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Kestrel's Tips (updated 5/11/09)

Some Quick Thoughts on Being a Badass from an Old Beta Player

By on April 17, 2009 5:30:28 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

So having played this game for about 6 months now I thought I'd post some random tips on gameplay, mistakes I see people making that can be easily avoided -

I. Movement:

How and where you move is really important. Some examples -

- If your gank team is converging on some poor little nubcake DG try to go where he will be when he starts to gtfo, not where he is chillin before he sees you coming.

- Learn to run away.  Much better to forfeit the kill opportunity than give your opponents free gold and experience.  If you are the nubcake in the above scenario then gtfo.  You will not win a 1 v 2 duel unless you know something your opponents don't know (like that you are a Badass (TM) - if there is any question about this then you are not yet a Badass). 

Unless you are a Badass you need to run any time

1.  You are losing more health more quickly than your opponent

2.  You are at half-health or lower

3.  The odds are bad (1 vs 2)

4.  You are out of mana and you won't get enough for your bread and butter skills any time soon

5.  Your opponent has a wave of high-level grunts or minions to back him up and you don't

- Run smart.  If you are at half health and you run screaming past a (non-Erebus) dropped health pot one more time I will break my monitor. *Pick it up - it heals you*  If you see a baddy intercepting the shortest line of retreat find a different way home.  Whatever you do don't stop running unless something has shifted radically in the battlefield ( a dropped pot, an allied Sedna, sudden Badassness).  I've lost track of how many new players I've killed because they stopped running long enough to fire one last parting shot. 

II.  Positioning:

- If you are playing a DPS Fire TB don't walk up to my Tank Rook to cast Ring of Fire.  You are like wet tissue paper and range is one of your strongest advantages.  Don't waste it.  Whittle me down from a distance and use Ring to keep me away.  If I keep coming throw a Nova and get out of there.  You get the point - if you are playing a harrassment or support build you don't start a battle at the front with a big target on your forehead.  You have to position yourself to deal damage without receiving it and be ready to run if focus shifts to you despite your best intentions..Only when your opponent breaks off to run do you jump in to finish things. 

And if you are playing a support/harrassment build you have to help your slower, thicker, and much more survivable allies out.  Don't leave them hanging when they hang themselves out there in front of you - they are the shield and you are the sword.  One without the other will break...

Tanks - read the bold print above and reverse it.  Don't let your lil buddies take the heat..  Be bold punks to keep the heat on you.

- Flags split xp to every allied DG in (short) range of a cap.  Portal Grunts split xp and gold per Micah below.  Minions give no xp or gold when killed.  Teams should split lanes to farm grunts and cap flags.   Minions are great because they reward your opponents nothing when they die but while alive can kill, and you never run out of them. 

III. Micro:

Per Micah (thanks for digging through the LUA for this stuff)

If a demigod and their army (ie: minions and summons) does 25% of the total damage done (not 25% of health, 25% of total damage done) to a reinforcement then when that reinforcement dies a bounty is split amongst all nearby demigods (not just the one who did the damage). Also, if a demigod or their army gets the killing blow on a reinforcement then the bounty for that reinforcement is split amongst nearby demigods.

If a demigod does 25% of damage but does not get the killing blow and is not nearby the gold is still split, but they don't get part of that split. If a demigod (or their army) gets a killing blow though, that demigod does get part of the bounty for the kill.

- so that means as long as one guy in a lane is farming his ally can be sitting back and chillaxing and he will still get the gold benefits.  (Doesn't really make sense to me but I didn't write the code)

- again per a conversation with Micah made after his clarification post - Grunts will not provide xp to their killer unless he is in range, so using your minions to farm xp only works if you are close by.

- DGs, unlike grunts reward gold and xp based on who last-hit and give some to assists too.  You can hit a DG once and still get an assist, so when you see an enemy in trouble you can always poke them for some bling without stealing the kill.  If the kill is in the bag and you attack at the last second and get the kill you will be forgiven once.  Do it every time and no one will want to play with you.  Gold on assists is split between the assisting players.  

- If you have a minion build tell your minions what to do.  Otherwise your minions will shoot at whatever they want, instead of whatever you want.  Or they'll sit there serenely as the Rain of Ice/Hammerslam comes down on them.  A bit of focused fire or move order goes a long way in this game.  Also - if you have a bunch of minions in the field but have to go back to your Crystal please don't take your minions back to the base with you - you can attach them to an allied DG or leave them to guard a flag or farm grunts - even though you are out of range of xp you will get grunt gold.  [Expanded below]

IIIA. Minion Micro [Expanded]

Minion Micro - Minion control and UI is primitive, but if you know how to use it you'll have a definite advantage over a passive player.

Basic Minion control.

M = selects all minions

N = selects Demigod and minions

H = selects Demigod

I = selects unique minions (Spirits, Yetis, etc..)

Leftclicking twice on a minion will highlight all minions of that type.

I'm not going to cover every application of minion tactics and micro here but a couple of applications stick out - 

- Minions make good scouts - put a couple at the edge of your LoS in places where they won't engage reinforcements but will be able to sight enemy DGs moving up a lane.  This has an advantage over observation wards because it's free and you can easily replace them if they get killed.  OTOH it doesn't let you see invisible objects like mines the way wards do but we'll get to that in our next point.

- Invest the 350g to get a Minotaur Berserker idol - no, they don't cause alot of damage but what they can and will do if you let them is take the massive damage your opponents meant for you.  Use your minions as tanks.  The most obvious example of this is using them as minesweepers, but you can also use them to tank a tower's first few hits, tank a wave of grunts, etc.  I don't generally rank up past Berserker but I know players who do and at level 4 Minotaurs look a lot like level 3 Demigods in terms of tanking capacity.

- Use your minions as a team.  Your level 3 priests will heal on a 10 second timer which is separate from your ally's level 4 Bishops 10 second timer.  That means if you are all in the same battle you are getting healed every 5 seconds.  If you both have Bishops then their heals won't stack and you have paid more for less, gj.  Per Micah, a team of 3 who spring for L2 Siege Archers at game start can take down a tower in under 60 seconds from outside LoS.  Think about that - you can be downing towers a minute into the game, if you work together and use minion micro.

A related part of this is that your minions can be equally helpful to someone else on your team, especially if that someone else has no access to minions themselves.  An allied Ooze UB is going to be incredibly happy if you send him a couple of your obsolete L2 Priests now that you are upgrading to L4.  Rook can always use some Siege Archers to provide him some range and guard his Tower Patch.  A Kite Reg will welcome some minos to tank for him..No your throwaway minions won't last forever but they only have to last long enough to give your ally an edge.  You get the idea - your minions can be useful even (maybe especially) when they aren't attached to your coatstrings.    

- Focus your minion's fire.  Fine, they don't do as much damage as you do.  But they do alot more than you'd expect - if and when you tell them to.  Most Minion Generals 1 v 1 each other like this - I come up and hit you and we start trading hits - all of our minions start hitting each other - after 5 minutes or so we have no minions but we are finally able to determine the duel mano a mano, eh?  Why do you have minions if you are going to waste them like this?  Why not just play as Pew Pew "I'm gonna demolish if this game lasts for longer than 6 hours" Artifact Regulus?

OK - how about instead of that you press M, indicate your opponent DG and then when you start to hit them they are dead before they understand what's happening?  (A straight minion build won't achieve this much, but throw some nukes in there and you'd be surprised)

Or even better, how about before committing to battle you focus-fire his priests and siege so that when you finally do allow him close distance his damage and health regen are half-crippled?  

I would welcome some additional Minion Micromanagement thoughts here.  I am still figuring this stuff out and my micro is relatively paltry.  Thanks, Kestrel

IV. Adaptability

- Congratulations, you have found the ultimate build.  But somehow your opponents are countering it in this game you are playing right now.  A true Badass will never commit to one course if it isn't working.  If your uber-pwn build strat isn't working *right now* then you should change it *right now*.  Learn the mechanics to see how you are being beaten and then look at what you can do to turn it around.  Some quick examples -

- Against a spell/nuke-heavy team invest in health items and absorption/interrupt abilities like Shield and Foul Grasp

- Against a DPS/Slow-heavy team invest in armor items and blink/warp or speed items

- Against Mines and quick flag steals invest in Observation Wards (least used, most value item in game)

- Against Strong Grunts and Minions invest in AoE and Splash Damage, and maybe building upgrades

- Against a regen build invest in slows, nukes, and finishes (you can't let him have time to regen)

- Against a health/tank build invest in DoT and range attacks

You can die a bunch in the beginning as long as you are figuring out how to kill in the end.  Don't panic and use your head and you will be two steps ahead of 90% of your rote-build-order-I-saw-on-the-forums opponents

V.  Exploration

- Each DG is waiting for its Badass owner - believe me when I tell you that any DG can be countered and all of them are powerful.  Balance needs tweaking a bit but it's overall really, really good right now.  If you aren't succeeding with or against a given DG it isn't always the DG's fault.  Sometimes you just have to take it back to the drawing board and try something new.  There are alot of little-used abilities that are worth looking at - just because you haven't heard about it yet doesn't mean it doesn't work....

- In the same line there are a *ton* of crazy items no one is using yet that are really awesome.  Learn and use your items.  Favor, consumable, equipped, idol, whatever... Reading the description doesn't cut it - alot of these things are better or worse on paper.  I'm not going to give you examples of these- my fingers are starting to bleed from writing this thankful (?) wall of text and you can find them just as well as I can...

Test stupid items and stupid builds  - who knows, maybe you will find something new  

Edit: And as Kitkun points out - certain skills and items work as advertised but if you are going to use them effectively you need to know how they work.  Read the descriptions.  Hooked on Phonics, people.  Worked for me...

VI.  Strategy (per Kitkun)

Work toward something at every level.  Work toward powerful items, citadel upgrades, enemy portals, and the enemy citadel.  Have a plan of attack.  If you don't but your allies do then follow their lead...

VII. Citadel Upgrades

Every Citadel upgrade has its uses (with the exception of Death timer - needs some love).  Generally the first level is always going to be the most cost-effective but we'll talk about that later.  A couple of things to remember -

[Per transitive] - Your upgrades should be about the map and team you are on.  I'll almost never upgrade grunt types gradually except on a map like Crucible which only has one lane.  On a map like that Priests can be very effective and if you support them they won't feed your opponents too many level.  On a map like Prison I'll upgrade XP every chance I get because when you can cap a flag every 20 seconds even 10% advantage adds up.  On a map with 50 towers I'm going to upgrade tower offense and tower defense more often than I will on a map with 15 towers.  If I have 4 teammates getting level 2 of the gold upgrade is alot more viable because even though my outlay is more I'm feeding more gold to alot more people than I am in a 2 v 2.  Use your upgrades based on how they scale in given circumstances

- Learn how and when to upgrade your grunt types. In order to upgrade your grunt types you will need to control the neutral flags at least half the time to earn the War Rank necessary to upgrade.  If you can't do that then your enemy will be able to field catas and giants before you.  Unless you want that to happen (and you might, if you eat Giants like candy) make sure you have War Rank equity.  As well as War Rank you need gold.

- Don't ever buy Grunt Type Upgrades gradually unless you are a Badass or playing Crucible.  It's almost always better to buy all the grunt types you can in one wave.  It gives your opponent less time to react and less ability to level off of the suddenly available xp and gold.  If I see you upgrade to priests within 4 minutes of game start one more time I'm gonna start frothing at the mouth, seriously, because you just handicapped your team...

- Just because you have Giants doesn't mean you win the game.  Maybe your opponent has Giants too.  Maybe they have crazy AoE and are just sucking up your grunt streams like soda and levelling every 5 seconds and buying multiple artifacts which they are dropping at your feet to humilate you.  ^^  Momentum can shift pretty quickly once the big units are on the field.  As a Rule of Thumb - in Conquest, you haven't won the game against a good team until you have (any neutral portals and) at least one of your opponent portals locked down and producing siege units.  By "locked down" I mean you have a lock on that portal and you put a new one on every time it expires.  A good team will do anything they can to keep you from locking a home portal, because they know it's the end if they can't get it back, so bring lots of guns.

Well, that's a start...I'll add more when I see someone doing something so annoying/brilliant I have to post about it here (Or when someone older and wiser has a tip they'd like to add ^^)

Useful Resources 4/23/09 -

  Compiled GamesReplays Tips (Thanks Keemossi)

  Economy (Thanks Keemossi)

  Mint Upgrades (Thanks chaosbrynn ^^)

  Buying Armor vs Health


  Stats on all units

  a Wiki for everything else (Thanks Silphius and Revenance)

+118 Karma | 44 Replies
April 21, 2009 8:44:22 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Very useful tips - even for someone like me who has been playing since the first phase of the beta!

I really can't help but emphasize the importance of playing defensively, and not feeding kills to your opponent.  In the early to mid game, have a defensive mindset.  You shouldn't really switch to "offense mode" until you clearly have the upper hand, and have started to push a lane.

April 21, 2009 8:56:35 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I disagree about the 4 minute priests being a disadvantage. Their heals are really useful early game, healing about as much as a potion. Can turn things around for you in a tight spot. They also allow for early pushes against towers, giving you the tactical advantage because the enemy no longer has the cover of their tower to retreat to when fighting with you over a flag in the middle.

 

April 21, 2009 10:02:42 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I disagree about the 4 minute priests being a disadvantage. Their heals are really useful early game, healing about as much as a potion. Can turn things around for you in a tight spot. They also allow for early pushes against towers, giving you the tactical advantage because the enemy no longer has the cover of their tower to retreat to when fighting with you over a flag in the middle.

I respect that - think about it the same way you think about DG kills though - it's far more important to deny gold and xp to your opponents than it is to gain it yourself.  Tactically early priests might really help to down the first set of towers but once those are down your opponents will invest in tower health regen and the rest of the game they will be benefiting from your maneuver.  It's a risk. 

Personally if I see you bring priests out I'm going to invest heavily in xp upgrades.  The combo should put me 3-5 levels higher than you by game end...

April 21, 2009 10:50:09 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

i've with Kestrel on the early priest reinforcement upgrades. unless you're prepared to capitalize on it right away it will ultimately result in a gift of exp and gold to your opponents. this was counter-intuitive in a big way to me as i figured having priests available would let me stay in a lane longer and thus farm creeps more easily, but it doesn't seem to work out that way in my experience. it just makes AoE farming much more lucrative for the other team. 

 

having access to healers in your lane is still very important though, and for this reason its immensely useful for a general to buy a priest idol relatively early in the game to keep your staying power nice and high during the early and mid-game levelling race. i'm particularly fond of the level 2 idol. those priests heal for a good amount throughout the game (its percentage based not a flat amount) and the level 2 idol has a decent balance between mana cost to summon and survivability of the minions. its also affordable, only 1500 gold. the higher level priest idols are much more pricey and alot harder to buy without hurting your gold supply.

 

if you're playing an assassin you'll have to buy more +health regen items to make up for your lack of priests. or you can just go mooch off of a team-mates priest summons, they seem to heal everything near them whenever they cast the spell so i don't think you'd be denying healing to your team-mate by hanging out near his priests. 

 

April 22, 2009 4:27:39 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I can say too that priest upgrades just to upgrade won't help, Had a team do it to us on prison and they lost the game cause of it when they were on even ground with us currently. The extra exp allowed me to get my tb leveled up faster casuing them to lose badly. (Try to live through two tb's and a reg with no aritifacts.) It went from a close match to a landslide on our part. Be very careful of just upgrading units espcially when there's a tb as he will benefit the most not only because he has aoe but because tb generally is only strong in the high levels.

April 23, 2009 10:56:18 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

added links to some useful threads.  If you guys come up with some more let us know.  Thanks, Kestrel

April 23, 2009 12:25:29 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Come on now Ke5, dont I derserve a shoutout for the Mint thread

April 23, 2009 12:44:09 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

lol sure, though I was giving credit for telling me about the threads, not making them   The fact that I included your thread as "useful" should be all you need, right?

May 1, 2009 1:44:26 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Just to underline - When you are playing Domination - cap and hold flags.  When you are playing Fortress - destroy enemy forts and protect your own.  When you are playing Slaughter kill enemy DGs and don't die. 

For example - I played a tight and amazing Domination match last night but there were a few facepalms - Don't be messing around farming grunts when we are in a tight domination match and both teams need 200 points to win - go cap frikkin flags ASAP.  Don't spend all your money on the grunt stream in Domination because again *it's about the flags.*  Don't go across the map to battle some DG if there is an unprotected flag right in front of you that isn't yours.

Play to the objectives of the match if winning is a consideration for you.

Also - gg my team and opponents - never had a dom match that close before - 9,987 to 10,000 

May 1, 2009 1:51:00 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

It is because a lot of people don't understand how big of a war rank bonus you get from holding multiple flags.  Domination is usually the easiest mode to win online in skirmish/pantheon because chances are you opponents are busy gearing up for a conquest type victory while you are taking flags.

May 6, 2009 6:20:57 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

*Bump*

Bumper car.

 

May 7, 2009 6:45:32 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Strategies - I thought I'd expand on this section a bit in relation to specific game types - the problem is that I don't really play alot of games that aren't Conquest...Anybody have any really general thoughts on things you do differently in Domination, Slaughter, and Fortress?  And if you want to share easily avoidable mistakes you see players make in other game types that'd be great.

Also I'm looking at expanding the micro section in relation to minions.  I've been pretty lazy with my minions even when I build that way so before I nub all over the post - What are some minion micro tips and tricks you pros out there would like to share?  What are some common mistakes you see players make with minions?

And yah, on all this stuff if you see something you'd like to bring in even after I've updated a section don't be afraid to shout out - anything we can do to bring people up to speed will make the community more interesting and more challenging (I'm getting tired of pubstomps, from both sides)

May 7, 2009 7:30:40 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

I didn't see it cleared up but the way gold/XP for reinforcements works is (as per the LUA):

If a demigod and their army (ie: minions and summons) does 25% of the total damage done (not 25% of health, 25% of total damage done) to a reinforcment then when that reinforcement dies a bounty is split amongst all nearby demigods (not just the one who did the damage).  Also, if a demigod or their army gets the killing blow on a reinforcement then the bounty for that reinforcement is split amongst nearby demigods.

If a demigod does 25% of damage but does not get the killing blow and is not nearby the gold is still split, but they don't get part of that split.  If a demigod (or their army) gets a killing blow though, that demigod does get part of the bounty for the kill.

XP is just split amongst nearby demigods regardless of who does damage or who gets the kill.  Again, the exception is that if you or your army gets the killing blow then you get XP even if you aren't nearby (ie: sniping a reinforcement).

May 11, 2009 7:56:57 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

So I added a section on minion micro - I'd welcome any further insight on this, and I think if everyone played minions tightly then we'd start seeing "Nerf QoT!!" threads

I'll bring in some tips of overall mode strats when someone gives me some, right now I'm typing blind

Thanks

May 11, 2009 8:36:49 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

- so that means as long as one guy in a lane is farming his ally can be sitting back and chillaxing and he will still get the gold benefits.  (Doesn't really make sense to me but I didn't write the code)

Doesn't make sence in a game-world sence, but does make sence as far as not having the one guy with a short temper and a sence of entitlement ragequit because you killed "his" wave.

 

Also, haven't been able to see if this actually works, but when I'm a general and I want to run off and cap a flag that's open, I often leave my minions behind by the creep waves, to take a few down and hopefully get me some xp if one of my teammates starts farming there.

May 11, 2009 9:25:44 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

SolaceAvatar: You'll get gold if your minions deal a killing blow, but not XP.

May 11, 2009 11:08:45 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Mm... better than nothing, at least. Plus they'd help out anyone else that shows up and annoy enemy demis.

Oh, another tip- ambushes. I know these maps don't have much terrain, but I can think of three ways to manage it anyway.

First off, teleporting. An attentive enemy might notice the sign of someone warping in, but even if they do, they won't know who and in what condition you're at.

Second, play fog of war to your advantage. If you see a teammate fighting someone they might not be able to see you (depending on where you are), and you can either come in from the side, or cut them off then they run.

Third, and sneakiest, hide behind a larger character. Rook works wonders for this. If you fallow closely behind, your opponent might not know he's in for a 2v1 until he's suddenly at half health for no reason.

May 12, 2009 12:15:42 AM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

First off, teleporting. An attentive enemy might notice the sign of someone warping in, but even if they do, they won't know who and in what condition you're at.

Second, play fog of war to your advantage. If you see a teammate fighting someone they might not be able to see you (depending on where you are), and you can either come in from the side, or cut them off then they run.

Third, and sneakiest, hide behind a larger character. Rook works wonders for this. If you fallow closely behind, your opponent might not know he's in for a 2v1 until he's suddenly at half health for no reason.

#1 used to be really effective because the port animation didn't exist.  Still always fun to watch some poor new guy scratching his head when he sees three whirlpools pop up at the flag he is trying to cap

#2 is really important and speaks to the need for map awareness and I would add that you want to position your approach within the fog to best advantage - if you can cut off his line of retreat before he sees you then he's in alot of trouble. 

#3 can be really useful for foiling enemy abilities and achieving stealth kills - you don't even need a Rook.  Sedna and Oak can walk inside each other to confuse their profiles, for example.  Huddling with allies, minions, or reinforcement waves is good practice as long as your enemy doesn't lead with AoE.  Also, you can't really predict your enemies' POV but I've definitely gotten a stealth kill or two by sidling up close to towers, tower connecting walls, or citadels too...

June 10, 2009 4:42:23 PM from Demigod Forums Demigod Forums

Le bump.

 

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