Pobster

Pobster

Level: -
Rank: -

Shadow, not as OP as everyone says it is?

So a bit of info on my gaming style first. I play hard because easy is too easy at this point an why go normal? I also play with Kvothe to get extra exp (might as well if I play hard.) and at this point I'm level 80. I do 500 wave runs. So lately I have been having some pretty good bonus runs between 2k-3k on average quite easily. As main carries for these runs I have used : Solara, Scarecrow, Balu, Scarface, Ripper and Muli. My highest run being with Scarecrow (after nerf.) After reading the forums and seeing that everyone says shadow is OP I thought "since I'm doing so well with other carries might try with shadow." Well that was a disaster. Shadow kind of reminds me of solara in that he is bad early game. He needs a few items and pots to start being able to take on all waves. That sucks as I thought perhaps having him early would be good to adapt. I'm also an exp junkie so not being able to do much on challenges makes me sad. I scrapped by to finish 500 rounds. On bonus i did like 250-300, it was pretty bad considering I haven't done this poorly in months. So my question is what is the strategy with shadow? How do people carry so well with him? (TBH I just wanted an extremely good bonus round for exp :P) TL:DR I am an average player usually run 2k-3k secs in bonus round on hard no problem. Used shadow did 250s. What is the strategy?
Kyrandia
7 Supporter Level 7

Kyrandia

Level: 91
Rank: 964

I think most players (atleast myself :), isnt using shadow as main carry for the first 200/500 waves. I dont play 500 anymore as bonus rounds take forever tho. I usually go with Holger as main carry for potions thru the main waves, then switch to shadow once bonus rounds starts, on hard you will need more than a Holger for main I think. I build my shadow(s) around wave 50 and let them start gaining adapts. Using speed/-damage items in the beginning to make sure they dont kill anything as I want everything for my main carry with high droprate and seelenreiser. Later its speed/-crit to keep it from killing things and lastly its restricting multicrit on 500 wave runs. Use rings on main carry and shadow(s) for all potions, but make sure you are not giving the shadows too much crit until multicrit starts playing a role on kills or atleast make sure you have enough -crit items to contain it. Make sure you build your abyss king early and that he covers the area where most of your kills are made. When bonus round start I also replace my Holger with a shadow to give it some use, even tho he will take a while to gain adapts, its usually pretty fast as that tower is already potioned up good and equipping it with reaver whenever I can. When you reach bonus rounds, your shadows should have adapts in the 3-5000% range, and your Abyss king should be somewhere around 1500-2000, cant remember the numbers exactly for 500 runs. When you start putting multicrit and damage items on your shadow at this point you will see what he really is :) With the new 10k cap (thank god) you will probably need to expand the number of shadows to reach the high bonus times, you even have to do that on 200 runs so I belive at 500 it must be quite the number, compared to before 1.2 where you could just focus everything on the one shadow going mental with 100k+ adapts.
Pobster

Pobster

Level: -
Rank: -

Thanks for the info. Now I understand why that failed miserably. Although my point isn't necessarily to go for ladder high scores rather exp (I really love having max skills in games.) I think this needs a lot of prep and will be trying it soon. For now what I am looking forwards to is getting loan shark! Too many ideas to try out. (Which will probably fail :P) Thanks again for Shadow tip.
Romeo

Romeo

Level: -
Rank: -

Yes, for basic completion, both Shadow and Ripper are pretty awful picks. They shine in the Bonus rounds more than anything.
cola

cola

Level: -
Rank: -

Missing old times.
Ace

Ace

Level: -
Rank: -

Hi, does shadow work on bonus rounds? Aren't bonus round monster zod type armors?
Kami
10 Supporter Level 10

Kami

Level: 158
Rank: 32

Rise of Cthulhu Supporter
Nope bonus rounds dont have zod armor. I get to 24k sec or something like that with shadow carry
Ace

Ace

Level: -
Rank: -

Oh i see.. thank you very much.. was wondering if they are zod because i read it somewhere and cant remember :)
Romeo

Romeo

Level: -
Rank: -

You might have read it on an older post, they used to be. Apparently now they just have a random armour type.