Lujo's comprehensive tactics compendium

[Sidestepper]

Using level ups against bosses ("ding fighting?") will optimally include a bit of regen fighting. The idea is that after the combat exchange with the boss, it's rare that you're totally tapped out. If the boss is doing 40% of your health per blow, and you are at 30%, you should explore a few tiles until you're at 41% (or so) before finishing the level up. Similarly, you should avoid dinging if you are just one mana shy of casting an additional fireball. etc.

There are some exceptions to this, but almost no exceptions to the idea that you should fully exhaust yourself before level ups. Sometimes, it is best to use your leftover resources to 'prep' mid-level monsters that would otherwise would not be one shot wonders. The deciding factor here is whether is not the extra experience you would gain from this would make the difference between an additional levelup or not.

[Nandrew]

Catapulting is probably more intuitive because it requires less conservation of your resources in the boss build-up: if you're not depending on as much blackspace in your final boss fight, you're happy to exhaust exploration as, say, a level 2 character trying to take down a level 5 creature in a significant battle of attrition.

Advanced catapulters don't ignore their regen fighting: they just use it *before* the boss battle to earn their XP edge, save on popcorn and basically ensure that they can hit harder and spike more reliably than a late-game regen fighter would. Some people can (and will) pursue this tactic so aggressively that at one stage in the beta many extreme examples would explore fully half of the map before killing their first monster. Bonus XP nerfs and generation tweaks have hardly slowed this approach at all, because it really is damn effective.

Catapulting probably becomes a little more obvious to beginners, too, because conserving blackspace in the early game is a skill which requires forward planning. Catapulting is a more immediate situation than regen fighting.

It should also be noted that right now our own tutorials and puzzles have a strong catapult bias, not least because one of the core tenets of puzzles at the moment is "no darkspace allowed".

Subverting this slightly with one of the new GG puzzles being released tomorrow.

[Nandrew]

Then there's all the stuff that Sidestepper says

[Lujo]

Leave this for whenever if you don't have the time energy, I implore ye! Whoever ye are!

Using level ups against bosses ("ding fighting?") will optimally include a bit of regen fighting. The idea is that after the combat exchange with the boss, it's rare that you're totally tapped out. If the boss is doing 40% of your health per blow, and you are at 30%, you should explore a few tiles until you're at 41% (or so) before finishing the level up. Similarly, you should avoid dinging if you are just one mana shy of casting an additional fireball. etc.

There are some exceptions to this, but almost no exceptions to the idea that you should fully exhaust yourself before level ups. Sometimes, it is best to use your leftover resources to 'prep' mid-level monsters that would otherwise would not be one shot wonders. The deciding factor here is whether is not the extra experience you would gain from this would make the difference between an additional levelup or not.

Youve brought 2 very important things up:

1) I've misnamed the ractice of using levelups to heal during the boss fight as level catapulting, because level catapulting is a strategy, rather than a tactic. DING! fighting or mid-combat level ups is really much closer to what I was looking for. I dread having to search for every instance, but I guess I'll have to.

2) The integrative approach to using bits of both practiced by the top players, which was and is going to be the final paragraph definitly. Which brings me to what Nandrew said.

Catapulting is probably more intuitive because it requires less conservation of your resources in the boss build-up: if you're not depending on as much blackspace in your final boss fight, you're happy to exhaust exploration as, say, a level 2 character trying to take down a level 5 creature in a significant battle of attrition.

Advanced catapulters don't ignore their regen fighting: they just use it *before* the boss battle to earn their XP edge, save on popcorn and basically ensure that they can hit harder and spike more reliably than a late-game regen fighter would. Some people can (and will) pursue this tactic so aggressively that at one stage in the beta many extreme examples would explore fully half of the map before killing their first monster. Bonus XP nerfs and generation tweaks have hardly slowed this approach at all, because it really is damn effective.

Catapulting probably becomes a little more obvious to beginners, too, because conserving blackspace in the early game is a skill which requires forward planning. Catapulting is a more immediate situation than regen fighting.

I completely agree with what both of you said about combining the timing of the both styles into a "too eficcent" integrative style probably is the final evolution of the player. I've gone through it as well, only when you come from the opposite direction, you end up level catapulting so you can regen fight better. I've been abusing the catapult with old GG, and remaking him was a huge deal to put a break on runaway catapulting - the old way rewarded optimal "natural" play.

However, my approach sort of had me narrowing down the things I wanted to see in a dungeon run to a minimum to enable for it, which sort of makes sense considering that regen fighting is sort of like optimal "unnatural" play. Dedicated level catapulting seems to be an evolution of the intuitive skill develoopment progression based on the assumpiton that "you can't explore and fight at the same time" rule is there for a reason. So you start exploring and spiking, and having to to that with classes unsuited to physical spikes, like mages, makes you need to optimize. Getting better with level catapults is the natural progression.

Speculation based on personal expirience and the new quickly forming "tactical discourse grid", TEXT WALL incoming, if you're sick of hearing the word poison, spare your poor eyes and time, really. I just need this text written down somewhere, and someone might give a decent gist of it somewhere else.

Learning to regen fight at all, let alone do it in a thorough dedicated fashion, is based on the "unnatural" assumption along the lines of "screw the rules, I'll fight stuff and explore at the same time". Having the Poison boon in dungeons which allow for it's use in boss fights translates that statement into "screw the rules I have the poison". Now, since poison does have it's restriction it's not going to work anywhere, but the player will run into the monk, and see that the game allows you to "screw the rules", even expects you to.

Still, there needs to be either blind dumb arrogance or mathematical knowhow to have enough confidence in regen fighting to even think about taking it to the extremes - because the over dedicated lvl catapult endgame map and the dedicated regen fight end map don't look the same. We're talking non-pro players here, who'll ride whatever they are comfortable with the same way they's ride the 8 potion basic spike. And then regen fighting has to "pay off" enough times and thoroughly enough that the player will start giving it as much attention as the better supported catapult into spiking deal.

Especially since regen fighting and dedicated magic spiking don't mesh too well without poison. But anyone who tries inexpert phys spikes with and without poison, or even get the bright idea of grabing any form of on-hit poison on a natural spellcaster will soon figure out that the "insta, low investment" regen fighting capabilities turn his game upside down.

And if phys spikes from Taurog and TT (or both) allow for non-lvl up intensive phys spikes to deal with stuff you can't poison/regen fight, and regen fighting is really OMG HAXXOR against the other stuff, and the player has a bit of a cultural predisposition towards being a huge asshole, then that player can develop the "unnatural" approach to playing the game by trying to bypass what are generally sensible rules.

What it all means beats me right now, I'm tired, and I'll se how it looks after I've written a non-biased regen fighting "who's who", so we can all evetually at least have all the terms in place for determining not only WHAT we tink, but WHY we think what we think. I've sorted me out at least, I learned the game the wrong way aorund and since it was a very powerfull wrong way around I never really looked back.

EDIT: To clarify, I can now probably be confident about exactly WHY I think some stuff needs tweaking, and properly understand the game content related responses that I get. The social intelligence is still a problem though because I'm still a Balkaneeze git. I can also put stuff into relations within categories because I now have a much better defined concept of what the damened categories are.

And I also know where the confidence in regen fighting came from, and it's not just poison related, but Monk related. MOBA expirience. I'm not kidding, thats where I've learned that enough % based damage resistance is in theory waaay more powerfull than anything else in the game at the time. Subanarks defeating Gaan'Telet with a monk back when the general opinion was that he was weak (old monk mind you), sort of proved my point to myself and gave me confidence that exploration as a resource is available enough to enable me to "screw the rules" to an absurd degree if I just cherry picked enough regen fighting stuff.

It was there all along, but the same instinct that kept people from experimenting with gods not to screw anything up steered most people towards the more "natural" lvl catapulting, so most people weren't even imagining how, well, untested the whole regen fighting stuff was. Or so I wager.

[Nandrew]

Hoping that the new B2P will introduce an alternative regen exploit to poison. At the very least, it'll increase the presence of "regen promo" ideas.

As an aside, I've really gotten to thinking that "fast regen" creatures should probably just have their regen set to natural instead of halting it off poison.

----

Also ... eugh, can't really get into much detail right now (it's late in my part of the world and I've been awake for a while), but it may be worthwhile to note that, in general, there's a lot MORE regeneration available in beta DD when compared to alpha. The simple existence of subdungeons buffs that tactic, and considering how secret subs, smugglers and Vicious arenas can top that up even more, I wonder if it's really a matter of regen tactics being overpowered instead of us just being a little *too* generous with the darkspace we're giving to players nowadays. Will have to think on that.

[Lujo]

Oh, and list updated for stuff people pointed out, hope I didn't miss anything. Ignore the huge text wall unless really into "player progression" and "lvl catapults vs regen fighting" and have the time, it's there so I can remember having thought it clearly.

Moar comments for the "guide" if anyone cares to bother, I'd appriciate. I'll add an index for sure.

And to the latest point I've been abusing the old BLOOTOPOWA quite handily all the time, it's great. Guess you have to be a "natural" regen fighter sort of chap for it. Although I actually got the hint from remembering stuff Darvin used to say about it.

And speaking of the fast regen trolls (in Gaan'Telet), the poisoned dagger seems to work on them, and the TT hack doesn't? They got copy protection, firewall or what? No hurry, just bringin it out there for the millionth time.

[gjaustin]

Hoping that the new B2P will introduce an alternative regen exploit to poison. At the very least, it'll increase the presence of "regen promo" ideas.

As an aside, I've really gotten to thinking that "fast regen" creatures should probably just have their regen set to natural instead of halting it off poison.

While you're tweaknig that, can we have burning turn off fast regen?

I mean, trolls + fire. Screw balance

[Nandrew]

And to the latest point I've been abusing the old BLOOTOPOWA quite handily all the time, it's great. Guess you have to be a "natural" regen fighter sort of chap for it. Although I actually got the hint from remembering stuff Darvin used to say about it.

New B2P is probably going to compete with poison more than it'll co-operate with it.

And speaking of the fast regen trolls (in Gaan'Telet), the poisoned dagger seems to work on them, and the TT hack doesn't? They got copy protection, firewall or what? No hurry, just bringin it out there for the millionth time.

Hmm, that's helpful. And also not. Goddamn. It's a coincidence you mention this here, cos I've been trying to nail that bug for the past hour or so. There's some phenomenally weird behaviour going on.

Though on the plus side, I've definitely solved the WHUPAZ mystery. *That* bit poisons properly now.

[Nandrew]

While you're tweaknig that, can we have burning turn off fast regen?

I mean, trolls + fire. Screw balance

I get the feeling that dislekcia would be thrilled with that idea. If he doesn't see this tonight, I'll mention it to him tomorrow.

It would actually be great to have one or two fast-gen bosses for players to chew on.

[Lujo]

And to the latest point I've been abusing the old BLOOTOPOWA quite handily all the time, it's great. Guess you have to be a "natural" regen fighter sort of chap for it. Although I actually got the hint from remembering stuff Darvin used to say about it.

New B2P is probably going to compete with poison more than it'll co-operate with it.

I don't mind, anything that limits poisons "OMG HAXXOR" factor is welcome in my book. And I'm not using TT for the poison in Gaan'Telet at all, you'll see from the video. I pick him up for the gold.

And speaking of the fast regen trolls (in Gaan'Telet), the poisoned dagger seems to work on them, and the TT hack doesn't? They got copy protection, firewall or what? No hurry, just bringin it out there for the millionth time.

Hmm, that's helpful. And also not. Goddamn. It's a coincidence you mention this here, cos I've been trying to nail that bug for the past hour or so. There's some phenomenally weird behaviour going on.

Though on the plus side, I've definitely solved the WHUPAZ mystery. *That* bit poisons properly now.

Glad to hear that. If you could please lower their health a bit as well would be awesome. That floor was giving me more grief if I found it low enough then the AA's ever did. They don't seem to follow the required damage output progression at all, and I run into easier floors below them all the time.