Monster train

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Killed the titans for the first time today, after 50 hours I finally got the Dante event, lol... had him also applying 20 corruption on hit.

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velk

Trakanon Raider
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Slowly working through the various cov10+titan combos, found a few fun things:
- Crushing Demise is way better than I gave it credit for - I thought it meant 'sacrifice a random friendly unit to kill a random enemy unit', but it's actually literally 'Kill random friendly. Kill random enemy', so if you have any empty floors you can just arbitrarily kill enemies for 1 mana - literal lifesaver for the 500hp birds and +150hp on ascend challenge. Get it, holdover it, love it ;p
- Madam Lionsmane looked kind of weak compared to Bolete, but add some dualism morel mistresses, and the amount of damage she can pump out is amazing. Also being able to 'nope!' the incanters at will is great. ( Why she gets 1 turn CD and Fenix gets 3 I don't know ).
- Exploding Orechi is pretty funny, although not as reliable as I'd like without underlegion secondary. Add tome of horrors for complete hilarity
- Sigiled Seaweed is my favorite relic, it's like a free deployable zone of silence but you can also use another room. Like a grow room, and then it's TWO zones of silence ;p Best thing about the stygian guard imo.
- Shardtail Queen + underlegion is pretty hilarious, but afaik there's no way to give her trample with that combo so you often end up slapping some random enemy for 6k while the boss laughs at you.
- Hornbreaker Prince I just can't get to work on cov10 - the idea of buffing him to the moon with savagery seems solid, but he is just so weak to start with that getting the slays while keeping him alive seems impractical. He can get carried by lazarus equipment, but really, so can anything else, so that's not saying much.
 
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Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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yeah, overall balance is interesting. as its not just the Hero. its the Hero, their starting cards, and overall race/cards.
there is no rng on starting cards.

Like, Stygian guard, tethys himself is amazing. super powerful hero.... but, frozen lance blows. his starting cards are garbage. (1 mana, deal 10 damage to the front enemy unit)
"Frost enemy unit" cards/abilities are pretty trash. as you want to be able to snipe, want to possibly self target, etc. "front enemy unit" abilities need to multihit, or hit just insanely hard to justify their use.

because frozen lance kind of sucks, Tethys has a ton of RNG on wins. you need to get other cards to combo with him.

Hornbreaker prince's starter card is Torch. (1 mana, deal 3 damage.) way more versatile. scales with conduit or pyregel easily. or can target yourself to proc revenge, kill 1 hp units that do things on summon, etc.

My last hornbreaker win, was carried by pyregel, 2 magma cultists, and 2 immortal stone "molting imps"
"incant" enemys gain 1 pyregel" x2. (with a bunch of pyregel artifacts). i would just summon and kill the impos over and over. the spell used to kill the imps would just stack aoe pyregel, then the imps would deal big aoe..

so, its probably easier to actually build off those burn cards for hornbreaker, then him.

Fel is another good example. SHE is a pretty powerful hero... but her starting cards kind of suck. (just cause) is very situational/specific. with valor only giving armor to the front unit, "after combat". once it builds up armor, sure. but, it has to survive first..

While Greal is strong as HE is strong, and his assistant cards feed directly into his builds as well. like no rng at all.
 
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Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Hornbreaker/Hellhorned definitely need a balance pass. Their armor cards don't scale off conduit while Luna's does, so their armor is hard to utilize. Grael is extremely solid for any play through while I mostly left Orachi on his own level to die. Grael can buff a whole row for 8/16/24 attack while Orachi can do a potion once every three turns. Grael with Dante is an easy win. For clans with weak/useless start cards, I've been having a lot of fun/luck with the pyre that removes starter cards and stewards. You get an extremely lean deck that lets you utilize stronger cards more often in a run and you don't waste gold on card removal.
 

velk

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Dante fills your deck up with banes, but he gets +multistrike for each one, so if you use Dante the more bloated your deck is, the better. You never draw anything useful unless you have the fountain relic ( in which case, loooooool ), so it's a little boring.

One hilarious other example is the relic that permanently copies the first consume card played - if you can make this card something like a spellchain propagate or a buffed contagion, your deck becomes pretty crazy very quickly.
 

Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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My max with Dante was 35 cards, but I had him doing 10x but with 200 atk per hit
 

meStevo

I think your wife's a bigfoot gus.
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Yeah, my deck isn't normally that big, I had 3 or 4 dante's by the end so he was churning out his candles. That being said, I almost always could do a better job of pruning or passing on cards.

That 42 card deck I bet was the one where I did this, and had duped this card several times including that event that lets you dupe something 5 times. Attuned, direct damage to all enemies, permanent +5 magic power per turn in hand, frozen cards become free artifact. Fun times.

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Had a similar run later, got these hammers way up there.

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I still pretty much exclusively play w/ everything random every run, maybe at some point I'll chase some of the missing combos I don't have checked off when I get closer to completion - if ever, heh.
 
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velk

Trakanon Raider
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I still pretty much exclusively play w/ everything random every run, maybe at some point I'll chase some of the missing combos I don't have checked off when I get closer to completion - if ever, heh.

There's actually a mod called better random that only randoms out of covenant combos you haven't won with yet.
 

Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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ha. doing hte dimensional challenges. Grael is so busted..
this multistrike/thorns one.

gave him devour. atm, at t2. so he gains x2 assistant damage.
I gave an assistant +14 power stone, and endless.

but then there is also, "scrap for parts". which, is "consume, sacrifice, draw a unit and apply +40, and 0 mana."
and its pretty easy to manipulate that endless assistant to be the one summoned..
every turn grael is getting +108, atm.

edit:

... and "animation lab, +7 attack/damage on summon stacks with every endless resummon..

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Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Grael with sword maidens is insane, they get the equipped unit gains valor bonus both when you summon an assistant and then when you equip its gear after it dies. Give them duality and that's 32 valor per assistant.
 

velk

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Ugh, the 'Trigger Happy' dimensional challenge sucks - that's the one where all enemies start with damage shield 2 and you start with the worst champion in the game (prince), backed up by the least synergistic clan ( with prince I mean ) in the game.
 

Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Ugh, the 'Trigger Happy' dimensional challenge sucks - that's the one where all enemies start with damage shield 2 and you start with the worst champion in the game (prince), backed up by the least synergistic clan ( with prince I mean ) in the game.
yeah, its pretty tough for a starter. trying it again now..

some thoughts. multihit is good obviously. multistrike gets doubled too. so hornbreaker with multi, starts at 3hits. hornbreaker 3 is 8 hits.
enchanting a monster with it also gives 3 hits.
cultivate then double procing constantly will pump the hornbreaker pretty quick too.

imps casting twice on summon. and then killing them with torch. 8damage aoe twice to pop the shields, shields, etc. take your pick.
so, endless on them should make things easy.

I think I should win this.
I have an awakened hollow with starter. giving cultivate on heal.
its enchanted with multistrike. and got the imp event, so it has "savage heart".5 rage, gain 2 rage perm on revenge. which is ridiculous. ok, so rng on this might have sealed the win.
I then got holdover on restoration detonation, and gave in intrinsic. so 0 mana cost, in hand at start, and can play every turn.. I then also duplicated it. 2. so, can heal for 30 hp every turn.

got bloodthirsty blade. it also procs twice on kill.

inferno room might help.

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velk

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I eventually won, but it was mostly due to the relic that removes buffs on entry, so I don't feel great about it - a win's a win though I guess.
 

Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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Slow and sloppy has taken me a number of tries. close calls, but kept failing.

I think I have it this time.

start with perm valor on shift fel. basically need to get the windblade asap.. which is rng. loamcoat is ok, as is demonblade, shield, and everlasting light.
she starts really weak. so the first 2 battles will be focused on pumping perm fel, not actually killing anything. let the hearth do it if need be.
just shift in place with Just cause. units dropping down do also give "shift". so there is that too. careful with using rising rage. while the ascend/advance Can get 2 procs, and a third when she drops back down. this can also instantly kill her on bosses.
this is all about fel, and overpacking. so hymists are good. lead songbird or multistrike is best.
since, you overpack, get +mana, or +1 draw. mana is probably best. so you can use some 3 mana spells, or the 4 mana mulistrike hymnist.

once fel has some perm valor, she'll start getting those slay+1 perm damage as well, and thus stack quick.
on fel level up, try to get Savoir. That turn 1 armor, advance and valor boost is powerful. one of valors weaknesses, is it applies armor at the end of the turn, so turn one is bad.

yep. got it. but still close. entrophy seraph. the sap, was allowing the adds to sneak by. fel was doing like 800x2. but, that doesn't stop the 4 other enemies per wave..
cleave spell might have been good here. esp if you can get perm frost or holdover I suppose.


vamp curse iirc I failed pretty bad every time. no idea how to win that one yet. time bombs. no good strat there either.
 

Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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trying Organized chaos atm.. not having much luck.

orechi seems like trash. only seem to get his unstable version or mix version. both suck.
secret ingrediant/mix seems like even worse shit here, as its RNG on targeting friend/foe.
Same with the firestarter starters.. 1 damage/2 pyregel..

can manipulate this a bit. put orichi in top, and leave bottom row empty. so, only allies up top a first, and only enemies at bottom. then rely on spells all around. again, can control the targeting a bit with good choices... spell cost rng is rough. but, favors 2 and 3 cost spells, as they might come in at 1 or 0.

still doing horrible.
best run, was a pure rng on a hothead. the one that does aoe ability attack based on its attack. it came with multistrike. and I gave it that growth equipment.. so it ws doing like 100x2, and 1 aoe on ability. but it wasn't enough to actually solo it all.

no idea how to make orechis unstable line viable. it doesnt stack fast enough to do anything? AND you need extra sources of reanimate, else it will run out when he hit by attacks.

..best atm.
orechi solo top floor. solo here means I can drop forevermore serum, etc and only hit him. intrinsic/doublestack..
reanimationlab for top floor. 7/7 on reanimate.
hothead,gold tooth, snotty whelp middle. rng on tome of contracts. although, solo hothead for tome and 1 turn cd might be key.

stack infusions in hand. dont use till boss appears.

failed on cherub again.. orechi died before cherub even got to him again. just no idea how to make this dude work I guess.
this one had some real value. holdover double stack dragons breath, and acid rain..


edit:eek:k. I think maybe I got an idea how to make him work.
the incant version at least. bottom row. spam the mixes. dont need to cast the infusions. just stack them up till is clear to cast on ally or enemy.
 
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Fight

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Monster Train 1/2 are both deep and balanced, so I find it really strange that I have never once taken the Boss Artifact for +Card draw. Does anyone?

There are so many ways to draw, but Capacity and Ember/Mana are absolutely essential to surviving the later rounds as the challenge builds up.

Between Hold Overs, +1 Draw Next Turns, Frozen's, etc... card draw is always the game mechanic I worry about the least. Between the two Monster Train games, I have played hundreds of hours. Does everyone skip +Draw Boss Artifact or am I a crazy outlier?
 

Caliane

Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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There were a few times where card draw is good. Stygian champ that reduces mana costs of spells to zero. that one artifact that makes all spells that cost zero if they cost less then the first one. that one artifact that reduces starter cards to zero mana.

usually the mana one is better though yeah. 4 mana spells, or 3 mana ones+a 1 mana spell.
holdover, intrinsic, spellchain, permafrost are more powerful then the -mana cost to spells spell improvements. although -mana, and holdover/spellchain etc is good..

card draw is more easily manipulated by removing cards too. which is pretty cheap/easy. if its consistency you want, then removing cards is the first choice. or holdover.

so, card draw is only really useful when you already have dealt with mana, and then need to cast more spells PER turn.
 
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Fogel

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Card draw is best for incant builds specifically when you're stygian and Luna. It can still be good for other clans if you solved energy some other way for the last fight since the last two fights like to bombard you with blight cards.