Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
7/8/2013 11:53:04 AM
Subject:
RE: My warmage progress
Report: OMD2 Session of 7-7-13
I am now down to the most dreaded endless maps in OMD2. One of these is the notorious Crunch. It's hard enough to 5-skull in co-op. In single-play, the difficulty level is about 9/10. This may explain why you see so few youtubes in which people get through wave 40. Nananea was able to get to wave 80-something using only physics traps, the windbelt, and the polymorph ring.
This achievement is incontestable proof of her genius. Then again, the polymorph ring at the time had a high probability of morphing heavies into chickens. I think Robot patched it so it's more truly random now. In any case, having the polymorph ring makes an immense difference. Too bad the warmage can't use it -- it's a sorceress exclusive.
Last night, I decided to gird myself up and go at it solo as a warmage.
I tried several loadouts, hoping to get away from using archers, but in the end I had to have them. There's just too much open space and too much going on. You need as many archers as possible facing all directions. Naturally, you also have to use the guardian revival trinket.
I wasn't about to use the crappy stone staff, so my crossbow and ice amulet took up two more slots. I had to have money, so the scavenger trinket took up yet another one. The warmage really needs the mana rage doodad, so I took that.
I tried to figure out how to get as much bang for buck as I could from the remaining trap slots. I went with brimstone, haymakers, tar, and grinders. I thought brimstone and archers would help with kobold runners and little orcs. If I could get down a lot of brimstone and tar, I might at least slow down the gnolls. With enough haymakers, the earth lords might be squishier by the time they reached my area. I used grinders almost exclusively for bats. They worked extremely well -- best trap possible for bats in Crunch. This allowed the archers to concentrate on ground-level enemies, which made a crucial difference.
This plan worked exactly as it was supposed to, but I needed a lot more money. I think if I had had enough cash, I could have done considerable damage to heavies and gnolls before they got to the archers. But I simply could not generate enough moneys.
As a result, by wave 25 I was using the crossbow to kill pretty much every gnoll and heavy. This went on wave after wave. The archers helped, but even though I had over twenty of them, they were simply too weak. This was good in its way because I learned a little something about the spawn and travel patterns of the heavies, and this allowed me to prioritize targets and time my attacks. The ice amulet turned out to be indispensable. By wave 35, I was using it to disable threats on one side, while targeting threats on the other. Then I would reverse the pattern.
This was actually working quite well until wave 40 when the game sent everything in the world all at the same time. I simply could not hold them back. So yes, I got to wave 40 and lost.
But . . .
I learned important things: (1) Grinders eat bats pretty much completely at least through wave 40. (2) Archers seem to be necessary in the first twenty waves, but afterwards they're a liability -- I must devise a way to get rid of them and put my money into trap damage and slowing by about wave 25. At this point, the entire trap configuration must be changed. I need to figure out how. (3) I must find a better way to control gnolls. I could have managed wave 40 -- barely -- if I hadn't been distracted by them. I could have used the logs in the north/south long hallways if I hadn't been so overrun by gnolls. Zappers may be needed.
Perhaps today I will prevail.
