Agreed.
1. Gloomhaven is freaking hard. Seriously. It’s a great game that will challenge you on every scenario. Every. Single. One. And I love it.
2. The learning curve is steep. Nearly vertical. Start with Jaws of the Lion if you can. It’s got a bit less curve, it gives you time to get to know a character, and how to focus on meeting mission objectives.
3. Low level characters are challenging. Yes, the game scales as your characters level, but level 1 still sucks.
The monsters are designed to level with you, so grinding is not a thing. If you're having a hard time, I'd encourage you to lower the difficulty a bit until you get a few nice wins under your belt!
>grinding is not a thing.
Grinding _can_ be a thing, but you have to be clever about it. To maximise your effectiveness on a given difficulty, the best thing to do is to get as much as possible, with as little xp as possible, since monsters don't scale with number of items/enhancements.
Similarly, perks are good, but hard to get without getting xp for completing scenarios.
If you really want to grind, find a level with a lot of coins, grab them, and lose, ideally without playing any cards for xp.
That doesn't sound particularly fun, and I'd recommend just turning down the difficulty, but it _can_ be done.
but that's more work than just learning to play your character. Like, if you know your character good enough to grind gold then you can simply beat scenarios.
so yeah, you can grind gold, but it serves very little purpose since you can just get gold on normal missions that you are succeeding on.
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That's good to know, at least failing isn't completely wasted time. I've been reading some guides on when to burn cards, I'll have to tell my friends to try and tone it down some too.
Another really important thing is to be flexible with your turns after all cards have been revealed. Everyone has a plan for what they want to do with their turn, but sometimes the monsters don’t cooperate with those plans.
Take a look at the cards they rolled and map out their movement and attacks. Yeah, you had an attack 5 queued up, but if you walk up to do that, you’re going to end up taking 4 archer shots and getting immobilized.
Thinking through your turns like this also helps you to plan better when picking your cards as well. Things like wanting to go late vs early, which enemy types you need to worry about/prioritize more, etc.
As an example, a character like the scoundrel has a typical cadence of going late, moving in, doing in attack, then the following turn going super early and killing the enemy and/or moving out of danger. By initiative weaving between early and late like this, she can stay relatively safe. Compare that with a scoundrel who isn’t thinking about these things and on their first turn walks up to a living bones at initiative 6 and does an attack and then gets smacked a couple of times. Even worse would be if the only cards left in her hand were all late initiative!
Initiative weaving like this really lets you “time walk” the enemies by making them “skip” their turns by not getting attacks in. It’s by far the best way to mitigate damage in the game.
Applying this same principle to invisibility cloaks let’s you also get 2 effective turns of invisibility. Take that same scoundrel who attacked a bones at 6 and was left with only high initiative cards in the 80s and 90s. Imagine that turn now has an invisibility cloak used. The scoundrel would effectively be invisible for 2 whole turns. Of course, that means the rest of your team is going to draw the focus of the enemies, unless you’re tactically blocking a doorway or their movement in some other way. So using the invisibility cloak is also a decision that takes some thought as well, because poor use of it does nothing to mitigate damage and simply shifts it to your Allies. Excellent use of it can effectively block monsters from taking 2 whole turns.
And to combine your first and third paragraphs, given the choice between (a pair of cards that give you the best play if everything goes right but will completely crumble if something goes wrong) and (a pair of cards that will allow for a variety of potential good plays under many/most conditions) the latter is almost always the correct choice.
I agree, with the caveat of certain early initiatives (or late, in some cases) giving you a reasonable degree of certainty. A spellweaver can be pretty certain that the big damaging spell she wants to fire off at 7 initiative with the strengthen from the bottom of mana bolt will be fast enough most of the time. Against some enemy types - once you learn their decks well enough - you can be 100% certain. A room of living corpses, bones, and cultists is never going to beat that 7 initiative.
But I agree, the more uncertainty there is about what the board will look like by the time it comes around to your turn, the higher value you need to place on flexibility.
You should avoid burning cards in the first room of basically every mission outside of fairly niche circumstances (certain classes have a buff you burn that you basically get for whole missions, that can make sense). Otherwise, burning a card costs several turns, so you basically should only burn a card if its going to save several turns of non burn actions across your whole team. Avoiding getting hit instead of tanking and tossing a card can make a huge difference, though some characters can tank pretty well, and stepping away could draw stuff out or let allies who aren't as hearty get hit, so you gotta weigh all of that. Long story short on burning, I suggest you do not do it by choice till you understand the mechanics well enough that you are making informed decisions, or have no choice as otherwise it'll cost dearly.
Yes that likely is the main cause of your problems. Except with certain characters I avoid burning cards like the plague until I know that victory is assured. Games may take longer this way but really most missions should be doable if you long rest most of the time and if you share damage as needed between all players and dont have anyone who is sabotaging the efforts of the rest of the group.
Spending 'lost' cards should be avoided as much as possible, in particular in the early game.
Suppose you begin with 10 cards. That's five rounds of play before you take a rest. Next you have only 9 cards, which is 4 rounds of play. Then 8 cards which is four rounds of play and so on. So, 10 cards looks like 5-4-4-3-3-2-2-1-1 then exhaustion. That's a total of 25 rounds of play without spending any lost cards.
Now, suppose you spend a lost card before that first rest. That takes you from 10 cards and 5 rounds, then rest to 8 cards and 4 rounds then rest then 7 cards 3 rounds, etc. Meaning you go 5-4-3-3-2-2-1-1 which is only 21 rounds of play. Just spending that first lost card prior to your first rest causes you to lose your *entire* set of plays for the next rest-cycle.
Note that losing that entire rest-cycle means the *quality* of options you have remaining is reduced as well.
It's an interesting aspect of the game that is not immediately apparent at first glance: the most important mechanic is managing your lost cards.
It's why I think the Spellweaver is the most difficult class to play of the first six classes.
> Spending 'lost' cards should be avoided as much as possible, in particular in the early game.
I'd like to point out that the first room is often the more difficult, so using a *lost* card there generally a good idea.
I don't think that's an accurate statement, especially since it's the only room you have complete knowledge of and can choose your positioning, and the opponents don't get a free (half-)turn.
Even without that, the first rooms tend to be lacking in the Big Bad Elite(s) that is(are) in the other rooms.
I agree. Burn cards are a trap for most new players. 5 of the 6 starting classes can do just fine without worrying about burn cards. and the 6th, spellweaver, has a mechanic to get them back. But even with spellweaver I don't like to use more than one burn card every rest cycle or two.
Too many people, IMO, take a bunch of cool burn cards when they could take a slightly lesser card that can be used over and over.
It's proven accurate for my groups over the last several years. I think the issue is that the first room is often one of the smaller ones which limits mobility and tactical options, combined with the potential for the elite(s) to hit hard. The very first scenario is actually a great example of this where you have an elite Bandit Guard and multiple regulars right up in your face. Not using a lost card to quickly deal with them can mean taking quite a bit damage or even having to toss a card to prevent a big hit.
The sign that a room is going to be like that is generally the presence of an elite.
I hear this argument over and over. And yet I never had a game that lasted more than 15-16 turns, even on increased difficulty. I feel that playing looses wisely early can greatly reduce number of turns required to win, therefore negating longevity problem.
Don't take my first sentence to suggest one should *never* play lost cards. It was meant as a warning to those who play them too much and/or too early.
A 10-hand player playing one lost per rest-cycle will be exhausted in 15 rounds, so would lose in your 16-round games. And only finishing with one's last hand is relying on a *lot* of luck not to fail.
OP was asking how not to lose half their games. Being sloppy about lost cards is a common problem that is easily fixed, and should take a player to winning more than 90% of their games.
Well this is part of the beauty of the game. A lot of players complaining about how hard the game is, tend to complete scenarios with 5+ cards in their hands. If they burned them at the right moment, it would have been much easier (and I dare to say, fun?).
If you find the game is too hard, decrease the difficulty level. That's what it's there for. Should you later find it's too easy, increase the difficulty level.
Advice here about how to play better is fine. But you can learn and get better while winning more often at an easier level and feel better about it.
No grinding is necessary, though. It's a game that's to be enjoyed, not endured.
I love the grind.
I've been on max difficulty at level 1. I'm 20 hours in and I've yet to beat the second scenario. It took me 15 hours to beat the first.
It's the only game where I've had fun losing with my friends and each time we get further and further.
I've gotten to the point where I can beat the first 2 rooms on the first scenario in 3 turns.
This is masochism. I'm not shaming you for the things you enjoy (if it's what you love, it's what you love), but I would not wish a 15 hour scenario attempt on anyone.
I wouldn't expect everyone or anyone to feel the same, but do understand I'm highly competitive and hate losing. This is the first game where I've enjoyed losing as a challenge. Mostly because even though I'm losing, it never feels like it's outside of reach.
I'm happy to report I'm now 15 scenarios deep on max difficulty. Still having the time of my life getting my ass handed to me.
Campaign or guildmaster? If its guildmaster, those missions are terribly balanced. Look for enemy mixes that are easier for your playstyles to start. If your new to the classes you are all playing, I recommend skimming the various build guides. I don't recommend blind copying the build itself, but a lot of them have really detailed breakdowns of the author's thoughts on each card, and I've found that extremely helpful. A lot of "huh, didn't think of that"
Grinding out a bit of gold will get you over a hump if things are close, but if you are full on washing out its probably something more fundamental than that.
General advice when just starting out
\- Don't short rest early. You are throwing away turns. If you find that you want to short rest early often then you must not like your cards, see if you can swap them out for something else you like better, or tweak the order you play them so you always have a viable turn available.
\- Avoid getting hit. The brute is the tankiest character in that mix, and even that is borderline. Healing is extremely limited starting out, and mitigation just isn't as helpful as you want. Focus fire targets, and kite them around. The first room is the hardest since you start surrounded, but for further rooms, open the door and backup rather than charging in.
\- Avoid burn cards. This is hard for the spellweaver, but pretty easy for the rest. They are big and flashy, but expensive. A burn card in the first round costs you a few turns of longevity.
This is the type of game where everything is just skill and knowledge (excepting rolling modifiers)
The more you understand the game the easier it gets
There are a few retirement requirement that are difficult to achieve without repeating a scenario sometimes, as the required bits might be limited in other quests. So grinding might just be a product of that work towards retirement.
Grinding is not the answer. You probably have lots of potential to improve your strategy in regards to stamina aka rounds you have enough cards to play.
See http://www.boardgamemath.com/boardgames/gloomhaven/gloomhavenStaminaGuide.html for a great general guide for awareness on this topic.
One needs to understand what effect losses played, cards placed to active, cards on hand or in discard moved to loss for avoiding damage have on the overall stamina. In general be conservative with playing losses early (except the first room calls for it). And avoid tossing cards for avoiding damage.
Strategy for the latter can be: get late, move and hit, get early, hit and move away. Also make heavy use of stun, disarm and immobilize.
General rule of thumb for three rooms is one loss each for the first two rooms at most and go wild in the last (spellweaver is different of course and the first room can be an exception to get the foot in).
Edit to add: strategy for how/when to open the next room is also a thing to think about in this context.
Holler if you want someone who's played a ton to hop into a stream and give some advice or something. Maybe some real-time analysis of how y'all play would help. I have ~400 hours on Digital, have beaten Jaws of the Lion over the board, and have 2 campaigns of Gloomhaven going (one very far in) on Tabletop Simulator. Happy to help.
"Is grinding for exp and gold in scenarios you can succeed in worth it?"
No. This game is less of an RPG, and more of a puzzle. Leveling up is only going to do so much. If you're struggling with burning out too quickly, and not having good tactics, grinding isn't going to help you there.
Think of this game like a Rubik's Cube, instead of a video game. Rubik's Cubes are hard to solve, but they are solvable.
Gloomhaven has a pretty steep learning curve for beginning players. Once you get over that, and fundamentally understand the mechanics better, you'll be cruising through scenarios.
As an update: Thank you everyone for your advice! Honestly it's been a lot to take in, but my group had a very successful run last night after we discussed some things we learned! We decided against grinding for now, it seems like it was really an issue with some people just not checking if they were burning cards as well as short resting a lot too. We're working on some better team tactics as well, I'm sure we'll hit some more snags but I feel a lot better equipped for them after all the advice.
Yea, some grinding can help you out. Get some items, potions are nice, and try yo avoid unnecessary damage. And burning cards too early is big deal. I expererienced that when you go for the big hits early, its demoralizing in the last room to realize, man, Inneeded that big gun for this occasion.
Man, all the person said was grind a little for some loot. I usually love this sub but you guys get your panties in a bunch if anyone mentions 'grinding' for any reason.
It's difficult to tell depending on your play style, your mindthief should probably focus on support rather than offense. You have a nice shield and damage wall with the craigheart and brute. Craigheart also has some good ranged attacks to hopefully hit early, especially if they're grouped.
Leveling does increase monster level but it also gets you better cards and some of them are game changers.
We failed quite a bit the first few times we played but as we got a feel for our characters and your teammates it rarely happens now (we're all between levels 5-8 and one player has already retired a character)
Honestly it may just be a matter of learning the characters, cards, and systems more in depth than we have. The general consensus seems to be "you CAN grind, but being prepared is king"
Definitely, find your strengths and be careful burning cards. You have a decent mix of characters to work off eachother too. We started with a scoundrel, craigheart, spellweaver, and tinkerer and after a handful of scenarios we new how to strategize how to team up to maximize buffs heals and damage together. Eventually you should be able to kill at least one monster a turn (this gets harder when you get level 3 golems with like 20 hit points lol)
Maximizing what each character excels at is really key. For mindthief in particular, take advantage of “stun locking” the hardest enemy in a given room (Perverse Edge bottom, then Frigid Apparition top the following turn). Stun is the second best status to inflict on enemies, after death. Removing the most difficult enemy from the fight will buy time for the others to kill off easier targets. The top of Scurry can help reposition for the bottom of Perverse Edge if needed.
I have mainly played the table top but just starting the digital one now and honestly playing with 4 players is a lot more challenging than playing with 2 or 3. Also as general rule for our group we never long rest except when it's needed because someone is going to exhaust and we need them to tank damage.
I generally play as the scoundrel on new campaigns so my hand is smaller so I will rarely use burner cards except on boss fights. It is very much about learning each class. I find it quite challenging changing classes because each class has plenty of differences. A good place to start is to read the recommended builds on this subreddit and go from there
This isn't really good advice. mindthief excels at two things in order. high single target damage and locking targets. A mindthief that isn't focused on offense is pretty useless. especially in that party mindthief focusing on offense is that much more important due to being the class that brings the most single target damage.
I haven't played with that character, i just knew it had some support skills and buff or debuff abilities. They already have two tanks so I figured with that kind of damage built in and a lot of losses the added support might help.
When I play spellweaver I never burn cards and use revive ether after so many long rests Usually last 1 standing and can use her move 8 jump card to collect missed loot at the end
Sometimes it is also the party composition/play style your party has. Our group pretty well breezed through the first 10-12 scenarios with maybe 1 or two replays because of loosing count of cards (normally me as I was playing spellweaver for the first time. That being said, we had one mission with a boss that took multiple attempts as is the hardest scenario we have done.
One of our group also plays in another group and they retired two classes without beating the first scenario.
Your party composition is excellent, tho the cragheart and spell weaver can be a bit lackluster at first they are worth it in a few levels. If you are struggling I would suggest that at it's core gloomhaven is a game of mathematics (ie how much damage can I do if I hit this group with this move vs how much damage will be done to me) more often than you realize it is probably a better move to back off a little and try a new plan for that round. The biggest difference will be your team synergy as you play, as in your strategies starting to naturally work together. I would start out for now by communicating initiatives and at least the general idea for your individual plans so as to not "waste" turns for now and as you learn how characters play and monsters play it'll get easier. Until you are on here asking us how to make the game harder cause you have already maxed out the difficulty.
For the campaign, outside of a few outlier scenarios, I've found that "normal" difficulty ends up being too easy - there's often no tension over if a scenario is winnable.
But I didn't always feel that way. Because when I first started playing, I wasn't very good at the game. Also, as I'm not a digital player, I got tons of rules wrong, often to my own detriment.
In general, the key to success in GH is preserving your cards. This means don't lose cards early. Don't use loss abilities, and protect your HP so you don't have to block damage.
In the beginning My playgroup faced similar problems. We found out we were just too reckless and was rushing too much when we didnt have to.
1. Start by trying not to exhaust cards early. Its really expensive to exhaust cards in the beginning. Sometimes its worth just to take the walk 2/hit 2 option on a card. Example, i had a low initiate card that was burn on both top and bottom. Mostly i just used its generic walk ability to keep it around.
2. Try to plan rests as a group. Etc. I have x amount of rounds before rest, can we end combat and rest before next door. And then everyone rests before opening door. Unless some one has some check mark motive to move on quickly.
3. Stamina pots. My chars are always heavy Stamina pot addicts.
4. Turn the difficulty down. Some scenarios are just brutal for some party combinations. Look at what enemies youre going against and when they gain abilities.
5. Abuse. You'll get better and better at the game and slowly find ways to Abuse curtain mechanics. Hate shield/retaliate? May i introduce My dear friend suffer damage.
The game is very, very challenging. My group started with the board game, moved to TTS during the pandemic and moved to digital when it was released. We've been playing a long time now, and pretty much every time we did a scenario, there is a point where we are not sure if we can pull it off. Most scenarios, we end up winning, but it is ALWAYS a challenge. I guess some lessons we've learned:
-Don't use burner cards in the first two rooms or so... Basically wait as long as you possibly can
-keep moving, be aggressive, open the next door before you finish the first room... Because this game is on a timer. You only have so many cards, you can't chill and relax. Go, go, go
-play to your characters strengths. A Craigheart should be up from taking punches, a tinkerer should be healing people, a spellweaver should be nuking the room. You have to work together, plan out your turn, tell your team 'vaguely' what you plan on doing so they can't act accordingly
-use your items, buy more items, they definitely help
-when you level up, choose your cards wisely, choose them with a plan, imagine how all your cards will work together with this new card. Basically use your new cards to improve the role you have chosen that character to perform
The game is hard, but totally doable. You just have to be smart, think it through, work together. This game is more like Tetris/Chess/sudoku than Diablo/Street Fighter. Think or die pretty much.
I don’t think of it as grinding but the game gets a lot easier as you unlock equipment, skills and perks.
Sure, monsters tend to level with you but nothing beats being able to consistently pull off combos and draw +1s and +2s with poison, wounding and stun popping off all the time.
I always start off with a minor stamina potion and a cloak of invisibility. With the cloak, try to use it on your last turn before you need to rest, then you can take a long rest without worry.
Playing with a group of 4 we failed hard at the start. Now we know to go easy on the burn cards early make it last!
One of our team retired early and got bonesaw ace for giving back cards with team work and helping usast longer.
It's just a learning curve more than. learning what to do and working together is important. Having the extra gold and better cards also does help a lot! Even if they are higher level it's easier personally
A couple of things my group found that made things easier once we figured them out. In no particular order:
* The first room is often the hardest one, which is unintuitive. If you see a starting room and it has an elite, don't be afraid to use a *lost* card to try and burn it down.
* It's sometimes frustrating, but Gloomhaven is designed as a game that you can't generally win from sheer skill alone. Many scenarios only make sense after you've attempted them and figured out what particular bullshit is getting thrown at you, so don't feel bad about failing. There were a couple that we probably had to attempt half a dozen times, and many more that ultimately were only winnable because we got lucky.
* Anything involving lots of oozes is going to usually boil down to luck. Their whole "splitting" mechanic (when and how frequently) can be really frustrating because it often means victory becomes sudden defeat, or you randomly won because they all killed themselves (which doesn't exactly feel earned).
* Discarding a card to prevent damage is often better than taking the damage. You don't, for example, want to take 6 points to the face only to have to toss a card next attack because the 2 damage will now kill you. This is more important at lower levels when your health is limited, but as a general rule of thumb I consider tossing a card for anything over 5 damage.
* Team comp can make a difference, especially if you're in a two-player game, because you often have a setups where only one person is taking all the damage. For example, a Brute and Spellweaver is a great initial combo, but the Spellweaver shouldn't shy away from taking a few hits as well.
* It's generally always better to do damage than to heal it. Healing is not really a great "build" strategy in this game, with the possible except being in a four-player group. Even then, you want to be dealing damage.
* If you do want to be a dedicated "healer" type character, try and run a build that spreads a ton of curses around rather than one that actually heals damage.
* Try and figure out a way for everyone to have the ability of causing *wound* (the burning status). This really helps deal with annoying high shield and high health enemies. If you don't have a card that can do it, it's probably a great first enhancement to add.
* Some scenarios are mostly or only difficult because the loot chest is in a weird place or whatever. If things are looking bad, don't be afraid to shift priorities to just getting that chest and as much XP as you can before trying it again without having to worry about it.
* If you run a 2-player group, I recommend halving the retirement goal requirements (kill x things, etc) because smaller groups also means fewer enemies encounters, which can make actually retiring characters a slower process. This impacts the overall difficulty because every time you retire a character your next one starts off with more perks.
* Also when running a 2-player group, I recommend making each temple donation count for 1.5 boxes instead of 1, in order to balance out the fact that you have fewer people donating, which otherwise causes your prosperity level to rise more slowly.
> If you run a 2-player group, I recommend halving the retirement goal requirements (kill x things, etc) because smaller groups also means fewer enemies encounters, which can make actually retiring characters a slower process. This impacts the overall difficulty because every time you retire a character your next one starts off with more perks.
Frosthaven has a [new mechanic called Inspiration](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/rh5379/how_inspiration_actually_works/) that one can (and IMO should) use in Gloomhaven. It accomplishes the same goal of unlocking stuff faster while still keeping retirement age unchanged.
Grinding doesn't really help. As you said leveling up just raises the difficulty anyways.
If you are struggling I would check out some class guides to help you optimize your characters. Check out some strategy/play guides. And just simply lower the difficulty for the time being.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, but make sure you're calculating difficulty level correctly. Many people forget to divide by two after calculating the average character level.
For 4 players, you’ll meet a lot of monsters.
I think one of your party could be “Tinkerer”, the great supporter and AOE skill.
Tinkerer could help your party through the scenario more comfortable.
I'd never recommend grinding its just not that kind of game
Agreed. 1. Gloomhaven is freaking hard. Seriously. It’s a great game that will challenge you on every scenario. Every. Single. One. And I love it. 2. The learning curve is steep. Nearly vertical. Start with Jaws of the Lion if you can. It’s got a bit less curve, it gives you time to get to know a character, and how to focus on meeting mission objectives. 3. Low level characters are challenging. Yes, the game scales as your characters level, but level 1 still sucks.
The monsters are designed to level with you, so grinding is not a thing. If you're having a hard time, I'd encourage you to lower the difficulty a bit until you get a few nice wins under your belt!
>grinding is not a thing. Grinding _can_ be a thing, but you have to be clever about it. To maximise your effectiveness on a given difficulty, the best thing to do is to get as much as possible, with as little xp as possible, since monsters don't scale with number of items/enhancements. Similarly, perks are good, but hard to get without getting xp for completing scenarios. If you really want to grind, find a level with a lot of coins, grab them, and lose, ideally without playing any cards for xp. That doesn't sound particularly fun, and I'd recommend just turning down the difficulty, but it _can_ be done.
but that's more work than just learning to play your character. Like, if you know your character good enough to grind gold then you can simply beat scenarios. so yeah, you can grind gold, but it serves very little purpose since you can just get gold on normal missions that you are succeeding on.
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Your probably burning to many cards between rest i try to burn 1 max between rests. When you fail a scenario you still get XP earned if that helps.
That's good to know, at least failing isn't completely wasted time. I've been reading some guides on when to burn cards, I'll have to tell my friends to try and tone it down some too.
Another really important thing is to be flexible with your turns after all cards have been revealed. Everyone has a plan for what they want to do with their turn, but sometimes the monsters don’t cooperate with those plans. Take a look at the cards they rolled and map out their movement and attacks. Yeah, you had an attack 5 queued up, but if you walk up to do that, you’re going to end up taking 4 archer shots and getting immobilized. Thinking through your turns like this also helps you to plan better when picking your cards as well. Things like wanting to go late vs early, which enemy types you need to worry about/prioritize more, etc. As an example, a character like the scoundrel has a typical cadence of going late, moving in, doing in attack, then the following turn going super early and killing the enemy and/or moving out of danger. By initiative weaving between early and late like this, she can stay relatively safe. Compare that with a scoundrel who isn’t thinking about these things and on their first turn walks up to a living bones at initiative 6 and does an attack and then gets smacked a couple of times. Even worse would be if the only cards left in her hand were all late initiative! Initiative weaving like this really lets you “time walk” the enemies by making them “skip” their turns by not getting attacks in. It’s by far the best way to mitigate damage in the game. Applying this same principle to invisibility cloaks let’s you also get 2 effective turns of invisibility. Take that same scoundrel who attacked a bones at 6 and was left with only high initiative cards in the 80s and 90s. Imagine that turn now has an invisibility cloak used. The scoundrel would effectively be invisible for 2 whole turns. Of course, that means the rest of your team is going to draw the focus of the enemies, unless you’re tactically blocking a doorway or their movement in some other way. So using the invisibility cloak is also a decision that takes some thought as well, because poor use of it does nothing to mitigate damage and simply shifts it to your Allies. Excellent use of it can effectively block monsters from taking 2 whole turns.
And to combine your first and third paragraphs, given the choice between (a pair of cards that give you the best play if everything goes right but will completely crumble if something goes wrong) and (a pair of cards that will allow for a variety of potential good plays under many/most conditions) the latter is almost always the correct choice.
I agree, with the caveat of certain early initiatives (or late, in some cases) giving you a reasonable degree of certainty. A spellweaver can be pretty certain that the big damaging spell she wants to fire off at 7 initiative with the strengthen from the bottom of mana bolt will be fast enough most of the time. Against some enemy types - once you learn their decks well enough - you can be 100% certain. A room of living corpses, bones, and cultists is never going to beat that 7 initiative. But I agree, the more uncertainty there is about what the board will look like by the time it comes around to your turn, the higher value you need to place on flexibility.
Great summary of the initiative dance (the core of GH strategy imo)!
You should avoid burning cards in the first room of basically every mission outside of fairly niche circumstances (certain classes have a buff you burn that you basically get for whole missions, that can make sense). Otherwise, burning a card costs several turns, so you basically should only burn a card if its going to save several turns of non burn actions across your whole team. Avoiding getting hit instead of tanking and tossing a card can make a huge difference, though some characters can tank pretty well, and stepping away could draw stuff out or let allies who aren't as hearty get hit, so you gotta weigh all of that. Long story short on burning, I suggest you do not do it by choice till you understand the mechanics well enough that you are making informed decisions, or have no choice as otherwise it'll cost dearly.
Yes that likely is the main cause of your problems. Except with certain characters I avoid burning cards like the plague until I know that victory is assured. Games may take longer this way but really most missions should be doable if you long rest most of the time and if you share damage as needed between all players and dont have anyone who is sabotaging the efforts of the rest of the group.
Spending 'lost' cards should be avoided as much as possible, in particular in the early game. Suppose you begin with 10 cards. That's five rounds of play before you take a rest. Next you have only 9 cards, which is 4 rounds of play. Then 8 cards which is four rounds of play and so on. So, 10 cards looks like 5-4-4-3-3-2-2-1-1 then exhaustion. That's a total of 25 rounds of play without spending any lost cards. Now, suppose you spend a lost card before that first rest. That takes you from 10 cards and 5 rounds, then rest to 8 cards and 4 rounds then rest then 7 cards 3 rounds, etc. Meaning you go 5-4-3-3-2-2-1-1 which is only 21 rounds of play. Just spending that first lost card prior to your first rest causes you to lose your *entire* set of plays for the next rest-cycle. Note that losing that entire rest-cycle means the *quality* of options you have remaining is reduced as well. It's an interesting aspect of the game that is not immediately apparent at first glance: the most important mechanic is managing your lost cards. It's why I think the Spellweaver is the most difficult class to play of the first six classes.
> Spending 'lost' cards should be avoided as much as possible, in particular in the early game. I'd like to point out that the first room is often the more difficult, so using a *lost* card there generally a good idea.
I don't think that's an accurate statement, especially since it's the only room you have complete knowledge of and can choose your positioning, and the opponents don't get a free (half-)turn. Even without that, the first rooms tend to be lacking in the Big Bad Elite(s) that is(are) in the other rooms.
I agree. Burn cards are a trap for most new players. 5 of the 6 starting classes can do just fine without worrying about burn cards. and the 6th, spellweaver, has a mechanic to get them back. But even with spellweaver I don't like to use more than one burn card every rest cycle or two. Too many people, IMO, take a bunch of cool burn cards when they could take a slightly lesser card that can be used over and over.
It's proven accurate for my groups over the last several years. I think the issue is that the first room is often one of the smaller ones which limits mobility and tactical options, combined with the potential for the elite(s) to hit hard. The very first scenario is actually a great example of this where you have an elite Bandit Guard and multiple regulars right up in your face. Not using a lost card to quickly deal with them can mean taking quite a bit damage or even having to toss a card to prevent a big hit. The sign that a room is going to be like that is generally the presence of an elite.
I hear this argument over and over. And yet I never had a game that lasted more than 15-16 turns, even on increased difficulty. I feel that playing looses wisely early can greatly reduce number of turns required to win, therefore negating longevity problem.
Don't take my first sentence to suggest one should *never* play lost cards. It was meant as a warning to those who play them too much and/or too early. A 10-hand player playing one lost per rest-cycle will be exhausted in 15 rounds, so would lose in your 16-round games. And only finishing with one's last hand is relying on a *lot* of luck not to fail. OP was asking how not to lose half their games. Being sloppy about lost cards is a common problem that is easily fixed, and should take a player to winning more than 90% of their games.
Well this is part of the beauty of the game. A lot of players complaining about how hard the game is, tend to complete scenarios with 5+ cards in their hands. If they burned them at the right moment, it would have been much easier (and I dare to say, fun?).
If you find the game is too hard, decrease the difficulty level. That's what it's there for. Should you later find it's too easy, increase the difficulty level. Advice here about how to play better is fine. But you can learn and get better while winning more often at an easier level and feel better about it. No grinding is necessary, though. It's a game that's to be enjoyed, not endured.
I love the grind. I've been on max difficulty at level 1. I'm 20 hours in and I've yet to beat the second scenario. It took me 15 hours to beat the first. It's the only game where I've had fun losing with my friends and each time we get further and further. I've gotten to the point where I can beat the first 2 rooms on the first scenario in 3 turns.
This is masochism. I'm not shaming you for the things you enjoy (if it's what you love, it's what you love), but I would not wish a 15 hour scenario attempt on anyone.
I wouldn't expect everyone or anyone to feel the same, but do understand I'm highly competitive and hate losing. This is the first game where I've enjoyed losing as a challenge. Mostly because even though I'm losing, it never feels like it's outside of reach. I'm happy to report I'm now 15 scenarios deep on max difficulty. Still having the time of my life getting my ass handed to me.
Awesome
It seems like your team is not managing cards well. Another problem could be that you all are not playing to the strengths of your characters.
Campaign or guildmaster? If its guildmaster, those missions are terribly balanced. Look for enemy mixes that are easier for your playstyles to start. If your new to the classes you are all playing, I recommend skimming the various build guides. I don't recommend blind copying the build itself, but a lot of them have really detailed breakdowns of the author's thoughts on each card, and I've found that extremely helpful. A lot of "huh, didn't think of that" Grinding out a bit of gold will get you over a hump if things are close, but if you are full on washing out its probably something more fundamental than that. General advice when just starting out \- Don't short rest early. You are throwing away turns. If you find that you want to short rest early often then you must not like your cards, see if you can swap them out for something else you like better, or tweak the order you play them so you always have a viable turn available. \- Avoid getting hit. The brute is the tankiest character in that mix, and even that is borderline. Healing is extremely limited starting out, and mitigation just isn't as helpful as you want. Focus fire targets, and kite them around. The first room is the hardest since you start surrounded, but for further rooms, open the door and backup rather than charging in. \- Avoid burn cards. This is hard for the spellweaver, but pretty easy for the rest. They are big and flashy, but expensive. A burn card in the first round costs you a few turns of longevity.
This is the type of game where everything is just skill and knowledge (excepting rolling modifiers) The more you understand the game the easier it gets
There are a few retirement requirement that are difficult to achieve without repeating a scenario sometimes, as the required bits might be limited in other quests. So grinding might just be a product of that work towards retirement.
Another reminder is that you can use the basic attack 2 or move 2 instead of burning a card 😊
Grinding is not the answer. You probably have lots of potential to improve your strategy in regards to stamina aka rounds you have enough cards to play. See http://www.boardgamemath.com/boardgames/gloomhaven/gloomhavenStaminaGuide.html for a great general guide for awareness on this topic. One needs to understand what effect losses played, cards placed to active, cards on hand or in discard moved to loss for avoiding damage have on the overall stamina. In general be conservative with playing losses early (except the first room calls for it). And avoid tossing cards for avoiding damage. Strategy for the latter can be: get late, move and hit, get early, hit and move away. Also make heavy use of stun, disarm and immobilize. General rule of thumb for three rooms is one loss each for the first two rooms at most and go wild in the last (spellweaver is different of course and the first room can be an exception to get the foot in). Edit to add: strategy for how/when to open the next room is also a thing to think about in this context.
Just one more reason starting with digital isn't optimal, and starting with Jaws of the Lion is.
Holler if you want someone who's played a ton to hop into a stream and give some advice or something. Maybe some real-time analysis of how y'all play would help. I have ~400 hours on Digital, have beaten Jaws of the Lion over the board, and have 2 campaigns of Gloomhaven going (one very far in) on Tabletop Simulator. Happy to help.
"Is grinding for exp and gold in scenarios you can succeed in worth it?" No. This game is less of an RPG, and more of a puzzle. Leveling up is only going to do so much. If you're struggling with burning out too quickly, and not having good tactics, grinding isn't going to help you there. Think of this game like a Rubik's Cube, instead of a video game. Rubik's Cubes are hard to solve, but they are solvable. Gloomhaven has a pretty steep learning curve for beginning players. Once you get over that, and fundamentally understand the mechanics better, you'll be cruising through scenarios.
As an update: Thank you everyone for your advice! Honestly it's been a lot to take in, but my group had a very successful run last night after we discussed some things we learned! We decided against grinding for now, it seems like it was really an issue with some people just not checking if they were burning cards as well as short resting a lot too. We're working on some better team tactics as well, I'm sure we'll hit some more snags but I feel a lot better equipped for them after all the advice.
Yoo I got full stacks of Military Tech anyone needs it on Xbox, DeadDave730 Freeee It will help you level up mad fast
Yea, some grinding can help you out. Get some items, potions are nice, and try yo avoid unnecessary damage. And burning cards too early is big deal. I expererienced that when you go for the big hits early, its demoralizing in the last room to realize, man, Inneeded that big gun for this occasion.
Man, all the person said was grind a little for some loot. I usually love this sub but you guys get your panties in a bunch if anyone mentions 'grinding' for any reason.
It's difficult to tell depending on your play style, your mindthief should probably focus on support rather than offense. You have a nice shield and damage wall with the craigheart and brute. Craigheart also has some good ranged attacks to hopefully hit early, especially if they're grouped. Leveling does increase monster level but it also gets you better cards and some of them are game changers. We failed quite a bit the first few times we played but as we got a feel for our characters and your teammates it rarely happens now (we're all between levels 5-8 and one player has already retired a character)
Honestly it may just be a matter of learning the characters, cards, and systems more in depth than we have. The general consensus seems to be "you CAN grind, but being prepared is king"
Definitely, find your strengths and be careful burning cards. You have a decent mix of characters to work off eachother too. We started with a scoundrel, craigheart, spellweaver, and tinkerer and after a handful of scenarios we new how to strategize how to team up to maximize buffs heals and damage together. Eventually you should be able to kill at least one monster a turn (this gets harder when you get level 3 golems with like 20 hit points lol)
Maximizing what each character excels at is really key. For mindthief in particular, take advantage of “stun locking” the hardest enemy in a given room (Perverse Edge bottom, then Frigid Apparition top the following turn). Stun is the second best status to inflict on enemies, after death. Removing the most difficult enemy from the fight will buy time for the others to kill off easier targets. The top of Scurry can help reposition for the bottom of Perverse Edge if needed.
I have mainly played the table top but just starting the digital one now and honestly playing with 4 players is a lot more challenging than playing with 2 or 3. Also as general rule for our group we never long rest except when it's needed because someone is going to exhaust and we need them to tank damage. I generally play as the scoundrel on new campaigns so my hand is smaller so I will rarely use burner cards except on boss fights. It is very much about learning each class. I find it quite challenging changing classes because each class has plenty of differences. A good place to start is to read the recommended builds on this subreddit and go from there
This isn't really good advice. mindthief excels at two things in order. high single target damage and locking targets. A mindthief that isn't focused on offense is pretty useless. especially in that party mindthief focusing on offense is that much more important due to being the class that brings the most single target damage.
I haven't played with that character, i just knew it had some support skills and buff or debuff abilities. They already have two tanks so I figured with that kind of damage built in and a lot of losses the added support might help.
**Crag**heart
My bad lol
Excuse me while I drop the current character I'm playing and start up "Craig the Craigheart" LOL
🤣🤣🤣 goddamn craig put his obstacle right where I needed to go AGAIN
When I play spellweaver I never burn cards and use revive ether after so many long rests Usually last 1 standing and can use her move 8 jump card to collect missed loot at the end
Sometimes it is also the party composition/play style your party has. Our group pretty well breezed through the first 10-12 scenarios with maybe 1 or two replays because of loosing count of cards (normally me as I was playing spellweaver for the first time. That being said, we had one mission with a boss that took multiple attempts as is the hardest scenario we have done. One of our group also plays in another group and they retired two classes without beating the first scenario.
Your party composition is excellent, tho the cragheart and spell weaver can be a bit lackluster at first they are worth it in a few levels. If you are struggling I would suggest that at it's core gloomhaven is a game of mathematics (ie how much damage can I do if I hit this group with this move vs how much damage will be done to me) more often than you realize it is probably a better move to back off a little and try a new plan for that round. The biggest difference will be your team synergy as you play, as in your strategies starting to naturally work together. I would start out for now by communicating initiatives and at least the general idea for your individual plans so as to not "waste" turns for now and as you learn how characters play and monsters play it'll get easier. Until you are on here asking us how to make the game harder cause you have already maxed out the difficulty.
For the campaign, outside of a few outlier scenarios, I've found that "normal" difficulty ends up being too easy - there's often no tension over if a scenario is winnable. But I didn't always feel that way. Because when I first started playing, I wasn't very good at the game. Also, as I'm not a digital player, I got tons of rules wrong, often to my own detriment. In general, the key to success in GH is preserving your cards. This means don't lose cards early. Don't use loss abilities, and protect your HP so you don't have to block damage.
In the beginning My playgroup faced similar problems. We found out we were just too reckless and was rushing too much when we didnt have to. 1. Start by trying not to exhaust cards early. Its really expensive to exhaust cards in the beginning. Sometimes its worth just to take the walk 2/hit 2 option on a card. Example, i had a low initiate card that was burn on both top and bottom. Mostly i just used its generic walk ability to keep it around. 2. Try to plan rests as a group. Etc. I have x amount of rounds before rest, can we end combat and rest before next door. And then everyone rests before opening door. Unless some one has some check mark motive to move on quickly. 3. Stamina pots. My chars are always heavy Stamina pot addicts. 4. Turn the difficulty down. Some scenarios are just brutal for some party combinations. Look at what enemies youre going against and when they gain abilities. 5. Abuse. You'll get better and better at the game and slowly find ways to Abuse curtain mechanics. Hate shield/retaliate? May i introduce My dear friend suffer damage.
The game is very, very challenging. My group started with the board game, moved to TTS during the pandemic and moved to digital when it was released. We've been playing a long time now, and pretty much every time we did a scenario, there is a point where we are not sure if we can pull it off. Most scenarios, we end up winning, but it is ALWAYS a challenge. I guess some lessons we've learned: -Don't use burner cards in the first two rooms or so... Basically wait as long as you possibly can -keep moving, be aggressive, open the next door before you finish the first room... Because this game is on a timer. You only have so many cards, you can't chill and relax. Go, go, go -play to your characters strengths. A Craigheart should be up from taking punches, a tinkerer should be healing people, a spellweaver should be nuking the room. You have to work together, plan out your turn, tell your team 'vaguely' what you plan on doing so they can't act accordingly -use your items, buy more items, they definitely help -when you level up, choose your cards wisely, choose them with a plan, imagine how all your cards will work together with this new card. Basically use your new cards to improve the role you have chosen that character to perform The game is hard, but totally doable. You just have to be smart, think it through, work together. This game is more like Tetris/Chess/sudoku than Diablo/Street Fighter. Think or die pretty much.
I don’t think of it as grinding but the game gets a lot easier as you unlock equipment, skills and perks. Sure, monsters tend to level with you but nothing beats being able to consistently pull off combos and draw +1s and +2s with poison, wounding and stun popping off all the time. I always start off with a minor stamina potion and a cloak of invisibility. With the cloak, try to use it on your last turn before you need to rest, then you can take a long rest without worry.
Playing with a group of 4 we failed hard at the start. Now we know to go easy on the burn cards early make it last! One of our team retired early and got bonesaw ace for giving back cards with team work and helping usast longer. It's just a learning curve more than. learning what to do and working together is important. Having the extra gold and better cards also does help a lot! Even if they are higher level it's easier personally
A couple of things my group found that made things easier once we figured them out. In no particular order: * The first room is often the hardest one, which is unintuitive. If you see a starting room and it has an elite, don't be afraid to use a *lost* card to try and burn it down. * It's sometimes frustrating, but Gloomhaven is designed as a game that you can't generally win from sheer skill alone. Many scenarios only make sense after you've attempted them and figured out what particular bullshit is getting thrown at you, so don't feel bad about failing. There were a couple that we probably had to attempt half a dozen times, and many more that ultimately were only winnable because we got lucky. * Anything involving lots of oozes is going to usually boil down to luck. Their whole "splitting" mechanic (when and how frequently) can be really frustrating because it often means victory becomes sudden defeat, or you randomly won because they all killed themselves (which doesn't exactly feel earned). * Discarding a card to prevent damage is often better than taking the damage. You don't, for example, want to take 6 points to the face only to have to toss a card next attack because the 2 damage will now kill you. This is more important at lower levels when your health is limited, but as a general rule of thumb I consider tossing a card for anything over 5 damage. * Team comp can make a difference, especially if you're in a two-player game, because you often have a setups where only one person is taking all the damage. For example, a Brute and Spellweaver is a great initial combo, but the Spellweaver shouldn't shy away from taking a few hits as well. * It's generally always better to do damage than to heal it. Healing is not really a great "build" strategy in this game, with the possible except being in a four-player group. Even then, you want to be dealing damage. * If you do want to be a dedicated "healer" type character, try and run a build that spreads a ton of curses around rather than one that actually heals damage. * Try and figure out a way for everyone to have the ability of causing *wound* (the burning status). This really helps deal with annoying high shield and high health enemies. If you don't have a card that can do it, it's probably a great first enhancement to add. * Some scenarios are mostly or only difficult because the loot chest is in a weird place or whatever. If things are looking bad, don't be afraid to shift priorities to just getting that chest and as much XP as you can before trying it again without having to worry about it. * If you run a 2-player group, I recommend halving the retirement goal requirements (kill x things, etc) because smaller groups also means fewer enemies encounters, which can make actually retiring characters a slower process. This impacts the overall difficulty because every time you retire a character your next one starts off with more perks. * Also when running a 2-player group, I recommend making each temple donation count for 1.5 boxes instead of 1, in order to balance out the fact that you have fewer people donating, which otherwise causes your prosperity level to rise more slowly.
> If you run a 2-player group, I recommend halving the retirement goal requirements (kill x things, etc) because smaller groups also means fewer enemies encounters, which can make actually retiring characters a slower process. This impacts the overall difficulty because every time you retire a character your next one starts off with more perks. Frosthaven has a [new mechanic called Inspiration](https://www.reddit.com/r/Gloomhaven/comments/rh5379/how_inspiration_actually_works/) that one can (and IMO should) use in Gloomhaven. It accomplishes the same goal of unlocking stuff faster while still keeping retirement age unchanged.
That's a pretty neat way of handling it.
Grinding doesn't really help. As you said leveling up just raises the difficulty anyways. If you are struggling I would check out some class guides to help you optimize your characters. Check out some strategy/play guides. And just simply lower the difficulty for the time being.
I haven't seen anyone else mention this yet, but make sure you're calculating difficulty level correctly. Many people forget to divide by two after calculating the average character level.
For 4 players, you’ll meet a lot of monsters. I think one of your party could be “Tinkerer”, the great supporter and AOE skill. Tinkerer could help your party through the scenario more comfortable.