by Bwrgarbl on Wed Jan 31, 2018 7:47 pm
The reason to take the transmutation seal in today's run is to protect against the level generation of Grimm's Grotto. It uses an older original system that doesn't weight close monsters to lower levels, making it somewhat notorious for having impossible starts where you're locked in a small area blocked by monsters you can't deal with. Like Vemb, I checked to see that people were having good success without it before I passed on it. A high failure rate in Grimm's Grotto is normally a sign that people are getting trapped.
Also, items in your shops might not be in other peoples, so you should typically add "with my preps" when mentioning things. Today, quest items was available along with at least two items from the shop lists... taking quest items changes the order of the list, and taking a shop item removes it from the list. Changes to the list means that the same number doesn't always get you the same item. I had different preps today, but got the Balanced Dagger too... mine was well away in the corner though, and was only useful for me to milk some extra during cleanup. By the time I found it, I was already doing level+3s and even thinking about a level+4, so I just stuck with that.