I haven’t got that far into the game, but I am finding that I often get to the point where I have got the orbs I actually want. This might be just a sign that I have bad synergy between my characters though.
Given an orb can be sold for 100 gold it still seems a huge waste to skip the elites even if you don’t need the orb though.
Yah orbs or money are both incredibly important so…tough to skip a boss I think. I think I’ve maybe sold one orb my entire time playing lol. I never have too many of them, as they really benefit every class so much.
I don’t think you should ever skip an elite. They tend to be easier than many normal fights unless it is a specific elite that hard-counters your team.
Here’s the thing about Ability Orbs and characters - I think one of the reasons I’ve had so much success with Paladin/Warlock/Bloodmage + Assassin + Fiend is that they have a very good Ability Orb synergy. Let me explain.
The Paladin doesn’t need to DPS in this composition, you can end the run with his passive never upgraded just fine. (I’ll add that I have won with him DPSing as well, but he can tank Corruption 1-19 just fine). So this just leaves him needing Red Orbs.
Warlock doesn’t need his passive until the 3rd floor where you get Fiend. Even then, I’d say one more item upgrade is often more beneficial. His active ability needs to be the first one you level so his heal always hits both the Paladin and Bloodmage.
Like how Warlock desperately needs 1 level in his active ability, Bloodmage needs to level his passive right away to have any value. In this composition his Active is situationally worth upgrading. It is a nice DPS increase.
Assassin just needs passive upgrades as his Active is merely a very meh DPS increase, and Fiend needs none at all to do what he needs to do. So this composition really lets you have a lot of upgraded items for the final battle since you can safely sell some orbs without losing anything.
Heroes like Berserker who basically need all 4 ability upgrades to function lose a lot of points in my book for this reason.
I’ve done it 2-3 times, one purposefully to unlock a character. Until the recent update, it was possible to get a slew of orbs the same color.
Agreed, though I think berserker is usually fine with just the passive. Usually I have his attack speed so low, the special doesn’t contribute that much.
But yeah, when I’m planning a starting group, I like to have one character where the passive is a priority and one where the active is
I run the same thing except I have Frost mage instead of bloodmage. Enemy casters are usually what bakes me, so I like the AOE slow. I approach their orbs the same way you do, but I usually have just enough or so.
As far as Assassin goes, there are a lot of ways to build it…you can actually get that active power to be fairly insane with the right weapons/setup. I usually go for a hyper fast auto attacker with multiple AOE weapons. Assassin at max speed, with God (hammer) and a Calamity both maxed out is all kinds of fun.
For Fiend, I think it’s actually really important to get him both blues, as it cuts his respawn time almost in half. The juggle between Fiend and Pali, is pretty much the whole ballgame for me, it’s what gives my DPS time to kill stuff.
Really just depends on how the run is going. But in most situations I prefer the two-ish item upgrades to 5 seconds off his respawn time. Mostly just need him to buy enough time for the team to get rolling and the Pally to be invincible. But I’ve had a number of runs mostly with that legendary armor that sets the defense/hp at a static number and is really quite good when upgraded and then something like the helmet that gives shields every 5 seconds.
But it’s all very situational. What I enjoy about the Fiend is that he can die without consequence (and actually buffs the warlock when he does) and that he doesnt need orbs to be good at his job.
The best thing about the Frost Mage is he doesn’t really need any special items to be good. Starting mana and attack speed more than anything is probably helpful, but you can put utility stuff on him. I’ve had a lot of success with him as well, even since his slight nerf.
With the latest update changing up Frost (and Frostmancer) a whole bunch I ran a party with him this morning. I just finished a Corruption 10 run after seeing the class updates and had a good time with him.
My set up was:
Druid (Main Tank and heals)
Berzerker (Main DPS)
Frostmancer (Support)
+Bard (back row for heals)
+Fiend (pre-tank and item holder)
It seemed to me that one of the benefits of having 10 stacks of Frost and a 100% passive attack application rate by Frostmancer is that it muddies up enemy attempts to negate particularly deadly debuffs or DOTs.
Does the warlock passive get buffed every time the fiend dies?
It does the first time, not sure after that. I don’t ever remember seeing the message past the first death.
There was a note on the Steam forums by the designer that it only buffs the first time.
There are just a few heroes I don’t really “get”. Brawler, Illusionist and Gladiator in particular all seem especially mediocre. I also have trouble getting mileage out of Pyromancer though I’ve won with him. I think the thing these heroes have in common is a lack of any healing or CC.
And just as I say that I beat Corruption 20 with a Pyromancer. I’ll spoiler it just because the victory screen does make it painfully obvious what the horrific Corruption 20 penalty is and I was startled to discover it myself, but if you don’t care I thought I’d share my achievement somewhere.
Congrats! And the corruption 20 penalty was mentioned upthread as well
Oh OK, I only read upthread enough to know that the game sounded cool. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to know too much before I experience it.
Yah God Breaker with maxed out haste trinket is win. Congrats, I’m just taking this on this morning!
Beat corruption 20, yay. I came late to the party on the Druid, but it’s actually really good. I used Druid, Warlock, Assassin, Frost Mage. Got decent items on my druid, and the rest was actually pretty easy. Started with Druid/Assassin, then added Warlock, and lastly Mage. Was a really smooth curve, and didn’t really have any problems at any point.
Now I need to play more of those characters I never touch and figure out how to use them lol.
Yea Druid is the best tank. It took me till Corruption 20 to realize it as well. Congrats on Corruption 20!
I was just doing a Corruption 0 run to decompress and mess around with some characters I hadn’t used much, in this case the Bard. This was a crazy run with basically perfect items for the Druid/Pyro/Bard, average items on the Bloodmage and items so terrible on the Fiend that he might as well have been equipped with nothing. But I love the Fiend cause you can invest nothing in him and he’s still useful.
The last boss is supposed to pop off his special every 10% HP he lost but he only got to go off three times cause the hits were so brutal from the Pyro.
I was definitely sleeping on the front row Bard.
Fiend is incredibly useful, especially with that 6.5 second immunity armor on him. It gives your party a ton of time to DPS before your “real” tank takes over, and it’s fantastic that his death doesn’t count towards moral loss AND he buffs you warlock if you have one. He also gives your Druid time to get his shield going etc if you go that route.
I’m also doing some lower corruption runs, to try and experiment with different characters. I have such a hard time getting away from warlock and assassin especially lol.
Welp, after much goofing around, and 50some hours, this is my final all star lineup.
I did corruption 19 because I wanted a 5 party, ended up with 25 flawless victories, and only 2 defeats. This team is pretty bulletproof. Silence and slow against casters is very very handy.
Just finished a Corruption 11 run (Nuclear Pyro DPS) after being away from the game for 3 or 4 days. I didn’t actually expect to win because I started an existing run from 4 days ago and was half ready to just quit and start over fresh, since I couldn’t remember what my plan was for the party. Well, I took a half-assed glance at my gear and just went ahead anyway.
I don’t have a go-to party setup, as I like to mix it up as much as possible every single run, but because healing has always been such a freaking staple for my party I’m finding myself rather partial to a fully upgraded Cleric. As I mentioned in my last post, Druid is also a great tank, so I’ll utilize that a bunch too, especially if I put Fiend in my party. if I don’t have Fiend I’ll use paladin as primary tank and Druid as off-tank.
I also try to get and max out as much negate gear as I can. It doesn’t help much with alpha strike stuff but it throttles DOTs, much to my satisfaction.
On my last run I had 2 fully upgraded Stun hammers on my Assassin and that was quite effective for the run.
Just did a purist run for the achieve (don’t upgrade any abilities), also didn’t use any potions, and did the run under 30 minutes. The no upgrade abilities thing has really changed my thinking on how to approach this game. In many cases, that huge extra cash, and upgrading your items, has much more of an effect on the game if you just build everything for auto attack.
You guys are badasses.
I have found it so far to approach team comps like in DotA or LoL. You got your tanks, your supports, and your carries. If something doesn’t slot in some multiplicative manner in one of those roles, it’s disposable and/or skippable.
