Monk Gold Help

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Monk Gold Help

Postby Roadkill on Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:09 am

I've been struggling big time on the Monk Gold challenge. Does anyone have any tips?

It seems like I never have enough tiles. I've tried orc/goblin, restart until I get APHEELSIK (without it this challenge seems pointless), then try to find the boss as quickly as possible to kill. I've got him down to 1/4th health but I run out potions/tiles.

I've tried EM, JJ, Taurog... none of them seem to help enough.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby TheSchachter on Wed Dec 18, 2013 1:56 am

Monk Gold is definitely one of the hardest Gold Challenges, especially if you don't play the Monk very often (which is the case for me). I'm actually trying to record a video of myself beating it, I'll post it here once I've got it done (no idea if I'll have time tonight). In the meantime, I strongly recommend using an Orc and worshiping Taurog for the most straightforward approach; you want his sword and his armor as soon as possible, and convert anything you can that you don't need to get you started on fighting higher level monsters early. (Earthmother can also work well, have her stack corrosion on enemies and use IMAWAL on monsters you'll never fight like lvl9 weakening monsters, it saves a lot of blackspace by levelling you up faster). You are quite correct that APHEELSIK is by far the best thing to spawn in there. Halpmeh is also very nice for when the Meat Men turn poisonous. Make sure to use burning when you can to slow down monster regeneration, especially if you don't get APHEELSIK. And otherwise, it's really just a question of playing the Monk really well :)

There are probably other players here who are much better with the Monk than I am and who can give more tips and/or correct anything I've said that's not quite right.

Also, I'd love to hear from anyone else whether or not they've ever managed to make Jehora Jeheyu work in this challenge, because I sure haven't.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby sitnaltax on Wed Dec 18, 2013 2:30 am

I just gave it a shot. I got it although neither APHEELSIK nor BYCEPPS spawned.

* I went Human, although I suspect Orc might be better.

* I went Earthmother -> Taurog. I believe this is the best combo when it shows up. IMAWAL will get you extra experience, which is very useful for both dealing and taking more damage. Earthmother's Greenblood and Vine Form boons synergize very well with what you want to be doing, which is hitting repeatedly. Once you've got 5 or so stacks of each, switch to Taurog (using Plantation and Clearance) and get the shield, sword, and armor. The armor in particular is critical. Converting glyphs and eating popcorn should give you enough piety that you can afford to cast spells when you need to.

* I don't know what JJ is for in this level. I guess Chaos Avatar is supposed to remove that physical resistance? I can't imagine him helping as much as Taurog.

* BYCEPPS is the single best thing you can find. By slowly wearing away at that 25% physical resistance, you end up doing a significant chunk more damage.

* APHEELSIK is fine, but it's barely better than BURNDAYRAZ if you add in the extra damage from corrosion and the extra regen prevention that the Burning effect gives. If you get both, stack them.

* The worst thing that can happen is that you just don't find the boss until the level is mostly explored, in which case, you'll have to restart.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby Nurator on Wed Dec 18, 2013 8:06 am

Did you read this one: http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... enfighting

It shows pretty good, how you can use the real power of Monks!
I did the Challenge just yesterday with Taurog and found APHEELSIK late in the boss fight, so it was no real use.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby TheSchachter on Wed Dec 18, 2013 9:04 am

Okay, so I made a video. It's not an especially good video, but I do win the challenge without Taurog, APHEELSIK, BISSEPS, or HALPMEH. Unfortunately, I do a lot of stupid things, and my comentary doesn't really go in depth on the challenge since I need to focus on it so much while playing it. In fact, I think the main reason I won is that I got lucky with the monsters that spawned. Anyway, I hesitated, but I figured I should upload and share it anyway just because:

1. The ending is hilarious (well, I think it is :P)
2. There's still (I hope) a lot to be learned from identifying my mistakes and discussing the things I do wrong

Playing and watching this, I think I've come to realize that part of the reason I do poorly with the Monk is that he requires evaluating the value of blackspace differently.

Anyway, I was already doing this for someone else on the Steam forums, but I hope it's helpful in some way, even if it ends up being learning what not to do ;)

EDIT: Wow, I write a post about a video and then forget to put the linK? FAIL. Anyway, in case anyone is still interested, here's the link:
http://youtu.be/Om0nMBxvIhM

@Sidestepper: Yup, somehow I completely forgot about Entanglement for the entire duration of the video. Weird, it's my most used EM boon normally.
Last edited by TheSchachter on Thu Dec 19, 2013 3:00 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby Sidestepper on Wed Dec 18, 2013 3:53 pm

So close, but even closer than you realized. With your remaining 5 mana, you could have used IMAWAL on a plant, and then used the piety to invoke Entanglement, which would have won the game.

EDIT: :oops: It turns out you did figure that out, shortly after declaring the game lost. I should have looked at the video length first.
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Re: Monk Gold Help

Postby Roadkill on Wed Dec 18, 2013 4:51 pm

Thanks for all the help guys - I was able to do it with your tips.

I used orc, worshipped Taurog quickly. I got by on basically his gifts + BURNDAYRAZ - surprisingly I didn't need any other glyphs (except for WEYTWUT at the start). I started taking on the boss at lvl 8 and managed to kill him with blackspace to spare by attacking, fireball, repeat.
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