YAVP: Faithful heart, healing and fire.

[Remora]

For my second cycle, I went for a good old orb of power character who started off with ice dart and sticked with being an icy character. Right now my character ha Sudden Chill, Freezing Touch, Absolution, and several passive ice abilities and tormentor. I recall having moments of mulching enemies like dispsas (with a little help from allies like an early nokken). Currently this character is in the mid tower, about the 11th to 13th floors.

Early on this character favored agility over magic, but I started to prioritize magic after using Transpose Soul to get Sudden Chill from Ccoa. I have picked the SEPI and capacity upgrades so far, as well as refine brand right before I stopped playing today. My early game had encounters like culler ilomba and a freybug on Tower:3, which I put off fighting until I got through Arcadia because they were that much trouble, and an asrai link in which I briefly copied mob cover onto my PC to increase chances of survival. Translator is good for such plays in a pinch.

This run has been decent so far, albeit around Tower:9 my party got drained pretty badly so I had to recover by recruiting new allies like an ala and an aitvaras in Anzu's Sanctum. I've also gone for another healer demas, whose resistances compliment my PC's decently. For several early floors I had an arachne ally who I gave the "fiery" modifier to who served me well from Arcadia to Anomaly, but got hurt badly and was ultimately replaced. Now I've got plans to seek more new allies to replace some of my increasingly underleveled allies to reliably make it to the later tower; perhaps I might put good ole whirling from Vikhor onto something for the first time in quite a while.

Anyway, it feels good to be playing Demon again! It certainly has been a while, but I've quickly gotten back into the hang of it, even if I make mistakes here and there.

[Ferret]

Hey Remora Good to hear from ya again.

Heh, not sure I'd heard of someone using Call Demon to do a protect link to recover Max HP before, but I don't mind it. Roguelike devs have the reputation of thinking of everything, but speaking at least for myself, I like surprises sometimes!

Sounds like you had a fun time on the new floors, and even survived a bout with the dreaded (or hopefully dreaded) Thrones. Damage over time effects definitely ruin Hecate's day, and it's a good thing they do. The first player to report running into her got near insta-wiped by Lampad and Serenity-powered chain screen nukes from her. Pretty much can't let her be in view and full HP/SP for any length of time.

Holy groups are only continuing to get worse as they get more and more variety from the ever-growing number of angelic/holy demons in the Tower. There's still ranks of the angelic choir to go... and as golems demonstrate, they can get some extra help from holy, if not angelic, sorts too.

Well, Kayna didn't get her target by the sound of it, but at least she managed to kill something. She's my first experiment with an "assassin" style Hero. Frankly after all the trouble with early incarnations of Adria, I'm always nervous trying out new kinds of heroes.

Congrats on the win; it sounds like your 2nd cycle's already off to a good start. Thanks for the reports!

[Remora]

Whew. It's been nearly a year already. To say the least, last year wasn't a convenient time for me to play Demon. I did start playing Demon again some months ago before the latest floors were added; I had a game that got around halfway with a well fed nuppeppo ally, but I didn't finish that in favor of starting a new game in the latest build.



I had a lot of fun this game, doing the good ole "All in vitality" build. For a while I held onto a brand that could be used for beings level 26 and help, giving a ~2% regen bonus and ~20%+ speed, which is great. It's decent enough for escaping, and it did indeed come in handy for slowly taking down Valindra. The passive ability "Discipline" is pretty new to me, and so I put it on my character towards the end, replacing Uncursing Aura. I find that aurapretty good but I kind of wonder how good it is with these abilities. I really figure it depends on your priorities, but given my lack of Focus for a while (earlier I traded that for the aura) at least accuracy debuffs were shorter. My character had about a 103% bonus defense against like-level status effect slinging. With regeneration, this character could easily get well over thirty hit points back in a single turn. Perhaps this character would resemble a being like Buu from Dragon Ball Z more than a human high into the tower.

The early game was not kind for me. I had to deal with drained allies a lot. I also skipped Anomaly:3 by mistake; even though my party was not in great shape at the time, not good enough to finish off the remaining mobs on the second floor, I would still be willing to sneak around there. Recovery did take a while; I was lucky to have a gold offering, so I managed to nab Anzu in his sanctum. Too bad I couldn't get that semi-early demas for a healer to replace my nero, but I still got one a few floors later. Even Anzu ended up being drained in his sanctum, so I had to be really careful for the next couple floors, with my recovery resuming with recruiting a zagh. My most reliable ally for a while had been a brutal aspis, capable of charging into enemy groups. Eventually I managed to get Ninkasi after a rough battle with her cohorts, and she had been given poison bite and venomous from the aspis. This made her a pretty good frontliner, given her decent agility and cunning. With her, Anzu, and Pele I stomped through Tlaloc's sanctum with little trouble. I recall Phoenix's sanctum not being too bad either. In short, throughout the mid Tower I recovered very well, with my early game struggles hardly being relevant anymore. Maybe it would've nicer to have some more resources, at least, but I managed to accumulate enough to survive the late game. It makes me wonder if this particular build is weak early on but decent later into the tower.

The difficulty started to pick up quite a bit again around Tower:23. Before then I decided to do a somewhat experimental fusion and made a yuki-onna into a healer from my demas. She was decent enough at it. I managed to recruit a lampad and gave her Anzu's Fearsome; Anzu did a lot of work for me for a while, but I figured his time had come given how deadly late game enemies can be and how underleveled he was by then. Hecate and her band gave me a lot of trouble, but I managed to slowly defeat them and get into Ammit's sanctum (For the first time ever). Ammit herself was recruited immediately with another gold offering. I figured that fight would have been significantly harder if I did not do so, but at least having reliable access to panic and charm helped even the odds. A couple floors later and I recruited a jorogumo, replacing Ninkasi. She got a charming dance ability which was really good, letting some battles go by easily with power charmed enemies do a lot of the work for us. For much of the late game, my group consisted of my yuki-onna, jorogumo, and Ammit. They were a pretty strong group. Even then, some groups gave me trouble like the night gaunt and their alien allies, at least for the first couple encounters. I did have to skip one floor because of Kayna, who was way too deadly for my group. Voloh wasn't too bad, though. Overall, the late tower had its up and downs, but more battles were in my favor.

The final floor itself, which is new to me, wasn't too bad aside from an encounter with destined cherubs, virtues, and dominions. Even then, subsequent encounters with such groups were easier. Apparently Ammit wasn't great for these fights, with my meamei being a lot better for them. By the way, I got pretty amused a the meamei link, of which the many snake creatures got instantly charmed by my jorogumo in a hallway. It really does even the odds. My final couple encounters had a marmoo to help me out, but I ended up failing its link. Before ascending, I messed around by using Call Demon for asrai and unicorn links to recover max HP for whoever was still drained and to use up my remaining credits. The damage values are pretty brutal on the low level minions.

Overall, this game was a lot of fun for me after a frustrating early game. Like I've said, it makes me wonder if this kind of build is weak early on but stable midway through. I figure there's some room for flexibility, given how a lot of these all vitality characters generally go for the same abilities; I do think about other abilities that could be good. I just love having Malleable and Bright Blood for awesome regeneration, though. I'm a regen fiend! That aside, I can only wonder what will come next, given that the final few floors are pretty rough, but fairly doable if you have a well-balanced party.

[Ferret]

Hey. Yeah, the last year's been pretty rough for a lot of folks, but nice to see a win report from you again.

I like high Vitality myself sometimes. The buff bot flavor of it is fun, but have you ever tried a MaxHP draining/Draw Wounds flavor? You end up with a ridiculous amount of HP potentially (your character there, in theory, could reach over 400!) and the ability to share the benefits with your allies. Not necessarily better/worse than being a buffbot/tank, but might make for a different twist on a favorite strategy.

I appreciate the detailed account of your recovery from early difficulties: it took awhile for Demon to get there, but I've tried for awhile to make it so you could potentially recover from nearly any setback short of actually dying (or having almost all of your party actually die.) It's always good to read not only that this is possible, but to get some of the details of it. Offerings are definitely an important item for it: though it's fun to use them on high level out of depth demons, they're just as useful for quickly getting healthy allies to carry the load for injured/drained ones. Not sure I've heard of Ninkasi has a front-liner before, but it's cool that you found a way to make it work.

Sounds like you had some fun with the newer encounters in the late game. Charm effects can definitely take a lot of the sting out of some late game encounters; though many groups have some answer to it by then, there are still enough that don't to make it worth having some access to it.

I'm glad you had fun with the run, and congrats on the win. I agree it's possible the build is a bit of a late-bloomer, even though many of the abilities you used are available early. I think it may come down more to available allies and their abilities? Early on, when damage values are relatively low across the board, having a somewhat non-contributing character damage-wise may hurt your offense more than it does later once 85-115 Power abilities come online? Well, it's a theory anyway.

Thanks for the report, it was good to hear from you again.

[Remora]

>have you ever tried a MaxHP draining/Draw Wounds flavor?
Maybe a few years ago, but I haven't done much of any MaxHP draining builds in quite a while. I tend to overlook Draw Wounds.

>Early on, when damage values are relatively low across the board, having a somewhat non-contributing character damage-wise may hurt your offense more than it does later once 85-115 Power abilities come online?
I guess that makes sense. Given the Vitality extremity, it does make such a PC a bit of a lame duck beyond being a meatshield. I think I did make some mistakes early on, so maybe it's just my fault. It does feel like that sometimes, though.



Anyway, my next game was pretty close to the end. It was a "dark take of the usual buffer build, favoring cunning some alongside vitality. I actually got Guadium in the early 20s floors, and with Channeling it becomes an excellent opener for starting just about any fights. However, in order to cheat against my mirror wraith, I removed it from my PC after using the buff, figuring that I could get it from a revived demon. Turns out that I may have forgotten what I got those abilities from, and as a result I lost Guadium for no good reason. In hindsight it wasn't a bright idea anyway because I had a few escape options to waste the wraith's Gaudium buffs (e.g. using a wind card or stepping into Thor's sanctum). While I did win the ensuing fight thanks to Bigfoot and Ammit, I did end up shooting myself in the foot just to get ready to shoot my mirror self. Thor's sanctum didn't go too badly though, at least not until the corpse encounters. This one here I got into a bad position, I figure. I got charged once or twice and I got beaten into a pulp by hitdudes with all the offensive buffs. I'm pretty sure I would have won if it weren't for my poorly-thought out Guadium ridding.

Ending aside, this run was actually pretty smooth throughout the entire game. My other ending allies were a brewmaster jorogumo (again), an eyekiller, and a death worm. My civatateo was a healer and Bigfoot had Headless's modifier along with a +20% speed brand at the cost of 6 magic. Maybe I would have grabbed something on the next few floors but this team was probably solid enough to reach the current end. For quite a while I had a lot of light weak and/or fire weak allies, but I had at least been lucky with not encountering that many fire mobs.

As for my PC himself, like I've said, I went for a high vitality and good cunning build; my third relic upgrade was Alter Self, so I got to make those two stats even higher. My first two upgrades were Nightingale and Revive Demon to get that Faithful Heart flavor. My last upgrade was Far Summon 1 for the classic Vodun Mask relic trait, and before that I got Copy Saver and Fusion Saver. I did spend a lot of credits throughout this game, but towards the end I was accumulating a lot as seen in the screenshot. This character started out with Protect and early on got Weaken rather easily. The idea here was to have a supporting build that gave defensive buffs to allies and weakened enemies to improve odds of survival. It was actually pretty good throughout a lot of the game. Whether I buff or debuff first depended on some factors, such as enemies having options for buffing or removing debuffs and range limitations. As one could expect, they go along pretty well. Eventually I got Wither from a polong to replace Weaken and Distract, and so I got Absolution for some extra support. I often ignore Absolution and its variations but I figured it would be a nice way to help out given this character's light resistance and high vitality. I gave up Oppressor for Resolute from Tremane. For a while I had Blessweaver but I think Ever Ready replaced it. I also had Vigorous from Zaiji. My character's brand for most of the game had been a +2 SP regen buff with 50 or less SP, which made me figure that I didn't need Vigorous too much. Later on I came to favor buffing allies when my SP was lower because, unless if Infected, I should have enough SP to do so.

For some other encounter notes, I think I saw all the cryptids aside from Slenderman. The black eyed kids turned out to be a nasty bunch, taking out my civatateo in a single turn with their Gazes. I did see Mothman for the first time. It would have died right away if I didn't initiate its link, but I was in no position to keep up. That punishment was painful! I also ran into that Horns of the Hunt summoner for the first time ever. It wasn't hard to kill him, albeit the resulting relic explosion kind of spooked me, especially given how little of the floor I had explored then. I also managed to defeat Kayna for the first time thanks to Gaudium and a debuff rune with a few glyphs to spare. She's too much!

Overall, it was another fun run, even if I didn't survive to Tower:29. I really enjoyed playing this character build. I think this run seemed smoother than the last one early on is because of somewhat better ability synergy on my character; a generalist buffer ain't bad, but this character had most of its niche figured out early enough. That, and perhaps I just played a bit more wisely. Probably that.

[Ferret]

One of the most remarkable things about roguelikes is that often the actual cause of a defeat is far removed from when it actually happens. Sounds like that may have been the case here with the Gaudium loss.

It sounds like you give a fair bit of thought to trying to find ways to "save" ability slots (using more expensive SP-wise "2 for 1" abilities, using a Brand to replace a similar passive ability). For you, this is probably nothing new, but probably worth highlighting for any newer players who read this how valuable a strategy that can be for getting the most out of a build.

Mothman's punishment is a nasty one: it can easily force preservation mechanics on low Vitality/low level targets and there may be no saving you if you're weak to Dark. Kayna's a special one: my first attempt at making an "assassin" style hero. I think she definitely works: she can be absolutely terrifying in terms of damage output, but she's also much more fragile than most heroes you'd run into at that point.

Congrats on another good run; even if it wasn't a win, it was a solid attempt.

[Remora]

I've been grinding more all vitality buffer builds. Well, not really.



This was from last week. This game went smoothly overall. I think the late game encounters that gave me the most trouble were yuki-onna and mulassa groups and a group with some destined charuns and caladrius; the former was an issue due to my party's lacking fire resistance (and rather over fire weakness even) and even with all the mind resistance the mulassa are rather effective at inflicting panic. The latter group I had to kite for a while just so they would no longer be able to use guadium, and even then they still had a might or haste cry.

My party was pretty solid. I had an aeras for quite a while that got replaced by the impundulu, inheriting Exorcism to help fight light-weak groups. I also had a corrupt zagh that had Assail Body which got copied onto a polong, and that proved to be a very nice ability to have. On the final floor I defeated Voloh by having that on the impundulu and meamei. I had a major alicanto for such a long time that it eventually got replaced by the meamei. I had Iron Mind from the original fusion and it did my party well; you can't go wrong with shorter panic and charm even on a mind-resistant entity. On one of the very last floors I put Dancing from Turdak himself onto my polong and impundulu for the heck of it; I've come to realize that Revive Demon is useful for a sort of modifier and ability storage, and I've gotten a lot out of that recently. Sometimes I end up losing the demons I want to retrieve attributes from through eager linking, though.

My character had a nice speed and HP regen increasing brand. Most of my party had a brand that greatly reduced SP costs in exchange for some strength; being a demon was also necessary. I'm sure only my impundulu and Baba Yaga didn't have it.

In the meantime, I did various other runs like this and that, which mostly ended in the earlier half of the game. I'm pretty sure the next attempted build after this win was another buff start but with Titan's Fist, going into a character that leaps into combat with high agility. I had some fun running around with a maj. ghoul and whatnot, but I perished around the fifteenth floor (I recall visiting Baphomet's Sanctum at least). I also tried a "Frostful Heart" build like the one I did a few years ago, which was actually going decently for a while but I started faltering badly after learning that my party wouldn't be able to defeat Adria, falling after Tlaloc's Sanctum. I also had a couple Horns of the Hunt runs, with the last one being a slasher who managed to get a brand that, after using a slash attack, gets +~20% more speed and +~2% HP per turn too with a vulnerability to ice (which was redundant on this PC). It did falter too, ending around the 8th floor. I would encounter its wraith and a few others in the next game.



This run was okay, albeit bumpy. Early on I had a maj. flying head, well fed Aspis, and Vikhor, among others, but I decided to sacrifice them all for a kaw kaw on Anomaly:3. A big price to pay indeed. It wasn't too bad, though. I did start recovering my numbers with a blob and an aithir, and then I got Revive Demon to get my aspis back, which served me for several more floors before it was fusion fodder for the kaw kaw around Tower:15. I also got a huo sho from a past wraith and a level 10 alma. I got a new healer in the form of a happenstance lifegiver atua, which I transferred aditional abilities to from a nero. I got a demas in Anzu's Sanctum and it simply stayed the way it was. My party was totally vulnerable to ice damage throughout the mid Tower along with fire damage. Around Baphomet's Sanctum, I recruited a ben nefillin to make into the next healer. I bothered to drag it to the end of the game; base level 20 doesn't seem like an optimal level for an end game ally at this point, but it did okay when there weren't any light or electric attackers along with anything else capable of massive raw damage from a range.

In Tlaloc's Sanctum, I got a corrupt civatateo with a silver offering. It had Assail Body, which is highly desirable for me. Anansi made for a good disruptor and calmer for a while before being fused for the irijaq. I found it frail, given that it quickly got drained when going into Athena's Sanctum. On that note, this game is my first time going there and encountering Athena in general. For my irijaq, I decided to get rid of its Haunt and give it Assail Body. My final lasting recruit was meamei, acquired with a bronze offering. Earlier then I had to use a silver offering to get an immortal rakshasa. Tower:22 was rough, with a group of yuki-onna and mulassa beating my party badly and Valindra being something I'd rather avoid. A corpse with the rakshasa I checked before moving on also proved to be a rather rough fight. Earlier than that again, I did use a bronze offering to get an ikiryo when a few members of my party were drained. Those two just ended up being sacrifice fodder for negotiations. I also had a lampad from Hecate's Sanctum, which remained unmodified.

For a note about brands, early on I managed to find a good brand for my summoner: for this much vitality, you can get this much speed. My summoner got that initial vitality by level 6, getting +15% speed. It turned out to scale rather slowly, but I eventually got it to 24% (25% by the final level). I managed to find a nice brand that reduced SP costs by 6 with 50 or less SP remaining, so at least the ben nefillin got it. The meamei spawned with a brand that gave it a really high magic value, but then I gave it a brand with an even higher magic value in exchange for having no slash attacks. By giving her the well fed modifier, she also got a nice SP recovery ability.

The late tower wasn't too bad. An encounter that stands out in my mind would be one that involved some defiler thrones and cherubim. There was also a corpse encounter on the final floor that had a fatewarper marmoo with Dolor. Even with a wind card, it was a pretty narrow escape. I had a couple ghost chimes and used them to encounter "Dark Vitality" from a few posts ago. Aside from the former self's eye killer and death worm, his party was pretty much a stone wall against mine, with neither side making significant progress in damage. Wither certainly dragged things on. It took long enough to kill them twice over. I also had a couple mirror chimes and those fights also went similarly; the sheer durability of the mirror wraith is pretty notable, even with its fire weakness versus a meamei and no body resistance.

I will also note that the thing that kind sucks about the former character's build is that with only Gaudium it can't do much else. At least it's a waste of a panic/charm target. Rabblerouser is nice for repeated buff usage, though. My latter character still had Grace at least, which was okay, even in those seeming-stalemate last floor wraith battles.

[Remora]

Today had allso been a good day to play Demon, so I've already won again. One more note I'll say for Returning's run is that I got some mileage from Iron Mind in that game as I didn't have Calm in my party until after recruiting Anansi and then linking with a polong. I know there's a couple other things I've forgotten to say but I can't think of them right now.



It can be noted that I messed around with Call Demon at the end.

This run was another fairly solid all vitality buffer run. I managed to get Rousing Cry early on, making for a nice support ability for the entire game. It's definitely nice to have even with Gaudium. I also got the fitting Iron Will early on. It most likely helped here and there, but it was more subtle than Iron Mind. My PC had a brand that gave more speed and HP regen after a certain level; by this point it was level 31 or high for +19% speed and +2.0 HP a turn. It's always nice to have some extra speed on your PC. I put it onto Ammit as well. On the other hand, my civatateo did have even higher magic and some extra SP regen at the cost of 10% speed. I got Vigorous Aura towards the end to replace Blessweaver after it was no longer needed at all.

One of the most notable allies of this run was a bmola that I gave fiery as well as Punish with Judge's Mien on Tower:9. It did quite a lot of work for me for a while until about the time it reached level 25, of which it was fully replaced by my volcanic civatateo. My party did have a lot of electricity weakness for a while, but I wasn't really punished for that. I did have trouble with light groups and a little more with panic and charming than the past couple games. At least towards the end I got Far Summon twice to find a little way around Ammit getting charmed sometimes. I also made use of unicorns. Even if they were underleveled, they were still good support at times when something else like polong was drained.

Ammit's Sanctum was pretty nasty this time around. A lot of my party had chipped max HP damage from a lot of encounters if they weren't struck near death. I decided to just sacrifice Ninkasi for good to Ammit in this game, for a twist. At least Revive Demon makes those choices much easier than without it.

I've also just come to realize that I should probably just take Inspire from Lampads in the late tower once I get the Gaudium + Channeler combo. Faster turns are too good.

Right now I've got a debuffing Orb of Power character on the third floor. I want to see if I can get Dolor and make results with that. I won't be having three victories for three days in a row, though; I know I'll be busy tomorrow.

[Ferret]

I have to admit, I always assumed Demon had decent replayability because of build variety: I'm not sure what to make of the data point your recent runs represent of frequently trying very similar builds over and over. I can't say identical of course, but they're definitely closer cousins than many people would play for consistent win/near-win builds. (Granted, it sounds like you did try some others in less successful runs too, but still!)

I was hoping the Assail abilities would get some usage. I wasn't sure what folks would make of their offer of unreliability (in terms of which effect they apply) in exchange for being able to apply multiple different effects over time with one slot. Though, the offer is a bit different in Assail Mind's case since most of its effects will shut down the target, it's just a matter of how and for how long. It's always good to see the Iron abilities getting some use too: when I figured out I was never going to be able to make status protection less "required", instead of trying to figure out how to do that, I focused on offering plenty of different ways to get there (instead of the old days when it was either resist/immune the element or have the removal ability.)

Speed brands are probably one of the more popular types to use, but that's eons of roguelike lore talking: permanent speed ends up being powerful in pretty much every roguelike that offers a route to it, even in smallish amounts (and Demon's aren't always so small, depending on the brand!)

I've never had the impression Revive Demon or Call Demon get much use, so it's always glad to hear about someone using them, even if just to mess around a bit in Call Demon's case.

Inspire can definitely be a very, very good ability in a wide variety of situations. Being able to trade your turn to a demon can be remarkably useful in ways it can be hard to list out. If you combine it with Refresh, it can almost be like passing out Chakra Stones at will (provided your own SP holds of course.) There's probably a build somewhere in just focusing on Inspire and anything else you can use while spamming it (free actions, auras, passives, etc.)

Thanks for the reports, and congrats on yet more wins. I look forward to hearing how the Dolor build goes when you get around to it.

[Remora]

Hoo boy. It took me a while, but I did get to that Dolor run after numerous other runs, successful and not.

Here's a large image of my party and score of this run:


My character build wasn't quite like that of my "Dark Vital" of before, having favored some strength and agility here rather than going heavily in vitality and cunning. For most of the game, my character had an offensive role after applying evasion and defense debuffs. Slash Dance was favorable, as I had a brand that increased cunning and reduced SP costs by a few after moving. Throughout the game my character had other abilities like Tormentor, Swiftness, Slowing Aura, Fearsome Aura, and Low Profile. An essence boosted my agility at one point, so I had it level for the remainder of the game after letting it have a negative bonus but still increase for a while. My character managed to get Dolor from a manananggal by using Revelation on it. I settled on Wither from a Polong for the general debuff ability, which is nice for increasing chances of survival.

I managed to get an early peluda in Anzu's Sanctum; even though the stymphalides accompanying it perished while I was trying to prepare the link, I did manage to get it by having a shikigami take out an ala and an umibozu from a corpse. I gave it baleful from that shikigami, and it did have Rage alongside Vigor Drain. Civatateo was gotten easily with a bronze offering in Tlaloc's Sanctum. Death worms were the only rare encounter I saw with enemy lure and I made use of one with the Well Fed modifier. Even with a brand that made it even slower, it did pack a punch. My ijiraq replaced Ninkasi herself. The two Meamei were recruited from the same group, one with an offering. I still had Pele from Jayle (poor Kamapua'a didn't stand a chance) so the first one got her Volcanic and the second one replaced my Dominion to get Gaudium more often.

The game was pretty solid throughout, with not a single enemy spared. Another early powerful recruit was an ooze in Python's Sanctum, with it spawning in an area that it could get easily cornered in. While it did move away from that hallway, I was able to keep up with Swiftness. I gave it Well Fed, eventually replacing it with the death worm. It definitely helped with Madevra and Paracelsus afterwards, along with many other encounters. Nonetheless, it is not invulnerable, so even enemies like corpo-secco and stymphalides harm it a lot. Anzu's Sanctum turned out to be pretty tricky for me, with the ice groups there having given me quite a bit of trouble. I did get a bmola and managed to get a tuofei (which was quickly preserved and then replaced). At one point I was cornered by ice-slingers, but I barely made it out. For once I decided to stick with a gandayah healer, giving it the nero's healing abilities along with a couple others, and so it got replaced by demas. My peluda was naturally another powerful recruit, but I do remember it going down against Mordecai, who I managed to defeat by using a chakra stone on my bmola.

I did run into a dominion in Tlaloc's Sanctum. By that point I had Dolor, so my party became incredibly powerful. I had Ninkasi swap out with it for every second battle; she had Calm for the dominion's Mindwatch. Dolor is very strong as well, and with Gaudium a lot of fights can end in a flash. On that note, I do think it's fair how Miracle abilities are somewhat limited on allies with them, even if they have Channeler. It makes one have to usually invest in another ally for its use to be more consistent. That aside, one late game encounter that did spook me was one with ibong adarna and bruchas. I was being patient with Dolor, waiting for the right moment to use it and using Wither in the meantime, but my healer got disabled and my PC got petrified, leading to a lot of hurt. At least I got to step out of the way in time. It does go to show that even when you're really powerful in this game, you can be a couple turns away from defeat. I had Telvora show up with Enemy Lure, and her team was pretty nasty, with her asura in particular dishing out lots of damage. I managed to get out of that okay, at least.

On the final floor, I had four mirror chimes. After clearing everything else, I started to use them. The first mirror wraith went down really fast, probably due to the mirror party getting thoroughly Charmed by my ijiraq. The second mirror wasn't as easy, and I defeated them using a lot of my resources. The third mirror was the hardest of all, most likely due to having many less items. My civatateo and ijiraq got preserved, so I relied on my volcanic meamei for healing via Stellar Burst. I resorted to copying Calm onto my character (replacing Low Profile) just to support my allies against the mirror's ijiraq. Even if it was slower, every time it had a turn it was able to do some kind of disruption due to its excellent SP regeneration. Before this fight, I also got to apply that Sa-Ef-Le-Pa brand to my death worm; even if it was very slow, every Chain Lightning attack packed a punch. I also removed Rage from my peluda so it would use its more damaging abilities more often. The fourth fight went somewhat quicker, as I cheated a little by removing my death worm's Poison Veil and Exterminate, only giving it two new abilities after summoning the mirror. I also put Alluring Dance (replacing Fearsome Aura) onto my PC to help even the odds, and I used a Night Rune to take out one of the mirror demons while the mirror wraith was asleep. Once more I defeated the mirror, and so I went on to end the run.

I don't play with online features often, so all of this made me wonder what "Ghost Wins" people have left behind on Tower:29.

All in all, this was a very fun run. I think right now I excel with buffs and debuffs, maybe too much, but it may be my specialization. I think I'll list my other wins of this month so far and give some more general thoughts tomorrow.
My current run is on Tower:9, being an Orb of Power character with Stellar Nova, Weaken, and Cleanse along with passive abilities like Judge's Mien. It's been something of an experimental run so far. I've come to figure that Exorcist's Mien isn't all that great on a low power attack, for instance, so I replaced that already.