0.20 How to Warper

[MainiacJoe]

Now that Wr has Gells' Gravitas and lost Portal Projectile, it seems pretty underwhelming. Not starting with a Lvl 1 spell is a clue that you ought to hybrid from the get-go. Lesser Beckoning, Teleport Other and Gell's Gravitas seems to need high spellpower. Am I right that one ought to get Blink and Shroud online and then wait until after melee is online to invest more in Translocations?

[nago]

The loss of portal projectiles doesn't matter at all, as Wr never had a ranged option to start with.
GGravitas is shit, lesser beckoning is nice in some situations but except for chei char you can get the same effect almost always just moving back behind a corner.

In other words, Wr in the back was a shit background focused in run away until you get sometihng to kill not laughable enemies with and now is the same - so yes train melee skill to get some offense and don't focus too much on translocation. However teleport other is a good spell which doesn't require a lot of spellpower against many dangerous target so learn it.

Bonus: if you wanna enjoy as a Wr use Trolls.

[MainiacJoe]

New AM looks like it got a lot more feasible by gaining Portal Projectile.

[duvessa]

I don't think you can really call Wr a shit background when it still starts with a scroll of blinking

[nago]

I don't think you can really call Wr a shit background when it still starts with a scroll of blinking

I wasn't ranking it powerwise but from the point of view of annoyance, Wr is probably the worst among all (but this is a quite subjective preference)

[Fingolfin]

Also Warper has a lot of potential flavor-wise, the idea of the wizard that warps space to move around and gain tactical advantages is extremely appealling (to me at least) but it feels very wasted. (Also, sorry but I have no idea how to fix it)

[MainiacJoe]

I mean, if Blink is all you're using the starting book for in the early game you may as well Wz.

[tasonir]

Also Warper has a lot of potential flavor-wise, the idea of the wizard that warps space to move around and gain tactical advantages is extremely appealling (to me at least) but it feels very wasted. (Also, sorry but I have no idea how to fix it)

While I'm nothing more than an armchair designer, I think the problem is that translocations are either so random that they aren't very useful (regular blink), or if you make them precise they're absolutely overpowered "solve the entire game except for zot where we break controlled blink" sort of powerful. Regular blink has its uses, but it isn't really amazing, and it also is part of wizard's spellbook as mentioned.

Trying to come up with even simple translocations effects such as "Cast a level 4-5 spell (decent mana cost, investment) to move two tiles in any direction" sounds 'weak', but really translates into "have perfect escapes from every 10 speed melee monster in the entire game", and is not something that's going to be added. It isn't easy.

Moving Cblink to 8 was a good nerf, but it's still basically the defined answer to the difficulty increase of new tomb. The biggest drawback to Cblink now is that it may not generate in your game at all.

[duvessa]

the big cblink nerf was degrading it to completely uncontrolled blink in zot

Trying to come up with even simple translocations effects such as "Cast a level 4-5 spell (decent mana cost, investment) to move two tiles in any direction" sounds 'weak', but really translates into "have perfect escapes from every 10 speed melee monster in the entire game", and is not something that's going to be added. It isn't easy.

idk, wall jump lasted quite a while

[mibe420]

Warper is pretty good imo. You get a weapon choice so you should train a weapon at the start of the game just like any melee start.

Shroud of golubria is usable with no additional training and is a pretty good buff in the early game until you find heavy armour.

The real MVP of the book is passage of golubria. It is single school and doesnt care about spellpower. Even at its most basic use it lets you create distance from a monster for going up stairs or getting away from ranged monsters. With just 1 or 2 casts of it, you can run from a monster while its not in your LOS. You can also chain it together to run from fast monsters and even go all the way back to the stairs. It is almost as powerful as c blink, just with somewhat more limited usage. You can also do some other stuff like make monsters walk into them to create distance, or break line of fire.

Now even if a warper wears heavy armour immediately you could still get passage of golubria castable by the time you finish lair, since its level 4 single school. Its pretty usable at ~15-20% fail too, as long as you dont wait to cast until you are almost dead. It works better if you cast it before you start luring, so the thing you are luring is at the edge of your LOS or even beyond it. Just dont try to go for it too early. Passage stays useful throughout the entire game until zot, and is basically a free pass on any exploration or positioning mistakes you make.

Important passage of golubria tip that was not obvious to me at first: You can enter the portal by stepping onto it, OR by pushing > while standing on it. So if you have multiple portals out and pop out in the wrong one, just push >. I used to think you must step off then back on again, this info was a huge game changer for me.

Lesser beckoning isnt very useful but you get it for free when you go for passage, and it does provide some utility, like stairdancing polearm monsters.

IDK about gells though, I have never not regretted the turn I spent casting it. And Ive never learned teleport other either, I would imagine you would be better off trying to hex a monster with wands if you want to beat its MR

[Hellmonk]

I have to agree with the people saying that Wr is a strong start. From a theorycrawl sense, having ?blink identified and available from turn 1 is just incredible. It's an almost guaranteed free escape from a bad early situation where you might not have any options on another start. I find wr miserable to play on bad species though, as you start with mediocre ability to kill things and end up having to run/blink away a lot. It's also really good to streak with in tournaments on a strong but not overpowered species, or on an overpowered species that is overvalued for scoring purposes (centaur and troll often end up here, demigod always does but is more fun as a mage start imo). You can just get blink and then go all in on heavy armor melee/ranged and win pretty fast while mitigating the big earlygame streak risks.

[Rast]

translocations are either so random that they aren't very useful (regular blink)

It's a great escape option before you put on heavy armour.

[ThreeInvisibleDucks]

translocations are either so random that they aren't very useful (regular blink)

It's a great escape option before you put on heavy armour.

And pretty good escape options after you train CBlink online.