Playthrough notes

[Lujo]

There's really weird behaiviour with the forums or something. My ty for Avatars info got moved above his info, and I didn't edit anything.

Late Game:

!!! - Wizard gold is very, very, VERY hard. And since I take kingdom gold in there, I'm bleeding gold on retires (possibly even if I exit immidiately, because you can't take gold out of challenges). If that was ment to be the factory from alpha, it's not - alpha Animated Armors didn't get mysterea mad if you killed them, and they always had 1 HP.

Dear god - I just had a Wizard Gold run where I scored Martyr Wraps, and that time I managed to kill SMM. I had piety for 3 Weakenings, and then just ran out of steam. It looks really hopeless. I remember people complaining about it before, and now I see what they ment.

I'm a fool - And then I go in there with an Orc, pick up PISSORF, and beat it on the first try. Well, this is the first time I bought the Rock Heart in a long while and now I don't know what to use my next veto slot for. Also, I boght Martyr Wraps, and useld LEMISI to find the bosses to get them corroded.

Impressions: Sorcerer gold Took three tries, a scouting one, one to see what the guys revives into, and a serious Gnome sorcerer run with a bit of fancy god shuffling and piety management shennanigans, as well as a lucky mage plate and Gloves of Midas (and a complete waste of a Tri-Sword). I don't know, seems manegable, but I also didn't mind the old HARD Indomitable, so I don't know.

Suspicion: Only bloodmage gold left, and I'm beggining to suspect the spellcasting gold challenges all revolve around an important and unitntuitive lesson - "There are TWO direct damage glyphs in this game!"

Also: Apparently the Orc bloodmage can have the name "Darvin". If it's unintentional, fine. If it's intentional, eh, fine again, maybe he bought the expensive version.

Big Like: Bloodmage Gold: Well, that was fun. Dvarwen BM, and was carefull not to let the bugger heal up too much (he did maybe once or twice, and I spent a lot of blackspace looking for BURNDAYRAZ to start lvling). Anyway, more of a puzzle, much easier than BM silver once you figure it out, and a very nice twist. And yes, my suspicions were confirmed - the big lesson is in fact that there is another damage glyph besides the one which gets prepped every time.

Veto Slot! - I also scored my second veto slot, but I'll be damned if I know what to put in there. Hero's Helm or the Health Pendant I suppose, but even those came in handy in certain places. Rock Heart? But it's amazing with PISSORFF... The first one has a spoon in it, so I suppose one of the basic items will get the second one, but I've even been using the mana pendant lately. And vatoing anything before all the challenges are done is probably counterproductive seeing how so many of them revolve around stuff which I rarely use... The balanced dagger, on the other hand, is probably a safe choice... What have you guys vetoed?

Labyrinth: I went in with a prepped out Orc Warlord with Binlor specificaly to get the nose ring right off the bat. And I did. I'd say Tri-Sword made it trivial (which it indeed did, seeing how I mopped the floor with Frank even before The Minotaur showed up, but it still took quite a bit of effort. Or resources rather. God's were Binlor, grab everything pemanent and destroy most of the walls, then Taurog. There are so many magic damage dealers in there that you can practicaly spam your spells, which I did with WHEYTWUT setting up knockback on Frank (had mace + bilors boon), and I whittled down my mana to 10, and when I ran out of everything I took the last piece of equipment and a DP from Taurog. Probably had piety for 2 more DP's but that was a close shave.

Note: PQI: As soon as I got the Nose Ring the "Economic Meltdown" came about. At the same time, the PQI turned up and is sending me into Cursed Oasis. I won't be picking PQI stuff up most likely, but I bet my ass I'll get notheing but slime pits and cursed oasis for a while. In case anyone's wondering, apparently it turns up when you're 3 throphies away from completion.

Note: Labyrinth: And then an elven fighter walked out of there with a nose ring, 125 gold, resources left and unstoppable.

Note: Labyrinth: And then the Elven Berserker walks out of there with a nose ring, but with shellshock, broken ribs, and a medal of honor. It took the whole of every single bit of resources to kill the Wraith boss and then the minotaur. Taurogs piety spike, EM desecrations, Binlors Stoneskin piety spike... Fully loaded Tri-Sword, CYDSTEPP, unbelievable... Hardest run in the game so far, and woudl've been even if I did the bosses the other way around. And you have to do it because it unlocks - Paladin Silver. Yes, that is right.

Lol: Paladin silver: Is actually doable by potion spiking the boss with a halfling without using a single DP from Taurog. I even took all of Taurog's stuff up front, spent the lvl with only 9 mana and regen fought monsters. Still had 100 Taurog piety for the endgame. Preps were... Compression seal and blacksmith shield I think. Well, thats all silver challenges, I'll just see if I can snag the Paladin Gold and get back to the midgame writeup.

Concern: Paladin Gold: I think it need a nerf. It took a couple of tries, and scumming for Piercing Wand, and wasn't fun at all. It's about on par with Warlord Gold, although Warlord gold requires less scumming as such. In case someone doesn't have the Piercing Wand, or has vetoed it, good luck and do post if you manage to beat it. Maybe it's possible with a triling, but I really dont know. (Took Piercing wand, APHEELSICK and IMAWAL shennanigans with trying to regen fight a monster 2 levels above yourself, while wearing down the boss, and minding the plantlife and managing curses and... Way too hard.)

Third Veto Slot! And I don't know what I'd put in the second, and am not happy with what I put in the first! Yay!

Noticed: Subdungeon: The 2 health potion and 2 mana potion subdungeon, sadly forgot to photograph it. Yes, it's a bit too good, I'm afraid.

LoL: PQI sent me on a purist run in Hobbler's Hold ^^ I also saw the interesting kindgom screen tooltip: "No gold may be earned here after your first victory in another dungeon". I got to remember to do a bunch of badgehunting runs here on my next playthrough

Shifting Passages Notes: I went in there to unlock the Berserker challenge (-.-), and ended up doing the quest. Sorcerer walked in there and did it with ease - found binlor and then I don't remember, but he seems to be at home in lybyrinthine maps since he can spam utility glyphs like a boss, and gets more out of the limited blackspace. Wizard went in and struggled, died to missattention in a binlor-EM run on the last attack, and did much better in a GG (Humility, straight piety farm to 100) into TT for all things. Both tackled Frank then Evolvia. Bloodmage went in there like a boss, killed a lvl 8 at lvl 4, a lvl 9 at lvl 5, rolled Evolvia, Rolled bleaty, and then I went to check the subdungeon. Seriously, bloodmage is insane, and it's not just the flavor. Oh, and I used Alchemist Pact, as usual on spellcasters, even though the overheal one might be even better on BM.

Interesting Subdungeon: Again, no pictures, but there is a northern subdungeon with 3 Goblin Bombs in it, that appeared in shifting passages (convinient, no?). Now if we could only get one with 5 pieces of junk which convert for 15 to get use out of the conversion pact which spawns anywhere, that would be great. Forgot to take picture again

Berserker Gold: Looks insane at first, but isn't. Then it looks easy-peasy, but isn't. Then, inspired by the awesome synergy between lifesteal and bloodtopowa, I figure out that the correct way of going about things is the overheal pact and an Elven berserker plus piercing wand. Mostly fireballs, ofc. Awesome, jolly good fun.

Berserker Gold: Art issue It cuts down on the RAAOOWWAAAR! awesomeness of the first two installments, which was a bit of a letdown.

Veto slot no. 4! I put the dagger in the second slot, and I have no clue what to do with the other two... Weaponize the basic items? Reduce the number of quest items? (I never seem to use the Fireheart, even though it's integral to healthmonster strat). No clue...

[Lujo]

Saturday:

Dancing Blades or HARD Halls of Steel: Well, oddly enough, it was the easiest penultimate directional dungeon so far, or felt like it. All runs on first try, and all runs ended with another De-Animated helm. An elven priest with prepped Crystall Ball turned out to be an amazing random idea, because the other boss was the Goo Blob. I think I also used APHEELSICK during this run, to ok effect. I potion spiked the Indomitable, and it was a Miser and Faithless run. The Orc monk took out Lord Gobb and the Indomitable with the help of Taurog and APHEELSICK (still ok w monks), and The Elven paladin Taurog'd his way through Bleaty, then the Indomitable. It's a really easy dungeon if you keep the Orb of Lusory around.

Challenge Accepted or Ick Swamp: Well, the elven thief walked out of there with relative ease. GG for leveling and piety farm off of poison and mana burn plants (in retrospect I could've used the HALPMEH for more of this), and then Mysterea Weakenings and lots of fireballs for the Tower of Goo and the snake guy. Even had a bunch of missplays throughout it all, but with all the spoon and charm drops it was not too tough.

[The Avatar]

Halls of Steel are really easy in hard mode. It might make sense to have it 3 boss with Indom, BlahBlah, and a random.

I agree with your notes on the gold playthroughs. Except Paladin gold I beat sans piercing wand. I just used BICEPS a lot.

[Lujo]

Uh, BYCSEPSS must've took a while. Then again, I don't know...

Say, what do you keep in your veto slots?

More Ick: Dwarven Rogue did it faithless (Naga Tail throphy), and it felt sort of great, since it's not difficult, but the plantlife has you thinking. The ammount of drops might be too much though, I had 4 full rows, and both the thief and the rogue handled the bosses with ease. I dread to say this because of all the Ick haters out there, but the only reason the place might not be in need of a buff is maybe that a few classes have too much trouble with plants. Otherwise, it's a bit too easy now, especially compared to the Labirynth and the Shifting passages...

Christmass:

More Ick (Assasin): Well, I don't know what to think, since I discovered what Darvin ment when he kept saying Assasins first strike overrides other monsters first strike. Anyway, I went in there with a Golin, a magnet fireball and a crystall ball. I found B2P evntually and JJ and a Piercing Wand. And then I roasted Medusa and the Naga Boss without even picking up most of the charms and spoons. I did use poison, allthough how much help it was I cant say. Well, it did help with medusa, and a few lvling kills, but I converted it for the naga boss.

Tavern Map Issue: - The vampire unlock quest still doesn't show on the map, and the only pointer is in the "upper right corner notes" which is the only time something like that happens. The quest probably ought to be flagged properly.

Gaan'Telet just went down: I did it with a TT elven Bloodmage and completed the main game. No special tricks, no power items, no nothing. Plain ole broken Bloodmage, ran out of blackspace and monsters at the 3rd floor, never went out of TT and never converted the gloves of midas, didn't pick TT potions up and didn't use a single health potion. No items to speak of (troll heart, fine sword, vampiric blade and gloves, that was it, B2P, Burndayraz, Getindare, bit of early wonnafyt, bought schadenfraude, the usual). New poison boon is not really woth the effort (unless it gives more piety for poisoning now, not sure). Floors were compression seal one (3 curse), poisoned ham (revealed) and the first one was troll + sensation stone (lucky there) and horatio was bloodless.

To do: VICIOUS (3 classes per), and maaaaaaybe vicious Gaan'Telet if someone tells me what beats it with any degree of certanty. Maybe a fer runs with each of the monster classes, and some explorer guild classes play. Then writeup.

HARD halls of steel: 4th time: Well, Bloodmage did it without drinking any bloodpools. NOW I can to the vicious stuff.

Bank Upgrade And a flaming venture cave run with a crusader let me upgrade the bank. Nice. I could've picked another locker slot, but I want to have no overflow problems and stack a big bunch of money for tricky runs.

Crusader note: Seeing how 2 of his boons are regen fighting boons, and the first one is everything but, I suppose reworking it into an inbuild version of the resistance pact wouldn't be too much to ask for?

TT Poison note: Well, it does a good job of sucking up piety, but could maybe do a little bit more for you than it does. Anyway, a purist Goblin tinker run (2 tries even) in Grimms Grotto (both against SMM, the fat one), got me 500 gold I can maybe use to get my economy back up for all the VICIOUS stuff. Is getting starting gold on every rn even if youre purist ment to happen or is it a bug?

Naga City: Is probably finaly what it was ment to be, and that is not easy at all. Well, at least not for a random goblin thinker with serious missasumptions EDIT: Or the goblin wizard for that matter, but I did make the serious mistake of prepping Piety charm and no topside altar o.O

[Lujo]

26th:

Naga City Win: Orc PISSORFF wizard with Crystal ball and Metal Spider Temple (grabbed compression and translocation seal). Crystall ball is ridiculous, and Naga City went through a sharp increese in difficulty. I got the Mage Fist with the most unlikely pallete swap artwork in the history of the term "placeholder", but hey, I get to test it... Now, how in the world do I find the Naga Cauldron?

[The Avatar]

Win Naga City until you get the cauldron. It randomly picks one of the rewards.

[Lujo]

Crash annoyance: My post-traumatic stress disorder is working up from all the crashes. I don't mind them really, all will be fixed, but they're such an annoying money drain it's unbelievable. Esecially if you're trying to do Naga City with the mandatory death upon failure (that's death statistics being artificially inflated right there ). I had to do about 10 money runs, which is why all this took so long.

Naga City Win II: Well, Gnome Sorcerer did it. Topside altar was JJ, down below I had to desecrate 3 things to get enough indulgences not to get killed GG and only managed just barely. (If I hadn't gone to GG I would've managed it fine). Gear was really exotic - Crystall Ball (doooooh), Mage Plate, Witchalok Pendant and Fire Heart. It was also awesome, as if I just skipped GG (only took Humility) it would've been easier. I guess I could manage it with Bloodmage as well, allthough I'm not too sure. Cauldron's lockered, but I'm doing VICIOUS without any VICIOUS rewards for testing purposes, if possible.

Like: The fact that the cauldron has actual cauldron art. I wouldn't think this is odd, but I feel like being sarcastic about the mage boots (mage plate art should be remade into an actuall ornamental porcelain plate for eating food off, that'd actually make more sense). Not because of the flaming trousers bussiness, as having a powerglove for the effect makes as much sense if not more, but because of at Darvin for defending the terrible placeholder choice as sensible. Also, "mage fist" name/non-mechanical design feels really blandish, it's cookie cutter videogame filler flavour. Or so it seems to me... Sorry for picking nits, just annoyed at all the hassle with Naga City, I guess

PQI: Hex Ruins: Elven Monk Hoarder. Was tricky, but I managed. Binlor, Imawal, Drac, Agnostic Collar and I prepped Martyr Wraps. Other boss was Gobb, but i withled his resists while farming my own during the Binlor Binge. Lucky Viper ward purchase, and ended up with a 20% resists Stheno as I couldn't deal with a bunch of revenants due to Drac.

Naga City Win III: Gnome Bloodmage, Crystall Ball, Mysterea topside, no bonus subdungeon, no fancy items (I might've bought a Troll Heart), no desecrations, no consensus, no other deities but Mysterea. Picked up refreshment and mystic balance up top, descended with conversion fodder glyphs, used Whoopaz on Frank, used a bunch of Weakenings (about 5-6) for the goblin and the iron man, used APHEELSICK for SMM, took Flames at one point (post SMM) and abused the hell out of Crystal Ball. I had about a 100 piety near the end so I could've gone GG for the piety spike. Funny thing is, this was the hardest run so far, the Sorcerer sort of had an easier time and the Wizard just destroyed. Anyway, the Gorgon is unlockable without any vicious rewards and no slowing effects (started really avoiding those, they crash almost 100% of the time).

Power curve note: Between the Crystall Ball and B2P the Gnomes seem to leave the other races in the dust when it comes to late game. They'd probably be good with the Mage Fist, and they'd certanly be good with the Cauldron, but picking just about anything over Crystall Ball is akin to shooting yourself in the head for a bit of a challenge.

Weird PQI: Slime Pits: Well, I'm stockpiling money and charting uncharted waters, so I went into the Slime Pits as a Miser Dwarf Transmuter. And I won! Crystall Ball, Mysterea (I'm sensing a pattern here), but if the Transmuter is really good with something then it's B2P. I managed to Flames-Fireball down a HARD SMM with a Miser Dwarf. Anyway, B2P counts for the transmutations, and I wonder where the DMG upon conversion went. If I didn't find that B2P I wouldn't've known what to do with the Transmuter

[Lujo]

Well, seing how the crashstorm is over, and a blizzard just snowed me in again, I'm back to my playthrough sweep of the game.

Dragon Isles Win no.1 - Took me 2 tries with a gnome wizard. Would've been one try but I got the Cha'Dylan subdungeon and was lvl7 with barely any exploration spent and a B2P so I played really, really carelessly and ended up screwing myself over for 1 hit on the matron. On the second try i didn't find B2P, but I did find Cha'Dylan again and went unstoppable. I prepped Mysterea, but found Drac and decided to use him as a piety farm, which worked out just fine, spent dodge+whoopaz on the firstborn, APHEELSICKED him to death, went down, ENDISWALLED the roadblock, picked up flames and refreshment (after 2 sanguine, 1 bloodsteal and +15% res both), translocated a soul orb, bought a viper ward and proceeded to burn the matron to death. Yes, she does have fireball retaliation. APHEELSICK + Cha'Dylan LEMISI + refreshment + Crystall Ball...

EDIT: And I forgot I had exploration left in the Cha'Dylan subdungeon. And the prepped subdungeon. LOL.

Dragon Isles Like - The absence of AA's is really refreshing.

Pointless good hearted and politicaly incorrect observation - There are 2 kinds of things in this list: B2P, Crystall Ball, Drac, Refreshment, Wizards (buff or pre-buff) and Cha'Dylans subdungeon. And Mysterea. The first kind are unbalanced. The second kind are gay. Gay is OK, but the unbalanced ones probably ought to be looked into.

Drac observation Ever since I've done the Drac puzzles, I've been using the bugger as a piety farm and actually picking him up for things other than bloodswell spam. Seeing how bloodswell spam is grotesquely overpowered on it's own, and how bloodswell spam + sanguine are beyond grotesquely overpowered and applicable everywhere, I'm honestly surprised to find actual DEPTH in there. He WORKS, which then brings me to the question - what is the justification for this? How is it balanced?

[gjaustin]

Serious answer -

They're balanced by the fact that there's a bunch of stuff on that power level. IMO, your threshold for "overpowered" is set way too low.

[Lujo]

If it's about Drac - well, my answer is - not really. Not of this caliber IMO. He used to be my go-to-űber-cheeze-endgame- god even before they created sanguine, and lately I've discovered that you can use him in ways I didn't even think about. It felt kind of discovering that your tactical nuke dispensing self reloading infinite ammo sniper shotgun with heat seeking shot also made sandwiches and walked your dog. Maybe it's just me though.

If it's about the wizard shennanigans - well, my answer is... I'm not sure, but I've been rolling with wizard before the buffs all through this playthrough, I'm picking up flames regularly these days and I just fireballed a fat fireball retaliator to death without B2P. I can think of several things that would've made this run easier and my wizard more powerful, and on top of that BURNDAYRAZ wizard isn't even the most powerfull wizard, it's something you settle for if you can't find PISORFF. So in essence, he can clear an otherwise unfavourable vicious scenario while gimped.

I'm really not sure theres anything on par with B2P and especially Crystal Ball right now. Comparing them to other stuff IS what I'm doing, and, well, they get me through places where I can't think of anything else that would. At least nowhere close this easily and carelessly.

Bug or feature? - Prepping EM + Burn Salve is like having a "prep 2 altars, but get 25 free piety + 3 indulgences", plus EM perks if you're up for it. Not to everyone's taste I know, what with extra altar being so popular, but I like it for the sheer bit of variety in church prep strategies.

Dragon Isles Win no. 2 - Triling berserker with extra attack boosters, EM + Burn Salve and quest items for the ward. JJ into TT into JJ. It was very, very easy, but that was kind of expected with this class/dungeon combo.

PQI/Flaming note - I have a flaming slime pits and a PQI Cursed Oasis. Yay.