Extreme East Spoiler and Discussion Thread

[General_Milky]

[shade_of_ox]

I wanted as many veto slots as possible for VGT Curious, so...
Cleared Bard Gold. That's all the gold challenges finished.

Not too hard of a run once you figure out the strategy.


This wasn't too interesting of a run, to be honest. The gimmick was annoying and there was really only one way to play it that I could see. I can see why you guys are planning to rework this one.

[shade_of_ox]

Cleared A Final Challenge!
https://prnt.sc/l5ttzj

[The Avatar]

[Nurator]

[shade_of_ox]

@Nurator - I think Curious VGT is harder than Heretic Gold in that it's more RNG dependant. In Heretic Gold, you have no shops and no preps, and all the enemies (aside from the bosses) are standard and easy to kill. In Curious VGT, you have to deal with the new enemies (which are all substantially more difficult than normal enemies), while still having to deal with all of the regular VGT tower misfortunes. Also, the boss of Curious VGT is much more difficult than Heretic Gold. To offset all this, all you have are shops and preps. The difference is substantial (mostly because of the more difficult enemies such as Frostblades). If you don't find a way to offset the special enemies using preps, strategy, or shop items, then you won't win. The boss has the same resists as the Heretic Gold boss, but also forces you to save the Long Rant (and inventory space), and has a phase which you can't use blackspace on.

So basically, both Heretic runs require very good strategic planning, but once you have your strategy, Heretic Gold is pretty consistent, while VGT Curious requires scumming for good shop items.

[srid]

[The Avatar]

[shade_of_ox]

Two new finds in subdungeons:
Frozen Scale - a nice find, but not prep worthy. It's pretty much the same as finding a health potion.
Lord Soul - Interesting, but not prep worthy. Most dungeons you won't hit level 10, and even if you do, the 2/3 heal really won't make that much of a difference compared to a different prep.


@Avatar - I agree with your assessment of Heretic. It's very strong when all your altars are available on demand, but with a limited selection it's far more balanced. For that reason Heretic is disproportionately good at VGT and to a certain extent Naga City. I think the only reasonable nerf would be to limit the number of gods you can warship in a single run to 4 or 5 (including PM). This wouldn't really fit thematically, since the entire point of the Heretic is to mess with as many gods as possible.

In that case I feel that Curious VGT would go back to being unbeatable - given how close the Heretic run was with ALL of the lucky spawns, I can't see how a Paladin of GG or Dracul will be able to pull it off, especially with less CP (I actually think the CP feature of the Heretic coupled with all 8 gods is the strongest part of the class). Paladin of GG or Dracul was my go-to power build before, and aside from a Monk with very precise play I don't think there's a build that can top it. I could have cleared my run without using Jehora or PM, and with better luck I could have avoided using EM as well - but that would be asking for better luck in a run where I got 65% resists, HALPMEH, Vampiric Blade, Platemail, and Soul Orb.

In a normal run, I think that the Heretic is balanced with other characters. His radically different god play will allow him to take advantage of certain situations better than other characters, but other characters will be able to use certain gods to much better effect than the Heretic - Jehora, GG, and Taurog all come to mind. With 3 or even 4 altars, the Heretic doesn't have enough variety to offset his weaknesses as significantly as in VGT. Also, other dungeons don't have nearly enough resources (leveling opportunities, blackspace) to allow the Heretic to abuse the gods nearly as well as he can in VGT.

[maya]

with all this talk about the heretic I can only theorize that maybe just preeping an additional altar would be the best prep from the church. considering his scaling with variety of gods it doesn't seem like a bad idea though I don't know if this would be better than just simply prepping the god that you want to use and having him to spawn close to you. I also don't have much play on the heretic but it seems like an idea worth viewing.

if you wanted to sorta "nerf" the power of heretic in curious vgt then all you have to do is just cause only 3 gods to spawn on the main floor and the rest spawn within their respective towers. this would cause yes a little bit more save scumming for regular runs but would ultimately not limit the power of other classes but limit the power of heretic. considering the idea of having a fully explored dungeon spawn with all the shop items was mentioned (to help battle save scumming if I remember) then this idea is counter that philosophy and won't be implemented but it's the only I believe you could nerf him in this run alone. i would try rouge in curious vgt but i am not nearly good enough to try that nonsense.