Apparently there are a bunch of topics about how hard ninja tower is/how boring ninja tower is/how ninja tower rewards are/how. I don’t know, haven’t really seen anything myself. I’ll take a leap of faith that there has been some discussion around NT.
However, I don’t believe there have been any threads explicitly looking at the best strategies for advancing as far as possible (although it is quite possible that people have posted some advice here and there, in the aforementioned topics - I wouldn’t know, haven’t seen any sign of any such topics myself). So let’s jump in and share the love, shall we? And avoid the other related topics which you can apparently find with a search or by glancing through the first page of the forum. So I hear. I’ll kick it off:
Heroe selection
Personally I believe that you should go all in with your best heroes up front. You could try to slog it through with your 3s and 4s but it will take more time, and expose you to more oni curse tiles. The frequency is relatively low in the initial stages so you can probably make it through at least the first 20 levels without any of your top heroes being cursed
Damage over time, heal over time, ailment dealers - these can be useful initially but the further you go the less the duration will be. So it is worth using these makes sense in early stages. Don’t waste heroes though - if you get C Rig or C Melendor cursed then you won’t be able to use their more useful (for later stages) non-costume selves. At least, I don’t think so.
For me, mono (strong color against the majority of bosses) worked. It got to a stage where tile damage was far more effective than damage from specials. I am sure other combos worked for others. I did try 4-1 with Ranvir as the 4th but not a huge fan.
Ideally you want to include a healer (up-front, not over time) and a booster (more in the next point) in each team
Boosters - what I am referring to for health boosters and minion makers - are super useful when coming into the boss battles. The bosses get to a point where they deal a LOT of damage so if you can pre-load your teams with boosts then you will have a much greater chance to win through. I used Guillinbursiti (spelling?), Noor. But Heimdal, Freya, Bera, Tell, C Kashrek are others I can think of that would be super usefl. Red Hood’s I think would be particularly effective as she has minion defense plus the heal from the minions.
Mana manipulators - these become very useful floors 30 and above. I hear Ontel is very good, as are Hansel and Gretel (I don’t have them). For me, the mindless attack heroes - Merlin and Zocc - become super important. It is important to have them charged and ready to fire - WHEN THE KEY BOSSES ARE OVER 100% mana. It is a waste to use these abilities on the fast charge as that was never a threat. But for special levels 2 & 3 a mindless attack was a life saver for me. Silence is not bad, as is Proteus - but the downside of these is that their duration (and therefore effectiveness) goes down drastically the higher you go. Standard mana cutters like Guin, Li Xiu, Chao etc are also OK but not great (in my opinion) because the cut does little to compensate for how freakishly fast the ninjas charge up
I will continue with board/oni tactics and blessing selection in the next post
Next time I’ll start the first 15 levels with a disposable rainbow/sniper’s team and then still go with minion/extra hp strategy. I mostly used Holy, Nature and Fire element for pretty much every other stage so I know I wouldn’t have to care about Oni Curses that hits Dark and Ice heroes…
Battle items: There are many items and combinations of items that would work. I have found the following effective:
Small manas. The limited number of items in each slot doesn’t affect these too much and I found them useful all the way through to the last level. They are particularly effective if you take the mana % increase blessings
Axes/bombs/dragons. In later stages you want to have the stronger variants as you can only carry 2. But still good to take out corner minions so you don’t waste a good tile setup, or to take out a weakened boss
Tornadoes - useful for trying to match an oni tile when nothing else has worked. Expensive, but worth it if you can afford the resources
Timestops/lodge equivalent - I didn’t use these myself but stopping the later stage bosses from charging would be a huge advantage
Small healing - useful in early levels but far less so in later stages. The other healing variants also become less useful the further you go, so I wouldn’t recommend them
Panacea - these were very useful at the top stages. You can carry 2 and they heal all, so far more useful than the individual heals
Miracle scroll - at the top you can carry 1 of these, just like you can carry 1 revive scroll. So far more useful for a close-to-last-ditch attempt to complete a level. You probably have a few hoarded because you have never had to use them, anyway
Board/Oni strategies - (note there is a high possibility that I am stealing these from various sources from various other posts, if those posts do actually exist. So credit goes to those who initially possibly shared them.)
If your roster is not too shallow then expect to lose heroes as you progress, and don’t let that put you off (although try to save your critical heroes at all costs). For shallower rosters - you will have to play a lot more carefully!
Match in the middle wherever possible. Oni tiles in the corners are trickier to mach
Tornadoes are a decent last-ditch attempt to match a tile. Probably only use them for critical heroes only
Build up bombs and diamonds as much as possible, and avoid triggering them unless you absolutely have to. Whether in the oni stone color or not, these have a good chance of matching them when nothing else works. Don’t trigger these if you have an alternative for matching the oni tiles
If you know that your board movement won’t cause a known oni match to be lost, then hold off making that match until the last countdown as this reduces your overall match exposure to tiles
Try to set up a good board for the boss level. If you know the positions of the bosses then try to line up the strong colors in the right lanes. Take out the boss that is weak to your tiles first (focus specials on them) as 2 bosses are a lot less dangerous then 3. Be careful with minions and DOTs - particularly if you also have Wilbur or another damage sharers active - as you can very easily kill off the last enemy before you have set up an ideal board for yourself
I found the blue ninjas the most dangerous because of the insane damage they can cause, but only when overcharged. Let the bosses attack you at first charge level as much as they want. Use your mana manipulators once a boss overcharges
You have to balance your ideal tile movements with matching oni tiles. However, towards the top of the tower you can probably shift towards ignoring oni tiles (depending on how many heroes you have left), especially on the last level
Do not flee with a curse on any hero. Try not to lose the battle with a curse on any hero. It is particularly disheartening when your tile movements reveal a new curse but you get killed off before you have a chance to do anything about it
Blessings
You can probably use any combination of these. However, I regret not taking the minion one - at first they would be weak but at the top of the tower that constant health boost and DOT (that won’t go away!) would be huge
Mana % is probably the next best one for me, it helps to mitigate the loss of mana pots that you can carry with you
Crit % is not bad, particularly if you have any crit % boosting heroes that you can use
Not really sure what else worked best for everyone, so lets share our stories!
I used Titanium Shields to great effect in the last few floors. Of course, some bosses have that annoying buff-bypass element in their skill, but I won a few battles because the boss suicided. My items for the last few floors were Tornadoes, Time Stops, Mana potions (for emergencies, made much more useful by all the mana blessing I chose) and Titanium Shields
What worked for me vs. bosses in the last few stages, was using specials all at once. (most often: Kiril / Isarnia / Lepus + Gregorion or Joon). two rounds of this would be enough to kill a boss. I would focus on killing them one at a time.
I chose all of the Lantern Minions, and I think I had them at 20% or 25% (or higher? whatever the maximum is). I find these were very helpful, giving me an extra 300 or so HP per Minion, so if I had all heroes with 3 of them, that was an extra 900 hp per hero, so when the bosses would kill me, or the floors were poisoning me, it was removing the minion health first.
I did also use all mana boosts that was available too, which helped.
Arrows were honestly my biggest and most used item, besides your typical mana pots, or tornadoes.
For me the arrows were “MVI” (Most Valued Item) for the majority of stages.
I rode Tarlac, Guardian Chameleon and Norns from about levels 25 to 40+. I used costumed Vivicia or Kunchen and Ursena (it is super fun switching the claw ninjas to yellow just before they fire their specials against a team protected by Ursena’s reflect yellow), with a bit of Evelyn and Liana sprinkled in, depending on the colors.
The combination of the huge attack/crit boosts and the multicolor weakness from the norms meant most of the time the enemies were taking massive damage from even a few tiles.
I took all of the available Mana boosts of both types, and a mix of the other boosts.
Really enjoyed the challenge, But it’s really sad the rewards are so terrible. It looks like I’ll finish close to the top 10,000, and especially with the new availability of emblems the rewards are just really weak.
What I’ll say is next time I will a much better plan on working synergies with hero selection, items, who I want to survive to the end and bonus buffs.
For example, my blue mono team with heavy minion and mana buffs was very effective. Was blasting off specials virtually every turn by the end bosses with Mireweave doing huge damage with 10 stack:
Rafaelle
Boril
Mireweave
Misandra
Triton/Grimm/Sonya/Richard
But was bringing completely different items with my green/yellow combo team. And realize now that Proteus, damage/heal over time heroes, etc. are more effective on lower levels.
Overall, just a great event in terms of strategy both in each level and overall for planning out the teams over the levels. Now just up the rewards a bit.
You were right on. I found Heimdall and gulli very usefull (at least until they were cursed out…) and the MVP on this event for me was onatel. Once she fired she never stopped.
Did almost all stages above 40 with Heimdall (3/70), drake Fong, mist, onatel (3/70) and gulli/costume vivica (3/70)
Hi, finished lvl 50 this morning, no retry, only lost 2 heroes on going.
Bless of mana generation is key, the bonus + troops really fit well with mono.
Dont know how bosses will be arange next time, but yellow was almost everytime the best pick.
Usual combo like wilbur/ falcon or miki/ athena dont work in last stages. Debuff wont stay long enough, best bet was a debuffer with snipers, meaning you don’t loose the short window of fire.
Tornadoes or hurrican really help with ony curse, still dont bz affraid to get cursed time to time. Few key heroes have to be protected.
Last things, but not least, I figure out ony curse only appears on board once a time. So if the onycurse can be solved quickly just keep it few turns to make the board rotating and blow it up in last row.
Timestops and timefreezes became absolutely invaluable from floor 45 onwards, as Cobalt and Onyx could one shot your whole team if you’re not careful. The four items I carried with me from floor 40-48 minor mana pots, tornadoes, hurricanes, and timestops. For floors 49 and 50, since I could afford to lose every hero, I swapped out tornadoes and hurricanes for timefreezes and panaceas. Very fortunately only had to use one timefreeze on the last floor, and didn’t need to touch the panaceas.
The one blessing I found to be a significant game changer was the 5% mana generation. I stacked 5 of those for a ludicrous +25% mana boost for the last 5 floors. The net effect is with a lv 11 mana troop, fast heroes become very fast, and with maxed costume only a lv 1 mana troop is required. A very fast Hansel+18 - even if his effect only lasts one turn now - is pretty much a living timestop.
The second most useful blessing actually turned out to be the minions, I stacked 3 of those in the end and having that +15% HP every 5 turns very nicely countered the constant poison floor DoT.
Normal Rigard and cBoldtusk proved to be the best healers from floor 40 onwards, HoT no longer works as it only lasts one turn, so you want a straight heal right away. I’m glad I leveled 3x Rigards for war, since it meant I could afford to lose two to curses and not really care. (C)Kiril is an ok option if he’s the strong color, doesn’t heal quite as much as Rigard or cBoldtusk but if you’re worried about either of them being cursed out, it’s a good way to mitigate the risks.
Thanks for this thread. I will flag it for reading for the next tower.
I got a late start days 1 & 2, which meant wasted energy, which meant it was largely a waste of time for me to try to progress far, given the rewards. I knew I wasn’t getting to a level beyond minimum rewards, as I’m not reaching level 35-40 or whatever that took to do so when behind on free attacks, and frankly neither a really paying nor a power player.
Agree with everything here so far. Will also add that a couple Scrolls of Alteration in the last 2 levels were really effective. They will loosen up a board, contribute a bunch of tile damage, and ready your specials (I ran mono fire for the last few levels).
I found Wilbur, Noor, Lady of the Lake especially effective throughout. I think I will skip using 3-star, weak 4-star teams early on next time and just go for it with my better heroes.
I just wanted to add about the mana% blessing and how it impacted my troop selection.
Here are the breakpoints I was looking at - with % mana being the sum of all mana bonuses including blessing, costume bonus, mana troop, and talents. For each speed I’ve bolded important breakpoints to reach. Multiples of 3 should be the focus. Higher breakpoints will charge faster in some situations and will have an impact, but are not as reliable of a boost. See below for examples.
Very Fast
9% = 6 tiles
30% = 5 tiles
Fast
15% = 7 tiles
34% = 6 tiles
Average
12% = 9 tiles
25% = 8 tiles
43% = 7 tiles
Slow
10% = 11 tiles
20% = 10 tiles
34% = 9 tiles
Very Slow
4% = 13 tiles
13% = 12 tiles
23% = 11 tiles
35% = 10 tiles
Edit: small mana potions
34% = fill hero with 3 small mana potions instead of 4.
So instead of 2 super mana potions that can fill two heroes, you can bring 7 small mana potions to fill 2 heroes and have one potion left over. Very useful with heroes like Heimdall or Guillinbursti that you want to get to 34% anyways. Not for speed/scoring, but helpful for completion. I’m fairly sure that mana boosts to increase mana pots (like healing boosts increase healing pots) but someone please correct me if this is wrong. I didn’t actually test this, but rather realized this later.
For each hero I would look at what bonuses they already have (costume/talents) and what troops I have available. If I can reach an important (bolded) breakpoint they would get priority for the lowest level mana troop that reaches it. If not I can give them crit troops for more survivability, or ninja troops/leftover mana troops for more attack.
Here are some examples of how I would evaluate each hero after selecting the 5th +mana gen at level 42 for a 25% blessing.
Very fast - already reached the important breakpoint of 9% without any other bonuses. Any level spare mana troops will reach the next breakpoint, but if they are needed to help another hero reach an important breakopint the mana troop should be used there.
Fast - worth using a lvl 11+ mana troop to reach 6 tiles, or any level troop with costume bonus or +4% mana talent, or lvl 5+ troop with 2% talent.
Average - Already reached past the important breakpoint to reach 8 tiles, and can only get down to 7 with costume bonus plus lvl 23+ mana troop or +4% talent plus level 29+ mana troop. Most likely you want your mana troops elsewhere unless not needed for important breakpoints.
Slow - worth using a lvl 11+ mana troop to reach 9 tiles, or any level troop with costume bonus or +4% talent.
Very slow - Already reached past the important breakpoint to reach 11 tiles, and can drop that to 10 tiles with a lvl 17+ mana troop without mana talents.
So the best bang for your troop after obtaining the 25% mana blessing is boosting fast to 6 tiles and slow to 9 tiles. Other breakpoints can be reached which will help, but not at the expense of those two speeds.
Similar evaluations can be made with earlier mana blessings. I personally find the mana blessing the most beneficial one and found it interesting to move troops around when switching heroes or adding new blessings to maximize this advantage.
Agree that all decent minion makers can be very effective. I personally wouldn’t use a scroll of alteration again (even though I did use one in my first run through) due to how exceedingly rare these things are. At least with tornadoes your main limitation is iron (once you have banked enough nuggests from 5.8). But you will always have a limit of the titan mats for scrolls, so I think those are better invested in getting a good titan score.
ninja tower rewards are/how. I don’t know, haven’t really seen anything myself. I’ll take a leap of faith that there has been some discussion around NT.
