Bead Enthusiast

[The Avatar]

I guess 85 or 80 would round it out well.

[Darvin]

I've been saying 80 CP for +2 is a starting point ever since this change first came out.

With old Orc, I considered 600 CP the minimum to take him over human. This was 5 conversions, which came out to 15 base attack. Any less and you may as well have just gone with the human since the advantage was not significant enough. If you calculate that out, that equates to 80 CP for +2 base attack. So I've been saying 80 for +2 for some time, and what we're observing right now seems to indicate that was probably about right.

The biggest problem is that Orc and Human are just too similar to begin with. There's no way to prep PISORF and Knockback damage is just plain unreliable to begin with, and the best way to obtain knockback damage requires prepping Binlor... which reduces the number of walls available to perform knockback attacks. So the biggest difference between base attack and attack bonus is usually a moot point.

With the removal of the linear versus quadratic growth, the only real difference is that orcs are better at lower-levels and humans are better at higher-levels, and whatever variation you can get to base attack and attack bonus to combo with your racial bonus. I don't feel this is quite significant enough.


Also just noticed the gnome puzzles got updated. Gnome 2 is fairly easy, gunna take another crack at gnome 3 later; they upped the HP of the wraith and my original solution isn't working anymore as a result.

[gjaustin]

[Darvin]

[The Avatar]

Agreed. I really don't use them at all.

[gjaustin]

To be honest, I haven't played much since the latest changes to burning, so Whurrgarbl may not be as good as I remember it.

I'd recommend you guys give it another try though. It's still one of the best items for regen fighting as a caster class.

[The Avatar]

Regen fighting casters aren't very effective ATM, so I don't know if Whurrgaburgl will be either.

[Blovski]

Know this is a bit late, but Assassin gold is a neat level - various solutions, not too rough and good for goblins. Priest silver was pretty hard (that most of the challenge levels are *really* mazy doesn't help).

Just tried new GG (on a hoarder run as a thief on doubledoom... *facepalm*, eventually managed to conv over to Dracul and get unstoppable). I can't decide whether I like him or not - I like the idea of Enlightenment but it doesn't really look powerful enough to me for 100 piety on a slowish piety god (i.e. if you've spent a prior 40-piety minimum on boons, you get some advantages which by the time in the game you've got 140-minimum piety and lost 10 popcorn don't seem too impressive). I'm kind of glad that the GG get-in-get-out thing has been trimmed a bit. I'll have a shot at prepping him, though, I guess.

[The Avatar]

I beat Naga City with a GG monk. Between the extra percent from Enlightenment and the extra resist from beads, he's actually a good choice .

[Blovski]

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Hm, yeah, just given the new GG a proper runthrough since I had a Den of Danger run to do anyway.

As a Human Paladin I got 21 prayer beads before getting enlightenment (a few redundant cleansings in the process). So +21 health, 21% MR, and 21% damage and 210 conv points (almost another 20% damage, though GG prep so needed to make up the conversions), which is nice, yes, but doesn't really feel like enough of a reward for the level of effort you need to go to to get it. An absolute ton of piety, most of your inventory and dropping potion use. I really like the protection/cleansing magic damage thing - really neat option for Goo and Tormented Soul.

And that's as a Paladin (ideal GGer) on a level with snakes and lots of undead, for characters getting 10-15 prayer beads (which sounds about right), that's a lot of effort for a late-game bonus that's not much bigger than Dwarven Gauntlets.

I like the idea behind enlightenment but it's still not a big enough change in feel to justify the effort you have to go to to make it work in my view.
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@Avatar: Can imagine it being pretty good on Naga City since you can reliably conv. out afterwards to get Dracul/TT for real late-game boons/to take advantage of ridiculoushealth... did you stick with him to the end?