General-Purpose bragging topic!

[Tinker]

Here's two recent PQIs, neither represent any spectacular achievement, they're more interesting because both made me put a bit of a twist on proven things...

Orc Wizard on Namtar's Lair - Faithless (no PISORF)

So, I went in half hoping for PISORF and Crystal Ball (form 1 and especially form 4 are problematic with fireballs). I didn't find either, but I figured that I can just play the Orc Wizard as a true hybrid - graft a powerful melee attack on top of an adept caster, and alternate damage based on the target. I found WONAFYT just next to the entrance and Balanced Dagger in the first store, at which point I stopped exploring and just used teleportation to kill monsters and refill via level-ups. I only actually looked at the map at L5 (to explain why I picked up glyphs so late). Last glyph is the "depleted glyph", which has no CP value but works pretty much as a B2P glyphs works. I used APHEELSIK to great effect against the first two forms (they're not yet undead! ), basically regen-fought them using poison and fireballs. Temporary brain short circuit had me start mopping up, only to realize that I only killed form 1, and form 2 was just looking at me Anyway, fun run, shows that you don't need altars or even PISORF to make the Orc Wizard a totally viable combination.

Gnome Berserker on Demonic Library - Warmonger (no GG/JJ)

Knowing how good Berserker is for Warmonger, I accepted the PQI despite it being a Gnome. I prepped Taurog for the general happiness around Warmonger runs, and the extra physical resistance he affords. Still, I don't think I would've won without the dream team combination of Taurog plus The Pactmaker's Body Pact. I had close to maxed resists in the end, and killed The Avatar with my death protection strike... It was a tight run, I had remarkably little use for shop items and also for my Mana Potions; would have loved to stumble on an Alchemist Scroll, alas I had a caster's dream shop spawn complete with Mage Plate, Keg of Mana, etc. - of course utterly useless for my run So the run went semi-Hoarder as well (I did convert some items to clear inventory space, but I didn't actually use the potions I got). Gnomes are awesome, too bad they are pretty much screwed by two PQI badges (Feeling Parched and Warmonger).

[Blovski]

And that's the Naga City Chemist. Human, Binlor -> GG. Some shoddy topside work with no less than 5! consecutive poisonings from Patches but regenfighting, stoneskins and a few cleansings pulled me through. Nice having it golden again... mostly just got rats and goats to fill out now.

In particular, I'm trying to Goat Dragon Isles atm. Made it to the Matron but without nearly enough stuff to win. Tricky business, and I suspect reliant on having good options to skip the underground.

[Tinker]

[MTaur]

You've never tried to get tons of mana with Elf Transmuter for the lulz or anything?

[Lynzkar]

I've done that before, I think I got to 52 mana, thanks to mage plate. That's probary not very high for elf transmuter though, if you get elven boots and pendant of mana you can probary get over 60.

[Blovski]

Welp, despite my laziness, taking Tinker's advice. Namtar's Lair Purist down (I've never really fussed with filling in that dungeon's completion), went in with an Orc Sorceror. Very tight topside because half of the map was buried in dungeon walls but it worked out OK. First glyph I found was Imawal so I spent the first couple of levels bricking empty tiles to regenerate. Was somewhat lucky to find Pisorf, Getindare and a just-about-early-enough JJ, using Consensus to switch to GG and pick up Cleansing before I went down. My most major ballsup was on the Retaliate Fireball form where my ingenious plan to blast him through a ton of walls got scuppered by him running into the corner I'd freed up for myself.



Anyway, that was a delight. Not too slow for a Vicious dungeon either.

[Caulder]

just finished a dragon isles run as a warlord with 29 pray beads bit sad as I did not get to carry out the shield but hey I won

[fall_ark]

Guys, is this a Vicious-only thread? 'Cos I'm pretty happy with my non-GG non-JJ Goblin Thief Warmonger PQI in Havendale Bridge against a random Tower of Goo.
Not really difficult, but still satisfying since you don't normally see a random Tower of Goo and decided to not abandon the run without GG or JJ. But yeah, chaining Goblin conversion and Namtar's Ward with Scholar's Pact made short work of that glob.

[Tinker]

[chandl34]

It was brutal, but I finally got it. I used Tinker's elite items + translocation idea, with the Den and BURNDAYRAZ. I luckily found Good Glenrick behind double-thick walls, right after walking past IMAWAL. I got myself a ridiculous level spike, then found both bosses beside an Orb of Zot. I kept leveling to the point where I could take one hit from Blahblah, then Zotted and Whupaz'd him. While regen fighting Blahblah, I managed to find the Orb of Lusory, giving me a total of 43% resists. Even with all that, the fight was much closer than I would've liked. I had a good ratio of cursed cows and non-cursed cows, and lots of bloodpools, but it still came down to my last few potions.

What's funny is I played much better in my earlier runs, with worse shops and subdungeons. I think the Orb of Zot made me greedy, and I misjudged how to use my advantage.