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QCF Design Community • View topic - Another bloggy playthrough diary :)


Another bloggy playthrough diary :)

All things Desktop Dungeons

Re: Keepin them shorter (I hope)

Postby Tinker on Sat Feb 28, 2015 5:31 pm

"Thinker", just without the "ache".
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Re: Another bloggy playthrough diary :)

Postby Lujo on Sat Feb 28, 2015 6:29 pm

Wow, well, I'm glad it worked. :) Naah, doesn't look terribly cheezy, it's not that much of a "I don't wanna even bother with the map" as the Orc Spammer was. Maybe I've just been trying too many VT PQI's in there or something. Gratz on the win, though.

---

I've done that VT Elf Priest, and taped it:

VT RUN - Ick Swamp - Elf Priest - Trying & Failing to play it pedantically

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Also, the link to the vid.

Eh, it'll take a while until it's upladed, it's not the most entertaining cast ever, and I made huge mistakes. Like, big ones. For some reason I can't talk and play Ick the way I ussually do, I never have this much problems because I don't keep forgetting to clean the plants up before I ding. And also GG spawned half the map away, and anyway I'm not getting enough out of him on that map. Also on top of all the missplays and oversights I did have some bad luck. If I wasn't so tired of the whole thing by the end my attempts to get out of Mystera would've even been good comedy material, and if I just looked at the shops before I did impactful things I could've avoided sooooooo many mishaps and the vid could've been 20 minutes shorter...

Anyway, it'll take a while to upload, but whoever cares to check it out will see... well, IDK. That's not how I ussually play it, and taping & playing well seems to be rather difficult for me.

---

I also did this little thing, was acually harder than I'm used to thanks to the level and my blindness:

VT RUN - Southern Swamp - Halfling Bloodmage - VT

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I even taped it, it's about 10 minutes long ^^ I'm not sure how I sound in the recording, though. It was a complete rushjob, and I'm kinda nervous from minute one to the end. Still pulled it off somehow.

Vid link here. If you happen to click on the other one, see it's hour long and give up, this one's 10 minutes long.

---

Also did this:

PQI - Halls of Steel - Halfling Rogue - Purist

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Wasn't terribly inspiring, I found a CB and Binlor, but since one guy had Magic Damage and the other had Curse, I didn't go Stoneskin Halfling (which would've been nice otherwise), but just Pissorf spam in the end.

I did tape it, but there's a bit of blowing in the microphone here and there. 20 minutes, link here.

---

And then I did a quick Vampire:

RUN - Den of Danger - Vampire - Purist

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no tape. Not much to say, it was a regular difficulty DoD because I wanted to do a quick one. B2P job, mostly.

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And also:

VT PQI - Halfling Priest - Venture Cave - Hoarder / VT

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Which was very interesting as I've finally done a Binlor Halfling after who knows how long, it was hoarder so it was basically a priest (except I prepped a keg to be "kinda a halfling") and it was against SMM which made it kinda epic. Shame I didn't tape it, but then again, if I were making a video I would've probably just messed it up. :)

I took stuff from Binlor, then went over to EM just to level up efficiently (had Imawal allready), then back to Binlor
and I fought the Meatman on a fully revealed map by wheytwutting and knockbacking him around, mostly into walls. It didn't even take all my potions (and I didn't have that many as I was a hoarder) because the Priest can get a lot of mileage out of Stoneskins due to his big health.

Also, Kegs on a Hoarder run, not bad :)

---

Magma Mines flared up, and I decided to get a few Gorgons out, might play some monster classess around the map, been sorta underplaying them...

VT RUN - Gorgon (of Mystera :) ) - Magma Mines - VT / Weird ole Gorgon

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Woked really nicely, Whurgarble was paying off with poison strike and Mystera, and when I landed the Witchalok Pendant towards the end it got to be really, really good. Didn't have Elven Boots handy, so I took the Mana Pendant in ^^ Mystera Gorgon, haven't played many, but she does spam a lot and is probably the queen of those "build up your melee side and get levels using spells" schitck Priests and Crusaders are so well suited to.

---

Then the Halls of Steel lit up, and I didn't have the Gorgon there, either:

VT RUN - Gorgon of EM into Mystera - Halls of Steel - VT

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Decided to start in EM to get my levels up and deal with all the Magic users which would sorta cramp my style if I were in M, or at least so I thought. I did find Mystera, though, so I just swapped at one point, and that was kinda that. Didn't regen fight because I over-explored and by accident started fighting both bossess at the same time (whoopaz went in on the other guy), so I kinda dinged through The Indomitable and then picked up refreshment off a TT desecration to get the Snake roasted.

Haven't played too many spellcastery Gorgons, it's quite nice if you land a Witchalok Pendand, which suspiciously turns up for me. I get the feeling shops actually need more chaff. Well, not exactly full-on chaff, just more mediocre items in their respective niches so you're not always running into 5-6 things you can build around once you unlock them.

---
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Lotsa Stuff

Postby Lujo on Mon Mar 02, 2015 1:44 am

A rather cool dwarf run:

VT RUN - Dwarf Sorcerer - The Labyrinth - Vicious Token

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Well, now. i've had a few VT Labyrinth runs with the Gorgon where things just weren't working out for whatever reason. Then I saw that I didn't have the sorceror done in there and though I'd play a dwarfy one. This turned into attempting it 5 times!

Now, only the first try was an actual loss. The other boss was frank, and I Played It Like a Fool TM. But the interesting thing there was that I noticed that I could go for good ole stoneskin spam and decided I'd enjoy winning it that way. So for the next three runs I kept going at it without the Witchalok pendant and I was doing great - one time I swapped into TT and back into Binlor, one time I swapped into Mystera, one this time I just stayed in Binlor all game long. It was all working pretty great, with or without the pendant (even though it's obviously great). I'd just arse something up (the mystera run was a complete overkill win, I had everything from both of them, a pendant an a crystal ball and lots of cash - I straight up misclicked myself into death in the most literal sense).

This time around I got my stuff from binlor, swapped over to GG, took only humility from him and Imawalled my way to pretty high level and stoneskined Rex ftw. The first boss kill was more about fireballs (allthough it also featured hits), but rex was a nice mix of pissorff, fireball and tanking stuff w Stoneskin.

Sastisfying!

---

Then I did this:

VT RUN - Half-Dragon - Venture Cave - Warmonger


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It had a rather easy boss, and it's very straightforward otherwise, took only 7 minutes.

---

Then I figured I can't do Hobbler's Challenge wih either Purist or Warmonger, so I just took the easy money:

PQI - Orc Paladin - Hobbler's Hold - Warmonger / Purist

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Which made me think about making a Hobbler's Challenge thread. :)

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Then I noticed I only had 6 classes done on Western Jungle and decided to take up this PQI:

VT PQI - Dwarf Warlord - Western Jungle - Specialist / Vicious Token

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Mostly because I don't often see the portrait, and also because the class and the badge didn't interfear. It was a bit tricky, but I got Crystal Ball and both kegs in the shop so that helped, even though I used quite a few potions to spike stuff. No real sinergy that I could see between the race and class, and I would've been in trouble but EM on the board kinda saved the day.

---

Note on Completion - I noticed that I seem to have had VT done everywhere sub-vicious, or nearly everywhere for a while now. Except the Den of Danger XD Just thought I'd note it because it seems that there won't be a "going around doing all the VT's" this time around, and the Den hasn't been VT'd because it has the most completion due to having done all the quests so it just never came up as a PQI, and hasn't been flaming it seems.

Also, I think Western Jungle has the fewest classess done, 7 with this one, everwhere else it's either 8 or 9 (not sure, might be another 6 or 7 somewhere, Venture Cave or something). Missing sub-vicious badges:

Magma Mines - Hoarder
Labyrinth - Miser, Warmonger
Den of Danger - Hoarder, Miser, Warmonger, Vicious
Northern Desert - Miser
Shifting Passages - Parched
Cursed Oasis - Ding! Max

I did have a big Hoarder binge at one point to forcibly chase it out of the PQI which included playing more carefully and cheezing stuff, and I did use a bunch of flaming runs to chase out Warmongers with Halfling Berserkers and Taurog Half-Dragons. I suppose a few Faihless got done on accident by Vampires, allthough I saw that one more as an interesting challenge than a chore (Halfing Berserkers made Warmonger fun, too). Hoarder, however, did feel like a chore. Miser kinda got left around a lot because I didn't see it as that much of a problem, and getting Hoarder and Warmonger in most places kinda made those dungeons pop up on PQI and Flaming less often.

Shifting Passages - Parched isn't so unusual, because I think I've been playing a lot of PQI's in there where potions were a big leverage (and also since it gets fully revealed so potions kinda play nice). Cursed Oasis Ding! Max makes sense because it's infinitely easy to Pissorff while being difficult to play sensibly (and the Unstoppable there was/is bugged).

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I whish I wasn't chasing Hoarder on this one:

VT RUN - Goblin Wizard of JJ - Magma Mines - Hoarder / Vicious

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Because if I wasn't, I would've had the following at my disposal - Goblin Wizard (CP galore), JJ (stat boosts and Chaos Avatar), Amulet of Yendor (prepped), ChaDylan (more CP XP), Balanced Dagger and Slayer Wand. Oh, and I'm experimenting with Elite Items Keg Fishing for Hoarder runs, so I had both Kegs. Sweet Jeebus, I woulda dung like a livery stable.

As it was, I got what I wanted and there's a picture here we don't often see. Everything's good with JJ, but JJ Gobbos are nasty. JJ Goblin Wizards go right past nasty, straight through cheezy, well over ludicrous and last I saw the little bugger she'd cleared ludicrous and was heading for bizzare :lol: Fun, though!

NOTE - The funny thing was that not only was this a Hoarder run which made me terribly ineffective in numerous ways, but my preps were experimental and nowhere near really cheezing it (no ~~Bear Mace~~ and Bet on Boss), but there was also a TT on board who I didn't even bother with DESPITE all the restrictions on it. I just have to try this somewhere where I can unlesh it's full power, like, say, that missing Ding! Max on CO ^^

---

He he he, I suppose not tacking an Orc on everything and playing your Dwarves and Halflings has it's perks, because you get sniggery PQI's like this one:

PQI - Orc Paladin - Berserker Camp - Purist

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Didn't want to force it with VT, though, Bererker's Camp is one of those places which turn mean with VT.

Still, Orc Fighter and Orc Paladin PQI's are another good reason to have all the race-class combos represented on the wiki and steer people away from "this class - this race - only way to go" mentality. PQI full of Orc and your Flaming runs full of stuff that's better when it's prepped up a bit or doesn't like restrictions is very nice :)

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Or you get a nice chance to air the Avatar's Codex:

VT PQI - Halfling Assassin - Northern Desert - Miser / Vicious Token

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He, he, he, the murderous little bugger. Not much to say, I underprepped because I just got my second bank upgrade, was a tad trickier than full prep would be, but still rather strong.

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Then HoS flared and the other thing was a Dragonkin Hoarder, so I went over here with:

VT RUN - Vampire w Amulet of Yendor - Halls of Steel - Vicious

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and it took 2 tries due to the first boss being a Frank I had trouble dealing with. The second attempt went about as well as you can imagine, BLA!

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Also, the PQI is being very unreasonable about the Hoarder badge. Namely, it thinks it's fun to spam me with it. Must be my least played badge or something...

VT PQI - Dwarf Assassin (w Mage Plate) of PoS - Eastern Tundra - Hoarder / Vicious

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Went Michael Bay PoS, and well, you can see how that ended. Don't feel the slightest bit ashamed, boss has retaliate fireball and the PQI was being a troll. Found TT and CB and just explored everything and went to town.
Even went 3 hits of dodgestep on a lvl 9 stone golem for Unstoppable (wholly unnecessary it turned out).

---

Ooooh, this looks kinda Braggy, even (although careful observation and some experience with the Goat might turn up the fact that it isn't that hot):

GOAT RUN - Goatperson (JJ + Amulet of Yendor) - The Labyrinth

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I would've done it on my first try, except the other guy was SMM and I forgot I could move him on time, so I ended up 2 shots short of killing him. Well, I only found B2P after allready killing the Goo, but then I did find it so I used Drac and it to, as the wiki put it, "Make a Rex-shaped crater" ^^

Yendor so over the top. In general.

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Well, JJ goblins lotsa fun:

VT PQI - Goblin Thief of JJ w Amulet of Yendor - Shifting Passages - Parched

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Well, it's kinda like playing Michael Bay, except you use your somewhat bigger health to chip at bigger stuff as you ding along using your glyphs and the pendant and CA and lob fireballs at VIP targets, and then just munch on everything and keep dinging and stuff. Boost health and mana on a gobbo, go parched. Still, I've no real clue about how well this works without Yendor, that's a lot of XP.

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And then a kinda dicey Vamp:

VT RUN - Vampire - Venture Cave

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It wasn't smooth even with the Yendor, because Gobb is actually very nasty on Vicious Difficulty.

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So all the Balanced Dagger talk reminded me to take it for a spin because most in not all of these many, many VT runs I've done so far have been without a prepped Balanced Dagger. Because, last VT sub-vicious:

VT RUN - Half-Dragon - Den of Danger - Warmonger / Vicious

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Well, it was a Taurog into Drac bussiness, but it was also a VT on a rather Cramped map. Ok, so I had knockback, but what the BD lets you do is - not care about picking targets, not waste exploration/resources looking for targets, get your early monster killing piety and always ding you with one above-level kill and one easy one.

I've been often asked, and it's not just a figure of speech, "Why didn't you just prep the balanced dagger?", and there's never a good answer for that if the issue is not being able to win a level / having a hard time.

---
Last edited by Lujo on Wed Mar 04, 2015 8:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Insomnia

Postby Lujo on Tue Mar 03, 2015 12:39 am

Well, techincally it's a new day, and my insomnia is acting up, so I'll just start tommorrow's post now while I get the camomile tank brewing (and listen to US Dota while I play ^^):

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VT RUN - Gnome Transmuter of Mystera w Cauldron - Halls of Steel - Vicious

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This is a good Cauldron Map, what with golems and illusions, but one of the rare few difficult Mystera Maps. Also a really good illustration of why Balanced Dagger isn't "small utility item" material, because it did a LOT of work for me here allowing me to get to lvl 5 with little enough resources invested that I got the goo killed at lvl 5 without access to the secret subdungeon or one of the glyphs. If it were larger it I would've had to make a tradeoff with all the stuff in my inventory, if it cost more it would be more appropriately costed for what it allowed and I would've still gladly payed for it.

And I lost a few fireballs due to having a very hard time getting to 20 mana - Patches got me 2, but there was just nothing in the shops that helped me out. Even getting to 15% cauldron via his poison didn't help, and I also had to put in a Weakening because I got punished because of his mana burn but did manage to get to 20 somewhere at the tail end of the Goo fight.

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VT PQI - Halfling Sorcerer - Cursed Oasis - Ding! Max / VT

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Well, not the most sinergistic Race / Class combo, but I'm kinda binging on Yendor so I decided to take this badge out (thought about waiting for it to flame and then do it with a XP overload Gobbo for a laugh). Took 2 tries, and on the first try I got overcursed before I picked up anything and ended up one hit away from killing the Wraith.

On the second try I used Imawal and then killed a Slowed Glenrick to start off. With Yendor in my inventory :lol: And the whole map popcornbowled, Pissorf on the board for the dragon in the end, and before that Piercing Wand in the shop for the Wraith. Also Chaos Avatar and 24 mana. And Pactmaker for Consensus + Alchemist Pact into EM for Greenbloods on the Dragon, who I also prepared for the pissorff spam by moving stuff over to it.

And I also made sure I got rid of all the Wraiths. Now that I think abot it I'm not sure why I didn't finish unstoppable, I must've got tired setting everything up neatly. Insomnia.

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:lol:

VT RUN - Goblin Wizard of JJ / XP overflow - Doubledoom - Fooling Around

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The sad part is that I would've probably output more damage if I prepped the Crystal Ball instead of Yendor. Still - FUN! I even (mostly) fireballed down 2 lvl 8 Golems, used Pissorff to Peekaboo and went to EM to deecrate her so I can get Chaos Avatar and ended up worshiping her by accident.

In fact, prepping something and not Yendor, and then prepping Translocation and Elite items for Kegs and potential Yendor is probably the way to go with this build. And you need to remember to use your bigass health to keep hitting random stuff as you ding so that in the end everythign is popcorn (that is if you don't have B2P).

Screwy ole build. Need to play around with it when I'm not insomniatic (word?) so I can actually thing through my moves better.

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This wasn't easy:

VT RUN - Gnome Transmuter w Cauldron - Hex Ruins - Vicious

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Well, getting to lvl 5 with 20 mana wasn't easy, then killing the Firstborn was somewhat strightforward, and then killing Stheno took a lot of Weakenings on top of a Piecing wand and a Smacklefunky's Gorgon to set off a Schadenfraude.

Pactmaker was a Consensus and Alchemist pact which was instrumental because it dung me ftw. Had to be careful not to trigger it earlier in order to keep my Poison on. Inventory management was also a mini-game, since I had to keep as many glyphs as possible until the right moment, and... it was difficult but it felt like an achievement ^^

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I'm beginning to think VT isn't so difficult as much as it's very swingy:

VT RUN - Gorgon of Mystera - Grimm's Grotto

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The difference between landing Frank or Smm and any of the weaker bossess is very, very pronounced. I bet there's plenty of folks who don't find the VT SMM intimidating. With a whoopaz it's 1200 damage on a 77 damage boss, which is doable with a certain kind of setup (either phys or mag) but it takes a whole different mindset than killing, say, the Wraith does. This setup failed hard on the first try vs SMM, but destroyed the Wraith. And it's a lousy setup.

It's a bit difficult to play/prep my best if I know that the boss is very likely to either take a lot less effort than I'm putting in, or that it'll randomly just be unwinnable. Well, not necessarily unwinnable, but the difference is kinda getting to me. If I prep BD everywhere expecting to have to have an easy time leveling - it just takes away from the only thing that's really an issue against easier bosses for a chance to beat two of them which are easier to just reroll.

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Well this was easy:

VT RUN - Western Jungle - Half-Dragon

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Makes for a nice quick money run if you've got full completion. Plant cannon ftw.

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And I Goated another place:

GOAT - Western Jungle

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I'm doing my Goats at regular difficulty untill I get the hang of it a bit more.

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And then I decided to do a quick Vamp one:

Vampire - Southern Swamp

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Yendor - for those times when you want to get something done quickly, but you also want the VT + Bet on Boss Cash. Well, Wonnafyt, Glove of Midas and Blue Bead also had something to do with this.

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More Insomnia

Postby Lujo on Wed Mar 04, 2015 12:03 am

So, opening this up with a shoutout to Dislekcia, I suppose:

VT RUN - Dwarf Tinker - Havendale Bridge - Fighting Skill Decay / Fishing for Pactmaker

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I went with light and screwy preps (that there's a Cracked Orb ^^), and also the god prep I rarely use, for a "full-lego" experience. The first attempt had way worse shops (allthough the subdungeons seem to be either streaking when you retry or fixed to prop up races/classess/something which would explain why we never got to be involved with them in any way as testers - sounds paranoid, but I kinda get the same sub with the same race class way too often).

Anywho, first try had more spellcastery stuff (allthough, when you get down to it, it was mostly the same stuff except this time there was a platemail instead of the Mage Plate which made a world of difference). Just one single Scholars Pact activation and it took out both bossess in one go. Which is good because I had hardly any bloodpools (used them to level) and I had only the potions left (and well, a DP from Taurog or two as I didn't use up any).

And I didn't rush it, it was Drac into Taurog to let me play with the map, glyphs and everything - heck, a saved-for-later Lemisi let me recharge 3 dings worth of highly resistant dwarf health. Compared to the Yendor/Dagger cash-grab spam from last night/earlier today this felt incredibly satisfying even though I landed the VGT clearing kit. And also Troll Heart + Draco's Heart from lvl1 - makes for tricky leveling, but did it ever pay off...

Also, that Balanced Dagger basically put a freebie-kill lvl 9 guy on the map at the point where I wouldn't be getting any bonus XP from same level guys anyway. And I couldn't fight above level anyhow. Well, a freebie lvl 6 guys at lvl 5, another one at lvl 6, another one at lvl 7, another one at lvl 8 - and it would've made my life WAY easier if I found it earlier. That's NOT a utility item, that's a really cheap, small Yendor painted green. Not that I mind it being Yendor, but everything else, including the green, would probably be better otherwise.

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This took 3 tries, but it was epic:

VT PQI - Dwarf Paladin - Ick Swamp - Purist VT

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On the first 2 tries I found Pactmaker first and tried going for consensus and body pact - which would have worked if I had the Balanced Dagger, but so would anything. This time around I found JJ first and played a patient, careful game with a lot of Imawal + Wheytwut +1 lvl kills and popcorn Bowling. Which works as well as you'd expect on a Hybrid JJ Dwarf with some resists.

I found B2P sort of too late (and the sub had no exploration in it), and I found the Dagger totally on time, but since it's kinda 4 in the morning and I'm only playing due to an apparently serious medical condition which causes me to be unable to sleep (on top of obv. insanity), I didn't notice it.

I did, however, flex my DD cult leader muscles a bit and did a nice whole-inventory swap to take out the Wraith and then Itsssamna (identigying Whurgarble as my weapon of choice which was the correct call). I did make a humongous missplay though - I completely forgot to take Scholars pact and I also wasted a whole pool of health while fighting the wraith. High highs and low lows, that's just me I guess.

NOTE: My "apotecary is disruptive" hypothesis seems to hold water. I had to get a Schadenfraude due to the Wraith which meant i couldn't get fortitude, which then made that choice a choice instead of, you know, just getting both and a healing potion. Only one shop also meant I got to actually play with the shops since I had more money than usual and the run was way more interesting, even though my overall power was obviously lower. I can totaly trace a lot of my "didn't notice X was in the shop" and "had X which would've won it for me but didn't pay attention to the shops" moments to getting a habit of just dumping all my money into CB and Apothecary - which is probably the best move by far (or at least the simplest) if you have them, but doesn't work if you don't.

Shoutout to whoever clued me in to the fact that weakening strike doesn't stack with TT desecration, which meant 30 free piety.

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Creeplight Goated!

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It was a pretty lousy Goat Run, all things considered. Had GG and Drac, and neither like potions and are stingy with Piety (and GG dislikes Drac's boons). Luckily I ended up in Drac for the end fight, which was the best option (still had it's problems) and I missclicked on a completely pointless lifesteal point during the fight - I wanted to take a second point of Sanguine.

Haven't been cheezing Mas09's ledger on this playthrough, I think I'll do it w Goats. It's like a food delivery service.

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Flaming dungeon streaking. Well, Creeplight twice in a row. Wonder if it has anything to do with Goats not triggering stuff?

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I've done the Aghbaars Academy Puzzles (been doing puzzles a bunch here and there). I had to look up the solution to the B2P one, and the first poison one seems to either have 2 solutions or too many elements in it. Otherwise the slowing ones are bloody tough, and the Halpmeh one took a bunch of tries for some reason.

---

New day, but I'll just keep to this post, been posting other stuff, don't wanna spam:

VT RUN - Half-Dragon - Creeplight Ruins

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Since I'm making like Rocky and getting my skills back, I decided to get this out of the way. It took 3 tries, but I only prepped the Dragonshield on the third try. I tried too hard to squeeze Binlor for resists on the first two tries, and the map is not the best for that as noting at all but the boss does magic damage - (which also reminds me that the Binlor Wiki page needs serious work, it's basically out of date). Did the first guy in with Apheelsick (Wonnafyt on the little bastards in Pan's Labyrinth is one of the coolest things in the game if you ask me :) ). I did the second guy in with Whoopaz, knockback and dodgestep and took Chaos Avatar for the last guy.

Wasn't easy, but it's another tricky VT where JJ pulled my ass out of it. I didn't even use any pact or consensus, so I had more power left, or I could've desecrated Binlor for a shot at last chance.

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And the game didn't register it (I must've closed it when I alt tabbed to post the screenie) :(

And then it happened again as I was fighting the wraith.

And then it just flat out crashed - and the damned wraith was going down.

Game doesn't want me to have a Half-Dragon done in Creeplight, it seems.

---

Well, done it and made it past the bug:

VT RUN - Half-Dragon - Creeplight Ruins

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Tough ole map, fore a Halfdragon. Various approaches work, but it's still a challenge I suppose. I didn't use Pissorff here, either, went Binlor for the damage (Binlor wiki page REALLY needs full rework, I'll get around to it one day), then full piety swap into M, Mystic Balance, Refreshment, Consensus, Scholars Pact, got an easy ding through the first two forms, and had to really work for my third one and Dragonsoul procs kinda got me where I needed to be in the end despite the kinda heavy (but not really cheezy) preps.

Still, running it past the crashy bugs brings back Unity Beetle flashbacks, I guess they must be implementing the new stuff for the build or something.

---

Well, I failed this PQI but won the run and it was strange and weird and pretty brutal:

FAIL VT PQI - Dwarf Crusader - Eastern Tundra - Miser

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Sooooo strange. I got the Dagger, so I knew I won (screw momentum, even on a dwarf, dagger = win for sure, it's not even a contest). I went for 5 altars and Collar, anyway, I was playing that angle. I did land Taurog, Drac and Pactmaker, except I found GG and TT first, so I went GG to start out, Humility and then went TT. Desecrated GG, took Tiki's Edge and Dodge, swapped out to Drac. Blew up TT.

Then I FORGOT to take Blood shield -.-'

But I did take Sanguine and used it to level with the Dagger, went Taurog, desecrated Drac, picked up everything from Taurog, picked up consensus, got Scolars pact... and failed the PQI because i bought the Keg of Health. I did bring in a translocation scroll to counteract miser but I saw the Dagger and simply translocated it immediately (yes, the only thing I'd consider over it, even on a Crusader, is Yendor), so I ended up failing the PQI.

But potions + health pool + one scholar's pact ding murdererd the boss. I ended up being parched even though I had 7 healing potions and any DP's I could get off Taurog. I had a few popcorn around which let me keep a stable damage bonus at +30%, which was fine enough.

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Yay, PQI decided I can get a non-dwarf (even though I was kinda enjoying it):

PQI RUN - Goblin Monk - Berserker Camp - Ding! Max

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So I decided to take the Codex out for a spin. It took 2 tries, and I got pretty much the same elements on both runs (same sub, same gods, same glyphs, same second boss). The difference was that on the second run I got a Dagger and Soul Orb which made the second run way easier.

Still, one difference was that I didn't have Pissorff (or I converted it I don't remember) so I didn't acess the secret subdungeon, and it came down to a 60% last chance due to 1 gold. Still - this is just because I didn't prep the apothecary.

Not a friendly Monk map, VT Berserker Camp, especially with the Firstborn as the 2nd boss. Still, the berserkers are Dagger fodder and JJ goblins are really strong (as is JJ in general).

---

Just a quick cashgrab & getting Half-Dragon out of the pool (and the PQI was a faithless gnome priest on Rock Garden, which I did try to VT but gave up rather than just go full caster on it).

BLATANT VT CASH GRAB - Half-Dragon of Taurog - Grimm's Grotto

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Well, that's what it was, really. You'd think Iron Man would be a bit challenging due to having 75% resists to magic damage, but, well, no. To be honest, this is kind of an overprepped build, and I suppose I'd have much more tricky runs if I just went in prepped more lightly (and well, no complaining about game being too easy if you bring Yendor in, lol). Still, this guy feels like a priest with Zombie Dog always active.

I guess he does make for a nice cash-grab alternative to Orc Taurog guys which leaves Orcs, Monks and Berserkers in the pool to be played with more interesting guys, and I do have to get him out of the pool somehow. And I suppose there are maps where he isn't that boss, VT Creeplight did give me a nice run for my money (or several). I didn't try it full-retard Taurogdragon though.

Which reminds me, I'm not supposed to cashgrab but play interesting runs.

---

Like this one, brag material right here:

VT PQI - Goblin Monk - The Labyrinth - Warmonger

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Dagger so silly, but it was still a thinking man's Warmonger run. I could've prepped ~~Bear Mace~~ now that I think about it, but this just makes this more of an accomplishment. I knew all those no-nonsense Labyrith PQI's would pay off with something like this ^^ That second boss Goo and swap into Binlor for the BA damage and res removal spam (which also opened up some blocked up passageways, very important) made it very, very interesting indeed.

Maybe someone would've found a more dodgy/intelligent way around this particualr Gobbo Monk run, but I'm kinda proud of this. I made good use of all that was at my disposal. There's poisonous snakes in there and dragonkin, and the Soko Trolls don't give any exploration, and all in all I think I did rather well.

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PURE AWESOME RUN:

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And then I decided to go plain weird on something that looked like a cash-grab PoS job:

VT PQI - Elf Fighter - Slime Pits - Miser / Being a hipster

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Ok, so this one was pretty much won at the prep screen, as far as how the boss was gonna go down due to CB being what is - HOWEVER!

I've decided to go full hipster on it, which is something you can do when you prep the PoS essentials, because winning it a forgone conclusion. Decided to play with strange stuff WHILE CB just wins it for me (Would be a cool mod, you just prep CB and Binlor and the game hands you the VT + Bet on Boss + Flaming money, removes the CB, all mana potions, the bossess and a bunch of money from the map and lets you play sandbox with other stuff).

What I did was, spam some Wonnafyt, get a bunch of Binlor piety and move the two guys across the map to each other, and that was that. But then I swapped over to Drac and took Spirit Pact. Simply because I wasn't going to really need anything from Drac, or the healing potions, or other glyphs or anything. The Spirit Pact got me all the way to 24 mana on a miser run ^^ Then I took Blood Shield, and being an idiot, cancelled it's whole effect with a Binlor descration, so it would've been much stronger. Then I piled on as many Drac boons as I could just for +1 dmg, and picked up the spoons from the subdungeon.

Since I converted Halpmeh and Cydstep and all the health potions, I ended up with 3 lifesteal (eventually), 2 sanguine, fake lvl 2, and 3 hp. Which then led to playing 2 games: the boring one where I press O a lot and drink a potion or activate CB occasionally and VT SMM and the Goo Blob drop dead, where the only interesting bit was moving a new meatman to slap into the SMM at one point - and the interesting almost purist/miser/hoarder/parched one where I level up full warmonger using only Drac stuff (drawbacks included and apparent) and Binlor damage (no bloodswells! no resists!) in VT Slime Pits without the Balanced dagger and only one hit of Tiki's Edge out of my Race/Class.

On a fully revealed map, with the secret sub hidden under some monster and me unable to find it.

Was actually incredibly fun! The gameplay part with Drac would've worked a lot better had I just not desecrated Binlor (or at least desecrated first and THEN took Blood Shield), the cashgrab part pointed me towards how good Spirit pact can be on Elves (and if Scholars wasn't so brutal, I'd try it with Dwarves, too ^^).

Very, very fun run all in all, was pleasantly surprised. The two runs even intersected a tiny bit when I started simply putting overheal knockback hits into the SMM -> Goo simply because I could ^^

EDIT: Eh :( Sadly, the two runs did intersect in an important aspect. All the pissorff spam got me two dings because stuff I was slaping into the SMM died. But that FELT so random, one press of the O button just got me a ding, it's kinda unavoidable. It's like something that happened offstage while i was playing this strange Drac run.

---

And then the PQI decided it wanted to give me some more cash, and since I just took my sleeping potion I took it up on it:

VT PQI - Western Jungle - Orc Paladin - Specialist

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Didn't try to sneak anything clever in here, just prepped m' dagger and grabbed the money. Felt surprisingly tame compared to all the Half-Dragon's I've been playing lately, for some reason.

Avoiding Orcs in general is a great way to troll the PQI, though ^^

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QUESTION: Does anyone have any idea if the PQI picks from your all time statistics of underplayed stuff or just per-playthrough?

Because I should be streaking humans like mad by now, and for some reason I'm not. The only thing which could explain it is if it counted puzzles and challenges, but that then is a bit of a flaw. I can hardly remember the last time I played a non-hoarder human, and I've only remembered to do that once or twice. And the last time I saw a human in the PQI was before I did most of the challenges and all of the puzzles.

And I'm kinda getting a lot of goblins and halflings, both of whom I've kinda overplayed by now for sure. Lots of Dwarves, too. That's actually why there's so many goblins, halflings and dwarves in the playthrough, PQI keeps kinda spamming them, then I get into it and just keep exploring them on flaming runs.

Anyway, good night, sleeping potion seems to be working. :)

---
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More Stuff!

Postby Lujo on Thu Mar 05, 2015 1:57 pm

For the first run today (or today with daylight and stuff) the PQI set me up with this:

VT PQI - Dwarf Transmuter - Southern Swamp - Parched

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I decided to take it for an experiment with Spirit Pact. I thought if I scored PM, I could use the potions to get a lot of health, and past that point I wasn't too sure where it was going or that it would work or anything.

The rng decided it was gonna give me a ton of help with anything but that - there was JJ if I wanted to ding my way around Parched with big stats, there was TT if I wanted to Spirit Sword dodgestep the boss down, and there was Binlor (on a not so ideal map) if I wanted to simply stoneskin spam. And PM, if I wanted to get Scholars Pact with either of the ding guys, what with me being a dwarf and all. And there was a Long Rant to help my popcorn munching (which I really should've used in retrospect).

I decided I still wanted to try the Spirit Pact instead of all that. It didn't work out. I took TT and desecrated Binlor, because of the wall-free map (in retrospect I could've spammed a lot of Imawal). But I didn't really get to do much with my health, because after I swapped into JJ I got petition and that was it (Consensus doesn't really work with CA). I won off a scored CB, Tiki's Edge, prepped potions and a ding, but it was messy and I kinda arsed it all up if it could've even been played better.

I should've started in JJ I think, got a relatively low level CA (w no petition) and then consensused out into TT, padded my piety with money when needed and then it would've worked better. Scrappy win, but I did go out of my way to experiment and not just go for the obvious solutions.

---

I failed the PQI, but decided to keep the win:

FAIL VT PQI - Northern Desert - [b]Vampire[/b] - Unstoppable

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Well, there were a few high lvl-wraiths I couldn't really deal since I've kinda used up all my spellcasting on the Goo and Aequitas. It's not that it's undoable, I just didn't feel like it. Was happy with just getting a Vampire out of the pool, I would've probably picked him if the place was flaming anyway.

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So to make it up I decided to go Cult Leader on Rock Garden and make amends for the stupid bypass on the VT badge, and also practice what I preach:

VT RUN - Halfling Berserker of Binlor - Rock Garden - Binlor Halfling Mayhem!

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It took 2 tries because I had the Goo spawn on the first one and I just couldn't get it done (did kill the other guys). On the second try, though... Heheheheheh :)

So, the little bastard spiked stuff fine, but having no problems with Glyph use all game long, I ended up with a popcorn bowl, a casual jaunt into JJ for a health boost and Chaos Avatar, and all sorts of nifty moves guys who dump all their glyphs and clog up their inventory just don't do. And also 60% Physical when I needed it, as I went back to Binlor after CA (because I had all the damned glyphs on board as I didn't need to convert everything to work). Then I desecrated Drac for piety and Stoneskin spammed the physical guys to death. The Tower shield actually got converted almost immediately.

I think I had a few potions left over, too, even though I had a big missplay on one of the lvl 6 wraiths where I just wasted 2 mana potions due to stupidity. I could've got way more spoons a lot earlier, too. And I didn't even prep attack boosters, lol. Or... an item? LOL? o.O

Also, fun thing about the map is that the golems spawning give you binlor piety so everyone's a Paladin on Rock Garden. I didn't abuse it too much, though, I wanted that Chaos Avatar. Because the Halfling Berserker Of Binlor can afford it.

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Then the PQI decided it wanted in on the Rock Garden Halfling fun, so it set me up with:

PQI - Halfling Bloodmage - Rock Garden - Purist

Which I obviously wasn't gonna do VT, as it's a purist Bloodmage on a mazy map. Turned out kinda tricky as it was:

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Because I couldn't find the fireball for love or money, and I couldn't use the Apheelsick because there wasn't any point and the exploration was running out. Luckily JJ rewards Bycepps use, I had a Halpmeh, and I was a Halfling with a JJ health boost and a Soul Orb, so I made like the esteemed Asian legend in the vid here. (They even put up a statue to him in nearby Bosnia).

And after a lot of righteous kung-fu to the sounds of nerdcore, I found my spellcasting getup and burnt the place to the ground, with more kung-fu after blackspace ran out ^^

I must've underplayed halflings terribly throughout my career if I'm still being spammed with them. There is an explanation though - I avoided them like the plague in the old trisword era. Good thing the little badasses are enjoyble, so all this backlog is pretty fun.

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Another day, another bunch of DD runs

Postby Lujo on Fri Mar 06, 2015 12:16 pm

PQI was something I didn't feel like playing, and Slime Pits were flaming and I didn't feel like trying to figure out how to actually play the Vampire in there, so I prepped Yendor and hoped to bluff my way through the boss fights too... Didn't even prep the VT. I did tricky runs yesterday, don't wanna burn myself out.

Slime Pits - Vampire

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Well, even though it was a regular difficulty Yendor lazy gold mooching and pool thining run, but it pointed me to the fact that the Sticky Stick is a very nicely placed subdungeon. There's Itsssamna and SMM that way, and it's like a free Martyr Wraps which works really good against those. It's also pretty clear why it isn't lockerable.

I killed the goo by B2P + Dragonsoul and some lifesteal (and potions), as I couldn't figure out how to actually level. I kinda lost my chops with the Vamp somehow. But the fight against the Meatman was a Halpmeh + Dragonsoul + Fire Heart, inspired by the kung-fu Bloodmage I did yesterday, and I found that fun because I'm underusing Halpmeh and it was nice to be reminded that it exists as an option.

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The PQI caught onto me enjoying Dwarves, so it thought it'd throw me a curveball:

VT PQI - Dwarf Warlord - Ick Swamp - Faithless

And I had to take it up on it, because I'm pretty sure I haven't played enough Dwarf Warlords and it was just gonna pop up all the time like the Goblin Monk does (I did a few tries at VT Hex with Goblin Monk yesterday, but I was actually sleepy by then).

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It took several tries, because I just kept dinging without clearing plants, which is the difference between playin an easy and playing a difficult map when it comes to Ick. So it wasn't that I would've necessarily lost those runs because of the bossess or the monsters, but it was just fatal carelessness.

This time I just payed attention to that thing, and actually got to do what I set out to do - get my levels up with my warlord half, and then use the remaining popcorn and potions (brought a keg) to try to deal with Itssamna. What happened was that the map kinda showered me with Spellcastery stuff, and the other boss was the Goo. I picked up some of the spellcastery stuff (Elven Boots from the sub, CB from the shop, Piercing Wand a bit later), and left some (Mage Plate, B2P, possibly something else). Blue Bead was an important pickup, because of the popcorn plan.

Then I burninated the Goo while using my large health to get simultaneous Might hits (from mana potions) into Itsssamna. As I dinged, the Goo dropped, and then I got rid of the spellcasty stuff and picked up the Platemail and some charms which were left over (I had to convert abunch of spoons at one point, invenotry issues #hybridproblems). And then just melee'd down the rest of the snakeman's health with my load of potions.

Was rather satisfying, allthough I did land both the platemail for my dwarven end game, and all the rather excellent spellcastery stuff, but if it wasn't Faithless I guess prepping a god and swapping into another god would've solved that problem. Felt kinda good to play a warlord which doesn't feel utterly broken, but simply nice and functional part of a larger scheeme.

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And then a rather straightforward one:

VT PQI - Eastern Tundra - Half-Dragon - Miser

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Which I went at using the "Ye olde cashgrabery technique", but the nice run from before influenced me to translocate the health keg, which was kinda nice. I also spammed Getindare vs the boss a bunch and had a silly missplay involving curse and a level up, but it didn't make me go at it three times. I say three tims, because I had to do it twice, as I instinctively bought something from the shop the first time. Miser so easy to forget you're on (and what's sillier is that I even checked the codex to see if I remembered to prep the VT - and then failed miser thee hexes later, d'oh!)

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O.O DO READ PLS:

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And then the PQI decided that I'm supposed to turn PoS into an art form:

VT PQI - Orc Fighter - Hex Ruins - Unstoppable

Just... ponder that for a second.

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The first idea I had was to just line up whoever the other guy is and Stheno up against each other and get unstoppable by pissorfing them both into oblivion. Through full resist both on Stheno, because screw everything, wasn't me who made that thing broken.

But then it turned out that the other guy was SMM, and if I went there wouldn't have anything to slap him into. So I converted from Binlor into TT, and did it the usual way, trolling the PQI w Orc Fighters somehow always cheers me up. Looks like such a tricky and unreasonable proposition, an Orc Fighter, and yet it's sooooo busted XD

At least I found out something, and that is that the Stone Heart isn't busted. It doesn't regen you for each wall destroyed so you can't take Binlor Boons for a full refill. So I ended up slapping Stheno into walls in the end because the SMM went down, and stoneskins got my Magic Res up for the final Orc dmg hit.

Also - PoSing Stuff into Stheno doesn't trigger her thing, so you can get her to no health at all and ding through it. You do trigger it in the end with the last hit, but that basically means you're done. Guaranteed Unstoppable on top of not even having to bother cleaning up before you touch her.

Still, next time I get set up with a PoS moron in Hex I'm totally getting unstoppable without killing anything, provided SMM, Frank, the Goo or the Wraith don't show up again.

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There was a Purist Vampire in Havendale run I didn't really want to do, but I saw I didn't do the Sorcerer in Magma Mines, and decided to try it with a Dwarf Binlor one, which is a Dwarf I particularly enjoy:

VT RUN - Dwarf Sorcerer - Magma Mines - Playing Binlor in Magma Mines

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Well, I did prep Yendor, but on the other hand I went for Binlor in a wall light map and I kinda wanted to play the late game of this thing rather than the early game. And then I scored the Agnostic Collar, which is obviously great on any Binlor guy. But when I think about it I'm pretty sure you don't need either of them.

I didn't even take Stone Fist (had ~~Bear Mace~~) for piety farming, and also Minotaurs to knock me around the place. But man, oh, man did this girl kick ass with Binlor. Incredibly powerful. I burned the phys resistant guy, and stoneskined the other guy, because I needed to save the walls for the last guy. And then I stoneskin-spammed him, even got the last one by spamming Byceps, and I don't need to explain why Apheelsick is terrific on Binlor dudes.

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And then I remembered that I haven't goated anything today and that that wasn't gonna do itself, so I goated the flaming run:

Goatperson - Halls of Steel

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Took two tries, because on the first try I managed to accidentaly kill myself using B2P which made me run out of food and health at the same time. Shame, really, as that run was going so smoothly that I didn't even use the ledger once (had Wonnafyt and B2P so I didn't really need to order take-out).

On the second run, I made plenty of use of the ledger, and it was also a rather pleasant experience. Couldn't get anywhere with Mystera because of all the magic monsters everywhere, but Taurog and TT sure liked them ^^

I suppose I'm not really qualified to talk about the Goat as I'm playing him on regular difficulty, sub-vicious, prepped up and with no token, but he sure likes Wonnafyt and the Ledger. I suppose the Dagger is pretty busted on him, too, especially if you score one with either of those two.

I do find that he meshes with my current dwarf-goblin affected playstyle quite a bit, and sorta find him easier to play than the regular game. Playing on regular difficulty might have something to do with it, though. Also the Ledger obv, but I do tend to get a lot of mileage out of Wonnafyt on anyone and keep it around for long anyway. He's certainly fun to take a break from regular stuff, much more so than the other monster guys.

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And then I did a Hoarder Gorgon on the Cursed Oasis, but the game crashed when I went to make the screenie :( So I'll have to do it again... And I turned off the game, and only came back because I though I ought to do a Gorgon, and that looked like the perfect excuse to just get one out of the pool easily.

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But when I turned the game on this came up instead:

VT PQI - Orc Fighter - Berserker Camp - Ding! Max

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You'd think I'm binging on Orc Fighters, but it's just the PQI setting me up with them. Bleaty and the Berserker misteriouslly dissapeared from the map while I was levelig at one point, and being left without any bossess I decided to make my own fun. So I promoted all the lvl 10 berserkers into bossess and went to see how many I could kill, turned out only 3. Oh, well, I guess that's not bad.

Oh, and before I started, er, "leveling", I took the 100 Piety offer from Brandon, before swapping into TT. Wiki came in handy with that ^^

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Scary stuff:

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Truns out Hex Ruins were flaming, and I thought it was Ick Swamp (the southern places are kinda indistinct, I've had situations where I prepped for one thing and ended up in another one before), and it happened that I didn't have a Bloodmage done in there, so I, er, went "Unstoppable".

Orc Bloodmage - Hex Ruins - Turning PoS into conceptual art

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Would've been easier with the VT, really, since I couldn't farm Binlor and ended up wasting a ton of blackspace. But, err, Unstoppable Hex, there you have it. No Chaos Avatar, mind you, just the budget version called Alchemist Pact. It's tougher to pull off than it looks, but I missplayed it a bunch.

I'm beggining to wonder if this PoS thing actually has a bottom, like, is it just a neverending spiral of progressively more and more outrageous stuff you can do with it?

---
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Night Shift

Postby Lujo on Sat Mar 07, 2015 12:59 am

Well, PQI kinda put me on the path of PoS and stuff, and I decided to tone it down again before something even sillier than the Hex nosense happens, so I went and did this PQI, at regular difficulty with no cheeze at all:

PQI - Goblin Rogue - Cursed Oasis - Specialist

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And it was a fun run with no feature bypassing or anything like that. I even managed to missplay myself into a Taurog punishment which took away the Rogue +40% damage, too, before I engaged either boss.

It looked like a tricky combination, but playing all the Halfling Berserkers and Half-Dragons made me appreciate the +healt prep, and the Goblin can certainly ding his way out of stuff. Patches was a mixed bag, I think, he did give me a lot of damage, but he also got me poisoned on more than one occasion. I had Taurog and Drac, but the resist weren't there in the end game due to the map being CO - still Taurogs damage buffs and DP's worked well, and I even picked up a bloodswell in the end.

Quite a few missplays, one interesting one - don't leave the last bit of Taurogs junk lying around before you go fight the Wraith, it gets left behind and then you can't get your DP's unless you decurse yourself. And then you can't keep fighting the Wraith unless you curse yourself again.

Quite satisfying all in all, played the level for what it was. I could've played him as a Michel Bay or JJ style popcorn muncher, but I felt like going at it the roguey way.

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Then I did this quickly, no Hobbler's challenge:

PQI - Hobbler's Hold - Vampire - Specialist

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The takeaway is that I ought to remember to use Endiswal with the Vampire more often. Which is a nice thing to be reminded of.

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Well, the PQI was a Hoarder, so I decided to skip it and went do do this:

Vampire - Creeplight Ruins

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And I used Endiswal to level, which was very nice :) Also, I couldn't remember if the wraiths were bloodless so I didn't activate the Goat until after it was done, have to remember if stuff has lifesteal it's not bloodless.

I kinda want to get the monsters out of everywhere asap because they're not that interesting to explore as they're always the same and sorta well documented, and I've allready done Gorgn and Half-Dragon here. And also the Goat, so Vamp it was.

TAKEAWAY - Wraiths and Vampires are not bloodless, and Creeplight gives out gold for 3 bossess after you kill the last one, which I wasn't aware of (as they don't give any XP).

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I tried to VT this several times, but in the end caved in and just did it at regular. With Yendor:

Gorgon - Shifting Passages

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Shifting Passages just isn't a map for a Mystera Gorgon. At least not the way I play it at 4 AM. And 2 out of 3 VT attemps had a really late found VT SMM as the boss and no exploration subs.

TAKEAWAY: I'm beggining to appreaciate Goblin Mystera guys more and more - Mystera DOES have a drawback on several maps except they just sidestep it admirably. I gotta try some Drac Gobbos, too, on maps with a lot of undead. Contrary to popular belief - I didn't play too many Goblins at all, but seeing exactly what I'm getting around by using Yendor is getting me clued in on some interesting uses for them.

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Went to bed, woke up, did this at breakfast:

PQI - Gorgon (Binlor) - Havedale Bridge - Cheeky

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I even took and used Body Pact, which was nice, I was getting nowhere with it for a while.

TAKEAWAY: Well, I still know how to do a Binlorgorgon, at least at regular difficulty and a map that's good for it :)

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Then I failed this PQI but kept the win:

VT PQI - Elf Fighter - Nothern Desert - Specialist

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I didn't even prep for PoS specifically (I was looking to just possibly score Spirit Pact, which I did), but I found Wheytwut and Pissorff so that was that. I failed by forgetting what the Badge was when there was just the Goo. I could've moved him one tile and finished him off with a Pissorff, but I threw a fireball at him because it looked faster - fail.

TAKEAWAY: If you catch yourself not clear on what the PQI is supposed to be, check.

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And with the PQI being stuck where it was, I decided to pick this badge up (last one not in Den of Danger, I think):

Half-Dragon - The Labyrinth - Miser

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A tried to VT it with some other preps, but didn't get all that close, so I just took the easy way out because that's basically the last sub-vicious badge :) Well, certainly wasn't the hardest or anything, and I only really have a few left in the Den because it has the most completion so it never goes PQI or Flames up.

TAKEAWAY: Next time I do a playthrough I'll either rush the Halfdragon sooner and use him to do all the warmongers everywhere, or try to see if I find some other way to play him.

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Then I went to do this and got an achievement out of it (also tried Warior's Pact):

PQI - Orc Paladin - Cursed Oasis - Warmonger

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Well, I suppose the Warrior pact would've worked much better if I wasn't cursed all the time. And it was a map where it rains Taurog piety, with a Paladin. I got something like... 25 health for 75 piety I think, which was, well, kinda, well, meh. Did it help me get hits in on bossess? Who knows? I think I would've been better off with Scholars on this particular map at this difficulty... Still, if I wasn't cursed all the time and if I was a halfling it would've been fine.

I also finally got the One-Inch Punch achievement. You can VT a whole bunch of stuff with everything there is without ever seeing it XD

TAKEAWAY: Nothing too interesting, really. Regular difficulty CO perfectly playable with a Taurog guy, I suppose?

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And then the Den finally lit up and I went to get the last Sub-Vicious badges:

VT BADGER - Human Tinker - Den of Danger - Miser / Hoarder

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And it got inreresting despite the Yendor!

Well, sort of - I was kinda trying to find a way to get a lot of health out of Warriors Pact, so that I can stoneskin tank VT bleaty, which would've been totally sweet, except I really couldn't figure out how to get my health high enough with it.

So I stol... er, translocated Zot, and withled him down to half health, whereupon I proceeded to join Taurog, and mooch stuff off him. But I also remembered Dravin mentioning the Might tacked onto the Scholars pact, which I always forgot about even though I take it all the time, so I took that, and the strange thing was that if I just killed a bunch more stuff to ding once more and then went back to Binlor, Scholars would've given me enough health to in fact face tank vicious bleaty.

I don't tink I've done it before (I might've with a healthmonster dwarf, or a rest stacker), not under these kinds of restrictions. Ended up simply one-shot dodgesteping him, booooring XD

Huzzah, that's all the sub-vicious badges!

TAKEAWAY: Two, in fact - Yendor with Binlor is obviously dodgy as hell, but there's a slight hiccup to keep in mind - you need to find fatter stuff to slam into walls because stuff dies. Not a biggie, just something to keep in mind. And secnd - Scholars Pact + Stoneskin is very likely to be able to facetank VT bleaty at lvl 8 I think without boosting your health otherwise, or earlier with it. Also rather good to know.

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And then the PQI said Goblin Rogue, again, so I said, ok. I guess I underplayed them, and never head them talked about...

VT PQI - Grimms Grotto - Goblin Rogue of JJ - Ding! Max

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It's the Rogue Spellcaster approach, with a JJ Goblin mixed in. Also, I prepped the Dairy Diary because it converts for a 100 CP, whch is kinda nice and rare. Otherwise it was a nice little spellcastery package with hardy anything that's above the curve, really. Two of them in the same post - but they're both PQI, it's a combination I'm quite unfamiliar with in general.

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And well, here's a PQI Dwarf I learned to enjoy the hard way:

VT PQI - Havendale Bridge - Dwarf Assassin - Specialist

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And, well, everything went my way - even though killing the Troll was no easy task. I had to spend a lot of bloodpools and popcorn on that, but part of "everything went my way" was also that a Wonnafyt spawned close to the entrance which obviously made it much easier than it would have been otherwise. There were also Taurog and Pactmaker for Scholars, which is about the best bunch of stuff you could want on a melle happy dwarf (Binlor in place of Taurog would've been fine as well). The bossess were dealt with by a series of dings (everything is popcorn to an assassin) with Scholars pact on.

Also, that was Dairy Diary again. For no particular reason, it's cheap to prep, doesn't make me feel like an item is winning it for me, and it's like an extra glyph I don't have to use the magic building for. Obviously good with Goblins, but I think I'll just prep it around a bunch just for the lols and messing with global statistics.

Also, not sure how or why I ended up Miser, I even checked what quest I was on at one point, but then kept thinking I was supposed to be miser for some reason or something :?

TAKEAWAY: Rusalka's aren't undead. What do you know. I avoided killing them because I was going at it Drac-first, but turns out there was no reason. I completely forgot they used to have the more appropriate "water nymph" blue gorgon model before, and the Boss is kinda thematically their boss, so I only noticed now. Nice to know if you don't ^^

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Right so this turned out to be challenging, holy cow:

FAILED VT PQI - Orc Wizard of PoS - Western Jungle - Miser

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I FAILED this one! Couldn't do it miser, because the bastarts PoS protection actually works like a charm! If you PoS him into a wll, or PoS something into him, he spawns mana burn plants all over the place. And if you prep Soul Orb, you don't PoS with CB, so it's not that broken. And if you don't prep Soul Orb it's doable, but boy does it ever screw you over - you push the bugger, he spawns plants where he was. You PoS something into him - get mana burned if you want to eat popcorn. It's not that you can't do it, but you actually have to PLAY to do it, which is, in fact, awesome.

Can't brag, because I failed the PQI, but if Cowardly mean stuff always moved (or even straight up knockback protection, they move, but no knockback), blink blinked off indirect knockback, phys res guys resisted the damend thing (or it simply didn't use knockback at all unless you bash stuff into walls) it would probably not be all that broken.

TAKEAWAY: The whole "makes impassable walls" and "starts with Pissorff instead of Endiswall" is actually working rather well in preventing Binlor abuse when it comes to clearing a map. At least on mazy maps. I even used the Schatchers "interior decorator" approach to make walls I can bounce the boss into, because prepping Binlor on a maze really makes things screwy. :)

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And then a homage to Tinker, since all that mining through stuff I haven't overplayed in the PQI finally struck Gnomes:

VT PQI - Southern Swamp - Gnome Crusader of Epic Shennanigans - Cheeky / Pure Scummy Awesome

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Ahahahhahahahahahhaha, Tinker is a blessing upon existance! :lol: This took a bunch of scumming (well, I was scumming for a wheytwut/acessible JJ mostly for Wheytwut and Pactmaker tbh, it's probably doable with fireballs). What's funny is that I got all I needed on the first attempt but I messed something up and ended up a few Pissorffs away from doing it. Then I couldn't find Wheytwut without killing anything, then I couldn't find Pactmaker, and then I found everything I needed - except I took the actual Chaos Avatar at lvl 1 which is the worst possible time as that's just 2 potions for the Pact. Long story why.

Anyway, now we know why we can't prep Pactmaker :lol:

Also, PoS isn't really the culprit here, this obviously works (probably even better) with fireballs. Also it also works better if you prep a dodge potion (do'h! well, I used the badge, but on the frst try I didn't use Whoopaz - or get anything at all out of Contemplate the Waters), and prepping the Alchemist also isn't a terrible idea most likely.

Well, got that tricky, tricky, Cheeky badge! Had to go out of my way, but by Jove, it was worth it! (roflmao).

TAKEAWAY: Pact activations trigger indulgences. This can eat away your indulgences, true, but it came in really handy here, and it'll probably also come in really handy in Binlor Dwarf w Scholars Pact situations :)

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Did this guy at one point:

Gnome Wizard of Alchemist Pact - Naga City - Shennanigans

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Just to check some stuff. Cooking up a scheeme, saving it for when it's ready unless soeone beats me to it.
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Still on the old version

Postby Lujo on Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:08 pm

Well, as the title sayes, no Chemists or Rat Kings here, this playthrough is going on with the old version until further notice :)

PQI - Elf Priest - Rock Garden - Cheeky

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A nice relaxing run in the regular difficulty Rock Garden with a class I've come to enjoy a lot lately. Ran into Biinlor, and since everyone's a Paladin in Rock Garden - I decided to pick up a bunch of damage and stoneskin spam for 2 of the 3 goldems and ended up fireballing the third guy down (also used a bunch of knockback just 'cuse). Swapped into Drac for the unstoppable mopup off of all the blood on the floor.

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Then an Yendor-powered Hoarder Vampire to cross another Vamp off my list and put one more Hoarder in so it doesn't show up as often. Well, it WAS a pure caster vamp vs a Fireball retaliating boss, but eh...

PQI - Vampire - Eastern Tundra - Hoarder

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Nothing to say, tbh. It's a Yendor run where stuff went my was item and Glyph wise. Wonnafyted everything sub lvl-5, got a mage plate and B2P, picked up 2 more levels and then fireballed the boss down with lifestealing and driking blood.

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He he he, I managed to troll the PQI again:

PQI - Goblin Thief - Magma Mines - Specialist

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Dwarfs aren't the only guys who can go nuts with a Scholars Pact.

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Opening it up with an unlikely Goat

Postby Lujo on Wed Mar 11, 2015 2:28 pm

Lol, if you've never prepped Mas09's ledger on Ick Swamp:

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It moves the plants around :)

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Heh, this took three tries, which is nice, because I was getting a bit too bored with the Warmonger Half-Dragon:

Half-Dragon of Tourag w Dagger - Slime Pits - Vicious

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Still, I did take something away from it - Vampiric Blade is very nice for munching popcorn. Yes, I wasn't acutely aware enough of this. Funny thing is, first attempt I tried Warriors Pact and failed for some reason, second attempt I had Taurog, Drac and Binlor on board and missplayed myself into a 1 hit away from the win (long story), third attempt I took my time and did a bit of popcorn bowling and stuff before joining Taurog and won due to Vamiric Blade and a very handy False Beard ftw ding goblin style.

Enjoyed it for the challenge :)

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Another one of these guys, PQI's telling me I've severaly underplayed them, which is obviously a shame:

PQI - Elf Priest - Berserker Camp - Unstoppable

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Good map for it at this difficulty, wraiths and zombies vs priest half, big health does the Berserker in. Funny, this must be the first time I've bought the Fortitude potion to get rid of JJ's crap, not bad at all. Spent most of the level with Glyphs in my inventory, converting them tactically to hit various thresholds - paired nicely with the Wheytwut. Fun big bar combination, I have to say.

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Well, PQI set me on a quick romp:

PQI - Halfling Warlord - Hobbler's Hold - Purist

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Completion's completion, I suppose, and today was purist day.

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This was CRAZY:

FAILED PQI - Halfling Warlord (PQI Spam, yay!) - Shifty Brickwork - Unstoppable + Purist

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Ho-le-crap, I almost got pwned by Shifty Brickwork! At about lvl 2 or 3 the damned wall managed to lock me in behind a lvl 6 minotaur and 2 lvl 4 Drakes, and the only way to get out was to convert my Byceps and my Cydstep (and I was gona farm soooo much JJ piety with those!) and so instead of being a Halfling Warlord I ended up being... a halfling. Drat.

But I wasn't gonna get pwned by no shody masonery, and I was a halfling (by god!) and I was gonna kick some assess. So I did, and it included mid fight wheytwutting stuff on a fully revealed map and drinking health potions while in Drac and a B2P, and all sorts of weird s**t. Didn't get unstoppable, but I won and I'm keeping it.

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And another Flaming Yendorgorgon (now there's a word) completion entry (no VT though):

Gorgon - Rock Garden

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Well, it's lumps of cheeze with grated cheeze made into a cheezecake. Getting that completion.

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This is actually a better combo than one'd think, and the PQI is really insistent about me playing it:

PQI - Goblin Monk - Grimm's Grotto - Purist

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It took soething like 20 minutes, except it wasn't difficult at all, it just took forever to farm 60 magic res I needed to take on the boss. Still, I'm kinda going places with these, they're not Halfling Berserkers, but they're hardly unplayable. Well, when you get good gods, anyway.

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Last edited by Lujo on Fri Mar 13, 2015 1:11 am, edited 1 time in total.
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