Cloud Meadow Battle Guide (Tips & Tricks)

Hey guys! This is my first time writing up a guide so please bear with me. Hopefully, the information here will be of help to others and if there are any questions or suggestions you have, just let me know! Also, this guide isn’t complete, there’s a lot of information that I can expand on, definitely more to learn, and the game certainly isn’t finished so expect to see more soon!

Buff – A positive effect that improves an enemy’s or character’s stats during combat.

Debuff – A negative effect that lowers an enemy’s or character’s stats during combat.

DoT – Damage over Time, an effect that applies damage for a number of turns. Can be stacked with other DoTs or with itself.

Cooldown – Certain abilities can only be used again after waiting an allotted amount of time for the skill to recharge.

AoE – Area of Effect. These are attacks that affect multiple targets at once to deal damage or inflict status effects.

Character Meter – Some characters (i.e Kreyton, Jaero, etc.) have a character-meter that will increase/decrease when certain abilities are chosen or when suffering debuffs from enemies. Low or empty meters will cause the character’s attacks to weaken or even fail altogether while a full meter will ensure attacks never fail and are more effective. Keeping an eye on your party’s character-meter is important. It will be located just about the character’s selectable abilities during combat.

Homonculus – Monsters, more specifically monsters that have too much magical essence inside they’ve become corrupted.

In Cloud Meadow you can decide whether to play as a male (Evan) or a female (Eve), however, the sex of your character will not affect your combat abilities. Both characters will have the same move list and starting stats. There are 9 total abilities the main character starts with already unlocked, with three of them pre-selected for you. If you complete the optional mission to go to the Training Room during the introductions you will have the chance to test out your combat skills with no risks, but no rewards. If you decide to skip the Training Room or the introductions altogether, these skills will still be pre-selected for your character. These abilities can be changed any time you are back on the Homestead – just go upstairs to your closet (the box on the left side of the room) and click on it. You can then select one ability from each of the columns and confirm the change.

Bone Dig – Whatever uses a grim shovel of unquestionable misfortune, hurls whatever ominous objects it digs up into the enemy, cursing any foes struck for 10% damager per turn.

Puffer Bomb – Whatever pulls out a tamed offensive micropuffer and releases it against his/her foes! Damaging them and applying a 15% bleed at the same time! The Puffer then escapes into the wild, safe and sound.

Livid Lavapple – Using mutagenic essence and Lavapple seeds, Whatever grows a flame throwing plant that leaves a 10% burn on his/her foes for 2 turns.

These are the first three skills you will start with and not a bad lineup, certainly easy to use for your first few battles. All of these skills are from the first row of your attacks and all damage-based abilities. Bone Dig is a good starting DoT and melee attack. It has a chance to inflict Curse on your enemies which will injure the enemy on each of their turns, as well as dealing considerable damage to the enemy. This is your base attack which can be used repeatedly without fear of cooldown and an ability I recommended you keep. Puffer Bomb, like Bone Dig, has a chance to apply a DoT – Burn – as well as causing base damage to the enemy when used. Damage is lower than Bone Dig, but the chance to apply burn is higher. Last is Livid Lavapple, which has similar damage to Puffer Bomb, but its chance to apply a Burn DoT is lower. Both Puffer Bomb and Livid Lavapple have a cooldown applied to them usually lasting two turns before they will be available to select again.

Rock Dig – Whatever uses the heavy duty construction shovel to pull a rock from the ground and hurl it at his/her foes, shattering their defenses by 10%.

Eat Your Greens – Whatever uses an especially plump crop to heal his/her allies!

Misty Hots – Using mutagenic essence and Hotton seeds, Whatever grows a series of puff balls that grant his/herself and his/her allies +15% defense up for 1 turn.

The next row of abilities you can select from focuses on buffs, heals, and debuffs. These attacks do little to no damage to the enemy on use but offer support to the character’s party. Rock Dig is a nice ability to have on hand if you are having trouble getting through an enemy’s defenses such as Den Mothers or Female Centaurs. Eat Your Greens is the only heal available for the player character. I would recommend having this ability at all times unless you prefer to use healing items (food). Eat Your Greens can be used on a single target, but you can select any member of your party to heal. It grants a considerable amount of health depending on your character’s stats and level. Misty Hots is a buff that you can apply to the entire party that boots your defense up for one turn. It’s a good ability to have on hand if you know you’re going to be battling enemies that take a while to build up their action bar. You can use this ability just before they attack to mitigate some of the damage you might suffer – such as during boss battles. Mud Dig is a base ability that can be used multiple times without a cooldown. Both Eat Your Greens and Misty Hots have cooldowns applied to them usually lasting two turns before they will be available to select again.

Mud Dig – Whatever uses the farming shovel to hurl a mud clod into his/her foes, slowing them down by 10%.

Rake Counter – Whatever tosses a rake before his/her allies, ensuring that any foes attacking them will be countered and comedy gold created!

Jeldummy – Using mutagenic essence and Jelbaby seeds, Whatever grows an explosive dummy in front of one of his/her allies, giving them 10% reflect for 1 turn.

The last row of abilities you can select from focuses more on defense for the party. Mud Dig is great to use against Cat and Pirate Homonculus. Enemies that have a lot of speed and fill up their action gauge faster can be tricky to fight, especially if your party isn’t as quick – Mud Dig will help keep the enemies from bombarding you with attack after attack. It’s can also be used when you need an extra moment for heals. Rake Counter is a nice ability that can help you return some of the damage being dealt to your party, recommended to be used against enemies that attack often with heavy hits such as Den Mothers and Male Centaurs. Jeldummy can be a bit of a touch and go because you have no way of ensuring who will be targeted using Jeldummy to protect an ally can be tricky. I would recommend using it for allies who are super low on health, even more so when an enemy uses an attack that hits multiple targets (i.e. Female Centaurs). Mud Dig is a base ability that can be used multiple times without a cooldown. Rake Counter and Jeldummy have cooldowns applied to them usually lasting two turns before they will be available to select again.

* It’s important to note that all player abilities listed above are single-target abilities.

Genodriver: Ancient Virulent Cell – Transforming into a Saurian Lizardman, Whatever douses his/her enemies with an acidic attack, dealing 10% poison for 2 turns, and draws debuffs out of the bodies of his/her allies.

Genodriver is a special ability unlocked after the character discovers Trov’s body and his research about the Ancient Cell technology. This ability is super effective because not only does it have a high base damage, as well as a DoT, it’s also a Poison AoE and the only attack the player has that hits multiple targets. After unlocking this ability battles will be much easier. Depending on character stats/level you could one-shot most of the Homonculus in the Savannah and serious damage enemies in further dungeons. Genodriver, sadly, has a cooldown applied and will take two turns before it recharges. Another good reason to use it early in battle aside from the extra damage and DoT chance.

Cloud Meadow is a typical turn-based RPG in the fact that you can bring 3 party members with you into a dungeon; however, the selection of characters you can choose from is vast. After talking with Jubelle about going into the dungeon you can recruit several townspeople around Cloverton to join you:

Yonten – A Yeti and the owner of the local shop. More importantly, he’s a fighter, mainly a tank, that uses ice abilities to both attack and defend.

Jaero – A Mandrake and the seed vendor in town. Jaero uses plant-based attacks that typically inflict Poison on his enemies.

Kreyton – A Ogre and fellow farmer. Kreyton is a tank who uses AoE attacks that deal heavy damage.

Camellia – A Human and the owner of Monarch Inn. Camellia is unique in the fact that many of her attacks deal with Heat which can drive Homonculus crazy.

Brontide – A Dragon and Captain of the Union Outpost. Brontide is a fast and versatile fighter. He can deal heavy damage as well as defend his allies.

Goldra – A Dragon and Brontide’s sister. Goldra, like her brother, is fast. She focuses mainly on attacks of speed and precision. The player must hit the center of a bar with a moving arrow to successfully use Goldra’s attacks. Dead center or close to it will result in high damage or even an extra hit, if the player misses the mark then Goldra’s attacks will be weakened.

Garst** – A Ghost and a soldier from another era. Garst is another all-around fighter that deals pretty good damage with good defense.

Kaleida** – A Brownie and a traveling fortune teller. Kaleida is mainly support with abilities that focus on buffs/debuffs. Damage is small, but a good character to mix into the party.

Fio – A bunny and supposedly the previous owner of the Farm. Fio is another unique character – her attacks are randomized each turn with a choice between four different abilities on her gauntlet. It’s possible to only get two or more unique abilities each turn as the gauntlet can have multiple of the same ability on it at once. Randomizer aside, Fio is a strong and fast character that can be used as a tank or defender depending on what abilities are available.

Kiram** – A human and Captain of the Cyan Corsairs. Kiram is a ranged attacker that can deal lots of damage to single and multiple enemies.

**Currently Garst, Kaleida, and Kiram cannot be used as a party member in the Steam Build. These party members are only available for paid Patreon Members.

Along with people from the town, your character can also bring Monsters from their Farm into dungeons. Just be aware that you cannot bring along Monsters that are pregnant, currently working, or sleeping. Bringing along Monsters from your Farm will increase their loyalty to the player. Each species of Monsters offers up unique abilities and attacks – these can be viewed in the barn when approaching a Monster to view their stats.

Inside the dungeon, you can level up your character and townspeople as you wish. Each level up gives 15 skill points to be applied to physique, stamina, swiftness, and intuition. For Monsters, the player must give them food or raw plants that will increase specific attributes. While you can’t choose your Monsters abilities, you can breed certain Monsters together to achieve certain perks or abilities. Keep your eye out for Monsters with such perks.

Another unique aspect of Cloud Meadow is the ability to control the difficulty of the game at any time. When you start a new game you can select the level of difficulty just under your character card. It ranges from 50% up to 150%. For now, there’s not too much difference between the highest and the lowest setting aside from the amount of damage dealt, amount healed, and experience gained. That might change as the game is further developed, but for now, it’s a relative scale for the player. For people new to RPGs or those that prefer a more story-like element, meaning you don’t want to put too much thought into your fighting, I’d recommending going with 50% difficulty. You should be able to power through most battles without needing to focus on strategies or planning.

For players looking for an even playing field or even a challenge, I would recommend 100% or higher. For some 150% is considered almost unplayable, but if you play it smart – keep an eye on your character’s health, bring lots of food, and plan out your parties – 150% is possible and quite exciting. If nothing else, it’s something to try at least once. Remember, at any point, you can lower the difficulty of your game.

Or raise it!

Personally, I prefer a lineup of Bone Dig/Mud Dig, Eat Your Greens, and Livid Lavapple as my main abilities. For the first trip through the Savannah, I’ll use Mud Dig as my base attack since most of the enemies you’ll encounter will be Cat Homonculus which are very fast and have the chance of inflicting Bleed. So the less chance they have to hit you the better. The second time you go into the Savannah to find Trov I switch Mud Dig out for Bone Dig to have another DoT available. When fighting Centaurs (Male or Female) the battle tends to linger so having abilities that will continuously cause damage are your best friends. After that, I’ll go back and forth with Bone Dig/Mud Dig depending on what party members I bring with me.

Eat Your Greens is a must-have for me. I never go into the dungeon without it, even if I brought food. Speaking of food – always bring food. Even if you don’t think you’ll need it, bring it. Sometimes a fluke might occur during battle – a character gets put to sleep at a bad time or your heals are on cooldown – doesn’t matter, having food on hand is a must. You can eat food during combat to replenish health or after when you are traveling the map. If you feel you’re not doing enough damage during fights then having three damage-based abilities is perfectly fine provided you bring enough food.

If I don’t use Eat Your Greens – rare for me – then my lineup tends to be Bone Dig, Puffer Bomb, and Livid Lavapple. This build is mainly to pump out damage every turn and continue to build that up until everything is dead. With the addition of Genodriver, this build turns into pure carnage with your character able to deal out continuous, stackable damage each turn. This is a build I would recommend if you have party members such as Camellia, Kaleida, a Chimera, or a Lamia – party members that don’t deal a lot of damage or focus more on buffs/debuffs.

This brings me to my next suggestion – take into consideration who you bring with you into the dungeon. The player character is the most versatile with the option of being able to trade out abilities, but that’s not possible mid-dungeon. So keep in mind what your character can do and try to build off of that with your supporting members. If you prefer to deal most of the damage yourself then having characters who can defend, buff, or even heal like Kaleida, a Holstaur, or a Chimera with you is a good choice. If you want to play the healer/support role, then bringing tankier party members like Kreyton, a Cyclops, or a Centaur with you is a good choice. If you want to do it all then plan for your character to have one of each ability and use party members such as Brontide, Goldra, Garst, a Cat, or a Harpy. Characters that can deal damage as well as buff/heal to help offset what your character can do.

Typically for me, I have 2 damage dealers/tanks, usually myself and Kretyon, with one support and one healer. I tend to bring a support that can deal some damage as well as either buff or defend like Yonten or Brontide while Chimeras and Holstaurs are my favorite healers as they can heal either the whole part for some or one ally for a lot.

At the end of the day, play around with the party lineup and abilities. Give everything at least one test run to try and see how it’d fit in with your play style and find what works for you.