Here Comes the Flood on Heroic/Legendary?

[Thyraxus]

How the hell are you supposed to win this scenario on heroic/legendary if the villain eats up to half a location deck per turn, other than trying over and over (and over and over and over ancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverancoverAAAAAARGGGGGH) until you just're just plain dumb lucky enough to have most of the allies near the tops of the location decks and the villain not rolling a 5 or 6 every turn?

 

I hate this scenario already on normal difficulty. On the higher difficulties, it's pure insanity.

[Celedhring]

Deploy your character on locations with high Ally counts, be extremely aggressive when exploring. Hold absolutely nothing back. Try to clear fast locations like the Academy or the General Store as a priority, too. The Black Maga can still attack empty locations and lose a turn.

 

I never have much trouble with it, honestly. The key is being really aggressive when exploring, burn everything that gives you extra explores in a turn.

[Ethics Gradient]

How the hell are you supposed to win this scenario on heroic/legendary if the villain eats up to half a location deck per turn, 

Don't close locations.  Black Magga may still pick open location decks even if they are empty.  

 

The more locations you close, the better the odds you're just going to direct him towards where you're scrambling to acquire allies.

 

Edit: Also, make the Village House priority #1.  It has the best odds of encountering an Ally, and it has the "recharge a card to acquire an ally" power.  Use as many blessings and allies/spells as you can to mine it out before focusing on other locations.  Try to get as many explores in as possible every turn.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Ethics Gradient

[Hannibal_PJV]

I Also have found this one of the easiest in the legendary... ofcourse you need some serious charisma power in here!

[Valaria]

I'm one inch from uninstalling the game. There's only so much RNG I can deal with. Been trying all day to clear it on normal. 

I restart whenever Magga gets 3 or 4 cards on the first turn, and also restart when I'm not beating him at the end of turn 1, because by turn 2 I will be at a huge disadvantage already.

I hardly get past turn 2 as it is, but a couple turns into the scenario he's already at 5+ cards and I'm nowhere near. I usually spend my blessings acquiring the few allies I do find because not every party member has the required skill. I roll with Valeros, Seoni and Kyra. So far the game has been extremely enjoyable. A couple hard levels but nothing I couldn't beat after a couple tries, but this is too much.

Any advice other than what's been said here?

[Ethics Gradient]

... a couple turns into the scenario he's already at 5+ cards and I'm nowhere near. 

...

Any advice other than what's been said here?

This is the first of the scenarios where the game mechanics get a little... different.  

 

Before you get too frustrated, let's check to make sure you've got the basics down.

 

1.  This is a battle of who can capture the most Allies in the scenario.  You or Black Magga.

2.  Every turn, Black Magga scoops up a random number of random cards from a random open location.

3.  The number you see in the scoreboard is the total number of cards Black Magga captured, not the number of allies he ate.

4.  Your number on the scoreboard is the number of Allies you've found.

5.  Once the blessing deck runs out or all the location cards are gone, the scenario ends.

6.  Only after the scenario is over do you sort through Black Magga's cards and count the Allies.

7.  Whoever has the most allies wins. 

 

The "scoreboard" thing can be confusing and disheartening.  Black Magga's number will probably always be higher that yours, even if you might actually be winning because you've found more Allies.  

 

Press hard on the Village House, and use every blessing and Ally at your disposal to focus on getting those extra explores in.  Don't close locations if you get the opportunity to do so; just move on to another one if it runs empty.  Those are the key strategies for the scenario.

Edited November 11, 2016 by Ethics Gradient

[Slide87]

yeah guys the secret is not play to win the 'classic' scenario,just to set up the right party: lot of explore cards(allies,spells,blessings),charisma power(quoting Hannibal),so lem etc etc,and obviously...luck!don't try to close locations,Black Magga eat cards anyway,playthroughs in this scenario must be quick,aggressive...

[Thyraxus]

I already tried all the things suggested here, but I have notoriously bad luck in games involving chance. Seriously, just ask my tabletop RPG group, my ability to roll critical failures on checks that really matter (and roll high only on checks that are mostly irrelevant) is legendary.

 

My last attempt of HCTF with Lem and Seoni (I figured, they're both diplomacy monsters and have plenty of blessings and allies for getting lots of explorations, so they're the most likely to succeed) looked like this: in the first 4 rounds, Magga ate 6-5-6-4 cards from various location decks, and I kept running into lots of junk but only a single ally the entire time (yes, I focussed on the village house first, that's an obvious choice). By the time I was done mopping up the meager remains Magga had left for me, I had encountered a whopping 2 allies in total. Argh.

 

In all of the other scenarios I can at least compensate for bad luck with the right strategy. But in this scenario, you're more at the mercy of the RNG than in any other.

[nsr]

I've never tried it, but how about using Revelation Quill, Augury, Scrying to move allies to the top?

[seamus]

I've never tried it, but how about using Revelation Quill, Augury, Scrying to move allies to the top?

In my opinon moving allies to the top is not very useful, as if you can find them with Augury you were probably going to get them anyway. Moving monsters to the bottom of the deck seems more useful though, as you both avoid having to encounter them yourself and gain a small buffer of cards you're happy for Black Magga to eat. Other effects that let you put cards to the bottom of the location deck are also good for this (web, paralyse, Seelah, etc).

[Thyraxus]

Seelah's Crusade ability in this scenario is actually kind of detrimental unless  you already know exactly which card is going to come up next (perhaps through a spyglass or tag-teaming with Harsk) because you don't want to send an ally to the bottom by accident, ready to be the next snack for Magga . And at the speed you have to rip through the decks to keep up with Magga, I don't think you'll be able to set up that kind of situation very often.

Edited November 17, 2016 by Thyraxus

[seamus]

Seelah's Crusade ability in this scenario is actually kind of detrimental unless  you already know exactly which card is going to come up next (perhaps through a spyglass or tag-teaming with Harsk) because you don't want to send an ally to the bottom by accident, ready to be the next snack for Magga . And at the speed you have to rip through the decks to keep up with Magga, I don't think you'll be able to set up that kind of situation very often.

It can be risky, and I wouldn't use it at the start of the scenario, but it is useful when you've already cleared the most ally-heavy decks and are trying to run through the last 2 or 3 locations.

[Acroyear16]

Seems to me that the Magga ALWAYS attacks where I have my heroes, so I start them all at the same location, with the least amount of Allies, but adjacent to the Village House so that my first turn I can move to the Village House and get in a bunch of explores.

 

Regardless of your character or Charisma/Diplomacy, you can hope to score some Allies here, you just need the explorations and cards to recharge if you lack proper stats or skills.

 

Now, I have seen many threads on here about "who does what better than whom" and so on, but we have to take into account that luck also plays a part!

 

(As for me, Seoni is THE character I was meant to play in this game, and it seems that no matter what, I can succeed with her, and I go through/close locations FAST.)

 

Like Ethics pointed out, this counts allies you have vs. what the Magga eats.

 

What I didn't notice anyone pointing out is that GETTING TO the Allies is as important as acquiring them.

Need a Survival skill to get an animal? It doesn't matter that you didn't acquire the Snake - what matters is that's ONE LESS the Magga can eat!

In essence, even failing to acquire them is beneficial.

[Chris_R]

Gave this a go yesterday, playing hyper-aggressively. Took 2 goes for Heroic and 1 - count 'em! - for Legendary. The trick was, of course, to throw caution completely to the wind. Only use blessings to explore or to ensure you get Allies, and when you have them, use them. Don't be afraid to lose combat (except to the Nightbelly Boas).

 

Don't close locations. It's pointless. The adventure ends when there are no cards left anyway. The only useful things in your hand are things that help you get allies and things that help you explore. Everything else is discard fodder. You need 8 allies at least. That's your target.

 

It's a mindset change, but eminently doable.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Chris_R

[Thyraxus]

I finally completed Legendary, but I had to retry 6 or 7 times, because I kept getting nice wildcards like "When you acquire an ally, end your turn" which pretty much makes this scenario unwinnable no matter what you do.

[Chris_R]

I finally completed Legendary, but I had to retry 6 or 7 times, because I kept getting nice wildcards like "When you acquire an ally, end your turn" which pretty much makes this scenario unwinnable no matter what you do.

 

That one is a proper pain for 'Flood'.

 

Currently trying my 8th attempt at Legendary Into The Mountains, for the record. This is one tough scenario - and I'm using a party of Kyra, Ezren, Meri and Val (stick with the classic) who have completed all current adventures!

[Darkren]

Solo with the paladin, or go two chars with augury that can recharge fast. For example, ezren can draw a card when you cast a spell, and can recharge most spells.

Paladin does have the drawback of burying allies if you aren't careful unless you have the right trait, but also has the ability to add dice to almost anything for free.(mostly for free)

Beyond that, very aggressive with spending blessings to draw cards.

With this one, even the best set up might fail. Just how it goes.

Also, count the amount of allies you get! Usually only about 2 per location, and you only need over 50% for win. So, you get 2 allies from a location, move on.

Less characters typically better here, since it cuts it down to three locations at 1. That means you need about 4 allies and it's done.

2 chars means you need 5.

6 chars means you need to get 9.

Edited November 24, 2016 by Darkren

[Foxoftheasterisk]

Yeah, the key is to be very aggressive. Don't JUST use all your blessings and allies to explore; use the end of turn optional discards to make sure your next hand is full of them too. (If you didn't know, you can do it every turn by clicking the trash can in the phases list instead of the big end of turn button to end your turn.) Recharge your armor, discard everything else except your one weapon. There's no especially tough combat in this scenario and it doesn't last long enough that you're likely to die.

 

There's still some random chance involved but if you're aggressive enough you can probably get there in a couple tries.

 

(Also, this scenario doesn't get harder with more characters like most - it might actually get easier.)

[Darkren]

It gets harder with more locations.

[Foxoftheasterisk]

...Nnnnnnot... Really? There's more exploring to do but you also have more explore power, and Magga still only hits once per character turn. Most of the locations that are added are lower value than the first ones though so there's less chance of Magga hitting the high value ones before you can clear them out. And later on in the scenario there's more chance that Magga will whiff by hitting empty locations. Plus, the ratio of locations to characters is lower, so you're less likely to run out of explore power in your deck.

 

It gets harder if your characters are stuck in empty locations on legendary but otherwise I think it's at worst the same difficulty.

[Darkren]

Definitely harder with more locations. My best run on flood are two characters that can dig through decks fast and hit their checks.

 

Double up. With 4 locations, you need 5 allies to win.

 

With 8 locations, you need 9.

 

Selah and lini. They hit almost any check. Lini gets augury. Obviously, you can't use Selahs crusade.

But her blessing should recharge by that point.

 

Much faster too... if you get screwed by maga rng, which can happen the same with 8 locations, much better to have less prep time.

 

Search a location until you get two allies from it, and move on. Should have 4 allies by the time your second characters first turn ends.

 

I am talking legendary. Much much easier at lower difficulties. But still easier with less locations.

Edited December 11, 2016 by Darkren

[Strategy Builder]

I found the scenario to be an easy win on legendary. However, my deck is designed for fast exploration, and it makes almost anything an easy win. Four characters. If your characters explore quickly, and use things like scrying and the feather and spyglasses, then there is nothing challenging about the scenario. First-try win even with a large party. Depending on your party build, the math could go either way on what is easiest. More characters means you are able to sift whole locations uninterrupted, and good planning means you'll never run dry even as the villain is wasting turns. That said, I was mad that the villain only wasted 2 turns the whole time... yet I won handily on my first try. Didn't see that coming honestly.

 

Edit: it should be noted that there are 3-4 allies in each location, not 2, so the math being given here is not really accurate.

Edited December 14, 2016 by Strategy Builder

[Darkren]

Yeah, if you're built for explore, and your chars can solo encounters without blessings or help, go 4.  But you have to go fast, exactly like you said.

 

At 3 locations, there is a 33% chance that a location will be hit.

 

At 4 locations, there is a 24% chance a location will be hit.

 

at 8 locations, 12.5%

 

Where I am going with that is that, with more locations, there is a smaller chance a location will be hit twice, and at less locations, there is a higher chance a location will be hit twice.  

Add in that you still have to get more allies with 8 locations.

Add in that you might have characters that can't get past barriers and get stuck. 

Add in that, if you don't have blessings, you have to get someone that can help to move from one location to another until they get to the right spot (something you only have to worry about on legendary.)

 

Don't get me wrong, rnGesus still owns your success in the end here.  

 

But, with one or two VERY capable characters busting out explores, the math is in your favor.  

 

Another factor that can make this easier is to wait to play this on legendary until you beat adventure deck 5, then go back and do this on legendary.

 

The skill/power/ equipment boost is pretty significant.