Cocofang

If you want to totally wreck rPvE with an unconventional, cheap T4 card, you can go for Death Ray. Tried to use cheap cards where possible. You can get by without Grimvine. Mutating Frenzies kinda work if you want to take them with you on T4 but they'll die. Technically, you don't strictly need any other T4 aside from Giant Wyrm and Death Ray. The most important spells are all Arcane, which means they can be used anywhere and without ground presence. Revenge and Thunderstorm aren't necessary either but are very good with Death Rays. Thunderstorm helps clearing up trash so Death Rays don't blow their valuable charges and Revenge has crazy synergy with their Leech Guns because the life they suck out of your own units gets splashed onto enemies! The idea is to spam WWs and support them with Surge. That can get you to T4 most of the time. But for quick clear of T3 you can use Burrowers to run in, Oink the camp and then destroy the spawns. I added a bunch of fluff units you can use if you feel like it. Can also just switch them around, the core here are just WWs, Death Ray and Giant Wyrm. 2x Healing Gardens are necessary, otherwise it becomes too expensive to sustain your Death Rays. You need to constantly heal them with Equilibrium and Regrowth. Use Unholy Hero and Unholy Might on your Death Rays against bosses. This is what a more expensive version of this deck can look like. It's obviously also possible to start with Shadow and go for Harvester. Noteworthy additions are Cultist Masters + Furnace of Flesh for quick void return, which you need because you heal a lot. Incredible Mo for the yellow buff so your Death Rays can't be disabled. Overlord and Grim Bahir are whatever, Grimvine and Giant Wyrm work just as well. Just some beefy units your Death Rays can leech off of. U3 Death Ray is required so they aren't slow anymore. Why are they worth the trouble? They have 4000 DP20S and they DOUBLE that while they have juice. In addition, they have bonus damage against XL. The tankiest bosses (and most dangerous enemy units) in rPvE are XL and they usually take some time to grind down. However Death Rays have a whooping 12.000 DP20S against XL units. Add Unholy Hero and they just tear whole chunks out of any boss. You WILL notice when your Death Rays lay into a boss, nothing else compares.

rPvE WWs with Surge can carry to T4. If you are feeling uncomfortable Ensnaring Roots and Hurricane can be added. Shaman is unnecessary. Dryad B is optional. Your T2 is way out of whack. Too many units and nothing against air except Aggressor, which is a support unit. Defenders have over 2000 EHP when they hunker down. Also makes heals MUCH more effective. Defense buff stacks with Crystal Fiend B. Insanely tanky, insane value. Crystal Fiend OR Razorhard. Both aren't necessary. Aggressor is an expensive addition and would need WWs as support, otherwise it will never kill S units. Burrower can also serve as the sole T2 to rush in with Oink and kill spawns. Stone Tempest is fun but also expensive. Don't linger on T2. People wanna gogogo. T3 Rageflame OR Deepfang, don't need both. Deepfang would be the higher value pick, I think. Tanky enough to frontline a bit with spell support. Can keep both for flavor anyway if you fancy it. T4 is flexible. Can freely mix and match between these and Grinders, Gemeye P, Watcher. Doesn't matter too much. Shrine is your way to get back void if nobody has SoW. Gardens more than double the value of your heals. Build 2 each for perma-uptime. Can add Incredible Mo (yellow buff is important) and/or Wheel. Spells are flexible. Can add Shatter Ice to chunk after freeze. Noxious Cloud for a bit of help on bosses. Tornado is great damage. Matter Mastery if you want a good card against Willzappers. Ward of the North for even more tankiness if you grind into a camp. Won't need that tho. Equilibrium G is more reliable once you have your army going. Revenge is a good solution for tankiness/damage but can pick between it and Shell.

It's a PoE copypasta. SSF is Solo Self Found. You play alone and only use what you get yourself.

I only play true ethical SSF hardcore. I give away every meta card I draw because it is unethical to keep it. When I lose a map, I delete every card upgrade I used on that map because it's not true ethical SSF hardcore otherwise. I disenchant every meta upgrade I land because it is unrealistic to ever get the upgrade I want in true ethical SSF hardcore. I skip XL units because they are unethical powerhouses. Every time a Cursed Orb or Cursed Well drops, I immediately remove a random card from my current deck to increase the challenge. I've had beginner chat and strategy chat disabled since I got my closed beta invite because player interaction gave too much advantage. I've sent at least 84 emails to the Skylords devs over the years asking for unlimited ignore player space so I can make sure that no one talks to me when I'm in the forge. I read and listen to every NPC callout, unit quote and lore entry to fully immerse myself in the true ethical SSF hardcore experience. Every time I go into this general and read the word "meta", "trading", "amii monument", "batariel", "nightguard", "mark of the keeper", so on and so on, I've stolen at least a dozen credit cards from my parents to pay for the patreon to show my support for the Skylords devs and the true hardcore game that they have revived. Why do you self-proclaimed SSF hardcores even try to pretend that you're truly SSF hardcore? You make me fucking sick.

From the old description I always imagined it working this way: Normally the power capacity in a well translates 1:1 to power output. For 10 power in the well you will eventually also gain 10 usable power. But with Juice Tank the power in the well drains slower while the output remains the same. By the time you get your 10 usable power the well only lost like 5 of its power capacity. So in order to get the most out of your wells, you build Juice Tank asap. Because every point of power capacity in the well lasts longer while still giving you the same energy output. It's factual that the well will effectively produce more. But not because it does so faster but because its capacity simply lasts longer. In maps that take a long time you will end up with a HUGE energy pool.

Potentially offset by an increase in price for less sought after cards. I'd say the amount of BFP/Gold you have to pay in order to reroll is based on card rarity. It would definitely shake up the AH. Questionable how it would affect people that already have all the cards (they want). Probably not good enough as a definitive card/bfp/gold sink forever.

I think the game would benefit from some sort of long-term culling mechanic for cards, BFP and gold. Also, rolling the dice is already part of the core experience when opening boosters. As such I think it would be in line to offer a reroll of sorts. For example three same-rarity cards and some BFP/gold rerolled for another card of equal rarity with a chance of getting one rarity higher. One might argue that people would then simply buy up all the cheap rares and ultra-rares to reroll. But that rise in demand would then also mean that those cards rise in value. And with boosters having a fixed price, it would make even "bad" cards in boosters have some sort of innate value. To evaluate pros and cons would be up to the design team but in general there needs to be a long-term sink, which is an acknowledged issue.

It's a part of micro management. They are powerful effects that already enjoy a lot of use. They don't need a buff like that. At all. In fact, I would argue that it is already too powerful that you are able to build two in order to completely circumvent the cooldown. This eliminates decision making about when to activate these extremely potent effects because you can just have them permanently. Otherwise you would AT LEAST have to wait for a decent amount of void to accumulate. And people would have to relay to the SoW user when they need a boost. But currently, on rPvE where enemies are dying at all times, it effectively eliminates the void mechanic from the game. Suggesting that it simply runs permanently shows one got too used to an extremely strong effect and is now even too comfortable to do anything for it.

In the meantime, and in case a colorblind mode won't/can't be implemented, ReShade is great for colorblind gamers and should be the go-to solution if an official one is absent. It is a post-processing software that can also straight up switch and adjust colors. With colorblindness having multiple forms, it is a good idea to have a customized colorblind shader that you can just slap over any game. Searching around the internet should net a few helpful tutorials and even premade shaders for colorblind people.

I think the current priority is attempting to clean up the absolute disgraceful mess the original game was.

Well, first thing I checked out was the Dwarven Riddle video and sure enough Amii Monument was used. And Shaman. Two cards that are traded with very high value. So if your target audience is supposed to be newer players, I think you should maybe limit yourself to a budget for any given deck. And provide alternative strategies with different decks and colors, since I think new players often focus on a certain color that they then try to make work. For example, if a fire player watches a tutorial that is done entirely with a Nature or Stonekin deck, they would be quite disappointed and possibly wonder if they can even do it with their preferred color. Also, generally, I think newer players should be taught to be less reliant on certain, common cheese strategies and cards. The usual offenders that get abused to bend or downright break the game are Enlightenment, Amii Monument, Nightguard or Mana Wind and Mark of the Keeper on certain maps. At the very least they should be made aware that you don't NEED them to win Expert maps. Because that is a sentiment I see expressed quite often. Challenges like "Only Twilight-Edition cards" would be very interesting to see as well. As a side note to you personally, I'd advise you to manage your expectations. Skylords is a very niche game with a small community so if you are hoping to grow a YouTube channel with this type of content, it's probably not viable. And even if that is not your goal, reception shouldn't be your main motivator, some subs, views and support would be more like a nice bonus for something you like to do for yourself.

Oracle Original goal was to do the map with roots but the gunners recked the Spikeroots. So I switched up T2. Two stacks of Defenders, 3 each, hunkering down and facing the two directions your T2 gets attacked by the gunners from. Supported by one Crystal Fiend. They hold forever without any maintenance. So you can pump out an army of Tempests and a few additional Crystal Fiends to blast the two camps on your way to T3. If you take care of them, you can easily push all the way down on the left side. After that I just built ALL the Living Towers at my T1 and built a network of Nexus for Razorleafs to clear the rest of the map. Got three of them in a line, always circling them through. The last one goes out front while in its original place another Nexus gets built. That way you push into the remaining bases. Got two options for the wagons. Either don't destroy the buildings that hold them until later or deliver them asap. If you just leave them in the open the spawning enemies will be a constant annoyance. Your T4 has to be defended by a Razorleaf or it will get destroyed on the boss fight. I put the Razorleaf (still linked to the Living Tower battery that I expand on cooldown) to the furthest left side of the T4. Same goes for your T2. There I put the Razorleaf to the furthest right side at the cliff. These two will defend your Orbs from drops and sniping Gunships. Meanwhile the boss arena gets besieged by two Spore Launchers and two Razorleafs. Wyrms are there just because. And Winter Witch to soak up damage and freeze the Bandit Walkers. Frostbite for a faster kill. The most important part is to get to your T2 at around 6 minutes so you can get a few Defenders out before the first Gunners come for you. As soon as your defense is set up you can chill. Key cards in this deck are Defenders, a healer (in this case Crystal Fiend) to keep them alive and Juice Tank. Tempests are fun because once they are set up in a base and supported with Ray of Light, you can just pick off one thing after another. Anything after T2 is completely up to you. T1 nature is obviously comfy. You can either go Shaman:Windweavers 45:55 or pump out more WWs and support with Surge of Light. Any start goes, really. As long as you reach T2 early enough. Defenders are just such a great card. When they Stand Ground, they have 2025 EHP. And that for 95 energy on T2, of which you get 25 back. Makes any heals CRAZY effective as well, as if they had a 2.5 multiplier. Stack them on top of each other so damage gets splashed more equally and they can lock many chokepoints down.

That's what I am talking about though. A bot can just interact with the game like a human would through inputs and screen scans. Navigating the AH isn't that complex. Would need a way to watch the important listings on the provided website and act on them, which would probably be the more difficult part. But I wouldn't put it past people to make one happen. It's something to be mindful about.

I was thinking of this: Confused it with the trade data. In any case a crafty person could surely write a bot that looks at the data output directly on the website to then automatically make AH purchases, no? Wouldn't even need a high success rate or short response time. I imagine if even 1 in 10 or even 20 transactions goes through you'd make more than enough bank each day. But sites like Skylords Marketplace Journal scan the trade data in real-time too, right? The website catches all the outliers and generates graphs from them. So I imagine anyone else could do that for private use as well. Catch the outliers and then have a bot automatically act on it in-game.

Hmm, since the API is public I wouldn't be surprised at all if there are trade bots. Thinking something akin to the bot scanning the API for certain buyout thresholds and when something pops up, it automatically uses the in-game AH to search for the card and buy it. Would definitely not be allowed as per rule 7: "Being a robot - Do not use any kind of bots on our Forums or in-game." An automated bot like that would definitely create some transaction patterns on an account that are abnormal and could be tracked by the dev team. But I do wonder if trade bots could actually be as fast as to instantly snipe an underpriced auction. I would assume that would have a negative impact on performance. Can't entirely rule out the chance that someone just so happened to search for a card at that precise moment.

Well, individual convictions don't necessarily change or affect how the general consensus and culture of the community is. Yeah, advanced seems to be the in-between where the map isn't too easy but people also don't instantly resort to the most extreme measures available. And also don't get agitated for not playing the expected way. I don't necessarily think the everpresent speedrunning strats are directly related to the xp and gold grind. If it was only about that, everyone would speedrun Bad Harvest forever. Which many do, myself included, but meta-gaming and speedrunning exploits are used on many different maps that are much slower. However, failure DOES mean you are missing out on close to every reward. So I'd say a big contributor to the culture is the desire to avoid the failure state, no matter what. I don't think most people that use speedrunning strats check their time. I would guess it's more about having the easiest time possible. After all a failure is very punishing in Skylords. If you lose, you don't get upgrades, barely any gold or XP. So many would probably consider it a waste of time. I do however take issue with the sentiment of some people when they act as if certain maps are easy simply because of an existing speedrunning strat. A distinction between regular gameplay and meta-gaming should always be made. If someone suggests a speedrunning strat it should come with the caveat that it interferes with mechanics in unintended ways. Expert difficulty is notorious for being extremely hard, too much so in some aspects. It might be because originally it was intended to create an incentive for collecting and buying all the most powerful cards that make some maps easier. However, it did come with the side effect that people also went looking for solutions outside of official tools. Fighting unfairness with unfairness in a sense. I didn't mean it as an attack that you have to defend yourself against, more as an example how deep that sentiment runs that even extensive resources meant to help people master the game refer to meta-gaming. I highly doubt Mark of the Keeper was designed with the interaction in mind that indefinitely keeping ranged enemies alive while neutralizing them also blocks scripted waves from spawning. It can be argued it was later made into a real mechanic with Lost Banestone but that's a T3 building. And even then it's questionable if it's within the rules of the game. Fact of the matter is that blocking scripted spawns by keeping part of a wave alive completely undermines the difficulty of maps to a point where it's not even comparable. Nightguard, and by extension the entire takeover mechanic, is way too inconsistent to be considered functional imo. If that's the design it's broken design. Wouldn't surprise me with how bad even card descriptions are. Orb and energy requirements for enemies seem to be all over the place, it all relies on hidden information. The amount of viable cards compared to the total pool is disappointingly low, I agree. The total dominance of S tier cards, even outside of meta-gaming, is also on another level. There is like the absolute top, then the viable cards and then the entire rest. And the S tier cards are so ingrained that even the attempt of buffing viable or lesser cards barely has an effect on usage. But that's a different matter. There are many factors why meta-gaming has such a unique role in the Skylords community. Some seem to be: the extreme, sometimes unfair difficulty of some maps the harsh punishment for failure steep requirements for account progress obviously the implementation of an official leaderboard the lack of fixes from the original dev team

Toggle abilities give a full refund into void. You don't lose anything, you merely push the spent power back to be used again later. And since your Defenders ideally never die while executing that slow-push your main expenses are spells and the towers. The biggest hindrance is finding a good spot to build a Keep for offense and waiting for it to finish. After that you have to aggro the army of whichever camp you attack into your immortal Defenders and sit it out. It's a war of attrition basically. But you should always come out on top as long as waves don't come faster than you can destroy their spawns. It is slow and steady, the essence of frost, basically. Since several Defenders stacked on top of each other will distribute incoming damage very equally and melee enemies will all lay into the stack while generally ignoring the towers (as long as there are enough Defenders to attack) being pushed back is very improbable. Defenders + Keep Red is also just the basis for that tactic. Since it's T2 but only requires one frost orb you are free to splash into any other color your desire for additional customization. It is actually pretty crazy what this simple T2 defense set-up can withstand. As long as the Defenders are getting all the heat and consequently the Keeps don't die, you can outlast T4 units.

Going pure is hard to justify as it is. It's basically just for flavor and fun. A card like this would render pure decks absolute meme-material. This card would especially break T1. The one stage of the game that can be somewhat balanced around a clear, available pool of cards. Frostmages and Windweavers. Sunderer and Shamans. Firesworn and Motivate against L units. It also heavily affects pure T2 units. Harvester being the most notable example. Also, it would just be yet another card like Amii Monument where people just start to completely depend on it.

There is no such thing as going pure being worth it. It can be viable but it will basically never be as good as splashing because there are some really good cards that only require one specific color. Most notorious is probably the 1 Nature splash for obvious reasons. Hey, how about your expensive T4 units don't die? Yeah, I'll take that I guess. Pure is all for flavor and style. Here is something interesting for your consideration that I learned some weeks ago: Defenders + Northern Keep R. An immortal stack of Defenders for 20 seconds that deals 30% more damage and cannot be knocked back. Frost Mage benefits too. Home Soil them if you like. Live out your immovable object frost-fantasy as early as T2. Give it a try in the forge! Stack like 5 or 6 Defenders on top of each other, build two Keeps behind them and then spam a nice, mixed T1 up to T4 twilight army.

You can burn up one of Satanaels Snapjaws with Bloodhealing. Doesn't have long range but it's something.

I mean, yeah that's a novel concept. But what situation would you imagine where you'd actually have to make this choice?

So I think Skylords has a very unique relation to speedrunning that you usually never see in other games. To illustrate my point, imagine this situation: In some ego-shooter there is a very difficult room you have a shootout in and enemies come from all sides, there is little cover and ammo. Now imagine someone is searching for advice online and asks a community for help. What you can expect (aside from some "gitgud" replies) is probably people explaining where enemies come from, where to take cover at what moment and which enemies to focus on to get through. You know, normal gameplay stuff. Now imagine there is also someone that comes in and goes "lol this room is SO EASY, all you have to do is jump on the crate in the corner and shoot it with your revolver. the recoil makes it fall through the floor and you with it. now you are on the ground level. ezpz". What sort of reception do you think this sort of advice would get? Definitely not a positive one. That's because speedrunning and regularly playing the game are usually kept as two very distinct and separate ways to interact with a game. In Skylords, it's different. It has blurred together. Meta-gaming (approaching the game in a way that directly interfers with mechanics or uses hidden information of the game to gain advantages, playing outside the rules of the game) became part of normal gameplay. You see it expressed in sentiments and advice like: "the map is easy, just build Mark of the Keeper to mess with the ranged AI. if you keep them alive then scripted waves stop spawning" "yeah, it's pretty easy with Nightguard. that absurdly strong unit can be take over by her on this map, so just do that" "the timer doesn't matter. just block Jorne with buildings so he cannot follow his intended path" Many people have accepted this as the norm, the regular way to play Skylords. I don't know any other game where meta-gaming and exploit-strats from speedrunning are normalized to the point where when anyone asks for advice for specific maps the very first reply will most likely be something along those lines. Even the ambitious guide to all Expert maps lists known exploits as possible solutions. Some issues that come with this unique environment are: People start to completely and utterly depend on meta-gaming. Not only does it seem that many have never even played some maps without it, I regularly see people argue that exploits are downright necessary to beat some maps. Playing regularly gets looked upon unfavorably in multiplayer. If you don't do "whatever it takes" to win (as in, use the common exploits), you wasted everyone's time. It warps perceived power levels. Completely overpowered cards may be looked upon as - and I have fallen into this trap myself - "not so bad" because after all, there is this speedrunning exploit that's way more powerful. It warps perceived difficulty. Many Expert maps are extraordinarily difficult and require many tries and adjustments to deck and strategy if you attempt to solve them from scratch. But if you simply break the game, many hurdles downright vanish. You can perceive campaign PvE as "done" much sooner. Meta-gaming makes many maps much easier and quicker. You can tick them off, probably never revisiting them again because they are "solved". What I don't intend is to discredit speedrunning as a way to interact with the game and enjoy it. There is a lot of planning, learning, trial and error going into each speedrunning strat and many solutions people come up with are really clever. Trying to strain the games mechanics to their limits until they break and finding quirks to exploit for that one additional advantage that shaves another minute off your time is an impressive process. Not to mention some speedrunning strategies are very high-execution. What I am talking about is the various ways this game is affected by the blurred line between speedrunning and regular gameplay. The various exploits and meta-game strats that are commonplace in this approach across all video games do affect this game in very unique ways. What are some thoughts and experiences with this special environment?

Nightmare's End Deck Everyone and their mom does this map with T2 flyers or some Amii Monument snoozefest, but I wanted to try something else and it was extremely effective. One part of the strategy is something I learned from another player on Crusade and it can be applied here as well: Stack like 5 Defenders and one Crystal Fiend on top of each other, have them hunker down and build two Northern Keeps behind them. You can defend the bottom wall indefinitely with this approach. You open the gate, stack Defenders behind it and they will hold. When waves get stronger sometimes you have to use the Keeps ability. Bandits can do this even better with Commandos B and both types of Retreats, they hold forever without needing any attention at all. But early Juice Tanks are a big deal. Top wall gets defended by the army of Stone Tempests, Fiends and Defenders that you build up to eventually push. Let Defenders tank for the time being with Northern Keep support. You can also add one Tempest behind the Defenders to feel more comfortable at the bot wall. Once you are comfortable (I did it with like 9 Tempests or sth) you go top. Get your Defenders in range of the artillery and have them hunker down. They will tank the cannon for quite some time with Ray of Light and Crystal Fiend support. Have the Tempests clean up whatever reaches your Defenders. Roots if necessary. Focus on keeping Tempest alive, Defenders are fodder for distraction. Then push Tempests in to clean up the artillery cannon. Finish the rest of the camp. You need your Tempests to defend until you got a few Necroblasters going. After that you can switch to Ashbone for the top mid camp. Leave two Tempests as aggro magnets in front of your Necroblasters. Originally did it with Swampdrake support but I think Lost Horror is better. Or just plain Ashbones. Ashbones wreck bot mid camp as well. You will notice your Defenders are still all fine at your initial orb. Last hurdle is T4 but Ashbones and Lost Horrors with spell support have insane AoE clear. Mid can hold with Necroblasters and your eventual T4 army. Necroblasters can also hold your orbs. But expect to maybe lose one. Juice Tanks make energy a non-issue. Spam spells to support your teammate if necessary. I even added Offering to the deck because I was mostly gated by charges in the end. 2x Fountain of Rebirth (in Construction Hut area) is a 90 energy investment for a permanent 25/3sec reg. That's massive for the T2 push, Defenders on defense and for Ashbone. Ashbones have crazy synergy with HoTs overall. T3 and T4 is flexible in this deck. Can use most other things instead. The important thing is T2. Tempest, Defenders+Keep, Crystal Fiend, Juice Tank. Those are the center pieces, I'd say. Budget option would be Razorshard G instead of Fiend. But heals makes base defense and top push much more comfortable.

And if everyone uses the market instead then boosters become more lucrative.

Another thing you aren't taking into account is the extremely powerful FOMO. Say it's implemented, then just the fact that you CAN buy three additional boosters with gold and trash cards per week would make people feel both incentivized to grind for gold, which could become an off-putting, mind numbing grind for people that they still feel like they have to do to get the most tangible benefit, and it would feel bad for the people that can't do that in the first place because they are leaving boosters on the table that others can get. That's something you have to be careful with. The balance between making it feel like an okay-ish gold sink but also making it just bad enough so it's merely a last resort if you have nothing else to do with your gold is important.