Sidestepper's Newbie-Friendly Annotated Playthroughs

[Darvin]

I've done it, too. I've never had a perfect level 1 conversion into GG with a BLUDTUPOWA Wizard before, though. Kind of a perfect storm of awesome there.

[The Avatar]

Convert to GG, Smash Binlor, convert BLUDTUPOWA, convert 2 other glyphs, enlighten yourself, and then screw the dungeon.

[Kuranes]

Sidestepper (and Avatar and Darvin for that matter) this has been a thoroughly enjoyable read! And I am gonna keep a close watch on this thread. Considering I made a profile here today and a few days ago didn't understand the importance of "Popcorn" this has been truly enlightening.

[Sidestepper]

[Kuranes]

Exactly. And once you get the basic tricks of catfighting down its pretty easy (counting hits, regenerating mid-battle, leveling up mid-battle against extra tough foes, using fireballs to weaken or firststrike to get final hit etc).

I don't know if you take requests, but classes such as the Monk and the Assassin are still a bit cryptic to me. (ei I'm not the best at regen fighting).

[Darvin]

Assassin actually is a terrible regen fighter. He's only played that way because he starts with APHEELSIK.

I think I'll demo an Assassin run on Creeplight Ruins later today (it's about time I did one of these).

[Kuranes]

[Darvin]

This was a purist run on Creeplight Ruins. I was playing as a Goblin Assassin with the intention of getting the Unstoppable badge. This run started out very smooth then hit a major hiccup towards to the end, namely that I explored the entire map before finally locating the boss.

I did get lucky and find the Gloves of Midas (an item that you always want to find on Purist runs), but the shops were pretty barren. I ended up only buying a tower shield, so I didn't really need them.



As a low-level assassin, I'm completely uninterested in fighting monsters that are equal level to me. I'm looking for a level 2 monster to start earning some bonus XP. I want to completely ignore the cultists; they're a lot of effort and worth very little XP. I find the CYDSTEPP glyph in the corner of the map as I look for an appropriate mark.

I luck out and find a level 3 Bandit. Bandits have very low damage, and their only real threat is that they reduce your resitances. As an assassin, I have no resistances, so I can easily kill him with some hit and run with poison


Took a few tiles to pull off, and I utilize my death protection to end this a little early. I've also located a level 4 berserker in the process. He'll be my next victim.


That wasn't too hard at all, and I notice a level 7 Berserker in the corner. It's a bit aggressive for my level 3 Assassin to take him on, but I'll go for it.


The level 7 bandit deals more damage than I have hit points, so conventional poison hit and run won't work. Instead, I elect to build up burning damage using the BURNDAYRAZ glyph. I find both Binlor's alter and a shop that sells Midas' Gloves while I'm doing this; great finds each.

It looks like I'm ready for a one-two knockout with my death protection, but I'm not. The combat prediction here is wrong. When I attack him, those 10 points of burning will go away, and my next attack will actually deal 10 fewer damage than is predicted. I need to build up a little more burning first.

After finishing the level 7 bandit off, I quietly attack and defeat a level 5 bandit he's so weak I don't even need to use poison). There are no obvious enemies left to attack. I'm now level 5, and the only revealed monsters that are higher level than me are zombies and cultists. Yuck, neither are good targets for an assassin. I worship Binlor to build up piety while I explore.


I very quickly encounter a level 9 Bandit. This run has been one big smorgasbord of bonus XP from bandits. I have 55 HP and he deals 48 damage (note I have maxed out stoneskin right now, so again that combat prediction isn't accurate), so I can easily swat him down with some poison antics.


Easy as pie, and just as I finish the job, I encounter a second level 9 bandit. This is incredibly good luck at this junction. After killing this bandit I'll be just shy of level 7. All the level 9's have been dealt with, so I'm really only concerned with finding the boss. If I encounter a level 8 I'll knock him out, but otherwise it's time to find the boss. I shouldn't have to explore too much more to find him...


Uhhh... this took longer than I expected, and I'm running desperately low on tiles.

On a whim I killed a level 8 golem (probably shouldn't have) and purchased the gloves of midas. I probably should have used LEMMISI to reveal the boss at this point, but it was probably too late anyways and there wouldn't be many tiles left either way. So, no regen antics for me; this is going to be a straight fight.


I completely explore the top-level, throw a few fireballs at the boss to build up some burning, and then descend into the sub-dungeon. Once you've completely explored the top-level, you're free to kill the goat and make the cultists transform. Although they become somewhat stronger, they'll be worth more XP and their most deadly abilities (teleportation and lifesteal) do nothing so long as the top-level is fully explored.

As an assassin, I only intend to be killing non-boss monsters via swift hands at this point in the game, so I really lose nothing but gain a lot of potential XP that I can reap.


I throw some fireballs, kill some monsters to level up, throw some more fireballs, and the boss's first stage is down for the count. I also convert to Mystera. I don't see myself making much use of Binlor's boons, and I haven't converted any glyphs yet (I have a total of seven thanks to the bonus glyphs I got for being an Assassin and Binlor follower) so Mystera's refreshment boon is too good to pass up.


Stage 2 boss was fairly straightforward. I convert a glyph to make room for a tower shield, allowing me to tank through by brute force and a single mid-battle level-up. I also purchase one hit of the "magic" boon to raise my max MP to 14.

Now that I'm level 9, I can swift hands every monster except for the boss. I can also convert my glyphs (I am a goblin after all) for XP, so reaching level 10 and getting a full mana restore will be quite easy. Thanks to the refreshment boon, I get 7 MP every time I convert a glyph.


I don't even need potions to do this. I still have most of my glyphs and a frew straggler monsters around the map. In a pinch I could muster enough resources to get a post-level-10 milestone, but I don't even need that. I finish the boss and execute the remaining monsters.


You can probably see what I meant about Bandit Smorgasbord.
This is a great example of a situation where you were able to level-up smoothly, but uncovered the boss late and needed to take a brute-force approach. I may do another run later in which I demonstrate what to do if you find the boss earlier but haven't been able to level-up so easily...

[Sidestepper]

So that's what this looks like from the other side

I was glad to see a Creeplight Contract run. I remember people begging for help on that, and all the posted strategies revolved around using Mystera's old "mana bomb" Mana Leak, which doesn't exist anymore.

I've always found the Assassin's new corrosion ability to be merely incidental. It's nice, but I don't recall it ever breaking the game open before. I noticed that you didn't even mention it during this run. Have you ever gotten significant mileage out of it before? I feel the Assassin would be better served by having a lower casting cost on poison.

Also, a helpful tip: If you resize your images as 640x480, they will fully fit into the forum.

[q 3]

Corrosion can be brutal, or at least so I've found on my overspecialized mage Assassin runs. Probably even moreso now that Burning has a lower cap and a Mystera Assassin doesn't have nearly as gimped a physical attack anymore (plus Mystic Balance is -2 casting cost for APHEELSIK). Start laying down corrosion on a low HP, high level monster and you can rack up kills easily - remember that corrosion damage applies both to physical attacks and to BURNDAYRAZ (I haven't tested whether it also applies to knockback damage, which could open up even more devastating combos) and it has no cap. A level 1 Assassin can easily kill a 75+ HP monster with "just" 20 corrosion (two hits of BURNDAYRAZ for 4+20 damage and then a first strike hit for 5+24, plus a few more points from Burning). That's 140 mana, or 70 tiles with BLUDTOPOWA (100 MP if you took Mystic Balance). Sure, you generally only have enough tiles to pull that off on two or three monsters at most, but it can get you a lot more bonus XP with fewer tiles than the traditional Assassin attack+poison+regenerate combo.