Beat Loki in < 10 Rounds

[dainbramage]

Originally Posted by 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).

Ah. Did not know that. Well damn, that's a silly wasted exp/1k leadership+morale. Meh, first playthrough isn't meant to be perfect anyway.

Originally Posted by Xargon

Good to know about feeding the raven thorn sprouts

About Loki: Berserk is very effective here; I found that it gives a big damage boost (far greater than using offensive spells), and defense is not really a problem with Loki. Of course, you have to be using lvl 4 (or below) units, and will probably want to include some archers which get parked on the side and shoot the spawning vikings (so the berserking unit in front of Loki does not get distracted). Teleporting may be necessary as well.
The berserker talent (15% chance for double damage) would probably be nice here as well. In my current playthrough, I got it after maxing out the entire magic talent tree, trading runes with that dwarf, buying some runes and breaking down items (i.e. on Iceland), but it might be nice to get this earlier, if possible.

Berserk I don't think is worth it compared to good old heroism or frenzy if you're a mage and short on might runes. +6 attack is +20% damage, and much more reliable. But it's great for a viking who's got plenty. In particular, that and absolute rage lets berserk berserkers with berserker proc (oh Katauri, you need to come up with some more diverse names) hit upwards of 40k on Loki (it'd be 50k if Valhalla's messenger actually worked...), so with some luck you can have him dead after about 5 turns. However there's no reason to waste turns hitting the summoned stacks. Using Mista's ability you can control berserk units, and honestly it's much more useful than any of the others (christa's and regina's are only useful for the medal, you can get rage from potions or chaining from a previous fight, and speed and initiative aren't very good when the arena's full of traps), and the summons will kill themselves through retal if loki doesn't.

Loki seems to have extremely high defence (my berserkers weren't reaching their 3x damage until a few frenzy boosts kicked in, and I had something like 46 attack from my hero), so I don't think tier 1's are a great idea. Berserkers and ancient/polar bears (they'll just about always have their attack boost) are probably the best choices offensively to take him down quickly.

[ckdamascus]

I always need to play a couple of times to fully 'min' 'max' the game the way I'd like to!

I am learning new things even now! That is what I love about the game. Tons of flexibility and different options. Are there overpowered strats? Sure, but you can make do without using them. I suppose the overall main strat is the same, but that's really the same for every video game.

I JUST finished the "50 battles without spellbook" achievement as a mage. I didn't think I could do it with the same army. Good thing I kept a LOT of weaker stacks around.

I hope I can still get the 10M gold achievement. I only have 3M gold right now and there are only like 2 more islands. I wonder if I should start wearing those +% gold items or not.

I am also mildly worried I won't be able to hit level 70. Maybe I should start making some Ancient Knowledge Scrolls. Plus the final achievement of NOT using a spellbook to defeat the last boss makes me think I have to use a "cheap" rune mage build with paladins to win.

That said, supposedly in Loki's description he is "immune to fire". Well, thank goodness he wasn't since I was dropping flame arrows and fire rain all day on him. He IS resistant though (maybe 20-30% resistant). Not sure if he had physical resistance though. No matter. His defense was no match for my 350 attack Ancient Phoenix.

Yah, Polar Bears is what I used to take out the Giant Spider too. The game really allowed a lot of different items.

[Fatt_Shade]

@ckdamascus
About checking boss resistances just open spell boo and pick some fire spell and place cursor on boss and compare dmg listed in book, to dmg listed before casting spell. And you`ll know resistance to that type of dmg.
For physical check with magic axe spell (example) , posion = poison skull ofc, magic dmg = lightning , astral = death star / black hole , cold = some cold dmg. Dmg done this way is purest, because spells dont take defense of unit in consideration.
For unit dmg this resistance would be even more reduced due to attack/defense ratio.

[Xargon]

Originally Posted by dainbramage

Ah. Did not know that. Well damn, that's a silly wasted exp/1k leadership+morale. Meh, first playthrough isn't meant to be perfect anyway.


Berserk I don't think is worth it compared to good old heroism or frenzy if you're a mage and short on might runes. +6 attack is +20% damage, and much more reliable. But it's great for a viking who's got plenty. In particular, that and absolute rage lets berserk berserkers with berserker proc (oh Katauri, you need to come up with some more diverse names) hit upwards of 40k on Loki (it'd be 50k if Valhalla's messenger actually worked...), so with some luck you can have him dead after about 5 turns. However there's no reason to waste turns hitting the summoned stacks. Using Mista's ability you can control berserk units, and honestly it's much more useful than any of the others (christa's and regina's are only useful for the medal, you can get rage from potions or chaining from a previous fight, and speed and initiative aren't very good when the arena's full of traps), and the summons will kill themselves through retal if loki doesn't.

Loki seems to have extremely high defence (my berserkers weren't reaching their 3x damage until a few frenzy boosts kicked in, and I had something like 46 attack from my hero), so I don't think tier 1's are a great idea. Berserkers and ancient/polar bears (they'll just about always have their attack boost) are probably the best choices offensively to take him down quickly.

Ah, good old naming overlap strikes again. I need to be more precise: I was talking about the berserk talent in the end, which is nice to have, but in the beginning, I meant the berserk spell which gives +180% attack or something like that at lvl3 (and +crit chance) - but you mentioned Mista and Berserkers already, so it's the same idea
Knights/Paladins with berserk spell (or Mista's effect) are strong in both offense and defense.

[ckdamascus]

Originally Posted by Xargon

Ah, good old naming overlap strikes again. I need to be more precise: I was talking about the berserk talent in the end, which is nice to have, but in the beginning, I meant the berserk spell which gives +180% attack or something like that at lvl3 (and +crit chance) - but you mentioned Mista and Berserkers already, so it's the same idea
Knights/Paladins with berserk spell (or Mista's effect) are strong in both offense and defense.

Can you confirm Berserk Spell raises crit chance? It doesn't say so in the description and I thought when I last used it it never increased crit chance, just the attack rating.

The "berserk" talent/skill of the unit DOES increase crit chance, initiative, and attack rating.

What I'm curious is, will the Valkyrie "controllable rage" ability let you control that? Or just the 'random' one guy berserk per round ability?

[dainbramage]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

Can you confirm Berserk Spell raises crit chance? It doesn't say so in the description and I thought when I last used it it never increased crit chance, just the attack rating.

The "berserk" talent/skill of the unit DOES increase crit chance, initiative, and attack rating.

What I'm curious is, will the Valkyrie "controllable rage" ability let you control that? Or just the 'random' one guy berserk per round ability?

Yep. Mista's ability lets you control berserkers and vikings who use the talent, units you cast the spell on, and the one random guy per round.

It's pretty good. No more having my berserkers decide they want to hit 200 thorns instead of 5000 skele archers. Or step on that eviln that just spawned.

EDIT: Berserk spell does not raise crit chance. Only the viking/berserker talent does that.

[Nirual]

Originally Posted by ckdamascus

What I'm curious is, will the Valkyrie "controllable rage" ability let you control that? Or just the 'random' one guy berserk per round ability?

Yes, in fact that's pretty much the point of the ability.

[Ext]

Big hello to all. I am Soothsayer too and my problem was that i dropped all scrolls which ckdamascus mentioned to beat Loki without loss, so I managed to kill him in 7 rounds with this combo. Royal Snakes/ Ancient Bears/ Berserkes/ Rangers / Warrior Maidens

Strategy is to put two troops in first row and with Berserkes to go in last row where is Loki at the beginning of the fight since they mostly get second attack with Lucky Runes(do not save second attack or hesitate with them since Loki can change position and you will lose biggest damage hit) .
Rangers and Warrior Maidens are at the middle where they shoot him in first round and if you are lucky Warriors could hit him in second round if they are not stuck with fire-field.

Magic:On first round Hell Breath and Berserkers spell on Maidens before they hit them with spear.
Second round Berserkers same combo of spells.
Third or Forth Loki will go on the other side and you should prepare Bears and Snakes with same spells.
Also you could use Precision and Hell Breath on Rangers to boost their damage with arrows.
Final tip, if you have frenzy skill, wait and let other troops to hit you since you will get more attack depends on level of frenzy.
Good troops are also Paladins, Knight Paladins and Horsemens if you are short for any troops above ( i didn't have paladins and horsmens) with which you can resurrect all troops.

Good luck to all and do not hesitate to ask if I can help with anything