Slowly plodding through the first zone in the first quest chain.
Lv. 4 side quest
This map to assist an angel rescue a cleric is kicking my butt. The enemy thieves dodge tank and block me from attacking the archers destroying me with ranged assists. Then a second wave of thieves attacks your command post from the south.
I might need to break out Josef, because new man Bruno cannot hit anything, nor self heal to keep up with incoming damage. I only have Rolf and one Truestrike Spear to hit Thieves with.
I'm currently around level 14 and this was still the hardest mission I've seen by far. A couple strategies I found that helped...
-Having a dedicated bridge-busting squad with Lex or Hodrick as the leader to weaken ranged assists, Aubin as the highest-initiative unit to crush defense, and some other attacker who's slower than Aubin.
-If you can afford the valor cost, the ungarrisoned archer unit over the river keels over and dies to one Arrow Rain, I think. They also run out of stamina eventually and stop shooting.
-If you're cautious enough with Ochlys's unit, you might be able to send her on a suicide mission over the river to take out one of the ranged assists after flanking the northern tower. If you hired a griffin knight for the "hire a mercenary" quest you can potentially have a second flying unit to support.
-You can withdraw and redeploy units mid-mission if you need to change leaders for free or swap units around.
-You could also just delay the mission until you've gotten some extra units from the level 5 missions, although I didn't do that myself. A witch or warrior would help clear the bridge in fewer combats.
About 25ish hours in and finishing up the desert area. I gotta ask, do you play with battle animations?
Like, I can't imagine watching the entire fight play out. There all very time consuming, so it's the Start button option every time to skip the fight.
Depends:
If it's a foregone conclusion and i know why i ship with +
If it's a foregone conclusion and i didn't know why i watch until i see what happened, then ship rest
If i have no idea what's going to happen i watch the whole thing on speedup until it gets to the novel part
New units on either side i watch the whole thing
Old units just leveled up and hit new moves, watch on speedup until it's their turn
You'll also be spending a bunch of fights making sure all your skill chains and machinations are functioning properly. You might be still overwhelmingly winning fights, but you can't be sure you're winning as designed or just overwhelming them despite your plans not working.
I wish there was a way to get a more detailed list of how the fight would go without actually viewing it. Or let me slow down or even replay a fight so I can work out step by step what's happening. I've finally figured out that the preview is 100% accurate, to the point of taking into consideration RNG. If you ever see a fight you knew was going to go your way now suddenly turn into a brawl, it's because it's literally factoring in crits and potential misses from evasive units. All that said, I have seen battle predictions where, if I have an archer use their fire support, I will somehow do less and take more damage from the fight. And I'd love to just know why. I know it's because battles are incredible precise. Maybe the arrow support results in enemy A dying sooner which changes a potential target to enemy B who then doesn't take lethal damage and retaliates. A simple act can have a massive butterfly effect. I'd just sometimes like to see how and why.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
Ranged/magic support burns RNG rolls at the start of the fight, which makes hits/misses happen differently. Important to note that previews don't account for that when ordering units in from a distance. Also, there is a combat log you can view of what actions went off, but not the results sadly.
I've really been enjoying Unicorn Overload, it really takes me back to when I was like 12 and playing March of the Black Queen for like the 3rd time renting it from Blockbuster (damn I'm old )
But about the RNG thing, I kinda figured it was something like that, especially in the last battle I did, I had several scenarios where using support ended up making the result worse for me. I guess its just a result of relying a bit too much on luck, and by using support shuffled up when crits and dodges happen (and possibly when passives activated) caused a big swing in the result of the battle.
About 25ish hours in and finishing up the desert area. I gotta ask, do you play with battle animations?
Like, I can't imagine watching the entire fight play out. There all very time consuming, so it's the Start button option every time to skip the fight.
Yeah, I actually watch quite a bit of fights, particularly when I'm trying to tweak tactics or trying out some new unit mechanics. Also, when I'm sitting with the wife and she wants to watch units beat each other to a pulp.
So far, my biggest gripe/regret is that (minor story spoilers, but I'm not sure you're playing this game for story?):
After you're ready to move on from Cornea after you hear "the voice" from the sanctuary, they give you the option of either going to the Elflands or the Desert, and I chose to go to the Elflands, it was quite the difficulty jump, so I eked out a couple wins, but was really difficult since the units start to all have upgrades whereas I had maybe two (the two elves that join you early on) and like nobody else, I didn't even have enough renown to upgrade characters yet), so I went back and liberated all the towns/battles I could, even had enough to put guards in every town in Cornea, went back to the elflands. Eked out one, maybe two wins, but quickly became really tough. Decided to go over to see what Drakenhold was like, and quickly realized that I really should have gone there first. Only my lowest level characters were even able to get normal exp gains, and it was a relative cakewalk, which made a lot of the battles (about the first half to 2/3rds of the area) not as interesting/challenging as they would have been if I had headed here directly.
Only now that I have reached the final (maybe?) story battle (the tower of thorns) in the Elflands am I back to being seriously challenged since my units are roughly at or slightly below the level of the battle (23)
It is a relatively minor gripe, but I would have rather they just said "go to Drakengard first", instead of giving me the option.
Edit: Also, what kind of units do you put your Warriors in? I have like 3 warriors recruited from the story, and I throw in one on occasion just to use his valor ability to clear out pesky barricades/mines, but otherwise, I have a tough time finding a good synergy for them.
chrono_traveller on
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
Yeah, elf vs desert is a little weird. They're both about the same level, but elfville has tons of promoted units, which is almost straight up a 50% increase in damage in a lot of cases.
But if you do all of desert first, you get to elfville and are overleveled and not earning exp really, which also feels awful.
I think it'd definitely have been improved by keeping things a bit more guided and on rails.
Warriors/Breakers I tend to throw in the backline of a unit as an armor-smasher. Their main gimmick, eventually, is that they get to buff themselves whenever any ally gets hit. But they're super slow. So the goal is for them to get real buff and and then come in at the end with Assaulting Blow and just clean house with massive damage (and the AP refund on kill). But it's basically just one of them in the back of a defensive unit. Maybe throw some other buffs their way for good measure.
Throwing some additional Initiative on them somehow (like with Quick Action or a Dove Plume) is a great way to ruin a Hoplite or Fighter's day; because they tie so much of their survivability to Guards, taking that ability to Guard away before the rest of your unit starts launching attacks can really pay off.
One important thing to keep in mind is that sometimes a unit's abilities can work at cross-purposes and you might be better served shutting one off entirely. Swordfighters, for instance, have a Parry and Hastened Strike, but if they use Hastened Strike they might not have the PP to use Parry when they need it. If your Swordfighter is the front, you might want to take Hastened Strike out completely if you want them to put all their PP into staying alive.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
I wish there was a way to get a more detailed list of how the fight would go without actually viewing it. Or let me slow down or even replay a fight so I can work out step by step what's happening. I've finally figured out that the preview is 100% accurate, to the point of taking into consideration RNG. If you ever see a fight you knew was going to go your way now suddenly turn into a brawl, it's because it's literally factoring in crits and potential misses from evasive units. All that said, I have seen battle predictions where, if I have an archer use their fire support, I will somehow do less and take more damage from the fight. And I'd love to just know why. I know it's because battles are incredible precise. Maybe the arrow support results in enemy A dying sooner which changes a potential target to enemy B who then doesn't take lethal damage and retaliates. A simple act can have a massive butterfly effect. I'd just sometimes like to see how and why.
If you're in the battle, you should be able to view a log which tells you exactly what order abilities fired in, even if it doesn't include quite as much details as one might hope for.
Edit: Also, what kind of units do you put your Warriors in? I have like 3 warriors recruited from the story, and I throw in one on occasion just to use his valor ability to clear out pesky barricades/mines, but otherwise, I have a tough time finding a good synergy for them.
If you're not just pairing them with whoever for Rapport, you put them anywhere you have frontliners that can't beat Armored. This is typically Swordfighters, Gladiators, and your Lord for awhile. If your damage is keeping up (ie you don't need Binding Guard because they'll just kill the Hoplite or Fighter), you can also give them Pursuit Bracelets (and Lapis Pendants) and turn off Binding Guard.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
edited April 2
Well I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of this demo. I spent ~3.5 hours yesterday on a level 4 quest between resets and changing tactics to get everything "perfect" (no deaths, no losses, use no items, collect all treasures from map, recover all gold from plundering thieves, capture every objective, see all unique dialogue). After all that, it only ended up using ~20-30 minutes of the in game timer that counts against the demo timer.
After that I did two more level 5 quests:
I freed the city with the Warrior. It was a very short battle. At the beginning it told me to go get a Mage first to beat the Hoplites, but Flame Bow + Crushing Axe is a decent combo. Flame Bow burns the target, the the Crushing Axe stuns the Armored unit. It takes burn damage twice: once when it shrugs off the stun, and then a 2nd time when it attacks. The 2nd time usually killed it.
The walled city had much bigger armorer selection. Extra unique items, and new accessories.
After that I went north and found where to recruit the Mage. This map was a bit of a pain, since there's so many squads of mages, you end up taking tons of chip damage from all the magic assists flying around. It took a while, but I ended up clearing it too.
Now I have a level 5 quest for a Witch and a level 6 quest for another Cavalry on deck. I'm slowly expanding my areas of control. Poor Scarlett is having to wait quite a time for rescue though.
I've only managed to repair about half the towns I've liberated due to lack of materials. I'm not sure of the timing of overworld materials respawning, whether it's in-game timer, day/night cycle, or a certain number of battles. It seems like posted guards collect materials for you, but if you can't post a guard due to lack of materials, how do you get the materials to post guards?
Also question about inventory in shops. Do items ever restock? When they do, do you lose access to items from the initial offering? Do I have a limited amount of time to raise money to buy certain unique items that are available now? Because there's way more stuff to buy than I have money.
E: Also, can Passive Abilities that trigger "at the end of battle" trigger more than once if you have multiple PP remaining? For example, a Housecarl's Parting Blow or a Soldier's First Aid?
Stuff spawning in the overworld is based on battles happening. Post guards as soon as you can everywhere you can (it literally costs you nothing) and you'll soon reach a point where not being able to upgrade and post immediately on liberation is the oddity.
Well I'm certainly getting my money's worth out of this demo. I spent ~3.5 hours yesterday on a level 4 quest between resets and changing tactics to get everything "perfect" (no deaths, no losses, use no items, collect all treasures from map, recover all gold from plundering thieves, capture every objective, see all unique dialogue). After all that, it only ended up using ~20-30 minutes of the in game timer that counts against the demo timer.
After that I did two more level 5 quests:
I freed the city with the Warrior. It was a very short battle. At the beginning it told me to go get a Mage first to beat the Hoplites, but Flame Bow + Crushing Axe is a decent combo. Flame Bow burns the target, the the Crushing Axe stuns the Armored unit. It takes burn damage twice: once when it shrugs off the stun, and then a 2nd time when it attacks. The 2nd time usually killed it.
The walled city had much bigger armorer selection. Extra unique items, and new accessories.
After that I went north and found where to recruit the Mage. This map was a bit of a pain, since there's so many squads of mages, you end up taking tons of chip damage from all the magic assists flying around. It took a while, but I ended up clearing it too.
Now I have a level 5 quest for a Witch and a level 6 quest for another Cavalry on deck. I'm slowly expanding my areas of control. Poor Scarlett is having to wait quite a time for rescue though.
I've only managed to repair about half the towns I've liberated due to lack of materials. I'm not sure of the timing of overworld materials respawning, whether it's in-game timer, day/night cycle, or a certain number of battles. It seems like posted guards collect materials for you, but if you can't post a guard due to lack of materials, how do you get the materials to post guards?
Also question about inventory in shops. Do items ever restock? When they do, do you lose access to items from the initial offering? Do I have a limited amount of time to raise money to buy certain unique items that are available now? Because there's way more stuff to buy than I have money.
E: Also, can Passive Abilities that trigger "at the end of battle" trigger more than once if you have multiple PP remaining? For example, a Housecarl's Parting Blow or a Soldier's First Aid?
re: Mage assist chip damage
I wish to highlight Josef's class passive for being the leader of a squad. If you still aren't using him, that's a mission that really punishes you for it.
Passive abilities at end of battle are once only.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
What value is rapport really? I'm curious what point the gifting system has as well, since it's just rapport with the MC and seems less efficient than meals.
What value is rapport really? I'm curious what point the gifting system has as well, since it's just rapport with the MC and seems less efficient than meals.
You get some small bonus stats for being in a unit with your high rapport mates. Each class buffs two different stats. Also conversations (which have all been fairly forgettable so far) that give you some Honors. And you can marry Alain to the waifu of your choice with enough rapport.
The Coliseum is the most fun I've had in this game. Normally the "grind a bunch of extra fights to unlock some kind of reward that either turns out to be useless or breaks the game's spine" zone bores me to tears, but Unicorn Overlord's battle engine lets you pull some real nonsense and punch way above your weight in terms of level.
For the vast majority of the Arena, I was able to get by with a strategy of "But what if more horse?" combined with a Shaman (Sylvie) to say "hold up, let 'em cook". The Great Knights all had the spear that gives them True Thrust, programmed to target Fliers and Scouts with it (in that order), followed by Wild Charge against anything that wasn't stunned, taking full columns if they could get them. Sylvie had the staff that gives her Sandstorm, and an Angel Plume, so she'd start the battle by blinding everyone and then pumping the front line's initiative. At that point the horsemen just start rolling out, dishing out stuns on top of the blindness until their damage was so high that the enemies just started falling over.
This strategy ran into a huge speedbump at rank 6, where there was a griffon rider equipped with an accessory that gave them Quick Dispel and a promoted Arbalist who was immune to Blind and could remove blindness on reaction. Once I had enough renown to make a five-man unit, I added Yahna to the group, gave the horsemen bigger weapons, and set Yahna to distribute Truestrike on reaction. That let the horsemen stun the griffon rider and do just enough damage to knock her out, but it also took a bit of micro-management to make sure that the Sellsword on the opposite end of the formation was stunned so she wasn't curing her blind by triggering Following Slash and then using Bastard Cross on her turn, which would have taken a horse out guaranteed.
I beat Amalia largely by not beating Amalia; I had to set up everyone to respect her immunities, but ultimately was able to deal enough damage to the rest of her formation to beat them.
For Amalia round 2, I did a significant retooling since her immunities hard-countered the majority of my strategy. Looking through all of her passives, I noticed that 1) her stun counter isn't a truestrike, and 2) she's not immune to Guard Seal. So I made a front row out of Kitra (big hammer), kitted out with enough Plumes to make her faster than Travis, and made a back row out of Clive, Adel, and Alain. The former two I gave the spears that let you use Rampage, and Alain got the Crimson Epee so he could use Active Shatter.
Therefore, in the first round, Kitra inflicted her with Guard Seal (and died to the counter while Travis evaded it), Travis ate her PP with Passive Steal, and then the backline blew up three out of her four AP. That left her with just one single-target attack, though since it swung twice Travis bit it. Still, that left the horses free to do their thing and however much damage I did was proportionately more than I took. So I got Amalia as I'm starting up Elheim.
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
And I've gotten through the desert land, elf land, and almost through snow land without having finished the colosseum yet because my groups are set up as "who is friends/Lovers with whom" rather than grand strategy lol.
It's nothing to be ashamed of! Opinion on the game seems to be coalescing around the idea that it's particularly easy to break if you go hunting for opportunities to do so, so you might actually get more out of the game in terms of feeling challenged by down-tuning to the game's difficulty level (intentionally or otherwise).
My favorite musical instrument is the air-raid siren.
The Coliseum is the most fun I've had in this game. Normally the "grind a bunch of extra fights to unlock some kind of reward that either turns out to be useless or breaks the game's spine" zone bores me to tears, but Unicorn Overlord's battle engine lets you pull some real nonsense and punch way above your weight in terms of level.
For the vast majority of the Arena, I was able to get by with a strategy of "But what if more horse?" combined with a Shaman (Sylvie) to say "hold up, let 'em cook". The Great Knights all had the spear that gives them True Thrust, programmed to target Fliers and Scouts with it (in that order), followed by Wild Charge against anything that wasn't stunned, taking full columns if they could get them. Sylvie had the staff that gives her Sandstorm, and an Angel Plume, so she'd start the battle by blinding everyone and then pumping the front line's initiative. At that point the horsemen just start rolling out, dishing out stuns on top of the blindness until their damage was so high that the enemies just started falling over.
This strategy ran into a huge speedbump at rank 6, where there was a griffon rider equipped with an accessory that gave them Quick Dispel and a promoted Arbalist who was immune to Blind and could remove blindness on reaction. Once I had enough renown to make a five-man unit, I added Yahna to the group, gave the horsemen bigger weapons, and set Yahna to distribute Truestrike on reaction. That let the horsemen stun the griffon rider and do just enough damage to knock her out, but it also took a bit of micro-management to make sure that the Sellsword on the opposite end of the formation was stunned so she wasn't curing her blind by triggering Following Slash and then using Bastard Cross on her turn, which would have taken a horse out guaranteed.
I beat Amalia largely by not beating Amalia; I had to set up everyone to respect her immunities, but ultimately was able to deal enough damage to the rest of her formation to beat them.
For Amalia round 2, I did a significant retooling since her immunities hard-countered the majority of my strategy. Looking through all of her passives, I noticed that 1) her stun counter isn't a truestrike, and 2) she's not immune to Guard Seal. So I made a front row out of Kitra (big hammer), kitted out with enough Plumes to make her faster than Travis, and made a back row out of Clive, Adel, and Alain. The former two I gave the spears that let you use Rampage, and Alain got the Crimson Epee so he could use Active Shatter.
Therefore, in the first round, Kitra inflicted her with Guard Seal (and died to the counter while Travis evaded it), Travis ate her PP with Passive Steal, and then the backline blew up three out of her four AP. That left her with just one single-target attack, though since it swung twice Travis bit it. Still, that left the horses free to do their thing and however much damage I did was proportionately more than I took. So I got Amalia as I'm starting up Elheim.
You vastly overthought the Amalia fight.
Literally using an unpromoted thief with PP steal wins. Travis was all you needed.
It's nothing to be ashamed of! Opinion on the game seems to be coalescing around the idea that it's particularly easy to break if you go hunting for opportunities to do so, so you might actually get more out of the game in terms of feeling challenged by down-tuning to the game's difficulty level (intentionally or otherwise).
That's really true. My strongest squad beat a level 40 map when they were around 25, so I had to beat the whole rest of the game without using them or it would trivialise everything. And even then, I was beating most end maps with 3/4 of the time left, no items, fighting every enemy and capturing every town. And I felt like I was ignoring a lot of options and mechanics to squeeze more power out of my teams, almost every squad only had 4 people, never used a merc, most units still had a bronze bangle or something because I couldn't be bothered to optimise their gear...
I hope this game was successful enough for a sequel, and I hope that sequel adds a bunch of QOL features to make managing your army quicker, and they ramp the difficulty way up so I need to manage my army properly.
I had to recruit my second merc because I needed a guard for a town. I opened the map and clicked on the nearest recruitment building and chose the first option without customizations.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
I had to recruit my second merc because I needed a guard for a town. I opened the map and clicked on the nearest recruitment building and chose the first option without customizations.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
I hope "shit" in that sentence is a noun, and not a verb.
I had to recruit my second merc because I needed a guard for a town. I opened the map and clicked on the nearest recruitment building and chose the first option without customizations.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
Careful, not all hire units cost the same, the cheapest are 3 honor and they most expensive I've seen so far 30. And if they are just going to collect wood and use the toilet it pays to shop around for the cheap ones. I make them have all white uniform, like UNPROFOR.
I had to recruit my second merc because I needed a guard for a town. I opened the map and clicked on the nearest recruitment building and chose the first option without customizations.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
I hope "shit" in that sentence is a noun, and not a verb.
I'm only in the second area yet, so maybe?
Need a voice actor? Hire me at bengrayVO.com
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051 Steam ID Twitch Page
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
The Coliseum is the most fun I've had in this game. Normally the "grind a bunch of extra fights to unlock some kind of reward that either turns out to be useless or breaks the game's spine" zone bores me to tears, but Unicorn Overlord's battle engine lets you pull some real nonsense and punch way above your weight in terms of level.
For the vast majority of the Arena, I was able to get by with a strategy of "But what if more horse?" combined with a Shaman (Sylvie) to say "hold up, let 'em cook". The Great Knights all had the spear that gives them True Thrust, programmed to target Fliers and Scouts with it (in that order), followed by Wild Charge against anything that wasn't stunned, taking full columns if they could get them. Sylvie had the staff that gives her Sandstorm, and an Angel Plume, so she'd start the battle by blinding everyone and then pumping the front line's initiative. At that point the horsemen just start rolling out, dishing out stuns on top of the blindness until their damage was so high that the enemies just started falling over.
This strategy ran into a huge speedbump at rank 6, where there was a griffon rider equipped with an accessory that gave them Quick Dispel and a promoted Arbalist who was immune to Blind and could remove blindness on reaction. Once I had enough renown to make a five-man unit, I added Yahna to the group, gave the horsemen bigger weapons, and set Yahna to distribute Truestrike on reaction. That let the horsemen stun the griffon rider and do just enough damage to knock her out, but it also took a bit of micro-management to make sure that the Sellsword on the opposite end of the formation was stunned so she wasn't curing her blind by triggering Following Slash and then using Bastard Cross on her turn, which would have taken a horse out guaranteed.
I beat Amalia largely by not beating Amalia; I had to set up everyone to respect her immunities, but ultimately was able to deal enough damage to the rest of her formation to beat them.
For Amalia round 2, I did a significant retooling since her immunities hard-countered the majority of my strategy. Looking through all of her passives, I noticed that 1) her stun counter isn't a truestrike, and 2) she's not immune to Guard Seal. So I made a front row out of Kitra (big hammer), kitted out with enough Plumes to make her faster than Travis, and made a back row out of Clive, Adel, and Alain. The former two I gave the spears that let you use Rampage, and Alain got the Crimson Epee so he could use Active Shatter.
Therefore, in the first round, Kitra inflicted her with Guard Seal (and died to the counter while Travis evaded it), Travis ate her PP with Passive Steal, and then the backline blew up three out of her four AP. That left her with just one single-target attack, though since it swung twice Travis bit it. Still, that left the horses free to do their thing and however much damage I did was proportionately more than I took. So I got Amalia as I'm starting up Elheim.
You vastly overthought the Amalia fight.
Literally using an unpromoted thief with PP steal wins. Travis was all you needed.
Technically true but only if you're willing to reset over and over, as solo thief loses if she guards, which she has a 60ish% chance to do.
I had to recruit my second merc because I needed a guard for a town. I opened the map and clicked on the nearest recruitment building and chose the first option without customizations.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
I was curious and looked up how many towns there are and how many mercenaries you would need to guard all of them
There's 117 towns iirc, and you need 55-60 mercenaries to shore up your unique units to guard everywhere at once.
I switched over to expert difficulty about halfway through desert land and haven't looked back. Even without really trying to get any synergies going i an still steam rolling pretty much every mission. Full map clear and get all the items with plenty of time left on the clock. I just started Angel land so i am getting pretty close to the end. 63 hours play time so far but I did spend basically 5 or 6 hours doing nothing but finishing up the coliseum at level 20 which took a lot of trial and error. Really enjoying the game so far but i do wish it was harder with the ability to save specific unit setups. It is fun to make custom units and setups to handle specific situations but a pain in the ass to go back and undo all of the changes you made.
The Coliseum is the most fun I've had in this game. Normally the "grind a bunch of extra fights to unlock some kind of reward that either turns out to be useless or breaks the game's spine" zone bores me to tears, but Unicorn Overlord's battle engine lets you pull some real nonsense and punch way above your weight in terms of level.
For the vast majority of the Arena, I was able to get by with a strategy of "But what if more horse?" combined with a Shaman (Sylvie) to say "hold up, let 'em cook". The Great Knights all had the spear that gives them True Thrust, programmed to target Fliers and Scouts with it (in that order), followed by Wild Charge against anything that wasn't stunned, taking full columns if they could get them. Sylvie had the staff that gives her Sandstorm, and an Angel Plume, so she'd start the battle by blinding everyone and then pumping the front line's initiative. At that point the horsemen just start rolling out, dishing out stuns on top of the blindness until their damage was so high that the enemies just started falling over.
This strategy ran into a huge speedbump at rank 6, where there was a griffon rider equipped with an accessory that gave them Quick Dispel and a promoted Arbalist who was immune to Blind and could remove blindness on reaction. Once I had enough renown to make a five-man unit, I added Yahna to the group, gave the horsemen bigger weapons, and set Yahna to distribute Truestrike on reaction. That let the horsemen stun the griffon rider and do just enough damage to knock her out, but it also took a bit of micro-management to make sure that the Sellsword on the opposite end of the formation was stunned so she wasn't curing her blind by triggering Following Slash and then using Bastard Cross on her turn, which would have taken a horse out guaranteed.
I beat Amalia largely by not beating Amalia; I had to set up everyone to respect her immunities, but ultimately was able to deal enough damage to the rest of her formation to beat them.
For Amalia round 2, I did a significant retooling since her immunities hard-countered the majority of my strategy. Looking through all of her passives, I noticed that 1) her stun counter isn't a truestrike, and 2) she's not immune to Guard Seal. So I made a front row out of Kitra (big hammer), kitted out with enough Plumes to make her faster than Travis, and made a back row out of Clive, Adel, and Alain. The former two I gave the spears that let you use Rampage, and Alain got the Crimson Epee so he could use Active Shatter.
Therefore, in the first round, Kitra inflicted her with Guard Seal (and died to the counter while Travis evaded it), Travis ate her PP with Passive Steal, and then the backline blew up three out of her four AP. That left her with just one single-target attack, though since it swung twice Travis bit it. Still, that left the horses free to do their thing and however much damage I did was proportionately more than I took. So I got Amalia as I'm starting up Elheim.
You vastly overthought the Amalia fight.
Literally using an unpromoted thief with PP steal wins. Travis was all you needed.
Technically true but only if you're willing to reset over and over, as solo thief loses if she guards, which she has a 60ish% chance to do.
To guarantee it you need to Guard Seal her first.
I cleared it in one shot, I didnt even realize she had a guard chance.
I ate an engineer
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AegeriTiny wee bacteriumsPlateau of LengRegistered Userregular
silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Even though I have the base game waiting, I needed to "finish" the demo to get the option to make one final save in order to transfer all my save data to the main game.
I'm still puttering around the first area, but I found a Main Quest separate from the one that's been in my Quest Log the entire time.
Aside from the Rescuing Scarlett quest I've been putting off while I liberate all the towns in Cornia, I ran into the Witch Yahna in the SW swamp area, and though her quest was similar in structure to all the other ones I've encountered, it technically counts as a Main quest? I tried to go south from the swamp to explore, and Alain stopped me and told no diversions while Scarlett is still captive.
There was a small Liberation quest east of the 1st walled city you liberate:
A small fort map with I think 4 enemies, but one of them is a thief that plunders you from halfway across the map, then runs away and hides behind the fort. Actually getting around the fort to engage the thief, without engaging and killing the enemy commander, was the trickiest part.
I had two more side quests available in the first zone to pick from after finishing that stuff:
Cain the Cavalry past the Walled City, or Berenice the Sellsword near the Witches Swamp. These are usually pretty quick, so I figured I'd do one and go to bed, and since I encountered him first during my exploration, I went with Cain.
Imagine my surprise when I'm greeted with I think the largest map I've dealt with to date! Two towns, two (groups of) people to talk to, two magic circles, a temple, a fort, and an enemy base camp. It was quite a bit to get through, but Cain, Clive/Alain and Fran's groups were up to the task. Fran was remarkably effective with her unique axe weapon, mowing down row after row of horses. After finishing it Josef tells me I'm ready to rescue Scarlett, or if I need more time to prepare. I select "save her" and the Demo promptly ends! I used up all my remaining time helping Cain!
Oh well, save, fire up the full version, then transfer all my data over. Berenice is next on the docket.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
There was a small Liberation quest east of the 1st walled city you liberate:
A small fort map with I think 4 enemies, but one of them is a thief that plunders you from halfway across the map, then runs away and hides behind the fort. Actually getting around the fort to engage the thief, without engaging and killing the enemy commander, was the trickiest part.
IIRC this (or even one of the earlier fights) is supposed to be teaching you about item use.
Use Beckoning Bells to keep thieves from running and to pull archers and mages off towers to stop them from freely reinforcing with greater power.
Ironically this kind of is a game with semi-limited items but you really should use them as necessary, it makes life so much easier.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
There was a small Liberation quest east of the 1st walled city you liberate:
A small fort map with I think 4 enemies, but one of them is a thief that plunders you from halfway across the map, then runs away and hides behind the fort. Actually getting around the fort to engage the thief, without engaging and killing the enemy commander, was the trickiest part.
IIRC this (or even one of the earlier fights) is supposed to be teaching you about item use.
Use Beckoning Bells to keep thieves from running and to pull archers and mages off towers to stop them from freely reinforcing with greater power.
Ironically this kind of is a game with semi-limited items but you really should use them as necessary, it makes life so much easier.
Never! Only if there's no other option and victory is mathematically impossible without using items.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Oh wow UC is over half a million in sales. Word of mouth must have really done a lot for it.
Also decided to grind out the coliseum a bit. Managed to get all the way to the 2nd rank but lost in the finals. I was only lvl 28 though and I'm sure I could just make a counter team but it ain't that serious and I'll just wait until I level up a bit.
As far as difficulty goes, I feel like its at a pretty decent spot for me. I'm not having to optimize every unit in every stage to get through, but also am not just "setting and forgetting" unit lineups and using the same ones every time. I'm playing on the medium difficulty level. By far my most OP unit is a cavalry unit with Maria(?)/Adel/Clive/Renault. Maria(it starts with an M, but I forget her name) is up front with her shield to take the hits, and then the three guys in the back row just keep buffing themselves with that cavalry charge and just rolling over most units. Not that they don't have counters, but unless I put them up against flyers, they will usually KO the other unit in one round. And on top of that, the huge mobility that cavalry get, its pretty ridiculous.
Does anyone know what the hard difficulty does? I wonder if it just bumps up stats, or does it also add extra units/change unit makeups around? I'll probably finish this play through, and then go through the hard mode and try harder to optimize units.
The unit comp that I'm having the most trouble with currently is something like two gladiators up front, and two elven fencers in the back. The ground spike magic attack that they do just rips my units to shreds. Any suggestions on how to deal with that kind of unit?
Also, what is the deal with certain accessories and having no description with them. Like I've run across a few now that I had to look up what they do because they don't have any description in game (rookie egg, golden egg). Seems like a pretty easy thing to catch and fix.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
As far as difficulty goes, I feel like its at a pretty decent spot for me. I'm not having to optimize every unit in every stage to get through, but also am not just "setting and forgetting" unit lineups and using the same ones every time. I'm playing on the medium difficulty level. By far my most OP unit is a cavalry unit with Maria(?)/Adel/Clive/Renault. Maria(it starts with an M, but I forget her name) is up front with her shield to take the hits, and then the three guys in the back row just keep buffing themselves with that cavalry charge and just rolling over most units. Not that they don't have counters, but unless I put them up against flyers, they will usually KO the other unit in one round. And on top of that, the huge mobility that cavalry get, its pretty ridiculous.
Does anyone know what the hard difficulty does? I wonder if it just bumps up stats, or does it also add extra units/change unit makeups around? I'll probably finish this play through, and then go through the hard mode and try harder to optimize units.
The unit comp that I'm having the most trouble with currently is something like two gladiators up front, and two elven fencers in the back. The ground spike magic attack that they do just rips my units to shreds. Any suggestions on how to deal with that kind of unit?
Also, what is the deal with certain accessories and having no description with them. Like I've run across a few now that I had to look up what they do because they don't have any description in game (rookie egg, golden egg). Seems like a pretty easy thing to catch and fix.
Hmm. The eggs have a description for me on the Switch, so?
Anyways, the thing about Elven Fencers's ground spike is that it has the (ground-based) tag. It can't hit fliers. It's also a column attack and has bonus damage to cavalry, which are things to consider when setting up your matchups. Fencers themselves aren't very tough defensively - they have okay evasion but the AI comps aren't built to maximize it at all. Their debuff clear gives them a free dodge though, so using those can backfire a little.
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-If you can afford the valor cost, the ungarrisoned archer unit over the river keels over and dies to one Arrow Rain, I think. They also run out of stamina eventually and stop shooting.
-If you're cautious enough with Ochlys's unit, you might be able to send her on a suicide mission over the river to take out one of the ranged assists after flanking the northern tower. If you hired a griffin knight for the "hire a mercenary" quest you can potentially have a second flying unit to support.
-You can withdraw and redeploy units mid-mission if you need to change leaders for free or swap units around.
-You could also just delay the mission until you've gotten some extra units from the level 5 missions, although I didn't do that myself. A witch or warrior would help clear the bridge in fewer combats.
Like, I can't imagine watching the entire fight play out. There all very time consuming, so it's the Start button option every time to skip the fight.
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
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Depends:
If it's a foregone conclusion and i know why i ship with +
If it's a foregone conclusion and i didn't know why i watch until i see what happened, then ship rest
If i have no idea what's going to happen i watch the whole thing on speedup until it gets to the novel part
New units on either side i watch the whole thing
Old units just leveled up and hit new moves, watch on speedup until it's their turn
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
But about the RNG thing, I kinda figured it was something like that, especially in the last battle I did, I had several scenarios where using support ended up making the result worse for me. I guess its just a result of relying a bit too much on luck, and by using support shuffled up when crits and dodges happen (and possibly when passives activated) caused a big swing in the result of the battle.
Yeah, I actually watch quite a bit of fights, particularly when I'm trying to tweak tactics or trying out some new unit mechanics. Also, when I'm sitting with the wife and she wants to watch units beat each other to a pulp.
So far, my biggest gripe/regret is that (minor story spoilers, but I'm not sure you're playing this game for story?):
Only now that I have reached the final (maybe?) story battle (the tower of thorns) in the Elflands am I back to being seriously challenged since my units are roughly at or slightly below the level of the battle (23)
It is a relatively minor gripe, but I would have rather they just said "go to Drakengard first", instead of giving me the option.
Edit: Also, what kind of units do you put your Warriors in? I have like 3 warriors recruited from the story, and I throw in one on occasion just to use his valor ability to clear out pesky barricades/mines, but otherwise, I have a tough time finding a good synergy for them.
But if you do all of desert first, you get to elfville and are overleveled and not earning exp really, which also feels awful.
I think it'd definitely have been improved by keeping things a bit more guided and on rails.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
One important thing to keep in mind is that sometimes a unit's abilities can work at cross-purposes and you might be better served shutting one off entirely. Swordfighters, for instance, have a Parry and Hastened Strike, but if they use Hastened Strike they might not have the PP to use Parry when they need it. If your Swordfighter is the front, you might want to take Hastened Strike out completely if you want them to put all their PP into staying alive.
If you're not just pairing them with whoever for Rapport, you put them anywhere you have frontliners that can't beat Armored. This is typically Swordfighters, Gladiators, and your Lord for awhile. If your damage is keeping up (ie you don't need Binding Guard because they'll just kill the Hoplite or Fighter), you can also give them Pursuit Bracelets (and Lapis Pendants) and turn off Binding Guard.
After that I did two more level 5 quests:
The walled city had much bigger armorer selection. Extra unique items, and new accessories.
After that I went north and found where to recruit the Mage. This map was a bit of a pain, since there's so many squads of mages, you end up taking tons of chip damage from all the magic assists flying around. It took a while, but I ended up clearing it too.
Now I have a level 5 quest for a Witch and a level 6 quest for another Cavalry on deck. I'm slowly expanding my areas of control. Poor Scarlett is having to wait quite a time for rescue though.
I've only managed to repair about half the towns I've liberated due to lack of materials. I'm not sure of the timing of overworld materials respawning, whether it's in-game timer, day/night cycle, or a certain number of battles. It seems like posted guards collect materials for you, but if you can't post a guard due to lack of materials, how do you get the materials to post guards?
Also question about inventory in shops. Do items ever restock? When they do, do you lose access to items from the initial offering? Do I have a limited amount of time to raise money to buy certain unique items that are available now? Because there's way more stuff to buy than I have money.
E: Also, can Passive Abilities that trigger "at the end of battle" trigger more than once if you have multiple PP remaining? For example, a Housecarl's Parting Blow or a Soldier's First Aid?
I wish to highlight Josef's class passive for being the leader of a squad. If you still aren't using him, that's a mission that really punishes you for it.
Passive abilities at end of battle are once only.
some of the shops have child labor what do you expect!
You get some small bonus stats for being in a unit with your high rapport mates. Each class buffs two different stats. Also conversations (which have all been fairly forgettable so far) that give you some Honors. And you can marry Alain to the waifu of your choice with enough rapport.
This strategy ran into a huge speedbump at rank 6, where there was a griffon rider equipped with an accessory that gave them Quick Dispel and a promoted Arbalist who was immune to Blind and could remove blindness on reaction. Once I had enough renown to make a five-man unit, I added Yahna to the group, gave the horsemen bigger weapons, and set Yahna to distribute Truestrike on reaction. That let the horsemen stun the griffon rider and do just enough damage to knock her out, but it also took a bit of micro-management to make sure that the Sellsword on the opposite end of the formation was stunned so she wasn't curing her blind by triggering Following Slash and then using Bastard Cross on her turn, which would have taken a horse out guaranteed.
I beat Amalia largely by not beating Amalia; I had to set up everyone to respect her immunities, but ultimately was able to deal enough damage to the rest of her formation to beat them.
Therefore, in the first round, Kitra inflicted her with Guard Seal (and died to the counter while Travis evaded it), Travis ate her PP with Passive Steal, and then the backline blew up three out of her four AP. That left her with just one single-target attack, though since it swung twice Travis bit it. Still, that left the horses free to do their thing and however much damage I did was proportionately more than I took. So I got Amalia as I'm starting up Elheim.
You vastly overthought the Amalia fight.
That's really true. My strongest squad beat a level 40 map when they were around 25, so I had to beat the whole rest of the game without using them or it would trivialise everything. And even then, I was beating most end maps with 3/4 of the time left, no items, fighting every enemy and capturing every town. And I felt like I was ignoring a lot of options and mechanics to squeeze more power out of my teams, almost every squad only had 4 people, never used a merc, most units still had a bronze bangle or something because I couldn't be bothered to optimise their gear...
I hope this game was successful enough for a sequel, and I hope that sequel adds a bunch of QOL features to make managing your army quicker, and they ramp the difficulty way up so I need to manage my army properly.
It was only then that I realized, Alain basically just said, "Alright, uh...you! The Witch with future back problems. I'll be hiring you to stand guard at that town forever. What's that? Oh no, we've got the whole battle thing covered. Your job is to fetch wood and shit in the surrounding area. Thanks!'
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
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I hope "shit" in that sentence is a noun, and not a verb.
Careful, not all hire units cost the same, the cheapest are 3 honor and they most expensive I've seen so far 30. And if they are just going to collect wood and use the toilet it pays to shop around for the cheap ones. I make them have all white uniform, like UNPROFOR.
I'm only in the second area yet, so maybe?
Legends of Runeterra: MNCdover #moc
Switch ID: MNC Dover SW-1154-3107-1051
Steam ID
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To guarantee it you need to Guard Seal her first.
I was curious and looked up how many towns there are and how many mercenaries you would need to guard all of them
PSN:Furlion
I cleared it in one shot, I didnt even realize she had a guard chance.
I'm still puttering around the first area, but I found a Main Quest separate from the one that's been in my Quest Log the entire time.
There was a small Liberation quest east of the 1st walled city you liberate:
I had two more side quests available in the first zone to pick from after finishing that stuff:
Imagine my surprise when I'm greeted with I think the largest map I've dealt with to date! Two towns, two (groups of) people to talk to, two magic circles, a temple, a fort, and an enemy base camp. It was quite a bit to get through, but Cain, Clive/Alain and Fran's groups were up to the task. Fran was remarkably effective with her unique axe weapon, mowing down row after row of horses. After finishing it Josef tells me I'm ready to rescue Scarlett, or if I need more time to prepare. I select "save her" and the Demo promptly ends! I used up all my remaining time helping Cain!
Oh well, save, fire up the full version, then transfer all my data over. Berenice is next on the docket.
Use Beckoning Bells to keep thieves from running and to pull archers and mages off towers to stop them from freely reinforcing with greater power.
Ironically this kind of is a game with semi-limited items but you really should use them as necessary, it makes life so much easier.
Also decided to grind out the coliseum a bit. Managed to get all the way to the 2nd rank but lost in the finals. I was only lvl 28 though and I'm sure I could just make a counter team but it ain't that serious and I'll just wait until I level up a bit.
Does anyone know what the hard difficulty does? I wonder if it just bumps up stats, or does it also add extra units/change unit makeups around? I'll probably finish this play through, and then go through the hard mode and try harder to optimize units.
The unit comp that I'm having the most trouble with currently is something like two gladiators up front, and two elven fencers in the back. The ground spike magic attack that they do just rips my units to shreds. Any suggestions on how to deal with that kind of unit?
Also, what is the deal with certain accessories and having no description with them. Like I've run across a few now that I had to look up what they do because they don't have any description in game (rookie egg, golden egg). Seems like a pretty easy thing to catch and fix.
Hmm. The eggs have a description for me on the Switch, so?
Anyways, the thing about Elven Fencers's ground spike is that it has the (ground-based) tag. It can't hit fliers. It's also a column attack and has bonus damage to cavalry, which are things to consider when setting up your matchups. Fencers themselves aren't very tough defensively - they have okay evasion but the AI comps aren't built to maximize it at all. Their debuff clear gives them a free dodge though, so using those can backfire a little.
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy