Turdak's Sanctum, YASD and ramblings

[wizzzargh]

So this is my second journey into Turdak's Sanctum, and it's been the end of both my characters that got past floors 4-5, pretty much due to user error both times . I killed Turdak really easily my first time through, but with a bunch of Fire Acheri my HP got beaten down and then I found out the hard way that Turdak had a leaping attack

This character was a Vodun Mask that started with Weigh Sin, Numbing Needle, and Regeneration, which was strong enough to pull me through losing all my early minions and basically showing up naked on floor 2 or 3. If it weren't for finding a lone Malingee I probably would've died, but after that it was just a matter of clawing my way back up through birds and fish. I ended up doubling down on the holy fish(one normal, one Blessed) because they were easy to ally with once I dealt with most of their buddies. At one point I had Numbing Needles, Blood Rot, and Venomous, meaning I'd throw a needle for a chance to paralyze, poison, and reduce offense, so even though my damage was negligible the debuffing was great.

I had a real bad time trying to close in on a centaur pack on floor 6 or 7, I think I lost 2 demons. I almost recruited a centaur but ran out of time looking for 1 more monster. The Heroic(?) buff when allying with a centaur in exchange for having no allies was quite fun though, I think if I had realized how good it was earlier I could have made that encounter go very differently.

All my holy fish were long gone by the time I entered Turdak's, so I was having a wretched time against Akateko, which absolutely ruined the Max HP of my favorite Aspis frontliner. I guess the nastiness of undead is a good argument for keeping an array of fire and holy ranged damage available.

This wasn't nearly as focused on using Veils as my first good run was, but I still really like stacking Veils on my frontline fighters. My character took a debuffing/support role this time and it seemed to work well.
Team was:
Level 7 Frigid Ukobach with Flame Touch, Freezing Touch, Poison Veil and various defenses. Was my frontliner for a while, but fell out of favor when holy attacks became common.
Level 7 Faerie- I feel like you gotta have a Faerie to teach others Healing Charm, without multiple healers to swap between it seems like you'd definitely lose demons faster than you gain them
Level 8 Aspis- Lots of hitpoints and lots of poison stacking made this guy my go-to for the front lines. Totally worth the 3 demons I had to feed to it.
Level 7 Carbuncle- Though they're certainly annoying to fight, I never saw much point in having one of these. It had some neat skills to pass around but I never really summoned it unless I just needed some fresh HP to throw into the grinder.
Level 8 Lilim- I wasn't really planning on keeping the Lilim around, but the next thing I knew she was the highest level demon i had. I used her as a sort of hybrid for healing and a defensive frontliner.
Level 5 Charged Kasha- After I lost all my sacred fish and Angel, I figured anything holy would be good to have even if it was low level, and I charged it up with one of the electric worms. Despite it all, it still felt pretty weak. I had a Lifegiver Kasha from a previous run that was really great, but I was really struggling to keep this one alive.
Level 4 Psychic Preta- another demon I didn't really want but ended up staying with me and leveling up a bit. Mainly it was helpful in hallways, where I could have myself and Aspis hold off the enemy while this guy bit them and a healer healed.
Level 7 Acheri- Picked it up in Turdak's Sanctum but never used it.

Anyway, I found this game a few days ago and have been having a blast with it and wanted to share my experiences

[Ferret]

Hey. Welcome to the forum, and I'm glad you've been having fun. Turdak and his sanctum used to be somewhat easymode, it's only lately that I got them balanced to what seems to be the proper level of nasty. Still, if you haven't been playing long, you're doing really well to be able to get there reliably.

I'm happy you like Numbing Needle as a secondary. I was a little worried about that one when I put it in. Physical attack with a status aliment is a hard direction for any of the primary elements (except Pierce of course) to pull in since it requires stats (Agility and semi-optionally Strength) they largely don't use, but it sounds like you found a great way to put it to use as a multi debuff delivery system.

Centaurs are... pretty nasty. They actually should have Arrow Shot (85 Pow) instead of Needle Shot (70 Pow)... but that just made them too ridiculous that early in the game. If I ever do give it to them, I'll have to move them up a fair bit in the Tower to give players more of a chance to prepare methods of dealing with them. I only haven't done it already because lore-wise they're a great choice for the "Heroic Duo" capture mechanic and people seem to love that, so I'm not inclined to move it further up where even fewer people will see it. (Tower:6 is already unseen territory for 90%+ of the players!)

Akateko: They have claimed many deaths, either immediately during encounters with them or later because the MaxHP they drained had rendered key allies (or even incautious summoners) too squishy to survive future battles. Fun trivia: A friend of mine actually came back from being personally drained to 23 MaxHP by the little red jerks and ended up winning that game. I have no idea how he survived the Tower's upper floors long enough to regain the MaxHP, especially since he was playing a summoner focused on Veils himself.

Speaking of veils: they are pretty powerful, especially when stacked. There have been two wins by summoners (including the friend I mentioned) who stacked Veils on themselves, so I'm not surprised you did well with builds that either did that or put them on the demons. I'm keeping an eye on it power wise, but... honestly, not even close to in a nerfing mood over it, just watching it. Demon's not even close to content complete, what am I going to do, nerf something because it gets to Demon's version of Lair slightly more often than average?

Pet comments:

Ukobach: Huh. Haven't heard of these as a frontliner before, but multiple types of Touch skills and their high Magic would certainly have their DPS pretty high. They aren't low HP, just slightly less than average, so good defense choices could definitely make them tanky enough with good heal support.
Faerie: Healing is one of those things players seem to disagree on a fair bit. There are definitely folks like you who go heavy on it, but I've talked to others who use very little. Me, I'm just happy both are valid workable choices.
Aspis: Some of my friends call this guy "Puff the Magic Asshole" because of his art and his often ridiculous negotiation demands. But given the amazing Poison abilities he comes with that he's happy to teach to anyone who will listen, I admit I'm pretty okay with that. He's one of my favorite frontliners too.
Carbuncle: Full debuff demons like this one tend to be a bit too specialized for most player parties, and it doesn't help when they have iffy HP. That said, it's too early in Demon's life for me to give up on them yet, people are always finding new uses for demons that I didn't intend/anticipate, so I'm hoping that will happen for this and similar demons.
Lilim: Lilim is another one people have trouble finding a role for, but tweaking her into a support role works out well, she's got the stats for it, and Mind resistance is great to have on healers so they don't get crowd controlled into not doing their job. If you keep her original skills, she's also great at dealing with threats that close on her.
Kasha: Yeah, being a few levels behind definitely hurts a little for something that's going to be taking hits, especially if it was only average-ish on HP to begin with.
Preta: Ghost Bite is often underestimated, but it's one of the most powerful abilities in a hallway battle. If you have 1 or 2 Ghost Biters and the enemy doesn't, you have a pretty massive advantage. As you get further in the game, other methods of hitting from behind your own allies become more common/reliable, but even then, Ghost Bite remains one of the cheapest and most reliable.
Acheri: Kinda like Carbuncle, this one hasn't really found a place in many players' hearts yet, as far as I can tell.


Thanks again for signing up for the forums, and for the write up. You're getting relatively close to the end of the current content already (Tower:17 is the current end of the content), but I hope to be back on content development before the end of the year. I want more levels to play in myself. Cheers!

[wizzzargh]

My new character (another Numbing Needle fella, this time with Pierce Shot and Venomous) got through Turdak's sanctum without problems (my Violent Zombie was immune to 90% of the tricks of the place and I had a Holy Atua that knew the Holy Cone Attack along with the usual nasty Atua tricks) but then I died on Tower 10 when I got greedy negotiating for a Deadly Hob and ended up with 11 HP and got bull rushed by a Chachapuma, stunned, and killed. No worse temptation than seeing shiny new special monsters. I very nearly died earlier against 2 Bmola who staggered me so hard that they got about 6 attacks off before I could move again, AND I didn't even manage to recruit one!

This run was interesting, I managed to clear Tower 1 1/2 but didn't manage to get Headless, instead getting a Solid and Violent zombie. As time went on, my strategy ended up being focused on evade step, mob cover, evasion, and Slash Dance, which made everyone pretty hard to hit while simultaneously being pretty good at dealing with enemy packs, especially with Venomous allowing them to poison everyone they hit with Slash Dance. Ran into another centaur pack and this time instead of losing two demons just approaching them, my dodgy demons and I evaded most of their attacks while closing to melee, then shredded them with Venomous Slash Dances. Also, this run I finally found out what this 'Spirit Chime' that everyone wants was...

Level 8 Violent Zombie was a good frontliner, though the slow movement was painful.
Level 8 Solid Will o Wisp had great survivability, and was great in corridor fights
Level 7 Lifegiver Goblin and Lifegiver Preta were my main healers, though since they knew attacks they were much more aggresssive than Faeries. I also managed to get Soother instead of Healing Charm- amazing how much more efficient 20 vs 25 MP is, even with the limitation.
Level 9 Brutal Aspis- I only upgraded it to Brutal fairly recently, but 'Puff the Magic Asshole' is definitely my favorite poisonous brute
Level 10 Solid Akateko- Akateko with loads of HP and dodging. Pretty scary stuff combined with its high speed.
Level 9 Brutal Chachapuma- I think this guy had potential but alas I died before I could really load him up with awesome skills. He had that passive ability that gives a 35% chance of causing Guilt on slash/pierce/blunt attacks and I thought that would be awesome combined with Slash Dance and Evade Step.
Level 10 Deadly Hob- Deadly to me, at least... this guy sucked down 90% of my health and 2 heal stones before finally deigning to join me. I shoulda let him rot and been satisfied with the regular hob I already had.

I'd post a shiny picture to break up these walls-o-text but frankly I'm not sure how to.

Though I know the game is unfinished and I haven't seen anything past Tower:10, I gotta say that I really like the difficulty curve of what I've seen so far. Things get tougher and have nasty tricks, you sort of get to the point where you can handle them without too much problem, and then a new monster set shows up that both challenges you and offers you cool new monsters and skillsets. Also, I really enjoy how whenever a demon dies, I have the mixed feeling of 'oh no I lost all those invested skills' but also 'oh boy now I have room to recruit something cool'

[Ferret]

I'll get to actually responding to your post. But first, I wanna see if even I know how to post images here.



Okay, yeah, that works. Replace the ( and ) I use below with [ and ], then fill in the web address of where the image is:

(img)replace_this_with_the_web_address_of_the_image(/img)

[Ferret]

Oh yes. Negotiating with specials has led more than a few people down the sadness hole. Especially hobs, they're greedy jerks... but then, they know they have an awesome set of abilities.

Headless is not always the best zombie of West's group: sometimes he gets some truly amazing random mod zombies. I actually had to nerf the Pierce-flavor mods because his non-Headless guys were sometimes drawing Needle Shot, basically turning it into a very early Centaur encounter, with the Centaurs having a strong healer. It was pretty bad. Even these days though, you can still get some strong abilities on them from time to time.

Tanky passives are pretty awesome. Evade Step alone helps a lot with approaching nasty ranged attackers... a 33% minimum miss rate makes it much easier to for a healer to keep you alive through the approach. Add in Evasion to push that to 43% and you're almost certainly going to be okay. Have you experimented any with the other "branches" of tankiness? Things like Juggernaut and Oppressor? These can be fun too, and have the advantage of not being completely shut off by Stun, Shock, Panic, Paralyze, etc in the way dodge/block type defenses are.

Spirit Chime Yeah, there's a reason everyone is looking for them. They're rare as all get out, but ... having seen one, you know why.

Party comments:

Violent Zombie: Swiftness helps a Zombie a fair bit. If you ever find a zombie you REALLY like, you could sacrifice Vihkor or Turdak to a matrix to give him their unique +Speed modifiers... but man that'd have to be one hell of a zombie to justify that.
Solid Will o Wisp: I'm surprised even a Solid one survived this long, those weaknesses can be murder in the mid Tower. That said, if you're careful to very, very quickly recall him when running into things that use them, I can imagine he would serve you very well during other times.
Lifegiver Aggromonsters: I have sometimes used Preta has supporters myself, though I try to get rid of Fade if I'm going to do that: the SP burn isn't worth it to me for something I'm hoping will stay out of trouble. Ghost Bite is a great backup attack for a support character though. Even Infectious can come on handy at times, though it gets much better if you can at least upgrade to Venomous.
Brutal Aspis: He's one of the earliest demons you encounter that actually just comes with everything he needs: many other early demons have holes in their ability sets, but Aspis is pretty much ready to be a poison tank out of the box. If he's missing anything at all, it's gap closing and sustain. I usually toss them something like Dash/Swiftness/Pounce and Flesheater.
Solid Akateko: These can be tough recruits, but they're amazing little monsters if you manage to get one.
Brutal Chachapuma: Chachapuma are definitely the heavy melee/DPS of their area of the tower.
Deadly Hob: Funny to see a physical attack mod show up on a hob. I'm kinda curious how he would have worked out.

I'm glad you're liking the difficulty curve so far. It definitely took some work to figure out. Demon's style of combat is somewhat unique in RLs, so I was/am kind of my own for figuring out how to approach some problems. The plan is to get back to adding content somewhat soon... it won't just be attached to the end of the game either, I definitely want to add more side dungeons and such to the lower floors.

[wizzzargh]

I'm just going to use this thread for my eternal YASDs

My new character was a Titan's Fist who used the 100% accuracy slash and bloodlust to heal and deal damage with the same option. Cranking strength up past 40 (or maybe +40% damage, I don't recall) made my damage most excellent, and I didn't need to worry about Agility since I had a 100% to hit rate. Later I had Slash Dance and Mind Reader that let me deal are of effect damage and heal myself really efficiently, and Frost Veil helped me hit things with slash dance despite my low Agility.

DEAD DEMONS


I made a Frigid Chindi that got to level 7 with lots of dodging that was really great, but it died on a turn of inattention when the enemy started getting lots of Impact hits in. It had Tormentor or whatever gives 5SP every time it hits someone with a negative status effect, which let it always be ready to Haunt or Snuff Out someone. Also, his new sprite was really cool. I still like some of the old sprites better, but overall I think the new tileset is better.

I also had a Blessed Zombie who acted as healer/buffer. He came with the Might buff, which given that I was a melee brute, was really good.

I found a solid Will o Wisp that had Triad Ward, which I rapidly spread to most of my demons and myself. I ended up sacrificing it to recruit a Deadly Angel with Ghost Bite. I really like the new recruitment mechanics, they're more clear AND more flavorful.

I also picked up Miodchaoin and a Centaur(that I made Psychic!) but I ran into an absolutely brutal double pack of Ghouls, Lilim, Ilomba, Carbuncles, and Asrai. I was stunlocked and sleeplocked for an absurd amount of time, and I basically could only watch as my allies were slaughtered while I only got to act once every 8 turns or so. We did a lot of damage to the pack, but the problem was that when my 3 demons finally did die, I was obviously incapable of repositioning while asleep and was completely surrounded and couldn't summon any replacements. I finished off a great number of them with slashdance and the healing it afforded me, but ultimately it wasn't enough. If I had stuck closer to my demons and opened up the fight by removing some Lilim before linking with the Ghoul, I think I could have beaten it.

[Ferret]

Sounds like a pretty good run, overall. I find it interesting that while you started with a build that didn't need or use Agility, you switched into one that, while it did now use it, still didn't need it. It sounds like it worked fairly well too: Mind Reader and Frost Veil are definitely a great way to largely bypass any need for Agility on a pure melee character (they also have a similar effect on enemy accuracy, attackers were likely missing you now and then even with what I assume was minimized Agility.)

Thank you for the feedback on the new sprites and recruitment mechanics: I'm glad you're enjoying both. Modified negotiation-capture demons are definitely one of the times when the negotiation system comes into the spotlight: in many standard negotiations, it's relatively easy to refuse some of the more painful requests made since chances are good you'll find another of that demon, but when you're dealing with a (probably) once in a game encounter, the stakes are much higher. Things that may usually be outright refused when talking to normal demons (like agreeing to unsummon your allies, or discarding abilities or demons) suddenly become matters of consideration.

Any successful recruitment of Miodchaoin (except by use of a Gold Offering) is automatically worth a cookie. He's probably one of the toughest to recruit demons in the game right now. This being the internet, I can't actually give you a cookie, and you shouldn't get one anyway because you apparently used a Gold Offering

Ick on that double pack. Ick ick ick. Melee range sleep is a much bigger problem when there are a lot of stuns being flung around to let them get in melee range to begin with. It's going to go even worse for a Titan's Fist build, being weak vs. Mind. Mind is usually a fairly tame weakness to have, but when it becomes relevant, it's fairly nasty.

Still, a good run. Thanks for the YASD post and feedback, I really appreciate it.

[wizzzargh]

You might want to take back that cookie, I got Miodchaoin with a Gold Offering

[Ferret]

Cookie revoked!

[wizzzargh]

Whew, now that the DCSS tournament is over I have time to play GOOD roguelikes again


Another silly death in Turdak's Sanctum. I myself was using Snuff Out all game, you'd think I would have appreciated it getting used against me. A bunch of chilly will o wisps was pretty annoying for this character- he was obliterating with something like 75 magic and frost rings. That massive AOE damage even let me covert a Cynocephalus by freezing all his buddies and herd humans. They're pretty cool guys, I guess, though Fire Breath is really hard to get allies to use and though it was nice, I had trouble using it myself because of its short range. Still, the hellhound-man was pretty cool, even if I never really skilled him up to be on par with my other dudes.

Character started with Frost Ring and the two mind abilities, the direct ranged 40 attack and the self-area 40 attack. The ranged direct attack was weak but good for finishing things off or just when Frost Ring was inappropriate.

I found a LOT of early golden matrices, 4 by Tower 1 1/2 iirc, and never a silver matrix. Sadly I never managed to recruit any uniques- Vikhor resisted two night runes and ran away, and I had to kill Headless to get a Brutal Zombie and a Kasha on my team. The Brutal Zombie was well worth it though because it knew Slap Silly, so later on the primary attack of most my demons was Slap Silly, and disabling enemies with Panic while I rained hellish cold down upon them was pretty effective. So goblin dodging, soul eater, and Slap silly supplemented with some Fade and Flesheater was the repertoire of the Goblin, Malingee, and Wisp, with some Tormentor thrown in there to keep things MP efficient.

I didn't go heavy on the healing charms this time, instead keeping healthy via Flesh and Souleater, with occasional Draw Wounds from a Lifegiver Freybug and later the Ilomba. It worked fairly well because my personal nuking power was so impressive, but running into cold-resist enemies both shut down my damage and delayed party healing considerably, so I did end up keeping Healing Charm on my own character for emergencies and it saved me more than once- against packs of monsters with ranged and elemental attacks, if they all suddenly focus fire on you, sometimes trying to reposition would be lethal and healing is the only way to survive. One of the reasons I don't like having Low Profile on my own demons- sure I can't shoot through them, but then neither can the enemy.

I picked up the Charged Ilomba and Lilim in an interesting sort of way. Since Ilomba just require you to kill another being to recruit them, I was able to quickly recruit them by finishing off the Haletik/Gandayah pack that I was fighting before the Charged Ilomba/Lilims showed up, dismissing each new Ilomba as I got them so I could keep recruiting them. Then I picked up one of the Lilim because hey, why not.

I like the new maps, much tighter and almost no pointless autoexplore. The 'enemies coming in to fights halfway through' really is more interesting than double encounters as well.

Oh, using Snuff Out so much made me curious- does the %chance to kill get boosted by Magic or Cunning or nothing? And what about stuff like Blood Rot+Infectious Bite- the physical damage scales with Strength, but does the %chance to infect scale with anything? And whatabout the secondary debuffs linked in to that system- do those scale up or down with anything?