Aquajag's heart of Ice Review

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Aquajag

I did T3 with fully heated gear: Full Mad Bomber, Crest of Almire, Boom Trinket, Heart Trinket, RSS, DBB, Ash of Agni, and Splinter shards. I never used AoA, did a lot of splinters, and finally gave up and breezed through with DBB. Died plenty, but didn't feel like I was getting totally screwed over like in C42.

First Level
I noticed that "room #3," the second room where the blocks all vanish to set you up with a horde of devlites, is almost completely avoidable. The blocks vanished, i stepped on a button, and ran. Very safe.

Room #4, it's very hard to figure out how to control the gates going up and down while the turrets are shooting at me. In the end, i just kinda ran around till they were down the way I wanted. It seemed at one point like killing a turret made the gate go down. Was that right? Some kind of clearer clue as to how to control the gates would be nice.

Some areas were very rough, with greavers and devlites and wolves all at once. Others, not so much. The feel, however, feels just like normal levels. somehow LoA felt like you introduced a new feel. yes, it was graveyard, but with new enemes, and new scenes, it felt very... new. So far, Heart of Ice just feels like a devilite level that is icy and has beasts. It plays well though.

I also concluded that the new shard bomb is not the best bomb at all for killing fiends. Much better off using DBB, and the old RSS. Despite being advertised as an "anti-fiend" bomb, the new RSS and Splinter shards are not very good at it. Splinter totally pwns beasts though, I love it!

Second level
The "arena" room was awesome! I thought it looked totally sweet. But it was way too easy. I barely even got hurt in it.

Also, I gave up on the new shards on this level. DBB totally out shone it. I get that the shards have lower damage because we can multi hit, but the truth is, they don't multi hit enough to matter. The increased damage of DBB meant I mowed through things that were giving me a lot of trouble with Splinter shards.

The final boss was pretty cool! The invincible Alpha Wolvers got very annoying, but i'm not sure they ever actually hurt me. They are just super irritating, is all. I spammed DBB through it. The spirit orbs throughout the level aren't much trouble to me if I keep using DBB. The roughest part was when Boss's attack speed increases, and I started having a hard time moving around because I was iced in.

final thoughts
Difficulty: Medium Hard. I sure did die a lot. But, I went in pure Mad bomber (thanks so much for the heat levels!), and fiends always pwn me as Mad Bomber. If I went in with a skolver buddy to protect me, i have a feeling we'd totally tear through these levels.

Fun Factor: Decent. Certainly not the irritation of fire and poison! The ice causes hazards, and the ice the boss makes certainly needs to be worked around. But it's more of a challenge, and not a total hate situation. I would almost add ice blockades sooner and in more places, because they didn't really cause me trouble until the Boss.

Boss: Very cool! Could make him a bit tougher. Maybe make him move around more? Or give him a shield? With DBB, i just killed him without much trouble.

My only problem is that the icy background with the icy creatures makes it very hard to see. My eyes burn! but this is a problem with all ice levels, so I guess it's just part of life.

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 13:11 #1
Aquajag
Second Run

Second Run Gear
Bombastic Demo Suit
Bombastic Demo Helm
Dread Skelly Shield
2x Elite bomb module
DBB
BTB
Blitz

So far, it's not bad at all. The minor dink to my damage is made up when spamming DBB. Fiends, as always, are hit or miss. Sometimes I breeze through. Other times, devlites drop me no problem. They are tough because I'm down in basically 3 hits, and with their attack speed I don't always get them in time. So the death rate is about the same as any fiend level I've ever played, it's nothing special. That's not to say I'm not dying! But like I said, it feels like any fiend level.

The warping wolvers are an interesting touch. They warp in past walls, so when I'm trying to negotiate the mazes to hit the switches, they make life... fun. If I went pure bomber, I'd be very much in trouble. A sword or gun is very needed there. With my Pointy Stick, wolves die fast. I'd almost say, boost their attack speed. Make them go right into an attack after warping, rather than having them park on their butts, bark, and ponder what to do. Don't make the warp an attack, that'd be way to rough. But make them warp and charge right away. Then they'd be a threat. As it is, with them coming outside the walls, they have no fiend back up, and are basically letting me thin the herd very easily.

In the respawning turret room, I think the trojans need work. The turrets respawn so fast that it is very hard to get around the trojans, what with the walls and all. And the trojans seem to think the walls are enemies, so they fart at them a lot. And since their farts have much increased range in here, I can't get around them to bomb them at all, because of turret bullets and walls and such. So basically I died twice I think on my way to that room, and 3 times just with the trojans. That seems a bit off, balance-wise.

Second layer was fairly even. Died a few times. i did notice all the fiends just hanging out in corners in the boss room, making them pointless. Nothing in there really shown out as being unbalanced, the whole second level feels fairly good.

Key issue: the second floor arsenal is broken! It opens, but lets you do nothing.

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 13:23 #2
Heavy-Duty
...

Wolvers always warped... (in T3).
And now, I am going to craft a DBB in my real account.
And the skelly set.
They're both life savers.

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 13:50 #3
Rawrcake
Wolvers have always "warped",

Wolvers have always "warped", or burrowed as we have called it.

Skelly set vs. Snarbolax.

Snarbolax loses unoticable amounts of defense

Snarbolax gains a whole medium sword damage bonus.

Honestly, all this content has done for the better is make Dread Skelly Shield more effective.

Wed, 07/18/2012 - 15:08 #4
Aquajag
My Dread Skelly shield broke

My Dread Skelly shield broke fast with trojans, but otherwise was handy...

I know wolvers always warped. But they don't often occur in places with walls for me to see it that way. I'm just saying, it actually made them easier in this case because they warped in to attack me when the fiends were blocked away, so I could deal with them piecemeal. It made them easier.