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I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Thu Jun 19, 2014 8:01 pm
by Nurator
I am having trouble with VGT...

look at how I wrecked that place :D And still I dont come near to Horatio :(

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What do I do wrong? I should have more than enough resources to kill everything. But I am running out of blackspace all the time...

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 12:00 am
by TheSchachter
Well, it's hard to know all of the things you might be doing wrong from a couple of screenshots, but here's what I can glean from them (as well as general VGT advice):

-You definitely seem to be on the right track, for one thing. An Orc Monk with 75% both resistances can indeed wipe the floor with Horatio and the tower in general. I feel like your damage ought to be higher, though... did you desecrate Taurog's altar or something? (or maybe I just don't play the Monk enough.) In general, high damage and high resistances are *the* best attributes to have for the tower, and all characters are aiming for them.

-First thing I noticed is that there are blood pools all over the place, which tells me you aren't using Dracul. Now, it's possible that Dracul's altar was going to spawn last in the layout you rolled for this character, which is down to luck, but pretty much every character is going to want to convert to Dracul and grab Blood Shield + 3-4 levels of Blood Tithe in this dungeon, usually finishing it as a follower of Dracul. Blood hunger is also great, but if your character's resists are maxed out (especially as a Monk) it's not worth the max-resist cost. Do note that, as a Monk, you should usually have blackspace left over by the time you get to Horatio, so this may not be the main issue with your play, but it's worth mentioning.

-Blackspace conservation in this dungeon is probably more important than in any other dungeon, because it's fairly limited for the amount of strong monsters you have to fight. This is doubly true for the Monk, obviously. I don't know if you're already doing this, but you should absolutely avoid exploring the outer layer of tiles of the main floor until every other tile has been explored (unless it's to pick up something or check out a shop). That way, you minimize the amount of tiles you uncover without a chance of finding something useful underneath. Similarly, keep in mind how many monsters you've already uncovered on each floor; if you've uncovered every monster + the altar, consider whether you might uncover tiles on the main floor that could lead to popcorn monsters, pickups, etc. If you need to, count exactly how many tiles you'll need to regenerate to tank the next hit from a monster, so that you're not wasting and not accidentally overhealing the monster. Smart use of mid-fight level ups is a given, though sometimes you just want the level up to trigger at the end of a tough fight so you don't have to spend blackspace to regenerate from it (sorry if this is obvious to you, but VGT is the dungeon that really taught me to do those things methodically).

-How effectively are you dealing with the curses and special monsters? Each character class has certain special monsters and certain floor curses that are especially difficult to deal with (for the Monk, obviously, there's the cursed floor and cursed dragon, as well as the fully-explored floor and the poison-manaburn floor, etc.) It's important to be ready to deal with those threats in advance. As a Monk, carefully managing your popcorn so you have ways to remove Curse stacks is crucial. Preparing a Fortitude Tonic and a Burn Salve (or at least the Apothecary prep from Bezar) is also very important. Figure out when to use those based on whether you've already fought the Illusion and the Golden Statue, and try to align your use of the Burn Salve with an Earthmother desecration.

-What's your strategy involving Tikki Tooki? Four levels of Learning is very impressive, but VGT is probably one of the dungeons where such a feat matters least (not that it's useless, but I imagine that a *lot* of resources go into that that could be directed elsewhere). Personally as a Monk I would've only taken dodging and a shot or two of poison then converted out, but you don't need those to beat the dungeon. Personally as a Monk I prefer to prepare Taurog and get both the Sword and the Helmet for damage (no need for the armour, your starting resists with Dragon Shield are already very high). Taurog's damage boosts are exceedingly helpful for the Monk, and the extra magic resistances are basically necessary. From there, you're likely to want Body Pact and/or Blood Shield to boost the magic resistances further. Many people prepare Patches on most characters for the chance of getting further resistance boosts, though as a Monk I find the Smuggler's Den to be both more useful and less likely to screw you over. Remember that the earlier you get both your resistances and damage high, the better you can save resources for the higher floors and Horatio.

-Minor point: Do you have any Veto Slots unlocked? Filling those with items you don't need (especially items that spawn often) increases the chance of getting items you do need. Hero's Helm, for instance, is rather expensive for what it does (as far as I remember, I've had it vetoed for a while). That Viper Ward is super useful for the Monk, so the more likely you are to get it, the better your chances are. Also, speaking of inventory, the best glyphs in this dungeon are Halpmeh, Getindare (though a bit less so for the Monk) and Bysseps. As inventory space gets very limited, definitely formulate a plan before you pick up certain useful-but-not-essential items, lest you find yourself stuck having to convert something you don't want to convert.

-Finally, the classes which have the easiest time with this dungeon, in my experience, include the Rogue, the Vampire, the Paladin (Dracul) and the Monk. The Wizard was also quite good. Most of the classes should be Humans, since the Attack% bonus really makes a difference when you spend so much time at lvl10. Monks can also be Orcs (my personal preference) and Rogues can be Dwarves (usually prepping Taurog) or Orc/Human (usually prepping Glowing Guardian). My personal most reliable strat for the dungeon is the Glowing Guardian Orc Rogue, though you should play with what you're most comfortable.

That's all I've got for now. Feel free to ask more specific questions, or wait for other players who have more experience with the dungeon than I do! :)

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 6:57 am
by Nurator
Thanks for the writeup!

I think my main problem is black space wasting... in the stat screen 40% of the tiles were wasted! But I have no idea why, fought everytime I could... strange, maybe something with overheal.

TikkiTokkis Boons were given by a punchbag :D So I just took that without having to use any resources

Draculs Sanguine is a good idea... that was really stupid to not take. I had Dracul on lvl 1 and thought "-5 maxhp? I only got 10!" and then converted to Binlor... yeah that was stupid, maybe game breaking...

I chose body pact, but because of that I was not able to convert to anything else anymore... its a shame you cannot take consensus AFTER you take a pact.

And I think I have to improve my glyph casting. Most of the time I only cast Fireball^^ Its nice for regen fighting but with 6 stacks of poison from TT the monsters do not regenerate at all anyway...

Stupid dungeon, I only did it with a Vampire once and that was looong ago. How some of do it with Vicious Token active is beyond me... and I consider myself not bad at this game :D

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 7:13 am
by Astral
Take whatever I say with a grain of salt (I've never beaten VGT yet), but for me it seems Body Pact is bad here. It will constantly drain your piety long after you've maxed out your resists and given your altars you could have reached max in other more resourceful ways.
Binlor alone can max out MR on anyone, and Dracul's Blood Shield in combination with DS would have been enough for physical.

Oh and your damage looks horrible for an Orc Monk with so many swords. After you reached lvl 10, did you keep getting those -2 basedamage debuffs on levelup? I vaguely remember getting it once when received a prestige. But I rarely play monks so I can't tell if it's fixed.

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 8:07 am
by Nurator
that would be an awful bug! maybe thats true... i got 7 prestige... didnt take any punishments or other -damage sources.

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 20, 2014 9:58 am
by TheSchachter
In a bit of a hurry, so I can't go into detail, but here's a few points of response:

-Using a punchbag is very clever (hadn't thought of it!), but I recommend winning the dungeon in a more "regular" way first, since it's such an "out there" strategy. I'm just not entirely sure how it would mesh with the usually-considered-optimal strategies. It could be basically cost-less, or it could be actually costing you other things. Your call though :)

-You will usually want to convert to Dracul late, since the -5HP barely matters at level 10.

-Body Pact is pretty much always worth the Piety, but how useful it is really depends on how early you find Pactmaker; it's part of why I recommend Taurog, because it's so easy to make heaps of Piety with him. Binlor, from my experience, actually costs you a lot of blackspace for piety unless you only convert to him at level 10.

May complete this later...

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 4:22 pm
by Lujo
My few cents:

Dracul's bloodswell was nerfed to include the obligatory curse because of how much abuse it provided in any incarnation of VGT. For a very long while measuring the power of a VGT build / luck of a run is by how many bloodswells you had left at the end. "I didn't even take a single bloodswell" ussually ment something was getting nerfed in the close future.

Sanguine. You haven't seen "broken" untill you've used it effectively in VGT.

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Sat Jun 21, 2014 5:18 pm
by booooooze

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Fri Jun 27, 2014 7:08 pm
by ChasGB
After almost a year I finally beat VGT for the first time today. Dwarf Rogue prepped with GG, patches, attack boosters, perseverance, compression, apothecary, and dragon shield. Went from GG-MA-Drac with desecration of EM and a lucky no-punishment desecration of JJ. Had zero exploration and popcorn left by the second to last subdungeon, and my last ditch plan was to convert everything and desecrate GG for bloodswells...but luckily didn't need to go that far and some late Martyr Wraps sealed the deal on H.

I've seen other people write that they have success with the Vampire prepped with dragon shield, patches, and RBS, but I usually end up getting the floor mopped with me. Dwarf Rogue was by far the most "doable" setup I've run with.

Re: I created a monster - but still couldnt beat VGT

PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2014 2:15 am
by booooooze
I hadn't ever played a lot of VGT, but with all of the talk of it I dove in recently. I've done a little over half of the classes this week. Just had my first win that didn't use any blood tithe (or swell) (orc thief), didn't think I'd see that happen. Especially with no soul orb. Piercing wand and martyr wraps are a ridiculous combo, though.

After a bunch of runs you get into a bit of a groove. I've really come to like throwing TT in there (by far my favorite deity). Two levels of poison and dodge is great. Prepping GG is the "surest" way to win, but it takes so long to get any piety, and you're a slave to pactmaster showing up early-ish. I like to just do extra altar and see what happens. JJ > TT > Dracul is a combo I love, as chaos avatar means you aren't playing forever weakened and corroded.

General advice: save your glyphs! WONAFYT saves tons of blackspace on Binlor's level. WEYTWUT is really nice on the first strike level. BYSEPPS is obviously huge for Horatio. I still auto convert BLUDTOPOWA and IAMWALL though.