Vineform

[Lujo]

Errr, this isn't what folks are used to, here's nothing important or monumental or agtating or anything about just something I'd ask folks who play DD a bunch. Anyone who's run into my victory screens might have noticed that lately I'll pick Earthmother up and pretty much just spam Vineforms, sometimes even without entanglement.

I'd ask: "Is there something wrong with me?"

EM is sort of shennanigan central, you can go full-Drac with mana, you can spam entanglements for a milion different reasons, you can go mad with greenblod, piety farm, give extra hits to any sort of glass cannon etc. But somehow, lately, it's just Vineforms and an occasional cleansing to clear the way.

I haven't done the math, really, or thought it thorugh consciously, but five or so of those things cost... 5+8+11+14+17 = 55 piety. 4 cost about 40, but let's say 5. You're up 20 health, which anyone who's played JJ or GG can tell you is a good thing. You're also up 5 DR which is quite good as it's +5 hp per hit, and it's also Taurogs shield (although you've probably leveled up past the point where it the bestestest). You can't really get that from most other guys - no inventory cost, and both effects bundled - for JJ it costs 65 and a potion just to get health, for GG it costs 5 popcorn, an inventory slot and 30 just for the health, and if you could take the shield from either of those thats +25 piety, and item slot and a mana point. Em is some popcorn or plants, 55 piety, no inventory slot, so it's actually a rather good deal in the "moderate health boost you kinda want on anyone" department.

The whole setup lets you fight above your level, and the way you get piety gets you extra XP when you fight above your level (and EM can also back you up with Clearance and Entanglement, too). Works great with just about anything, like moderate health boosts do but isn't something you'd recommend as it's not very glamorous. However it just seems to work - but I wouldn't want anyone thinking it's some sort of pro strat or like "the bst way to play EM" or anything, except I seem to instinvtively and routinely do this a lot, more than anything else with EM.

And a lot of EM stuff is kinda advanced generally, this is something you can always do and proffit off it. It's quite good, really, I wonder if it should be on the wiki as like a "when in doubt just do this" simple first thing to learn with EM? Like a non-class non-race specific thing, where you learn this one thing you can always do with an early EM altar if you run into it? I'm considering really short, basic things about gods like that ATM.

I find it great in specific ways on just about anything - sorcerers absolutely love it, dwarves love it (play the whole game with extra health, yay!), halflings love it, gobbo's love it, Rogues love it, bloodmages REALLY love it, monks love it, thieves love it, everyone's good for it in their own way. 2/3 hits is like a weird Health pendant for 13/24 piety, not exactly always when you want it the most unless you stone some stuff (or plants) but, hey, what's not to like, right? Get 5 hits, it sorta lasts you through the map - most of my JJ play is one hit of boost either stat and just slowing things and refills, if I go EM, everything will be slowed anyway, and clearance kinda covers the refills.

So, err, what's your oppinons on this? Not math opinon, but, like, do you guys do this, how does it work for you, have you been pleasantly surprised or underwhelmed by it, that sort of thing?

[Darvin]

EM is just all around good, one of the few deities with five equally-useful boons. Most of the others are stuck with at least one situational boon, but everything on EM's menu is great and due to the scaling cost you'll almost always take all of them at least once (seriously, what are you doing not hitting entanglement? I often use it just for a first strike finisher against a single monster. 5 piety for the effect of WEYTWUT is a great deal).

EM is also one of those deities that really makes me irritated at the new deity interface (the other being GG). The loss of the control key to quickly bring up the deity screen isn't a huge deal with guys like JJ, but for guys like EM where you keep coming back for a hit of this and a hit of that it gets tedious where we used to have a hotkey for that stuff.

[Lujo]

Ye, that's true, it's quite annoying with EM and GG when taking a boon takes you out of the interface.

And about not taking entanglement. I forget! I just join her because I ran into her, and I'm on someplace mazy, and I just took a few Vineforms but I kill what I run into which often isn't outleveling me enough to require entanglement. Or I'm spamming wonnafyt to get stuff out of the map and Entanglement messess up the popcorn bowling.

That's not to say that spamming it like mad isn't the way to go, lol, it's teh brokenzor silly boon, I spam it for every fireball vs retaliating dudes just 'cause XD Everyone's a Rogue with Entanglement, EM's worth prepping just for that and IMAWAL alone! It's just that lately I've drifted into Vineforms more than I ever did, feels strange... But also rather good, just did a Dwarf Sorcerer in Slime Pits with a prepped EM and 6-7 shots of it (an entanglement, some clearances and a plantation). She's quite legit as an alternative to GG/JJ when you specifically want that health boost on stuff. Didn't think of her in that way for a long time, and she does bring plenty of shennanigans to the mix - Dwarf Warlord of EM is supremely nuts in all possible ways - break that down, see what you get: Dwarf + Warlord + EM.

[Lynzkar]

EM is probary one of my favorite dieties for several reasons, esspesialy as a prep (though bilnor's pissorf is golden too)
Her preperation "punishment" can be more of a buff in late game, as you only need to use entangelment once, to get 10 plants for clearance, and 10 mana
Her desecration punishement can easily be nullified from 5 stacks of vineform
Her greenblood allows you to remove curse. Very convinent if you are resistance stacking.
Free immawal + slows from entaglement, combined with vineform allows you to kill higherlevel enemies with exp boost
Easy to quickly get 100 piety with plantation, then convert to another diety, then desecrate her altar, for the 30 piety.

As for vineform, I have found my self rarely taking over 5 stacks, and usualy go for greenblood insted, esspecialy if I'm playing as a dwarf or a monk or the gorgon and half-dragon (as you apply the corrosive damage twice due to knockback)

[Lujo]

Ye, 5 is already sorta pushing it. It's just that all the goblin, halfling and dwarf play lately got me used to looking for that +20ish health boost and I got used to playing all sorts of classess with it, and this steered my EM play towards that on top/in place of the rest of her offer. After a bunch of testing it seems to be, in fact, the strongest option in that category (noticeable health boost category, not "your take on EM" category XD).

Just for a bit of "I like DD and thinking about DD and playing DD and readin about DD" this is what taking 4-5 of them things does/works as:

Take 2/3 before fighting anything you've got:

- A semi health pendant (for all your health pendant needs including silly B2P nonsense. Health Pendant is up there with the Fine Sword as far as solid early gadgets go)
- A slotless Blackcksmith shield (folks prep that, right?)
- Some plants to stone/clearance if you want, but, depending on if you prepped, not enough to clog you up too much

Take 4-5 before lvl 3

- You got full absolution (I kinda go for 5 hits any time I go GG exept in VGT), but for less popcorn and no inventory hassle, for more piety. People do this all the time.
- Otherwise you've got a boost health JJ boon without petition or a potion, also something folks do.
- Otherwise 10 levels worth of Troll Heart (well worth buying it and carrying it around for less, and you get it right away)
- about 5 DR, which is actually relevant, helps munch popcorn and level and stuff. Stuff includes messing with how many hits you can do on things with a bit of regen fight or potion use, when coupled with the health boost and whatever else you've got, -5 dmg per hit from monsters can take you places.

All of EM's stuff is very useful, and the unique stuff is certainly unique and powerful, but seeing that I routinely pick up other things to get mostly the same effect, and noone ever goes "OMG Vineform is so good!", thought I'd mention it. A very nice thing about picking EM for guys you want bulk health + leveling goodness on instead of GG or JJ on occasions is that swappign into JJ from EM can get you an instant Chaos Avatar if you swap over with 100 piety and then deserate, and since you're swapping from a Vineform EM you'll probably be doing it at a high level ^^

Question: Ever wondered why EM specifically doesn't like Lifesteal? Maybe this is why. She used to not like other blood-related stuff, but the devs kept this and I was wondering what's it about, well, easy +20 health and 5 DR's really lovely for a lifestealer, easpecilly if you pick up a platemail and swap over to Drac for a hit of lifesteal or 2. Not the most optimal of plays what with plantation and sanguine conflicts and stoning popcorn for piety, but I've done it on more than one occasion it's quite, quite good.

[Sidestepper]

Oh, Vineform is great. I had a post about an Earthmother flavored healthmonster in the old strategy thread. It works, but it wasn't as good as the old Glowing Guardian healthmonster approach. It still beat Vicious though, and that's all that counts. A determined paladin can get close to 20 hits of Vineform if that's all you do, but in practice you'll never do that, because it makes so much more sense to get maybe 12-ish hits of Vineform and a similar number of Greenbloods instead.

One of my first Eathmother strats was to stack Vineform + Shield +Platemail on a Wizard in the Slime Pits. The idea was that the extreme DR stacking made Super Meatman almost powerless, and being a Wizard means that Tower of Goo isn't too scary.

And of course, we all know about Greenblood stacking.

[Tinker]

Since the DR doesn't scale, Vine Forms are best on low level, keep losing their punch as you level. Also the cost can become prohibitive. I sometimes went up to 10+ stacks, and 40 Health and 10 DR is pretty good. I moved on to JJ afterwards because the more health boost you want, the better JJ comes out, even despite sinking the first 45 piety into Petition.

Now I rarely go full-out on Earthmother, and use her more than anything as a finisher conversion for a caster (i.e. convert over from JJ/Mystera, and use the initial piety plus the +95 from Plantation on restorations via 2x Entanglement + Clearance combo).

[Lujo]

Oh, wow, you guys push EM boons way futher that I do. Both Vineform or Greenblood If I'm over 5 hits of VF I feel like I'm overdoing it, and for Greenblood I generally get an even number of stacks, anywhere from 2-6 on Pissorff spammers. (I am prone to spam Entanglement like there's no tommorrow, though XD)

The logic behind the casually stacking 4-5 Vineforms is that's it's exactly the same thing I do with a lot of PQI (and non-PQI) guys with other gods and it seems to actually be the best option for that. You don't have to be an actual healthmonster, Dwarves only really need levels for that (but like being able to play the early levels with above-average health so their early and late stuff is more uniform, it's like 2 front loaded lvl 10 CP pops for them before you properly blow up), Halflings would sell their mother for a cheap/moderate max health boost of any kind (they'll even take Warriors Pact ), gobbos as well, and I've found a moderate health boost like that does wonders for spellcasters (sorcerers and bloodmages in particular, and also Warlords oddly enough). Also rats - rats LOVE vineform and they can overheal without lifesteal. Not to mention Orcs and Humans, all dmg no innate way to apply it, +20 hp +5 DR's damned good on them, too - fight anything at +2 levels worth of health and lower dmg on monsters, what's not to like ^^

Then just plantation and go mad with refills like you otherwise would, entanglement spam, whatever's...

Folks will go JJ or GG and cash in on their initial health boosts, EM rarely gets mentioned in this context and I managed to develop a habit of doing it - at first just for variety, but now all the time...

[Darvin]

[Lujo]

Moved this from being an Edits, what darvin said - 20 health +5 dr actually goes a long way throughout the run, and changes timings on stuff in your favor quite a bit.

EDIT: Plus there's another bit of math to consider with these "health bumps" that go sub-heatlhmonster and seem like they drop off late, but... don't really, in non-VT:

The average Boss damage is 75, right? Or thereabouts? Because if it's 75, DR takes 5 off that, it's 70, and you've got 13 health per level naturally. It's 151 health for 2 hits on a 75 dmg boss (without other stuff). With 5 vineforms it's 140, 20 you've got from VF, so it's 120 natural, and you get 13 per level anyway also with no other stuff (gauntlets, extra health, troll heart, alch scroll, whatever). Even if you don't reach enough health for that to matter - you will with potions and refills and stuff. Not to mention that you get to hit the boss once you're over 70 and you can ding from that point on - several vine forms and you're there at lvl 5 even if you don't find any health boosters.

That make any sense?

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Try 5 hits of Vineform on a Rat, btw, it's like being in JJ or GG except no inventory hassle, and it'll still boost your overheal later. I mean, I'm sure you did allready, but it's particularly good on him especially, probably more worth it over spamming Grenblood (not that you can't do both if 5 hits is what you're lookign for)

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Edit: Also one bit of math I found helps folks understand the game a bit better, marginally related in a roundabout way: +20% dmg is +1 dmg per level. Not strictly true, but I've had RL folks thank me for that one. Helps them know what they're looking at on the screen. With this in mind, the sorcerer's mana shield thing is actually a semi +20% and folks ussually gush over those. Except you need to get hit to use it, but you tend to waste a bunch of his healing early on because you max healthpool is low. But he does indeed get very nasty with some Vine Forms on him, especially if he's also a Dwarf who's CP just keeps adding to the health boost as the Vineform-bonus-to-expected-max-hp-total starts looking worse. Hey, dude has +1 dmg per level, not much, but most folks don't and they'll prep the gauntlets to get it... Stick a Few Vineforms on the bugger, prep Gauntlets and/or Extra Attack (or best Witchalok Pendant, or even Platmail or Alch Scroll for Halflings), works like a charm. And you continue being able to hit stuff throughout the run, you don't transition into just full-spellcaster ever. The has dat mana pool, 3 fireballs without any development, you can basically go full tank mode...