Rat Monarch

[Lujo]

Mage plate gives the most +mana out of all items if you level high enough. Most folks besides Gnome can't really use it , but she plays a lot of gnomes and levels them up a lot. It's also quite cheap and has ok CP for the cost, so it's kinda worth leaving in the pool regardless. The attack penalty is meaningless, there's a ton of ways to compensate it if you really want to, and a mana boost that size is hard to come by otherwise, and if you're a caster it doesn't even mean that much.

It's one of those things which looks scarier than it is, then when you figure that out it looks better than it is, then when you figure out it's mostly kind of overkill, really. Now that I think about it, it's not that most folks other than Gnomes can't use it, anyone can use it, but are kinda better off just picking it up from a shop if it's there and they want to become an instant spellcaster.

[MTaur]

I guess that makes sense. I hate gnomes usually, but my last win on Demonic Library was a gnome warlord. Mana burn was going to be an issue otherwise. I lucked into Earthmother on top of a Mystera prep, or I might've failed in the end.

Mageplate is worse than Mana Pendant for the first 4 levels, which kind of creeps me out. Sometimes I only get to level 8, which would make it a double-pendant with -2 Human conversion bonuses tacked on. +4 elf, -2 human.

I'd still usually prefer something else. I haven't banned it yet, though. I forget why not. Probably because the slot costs a ton.

[Lujo]

No point using the slots at all, IMO. Everything's there for a purpose, and whatever you end up with tends to just narrow your perspective. Mage Plate's a fine prep if you'd don't mean to munch on popcorn too much (or even then, really, and it's nice because it kinda smooths your mana early so you have to explore less and then turns into a hefty boost. If mana's all you're looking for it's good, but sorta "awesome but impractical" a tiny bit. I'd rather go with Elven Boots, myself, but, well, there's a reason they cost almost double to buy...

[MTaur]

Oh yeah, forgot about the boots. Makes the plate look almost totally silly as a prep. As a purchase, though, it depends.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

I suppose there's also some appeal in the fact that it adds mana bonuses to leveling, some folks like their actions to feel meaningful. I'm not much into that, but I guess it makes interesting to folks. And it's obviously good in vicious dungeons where you're kinda guaranteed lvl 9 one way or another (which is why there's less sense prepping it elsewhere as you're not all that likely to need to level up that high). It's also obviously good on stuff you want to level or ding with, goats, goblins, fighters, assassins, rats (obviously), whathave you. It's pretty strong, really, I'd be prepping it places if the ball wasn't what it is. It's also fine on Pissorf users, too, it's your 16 mana to start out with, and you end up easily dinging your way to another Pissorf. For Fireball guys in Mystera it stacks with her boons nicely kinda adding value to them, and if you're going flames anyway some more -% isn't gonna change much.

[MTaur]

Has anyone else tried Whurrgarbl? I need to subject it to some more serious tests first, but it looks good to me.

[Lujo]

If the burning triggers the corrosion it's like doung double damage after every hit if you munch on a bit of popcorn. Should be kick ass.

The caveat is that you allready have a pretty reliable way of killing bossess and you're looking to build up health and/or resistances/lifesteal so prepping double damage might be a bit on the overkill side. It works, but it still requires you to get actual hits in. Since I ussually do more damage by spellcasting then by actual hits I'm sorta inclined to prep something which would help with getting a few corrosion hits in to set it up. Still, if I'm fine with my God helping me do that it might be the way to go.

EDIT: I just tried Whurgarble, and burning doesn't seem to trigger corrosion. Does it? And if it doesn't, what's exactly the point of it the build?

[MTaur]

[MTaur]

I sort of textwalled the wiki page a bit. You can trim or fix as needed.

http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... at_Monarch