MA
Matchstickman
2017-03-07 03:07 UTC
#1
Advanced Dreamer (Owie) Vs Adamant Sentinels, Chrono-Ranger, Nipple Ra, and Parse. High up in the clouds of the Mobile Defense Platform.
Advanced Dreamer (Owie) Vs Adamant Sentinels, Chrono-Ranger, Nipple Ra, and Parse. High up in the clouds of the Mobile Defense Platform.
*Sigh* and this why I almost never play the Dreamer, especially on advanced. I said it over and over in playtesting, but her flipside damage shouldn't scale with (H). It's AE damage; it already scales with (H).
Regardless, failed first attempt and thanks to Sentinels and guaranteed, unavoidable AE, I don't look forward to solving this one.
I *hate* this. I tried about 5-6 practice matches before taking on the actual one-shot, and lost every one. I then tried the actual one-shot...and lost 3X in a row. Who in their right mind would take _this_ crew against Advanced Dreamer? The Sentinels...but a version *without* damage reduction, so they're sitting ducks for the AOE, and are pretty much get targeted every time Dreamer pulls a Projected Paralysis. Chrono...against a villain with automatic DR and who forces discards and card destruction. Ra...but without a base power that does damage. A group of heroes with next-to-no (other than Chrono's Dart Thrower) damage reduction against a villain who puts out, on average 4-5 AOE every turn.
By the time I can put together enough damage to take out the projections, the heroes are down to the low teens (or less) in HP...just in time for Dreamer to wipe out all of their ongoings, at which point she gains +1 damage and proceeds to play a bunch of AOE Projections, killing everybody in a round or two.
And please, no smug comments to the extent of "Mint; and it wasn't really that hard," or "Mint; and I don't really see what all the fuss is about."
+1 to that. I hate 'gimmicky' villains like The Dreamer (and even worse, Wager Master). In the immortal words of Han Solo, "I prefer a straight fight to all this sneaking around!"
"Mint" and by that I mean Fine but all my heroes (including all 4 sentinels) had positive HP which i think i should count for something.
you just gotta think outside the box on this one. there's a reason you have a bunch of heroes with irreducible damage, tucking effects (no executions), destroy at x or less hp effects, etc.
yes, you aren't using most of the heroes in the standard fashion but that's okay. when i realized the trick to this is to have chrono-ranger and ra play utility it seemed fine.
The Dreamer is pretty straight forward. Don't hit the child, defeat projections, and win. Wager Master is Gimmicky because the rules constantly change and that's not what happens in this fight.
No one in their right mind would take the Sentinels, let alone the Adamant Sentinels, against the Dreamer, let alone on advanced. No idea how this one is beatable.
So no one is beating on the Dreamer with the Idealist and then Healing Vanessa via Hippocratic Oath?
What I would recommend is taking your time before flipping the Dreamer. She hits everyone and plays a lot of cards. Make sure you get yourself setup with a buffer of Ongoings so you still have things like Sentinel Tactics and Buffer Overflow in play once flipped.
…Except that if you do that, all of the heroes have been pounded into nigh-hamburger (10 HP or so), and she gets +1 damage and plays 3 cards per round. When HP are that low, a single Night Terrors together with an AOE projection will wipe all of your heroes in one shot. I know; it happened to me. Several times.
Did you try hitting the Dreamer by Idealist as a Matchstickman suggested as well? Between that and not quickly forcing a flip I managed to get through this finally.
What good does "No Executions" do? Dreamer doesn't pull projections out of her trash (like Dawn/Voss/Chairman), nor does having projections in the trash trigger any effects (like Chairman/Dawn). The only use I've found for it is to give Chrono multiple hits on Danny Boy, or more damage via Masada. (As many times as everybody gets hit, Hunter and Hunted just seemed like a recipe for Jim's early death.)
Yeah, the way everything in her deck scales is just unnecessarily brutal. I could take the extra AOE damage if it didn't mean she plays four freaking cards a turn, but seriously, the fact you have to avoid hitting her is already enough of a handicap that she really doesn't need to belt out that kind of damage, then take out four cards (that also each scale damage by H), and probably do another round of AOE damage.
Both times I've played her in the physical game, it all but ended on the flipping turn as she put out a projection, hit for the AOE damage, then flipped a Violent Nightmares, putting out three more projections, then hit with Night Terrors for another huge round of AOE damage (usually also boosted by the Dark Hero).
In a five-hero game, she flips and instantly becomes an insurmountable, relentless onslaught of damage that you need to be damn near full HP to withstand, and if you want the damage boost necessary to deal with her projections, you have to avoid killing her with a throat jab or hypersonic assault.
Deck control is basically useless when she's playing four cards – and the only way to control it is to stop her playing entirely, which you can't do for long because you need her projections to come out to win.
So on her flip side, she's basically countering every possible way to mitigate her damage, and then doing Iron Legacy-caliber damage anyway.
So much hate on the Dreamer. I like how she plays and in this case you can control her damage a bit with Idealist. Her games aren't easy but I don't feel immediately demoralized like I do in most Iron Legacy games.
You mean on her flipped side? Usually by the time she flips, my heroes are so beat up that the initial 3-card onslaught with +1 damage kills them. I think in only 2 games have I managed to last more than a round after she's flipped. Reducing Dreamer's damage doesn't help so much when you have an (ex:) Dark Hero-buffed Macabre Spectre doing 4 AOE (2 +1 Dreamer +1 Dark Hero) the second it comes out.
You can hit her the round before you flip her. In my particular case I did not see Dark Hero until the second or third roun after she flipped. It also was the card she did as her additional card plays so she didn't get benefit of the damage buff.
SPOILER ALERT: It seems to me that the first round is pretty important, because Dreamer spits out damage so fast. Here's what I've been doing -- unsuccessfully. Is anybody trying different tactics?
Dreamer: 2 Grotesque Arachnoids, Tooth Fairy, Toy Master, Illusory Demon. All things being equal, this is not a terrible draw--in some of my practice rounds I had double Tooth Fairies, or (ugh) double Dark Heroes.). When Tooth Fairy comes out, I force-discard:
-Positive Energy (yeah, losing the healing sucks, but you can’t scrap Sentinel Tactics, I want to use Fling into Darkness to instantly get rid of one projection, and TK Wallop hits harder and more selectively.)
-Bounty Board (geez, what a terrible draw for Chrono--three cards that bring back (at this point nonexistent) bounties from the trash?)
-Scorched Earth. It's Indiscriminate AOE damage, and much as I'd like to burn her to a crisp, we can't harm dear little Vanessa, can we?
-Critical Multiplier. The way this game has been going, Parse hasn't been discarding that many cards, so this just isn't as useful as Buffer Overflow or 2 irreducible-damage one-shots.
1st Hero Turn:
SENTINELS:
Play: Fling into Darkness on Illusory Demon--kills him instantly, and no Ongoings in play for him to destroy.
Power: Haymaker on one of the Arachnoids (8-->7HP)
Draw: Restorative Burst
CHRONO RANGER:
Play: Displaced Armory -- here’s where a real choice comes in: Usually when playing Chrono, I choose the Hat first, every time. Here, though, Jim’s initial hand is so crappy (two of the cards have no use and can’t be played), and his opportunities for extra card draw so limited, that you would need to wait several rounds just in hopes of getting the extra cards to make use of the Hat’s power. In the meantime, the heroes are getting killed, and Jim is stuck doing 1 damage as his power. So--get the Hat, or grab a weapon? If the latter, which? Danny Boy or Masadah (hoping to get some bounties later to power them up)? Dart-Thrower, and let Jim DR every round? Bow? (hoping that Ra will draw Imbued Flame or that Parse can provide some buffs)? The Grenade seems the least useful, because Dreamer has no Ongoings, and getting rid of environment cards isn’t nearly as important as stopping the Projections from killing you. I went with the Dart-Thrower, but arguments can be made for any of them, and used my 1 damage on the Arachnoid that Mainstay hit. (7HP -> 6 HP)
Power: Dart-Thrower on the as-yet undamaged *other* Arachnoid--no damage, but reduce its damage by 1.
Draw: No Executions.
RA:
Play: Staff of Ra. (He has no damaging powers, so let’s at least heal him/set him up).
Power: Draw 3 (Staff of Ra, Fire Blast, Solar Flare), discard 2 (Solar Flare and Wrathful Gaze - I agonized over this one; I wanted to keep Wrathful Gaze in case of a Whipacorn attack, but given that Parse is going to get a Reveal the Flaws, I wanted to keep Solar Flare as a potential damage boost.)
Draw: another Staff of Ra.
PARSE:
Play: Impossible Shot -- kill Tooth Fairy
Power: Pinpoint Shot - 2 dmg (-1 DR) to already-damaged Arachnoid. (6 HP -> 5 HP)
Draw: Reveal the Flaws
My idea from here on out is to have Chrono keep DRing stuff, have RA FireBlast/sacrifice his Staff to kill stuff, and bring out Parse’s Buffer and Sentinel Tactics next round (doing it first round would have eventually sacrificed one of them to the Illusory Demon, most likely). Some round, Parse will play the Reveal the Flaws, and Ra will use Solar Flare as a one-time damage boost that round--the way Dreamer deals out damage, Ra just can't afford the *4* (ouch!) damage to keep it in play. Any thoughts?
(UPDATE: Didn't work. I was *this* close. Had her flipped, lots of ongoings in play, but then Vanessa, that little @#$%^, played a Projected Paralysis, which prevented the Sentinels from playing cards, then proceeded to kill off Dr. Medico and leave everyone else at 2-3 HP. I couldn't play cards to bring Medico back, couldn't use Medico to heal, and with no other healing in the deck, there was nothing I could do to keep Dreamer from killing everyone the next round.....so I had Chrono shoot her with the Masadah. :) Petty, I know, but I'd be d*mn*d if I was going to let that brat kill me again.)
robb8888--
My strategies so far have been pretty similar to what you've written up here--
I've also not won yet. 3 tries.
I've gotten frustratingly close...but what I'm doing so far is just not enough.
Seeing as I'm 0-10 (or more), I'm not sure if I should offer "tips," but...
-One thing I've discovered is that if you don't blow up the environment, you can all but ignore the Granite Onis when they come out, since they target the lowest HP *target*, not just the lowest HP hero. This means that they usually attack the environment for you. When you're ready to flip Dreamer, have Parse play a Reveal the Flaws and take them out.
-This is subjective, but I think you need to flip Dreamer while your high-HP heroes (Parse, Ra, Chrono) are at least in the mid-teens, HP-wise. Any lower than that, and you only have a round or two before Advanced Dreamer's ridiculous damage (+1 damage + play three cards) kills you all.
-Putting Gauge on Parse while you're still trying to flip Dreamer (a) gives Parse more cards, and (b) allowed me to bury a couple of Dark Heroes while I was still trying to get Dreamer to flip. I'm not sure how much it helps *after* the flip, since Dreamer plays 3 cards per turn; might be a good candidate to blow up when Dreamer kills 4 of your Ongoings.
SPOILER ALERT:
-On Dreamer's second card play (i.e., after the heroes' first turn), she's going to play the card that says "The hero with the most cards in play cannot play cards." This will ding The Sentinels, since each of their character cards counts as a "card in play." If you want to get out Sentinel Tactics early (I haven't been doing this, because I want to Fling into Darkness the Illusory Demon), make it your very first card play, or you won't get the chance until Hero Turn #3.
Mint. Took a little over an hour. I probably went overboard with prep, but taking care of her post-flip was pretty easy.
I had a long chat with a coworker today about this match, and we concluded that I should try it like Skinwalker Gloomweaver; get as set up as possible, and go nuts after the flip. So, that's what I did. Parse was easily the MVP of the match. Here's roughly how it went down, keeping in mind that this was a really long match and I can't remember all the details.
Dreamer's Front Side: I got out as many ongoings as possible, some worthwhile (Aura of Vision, Hippocratic Oath, Imbued Fire, Extrasensory Awareness, 3x Crit Multiplier, 2x Exploit Vulnerability, all the Bounties) and some destruction fodder (Flesh of the Sun God, Living Conflagration, Gauge, Drawn to the Flame). Once I found it in Parse's deck, I used Extrasensory Awareness every round to sift through Dreamer's deck and discard the really nasty stuff. I intentionally flipped her when she was down to 7 cards in her deck, all of which were Projections, all of which were Not Dark Heroes.
During this ridiculously long setup, The Sentinels ended up drawing basically their entire deck and by the end of it, they were playing Restorative Burst, using Dr. Medico's power, and using Hippocratic Oath for a total of 2 AOE healing per round. Chrono-Ranger was also healing via his healing bounty. Ra unfortunately blew up three of his staves early on to help burn through Projections, so he was relying on the Sentinels for healing. Probably could have done that better. Chrono-Ranger was also pinging environment targets with the NeuroToxin dart thrower in order to nullify their AOE damage, and he had The Ultimate Target on a Battalion Brute so he could get multiple Dart Thrower uses each round to help nerf the environment.
When I finally flipped the Dreamer (with all my heroes in the mid-teens for HP) by taking out that last Granite Oni, plowing through her Projections was trivial. Parse was playing Recompile every round for 9 stored damage boosts, Chrono-Ranger could do 5-6 irreducible with Masada, and 2x Exploit Vulnerability meant that any damage reduction on the board was nullified. For two rounds, Dreamer played 3 projections, the Sentinels and Chrono-Ranger absolutely obliterated them, Ra twiddled his thumbs, and Parse played another Recompile to get everyone charged up for the next round.
On the last round, Dreamer shuffled trash into deck and did get off a lightly boosted AOE attack, but Writhe was the only character who ended up getting incapped. Final HP 3/0/5/3, 3, 3, 9. I probably could have done a little better - charging up Hippocratic Oath instead of Mainstay / Idealist could have been healing me for 8-10 per round, and that way Ra could have actually contributed some damage. But hey, it worked out.
(1) How did you stay alive long enough to get out all of that setup? Even if you take out the "nastiest" stuff from Dreamer's deck, it's still pretty consistent round-to-round damage, and (at least in the games I've played) the really good stuff in Chrono and Ra's deck (i.e., Imbued Fire, Blazing Tornado) that will allow you to start taking apart projections doesn't come until Round 4-5 or so. In my best games, by the time I have out about 8 Ongoings (i.e., enough to withstand the 4-ongoing killfest when Dreamer flips), all of my heroes are down to about 12 HP.
(2) For that matter, when did you come across Extrasensory Awareness? I've been trying to play Recompile early to get cards in Parse's hand, but in all of my games (about 10 so far) I have yet to come across Extrasensory Awareness. I've gotten two Gauges several times, but never saw Extrasensory Awareness. Did you play lots of Recompiles?
I also ended up with everyone in the low double digits before I got my healing loop going, but I was able to edge higher on HP before the flip with deck control and two Dart Thrower shots per round.
Replayed it this morning and typed up my route, if anyone has more specific questions or wants to know in specific how I did it, drop me a message.
Got a near mint, gave myself plenty of time to setup heroes and heal some before flipping the dreamer. Used parse to control dreamers deck, CR to kill projections out of turn with ultimate target, and medico for being and idealist to reduce damage the dreamer was dishing out.
Following the general suggestions above, I got a Near Mint, but it wasn't exactly easy. Chrono-Ranger had the highest HP with 8. But all that build-up meant I didn't lose my important stuff during the flip (or afterward to certain Projections), Chrono always had lots of damage to deal thanks to Parse, and the end of the game came a bit quicker than I realized. In fact, most of it was just using Syntactic Analysis on the Sentinels and seeing how much healing Dr. Medico could dish out. So yeah, slow and steady wins this race, and I never would have considered that without the help of the cool folks on this board. Thanks, guys! :)
Fine. Same prepare and duck strategy that everyone else took. It's amazing how frustrating it is when you're capable of dealing massive amounts of damage, but have no targets to aim at.
No deaths, and every environment card that wasn't a Level or a Turbolift was in play.
So you know what's absolutely amazing with that turtle strategy?
Put all your critical multipliers on Doctor Medico. Then heal one of your guys with coordinated effort for 14+ hp. I'm going to flip her with full hit points or nearly so, I expect.
Finally succeeded on my 4th or 5th attempt with Writhe unconscious and everyone else in single digits.
Ditto. Writhe out, everyone else under 5.
Fine.
Whew. This one played out as the 11-year old girl repeatedly slapping the 6-year old girl in the face to wake her up. And sometimes Neuro-Toxins were administered–but the Doctor was on hand to make sure she didn't slip away…
I’m glad I’m not the only one having trouble with this. I like her as a villain, but DAMN, this is a poorly optimized team for this fight!
Went ahead and claimed my "good".... would have been "mint" had I played it yesterday. This was a fun one: Writhe incapacited, everyone else at 1 or 2 HP.