Guide to Maddening: Changes from Other Difficulties and Adjusting Your Strategy

[Anathaco]

11 hours ago, GrySun said:

I just beat it last night on Maddening BE. I did it as soon as it was available, ie. the month after the Battle of the Eagle and Lion. So everyone was in the range of lvl 14-15. I did the paralogue immediately because I wanted the Knowledge Gem, and the extra divine pulse usages sounded nice too. I used BE-characters + Flayn only, with 2 adjutants of 2 recruited characters(though these didn‘t help anything I think).

 

Basically the beginning is pretty simple. The teacher moves right to the woods to intercept the first wolf, in the meantime the class kills the wolf in front of them. Then they kill the wolf that attacked the teacher, then the one coming up. This makes the birds and boss move, while also spawning 2 birds and a wolf. Use gambits whenever necessary, since you‘re BE you should have access to at least 2 battalions with Blaze(the fire barrel cart), the range is huge and will destroy one monster‘s barrier right away and heavily damage another one if close(the birds were often close by). At this point it was looking well and was ready to intercept the 3 birds from the start, but then they spawn 2 more birds and 1 wolf as reinforcements. This is the panic-part where you need to play it very well, and use all divine pulses you have until you figure out what works for you.

 

For me the biggest help was knowing how the monster AI works. Once they start charging their AOE attack they won‘t move unless there is at least 1 unit in range to be hit by it. This way you can get a free turn where that beast doesn‘t move to kill your mages and healers, which are all one-rounded by any bird or wolf. For others you can gain time by battalion usage to make them attack a tanky character that turn, or break the barrier for others so they are stunned for their next turn, missing an action. Since both birds and wolves have half-barriers any normal attack breaks one, after which they won‘t counterattack 1 time. You can then destroy another tile without counterattacks, continuing on safely like this until all 4 are broken.

 

It was very hard on BE but possible if you try to gain as much time as possible, blocking the birds‘ path to your squishier units so they attack someone else, leave 1 tanky person to tank the AOE attacks(for those anyone with full hp can tank it, since it doesn‘t double and might is around 39). Beware that each wolf has pass so you can‘t block their way, battalion or break their barriers asap. If you have units with higher sword and axe skills there are combat arts to deal big damage to monsters for both sword and axe users.

Finally the Gambit batallion should help in dire situations for running away or being able to reach the back-squares of barriers to break.

Hmm. OK, that clears it up. I always got overrun by the three birds once they start moving, but it’s interesting to see how I could have done it. I also didn’t know about the AoE trick, which is definitely good to know- I’ll keep that in mind in the future. Anyway, thanks for the reply!