Battleheart strategy, tips, & tricks

Discussion in 'General Game Discussion and Questions' started by Howlix, Feb 3, 2011.

  1. Howlix

    Howlix Member

    Apr 9, 2010
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    Instead of wading through the battleheart announcement thread for tips and tricks I decided to create a new thread dedicated to it. I'm going to start it with my understanding of the different classes and a few tips and a question or two.

    Tanks:
    The main tanks are obviously the knights, Shepherd and The Black Knight. So far (I'm not to 30 yet) their only difference is aesthetic. Their skill trees are identical so it's just a matter of personal preference on the look of your character. I've found that the knight's skill tree is based mainly on pulling mobs attention away from other characters and increasing his own armor, however armor can be sacraficed for higher attack power. He also has passive skills for decreasing an enemies armor or attack power. I did not find his special attacks up to level 20 to be that devastating, but they definitely keep him in the fight longer.

    A good secondary tank is the monk, Feung. The monk has better DPS than the knight, at least the way I have him equipped, and his skill tree is much different. His main auto attack seems to push enemies backward and he has a lot of skills which will knock them to the ground or evade attacks altogether. He also has some pretty damaging special attacks.

    DPS:

    The rogue and the Barbarian are the main DPS classes in the game. I have much more experience with the rogue class, but the Barbarian seems to be very adept at dealing out high damage quickly at the expense of armor. Most of his skills will focus on this as well. For instance Death Wish is a passive skill which increases the positive and negative effects of your enrage skill (IE. increasing your damage at the expense of your armor).

    Personally I prefer the rogue. While he does not attack as fast as the barbarian (you can increase this with trinkets to the point at which it is almost not a noticable difference), he has skills focused on weakening defenses, damage over time, and increasing his critical hit %. He also has two skills which I have found are great for pulling baddies off of your more squishier classes quickly, shadowstep and poisoned knife, both of which also deal high amounts of damage while pulling the aggro off of your healer, bard, wizard, or witch. With creative use of trinkets and his skill tree you can create a fast hitting character with a very high critical hit chance.

    Ranged Classes:

    So far the ranged classes are magic based wizards and a witch. Their basic attacks seem to have high damage per hit than any other character in the game, however they are slower to cast them so their DPS is not as high. Both classes have a fantastic skill tree. The wizard is more AOE damage based with knockdowns and slowdowns with some damage over time mixed in. The witch has a more target focused skill tree which seems to be all over the place. She has a damage over time AOE spell, a spell which will damage an enemy and transfer the damage as health to your most injured party member as well as a passive ability which will heal her for 20% of every hit she makes on auto attack or increase her own damage per hit. She can do crowd control via a mass horror spell or turn a difficult mob into a frog.

    Healers:

    The primary healer in the game is the cleric. Her main auto ability will heal your targeted party member and most of her skills are focused on healing, or protecting a targeted party member. She has a group heal spell, a shield spell, passive abilities which will either increase the healed party member's power or heal them over time and even a bubble which you can put up around her to simultaneously push enemies away from her and anyone around her but damage them as well.

    I think a lot of people may be confused about the bard's part in the party. At first I thought his main ability would heal, but it does not. It increases your targeted party member's defense and attack power by putting his own stats on top of the targeted member's. He has a powerful healing spell (it has a 20 second cool down), and a group heal over time spell. His other skills are focused on buffing your targeted party member or the party as a whole.

    I've found that survivability with both healing classes is equal, however the bard requires a little more micromanagement. Make sure you watch your party's health bars closely, target your party member receiving the most damage, and remember that your most damaged party member might not be the one on whom the enemies have their crosshairs set at the time.

    Some battle strategy:

    Keep your squishy classes together. I haven't run into many mobs with AOE abilities that can take multiple characters out quickly at the same time. If mobs jump on the screen and start attacking your squishies and you have them on different sides of the screen you are going to have to send your DPS and/or Tank to opposite sides of the screen as well. This takes more time. If your squishies are together you can quickly pull ALL of the aggro off of both of them with one DPS or Tank class while still focusing on damaging the other incoming mobs with your free party member. This is especially important with boss fights. I normally focus my DPS and Tank on the incoming mobs. Once baddies start flooding in from both sides to attack my squishier characters I have my rogue shadowstep and throw a poisoned blade to attract attention off of them. This usually requires a shift in healing to the rogue as well. Properly equipped your knight should be able to hold a boss' attention without constant healing and survive until your DPS class can get back to chopping away.

    Power leveling:

    There are some trinkets which pop up occasionally in the shop for increased % of xp on the equiped character. I don't know if these stack. XP seems to be distributed to each character individually based on their involvement in the battle and their level. I could be wrong about that as I have not let one character do all of the work yet. I will do some experimenting and post my results on this part later.

    Making Gold:

    Sell, sell, sell! Trinkets for increased gold % and sell everything you aren't using (did I say that already?). It is good to keep one low level staff around if you have a rare one for your witch or wizard so that you can switch them out when using only one or the other.


    Now for questions:

    Does anyone know if trinket effects stack? IE. If I equip every one of my party members with 2 bandit's satchels will I increase the amount of gold per battle by 160%? I will do some experimenting in this department as well and post my results. If anyone has an answer though, it would save me some time.
     
  2. ArtNJ

    ArtNJ Well-Known Member

    Jul 13, 2009
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    #2 ArtNJ, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2011
    Satchels do stack.

    I could be wrong, but I think the best gold farm may be the very first boss (boar) loaded with satchels. Its very quick with high level characters. Remember to reset your skills to enhance DPS.
     
  3. Howlix

    Howlix Member

    Apr 9, 2010
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    #3 Howlix, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2011
    You beat me to it, the satchels do stack which would lead me to believe other trinkets stack as well. My experiment was done quickly on the first level with and without multiple satchels. There was a noted increase in gold.

    Also an update on EXP distribution. It doesn't seem to have anything to do with your particular party member's involvement in the battle. It would seem it has to do with character level, and level difficulty.

    Moderately good EXP while farming the first boss as well.
     
  4. Seishu

    Seishu Well-Known Member

    Feb 27, 2009
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    #4 Seishu, Feb 3, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2011
    Would someone mind listing out all of the available stat boosting items? Never mind, I found a satchel.

    Also I've been experimenting with using different classes, and would like to post some of the pros and cons with different setups. The following three setups are the ones I use most frequently.

    1. Tanking with Berserks
    This is one of my personal favorites. Basically I have Lucille as my healer, and constantly have her healing my tank, Shepherd (Ring of Swift Recovery helps here). Then I have two berserkers, Garrick and Baelrosh who both have a ring of regen and blood-soaked sash (healing and life drain). Then the strategy is to have the tank attract most of the attention while the two DPS fighters either team up on monster, or attack a group. With skills like whirlwind and cleave you can effectively attack groups of enemies around your characters. If the two DPS fighters get low on health you can use the priests healing skills to heal everyone.

    2. Buffers n Knights
    Basically have both knights equipped with good defensive skills, and tank all of the enemies. Then the priest and bard can each target a knight to buff or heal, and they both have heal all abilities when needed. Like the OP said, it helps to keep the bard and priest together to draw aggro easier. Also if you see some mobs going for your buffers, move them both to the opposite side of the screen as the knights intercept.

    3. Variety is the Spice
    The standard setup with a healer, tank, caster, and DPS.


    Oh and I also wanted to share a simple gold farming method that is relatively quick. Simply have your lowest level and unequipped unit go into the arena alone and die. You will always get some sort of item which can be sold for around 25 gold on average.
     
  5. Ghostpants

    Ghostpants Member

    Feb 1, 2011
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    Any tips for the golem boss? Tends to wipe my team out pretty quickly.
     
  6. Epox

    Epox Well-Known Member

    Jul 30, 2010
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    Use wizard and cleric. Give your cleric the best change cooldown items you have and let him use his level 30 ability which is pwnage. Than while he has invincibility make him heal your wizard, while your wizard quick moves and attacks characters. I won golem boss that way
     
  7. Howlix

    Howlix Member

    Apr 9, 2010
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    upgrading equipment

    Something I've been doing while leveling my lower level party members on the goblin and spider boss in the first area is upgrading my equipment. I equip my party with as many satchels as I can get ahold of and upgrade weapons and armor as I get the gold to do so. Since I've not seen upgrading explained anywhere else, and it is costly to do, many people may not have used it. Basically when you upgrade your equipment it gives you the next piece of equipment up from whatever you upgraded until you get the best piece. The only items you can upgrade are weapons and armor. You have to get the trinkets the hard way via arenas and the merchant.

    I'm not sure if there are any rare items outside of the main upgrade chain. Anyone know anything about that? I really should have written down the items and stats of all the upgradeable weapons as I maxed them. *slaps forehead*
     
  8. MikaMobile

    MikaMobile Well-Known Member

    Feb 14, 2009
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    Nice post, Howlix, it's good to see a lot of our design intent has come to fruition. Much of your summary is pretty spot on with what we were going for (the bard is the more buff-centric, micro-managey healer, the monk is the more offensive tank, etc.)

    There are special weapons and armor obtainable by getting pretty crazy high scores in the second and third arenas. The cutoff is 115 kills in arena 2, and 50 in arena 3 (which doesn't sound like much, but its a tall order). You might still just get a high-end trinket too, which can show up in the store as well.

    In case there's any confusion, all items stack additively, whether its +gold, +xp, or +crit. They'll also stack with any similar skills, like the life-draining ability innate to the witch class is additive with life-draining gear.
     
  9. Dazarath

    Dazarath Well-Known Member

    Mar 21, 2010
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    #9 Dazarath, Feb 4, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2011
    Great idea for a thread. This will help split up the strategy discussion and feedback in the main thread. Here's my contribution. All of these trinkets can be found outside of the arena. I'm probably missing an item or two, but this is all I've seen so far while playing. It probably won't help anyone who's beaten the game, but for people just starting out, it might be useful when trying to determine your desired party comp.

    Trinkets (Non-Arena):

    Attack/Casting Speed:
    Ring of Haste | 5%
    Tempest Stone | 10%
    Ninja Glove | 15%

    Critical Strike:
    Rabbit's Foot | 5%
    Truestrike Monocle | 10%

    Power Bonus:
    Swordsman's Gauntlet | +3
    Power Fist | +6
    Titan's Glove | +10

    Armor Bonus:
    Silver Armlet | +3
    Glyph of Stoneskin | +6
    Sharkul's Skull | +10

    Magic Power:
    Energy Ring | +3
    Firestorm Band | +6
    Kaimani's Bloodstone | +10

    Extra Gold:
    Glove of the Thief | 10%
    Bandit's Satchel | 20%

    Increased XP:
    Mystic Journal | +10%
    Mystery Egg | +20%

    Run Speed:
    Sprint Shoes | 10%
    Hermes Charm | 20%

    Life-Drain:
    Blood-soaked Sash | 5%
    Vampire Tooth Pendant | 10%
    Choker of the Red Feast | 15%

    Cooldown Reduction:
    Tome of Mastery | 3 sec
    Codex of Jabe | 6 sec

    No Cooldown Chance:
    Broken Pocketwatch | 5%
    Monkey's Paw | 10%
    Azamoth's Cursed Eyeball | 15%

    Health Regeneration:
    Ring of Regeneration | Slow
    Trollskin Amulet | Rapid

    Healing Received:
    Ring of Swift Recovery | 5%
    Medic's Charm | 10%
    Zara's Signet | 15%
     
  10. Dazarath

    Dazarath Well-Known Member

    Mar 21, 2010
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    #10 Dazarath, Feb 4, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2011
    Hey MikaMobile, I (and I'm sure others as well) really appreciate your discussing game mechanics with the players. Most games can have hidden mechanics which the players are left to find out for themselves without any help from the developers. It really helps when it comes to strategizing and customization. The customization in BH is just amazing. I'm sure you can tell just by the fact that this thread exists. I wish you guys the best of luck with this game (and good sales, too).

    PS: What's the cutoff for Arena 1? Or does A1 only drop buyable stuff?
    PSS: How is the haste calculated? If you have 10% haste, is it 100%-10%=90% or is it 100%/(100%+10%)=90.9% between attacks?
     
  11. Epox

    Epox Well-Known Member

    Jul 30, 2010
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    one tip is to have a level 77 shepherd and level 43 cleric lol. I am working on getting to 100. Found a super easy way to level, and no i am not sharing. If anyone wants screenies ask
     
  12. ArtNJ

    ArtNJ Well-Known Member

    Jul 13, 2009
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    Does this mean that the witch using her lifedrain spell with +life drain gear will transfer the full amount to the lowest health character? Or the spell goes to the lowest character, witch gets the bonus from gear?
     
  13. Howlix

    Howlix Member

    Apr 9, 2010
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    Here's another tip. If you find yourself a little overwhelmed with enemies during battle when using a new party combo hit the pause button to assess the situation. Pick out which skills you're going to use, who is going to attack what, and in what order before resuming the battle. Once you get a rhythm down with a party you shouldn't have too much trouble until you encounter new enemy types or combinations of enemies.
     
  14. Teh_Ninja

    Teh_Ninja Well-Known Member

    Mar 12, 2010
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    So I have a level 16 Shepard, and I have the "Ancient Crystal Sword" which can not be upgraded any higher, are there better swords that you can get from arenas?

    Also the higher you get in an arena the better "Spoils" you get from it?

    Or is it just random?


    EDIT: An Epox I would love a screenie :D
     
  15. Dann

    Dann Active Member

    Jan 11, 2011
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    Mehehe, I managed to get 138 kills in Arena 2 just now, although I only have a Kaimani's Bloodstone to show for it.

    Right after the 114 mark, each oncoming wave was always a group of three strong ogres ready to pummel me to dust. Luckily, I used Witch's Horror to OHKO 2 of the ogres. I only had to deal with one ogre and a healing necromancer that spawned right after the two ogres died.
     
  16. Cilo

    Cilo Well-Known Member

    Feb 2, 2010
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    It's not possible until your party is level 15+, if I remember correctly. You can't mitigate damage and heal fast enough to recover against his enrage, until you unlock tier 3 of the cleric.

    Once you do that:

    Tank stack defensive trinkets/talents
    Keep range to top of screen Cleric at bottom
    Tank him in the middle, when he drops aggro hit Warcry
    When he enrages Shield Wall with Tank and Cleric Shield and heal through it, your party should only be taking damage from random boulders and you can live through that with party heal. Rinse repeat. If you are careless during his enrage its game over. Always keep your heals focused on your Tank.
     
  17. Guzzyo

    Guzzyo Well-Known Member

    Sep 30, 2009
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    Here...
    Stupid question - is the pirate the last character you can buy to you party?
     
  18. ArtNJ

    ArtNJ Well-Known Member

    Jul 13, 2009
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    #18 ArtNJ, Feb 4, 2011
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2011
    Ok, so lets try and do some theory crafting. My level 31 rogue has 104 attack power. Max weapon available from the store. No idea if monsters have armor, lets assume they dont, and lets assume every point of ap = 1 damage.

    +30% speed (from two +15 gloves) would be less than 30% more damage because the gloves dont improve specials.

    Two +10 gloves would give 124 attack power, or rougly 19% more attack power. However, this works with both specials and with the +20% critical strike skill passive. Overkill is a slightly great risk then with speed gloves.

    I suppose the speed gloves increase the chance of stunning something, but my instinct is that the power gloves offer a bit more damage overall as compared with speed.

    What about +crit? Two 10% crit items offer 20% more damage, assuming they work with specials, and assuming you dont "overkill" something. Overkill is a real risk if your high damage skills crit (unless your fighting a boss). Verdict, the +10 power gloves are the best for kill power.

    Now if monsters have armor, the ratios are totally different, and likely crit comes out on top. Crit may be best anyway for fighting a boss.

    Funny, until I did all this I thought crit stunk because 20% is lower then 30%, and the power just sounded good, lol. Now I see that its all very closely balanced.
     
  19. Dazarath

    Dazarath Well-Known Member

    Mar 21, 2010
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    ArtNJ, the +power/armor/magic trinkets are worse than the +crit/haste trinkets in the long run due to the fact that they don't scale.
     
  20. ArtNJ

    ArtNJ Well-Known Member

    Jul 13, 2009
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    You mean you found a bug/exploit. Clearly there is no intended mechanic that allows this. Congratulations on finding a cheat and not sharing it with the developer so they can fix it!
     

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