Quest: Mithril Mines, Melee Troop Leveling and Strategies

So since I've been back, I've been running lots of leveling quests.

One quest I did alot back in the day was Mithril Mines. Back in 2008 I did this quest differently. I would kill all the archers, then bug out all the mobs by sticking one of my units in a spot that would cause a pathing bug for all the mobs. This would get them all grouped up, then I would Fireball them down. As the fireball had a 1 minute refresh time, (unlike now, where you use it and its gone), I could rotate two sets of Fireballs to kill the mobs with no danger.

I wroteup the quest back in 2008 if you want to see even more info on it: http://sagathoughts.blogspot.com/2008/07/who-loves-mithril-mines-everyone.html

So today's post is to talk about the differences, and why this quest is still excellent for leveling.

1. First of all this is not the experience farm the "Blasted Lands" quest is. Blasted is much better for leveling your Army from 27-35.
2. The problem with Blasted Lands, is it doesn't do a good job of leveling all your troops to troop level 10. It is best to run with Human Archers, or any troop that kills Drake easily.
3. If you need to level non-ranged troops, Mithril is better.
4. Blasted Lands runs faster, Mithril has a pause in the middle between waves, so if you are loot farming, Blasted is better

Strategies for Mithril Mines:

1. First of all, make sure you farm Blasted Lands first to get a good set of items for your troops in Mithril Mines. I personally like DR, hitpoints, movement for my melee that I level in Mithril Mines. This seems to make them survive long enough to get good experience.
2. I like to run mostly Melee troops in Mithril. Then, I stick them in Ranged Defense formation, and don't change that the entire fight. (Ranged of course increases their defense vs ranged attackers and gives a speed bonus, but penalizes them vs melee mobs.)
3. I hand select the target, and make all my units focus fire. Many of the mobs in Mithril have need 8000 hitpoints, so if you let your 400dps units attack them individually, it will take 20 secs to kill each unit, and you will get swamped.
4. The kill order is Melee troops, then ranged. Because you are running around in ranged Defense, the ranged archers shooting you are not doing very good damage. Kill those melee troops, they can hurt you the most. Fire your use abilities anytime you get to a pack of melee to quickly own them.

Overall this troop experience isn't great, but you end up leveling 6 troops at once. This is useful for getting your army to 10. In my last army, I ended up with alot of certain troops at 10, and alot at 5. I would rather take longer, and have a better balanced army at the end.

Quest: Blasted Lands - drakes and loot everywhere

So since I've been back, I've had numerous people tell me that the new loot farming quest is Blasted Lands.

I've run this quest from Army level 27-30, I have to admit, this is a great TV quest. Most of the time my army fights by itself, then I loot at the end.




A couple tricks I found out:

• Human Archers
• Let Fly X 3
• For starting the mission, a heavy cav unit with movement items. After it starts it, just flee the unit.
• To start the mission, just run up the hill. Its a bad pathing nightmare.

Rewards:

• 200,000 experience
• around 3000 gold
• 4-6 items, all end game.
  
  

Quest: Trial of the Gods - Good item farming and leveling 25-30

Trial of the Gods is the newest quest. It starts out as a way to get the new Rogue Hero Olvir Jezrek.

However, after you get the hero, the quest randomizes a map with different armies to fight, and different item loot to gain. This quest is very useful for folks leveling in what I believe is the most hard levels to finish; ie 25-30.

Overview at the "Gold" level:

1. At Gold this quest gives about 1100 gold and 80,000 experience.
2. The troops you fight are about level 8.
3. I was consistently beating this at level 22+
4. Sometimes the map spawns as all flyers, so be ready to counterspawn your drakes and ice drakes.
5. They come in from 3 directions, so you need about 3 tanks to hold them.
6. The CP cap allows for about 6 troops. Sometimes they spawn buildings you can grab for more CP.
7. Don't spawn your army until you know what you are fighting. I would prespawn an archer troop, then hold the rest until I see the matchup.
8. Normally my setup was 3 archer troops in the middle, then tanks in three directions.
9. If it gets out of control, just try to hold on, often it would end before I got overwhelmed.

In terms of comparison with other great exp quests like Mithril Mines, its right up there in terms of rewards. The best thing is the loot is USEABLE at the level you are farming this quest, so it might now be end-game, but it will make your last ten - fifteen levels way easier

From my latest run:

Loot distribution changes everytime, but this is a sample

This is the number of troops that spawn, as you can tell its around 20ish.

Territories and Free Super Cards:

So I was searching my blog for answers from back in the day. I forgot how to open up the territories on my new undead army. Well, it turns out I never posted the how/to on this, so here's the answers if you have the same question as a new, or returning player:

Territories:

Open at 6,13,17,20 level. You get only four total, even though your interface will show 8. (Room for future growth.)

The 17th level territory requires you finishing a certain number of quests. 20 Quests finished at the Silver level, with the color of gold. You don't have to beat them at the gold level, just the silver level.

Free Super Cards:

If you get high enough to open these up, you get a number of free cards:

- Rogue Olvir Jezrek (hero): Seriously good overpowered hero card. The 15% AR bonus is amazing for doign quests. He also has sick base stats for tanking. Wait, there's more... He grows everytime you use his ability. Grows HUGE. lol

- Ice Drake: Excellent as a Flyer tank. Just excellent for many missions. Requires 25,000 food to open.

- Armored Behemoth. Great for missions where you hit alot of Machine armies to fight. Requires 15,000 gold to open.

Saga could learn alot from Free Apple Ipod games

So I tried the Silverlode Ipod free game, "Saga Catapult". - http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/saga-catapult/id319957016?mt=8

It kinda lead me down the road, that Saga the MMORTS should learn lessons from the Ipod market successes:

1. Give away ALOT for free, to get the players addicted.
2. MICRO-TRANACTIONS are key. Get them buying
3. Make sure you have a BIG playerbase of free players. Without them, you can buildup enough player mass.
4. Get the economy solid so the players are creating addiction.

Saga right now makes it too hard for the free player.

I think Silverlode should 10X the gold drops. Let the players build up giant armies of bought units.

Also 2X or 5X the experience gains. Why should it take a month to level 1-35 when in reality, most players when they cap out, buy a NEW ARMY to rollup.

Just my 2 cents.