Stage 84 - Strategies and Thoughts

[Update: April 18, 2014] This stage has been revised and the strategy below is not necessarily out of date, but it is no longer the preferred way to clear this stage. Please see this new post about Stage 84.] 

Stage 84 is the current end-game stage of Line Rangers as of April 12, 2014. I finally beat it today despite what little hope I had when I first advanced to it. I'll discuss the only known method of winning this stage today, how I personally did it with my team, and why certain team compositions work and why I speculate some do not. Keep in mind this post, like most of my others, are based on my own opinion after reading and researching what others have tried on the internet as well as personal experience. Your mileage may vary. Hopefully there's something here that's helpful, but if not, no angry messages please.

The Enemy

I'll start with what we know about the stage. 84 has some "trash" enemies (the ones you have to kill on the way to the big bosses). Pretty much the guy in the red jacket, Adi, is the annoying jerk who is between you and the enemy tower. After about 8 to 10 seconds have passed, Akira and Ryoko will pop. If you remain at the enemy tower for a few seconds more, a second Akira will pop along with some other enemies. From previous stages you already know Ryoko has a ton of HP but he moves and attacks slowly so he's not a huge threat. Akira moves extremely fast and he does a (suspiciously flatulent looking) splash attack that hits everyone in the front line for a ton of damage. 2-3 hits will kill everything in melee range. He also has the most HP of any enemy we have ever seen in the game so far.

Goal

The strategy that is currently prominent (because it is the only known method at the moment) is gaming the tower defense mechanic by using splash rangers. As long as the enemy that your splash ranger is attacking is right outside the enemy tower, the tower will also take damage. This means that the strategic goal is to fight all the enemies at the foot of the enemy tower and use as many splash rangers as possible to cleave the tower down before the enemies kill you. The goal is to kill the tower without killing the bosses.

My Team

Having Sorcerer Cony makes this stage a great deal easier so many people including myself have tried their hand at the 3-5 star Premiums GACHA. I do not currently have Sorcerer Cony and you do not need her in order to win this stage. I'll repeat it for emphasis: You do not need Sorcerer Cony to clear Stage 84. You do need splash damage rangers but Cony isn't the be-all and end-all of this stage. Plenty of people have beaten it with other splash rangers, most notably Clara, who is currently being practically given away with the Friendship Points Event.

On my team, I used:

• Level 52 Fighter Moon (4 star)
• Level 54 Clara (4 star)
• Level 50 Charismatic Jessica (5 star)
• Level 50 Hero Jessica (3 star)
• Level 40 Warrior Jessica (4 star)

Also important to note, I made sure to have Meteor, Ice Shot and Tornado available.

Unless your rangers are godly, it helps if you have a friend or sidekick along for the ride. Bonus if you choose someone who is confirmed to have a splash damage ranger on their team. Sorcerer Cony would be helpful, but honestly, so would any Jessica, Clara and Cobe. Don't skimp on this. Having a friend/sidekick by your side this fight can make or break you. Even if they don't have any splash damage, they can help you quickly kill the trash which will get you to the tower faster.

Small note but worth mentioning that all my Treasures are at 100%.

The Method

This whole fight is over in about 30 seconds, win or lose. I spent no money on mineral upgrades. You won't have time or minerals to waste on that. Everything is going into ranger deployment.

1. Deploy 1 Fighter Moon, Charismatic Jessica and Hero Jessica. Only 1 Fighter Moon is used this whole stage. His purpose is to prevent the trash enemies from killing my Jessicas.
2. When they walk about 1/3 of the way down the road, I deploy my Friend's help. I deploy Warrior Jessica and Clara as soon as I have enough minerals. 
3. As soon as the first enemy comes face-to-face with my rangers, I release the meteor on them. Deploy Hero Jessica and Clara as soon as minerals and cooldowns allow. 
4. In a couple seconds, Akira pops out and snowboards over. Right before he gets to my rangers, I hit tornado. 
5. As soon as everything is pushed back to the enemy tower, throw down Ice Shot. Deploy any and all splash rangers with minerals remaining. Hope that the tower has collapsed before Akira defrosts and kills all my cats.

Timing is crucial for this to work. Youtube has some fantastic examples of how people nailed the deployment and item usage. 

I finally won! Friend gave me 1 Cony and 1 Clara, I didn't see what the 3rd ranger was. Notice I pretty much did no damage on the bosses. You're not meant to!

Things That Can Go (And Have Gone) Wrong

• Sometimes I'd start the stage and forget that I'm not supposed to upgrade minerals. If I spend any money on minerals, I lose one ranger which is almost sure to mean I won't kill the smaller enemies in time to push further down the pathway.
• Deploying rangers in the wrong order (Moon, then Charismatic, then Hero, then Clara, then Warrior) at the start can really mess things up too. It is really important who Aki (the enemy) takes head on as that unit is most likely to lose HP or die.  You don't want that unit to be a very valuable/expensive splash ranger.
• Deploying Friend too late caused the trash to die slower, which meant the entire team was stuck in the middle of the path, never making it to the foot of the tower in time to deal enough damage before Akira defrosted.
• Throwing meteor too late also causes the trash to die slower. Akira always pops out at the same time so if your team is still stuck trying to kill the trash, they won't be further along. (The trash being alive isn't so much the problem since they all get blown back to the end anyway. The point is if they're still alive, your team is still very far away from the enemy tower. The faster the trash is gone, the earlier your team can progress to the tower. The earlier you get to the tower, the more time you have while Akira is frozen to cleave the tower.)
• Using tornado to blow Akira back but using ice shot about a second too early. Try not to use tornado and then immediately hit ice shot. It takes 1-2 seconds for them to reach the end of the path, and you have a split second before the enemies start walking. Hitting ice shot at the last possible second buys you more time to run to the tower.
• Using tornado, then using ice shot a second too late causes you to be unable to splash damage at the tower at all because Akira has moved forward an inch. After the ice wears off I sadly watched my rangers die as the tower remained at full health.

Other Teams

I have read and confirmed these teams have cleared (unfortunately do not have the the Ranger levels) :

Clara, Cobe, Charismatic Jessica, Warrior Jessica, lowbie

Opera James, Warrior Jessica, Clara, Cobe, Jessica

Clara, Opera James, Charismatic Jessica, Thunder Brown, lowbie

Clara, Cobe, Vlad (!), Honey, lowbie

Fighter Moon, Sorcerer Cony, Cobe, Honey, lowbie

Sorcerer Cony, Opera James, Cobe, Honey, lowbie

Cobe, Opera James, Sorcerer Cony, Warrior Jessica, Macho Moon

So all of these teams have one thing in common and that is they have 3 or more splash rangers to do the job. You will have to experiment with the rangers you have available to see what works for you. Questions I asked myself when I kept losing: Are the trash enemies holding me up or are they alive too long? Are my rangers making it to the enemy tower in time? Are they walking too slow? Am I timing my items to maximize my time at the tower? Am I deploying my rangers in the correct order to push forward most efficiently? 

The stage goes by so fast that it is hard to capture everything you're doing but it's important to know what the plan is and how your execution is deviating from the plan, and why. Most of my issues came from ranger deployment order (some walk faster, some walk slower, some have more HP than others) and timing my items and friends (getting meteor to do the most damage to the most enemies on the field will save your team a lot of time getting to the tower). You'll have to figure out what works and what doesn't for you. 

For instance, in my team, I found that I absolutely have to deploy Moon first, then Charismatic Jessica before Hero Jessica. My cats were getting slaughtered by the small enemies because they run fast. Hero Jessica walks faster than Charismatic Jessica, and she also has the least HP so my Hero Jessicas were not making it to the end because she'd die. Deploying Moon first gives him a head start so he can tank the enemies while the cats kill them. Similarly, I could not use Opera James in my team because he walks much too slowly in my ranger lineup. I couldn't squeeze him into the first bunch of rangers to be deployed because of mineral cost, and if I deploy him later he wasn't useful because he never got to the enemy in time. That said, many other people have figured out combinations where they worked Opera James in and he was really helpful taking down the enemy tower. It's really up to your specific team and how you play them.

Sorcerer Cony is really desirable this fight because she runs at a decent speed, deals the most damage of all the splash rangers, she reloads her attack very quickly and she attacks from a far distance. While the other rangers are taking hits for her, she's in the back bombing the enemies away. When Akira defrosts, he's busy killing the front line, which allows her to continue attacking the tower for several seconds -- seconds count for a lot in a 30 second fight! Clara can attack an extra few seconds after Akira defrosts also, but note that Clara's attack speed is "Very Slow" vs. Cony's "Fast". Sorcerer Cony also deals higher damage, level for level, than Clara. 

Not able to get her on my team, however, I was very lucky to have all 3 Jessicas available. Somehow I got tons of Hero Jessicas and they were a huge eyesore for a long time until I decided to use her for 84. Because of the 80% stat increase from combining, a maxed out level 50 Hero Jessica (3 stars) does very respectable damage compared to a level 50 Charismatic Jessica (5586 vs 8140) at a fraction of the mineral cost (260 vs 320). By the way, level 40 Hero Jessica narrowly beats out level 40 Warrior Jessica in damage and is cheaper than Warrior Jessica! Don't throw out your 3 stars just because they're 3 stars. The 80% bonus is significant when at max level.

So that's all I've got for Stage 84. Sorry, no game breaking tips and tricks this time around. This stage is extremely frustrating, not only because of its sheer difficulty, but also because of how it corners you into having a splash-heavy team. I think if the game developers didn't think it was a bad idea when they made this end-game stage, they should know by now that it's frustrated and angered many players. I sinecerely hope they don't design anymore stages like this. The game should be challenging and force you into thinking of interesting ways to apply your ranger team, but it shouldn't penalize you for not paying to get special rangers. I understand it's a for-profit operation, but when it affects the fundamental playability of the stage, it's bad game design in my opinion. Here's hoping Stage 85+ is coming soon and will be a breath of fresh air.

Also - *spoiler alert*

Sally is in another castle.

Good luck, everyone!