The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Zot Zealot

Posts: 1004

Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Wednesday, 30th September 2020, 16:38

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

Your gear isn't particularly good, but it's understandable for this phase of the game.

I'd probably use the +10 artefact sword instead of the +1 great sword - it's true you don't benefit from being a formicid ability to wield a 2hander 1handed, but the extra accuracy would be really helpful. Especially in Spider.
You trained too much shield skill - formicids only need 9 skill to wield a kite shield. The extra xp could have gone into fighting, invocations & evocations. You need more invocations to properly benefit from Ely IIRC. You could even have reduced the skill investment in longblades to 14 (eudemon blade mindelay) until you find something worth enchanting.

Obviously you'd have been more survivable if you had used the enchant armour scrolls, but I'd also have held out for some dragon scales. Is +0 plate armour really the best you could find?

In spider, if you had used the eudemon blade and dug kill holes, you should have been able to survive quite well. Shoals was always going to be hard with this character.

For this message the author petercordia has received thanks: 2
HawkI, sanka

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Saturday, 2nd September 2017, 16:41

Post Wednesday, 30th September 2020, 17:39

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

petercordia wrote:Obviously you'd have been more survivable if you had used the enchant armour scrolls, but I'd also have held out for some dragon scales. Is +0 plate armour really the best you could find?


I didn't check hard enough for an alternative.

I look forward to using this knowledge in my next play through. Maybe I won't lose so easily.

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1131

Joined: Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 15:03

Post Wednesday, 30th September 2020, 20:45

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

EDIT: Sorry, I somehow missed petercordia's answer, who covered mostly the same things. Nevertheless, I leave this response here, I am too lazy to edit.

Never go Depths if you feel underpowered for rune branches - Depths is way more dangerous.

You got a "deformed body" mutation from a neqoxec. Try not to get into LOS with them - orc sorcerers summon them, and you should always kill the summoner, not the demon. With litle bit of practice of positioning you can kill the orc sorcerer without standing in the LOS of neqoxeces and such. The mutation gave you -5 AC, one of the worse kind of mutations for your character.

The +0 plate armour seems really bad luck. If I would find a plate armour of fire resistence, for example, I would enchant it up. A +3 (or +4) plate armour of some useful resistance (fire is the best IMHO) is good and not very rare at this point if you search for enchanted plates. I would have enchanted something like it with +7 enchant armour scroll. This again would give you +10 AC.

Remember: dying with +7 enchant armour scroll in your backpack really sucks - use them early rather than waiting for some perfect armour.

You also should have enchant up the cloak (which would matter if you are lucky enough to find a better than +3 plate).

Formicids can not berserk. This is generally a big drawback, but it makes the Zealot's sword more convenient to use (although not more powerful)! You should have used it, with +10 enchantment it is still a really good weapon even if its brand is useless. It also gives you +3 EV. Also, you should simply stop training long blades till you find a better weapon - which may take a while. A +10 eudemon blade is good even without a brand, in particular it is much better in spider than your +1 great sword of flaming.

I am not sure how much do you abuse your digging, but spider is the place where you really should. Dangers in spider:
1. Pack of fast monsters that surround you before you can retreat. Solution : killhole.
2. Confusing but week monster. Solution: killhole
3. Monster that destroys your AC from the background. Solution: killhole
4. Monster that makes you slow it is in your LOS. Solution: killhole
5. Monster that fires you from a distance and annoyingly tries to maintain distance. Solution: killhole
I think you can see patter: just dig a killhole and draw monsters there. With Ely you can simply heal up after you have killed a bunch of monsters.

With Elyvilon pacification (Heal Other) is a very good ability, and to the best of my knowledge spiders are animals, which makes them easy to pacify. You should have trained invo much higher (instead of the quite useless Shield skill and continuing training Long Blades skill after you found Zealot's sword on D15), and use it a lot in Spider.

Beleive me, with +15 AC (35) and a +10 eudemon blade, using killholes and pacification you should have beat Spider quite easily.

For this message the author sanka has received thanks: 3
andrew, nago, petercordia

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 305

Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Thursday, 1st October 2020, 00:56

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

I'd also have trained some Dodging. You could have gotten at least a few points of EV pretty cheaply; which would have helped some everywhere, but especially in Shoals.

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2173

Joined: Saturday, 2nd February 2013, 09:52

Post Thursday, 1st October 2020, 06:15

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

In this case, the killer was a spark wasp. As far as I know insects can't be pacified for some extremely dumb reason. The wand of para was the best bet, although maybe at 2 skill it is not that effective. A killhole would have been good because you don' fight two at once, but still they are really dangerous.

Also, along the same lines, can spiders be pacified?

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 305

Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Thursday, 1st October 2020, 06:37

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

I think the game considers spiders to be insects. But hasn't the rule against pacifying insects gone back and forth?

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2173

Joined: Saturday, 2nd February 2013, 09:52

Post Thursday, 1st October 2020, 19:11

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

andrew wrote:I think the game considers spiders to be insects. But hasn't the rule against pacifying insects gone back and forth?

Wow! Yes, you are right.

In my defence, this change (that insects can be pacified again) is quite recent, it was made in... erm... in 2015 :D

For this message the author Magipi has received thanks:
andrew

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 305

Joined: Friday, 13th December 2019, 01:33

Post Thursday, 1st October 2020, 21:14

Re: The difficulty spike from exploring to getting runes

Though, in fairness, the wiki on Elyvilon still says they can't.
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