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Well, I'm not into making vids yet, but dear god do I whish I was, because the run I've just been on was sooooo satisfying and awesome. So, as is an age old tradition, I'm starting a bloggy diary where I'll jot down (or textwall) about my runs and stuff.

Dwarf Fighter of Dracul on Rock Garden - with only basic items and the two orbs unlocked because I kinda don't want to tire myself out on puzzles just yet and grab all my usual toys. I'll do them when I feel like, just not just yet.

This run was imposibly awesome. It's part of the unlikely hero's questline (AKA the PQI before PQI) and I went with prepped Drac, +10% badge and the fine sword, some extra gold just because and magnet:fireball. I landed a Wonnafyt and started pullin in nothing but wraiths, even killed a few to make more room to summon stuff to the centre knowing that all the golems that spawn will give me nice XP with drac.

Dwarf fighters LOVE the +1 level into bloodsteal boon. You have an easier time leveling as a fighter anyway (especially with Wonnafyt), and this gives you first strike, more regen etc etc. It's really, really good! Only had one level of bloodsteal throughout, though, but at one point I had Bloody Sigil, Tower Shield, a level of lifesteal and Blood Shield on a fatass Figher loaded with spoons ^^ Killed the SMM at lvl 7! (with a help of a ding), used every trick in the book (except bloodswell oddly enough) and then, to top it all off - I unlocked JJ with no tricks! Just used my bigass healthpool and the few remaining mana and health potions to get the little buggers out of the way

Easy run, I know, but Drac Dwarves are legit, and Drac Dwarf Fighters (and maybe even some other fighters) are also legit.

That must have been a really fun run

Poor Fighters often get overlooked but when you toss them at VGT they are surprisingly potent. Monster sensing saves tons of blackspace in the subs, faster leveling means you'll have more popcorn than others and you'll also level up more times during the run - more buffs from Patches if you can keep him. So far one of my easiest wins was with Fighters.

Yep, not to mention that the DP can give you a surprise ding rather early

Goblin Tief of JJ on Creeplight Ruins - Got me the "beat creeplight ruins" and one for the goblin Unlikely Hero's done, also unlocked the witch on the same run. Creeplight is one of those runs where the goblin shines because blackspace is limited and the monsters are annoying to boot and often impossible to kill properly dead, so goblins mess that place up like bosses.

Still no relevant unlocks and only Warlord of the lvl3 classes.

And a purist Goblin Sorcerer of eventually Mystera via GG takes out SMM on the Den of Danger because I ran out of money for perps and still haven't done any of the 2nd generation Den Quests.

Yeah and the Dancing Blade in the Binlor level is a real troll too.

The thing that's most annoying for me in VGT runs is getting reveal + no xp as 1st 2 curses. By the time your reach the 3rd cursing sub you have significantly less resources and you are still underleveled.

I can see there's a load of VGT doing going on, nice, nice Also, yeah, if you run into the dangerouns flor/malus combo early it's often way more dangerous than later.

Halfling Rogue of JJ in Havendale Bridge. (loaded w preps as far as my unlocks allow it, and that's not that much tbh). This felt almost like cheating. Petition into health boosts (although the other way around woulda probably been smarter). Also I prepped the smoked ham thingy and munched on it when I got posioned by JJ, lol. Then I just went around and indiscriminately slowed and immediately killed everything. I did ding for the troll, and I used an occasional fireball, but meh, didn't really require any strategy, pile on the health boosts and a mana boost, that's all I took from JJ and didn't swap to anyone else. Ended up lvl 10 an unstoppable anyway. Mopped up the corrosion guys last. Unlocked Binlor.

I also found a Cydstep, so if the run had been actually challenging I would've had a Cydstep-on-a-halflin-rogue scenario. With EM on the table for loads of Mana Refill. Coulda been a hell of a ride, except just spamming health boosts seemed to be enough for this place. I'mma try the exact same thing with the remaining 2 halflings (there's a quest here), wonder if it becomes more exciting.

Purist (Specialist Unstoppable Ding Max...) Elf Wizard of TT in Southern Swamp - Well, I thought it would be easier, in all honesty, but spellcasters really benefit from their unlocks and preps I suppose. And so does TT, I actually unlocked him on this run ( <3 that particular mini-puzzle / skill wall ), but hes way better if you actually prep him and farm slow and stuff and prep stuff (not necessarily just the treasure). Only managed to get 2 levels of Tikki's Edge (although I would've had 3 if I didn't take dodging), but heh, had 20 mana due to mana pendant + converting all the glyphs except fireball.

Gonna try preping TT around when opportunity arises I think, see how it goes.

It's always nice turning a Halfling Rogue into a tank considering where he starts. How much health did you have by the end?

I love that TT sub too. It's one of my favorites. Kinda funny, but you can complete that puzzle the 'stupid way' too. If you kill all the forms of Mischief you unlock TT anyways. At least when I last tried that's how it worked. Was annoyed that I didn't have the required glyphs to beat him so I went back at level 10 and punched him to death to see if there's a fail state or it will loop. But no, it unlocked like if I did it the intended way

TT spellcasters benefit a lot from preps. Doesn't really matter what you prep, just earn 2 levels of learning before killing any popcorn and a 3rd one during popcorn munching. In learning 3 is the 'magic number', that will ding you from 2 to 10 nonstop. Any method of slowing or picking up more learning early, or even an early bosskill launches you into prestige levels. Have you tried TT spellcasters with prepped Titan Guitar? Makes the strat universal, you'll never have to kill popcorn because they are in the way and the whole map can be slowed too.

A found TT is more forgiving then a prepped one but if you join him late he can't ding you as much. The absolute best is when you convert in from a piety farm at lvl 2. Or even lvl1 can work for Elf Rogues
Btw the mana burn plants weren't too annoying in SS?

Tbh I'm not sure how much health I had, but I think I took 4 hits because I was slowing stuff and usling the peekaboo technique with all the cowardly Tokoloshes Got a tower shield and dodged a lot, so it was plenty silly.

Strange, they might have fixed that, because I failed to unlock him once because I automaticaly clicked and he told me to go away because I lost. Still, I'm not sure I kept punching.

And yeah, TT off a piety farm into huge learning spam (especially on a rather explored map where you've picked up a ton of gold) is definitely killer with spellcasters. Didn't consider the titan guitar! Thanks for the tip, that's rather brilliant, as Fighter + Wonnafyt + Titan Guitar + 3 Learning ought to be, for lack of a better word, dingy! And the guitar turns anyone into a fighter of sorts, I'm so doing it once I run into the guitar

The recently mentioned Elf Rogue spellcasting prodigy might be a really cool thing to do this with, and since I've underplayed Elves historicaly, I think I'll deffinitely give that a whirl. Also, lemme do a quick run so that I'm not posting without at least one conversation piece

RUN - Halfling Rogue of JJ in Den of Danger - Same deal, health boost spam, indiscriminate slowing down of various things, and a rather tight fight against Frank The Zombie (this place was actually harder than the Bridge had been, oddly enough.) I went health boost first then petition, didn't like it that much, allthough it could've mattered. Didn't have enough piety for 4 hits (or chaos avatar or anything). Still, dodges and potions killed Frank.

RUN - Goblin Monk of GG (prepped) in Den of Danger vs. Wraith Boss - ho ho ho, this was fun! Perepped GG, got the naga emissary subdungeon (so no blackspace), finally unlocked Tinker. Prepped Troll Heart and picked up a Bloody Sigil, so I didn't actually take any absolutions untill I was at a 100 piety, and then I took a load (had popcorn left over) and used Enlightment to ding me to lvl 10 (post humility) ^^ GG goblins are loads of fun, GG goblins with a lot of resists are even more fun. The boss was the wraith, but I managed, even got parched and unstoppable, tee hee hee. Easy dungeon, but fun stuff

Though on Bloody Sigil - Very fun little thing. Since I haven't unlocked anything except the wards it's kinda always in a shop, and I pick it up all the time. Helps with a ton of stuff, sinergizes with a ton of stuff, and eases Health boost strats which I'm mainly playing around with nicely. Humility + Bloody Sigil = nice. Drac +1 lvl boon + Bloody Sigil = nice. Big Health + Bloody Sigil + Burning = nice. I think there's room in the game for an upgraded version, possibly even that the Dwarven Gauntlets should've not been a health booster (as there's a ton of those allready) but instead a +1 regen thing.

Thought on Burnt Offering- Not sure how it would pan out, but I think it might've been ok if it gave piety on fireball kills also. Killing stuff with just the burining is too random and the reward isn't really worth the effort to try and score it a lot, IMO.

RUN - Dwarf Breserker of Drac vs. Wraith Boss in Den of Danger - wasn't the best idea, and it's nice to find that out in a relatively easy dungeon. Drack berserker's don't have much sinergy I'm afraid, and I even landed an unintentional Spirit Pact to unlock the Pactmaker. Still I did take even the unsinergistic boons, and I took fewer glyphs so I ended up with a lot of health (only 45% magic resist due to an early hit of lifesteal, which in retrospect was stupid as the boss would've been a cakewalk with just bloodshield and sanguine). Come to think of it, if I just ran into drac later instead of prepping him he would've won it for me alone, which just supports my idea of having "you gotta worship him" as a really appropriate prep penalty XD

I did luck out and find the monster zoo subdungoen which got me a lot of piety, and ended up both parched and without sanguine, so I guess it's more silly circumstance and missplays on my part, but this was the last 2nd generation run and I was rushing to unlock a new class finaly I'll unlock the bloodmage, as there's a quest or two on the map which requires me doing bloodmage runs.

Ended up unlocking both the bloodmage and the final blacksmith level.

NOTE - on Hero's Helm. I need to put this in my sig, because it's probably the thing that I've asked more than anything else ever, what in the world unlocks this thing? XD I always forget and it always gets changed and I never ever unlock it before I've allready unlocked a ton of more useful stuff and it always ends up in my veto slots. Is there a "do den of danger purist" or something like that quest after you've done all the other quests in there?

RUN - Halfling Bloodmage vs Jormungandr in Den of Danger - walked in with a health pendant and magnet fireball, took lifesteal, found glenrick, spiked something way above my level, spiked somethign else way above my level, desecrated binlor, spiked jormungandr, unlocked crusader, spiked lvl 9 zombies and golems, killed everything, burnt place to the ground, desecrated earthmother walked out with full piety. Took only 2 levels of lifesteal and a bloodswell. Halfling Bloodmage, ladies and gentlemen XD

The little pyromaniac delinquent also got the Witchalok Pendant unlocked

And, no, wait, it wasn't Den of Danger, it was Grimm's Grotto! Didn't even notice LOL IRL. I didn't even try to optimize it with sanguine because I thought it was the Den...

I guess they fixed it then, it was very long ago that I unlocked TT like that.

Glad you like the Titan Guitar + TT combo
I had way to many Labyrinth runs where I was craving for blackspace but found the TG sub instead. On the plus side I once found a cool use for the item.

Yep, props to Tinker for coming up with it. Elf Rouges are quite fun.

I agree, Bloody Sigil is unique and very useful thing. I'm sad there are no more regen based items/boons in the game (Blood Curse doesn't count it won't make your regen higher than your level). It would greatly help Dwarves too.

I'm not a big fan GG's piety system. When you have +1 piety/6 mana (at best) on one hand or possibly +30 piety for levelup on the other, the former really doesn't look good. You could prep/buy Whurgarbl, but that's a regenfighter item and GG doesn't really cater for those. He hates poison, and his 'best' boon is counter productive for regenfighters.

Have you unlocked Paladins yet? One thing that's very reliable in early kingdoms is resist stacking for those guys. Taurog and Dracul are unlocked soon, and the Tower Shield is practically a guaranteed buy. If you're keep casting Halpme you also have your own version of double regen without the damage penalty of the Monk.

Drac Berserkers of Dracul actually have plenty of synergy, you just picked the wrong boon. Early bloodshield would have made you a complete monster against magical foes, and sanguine rocks on Dwarves. Most people consider sanguine an endgame boon, but with the dwarf's health it's viable as lateish midgame help for higher level kills.

If you're looking for a very weird experience try this: Dwarf Pala of Dracul with Tower Shield (Vampiric Blade/DS are better for more advanced kingdoms), convert as many health potions as needed to grab Blood Shield at lvl 2-3, convert ALL your glyphs for heath and only use Halpme later. You'll be shocked how powerful it is despite being totally single minded.

Eh, Hero's Helm is fine by me. Not a great item, but has good CP value, so it's safe from my veto. You can look at it as the average of the Fine Sword + Health Pendant + Mana Pendant. Also if you want +3 max mana, and only care about the mana, you're slightly better off buying the pendant and the helm then an Elven Boots.

Edit: somehow missed your Halfling Bloodmage run. That was fantastic! Did you use your indulgences for quaffing potions, or was it against undeads?