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Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:26 am

Wow, I really have to see this acid caster run. But first...

Part 20: Havendale Bridge is a really fun dungeon. You should really do that bank quest (if you haven't already), because that will get you the quest for elite items, which we both know are GREAT. Hmm... Wizards aren't great for Havendale. The unrand boss has magic res. Even still, Wizards are one of the best classes in the game, so it works fine. Wow, this is unbelievable. Fine Sword, Troll Heart, GETINDARE, APHEELSIK, and MA at LEVEL 1! You should GETINDARE for the kill. Wow, you already forgot the effect of your witchalok pendant. Yes, don't forget your reduced mana costs. You can beat that goat RIGHT NOW. Seriously, did you forget your GETINDARE ALREADY? You can literally hit and GETINDARE the goat, but since you seem to have forgotten GETINDARE, whatever. This is wasteful. I know over exploration isn't that important, but you can flat out murder a level 3 at level 1 and there is no reason not to. You must have forgotten GETINDARE. If not, this is inexcusably bad. Mystic Balance is actually BAD for Wizards. Generally, Wizards LOVE refreshment and magic. Here's a hint: If 1 level higher kills are easy, THEN KILL 2 LEVEL HIGHER MONSTERS. Good, you are gong for tougher monsters. You are TOTALLY misplaying your witchalok pendant. You want to use your fireballs after your first attack, so the 60% stoneskin gets you a second one. If you can see the bosses bone piles, always explore that way. There are 2 bosses in every hard dungeon except Creeplight. Wow, that was a lucky pick. You are a spell caster with GETINDARE and CYDSTEPP. Beyond a Taurog murderer, it is literally the best set up. You definitely need to level up kill Bleaty so you can get 2 CYDSTEPPs. Alternatively, you could take MA's weakening boon to lower his resists. Also, it is entirely possible to take a hit from Bleaty. It is possible to take hits from monsters that do 450 damage without CYDSTEPP (and indeed a challenge forces you to do this). Seriously, for a wizard, your glyph use is embarrassing. You have totally ignored GETINDARE which you could have used incredibly effectively, the PISORF could be used to smack Bleaty for physical, circumventing his spell resistances, and APHEELSIK could have been used for even higher level kills. See? As long as you are hauling these glyphs around, USE THEM. Don't just ignore them until Refreshment. Also, EVERY HARD DUNGEON HAS A UNIQUE BOSS! Seriously, you need to check the dungeon panel beforehand or you risk confusing newer players who think SMM could spawn instead of the unrand boss. There is a massive chunk of exploration. There is no reason to slow a level 7 meat man, as you cannot one shot it. Good job removing druid DPs. Oh, now you use the GETINDARE. AGES after it could have been useful. And then you don't even finish the boss with it and don't even bother thinking about it. Just convert a glyph or explore one of your 4 tiles. And that is what math is for. 42+2 does not equal 45. Okay, you may have crushed this run, but regardless it was not a good run. It was a lucky one (although you did play well, just not great).

KEY POINTS: If you are carrying a glyph, USE IT! Seriously, these glyphs all have many uses and in every dungeon you will be able to find AT LEAST one ideal situation per glyph. PISORF circumvents magic res, GETINDARE could have saved you a ton of resources, APHEELSIK enabled higher level kills. Also, excluding Creeplight Ruins, all hard dungeons have one random boss, and at least one unrand boss. Your witchalok pendant use was abominable. Seriously. You use it in between hits 1 and 2 (or after one so you can do two without dying).

Thief and Rogue Bronzes: First of all, this should be episode 21! All of your other class challenge ones are. And this took 30 mins? What? You must have a misclick. The Thief Challenges are the most fun. They are thematic and give a unique reward. Good job precasting. It makes this challenge rather easy. As a minor tip, always take hits from the level 1 and use GETINDAREs on the level 3s/4s. If you don't need the attack booster right then, then don't pick it up. The fine sword is actually less valuable than a row of charms... You should be GETINDAREing more stuff. See, if you had been taking hits from level 1s, you wouldn't be out of exploration. The biggest chests have the biggest rewards (at least in bronze). In Silver the level 5 chest is the key. And you picked the wrong chest. Except you dodged, so whatever. You can convert GETINDARE. That ruined everything. Now you can't one shot the box. What on earth are you doing? Just open the chest! You forgot the thief's stabber ability. This is dumb. You could have won awhile ago with feeling parched. This is why you CAN'T forget class traits. You could just CONVERT BUNRDAYRAZ and save the mana. This is ridiculously elaborate and unnecessary. Orc rogue is better than human rogue 99% of the time. This is a rather nice start. The level 10s in rogue bronze are basically Tomithy in a normal (or maybe even easy) dungeon. Your ENDISWALing is terrible. Seriously, beyond cross intersections (walls in 4 directions), you should only ENDISWAL T's (of course this is assuming you haven't already explored around it. You only ENDISWAL the nearest walls. It's strange to think some people don't even consider what is best when they ENDISWAL. It becomes so automatic once you do it enough. Curse cancels temporary resists (Stoneskin) too. Actually, you are totally wrong. You could kill the boss right now between your glyphs. THE BOSSES ARE RIDICULOUSLY WEAK. You can two-shot them! WHY DOES IT NOT OCCUR TO YOU THAT A BOSS CAN BE KILLED AT LEVEL 6? Well, that's a win. Seeing as you are about to kill yourself in some embarrassing method and have to redo it (just please look at the prediction screen). I'm pressed for time, so I am skipping the rerun.

KEY POINTS: Don't forget this should be Episode 21. You need to consider the walls you blow up, not just blow up the nearby ones.

Episode 21: Oh, this ought to be fun! I'm no pro with the acid caster, but I'll gives the tips I can. And there is your EM. Oh wow, a level 9 serpent. That is the ideal target for an acid caster. As an Acidcaster, you can basically IMAWAL all of your level 1-3s and then any level 7-9s which you don't want to kill. Also, when under EM, ALWAYS take one hit of Entanglement. Then you can use "brick exp" to level up and get 3 more fireballs on your target. While IMAWALing Plants saves popcorn, it nets less piety. If you can get both, that's even better. Honestly, if you want to learn how to play the spider temple, the wiki page on it is VERY helpful. MOAR PLANTS! Seriously, in future, brick all of your low level guys. Why not make it a mid-fight level up, or even better, don't level up yet! You dream to low. You can get the level 9. You could have saved the potion by exploring a tile and IMAWALing to get the 10 piety to clearance for the kill. Convoluted, but more efficient. This is a rather toned down acidcaster, but nice job regardless. SMM. Tough pick, but actually he is really weak vs corrosion. Ironically, the opposite of what you just said is true: The MORE health the better corrosion is for regen fighting (unless you are planning to dumbly spike him, in which case good luck). You could literally go kill him right now. What? You AREN'T regen fighting SMM? I admire your courage, sir, but this is just foolishness! Alrightm good. You are regen fighting him. Why would you have a problem regen fighting SMM? You really should just keep regen fighting SMM. I don't know why you won't. It's better to save the plantation for the second boss. You use potions as the most unnecessary times. You could have just regenerated 2 tiles. You're right. That was harder than it should have been, or needed to be. You need to remember than Stheno requires you to kill everything. Stheno is going to be an absolute joke. If you just kill everything you will ave so many blood stains plantation will be crazy. In case you didn't no this, if you have no resists, and don't want to use a Binlor altar, desecrate it. The punishment does nothing if you don't have resists. You are totally underestimating your power. If you IMAWAL a plant you can Plantation again. Dang, you could have gotten Hoarder if you used Clearance FTW. That was very inefficient potion use. Yes, Ick is unlocked by a subdungeon.

KEY POINTS: More Bricking as an acid caster. Use "brick exp" to get an early mid-fight level up kill. Think before you use a potion. Often there are many ways to avoid having to use the potion.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby Sidestepper on Wed Nov 27, 2013 7:10 pm

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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sun Dec 01, 2013 8:49 pm

Totally. Sorry for being so on and off on these Jay, real life can be such an interference.

Episode 22: I always go orc warlord. Gnomes are really only great if you can raise your mana a bunch (think JJ), and elves are best really great with Mystic Balance, but not great without it. Even still, it's a personal preference. Wow, that is a GREAT first kill. Or not, because that was WONAFYT not CYDSTEPP. The CYDSTEPP key is C, not S. EM is the best end game warlord diety of all time. Clearance nets you an extra CYDSTEPP each time. And you're using entanglement to get a 3 level higher kill? This is GREAT! Wow, it's a shame you didn't fine MA first. MA into EM elven warlords are brutally unfair. You need to IMAWAL before each kill. Crystal Ball is another ridiculously powerful item for your elven warlord. You could totally crush vicious with the stuff they provided you here. Using the crystal ball to get only a 3 level higher kill might not be the best idea. Seriously, between clearance, crystal ball, and entanglement you should have gone for a 4-5 level higher kill. Actually, with the amount of flyables (indestructible walls) ENDISWAl is much worse than WEYTWUT in double doom, although it will allow you access the secret subdungeon and get extra hits on guys. You should IMAWAL ENDISWAL to the boss. This is actually the right call. You won't kill him anyways, you need the piety, and the gold for crystal ball. And you realized the IMAWAL would level you? You are playing VERY well right now. Wow, you could have just used your bunch of mid-fight level ups on Gobb, but you can save them for the second if you want to. Remember to keep ENDISWALing. You really should recharge your crystal ball. You should have just converted ENDISWAL so you didn't have to explore mid-fight. There are two more level 8s and a level 9. You have first strike on lower level monsters, even if they are level 8 and you are level 9. Wow, nice effort on the sssssslured S. Wow, that was the best run I've seen you do yet (on this series). Taurog Paladin? That's... unusual, but this should be fast. Wow, that was a really stupidly dumb opening. You could have ENDISWALed behind the starting ladder for the secret subdungeon, LEMISIed a few times to see your bosses, and then joined Taurog and be none the worse for it. Also, a dwarf paladin? Unless you are going for GG, that is not a good choice. Plus, orc would have been faster. You could convert HALPMEH. That was not smart. You could have moved so you didn't have to explore anything. For fast runs you should always of GG. There is a level 5 right there. That wasn't smart. You didn't need the resists right then, so the fine sword was more valuable. Why won't you kill the level 5? You could kill the level 8 golem. Always take Unstoppable fury ASAP, so you don't accidentally waste popcorn. You should facilitate a mid-fight level up. Good. What are you doing? You can't kill him. Unless you waste a DP. And there it goes. That is wasteful. You should attack as soon as you reach max mana as not to waste mana. Killing other monsters discharges burning. You shouldn't have killed the Yin Yang. After you potion you should kill all low level gorgons. Yous hold try to approach leveling up. You simply don't have the exp to do it. Good. You'll barely win. That was much tighter than it should be or needed to be, but a speed run is a speed run.

KEY POINTS: It is never smart to worship Taurog immediately. Worship him right before your first kill so you can use glyphs freely until then (this is especially great for WONAFYT, IMAWAL, ENDISWAL, and LEMISI). Generally, I would try to save your Clearances until the end game, but as long as you have enough it doesn't matter.

Episode 23: Generally I prefer Elven or Orcish Wizards, but since you are really boosting mana gnomes are the better choice (although leveling will be easier for elves). JJ! You shouldn't step on that without full mana. Wow, this is going to be great. JJ+Gnome+Extra mana and Elven boots=RIDICULOUS MANA. Wow, that was an unlucky wall spawn. Seriously, that sucked. It isn't always that bad. You still unlocked JJ, so it's fine. Honestly, as a Gnome Wizard I would prep JJ. Wizards can deal with the loss of an inventory slot. Actually, badge of honor is a much better early game item. Funny enough, JJ is one of the least random gods once Petition is gone. He gives you piety on a set of triggers. You need to worship him first. You should pick up his WEYTWUT glyph. WEYTWUT does not have a higher chance of happiness, but it is another piety trigger. Also, Chaos Avatar is VERY valuable. It is another mid-fight level up before you use any resources, gives you extra conversion points, and makes the boss easier to kill. You probably shouldn't have converted LEMISI until you have all of your glyphs. You have GETINDARE. Well, that was a totally waste. YOU HAVE PETITION. ALWAYS TAKE IT IMMEDIATELY. Good call the Binlor desecration. Actually, Binlor removes 50% resist all from you, but your magic resist wasn't vert important. You need to precast GETINDARE. Seriously, whenever you play the wizard you always forget your GETINDARE glyph (and all of your other non-essential glyphs). Stick to mana, but grab one health. You forgot your compression seal. Always use it immediately. This would be so easy if you just remembered your GETINDARE. Seriously, it would save you an immense amount of resources. You are over hyping four fireballs. Now if you remembered your GETINDARE it wouldn't be over hype at all, but you haven't. This is how Gnome mages are meant to be played (except for the fact you've totally forgotten your IMAWAL and GETINDARE. Actually, you can kill the dragon now because you stacked burning, except you wasted it. Actually, you are regen fighting him. TWO health potions for one mana potion. This is rather painful to watch. You could be winning this so easily if you just remembered your fearing GETINDARE. The amount of resources it would have saved you is incredible. Wow, you lucky man, Jörmungadnr is too easy... You should have been try to level this whole time. Be careful. You are getting rather mazed in. FIGHT THE BOSS NOW. See, that was just not a good plan. You could have used that regen space in between fights or to get an extra fireball on every full tank of mana. See, that was just stupid. If you had saved regen space OR REMEMBERED GETINDARE, you could have killed him potion free. You have an extra fireball on Evolvia. Wow, that was ridiculously dumb. All you needed to was hit the snake! Seriously, you have to account for losing the slowed exp. WHY WOULD YOU POTION? YOU HAD A FIREBALL FOR THE KILL! What are you doing? You have a level up. That should ALWAYS be used before potions. Seriously, why would you not Chaos Avatar before potions. It would have made ALL of your fireballs and attack do more damage. That was REALLY poorly played, but it just goes to show how ridiculously powerful Gnomes of JJ are. Also, you could have just converted your glyphs for more potions.

KEY POINTS: NEVER EVER FORGET WHAT STUFF YOU HAVE (it really hurts you and you look dumb when it happens). Don't convert as a wizard until you have all of your glyphs as a potion race (and sometimes as a non-potion race). When fighting the boss, always start with Chaos Avatar (unless you are already a few exp short of a level up). Binlor should pretty much always be desecrated unless you have significant resists are are going to use him.

Episode 24: Woo! Thanksgiving Episode! You lost a tutorial? That's awkward. Berserker Camp is the easiest hard out there. Orc rogues are flat out better (although not as much because you don't have the dwarven gauntlets yet). The WITCH! The berserkers level, but they are so weak it is more helpful than bad. There is no reason not to try for that level 4 snake. Wow, that is just pure luck. Medusa+Björn may be the easiest boss combo (although Tomithy would probably be easier than medusa for you. You can just cast BYSSPETS you can kill the snake. Good. You realized it. You have CYDSTEPP. Dream bigger. Good job. You can kill Björn with a mid-fight level up at level 5-6. Medusa is tougher, because Björn doesn't have first strike. You can kill the level 8 or 9 if you use your BYSSEPS. Eh, you have most of the map uncovered, so it isn't really a risk. GETINDARE isn't even really that good for rogues. Actually, you are almost out of exploration. Always CYDSTEPP immediately. You can see there is a glyph behind that level 8 zombie, so kill it. Also, you could have killed theses bosses forever ago if you just used mid-fight level up. Good, you realized it. NO! You could have gotten feeling parched EASILY! All you needed was to regen right above your character. What a waste. Convert BYSSEPS for the extra damage. Such a shame you wasted a good chance at feeling parched. Also, you totally wasted potions on medusa when a conversion+BICEPS would have been enough. Wow, the plants were covering two glyphs, two health boosters, and a mana potion.

KEY POINTS: Never forget to BYSSEPS/CYDSTEPP whenever possible, and dream bigger on rogue-CYDSTEPP combos. You could have had even better kills.

Episode 25: I do not like the name. This could be awful. There is very little difficult stuff here. Seriously, you pretty much just ignored his best ability. He can't switch gods, but ALL BOONS ARE 20% OFF AND YOU CAN'T BE PUNISHED. Wow, Lusory off the bat? THIS IS GREAT. Your summons keep covering stuff. That is why you don't curse stuff. WHAT? JJ IS A GREAT PALADIN GOD. The cheaper boons is ridiculously valuable for him. This is going rather well so far... GETINDARE is much more efficient than two HALPMEHs, but it could be worse. You have enough for humility, because it only costs 12 as a paladin. Eh, it isn't that bad to miss 1 level of humility despite the fact that it is all downside. Also, you had 16 piety right before you hit the wraith for the kill, because of mana burn, so you could have used that mana burn piety too. Now it's dumb. You can kill level 5 enemies. That was really dumb. You trapped yourself inside a box. And you didn't need to fight out of it. And you should have gotten 3 mana for GETINDARE before fighting. Seriously, you are being really dumb. You should have killed the non-curser FIRST. Also, you need to stop fighting curse guys if you wan't to beat the boss. Cleansing doesn't remove curse, only enlightenment does. Seriously, the more curse you take the more you screw yourself. Now you are screwed immensely. At least you GETINDAREd for the win. Seriously, the game is handing you a free win, and you are cursing yourself into oblivion. And if you absolve you will remove even the most remote chance of uncurling yourself. WHAT? YOU CONVERT HALPMEH HALFWAY THROUGH THE RUN AS A PALADIN? HALPMEH IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN BURNDYRAZ FOR A GG PALADIN, BECAUSE HE'S EXTRA STRONG WITH IT! WEYTWUT WASN'T EVEN GOING TO BE THAT USEFUL ANYMORE! And now you are really screwed. You have a totally ridiculous and game screwing amount of curse. Well, at least you realized the BURNDAYRAZ GETINDARE synergy. You can get rid of all of your curse. You aren't counting enough enemies. All you needed to do was precast GETINDARE. You are totally screwed now. You are just cursing into your death. You won't reach Enlightenment, unless you get lucky on a JJ smash, which is your best shot right now. And now it's over. AND THAT IS WHY YOU DON'T CONVERT HALPMEH. Alternitively, you could have attack Jörmungadnr to get 2 piety for poison, then a wraith for 2 more piety, get Enlightenment for 80, then use JJ desecration + potions to win. You are screwed. As soon as you burn your potions your run ends. Also, GG doesn't punish you for potions, so you should have at least used protection before wasting potions. You could have pulled a win that way. You lost, and you deserved it. Sorry, but that was all your fault. The game gave you an underhanded lob, and you just let it pass you by. You actually get 2 protections, you just can't take the prayer bead. Seriously, that is where you need to actually READ.

KEY POINTS: KNOW THY CLASS. Always watch your curse. If you let it get out of hand you are screwed. You stopped caring halfway through and it killed you. Alternatively, you could have gotten rid of it with popcorn if you had precasted GETINDARE and killed the level 8 wraith for your last curse stack. Also, converting HALPMEH was VERY STUPID. You literally never used WEYTWUT after picking up BURNDAYRAZ, so clearly you should have converted that.

Episode 26: You are wasting all of your extra ENDISWAL exploration, not constantly ENDISWALing, and ENDISWALing in the wrong places. Your ENDISWAL game is TERRIBLE. Wow, another magic boss. This is going to be rather easy. One HALPMEH is much better than two fireballs. If you stack burning you could kill that wraith, and there isn't anything better to do with your extra exploration. Also, always use humility RIGHT BEFORE you kill the enemy. Also, you have a natural 25% physical resist that would enable many more hits. This is much better. Pepper is still a 10% damage bonus permanently, so it's not bad. That was a good choice. BURNDAYRAZ is useful vs The Indomitable. You can dream bigger with max magic res. The level 8 wraiths are totally legit targets, as is the boss. Just make sure you take out the Indomitable's trophy. At a certain point, HALPMEH is more valuable than BURNDAYRAZ as the amount it heals nets you a ton of hits vs the boss. Dang, you sold the wrong trophy. No, just get a mid-fight level up kill. You can use HALPMEH to balance your hp and mana bar to explore more efficiently. Alright, you are totally over leveled for the boss, but it doesn't matter. Why are you attempting to only regen fight the goat with fireballs. Just hit the dumb thing. There, you win. Good job. You might as well get Unstoppable. Just use the orb to kill the illusions.

KEY POINTS: You need to work on your ENDISWALing. It went a little uphill at the end, but overall that ENDISWALing was abominable. Use Humility RIGHT BEFORE you get your first kill at level 2.

Also, look at your taxidermist to see what trophies are still not gathered. For example, you should have taken the animated helm out, but you unnecessarily sold it. You could fight Horratio soon if you just do that.

As long as I'm making recommendations, how about a silver run, or at least some more bronzes?
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sun Dec 01, 2013 9:49 pm

Yeah I actually just finished recording 4 more bronze runs and I will put them up soon. I'm going to start on the silver challenges after I do a "How to Beat" tutorial episode on all the tier two hard dungeons. I want to make sure I don't have to much stuff people may not have going into those dungeons (silver challenge items can be major game changers). It is the same reason I haven't done any complicated tasks or unlocked elite items.

I've actually got my recordings up to a point where I unlock Gaan-Telet already. :)

Anyway, you are going to HAAATE what I did on my first trip back to the labyrinth. I way underestimated that dungeon because I had been playing it so much purist + warmonger from the challenge run I forgot it can be hard just going in normally if you don't pay attention.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sun Dec 08, 2013 5:57 am

Time for the weekend tips section!

Episode 27: I don't think it is fair to call VHoS incredibly easy, but it certainly is the easiest of the 6 vicious dungeons. Eh, I always like orc rogues more. Health is far more common than base damage. Still, they are both good choices. You have a tendency to go all out in one direction, which is usually suboptimal. If you are going dwarf rogue, take extra attack to round out your character. As a rogue, poison plants can be killed. That was a poor choice. Poison is far less meaningful. Are you going to by the troll heart? See, if you had fought the poison plants and found BURNDAYRAZ you could have fireball-first strike the Naga. You should have gone GG BEFORE you leveled. Hmm... interesting choice on the health potion conversions. Honestly, I would do have converted the potions too, but that is more because I KNOW I won't need them. If you are confident you can beat any boss Ick throws at you, then it's fine. Otherwise I wouldn't convert all of them. You forgot to garden. You NEED to garden every level or you are just playing poorly. That was poor gardening. You killed all of the poison and mana burn plants EXCEPT those blocking you. I would convert the WONAFYT if you find anything else to boost health. Actually. I might just convert BURNDAYRAZ as GG can give magic attack. You literally have only used BURNDAYRAZ on a plant. I would just convert CYDSTEPP. You really should familiarize yourself with the gods you are using. One of GG's boons (CLEANSING) gives magic damage and cures all rebuffs except curse. That is a mistake. Spoons convert for MUCH LESS than wisp gams. Why won't you kill the level 9 vampire? This is just a flat out waste of resources. You have your subdungeon of exploration that you've totally ignored/forgotten. And you wasted your extra mana and taken a protection for nothing. Seriously, are you even aware you have the BURNDAYRAZ glyph? You didn't need that extra level up at all. Seriously, your spike has been AWFUL. You totally ignored BURNDAYRAZ, wasted a ton of random stuff, and didn't even know there was exploration. A level up? Unnecessary, but you don't lose anything. There is a free tile 5 spaces away from you, so you used a protection that you didn't even need. Itssama is a joke. That wasn't as much the power of the rogue, but the power of the rogue in a pretty easy dungeon where he excels.

Episode 28: You really should do some silver challenges. Berserker's are actually still pretty good for the Labyrinth, as long as you take Taurog. Orc Berserkers are better than human berserkers (this is still kind of a personal preference). I generally choose Orc over Human in every instance. You better hope you find the big path soon. You should at least look at that level 3, because you can beat it. That is going to really hurt your run. YES! You are ENDISWALing CORRECTLY! You can kill that level 4 snake. You shouldn't be exploring without ENDISWALing at all. It is just dumb. Seriously, you always need to ENDISWAL while you explore. It will be the death of you if you don't. Also, ENDISWAL the T-Sections always. "This is a won game!" --Adventurer's Famous Last Words. You just made a MASSIVE mistake. Taurog can give you DPs. Converting that GETINDARE is going to make your leveling far more inefficient. Seriously, that could be the end of your run. That was a good call on killing the four level higher goblin. ENDISWAL! See, now you regret your ENDSIWAL conversion. Actually, you can beat the goo pretty easily if you take out the minotaur early with minimal DPs you can convert to JJ for a chaos avatar (with a little luck), reducing the goo blobs resists to 55% and making him much more manageable. Have you totally forgotten Stoneskin? You could have killed a level 9 gorgon off that! You've lost. You should never have converted GETINDARE. That is just a dome policy. Also, why are you wasting all of your popcorn when you could be killing Gorgons to level. YOU HAVE ENDISWAL! Convert ENDISWAL. Why would you just totally waste a level up? WHAT THE HECK ARE YOU DOING? YOU ARE BEING MASOCHISTIC AT THIS POINT! YOU DON'T NEED THE FREAKING HP! TAUROG GIVES YOU DP'S, ANDYOU ARE TOTALLY WASTING EVERYTHING! ENDISWAL or pick up your armor lets you take a hit. You should just get rid of the fine sword. That was very dumb of you. You forgot. What you should do is burn the goo with your potions, convert the badge and the other health potion, then level. Ouch, one exp short. You should have used the titan guitar earlier. That is your fault. Actually, you can't win. You shouldn't have converted GETINDARE so early. If you by the pendant of mana, your mana potion would net you a fireball.

KEY POINTS: Always use the Titan Guitar as soon as you start harvesting popcorn. NEVER CONVERT GETINDARE, UNLESS YOU WILL NOT NEED IT FOR THE REST OF THE RUN OR YOU HAVE NO SPACE AND NEED AN ITEM. Seriously, forgetting you have ENDISWAL is a n00b mistake, and you are better than that.

Episode 29: Seriously, all a berserker needs is Taurog or Binlor to win this. Although Warlord makes this easy. Eh, orc berserkers are more fun (I really have a problem with orcs). Although, with MA and the potential to get 24 mana, this could REALLY get out of hand. And a fine sword from the shop scroll. You lucky man. You can spam CYDSTEPP if you have a higher level monster. You blew that. The burning pop off is going to kill the zombie. Fail miscalculation. The zombie died. As long as you are going to spam ENDISWAL, please use it in useful places. It really will help. Actually, all you need is 16 mana with mystic balance. Yeah, Zombies are not going to go over well with your warlord. Nice kill on the zombie. A bit painful that it costed that many tiles, but it was worth it. The enemies are all hidden on a long winding path to nowhere. So a level 4 zombie is 4 hits and level 5 gorgon is 3. There is something seriously messed up there. That snake is too far out of your league, unless you level up mid-fight. Mystic Balance is broken for the warlord. ENDISWAL is cheaper than CYDSTEPP. Why would you ever blow up a wall on the edge of the screen where it gets you nothing (presuming you aren't going to shove a boss down that line of walls. You could kill Rex with that mid-fight level up. You are a warlord. You should be killing level 9s. Seriously, you could have killed the boss already. Just see what you're up against. At this point you are losing resources by not fighting the boss. Just because you can keep leveling doesn't mean it is optimal. Don't think of bosses as end game, think of them as exp. Since a boss is a 4 level higher kill and a level 8 is 2 level higher kill, always kill the boss at level 6 if it is free, WHICH IT WAS. You should be killing things that take 2 hits to approach level ups. You know that. And if you keep killing magic monsters you are really going to piss off MA. And its too late. Well, MA still won't be a problem. Good choice to keep the CYDSTEPP for the level up. It's little things like that which win games. This is going to be a brutal blow out. You could have beaten DL with this set up (except your set up would be worse as it is harder to level in vicious. You are just short. You should have ENDISWALed up. It doesn't really matter. You didn't even need GETINDARE...Nicely done. This strat is GREAT. You could have gotten DING! MAX by taking a hit of Magic before your glyph conversion for the extra mana.

KEY POINTS: This was a very good run. Part of that is the fact it was easy due to over-prepping/great strategy, but really there isn't much to recommend. Just little stuff (like proper ENDISWALING). In fact, the most important statement in the above was saying you should think of bosses as large piles of exp rather than endgame challenges. That will help tremendously in vicious.

Episode 30: Ah, Slime Pit. I really hate that place. It has one of the nastiest monster line ups in the game and two bosses that are a mean combination. Wow, credit to you for going purist orc fighter. And you don't even (totally) remember the mechanic. That takes guts. That WEYTWUT is a very lucky find. It will save you some curse and corrosion. Fine Sword for an orc is less valuable than Troll Heart in my book, but you can work it either way. If you use WEYTWUT to kill the snake it levels you. Good thing you realized that. You even remember to explore around to the monsters. When called upon to do well, you really are doing well. That level 5 meat man is a prime target for your level 3 with APHEELSIK. You really need to work on your APHEELSIK use. Plus, that level 5 meat man is going to be untouchable soon because of the mechanic. Well, better late than never on the level 5 meat man. Also, you know what you did wrong, which is essential. Don't forget to BICEPS if you can afford it. I didn't even see you grab that GETINDARE. Wow, this is shaping up to be a faithless win. Actually, your APHEELSIK usage here is rather well done. You are basically doing what I would normally. Wow, that was a lucky subdungeon find. +25% damage as an orc is VERY useful. You could technically kill SMM now, but that will take a massive amount of tiles now. It will be much more efficient at level 6, and you could intersperse BYSSEPS into your APHEELSIKing. A mid-fight level up would have been better in my opinion, but the math is a bit complex to do in my head while watching your video. Now just don't let BURNDAYRAZ screw with your APHEELSIKing and you should be okay. Well, as long as you keep this up it is a 4 level higher boss kill FOR FREE! If APHEELSIK nets you more than 5 tiles on the monster per cast, then you can intersperse other spells into your regen fighting. Also, you can regen fight the goo with BURNDAYRAZ and APHEELSIK at a higher enough level of Taurog will screw you to death right now seeing how many glyphs you are casting and you have the goo as a boss. If you net feeling parched now with your extra level ups (due to you killing the boss early for extra popcorn) you could get. Well, you can kill SMM with a level up. See, if you had regen fought the level 5 meat man immediately earlier on in the run, you could have gotten feeling parched. Your 3 mana potions net you two fireballs and a GETINDARE, so this is a win, if you just see the mana potion on the ground. Well, maybe you couldn't have gotten feeling parched. But Faithless Purist is a very difficult combo and that was very well done.

KEY POINTS: See APHEELSIK interspersing above. Really, well done. There wasn't much I would do differently there, except a couple different purchases, converting a glyph or two earlier, etc. Little things like that.

Episode 31: Ah, the final trophy! Wow, you still need to unlock Dracul and TT. You really should get that out of the way before attempting any vicious/silver challenges. Between 50% magic resist from the orb of lusory and the priests innate +100% bonus damage vs undead, Wraiths will be utterly pathetic! Be careful with curse in HHoS (and VHoS for that matter) it has been your downfall before and it will be once more if you let it. EM? HHoS is a bit cramped, but you could make it work VERY favorably. I'm glad you recognized the fireball first would have netted you the kill. Knowing is the first part of improving. Actually, you can't kill that level 5 AA without some more mana or the orb of lusory or now some excessive CYDSTEPP use. Then again, with CYDSTEPP you could be fighting the level 6 wraith. Or not. If you had regenerated 2 tiles for the fireball you could have immediately gotten another DP off the AA. See, you are incorrectly targeting to the max. The level 6 wraith is an easier kill and MUCH easier to kill. You are wasting your last DP if you just "straight murder" that wraith. You should have fireballed. Only a level 8? You could easily have taken a level 9 with that level up kill. Shame, you almost had it. There, at level 6 you can regen fight the indomitable. See, pile of exp. If you convert WEYTWUT it will net you an extra hit which will be enough to be able to take a DP off without even wasting popcorn. See, now you can take 4 hits, but you aren't even looking at it. Actually, a priest in HHoS needs no potions for that wraith. You do double damage and it does half. There is even a booster! The game just handed you the indomitable kill on a silver platter. Also, you've totally forgotten your compression seal. That is why you use it immediately. You always forget that you lose the extra slowed exp from extra hits. You can freaking regen fight this guy. This is all totally unnecessary overkill. You already have feeling parched, you just haven' realized it yet. And it is over. Nicely done. A rather easy dungeon with an easy extra boss to boot, but it was a win, so good job. AND DRACUL! And now you lose feeling parched. If you take Blood Curse you get DING! MAX. Well, it doesn't matter anyways.

KEY POINTS: Enemy Targeting is hurting you. Always regenerate the minimal possible tiles to get another hit/fireball in when regen fighting. I know these key points may get a little repetitive, but all that means is you are making the same mistakes over and over again.

Episode 32: Heh, double vicious. That is too fun. The vicious bosses with vicious stat modifiers are utterly ridiculous. I would buy that troll heart off the bat. As a rogue there is basically no situation where you would not want a troll heart at level 1. If you ENDISWAL in the middle of a fight you can kill the meat man. You should have saved the cracked amulet until you really needed that extra 5 exp (as in it would save you exploration or give a free mid-fight level up kill). Rogues excel at saving exploration. This is going to be a blowout. You should just look for more than one level higher kills. Everything lower than that is a waste, unless that is literally your only option. Then again, don't dream too big. That level 8 meat man is out of your league. Also, why on earth did you just randomly kill a same level snake. There. A mid-fight level up would have killed the level 8, so that was a waste. Meat men and goos are the last targets in every room. You are better off killing that wraith. APHEELSIK is actually very useful in HGT, even for a rogue. Always use your level ups/level up kills on wraiths or snakes to avoid mana burn of poison. You don't need 2 more damage. You can hit, first strike and level. Wow, that was a lucky dodge on the burn viper. And a very unlucky pull for your second floor curse (although the floor itself was ridiculously lucky). And the mini-boss was unlucky. All in all it is pretty net ever. If you can save some exploration on this floor or just not use any above floor exploration it would be very valuable for Horratio. Penance isn't particularly good for you. APHEELSIK is totally saving your life here. ENDISWAL is useless vs a warlock. It is MAGIC damage. Just convert ENDISWAL. And another great dodge. That is a BIG resource saver. Actually, that snake isn't a problem if you play it right. You should have used the snake with the level up to avoid poison. It is just net much better. Except that isn't fantastic at all because you played that very poorly. You are wasting a health and a mana potion instead of instead of NONE. Well, it was rather clever of you to check downstairs first. Seriously. Smart move. Wow, GG is going to be great for Horratio. Man, your dodges have come in at pretty clutch moments. Just be glad you were smart enough to save it. That is a win. This is great. You remembered to APHEELSIK and everything. Seriously, good job winning and everything. You even nailed Faithless and could have gotten Feeling Parched with SLIGHTLY better play. Congrats.

KEY POINTS: Whenever possible, you NEED to level up off snakes/wraiths. Also, GREAT JOB!

I'll get around to the bronze challenges and your remaining dungeons/goatperson run later. Funny, it can get much harder than Vicious Gaan-Telet with any class. Whatever. On what you should do now that you've beaten all dungeons, what about unlocking elite items? Also, silver challenges and (once you have elites) trying the first Triple Quest?
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sat Dec 21, 2013 8:14 am

Wow, this is back on page 3? Things certainly have been active round here. Well, I'd best catch up now that I'm on break.

Bloodmage+Assassin Bronze: Bloodmage bronze is an interesting one. It's kind of... creepy, but also fun because you can totally stomp it. You are taking the most roundabout route possible to the boss. You can go straight to it. If you bought the bloody sigil that level 3 snake would be a piece of cake (rhyming FTW). Except you trapped yourself. That's awkward. The young blood snakes are significantly weaker than the main ones actually, so you could go straight to your boss. You should at least look at the monster. Why did you just randomly kill a monster. You can kill the wraith right now, without doing a thing. It is totally your fault that this is so hard right now. A, you keep trapping yourself. B, you are wasting your exploration, you should be exploring exclusively towards the boss instead of into the corners, so you can save the corners for when you need to regen fight. You shouldn't target cultists except as a last resort. They both take more resources than your average monster AND cost more resources. You lose in every account vs a generic monster. You are wasting blood pools. Remember to get to full health before exploring on a blood pool whenever possible. I don't think I've ever seen you use B2P so effectively. Of course part of this is due to monsters having reduced stats in bronze, but this is a significant improvement over you auto-converting it. More testimony to the greatness of bronze challenge. And Kim actually recurs as a hero later on, but I won't spoil why or when. You should just count how many fireballs you can get with B2P (usually 3 or 4) and then see if it works. You can kill the level 7 wraiths sans mana burn with just B2P and fireballs. If you just clear out your snakes, Kim Royce goes down really easily. You can use the burning. If you want to explore past corrosion pools, cast B2P. You have SO many blood pools and you opt for potions? Really? Assassin bronze is a total joke. You literally need 4 point of bonus exp to win. You really ought to get goblins on this profile. You should pre-poison monsters. It nets you a bit more damage. APHEELSIK removes X health regen from a monster, so it will be half as many tiles with fast regen. You have to be vigilant with your APHEELSIKing. If you forget it can undo tons of tiles worth of work.

KEY POINTS: You should just count how many fireballs you can get with B2P (usually 3 or 4) and then see if it works using the prediction. Generally, don't explore into corners. Explore into the bigger area, as whatever you are looking for is more likely to be there. Also, focus exploration in one direction so you have corners and pockets of exploration for regen fighting later.

Warlord and Paladin Bronze: Aww, the triple quests are such fun. Then again, my definition of fun is probably sufficiently different from yours that they are actually terrifying to you. You still haven't noticed that everything has a DP have you. Why do you always go elf warlord? It is not a given in every game that you will reach 20 mana, and considering you can reach 20 with an orc or gnome, it kind of overshadows the elf. If your hp is irrelevant to your current fight (usually because the monster already one-shots you), just get rid of DPs on lover level monsters. Well, that's how you force a win. Wait, what? You are fully regenning mid-boss fight? That was unnecessary, but whatever. Why use absolution? BECAUSE IT IS FREAKING POWERFUL. +4 hp at level 1 is a 40% health boost. And the classic mistake occurs. You should never use humility until the FINAL hit on the monster you are killing to level (the level 3), because you will get more out of BURNDAYRAZ/HALPMEH for the fight, and that can be significant at higher difficulties. Whenever I see your diety game, it always seems so late game only (excluding Taurog and a couple assorted boons from various gods). That is a little unfair to you, but in a lot of circumstance you aren't getting nearly as much as you could out of gods in the early game. You just killed the vampire over GGs altar? Wow, that was pretty awesome.

KEY POINTS: Uh, nothing really? There's just a couple of random assorted tips in the above paragraphs.

Episode 33: Back to the real dungeons. Wow, you have quite an assortment of front-loaded items. You are dreaming a bit too big with the level 4, although a level 3 would go down if you got the helm. Just kill the level 2. It isn't a bad kill, so don't waste tiles looking for a better one. You are dreaming about gold while it is adjacent to your character. Really? It's like the game wants you to get this kill. The goblin regenned because you forgot to poison him. It didn't matter, but that's a mistake on principle. Honestly, I would value the hero's helm lower than the pendant of health late game because the helm converts for more and isn't great (+1 mana is mostly meaningless unless already boosted, +2 damage and +5 health outweighed by CP value). Nice leveling so far. This is a very traditional assassin. You really need to APHEELSIK BEFORE hit 1. I honestly cannot remember the last time I played one of those... Hero's Helm and Pendant of Mana DOES NOT offer the same amount of conversion. HALPMEH is actually more valuable than APHEELSIK here vs magic immune boss. Don't forget exploring around your target gets you first strike. You could be getting much better kills on that alone. That level 9 goo is NOT worth your exploration. Now you won't have any for the boss or other monsters. The snake poisons you. Just give up on that fight and move on. Good job fireballing the physical immune guy on principle. See, if you have converted the Hero's Helm instead of the pendant you would be fine. Is there really no bloody sigil. WOW! YOU LITERALLY LOOKED AT THE BLOODY SIGILS +5 HEALTH AND IGNORED IT! That is messed up. If you are really so averse to an item that as soon as you see its picture you move on to the next shop thoughtlessly, than you have a serious problem. You have a tile of exploration, but it is kind of hidden. That was a stupid hit. It was both before your poison and wasted your death protection. Are you really not going to poison? That could have saved you an entire extra hit. You leveled on the dot. Well done. Except you forgot CYDSTEPP. Well, just convert glyphs. WHAT? JUST CONVERT GLYPHS FOR DAMAGE! NO! And there goes your feeling parched badge. COME ON! You really don't take enough time to think. Potions were the obvious solution, but they were not the best one.

KEY POINTS: ALWAYS PRE-POISON. Remember: CYDSTEPP can only be cast ABOVE 50%. Make sure you keep your poison up for extended regen fights. You can't regen fight something if it poisons you (excluding you having poison immunity). Seriously, YOU HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE BLOODY SIGIL. IT IS A GREAT ITEM EARLY AND LATE GAME, HAS ONE OF THE HIGHEST CP TO GOLD RATIOS THERE IS, AND IS A GREAT ITEM. BUY IT. Think more, do less. To be fair, this is hard on video, but it's always worth saying.

Episode 34: Cursed Oasis... ugh. It is my least favorite dungeon to play in of all time. Orc Berserkers are MATHEMATICALLY PROVEN TO BE BETTER than Human Berserkers. It is simply a poor choice NOT to take an orc berserker. Technically, I don't think you have to kill the Curse Shade boss, but I'm not sure. You always forget your compression seals. You have to compress ASAP or you will forget. It can be worth killing popcorn just to get out of curse world for a nice kill. For example, you can kill that level 5 dragon with your resists back. Actually, Damage Reduction (DR) is ruined by curse too. You can kill that level 8 animated armor if you convert BURNDAYRAZ which is directly in your view. There is an ATTACK BOOSTER. Your blindness will be your downfall. Stacking burning is great a lot of the time, but NOT in this case. Taurog is going to punish you unless you are careful. You should pick the DPs of AAs to pop burning if you can. It is breaking 2 DPs with one attack. You actually get a more curse than you think. You get one for the hit and then one more for the kill. You can kill that curse shade pretty easily now. I wouldn't even bother clearing curse. You should be taking on the boss. Since there are two bosses, one of which is weak and tiny, you should kill the weak and tiny one at level 6. You are making a mistake by killing this level 9 AA. It is wasting the last of your exploration, which you should have been using on your boss. There are corners of exploration on the pool that you totally missed. WHAT? Dragon Soul is a SMALL ITEM. You could have drunk your totally unnecessary burn salve and saved yourself the relocked cost on that sword. You are cursed. You are cursed. This is a big mistake, because you are cursed. You could have one by now, if you realized you were cursed. I guess you can't here me (*sigh*). Well, good run despite your ignorance at the end.

KEY POINTS: Always go orc berserker. Compress ASAP on principle. If an item is small, generally you should free up a small slot to hold it, not a large one (although if you are getting lots of small items go with a large slot). Don't forget curse is applied both when you are hit by and kill a curse monster.

Episode 35: Goatperson purist is miserable unless you get early BURNDAYRAZ, which of course somehow spawned next to you. Of course you can kill that level 2. This is normal, and you have BURNDAYRAZ. You are regen fighting in the single most inefficient method I have ever seen. You could have killed him by just fireballing ASAP about 20 tiles ago. My single area of least experience is the goatperson, so I can't really say if you are playing it wrong, but I'll give general advice. You could get Humility of GG, so get Humility of GG. Why is playing a goatperson throwing your regen fighting? You are wasting large amounts of mana and tiles in every fight. Watch your food at all times. When you forget it, things get painful FAST. I don't think Goatpersons are supposed to ignore their gods utterly, but I suppose that's one way to play it. There is no way you can beat that snake. End of story. Stop trying. You are just wasting exploration and you have almost no food. You have HALPMEH. Why would you use a health potion to cure poison? The goatperson way is just reach level 6 or so and STOMP ON THE BOSS UNTIL IT DIES. All it takes is one HALPMEH to win, and you ignored the one HALPMH. You could have taken on a boss as soon as your hp exceed its damage. Well, actually bleary kind of throws that, but it doesn't matter. You can kill Bleaty. You underestimate the ridiculous late game power of the full restore. It is like 5 mid-fight level ups. That was a mistake. You should have used your hp on the enemies as only BURNDAYRAZ is going to be effective on the boss. You could try looking at your gods. Or not. Seriously, you literally have not touched the gods. The god switching is what makes the goatperson really interesting. That is like the simple mode of him that has only half the class present...

KEY NOTES: Use gods with the goatperson. And keep working on regen fighting (whenever you can hit or fireball, see if this will enable you to kill them before any more regeneration).

I really need to get some sleep. I'll be fully caught up tomorrow. Nice to have you back, Jay.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Sun Dec 22, 2013 6:42 am

Vicious Time!

Episode 36: Namtar's Ward isn't that good on a Warlord. Frankly, Yendor, Gauntlets (you really should have these lockered), or balanced dagger are better. Although I see balanced dagger as a bit of a cop out. Elf Warlord of MA with mystic balance and hopefully 24 mana? This should be good. You shouldn't even be looking at one level higher kills as a balanced dagger guy. They are equivalent to same level kills. You should basically always take magic ASAP. You had 8 mana left over on that level, so you wasted 3 piety from the BURNDAYRAZ you could have cast. And your ENDISWAL is RIGHT NEXT to the secret subdungeon. You really should look for the secret subdungeons. An early Glenrick is very valuable. You actually can't kill the goo right then, but it doesn't matter. There was no reason to choose the goo over the vampire. Have you forgotten about your ENDISWAL? Nevermind, there it was. Just remember to always keep ENDISWALing. There is nothing more useless than ENDISWALing something on the edge of the map. Always ENDISWAL one wall thick segments. You could have access to the whole map. This ENDISWALing is abysmal. You could have 12+ tiles of exploration, full map access, and your hidden subdungeon. Instead you just have mystery piety that you would have gotten anyways. You just threw away all of your burning stacks. You can't beat that Vampire without more damage. Stop wasting your whole map for that one ridiculous kill. You have 81 mystery piety. You MUST do something with that much. It is a waste not to. I wouldn't actually bother with refreshment here. I wouldn't rest for just level 6 right before 7.. I would get to level 7 right before 8. See, with MA you can't just randomly murder popcorn. That is the main drawback of MA: popcorn harvesting can be a significant pain. Why would you kill a poisonous snake with no way to cure poison? Even though you wouldn't use ENDISWAL or IMAWAL in the arena, you should bring them with you so you can convert them for mid-fight refreshment. You can buy items just to convert them, but since there's the elven boots just buy them. You didn't precast CYDSTEPP. Iron Man is ALWAYS easier than Lord Gobb. Lord Gobb is actually one of the harder ones. Since you have Yendor and a prepared mid-fight level up I would go for the hardest one (namely the Tormented One). Good pick. There is a level 3 zombie you can kill to level, and that is going to hurt you. YOU DON'T NEED THE CYDSTEPP. Win with the mana burn and then use Yendor to level. I would not have used a mana potion. You are going to want those mana potions later on. WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING? WHY WOULD YOU USE WHUPAZ, QUICKSILVER, AND REFLEX ON GOBB? There is FRANK THE ZOMBIE and SMM later on who are going to be significantly more difficult. You could have saved a potion by just exploring 6 tiles! Just count next time, it was only 5 segments. See, this is why orc is better for your Naga City arena warlord. You don't need to spend an obscene amount of tiles trying to regain your mana in between bosses. Also, the popcorn is much easier to kill when you are an orc. Seriously, you shouldn't waste most of your exploration for one arena round just to look for popcorn. You didn't need 2 mana potions at all! One was easily sufficient if you add the might bonus. You should kill Jörmungadnr then YENDOR. It will also mean you will regen fight better vs SMM. The whole idea of vendor is you use it BEFORE level 10 so you have better stats vs bosses EARLIER. Instead you are wasting tiles regenning unnecessary mana when you need those tiles for SMM! THIS IS NOT GOOD. You could have been REGEN FIGHTING SMM. The whole idea of the NC arena is you are supposed to juggle gods for leverage instead of spamming items. You're not going faithless! And now you are mana potioning SMM. Come on. See, this is why you don't waste so many tiles/potions/Yendor(s). The last wave is going to hurt. At least you are setting up for a mid-fight level up. Wait, Frank is going to require some exploration, but NOT SMM? WHY? Seriously, converting to GG would make the goo not require ANY resources. If you use Yendor and then fireballs for the finisher this will work out fine. Did you really FORGET YENDOR? YENDOR+FIREBALLS=WIN WITHOUT POISON OR MANA BURN. Kinissch has magic res, so BURNDAYRAZ can be converted for refreshment. Well, you won. That was really rough and painfully bad once you hit the arena, but it worked.

KEY POINTS: You really just need to think about ENDISWALing. Please? Spend your piety ASAP unless you are about to lose some of it. You really have to work on your arena planning. I tend to go in already decided what resources to use on which bosses or when to use them, when to switch gods, etc. Of course this can be changed as needed, but it will make your arena segment go better.

Episode 37: Assassin on DI. That's kind of a cop out win, considering how easy it is for the assassin, but whatever. Do you not know the god-assassin strategy, or are you intentionally playing "traditional" assassins. For an assassin (non-god-assassin), I would just go dracul. EM isn't particularly good for your assassin except for the IMAWAL. Then again, Yendor kind of ruins the IMAWAL. Slowed monsters with DPs aren't really slowed. There is no need to summon monsters. EM has entanglement. The New World! That's a great subdungeon. Actually, you could access the new world right now with fireballs. Wait, you aren't going to early game Yendor? At level 1, you are better off just using BURNDAYRAZ to regen fight. That was a total waste. You had a target as a level one and now not as a level 2. Good choice Yendoring early. Bad choice just randomly murdering popcorn. You did't even bother using the mid-fight level up. WHY? WHY ARE YOU RANDOMLY KILLING POPCORN? You are on the very verge of discovering god-assassin with this, but until you understand the key final piece, it is just terrible assassin play. Yes, there is a boss, so stop killing random popcorn that you could use to fight the boss. Good job remembering the subdungeon. You already had an exp boost. Just check your characters portrait. What about killing a higher level monster. No? I would go vine form. Greenblood doesn't affect the matron. Just make sure you have enough for clearance. at the end. I would just kill one plant to keep the clearance costs low. Clearance is to unpredictable with this many plants on the field. Just kill the curse plant. You should go for the boss. You can just hit a plant. It'll be fine. And you screwed up. Now clearance costs extra and it didn't even work after two tries. This has been a pretty good run excusing your ridiculous slaughter of popcorn. You could have gotten back your 5 mana to fireball while still leaving him poisoned. There is a zombie and a goo that will level you. You can kill the snake because you are about to fireball the dragon anyways. You pretty much should have done this faithless. And thus the matron. Well, this is going to be easy. Honestly, I use whupaz+quicksilver+reflex on the firstborn because he is far more difficult than the matron. You should save tiles to regen fight the matron. You should be interspersing HALPMEHs into your APHEELSIKing because it would increase the efficiency pretty significantly. You also forgot whupaz. You have to remember to CYDSTEPP above half health. Anyways, you are a goblin and there are plenty of lower level targets to kill for a mid-fight level up. Well done. That's a win. There strategy triumphs.

KEY POINTS: That was just a really weird assassin run. Just don't use clearance if only one plant is in the way.

Episode 38: Demonic Library! I would go Wizard (punchomancer preferably), Warlord, or Orc Rogue with Namtar's Ward. That's a misprep. Orc Rogue+Namtar's Ward is just flat out broken. Orc Rogue+Health is usually the smart choice, but if your god can cover your health weakness, then go attack. Generally GG is going to be the best for the extra health. I'm pretty sure WONAFYT (when is spawns) is guaranteed to spawn relatively near to the entrance. You are an orc rogue with no prepped resist helping stuff. Do NOT buy that tower shield. You shouldn't summon in spots, summon in a checkerboard. CYDSTEPP! That pretty much gives you the win by itself. JJ! THIS IS SO BROKEN! WHAT? YOU ARE TAKING TIKKI OVER JJ EARLY WHEN YOU HAVE A CYDSTEPP? You should (AT THE VERY LEAST) go JJ to get a health boost or two before converting to TT for late game potions/bonuses on popcorn. What are you doing? THIS IS BAD PLAY. GETINDARE is bad with rogues. CYDSTEPP is now useless. You are killing level 1s for absolutely no reason except your incorrect fear of over exploring early. You really ought to work on your orc play. You should convert more stuff early for tons of extra damage. You should take an early Tiki's Edge whenever possible. That was a mistake. Did you forget your compression seal again. Convert your WONAFYT for the damage. You aren't even using it anymore, and it will enable your kill on the higher level thrall. Good, you converted it. That is not well planned. The cultist is going to flee. Tiki's Edge should always be taken first. As long as your are of Tiki, you should just convert CYDSTEPP. There is generally no point slowing a cultist. You won't get that extra exp. You aren't finding good enemies because you don't have a good setup. And you shouldn't be slaughtering popcorn. See, you can't take a hit from anything. You need to take Namtar's Ward or JJ/GG for extra health. You need health. Desperately. Zot just isn't that valuable. You don't have the tiles to whittle their healths. Wow, you could not have hoped for a better subdungeon. Seriously, the potion is ridiculous. It totally refills both your health and mana while increasing both stats. I would prep it over whupaz and day. Yendor again? It will save your run here, but really? You can't keep relying on Yendor to win these. It won't work with any classes not well suited tot he dungeon and it isn't even an interesting item. You are going to start using popcorn a level 4? In DL that is usually a great choice, but for your rogue it isn't great. You can't even throw 4 fireballs per level. Well, on the upside of this poorly strategized run, you have used TT to tremendous effect so far. Even still, CYDSTEPP+JJ is just going to be flat out better. You need to use quicksilver+reflex. And dang it. There goes your chance of feeling parched. You are still going to be short. You should have just quicksilver+reflexed. You don't have to do any of that. You only have to examine your options. You should always explore into the BIGGEST areas to find what you are looking for. TT punished -15 piety for CYDSTEPPing. The danger of slowing monsters is you don't know if they have first strike. Also, you could have used that PISORF to open up the secret subdungeon. Always CYDSTEPP ASAP. The easiest target is the one you haven't revealed yet. You will need to convert something to buy that badge, or drink a potion. Health potions to CYDSTEPP? Good thinking. Or lucky dodge. That works too. You could have just leveled and killed him! This is going to be a serious struggle. You haven't used your subdungeon exploration. You really didn't plan that demonlord order. You want to fight Mesostal Ze first whenever possible, or at least second and at most third. Fighting him 5th is just flat out painful. TRIPLE DODGE?! That is kind of wrong. You are about to destroy The Avatar. He's only like the 6th strongest boss in the game. Considering The Avatar has 75% magic res, an extra fireball doesn't mean much. There is not reason not to Reflex immediately. It will win the game for you... Or not? Okay. You could have won this while ago. Just crush the boss.You can one shot one of the earlier guys. Just win. Dang, you missed the watcher. Whatever. Good win. You used the double broken.

KEY POINTS: Strategy, strategy, strategy. It makes things so much easier. That is basically it. You played well given your poor strategic choices.

Sorry I can't catch up fully. I should be able to tomorrow. Are you going to start doing silver challenges? Also, I challenge you to beat a vicious dungeon without Zot+Whupaz (just whupaz is fine), Yendor, or Balanced Dagger.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby JayPlaysIndieGames on Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:39 pm

hmmm, the reason I wasn't taking Namtar's Ward was that I didn't want to use any vicious item drops to beat the vicious dungeons this time around.
I will get less picky when Jaytopolis catches up to Jayton and I am trying to get badges and such in vicious.

As always I love the commentary :)
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Mon Dec 23, 2013 5:51 am

I wouldn't have taken Namtar's Ward, I would have taken the Dragon Shield.

Episode 40: This looks really long. Ah, VGT. Good luck with that. I would just get there on your new profile. NL is much harder than VHoS. You just did VHoS TOTALLY WRONG and NL fairly correctly. VHoS just requires some strategy. I would probably go Yendor over Balanced Dagger for leveling, as Yendor is just faster and easier. Binlor Elf Paladin is one of the single most effective strategies there is for Namtar's Lair. You are nowhere near killing that level 2. It does most of your hp in one shot and takes 6 shots to kill. PISORF should get you your first 28 piety for ENDISWAL. You should still take stone soup if you find an early ENDISWAL as it is 100 CP for 28 piety, which is a GREAT deal. Stone Heart is not what you use to get magic res up. It costs 15 WALLS. Stone Skin is how you should get magic res. You are exploring without ENDISWALing and you have full mana under Binlor. There is no case where you shouldn't be here. Also, ENDISWAL into the massive wall clumps (usually in the corners and edges), as they are most likely to hold the secret subdungeon and reveal more walls without wasting your exploration. THANK YOU FOR NOT LEVELING UP. IT IS A GOOD THING UNDER BINLOR. Well, actually body pact kind of throws things. Now you can just level up normally since you have balanced dagger. Just get stone fist. WHAT? YOU HAVE THE BALANCED DAGGER! Good thinking on getting resists off same level enemies. Dwarven Gauntles should be an auto purchase at level 1. WHY? YOU PREPPED THE BALANCED DAGGER! HOW COULD YOU FORGET THAT? Good, you remember. Your paladin can't be punished by Binlor. You should always ground your piety before losing piety as a paladin. Witchaloak Pendant is so much of an inferior purchase to the dwarven gauntlets it hurts me. There is a level 2 on your screen. Two of them now. You realized that. Congratulations! Your paladin game just got 17.6% better! You should make sure you have at least 4 piety or your body pact or you are losing out. Body Pact is far more efficient, you should be focusing on that more. It is 2 resists for 4 piety vs 3 resists for 12 piety. You are getting much less from Binlor. Also, Frozen Trolls are the worst enemy? TAKE IT BACK! Frozen Trolls are easy and regen fightable. Like lame magic damage meat men. Animated Armors are easily MUCH worse then them. You should not fight Namtar sooner rather than later. You are exploring on full mana. Shame on you. Good thing you realized you should take Stone Fist. Namtar at level 6? That's bold under Binlor. You better make sure you have 65% magic res. Are you really ignoring the same level frozen troll for a higher level zombie? You get the same amount of exp and the Zombie is WAAAAAAY harder. Oh wow. You can get so much off that thing for piety. You should play this game as it is meant to be played if you have the balanced dagger. That just won't work. FIGHT SMAE LEVEL MONSTERS, YOU FOOL! Alright, 2 level higher kills are good. Just no one level higher kills. Oh, that was a one level higher kill. STOP! Also, you had a secret subdungeon with a ton of gold and didn't buy the dwarven gauntlets. You've really misplayed up to this point. You should have been constantly fighting same level monsters while you (ab)use Binlor+Pactmaker for max magic and higher physical resists. You have the Witchaloak Pendant. That fireball gave you the resists to take the hit. You are going to regret blowing all of your popcorn on form 1. Form 2 is going to punish you for wasting popcorn and whupaz+quicksilver+reflex.. You only fight TWO forms on your current map! Orb of Zot is going to save your game. Again. Ugh, Yendor+Zot+Balanced Dagger allow you to win with poor play. Always fireball before hitting a mana burner. And there goes your quicksilver reflex. Seriously, BURN HIM. If you had done that both times you could have killed him sans potions. Or if you hadn't wasted reflexes on a random creature. Or if you had used knock back. ANY OF THOSE 3 WOULD HAVE WON IT. You are in trouble. You can win, but this is bad. All you have to do is beat form 2. The next 4 will be very beatable as your paladin is you set then up properly with a mid-fight level up (at least form 3). You can use Stone Heart in a pinch to get you a LOT of exploration. You are going to have to fireball his to death. It is getting harder and harder to pull in win from this. And there is a keg of health. That did you a BIG favor. Yendor would have made this VERY doable. And that saves your game. As little as you deserve this win, congratulations. I apologize if I am taking any shine off your win, but just looking at the misplays you should have lost. Using Yendor, Zot+Whupaz, and Balanced Dagger in one game (sorry again) gives you the win almost anywhere with a supreme lack of skill. Enough rant. Lol, that was the wrong subdungeon. Since you saved your schadenfreude you can beat this form. There isn't really much to commentate on from here. Just keep killing the bosses. They aren't going to be tough considering your condition. A mid-fight level up vs the fourth seals the deal. You should probably have converted your ENDISWAL for mana by now, but it doesn't really matter. REALLY? YOU HAVE HALPMEH! You could have gotten so much more off your first attack. And you've had 4 chances to kill him and you wasted 2 health potions! THEY DON'T RETALIATE IF THE FIREBALL KILLS THEM! This is seriously painful to watch. Your mistakes are more terrible than you realize. You can regen fight the third form really easily, and if you remembered your HALPMEH, this would be easy. Wait, NOW YOU USE HALPMEH? Really? You shouldn't explore all the way up if just exploring a few tiles allows you to take off a death protection. In fact, exploring all the way up is almost never a good choice. Do you not remember his last form? Oh, well this will be a good reaction. Well, that's a win.

KEY POINTS: Forgetting your preps (do I even need to finish this sentence?). Only purchase useful items, and actually purchase the useful ones. Body Pact is strictly better than any of Binlor's boons for resistances. Really, just think as you play. That can sum up every mistake you make. The only real mistakes are when your thought process turns out an incorrect answer (like saying Frozen Trolls are hard). The rest of it I know you can do if you just pause, think, and maybe check your inventory or the map.

Episode 41: Crusader? It isn't particularly good for this dungeon, but it is a good vicious class. You finally took an orc?! I'm proud of you. There has got to be something wrong with this. In EVERY RUN you are using Zot or Yendor. Or both. Taurog? That's one way to play the dungeon. And not really a very good one. Fighting all these guys without any magic resists is too hard. And you lose. You should;t have wicked guitar'd. You could win this by buying a health potion to kill the same level AA, but that is just stupid. Oooh! Body Pact! That could save your run! Or you could ignore it. Both work (except not really). You are never going to get 2 hits of that AA. Just leave. Wow, elven boots is a GREAT find here. It could win the run for you. Taurog again? He's not THAT good for this dungeon I'd take EM over hit a lot of the time. On the other hand, if you can boost your magic res pre-taurog and then go taurog for the shield, he's great. Elven Boots are better for this run, because the dwarven gauntlet's extra damage don't really do much for you. There was no need to randomly crush that level 1. Also, why have you not converted CYDSTEPP, and why did you use the orb of zot already? Good buy on those elven boots. And Pactmaker should seal the deal. I would fight the indomitable between 6 and 7 personally, but it can be done between 5 and 6. Dracul! That makes things even easier for you. Tower Shield doesn't really do anything for you this run. You should't be targeting higher level monsters that you can't kill. It isn't a good choice. There is the secret subdungeon! And you didn't hit him. That is the glenrick subdungeon. It would be great for you right now You should really learn your subdungeons. I would just kill the indomitable at this point. You don't want Taurog's Armor. You want Dracul. You really should't have spent all of your exploration looking for BURNDAYRAZ, considering you can use MOMENTUM if you are just a few damage short on a kill. You always start with fireballs if they will knock off a DP because it lowers his damage. That is the difference between 1 hit and 2 hits. There is a level 1 in the top you could have used to pop off the boss's burning. You are exploring way to much. That let the Indomitable fully heal. Congratulations, you win. You can just crush him by now. Between Zotted!, your potions, Dracul's insane-guine (woohoo for bad puns), this is all unnecessary. The wraith is your level, so it gets the same amount of hits. You will level off any of these monsters. It doesn't matter. Just kill the vampire. This won't even be tough. Why do you not immediately use Reflex? There is no reason not to. Blood Tithe is ALWAYS better than Blood Swells, as it funds itself, you get at least 2 full heals out of it, and it doesn't curse you. It can even give you more piety that you started with. Pick up the cracked soul orb FTW! Or not. Are you kidding me? You could have gotten FEELING PARCHED if you hadn't wasted a health potion, and this was a random run with a class that isn't the best for this dungeon. Considering how you won Namtar's Lair off of pure luck, this dungeon was a much easier time.

KEY POINTS: Well played. You shouldn't pick up potions until you absolutely need them, as it can cause inventory problems. You shouldn't regen all the way up when regen fighting. Only to the very next hit. It is much more efficient.
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Re: Video Review of Desktop Dungeons and a Let's Play!

Postby The Avatar on Tue Dec 24, 2013 4:47 am

Episode 42: Hobbler's Hold Vicious Warmonger? Well... this should be interesting. Actually, sorcerer warmonger is good practice for later as you know. Higher level kills in vicious is tough. On easy vicious it is pretty much equivalent to normal vicious (slightly harder), but as it ramps up (try vicious vicious!) it is VERY DIFFICULT. You can take the shield from Taurog. Thank you for taking that bloody sigil. Your horizon is expanding by the minute. Why did you just fight a same level poison monster? Whatever. You should have taken wereward earlier. You have to take boons ASAP. You can't quite beat the dragon. It really isn't worth using 2 health potions on a random 2 level higher kill, especially considering you could have killed a two level higher wraith without either of those potions. There is no debate. Killing a two level higher monster with two potions is a bad choice. In vicious, most of the game is just your boss spike, so potions are much more important. Keep taking Taurog's boons. Why are you playing a dwarf, out of curiosity? You don't really need extra health, and you would be much better off with an orc. Nice level up kill. It's much more effective than using potions. You have two fine swords AND Skullpicker? +13 base damage?! And you can keep all of it. Good thinking! If you hadn't used that knock back you couldn't get that kill. To put things in perspective, vicious Gobb has worse stats than basically any Grimm boss. You need to take Taurog's Armor to make things much easier. Binlor probably isn't the best idea, though I suppose you could do the knock back route. It would be interesting to see the math. I would keep the fine sword over the bear mace, but that's a personal preference. Painful. One exp short. These are the times you wish you were a goblin. You have to be careful with knock back and the pathing algorithm. You should really make sure you are next to the boss before you attack. Good piety management. I would have done the exact same. WIN! Good job. It's a shame you only get 500 gold from this, being Hobbler's Hold after all.

KEY POINTS: Always take boons ASAP (unless you are about to lose piety). 2 health potions at level 2 for a 2 level higher kill? That's not a good choice.
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