Vicious Gaan'Telet Revisited

[Lujo]

It's that time in the runthrough when I get to endlessly pound my head against the wall that is my favourite VICIOUS dungeon, using all that I learned (to exploit) along the way. And spending all my dough so I can justify making another profile.

I did a run just now and here are the observations:

Gnome Tinker. Preps: Platemail, Patches, TT altar (didn't know it doesn't work), nothing (maybe should've been extra glyph), Quest Items, Knockback Mace, Whoopaz, Burn Salve, Fortitude Potion, Compression Seal. Few misses there, but some had no obvious better choices, and some were just wrong.

Patches was a horrible choice and he cost me way too many resources.

Topside - I found a spellcaster kit in the shops, and the gold subdungeon, which was nice. I might've converted too many Glyphs too early, and should've conserved my resources better, but it turned out pretty good alltogather. I bought Martyr Wraps, Battlemage Ring and Elven Boots right away and misused my compression seal on the Knockback Mace (there were better options). There was a Mage Plate Which I saved for later and probably shouldn've - the extra mana would've come in handy, seing as i also had Elven Boots and the Pedant of Mana. And conversion for Mana Potions.

There was also a Poison Ward which in retrospect I should've bought right away - not doing it cause me a lot of pain.

First Floor - Bandits, TT and Fine Sword - Probably the best possible early floor, got GETINDARE (which I kept around forever), got Tiki's Edge right away, got Poison and eventualy Dodge. Cleared it Easily.

Second Floor - Vampires and Dracul - Gravy! I ran out of hp potions thanks to patches and the vamps, so I joind up with drac right away, and proceded to get some sanguine and the resists boon. I eventually took one level of Lifestal, and a few Blood Swells here and there. Dracul's sanguine antics probably make him the best possible deity you could find, after TT who makes or breaks any Gaan'Telet run (IMO).

Third Flood - AA's and Pactmaker. I used Pactmaker on a quick consensus (not sure if it was the right thing to do in retrospect), and I cleared AA's with relative ease thanks to mana potions, Drac, Knocback and Poison. And huge ass, Martyr Wraps and Battlemage Ring fueled Fireballs which had them losing DP's in 2 shots. I converted the Knockback Mace afterwards, but I only saved a small slot due to the Compression Seal missplay. This is a big deal in Gaan'Telet, but on the flip side, the AA's could've been on the 9th floor and I'd be lugging a useless large item all that time.

Fourth Floor - Snakes and Earthmother. I remembered I had a Poison Ward in the shop when I was on my last snake. Damn. This probably lost me the run, but that would become obvious much later.

Fifth Floor - Desert Trolls and TT. Fireballs and Poison, not too difficult. I think I may have used the burn salve at this point to get un-corroded.

Sixth Floor - Illusions and JJ. Found the Orb thingy right away, smashed it for 5 bloodpools and descended with a nice chunk of exploration left.

Seventh Floor - Druids, the Troll and Mysteria - breezed through it and got 2 Mana Potions for my trouble. Things were looking good.

Eight Floor - Goblin Miners and Binlor - killed it. I had a nice routine of fireballing 5 times with a mana potion and using GETINDARE for the win, but I arsed it up on the last guy and got manaburned with no comfortable way to get un-mana burned. Ended up converting all but one Bomb (which might also've been a mistake because there was still some topside exploration left). Leveled up in the end just before I descended, but not before buying the Mage Plate to get around 28 mana. I was almost completely drained of comfortable resources by now.

Nineth floor - Goats and Taurog. Well, Taurog was useless, and the Goats did me in. I had plenty of blood pools and Drac Piety, but HP was useless, and I had very little stuff I could part with to convert for Mana Potions. A also converted a CP-less GETINDARE thinking it was the real one. Damn. Ended up converting to EM and killing the Goat after two Clearances, which is when I noticed that they must've changed the desecration rules so I couldn't get out and go back to Drac.

Final Floor - I stumbled in fromt of Horatio completely drained of anything but Mage Plate, Fireball and the Whoopaz, and hit him with it just for kicks. The fukker still has mana burn and 50% res both. Damn.


Conclusions -

End game bosses with mana burn - still suck and mandate Soul Orb. Which was always my biggest grievance with Vicious Gaan'Telet. And if one of my million Tinker shops with Quest Items prep happened to have Soul Orb it would be a non-issue. which sucks majorly, and makes me surly, unproffesional and prone to profanities.

End game bosses with 50% resist both and 5000 HP - can only be tackled even by completely decked out casters, if they happen to be on the same floor with Mysteria. Which, again, sucks, because there was nothing except chipping at him with a piercing wand which would've helped me kill him with fire even though I could've had - Mage Plate, Elven Boots, Mana Pedant, Battlemage Rind and a 10+ stack of Marty Wraps Corrosion. Oh, and I even had access to a flaming sword at one point.

The AA floor - could really use to have the AA's not spawn in the corners. And I have to remember to abuse burning more next time.I completely forgot you could hit a full HP guy and still take a DP off a burning no-hp guy.

Dracul - is possibly the only reason a got this far, and is broken in ungodly ways. Possibly only in Gaan'Telet, but still. TT for the Poison, possibly a very early Taurog, and then Drac for the win.

Binlor - seems like a complete waste of an altar regarding what floor he is on.

EM - Is a decent last ditch effort if getting 10 mana can really get you out of a scrape. I'm not sure there's a reliable way to get out of her with the way Desecrations work ATM.

Martyr Wraps - work globaly and are broken in ways beyond ungodly ones. Probably anywhere, not just Gaan'Telet.

Stupidly lucky Gnome Tinkers - make for awesome spellslingers. I'd use them more often if there were any Tinker Quests.



QUESTION:


Did anyone in fact beat the place lately, and if so, how?

[The Avatar]

I'm still trying to get my final Namtar win for 100% (stupid gorgon) before I move on to Gaan or VHoS.

[Lujo]

Np, share thoughts when you do

A very simmilar Gnome Sorcerer run where I found Drac on the first floor was going brutally smooth untill I got too careless and got myself cursed to death. Bandit floor, followed by Goo floor at around floor 7 and floor 8. I didn't touch TT this time, and I was more mindfull of using Burning to kill AA's with absolute ease. Ended up costing me too much popcorn. Hmmm...

[Lujo]

Bloodmage seems to be doing fine, except that I haven't run into a curse floor yet. I'm not trying it again without BLOODTOPOWA, that thing is a must.

[The Avatar]

Assassin also seems like a good man for the job. He's good offensively and defensively, and has very little problems with curse.

[Lujo]

Hmmm, assasin seems good, but tends to run into problems in Gaan'Telet due to his strongest ability simply not working after 2 floors.

I've got bleaty to below half health with a Gnome Bloodmage, with great luck from running into Drac right away and Finding both the Mage Plate and the Battlemage Ring. Went through a AA floor floor 8 without too much trouble, one floor were Illusions and there was only one curse floor. I didn't have either Witchalok Pedant (which rockq socks for spellcasters), the Piercing wand (which would've uped the damage significatly), the Soul Orb or Whurlgarble so there is place for improvemet. I also got punished by Drac once and I think I missed a prep. Piering Wand alone would've got him to about a 1000 I guess, and I believe I could've done better with my resources. I only used Mysteria and Drac, finding TT early would've conserved a ton of resources. I had no way to get first strike either. I did get both Mystic Balance and Refreshment, along with 3 mana from Mysteria, but i was stuck at 28 for a long while. It was enough to kill the lvl9 goblins without regen fighting, though.

Still migth be too difficult and need toning down. Playing it without BLOODTOPOWA is a waste of time, and so is playing it without either Soul Orb or the Poison Ward. Running into the Goats late can be a pain unless you have CYDSTEPP ready, and if spellcasting is nerfed at any point I'm not sure it'll be doable at all. And spellcasting is insane right now.

[The Avatar]

Yeah, it's pretty hard to put out 10000 damage from spells...

[Lujo]

Piercing wand just isn't showing up for me.

And I don't think anything but the bloodmage satands a decent chance right now, because most gods are useless, and I feel like I really need the spellpower to beat AA's easily. And they are sort of not a problem. Hmmmm. I seem to be discarding first strike too easily, and I end up needing it badly by the end - too much resources go towards regen fighting stuff. When I don't discard it, I never seem to be able to get the 3 mana I need.

Frankly, I think the place needs a nerf. Anything that can hold down a Bloodmage with the current Drac, current Martyr Wraps, Battlemage Ring, Refreshment, Mystic Balance, Mage Plate, about 40-50% Sanguine with a 5-6 fireball mana pool without specific hate can probably be considered undoable. Oh, and about 2-3 entire maps worth of exploration mana.

It seems to have one floor too many. Whatever the last floor is, it's always the end of the line and takes as much resources as the boss itself, or seems to. And there are 2 TT floors and 2 Taurog floors, and I think you can miss out on gods. Considering that some gods seem to be entirely useless, missing out on Drac or Mysterea is a huge deal.

Also, some floors are exploration bonanza, some are simply brutaly cramped. And just one "wrong" floor can seriously mess you up, especially now that lifesteal works the way it does (although it seems to be bugged, an so does poison on the Sand Trolls).




So, if it were to lose the Goo floor and the Sand Troll floor (if you get them right before the boss those things have 400 HP and fast regen), and if there was a way to actually kill illusions and keep the orb thingy, it might be doable.

Also if mysterea worked globaly, and if Binlor was usable at all (he's kind of usable as a piety farm, MAYBE, but mana and inventory space are too precious), and if EM could work somehow, then maaaaybe...

Anyway, that place needs nerfs. And so does Drac, most probably.

[The Avatar]

The problem is the randomized floors. All of the rest of the dungeons are at least slightly constant, but in this one you have no idea what you're up against, and you will never know. It could be 400 hp trolls or 238 damage AA's.

[Lujo]

I did it! Sort off...

I think I'm gonna lay off the game for a while. I got Bleaty down to a couple of hits with enough resources to do it and then unity crashed. I feel sad. Took off all his resists too. And had a ginormous stack of Corrosion on him for great fireballing retardedness. The same happened to me every time I was about to kill him with a Paladin back before the rework, and before the last big break I took - unity crash took away about 10 VICIOUS Gaan'Telet wins from me. That thing is unbalanced. I can beat a completely unfair dungeon, I can exploit broken mechanics with the best of them, but I simply can't beat the Unity Bug.

Anyway, I did it, and I got comments. I was also right about there being one floor too many, resource wise, the way things are now.

Anyway, here's how I did it.

I lucked out massively.

Gnome Bloodmage with the following preps: Martyr Wraps, Extra Gold in goldpiles, no altar preps, X to Mana, Slayer Wand, Extra Shop, No potion kit - Whoopaz, Burn Salve, Schadenfraude and STR potion, Reflex potion and a Compression Seal.

Topside - used Slayer Wand, Str potion and the Reflex to level up easily, then took TT down below (massive luck) and proceded to own. used PISSORF to get the "9 lvl1 monsters" subdungeon. Focused on killing only Magic Damage monsters and Undead, counting on Mysterea and Drac later. I bought a Battlemage Ring and compressed it. I took TT's Getindare and stuck to it - with good cause. I also made sure to use BLOODTOPOWA just about all the time and conserve every inch of space after I've located all the shops/mana boosters. I saved all the Glyphs I could which included BYCEPPS (I left them and the potions on the ground).

First Floor - Sand Trolls and TT. Massivle luck here because Sand trolls are nasty f found late and a horrible floor with almost no exploration at all. Getindare was usefull. Had Tiki's Edge and Dodging when I descended. I didn't take poison to avoid getting punsihed, and because it seems to be bugged. It's a Bloodmage thing, something (I'm guessing BLOODOPOWA) makes it not work. Either that or you can't poison Sand Trolls for some reason (has happened before).

Second Floor - Snakes and EM. EM was useless except that she spawns surrounded by blood pools. I had a Poison Ward in a shop so I fireballed and GETINDARED the snakes. I was one mana short to Fireball + Getindare without regen fighting which seemed to plague me during the entire run. I think I would've saved a floor full of exploration if I had 15 mana instead of 14. Patches is still too much liability to prep, though, and the extra gold ensures I can buy a potion when I need one (or so I believe).

Third Floor - Vampires and drac. I joind out of TT and might have payed a tribute to conserve popcorn. Incredible luck.

Fourth Floor - Mysterea, druids and the Troll.

Fifth Floor - Goblins.

Sixth floor - AA's. - This got funny. I took only the lifesteal from drac and got my piety up and switched to mysterea because I was struggling with mana. I got the mana up to 15 on the previous floor and was happy with it, but then I found the AA's and my comfortable 2 Burndayraz, one BLOODTOPOWA regen Burndayraz + getindare suddenly wasnt going to be good enough.

So I took mystic balance, and delt with AA's easily. A bloodmage can laugh at this floor (still takes a fair bit of resources but it's not autolose). You have to tackle 2 AA's at the time abusing the fact that you can use one fireball to burn two guys, and when one of them gets left with no DP you can regen fireball the other while taking hits from the one with low damage. I even managed to get refresment here, so finding Mysterea before the AA's was another luck out. It sort of bit me in the ass later, though.

Seventh floor - Goo's. The mystic balance bites! Well ,not much yet, but I had to pre cast GETINDARE for 5 mana, and then BLOODTOPOWA back to full mana and do the 3 fireball + first strike thing. Eneded up with 5 curses from killing the sods and dodge never came up once.

Eight floor - Goats. Same deal, I couldn't dodge to save my grandma and the percentage was getting pretty big. Pre cast Getindare, regen, 3 fireball for assloads (MW and Battlemage Ring) and one first stirke hit. Ended up with exploration left.

Ninth Floor - Illusions. A MASSIVE LUCK OUT. I wasted a fair bit of the level looking for the exit, but if this hadn't been Illusions I would've wasted what is probably the most pedantic run I've ever done, short of the old Fighter Gaan'Telet run. I swapped to TT at 100 mysterea piety for some more gold.

Horatio - Got him. I had exploration, 3 Glyphs, 4 shops, Burn Salve, 14 stacks of corrosion (i think), 3 fireballs per mana pool, Whoopaz, left over popcorn, a left over healing potion topside which I converted into TT potions before taking a consensus out to Drac. I had an assload of bloodpools, which got me resists from Drac, and the only problem was that I had no Soul Orb, so I had to go out of my way to land the Getindare Hits in. Without mystc balance I could get 2 mana by sucking up bloodpools and wither his resists like cake, but this turned out to be more challenging. Poison also didn't work on the first dodge + whoopaz hit for some reason.

If I had Soul Orb it would've been 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ... 000 ............. 000 % times easier. I'm being childish, and I also figured out that without mana burn he goes down to BYCEPSS beatdown, but I simply loath the fact that he has it. Especially since it means one random trinket makes so much difference and matters very little during an hour long slog to even get to him.

But it was all in vain, anyway.

In the end I couldn't beat the Unity Bug.

I whish I had a screenshot -.-




Anyway, post romp thughts, there's a bunch, and I also got stuff for the buglist:


Bloodmage - rocks. He'd probably be silly even if Gaan'Telet was finely tuned to be less insane. Sucking mana out of bloodpools is massive. Something about him screws with TT's poison, though.

Bloodtopowa - is a big part of why Bloodmage rocks. I'm not sure wether it works without a decent sanguine level, but Gaan'Telet is probably undoable any other way. Or so I believe.

Binlor, Earthmother and GG are mostly unusable, and Taurog might also be due to curse. So is JJ for the most part, due to desecration working the way it does now. The first three probably need some sort of level rework. GG and Taurog need to have compression scrolls dropped by mobs to even be considered. JJ needs to be found early, but he can't compare to the benefits of finding the Illusion floor at a later stage (which makes the run doable at all in most cases).

AA floor - I can't tell. I never had problems working around it. It does gobble up a load of resources but also gives assloads of Mysterea piety, as well as not being all that difficult for a pure caster. Probably hurts like hell for anyone else. If there was a way to grab the Illusion Orb thingy and kill the Illusions (very few likely scenario's) it might be doable even then.

Sand Troll Floor and Wraith Floor - are too effective resource hogs. I always hated the Warith floor more than the AA floor - AA floor gives you some resources to deal with what's in it, not enough, sure, but it's a pretty big, open floor. the Wraiths give you nothing, and would give you something if PISSORF worked on them, which it desn't so trying to kill them without wasting the entire floor is a fools errand. The trolls are another one which canibalizes resources found elsewhere, and since poison seems to be bugged in relation to them, and the have fast regen, it end's up costing me as much resources as the AA floor if I find it late. Or so it seems.

Curse Floors - one needs to go. Honestly, I'd prefer a weakening floor to this. One where you could actually kill stuff, Illusions are a joke monster anyway. I'd be fine with losing either the bandits or the Goos, except one bandit doesn't have curse and drops a sword (which I almost always end up converting anyway).

Soul Orb floor - there really ought to be one. There should also be a Compression Seal floor too.

Subdungeons - is a proper one too much to ask for? And/or guaranteeing the secret one will spawn?

GETINDARE - makes the grind to Horatio doable. It saves tons of pain.

BYCEPPS - it makes HORATIO doable. Just carefull with the Mystic Balance.

The following things are a tad too good in Gaan'Telet (read: playable) and likey too good elsewhere too:

Drac - I figured out what was "weird" and "wonky" about him - he's obscenely overpowered. Honestly, giving the guy with Blood Swell a boon that gives Sanguine, which heals you for every killed critter AND gives back piety? Really? I mean, sure, it's sort of balanced around not really helping much with actual healing if you stack too much, and can take you below the boss hit threshold if you're not carefull, but you only need it to farm massive piety for the resists, the bloodswells and converting out. And two hits of sanguine can be offset by an early Troll Heart -.-

Martyr Wraps - but whoever buffed them to where they are now knows this allready. Either that or they didn't take the "removes all corrosion" clausula on the Burn Salve. It might also have something to do with stacking it with other "+dmg on fireball" stuff.

Soul Orb - because a hour worth of borderline insane powergaming really should have less impact on the outcome of a dungeon run than shop-scumming for an otherwise near useless trinket. As if finding and conserving BYCEPPS throughout the run isn't silly in and off itself.

Gnome Bloodmages - but that might be level specific.

Ok, that's enough for now.