Monk still ridiculous + a guide to playing this game

[gjaustin]

[Lujo]

The only way I'd let potions except health and Mana potions into shops is the following:

The fortitude and burn salve become "super" versions of the healing and mana potion, exclusive with their lesser conterpart as preps, only possibly appeat in shops instead of them and remain at 15 gold. I'd monve the Tiki Tooki potions down to lvl 2, again, with no ossibility of them taking the place of stuff with serious conversion points, and I'd do the same for the 2 remaining potions.

I'd also take whoopaz out of the game, as it's a silly prep anyway, and you could just lower the hp on all of the ridiculous bosses by the necessary amount.

No other way I can think of would make me consider unlocking all that stuff.

On an unrelated note, the naga city run that I was sort of bragging about just earlier didn't register. I totaly deserve that for wasting so much of my sick leave on spamming these forums and playing this game. Anyway, here's a more ilustrative example of why the monk is WRONG:



It's not really obvious from the pic, but this was a run smoother than the last. No HALPMEH, no dragonshield, no collar, no desecrations, only two gods, no whoopaz, no soul orb, no poison ward, no trisword, no cydstep, no time investment, no difficulty.

The only differences from the previous run is preparing the burn salve (I've unlocked the witch, but didn't do the quests), and using it to kill a higher lvl goo and a higher lvl serent at one point, gettin the blacksmith subdungeon (which was huge, as converting everything but the badge gave me 15 GG piety and another stack of dmg), and a rather funny sequence when i was trying to get one more hit into Frank before I lvl up off the Goblin boss - and dodged 4 times.

The god sequence was GG, lvl 2 absolution, humitlity, I took a cleansing at some point I think, Enlightment, some more iety farm, swap to TT, XP boost (I think), Poison, Dodge, went below leaving 2 potions and a perservarance badge, sank money into TT, converted to drac, took +1 lvl +20 piety, took Blood Shield, took pactmaker for Consensus, went Mysteria and remained there untill the end taking 3 mana points along the way.

Only potions I drank were if there was no other way to remove poison or mana burn.

I know you can beat this lvl with other classes, just nowhere near this easy.

[gjaustin]

Ha, wow! Very nice.

One SERIOUS complaint though. You should be taking that Meatloaf out with you for the questline so you don't have to deal with Slime Pits

Also, I'd be amused to see you try this with Transmutation Seal instead of Conversion. Could you even find something to do with the 350 TT piety you would get from that?

[Lujo]

[gjaustin]

The only thing I can think of is to play a Halfling and then convert all your health potions to Reflex/Quicksilver. Maybe a Rogue so that you have the 20% base dodge?

Edit: I also can't take credit for coming up with. I don't remember who it was, but it definitely wasn't me.

[Lujo]

[gjaustin]

So I've converted my non-Vampire profile over into my main profile, meaning I unlocked the rest of the classes and some more deities (Taurog, Dracul, Earthmother). This has let me compare them somewhat to GG and TT.

Taurog is pretty awesome. He gives you so much piety and Skullpicker + resist item is frequently worth the loss of 2 mana.

Dracul is definitely weaker now without Blood Power. In a lot of cases he's just a weaker version of Taurog. He's great to desecrate though and another 15% resists is always nice.

For Earthmother, let me just say not to pick her on Ick Swamp. I converted to her and had to start killing plants. I beat the level with 78 levels of Corrosion She's situational, but at least she has 2 situations. You can use her early to get the free IMAWALL for a lot of experience. A couple levels of Vine Form can really help killing a high level monster as well. You want kill 10ish enemies, use Plantation, grab some Vine Form, and then petrify plants until you can convert out.

Her second use is as someone to convert out to. Convert with 58 piety, take 3 levels of Vine Form, then use Plantation. You'll have 100 piety! Take 3 more levels of Vine Form, then use some of your extra piety to clear plants (making sure to leave 5 for another Plantation). You could probably even just immediately convert out to a THIRD deity with some bonus health and piety!


I also need to check to see if Earthmother hates life steal or not. If she doesn't, combining Vine Form and Dracul's life steal could be a pretty nice combo.

[Darvin]

She does hate life-steal, so you need vine form first and then blood hunger second.

[TigerKnee]

[Lujo]

If I unlock EM as my third god, preparing the burn salve would be like starting every level with both the "Piety" and "Indulgence" preparations for the low-low cost of having 2 corrosion and paying for the burn salve prep. That would also mean I get Enlightment and convert out easily every time. If I have 5 piety for a cleansing then only one lvl of corrosion, and if i have 15, then I get only 10 from desecrating EM, but I can also afford to get rid of poison twice, manaburn twice, and weakening twice, which is sort of awesome. And the ten i got would just mean Humility and absolution cost me nothing, and I get to piss GG off once straight after taking enlightment ^^ (and if that means getting rid of a low level monster thats blocking my path, that's a big deal).

I'm still on the fence between taking her for the ease of use, or Drac for übercheezing if I need it.

I'll upload the pic later today, as my net connection is bugging out (and I't didnt register my win -.-), but I've completed Naga City with a Dragonshield Rogue with no conversion stone, HALMEH or cydstep. I used absolution at lvl 3, enlightment and troll heart to u my HP (and I made good use of the boold symbol earlier). I used dragonshield, patches, enlightment and blood shield to up my resists to over 50, and i used conversion Scroll on a glyhp - by converting one more glyph you get the first 2 stacks of orc conversion.

Also I think they either nerfed all of the bosses in Naga City or just Bleaty. The damage was still the same but I two shot him (and I'm having rather less problems with him than ussual this whole game). How did I two shot him? I had a bit more than 120 damage (not too high for a rogue), took the potion boon from TT, drank the dodge potion, smacked the meatman untill my dodge was up, than drank the double strike potion and smacked Bleaty once for a level up A do-it-yourself cydstep, much more gratifying then the regular "immortality on a stick" pre nerf cheatcode, IMO.

Anyway I'll upolad the pic later today, I guess.

EDIT: I had to do it 2 more times before my win registered, it's quite doable, but more difficult then it was in the first run. Takes a bit of god juggling. In the last run, the one that finally registered, i had HALPMEH and needed it, because I had to desacrate TT up top to have enough piety to join him down bottom. That took my dodge away, and denied me the popcorn piety on top. Taking Absoulution at lvl 3 is a bit of a problem, and with Rogue - you have to. It's still sort of "normal" or "hard" rather than vicious when played this way, and the bosses have deffinitely been nerfed (their HP at least). This time I didn't need potions to kill bleaty as even after 2 -10 HP +20 piety boons from Drac (needed to convert out) I could just barely survive a hit from him and first strike him for the second hit. I still had the potions (took them instead of the poison, wouldn't you believe it), and they came in usefull against the warlock.

Oh, and i took 4 weakenings, and I desecrated EM for 2 corrosions (cleaned 3 up with a handy-dany burn salve). I also managed to clean up the first 3 bosses while still in GG so I used the extra piety for a cleansing. I really whished I had Troll Heart - the HP stays and I'd get the conversion and piety bonus (and then i'd have a bit more HP for taking piety from Drac). Playing this way is really gratifying for making you use more of your brain and resources in these "tricky" runs - you know it's doable but you still have to deal with what youre delt.

Oh, and whaever you do, unless you're the monk - don't convert fireball.