Another bloggy playthrough diary :)

[Astral]

Silly question, but why not generate your own PQIs? Go to random.org and a roll a number for class, race, dungeon and badge. You could get creative and add your own rules to it too.

In case gold earned is not a top priority

[Lujo]

Not a silly question!

However, PQI does take into acount various stats concerning completion on a particular playthrough, and there's also gold. My #ddvetproblem is that my backlog is dictated by too much history (well, in the current game version at least), which has kinda turned this playthrough (as well as the one before that), into slurry of Halfling Warlords and Goblins Everywhere (and I'm still getting Dwarves). There's just a bunch of stuff that's prefectly playable, but it just doesn't make any sense to prep it, so it's kinda everywhere, and the Quests take out various things off the map, too. I'm curious what a playthrough with everything but the bank unlocked or otherwise cleared away would look like (and with no backlog).

I mean, this can and will happen to anyone, the PQI Warlord is probably gonna be Halfling Warlord for just about anyone, etc. I've "fooled" the PQI by avoiding Orc, so now I get sinergistic Orcs in there ocasionally, and a bunch of Dwarver, Goblins and Halflings ARE sinergistic, but for my next inevitable playthrough, I'd like one where I don't allready have half the map done when the monsters and the explorers start showing up - to avoid clumps like those.

I mean, there's gonna be at lest one or two more 10-run posts with nothing but monsters in them. And then when I move to the new version, the Chemist and the Rat (when he shows up), are gonna be all over the place. It also makes for a lot of samey runs, when you have to do a bunch with the same thing.

And there's also the whole "human dissapears because of puzzles" connundrum which may or may not have been resolved in the new version according to Tinker. The game structure skews stuff, I'd love me a chance to run a playthrough for entertainment, science and Wikifying 0-full with none of that.

[Lujo]

A much smaller but kinda very nifty thing I'd love to see is an indicator of which badge was the PQI badge in a run on the victory screen.

Two PQI's:



JJ + Byceps spam was very handy here.



And, well, I finally got this done - I kept trying at various points and failing to even win, which kept the Monk open, and then I kept getting spammed by the Gobbo Monk. But now With GG, smart positioning when killing stuff so it doesn't spawn walls (managed to dodge those quite a bit) - and well, lucking out on the Soul Orb which in combination with the Dagger did a ton of work - I finally kicked the Shifty Brickwork with the Goblin Monk.

I even forgot to use the Whoopaz. Came in handy as conversion fodder for an enlightened monk, I suppose. The whole "convert stuff for true power" GG mantra/dogma REALLY means something with Enlightened Gobbos. GG's onto something there ^^

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PQI Badge indicator - would love it.

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PQI - Vampire - Purist - Magma Mines



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[Tinker]

[Lujo]

Oh, I allready bought about 3 games or so, for myself and a few other people. I'd just like to take this account where I've unlocked all the items and stuff, dump all my stats and clear all the completion on dungeons and do it all over again without having to play Halfling Warlords in vicious dungeons, wich trigger off later, etc, etc...

The PQI is telling you what you're underplaying quite accurately, it finds the dungeon with the least completion, then picks a class you haven't done there, then picks the race you pick the least with that class. I'm not sure about the badge, and I'm not sure about the exact math when you have full completion, but that's the ghist of it (the way I understand it)

For example, this is my least played (or tied for the least played) Bloodmage:



It was a Specialist PQI which I failed due to randomly chucking a fireball at the Iron Man (completely unnecessary).

I don't get exactly why Tinker is so alergic to these guys. You're a monstrous healthmonster with prepped B2P and 30% built in Sanguine (that's OP on it's own, just think about it), who converst for relevant stat refills (with health also doubling for mana), which can randomly drop one boss at lvl 3 (using hardly anything, as you want to boost your sanguine w mana potions anyway and you beed the alch scroll if you have it too) and then take out two more with just your endless refills. There was a Drac on board, I just didn't take him, still "upgraded" lvl 10 sir thrawn to 3rd boss status (after killing everything topside for -14 Weakening), fought him with no bloodpools, and rolled the place really hard. And the transition is perfectly smooth, you're building the same stat whole game, but it turns you from an OP spellcaster into an OP refill guy, and never at any point are you even close to the curve, let alone below it. I wouldn't dream of calling the Gnome BM bad, but this guy might as well be stronger than even that, all things considered. It's not a joke build at all.

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And this means that I played every other BM (except possibly human) more than I've played this one. The problem, though, is that there are combos which simply make no sense to ever pick instead of anything else, like the aforementioned Halfling Warlord - it hardly unplayable, no halfling and no warlord is, it's just that it's always gonna be your least played Warlord because if you ever "discover" or "fall into a habit" with Warlords, you'll play any other ones more than that one. Gnome Berserkers, Dwarf Warlords, etc etc.

The other deal is that you always do the low unlock quest and initial stuff in places before you unlock the VT and all the toys which could make it interesting, and that you unlock various classess (monsters in particular) late, so there's a motivation killing sameyness to the PQI and general completion at one point which might not be there if it could be played with all the class completion slots cleared, but all the classess, items and maps unlocked.

I'd keep the badge completion - wouldn't want the PQI springing Hoarders on me untill I do a ton of them.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

^ The problem is, however, that the halfling gets his burst going right away, while the max-effect for the gnome needs levels or saving resources until the best time, so by the time the Gnome has got his overall stronger shtick going the halfling has allready got one boss down, often without shops. What's more is that his ideal buildup doesn't need him doing anything but boosting his health/future melee game, which means all his resources can go towards making him a better melee guy apart from having about 16 or so less sanguine. Considering that the average guy who kills something with Sanguine has only 10%, having effortless 30% (buy a potion from the shop) even without the health potions on a spellcasting prodigy healthmonster is allready brutal, and giving up the early burst and B2P sinergy for a buildup based +2% per potions if you dump all your potions is completely meh. You've broken the bank hard way before that.

It's like a consolation prize for having to work for what the halfling does by rolling his face on the keyboard.

[Tinker]

http://i.imgur.com/NTFuKNI.png
I know, I know, I took way too much time.
Btw I didn't have the scroll lockered, so I went for something else (I had the Ring in my backpack, and I kind of like shiny things). I know I did things slightly differently but I screwed up twice actually (couldn't get cheeky due to initial monster placement, and I forgot how Slaying Wand works so I accidentally leveled up to L4 before killing the first boss). So I tried to compensate with two other badges.

[Lujo]

Yeah, yeah and you totaly killed the guy at lvl 4 and stuff, terrible, terrible XD Anyway, it'll be ages before I see another Gnome bloodmage, but I've criminally underplayed the halfling, which is a shame because he's hella good. Tnx for the posts, keeps the thread from becoming a huge blob of runs.

Anyway, no runs today so far, I did the whole wiki thing and a bunch of life stuff, but if this whole insomnia thing keeps up I'll see about racking up some completion here after the daily or something.

[Lujo]

First run of today I liked:

PQI - Gnome Berserker - Vicious Steel - Purist



And I got lucky because I got everything you could want - EM for leveling and 5 vineforms, Binlor for Knockback and GG for restores, along with an Endiswal, Trisword and more knockback in the secret sub. Dunno what the regular sub was, some plant covered it. Berserker has big advantages on this dungeon anyway, so this wasn't hard at all. Endiwall was really handy to get rid of Golem and Naga statues which would otherwise clog the place up horribly.

The good thing is that I got to chalk of a Gnome Berserker on a map where it wasn't a problem even in theory, the bad news is that it's probably gonna be Gnome Berserkers for a while now everywhere where I haven't yet done a Berserker. Which, unless the GG plan works out, is gonna be very tricky for PQI Vicious, which is closing in soon. Good thing I got a bag of badges here right away.

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Then this guy got a lot of badges too:



The Parched thing was strange, but then again, I did dump a bunch into JJ and had CA, LC, CB and an big bunch of popcorn to heal up, and the bossess were well corroded... Strange Crusader, I kinda used Momentum mostly to mop up for Unstoppable. Still, fine ole run.

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Wow, I'm just gonna ride these guys out to see how long it takes me to strike another thief:



Could've had more badges but kinda wanted to play my stuff. Hope I don't run out before I hit a vicious PQI with them, allthough the way things are going I'll never be rid of them.

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The PQI was a Hoarder Vampire, so I decided to get the Flaming Labyrinth Vampire done instead:



Nasty monster layout, tbh, but Lekon goats make good bloodcows. Really didn't want to bother with the walls, so I took the guitar, but no other preps to keep it somewhat interesting.

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The PQI was Orc Crusader in Venture Cave, and the Den was flaming, so I goated the Den:



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I accidentally failed this PQI by chucking a fireball at one of the guys (was specialist):



My least played Rogue, and looks all unsinergistic and stuff. Except I ran into GG, so then you have a 6-absolution GG Rogue, who's also a GG Gobbo with a % based dmg bonus which scales with levels anyway. Scary s**t.

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I also failed this PQI (was Unstoppable) by accident, but the run itself was pretty awesome:



Not sure if Humility is worth it on Monks, though, they really need their levels.

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Well, I tried to VT this, but it wasn't working so well, so I went at it at regular difficulty:



Old school GG Rogue for fighting 2 bossess at the same time. Also took down a regular SMM on a fully explored map while throwing fireballs at the other guy, very nice, very nice. Never thought I'd pick Goblin Rogue for something, but there you have it...

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Whoo, this barely got done, and I dont remember what the PQI was, unless it was Purist:



Messed up and ended up in the curse world after killing the dragon with no way to get back, but thankfully I swapped over to Drac on time and I managed to kill the wraith in the end. Was chuging potions for halpmehs and spamming Bloodswells with just big health as my resists didn't do anything, allthough they did against the Dragon because I kept decursing myself

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Phfiew, this was actually a close one:

PQI - Orc Wizard - Ick Swamp - Parched



I havent actually played a lot of parched runs over the course of this playthrough, but since the PQI is setting me up with so many Gobbo's and they love their GG, I kinda decided to take this one up, but I went in purist. The thing was, I had a load of damage due to having a million charms, and I decided to pick up the GG I found first and just dump all the potions and a few spoons into it. This got me Enlightment for a bunch of mana - which was kinda nice, but it also meant I swapped into Mystera with very little piety. With no Crsytal Ball and no potions (and no money somehow) getting to either a swap back into GG or Refreshment was a drama, and I even bought the badge to trigger my schadenfraude (complete missplay for not triggering it one attack earlier), and then only managed to get refresment piety because I still had 2 corrosive creepers covering two sparklies at a desecrated Binlor altar. Itssamna died due to Pissorf spam earlier, all that was dealing with Frank.

Another interesting thing is that this was a run without any of the very powerful positioning/popcorn bowling glyphs, which make any run much much easier. I did make good use out of Endiswal, Imawal and Byceps, though. And my plant clearing was way too absent minded, clear plants every time before level up and this map is very easy. Don't and it's not.

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Never actually tried this before, was very powerful, really:



Spirit Pact Goat. Kicks a lot of donkey.

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Not the best map for it layout and monster roster wise, but I decided to take my least played assassin for a spin:



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This WASN'T easy:



Allthough it might've had something to do with the way I went about it, allthough I'm not sure. Took me two tries because I kinda wasted too much exploration on the first try, but I got Tomithy on the second try.

Fun bit: the double strike that the Gorgon does is not just iresistible it also seems to be unmodified by attack penalties. I desecrated Taurog and took Flames to deal with Itsamna, and I stil did a crapton of damage with my hits once he got within the threshold.

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This, surprisingly, wasn't that hard, my first melee centric Goat:



Being stuck in Binlor without a way to destroy walls is a bit of a bummer, but sticking with it bayed off big time. Stoneskin spam on a refill machine? Yes, please! Sticking with it was a bit of a test of nerves, because I had Pactmaker to get me Consensus to pick Stone Fist up, but the monsters kept occupying either one, the other or both for soooooo many Ledger hits...

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It never ends! Never!



By this point I'm in a state of shock and disbelief that the Goblin Thief is STILL my least played thief. It's impossible that I've played every other thief this much more than I did the Goblin. Only way this makes sense if the universe is making me play all of Tinker's unplayed Goblin Thieves Tinker, tell your PQI to say away from my PQI, y'hear?

On the other hand, they sure are good ^^

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