It is a pleasure to announce that thanks to the sterling work of Mytical, Celestial Heavens now have walkthroughs for the H6 expansion, Shades of darkness.
Available through the walkthroughs link on the top of our main news page, the H6SoD walkthroughs join the rest of the bunch available from the same page. Enjoy!
Welcome to the Dungeon campaign of the Shades of Darkness expansion. First, let's have a look at some general tips.
Might or Magic?
For the campaign the default is Might, so I stuck with this. The main strategy of the Dungeon is to do as much damage as possible as fast as possible, and Might seems to fit this. So the walkthrough that follows is based on this.
Blood or Tears?
The question here becomes - do you want to do more damage or avoid as damage as much as possible? I went with damage avoidance, as most dungeon creatures are kind of frail. So Tear it is.
"Feign death" = get out of damage free. If you invoke it on a unit, and it gets hit, the damage goes to zero and until that unit's next turn they cannot be targeted except by AOE magic. Useful. "Distract" makes combat so much easier it is not even funny. Range units got you down, pluck this thing right next to them, and by the time they can do any damage to one of your units, you should be in melee range. I do not know if it works vs undead, constructs, etc. (but it does against elementals). So keep that in mind. "Feign death" does fool undead, etc. Also, since I like "Reinforcements" and "Regeneration" it's easier to get Tear points.
Custom or Default Hero?
Stick with default hero or build your own? I like to make my own, so I chose a Might hero with default Enlightenment. Other good choices are Regeneration master, or Abyss dweller - which causes Lurker attacks to reduce stats. I like free skills though, which is why I like Enlightenment. That way you have 6 starting skills, not just 5.
Skill Choices: Now, I am not going to say: "Get this skill at this level", but here are some useful skills.
Useful Magic Skills: Regeneration, Mass Regeneration, Life Drain, Mass Life Drain, Weakness, Mass Weakness.
High Priority Might Skills: Reinforcement I, II, III. Toughness I, II, III. Cleave. Giant Slayer.
Useful Might Skills: Archery I, II, III. Tactics I, II, Counterstrike I, II, III. Pressed attack.
General skills just about every town should get: Logistics and Pathfinding (a secondary hero should follow you around gathering things if at all possible... one with the +20% skill). Feel free to try other builds as this ties up a lot of your skill points.
WALKTHROUGH
Map 1
First I have to say that level 8 feels like too low of a cap for this, but what can you do. Got hero on Hard with this: a Might/Tear Raelag with the Enlightenment specialty (I made a hero, but named him the same as the one they offer). Now I can not draw a map to save my life, and this is just one possible way to go, so ...
If you use Dynasty traits, here are the three I went with. Experience, (forgot the level cap, you reach it WAY before you end the map, so you can substitute here), Movement and the +150 points of racial gauge at the start of each combat (this also is not really needed, so feel free to substitute).
You start at level 5, so chose your 5 skills before moving an inch. I also suggest picking up every crystal off the ground you see.
You start at A (click minimap to enlarge). There is a door blocking your way north at D. Start by clearing to the left of your starting point, then head north to clear out until you reach the door, and then finally head toward 1. There are some Stalkers at S1, which will start a side quest to pick up a total of 3 stacks of them. Make sure to clear out everything you can before heading up to S2. There is a mini boss here, and an absolutely useless fort. Send the angel packing and head toward 2. You've bypassed the door and when you have a set amount of crystals, you will complete a quest, and get to summon some back up. Head north toward p1. There is a building here which gives you some more assassins, and a one way portal. Remember it, you will be back. Head towards 3.
At M1, you pick up a few Minotaurs and get a quest to fight a haven army for more, but before we head to do that, there is a portal near the Minotaur that will take you to S3, where there is also an artifact merchant. Hope for something good that you can actually afford.
Once you have done everything head toward P1 (which connects to p1 underground), but you have to fight a mini boss to access it. The good news is you claim some more Minotaurs if you beat him. Hit the portal. Start going towards 4, but clear out the entire area before you climb the stairs. Make sure you have full movement points when you surface at 4. You will get two quests, one of which you will fail. One is to fight, and get Blood points, one is not to fight and get Tear points. Since I went Tear, and since the level cap is easy to reach, I chose not to fight.
At P there is a Sanctuary which you can hide your hero in. If you have Pathfinding, Logistics and the Dynasty traits I suggested, only for 1 day, though. At G you get a cutscene that the portal will open up. There is a Unicorn bow protected by some Haven archers here, I suggest claiming it if at all possible. Then through G we go.
It is impossible to get lost here, as there is only one way to go. You will have a fight, send them to meet Elrath in person, then start heading back to A. Fight or don't, doesn't matter, but just know that you have at least one fight left regardless if you outrun your 3 (yes 3 ... if you didn't kill the two patrols that is) pursuers. At A you will have a fight with a Dungeon hero and troops, but you should be more than a match for them.
