Many people started playing Loop Hero. How do I know that? It hit 50,000 concurrent users on Steam over the weekend. I was one of them. I’ve been building in the roguelite on deck for over 25 hours now, and I have some tips for anyone just getting started.
At its most basic level, Loop Hero play himself. Your fighter walks around a circle and fights hordes of slime and vampires automatically. Over time, they become stronger, and if they become strong enough, they will survive to summon the boss, beat them, and move on to the next chapter. Of course, the devil is in the details of everything you can do above and beyond this simple arrogance, including upgrading equipment, building settlements, and choosing the maps you must collect during each expedition. Here are some helpful tips I have put together based on my own experience navigating this complex glove.
Prioritize certain statistics for each class.
The Knight is greasy and hits slowly. The Rogue is more vulnerable, but carries two weapons. The Necromancer summons skeletons to fight on their side. Everyone needs a different strategy. I found that focusing on these specific statistics for each class led more to greater success and longer lives:
- Knight: Rain / Vampirism
- Rogue: Evasion / Crit Chance
- Necromancer: Magic HP / extra skeletons
Survival is the name of the game, which means you have to balance how fast you can kill enemies with how fast you heal. Rain is nice because it works even when you’re not in a fight, while Magic HP is the damage the Necromancer can pick up every time before it gets hurt.
High-level equipment is not always better.
All equipment in Loop Hero has a level and one of four rarities: general, blue, yellow and orange. The higher the rarity, the more bonus stats it adds. However, this is not enough to increase the numbers. You can get an armor that is two levels above your current one, but is the lowest, and therefore has no bonuses. In this case, something like 10% vampirism is better than an extra 100 HP.
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The reverse may also be true, depending on the situation. In one expedition I found a higher ring at a higher level with a 4.5 regeneration status. I quickly swapped it for the single digit lovers in my existing orange rarity ring. On top of that, all the weapons you don’t use end up being broken up into resources, so consider waiting instead of constantly switching to new equipment with just a little better stats.
Do not just put countries in the void.
Mountain maps give you more HP, and a total of 120 HP extra when arranged in a 3X3 grid. Meadows provide an extra resource if you place it next to a mountain or a set of rocks, which makes it more advantageous to mix it in rather than place it elsewhere on the map. The bonus effects of rivers are doubled if they touch another country in two places, you should arrange them in a zigzagging pattern rather than in straight lines.
It’s good to not play every card.
Like extra equipment, maps you do not use will split into extra resources that can be used to expand and upgrade your settlement. So do not feel that you have to play everything that is twisted in your hand, especially if you are on an expedition just looking for resources. In addition, the key to success in Loop Hero balances the need to farm enemies for better resources and equipment with the fact that we can survive until the late game. A few vampire houses are good. To litter the card with them is not.
Know when to fold it.
If you do not think you are going to survive another loop, move back to your village as you pass by. You can save everything you have collected in the expedition. There is a significant amount of times in Loop Hero, which means you’ll probably go on expeditions to farm to certain sources to get key upgrades and unlock important maps without ever tackling the main boss. It is better to start an expedition early again than to lose a large part of your journey in an early death. If there is pressure, you can also withdraw for a smaller fine from any other square on the map if you are not in battle.
Tell signs that you should retreat are when the loop has multiple squares with large groups or enemies on them, and if you have not received good gear upgrades for a while. Enemies become more difficult for each completed loop, and as the RNG, which Loop Hero many have, simply do not go to your liking, it is better to stop while you are ahead.
Upgrade the melter.
Your settlement in Loop Hero is basically your skill tree. The upgrades will be transferred between expeditions and are often the determining factor whether you survive or not. Aim to unlock the Smelter as early as possible and then upgrade it to get the arsenal. If placed, you can equip an extra piece of equipment in a new slot that gives you the chance to advance the most important stats of your class.
Unlock Watchtowers.
Watchtowers take a little longer to get, but are also very useful for farming resources. They offer archers in your settlement who can attack enemies in the surrounding squares depending on how much they are upgraded. It is encouraged to play as many monster cards as close to your settlement as possible to tackle most of the toughest battles of your loop with backup..
Get the Blade of Dawn feature.
Each time your character walks into a barrel, they choose one of three new traits to help them during the expedition. The Knight has a lot to choose from, but Blade of Dawn has never let me down. This makes your first attack of each new day super-charged, causing double damage to all enemies in an encounter. The days go by quickly outside of battle, and if you have placed enemy buildings sparingly and cleverly, you can start almost every major battle this way.
For the Rogue, I always go with the Child of the Forest pet trait that has a 75% chance of breeding a wolf companion every fight, and for the Necromancer, I really like Unseen Care, which gives you a bonus Magic Magic gives for each framed skeleton. Normally I try to deal with the trait that often causes or offers a lasting benefit that scales nicely as the loop gets harder.
Use a Storm Temple to burn a forest.
Loop Hero is full of mysterious synergies between different buildings and land types. One of these is the Burnt Forest, which you get when you place a Storm Temple and it strikes lightning in a forest or obstacle. The burned forest gives extra magic damage, which ignores the defense of enemies. Another great combination is the Hungry Grove, which is created when you place two Blood Groves next to a regular forest. It will sometimes attack you when you fight against enemies afterwards, but will also kill any enemy that falls below 20% of health immediately, helping you to take down large groups faster.
Experiment with different combinations.
Different maps produce different effects and allow you to harvest different sources. If you always play the same class and do similar loop setups, you will not get the necessary resources to expand your settlement quickly, which is the actual point of 90% of the expeditions. Play around with different land types, enemy buildings and places on the map to see what happens.
Similarly, different classes are better suited for different types of loops. The Necromancer will perform better against larger crowds, while the Rogue can handle massive critical blows that can take down faster enemies (those that produce by visiting towns) much faster.
Use oblivion to suppress enemy camps.
I have already died more than I can count to goblins. They strike hard and fast, and often appear in groups of three or four. With the Oblivion card, you can renew any square on the card, not just the stuff you built. You can use it to exterminate a crowd of goblins, or better yet to destroy the camp they cultivate. The same goes for bandit camps and other hostile spawning grounds that automatically arise as you progress.
Extra credit: You can also use an Oblivion map to destroy the last mountain or rock formation in a 3X3 mountain range. You can then replace the mountain or rock to reactivate the formation and get extra bonus resources. You can rinse and repeat as many times as you want. (Cap Jolly2Joy of the Loop Hero subreddit).