Another bloggy playthrough diary :)

[Lujo]

Eh, I took my own advice of slapping the VT onto screwy runs and run myself into a corner - I tried the VT on the Dwarven Tinker run in the Cursed Oasis. Oh, boy... Trying to play that one to your strenghts as a dwarf looks impossible, so after a few attempts I decided that I am, By God!, gonna crack it, even if it means resorting to cheeze and not really playing a dwarf too hard. Even went so far as to contemplate doing Demonic Library for the Codex and then just going Codex-EM which usually does the trick, but decied against that. So I went like this:

VT RUN - Cursed Oasis - Dwarf Tinker - Dragonsoul Unlock/Vicious Token



And well, I decieded to go for Pissorff spam, because that was the only way I could think of to only have to deal with one boss. Depending on luck it could be anywhere from rather easy to pretty difficult, regardless of the prepped CB and everything, but as you can see from the underlined stuff - if I scummed I probably couldn't have had more luck. Glenrick! Binlor for Pissorff, farm piety while I explore, Mystera, deserate binlor into refreshment and a hit of magic, get to 100 piety, level up, find Elven Boots and even B2P, unload all my glyphs into refreshment pissorff spam, convert to JJ, desecrate mystera, ding off some popcorn (also clean curse), pissorff spam, chaos avatar, pissorff spam.

Everything went my way. Heck, that B2P meant that I managed to get actual sinergy with being a dwarf even though I was kinda sad from all the fail runs about how badly my dwarf element was meshing with the dungeon.

As a general advice - don't VT on CO on top of a quest/PQI. Possibly with really high-end stuff, Codex/EM builds, maybe some stuff that's not currently on my radar. But if you just want to play, say, a dwarf or something you just want to explore in a bit of a tricky environment, CO is nasty enough on regular difficulty. You'll just get your setup or your self-imposed challenge bent out of shape, most likely.

With so much RNG involved, I did make a compromise with myself and decided to start in Binlor instead of a spellcasting friendly deity and scumming for Pissorff, but with all the rest of my strenght determined by RNG I might as well have. If I had half as much luck with gods and items, I'd still feel proud of pulling it off.

QUESTION - I'm sure I deffinitely didn't go unstoppable, is that a bug?

---

Apparently, hitting "restart" doesn't bring the VT in (I guess it's not counted into preps or something). Didn't matter ended up failing the VT attempt and having fun on the non-VT one. Was still rather tricky, and going VT on CO is one of those places where it's basically just masochism and cheezy strats.

RUN - Dwarven Transmuter - Cursed Oasis - Dragon Soul Unlock



Well, I prepped for Pissorff spam again, but unknowingly forgot the VT, so I got a really nice non Pissorf spam run out of it when I noticed that I've got to a lot of TT piety and a lot of levels (having so much ease in killing stuff above lvl2 should've tipped me off I wasn't in VT land anymore, but somehow it didn't). So I eneded up killing the Boss with TT potion spam for a change, which was highly satisfying because I got to use my Class the way god intended. Since I also made liberal use of B2P, while leveling, I suppose I got some use out of my race too, which is cool. V satisfying run, all in all.

I'll try the new and cool EM Transmuter build with some other Transmuter race and some other dungeon, where I have more prep leeway to actually bring the guitar in. Only Crusader left unil I have Dragonsoul!

---

Well, Crusader apparently kinda clowns his way around the place, at least if you go Pissorf spam on top of whatever else and farm/play/desecrate your gods right. And get lucky with Glenrick and the general feature buffet.

VT RUN - Dwarf Crusader - Cursed Oasis - Dragonsoul Unlock pt.3 / Vicious Token



Went Pissorf, did pissorff. Big health actually came in handy in varios spots and with no curse to interfear I could kinda level properly, popcorn bowled properly since everything was legit popcorn (did almost get messed up by Mystera, at one point, lol). Used all 4 altars - Binlor just for pissorff and 100 piety - into - JJ auto petition, boost health and mana, 100 piety - Mystera, Refreshment, at mid boss fight had 50 piety - into - JJ again, desecrated Binlor and Mystera, converted some stuff and leveled up for piety, dumped everything into the boss just because, took Chaos Avatar. I think.

Crusader's the king of god swapping and popcorn munching shennanigans, and apparently a rather good Dwarf. Because hes imunities and copious altars also make him a potentially killer res stacker. But if you wanna play a run which could go any possible way imaginable (sometimes all at once) stick a Patches on a Dwarf Crusader but otherwise jump into it w no other preps ^^

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

[Lujo]

Instead of going for making my life difficult on Berserker Camp, I decided to take the Goat out for a careful spin in flaming doubledoom. Just so my first experience with him after a while isn't in some screwy PQI. I've played him before, but not too much, and I've followed developments with him and read up some advice in the meantine - it didn't stop me from randomly messing myself up by using B2P while in GG on the first try ^^

On the second try, though:

RUN - Goatperson (Mystera, EM, GG) - Doubledoom - Flaming



Well, it's like playing a screwy goblin, really, except stronger since you always get a refill, but trickier because of all the special catches. Went for a regular run to not complicate my life too much, but I did go Doubledoom on purpose because of the difficulties with exploration compared to some other maps. The first run was actually going much, much smoother (B2P and Wonnafyt, wut wut), but GG punishment will stop a run like nothing else

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Then the PQI was asking for a Faithless Dwarf Paladin on Rock Garden, and I didn't want to VT that, either. Checking out Sitnaltaxes research, after I've done it, made me kinda sad that I couldn't make Rock Garden just a bit tougher without making it 160% tougher. It's at only 100%, and it's easy to understand why - mazy map, plants in the way, 3 bossess, two bossess with very different stats, if it were any tougher newbies would pull their hair out, but it makes for a bit lacklustre normal run I suppose (which isn't what I expected, really, on a Faithless Dwarf). Skill level does account for some of the ease, I suppose, but the leap from regular to VT here was a bit intimidating to work around, and regular turned out too easy even though the map made me flat out waste a ton of resources.

PQI - Dwarf Paladin - Rock Garden - Faithless



Still, Dwarfs rock Martyr wraps as if it had 0 downside, which is good to know. Had a tower shield in the shop, kept the damage stuff. Found my old friend Penance, too. Didn't use the Apheelsick, and, well, MW + ~~Bear Mace~~ let me kill a lvl 5 at lvl 2, a lvl 8 at lvl 3, a lvl 9 at lvl 5, and you can kinda see how all that went. MW Dwarves, not shabby at all (well MW Dwarfs with a little resists, some spoons and Halpmeh at any rate, but hey...).

I did underestimate the power of MW dwarves and kinda lucked out on Meat Men spawns, too.

---

So, erm, the PQI decided I wasn't being stupid enough today, and told me to go play a Warmonger Warlord (known to his close frienda as "The Guard"). In Grimms Grotto. So I decided to troll it right back and stick a Vicious Token onto it, because two can play that game!

Also because it was a Halfling Guard, and as we all know Halflings are what Drac dresses up as when he wants to troll mortals. And also because if you look at Sitnaltaxes (I may be misspelling it) list, bumping Grimms Grotto to Vicious doesn't make that much of a difference.

If you're looking for that do-it-yourself extra-masochistic challenge, this one is up there with the craziest of them.

PQI - Halfling Warlord - Grimm's Grotto - Warmonger / Vicious Token



Weeeeel, it took 4 tries (or 5), and many of them were really close. It's like a mini game, tbh, you learn something on every run, and while I always prepped Taurog (for the shield and sword), and I started out by prepping Tower Shield, other stuff was all over the place all the time. I had a 1-hit-away-from it TT + GG cleansing + potions vs the Wraith game, I had a 1-hit away from it Aequitas game with Binlor and TT, I had a good run vs SMM with Drac. The Aequitas one was really, really sad as I had no way to trigger the dodge potion ftw after 4 tries.

I'm actually glad how it turned out - Taurog, JJ and Pactmakes, monster zoo subdungeon, very little knockback damage on the boss (was in a corridor I couldn't bust), but I did him in with an audacious DP string, followed by a consensus + alchemy pact into JJ, boost health to get over the treshold (health pendant ftw), even alchemy pact for a level up. Big health does have it's perks ^^ Oh, and the boss was no pushover, there's more health on him than the average boss.

Still - if you're looking for a crazy little Vicious Dungeon you never knew was there, try this run. It's tough as nails and you've got to know your ~~Bear Mace~~, but a Halfling Guard in VT Grimms is totally doable. You do have to remember that's he's a bit better than the actual Guard because mana potions buff you for a hit, you get +10 Taurog piety and a health pot to start with, and if your health is low (for DP or dodgestep spikes) you do more damage.

---

Decided to do a quick one, PQI, regular difficulty.

PQI - Dwarf Sorcerer - Havendale Bridge - Warmonger



Went with Taurog, found Drac, stacked my res, had a ton of health, swilled STR potions, kicked assess. Overprepped obviously, I ought to have tried it VT but no time IRL. Whish there was a way to get more than one STR potion, though, and I need to use those more often. With Reflex potions, too.

[Lujo]

Right, so I did Tinker challenges. Bronze and Gold took one try each (well, I did restart gold imediately after not finding Glenrick, then I found Glenrick and then I went to remind myself what the boss was and then did it on the sam run). Goblin both times. Silver took me something like 20 tries (way, way, waaaay more than anything else on this playthrough ), but it's mostly because it kept throwing me off balance, the actual solution is fairly simple. Went Taurog for the most part. It was a long series of comedic fails (mostly due to silly missplays and unexpected catches). I didn't actually mind it.

---

Well, for my breakfast run I went with this:

PQI - Gnome Priest - Purist - Havendale Brigde



Saw Taurog right off the bat, but also saw Wonnafyt, and I decided to get a bit more out of being a gnome while I level as the boss has Magic Resists and all that. Also saw Apheelsick, I'm underusing it, so I decided to give that a whilrl, and even bought a Venom Dagger to go along with it. Ran into Mystera, too. So I ran around with a ton of glyphs and did stuff. Killed the troll, killed some lucky meatmen spawns (saw them as lvl1's early, so I knew poison was the way to go), used plenty of mana potions to spike stuff because that's what potions are actually there for (you drink a potion for an Apheelsick cast, that there potion got you a semi-refil). Subdungeon was soko-trolls, the other boss was Iron Man (which meant using glyphs and mana to level was the right call ^^).

Later swapped into Taurog with a big popcorn bowl. Wasn't necessary, but, hey, why not?

Pleasant run, explored plenty of features I haven't been using.

---

Well, the issue of Pissorf tooltips / relative obscurity of Pissorf and the merits of having fixed DR on some monsters in the game prompted me to make a few screenies of how silly that thing really is, so I finally did a Demonic Library run (screenies of lvl 2 kills on 2 of the red djinns in that thread).

Run - Demonic Library - Orc Wizard - Casual Pissof Spam



Eh, not much to say really. I even left the "average lvl. difference" bit in there. It's not that this strat is good at DL in particular, it's that this strat is good aganst everything there is. Even with a way less sinergistic setup (and I didn't even bother with a lot of features in the run tbh). Would've possibly done even better as a bloodmage, maybe.

Well, got codex and a few badges on DL, I suppose that's nice.

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Then I decided I'd go for the quick and easy way of getting the Fire Heart and did:

VT RUN - Berserker Camp - Orc Bloodmage of Binlor - Vicious Token / Fire Heart Unlock / Pissorf Spam



Since I didn't much bother with the run, I won't much bother with the writeup either. No Wheytwut. Just the glyph from Bin, Refreshment from M, and a Bloodswell from Drac. Spent a lot of resources on lvl 1, dinged because I needed bloodpools.

---

Then I decided to make pissorf spam challenging, but that kidna had mixed results. Mystera was a bit of a luckout, but the JJ run which ended in a missclick was about as good:

VT RUN - Gnome Berserker of Binlor - Berserker Camp - Fireheart Unlock / Vicious Token / Pissorf Spam



Dodge + Whoopaz on the Iron Man, then stright pissorff. The berserker went down at lvl 4, and killing Iron Mant then took... Two more pissorffs I think. Had plenty of gas in the tank left over. What can I say - it's a crazy glyph. Not sure why I thought the "gnome" would make it tricky, in retrospect I should've been human or dwarf if I really wanted a challenge. Oh, well.

Still - finally have fire heart, woot! Should make Dwarves even more fun

---

Decided to take the fire heart out for a spin, and also to stop obsessing with the accursed glyph of doom, so I went and did this nice little thing:

PQI + VT RUN - Southern Swamp - Gnome Priest - Faithless + Vicous Token



It was so cool and pleasant!

I put a little thought into it, and figured that if I can get my level high enough a priest can tank a 120 dmg hit. And since I was a gnome, I could support that with a lot of fireballs. So I took the fire heart for another free hit ^^ And also potential B2P shennaingans.

Worked out great, although I did have a bit of help from an ealy Wonnafyt and a Balanced Dagger I happened upon. Tower shield made the tanking part work. Still, I found the fireball rather late and it wasn't like it was a complete walk in the park, up until then it was using my big health + wonnafyt to kill stuff

V nice.

---

Another quick one:

VT Run - Halfling Wizard JJ - Havendale Bridge - Unlikely Heroes / Vicious Token



Was a fun, strange run, I peekabood my way to ginormous stats, with a keg of mana and a load of health potions to recharge. No sinergy between my class and race whatsoever, but hey - I had a dwarven heathpool, an elven mana pool, discount on spells, and Dracul-size refill capacity. Even took a 100 piety last chance, after a bunch of clearances and greenbloods across the river. It worked.

EM pulled a funny move on me - the only plant she wouldn't clearance was stuck on the brigde I needed to get over to get to JJ. And I was at 50 piety and 6 mana, so I used Pissorff to move the plant away. And that's all I used it for!

Bloody sigil for help with pekaboo (not that it needs any), and also refilling the big ole healthpool.

[Lujo]

So, I'm gonna turn over a new leaf and conciously really avoid POS for a while. Which is to say, convert the damned thing on sight. Noone wants to read about it, surely, and I want some interesting wins and explorations, and Gnome Berserker Berserker Camp VT POS was about as exotic as that thing can get, and I've done that. I'll totaly try to wreck s**t in the third triple quest with it just because it sounds like good megalomaniacal fun, but not right now. Pleasant, fun, exploratory runs, VT, purist or otherwise - no POS.

So:

PQI - Elf Berserker ot Taurog - Creeplight Ruins - Warmonger!



Original deity choice, I know, but since the race was somewhat unsinergistic, and since I'm kinda apprehensive about Creeplight for whatever reason, I did go w Taurog and no VT. I did bring Patches along, and I remembered how Nandrew (one of the devs) was talking about the Wicked guitar a lot one time, and never really explored that thing properly so I had a tought...

...I could use that thing to offset what happens with the total XP and the cultists if I just kill them and make the zombies bigger. Then I also found the (un)balanced dagger, which, I discovered, works rather well with the guitar (only thing missing was GG for Humility). And THEN I happened upon, for the first time in this playthrough, on the Mas0n's ledger - and things got screwy! Saved exploration, made extra XP, ported stuff around, had a lot of fun

Also, I used STR potions. Heck, if you're an Elf warmonger you might as well make some use out of the mana pool. I whish there were kegs of those. People would probably be trying to do silly things with Crusaders, so that's not so hot, but I'd love me a 5X5 subdungeon with a STR potion (or awareness of there allready being one). There's Metal Spider Temple, but, eh, there's better things to grab in there.

PURIST PQI - Dwarf Assassin - Hexx Ruins - Faithless



So! I made a pact with myself a long time ago that I'm not gonna ever make a fuss about Swift Hands. And i'm not ever gonna! Anywho, it makes this level much easier than it is for most other guys for obvious reasons. I also picked up the Venom Ward from a shop at some point, which is one of the many things which "solve" this place to a degree. However, I was quite happy about how Apheelsick was working for me, used Imawal not as another of "Hex soluition", but rather as a simple way to leverage poison and get ahead of the revenants.

The Venom Ward did kinda push me over the edge, because it means I had enough enemies poison worked on and never had to tangle with Wraiths or Revenants, but it was a nice little run. I also made space while exploring early with an Endiswall so Wonnafyt made a big popcorn bowl which helped with the Dragon.

EDIT: Oh! I was totally gonna pull a sweet move on Stheno by picking up the False Beard and levling up on a clean board, but if I couldn't possible get my XP to be 5 away from level up. I would've been 1 short or allready over. Shame, seems like a nice move, gotta remember that next time I see that subdungeon.

---

Intersting and educational run (cool findings, hints and stuff ):

PQI - Halfling Rogue - Labyrinth - Parched



So, as you can see I decided to take the Labyrinth on as a regular dungeon, not just in the VT or no VT sense, but in the "no shortcuts" sense, so no Binlor or Titan Guitar. Also, I couldn't think of any better ways to evade Parched (GG and JJ in retrospect), and I wanted to play the STR potion a bit more, and I also enjoy truly glass cannon Rogues so I went with TT.

So, you might notice I prepped Serpent Ward. While it's not too relevant on this build or challenge, it's actually an important prep on the labyrinth and makes it significantly easier in my experience, as that place spawns snakes and you don't want to be poisoned in a maze if you can avoid it. Remember this if you ever take a Monk in here.

Then you might also notice one other thing - this place spawns first strikers, and in this case I think the "random monster" slot got filled with yet more Gorgons. So I was up against a map full of first strikers with a prepped TT Rogue and no way to slow anything. I did have Endiswal to help me move around, but getting either piety or higher level kills took being creative.

The STR potions helped with that, and it was a nice test of prepped TT in a stressful environment. The consensus in the end helped get the win, but victory was far from a sure thing. Uncovering Rex before I killed anything with Lemisi din't help, either. This actually took 2 tries, and on the previous run I had a much easier time due to Wonnfyt decloging the map completely and there not being this much first strikers. But the reason that run ultimately failed (even though it would've been an Unstoppable win), was that I slowed all my popcorn and didn't have anything to trigger Dodge from dodgestep on! So don't get 100% cocky about Wonnafyt winning you stuff, there IS a situation where it can screw you over ^^

Also - all the non-standard potions triggered the Trisword when it was really relevant. Which is also why I prepped the alchemist even though it was a parched run

It was tricky, it was engaging, it took effort and the challenge made all the exceptionally strong stuff feel justified and challenged. Regular difficulty - but way more satisfying and gripping than any of the POS runs.

---

A hobbler's single-badge-vicious-PQI challenge ^^

VT PQI - Elf Fighter - Hobbler's Hold - Specialist



Well, I like this challenge, always fun.

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And then I decided to clean up the Unlikely Hero's Quests. I ussually do these earlier as I like them a lot, not sure why I haven't this time around.

PURIST RUN - Goblin Bloodmage - Creeplight Ruins[/color] - [color=#8000BF]Unlikely Heores: Tundra



Well, I expected it to be a bit more tricky (always paranoid about Creeplight Ruins, have to remember why exactly), and purist Bloodmages are supposed to be harder, but I found TT and desecrated Binlor and EM, and also Glenrick (free Yendor... Yay?), and it turned out to be pretty easy. Dodgestep spam for the second form, fireballs for both of the other ones.

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And the final Unlikely Hero's quest turned out to be rather easy, too:

PURIST RUN - Goblin Warlord - Creeplight Ruins - Unlikely Heros: Tundra



Eh, running into EM on a Warlord kinda defeats the purpose of being Purist, but Warlords are generally rahter above the curve anyway. I used Imawal on cultists, and also Endiswal on statues, and I still happened to have plenty of exploration.

Well, the only quests left are the Dragonkin and Vampire unlocks, I haven't done Namtars Lair yet, and I haven't done VGT yet (not in a rush for that one, allthough I might take a stab at it for the gold).

---

[Lujo]

Eh, I tied a few PQI warmongers with VT in Rock Garden yesterday - and always kept ending one boss short. Well, Gnome Berserker Warmongers VT in a 3 boss Maze Map with a 75% resist boss probably aren't a good idea. Couldn't pull it off (maybe with less stupid preps, and the JJ attempt was actually going pretty well. Woulda made a helluva screenie, though ^^

So today I the game decided to do the Purist Halfling Sorcerer at regular difficulty. Took 2 tries because I missclicked myself into a lvl 9 golem That attempt was a complete hoot because I couldn't find Burndayraz, but I did run into Drac, Bloody Sigil and Apheelsick. In combination with the 100% difficulty it was breezy and totally fun (which I why my attntion slipped and I died).

PQI - Halfling Sorcerer - Rock Garden - Purist



Strange, I'm begging to have a feeling that the dungeons spawning algorythm is either rigged or streaking on me. This isn't the first time I noitced finding the exact same gods, glyphs and items in a dungeon.

Anywho, Bloody Sigil + Blood Curse + Apheelsick = fun! All that + Socerer = FUN! 2 Hits of Lifesteal and Blood Shield, pretty nice, I have to say.

---

After failing a few times at VT warmongers using GG, I decided to go do this, as I haven't yet unlocked the Vampire:

RUN - Dwarf Paladin - Vicious Steel - Vampire Unlock pt. 1



Well, I went with the standard EM gimmick and slamming the 50 DP fellow into the blinky bloodsucky person, and it worked fine, tbh.

---

Well, all the Bloodmage and Wiki talk, got me in the mood for some good olf striaightforward Goblin BM play (played it a bunch back in the day, even took him through VGT once if I remember correctly, back when they were stronger and Getindare had dodge prediction):

RUN - Vicious Steel - Goblin Bloodmage - Vampire Unlock pt.2 / Fireball Everything!



Well, I stuck 2 hits of health on and fireballed both bossess to death with a kick ass mana pool of 12 total (don't ask). Lucked out a bit on the Zombie Gold and Extra Popcorn subdungeons, but to make amends and save face I fireballed 5 lvl 8 zombies for good measure. Stick enough Health and/or Mana on a Bloodmage, dinging with him actually becomes legit. Easy dings also leave more blackspace to be chucked at the boss.

Had resources left over so I suspect I would've done ok even without Zombie gold, as long as I got any blackspace out of the subdungeon at all. Still, hard to tell, that's a lot of DP's to take off a guy if you start fireballing him at, like, lvl 2. Takes about as many to get to them, even. Would've taken way fewer resources if I resorted to using the Pissorff, but then I wouldn't be able to feel this good about the run ^^

--- INTERESTING RUN ---

So, for the final Vampire Unlock bit, I chose - drumroll - Dwarf Sorcerer! Wut? Yes! The Purist Halfling Drac Sorcerer run from earlier today was actually kinda interesting as I did a lot of Drac stuff with him, and also a lot of fighting due to not actually having a Burndayraz on me, and I though to myself, you know who else is rather good with Drac? Dwarves! And also, Blah Blah does an assload of damage, so I could see the benefits of big health with a bit of Drac resists thrown in. And then, mid run, I also remembered that the only thing the Sorcerors useless third ability does is knock of DPs. So here's how it went:

RUN - Vicious Steel - Dwarf Sourceroure - Vampire Unlock pt.3



This run had me thinking of this song for some reason. I picked up my Blood Curse and found an Imawal and a Wonnafyt (no Fireball), and I started fighting cursed stuff, stoning monsters and getting my curse count very high. My level was also getting pretty high. And then my mana pool became rather high too. So was my lifesteal, because my health was pretty damned high. So I was kinda fighting stuff way above my level, with Imawal backup, which turns out it rather great with Dwarves.

Playing all these Dwarves made me... not so much realize as notice that if you pile on a lot of little things on them they become somehow intangibly brutal. They also kinda don't care all that much about corrosion or curse, tbh, at least while leveling.

Anyway - this worked. The Dwarf part was good, because it kinda sinergized at least a little bit with everything including the useless mana shield. I had resources left over! Like, a lot of them (I only ever used CB once, and I completely forgot to buy the platemail which would've been awesome). Dwarf Sorcerers, who would've thought...

---

Ok, now this little girl is shaping up to be "something you have to run everywhere that's tough, just to experience every dungeon with it". Also, I've found both a T1 Dwarf and a Monk who doesn't just cheeze right through everything:

RUN - Dwarf Monk of JJ - Dragon Isles - Dragonkin unlock pt.1



To be honest, I couldn't decide whether to ditch the bear mace, the potions and the viper ward and pick up the Apheelsick or just regen fight the Matron, and ended up Regen Fighting her. Had a secret gold subdungeon full of Exploration left and a few hits of Lemisi as well, and all the bloodpools, some popcorn and all that.

The Firstborn kill, in case anyone's wondering: Whoopaz + Dodge, 18 mana fireballs, ding, fireballs, Chaos Avatar, more fireballs, schadenfraude, more fireballs (2nd schadenfraude ftw?). Anyway, it spontaneusly develops into a fine caster build, because being a dwarf you neither can nor need to take more than one health boost from JJ.

I used a TON of wheytwut to first swap places with a dragonguard down below, then move 3 dragonguards out of the way, put the matron next to the wall, knock her into the wall, then swap places with the dragonguard to put him behind the matron so I can slam her into him. Two Wheytwuts failed due to magic resistance on the dragonguards, too. That's a lot of mana, but well worth it ^^

There's just so much sinergy between everything in this build, and a bunch of it is broken, yet nothing feels problematic because it's so goofy and you kinda have to dig it and work for it and clean corrosion off you and you have 18 mana because why not, and I had a Draco heart on a Dwarf who's had a hit of JJ's buff... FUN. Also, DI kinda stacked against monks, but not the JJ Dwarf of doooooom. Slow and cumulative doom, but pretty doomy.

Also, how do you even get JJ Monks? Makes zero sense.

---

That Gobbo Bloodmage felt so good that I just had to do it again in Dragon Isles.

RUN - Goblin Bloodmage of JJ - Dragon Isles - Dragonkin Unlock



Well, the goblin, possibly even more than the gnome, kinda gives the best of all worlds when you combine him with JJ. Two hits of health, one hit of mana, where da boss at? In retrospect, I probably should've used dodge + whoopaz on the Firstborn instead of just dumping all my mana potions and B2P (the entire topside map apart from the subdungeons) into killing fireballing him... at lvl 3-4.

The regular subdungeon was just 5X5 with some gold in it, but the bonus subdungeon was the monster zoo (obv. great for BM). Still, I brought in a blue seal to make sure I can acess it (in retrospect - why, I had bear mace), so I converted the mace rigth away - which means no peekaboo and inventory issues too. I did find a Dragonsoul which is silly on bloodmages, but it didn't trigger outrageusly often.

I fireballed all the non-magic resistant dragonguards, but one of the magic resistan ones resisted Wheytwut something like 8 times (!!!!!), and made me waste all of the downbelow blackspace anda bunch of bloodpools on moving him (in retrospect it would've cost me less to kill him, but how could I have known). Had leftover exploration in the other subdungeons and plenty of bloodpools (even though I've been sucking them liberally), so I fireballed the Matron to death and just tanked the retaliation.

Goblin Bloodmage totaly legit - with JJ. Dinging helps turn progressively more stuff into popcorn, and also regens your massive health pool allowing for glorious ammounts of B2P, with very little bloodpool usage so while your Sanguine doesn't go much over 30 wihtout Drac, you can save a lot of them even if you don't make a conscious effort.

Also, any JJ Bloodmage is workable, and well worth forgoing the ~~Bear Mace~~ and peekaboo, just for the inventory space. Gnome shennaingans aside, the health boost is massive. Two hits and you have 2X B2P at lvl 4. You'll run out of blackspace, but you'll also run out of bossess.

[Lujo]

The game seems not have registered my previous DI win, maybe I exited trough the wrong stairs or something, so I did it again, with less favourable shops and subdungeons. (Also possible that I alt tabbed at the victory screen after taking the screenshot and turned off the computer after that without letting it go through the post-run loading screen).

RUN - Goblin Bloodmage of JJ - Dragon Isles - Dragonkin Unlock pr.2 take 2



This time things clicked togather rather less well topside, so I used Whoopaz on the Firstborn. I didn't use dodge, because I missclicked it trying to activate it, so I converted the JJ Wheytwut and picked up Cydstep. I also took two hits of mana on top of the two hits of health. There was another Wheytwut on the board for the dragons below, but this time I only Wheytwuted one out of the way and knockbacked the other one step forward to go around him.

The subdungeons were a 5X5 empty one with some gold, and the secred one was the gold subdungeon so the win was sorta tighter this time around. It looked like it would even go down to a last chance.

---

For my last dragonkin unlock I decided to take the Dragonshield for a spin, and also enjoy the Halfling Berserker - the "bring your own health spike, poison never an issue warmonger". Ended up not going Warmonger.

RUN - Halfling Berserker - Dragon Isles - Dragonkin Unlock pt. 3



The whole "orc best choice everywhere" thing isn't all that true. Resist stacking halflings can do all sortsa things, including a swap into TT for a set of dodgestep to take out a dragonguard and not get cursed to death, and can have glyphs lying around the place for when you get back into Taurog (and also pushing other dragonguards around, endiswalling, whatever utility you need), and still get the full benefits of their CP. Also - poison never an issue, which is kind of a big deal on regen fighters (particularly when everything is cowardly from Taurog) and allows packing Patches with ease. I also didn't hoard my potions at all, on a Taurog run, you'll convert everythign eventually anyway.

They also tank like probably nothing else. Oddly enough I'm not sure I would've pulled this particular run off with an Orc (even though it's Dragonshield Berserker DI run). Also, I didn't go Warmonger

Dragonking Unlocked! Only thing I'm missing now is Namtar's Ward and I haven't done the token VGT run for massive cash.

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I'm kinda close to a bank upgrade, which I'm interested in, so I decided to take the Chaos Dwarf for a spin in the Southern Swamp.

VT RUN - Dwarf Monk of JJ w Martyr Wraps - Southern Swamp - Vicious Token

Won't post a screenie as it doesn't tell much. The run was kinda tougher than some others due to the monster composition, but since the build usually gets lot of mana and conserves health pots, I made great use of the Witchalok Pendant in the boss fight. Had 18 mana off a pair of Elven Boots from a subdungeon, and Witchalok kinda let me keep getting hits in with full Monk resists while also fireballing a progressively more corroded Jormugandr. It was also a spiking finish - a ding + chaos avatar + a lot of fireballs and potions.

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Whoooo, what a run:

RUN - Dwarf Monk of JJ - Namtar's Lair - Namtar's Ward Unlock / Pulling this off



Took 3 tries, and this one did have Glenrick in it (allthough I did pop him at lvl 2), but it was worth it for both the challenge and just seeing it work ^^ This takes expert handling (either that or I'm not that good at it). I fireballed the first form (the one with magic resists, allthough I did take Chaos Avatar at some point during the fight) and fireball/melee/regenfought the other one (the one with weakening, corrosion and curse). So it was the most patently stupid way to go about it (and also kinda seemed like the only way, lol).

Used so many things and pulled so many moves I lost count. There was even an 85 piety Last Chance in there. I might've done better if I started the fight later, but... I had 100 JJ piety, and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to set up a level up into chaos avatar if I started it later. Scoring a piercing wand would've made it significantly easier.

I went down with no potions at all. I did buy a Fortitude Potion from my last alchemy shop (leaving about 15 corrosion stacks on me, but hey, dwarf health on a monk), and Whurlgarble came in quite handy to keep the burning going. Dowbelow was pretty easy all things considered, I just regen fought while stacking burning and corrosion. Heck, I even forgot to buy a Venom Dagger before I descended (and anything else I could've possibly bought) because having no money was chafing me for most of the run and I didn't properly register that I had a fat stack once the second form went down (except running to the Alchemist to see which debuff I take off).

Some notes on the build:

A significant difference between this run and the two failed ones (apart from Glenrick and starting the fight a level or two later than I would've) was getting rid of JJ's poison by using Halpmeh. Most regular JJ users don't want to get manaburned, this guys both a dwarf and a monk and getting poisoned shuts him down hard unless you blow a health potion. Most of the time you simply have to. A particularly problematic thing is if you blow it before you get petition and promply get poisoned again.

I usually get 2 hits of boost mana and get a lot out of having an enormous mana pool on a MW monk, but I'm beggining to think it might be a good idea to prep the Fortitude Potion instead of the mana potion. Eithr that or the Dodge, but that might not be a good idea, either, becase dodge + whoopaz lets you start a bossfight very early (which you want because then you just ding for 3 full 18 mana pools of fireballs before it even starts getting serious).

Got Namtars Ward, only thing left on the map is VGT (and the rest of completion ofc). Transmuter and Crusader challenges and the last triple quest, as well.

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Very close to that bank upgrade now, made a nice moneymaking flaming dungeon run which turned out to even be somewhat interesting despite what it looks like at first glance:

VT RUN - Halfling Priest - Western Jungle - Vicious Token + Bet on Boss



I never prepped Pepper the Dog before, and it worked pretty well (big dooooooh from everbody reading). However, this was decidedly not a Warmonger run, that Wheytwut was doing work for me all game long, up untill the bossfight. And I chose to not have any prepped manouvering tools on a small mazy map, and this can actually screw you over, especially on a VT run. In fact, I potionspiked a bunch of stuff, and even had to tink about my moves and ran out of exploration and it turned out to be more stimulating and interesting than what one would expect from a Halfling Priest of Taurog run.

However, Halflings CAN do VT Warmonger runs. And biger than average health really helps with tanking boss hits at Vicious Token difficulty.

---

And then Halls of Steel was Flaming, and I decided to take the Namtar's Ward out for a spin, stuck VT and Bet on Boss on it and went in there with a Halfling Berserker.

RUN - [b]Halfling Berserker of Taurog[/b] - Halls of Steel - Vicious Token



Well, Namtar's Ward is powerful, what can I say. Still, not to take away anything form the Halfling Berserker, it went unstoppable on a VT run in a dungeon full of curse and illusions (allthough the lvl 9 guys were easy). Probably could've played it even better, but, hey, it got me my bank upgrade I think.

Halfling Berserker should be listed on the berserker Wiki page. Health potions, damage and resists, it's simple and powerful for both leveling and the bossfight.

[Lujo]

With the map clear of quests and objectives aside from the PQI and the Flaming dungeons, I'm gonna experiment with stuff and occasionally cheeze a VT PQI. One thing I'm really interested in right now is Gnomes, and seeing if I can make Goblin Priests work. Not sure what I'm on about with Goblin Priests yet, but it's a combo I rearely ever played (never?) and I'm curious about it. I'm also somewhat curious about Dwarven Thieves, not sure why yet, something in the back of my head.

Also, I'm kinda tired of JJ. Well, not, not exactly tired but I'm getting too used to playing stuff with twice the health and mana anything is supposed to have. And it's kinda of a shame I've decided to lay off the JJ (except Chaos Dwarves, ofc) because this looks like it would be really good with it:

RUN - Gnome Rogue w Cauldron - Slime Pits - Felt like it



Well, it's not the best combo out there, but JJ could make anything work and I'm interested in trying to find a Cauldron combo that works wihtout JJ. I grabbed Mystera (not too good with Patches), used health potions and Imawal to get ok kills (allthough the Rogue doesn't work well with THAT), and stuff. It kinda worked, but not that well.

Same setup in JJ would rock without Patches - JJ, 2 hits of Health, 2 hits of mana, guaranteed weakening and corrosion for 50% mana potions. Actually, the Cauldron kinda works with any JJ Gnome.

If there was a reliable way to get to 20 mana on a Gnome with Mystic balance (there is - Gnome Sorcerer of Mystera is guaranteed that with 2 hits of Magic), if you also got Refreshment on it you'd get 2 fireballs per Glyph and also 2 fireballs per potion (provided you got 2 debuffs on you somehow). Without "Extra Glyph" that's 4 glyphs for 4 potions, 16 fireballs, and if you start without fireball that's 20 fireballs (let's say 640 dmg without burning). For 140 Mystera piety and a well explored map. Enough to reliably down most VT bossess just from refills, not bad.

Bloodmages could get plenty of use out it, too, maybe. Both for healing and mana potions.

Anywho, I'll be playing various gnomes more regardless of the Cauldron, but I'm uncomfortable with how backloaded they feel, and, well, how they seem to push me towards more JJ prepping just when I wanted to cut down on it a bit.

---

RUN - Gnome Transmuter of Mystera - Venture Cave - Felt like it



This actually looks kinda promising, and would be even better if I bothered to trim the shop pool a tiny bit. It's kinda hip for what Transmuters are best used for, however:

You can start without Fireball and take extra mana boosters instead, and then Lemisi finds both the fireball and the mana boosters (eventually) for you, and also gives you a lot of info. You can then spam whatever (being careful not to fill up too much on glyphs so that you can hoard & spike properly), get both Mystera piety, potions and the ever so leveling-spike-friendly spirit sword. Mystic Balance, Refreshment and 2 hits of Mana, and past that Weakening Spam if needed, otherwise Flames.

It has 17 mana on the board (13 + 2 extra + 2 Mystera). Elven boots or Mage Plate = jackpot. Mana Pendant puts you at 19, which isn't bad at all, and Here's Helm is also helpful. Lemisi finds the shops for you eventually. You also have the aditional glyph for Refreshment, even though the Mystic Balance kinda ruins it's functionality (which is why you might want to exploit any subdungeon with unreachable Blackspace if you run into it ealry on).

The debuffs you're looking for are curse from random bandits and poison once you're happy with your level (allthough anything you can score works, these are just kinda-sorta acquireable on a regular run). Also, TT desecration can get you weakened and EM desecration can get you corroded, and buying a platemail can get you slowed. What you're shooting for is any 2 of these. I'mma suggest something in the tweak patch thread

Sorcerer probably works like clockwork, Tinker is probably great (Tinker IS great, but the class also works rather well, too, as she's shown without the Cauldron yesterday in the brag thread). But this is such a hip Transmuter and goes full retarded with hoard & spike (as far as mana potions are concerned), that I'm enjoying the experience and the puzzle challenge of it all.

---

Went over to Doubledoom to try it in a trickier environment:

Run - Gnome Transmuter - Doubledoom - FUN!



I hit the jackpot with the Zombie who died with his boots on, but I couldn't keep the 2nd debuff on for the second boss. Piercing wand and a Weakening did the Iron Man in, though ^^

Funny build, takes a bit of experience I suppose, since it's technically a Lemisi Maphack Powered build. Gotta try it on something tougher. Good think I haven't played too many Transmuters so far.

---

Then I took it up to Grimms Grotto:

RUN - Gnome Transmuter w Cauldron & Mystera - Grimms Grotto - Science



This time I used a pickled Bandit for the curse and a TT desecration to get myself weakened... but again only 19 mana, which while nowhere near bad still makes it mostly a Mystera Gnome, which you can Pissorff spam VT bossess with even if you're a Berserker (true story, it's somewhere in the thread, worked on the first try). What I mean is that Mystera Gnome (and even moreso JJ gnome) kinda play themselves. Mystera + 20 mana + Cauldron, though, is a different thing entirely, but would unfortunately play significantly better with a Gnome than an Elf.

And the Gnome has a HARD time getting that 20 mana. Hmmm.

---

Well, then Shifting Passages was Flaming and I decided to hit that:

RUN - Gnome Transmuter + Cauldron + Mystera - Shifting Passages - More Science



I hit the item jackpot, so 20 mana wasn't a problem, but getting my second debuff to stick WAS a problem, sort off. I could've possibly managed it better with a timelier TT desecration, but that one was easy to keep on, while only Wraiths had a debuff (the wrongest one) topside, the Thralls in the subdungeon had poison (which was bad because of Eloxia's retaliate fireball), and Eloxia herself had curse. I focused mostly on glyph conversion for the Eloxia fight (which also mandated a ding or two) and then hit the gobbo with 2 weakenings, got myself weakened and poisoned and just potion spiked him.

Ooooh, unstable, unstable build. Also - I'm becoming more and more convinced the feature spawning is either streaking or rigged depending on your race-class or something else. If I play the same race - class - prep setup in different places it seems like I'm getting the same altars spawning too regularly (or I'm just being paranoid).

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Added this one here because I've been at it before Tinker replied, and well, it kinda completes the set, as I went for a progressive powertest of the build:

VICIOUS DUNGEON RUN - Gnome Transmuter + Cauldron + Mystera - Daemonic Library - Stress testing



Took it to the Library as I wanted a place which took a lot of fireballs (and it's a burst build tbh, so I wondered how well it would do, especially with the 75% resistant boss). Lucked out in that regard, as I found a piercing wand which proved essential to killing both the magic resistant red guy and the avatar down below. The Firebal retaliator ate a Spirit Sword + Dodgestep combo (saved a naked whoopaz for the Avatar).

DL can provide you with curse and weakening, and the magic reistant guy leaves a corrosion pool, so the Cauldron works fine. I couldn't get over 19 mana though, in fact, I could - there was a JJ altar and an Agnostic Collar, but I made a big blunder with the avatar as I've converted Wheytwut while spiking and couldn't move him, and accidetally locked myself in with him. Otherwise I would've ether swapped over to JJ or taken my 20th point from mystera (I had +2 from a Mana Pendant).

I scored a weakening off a Succubuss right away, and with the aforementioned dodgestep hit and the piercing wand, the lowish-heath red djins went down without much hassle (kept a curse up on me by munching on pickled golems). However, I did have B2P which boosted my power significantly, and, well, I did manage to burn down Avatar while being completely surrounded and cut off from everything (I had the good sense to buy out the Alchemists beforehand. at least), but there's no way that would've worked without the Piercing Wand.

So in terms of the build being good in DL specifically - eh, yes with Piercing wand. In terms of being able to power thorough a vicious dungeon without significantly altering the standard plan - it's a strong build as long as you manage to keep yourself debuffed and secure your 20th mana point by any means necessary as it makes a huge difference. It really does, otherwise spirit sword eats quite a bunch of your fireballs and you miss out on plenty more by 1 point of mana all the time. With 20 it's smooth comboey steamrolling.

EDIT: Packing a blue seal to open up the subdungeon immediatley (you'll always find it right away) is also a good idea, I didn't bring it and had no way to acess the place, which means that this was not an especially powerful attempt (Piercing Wand and B2P notwithstanding).

[Tinker]

Gnomes are awesome, but it's true that they shine most brightly if you get their Mana into the 20-25 range. Which is why I've been recently packing the Mage Plate on most of my Gnomes. Mystera, Mage Plate and the extra mana boosters all give up to 5 Mana bonus, the good thing with this setup is that you can gain max mana by doing any of the activities you are doing anyway: i) exploring (boosters), ii) levelling (Mage Plate), iii) casting spells (via Magic boons). While each of them looks iffy, 20 mana is practically guaranteed from one combination or another by mid-levels, and 23-25 mana is attainable depending on how many shots of Magic can you afford. That said, if you do get to 25 Mana, then a 40% effective Mana Potion will restore 10 Mana, so it kind of saves you the hassle of the Cauldron. Which, I know, defeats the point of experimenting, and all, so I'm just saying

Mystera Gnome with Mage Plate is pretty much workable, as is, and depending on what you graft on top of it, can be one flavor or another. For example, with a Tinker you have a reasonable chance to luck into multiple spellboost quest items like Dragon Soul, Crystal Ball, Battlemage Ring, mana boost items, etc., which kind of leads to a bit more varied, but nevertheless great caster. But your Gnome Rogue got me thinking, though maybe instead of Mage Plate it would be better off with i.e. Elven Boots (or a Zot that never gets fired), because I'd hate to give up attack bonus on a rogue. Patches seems a bit enterpreneurial on casters, I mean the mana bonus is really awesome, but getting mana burned can be a big hurt (with Mystera just adding insult to injury).