Strategies for Rezo battle

[ungy]

This was the most challenging fight of the game.
Only way I could think to beat the army was the exploitive invisibility recast (same as for no-loss vs. Scrounger in AP).
Any other methods?
The army just seemed too tough for a "conventional" fight.

[dainbramage]

Is this the one for the talking bear quest?

I didn't have any trouble with it (just nuked him with rage skills, cleaned up everything else with my army, huddled around paladins and revived, then killed the last stack. Whole thing took about 3-4 turns), but did it at a pretty high level. You might have done it earlier than you were expected to?

[Harakiri]

No, he is talking about the archmage tower - which when you gave all the artifacts away - is overrun by undead.

It was the most difficult fight for me as a mage in the whole game.

The odds were something like 60k leadership boss, me 20k or so - there were stacks of 2x 6000+ archers - horrible.

So basically after multiple attempts - i found the ice prison spell to be my only way. In the first round i ice prisoned the 2 archer stacks - i could double cast because they were only lvl2. I used greed rage skill on the necro.

Then i got rid of the dragon quick, next round i went for the highest stack an ice prisoned them each round - in between i used my 2 x rune mage stacks to cast phantoms and try to keep the battle on the enemy side. After that i basically killed each stack one by one and then started to rez every troop - i think this fight took 18 rounds for me.

Yep it did

http://i.imgur.com/NNvJk.jpg

[ckdamascus]

The leadership for the battles varies WILDLY.

Out of my three playthroughs, the first time it was insane. Insane. Even with the overpowered Paladin + split rune mage + horsemen strat, I nearly faltered because he had like 2x 300 necro stacks.

I came back later and beat him up anyways, but just... a little insane sometimes.

The other playthroughs, it was far more manageable.

[Pazvante]

In my currently impossible Soothsayer game the undead army in the tower is made up of:

22 Bone Dragons
8843 + 8844 = 17687 Skeleton Archers
397 + 103 = 500 Necromancers
680 + 33 = 713 Cursed Ghosts
373 Ghosts
604 Vampires


The leadership of one of the skeleton archers stack is around 123K.

I'm level 45 and have about 15K leadership.

I'm slowly cleaning up "new" Arlania but soon I'll have to tackle the army above and it does not look easy ;)

[Harakiri]

The # of archers doesnt matter if you use ice prison.

If you have issues with 2x stacks of necro and archers do this:

Restart the battle till at least 1 archer loses his first round, then prison necro 1 and archer 1, use greed on second necro. 2nd round - imprison the remaining two.

[Pazvante]

Unfortunately I have no ice prison spell :(

After I have seen your post I have looked (with the scanner) for possible locations of said spell. There were 3 in my game:

one in Hades (now off-limits for the moment)
one on the first island in a faulty/non-accessible shop (House of Jotun)
one on the Eastern Island but now it's there no more (probably I had bought it and sold it w/o realizing).


Will have to find another strategy.

I looked at your army composition and will try with something similar: 2 stacks of archmages, paladins, royal griffins and black unicorns (they seem better than normal ones for their always critical against non-elven attacks).

But thanks for the tips, Harakiri.

[ckdamascus]

Unfortunately I have no ice prison spell :(

After I have seen your post I have looked (with the scanner) for possible locations of said spell. There were 3 in my game:

one in Hades (now off-limits for the moment)
one on the first island in a faulty/non-accessible shop (House of Jotun)
one on the Eastern Island but now it's there no more (probably I had bought it and sold it w/o realizing).


Will have to find another strategy.

I looked at your army composition and will try with something similar: 2 stacks of archmages, paladins, royal griffins and black unicorns (they seem better than normal ones for their always critical against non-elven attacks).

But thanks for the tips, Harakiri.

Best part about this game, always more than one way to skin a cat.

First island's House of Jotun isn't faulty at all. You just need your pegasus (winged horse) to fly to it. I just never bother since it is a huge waste of game time to go back to the first island so soon.

It is on the side of the big mountain thing. You can still go back there if you want. Sail to Greenwort, then 'fast travel' back to the first island.

So, basically fly past the mountain a bit, change view of the screen so you can see the side of it, and land carefully by the side of the mountain (there will be a small platform on the side of the mountain. Look for the big gold thing to denote it is a shop.

[Pazvante]

First island's House of Jotun isn't faulty at all. You just need your pegasus (winged horse) to fly to it. I just never bother since it is a huge waste of game time to go back to the first island so soon.

Excellent! I did not know that!

Now I have ice prison.

I don't care much about the score. So I've been to various islands multiple times.
I got the trapper medal lvl3 (all the way from 0 to 100) in 2 battles with 2 very weak stacks I left on the 1st island (5 inquisitors in 5 stacks of 1, trap, rune word, chargers, ice wall, gift or resurrection).

Thank you, ckdamascus!

[ckdamascus]

Excellent! I did not know that!

Now I have ice prison.

I don't care much about the score. So I've been to various islands multiple times.
I got the trapper medal lvl3 (all the way from 0 to 100) in 2 battles with 2 very weak stacks I left on the 1st island (5 inquisitors in 5 stacks of 1, trap, rune word, chargers, ice wall, gift or resurrection).

Thank you, ckdamascus!

Well, first few runs through it is good to explore anyway! Now you know for next time! Whew!

Wait, how the heck did you get 100 trap kills with 2 stacks? I thought it doesn't work on your own units? Or does it?!?!

Were you able to defeat the enemy now with Ice Prison?

Sure, no problem!

[Fatt_Shade]

@ckdamascus
Old but funny tactic for traper medal : take some strong unit to deal with enemy and then take 10 inquisitors (split them in 1 + 1 + 1 + 7, 5th slot is some dragon best). Let dragon kill enemy but leave some weak range stack alive and then use trap 1st lvl in front of your inquisitor , move him on trap to die it will count for medal and give you lots of mana from transmutate skill in magic tree if you took it. Then revive dead inquisitor with some of others and repeat this as much as you can (you can get 3rd lvl medal in 1 battle with this). But dont kill stack of 7 inquisitors because on them you cast phantom when you use revive on other 3x1 stack.

[Pazvante]

Wait, how the heck did you get 100 trap kills with 2 stacks? I thought it doesn't work on your own units? Or does it?!?!


It does. As Fatt_Shade says you can use 5 stacks of inquisitors, spam Trap in front of them, make them walk into the trap and use their resurrection ability on one another.
When out of resurrection you can use the spells Gift, Resurrection or Phantom on the inquisitors.

When out of mana use the Calm Rage spell to convert rage to mana.

When out of rage, use either the inquisitor's rage ability (I forget its name) or the spells Rune word + Chargers (this gives both rage/mana, but usually more rage).
The enemy should be weakened and then blocked with Olaf's Wall (2nd ability) or Blind/Ice Prison/Slow etc.


And yes, I finished the battle against the undead army in the tower in 10 rounds (runemages cloning, lots of fire damage) - see the attached image.
1 loss :mad: - last turn the enemy hero whacked a griffin with a ghost blade, the fight ended and I was to bored to do it again.

[ckdamascus]

I think I probably knew that a long time ago, but I was so into the no loss thing I forgot!

Ah that is a heck of a way to do it though! To be fair, it goes really fast if you are a Soothsayer anyways since as you get more traps, you kill faster.

However, that trick is awesome for Vikings hmmm but to be fair, I don't know if I want traps anymore since I rely on uncontrollable summons a lot.

Hah, I skipped Olaf's wall (as a Viking).

Woot! Good job! Oh man, I HATE it when that happens. Wow, so I guess that Ice Prison really made a difference. Good old Divide and Conquer strategy.

[Pazvante]

I used Ray of Light as weapon, Silver Chain Mail (-15% attack enemy undead) as armor, a Depth of Thought scroll (+10 intelligence) and a Dragon of Chaos scroll.

Greasy Mist + Gudrida's rage to set the enemy on fire + Fire Rain/Flaming Arrow were the best damage dealers (fire damage). Blizzard's cold damage also helped.

The rune mages (2 stacks) were first cloning black unicorns as cannon fodder and later paladins for resurrection.

The chaos dragon died quickly but distracted the enemy in the first turn.

[Harakiri]

Mhh funny, you had alot more necros and archers then my fight, yet you did 100k less damage then me.

Ice Prison + Hildas Arrows?

[sethmage]

Holly JC how long was that “fight” to get that III trapper medal? I can’t imagine doing that without double-casting ability.

[Fatt_Shade]

@sethmage
I`m not sure, never did it in one go, but i did try to see how it works, and it`s exactly as i said (this wasnt my idea, just found it in Ap/Cw part of forum, so i dont take credit for it). But consider it like this 4x1 inquisitor and 5th stack large enough to use phantom spell and make at least 1(one) inquisitor illusion, after that revive one of fallen and then with that revived rise another and repeat until you use revive with all of them and 4 stacks of 1 inquisitor are dead on traps you cast (only 1st lvl spell is enough 5 mana, since you need to kill only 7 hp worth of revived unit , amount you revive with cast of inquisitors ability).
So you spend 4 turns to kill 4 stacks with trap then 5th turn phantom on large stack, then again 4 turn for trap ... So 5 battle turns for 4 killed units on trap. Meaning to get 3rd lvl trapper medal you need at least 125 turns, 100 for traps, and 25 for phantoms. On this you need start of battle to reduce enemy units to 1(expl thorn warrior and block him with wall, or something similar). So all in all around 130 battle turns (consider that with all those inquisitors, you`ll have bunch of rage for spending. In Ap/Cw this was great for mana recharger pet dragon skill, but here in WotN you think of something to spend it on).

As you said double cast will help you max 6 times in battle on 3rd skill lvl, so from 130 turns i said, you`ll go to 124. Not much of time saving to w8 for 3rd skill lvl for this strategy.

[goldenpath]

I had a lot issue with this fight too when I attempted @ lvl 35 viking with 15/14/17 (yeah..viking with higher intell!), tried few times and just couldn't manage, I do not have ice prison so the 2x stacks of 6000+ skeleton archers dished out way too many damage to my troops.

So I have to start questing and lvling up @ other islands, also got some gears upgrade, came back @ lvl 39 with 20/25/18 and finished the fight with almost no losses.

I used blind+ greed rage skill to control 1 stack of the archers, cast doom and focus fired on the other stack. Tanked other undead units with paladin+horseman combo. I had to put points into transmute and lvl 2 concentration to make sure I have enough mana to sustain the whole fight though.

[MillerTime]

Slightly off topic, but the screenshots in this thread: How do you view the bottom portion showing percentages for damage by each troop, spells, rage? I don't see that info when I complete battles. Is it just for boss fights? Only boss fight I've done so far is the spider, and I did not get a screen like that shown afterwards.

[ckdamascus]

Slightly off topic, but the screenshots in this thread: How do you view the bottom portion showing percentages for damage by each troop, spells, rage? I don't see that info when I complete battles. Is it just for boss fights? Only boss fight I've done so far is the spider, and I did not get a screen like that shown afterwards.

After battle, click on the "details" button.

[MillerTime]

Never noticed it before; oops.

[Ashaman]

No, he is talking about the archmage tower - which when you gave all the artifacts away - is overrun by undead.

It was the most difficult fight for me as a mage in the whole game.

The odds were something like 60k leadership boss, me 20k or so - there were stacks of 2x 6000+ archers - horrible.

So basically after multiple attempts - i found the ice prison spell to be my only way. In the first round i ice prisoned the 2 archer stacks - i could double cast because they were only lvl2. I used greed rage skill on the necro.

Then i got rid of the dragon quick, next round i went for the highest stack an ice prisoned them each round - in between i used my 2 x rune mage stacks to cast phantoms and try to keep the battle on the enemy side. After that i basically killed each stack one by one and then started to rez every troop - i think this fight took 18 rounds for me.

Yep it did

http://i.imgur.com/NNvJk.jpg
LOL, 551 Royal Griffin, has i remebmer that bird have 300 leadership, so 551x300= 150k leadership hehe. I am 30th level, and have 10k+ leardership, so what is that weird picture?

[Ashaman]

I dont understand what some ppl talking about, maybe they used some bugs or idk what. I tried the undead in mage tower at 30th level with 10k leadership, but it is impossible. 2x 5k skeleton archrers are quite enough...
I try it with engineers, and blind the skeletons twice or more, but there are 400 cursed ghost x2, and about 400 ancient vampire, it is not posible in that moment...

[Fatt_Shade]

@Ashaman
551 RG is total number of troops in that battle, so he started with lets say 50, then 40 die he resurrected them (90 total) , then 35 died he resurrected them and (125 total) ... i think you get the idea how 551 number got in there.

[Ashaman]

@Ashaman
551 RG is total number of troops in that battle, so he started with lets say 50, then 40 die he resurrected them (90 total) , then 35 died he resurrected them and (125 total) ... i think you get the idea how 551 number got in there.

And what way u can ressurect total of 551 RG?
If u r right, just watch him picture, he ressurected not just the 551 RG but almost all of the armies. Its is very weird. 1K unicorn, 361 Paladins. LOL

[Fatt_Shade]

@Ashaman
Do you know how paladin unit prayer ability works ??? You need to be near up to 4th lvl unit to resurrect them, so you can be left to 1 paladin 1 royal griffin and 1 unicorn to bring them back to full leadership with rune mage unit phantom ability, and paladins prayer. And trust me i know what i`m talking about.
So yes all of those 551 RG , 960 unicorn and 360 paladin all brought back with prayer.

[Ashaman]

@Ashaman
Do you know how paladin unit prayer ability works ??? You need to be near up to 4th lvl unit to resurrect them, so you can be left to 1 paladin 1 royal griffin and 1 unicorn to bring them back to full leadership with rune mage unit phantom ability, and paladins prayer. And trust me i know what i`m talking about.
So yes all of those 551 RG , 960 unicorn and 360 paladin all brought back with prayer.
Runemage have limit to the phantom abilitiy, and paladin didnt ressurect that so much. at 10k leadership u can have about 50-60 paladins, u can ressurect very small amount with it

[Fatt_Shade]

@Ashaman
You with 6 posts, and me with 4,5 years of modding this game ... pls dont teach me what you can and cant do.
If you read posts on rune mage on this forum you would see that gift spell work on them (look for it a bit), so you have infinite 100% phantom spell for 1 gift on them.
Your rune mages will just use phantom on paladins and the paladins will second wind them then use the luck rune to get more runes for the rune mage and repeat Quote from here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=36257
So you use phantom on paladins , then with those phantomed paladins second wind on rune mages, then use luck rune and get another charge for phantom ability and create new paladin phantom , second wind again on rune mages ... i hope you get how it works now. In the end YES all those numbers are correct and resurrected in that battle with paladin prayer ability.

[ckdamascus]

In case it wasn't clear, the 3rd rune mage ability can be cast on itself (unless they changed this in build 6250). This lets you re-cast their phantom ability again in the next round.

You can also use split rune mage stacks too and keep using their 3rd ability to restore runes for themselves.

It also gives you a LOT of phantoming power, so you can win with the "Phantom Flood" technique.

[RaulIgnat]

Plus the good ol` phantom spell. As he had 500 mana to spend , that could be unlimited revives really . .

[Ashaman]

@Ashaman
You with 6 posts, and me with 4,5 years of modding this game ... pls dont teach me what you can and cant do.
If you read posts on rune mage on this forum you would see that gift spell work on them (look for it a bit), so you have infinite 100% phantom spell for 1 gift on them.
Quote from here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showthread.php?t=36257
So you use phantom on paladins , then with those phantomed paladins second wind on rune mages, then use luck rune and get another charge for phantom ability and create new paladin phantom , second wind again on rune mages ... i hope you get how it works now. In the end YES all those numbers are correct and resurrected in that battle with paladin prayer ability.

Yes i saw it...u r right , but it is very dissapointing. The game was to the limit at imspossible difficulty, but now is a just long timed battles without losses...
I did Demonis with no runemage, and i am proud with it:) but now with the runemage all true challenge get over...