Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Fri Aug 30, 2013 5:01 pm

Even still, Whupaz is pretty great. Then again, you won't understand its true potential until you see some more of the vicious bosses/dungeons. I just did a priest silver run quickly and managed to win without any leveling tools (excluding BURNDAYRAZ), and with LEMISI and a badge of honor it is doable.

Thief Silver: You're going to win this won. You're definitely good enough. This offers one of the better items to prep in the game. It totally changes everything. It is great in vicious, with the vicious token, or with a nasty monster set. All of the pre revealed monsters are level 2s. Man, this makes me remember the original thief silver. The boss had about 200 more hp, there was no LEMISI, and the level 2s weren't revealed. Now that was a fun challenge. What you should do is use LEMISI to locate attack boosters. Good. You are doing this properly. The level 5 chest is the important one. ENDISWAL is huge in this dungeon. You need a potion to take out the level 2. Even still, you need a slightly more hp. You can convert LEMISI for slightly more damage. This won't work. You didn't check HIS hp. Well, you could still win, but it might be worth restarting. You basically have to find 2 attack boosters and 2 health boosters. Then convert LEMISI. Also, the fight wouldn't have worked anyways because your WEYTWUT would have revealed a tile. Okay, you could win, but it is probably worth restarting. You could kill that level 2 right now. There. That was a poorly done start, but it will work out if you play it right from now on. There. After the start this dungeon is smooth sailing until near the end. You shouldn't be killing any level 9s. If you do, you have totally over leveled. YES! THAT IS BIG. ENDISWAL is the key to the whole challenge. You can kill level 6s, but it is not necesarily the smartest choice. It costs so much to pre-stoneskin that it is actually a smart move to kill level 5s. If this were a tougher challenge you would pay for leveling improperly. Frankly, you are probably better off sticking to 1 level higher kills which cost almost no tiles. Well, you considered your options, and you picked the right choice. Good. NO! You should have converted a glyph for the damage to two shot the level 5. You have been getting far to relaxed with your conversions. Well, at least you are ENDISWALing properly. Even though you shouldn't be wasting so many tiles in doing so. You used two potions at level 1. See, you are only converting when you need to get rid of stuff. You need to be converting for more damage. Unless you are a halfling, gnome, or maybe goblin, you shouldn't sit on glyphs you aren't using. If you can cast GETINDARE before you level, do. It racks up the dodge chance. Actually, BURNDAYRAZ isn't that important for this scenario. Thank you for going back to 1 level higher kills. It is so much more cost efficient. YES! YOU REALIZED THE CONVERSION! And that was wrong. You should simply convert IMAWAL. Saving 6 tiles is better. You should probably start the boss fight. You are using an extra resource. It is called popcorn. This is painfully bad. You just wasted all of your popcorn nothing. You should have just engaged the boss. I can condone using a little popcorn to save a bunch of popcorn. In fact, that can be a smart move quite often. But using ALL of your popcorn is a massive mistake that will haunt you later. You will win, but it is going to be close. If you had done good kills to reach level 7 you could have scored 2 mid fight level ups on the boss. You have this, but it was not well done. Two fireballs are slightly worse. There. It is over. You won, but it was bad. Well, just check the key points.

KEY POINTS: You need to be much less relaxed with conversions when you aren't being a race that saves them (halfling, gnome, goblin). You should be considering before every fight it you will keep using that glyph or whether you are better off with a stat bonus. Also, you need to consider what kill has the best exp to exploration ratio. Of course, you aren't going to do the math, but just briefly thinking about it should reveal the truth (it costs 8 tiles for a one level higher and 26 for a two level higher, which is 3 more exp).

Part 81: The final race! It better show up. The fact that it hasn't shown up yet is ridiculous. Monk is one of the toughest classes for western jungle due to the bosses magic damage. The monk is ridiculous. Resistances are one of the single most broken attributes in the game. That was close. You almost totally wasted that. Purist monks are rather miserable. Bloodmages are best as gnomes, elves, dwarves, and humans/orcs if you play it as a fighter. Good choice. And so Damm Golddigger enters Western Jungle. The blue sparkle god is JJ. You should have taken him since you found him so early. This would have been a total blow out. You could nullify your mana penalty, score two extra full heals on the boss and crush everything. You can still worship JJ! NO! WHY ARE YOU SO SCARED OF JEHORA JEHEYU. JJ is one of the tamest gods out there after a few tiles. This is rather painful. Purist bloodmage and sorcerer are miserable. Yeah, that's magic resist for you. You need JJ. You could have scored so much piety by now. Heh, don't normal dungeons seem so easy when you are used to hard level stats. You can literally hit a one level higher monster to death... And there it is. You really should pick the easiest target (THE GORGON). There is a disadvantage to not WEYTWUTing your popcorn. It nets you less exp for mid fight level ups. You are playing this bloodmage as a fighter. Don't. You need to use B2P. You really are reaching far for a boss kill at level 4. Save that for vicious. WHAT? NO! KILL THAT LEVEL 6! You are opting for easy over effective. Eh, it is normal, just don't make a habit of it. The dragon heart is a great item if you have WEYTWUT. Nicely done. I don't actually think you can locker the dragon heart, but it is GREAT in game. You can kill about half of what you say you can't. It is kind of sad. Learning is great for popcorn. Reflexes is the key boon for TT, unless you are just leveling. Wow. That was kind of sad. You didn't use B2P at all. You can kill that bandit, you will just just incur a loss of 3 piety. Poison is a boon that is only good in larger amounts. Frankly I tend to ignore it entirely. You should't be afraid of incurring piety loss with TT. What the heck are you thinking? You should't get close to leveling using popcorn. Do it with higher level kills. You could have explored without a blood pool. Wow. You are netting 21 health per level. Wow. That was sad. Whatever. It is normal. You should take reflexes from TT. It is his late game boon. YOU DODGED! You really should use your fireballs, but it doesn't really matter. The subdungeon is in another dungeon. Or castle. Whatever.I honestly don't need to commend on the rest of this. It is just a clean up. Well done. It was normal, so you can screw around. Reflexes is the boon you want. Anyways, I'll skip to the key points. He shows up pretty commonly throughout the west. Just do Muu and you will find it pretty fast.

KEY POINTS: As a bloodmage, you should use B2P. It is a very good glyph. If you see JJ early, you should basically take him no matter what unless you are specifically searching for a certain god that is key to your strategy.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sat Aug 31, 2013 10:43 pm

I need to start using bloodmage and monk more. . .it probably won't happen until my games kinda comes to a "full stop" though i.e. I can't really beat anything new and I need to start examining how I play more deeply to figure out how to progress. I assume this will happen on the harder vicious dungeons (or on any of the vicious dungeons maybe)

Things I really think I need to improve on 1: Regen fighting 2: B2P and LEMISI use (goes with regen fighting) 3: Monk/Bloodmage use

After that I will need to work on this "breaking the game" thing you are talking about. I must try to figure out the quirks and item/race/class/god combinations that will lead to ridiculous abilities, and ultimately victorious results.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sat Sep 07, 2013 2:17 am

I apologize for such a long absence. Life has been rather crazy recently. Time to catch up.

Part 82: This ought to be interesting. I would predict you lose to the third form. That is not getting crushed. Frankly, you posses easily enough skill to beat all but VGT. The berserker and rogue are the single two best classes for Namtar. This could be won, except you won't be ready for the third form's resists. The balanced dagger is a very nice prep. Not the best, but good enough to done. These are very nice preps. What? Where are the other 2 mana? And 17 is NOT two fireballs. Ah, vicious vicious. That is FUN! The balanced dagger will payoff hugely here. Ironically, the berserker is the one class I would definitively NOT prep it with, as the excessive amount of magic monsters means you can get 2 level higher kills pretty easily. Please use your compression seal off the bat too. Dracul! This shouldn't be too hard. You can kill him. You aren't accounting for top-off kills. While I wouldn't kill him in the first place (due to the balanced dagger), top-off kills are a very important skill. It is the (surprisingly common) situation where you could not regen fight, but you can't quite kill him either. Still, you are just short of another hit or fireball, you could still kill it by regenerating only a few tiles. That was a mistake. You should basically only target same level monsters with the balanced dagger. There was a level 3 blob you could have BURNDAYRAZ regen fought to death. TT AND DRACUL?! You are making a massive mistake by not worshipping TT. You could claim a very valuable early GETINDARE, a level of learning, a quicksilver reflex combo, and get out to Drac for the boss. That level 8 mage is an example of a top-off kill. You could hit, fireball, regen about 2 tiles and kill. What a shame. Well, if you not understanding top-off kills gets you to worship TT that is great. And you didn't do so. There is basically no reason to attack that higher level kill. It is worse than a same level, he can blink, and he mana burns you. THE PAAN LABYRINTH! That is probably my favorite subdungeon. It is incredibly valuable. You have serious issues with wasting resources. Sometimes the smartest choice is to explore tiles. Whenever you are wasting tiles by doing inefficient kills you are feeling great, and whenever you are making a good choice to explore you think things are going terribly. NO! You shouldn't convert a HALPMEH or CYDSTEPP glyphs if you are going to worship Drac. Fighting Namtar now would be suicidal. GLOWING GUARDIAN! This is set up for the single most incredible roflstomp ever. TT for early game bonus into Drac for the first two bosses into GG for a cleansing RIGHT BEFORE you enter the underworld. That way your first attack on form 3 dodges the 75% physical resists. No, fighting Namtar would have been the idiot move. Ironically, you are playing this fairly well, while berating yourself for all of the wrong things. You should consider two level higher kills when you have the balanced dagger. That level 8 wraith would work quite well. Of course first you should kill the level 6 blob. Good. You saw it. Better late than never. Although not killing that goo will hurt you. It costs you 9 exps worth of popcorn. ARGH! SO MUCH POPCORN WASTED! Well, you are now starting one level below the proper level. An ideal level spike with a second boss should end you at level 8 (after the mid fight level ups). That was dumb. That mana potion would have been useful for you. That was also a mistake. By his next form you will be doing enough that it will barely make a difference. You should have saved whupaz for form 3, assuming you don't have magic attack from GG. Why would you fireball that level 9? You aren't going to kill it mid battle, and you certainly won't kill it before exploring, so it was just a waste. You have to THINK. Actually, Blood Hunger was a smarter decision. THe extra popcorn and net hp was more than you'd lose from resists. Then with the extra piety you can go crazy with blood tithe and crush him. You don't need all 62. Only 56. That was a huge mistake. You could have killed him immediately by Bloodswelling and then finishing him with that last blood pool. To properly do this fight you should have done Lifesteal, then popcorn, then bloodpools, then a bloodswell when your health is almost 0. You should have explored around that bloodpool beforehand, but even still you can move there and still win. You are poisoned. If you just step on your blood pool... too late. Now you lost a potion. And now you have lost another potion, as leveling up while poisoned is too hard. That won't be enough. You should just use a health potion. See, but you CAN'T. You should just use a potion and set up a level up. And there's another big mistake. This has just gotten painfully bad. Now that you bloodswelled you don't have enough piety. That was a total waste. Why did you not just start with the potion then? Ah, good. You noticed the secret subdungeon. Wow, that was actually huge for you. Not only does it help vs the bosses curse, it is also the popcorn you need to level up. Your overheal is limited to 150%. You have 3 on the maps. Your best shot is exploring for some popcorn. There. The level 6. That is another mistake. You should have explored around all bloodpools before hand. That will hurt you significantly. DANG IT! THE ONLY REASON HE COULD HIT YOU WAS THE CURSE! YOU COULD HAVE KEPT THAT GOING EASILY! and now I bet you forgot the troll. And you realize it. You should have used both Whupaz AND Reflex. At least you realized how incredibly terrible you've done so far. There. A good choice. And now you see the curse. USE REFLEX. And you wasted your fireball. Good. You used Reflex. If you hadn't forgotten your fireball you could have killed him. I told you it matters. Heh, the last version? Nice joke. And you didn't need to do any of that. You should have been regen fighting the goo with that blackspace. Now you're just wasting tiles. And this won't work, especially with you wasting the last of your tiles. You should kill the level one zombie and go downstairs. Good thinking. If you are close to leveling up, it will be easier. If you knew to take cleansing from GG you would have a shot, but as is you will lose. Nope. There is one apothecary. Three if you take the apothecary prep. Your best salvage is using a bloodswell. Or you could scrap it with the salve. Thank you for abandoning that stupid plan. Poor choice. Now you cannot proceed without leveling or fighting a terrible monster. That is terrible for you. Okay, this is just procrastination. What you do from now on is irrelevant (beyond converting to GG and cleansing). I am going to skim the rest if you don't mind. The rest of this doesn't matter. If you had converted immediately you would have beaten form 3. Instead, you lose. Okay, it is over. Nice try.

KEY POINTS: You need to work on your god usage. You should start looking for many more conversion combos, as they are much more key for certain strategies. You need to consider top-off kills. They are a very key mechanic, especially for melee oriented classes. You need to watch out for status effects at all times. You painfully misplayed a couple times because you didn't realize you were cursed or poisoned. It's just part of checking the monster panel.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sat Sep 07, 2013 3:25 am

what are top off kills? I think this is the first time I have heard this term
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sat Sep 07, 2013 3:30 am

I don't know if there is an official term, but it is best illustrated by an example. Let's say a level 8 has 90 hp and 50 attack. A level 5 you has 90 hp and 60 attack. If you just do the regen fighting math the monsters regen fighting power is 400, while yours is 300. Regen fighting seems suicidal. Still, if you examine closer, you should see that regenerating exactly 3 tiles would make you win by 6 attack points, leaving yourself with 5. Basically, you can't regen fight it, but by bringing your hp BARELY over a threshold with just a few tiles you can win.

Sorry if that was confusing. I'm bad at explaining it.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby Lujo on Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:14 am

I call it "cutting corners" because it boils down to "cutting" the corners of blackspace just barely enough :)
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby Sidestepper on Sat Sep 07, 2013 1:27 pm

I called it threshold regen (needs a better name) in my strat thread. It's a really important technique. There are a lot of times when it is worth it to explore at a loss (relative to the monster) if the resources recovered during exploration let you hit a critical threshold. The most common case is when you have a fireball glyph and only 11 mana. Even if the monster oustrips your damage and healing, it's usually worth exploring one square midfight to get that second fireball.

Priests and Warlords also need to use this a lot to get the most out of their class powers. If you get hit for 60% as a Priest or Warlord, don't chug your potion/use your death protection, explore until you're at 61% and hit again, then use your powers. The extra attack is almost always worth the relative gains that the monster gets.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:56 pm

Ah I think I do this a very little bit (such as in your example when I have 11 mana). Overall I try to avoid doing to much math during a run and this feels very math heavy. On the other hand as I play the harder dungeons more and more hopefully this will get more intuitive.
I went through a strange period where I started doing almost no regen fighting at all except for the bare minimum. I need to break away from that I think if I want to get better I need to regen fight more and more effectively. I should really start using the monk. . .he is honestly my least favorite and probably least used character, and that probably isn't fair since from what everyone has said he is the best (or at least one of the best) characters in the game.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sat Sep 07, 2013 8:09 pm

Yeah. The top 5 classes are (not in any particular order) paladin, monk, assassin, bloodmage, and then either rogue or warlord. You usually don't really need math for top-off fighting. It can usually be intuited with enough practice. You not regen fighting may simply be a side effect of the classes you are playing. There are runs where I never regen fight, and some where I only regen fight.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby Lujo on Sat Sep 07, 2013 8:21 pm

On the subject of Monk...

He is the most unintuitive character in the game and arguably a bit difficult to reach true potential with before you unlock everything (he goes full crazy with dragonshield). His true potential is a bit monstruous so you don't need to go that hard though...

What you want to do with him is stack resistances or base damage, prefferably both. If you can think moba's he's like those tanky carries which grow exponentialy with enough farm (or in this game's case, levels, items and boons).

For practice, simply prep Taurog, Fine Sword, then either Extra Glyph (for piety and a chance to run into Burndayraz, Apheelsick or Halpmeh early) or Extra Att boosters. Orc is probably your best bet (human's aren't bad either if you can secure base damage elsewhere, but orcs get early help and that's when he needs it). Then save your regen fighting helper glyph, convert for piety, grabe Taurogs toothpick and the Resistance items (either just the phys one or both), and you can even pick up the shield for a +20% att total which helps with your starting defficency. Go almost like playing warmonger and don't convert the poison and mana burn wards (regen fighters hate those). You probably won't need the DP chain, so feel free to leave taurog once youre happy with the gear (for say Drac, lol).

Then, err, destroy everything, pretty much. You can take a lot of hits, have 2X blackspace on the map, break fundamental rules like being able to fight a higher level monster AND beat it for regen during the fight... Add an apheelsick or burndaraz before you regen during the fight and, well, there you have it.

For true sillyness, you go Binlor and farm his magic resists while also grabbing his +30% dmg on wall destruction and +40 knockback while also prepping a bear mace. On an orc. With a Dragonshield possibly. So you kind of have no real downsides and can roflstomp vgt or naga city (provided you score a soul orb more or less).

For a completely different kind of insanity, go TT. Now if you can figure out how to do TT with Monk you're probably going to go far :D (Takes crazy-ass lateral thinking and is not intuitive in the least bit). Essentially you want Dodging, possibly Tiki's Edge and 2-3 levels of poison then move to someone else. Then you have dodging and poison strike on a Monk O.O It takes shennanigans to get piety though (well, that or Fabulous Treasure and a load of tribute - it used to be piss-easy but they rightfully nerfed Tribute :) ). Best done if you join TT second and start with someone else, and then you can rejoin that deity later if need be.

As for regen fighting - it was way too good once upon a time so Halpmeh was nerfed, monk was nerfed, a lot of CP nonsense was nerfed and in the end the Trisword was nerfed. And TT poison was nerfed. (In case you're wondering, Paladin and Monk still go ahead of Warlord and Rogue on that list of Avatars, that's how good it is after all the nerfs. Before, you can imagine...)

So using it as a dedicated strategy is a bit harder these days (except with monks and paladins for who it's default mode). But the burning mechanic and the bloody sigil were introduced and poison was reworked, so it's best used a bit here and there (all the time for "cutting corners" or however we call it).

Sorry for verbose, manic textwall :oops:
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