Trials of the wrath and protectorate with sample BGs on legendary

[Mnrogar]

As the title says I've been playing the trials of the wrath and protectorate witht he sample BGs. I got as far as having only FW to beat on hard before the BGs changed, which I never quite managed. With the old BGs I used SP for everything (love the bat swarm) but the ST fight for which I used ST, annoying when you hit ice eaters but manageable.

I beat everything on hard with the new sample BGs, FW makes everything very easy. Still used ST for ST though as Frost Bite, Artic Wail and the whole snow hinderance is quite a pain otherwise.

Now I'm stuck on ST legendary, even the new and improved ST BG is failing me. I got as far as having only the avatar and 2 other champs remaining but the lack of non ice attacks prevented me from finishing them and everything else I had was on cool down. I can't seem to duplicate that feat anymore, maybe I'm just getting annoyed and careless, so much relies on your draw and what I would call AI unpredictability.

Using ST seems to work best, SP isn't too bad but the lack of healing takes it's toll, not to mention that relocate seems pretty useless when waiting for the enemy to come to you. UD isn't as good as it could seem given the lack of range and ice shard which reduces fire damage. Other factions don't seem to work as well as ST.

Gale Force is a great help but the damn computer champions are hard to predict and often are far enough apart that its hard to catch a bunch of them together and make them "bump" into each other to pile up damage. The main pain is the Ice Golem that keeps being deployed either at the font or at the shrine, followed up by the Frost Giant, very hard to get rid of them before the shardmaster, shaman and frostbow start piling the damage from behind them... especially when they get shielded.

I'll go into SP on legendary some other time, damn strenght in numbers... *shudders*

So, anybody has experiences and tactics to share? Anybody beat anything on legendary with sample BGs?

PS: Is it just me or does the Frost Giant not always get deployed?

[andydoan02]

I can help but don't know how and the giant always come out after the ice golem.

[Mnrogar]

Ok, how about you start with did you beat it on legendary? If so with what faction? What did you deploy first?

[Bleakheart]

The Frost Giant randomly doesn't deploy for me. The ice Golem always is a coin toss, either you have time or you don't :-P

Does ST ever shrine rush you? They always like to ignore my units and attack my shrine (1-2 per ranged unit) which I've lost to in my carelessness, lol, just wondering if that has happened to anyone else.

[Mnrogar]

Sometimes they do but just when I put my shrine between me and the bot's champions, or when a jakeishardmaster has nobody she can hit but my ice golem, for example.

[rodar]

I've beaten all legendary trials except FW with sample decks. Mostly it's just using the FS one, drawing the mandrake early enough and then pretty much surviving untill it's damage starts racking up, then clean the place up.

[Mnrogar]

Oh, good idea! I can never stand FS, so I barely tried playing with it at all, maybe this will give me a new appreciation for it! Thanks, I'll definitely go and try it.:)

[Mnrogar]

Any tips on using FS? I'm having an extremely hard time surviving past the Jakei shardmaster, frostbow, shaman ouslaught much less until the mandrake's damage starts being substantial. If I use the mandrake early to attack, its range is low enough that she gets killed pretty quick so I have to keep it back and that means one less attacking unit to get me through everything else.

I can time some Backfires to help me out, but shoul I concentrate on champs instead? Dreadeye symbiote seems useless. Monsoon/feeding frenzy helps a bit but not that much, especially if the fish are not placed well. The bot's damage output is high enough for mass heal to be near useless.

[Honosbinda]

The main pain is the Ice Golem that keeps being deployed either at the font or at the shrine, followed up by the Frost Giant, very hard to get rid of them before the shardmaster, shaman and frostbow start piling the damage from behind them... especially when they get shielded.



Hello, I am this thread with interest; I am new here to Poxnora. I am trying to beat the ST just on normal in the trials of the protectorate series. I keep running into this golem/frost giant problem as well. A couple of questions, please?

1. After I take the southwestern font, do i defend it, or just fall back on the shrine? I saw someone recommend not defending the fonts because AI doesn't go after them, and someone else said just defend in front of the shrine. I get creamed with this strategy, I always seem to do better fighting in front of the font. Even then i still lose.

2. Any more specific recommendations? Your comments are great and are very general. There is something i am not understanding here obviously, and it's annoying me, I want to beat these damm bots ;)

Thanks for responding -- M

[Mnrogar]

Like people have said just fall back to the shrine. It took me forever to beat it on normal the first time and I was only able to do it while using savage tundra so I recommend you use that BG.

Ice golem is resistant to physical but that's the only choice you have since the rest of your arsenal consists of ice attacks which he absorbs. It also depends on how lucky you get with your reveals. Basically you need to have an Ice golem of your own to go head to head with his while you get lucky enough to have frostbows and shamans hitting him from behind. You can use Arctic wail to weaken the defenses of his golem but realize that it will weaken yours as well so if you use it save it for a turn where your guys can attack twice. Ice Golem also gets 2 hp healed per turn while occupying snow or ice so try to wait for him with your ice golem on a spot where his will be sitting on rock. Easy enough as he always goes straight for your golem if its ahead. His golem has to be deployed at the font though.

His ice golem will explode in a death nova so have only your golem around so it will get healed by it. After that take out your jakei shardmasters if you don't have one out already and wail on whatever he throws at you. Basically its keeping ahead of what he sends your way by consistently ganging up on one of his champs at a time and therefore not losing yours, the way that campaign plays out with savage tundra, whatever champs you loose chances are you won't have time to take out again.

Gale force helps tremendously as well, see the knockback guide here to pile up damage properly:

http://forums.poxnora.com/showthread.php?t=351

Don't forget that power store from the nora beast is useless while the freeze is in effect.. if its even there at normal.

Good luck.

[Honosbinda]

Mnrogar,

Thanks a lot for the specific tips, especially how to handle the golem. In fact the games I did well in, I did match the golem with my golem. I had already figured out to use ST bg after the first time I tried it – actually I made a custom ST battle group to knock off this opponent, but haven’t tried working with gale force or arctic wall. I think your tips will make the difference, because now I have a specific strategy to proceed with. Much obliged. Also, thanks for the helpful link to the knockback guide. - M

[Mnrogar]

Well if you're making a custom BG that's not really what we're talking about here. If you make a custom you can put what ever you want, I would then recommend something that attacks with Fire and such...

[Honosbinda]

hey,

yeah i know, but your tips helped, and even if a custom bg i used mostly ST types 16/4 with a Fireblast spell, a nora mine and a couple of IS hammerstrikes. I added gail force per your suggestion, and i did win thanks to your tips. Though Snow blind annoyed me a couple of times. I wound up with three champions on the field and about 300 nora in the kitty. I also got lucky because for the first time, the frost giant was a no-show. Not an elegant victory but I'll take the first any way i can get it.

Now, i've tried to tackle the K-forest people in stage 2, and lost the first time -- of course -- using a custom ironfist 20/0. i know we are getting off topic, but if you have any tips for beating K-forest I would be interested to hear. Although having won one now, I think that makes it easier to achieve other campaign scenarios, it's always that first victory that is the toughest in these new gaming situations. So thanks again for the help. M

[oldane1]

i manigid both trills useing sample bgs but for st i used ironfist and buffed the crap
out of a barbarin comander with to battle mattrons

[DasMuffin]

If you're stuck with sample BGs, trying FS in order to use Mandrake is always worth a shot. I have a beautiful FF ST deck, but for singleplayer I generally use a 10/circus deck with my best ST champs, 2 mandrakes, 2 draksar spellswords, and 2 Firk Spellblasters. The enemy casts a spell every turn, I believe, so if you keep your spellswallower(s) alive it gets ridiculous quickly. Tough to do with FW's global healing debuff, though...

edit: it's also great fun to line up Reckless Blast from a firk to hit a spellsword with the backlash damage... which heals him, lol.

[DasMuffin]

I'll go into SP on legendary some other time, damn strenght in numbers... *shudders*
I wonder if it's possible to build a deck wherein the player actually gets the strength in numbers benefits instead of the AI. Probably impossible, since the AI cheats, but a fun idea...

[Mnrogar]

I wonder if it's possible to build a deck wherein the player actually gets the strength in numbers benefits instead of the AI. Probably impossible, since the AI cheats, but a fun idea...

I've gotten the bonus before ussing the sample SP BG (the old one I think...) must have been on normal or something though.

About ST on legendary, like I said earlier, tried the mandrake but could never keep her alive long enough. The FS sample is not good enough.

[awayaway]

I'm really glad someone else is proving the power of the sample BGs :D
On the new campaigns (wherein one can, and should, shrine rush) the SP sample BG is phenomenal.

[LordPetrov]

I wonder if it's possible to build a deck wherein the player actually gets the strength in numbers benefits instead of the AI. Probably impossible, since the AI cheats, but a fun idea...

Since Strength in Numbers is a targeted spell, you can use FW's Absorb magic to steal the bonus for yourself. FW makes the Legendary SP map pretty easy once you get out a tomb and fester. I'm having a lot of trouble with Sundered Lands on Legendary.