Extreme East Spoiler and Discussion Thread

[The Avatar]

[shade_of_ox]

From the numbers, I'm guessing he found a way to land a hit on you before leveling up somehow.

[shade_of_ox]

Here's a pretty ridiculous strategy I found with the Heretic. I was just finishing up Ghostbusting with an Orc Heretic, and my gods were EM, Binlor, and JJ. Basically I farmed up a huge amount of CP by using IMAWAL on empty tiles with Binlor and then breaking them - I ended up with around 35 base damage at level 2, and I hadn't even converted my glyphs yet... needless to say, this made PISORF even stronger than usual and I got DING! Max! for the first time in this dungeon with Chaos Avatar. Forgotten Kinsmen are so great to level off of if you're a caster or hybrid - their stats are really pathetically low.

I was actually thinking about some kind of item that blocks debuffs right before I unlocked the Serpentine Shield, which does exactly that. I'd definitely consider prepping this, and it would also be a great buy - it would be especially good on a Codex Sorcerer or something. This would be super strong as it would allow you to take out Wraiths easily, which are ideal targets if you're immune to mana burn.

[shade_of_ox]

Errand Boy part 2 (Flooded Foundry with Parched Thief) complete!

This was a very fun run. I think I've been a bit spoiled by the low difficulty modifier of the previous runs I've beend oing, because now that the modifier is back to Vicious-level, I was actually having some problems. This run took me 3 tries to complete - the first run when I was figuring out what was going on (I hadn't seen Lusory before), a second run which failed by an inch and would have succeeded had I not misclicked and put a Core Stone in the wrong spot, and a third successful run.

My third run was kind of ridiculous. Details in the spoiler:


Aside from that run, this dungeon is very fun! I really like the enemy mix here - this is the first time I've had to think about these traits now that I'm on Vicious difficulty, whereas in the Frigid Battlefield, the only new trait that's really much concern is Frostbite. Golems in particular aren't actually easy leveling fodder, so the best leveling candidates are probably Undying Sculptors and Sapphire Golems due to their low stats. Stone Jellies are also doable.

I would probably rate this dungeon to be about as difficult as Dragon Isles. There are 2 nasty bosses topside and one boss at the bottom that isn't as hard as he looks, and leveling is very easy. Also movement is quite limited, just like in Dragon Isles. I think I prefer the gameplay here over Dragon Isles though, because the dungeon provides a much more well-rounded challenge (rather than being a free win for Berserkers, for instance). The two bosses cover each other pretty well - Prototype 3 is difficult for spellcasters, and Prototype 1 is difficult for melee attackers. Also, since one blinks and the other has very high resists, PISORF strategies are not effective here (that was the first thing I tried, since I was an Orc anyway).

Next stop: Lekon's Table!

[Nurator]

@Avatar

Thats awesome I wonder how you even dealt 44 damage? Either I die on my way to the boss or he goes down with ease... anyway here is my solution in spoilers



@shade_of_ox The "Build a wall, destroy a wall" strategy sounds amazing! I wonder if we can pull off something like the Infinitymuter oO 7 mana (1 IMAWAL and 1 PISSORF) for 15 conversion points is insanely good. Anyone care to do the math?^^

[shade_of_ox]

Must... resist... reading that!

For Heretic, I don't see a lot of ways to set up an infinite loop.
Let me do some theorycrafting.
It takes 3 mana to build a wall, 4 to break with PISORF, or 6 with ENDISWAL. Building a wall gives you 15 CP.

If we look at this without any extras, the only way to make this infinite would be with a Gnome, to keep drinking more potions to build more walls. However, you would have to build 6 walls per potion - you also have to destroy those walls to have piety to lose, so that means you need to spend 7*6 = 42 mana. Even with the Heretic's big mana pool, there's no way you'll get more than around 8 mana per potion. So no dice.

What if we add BLUDTUPOWA to the mix? Assuming no blackspace left, and no health modifiers (to keep it simple), you can cast BLUDTUPOWA 3 times for 1 mana each. Then if we can also get a Fire Heart, that will add up to around 2 extra mana per full mana bar. Of course we can also add Dragon Soul, which should be around 3 extra mana per full mana bar. And if we add Rock Heart, that boosts both sources of mana - Rock Heart is probably the best single item here as it adds up to 5 mana (4 from walls, 1 from BLUDTOPOWA) per full mana bar.

However, I think that's it - I don't see any other ways to help your mana spending here, so I think this idea is dead.

On the other hand, I think something like this COULD work. A sample strategy:
Go VGT Gnome Heretic, prep Binlor and Rock Heart or Dragon Soul (we scum for the other one).
Then we want the Golden Statue in the first tower. If we prep DR, it won't hurt us at all when we strike it.
All we need now is the Knockback boon from Binlor (can't prep Bear Mace because we need the Shield for DR). Once we have that, (and also found IMAWAL through scumming) we can now farm Binlor piety at the cost of 3 mana per 15 CP. This is a more managable 18 mana per mana potion, which coupled with BLUDTOPOWA, Rock Heart, and Dragon Soul may actually turn a net positive in mana, allowing us to actually pull of an infinite amount of conversions (and note that since the Golden Statue weakens us, we'll end up dealing only 1 damage to it per hit - since it is level 8, it will regenerate at an insanely fast rate, allowing us to do this practically forever).

This probably isn't actually worth trying - there's so much scumming involved, and unlike the Infinimuter, you're basically just permanently relying on the Dragon Soul cooperating, because if it doesn't, I think you still don't turn a profit on mana... it's an interesting thought, though.

[Nurator]

Yeah you are probably right... but fun to think about

The other puzzles are also really really hard I think I will tackle something else for a change, the last one made my head hurt enough for a few days...

Have you ever tried part 6 yet? I am a bit scared of Heretic Gold

[srid]

@Nurator

If you try tackling Heretic Gold, please be aware that there is currently a known bug that makes the game crash
if you use Mystera's Refreshment without any current god (which can only happen with Heretic).
I wouldn't want your run to end abruptly because of that.

We're working on a fix for the next release.

[The Avatar]

[shade_of_ox]

Lekon's Table (Gorgon) cleared!
@Avatar - the Gorgon is actually one of my favorite classes, so I chose not to heed your advice about clearing it with someone else first.
Details below:


I like to think that I'm pretty good at the Gorgon, and maybe that's why I didn't have a particularly hard time with this dungeon. I would actually rate this as easier than Flooded Foundry. It has more of the "Vicious" stuff in DD like last minute surprises that will throw you if you don't know about them, but the actual gameplay isn't particularly hard. I found Flooded Foundry more difficult because of the difficulty in navigating, which is totally different from how I usually play the game (I like to explore a lot and find out what most of my resources are before actually starting to play).

Here, navigation wasn't difficult (since I start with ENDISWAL) and although leveling was hard, the first boss isn't actually that strong - his attack is kind of high, but with a magic resistance approach like mine, I didn't have much trouble with him. The second boss also has rather weak stats, and he also gives you a bunch of extra resources (blackspace and weak level 10 monsters). Even with the health refill, I beat him with plenty of resources left. If Dracul or better shops spawned, I don't doubt that I could do this with VT pretty easily.

Overall it was a fun run. The gimmick is fun to play around, the monster types are kind of difficult but not too scary (though I hate Cultists whenever they show up) and the bosses are a challenge to get through but not too annoying once you figure out how to deal with them. I would probably compare this dungeon to Namtar's Lair in that the first boss has a high stat bar that you need to reach, while the second boss is hard to deal with if you're not prepared for him. However, the Sacrifice doesn't have any traits that really complicate things (especially with Binlor eroding him left and right) which makes this even more straightforward than Namtar.

I'll discuss the reward in a spoiler:


As an aside, I don't think I mentioned this for Flooded Foundry either - I love the lore and story that these dungeons have! It ties in with the lore for the rest of the game very well - I really felt like I was playing Namtar's Lair or Dragon Isles for the first time again. Very well done by you guys!