I was keen on finishing season II today. Spent the last three days cutting through Outer wall, Eastern corridor and Heart of Atlantis, without any major problems, with Boldtusk+18, Chao+19, Isarnia+3, Elkanen+1 and Sabina+19, using only health potions and a few time stops, taking advantage of the reduced WE cost.
So, here I was, about to face the most difficult challenge so far… Ursena, hard mode… OK… let’s take a recon run… went in with Boldtusk+18, Boril+18, Wilbur+18, Cyprian 4/70 and Melendor+7. Took time stops and all the mana potions I could carry for Wilbur and the healers. Went in with no real hope of defeating her, just to get a taste of what I was facing…
The battle started well, took out the drones quickly and engaged in a slow but deadly dance of tuning Ursena’s dispell cycle with Wilbur’s Wonderful feast and her special with my riposters. Every time Ursena’s special went off, my riposters were activated, covering the whole team, Wilbur’s Feast was inactive and my healers, ready to restore my team to full health. Boss mode went smooth, as expected, not much to worry about other than timing the specials. No items used up to this point… And soon the hard part begun (at least that was what I thought at that moment). Titan mode… Same dance, only this time Ursena slashes every turn… So main objective was to stun her as many times as possible, to keep her from slashing my team down. And down we went, stun, Wonderful feast, dispell, Riposte, Empress of the depths, heal, stun, clean, rinse, repeat… Ursena was slowly but surely killing herself on riposte. Once or twice I had to help the healers build-up mana by using some potions, but no real problems for my team… as her health bar went down to about 50% it was the first time I thought to my self, “hey you might stand a chance here!”… but at the same time, a strange feeling was taking shape at the edge of my conscience. It was all too easy… I mean, come on! It’s Ursena Hard Mode, the best the game has to offer and I have no trouble winning with only 4* heroes and almost no battle items… Something is off… I decided to concentrate on the battle and denied the “something is wrong” warning…
After about 15 or 20 minutes, maybe a bit more, Ursena casted Empress of the depths one last time against riposte and went down in a cloud of smoke and flames. I was amazed, killed her first try with minimum effort… what was that about her being though, they were talking about on the forum? I even took a Victory screen screenshot! But that was about it… no adrenaline rush, no feeling of accomplishment, none of those things that should have been… it was way to easy I thought, as the rewards were displayed on screen… but… wait… what the he||? WHAT THE HE||? Where’s the fat juicy promised rewards? Some iron, some ham, some common herbs and large bones, what the he|| is this?!!
Oh, crap… This wasn’t hard mode, it was normal setting, thought to himself the fool who thought he defeated Ursena…
UPDATE
Second time I made sure hard mode is on.
Took the same team, same items, as mentioned above, battle lasted about the same time length. The harder she hit, the harder riposte nailed her. My only extra worry (beside the ones already mentioned) was keeping my healers alive. At the end I was left with Boldtusk, Boril, Wilbur (barely breathing) and Cyprian, and no mana pots at all. Never used a single time stop. Lost Melendor near the end (titan mode had 6000hp left)… had I lost him sooner, the outcome might have been very different. Alone, Boldtusk couldn’t repair the damage done by the slashes and specials, even with stuns and Wilbur’s protection.
Rewards were the right kind this time!