General-Purpose bragging topic!

[Lynzkar]

I got a slideable Event log + Earnings for the first time. I didont even know this was possible.

[Tinker]

Namtar's Lair rainbowed. Last up was Crusader and I picked my favorite (Gnome). To have a clear conscience I went in with extra altar, without prepping someone like JJ. Tile 2 was blue sparks...

Anyway, mortally depleted Gnome Crusader after killing Namtar:

Most characters would love to look like this *before* the boss fight, let alone after getting cursed for -6 mana / -30 health / -15 base damage & killing 6 bosses...

Vic: http://i.imgur.com/JN6h06H.png

[Lujo]

Oh, wow, that was a mortal struggle, 'twas. Barelly scraped by there lass! Good on ye!

[The Tapir]

Not a huge brag, but recently took a human chemist through Shifting Passages for the PQI and realized just how soundly a parched JJ chemist can trash a dungeon. Huge amounts of mana and health allowed me to facetank both bosses from VERY low levels and defeat both just as early.

[The Tapir]

Tinker Silver completed! Ugh, that was painful. Had to restart so many times after getting horrible RNG on high levelled thralls and shades blocking the bridge and having Force switch to retaliate:fireball with no popcorn left to pop burning stacks and no health to tank a hit. A lucky EM find made that run possible - plantation -> clearance for one extra fireball and the entanglement let the lucky elf tinker take him down.

Just gotta beat Crusader Silver now for the achievement before moving on to all the gold challenges.

EDIT: Tinker Gold now completed too - what a lucky day. After two no-gos with an orc tinker who managed to get Foyter to lvl 8-9 each time before defeat, I went with a goblin tinker who had amazing luck in getting an Orb of Zot for the extra mana, platemail, dwarven gauntlets, and witchalok pendant for the survivability, and GETINDARE for the oh-so crucial dodges that allowed him to take on a 2-3 level higher Foyter. All things considered, the level-up refills from Goblins make that place far easier in being able to tackle vicious level enemies and the higher leveled boss.

EDIT #2: Crusader Silver and Gold both completed - only challenge left at the explorer's guild at this point is Transmuter Gold, which I'll see if I can tackle today given the roll I seem to be on. Silver felt way harder than Gold did, as a 1044 hp corroding/weakening boss was no fun to tackle - a few lucky dodges at 5% helped carry me through.

[Tinker]

So last (before VGT) Vicious dungeon goated:



I went in with a pretty straight up Goat build (Yendor intended to skip straight to L5; Gold to buy conversion fodder; Mystera to ensure at least one "safe" altar; Bear Mace fo early declogging and to access secret sub; Transmutation Seal for even more money, and in case the secret sub is in a whacky place; Flame Magnet to ensure punch as of tile 1; Apothecary because it's awesome; no VT because I'm not a masochist (entirely ); and potion kit of Health/Mana/Schadenfreude/Whupaz because I plan to be a caster but I also need to melee both bosses a bit).

Now I got an awesome altar luck and could easily win the map on first try, though I was prepared to do re-runs should I get screwed by RNG. It turns out that my prepped Mystera was accompanied by Taurog (!!) and JJ (!), which was probably as good as it can get. Icing on the cake is that I started in Mystera, and JJ's altar was just a few tiles from the entrance, so I knew 2 altars already then. Plus I got WONAFYT... I put off popping the Yendor because I just saw a powerful early game already at L1, so I just rolled with it. WONAFYT for Mystera piety and to build up the level-up. I made sure to have 45+ Piety when levelling. I cleared magic-users under Taurog (I only got the Shield from him). Boost Mana and Mystic Balance just complement eachother so nicely; I did not take Refreshment until I was certain I'd end up in Mystera for the boss fight. I kept the Yendor until later and I popped it at L7 finally because I did not want to stay in Taurog for the boss fight. Taurog's Shield made The Indomitable quite domitable (?), and between Refreshments and still a lot of CP lying around, BlahBlah had no chance against the barrage of fireballs.

Fun game, even made me think, though I only won on 1st try due to awesome altar luck; would have been a very different game with TT + Binlor, for example. Taurog or The Earthmother greatly simplify The Indomitable, and the resources saved there go a long way to ensure BlahBlah goes down without much risk.

[Tinker]

I've heard that Vampire on Vicious Steel was supposed to be brag-worthy:



To be honest, I won it on 1st try... Now, because everyone said it would be super-hard, I did give a bit of thought to it before attempting it, and I specifically re-thought my potions policy in anticipation of what I expected the challenge to be.

So my reasoning was for strat:
Blahblah is a big vampire. He inflicts 120 points of magical damage, and has tons of health. So what seemed the right way to kill him was to be an even bigger vampire: deal&steal as much damage as he does. So resists in the 40%+ range, lots of Lifesteal, sufficient damage.
The Indomitable corrodes and is not much of a snack once he's down to 1HP. It seemed reasonable that if I combine exploration with fighting him, and uncover just enough (i.e. 2-3) tiles to keep him in 1-hit range, then I can steal back what he deals me. Knockback helps burn through DPs. So all I needed was blackspace to fight him, and basic endurance to get him down to 1 HP & pop the first couple of DPs.

So this translated into the preps:
Dragon Shield to bring resists.
Patches because it's mostly no-downside, and can reasonably give at least 1-2 shots of resists.
Elite Items to give a chance at scoring the Elven Boots (and/or Yendor, Keg of Health, etc.).
Translocation Scroll to pick up Elven Boots or Yendor.
Bear Mace for early de-clogging, faster DP popping and secret sub access. I thought about Shield but without the Blacksmith secret sub it's not enough to dominate The Indomitable so I went with the more reliable prep.
Mana Boosters because I don't really need fireball and because I <3 glyphs.
I brought in Reflex / Whuppaz (both to be used against BlahBlah) and Burn Salve and Fortitude. The idea was that Illusions make decent blood cows, except for their nasty habit of weakening. So if I have a ready solution to the weakenings, I can benefit from an additional monster type's health, and still clear it if it starts to become prohibitive (or in any case before fighting BlahBlah).

I figured I'd have at least 50% chance to score Elven Boots (got lucky and found it), which should make the rest of the map feasible. Ledger sub was worth blackspace +30CP, Monster Den gave me XP and curse wipes. Early WONAFYT helped preserve exploration for fighting The Indomitable (though I found him quite late nevertheless, somehow I explored in all directions except where he was...), as well as gave me valuable bits of bonus XP. Rest of glyphs were OK, nothing spectacular, I did cast CYDSTEPP a few times but I would have greatly preferred GETINDARE over it. I had massive amounts of blood pools / potions left in the end, so I think even without some of the lucky finds the run would've worked out.

I've read that the two hardest combinations are supposed to be Monk on VS and Vampire on VS, I haven't found them so tought, maybe I just got lucky. For me the hardest badges were Goat on Naga City and Vampire on Naga City (and I've far more experience playing Naga City than any other Vicious Dungeon, otherwise I find Naga City quite manageable and often PQI it, so it's not the map but rather the specific interaction with Goat and Vampire that I find difficult).

[Tinker]

By the way, that last run actually had me rainbow all sub-VGT maps!

Next up is completing the remaining badges on VGT (though as much as I love the smelly little buggers, I don't have any confidence for Rats there, so I don't think the halo is a realistic aspiration). Plus I need to look into the Triple Quests as well as earn enough gold to get my last locker slot (these upgrades cost a fortune, especially since first you need to upgrade the bank!!).

[dislekcia]

[Astral]

Yeah, congrats Tinker, that's very nice!

I agree with you, I also found NC to be harder for Vamps.