Extreme East Spoiler and Discussion Thread

[srid]

Wow. Just wow.
Now I'm genuinely impressed.

I'm not sure if other people attempted Curious VGT with other classes, but so far the only builds powerful enough to reach the top floor was the Heretic and cheesy Vampire build, from what I know. Even Orc Monk didn't make it after we fixed Fido's bug that made it ultra-strong.

Pure spellcaster were always thought to be the worst at VGT and now you are getting pretty close to a completely legit Curious VGT win... with a pure spellcaster. Seeing how far you went, I really hope you'll be able to beat it now!

In any case, this game and what it's player can do with it will never cease to amaze me.

Concerning the bug:

[Unidentified Tower]

[shade_of_ox]

Couple of notes:

You probably already know, but Whurrgarbl with Codex is very strong since the burn stacks from Whurrgarbl max out instantly. Consider taking that out of vetos, maybe in place of Martyr Wraps.

Also, 100% use Patches. He makes SOOOO much difference - more gold, resists, HP, and mana and almost no cost if you make sure not to level up with a lot of blackspace around (grid reveal punishment is lethal in VGT).

[Unidentified Tower]

[shade_of_ox]

Here are Patches' stats:
On level up gives 1 boon and one curse.
Boons:
+5% attack bonus, +1 max mana, +5 max HP, +3 gold, +4% resists
Curses:
Poison, mana burn, random teleport (careful about this in some towers!) and grid reveal. Grid reveal is a circle with radius 3.

[Unidentified Tower]

[srid]

Quick follow up on my previous spoiler:



Indeed, it doesn't look like you need Patches that much, but it can be worth a try though.
Getting +12% resistances or more from Patches could pay off in the end, I think you need a lot of health too for the top floor.
Another option to try: why not try PM's body pact early?

I think that I would try desacrating Binlor instead of TT, and take body pact.

I'm also wondering if an Elf Wizard couldn't work better there as well, you could get much more glyphs and inventory, at the cost of less mana, but you rarely use your full bar (except the potion refills and level up refills are smaller), Essence Transit, which better resistance could compensate, and Mana Shield, which is a pure loss here admittedly.
On the other hand you get a much more versatile build, and cheaper spells.

Anyway, there are some interesting ideas to try out.

[Unidentified Tower]

Tried sneaking past the floor 1 Beholders with just Serpentine Shield and no Soul Orb, it was almost viable except the Mystera vs Serpentine Shield bug is brutal. When you hit a Beholder for the first time each level, the Beholder hits you back twice (once normally/Retaliate and once from Riposte), and although Serpentine Shield does block both hits, the game still tries to mana burn you twice, which means Mystera makes you lose piety equal to your remaining mana twice. (And then a third time a moment later when you actually for real get mana burned, though at least by then you shouldn't have any left.)

Played around with Gnome Wizard of Jehora Jeheyu featuring Patches, I can see the pros and cons. It's far less scum-heavy due to having a built-in Flame Magnet and a guaranteed WEYTWUT, but for now I'm not super seeing the value in Patches (the resists only really matter in the endgame, since they don't help with Frostbite, and the Poison / Grid Reveal banes hurt) and Wizard's matchup with the Naga Frostblades is way worse than Sorcerer's, so the already-hardest floor gets even harder. (I've never actually run into the Undying Sculptors and I suspect that floor would be easier though!) The resists definitely feel worse than Essence Transit. I think overall it's probably comparable to Sorcerer in power and a viable way to win (that 1-mana BYSSEPS endgame is something to look forward to!), but Sorcerer just feels more natural to me. Funnily enough I actually find myself missing the attack penalty from Flames, as a way to clear Frostbite.

Haha don't worry Srid, I don't desecrate Tikki Tooki at level 1 anymore, I learned my lesson. My current plan is to save all three desecrations plus Consensus for the endgame, to fuel Earthmother and Glowing Guardian. Early desecrate Binlor into early Body Pact costs 80 endgame piety, plus all the piety Body Pact eats along the way, and the payoff is only health, not my precious precious mana.

EDIT: Pretty sure I've figured out my full wishlist for the random elements of the run, it's pretty much the same for both classes:
1. Soul Orb spawns
2. Platemail spawns
3. Dragon Soul spawns
4. WONAFYT or WEYTWUT spawns (WEYTWUT is guaranteed for Wizard, but WONAFYT is actually better)
5. Find the starter god almost immediately
6. Don't get Freezing Wraiths in the last couple floors
7. Don't get Naga Frostblades shortly after Freezing Wraiths
8. Don't get Undying Sculptors or Siabrae on Binlor's floor
9. Don't get Undying Sculptors in floors 7-9
10. Don't get standard VGT screws (e.g. Flash of Insight on Binlor's floor, No Experience on floor 2, etc)

In addition, if playing Sorcerer:
1. Find BURNDAYRAZ earlyish
2. Don't get Ratling Priests on floor 1

I'll be the first to admit, that's a long wishlist. But if the stars align and I get almost all of it in a single run...

[srid]

About the Serpentine shield, just to let you know, I will rework it this weekend and in the next release it should have less bugs and be much more effective against Beholders. That's a good news for you.

[Unidentified Tower]

Remember that preemptive Riposte bug with the Beholders? Turns out that if the prospective secondary PISORF target has Riposte but not Manaburn, the game just crashes. No crash report, the game just freezes and you eventually get a generic Windows "this program is not responding" report. Super easy to run into in the Undying Sculptor floor if you're strapped for mobility glyphs and relying on PISORF to navigate.

EDIT: I would like to report another bug: I'm an idiot and stubbed my toe on a level 1 Gorgon and died in the endgame of an amazing run, clearly there's a bug in my brain :headdesk: At least that run seemed to confirm my suspicion that if you can assemble the Soul Orb / Platemail / Dragon Soul holy trinity you're on easy street?

EDIT 2: