Fire > Ice - WHY?
Today I was doing "The Edge" to test some traps because I wanted to find a decent slowing substite for tar for my sorc. What I was disappointed to find that when I used Ice traps (chill decoy, ice bear trap, ice vents, ice darts and steam with chill) that the enemy would advance further toward me than when I used fire. Only took a sec to find out that aside from the exploding decoy all those traps DO ALMOST NO DAMAGE. Why is Ice so underpowered compared to fire in this game. In RL freezing can have just as bad effect on you as burning so why is ice primarily a movement trap rather than a damage trap? (Also why no perma-chill ice vents or steam traps) - having to do everything with fire kinda sucks when ice could be just as fun.
PS: Also cheesed that Ice vents cant catch kobolds. I HATE having to bring brimstone to almost every map. (especially for remote doors I cant protect) it pushes the scorcher out of my loadout most times which sucks since scorchers can be placed on walls. Tar can snare 100% of time but my glorified ice vent cant catch a kobold even though it has a reset time - :(
Yep, I've seen your list before and really wanted to use chill,since it slows so much (in spite of that fact that most coop players use fire and it removes chill) but Fire is waaay better since it slows a bit AND does damage. Ice/Chill only slows if not on reset and during that time mobs easily get past it since sorc cant use Tar (or chill) to boost trap effectiveness. - Steam makes your other traps miss and frozen does no damage. Warmage sapper defense is far better than sorc since he has tar (to make other traps hit kobolds) and brimstone to catch any that get past. (In fact with tar I can skip brimstone if using the right traps and catch every kobold)
I would love to hear other effective kobold setups for sorcs that are more than simply two rows of brimstone (seems to be only thing that works reliably and I really want to take brim out of EVERY endless loadout where I use barriers) - If anyone has a kobold Ice/Chill kobold setup please share.. I just wanna see it in action as I imagine. right now all I see is kobolds running past all my ice traps like they dont exist.
The warmage and the sorc are two completely seperate beasts. Not to be confused unfortunately; I highly recommend Nananea's video's for more main stream gameplay with how to deal with Kobalds.
The sorc in herself is extremely micro manage oriented in her ability to control an entire level. While you may find it difficult to leave it to your traps to clean up - most of us who have adopted her for high scoring pack vampire gauntlets / windbelt combo which cleans up the entire process extremely quickly. However this is due to our funneling into a controlled environment.
Unfortunately if you do not have the luxury of this - I recommend grinders and pathing AFTER your killbox to catch overflow. It takes no more than 1 grinder and 2 barricades to catch anything that makes it through your killbox (usually) and it kills kobalds dead every time. They can not pass it.
@Rogotin I agree on the barricade/grinder setup (always use as last line of defense) - works for kobolds, doesnt for the sappers that target the barricades. so to protect the grinder that kills the kobolds I'm back to brimstone. (!$#@ just cant get it out of my loadout) - especially in maps like caldera where you need to baricade in multiple directions. Brim is my only option to protect the barricades. It would seem like ice vents could freeze the suckers and another trap could finish them off. But Nooooooooooo..........
I cant understand the logic that ICE which freezes movement cant stop a kobold or sapper in their tracks. You cant chill the sappers because its usually a line of them and the head of line gets the steam lift and the others go past during the reset. My endless loadouts usually have only 1 floor trap aside from mushrooms and/or teleporters and swapping ice vent/steam trap/bear trap for brimstone isnt very smart.
That being said the game is what it is - Have the developers ever addressed this point? It just seems strange that Ice Freezing cant catch kobolds/sappers - Is there a reason for this? (Was brimstone ignored in omd1 and they want to encourage usage?)
LAST RANDOM POINT: Lordy why are the DARTS SO WEAK!! In "The Edge" I filled entire ceiling with them #1) Six darts station barely killed anything in this FIRST LEVEL Nightmare setup #2) They RARELY froze/charmed. I could understand the low killing power if the secondaries were nice but they almost never hit. Does anyone use these seriously in Endless?
ANOTHER RANDOM POINT: Think I've watched every Nananea vid - I let em play while I'm OMD2ing. Her humor and setups are very entertaining and enlightning, I think the 5 skulling ones are the best since most of the hi-score loadouts and setups look very cookie-cutter. Too bad there are only a few variations of hi-score setups. Most killboxes look mostly the same. In the 5 skulls she uses a larger variety of traps and strategy.
There is a reason for this. The high score setups are as far from cookie cutter as you can get. Unfortunately unless you are balls deep in information you don't really know what you are looking at.
With the high score setups you're actually seeing a custom designed trap setups for each level. No two setups are identical in any way shape or form. There are slight adjustments and strategy tweaking in all of them. However the five skull setups tend to be more varied. Nananea is really headstrong when it comes to figuring it out herself. Her videos are an excellent source of information and are usually pretty easy to follow. (even if she does sound like nails down a chalk board).
The other to watch is Fryedegg.
The sappers are very unique - and the freeze is really is something that has been addresed. Though the freeze is awful there isn't a lot that can be changed (through many community requests for combos) and they have stated they are pretty happy with the way things are. There are a few things that I'd like to see changed. But that's up to the robot entertainment guys.
Those gsappers are a nasty piece of work. The best information I can give you is their explosion radius is around 4x4 central. And killing them won't always nullify the explosion. Something I took to doing is scattering spike traps randomly across the ground. That was somewhat ok but not always a good option because they seem to ignore anything that has its active time down.
Some people have had some success lifting traps off the ground and that can glitch them out. Which I don't recommend; sort of circumventing the game design in that one. But other than that really it's just a case of deal with what you've got.
OMD2 is a very challenging game in which you need to twist your own ideas to complete a level. Other games like to give you lots of options and you just do it the way you want. OMD2 forces you to figure out the best options instead. And the best options aren't always the most obvious.
A couple of things to note:
1. Kobolt sappers can be filtered out since they target the closest barricade to the rift (bird's view, not taking height into account). Placing a single barricade 1 1/2 square behind a grinder will kill all the sappers coming for that barricade without damaging it. Also blocking a passage completely will re-route regular mobs but sappers will still come for your barricades so again can be dealt with using grinder(s). Goblin sappers, as Rogotin mentioned, unfortunately, don't have an easy solution.
2. Also, sure ice by itself doesn't do damage (as opposed to fire DOT) and traps applying ice don't do as much damage as fire based ones. But you will also note that enemies take significantly more damage while frozen (example ice vent or ice ring freeze an ogre, and headshot with the crossbow). So keep that in mind if you choose to use ice when thinking through your strategy.
The way I find frost to be underpowered is mostly related to the ice vent. That trap could have had so much potential. First I feel like it should have had some way to always apply chill. Way back I had suggested doing a unique chill stream upgrade whereas putting two ice vents facing each other (with ceiling upgrade) would create a constant chill stream. This would give it a tar-like ability, but at a higher cost: $800 and less ceiling real estate. The other beef I had with it is it does not apply a hit combo point making it useless in a high scoring setup.
I found a fun way to use those ice vent effectively. If you combine a steam vent and ice vent on the ceiling. It will for sure kill the orcs. It will freeze the orcs in air and shatter when hit in the ground. I got a decent combo kill box with slow/ bleed/ chill/ freeze. Not the highest, but I figured out how to make a good killbox without burn.
That's a very clever use of high ceilings. Ice vents have been mentioned to kill fliers before, but this is something else. Will have to try it for myself :)
Fire - Enemies slowed to 66% of base speed
Sets the orc on fire. Does burn over time. Adds x1 combo point to the combo.
Chill - Enemies slowed to 33% of base speed
Chill does not freeze an Orc solid. This does not remove stun. It adds x1 combo modifier. (Total Addition: x1)
Frozen - Enemies frozen solid
Frozen is a complex beast - Frozen adds x1 to the combo. It does NOT remove the chill effect but it DOES remove FIRE and STUN effects.
While it does not remove the combo point for chill; chill can not be applied after target is frozen. (Total Addition: x1)
Bleed - No change.
Causes damage over time. (Total Addition: x1)
Snare - Enemies slowed to 50% of base speed and deal -25% damage
These can be found on Acid Sprayer and Spikes with upgrades. (Total Addition: x1)
Stun - Immobilize.
Stun is short. It adds x1 and its hard to work with because it stops orcs from moving. It requires some forethought and is complicated to use in killboxes despite seeming obvious. (Total Addition: x1)
http://www.robotentertainment.com/forum/topic/Combo-Bible
Strider051:
I'd like to see a Rogotin skin for the warmage and sorc. I envision it as kobold runner with a nifty hat riding your shoulders as he lobs grenades at your barricades whilst smacking you in the back of the head.