Re-starting and Keeping Might Low

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I ended up starting again in the Kindle version where I was lucky enough to roll a Grizzly Reaper, Druid, and a Ninja.  I put those with my Serpent Queen and Assassin.  It's working out pretty well.

The big change is that I chose not to upgrade anything (or as little as possible).  My main upgrades are the town hall and vaults.  I also trained up some griffins to help out, but my overall setup looks pretty silly compared to others with the same might.  It seems that the hero upgrades push up my might a bunch no matter what so despite the lack of high level buildings, my might is already approaching 5k thanks to level 70 heroes.

Oh well, it's been a fun way to play.  Now with the latest update, there is a lot of free gems that come from higher might so it makes me want to upgrade a bit.  I've already started to build up a second arrow tower.

The Arrival of Snowzilla

Well, over the break I got lucky and rolled a Snowzilla on a regular 500 HB roll.  When I first saw it, I thought it was just some holiday novelty character.  Then, I saw he was a Legend level character and decided to figure him out before treating him like a sacrifice.

I was initially unimpressed.  I took him out with my level 89 Druid on some raids in order to level him up, and he just kept getting killed again and again.  And, his special snowballs just whacked into all the walls rather than hitting actual good targets.  It seemed pretty lame, but I thought I could maybe use him as a tank of sorts.

Then, came the update on Dec. 19 where they increased Snowzilla's Base ATK and
made it so Snowzilla's skill will no longer be able to attack walls.  Well, those were some critical changes.  I was glad I had kept on levelling him up.

This is still in process.  He's up to level 71, and I may push him above 80 before I push my Champion who has been sitting on 80 forever over.  My Snowzilla's secondary skill is a 20% sprint which has some advantages in the arena.

Anyway, this has been my main focus aside from the Here Be Monsters feature.  I keep getting wiped out at D-5 which has proven a useful method of levelling when my dungeon options are run out.

New Idea on Attacking Others

Someone attacked me last night leading with their Paladin (94) followed by their Druid (87).  They quickly destroyed one of my army base camps since the Paladin attracted all the attack while the Druid wiped them out and healed the Paladin.  Then, with that opening in the base camp they released the other 3 heroes and eventually his troops.  In the end, I got 100%ed barely with the Druid and some the army being the sole survivors on the attackers side.

I spend most of my time distance farming with the Druid, Angel and Serpent Queen without ever really attacking troops, but this lead with the Paladin idea is interesting enough to try out a bit.  I long ago relegated my Paladin to a watchtower, but I randomly got a second one yesterday on a gem roll.  Once he hits 50, I'll stick him in the tower instead and put the other one on a base.  Not sure who I'll take off, probably Serpent Queen.

No Honor Badges? No Consequences!

I just levelled up the Druid to the positive side of 80.  It cost me 200k gold and 20,000 honor badges.  I had to work for the honor badges this morning to achieve that, and when I was done I was basically left with no honor badges left.

This created a unique opportunity since I've been farming a lot of other camps lately using the strategy I mentioned in my last post.  Every time it costs me some honor badges.  However, now that I already had 0 honor badges and since the game won't let you go into negative honor badges, I could essentially raid with abandon for an hour before my next round of arena badges came in.  It was short-lived but fun.  I will be sure to look for the chance again.  You should too!

Farming Gold Strategy

In terms of raiding other players, I've found it to be laborious and unnecessary to carry out full raids on other players.  Frequently I lose all 52 of my Griffins in these attacks and some of my heroes get killed as well just for 50-150k gold.  Totally not worth it when there is a viable alternative.

My latest answer is to use my Druid, Serpent Queen, and Angel on raids.  All of them attack from a distance which is the key here.  I cycle through lots of player's setups looking for instances where buildings are positioned in a way that I can attack them without being attacked by anything but towers and where gold/mana is nearby too.  It's about 1 in 20 setups at this point.

I send in the Serpent Queen first so she can start getting charged because her toxic mist is critical to the process.  Once it is activated you start reaping solid amounts of gold/mana from the nearby buildings even while you attack a different spot.  Meanwhile the Angel and Druid keep the Serpent Queen healthy.  Just make sure you quit the battle before one of your heroes gets close enough to initiate with a hero or troops since you want to repeat this again and again and won't want to wait around to heal.

If there is only one isolated gold/mana, I just send the Angel.  She's invulnerable to the cannon tower which is good and can attack from the greatest distance.

All of this costs a few honor badges, but can help you reap a large amount of gold in a relatively short time.

I've found I can get about 100k in gold in about 10 minutes on average doing this.

More Levelling Druid

Well my Druid is up to level 77 now.  I principally am upgrading it through the dungeons.  I know I mentioned Dungeon 1 Skull 2 last time.  Since then I've moved on to Dungeon 2 Skull 1 which is worth 495 as a solo.  However, as I searched and played around I found it could solo the rooms that are 3150 mana and 3300 mana.  These pay out 517 and 540 respectively.  So, doing that has made the process pretty mindless as it accumulates over 500 exp each time.  I don't really care about the shard differences in not doing skull rooms.

I'm not using any troops in these battles.  Actually I do sometimes, but it's only to speed the battle not because of any fear of losing the Druid.  To be honest the Druid accumulates almost no real damage in these assaults.

I only have about 15,000 honor badges right now so there will be some delay in getting it past 80.  My Serpent Queen is already sitting at 80 waiting to be levelled, but I will certainly hold off and level the Druid first.

Still Leveling Up Druid

Right now I'm sitting on level 59.  At 335 experience per solo Dungeon 1 Skull 2 lets you rack up experience relatively quickly although the battles themselves take a while (actually the 1800 gold room before the second skull offers more experience).  I don't use any Griffins, but I guess I could if I really wanted to speed it up.  I've also found that using the Druid and Angel together for raids helps to make everyone last a long time in battle.  This is earning me about 500 experience per character in the battle which is pretty nice I guess.  Anyway, I'll hit level 60 soon which will add a nice boost across the board.

For some stupid reason I decided to level up 2 of my hero bases.  That has left me hamstrung on trying to level up the Town Hall.  I'm finally in position to raid the 600k I need, but I don't have the builders to make it happen.  Oh well, I'm only a day away from that opportunity.

Sorry I never post screenshots.  No clue how to do that on my phone.

Level Up Druid

Around 5pm yesterday, I finally earned enough shards to get my Druid.  Woohoo!  About damn time.  Its second skill is revitalize but only at 1/5.  Oh well, better than worthless.

I immediately sacrificed a bunch of slimes and level 40 heroes I had garrisoned in order to level up its energetic skill.

For experience, I did what I discussed yesterday.  I started in Dungeon 1 Skull 1 partnered with my Serpent Queen 78.  This worked reasonably well, but I discovered I could do Dungeon 1 Skull 2 by partnering with the Angel 74 because they just heal each other.  Neither dies unless the Executioner in there gets lucky.

Now at level 30 the Druid can 100% Dungeon 1 Skull 1 so I'll probably continue that to level 40 then switch over to Dungeon 1 Skull 2.  Hopefully, that can happen today.  UPDATE:  Druid can solo Dungeon 1 Skull 2 in the early 30's!

Once past 40, I may try it in some raids.  Getting antsy.  UPDATE:  Druid survived multiple raids today. even before level 40 fighting against might around 7000 range.

Dungeon Shard and Experience Farming

For those of us who choose not to spend money on the game, it is essential for us to farm shards or be left to the whims of whatever free gem rolls we can get.  Personally, those whims have under-delivered so I've been farming pretty religiously to acquire a Druid.  Still 24 away as of this writing, but obviously it's only a matter of time.

Right now for shard farming, I go to Dungeon 2 Skull 1 for a chance at 4 shards.  I lead with my level 73 Angel who can patiently wipe out one of the wizard army camps by herself.  This eliminates the delay that often comes with getting to the walls and Arrow Towers which can kill your heroes.  Once, the Angel wipes out the wizard and is attacking the camp structure, I release my other 4 primary heroes (Champion 76, Executioner 81, Serpent Queen 78, and Pain-Da 78).  I also have a Cyclops 73 that I can rotate as needed.  With this strategy I never lose a hero.

If it is my last dungeon chance, I sometimes go to Dungeon 3 Skull 1 and launch everyone with 52 Griffins to help.  The chance for 7 shards is worth it for me.  I always seem to have more mana to buy Griffins than I know what to do with.

For experience farming when I get a new hero worth keeping, I usually just send 1 high level hero through most of Dungeon 1 then launch the new guy so they split about 250 experience.  That makes it really easy to get past 20 relatively quickly.  I haven't done this in a while so maybe I can do it on Dungeon 1 Skull 2 instead.  Definitely let me know if you have a better path to levelling.  Alway willing to listen to new ideas.

Town Hall, The Great Limiter

Over the weekend, I was reminded that the Town Hall is the great limiter in this game in terms of levelling up your base.  I had a surplus of mana to raise my gold vault to level 14.  However, when I went to level it up, I was reminded I couldn't due to the level of my Town Hall at level 11.

The 540,000 gold I need to raise the Town Hall level may not seem much to many, but it's hard to save that much without getting farmed to high heaven.  So, I spent the mana on my guild so no one else could have it :-)

There is no solution in sight right now.  I am only 24 shards away from getting a Druid.  Once that happens, I will level him up and sacrifice a lot of lower level heroes currently garrisoned in order to lower my might.

That should lower my might meaningfully so that I can attack weaker bases and farm them for gold and upgrade my Town Hall, Griffins, Arrow Towers and Gold Vault.

After that I'm not sure how much fun will be left in the game for me.  I'm not really interested in guild culture or ever spending a dime on the game.

Angel

This is the poor man's druid.  They are relatively easy to acquire if you sacrifice honor badges or "buy" gems.  I think the Angel is only kind of useful, but I have one that I've levelled up into the 60's.  My plan is to keep the Angel until I get the Druid.  At that point, I'll stick her in my arrow tower in order to expand it's range.  Thus, I think the Angel is worth having especially once you reach the stage where you want to farm the skull battles in the dungeons using only your heroes.

What About Shards

The most important thing to know about shards is that you should save them to buy Legend warriors only.

Never buy anything in the hero shop with shards except legendary heroes.  It's simply a waste because they are so hard to obtain.

You can only get shards by fighting in the dungeons.  There are no shortcuts.  The best approach is to mine the skull dungeons.  Basically, just find the skull dungeon that dispenses the largest number of shards to you where you don't lose any of your heroes in the battle.  At my current might level (7127 at this writing) that means I hit the first skull battle in dungeon 2 for the chance at 4 shards.

I am saving shards to buy a Druid hero that costs 1800 shards.  It has taken a long time (over 100 days) to save up the 1,432 shards that I have.  To me the Druid is way over-powered compared to the other heroes.  Having one makes life much simpler, esp. in terms of raiding.  So, I'm saving for it.

I have never spent a penny playing this game.  Happy to hear your comments.