Tips for playing Loop Hero

A lot of people started to play Loop hero. How do I know? He knocked 50,000 simultaneous users on Steam during the weekend. I was one of them. I have now devoted over 25 hours to the roguelite of bridge building, and I have some tips for anyone who is just getting started.

At its most basic level, Loop hero plays. Your warrior walks around a circle, automatically fighting hordes of slimes and vampires. Over time, they get stronger, and if they get 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 anything you can do besides that simple vanity, including leveling up gear, building settlements, and choosing how to play the cards you want. collect during each expedition. Here are some helpful tips that I have put together based on my own experience of navigating this complex glove.

Prioritize certain stats for each class.

The knight is tanky and strikes slowly. The Thief is more vulnerable but carries two weapons. The Necromancer summons skeletons to fight alongside them. Each requires a different strategy. I have found that focusing on these particular stats for each class led more to greater success and longer lives:

• Knight: regeneration / vampirism
• Thief: Evasion / Critical Chance
• Necromancer: Magic HP / Additional Skeletons

Survival is the name of the game, which means balancing how quickly you can kill enemies with how quickly you heal. Regen is good because it works even when you’re not in combat, while Magic HP is the amount of damage the necromancer can absorb in each battle before getting hurt.

Top level amenities are not always better.

All equipment in Loop hero has one level and one of four rarities: common, blue, yellow, and orange. The higher the rarity, the more bonus stats. However, it is not enough to just increase the numbers. You might get a piece of armor that is two levels above your current level, but it is the lowest rarity and therefore does not come with bonuses. In this case, something like 10% vampirism is better than an additional 100 HP.

The reverse may also be true, depending on the situation. In an expedition, I obtained a higher level Common Ring with a regeneration stat of 4.5. I quickly traded it in for the single-digit buffs from my existing Orange Rarity Ring. Plus, any armor you don’t use ends up breaking down into resources, so consider waiting instead of constantly upgrading to new gear with slightly better stats.

Don’t just place land willy-nilly.

Mountain cards give you more HP and a total of 120 additional HP when laid out in a 3X3 grid. Meadows grant you an additional resource when placed next to a mountain or rock set, making it more beneficial to mix them up rather than placing them elsewhere on the map. The bonus effects of rivers are doubled when they hit another land in two places, so be sure to arrange them in zigzag rather than straight lines.

It is normal not to play all the cards.

Much like additional equipment, cards you don’t use will break down into additional resources that can be used to expand and improve your colony. So don’t feel like you have to play whatever is turned in your hand, especially if you are on an expedition just to look for resources. In addition, the key to success in Loop hero balances the need to farm enemies for better resources and better gear with the ability to survive until the end of the match. A couple of vampire mansions are good. Throwing the card away with them is not.

Know when to fold them.

If you don’t think you’ll survive another loop, retreat to your village when you pass. You will have the option to save everything you have collected during this expedition. There is a significant amount of grinding in Loop hero, which means you’ll likely go on expeditions to farm some resources to get key upgrades and unlock important maps without ever intending to face off against the Chapter Leader. Better to restart an expedition early than to waste a large chunk of your harvest in untimely death. If pressure occurs, you can also retreat for a smaller penalty from any other space on the map when not in combat.

The telltale signs that you should retreat are when the loop has multiple boxes with large groups or enemies on them, and if you haven’t gotten good gear upgrades in a while. The enemies get harder with each loop completed, and if the RNG, which Loop hero has a lot of, just doesn’t go your way, it’s best to stop while you’re ahead.

Upgrade the foundry.

Your establishment in Loop hero is basically your skill tree. Upgrades will carry over between expeditions and will often be the determining factor in whether or not you survive. Try to unlock the foundry as early as possible and then upgrade it to get the arsenal. Once placed, it allows you to equip an additional piece of equipment in a new location which will give you another chance to improve your class’s most important stats.

Unlock the watchtowers.

Watchtowers take a bit longer to obtain, but are also very useful for agricultural resources. They provide archers in your colony who can attack enemies in surrounding squares based on their upgrade. This prompts you to play as many monster cards as close to your colony as possible to essentially face the majority of the toughest fights in your save loop..

Obtain the Blade of Dawn trait.

Each time your character loops up, they select one of three new traits to help them throughout the duration of the expedition. The knight has a lot of good choices, but Blade of Dawn has never let me down. This makes your first attack of each new day super charged, dealing double damage to all enemies in one encounter. Days pass quickly outside of battle, and if you’ve placed enemy buildings sparingly and intelligently, you can start almost any great fight this way.

For the Thief, I always use the Child of the Forest pet trait which has a 75% chance to spawn a wolf companion in every fight, and for the Necromancer, I really like Unseen Care which gives you a permanent bonus of Magic HP for each skeleton summoned. Normally I try to choose the stroke that will trigger often or provide a lasting edge that adapts well as the curl gets harder.

Use a Tempest Temple to burn down a forest.

Loop hero is full of mysterious synergies between different buildings and types of terrain. One of them is the Scorched Forest, which you get when you place a Tempest Temple and it hits a forest or thicket with lightning. Scorched Forest grants bonus magic damage, ignoring enemy defenses. Another good combination is the Hungry Grove, created when you place two Blood Groves next to a regular grove. It will occasionally attack you when fighting enemies nearby, but will also instantly kill any enemies below 20% health, helping you take out large groups much faster.

Experiment with different combinations.

Different cards produce different effects and allow you to harvest different resources. If you always play the same class doing similar loop setups, you won’t get the full range of resources needed to quickly expand your colony, which is the true goal of 90% of the expeditions you do. Play with different types of terrain, enemy buildings, and locations on the map to see what’s going on.

Likewise, different classes are better suited for different types of curls. The Necromancer will do better against larger monsters, while the Thief can deal massive critical hits that take out quest enemies (those that spawn while visiting villages) much faster.

Use Oblivion to bomb enemy camps.

I have died to goblins more times than I can count. They strike hard and fast and often appear in groups of three or four. The Oblivion map lets you bomb any square on the map, not just what you’ve built. You can use it to wipe out mobs of goblins, or better yet, destroy the camp that spawned them. The same goes for Bandit Camps and other enemy spawn sites that automatically pop up as you progress.

Additional credit: You can also use an Oblivion card to destroy the last mountain or rock formation in a 3X3 mountain range. You can then replace the mountain or boulder to restart the formation and get additional bonus resources. You can rinse and repeat as many times as you want. (Jolly2Joy hat tip user of Loop hero subreddit).