Melee Monster Mash Build?

[ckdamascus]

Ok, I got a build that seems a little different and it seems strong for now. It relies on mostly Orcs (thus achieving one of my goals).

4 melee, and 1 ranged. To be fair, the strategy is still mostly ranged, but the melee is pretty freakin strong.

Using Moldok
Warrior, around level 31, perusing around Montero.

Orc Tracker - tank
Orc - damage dealer, second winder.
Paladin - healer, second winder.
Goblin - Ultimate Damage Dealer.
Assassin - spectator to jack up attack to 100% for most monsters.

Orc Trackers are ridiculously awesome tanks, and they are level 4! This means they qualify for the "super powerful paladin surround". Since all of the orcs and goblins move "fast" compared to the paladin, it is semi-easy to get all of them back to the Paladin for the final recovery process.

My game only spawned 28 Veteran Orcs, but I think I prefer Orcs anyway. Orcs can do a "second wind" on goblins. Paladins can do a second wind on goblins. Maybe I can finally stop wearing that stupid Officer's Patent since I will not convert the Orcs to Orc Veterans.

Orc Trackers tank nicely and draw mega aggro.

Assassins are just there because I have 88% critical hit with them and want to get closer to 50% bonus damage on most monsters... ideally 100%

My game did NOT spawn the Ale Barrel, so I cannot achieve 100% critical with the goblin out of the box. BUT, thanks to orc's special morale ability, if my goblins kill one unit, my critical hit rate goes to 100% because my base is around 88%.

Goblins are able to act 4 times in 2 rounds (barring them disabling me), which means he raises his attack rating verrrry fast due to "Zeroing In."

I've seen them roll around 10K damage per hit. PLUS they have a chance to attack multiple times in a single round due to the "Unstoppable" ability. It's pretty gross.

The range penalty is negligible, since I have Tactics 2, Moldok for speed, Quick Draw, my goblins can usually get in the "zone" for no penalty before the enemy can go "huh?"

Despite not having maximum criticals for the other melee guys, they seem to do it quite a bit.

I'll let you guys know how well this works later on, but this seems like the right build for now. Of course, this means I blew like 200K on rune mages and black dragons for nothing. Bleh.

[edit]
Just realized I had more than enough orcs and trophies to convert to orc veterans. Now that I have paladins, I have decided to revisit them and they seem pretty darn good.

I swapped my Assassins for Orc Veterans.

Which brings me to ...
has anyone gotten Assassins to work well in Impossible no-loss games?

Their downsides
- cannot be buffed due to Servant of Death
- relatively slow compared to say the Orc armies with Moldok
- relatively fragile

Their advantages
- can poison (but orcs can maim with moldok)
- no retaliation (but orc veterans somewhat get this too at adrenaline level 3 and enough speed, and they have the triple slash)
- somewhat nifty phantom candidate (but an orc veteran with NO adrenaline is verry useful as a tank due to counter-counterattack).
- can achieve 100% bonus damage (but orc veterans have "scold", which does double damage, and I won't be able to converge on 100% bonus damage easily, since that means killing 20 stacks of the same type).
- can "backstab" (but this generally only works once, unless I murder someone, and continue the rampage)

It seems the Orc Veteran has nothing but advantages over the Assassin.

Can anyone tell me if they have had great success with the Assassin?

[edit]
Just took out driller in 7 rounds, level 34 warrior.

How?

Paladins, Goblins, and Orc Veterans. (Companion Moldok)

I didn't realize no retaliation units worked on bosses until I played Champion of the Arena.

Orc Veterans become no retaliation units at adrenaline level 3 if their speed is greater than the target. Goblins are one of the few scalable units in the entire game (they dealt nearly 64% of the damage, with nearly 100% criticals), and Paladins can tank and do the final heal at the end.

About 18K leadership.

[BB Shockwave]

If I'll use Orcs, I'll use them with the Warrior - he has the most skills (plus Adrenaline) that benefit Orcs). And, I'd not play for no-loss this time, just try to minimize them. Many Orc talents require the sacrifice of units.

I'd most likely try out all the units, but my ideal line-up would be:

Orc Commanders, Veteran Orcs, Blood Shamans, Goblin Shamans, Goblins.

I most likely will experiment with some other troops too, but I prefer One-Race Only armies.

[ckdamascus]

Well, looks like I found my Melee Mash Party. Took a bit of time to figure it out, but it seems like the Warrior's variant of the Mage Summoner build.

I dub thee, the Shrek build.

As usual, no paladins allowed.

I am still playing with it, so we shall see where I get stuck.

Ogres, Orc Chieftains, Trolls, Rune Mages, and Black Dragons.

Unfortunately, it requires a lot of great physical resist items, including the Scale Set, Twinkling Boots, Leather Armor, and/or Crystal Ball. I also have the Belt of the Victor.

You only need Guardian Level 2, so no more mindless spamming to get the last level.

One Stone Skin on your Ogres should put you at 95% physical resist.

The new Counter Attack Warrior Ability actually works on... you guessed it. Ogres!

I can also hit nearly 100% critical after my first kill with Dagger of Judgment, Axe of Elements, Blind Rage, Prayer, etc. With counter-attack and "revenge", I have a 100% critical hit rating AFTER I score my first kill.

I have the Ogre's Club, but I cannot make use of it. No more slots left.

[edit]
I ended up using the Ogre's Club, Drill, and Dagger of Judgment. This nets more damage by far. I no longer have 100% critical on retaliation, but it is good enough since I can keep counter-attacking. This does force me to disassemble my Scale Set, but I think it is worthwhile.

Ok, I am tired for now, but I will flesh out the details later. Unfortunately, you need to run around a lot to get the items, so it isn't ideal for a 7-day run.

Highlights
- practically immune to Geyser due to high physical resists. That's partially why I loved the Mage Summoner Build, Hero fights were FAR easier. You can even use Life Light in a pinch to restore multiple high level units from requiring a resurrection.
- Level 5 enemies aren't nearly as bad
- Once you get around 9 Rune Mages and ideally Level 3 Summoning, it is far easier to resurrect.

Weaknesses
- Magic damage units. While you do have the Black Dragon to help you out, it means you have to rely on Pygmy to deal devastating damage.
- Poison/Burning - ugh, this is particularly deadly since it will bypass all of your physical resist.

Note
Incidentally, the first starting move is usually Stone Skin on the Ogres, let the Ogres Drain the most "deadly" stack. If there are two such stacks, disable one with blind, and Drain the deadly stack. It is actually a very strong opener.

Ktahu - Wow, totally manageable with the entire party.

The ranged build or basically any low level build has MUCH higher damage potential (direct point damage, not counting shoot-through or post effects) than any Level 5 in the game. However, they are more likely to lose fighting capacity since they have lower HP AND they need to have a +60 attack over the enemy defense to converge on MAXIMUM possible damage in the game.

The Ogre Melee Mash build is a hybrid of sorts. Despite not having as much high end damage, they can deal steady damage throughout the entire battle since they are so tough. This is similar to the concept I used with the Power Summoner Mage build. Ancient Phoenix and Dragon of Chaos do steady damage even as they sustain hits (imagine, 2000 peasants with 1 HP, compared to one Dragon of Chaos... the 1 HP Dragon of Chaos still does the same damage as if he had 2000 HP).

The Trolls unique ability to gain attack rating if ANY unit dies, makes him super ideal against Ktahu since the Lizardmen he summons gains NO Hero bonus from Ktahu (what a jerk!), they are simply no match for the Double Belt of the Victors. Too bad defense is capped though. Sniffles.

Of note on Ogres
- Ogre's Rage is TOTALLY different compared to other "100% gain in Attack" abilities which increase attack on BASE attack. It does NOT double attack rating based off of BASE attack, but off of CURRENT attack. This is huge. This means if an Ogre has already killed a few units with Frenzy, Ogre's Rage gives him a WHOPPING boost.

This makes him GREAT for boss smashing since bosses are one of the few enemies that it is very difficult to converge to maximum damage. For normal enemies, it also makes it possible to skip casting Helplessness at times and go for something like Hell's Breath, Dragon Slayer, Demon Slayer.

And finally, all three of the Gigantic Friends are affected by the Warrior's new Counter-Attack skill.

[Fatt_Shade]

I was browsing forum, and found this tread. So i`ll share my bad luck with you ppl
PLaying Warrior impos/no loss, and found 2 Belt of victor. I thought great, lets have fun with 5th lvl units . . . in all game there are NO Orc chieftans not one, only 9 Ogres and 12 Trolls F..K. no Shreak team. OK i`ll go Dragon army . . . NO drakonix or Hearth of dragon F..K, whell i`ll go Dwarf army Giant, Mechanic, Droids, Alchemist . . . NO Royal hamer. FFS this must be some joke.
Since tread title is mele mash build, i went this way : Moldok, Paladins-Horseman-Orc veteran-Orc tracker-Royal grifins. With +1 speed from Moldok and +2 from belts my orcs were in enemy lines in first round killing all on their path. Veterans almost never got retaliated, Trackers were mostly suport, grifins and horseman were fast skirmishers, and palys ofc second wind and resurrect. All in all not bad game in the end
During play i found Princess set and both Assasins dager and Whip of pain, so i tryed girl power team, and laughed my ass of. Wood/Lake faries doing 120k crit , initiative with elven song 15 or more Driads mostly suport and suoning thorns to boost Faun who fit in that team perfectly with his sleep/nightmare abilities.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

I was browsing forum, and found this tread. So i`ll share my bad luck with you ppl
PLaying Warrior impos/no loss, and found 2 Belt of victor. I thought great, lets have fun with 5th lvl units . . . in all game there are NO Orc chieftans not one, only 9 Ogres and 12 Trolls F..K. no Shreak team. OK i`ll go Dragon army . . . NO drakonix or Hearth of dragon F..K, whell i`ll go Dwarf army Giant, Mechanic, Droids, Alchemist . . . NO Royal hamer. FFS this must be some joke.
Since tread title is mele mash build, i went this way : Moldok, Paladins-Horseman-Orc veteran-Orc tracker-Royal grifins. With +1 speed from Moldok and +2 from belts my orcs were in enemy lines in first round killing all on their path. Veterans almost never got retaliated, Trackers were mostly suport, grifins and horseman were fast skirmishers, and palys ofc second wind and resurrect. All in all not bad game in the end
During play i found Princess set and both Assasins dager and Whip of pain, so i tryed girl power team, and laughed my ass of. Wood/Lake faries doing 120k crit , initiative with elven song 15 or more Driads mostly suport and suoning thorns to boost Faun who fit in that team perfectly with his sleep/nightmare abilities.

Shrek team is easiest to make since you can upgrade Orc Veterans (or upgrade orcs into orc veterans) into trolls, orc chieftains, or ogres. Then you can sacrifice your way up if you absolutely had to, but it is probably easier to convert Orc Veterans.

Yeah orc veterans are really really strong. I did try that once, but it was too annoying to resurrect units. Might have been difference if I had that second belt though.

Hmmmm yeah but it seemed pretty hard to get fairies up to +60 attack over defense, even with the princess set. And you needed about 5000 fairies, which is pretty much end game. Seems like that was the only way to get up to 120K damage per crit. I also hated the lack of consistent damage since the fairies would die so fast (even if you can resurrect, it means you got some rounds where you aren't dealing max damage).

That's why I loved the Ogres in the Shrek team. Ogre Rage works on RELATIVE attack bonus, not base. So he can double his attack up AFTER he has been frenzied. The Shrek team easily converges on the max possible damage. So, sometimes I have enough time to throw in Hell Breath or Pygmy.