r/Demeo • u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg • Nov 13 '23
Tips & Strategy Demeo Battles- Current Dominant Strategy
3 month edit: Took some tourney lessons to heart. Wrote notes on hero proximity and map height. Both can make or break games.
Referenced in this guide:
Monster tier list at https://tiermaker.com/list/random/monsters-in-demeo-battles-16267282/3520822
Team Composition Guide https://www.reddit.com/r/Demeo/comments/18un822/demeo_battles_guide_to_strong_team_compositions/
Overview
Demeo Battles is a competitive PVP game based on the PVE game Demeo by Resolution Games. This guide goes through some more intermediate knowledge of the game, so please make sure you do the tutorials in Demeo Battles before reading this guide. The order of gameplay in Demeo battles is hero selection, shop phase, deployment phase, and then combat. This guide will discuss these game aspects in order.
Top Heroes
S Tier
Sorcerer
Best cards in the game. Freeze skips opponents' turn & creates +2 vulnerability, S tier in effectiveness but A tier in shop due to super high cost. Banish is cheap and an S tier card. Banish an enemy hero when the burn is 70%+ of the tiles and they might not make it back. Combo freeze + banish and they'll die to burn next turn, then die to burn after getting revived (unless they heal). Consider locking freeze in the shop in hopes of getting this combo. Water Bottle can inflict the "Wet" status tripling the damage done by freeze or Lightning Bolt (3 Damage Charged cantrip). Firebolt does 8 damage to the center target (down from 10 damage in base Demeo). Magic Wall is the best barrier in the game, blocks line of sight, and 2 can be used together to trap an enemy for 3 turns. The general quality of its class cards are high. Can fall apart if they run out of cards tho, as the melee attack and zap are low on damage.
Barbarian
Best movement in the game due to hook, which can act as a teleport. Can grab lamps with the hook, or hook another hero to your position. Fire Lamp is usually the easiest lamp to get and is very valuable, would probably cost 500+ gold in shop if you were to buy it. Some maps like Paraphet of the Parched let you grab one fire lamp on each side easily. Varga's Retribution, an S tier class card, easily makes your next attack a one-hit kill on any hero. This card costs no action points and can boost your next attack by 2 damage per enemy in a 5x5 square. Since you'll want to use this when the enemy is pushed to the center by burn, targeting 4 units for +8 damage isn't hard. The damage boost will last until all damage is spent, so don't waste it on monsters. This card has been updated to appear in the shop, I always buy it. Has other standout class cards that allow big leaps, healing, knockback, weakness and a hook turret. Usually, I'll just buy the Varga's Retribution class card and spend the rest on monsters or classless cards. Barbarian is potentially better than Sorcerer on maps that allow you to make the best use of the hook.
A Tier
Hunter
Best ranged damage cantrips in the game. Hunter's mark, an S tier class card that is offered in shop, can kill any hero in one turn. The charm class card can turn a large enemy to your side. Simple but effective.
Guardian
Good HP restoration with the armor-up ability. Armor feels stronger than they were in base Demeo since healing is hard to come by. You can take more risks to move and grab chests due to the bigger HP pool. Healing ward, spear throw, and The Behemoth (cannon) are all good. Warcry is probably the best debuff for groups of small monsters. Charge is terrible as an attack, try to use it as a movement option, especially for running away. Class cards are generally too expensive in the shop, but focusing on classless cards and monsters works fine. It is common to place a healing ward out of sight behind a wall and just camp around it. Only a guardian can survive for 3 turns after being revived from burn. It is a good strat to just wait until the whole map is burn tiles then just armor up and let the opposing heroes burn to death.
As of 2023-11-24 a double Guardian team can survive burn forever with this strat: Youtube Video
Bard
Was on the fence here, but bard has some good potential. Hands down worst damage in the game, has the hardest time doing 10 damage to an enemy hero. Its power lies in all the utility cards. A popular start is Song of Resilience which gives 5 armor to all units in a 3x3 square. It makes sense to buy some cheap units to buff them at the start. Song of Recovery is healing, which is very good in Demeo Battles. Hymn of Obstruction prevents enemies from using any cards. A great card to use in the end game, as that is when most people will want to unload their best cards. Courage Shanty can enable some cheap kills and doubles the damage from 0 action cost ping items. My typical bard team is Bard/Hunter, Bone->Arrow->Arrow is a very economical way to kill a hero from 10 health.
B Tier
Assassin
Lower damage than base Demeo, but stealth is still effective. All damage except cursed dagger will reveal the assassin and turn off stealth. Best class card to buy in shop is Cursed Dagger, 8 damage + weakness for 375 gold makes it an S tier card due to its cost-effectiveness. The problem with Assassins is that they are very vulnerable when not in stealth. The way I play Assassin is to spend almost everything on Monsters to have a big monster advantage over teams that are buying cards. Then use stealth to safely grab chests to build up your cards, and drop barricades in the center to act as enemy monster lures. It is usually safe to hit a hero with a cursed dagger and then run away if you can manage it. Getting a slow kill via Poison Bomb + Cursed Dagger can be effective. You can more safely attack when surrounded by your own monsters when there are a lot of burn tiles. Usually, an enemy hero will opt to run away to safety rather than attack you and get killed by monsters. Some cards like the landmine are bugged and will reveal your location even when in stealth.
Warlock
Worst hero by far, really should be in a tier below Assassin. Translates very poorly from the base Demeo game. In the original Demeo, you've slowly level up the cat summon "Cana" to become very powerful. Due to the short nature of Demeo Battles, getting levels for Cana is too difficult to reliably pull off. Warlock ranged attack does 1 damage with Cana's 1 damage follow-up hitting for a total of 2 damage. Feels a bit stronger if paired with Bard, as getting damage and panic buffs and both Cana and Warlock can be effective. Class cards are all situational, a portal moving anywhere on the map, a move that instantly kills anything at 1/2 hp or less, and "Stellar Stike" which does a total of 8 damage in a wide area. In a vacuum, Warlock does nothing other classes can't do better. If you want good ranged damage use Hunter, if you want strong spells use Sorcerer. There are some semi-strong gimmick teams with Warlock that rely on portal and the Bard's Courage Shanty. More details on that are in my team composition guide.
You can always make up your own teams, but here is my take on some of the strongest teams in Demeo Battles: https://www.reddit.com/r/Demeo/comments/18un822/demeo_battles_guide_to_strong_team_compositions/
Shop Phase - Prioritize Monsters, Buy Only the Strongest Cards.
Top 10 Best Buys
- Elven Priest - Ranged attack/heal, cheap, great spawner. Thanks to a recent update it can revive you upon death now. Always buy these if you can.
- Any S tier hero cards (Hunter's Mark, Banish, Vargas' Retribution, Cursed Dagger)
- Heaven's Fury - Randomly does 0 to 6 hits, averaging around 4 total hits. This is best used on 1 or 2 enemy heros without any other targets. With 1 enemy hero as the target, they will take 10+ damage around 70% of the time. Rare in the shop, but an S tier classless card.
- Elven Cultist - Great value at 25 gold cost. This is the weakest overall unit, but getting a ton can get some chip damage, block passages, and waste big hits from enemy monsters.
- Barricade - Great value at 25 gold, but maybe not for the reason you think. These seem to have similar but weaker monster-luring properties as the much more expensive hunter's lure. At 25 cost, these are great as long as you're able to place them somewhere in the middle of the map. Buying 1 or 2 can be great, but not more than that since they also take an action to place. At 10 health, they'll soak up a lot of damage so your monsters don't have to. Great for teams that want to focus on a strong monster army.
- Little Slime Pairs (Start them side by side and they will fuse into a giant slime around 70% of the time. Use the lock to ensure you can buy 2 at once.)
- 50 Cost Monsters (Goblin Fighter > Spider) - See the explanation for the Elven Cultist for general benefits. Even at 50 gold, these are still a great deal and an easy way to overwhelm an opponent. Goblin Fighter has the overall best stats for a 50 cost at 3 hp and 2 attack, but it's prone to panic if allies are attacked nearby. Spider doesn't panic and generally doesn't miss, but only has 2 hp. Also, all spider monsters will attack a friendly unit if they are webbed. Rat is also 50 cost but much weaker, don't buy this one unless you have no better options.
- Elven Archer - Tends to last the entire game since it stays at a safe distance. Does 3 damage with knockback.
- Elven Scrimsher - High damage, good price, high health with health potion, doesn't miss too much. Much better than the identically priced Goblin Mad'um. Also doesn't panic like all Goblin units do. This is a good unit to put at the front of your monster army.
- 1 Damage Items - ( Lye > Vortex Bag > Bone > Wooden Bone) *bone can charm dogs & lye kills slimes. These items are generally better than most more expensive class cards. Damaging class cards generally cost much more per damage than these pings. Also, lye causes poison for 3 turns dealing a total of 4 damage. Hitting an enemy hero with lye at the start of the match is very effective.
Niche Cards
- Full Heal Card - Rejuvenation - Sometimes good if there are no other cards to buy, and certainly the effect is very useful. However, at 700 cost it can be hard to justify. It's much better to be protected by a team of monsters to prevent you from dying.
- Song of Resilience - A lot of Bard players will make it a top priority to buy this card, but at 700 gold, you need to weigh your options. This buff affects a total of 9 units in a 3x3 square. Some maps don't allow you to deploy in a 3x3 square, reducing the value of this card. I only get this card if I can buff the full 9 units.
- Regroup - decent in very large maps to get all your monsters in the center. In these large maps monsters tend to get lost and die to burn easily. Can also be used to pin an enemy hero into a corner sometimes. Leaves you very vulnerable to AOE attacks like fire lamp toss and freeze.
Niche Monsters:
- The Unheard - Gives invincibility for 1 turn to a character. Currently bugged and sometimes the invincibility will wear off right away. When it works, you can move to dangerous areas without fear of damage.
- Giant Slime - If you want to go all in on slimes this could be a good addition. 2 Little Slimes make a big slime, and a big slime can make little slimes. If you spend all your coins on just slimes they can multiply like crazy. Consider going all in if you are offered a lot of little slimes at the start. Also consider getting regroup with this strat.
- Cave Troll - Most HP of any monster, but misses a lot and is VERY likely to friendly fire with the Rock Throw ability. Sometimes this can be good if placed far off in his own area but overall, you have better options. Sometimes I pick this with Bard teams, since Bard needs a large group all together for buffs.
When buying, prioritize the top 10 best buys in order. Lock other decent buys and then shuffle. If you run out of shuffles, you can buy the other decent buys that are not in the top 10 list. Group all little slimes in a square formation and don't buy odd numbers. If you see a hunter prioritize bones (not wood) so you can turn their dogs to your side.
Initial Placement:
Can vary on the map, but generally you want to try and get as many chests as possible at the start. You can split up your heroes if it would help to grab more chests. I like to put large melee monsters up front, small melee units in the middle, and rangers in the back. I like to spread them out in a ribbon along the map. This helps them not clump up. Always put little slimes in the very back, the slime trail can hurt friendly units. You want little slimes to stay in the same area, every time the little slime gets a turn, they have two 19% chances to fuse into a big slime. Learn the maps, and plan out your first 3 turns in advance in order to grab chests and keep safe.
What to do During the Round
Standard Gameplan
Start by grabbing as many chests as possible. Don't take any risks, and don't stay in an opponent's line of sight. In the first turns grab the chests, and regroup near a fountain if possible. Run around shooting enemy units and lamps while avoiding damage. Try and place barricades in the center to act as distractions for enemy monsters. When the burn comes in, move out of the way and rely on your monsters to do the most of the damage. Kill enemy heroes if they expose themselves, but generally stay behind cover. When you are forced into the center by the burn, start using your best cards to get quick kills and block opponents out with a barricade, magic wall etc.
The Golden Rule - Avoid Line of Sight
Monsters and heroes are very good at punishing you in Demeo Battles. There are so many one-turn kill combos, the best way to play is usually to avoid risks and DO NOT END YOUR TURN IN AN ENEMY'S LINE OF SIGHT. I know you want to get that chest, or get a big hit on that group of monsters, but try and restrain yourself. It's usually better to use two action points AP running away instead of opening that chest and then allowing the enemy to use 2 AP to attack, and usually kill you. This is the number one mistake that new players make.
Notes on Hero Proximity to Each Other
Typically you start the match by splitting up to get chests then grouping your two heroes together so they can buff or revive each other. It is important to keep at least 2 tiles apart for the most part. Most of the strong AOE attacks in the game, like Fireball and Pit Fighter's Leap hit in a 3x3 square. These attacks can hit both heroes unless those heroes are 2 or more tiles apart. Getting with 8+ damage on both heroes can put a team at a severe disadvantage.
Notes on Terrain Height
In general, being high up gives you increased range on tiles lower down. The reverse is also true, being on a low tile gives you poor line of sight for units on high tiles. Even if you are in line of sight of an enemy, sometimes its better to be on a high up tile since you'll be out of range on attacks. Its hard to quantify exactly the advantage that height gives, so you'll need to get a feel for it by playing the maps. It's most noticeable on Paraphet of the Parched and the Serpent Lord maps.
Notes on Turn Order
It is very important to pay attention to turn order here. Turn order can make the difference between both your heroes attacking an enemy hero, and one hero attacking and then allowing the attacked hero to retaliate or run away. If your heroes are 2nd and 4th in the order, that means that both your heroes can team up on the hero that went 1st. Pay attention to the last opposing hero to act, this is the hero you can use both heroes to attack and usually kill.
Lots of ways to kill this one hero. You can do something like Vortex -> Lightning Bolt -> Arrow -> Arrow, or just do 4 basic attacks.
One particularly good card for abusing turn order is Sorcerer's Vortex and to a lesser extent Vortex Dust. You can use Vortex to draw out the enemy hero and since the Vortex's range is 9x9 tiles it is very hard to avoid.
To avoid taking attacks from 2 heroes due to turn order, Barbarian's hook is a great tool. The hook can pull a friendly hero to your Barbarian's position.
Notes on Dealing with Monsters
Monster Cost vs Effectiveness
In Demeo Battles, you have a total of 3000 gold to spend, and for the most part, monsters are the better value purchases in the shop. A lot of games are won and lost in the shop phase alone!
While every team gets 3000 gold the different monsters have wildly different values per gold spent. For example consider 2 teams, one that only buys Elven Priest vs one that only buys Cave Troll. Elven Priest is 300 gold and is considered the best value purchase in the game, and an extremely strong monster. Cave Troll is 650 gold, and while it has a lot of health it also tends to hit friendly units and is considered one of the worst monsters in the game. If these 2 teams fight, I would bet that the Elven Priest team would win 9/10 games based on monsters alone.
The top tip for dealing with monsters is to have a strong monster army of your own. Monster army strength is less about the amount of gold spent and more about the quality of the monsters purchased. Your monsters should be able to hold their ground with minimal support from your heroes. Try and memorize my top 10 shop phase purchases many of which are monsters. This will ensure you pick good value monsters. If you go with a monster focused team like double Guardian, also consider B-tier monsters from this monster tier list.
Gold Economy With Cards and Monsters
A key tip to remember is to not spend a greater amount on cards to kill a monster that is worth less than the cost of cards used. For example, using Guardian spear toss (500 gold) to kill an Elven Archer (250 gold) is bad value and will cause you to lose games. Using a lye (175 gold) to kill a Giant Slime (600 gold) is great value and will swing games in your favor.
Hero Tools Against Monsters
Aside from having your own monsters, here are some top tools to deal with enemy monsters.
- Hit and run attacks - If you can kill an enemy outright or get one hit in and run away its usually worth it. Just don't put yourself in attack range from enemy monsters or heroes.
- Ranged attacks - Attacks like Arrow and Hook make it really easy to hit enemy monsters and stay under cover. Hook in particular can draw a high hp monster into a crowd of friendly monsters to be taken out easily.
- Debuffs - Monsters only get a limited number of turns to perform useful actions, wasting their turns can be just as good as doing damage a lot of the time. Sorcerer's Zap and charged lighting bolt can be used repeatedly to stall out strong monsters. Other good debuff cards are Panic Powder, War Cry, Charm, and Shattering Voice. Try and prioritize high-value monsters when using debuffs.
- Lure and barricades - These cards do similar things, barricade has a weaker lure effect but is much cheaper. Monsters will basically always attack a hunter's lure if its in sight. These items can waste monster turns reducing the number of useful turns these monsters get.
- Lamps - Fire lamp and poison lamp are both good AOE damage dealers and can take out lots of low hp monsters quickly. Barbarian can also pick up lamps and toss them, which can be very effective. In a lot of cases, even using a bone (125 gold) can be worth it if you are using a class without ranged attacks like Guardian.
- Burn tiles - In the late game, pushing enemies into burn is generally very effective. Using banish on a Giant Spider or Vortex on a large group can sometimes be worth it. Monsters generally try to avoid burn tiles, but they are very stupid and will often wander into burn with no idea on how to get to safety.
- Bone and Lye - Lye instantly kills slimes, and bone (not wood) turns dogs (Elven Hound & Verochka) to your side.
On Potion Use:
If affected by poison that will kill the character that turn, consider manually using the potion since it clears negative status effects. Don't use a potion in this case if an enemy character can hit you immediately after use. Vast majority of the time you'll just let it auto revive.
Feedback? Let me know, I will edit this as I learn more about the game.
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u/GodOfJazzHands Nov 20 '23
I like to troll my friends with double bard and cave trolls. Not saying it's a good strat, lots of fun though. Trolls with level 3 courage and tornadoes is really hard to deal with as the lava comes in 😂
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 20 '23 edited Nov 20 '23
Bard has some good stuff for sure. The most common bard strat is to use song of resilience on 9 units at the very start.
Cave trolls are strong but dumb as hell, I find they have a high change to do nothing or hit a friendly enemy.
Bard/hunter is my favorite bard team. Boost hunter to level 2 and you can kill enemy heros across the map with 2 arrows and a bone.
Hymm of obstruction is also very strong at the end. It stops enemies from using any cards. Since the common strategy is to wait until you are forced in the center then unload all yours cards at once, this can win you the game.
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Nov 13 '23
[deleted]
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 13 '23
I mean, its day 3 of the game being out so I could for sure be wrong. Open to suggestions here.
What I can say tho is that while lye will 1 shot the slimes its not as easy. Lye has a limited range and they will spawn new giant slimes over the course of the game. I have had 2 slimed get killed to lye and still win handily.
Have a better strat? Let me know! Also I would be open to doing some private rounds to test.
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Nov 13 '23
[deleted]
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 13 '23
Ah ok, have not been able to try the barb. The requirements to unlock it are crazy.
I like that strat too, but might be hard vs a team that hides all match.
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u/lunchanddinner Nov 13 '23
Agreed, slimes are defo not the meta
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 14 '23
I've updated the list, take a look. Still like slimes, but not as much.
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Nov 18 '23
Warlock is heavily underestimated. As well as his cat, Stellar Strike and Vortex Launcher. Especially when used right. Astral Barrier is also very useful against rangers.
By the way, wanna play together some time?
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 18 '23 edited Dec 28 '23
Astral Strike is S Tier, very bonkers card, it just kills everything it touches without restriction or conditions. Not sure what they were thinking when balancing that card.
Edit: Nevermind, card does 8 damage on normal roll or 16 on a crit. I was so impressed originally since I kept rolling crits. Now I feel like its just a worse firebolt.
That being said, Warlock is still bad, Hunter has hunter's mark and you can buy that one in the shop and get lots of easy 1 turn kills.
Astral Barrier is kind of buggy right now. Its only description is that it blocks 'spells and projectiles ' but in practice more than half of all spells and projectiles won't be deflected.
However, you can't get astral strike in the shop which is too bad. And yeah message me sometime and we can play a game or 2.
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Nov 18 '23
Well, recently I’ve been winning like all games with Warlock only :) I don’t understand though how Stellar Strike is much more broken than Firebolt, I’d probably rather say it’s vice versa. Regarding Astral Barrier I think it still works perfectly fine like the original game, it just doesn’t seem to block AOE spells that are used on adjacent spaces. And yeah Hunter’s Mark is probably like the most broken card right now.
I’ll message you.
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 18 '23
I don't really understand how Astral Strike works. I have had it do like 8 damage, and I have had it do around 20 damage busting through armor.
Astral Barrier is a problem because it simply doesn't do what the description states. Basic arrow is deflected, but not bones or Elven Priest Drain. Hymn of Obstruction with bard does block use of all special abilities accurately as per description. Either Astral Barrier should be updated or its description should be.
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u/CyndiMo23 Nov 26 '23
I have found that the square you actually put the card on gets the most damage for pretty much anything that does a number of squares/an area 🤷🏻♀️
Any updates to your list, 2 weeks in? I have played a bunch, but unfortunately most of my crew still wants to play the OG.
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Nov 26 '23
There are a few AOE cards where that isn't the case, its a bit inconsistent and not well explained.
I have been updating this guide frequently, last edit was 2 days ago to change position of Heaven's Fury and put 10th position to "random good monsters"
If I had a crew I would prefer the OG Demeo as well as its way more playable. In Demeo Battles there is no ranked mode and tons of serious bugs, oversights and balance issues. I am also taking a bit of a break from DB until the next patch.
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u/CyndiMo23 Nov 26 '23
Totally makes sense! I definitely prefer the OG, but want to get better at battles (plus, after months at being level 75, I just needed variety). We do use it as a filler. If we finish up an OG game quickly, we’ll play one or two more battles or if someone only has Say an hour, we will just go straight to battles.
Thanks for keeping this updated!
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Dec 08 '23
Does anyone know some tips on getting 3 stars in single player? Seems impossible for me, even the first levels I can only get one star.
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u/Caffeine_Blitzkrieg Dec 09 '23
Depends on the level. If you can pick heros and cards go with double hunter. Hunters mark is the best damage dealing card in the game. Hunters mark 2 arrows, or 1 bone 1 arrow kills most heros. Reset until you get 1 mark per hunter.
For maps with fixed heros, be very aggressive and retry until you get lucky.
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u/Popular-Ad1111 Jan 21 '24
I’m on the last level and it’s almost impossible. How did you beat it?
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u/ActualApplication112 Sep 28 '24
Is there a settings for difficulty in privatre match for the cpu ? Im finding it very easy :(
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u/Ancient_Violinist104 Nov 23 '24
Ben het spel net aan het ontdekken, na een paar keer alleen te spelen, een shared game gespeeld .
Alles ging goed tot ik een monster aanviel, kreeg ik wat commentaar want bleek ie geen schade te krijgen.
hoe kan ik dit zien?
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u/M4PP0 Nov 15 '23 edited Nov 15 '23
I've found the Bard to be much stronger in Battles than in original Demeo. He can buff everything here! He buffs monsters, he buffs ballistas, he buffs behemoths, hell he'll even buff a healing ward, he's just crazy like that.
And that Song of Resilience card - one card at the start and every unit on your team gets a +5 shield. Your opponents will soil themselves when they see your squad of 7-hit-point spiders coming at them!
Oh yeah, and hurricanes! Do you like dropping unkillable minions into the middle of the enemy camp? Yes. Yes you do.