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Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

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Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby CznRhubarb on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:25 am

So apparently the piercing wand lowers resists past 0, into the negatives.
I decided to see just how powerful this was. I did get a little lucky along the way as well, but...
Unfortunately, I didn't take enough screen caps for a full walkthrough, but here are the highlights.

TLDR: Scroll through for the screens that I did get.

Decide to try Dragon Isles to test myself, as it is the toughest Vicious dungeon for me.
I chose Elf Sorcerer for the extra 5 MP, and because the Sorc is my favorite class.
Prepped: A whole bunch of stuff, but the important things are...
Fireball (Sorcerer practically needs this prep)
Piercing Wand
Mystera


Things start out a little rough as a magic user with a 7 cost Fireball and all enemies having 15% magic resist. Luckily the Sorc excels at the early game. Oh, also? I find BLUDTOPOWA in my first 25 tiles or so.
I fireball things left and right before and after finding Mystera who is all the way around the back of that starting wood grove. Take the first +MP boon, then FB my way to Mystical Balance. Things are starting to get a little easier now that my FB drops 2 MP/cast, and they get even easier after I take the first Weakening boon.

I find Firstborn and I am level 5. I decide to go for it.
Image

I regen fight the Firstborn down to -79% magic resist before striking the final blow. At level 5. With at least 30% of the map still covered. So far so good, and all this without the Crystal Ball I usually love so much.

This is when I catch the second lucky break of the game and find the Crystal ball in a store. The Matron is in for it. I descend into her lair and then realize that weakening does not penetrate underground. Oh well.

Image
I regen fight my way to the Matron, killing all the guards and still not having hit level 10. The Matron starts with 65% Magic resist due to my Mystera prep, but ends at -52% due to the Piercing wand.

At the end of it all, I was still level 9 (After killing the Matron), got Feeling Parched and Specialist (WITH MAGIC!)
Image
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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby Darvin on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:32 am

Since BLUDTUPOWA is so important for this approach, the Bloodmage would work very well. Otherwise, Wizard for reduced spell cost or Assassin to swift-hands weaker monsters would be ideal. Sorcerer is more of a hybrid caster/fighter and for a pure caster approach like this you're better off just sticking with an elf or attack->MP to boost your max MP.

Seems like this is a bug, but worth having fun with until it's fixed.
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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby q 3 on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:42 am

I hate to rain on anyone's bragging parade (that's a lie, I love it), but negative resists have been a known factor since the current iteration of the Piercing Wand was first implemented. It's a powerful ability to be sure, but I think that the real imbalance is Mystic Balance - without it, that extra +1 cost is pretty hefty. Still, congrats on your total domination.

For the record, I'll repeat my suggestion for fixing Mystic Balance - make all glyphs cost the average MP cost of all glyphs in your inventory, excluding BLUDTOPOWA. It's probably still need a penalty on top of that since a Wizard could get a 3 MP fireball even with the Piercing Wand (7 + 1 + 1 = 9 / 3 = 3). Maybe have BLUDTOPOWA count as a 10+ MP cost glyph just to balance things out and make that combo less tempting. :twisted:
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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby CznRhubarb on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:44 am

Darvin:
Yeah, I figured that there is no way this is sticking.

And you are right about the Bloodmage (Although I would also consider them a fighter/caster hybrid). Unfortunately my thinking has gotten pretty narrow minded when it comes to class selection and I seem to always pick the same few, Bloodmage not being one of them, because as pointed out by somewhere else in another thread: All of their class traits (with the exception of Power Hungry, which isn't that great) can be replicated by other classes that find BLUDTOPOWA and Dracul. But that is a different discussion anyway.


Q 3:
:(
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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby q 3 on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:52 am

Aww, don't be like that. Everyone's been ignoring the piercing wand (or at least not discussing it) for so long that it's like a new discovery. ;)
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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby Darvin on Mon Mar 05, 2012 4:54 am

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Re: Bragging about my Piercing Wand find

Postby The Avatar on Mon Mar 05, 2012 12:14 pm

Without mystic balance, it really wouldn't be that great. But it'd still be good.
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!
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