Beat Loki in < 10 Rounds

[ckdamascus]

Quite doable as a Soothsayer. No loss either and of course, Impossible mode.

Archdemon, Red Dragon, Black Dragon.

The problem isn't surviving, it is dealing enough damage to beat him in 10 rounds! Spell nuking, Ancient Phoenix, Depth of Thought (I never used this scroll before in any KB games and now it was finally useful!), and Fortune Scroll (again, never used it before until now).

Best part was when I won, and after the dialogue I hit F5, crash to desktop before it could save.

I did it again though and was able to save!

[camelotcrusade]

Nice work.

[dainbramage]

As a viking, my standard army worked. Berserkers, warrior maidens, paladins, archmages, horsemen. Killed loki as fast as possible, then left one axethrower stack alive (slow it so it doesn't switch to melee and suicide... had to reset when they did that the first time) and 2 gifts on my paladins let them res everything. Berserkers did most of the damage, and were helped out by mista's special, teleported whenever Loki switched ends, and given the extra turn by paladins whenever possible.

However, I did it at 56 whereas you're only 48. Were you rushing to loki for his rage skill or something?

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by dainbramage

As a viking, my standard army worked. Berserkers, warrior maidens, paladins, archmages, horsemen. Killed loki as fast as possible, then left one axethrower stack alive (slow it so it doesn't switch to melee and suicide... had to reset when they did that the first time) and 2 gifts on my paladins let them res everything. Berserkers did most of the damage, and were helped out by mista's special, teleported whenever Loki switched ends, and given the extra turn by paladins whenever possible.

However, I did it at 56 whereas you're only 48. Were you rushing to loki for his rage skill or something?

Ahhh that army sounds like fun! So, between warrior maidens for MEGA range res, and paladins cleaning up when "call to valhalla" inevitably fails, sounds like you can keep the berserkers numbers very high very easily!

I debated if I should use Gift or Phantom as a Soothsayer. I think Phantom is a "better value" but Gift is more potent if you specifically only need res. I finally have enough crystals to get Gift now. I definitely should experiment with the Rune tree more. I've mostly ignored it with both Viking and Soothsayer playthroughs.

Regarding level rushing, yes. I made the mistake of hitting Rage level 60 before getting Loki's skill with my Viking playthrough. Although right now my rage growth is so slow I'm not sure if I could get to level 60 rage anymore. I probably could if I equip rage items and change my army build a lot.

I think I could have beaten him sooner than level 48, as most of my damage is from the Ancient Phoenix. Maybe a good use of Flaming Eyes would let me achieve the goal at an even lower level.

Maybe that's a worthy cause for a second playthrough. Critical usage of key wanderer scrolls early on. I had my Raven learn nearly every Wanderer scroll but in hindsight maybe I should have saved them and just used them as needed. I'm not sure I have enough extra battles and crystals to use that many scrolls.

Perhaps it is a bit trite, but I hope to get most of the achievements. I'm still mid-way through but the only one I can't get is the "beating Giant spider in 15 turns". Were you able to do that? I'm suspecting the best way for the wizard to do it is with Summon Phoenix before the spider boss.

[dainbramage]

Essentially. First turn is lord of the north and if I'm lucky a followup of whatsername's rage or regina's messenger. That's 75% freeze and 80% burn on the majority of the enemy army, as well as a good 3-4k damage and a bunch of ice shards to slow their melees. Warrior maidens spear of wrath a target that I don't like (like skele archers). Archmages and inquisitors (which I use much more often than horsemen given how many undead enemies there are) also work on high-priority targets. Usually the berserkers wait and paladins give WMs or archmages the extra turn. Then at the end of the turn and start of the next berserkers get two turns which generally corresponds to 2 dead stacks. WMs revive anything that died, paladins and inquisitors can do the same. If there's a truly dangerous stack then paladins get parked in front of it with stoneskin and archmage shield, at which point they're essentially invulnerable (amusingly, 500 demons failed to kill a single paladin with a crit). So far everything's been pretty easy once I got this up and running. Most used spell is probably dispel (lol) for when I don't want my berserkers berserking any more. Actually on second thoughts it's stoneskin, but 95% of the uses are spam to get the medal.

I bumrushed the spider to kill it quickly for the achievement (berserkers and royals can take it down incredibly fast if you're not going for no loss), then reloaded and did it no loss, but no achievement. But I did it in something like 16 turns, you can probably get it down to under 15 without losses. Or you might need a lucky early AK scroll for that. I'm not sure.

As for the bird, the only thing I've had it write for me is AK. Before I found one I had a tactics treatise equipped instead. I've found everything's been pretty trivial once you get to greenwort. The tough battles are the two guys on the first island and the spider, and having wanderer scrolls then is entirely up to luck.

[ckdamascus]

Thanks for the tips! By the way, you do NOT need to equip the Raven to scribe Wanderer Scrolls (unlike Armored Princess).

Cost is 5 crystals per scroll and you can feed it thorns to speed up the scribing. I think it takes about 10 battles (without thorns sprouts).