Acidcasters are just brutal

[Dreamdancer]

I'm asking myself, why had i never tried the acidcaster during the beta
Gnome wizard of EM, later going to TT for reflex-pots gave me an easy win in the libary. For the Avatar i didn't need to convert any glyph. Also there where enough ressources left to kill about 20 or so of Avatar's minimons
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/f ... =196288874
Big thanks to the Person who developed this start (Sidestepper? I don't really remember who mentioned it the first).

[Lujo]

It was Sidestepper, but dear lord, that IS brutal!

[Galefury]

So how many stacks of corrosion does one usually use for this?

[Sidestepper]

I recommend getting between 8-10 stacks at first level. It's hard to push it further than that due to the way that the cost builds up. Use the first 3/4 of the map or so before engaging your first monster, and then nuke the biggest thing that you can. If you prepped specifically for this strat (Schadenfreude, Warmage Ring/Crystal Ball/Elven Boots, Mana Booster, etc) you can usually get away with a 8th or 9th level kill from level one, at least if you're playing Hard or lower.

For more challenging scenarios you'll want to gain a few levels from bricking Entangled monsters before trying to tackle the high level creatures. Avoid doing this on sub-Vicious dungeons, because you actually get more xp from staying 1st level and bagging a monster-9 than you do from harvesting "brick" xp and leveling up.

[Dreamdancer]

Mostly I first tried to get 100 piety. This gives 7 stacks. After that i farm further piety, but take at maximum 10 stacks. It's better to have some piety left for clearance. The additional glyph prep is also usefull (weywut or endiswal are really helpfull for navigation / to have space. Wonaafyt or pisorf help only to a lesser degree.)
Didn't tried the crytal ball, but would think with an endiswal find, there are no gold problems. I always went gnome, since i think more mana-pots for spiking the first boss / level 9 monster is more helpfull then a larger mana poll. Especially since this allows to convert glyphs at a later time and half of the glyphs are really helpfull for this strategy.

Think this strat is so awesome for the library, since the first bosses all have rather low health. If one find TT it's better to iamwal the higher level monsters. The low level stuff can be killed for TT and reflex-pots, which then makes the avatar really simple.

[Dreamdancer]

For item preps I would rate the Dragon Soul (thingy with 15% chance to loose no mana while casting) the highest. Looking only at fireball damage the Warmage Ring might be better. But remember at first level your damage comes mostly from the Corrosion stacks, so I think it's better to be able to cast more fireballs in the beginning for less ressources. If one considers also ENDISWAL for money grabbing the advantages of the Dragon Soul become obvious.
For the Bazar i think the additional pot-shops are most helpful. An additional mana- and schadenfreude-pot are nice and the Burn Salve is nice for destroying EMs altar after we got everything we want from her.

[DEATHBOT]

Could someone post on how to do this step by step? I'm having a bit of trouble grasping it but holy crap that sounds powerful. Never really been a fan of EM so I don't really know how to reap the right benefits from it.

[Wargasm]

Man, EM or MA + caster = win quite often. EM is admittedly tricky to use and on some maps can horribly screw you with a plant in the wrong place at the wrong time. Not to mention she requires quite a bit of mana to keep happy. Although being fair, she gives it back later. Properly used, she's a cheap source of mass slow, bunches of potential extra HP, and a magnificent mana bank. On maps she's not good on, like ones with lots of narrow passages, smashing her altar has one of the weakest punishments around (aside from Binlor on a character with no resists anyhow.)

Learn to love her, you'll be glad you did.

[Sidestepper]

[joek0]

Could someone explain the Acid Caster strategy and build to me.