I wish I could prep Avatar's Codex and Dragonshield

[Sidestepper]

I'm convinced that the acid caster can handle any vicious token map that doesn't completely hose Earthmother with its layout. There are also some exotic variants involving a conversion into Mystera that I haven't experimented with because no Hard map offers a target that justifies that kind of firepower.

i think that any Codex/EM build will only be superficially related to the acid caster. The latter works by focusing all of its resources into mana and Greenblood. Once you have to start worrying about enemy damage everything changes.

[Lujo]

True, true.

But forgetting my Bloodmage detour, the EM spellcaster doesn't really have a use for either health or health pots, except if you run into B2P. So going codex with, say, priest or monk + EM would probably be pretty sweet. My suggestion for making clearance give 12 mana back instead of 10 was aimed at giving it a more universal appeal instead of putting it squarely in the job description of wizards and paladins.

And if weakening wasn't such a godsend against the shade in CO, and EM spellcaster would actually have a much better time in CO (and probably allready has due to all the plants in the curse world). All those magic users, mana burners and blinkers are pretty nasty against Mysterea, and wouldn't phase EM one bit.

[Sidestepper]

I've done Cursed Oasis with the acid caster, but it's not ideal. The problem isn't the Shade. Corrosion plus the Shade's low innate health is more than enough to power through it. The problem is that the dragon has retaliation. You have to have PISORF.

Having your plants and Greenblood stacks get split between worlds also sucks royally, and the AAs are a pain as well. If you want a Earthmother caster for this map, a Punchomancer with heavy Vine Form support is probably better.

[Lujo]

Oh, yeah, dat retaliation -.- Does retaliation from codex stack with regular retaliation?

And the splitting of stuff in CO really ought to be a bit more moderate - I think if one of the things I've come to learn in all this time is true than it's this - blinking lifestealers is nasty bussiness. Shades really mess any run up for me.

EDIT: Wow, Codex EM Goblin Sorcerer had a really easy time in CO - shades don't blink, retaliation doesn't stack, EM doesn't punkish killing all the magic stuff, mana shield kills AA's, nothing takes more than 3 fireballs to kill and you don't have to tank more then one usually (plus ones you don't tank heal you up). No weakenings, either, and I ran out of health potions so I had to convert all the glyphs iv'e been saving to ding to heal up. Got me the bagde I was missing, DING Max! too. Wow. I did spam entanglements and clearences while leveling though, and IMAWAL really gets you those levels fast.

[FDru]

Forgot to mention that the Witchalok Pendant triggers stoneskin before the enemy counterattack hits.

[Sidestepper]

I just tried the Codex Sorcerer. Fun stuff. I would've gotten Hoarder if I hadn't converted a redundant IMAWAL to clear space. The trick is to mostly ignore EM's long term boons and store piety for Clearance and Entanglement spam. Take 2-3 hits of Vineform at 1st level because it's almost free, and use Greenblood as needed to mitigate curse.

gripe I almost didn't do this. I didn't have the Codex lockered and didn't want to spend 20-30 minutes resolving Demonic Library. I like DL, but it's not what I wanted to do tonight. If it weren't for the magic of hacking, I wouldn't have bothered /gripe

[Lujo]

Yep, that's the ghist of it - where did you do this?

gripe I totaly could discover this because I let post game rewards clog up my locker, god knows what all didn't come to my mind because of that codex sitting there all the time /gripe

[Sidestepper]

Cursed Oasis. Entangle is the real star of the show there. I probably used it close to ten times.

[Lujo]

Cursed Oasis. Entangle is the real star of the show there. I probably used it close to ten times.

Yep, which also ties into all my grumbling about shades - those things might be a bigger hazard than was originaly thought. Shade infested maps are much, much easier to do if you take away their blink.

Not complaining about something being difficult, just something being visibly more difficult than stuff in related tiers. If it takes entanglement and a vicious reward on hand to deal with something, while other approaches can fruitlessly bang their heads against the wall for ever, something is messed up. Entanglement is good enough when it isn't removing a distinct hazard - it's one of the strongest boons out there.

EDIT: I just did Grimm's Grotto with EM Codex Halfling Priest. Boss was Medusa, and I didn't even take all that much from EM. And early clearance or two and entanglement spam for the entire bossfight, went unstoppable before the fight but didn't use either plantation or anything from the pactmaker. Medusa never got to retaliate anything, and I fireballed her to death entirely. Took dodge and whoopaz, didn't need it...

[Blovski]

Eh - I've been alright on the Cursed Oasis shades and I've been playing mostly purist or near-purist. Also, doesn't knockback prevent blink? The shades on Creeplight are optional, so that's not too big a deal for me.