My zone 25 run and what i learned from it
Fantomaxop
Member Posts: 160 ★★
Hello! Recently i did my incursion run for legends badge, and wanted to share my experience with everyone who is interested in doing same thing this month.
I like many people used Hercules for majority of the run, Heimdall as support character and Omega Sentinel acted as substitute for situations where i could not use Hercules. My Hercules is r4, sig 62. Omega Sentinel R3.
I came to this team after doing several threat lvl 6 runs and learning for what i can and can't use Herc.
The most troublesome matchups for Herc are mystics who nullify or apply fateseal/stagger without any contact on you. They will screw with immortality and buffs from your specials, so i think its important to have someone on your team to deal with those fights or ready in your collection to be swapped at time of need.
Most people use Thing as Hercules partner since he is awesome science tank that by triggering his protection stays almost invulnerable from zone 15 up to 25. I did not have him (even as 3 star....) so i had to figure out my own counter. Since Omega is nullify immune and interacted well with my hack combo i decided on her.
Also worth noting that buff immune can technically work, however 90% of the time your hack combo is not going to be compatible with buff immune champions, especially if you are searching for 'strategic movement' or 'toxic advance' hacks.
My hack combo looked like this:
I'm gonna be honest: i did not plan to crush incursions with armored Hercules. Yet it worked and i have no regrets about build.
You may want apples for apple juice, and life still might just give you lemons. So make a lemonade!
Same with hacks. Be open to experimenting to look what will work for you.
And out of here goes another advice: do not start "real run" (do not start investing revives, boosts and mastery setup changes) until you get the idea of what your hack combo looks like.
Collect at last 3-4 boss hacks without dying and from that point look at what you are capable of and is it worth continuing.
Remember that experimenting and practicing in this month is easier since cooldown for each champ is 5 minutes.
(25 zone boss in 50 seconds with stunlock despite loosing canon protection returning half-way through)
The biggest highlight of this run in terms of hacks probably was 'Attribute Boost Multiplier'. This thing made my Herc crit more than 60% of the time without casting sp1 and boosted his attack to the moon. And the best part about this is that it is UNCONDITIONAL.
If you have the attribute boosts, they are just there and cannot really be interacted with.
Grabbing '+1000 critical chance', '+1000 critical dmg rating' and '+20% attack increase' will probably be enough to make Herc hit hard at all times. I say "probably' because i got satisfying results even without + 1000 critical dmg rating
The combo of 'Toxic advance', 'Armor burst' and 'Buff cornucopia' was pretty useful despite lack of natural armor ups on Hercules.
Have to mention that buff cornucopia on itself is not exactly strong hack, most of the time you won't just get useful for you buffs since its pure rng. If you wanna make it truly useful with Herc consistently you have to run it with 'Attack surge: buff count or unique buff count'. Otherwise actual dmg increase is gonna be purely random.
'Toxic advance' is one of the best boss hacks out there for Hercules IMO. After you trigger immortality its gonna apply on every hit, and the fact that you inflict DOT-effect might help you with "Polka dot power". In combination with 'Armor burst' it allowed me to do some serious dmg on specials, to the point where red numbers would overshadow actual hit dmg more than twice in output!
Worth noting that running armor burst on its own is probably useless, and in my case specifically small '+1000 armor rating' hack under boost multiplier helped a lot with dmg output.
The most important common hacks to grab for any Hercules out there are: special refund, stun duration and unflinching power.
Those three enable sp2 stunlock while immortality lasts, which will probably help you easily cheese most fights.
And my final advise is gonna be about those fights, that don't go under umbrella of "easily cheesable".
In my run the most common nodes that i met almost everywhere were power manipulation nodes.
Stuff ranging from "Transducer" and "Rich get richer", to "Polka Dot power" and "Use it or lose it". I can confidently say that 85% of the time even small or otherwise harmless nodes like "Power alternator" easily ruined all sp2 stunlock cheese options. If you gonna do Hercules run, you will have to be ready to work with any of your special attacks depending on fight conditions. But more importantly it means that you can't rely on sp2 cheese as your primary strategy going deep into zones 18-25.
Try to get just enough hacks to enable that strategy for yourself (for me combo of those common hacks was just right to be able to do it), but do not try to build the rest of available hacks around that. If any, even minor form of power control steps into the playfield, you are screwed. And that it only mentioning how stunlock can be ruined by power nodes. Any stun immune nodes/defenders will automatically discard possibility of being cheesed as well. As well as purify and debuff duration decrease.
Better get some hacks that will get you good dmg increase outside of immortality triggering situations. 'Perpetual offense', 'Strategic movement', 'Keep it going' - those work well even if tempo of the fight is dictated by nodes and opponent abilities.
Be on your guard for hell of the boss fights like this Wasp. If you see similar combination of nodes and you know that immortality is not enough/won't trigger just revive and try to get Hercules to full hp. Stay patient and focused, cause it might take some time
Also i found out only in last rooms that Thor is absolutely amazing support for Hercules. He enables healing synergy from Heimdall and gives 100% perfect block for son of Zeus. It is a lot more useful than it seems, specifically in context of nodes like "protection knockdown".
Good luck in your runs and try to enjoy Hercules doing millions of dmg in span of a minute!
I like many people used Hercules for majority of the run, Heimdall as support character and Omega Sentinel acted as substitute for situations where i could not use Hercules. My Hercules is r4, sig 62. Omega Sentinel R3.
I came to this team after doing several threat lvl 6 runs and learning for what i can and can't use Herc.
The most troublesome matchups for Herc are mystics who nullify or apply fateseal/stagger without any contact on you. They will screw with immortality and buffs from your specials, so i think its important to have someone on your team to deal with those fights or ready in your collection to be swapped at time of need.
Most people use Thing as Hercules partner since he is awesome science tank that by triggering his protection stays almost invulnerable from zone 15 up to 25. I did not have him (even as 3 star....) so i had to figure out my own counter. Since Omega is nullify immune and interacted well with my hack combo i decided on her.
Also worth noting that buff immune can technically work, however 90% of the time your hack combo is not going to be compatible with buff immune champions, especially if you are searching for 'strategic movement' or 'toxic advance' hacks.
My hack combo looked like this:
I'm gonna be honest: i did not plan to crush incursions with armored Hercules. Yet it worked and i have no regrets about build.
You may want apples for apple juice, and life still might just give you lemons. So make a lemonade!
Same with hacks. Be open to experimenting to look what will work for you.
And out of here goes another advice: do not start "real run" (do not start investing revives, boosts and mastery setup changes) until you get the idea of what your hack combo looks like.
Collect at last 3-4 boss hacks without dying and from that point look at what you are capable of and is it worth continuing.
Remember that experimenting and practicing in this month is easier since cooldown for each champ is 5 minutes.
(25 zone boss in 50 seconds with stunlock despite loosing canon protection returning half-way through)The biggest highlight of this run in terms of hacks probably was 'Attribute Boost Multiplier'. This thing made my Herc crit more than 60% of the time without casting sp1 and boosted his attack to the moon. And the best part about this is that it is UNCONDITIONAL.
If you have the attribute boosts, they are just there and cannot really be interacted with.
Grabbing '+1000 critical chance', '+1000 critical dmg rating' and '+20% attack increase' will probably be enough to make Herc hit hard at all times. I say "probably' because i got satisfying results even without + 1000 critical dmg rating
The combo of 'Toxic advance', 'Armor burst' and 'Buff cornucopia' was pretty useful despite lack of natural armor ups on Hercules.
Have to mention that buff cornucopia on itself is not exactly strong hack, most of the time you won't just get useful for you buffs since its pure rng. If you wanna make it truly useful with Herc consistently you have to run it with 'Attack surge: buff count or unique buff count'. Otherwise actual dmg increase is gonna be purely random.
'Toxic advance' is one of the best boss hacks out there for Hercules IMO. After you trigger immortality its gonna apply on every hit, and the fact that you inflict DOT-effect might help you with "Polka dot power". In combination with 'Armor burst' it allowed me to do some serious dmg on specials, to the point where red numbers would overshadow actual hit dmg more than twice in output!
Worth noting that running armor burst on its own is probably useless, and in my case specifically small '+1000 armor rating' hack under boost multiplier helped a lot with dmg output.
The most important common hacks to grab for any Hercules out there are: special refund, stun duration and unflinching power.
Those three enable sp2 stunlock while immortality lasts, which will probably help you easily cheese most fights.
And my final advise is gonna be about those fights, that don't go under umbrella of "easily cheesable".
In my run the most common nodes that i met almost everywhere were power manipulation nodes.
Stuff ranging from "Transducer" and "Rich get richer", to "Polka Dot power" and "Use it or lose it". I can confidently say that 85% of the time even small or otherwise harmless nodes like "Power alternator" easily ruined all sp2 stunlock cheese options. If you gonna do Hercules run, you will have to be ready to work with any of your special attacks depending on fight conditions. But more importantly it means that you can't rely on sp2 cheese as your primary strategy going deep into zones 18-25.
Try to get just enough hacks to enable that strategy for yourself (for me combo of those common hacks was just right to be able to do it), but do not try to build the rest of available hacks around that. If any, even minor form of power control steps into the playfield, you are screwed. And that it only mentioning how stunlock can be ruined by power nodes. Any stun immune nodes/defenders will automatically discard possibility of being cheesed as well. As well as purify and debuff duration decrease.
Better get some hacks that will get you good dmg increase outside of immortality triggering situations. 'Perpetual offense', 'Strategic movement', 'Keep it going' - those work well even if tempo of the fight is dictated by nodes and opponent abilities.
Be on your guard for hell of the boss fights like this Wasp. If you see similar combination of nodes and you know that immortality is not enough/won't trigger just revive and try to get Hercules to full hp. Stay patient and focused, cause it might take some time
Also i found out only in last rooms that Thor is absolutely amazing support for Hercules. He enables healing synergy from Heimdall and gives 100% perfect block for son of Zeus. It is a lot more useful than it seems, specifically in context of nodes like "protection knockdown".
Good luck in your runs and try to enjoy Hercules doing millions of dmg in span of a minute!
34
Comments
Team was Herc/Heimdall/Thor, Thor is not necessary but the guarantee perfect block below 5% health can help at times.
I got the hack that inflicts power drain after knock down, pretty much stops defender from every getting to sp3, plus any hack that increases stun duration or gives you power back from specials or combat power rate while unblockable.
Cost 9 revives
Almost felt like cheating.
Also i didn't mention in main post that i used suicides after zone 15. 1 point in recoil and 3 in liquid courage, no double edge. Suicides are purely beneficial for such run, i personally got into bad situation for them only once when i faced 'heal block till end of the match' node.
(For a team of herc and thing)
6R4 Hercules @ Sig100 + Heimdall + Odin Prefights, with a Fury for backup (and the attack boost).
Took exactly 6 revives in total (was very glad for the store revives!), and pulled an Infamous Iron Man with the milestone rewards for my troubles!
Full list of hacks below:
Room 22 Nimrod boss with Caltrops and regen stacks when close cost me a couple revives, but only ended up using 4 of the filament-bought revives, so all-in-all a great run.
Mainly did it for the resources from the last few rooms, but I’m curious for those already Legend if that token will be good for anything else or a unique title like “Legends x2” or something.
Big test for me starts from around zone 18. There are fights and nodes not meant for Herc so be prepared to swap in for a more suitable champ in the team when it comes to that. Spiked armor node was the toughest for me which consumed a lot of my revives, all because I underestimated it and did not know how to counter.
I'd like to be able to trade the legend badge for a 6* nexus selector if possible since you don't get anything for already being a legend.
The best ones are toxic advance, perpetual offense, martial artist or any buff and debuff elonging hack.
You atleast need either strategic movement or buff corno to minimise the cost
As substitute to herc for some fights, bring in Thing(sig 200) or any other nullify immune. I will still recommend bringing in sig 200 thing as he comes in clutch against many fights and can tank sp3 with heimdall and protection.
And remember to give herc and the other champion Odin prefights.
That's all. It will take atleast 10 revives so prepare accordingly.