by sitnaltax on Tue Jan 13, 2015 3:43 am
The biggest general tip I can give is that when the Goat is in the "looking for stuff" phase of the game, the Goat needs to avoid exploring walls. By looking at the way tiles join, you can often determine that a tile you can't see is a wall. You want to reveal monsters and goodies, not walls. This is a useful technique for any character, but for most characters there is plenty of blackspace, enough that you can usually waste a little without suffering. This trick doesn't work in labyrinthine dungeons (Lab, Shifting Passages, etc), and Goats suffer a lot there.
The lack of level up HP/MP refill is not a huge deal for most of the dungeon. It costs you a refill against the boss--but you have your conversions instead--but you'll usually be exploring to find stuff anyway. The big deal is the lack of poison and mana burn cleansing, so the Venom Ward and Soul Orb are doubly nice for the Goat. Many characters level up by finishing off a snake or wraith or whatever. The Goat lacks that (or wastes a potion doing so), which makes the leveling process even more difficult.
You have to be picky about what glyphs you pick up, so you can still buy helpful items and keep enough glyphs for the end spike. WONAFYT is the shining star, even without the Balanced Dagger. I don't scum for WONAFYT but if you're banging your head into a wall, it really smooths things out. BURNDAYRAZ and GETINDARE are the next tier. LEMMISI and B2P help with making good use of your blackspace; I prefer LEMMISI because it's less work. HALPMEH is good if snakes are around but not really great otherwise, and the rest I usually leave on the floor unless I have an immediate use for them. In particular, IMAWAL denies you critical food, and CYDSTEPP in always seems expensive and lackluster with Goats.
I always prep More Attack Boosters rather than Magnet: Fireball. I like having the extra oomph for the later game, and if the first 1/4 of the dungeon is a disaster, I just hit the Restart button. That happens anyway if you can't find appropriate monsters or (occasionally) get horrible gods, much more so to Goats than to most characters. This is probably a matter of taste, though, and if you don't like restarting a lot, Magnet: Fireball is probably the way to go.
I usually prep Mystera with the Goat. It means there will be at least one tame, easy piety farm god in the rotation, and with an accessible altar to boot. Switching gods is definitely the most interesting part about the class. When the dungeon starts, take a look at the gods available and determine when you want to be eating your popcorn. Mystera, Dracul, Tikki Tooki, Jehora, and Taurog all have preferences that you can profit by thinking about. Pactmaker is always a welcome sight, both for Scholar's Pact and the free Consensus piety, and the fact that its presence makes the switching predictable. Earthmother is a drag to start in, but great to switch into, since she has powerful cheap boons and you can just kill the plants later.
Jehora or Tikki Tooki at level 1 means hit the reset button to me, unless I find WONAFYT. The Goat has enough problems that wasting an extra potion to cure Jehora's poison, or suffering through corrosion, or trying to make TT happy, is just not worth the trouble to me. I suppose I'll have to get over this habit when daily leaderboards become a thing.
Clearly, having to waste food to get your boosters and popcorn is bad, so always take Black Market, never Smuggler's Den.
Balanced Dagger is my go-to prep for Goats, but the Dragon Shield is always nice, and I really enjoyed Avatar Codex as a powerful change of pace. It's weak at level 1, or if all the monsters have dangerous retaliation, but very potent as you start leveling up.
Good hunting!