game enemies have the Superiority trait, it doesn't make sense to shoot for > 40% defenses. The only reason is if you think it helps alot in the early game -- I find that once you get used to playing with 40% its not that big a deal. So now I actually do this on all maps. As a major benefit this frees up extremely valuable ability points, which are especially needed on a warrior.
Hmm, interesting - never thought about it like that.
iceiceice wrote:
Mabuse wrote: example dwarven warrior (4 ability points):
REGEN, AGILITY, STUNNING SHIELD USE, HIT AND RUN
So this means that you do not choose dauntless on your berzerker unit? It would seem to me that dauntless is pretty essential. I guess that you pay the 125gp for the extra point?
Wait, does this mean that you consider not buying that extra point an option? For me, the only question is which ability I buy last, with that point.
iceiceice wrote:In my style to build this unit I would choose soul stealer over agility, then when I need to buy dauntless, I would use the 125gp extra point, but soul stealer will have paid more than this cost by this point in the game most likely. If it is 5p and I don't think the dwarf will get so many kills then maybe I don't get soul stealer, and don't even buy the extra ability point except maybe at the very end when it doesn't matter.
I would actually only get soul stealer when I have a spare ability point to spend, so it's only an option for me as a Warrior or Ranger, but never for a Mage or Cleric. On turn 110, I've killed about 700 enemies - getting an extra ability from the spell book is worth far more than 700 gold!
iceiceice wrote:As a side remark, I feel that there is a further drawback to choosing agility on a dwarf, because you are never pressed for terrain training points on a dwarf. As you mention one of the major benefits of agility is not needing to train flat ground. However as a dwarf you already essentially have a bonus terrain training point for free, because you get 1mp in forests. Consider: on ToB for example, you may terrain train all terrains save snow and forest as a dwarf, and then you will have good defense in all forests for free, since every forest tile is also either a flat, hills, or swamp tile. So at that point it is pointless to train forests anyways. (I can't remember if I learned this from reading your previous posts or figured it out myself XD)
Oh, thanks a lot for this tip! Never thought about that one, I always trained everything that I could get and forest is usually a high-priority item.
iceiceice wrote: Edit: In terms of alignment I generally agree with you to choose neutral, unless you have free fearless in which case you should take lawful. However I sometimes find that with a Warrior on Temple of Bones I choose to begin as neutral and then take the cursed ring, and use the extra ability point for fearless. I mainly do this to make it much easier to zerk bosses which have melee drain, such as Gorgon Sorceress; I'm not sure if its really worth the cost though. I especially like to do this to a paladin, since he becomes a good Gorgon Sorceress killer, and he's right there anyways since he killed the lich. I don't think I take the cursed ring other than for this reason though.
Speaking of zerking bosses .... I never really figured out how to do that, could you please enlighten me? How much hp do I need, which resistances (is 90% fire/cold and 50% rest good or do I need something else?) and how much damage vs. strikes should I get?
roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Turn 124 ... aka the long way home ... surrounded by enemies, still about 550 hp left, it is night and I am chaotic - blue and yellow potion behind me - and the Adjucator of Chaos is dead!

Turn 127 ... easiest thing was to actually just throw away my health, drink the yellow potion and run - with 1000 gold, you don't really have to stand your ground.

New Objective: Kill Gorgon Sorceress!
roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Turn 131 ... and I think this is as far as it goes :evil:

The Gorgon Sorceress just recited two even stronger copies of itself and I just can't do anything against them.

The GS on the throne has 1425 hp and 90-13 cold auto, 112-13 claw stab, 112-13 abysmal lightning and 130-10 shock wave.
The two newly recruited ones have 1575 hp, 96-14, 120-14, 120-14, 138-11.

I have 575 hp, 121-19 melee-blade magical rage slows, 10-3 ranged-impact slows, 126-17 melee-fire magical, 126-17 melee-cold magical slows rage, 126-17 melee-arcane magical rage slows, 127-17 melee-impact magical. 90% fire+cold resistance, 50% for all the rest.

Sure it is night, but I'm standing on 85% terrain defines with my full 675 health and it kills me with a single stroke!
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roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Any suggestions what I did wrong?

At this point, I think I have reloaded this game so many times from previous safe points that I should probably call it a lost game and - if I don't want to take a break for ToB and play Wizard of War next weekend - start over again from the beginning, possibly with another unit.

Stupid question: does the Mage of Light illuminate itself or only the surrounding area? I seriously think about going lawful next time - being strong when they are weak is really a good point. So far, I preferred neutral / chaotic because you can get skirmisher and the cursed ring makes you immune to poison. Really don't want to miss skirmisher, so if I go lawful, then probably with the Fencer again.

There are a couple of mistakes that I made in this game and new things that I learned while playing:

[*]Initially, I went with a "normal" damage to strike ratio - like I'm used to from normal games - but because of the many opponents with dreadful sight and/or resistances, damage should be higher - high enough to yield a normal damage / strike ratio after dreadful sight and resistances have been taken account for.
[*]I completely forgot about the Superiority trait, which makes this super high terrain defense not that important.
[*]I bought too many weapons. Never really used the fire or impact weapons and cold wasn't needed until late in game when I went for leader kill.

Did I miss anything important?

I'm also not sure whether I bought the abilities in the right order. In the end, I had 813 kills before I got defeated on turn 131 - if I got dauntless early on instead of soul stealer, I may have significantly saved on healing cost because I would have taken less damage on offense. There's a decent chance that I would have saved more than 813 gold, not sure.

Very good point regarding Superiority - late in the game, I could really have profited from having the extra resistances! I have thought about using a Mage of Light - does not need cave explorer and weakens chaotic opponents with its illuminates ability. I start to get used to the idea of playing on 40% defense, but I think the Paladin would still need cave explorer because it doesn't have enough terrain training slots to fix all the >=3mp terrains.
roidanton
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Mabuse, is there a limit to how strong sub-bosses can get? Around turn 120 or so, they start to become more powerful than the main bosses.
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iceiceice
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Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by iceiceice »

roidanton wrote: Sure it is night, but I'm standing on 85% terrain defines with my full 675 health and it kills me with a single stroke!
Yeah I mean, she's got charge and magical and already does a ton of damage, and your arcane resistance is only 50%. If your net misses you are definitely toast and even then still probably toast. :hmm:
roidanton wrote:Mabuse, is there a limit to how strong sub-bosses can get? Around turn 120 or so, they start to become more powerful than the main bosses.
I don't know but I guess that there is no limit, to make sure that if you take way too long then at some point you lose?
roidanton wrote: Stupid question: does the Mage of Light illuminate itself or only the surrounding area? I seriously think about going lawful next time - being strong when they are weak is really a good point. So far, I preferred neutral / chaotic because you can get skirmisher and the cursed ring makes you immune to poison. Really don't want to miss skirmisher, so if I go lawful, then probably with the Fencer again.
The Mage of Light does illuminate itself which makes it pretty good. Mabuse used this in a previous replay :). Idk if it is best as a solo hero, you also get a lot of benefit from this unit in a team. But it might be good I don't really know. I have only tried this unit once on Cantar, that was a blunder powering up those drakes :doh: haha.

If skirmisher is your sticking point you might also try saurian or thief, I have not tried these units but I guess that both thief and fencer are popular choices. You could also try the nightstalk ghost but I'm not sure if I recommend it because IIRC you can't ever get a good fire resistance on this guy.
roidanton wrote: [*]Initially, I went with a "normal" damage to strike ratio - like I'm used to from normal games - but because of the many opponents with dreadful sight and/or resistances, damage should be higher - high enough to yield a normal damage / strike ratio after dreadful sight and resistances have been taken account for.
Yeah so I'm not sure this is quite right. Even if you decide to maximize (resistance_factor)*damage*strikes instead of just damage*strikes, I think you still want damage / strikes to be equal to ratio of their costs. But ofc you can try playing with a higher ratio and see if you prefer it, there are also good theorycrafting reasons why more damage / strikes than this may be better.
roidanton wrote: [*]I bought too many weapons. Never really used the fire or impact weapons and cold wasn't needed until late in game when I went for leader kill.
roidanton wrote: Speaking of zerking bosses .... I never really figured out how to do that, could you please enlighten me? How much hp do I need, which resistances (is 90% fire/cold and 50% rest good or do I need something else?) and how much damage vs. strikes should I get?
So I mean this is what makes ToB so hard, its not easy to see what to do about these questions. All these bosses at the end have multiple damage types on ranged and melee, and pretty crazy resistances. *In general* the undead do cold pierce arcane, and the demons do fire impact arcane, with exceptions. And the undead are generally weak to fire impact arcane, and the demons are weak to physical, while their human minions are weak to cold.

But the units themselves also have lots of tweaked resistances. The ghosts are weakest to arcane, some of the bone monsters are only really weak to impact, and the ghoul mages / gorgon sorc are weakest to fire. And any of these guys can be really tough depending what unit you have.

When you have a 5p team you can give your units a specialty to fight specific ones of the enemies. When you have a solo unit it is going to be much much harder, and there are of course no guarantees that it is possible at all. I don't know that anyone has soloed it on expert with sxrpg era units. You will probably need like 4 or 5 damage types -- if you use a rogue type unit you will likely want to think carefully about which are ranged and which are melee. And this will also be connected to which resistances you decide to make your best. If you plan to melee the gorgon soceress then maybe you want to have high cold and pierce resistance, and use a fireblade. Or maybe you can skip fire and instead slow it with a ranged weapon, then summon a fire demon berzerker and suicide it into the gorgon, then drink a blue pot and kill it with whatever you have handy. Or plan to save up for a really big fireball. Idk I am going to play around with it :)
Mabuse wrote:Armor: at start i may get rid of some low armor penalties, but not pay to much gold here
later you get rid of all penalties of course. DAUNTLESS is a great ability. if i plan to purchase it i try to make the maximum use out of it, also using the CUIRASS-SHOP-ITEM - so i get blade, pierce and impact to 20% then i add the cuirass (gives +5% each) and it doubles up to 50% on offense.
all other to a minimum of 30% so they double to 50%.
everything which is higher or equal to 40% by default gets increases to 60%.
the remaing slots are distributed to get some more 60%, 70% or even 80% values.
(but not higher, else ites may be wasted)
This advice is key imo, I tend to think of anything over 80 as wasted also. Even 80 is a bit of a waste imo. I think its better to have like 3-4 resistances which are at 60-70 than it is to have 2 resistances which are at 90 and the rest at 50, because the bosses will just switch weapons and then your 90 doesn't count. 60 vs 50 is a big difference at the end, like +25% hp, and 70 vs 50 is like +60% hp, when you already have like 500 hp!
roidanton wrote: I'm also not sure whether I bought the abilities in the right order. In the end, I had 813 kills before I got defeated on turn 131 - if I got dauntless early on instead of soul stealer, I may have significantly saved on healing cost because I would have taken less damage on offense. There's a decent chance that I would have saved more than 813 gold, not sure.
roidanton wrote: I would actually only get soul stealer when I have a spare ability point to spend, so it's only an option for me as a Warrior or Ranger, but never for a Mage or Cleric. On turn 110, I've killed about 700 enemies - getting an extra ability from the spell book is worth far more than 700 gold!
Yeah so you place very high values on ability points because they are a big part of your style :) I have not experimented with this style, I currently use a style where I place much less value on this. To me 700-800 gold sounds like a whole lot of gold. I guess I'm not sure how much I typically spend on healing. To me even 125 gp sounds like a lot of gold :), and then I have to pay for the ability on top of that? :shock: I could almost get another damage strikes combo :twisted:
Mabuse
Posts: 2239
Joined: November 6th, 2007, 1:38 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by Mabuse »

roidanton wrote:Any suggestions what I did wrong?
well, the first mistake may be to assume you can solo ToB ;)
at least designwise i tried to make it really hard to solo.

but i would be happy to be proven wrong of course.
roidanton wrote: Stupid question: does the Mage of Light illuminate itself or only the surrounding area? I seriously think about going lawful next time - being strong when they are weak is really a good point. So far, I preferred neutral / chaotic because you can get skirmisher and the cursed ring makes you immune to poison. Really don't want to miss skirmisher, so if I go lawful, then probably with the Fencer again.
yes. mage of light has "build-in" fearless, since he illuminates also ifself. also, the enemies never get their chaotic bonus when fighting him. and he has ranged arcane as default weapon. and free healing ability.

imo one of the best units. a bit weak early in game perhaps.

other units with build-in fearless are ghoul and all units that have leadership (leadership is converted into fearless in SXRPG, since in SXRPG you usually dont have too many units to lead).
roidanton wrote: [*]Initially, I went with a "normal" damage to strike ratio - like I'm used to from normal games - but because of the many opponents with dreadful sight and/or resistances, damage should be higher - high enough to yield a normal damage / strike ratio after dreadful sight and resistances have been taken account for.
nice idea. worth to take into account.
roidanton wrote: Mabuse, is there a limit to how strong sub-bosses can get? Around turn 120 or so, they start to become more powerful than the main bosses.
that depends where you are then.
on turn 130 you "should" be already past the gorgon sorceress ;)

the bosses will grow in strengh until turn 160, then the maximum is reached (no spawned boss will be stronger than the last boss on the map), the creeps will become stronger until turn 220 (or something like that)..



i can imagine that it is actually a pain to play SXRPG with the long calc times, i may upload the "slim stat" version soon. price of damage and strikes is increased in that version and enemy HP is lower.
balance is/should be the same.
The best bet is your own, good Taste.
roidanton
Posts: 90
Joined: September 7th, 2012, 10:41 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

Well, maybe I should try to play it with two units first instead of trying to solo it. Would two units get the same amount of gold each from both kills or chests? If I remember correctly, then you'll get less gold from chests when playing with 5 units.

Regarding the Mage of Light, what happens if it goes chaotic - either by class choice or by picking up that ring? Would it then constantly weaken itself?

About leadership, does this also turn into fearless when I play one of these units as chaotic? I'm thinking about the Drake Flameheart or Dwarvish Sentinel - nice base resistances and built-in steadfast. Grand Marshal is another unit with leadership and nice base resistances.

Speaking of resistances, once you get into the library and armor chamber in the temple, you'll get an additional +10% on everything plus an extra +20% on arcane, cold and fire. So the Mage of Light and Paladin would get 90% arcane - not sure whether that's not a bit too high. Do these two units get the same number of armor slots? Grad Marshal has 20% everywhere except cold and fire and leadership.

One mistake that I made with the Fencer was basically wasting armor because the ring and armor room equipment gets added to the base stats, not to what you have after steadfast / dauntless.
roidanton
Posts: 90
Joined: September 7th, 2012, 10:41 pm

Re: SX RPG Expert Strategies?

Post by roidanton »

I played this again over the course of several day, just about an hour each day after work, and finally made it past the Temple :lol2:

However, I played this with two units and not solo this time. Choosing the perfect team was one of the most difficult decisions to make.

And I actually had to ask myself whether it makes any sense to choose a unit that does not have any abilities. Well, it does, if the unit has other unique characteristics which make up for that - abilities are just one facade of a unit, not the entire story.

Building resistances to optimally target the enemies in ToB was the key decision point for my choice of units. And finally, I think I found the perfect team: The Mad Zerker and the Ranger Queen.

The Mad Zerker:
Dwarf Lord, Warrior, Neutral (later Chaotic, Undead), Intelligent
Items: Cursed Ring, Sword of the Crusader, Ring of Defense, Ring of Resistance, Cold Armor, Ability Spell
Weapons: Bersek Sword (upgraded with Slows), built-in hammer fully upgraded (Magical Rage Slow Charge), built-in sword (added magical), ranged net
Resistances (with items): 80% pierce/impact, 75% cold, 50% rest
Abilities: Fearless, Skirmisher, Steadfast, Dauntless, Regen, Stunning Shield, Hit&Run

I chose this unit because of its great base resistances, which allowed me to get such high pierce, impact and cold resistances - targeted specifically at killing the Gorgon Sorceress and other demons.

The Ranger Queen:
Silver Mage, Ranger, Lawful, Cave Explorer
Items: Scepter of Cantar, Ring of Defense, Ring of Resistance, Red Riding Hood, Arcane and Fire Armor
Weapons: melee shield, energy wave (focus precision slows blessed), built-in missile (focus precision slows)
Resistances (with items): 85% arcane/cold/fire, 50% rest
Abilities: Fearless, Steadfast, Dauntless, Regen, Hit&Run, Skirmisher (from the item)

Really like this unit because it comes with 50% cold and fire resistance, which can be very useful on this map. I was thinking about going Mage for a moment, then realized that I would only be able to get a single magic ability or two if I go neutral, so I wouldn't need fearless. Ranger also has the great advantage that I could use it as "potion buyer" - this unit bought the majority of the potions, making the dwarf even stronger because he saved all that gold.

The Dwarf got so super strong because I saved significantly on weapon upgrade costs. Only buying a single weapon really payed off. Sure, the Gorgon Sorceress has 50% resistance against Impact and only 20% against Fire, but it costs 685 gold to only fully upgrade a weapon with raged slows charge and that's without the price of the weapon itself. If you buy it on first turn, it's cheap but you really need the gold otherwise. And later on, the weapon is between ~150-350 - that would make it around 800 gold for an extra weapon. Spending that on damage turned out to be the much better investment.

I'm on turn 127 now, just finished the Temple and the Dwarf is so strong that it could kill any enemy. However, there are some enemies that the Ranger is much better killing at because it would take too much damage - for instance Swarms and Liches, these are an easy kill for the Ranger. Since the Dwarf picked up the Cursed Ring, it also kills everything that has poison, so it is a great team.

Looking forward to the weekend to finish this!
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