VGT is frightening but not that hard once you get used to it.
I learned a lot by watching videos from choongmyoung like this one:
Purist Vampire:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ox2U2LF ... gmyoungLeePurist Human Rogue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVE9adh ... gmyoungLeeOf course I don't recommend going purist for your first try though, but there is a few things that you need to know:
Recommended classes:
Vampire, Rogue, Paladin
Recommended races:
Human:
Physical attack is generally more potent that magic here, because most of the challenge will happen at high level and you will get plenty free CP.
Recommended Preps:
- Dragon Shield is almost always the best prep there, and resistances in general give a huge boost.
- For potions, I generally take health, mana, burn salve and fortitude tonic. There are many items to pick up there so not replacing health and mana potions with other ones might clog up your inventory.
Burn salve and fortitude tonic are mandatory for me as you will get some weakening and corrosion.
- Perseverance badge (because you need inventory space and damage)
- Attack Booster (more damage)
- Compression seal (inventory space)
- Patches can be very strong, especially for vampires and crusaders. Don't hesitate to toss it if it puts you at risk of getting screwed (no more health or mana potion left to cure Mana Burn or Poison)
Recommended Glyphs:
Beware that some glyphs are very useful only at the end, so it might be worth it to leave them on the floor and pick them only when you reach the end.
- Byceps is the most useful glyph against Horatio, it will help you remove its 50% resistances
- Second useful glyph against Horatio is Endiswal combined with Binlor's Stone Form, I'll elaborate on Binlor below. Endiswal also gives you interesting resistances if you have nothing better to spend mana on.
- Getindare is extremely powerful for the tower ascension, especially with High damage character, basically it gives you ~100 damage for 3 mana, plus the occasional dodge
- Halpmeh is super useful, removes poison and fuel your high physical damage.
- Weytwut can be useful if you don't find Gettindare, it provides a similar effect, only much more expensive, with the added benefit of working on bosses with first-strike.
- Burndayraz is useful in some occasions, but the higher you climb in the tower, the less useful it becomes, because it doesn't scale as much as your damage
- Imawal, Wonafyt are useful in the beginning, to level up faster and gather popcorn, they're almost useless afterwards (Wonafyt can become useful again after you reach level 10 if you have neither Getindare nor Weytwut, but I almost never went this road)
- Cydstepp, if nothing else is available, works more or less as an even more expensive version of Weytwut and Getindare, useful if you didn't find those. Otherwise cast and convert (don't cast if you're worshipping Dracul or TT of course)
- Pisorf is not super useful either, if you have nothing better you might want to keep it to farm piety easily when you'll worship Binlor
- Apheelsick, Bloodtupowa, Lemmisi are generaly convert-on-sight there
Recommended Gods:
- GG is probably one of the best god to start with here, take a few absolution when you start, and you'll quickly be able to kill mobs 3 or 4 levels higher than you. Leveling up is then very easy, take Humility just before killing a high level mob for even more bonus XP, and when you reach level 10 you'll be effectively a lvl 11, and have plenty of piety to convert out to the next god. This is especially effective with a Human Rogue, Cleansing is also very effective to remove the occasional Mana Burn or Poison, but most of all to deal massive damage to physically resistant bosses (thanks to Consecrated Strike), try not to waste piety on Protection and don't drink potions of course
- TT can be a very good god to start too, but be sure to convert out early enough to not get stuck losing piety against tank bosses
- Dracul is most of the time the mandatory god to finish the tower and especially Horatio, with the number of blood pools laying around, Blood Tithe will give you plenty of health and piety. Blood Shield will boost your resistances even further. Don't take Blood Hunger if your resistances are above 50%, and don't forget to use Blood Swell as a last resort, if you have popcorn left to remove the curse.
- Binlor is the other mandatory god to finish Horatio, if you didn't find Byceps, you MUST convert to Binlor at some point (preferably once you already reached level 10), with enough piety to get Endiswal, then farm some piety to get Stone Form, maybe Stone Fist if your not too close to the end, and it will help you farm even more piety, and then convert out (possibly at 100 piety) to get your next god, generally Dracul. Don't forget that one level of the tower gives you two Wall Crushers, that can be used to get 20-30 free piety for Binlor. Once you have Stone Form, the first steps of your fight against Horatio should be focused on destroying walls to get might and reduce Horatio resistances.
- Taurog is a nice god to pass by if you can, just to get +15 physical resistances, the rest is generally not worth it as your inventory will be full already
- Earthmother is not super useful and is really dangerous here, as it can block some stairs. But she is very useful for desacrating her altar just before you quaff the burn salve (don't do this before you took the Golden Statue down, though)
- Pactmaker: usually I don't take Consensus unless I really need more piety, but if you have enough piety (eg from GG or Binlor), Body Pact or Warrior Pact are very good picks. Depending on my level of resistance, I tend to favor Warrior Pact because it will mean more health from blood pools at the end with Dracul.
- Mystera and JJ are not very interesting there, I only take them in very situational cases.
Items:
Good items to buy are:
- Viper Ward / Soul Orb: small and protects your from poison and mana burn, can be tossed for the last fight for more CP. Viper Ward is not useful if you have Halpmeh, but Soul Orb is a very good find as several bosses have mana burn.
- Stone Sigil: small and plenty of piety
- Dragon Soul: small and plenty of mana, good for spellcasters mostly
- Piercing Wand: if you didn't get Byceps and want to skip the Binlor phase
- Cursed Sword: even better, but only in the Extreme Edition only, lucky you!
- Agnostic Colar: not that great if you remember to crash the Earthmother altar properly, great if you didn't
- Trisword: gives good damage for the last boss, especially if you're human
- Vampiric Blade: very good, don't buy it if your worshipping GG
- Witchalok Pendant: not bad if you have burndayraz, and it's small
- Platemail: not good if you have a first strike, okay otherwise, but remember that unlike lifesteal, damage reduction are removed before the resistances are applied, so when you have 50% resistances, it effectively only reduces 1 damage per level, not 2. Can be good to pick just for Horatio though.
- Troll heart can be good too if you take it at level 1.
I'm sure other EE items might be great too, but I'm not used to run VGT with them.
The enemies:
Some special bosses needs to be accounted for:
Golden Statue (weakens and corrodes) and Illusion (weakens and retaliate: fireball), don't drink your fortitude tonic before you got both
Dragon Elite: cursed. Because of this one you need to make sure that you have enough popcorn
Bridge Troll: can be quite tough in the upper levels, but gives you 300 free CP
Don't hesitate to regen-fight a little, just to get the extra health you need to finish bosses, and try to waste the least possible resources,
and you should go through easily.
Well, I hope this extensive guide will help you, don't hesitate to watch the videos to get more useful insight.
For the riddle, don't hesitate to answer NO the first few times, just to get better acquainted with it.
The vampire run is a bit special, but one of the easiest if you are lucky with your blood cows and manage them well.
Good luck, if you've been this far you can clearly do it.
We made an expansion and it is awesome. Really, you should check it out, especially if you're looking for some extra challenge.
Download over at ddmod.weebly.com!