Halflings - all shennanigans all the time

[Lujo]

Right, so, guys, listen - I added halflings to the list of recommended races on the Berserker Wiki page. If you haven't tried it - try it. It's incredible - if you're in a cheeze heavy phase right now, stick a Namtars Ward on a Halfling Berserker, if not it works fine without it. They are incredible and add both a whole new dimension to warmonger runs in general, but they can also do faithless and miser respectively without a problem.

I haven't yet even tried Binlor Halfling Berserkers, which can probably work Warmonger and non-Warmonger, but they should be obviously great, Taurog ones are brutal (spike stuff as you level, DP the boss down), and Drac ones with DS and possibly patches should also be supidity incarnate. You can also pack Patches on any of them as you're a halfling and thus sneer at most of what he can do (heck, even at him porting you into a sticky situation).

Frankly, I'd say that the flexibility of having a huge ass potion spike on a Berserker (or alternatively instant Blood Shield and potion spike after a swap) makes them even better Berserkers than Orcs. Also my top recommendation for warmongering just about anything, and they also make packing RBS perfectly legit if you're expecting resists. If not, they're always open for TT.

Halfling + Berserker + NW isn't a hipster or alternative build, I've found, it's probably THE default berserker cheeze build, and also probably the default warmonger build (even without the ward, multiple things work, as does a buffet of gods). Not to mention that they're even better non-warmonger, as the healing potions (and NW is you're using it) allows for some really high spiking with Imawal backup even though you don't have Orc damage perks, and you're also fully open to Trisword and Alch Scroll goodness.

It's like having all Halfling Shennaigans TM packed with all the cheeze in a sinergistic way. Heck, expendable healing potions even sinergize with Namtars Ward (often they give you an extra hit in a full bar before you blow the DP, then you ding, and get 3 more hits in).

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

???

Halfling Berserkers are easier to play than Orc Berserkers!

I'm not kidding about this, you don't care about s**t with them - you want to kill something, you blow potions to kill it. You don't have to go around looking for glyphs and conversion fordder, do math - anything. You just blow potions, that's it. It's opposite of being level 2000, it's playing like you're level 0 and it working. You try to play Orcs that way it'll fail, it kinda takes more skill to get somewhere with Orcs than it does with halflings. It's just that noone (who writes wikis) ever tries for some reason.

Orcs get stupid RESULTS. Halflings get stupid results - with stupid gameplay! They're easier to figure out to a complete noob than to a stuck-in-his-ways vet.

No joke, just try it. We as a community are overrating Orcs to a huge degree. THEY are listed as the default race for everything and anything, and as I've found, they aren't. They aren't even the most straightforward, or forgiving.

EDIT: In case it's not obvious, and it apparently isn't, Taurogs and Draculs spikes let you get refills/free hits - which means that knowing how to play a god and abiding to the gods rules ultimately gets you refills. Halflings pull refills out of their ass. Why bother with getting 50 drac piety for 2 bloodswells when the damned halfling gets you there while you're in Taurog just by converting glyphs - for Taurog. They make Orcs look like Dwarves. Halfling Taurogzerker feels like you're playing 3 different cheeze strats at once in terms of results, while still putting as much effort/brainpower into it as you would in a Taurogzerker (except less since you don't care about saving your potions, or poison or anything at all, really, and plays fine without Dragonshield or even Namtars Ward). You just have to play like a complete noob, and you're a god.

Makes Orc Taurogzerker look like an advanced strat, that's how simple it is. You can even prep RBS on it, because you just don't care whether you have first strike or not.

[Tinker]

Converting stuff and killing what you can (= Orc) is straightforward. Knowing *when* to blow potions (= Halfling) is where slightly more advanced play begins, IMHO. Not, like, super-advanced; just scrape-the-surface advanced.

Plus, I've heard you praise Halflings as recommended race for practically anything and everything. spellcasters (especially with codex+TEM)? check. melee guys (not just Priest)? check. Random folks doing shennanigans (including Paladins etc.)? check. Heck you even posted a killah Halfling Rogue strat. They all work, sure, but not all of them are straightforward...

I know that Halflings are second only to Gnomes in terms of versatility, and that is a massive edge in a lot of cases, probably enough to make most of the strategies viable with one of these fellows. But I don't know if this is really Wiki basics (maybe just a mentions at the Halfling/Gnome pages).

Anyway, never intended to seem hostile, sorry if I came accross that way!

[Lujo]

Ok, but I'm pretty sure it's not because I love halflings as much as I seem to be one of the few people on these boards playing them. Somebody else posted an Assassin strat I wasn't aware off, I tried it an it destroyed the labirinth. The JJ Rogue idea wasn't mine, it was something Blovski told me a long time ago as a 2nd tier strat, except when I tried it with a halfling it spiraled completely out of control - which it wouldn't with anyone else, and it's impossible for it to not spiral out of control with a halfling - JJ gives you huge health, halfling gives you nearly limitless and rather reffortless refills. It's opposite of "being able to make it work" - breaking a rogue most often means stacking health and resists on it - and either of that allready breaks the Rogue. And halfling piles refills ON TOP of that. It's not even simmilar to cheating, it basically IS cheating, compared to what anyone else has to go through to get refills.

But this berserker thing isn't halfling-loving, halfling berserkers turn out to REALLY BE the genuine article. You don't have to know when to blow potions with them - that's Orc/Dwarf/Human mentality. You're fighting something? You blow potions on it. Because you CAN. See the difference? If you're thinking about is it worth blowing a potion - you're not playing a halfling, you're playing something that can't blow potions, something you have to use your head while playing, whereas if you were a halfling - if something isn't dead yet, and you're fighting it, you blow potions.

That's how simple they are.

Orcs are, and this is demonstrable, more advanced than halflings in general. And quite possibly worse berserkers, or at least a worse recommendation as Berserkers to a noob than halflings in terms of ease of use. As outrageous as that may sound.

For comparison - Drac is considered a strong deity because he can win you the game if you join him at the last minute and get a bunch of refills. Particularly if you do that by converting out of Taurog. Halfling does that for you without Drac. You need only Taurog. You can ignore Drac. Or for that matter, you can even ignore Taurog, Halfling EM berserkers work, believe it or not, but I'm not putting that on the wiki.

[Lujo]

Ok, a serious question:

How and why, exactly, did something as ludicrously powerful as halflings get overlooked? Because I remember stumbling on them by accident and discovering how well they work wasn't a matter of becoming better with them or the game, but progressively triyng more "dumb" things and getting more and more amazed at how simple and reductive they actually are. I must've failed 20 VT warmonger runs on this playthrough, but I always get them done with Halflings. Not because I'm smart or experienced but because of effortless refills you don't get with anyone else.

How did we miss it?

Was it the badges? I bet it's the badges - you play for parched or hoarder and get hooked on more complicated stuff, and since you've allready come to think of a lot more complicated stuff as "baseline" it just seems impossible that something as simple and straightforward as this could even be in the game. It's like the idea of something like that existing and working would just diminish the deepness and quality of the game.

The devs at one point said that the potion races are the most commonly used ones, which at the time we took to mean that most people are noobs or because of the Trisword, and that they might not be getting results (whatever those might be), but I've come to realize that you can easily get hooked on halflings because they're just way easier to play than most other stuff - on top of having a lot of planted complicated interactions. People were playing them because they're getting results with them, and because they're actually really, really, really easy to play and go places with.

It seems like whatever I try with them works. And not just works, in some cases, like the berserker or VT Warmongering, works better than anything else wit less powerful preps etc. The thing is - we're thinking of stuff that's looking to do 8-9 badgehunting runs as baseline "uncomplicated" things to point newbies towards, and the idea of having the "screw badges, play like a dumbass, who needs Drac or first strike, or damage, just quaff and get the throphy" gold standard, halflings, up there on the wiki is like "you have to be pro to make it work, that's like, totaly complicated".

Just -

The only complicated thing about them is not trying to score Parched on every run.

[Darvin]

[Lujo]

^ Yeah - we somehow got into the mentality that "parched" is supposed to be a guaranteed badge. Which, once you know that halflings are both crazy powerful, brutally simple, rival powerful gods, not other races but rival GODS (and leave them in the dust) for a rare effect - and also loaded to the gills with random interactions, is beyond silly!

And also my main annoyance with the badge system.

Or at least how it affected us as testers.

[Lujo]

Also, Darvin - remember how back when you could prep 5 potions and the damage kept stacking on the trisword we went around completely skipping the early game becase we just spiked stuff with potions? Sure, the trisword was adding damage to the whole shebang which let you spike stuff way above your level - but halflings still do that all the fricking time, just not 4 levels above you. It's the exact same thing as beign able to prep more than one str/dodge/reflex potion for all practical purposes - the results aren't as silly, but they're silly enough.

Especially on a Berserker where every health potion is a Reflex potion (similar to a degree as with priests), provided you're fighting magic attack monsters, but even 2 health potions letting you get an extra hit in on something with build in +20% damage (and whatever you've got from whatever god) = and aditional Reflex potion. And people think Gnomes are brutal for the extra fireball or two

Prep the current trisword, it's basically the exact same thing when it's the most impactful, during leveling. Back in the day you'd need 4 potions to get to +8 damage. Prep Dwarven Gauntlets, be in Taurog - whatever, you're just riding that exact same stupid vawe.

And you don't even have to have a clue about how it works, just pick fights with stuff somewhat bigger than you and quaf a potion or two.

EDIT: When you get down to it, on a Berserker, anything that gets you an extra hit can do about as much if not more damage than Whoopaz would to something 2-3 levels above you. Except works regardless of where their health bar is at the moment. Just... Convert for Whoopaz anyone?

For Illustration:



There were Drac, Pactmaker and all the Shops on the board and I didn't touch any of that. I prepped Bet on Boss, the alchemist prep was a brain fart as I was chasing Miser anyway, and my item of choice was... Nothing. I even had leftover stuff without touching other gods and compromising Miser, but I suppose that would've gone into defeating a tougher boss. Did exactly nothing that wasn't described in the wiki allready, except, you know, occasionally whoopaz stuff. Would've been higher level if the boss did more damage, because I would've used more potions to level instead of using them against the boss.

With this few elements to juggle, there's not enough strategy to it to make ME a big factor, or at least any bigger a factor than anyone following the wiki advice on general berserker play would be. Heck, this is the first time I used Apheelsick on a Berserker and I got THAT from the wiki - nice one, btw, really sinergizes nicely with Berserkers.

He's at least as good as the Orc, if not way better due to flexibility in both preps and gameplay. If you can't get any hits on the boss - spike monsters get your level higher make up for it that way. Twentyish less damage per hit on the boss but 5 whoopazes along the way and fee glyph use. Can get hits in on the boss - Orc needs about 4 hits for every one extra one this guy gets. TT on board? This guy wins, but that's advanced strats.

Anyway, notice me fighting first-strikey phys dmg stuff above my level which doesn't do magical damage? At VT level with only Taurog? Apheelsick did help - but I also used potions fine. There only were 2 magic damage higher level targets in the entire run, and you also have to find those. Being able to do a bit (even a fair bit) more damage would've meant nothing if I couldn't get the hit in, and this guy simply can.

[Lujo]

Also relevant:



I added the Bloodmage to the list of good classess on the Halfling page. Because they only make better Priests, and any Halfling Priest with B2P is a stronger Bloodmage than an actual Bloodmage.

As you can see - no gods, no gameplay, no nothing. Prep Alchemist scroll, get to lvl 2 (drink a mana potion at lvl1), get close to lvl 3, start fireballing the boss and drink another mana potion, ding, drink another mana potion, keep fireballing the boss until he drops. B2P does the exploring for you, you just pick up anything that looks ok (Trisword was picked up just because). I might've drunk a bloodpool or even 2.

Easy boss, but with a bigger boss it just turns from 0 gameplay to basic gameplay before you start fireballing him. This is the simplest, easiest to play Bloodmage in the game. Not necessarily the most powerful - although when you think about it it does do a faithless VT with just alch scroll and magnet:fireball (and well, a dodge+whoopaz but hardly anyone does VT without those).

Heck, any JJ Bloodmage is more complicated, because you can't use Wheytwut on any Bloodmage unless you've found a mana booster. That alone makes a JJ Bloodmage more "advanced strats" than most advanced strats! Recomending that to someone who hasn't unlocked or isn't aware of the subdungeon prep is bound to get them in trouble, not help them play a better Bloodmage.

And there wasn't any ME here, there weren't any moves or tricks, or enough gameplay to it. Halflings are underrepresented on the wiki, and underplayed in this community for whatever reason - they are at least on par with Orcs in terms of general simplicity if not even simpler to play, and there are classess where they're either a clear best option or they're on par with whatever you can think of. And also have a million plugs, one of which, B2P can easily win you any run where you can fireball the boss just like that, regardless of pretty much any other circumstance or element you're using.