Void Walls and Moneybags
Void Walls. Difficult to use, as most maps just don't have the wall space to support throwing them up, but when they can be used can be a god send to your defense, giving you a place to just throw stuff in like a trash compactor, and spitting out coins, potions, and if you grab the upgrade, the occasional skeletal orc to distract and fight against your enemies.
Up until the latest DLC, Are we there Yeti?, there hasn't been a trap that can really shove or launch the heavies around. Anything of cyclops mage size or larger was mostly immune to the void walls as they simply couldn't be launched into it. Enter the spike wall, changing the name of the game for the heavies and flinging them about like rag dolls, even the massive earth elemental lord takes a bit of a flop when smacked in the chin by these spring loaded wall traps.
So in experimenting with trying to combine these two traps on the endless map that came with the Family Ties DLC, Servant Entrance, I found a most peculiar thing. The skeletons that pop out of the void wall retain the traits they had in life. A frost ogre launched in that returns as a skeleton still deals frost damage and stuns, a troll launched in stops degenerating and actually regenerates health making him last longer (in fact unless under heavy assault from the mobs he'll last indefinitely), a cyclops mage still casts his homing magic missle spell turning it on the orc horde.
The peculiarity does not end there however, this might not be an intended effect. Might even be called an exploit. While certainly this cannot be achieved on every map, its a bit of a random luck of the draw, Mr. Moneybags when launched in drops his big coin and returns as a skeleton occasionally. And when the skeleton Mr. Moneybags dies, he'll drop a second large coin.
Unfortunately the one screenshot I managed is rather poorly timed, you can only just make out the skeleton under the reticle.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=107678697
The spike walls are great for making this easier to throw heavier enemies, but you could already throw anything except very heavy enemies if you had spring traps with the flip upgrade.
(Very heavy enemies include mountain troll, armored ogre, ball & chain, earth lord fire lord, water elemental & water lords)
it's very satisfying to be able to fling those very heavy enemies, and being able to throw heavy ones really far, when placed correctly, you can make barricade walls and have the spike wall throw them over the barricade, making them do the parcour all over again.
However, some monsters can't be turned as skeleton, like ball & chain and elementals, I suppose this is because elementals are not wanted to be turned at all, but for ball and chain I think it's simply because she doesn't HAVE the skeleton version, when you throw a body in the void wall, you know the skeleton proc happens because the corpse instantly vanishes to leave place to the skeleton, the ball & chain simply disappears without making the skeleton, it's a bit disappointed in that regard, but minor.
I never had the luck to have moneybag get turned into a skeleton when I tried to, does he attack or is he still passive? The double coin, in my opinion, should stay, only for the trouble you gotta go through and sheer luck of the draw :p
Hmm, would it be worth setting the Spike Wall half a square up the wall (as people do with the grinders to filter out the larger/tougher orcs), so that you only get the larger/tougher skeletons appearing from the Void Wall?
This sort of assumes that you aren't using the same Void Wall for wind belt duties and can afford to have a spare Void Wall/Spike Wall setup elsewhere.
I tried to do that on the stairs wall, but it tends to activate anyway even when a kobold runs under it and swings on open air. It might or might not work on a non-stairs location though. I haven't tested it yet.
However, some monsters can't be turned as skeleton, like ball & chain and elementals, I suppose this is because elementals are not wanted to be turned at all, but for ball and chain I think it's simply because she doesn't HAVE the skeleton version, when you throw a body in the void wall, you know the skeleton proc happens because the corpse instantly vanishes to leave place to the skeleton, the ball & chain simply disappears without making the skeleton, it's a bit disappointed in that regard, but minor.
I never had the luck to have moneybag get turned into a skeleton when I tried to, does he attack or is he still passive? The double coin, in my opinion, should stay, only for the trouble you gotta go through and sheer luck of the draw :p
Allow me to correct you on one minor point. The elementals have never returned as a skeleton for me, this is true, but I have had the ball and chain return as a skeleton. And she is still every bit as tough as she is when she was alive, though she no longer does the howling buff anymore it seems. Or at least hasn't when shes had other orc skeletons nearby while I was watching. Though I've seen a skeleton ball and chain take out a Earth Elemental lord with only the help of a floor scorcher nearby, and still have around three quarters of her health bar. Though I've never seen a kobold pop back out as a skeleton yet.
As for the moneybags being passive or not, yes hes passive as a skeleton. He'll stand there, however the other mobs will still target him. He'll just stand there and take it like a bump on a log though.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=107678803 <- I think one of the skeletons in this shot is a ball and chain, however its difficult to tell her apart from the regular ogre skeletons. Visually she looks like an ogre skeleton with the stance of holding the weapon, and a phantom glowing ball. No weapon, just the phantom glowing green ball where the ball of the weapon should be.
Very very interesting.
Just to add: unless they patched it at some point, Moneybags can be revived by Hobgoblin Shamans and will give another coin on his subsequent deaths. More difficult to abuse, but food for thought.
It should be noted that at very high wave count in endless, void walls no longer kill in a single hit on large enemies such as armored orges, mountain trolls, and ball and chains. They will, however, spawn coins and/or potions on most impacts. This means they can supply money, mana, and health, but take longer to make kills.
As to skeletons sharing attributes, this is definitely true. In endless, the skeletons get the same bonuses to health and damage as they had before dying. Furthermore, the specific enemy ability carries over. I have yet to see a skeletal shaman revive a skeletal Mr. Moneybags though.
One more "buyer beware", the infighting between mobs and skeletons will move away from the void walls on occasion, so make sure anything you don't want to be dealt damage (barracades) are far enough away.
Here are my credentials for this topic.
It should be noted that at very high wave count in endless, void walls no longer kill in a single hit on large enemies such as armored orges, mountain trolls, and ball and chains. They will, however, spawn coins and/or potions on most impacts. This means they can supply money, mana, and health, but take longer to make kills.
Surely this must be a bug? Robot never intended for those heavies to be ragdollable until now, and definitely not when they created the void wall. I'm guessing they just put the damage up to an arbitrarily high number, of which the heavies exceed in later levels. Maybe it was an oversight on their part? Or I dunno, maybe they just wanted to make void walls a little less effective in endless. If the former, I hope they fix this.
I'm not sure if it's a bug, as they don't take much apparent damage. I have medium armored orcs not dying to it and I'm honestly not sure if the change in their health bar is the void wall or not. It's almost like the chance of the void wall triggering decreases with wave number.
It's just a bit frustrating when I've spent the last hour spike-wall-ing armored ogres at void walls and they simply refuse to die. For the record, I'm still playing the game that screenshot is from in windowed mode at the moment. and the wave number hasn't changed in over 45 minutes.
EDIT: upon further examination, at wave 124, using the spawning of potion/coins as the count for void wall triggers and assuming the damage from a spike wall to be negligable: It seems the damage dealt by a void walls is about 8 to 10% of an armored orge's health bar. I'm confortable calling it a bug at this point.
Interesting...
Sketons and void walls should really be tested for combo's. Especially if they are applying things like fire and chill.
I don't think this is a big deal. The chance of it happening is very random so if you manage to get a Moneybags skeleton, grats!
Sketons and void walls should really be tested for combo's. Especially if they are applying things like fire and chill.
I'm not one hundred percent sure about how the combos apply to the skeletons attack, but I was regularly getting 3 to 4 hit combos just with void walls and spikewalls. With the skeleton swinging on them, I did see the occasional five to six hit combo pop up. It was kinda rare though.
Void, Spike, Stun, Skeleton, Skeleton fire or ice attack is 5. What else did you have available? Oh primary attack 6. Not bad.
Through some testing of my own I have seen Fire and Ice ogres produce a +2 from void walls. Meaning the skeleton hit and the status hit itself. I'm unsure if stun/acid slow from trolls count yet.
Through some testing of my own I have seen Fire and Ice ogres produce a +2 from void walls. Meaning the skeleton hit and the status hit itself. I'm unsure if stun/acid slow from trolls count yet.
Close; some ogres have a stun effect as well as their normal fire / chill effects. Not really sure how it works but with poly ring you can swing with a fire ogre and get stun / hit / fire combo for x3.
You know I hadn't thought about the stun either. This might make a viable high combo finisher in some stages for physics abuse now.
I have never seen the poly ring ogre stun enemies. Are you absolutely sure on that?
Very interesting, if onhit effects from skeletons count you cold potentially get very high comboes, if you get like gnoll/fige/frost ogre + trap effects.
It is very random but if you use trap reset trinket with good timing you can probably get pretty consistantly moneybags(or whatever you want) in void wall.
I have never seen the poly ring ogre stun enemies. Are you absolutely sure on that?
%80 ish ... it was a while ago but I'm pretty sure teh fire ogre has stun and fire; and frost ogre has chill and frozen ... iirc.
From very brief testing a month ago:
Fire/Frost Ogre normally just smack things (and stun? don't remember), but every ~3rd swing is that "swing around behind the head" swing. For Fire/Frost, this does Burn/Chill instead of whatever they normally do. This applies to enemy ogres and Polymorph secondary ogres alike.
I just took a screenshot of a Mr. Moneybags skeleton:
http://imgur.com/yu3Nv
The other two skeletons are Mountain Trolls, in case you're wondering.
Hmm, would it be worth setting the Spike Wall half a square up the wall (as people do with the grinders to filter out the larger/tougher orcs), so that you only get the larger/tougher skeletons appearing from the Void Wall?
This sort of assumes that you aren't using the same Void Wall for wind belt duties and can afford to have a spare Void Wall/Spike Wall setup elsewhere.