Recent, I won my first epic field, D10, and it was definitely a battle worthy of the name. So I feel like typing about it... In none of my attempts did I start any waves early or summon any monsters.
I started, of course, by experimenting with blocking different paths. I finally settled on forcing all monsters to walk along the left edge of the field (with monsters coming from the top taking the long way there, of course), then going along the bottom to the bottom-right corner, turning up, and finally left towards my magic orb.
On my first serious attempt, I started by putting a grade 3 mana leaching tower right under the pylon. Once that was secure, I focused completely on the left edge, just below the monster entry point. Early on, I held the monsters off with a combination of slow traps, poison traps, and one tower. Realizing this was going to be a long battle, I thought bloodbound would be the only gem type that could keep me alive in the long run; so I unlocked it about as quickly as I reasonably could (considering the 1700+ mana cost). For most the rest of the battle, my entire defense was pretty much just 1 bloodbound tower aided by 0, then 1, then 2 amplifiers, and like 5 (in total) poison and slow traps. As the tower and amplifiers climbed up the grades, I went from comfortable, to confident, and then overconfident. I thought the bloodbound tower could keep me safe for as long as I needed; so why not go from some new records? As a result, until near the end, I had nothing more than one grade 3 tower charging the pylon. There were some moments where the monsters got uncomfortably far; but I easily halted them by adding a 2nd amplifier, then a shocking trap, then upgrading the bloodbound and its helpers to grade 6. Progress on the pylon slowly crept up, from 50, to 60, to, 70, then 80. I binged on mana pool extensions, reaching 2.00x by the end of the battle (my previous record was 1.35x). When the monster situation started getting a little uncomfortable again (with pylon progress was in the low or mid-80s), I upgraded the bloodbound tower (and later its two supporting amplifiers) to level 7. In none of my previous battles had a monster ever gotten past a level 7 gem; on the (rare) times I was fortunate enough to make one, it easily destroyed everything in its path. But to my surprise, despite the bloodbound's damage continuing to tick upwards, the monsters started threatening after what seemed like a pretty short time. I added a bunch of slow and shock traps (while making sure to upgrade the existing ones); but that only held them off a little longer. When the first wave broke through, I built a new tower right under the pylon and put the grade 7 bloodbound there, partly to fend off the wave and partly to finish off the pylon. That didn't go well, and the grade 7 range actually hurt me because it caused the gem to focus on the next wave rather than the pylon, which by then was well past 90% charged. As a last ditch effort, I combined the two supporting grade 7 gems into my (first ever) grade 8 and moved it right in front of the pylon. Unlike the grade 7, it was actually not bad at picking off individual enemies; but it was no match for the full wave. And so I lost the battle, with the pylon more than 96% charged...
My second attempt followed the same basic strategy, except I took it a little more seriously. I had a grade 5 firing at the pylon for most of the battle, and two grade 5's for a significant chunk of time. I also used 3 amplifiers instead of two to boost the bloodbound, which reached grade 7 by the end. The battle lasted 63 waves, more than twice as long as my previous high for a successful mission. Nevertheless, it was probably quite a lot shorter than my previous attempt because by the end, the monsters were still pretty far from breaking through the bloodbound.
It was only when I went to my next battle that I realized I had made this far, far harder than it should have been. I had forgotten to put any skill points into bloodbound...
By the way, the mission was supposedly about using the pylon to craft one gem; but I didn't see anything new in my inventory or list of options when I went to my next mission to indicate I'd gotten a new gem, let alone one awesome enough to devote my biggest battle yet to. Was I supposed to get anything new (other than amulets and unlocking new fields)? No spoilers for anything later in the game please. Thanks
No, you wasn't supposed to get anything. Are you writer? Wall of text to ask 1 short question. First pylon easier to defend with 5-6 grade 4 poison traps, and charge by 4-5 cyan+something duals, possible to finish in 20-30 waves.
hmm Gremlion, it's obvious the topicstarter is nowhere into premium, endurances and other l33t stuff. He just plays to his enjoyment, and writes his experience in pretty much lyrical form. In my first battle of 1st pylon I have used a grade 11 L/O as main tower gem to both defend against monsters and charge up the pylon, and lasted into wave 100 something, anyway I have received a 90-wave journey amulet.
dietonight, you could win the game if you would shift targetting of your gem to structures, this way your 7th grade red gem will target the pylon and ignore the monsters, so you will finish its charge before monsters would reach the orb.
