Final dungeon/quest balance tweaks

[Blovski]

I think I've literally never failed to win a Paladin Gold run in testing, and it's actually been kinda depressing every time I've gone back and nerfed it more as a response to these sort of threads. I doubt I'm going to make it any easier, this really does seem to boil down to a playstyle paradigm.

Wraps and Wand are nice, but they're certainly not critical and I don't think I've ever depended on them. BYSSEPS is a guaranteed spawn.

I think it's easy enough now. I won closely on the first try, no wraps, no wand (fine sword, badge of honour bought), knew what to expect (so lemissi'd to pick up Bysseps without wasting too much dark space, got maybe 8-10 corrosions off, used slow to catapult, cleared plants when my piety was flat), kept Halpme to the end and used clearances to fuel halpme/bysseps until I ran out. Had one mana potion, badge of honour and an entangle available, so doable with worse play and luck.

And at least it's not a maze level

[Blovski]

By contrast, Monk gold is HARD...

[The Avatar]

Aha! Back when I won it you couldn't use EM for more mana so I totally forgot about that factor. Nevermind, it's fine.

Still agree on monk. It's too hard.

[Blovski]

DL definitely a tad easier now - just got a bloodmage unstoppable win on it (gnome BM is pretty much ideal, none of the obvious items (Mage Plate, Crystal Ball, Elven Gloves, Fireball Ring) and no EM but Pisorf (with Mystic Balance but also with Trisword, so a bit jaunty) and Stone Heart, Mystera->TT (which got me an extra level or two). I did a cunning thing and moved the Avatar next to the door of his little subdungeon so plants wouldn't shut me off.

Pisorf was about as useful as Getindare would've been - maybe even more so - even though I had MB... took out the counter-fireballs and the MR bosses with it, as well as shifting another one to open up the subdungeon (popcorn subdungeon, which meant 24 XP with two TT boons )... also used it to hit avatar into a plant a few times for more damage than I'd get with fireball, and for some reason this didn't create any new plants.

Anyways, I don't know how bloodmage difficulty will transfer for classes less obviously good/less obviously good for the dungeon but it seemed about right for a bloodmage win without massive luck on the items/gods front and having a little resources left over (which seems sort of in line with the other vicious dungeons).

[The Avatar]

I may have a viable strategy for Bloodmage gold. As a level 10 Orc bloodmage with 62 base damage (500 CP) it takes 23 PISORF hits. With a mid-fight level up, 13 mana, and 4 potions you need 31 bloodpools. You can get 39. With use of IMAWAL it is possible, just VERY difficult. Of course, in my example you have not bought anything so it may be easier, but still extremely difficult.