Increased Scaling Mhar Massif difficulty

[wookee_time]

So on Normal difficulty I cleared this a few days ago with 4 new (not perfectly equipped) characters and it was challenging but not impossible.  Today, I try with another set of 4 new characters and am destroyed.  Each of the four locations now has

 

4 - Monsters

3 - Barriers

1 - Ally

1 - Blessing

1 - Henchman Leng Spider

 

IIR, this is a big change from what it was a few days ago.

 

That combined with the standard 1's and 2's count as 0 and I have been crushed on four straight attempts.  I'm actually considering giving up or just having to grind/farm until I have ultimate enough items to try and beat it.  

 

The four characters I have are Valeros, Lini, Ezren and Harsk.  

[Jenceslav]

So on Normal difficulty I cleared this a few days ago with 4 new (not perfectly equipped) characters and it was challenging but not impossible.  Today, I try with another set of 4 new characters and am destroyed.  Each of the four locations now has

 

4 - Monsters

3 - Barriers

1 - Ally

1 - Blessing

1 - Henchman Leng Spider

 

IIR, this is a big change from what it was a few days ago.

 

That combined with the standard 1's and 2's count as 0 and I have been crushed on four straight attempts.  I'm actually considering giving up or just having to grind/farm until I have ultimate enough items to try and beat it.  

 

The four characters I have are Valeros, Lini, Ezren and Harsk.  

When I remember this scenario, I always shudder with disgust. There is no problem in the location card composition in the app - it was the same all the time and did not change at all. It is even precisely the same as in the card version. The problem is that the difficulty of the 6th adventure skyrockets from the hard, but doable 5th adventure. So there should be no difference between two plays (unless you played at Heroic for the second time) - if you won for the first time and horribly failed for the second time, you had probably been extremely lucky the first time

If I remember correctly, I maybe successfully completed this adventure with a very well-equipped and skilled party of 4 (Merisiel, Kyra, Ezren, Seoni) at Normal difficulty. But on Heroic or Legendary difficulties that unlocked after that, I had to use only a pair of heroes, otherwise they will be dead long before all the locations could be possibly closed. I cannot imagine any group of 6 unless each has an item allowing to succeed in a closing skill check (of the Amulet of Fortitude or potion type).

And adventures 6-5 and 6-6 were even worse, on Heroic and Legendary I needed not only two heroes max, but also the proper heroes and insane amount of luck, partly due to many bugs in the Most High Ceoptra and Karzoug Villains.

[aznxknight]

I always tell people this: If anything, lower the amount of characters in your party. Seeing as you are playing on normal, you get absolutely no gold either way if you completed it with a 6 party member as opposed to 1 party member.

Also, this scenario is special, you only get locations = to the amount of characters in the party. This pretty much means if you only bring 1 at a time you only need to close 1 and you're done. The beauty part of this is that you skip all the hard BS like increased difficulty for each death zone closed.

 

For heroic and legendary, it really feels like you need to prepare for this. A little bit of "grinding" is necessary but all you're really looking for here is a few ally cards: Mountaineers and Clockwork Owls. These are godsends for this scenario because the Clockwork Owls can be used to AUTO WIN a survival check, which in other words means instant location close. The mountaineers can be used on ANY survival check and all you need to do is REVEAL them, not discard, not recharge, just reveal them on any survival check, which means you can play this card on other character's checks, and add a solid 2d8 for that check. That way you can focus all your cards on mainly combat against those nasty spiders and other banes and what not.

 

I feel this scenario is indeed one of the harder ones, if not hardest, that the game has to offer. The other hard one would have to go to AD5.4 with requiring the cornering of 3 villains.

Edited August 4, 2017 by aznxknight

[Jenceslav]

 

For heroic and legendary, it really feels like you need to prepare for this. A little bit of "grinding" is necessary but all you're really looking for here is a few ally cards: Mountaineers and Clockwork Owls. These are godsends for this scenario because the Clockwork Owls can be used to AUTO WIN a survival check, which in other words means instant location close. The mountaineers can be used on ANY survival check and all you need to do is REVEAL them, not discard, not recharge, just reveal them on any survival check, which means you can play this card on other character's checks, and add a solid 2d8 for that check. That way you can focus all your cards on mainly combat against those nasty spiders and other banes and what not.

 

I feel this scenario is indeed one of the harder ones, if not hardest, that the game has to offer. The other hard one would have to go to AD5.4 with requiring the cornering of 3 villains.

 

In my first play, I had not opened any treasure chests, so no Clockwork Owls in my Collection But yes, Mountaineer is one of the best allies in the game as it provides a very strong bonus to any Survival check - this ally is one of the most stalwart companions of my fully-evolved-Charisma Seoni. The only Allies that she cannot easily get through Diplomacy are animals for Wisdom/Survival check. It is one of the cards that I consider as "If you obtain it, do not throw it away - ever!". Wand of Enervation, Fire Shield (or Reflecting Shiled), Sihedron ring and Blessing of Lamashtu are similarly essential cards.

I would rank the difficulty of the scenarios as  6-5 (insane) >> 6-4 (especially the crazy Leng Device location!) > 5-4 (three Villains, ever-increasing difficulty in Heroic & Legendary) ~ 6-3 (see above) >> any other 5 or 6 scenario that is merely "very hard"

(>> = much greater than)

Edited August 6, 2017 by Jenceslav

[aznxknight]

I don't know how or why 6.5 is hard, even on legendary. All you really need to do is take it slow, search for that damage reducer for each of your characters in your party and THEN go all out. You definitely need spy glasses and auguries to send the last boss to the bottom, but other than that, you take it slow. There is no blessing deck. Sometimes i just end turns without doing anything, it's better than to risk it and take a total of somewhere up to 6 damage on the whole party when you can easily prevent all this by using something as simple as a ring of protection.

Edited August 6, 2017 by aznxknight

[Jenceslav]

I don't know how or why 6.5 is hard, even on legendary. All you really need to do is take it slow, search for that damage reducer for each of your characters in your party and THEN go all out. You definitely need spy glasses and auguries to send the last boss to the bottom, but other than that, you take it slow. There is no blessing deck. Sometimes i just end turns without doing anything, it's better than to risk it and take a total of somewhere up to 6 damage on the whole party when you can easily prevent all this by using something as simple as a ring of protection.

 

Yes, it may be I was just using wrong characters / too little searching. Magic spyglass and Revelation Quill helped in some cases, but not much. I had Seoni with 100% offensive spells (Desintegration, Poison Blast, Sign of Wrath) and no searching. Ezren had mostly attack-, but also some support-spells including 1 Scrying & Augury among his full complement of spell cards. Kyra was rather useless for fight or scrying (Holy Light & Swipe & Cures - not enough against the henchmen) and Merisiel had good ranged weapons (and all her powers were virtually nullified - no chance evading Karzoug, everyone is in the same location).

Overall, only Seoni and Merisiel (somewhat) were suitable for 6-5 - and I tried it in all combinations for countless times. When at last there was only Karzoug, then usually some bug ocurred. I had to level up a second party with Lini, Valeros, Amiri and Ezren the Second up to 6th adventure. And then, combination of Valeros & Seoni was (after several bug- or bad-luck-ridden tries) able to defeat that adventure on Heroic & Legendary.

 

I do not "rush" with exploration, but the "no blessings deck" is not such a big advantage when you have to bury 1 card every turn. You cannot even use cure to last longer. Maybe I didn't have optimal decks as I did not grind at all - I've just done 1 adventure, then the previous adventure on Heroic, then on Legendary. Overall, I would still put the 6-5 as the most difficult scenario in the game (as expected from the epic fight against the supervillain).