Zeus' Mercy, One Hero, Low Level

[dietonight]

Hello folks.

I'm sure you all knew this was coming. I was stuck on House of Hades for many months, giving me plenty of time to think about what I'd do for faction maps. I've had a plan for the first few NPCs in Zeus' Mercy for quite a while now, and have started carrying it out. I won't give away too much right now; suffice to say that after beating Hades, I hit the upgrade assembly button on a Lv 60 account for the first time in more than 16 months playing Batheo.

There won't be any BRs for at least a little while, as the heroes I'll be using against Melinoe and Maia recover from a ren cycle. Poseidon's Roar is a harder map in general, so that will have to wait until I'm bit of a ways into Zeus' Mercy.

As with everything I do in Batheo, this is a strictly VIP0 run.

Stay tuned

[dietonight]

And so it begins...

Melinoe: http://b27.clapalong.com/?fid=N2012092210870983

Yeah, apparently "at least a little while" meant a mere 2 days! I've been spamming fast track like crazy and when I saw earlier today that I had a shot at reaching hero lv 63 today, that only motivated me to spam fast tracks even more furiously. So my firsts in this fight... My first purple item, my first G6 hero, first win above Lv 60...

At it's core, this is not a very difficult fight; it's just that there are several annoying things that while individually aren't so bad, in combination can turn what should be a win into a lose: The sunstorm mage's stun + the cavalary's nocturnal blitzkrieg interrupt total defense, and strong enemy BMs + critical hits to knock out Crius while his total defense is down. As you can see, in my winning BR, I got interrupted by both and won anyway; but it was close. Still, with better luck, this could easily have been a (regular, not Narrow or Minor) Victory.

Here, you see something approaching, but not quite at, the full power of Crius at Lv 63. Crius was at hero Lv 63 (of course!), ren Lv 64. He had equipped Athena's Spear, Burning Lava, Pegasus and Blood Fountain all maxed to (G7)3. The only item not maxed was Spartan Charms (G6)10; considering maxing it out would do nothing but add 12 faculty, I figured it was ok to wait until tomorrow to max it. Crius also still had the same +80/+80/+1 wash he had against Hades. Prestige was M48; alas prestige is much harder to come by in Lv 80 areas, where it seems all the archenemies have finished faction maps.

Anyway, it will be another "little while" before I seriously challenge Maia. Crius is obviously not a good fit. I have someone else in mind though, who is currently in training...

[dietonight]

Uhh... Yay for impatience?

Maia: http://b27.clapalong.com/?fid=N201209242707689

Obviously, it was not my plan to use Dionysus against Maia, let alone a Dionysus who was still at ren Lv 61. My plan was to use Thaumas, who right now is sitting at hero Lv 58, ren Lv 64. But it appears a little thing called human impatience, together with a slightly uncomfortably high div store, got in the way.

Not a very difficult fight at all due to low damage from enemy BMs. The big problems here are the lightning cavalry's very cheap (I'd say about 40%) stun rate from Pandora's Curse, it's dodging, and the Tie system (which ruined one attempt). So, like Melinoe, this is a conceptually fight that is made difficult solely by a bunch of annoying things going wrong. Took 11 tries, again at M48.

Leveled up to 64 after the win.

[dietonight]

Another triumph of human impatience:

Dardanus/Arce: http://b27.clapalong.com/?fid=N201209246975303

Techs were maxed to Lv 64. Armor, cloak and mount were enhanced to (G7)4; but weapon, book and horn were still (G7)3. Crius was still at hero Lv 63, ren Lv 64 with +80/+80/+1 wash.

Right after leveling up to Lv 64, I gave Dio his +4 ren. Less than 12 hours later, I tried Arce using Dionysus still at level 27 I think (but still with the Lv 63 gear), and got totally destroyed. I then unequipped my gear, gave it to Crius, and promptly wiped Dardanus on the first try despite I'd say only average luck.

This time, however, there is a price to be paid for my impatience... Dio is currently Lv 34, and won't be able to re-equip the Lv 63 gear, or even the Lv 55 gear (which I still have not degraded) for a few days. This could make it much harder to run legions and HD2s.

Well... This is the end of faction map progress for quite a long time and this time, I really mean it. The next NPC in Zeus' Mercy is Phaethon, with an extremely devastating mage build and strong defenses protecting said mages. I expect he'll be at least as hard as Hades, and quite likely even worse.

[dietonight]

Made an experimental attack on Phaethon yesterday with Geras and... oh dear... oh my... it doesn't look good... With M47, Max/Max-4/Max wash and Lochoi, Geras does about a little over 2k damage to Phaethon's center line and a little less to Phaethon himself (around 1900). This means that unless I use Crescent and get a crit, I need 4 hits minimum to kill Phaethon, and probably at least another 4 to kill the thunder mage taking into account faculty loss, before the final confrontation with the block-spamming snowfield warrior...

On the other side, Phaethon has an insane amount of attack power. Even after being weakened by one Lochoi-boosted hit from Geras, Phaethon still managed to do over 1200 damage while the thunder mage did over 1700 damage at full health. But elemental damage isn't the only threat. The snowfield warrior and sea giant did about 400 valor damage each. I don't know how much damage their BMs do; but it bound to be higher.

Now admittedly, there was still a little room for improvement: I can push to M50, and try to get an exactly perfect triple wash for when Geras does live long enough to get hit by a BM. But that's not likely to make a big difference. The bottom line is that even if the cyclone mage and thunder mage fail every turn, Geras still dies in 3 turns. If by some bizarre, 1 in a billion, twist of fate all three mages fail every turn, it's still not clear I have enough attack/defense to win...

Sigh... Not many other ideas... If only I could use Rhea!

[dietonight]

Phaethon.... No. But I did get my closest lose yet today, after over 3 months and hundreds of tries. I reduced him to 1 unit, with around 300 faculty left. However, it wasn't as close as that may sound. Let me explain:

I spent ~25 of my ~42 divs today trying with Demeter, Athena's Burning Golden Bull. Now at first glance, her stats look terrible: 8k recruiting cost, 62 valor and 68 spirit, making an already weak troop type attack power weaker still. However, she has one major strong point: 97 element. This makes her take greatly reduced damage from mages. That, together with the her unique ability to damage both mages starting from turn 1, made me think she was worth a try. It cost about 1.3M laurels, and a whole lot of patience, to wash her up to +84/+84/+83 for a total of 146/152/180. I then put her in Lochoi formation and spammed the attack Phaethon button (at M50, of course).

On turn 1, she does about 1k damage per enemy except for the rocky giant who takes 750-800 damage. Enemy valor/spirit attacks all do about 250 damage while the thunder mage does about 850 and Phaethon does around 650. To have any chance at all, the thunder mage and cyclone mage need to fail every single time while Phaethon himself needs to have at the very least once; in my closest battle, I think he failed twice. Alas, even that miracle of mage failing isn't enough. If I make it that far, the battle moves to a "Phase 2", where all the enemy units are dead except the rocky giant, who moved into an uninterruptable, unavoidable Total Defense mode in turn 4. By this point, both Demeter and the rocky giant will deal roughly equal damage (low 200s); but the rocky giant will have 2 huge advantages: blocking, and the tie system. In my closest attempt, I got very lucky with the blocks, suffering only 2 in roughly 10 turns. Still, that wasn't enough, as the battle ended with Demeter dying. Now if it had been 0 blocks instead of 10, I would have won; but I don't think I need to remind you how extremely improbable such a run of luck would be.

So what are the options with Demeter?
- Keep trying the same thing, hoping to get one more fail from Phaethon or two less blocks in phase 2. The advantage here is of course maximum damage per turn 95%+ of the time.
- Switch to Crescent, sacrificing damage every turn for a very small chance of a crit, which could be game-changing especially in phase 1.
- Switch to Inverted Wedge in the hopes of postponing the rocky giant's entrance into total defense mode or giving me an opening to hit him after he has started firing it
- Switch to Testudo in the hopes of extra damage against the rocky giant and postponing it's entrance into total defense mode.

All look excruciatingly hard... Sigh...

[dietonight]

Today, I tried Geras in Crescent in the bottom column. Got 1 promising looking battle where on Turn 1, Geras got a crit and all three mages failed, followed by a non-block from the rocky giant at the bottom on Turn 2 that the entire center column near death. Unfortunately, the thunder mage never failed again after that.

As you might expect, after months of trying and who knows how many hundreds of divs, the biggest killer by far is the thunder mage. The overwhelming majority of attempts look absolutely nothing like the BRs one sees on the forums, where the hapless NPC t-mage fails over and over again, getting off maybe only 1 or 2 hits in a long battle. It's quite the opposite for me, sadly. While individual thunder mage fails are not too hard to come by (~20% fail rate overall), streaks of fails are exceptionally rate. Even a 2x fail will only happen maybe twice every ~40 divs. And of course, I need a 6x fail at the very least in order to have a shot at winning. It's not as bad as one would expect if t-mage failing were independent and identically distributed (in which case the frequency of a fail streak would drop exponentially with length); but still excruciating. On the other side of the coin, long success streaks are all too routine. Paste together consecutive divs (since obviously no hero can survive for more than a few turns when that thunder mage is hitting every turn), and 10x+ successes happen several times per ~40 divs. Even 15x+ or 20x+ hit streaks are not uncommon.

[dietonight]

At long, long last, the King of Batheo is defeated!

Phaethon: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201302011182873

Roughly 800 tries (give or take up to a 100) over 3 months. For the last month and a half, I've been in a bi-daily routine: Every Spring and Autumn, push up to M50 and then spam 40-45 divs on Phaethon, every Summer and Winter replenish divs. Geras was triple washed to +84/+80/+84 (after performing the morale suppression test on this NPC, I know this was enough spirit to get the +50 advantage on both non-mage units). Ironically, not counting the E token I got earlier in the day while at M48, I got this win on my first try today.

Equipment was perfect: Kylin, Zeus' Cloak, Laeveteinn, Hero's Pride, Greetings at Doorsteps, Spartan Charms all enhanced to (G7)5. It's impossible for a non-VIP who hasn't finished maps to improve on any of that.

I know that later NPCs will have more raw power. But none that I have encountered so far have a worse formation. Two very heavily protected mages, guarded by an insanely powerful and accurate thunder mage. What could be worse?

[dietonight]

Electra/Zagreus: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201302011911144
Tantalos: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201302011936788
Hebe: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201302012196838

Now that Phaethon is dead, I'm following the plan I promised myself for what I would do afterwards. Leveled up to 66 for Electra/Zagreus while upgrading all techs and enhancing all equipment to (G7)6 (although, as you can see, that clearly wasn't necessary!) As you can see, she didn't even put up a fight.

Tantalos was a somewhat more respectable challenge, but I still don't think the outcome was ever much in doubt, except for the threat of a Tie. Techs were upgraded to 67 for this fight, while equipment was still at 66 due to threat of red building CD.

Hebe was the first real annoyance, taking roughly 26-28 divs due to a combination of the golden archer's very high crit rate and the dryad's high defense sharply limiting Dio's healing, even with max Kylin. After a bunch of tries where I targeted the bugler first, I found out in the end taking out the Nocturnal Blitzkrieg caster first works better. Equipment was upgraded to (G7)7 for this fight, except for armor, which I somehow forgot and left at (G7)6. Also, after looking at the sols9 link, I see this battle lasted the full 20 turns.

That's all for today. Upgrading to Lv 68 and eating the +3 rens, as was my plan.

[dietonight]

While I wait for heroes to recover from the +3 ren, here's an interesting pvp fight:

b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N2013020226603614

Note Dionysus' low level, due to ren. But even more interesting than the battle itself, is what's under my name. Something's there that wasn't there before...

[dietonight]

Just when I was about to give up for the day and switch from a short-term to a medium-term strategy...

Proteus: b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130210627369
Euphrosyne: b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130210656464
Thalia: b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130210681427

For the first time, we see here something approaching (but not quite at) the full power of Lv 69. Dionysus is max hero lv and max ren, resulting in a TG of (G6)10. All equipment is maxed. Prestige is M49. Wash is still +83/+84/+85.

I always knew Proteus was going to be the 2nd hardest NPC in the 1st half of faction maps. I thought he could take up to 100 tries. As it turns out, he took 20-25 tries, with about 2/3 under the conditions above. All 5 of Proteus' units work together to make this fight difficult: the sea giant blocks and rallies to protect the fire mage (watching the battles, it soon became clear to me that a block on Turn 1 was pretty much fatal), the sunstorm mage stunned often 3x or 4x in a row, the cyclops' armored chariot soaked up damage while limiting the healing from Mutiny Outbreak, and the fire and water mages dished out the punishment, of course. As expected, what won the battle was a combination of well-timed Dio crits and water mage fails. In the end, this wasn't so bad; but without the arms this could have been quite scary.

Euphrosyne and Thalia were a joke. I would have gone for Crius if he wasn't still Lv 36 due to ren. But can't complain about a win on the first try with 0 troops lost, haha.

[Guest]

Nice job dietonight. Who do u expect will be ur next major stopping point in Zeus's Mercy? Priapus's meteor mage shouldn't be too bad with 1 hero.

[dietonight]

Priapus: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130212438156
Eurus: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130212441083

Priapus took about 14 tries. The meteorite mage in and of itself is not so bad. The problem is the other defensive units that limit the healing from Mutiny Outbreak and in the case of Priapus himself force me to attack him first to avoid a Tie. Meanwhile, the crit happy golden archer gets to steadily wear down Dio.

Eurus easily fell on the first try. No mages, nothing to really slow Dio down.

Hero lv, ren lv, techs and equipment maxed. But only M48 and Dio still has the +83/+84/+85 wash he had at Lv 65.

[dietonight]

Boreas: b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N2013061611579389

Took on the order of 25 tries after upgrading to Lv 70. What I need is pretty simple: Non-blocking from the rocky giant at the beginning, a crit early on to kill him before he can enter Total Defense and lots of fails from the thunder mage. Of course, simple to state does not mean easy to get...

Upgrading to Lv 71, as planned.

[dietonight]

Was hoping to have more to show, but I guess I can't complain.

Zephyrus: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201306228416276

Another tough one, this time due to 3x Sally Outburst + bugler giving me little opportunity to gain morale. The obvious thing to do is to put Dionysus at the top to take out the bugler as quickly as possible; but for some reason killing Zephyrus himself first and leaving the bugler for last worked better so I ended up going with that. Even then, I needed a lot of luck with not getting blocked and dodged by the 3 enemy units that can do so. Took around 15 div at the full power of Lv 71, if I had to guess. Used Inverted Wedge in the hopes of slowing down NPC attacks with the occasional dodge.

I had hoped Notus wouldn't be so tough, due to his exposed bugler and only 1 Sally Outburst. Unfortunately, that frustrating Sneak Raid makes up for it.

[dietonight]

And the final Group 3 NPC decides to be a good boy and die after all.

Notus: b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201306231179644

In the end, this actually took only ~8 tries. I was just impatient because I had expected it to be relatively easy, and because it was the last win I planned to have in faction maps at this level. Still a very close battle though, as you can see, and one that despite 6 crits from Dionysus and 0, went 19 turns.

[dietonight]

Orion: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201306297008262

Took 6 tries today, maybe about double that in total for attempts in total. Just need a healthy number of blocks overall, and a good distribution to keep Total Defense going, especially when Crash&Burn fires. Crius here actually has a very imperfect wash: Only +80/+87/+83. He is however max trained.

[dietonight]

Took 20-25 tries. Not the best of fits for Crius because 3 of the 5 units can't be damaged by blocking. But I just didn't trust Dionysus to survive those BMs, and besides he's recovering from the latest +1 ren. To my frustration, got a Tie with only the treant left with barely over 1000 faculty. Got more serious after that, improving Crius' wash to +91/+85/+79 and switching from Testudo to Lochoi. Was fortunate to get a win only a few tries later.

Ophion: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N20130630381923

Notwithstanding the obviously still imperfect wash, this is not the full power of Lv 73. Crius has ren Lv 73 (instead of 74) and Greetings at Doorsteps and Spartan Charms are at (G8)2, so I could have had an extra 24 faculty.

[dietonight]

Pan: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201307019203531
Hera: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201307019230000

Pan was a pushover, as expected. Barring atrocious luck with the sunstorm mage, he just didn't have much of a chance. Down on first try.

Hera was harder, but still not bad at all. Took 3 or 4 tries. Just need a bunch of blocks on Hera herself to prevent her from firing Sacred Stardust and on the white dragon rider to hold off his Morale Absorption, which of course Crius is weak against.

Note the hero level in both. Troop grade was only (G6)2, compared to max of (G7)7.

As I suspected, Zeus utterly obliterates Crius. Can barely manage even a Major Lose. There just isn't much I can do against Zeus' Blessing, and the inevitable cascade of crit-spamming BMs that follows it. But that's ok for now as I wasn't planning on taking him on at Lv 73 anyway.

[dietonight]

Zeus: http://b23.clapalong.com/?fid=N201308316209709

Much harder than he looks in this BR. Took about 110 tries, with both Inverted Wedge and Boar's Head tried many times. The reason I tried Boar's Head was because in that formation, the bugler can be killed on Turn 2 if Dio crits on Turns 1 and 2. I then get hit by all three BMs, super-charged to 222 morale on Turn 3, especially devastating with crits; but if they don't crit while Dio continues to crit, I'm actually in not all that bad a position. But in the end, it was Inverted Wedge that did the job instead.

And so ends the map after 344 days and maybe 1500-2000 divs.