All right. I've tried and tried, but I just keep coming up short, so I'm coming to the experts here with a plea for help with Triple Quest 3. Specifically, I am having trouble with 3-2. I've made it a couple of times--by what seemed like a miracle--and seemed to do OK in 3-3 when I was there. But it took a while to get the tricks, and meanwhile my success rate in 3-2 is so low that I'm hoping to get some advice.
Once I figured out the gimmick, 3-1 is totally manageable no matter what happens. In fact, I always prep Tikki Tooki so I can trade one health potion for two free-hit potions. My prep loadout looks like:
* Tikki Tooki - I am pretty confident there is nothing better than this
* Compression Seal - This is one of my big prep questions. I go back and forth between this and the Translocation Seal. I feel like there isn't room to take all the good items I can afford if I translocate something good like Dwarf Gauntlets.
* Dragon Shield - This is my other big prep question. I feel like this is necessary for 3-3. I have experimented with taking a Dragon Seal or Balanced Dagger, but those might turn up in a shop, and this won't.
* Potions - Reflex, WHUPAZ, and Schadenfreude seem like givens. The fourth slot is between a mana potion and a dodge potion. Recently I've been trying the mana potion but it doesn't seem to be helping.
* Quest Items - Gives a better chance for Dragon Seal, Balanced Dagger, Soul Orb, and Platemail to show up, all of which seem invaluable
* Extra Attack Boosters - does this prep matter at all?
* Black Market - The only choice in this slot whose effects last beyond the first dungeon
* Perseverance Badge - The only reasonable choice because it's small
So I finish 3-1 and my inventory looks like this:
* BURNDAYRAZ
* either PISORF or ENDISWAL. Without one of these, getting trapped at some point in 3-2 seems inevitable. Given the killer feature of 3-2 (everything with 100% deathtouch) that means probably at least burning a potion.
* Dragon Shield
* Two slots worth of potions/small items. I don't see a way around this: at the minimum I have health, mana, Schadenfreude, reflex, dodge, WHUPAZ; then probably the Perseverance Badge and ideally a Dragon Soul, Balanced Dagger, or Soul Orb.
* Finally, a junk glyph that gets dropped for CYDSTEPP.
Then I find myself in 3-2 and everything goes to hell. Because of the weird layout, I tend to waste a lot of exploration finding level-appropriate monsters. I try to use my mana to knock away walls, which keeps me from getting trapped but doesn't help kill anything. Killing anything requires a ton of mana, and I'm running short of blackspace by the time I ding 7. Not that blackspace would even help that much, because the bosses teleport around.
The bosses: those are the real killer. Am I missing something? It looks like the physical boss requires about 10 physical attacks and the magical boss requires about 20 fireballs. Every fireball basically costs a mana potion. Even with two schadenfreudes, I'm shy on mana, and there's not enough health potions to even use a third schadenfreude. I feel like if I'm very lucky, I can ding both 6->7 and 7->8 in this fight--but setting that up requires sacrificing my items AND probably blowing a potion or two into the monsters, leaving me with pretty much nothing, and underequipped for 3-3. (And speaking of health, every time the magic boss rolls Retaliate: Fireball, that's another nail in the coffin.)
(odd question--if I manage to come into this dungeon with the Balanced Dagger, should I convert my junk glyph right away or still try to save it?)
I haven't mentioned Taurog. I have no idea how to make use of him, since inventory space is so tight already. I assumed the point was so I could take a Skullpicker and maybe a resist item into 3-3. Is there something else going on here?
Given the little bit of chatter I've sought out, I feel like I'm missing something about this dungeon... whether it's a gimmick I've somehow totally missed or a helpful strategy. People talk a lot about 3-3 but it seems almost manageable next to this. Any assistance would be awesome.