Maze of Illusion Part 2 (Stage 125-132)

For stages 121-124, see part 1.

[July 29, 2014 Updated with free ranger video selections]

Stage 125, 126, 127 

For players with access to mastered premium rangers (specifically Ola Brown/Songster Cony/Sorcerer Cony, Prince James/Dancer King Boss, Bernard/Dwight/Susu/Thunder Brown, Hitman/Abdula/KSM) then 125, 126, 127, and 128 will play quite similarly. The goal is to splash down the tower (there'll pretty much be no point in time where you can feasibly single-target attack the tower). The key obstacles to overcome are getting rid of the Ryo mushrooms at the front and the Dice at the back. 

The way to do it is to stall as long as possible during the enemy's first pass so that they all pop out. Then tornado them back and then allow all the non-boss enemies to walk forward ahead of the enemy pack. Then you can use ice shot, meteor, then invincibility to clear all the small enemies and weaken the slow mini bosses a great deal. Saving friend help for this critical point in time is best. This will be the common tactic used in just about all the strategies for the rest of the area. What will vary is the number of Spades and Crockys that you'll have to contend with in each stage, with increasingly stronger enemy towers. But the strategies are essentially similar.

And by the way, if you are having a lot of difficulty with stages 124+, spend the time to farm up a master Sorcerer Cony. She is very helpful.

In 125, you'll have 4 Spades, Ryos, Ambers and Dices. This is the free ranger method by Wei S, and it assumes you have access to at least a level 60 Sorcerer Cony from Stage 124.

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Here 125 done with Master Bernard, Dwight, Ola Brown, and Songster Cony.

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Here is another 125 done with Free Rangers: Glenn, Xan, Shu, SoCo, Opera James, from Arsoitee STSerbvong.

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In 126, you'll have 4 Spades, Ryo, Ambers, Dice, but no Coocoos.

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126 with free rangers: SoCo, Shu, Masked Moon, Xan, by michael suzuki.

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In 127, you'll have 6 Spades, Ryos, Ambers, Coocoos, but NO Dice, so you can feel free to use your shorter ranged splash units like SoCo and Opera James. Below are 2 good examples by nunbkk.

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Stage 128

You guessed it... it's like all of the above, but worse. The combination of Ambers, 11 Dice, Coocoos, 4 Crockys along with 7 Spades makes 128 absolutely brutal. Here is my favorite way to do 128. You need to have KSM, one other mastered long range splash ranger (Ola/Songster/Shu), and Red Brown. Your KSM can be level 70+ and it will still work, but you should have either mastered Ola or Songster to make up for it.

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Of course, a free ranger strategy is possible for 128 and several great players have put out videos for it. But my favorite for free rangers is from a Thai player, Arsoitee STSerbvong.

Video Link

If you have mastered Susu, and a lot of other heavy hitting splash rangers, give this one a try.

Stage 129 - Ryo, Coocoo - Lots!

129 dials the pressure back down again, and things get simpler, but more intensified doses of small enemies. I think they threw this one in here just to give you an easily farmable stage for the last piece of treasure. There are many ways to deal with 129 because of its simplicity, but for main tank, Thunder Brown is my favorite choice. He's really not that pricey to deploy, he's very meaty, and his cooldown is about 2 seconds (mastered). He's spammably delicious! 

This video is by far my favorite strategy. It relies a little bit on friend help, but the majority of the pain being dealt is from master Shu while Thunder Brown tanks with his face in the shrooms. 

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If you do not have Red Brown, here are Scott, Rei, Glenn, Shu and Sorcerer Cony.

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Stage 130 - 2 Crockys, Dice, Coocoos, 5 Spades

After 129, difficult ramps up again as you head toward the end. Many strategies from 130 through 132 will assume that you have unlocked the treasure. And if you haven't, you really should farm 129 because it helps a lot.

Here is one way to do it with free + event rangers: Mastered Shu, SoCo, and Red Brown.

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Here is a 129 video with pure free farmable rangers by michael suzuki: Glenn, Scott, SoCo, Opera James, Xan

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Stage 131 - Short path with Amber, Ryo, Dice, Crockys, Spades

131 being such a short path creates a terrible challenge with the Dice. But actually, it's not bad at all if you have Sorcerer Cony because she packs serious punch. The first hurdle is to set up your team. You need to stall the first Ryo with as few lowbies as possible, meanwhile deploying as many Conys as you can so you have a small army. Once you get a few Conys out, you can tornado everything back. Follow up with invincibility, ice, and meteor. The goal is to kill all the Dice. There rest of the stage is just keeping the enemy from moving so Cony can splash the tower down.

Video Link

The Thunder Brown, Ola Brown and KSM trio on this video below by Cheng-Ling Chiang makes 131 fairly simple. If your Ola and KSM are not mastered, you could also throw in SoCo and/or Abdula in the team to increase your damage. If either your Ola or KSM are not mastered, the trio will narrowly miss the damage requirement, so you do need to make up for it by adding another ranger. This strategy does require you to have pretty high mineral production. If you're not cranking out enough units after the ice shot goes out, you might be too low leveled.

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Stage 132 - King King and everyone else

132 is the mother of all of the stages. It's got everything. The majority of videos out there require you to have Susu and if you watch the videos, even mastered Susu can't take the heat of this enemy procession for very long. I'll discuss 3 different teams to approach 132.

Premium Rangers: Another one by Cheng-Ling Chiang. This video uses mastered Scott, Thunder Brown, Ola Brown, Songster Cony and Dancer King Boss. Premium rangers, yes, but none of them are from the latest set of rangers. I love that this player pulled out Scott and Thunder Brown, rangers who have been long forgotten.

The strategy is similar to the Stage 124 technique. You stall with Scott and Thunder while leveling minerals and waiting for all the enemies to pop out. Deploy DKB and Ola with any spare minerals. Once they've beaten up your tower for several million HP, use Tornado. Then after using tornado, you wait until about halfway, when the enemies are still marching pretty close together to use Ice Shot, Friend help, Invincibility, and Meteor. After invincibility wears off and King King slaps your team with his hammer, you are guaranteed to get a Thomas, which will further slow down the group and stall while you wait for Hurry Up. You should keep deploying Scott nonstop, Thunder Brown on cooldown, prioritize Ola > Songster, and forget about DKB now. When Hurry Up starts, all the enemies lose half their HP, which should help you clear up King King, the remaining Spades and Coocoos. Once you are done with those, you have to deal with the march of the Hurry Up enemies, which includes another half-health King King. It will hurt, but if you keep the pressure on with Scott and Thunder, they should pretty much stop moving. Use Thomas as soon as you get him. Eventually, Ola Brown and Songster will KO the tower with splash. This is definitely a long battle, even with premium Gacha rangers. Impressive display by Cheng-Ling Chiang.

Video Link

Free rangers including Event Rangers: if you follow this video below by 黃小翰 and his team, you're doing basically the same thing as the premium rangers, but timing is even tighter, and there's a lot of stalling. After all 5 of the Spades have spawned, you'll already be dealing with 11 Dice. The video waits for Dice #18 to spawn before using tornado.<insert exasperated emoji here!> I believe there are a total of 20 Dice during the normal phase of the stage. 

After tornado, keep deploying Red Brown to stall the enemy pack to move slowly together towards you some more. Once there, unleash the pain with Ice Shot and Friend Help. Follow up immediately with Invincibility to maximize your army. Your goal while your items are in effect is to kill all of the dice. After invincibility wears off, you're just stalling again until Hurry Up and Thomas. Hurry Up will chop half of remaining health off King King and the Spades. After Hurry Up has begun, unleash Meteor and Thomas. That should get you very close to killing off the boss units so you can deal with the new Hurry Up units. No more dice spawn *until you get to the tower*, so just stall with Glenn (he's cheaper) and let Cony and Shu deal damage. Once you close in on the enemy tower, use Red Brown again because more Spades, another King King and more Dice start to appear. Continue to deploy Red Brown > Glenn > SoCo > Shu until victorious.

Video Link

If you don't have Red Brown or Shu, Wei S has a pure farmable free ranger method as well. The basic strategy is the same: stall and wait for many enemies to pop out. Up until tornado it's almost the same as the 黃小翰 free ranger video, however, without Red Brown to help slow down the enemy march and Shu to out-range the Dice, you will be forced to use tornado much earlier. The second significant difference with this video is that King King is much closer to the home tower when Hurry Up begins. It's a longer distance to push toward the enemy tower again, but I suspect he did this intentionally and there's a reason for this. Those of you who read my post about Stage 108 will recall the genius of allowing Hurry Up to begin while your troops are very far away from the enemy tower. Because the enemies have to walk a great distance to you, it buys you more time to exclusively deal with the faster, smaller enemies as they march forward ahead of the mini bosses and spreads out the mini bosses so you can deal with them one at a time rather than all bunched together. This is how Wei S deals with the Amber bunnies, Crocky and the new Spades during Hurry Up. It's tougher in its own way (and about a minute longer than the method with Shu & Red Brown), but such is the life of a free ranger player. Masterful video!

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Good luck, everyone! May we all find Sally one day...

Skyscraper - Videos and Thoughts

Skyscraper: Monkey brains, bats, ladybugs, dynamite... and twerking. What's not to love?

Although I don't think I like the poodle abusing goth chick.

[Update: May 21, 2014] 
Skyscraper has been revised. The boss stages are more difficult than they were at the initial release.

As some sort of consolation for making the area more challenging, LINE has sent us all a free Cobe. I like Cobe, but, I think it's still generally a bad idea to make stages more difficult after they have been released. That's just my personal opinion on game updates, though. I suppose it'll put players without special rangers in an even more precarious position for stage progression, and those with KSM & company may wince maybe a little at the change. Cobe may help, but probably not a ton. Cobe is a good splash ranger who can get herself (himself?) up to the front line fairly quickly and can take a few hits due to medium-high HP at max level. I believe this is the second free Cobe event since the launch of the game, so veteran players may have a level 60 Cobe already.

The New Stuff

The newly available 4 star ranger is Opera James and 5 star is Masked Moon. James is absolutely fantastic as he's a powerful splash ranger who costs less than Clara and maxes out at higher damage as well. Masked Moon at level is quite a piece of work. I personally haven't found a good reason to use him yet but at max, his health is insane and his attack is formidable. At lower levels, I would pass on him altogether because you have better options for both health and attack.

And the Treasure for this area is... click to find out!

Free Ranger Videos (Up to date)

• Stage 117 Cleared - (Free rangers, no Friend: Sol, Clara, Opera James, Warrior Jessica, Cobe)
• Line Rangers Stage 119 Free Clear - English Voice Explanation- Free Rangers Sol, Warrior Jessica, Opera James, Clara, Glenn

First-time Playthrough Links 

I used Hip Hop Brown [70], KSM [55], Dancer King Boss [60], Sorcerer Cony [50], Charismatic Jessica [70] in almost all of these first attempts... just because I can. These videos were just for fun because I recorded the very first time I encountered the new stages. If you are looking for other ranger teams, I might work on those later, though there are plenty of people who do a better job of those kinds of videos than I do! I make no claims about being a good player, I just try my best with what I have, so proceed with the attitude of fun, please. [Update: All the boss stages were revised to be more difficult, featuring more mini boss enemies per stage. Videos are probably outdated but haven't had time to sort it all out so watch with caution.]

Stage 109 Cleared

Stage 110 Cleared

Stage 111 Cleared

Stage 112 Cleared
Stage 113 Cleared

Stage 114 Cleared

Stage 115 Cleared

Stage 116 Cleared

Stage 117 pwnd (me)
Stage 117 Cleared
Stage 118 Cleared

Stage 112 Cleared (Free rangers: Sol, Clara, Sindy, Warrior Jessica, Scott) - [Update: outdated due to stage revision]

First Impressions

I stand corrected on my previous predictions. This entire zone was trivialized significantly by KSM, Dancer King, Hip Hop and Bernard. If you watched my videos above, this is quite obvious. Every stage was one-shot except for 117 & 120. I got 120 on my 4th try (with Dancer King [60], Sorcerer Cony [50] and 3 lowbies). I still enjoyed it, though. Going back and trying these again with other ranger combinations will be fun.

Mundo? More like Psycho... Pet kidnapper. I don't like her. I bet she's the one who abducted Sally for the Alien King.

In addition, lowbies have made a huge comeback. I will try my best to remember to put KSM & company back in my team when I am not playing, sorry in advance if you use my help and get a Bella :( Koji (red jumpsuit enemy) is really terrible to deal with and having a horde of lowbies in the front helps a lot. Same with the dynamite enemies (not listed in the enemy collection). It's also very helpful on Stage 120 where Mundo (poodle riding boss) body slams everything in a huge radius. Might as well let her kill throwaway lowbies. 

Richard, the green dino mini boss, has an insane range. I mean, really ridiculously long range. Everything, including Dancer King Boss and probably most towers, gets hit by his splash damage. Any time this mini boss is present, it acts as a ticking time bomb because if you don't kill him in time, your tower will get splashed down and game over -- Use your Tower Repair carefully. Luckily, his attack speed is pretty slow, and he's not terribly difficult to block with a standard health ranger.

That's all the thoughts I have for now. Hope everyone is enjoying the new area's challenges.

Difficult Stages - Stage 108

[Quick Update 5/23/14: Since May 22, many ranger's stats were buffed. There are many ways to clear Stage 108 now, but I would suggest that you invest in Sol as a team member. He is very strong these days, especially maxed out at level 80.

New Stage 108 Video - Easy Mode with just 4 rangers: Sol, Alice, Witch Cony, Warrior Jessica]

Stage 108 is the current end-stage of the release as of this writing on May 11, 2014. It's a very challenging stage if you don't have any special rangers. Then again even if you do, if the special rangers are not KSM or Dancer King Boss, you're going to have to try a few times before you get it.

The very frustrating thing about this stage is that depending on how and when you deploy your rangers, the stage will progress differently for you. The enemy formation varies somewhat inexplicably. I've had situations where in a single stage I have gotten 1.5 Evas, 2 Convini (the best possible formation). Another time I got three Evas, 2 Convini, unicycles and ice cream. Sometimes I get a normal formation of 2 Evas, 2 Convini but with unicycles and ice cream enemies sprinkled in the lineup. Also, depending on where your team is located at the time of Hurry Up, even the formation and types of enemies you receive in the death march of this stage is different. Sometimes you luck out and you only get a sparse lineup of Mabebe, Sena, Tylers, unicycles and ice cream. Sometimes you get your rear end handed to you on a plate by a densely packed stream of more Sena than you can ever defeat along with every other enemy in this zone. Therefore, I cannot really break down the stage into digestible parts. All depends on how you play.

There is hope, however. I found this one video made by a player who has my utmost respect. He not only nailed down the perfect timing for clearing this stage with an all common/free ranger team, he's also figured out how to methodically trigger the ideal enemy formation for 108 (1.5 Eva, 2 Convini, no ice cream/unicycles during regular stage, and the best possible Hurry Up scenario). This video is here, made by YouJJay. *Please* go watch his video if you need help with 108. I'm going to shamelessly take screenshots of his video and discuss them in this post. There are some things he does that I think are genius. Definitely worth pointing out to aid you in success.

The Team & Deployment Order

I'm going to assume that he has at least unlocked the Castle in the Sky treasure, though not sure if 100% or not. His team is probably fully leveled to max and the members are Clara, Alice, Witch Cony, Sol and Warrior Jessica. In his strategy, Warrior Jessica is highest priority for deployment, followed by Sol, Clara, then Alice and Witch Cony. I mentioned before about never being "supply blocked." The idea is, you may deploy anyone who is not on cooldown as long as doing so will not cause you to be unable to deploy Jessica when her cooldown is finished. Example: if you have 500 minerals when Sol's cooldown is almost done while Jessica's is 80% done, don't deploy Sol first. Wait for Jessica's to come off cooldown, deploy her, then deploy Sol when you get enough minerals. Never deploy someone else at the cost of wasting time not deploying Jessica.

Execution

I've tried his strategy several times and it's been foolproof so far. At the start, upgrade minerals to 7, then deploy Jessica. Upgrade minerals to 8, then wait until you can deploy another Jessica, followed by Sol, then Clara. Repeat Jessica, Sol, and Clara again before deploying Alice. Early on, you should only have enough minerals for those 4 anyway, so Witch Cony won't be even a thought until you have a few of those top 4 rangers.

If you time it that way, you will almost always end up in the spot that is identical to the video. Additionally -- and this is key! -- this will allow Convini to walk up *ahead* of Eva and start to hit Sol. This is very important because if he is not at the front of his group, Alice and Witch Cony won't be guaranteed to target him. If you follow this priority of deployment you will trigger Thomas when Convini's health is low and have enough fire power to defeat him before the pack of enemies backs you into your tower.

Once Eva and Tyler start to beat up on your tower, keep deploying your rangers to slow down the HP drain from Tyler. You are required to wait for the 2nd Convini to walk all the way to your tower because you are stalling for time. Time for what? (1) You're feeding your rangers slowly to death a bit here to trigger Thomas later. (2) You need to continue to damage Eva little by little in order to kill her before Hurry Up. (3) You must absolutely not be standing too close to the enemy tower when Hurry Up timer triggers because standing in various locations on the path triggers different formations. Also, standing too close can indirectly make Hurry Up more difficult for you (more on this later).  So, when the tower gets low, use Tower Repair to continue stalling. Use your Missiles as you get them. When Convini reaches your tower, Tornado them both back.

Here's the next critically important thing to note. You need to wait until Convini #2 passes the point where his text box is located before deploying your first Jessica. You need to do this because you want to end up about 1/3 of the way down the road and fight Convini and Eva there. I'll explain why soon.

As you fight Convini, Eva and Tyler here, your rangers are going to very naturally clump up into the great ball of death that you will need in order to slug your way through the Hurry Up part of this stage. If you continue to deploy in the priority mentioned, you should have no trouble getting all these remaining enemies very low. As soon as Hurry Up starts, drop the Meteor on them and Eva, Tyler and Convini will die. Now's also the time to deploy your Friend/Sidekick.

There are 3 reasons you are located here instead of further down the road. The natural instinct is to try to get as close to the enemy tower as possible after a tornado, right? You'll have less distance to have to fight through. But in this case, being far away from the tower gives you 3 advantages. (1) Your 3 heaviest hitting rangers (Sol, Clara, Alice) are very slow. The closer your army's meeting point is to your home tower, the faster and safer you can build up your ball of death army. (2) Convini walks faster than Eva. Giving him time to walk to you will allow you to focus your fire on him alone without taking extra damage from Eva. (3) When the stream of enemies from Hurry Up pop out of the tower, they will be tightly clumped, like their own ball of death. You do not want to be on the receiving end of all of that fire power. Since the enemies all walk at various speeds, the longer they walk, the more spread out they become. By the time you meet them, Sena has fallen behind and you can pick off the lone unicycle very safely. Without danger of being ganged up on, your army will get larger and larger and be able to inch its way to the enemy.

Continue to deploy your rangers, of course, and they will slowly join your mighty ball of death as you push through the enemies. But be mindful that as soon as you reach the tower, one half-health Eva will pop out. Use Ice Shot here to freeze everything in place as you splash down the tower and also kill her. After they thaw, it's pretty much a win!

Ice Shot the 2nd Eva

This method works every time. The timing and positioning are very precise and takes all the guesswork out of the formation of this stage. All kudos go to YouJJay. Go watch his videos, like and subscribe and all that good stuff.

Sounds like updates to the game are coming fast. Hope you guys clear 108 soon!

Difficult Stages - Stage 100

Clear Stage 100 by May 30, 2014 and you will receive Sorcerer Cony for free in your mailbox on June 5!

This post is just for Stage 100 as it has come to the forefront of players' attention during the Rangers Event Sorcerer Cony giveaway. I've collected all the stuff about this stage and put it all here for reference.

Stage 100 was really difficult and since a couple weeks ago it was tuned down in difficulty, but still pretty challenging for some. Since there has been some back and forth about it with several of my readers, I'm putting all the links I think are useful for people to take into consideration. And these are food for thought only, not an exact guide. Keep in mind, all my videos have the 45% attack bonus from treasures, and I would imagine that the other Youtube video makers do as well. 

Stage 100 is tough on the front line while also delivering tons of very annoying splash damage on your team. It's important to take into consideration the DPS, speed, and cooldown of your available rangers when seeing if they will rise to the challenge of this stage. 

At the start of the stage, as long as you stay on the left half of the pathway and don't cross the midpoint, you will only have to fight a steady release of Tyler (airplane enemy). It's plenty to deal with on its own because when a lot of them stack up, your health rangers will melt in seconds. If you're using any health rangers, make sure that they can be sent out quickly and if they can't (like Styne), you will need a faster ranger to back him up (like Moon). Both direct damage and splash damage rangers are useful in this part of the stage so long as you have someone safely in the back doing it. 

Once you finish off the airplanes and cross the midpoint, you'll start to get Mabebe (chicken enemy) and a lot more ice cream enemies. The thing that's going to determine whether you win this latter part of the stage is the size of your army when you cross the midpoint. If Stage 97, 98 and 99 have taught you anything, it's that you don't cross the midpoint with a skinny army. You need a rather large "ball of death" as you walk across the middle. 

That ice cream is gonna die in about 2 seconds!

The ball of death is when you have a healthy clump of rangers and your entire team approaches the enemy front in tight formation. No super speed rangers are dashing ahead of the group. Your fastest and slowest rangers as well as your melee and long-ranged rangers are standing together pretty closely, all meeting with the enemy together, thus able to start firing on the enemy all at once. Said another way, it's when you build up to critical mass to quickly get rid of the next big enemy in front of you without losing any rangers. Your team will only continue to grow past this point. This is the kind of team formation you need in order for the ice cream enemies to die as soon as they get into damage range. For example, if Xan and Jessica are running ahead halfway across the path to meet a Mabebe and an ice cream alone, they're as good as dead because Ellin/Sol/Alice/Sindy/Clara are way in the back, not even in firing range yet. And by the time they get there, the big meaty health rangers are all about to die, then your long-range team will die too.

Side note: Even the video that uses 2 lowbies has a ball of death. It's the group of Sindys and Claras in the back. 

The entire group moving closely, killing each of the 2nd wave of enemies off one by one and inching forward

This takes a considerable amount of planning when you are fighting Tyler to control how quickly you kill him so that you buy yourself enough time to build your team up while making its way toward the middle. This may mean holding back on Friend, Thomas, Missile and other Items. If you don't have enough total DPS to kill the ice cream as soon as they pop out, you can say goodbye to your army in the second half. I would even go so far as to say, if you are barely making it through the Tyler half of the stage, re-think your team as the second half will surely kill you, and if not, then Hurry Up will. I highly recommend keeping Ice Shot as long as possible so that you can use it to freeze the enemies at the foot of the enemy tower towards the end (or right as Hurry Up begins). 

Hurry up? Who cares, you have the ball of death. Everything melts as it meets with your team. 

The things to pay special attention to whenever you're watching a video of someone's gameplay are:

• When they upgrade minerals and when they stop
• When they use Ice Shot and Meteor, and where
• When do they deploy Friends, if any
• Which ranger in their team is top priority for deployment, which ranger(s) are deployed only when everything else is on cooldown and you have mineral to spend which will not get in the way of you deploying your top priority ranger when it is ready to deploy again. RTS players will know this phenomenon as not being "supply blocked", thus always able to get what you need most deployed ASAP. 

It's a tough one but by no means impossible. It takes planning, good timing and lots of practice. Hope all these are helpful! Good luck!

Link	Type of Review	Rangers Used
Line Rangers Stage 100 - General Brown	Just Video	Sol (70), Clara (60), Warrior Jessica (60), Fighter Moon (60), General Brown (60)
Line Rangers Stage 100 - Xan	Just Video	Xan (70), Sol (70), Alice (70), Warrior Jessica (60), Ellin (60)
Line Rangers Stage 100 No Health Rangers	Annotations	Sol (70), Ellin (60), Warrior Jessica (60), Alice (70), Fighter Moon (60)
Line Rangers Stage 100 - Xan, Honey	Just Video	Xan (70), Honey (58), Alice (62), Warrior Jessica (60), Sol (67)
Line Rangers 100 - 2 lowbies	Chinese annotation (Not my video)	Sindy (52), Warrior Jessica (40), Clara (60), Rei, Scott
Line Rangers Stage 100 free rangers	Not my video	Sindy, Ellin, Clara, Styne, Fighter Moon

Videos for other stages in the Castle in the Sky are here. 

Increasing Your Atk Power at Castle In The Sky - Flying Skateboard Treasure

One of my previous posts dispelling some of the confusion with ranger attack power and damage per second brought on an interesting discussion from one of my readers, ferro. The treasure from the Castle in the Sky area is a Flying Skateboard, which increases ranger attack power. But exactly how much does this treasure benefit attack? Since the game never likes to put actual numbers on anything, here's how we broke it down.

If you're not interested in math, the conclusion is that the Flying Skateboard increases ranger attack by approximately 45%. That's huge, so definitely make it a priority to farm all your treasure pieces in the zone. In fact, if you are having trouble with Stage 108, I'd encourage you to farm stages 99, 101 and 105 for all the pieces.

For my illustration of how we calculated this 45% increase, I began with two maxed out level 60 Sindy. Sindy's profile states her DPS (damage per second) is 17488. Sindy's attack speed is Very Fast, and she hits about once per 1.2 seconds. From this we can figure out that each one of Sindy's arrows hit for approximately 20985 damage as base damage.

Stage 25 tower after 1 hit - No Treasure

I took Sindy to Stage 25 where the enemy tower health is 90,000 HP. A single hit from her showed that her damage was 21569, which is pretty close to what we predicted. 

Stage 25 tower after 1 hit - 100% Treasure

The above pic is damage from Sindy in the same stage, but this time with 100% of the Flying Skateboard treasure acquired. Her damage from a single hit was 31373, which is 9804 higher than previously. 

A difference of 9804 damage is about a 45.454% increase between having treasure and not having treasure. Sindy's true DPS with full treasure benefit is 25437 (assuming from the math that she does 1.23336 hits per second). If you compare that to the no-treasure profile stat of 17488 DPS, it reflects also that it is a 45.45% increase of DPS. Ferro did his own experiment with a level 60 Ellin and arrived at the same result.

45% is a significant amount of DPS increase. The first time I cleared Stage 108, it was pretty much down to the wire. The second time I went back to Stage 108 after acquiring all the treasures, it felt much, much easier. I'd guess about 45% easier :) Is it worth farming for? In my opinion, absolutely. Grab your Friends, grab your Items. It's time to buckle down and farm this zone.

Section one 3 stars. We have one of her wings. Uh oh. I heard ducks like both their wings...

Section two 3 stars. And Section three is a wooden wheel [1 star], then a cart wheel [2 star], then a tire of some sort [3 star].  

Umm. We keep finding Sally's stuff. Are we even going to find her alive at the end of this adventure?! We keep trying but Sally's never at the end of the zone...

Difficult Stages - Castle in the Sky 97 to 101

Castle in the Sky is a very strange place. Some of the stages don't follow any of the traditional mechanics, don't require any melee units, and the enemies are just plain odd. It's the most challenging area to date, for lots of reasons.

This area has undergone significant difficulty changes since it was initially released. The nerf bat hit it hard, and I think  it was probably necessary. People were stuck on stages for days, approaching weeks, and it hasn't even been open that long which means many players were not making any progress at all. As a result, they've modified and played musical chairs with all of the 4-star rangers that are farmable from stages (here is a revised list). There are even a couple of 5-star rangers now available in the higher stages. In addition, some rangers have had their stats buffed so that they are actually useful, or more competitive to be put in your team. If you have not taken a good look at your available rangers recently, look again now. Some of them might have been buffed and you may consider giving them their day in the sun. All this, just so people can be better equipped to handle the difficulties in Castle in the Sky!

Tyler, Mabebe, and Sena are not all that interesting. They have a lot of health, one of them does splash to melee, but they're otherwise not very threatening. The 2 enemies that are not listed in the collection are the Unicycle guy and the Dropped Ice Cream guy. They're the first and only jerks you see when you first enter Stage 97 and 98, and you will learn to dislike them a lot.

The unicycle enemy has a *ridiculously* long range. Think of him as having about the same range as the blondes with dolls in Altar of Flame, but without the animation. I can't seem to find confirmation anywhere but I do believe that the Unicycle guy behaves in a way that we have never seen enemies do before: If only one unicycle is in range of your team, he will just single target whoever is in range; If more than one unicycle is in range, they start to splash damage. It seems bonkers that an enemy can do this, but I can't otherwise explain why 2 unicycles can pretty much annihilate my entire team in 2 hits while also hitting my tower. So the point is, do not allow more than one of them to actively hit your rangers if you can help it.

The Ice Cream enemy has a much longer range than the animation lets on. Basically, only the longest range rangers can avoid being hit by the ice cream guy at their max range. Everyone else, including James, Clara, Boss, Sol... well, nice knowing ya. You do not want a lot of ice creams stacking up because they will start to decimate your entire team with splash damage.

Stage 97

Stage 97 is a test of control. Youtube has some great videos of people excelling at the art of staying behind the midpoint of the path. If you stay on the left side of the path, you will only have to deal with unicycles for a long time. If you pass the midpoint, you will have to contend with both unicycles and ice cream guys - very bad, almost certain death. The trick that is prevalent right now is to use only long range rangers and try to nuke down the unicycles one by one from far away. You have to get to know the order of the unicycles popping out and expect the next set of enemies so that you can properly position your rangers and throw down your items. Clara, Opera James, Sindy and Ellin all walk relatively slow, but if you use someone like Boss, Cony, Hunt, Alex, you will have to watch your toes and time carefully. If you deploy them at the wrong time, they'll cross the midpoint and you won't be ready for the onslaught of scorned dairy. I do not recommend bringing a Friend or Sidekick with you here because you never know if your Friend will send out a Xan or Moon and ruin your day.

Stage 98 is almost exactly like 97 except reversed. You deal with the ice creams right away and if you cross the midpoint you will get unicycles. It's also a control phase, but the ice creams are considerably more dangerous because of splash. The ice creams don't do a lot of damage per hit, but when they stack up, they hurt a lot. So at first I tried just using Jessica instead of a regular tank. It worked pretty well but the end of the stage still overwhelmed me so I decided, why not...

All Splash All The Time

I know, I know, not everyone has 3 cats. But consider this: Everyone has access to Clara, Warrior Jessica, Sol, Vlad and Pew. Something to think about, no? With my team of 3 speed kitties, not crossing the midpoint was not really an option. I bought myself a little time by minding my toes for the first 3 ice creams, and it's really just to stall while I try and get more James and Clara deployed. Once I was ready to cross the line, it's no holds barred, all out war. Knock them back with a Tornado, I brought my Friend, I brought my Missile, I brought the Meteor. Once the enemies were all dead, there's a little bit of time alone with the enemy tower but soon another wave comes out. I saved Ice Shot to freeze them right when Hurry Up starts and cleaved down the tower a la Stage 84 1.0. Yeah, I know it's not fair, but clearly this game isn't fair :) Honestly, this all splash team was a much more relaxed way to clear this stage. Their cooldowns are so long that I didn't bother to tap the deployment button like a crazy person.

After I did this for 98, I realized this is also doable for 97 so I went back and tried it - yep, you can do it. Note that this was probably not an option pre-nerf as the enemies really had too much health.

Stage 97 - All Splash

Stage 99 Team. I don't really remember this stage being that tough. I used Jessica to tank instead of a real tank for more dmg. She's pretty meaty.

Stage 100

Stage 100 was originally insanely hard. The damage on your team was very high, and the demand for damage on the multiple mini bosses was also very high. Without Sorcerer Cony, I think it was extremely rare for players to pass this stage. Even with Sorcerer Cony, players had a lot of problems because she's very expensive and so are high-health tanks. Post-revision, Tyler the paper airplane rider has a lot less health and he can be splashed down in a reasonable amount of time. I went with General Brown (60) and Charismatic Jessica (55) because they put out more damage than 2 tanks would. However, it is just as doable with 2 tanks, Warrior Jessica, Clara and Opera James. I might go back and try this but I am pretty sure you can do this with 2  tanks, Warrior Jessica (60), Clara (60), and Sol (70). I'll let you know when I get my Jessica and Sol to max... might take a while. The random spinning wheel hasn't been nice to me.
[Update: Check out YouTube video for clearing with Xan, Sol, Warrior Jessica, Ellin, Alice]

Stage 101

Stage 101 is a tough one, too. It took a little practice to get the timing right. Just know that you will need some splash, a really meaty tank ranger, and you definitely want Sindy. The stage starts with a bunch of Mabebe (fat bird with braces), coupled with ice creams and they're your biggest problem. The reason Charismatic Jessica works so well here is she has more health than Clara and James as a splash ranger, and you need someone who can take a few hits while the ice cream is out. You might also be able to do this with Sol. You can also substitute General Brown with Xan, Styne, Bob, Masked/Macho/Fighter Moon, or Thunder Brown. I just chose him because he's cheap, beefy, and does decent damage.

The number one thing that helped me defeat this stage was Sindy. Sindy is the longest range attack ranger and she stays out of the splash damage from the ice cream. While you are holding the front line from a lot of Mabebe, you will occasionally see an ice cream join him and that one ice cream is going to destroy your ranged splash units (Clara, Cony, James will all die). To avoid this and keep your team healthy, only produce tanks, Jessica, and Sindy until the first 3 ice creams are gone. Count them! Do not produce any other units until the 3rd one is dead otherwise it is a waste of minerals and time. Once the 3rd one is dead, you will have time to deploy Clara/James/Cony to defeat the Mebebes and move forward. Once you pass the midpoint, Tylers will come out with more Mabebe and more ice cream. By then, you should have a really healthy army to kill them off one by one.

For my troubles, I have gotten 2 star Treasures in the first section, and 1 star Treasure in the second section. To be continued! Good luck, everyone.

Quick Weekend Update April 26

I just wanted to post a quick one to bring attention to the new stuff on the blog.

1. The LINE Friend ID sharing post is a permanent new addition. You can always access it by clicking on the link bar at the top (mobile blog readers unfortunately can't see the link bar, though). Don't be shy, post your info for sharing and helping other players!

2. I updated my New Stage 84 post with a normal ranger team strategy for anyone who may want some insight there.

3. I updated my thoughts on teams and strategies for the Altar of Flame area. I've cleared the zone finally. When I have some intelligent ideas for Castle in the Sky, I'll write some new posts.

Finally, I will of course keep updating the posts with full list of rangers, obtainable rangers from new stages, and new area Treasures as I progress through them.

Thanks to everyone who has been reading and following through my adventures in LINE Rangers. I appreciate the replies and feedback!

Good luck and have fun!

Difficult Stages - Altar of Flame

Bad news. They're all difficult. End of post. :(

I'm kidding. Well, no, actually they're really all difficult, but I'll give a bit more detail. I'm finding it rather hard to recall exactly what I did for each stage because for most of them I changed my teams multiple times before finding the magic combination. Here is what I can share about my team composition for a few of earlier stages. I realize not everyone has Opera James, Macho Moon and General Brown (though Moon and Brown are easily replaceable with other health and balance rangers), so take the following as ideas/inspiration rather than a guide. The rest are fairly obtainable.

[Post updated April 25, 2014]

Team Compositions

Stage 86 and 87. 

Stage 88 - quite a tough boss stage

Stage 89

Stage 90

Stage  91

Stage 92 

Stage 95 - You can use 3 good single target rangers instead of 2

Stage 96 - Use your best splash ranger, and 3 of your best single target rangers. I use Witch Cony because she's Very Fast, as fast as Glenn. She does ok damage, but since she runs so fast, she can get in a lot of shots on the "Heaven" boss right at the start of the fight (before Tornado reset). I think Honey might be fine too, I just like long-range attacks more.

I think for every stage from 86 - 91 I've had to do my mineral upgrades and then reset the enemy stream with a Tornado. The stages in this zone are almost all (exception of stage 88) a long, dense stream of enemies and you'll have no way to really deal with them properly at the start of the game. Therefore, stalling with lowbies while you gear up your economy is the best way to go. I've gotten quite good at timing my Tower Repair item so that I get the maximum amount of time out of the stall. Remember, even if your mineral has reached max and you have a full set of minerals ready, let the invincibility timer run out its course because after you unleash a Tornado you'll want your Missile ready to launch. Firing the missile when they're all bunched up at the enemy tower deals damage to the whole lot, so don't miss out on this opportunity.

Special notes on Stage 88:

• There are some excellent Youtube videos which illustrate exactly how the composition of [1 splash, 2 long range attack, 2 lowbies] can clear it. You can substitute my Opera James for a max level Clara, it will also work. This stage is really tough because the tall guys with the black "Be Happy" t-shirt, Koichi, is on steroids. He has a lot of HP and this stage starts with eight (8!?!) of them. 
• Always start the stage immediately by upgrading minerals to 6 or maybe even 7. Do not deploy anything until that point because if you pass the midpoint prematurely here, you will also have to deal with a lot of the blondies with dolls. You have enough trouble with the tall guys, you don't want to trigger this secondary set of enemies. Fight all 8 of these tall guys on the left side (your side) of the pathway and you will have a much better time of it. 

Special notes for Stage 92: 

• Probably the toughest stage in the whole zone without Sorcerer Cony (I recommend finding a reliable friend who has Sorcerer Cony to lend you some help). Lots of big and small enemies, you will need a lot of splash damage as well as heavy hitting single target ranged units. Some people have done it with 3 lowbies, I personally did it with 2 because I just couldn't get the slug boss down fast enough with just 1 splash and 1 single. 
• Honey is an excellent choice to add to the mix because she does a lot of damage at level 50 and is very fast to get into the front of the fray. Since the slug boss doesn't move very quickly and doesn't attack very often, she can easily get in multiple big hits before dying. Since the revision, she's also pretty cheap to deploy, only 200 mineral at level 50.
• I chose Clara over my more powerful Opera James for this stage. Why? The critical point in the stage is after Tornado is used, the moment you throw out Ice Shot. You need to do the most splash damage to all of the enemies clumped up in the frozen ice right in this moment and get rid of a lot of the blowtorch guys and the smaller guys here. If you fail to time the ice shot so that your rangers are already in range to start attacking the frozen enemies, you will find that they will overwhelm you once they thaw. So, I picked Clara because she walks faster than Opera James. I kept losing until I made this team change. Obviously, if you have Sorcerer Cony, you're in good shape because she walks the same speed as Clara and attacks faster. 
• Timing of your items will be ridiculously crucial in this stage (which includes Thomas!) because of the way it affects when the blowtorch guys will reach your team -- remember, once a blowtorch enemy reaches your damage rangers, it's pretty much game over. You want to throw down Ice Shot when the blowtorch guys are about to meet your lowbies, NOT when the boss meets your lowbies. Blowtorch guy walks slower than the rest of them. It gives your team (and your Friend/Sidekick) an extra 1-2 seconds to get into range!
• Order of your ranger deployment at the start of the stage will also help you take down the boss' health a bunch before you blow them back with a Tornado. Choose carefully!

Special notes for Stage 95:

• While the big, slow slug boss is still alive, never cross the midway point. It's a short pathway, I know. But if you cross the midpoint, you will prematurely trigger the tall "Be Happy" guys and you will be very unhappy as a result. Upgrade minerals to 6 before doing anything else.
• Even after using a Tornado to blow him back, wait for him to walk WELL past the mid-point (let him walk about 75% of the way to you) before you deploy any of your rangers. I lost 5 or 6 times because I timed my Glenn to face him as he passed the mid-point, however when the slug loses half his health, he gets knocked back *very far*, farther than you would think. As a result, your lowbie or other melee rangers will cross the mid-point to meet with him again. I would really recommend you wait until he gets to the 3/4 point before you block his path.
• You'll want to bring your best single target rangers for this stage. It's not a boss stage, but the slug you fight in 92 is here along with tall guys, but not much else. Splash is less important. Bring 3 single target (preferably Sindy and Ellin, and your best third one) and Clara (or whoever your best splash is).

Special notes for Stage 96:

• Not an easy stage at all, but I found it a lot easier than 92. The pathway is super long and the boss is slow, so I right away picked Glenn as he is the fastest lowbie. The stream of enemies is not as densely packed as 92, and you don't need to deal with a lot of them at a time so 3 single target rangers is best in my opinion. Sindy and Ellin are obvious picks. If you have any of the Boss rangers, they might be good because they walk fast. I have Legend Boss at level 50, but I didn't use him. I personally chose Witch Cony because she walks as fast as Glenn and she's much cheaper than Legend Boss. Honey might also be a viable choice here, but I didn't try it with her. The Heaven boss does splash damage so I went with a long-range Cony instead.
• It's a crazy long path so don't waste the boss' first pass doing nothing (this is why I picked Witch Cony, she can run to the enemies and start attacking faster than the others). You *must* deal enough damage to him during the first pass otherwise he will cause you to lose during his second pass. He has a lot of HP and you need to squeeze all the damage you can in the time that you have, otherwise he will start to overwhelm you, you'll hit Hurry Up, then the blowtorch guys catch up and it's game over.

On a slightly quirky note, why Glenn? He costs nearly double what Scott and Bella cost as lowbie bait for the enemy. But in a 1 vs 1 race, Glenn actually runs much faster than Scott and Bella. In fact, the only ranger who even comes close to Glenn's move speed is Honey and the Conys that are speed rangers (not Sorcerer). Despite what it says on their profile, even among the "Very Fast," there are slight yet significant differences. You'll have to carefully weigh the pros and cons of using him. Some stages have you strapped for cash, so maybe speed isn't as important so Scott and Bella are better choices. Some stages require you to hold the front line super fast, in which case Glenn works out better.

All these multiple failed attempts on these stages has me running quite poor on coins. Unless you are farming for treasure in this zone, go back to Stage 80 or 76. They provide the most coin for least effort as well as decent account/user experience.

Treasure

If you are farming for treasure, I recommend 85 for section one of this zone, 89 for section two, 93 for section 3. Difficulty-wise, they are the least troublesome. Once you get a piece of treasure in each section, you will be rewarded with increased Move Speed. Not super impressive, but I am looking forward to Castle in the Sky. The treasure benefit there is increased ranger attack power. Excellent!