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Dragon Isles not that Vicous

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Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby subanark on Wed Aug 31, 2011 7:27 am

Completed this with a Halfling Beserker (duh).
Preperations:
Guild: Tri-Sword
Thiefs Den: Gold + 1
Church: Scout Alter
Mage Tower: Health booster
Bank: 25G
BlackSmith: death protection
Bazzar: shop scroll
Witch hut: nothing special

Grabbed god of war early and started beating on higher level magic users, grabbed the gold gloves early on and converted them when I needed room. Also bought a vampiric blade, and converted that when I needed space. Started beating down the boss at level 7. Finished at level 8. Grabbed every piece of god of war's equipment except breast plate. Switched to tiki around that point (this wasn't really needed, all I did get a potion of dodge out of it). HIt level 10 at the same time I got to the real boss, ended up burning a lot of potions with those last 2 poison physical dragons. Still had a good number of unrevealed tiles at the end, and I probably could have squeezed one 1 final health potion.

Over all not too terribly hard with a berserker due to the amount of magic damage going out (and both level 10 bosses are magic users). I am curious if you can skip those lesser dragons by using sight + teleport glyph.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby gjaustin on Wed Aug 31, 2011 3:55 pm

I think the issue isn't that the level isn't that hard, but rather that Berserkers (Dwarf or Halfling) are really, really strong against all the dragons.

I'm starting to think that the 50% magic resist that Berserkers get is too high and that it should be lowered a little bit.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby Duke on Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:08 pm

Thanks for sharing this piece of information. Unfortunately I had three Unity crashes before when battling the matron with a monk, but this remarkable halfling-setup worked like a charm.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby q 3 on Wed Aug 31, 2011 6:19 pm

Get the Purist medal and we can talk about whether or not it qualifies as vicious. ;) Until then, I'd say it's probably the hardest of the vicious dungeons - certainly a lot harder than the Crypt (whose boss is still a joke even in the upgraded version, basically a slightly harder hitting Super Meat Man who is immune to poison - have him hide frequently and set his lifesteal to 100% and he might qualify as 'vicious'), and with fewer (if any, as I haven't been able to come up with anything so far) viable Purist strategies than the Avatar, Namtar, or Indomitable are subject to.

Aside from the Crypt, I think the main dungeon with overrated difficulty at the moment is the Berserker camp - the boss is a pushover as long as you have fireballs, CYDSTEPP, or phys resist, and (despite the presence of those obnoxious Frozen Trolls) the constantly upgrading fodder Berserkers are a relatively easy source of experience all the way through.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby subanark on Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:42 pm

It's the only Vicious dungeon I've done without using a broken mechanic (When drac kept giving piety for life drain). I would consider Avatar harder since you need a flexible strat for.

This dungeon does not have:
Mana burn (except end boss)
Weaken
Corrosive
Resist down (except for end boss)

From a berserker's standpoint it has 2 monsters that use magic and 1 monster that is a real pain to kill (animated armor). I beat the dungeon without casting spells, which means I can't get screwed by what glyphs spawn. My shopping items could have been more ideal. Tiki was nice, but I could have managed without him (After burning though my health potions I could have fully equiped his gear and got a few hits with death protection).

A priest should be possible too (although there is only 1 undead monster), as the bonus to health potions helps a lot. I could see a monk work if you managed to get both a trisword and a venom sword.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby MuF on Wed Aug 31, 2011 8:54 pm

Don't know about the monk there... I'm a lot more skeptical.
Reminds me of form 3 Namtar with a monk, slowly being weakened and being unable to keep up after a while, only to lose a few hits away from victory.

But clearly this dungeon is meant to be tackled as a berzerker, just lke the Library in alpha. Sure, it doesn't seem that hard using him, but any other class would struggle a lot more without using a cheap technique. Well, that's what I think anyway.

And for the Crypt, what upgraded version? Isn't vicious crypt like, the same as it was before, and the easier Hard version is the new one?
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby q 3 on Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:04 am

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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby Wargizmo on Thu Sep 01, 2011 6:41 am

I did it on my first try with orc berserker/pure Taurog, it didn't really seem that vicious, but then again Halls of Steel with monk is fairly easy, and The Crypt is a cakewalk with a priest or paladin. I guess it's all about picking the right class for the job, then again I was still was able to finish it with a good few tiles still unexplored even though I had sub optimal levelling and worshipping strategies (just brute force pure taurog, and wasted a couple of pots during levelup due to poison) so the difficulty could stand to be raised, I certainly found it a ton easier than the Slime Pit.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby FDru on Thu Sep 01, 2011 7:35 am

I'm fine with certain dungeons being a pushover with specific classes (kinda how I was fine with the vampire trivializing most stuff in the alpha). The challenge lies in beating it with every class, or without preparations, etc. The quest system in the beta leaves a lot of room for flexibility in that regard.
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Re: Dragon Isles not that Vicous

Postby bla0815 on Thu Sep 01, 2011 10:49 am

I strongly agree with FDru here. If a vicous dungeon is is very hard for every class, it will be unbeatable for some classes. Currently you can beat them without too much frustration given the right class combo and after that increase the challenge by playing the other classes. That's imho good from a game design perspective.
It is a bit strange though, that the berzerker is very good at the dragon isles, namtar's lair, the demonic library, still quite viable at the crypt and not too shabby at the halls of steel. Not really a problem imho, but still

I am not so much into the purist thing, but i did most dungeons with most classes and the dragon isles are much harder with anything but a berserker.
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