Love Hate Relationship

[Chaos]

I love this game and have spent way too many hours playing it but I hate hate HATE RNJESUS! I will play through the first two stages dozens of times trying to get a specific build and never see half the spells I need even after dumping hundreds of coins into reforging. It'll give me absolutely everything but what I'm looking for in triplicate.

Does the random generator for spells lean towards specific builds based on the character you start with and the spells you use to "help" the player, or is it just pure random and random absolutely hates me?

[Ryvaku]

It doesn't hate you. You just haven't found or noticed all the spell combos that work really well together to get you through the game with ease.
I still get the spells I need pretty often.

[wulfster42]

Once you no longer need mana crystals you could spell them to block out more spells initially, this especially can work well on rare spells, so if your combo say includes evil sword, block out all the rare spells (other than the ones for your build).

This also lets you get the auto cast rare spell easily fast as well (making that character pretty much worthless). I like evil sword as my active (even if it isn't the highest damage) because it blocks/gets rid of most attacks, hits large numbers of enemies/groups at once, and if you block out most/many of the rares, is very easy to upgrade.

Honestly the biggest rng for me is the relics, but there are ways to help with that. Every so often I get REALLY unlucky, but always take the extra choice and re-roll relics as often as possible. Always take relic choices when offered (never take shortcuts).

If you don't short cut, I almost never end up without level 2 of the coins to damage upgrade (which is the last time it makes a huge damage difference). I conserve coins as well, hoping to get a re-roll (first or even better first and second slot) relic to roll them. I only generally use a store to get keys in a pinch (or if there is a spell I just absolutely need, but that is rare).

Aim for the large increase of coins relics early if you can as well (8% chance to get coins from killing etc).

There is an exception for the store being useful btw, if you can get the red relic that always gives you the potion portion of the store. You can get ALOT from that. You will often get re-roll potions that way, but most importantly drop to 1 hp and get 30% of your health as max health.

Those potions along with the fountains can increase your max health a HUGE amount along the way (no need for the heart doors at all). You drop to 1 health but get 30% more max health, and then the fountain brings you up to above what your max health was.

Say you start at 200 health, use that potion and you jump to 260 max health the first which is about 3x what you get from a heart doorway. The second time you jump 78 max health and it keeps increasing from there. Not needing health doors means you can take shops instead (more potions) and you can get spells from the shop instead of from spell doors (still always take the relic doors though).

Anyway RnG gets much less if you get certain setups like that. With re-rolling shops you can pinpoint the spells you want pretty well (not using potions using the machine). It costs coins but....if you are getting tons of potions, there are alot that give insane amounts of coins as well (30% of your max health as coins etc). This can boost your coins total a ton fast. I try and get the 5% of max coins per door (capped at 10) asap as well.

Anyway, love this game, and rng can be frustrating but you can also zoom through the early parts and just reset/end the run if it's going really bad. Basically if you get horrid/not many relic choices early on. Spells are...fixable long term pretty much.

Relics....build over time, and if you focus on them, you get so many by stage 5 that it's really rare not to get the ones you need, the question is, did you get the important ones early enough to pump up your coins count and get the relics you wanted (relic choice bonsu > Reroll, but a combo of both (with at least 5 choices) is the best.

[HellSlayer]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Once you no longer need mana crystals you could spell them to block out more spells initially, this especially can work well on rare spells, so if your combo say includes evil sword, block out all the rare spells (other than the ones for your build).

This also lets you get the auto cast rare spell easily fast as well (making that character pretty much worthless). I like evil sword as my active (even if it isn't the highest damage) because it blocks/gets rid of most attacks, hits large numbers of enemies/groups at once, and if you block out most/many of the rares, is very easy to upgrade.

Honestly the biggest rng for me is the relics, but there are ways to help with that. Every so often I get REALLY unlucky, but always take the extra choice and re-roll relics as often as possible. Always take relic choices when offered (never take shortcuts).

If you don't short cut, I almost never end up without level 2 of the coins to damage upgrade (which is the last time it makes a huge damage difference). I conserve coins as well, hoping to get a re-roll (first or even better first and second slot) relic to roll them. I only generally use a store to get keys in a pinch (or if there is a spell I just absolutely need, but that is rare).

Aim for the large increase of coins relics early if you can as well (8% chance to get coins from killing etc).

There is an exception for the store being useful btw, if you can get the red relic that always gives you the potion portion of the store. You can get ALOT from that. You will often get re-roll potions that way, but most importantly drop to 1 hp and get 30% of your health as max health.

Those potions along with the fountains can increase your max health a HUGE amount along the way (no need for the heart doors at all). You drop to 1 health but get 30% more max health, and then the fountain brings you up to above what your max health was.

Say you start at 200 health, use that potion and you jump to 260 max health the first which is about 3x what you get from a heart doorway. The second time you jump 78 max health and it keeps increasing from there. Not needing health doors means you can take shops instead (more potions) and you can get spells from the shop instead of from spell doors (still always take the relic doors though).

Anyway RnG gets much less if you get certain setups like that. With re-rolling shops you can pinpoint the spells you want pretty well (not using potions using the machine). It costs coins but....if you are getting tons of potions, there are alot that give insane amounts of coins as well (30% of your max health as coins etc). This can boost your coins total a ton fast. I try and get the 5% of max coins per door (capped at 10) asap as well.

Anyway, love this game, and rng can be frustrating but you can also zoom through the early parts and just reset/end the run if it's going really bad. Basically if you get horrid/not many relic choices early on. Spells are...fixable long term pretty much.

Relics....build over time, and if you focus on them, you get so many by stage 5 that it's really rare not to get the ones you need, the question is, did you get the important ones early enough to pump up your coins count and get the relics you wanted (relic choice bonsu > Reroll, but a combo of both (with at least 5 choices) is the best.

I spent 200+ gold trying to upgrade spells in gambling room and i always get nonsense. Its lucky to get 1star spell.. its best to save all gold for gold relic for damage because in that gambling room its 100% loss.

never had a run where i said "gambling room helped me".. nope its always dissapointment.

[wulfster42]

Ow wow that is some horrid luck. Also not all runs actually gain much from the gold relic (especially if you are going with a poison build). Poison builds especially gain a ton from gambling since you want as many poison, duration, Area and cost reduction spells as possible. Also all the +slots you can get.

If you have not tried one, there are a buncha spells you can use to put out a FREAKTON of poison fast. The thunder circle spell is super easy for instance. Then you take any wand with decently fast cast speed and toss in as many of the +3 slot spells as you can get (don't upgrade them, you lose out on slots that way!!

That gives you all the space for non-upgraded area, duration, poison etc spells (mimic spells non-upgraded as well). Try and toss in a fast cast, lower cost (even though it reduces duration it's still worth it, upgrade the low cost if you can though), and get at least 1 split (awesome if you can get + or ++ on it). That'll destroy everything and the gambling room is key to making that work.

For poison builds (with the poison chick) I like to go with 1 primary poison ability (thunder, boomerange with circles etc) and 1 evil sword (for blocking spells direct damage). Another option is to do either of them (with plenty of duration etc) and use the spell that turns you into lightning with duration on it as well. If you are not using circle for boomerange, you can use circle for the duration on lightning. Then you just lay down a ton of thunders (using all the mana very fast maybe with the cast 20 time buff or the fast cast etc) use lightning and everything is dead before you can be damaged.

Anyway there are tons of other uses for the gambling room that is just one example. One thing to note is getting 3 of ANYTHING lets you upgrade it,and then gamble the upgraded spell to get other upgraded spells (instead of trying to gamble for just 1 spell 3 times to upgrade it). Way more efficient.

Evil sword is great to have upgraded for instance, so is the crit star one once you get enough crit on a wand/run that it always does 150% damage (don't even need to charge it, but still can). The multiplier stacks btw with final damage on wands and of course with large crit multiplier from relics and can get insanely huge with enough slots.

Another slot I use is summoning, a great one for auto-cast or even better the semi-auto cast that doesn't reduce your mana regen but casts based on other spells you cast (which works great for summons since you only need to cast a set number of them (other than cutholu). I like to set up the summons with the upgrade and merge combo and then use my highest damage spell and duet (hopefully at least +) to pump them up. Can get some crazy high damage summons that follow you from room to room.

Anyway, I do sometimes go all in for saving money as well, but you can get fairly lucky and get 5% of coins (up to 10) per door, and chance for enemies to drop coins etc early on. You can also get potions that give you a freakton of coins (totally worth taking the relic that always gives the bonus room for shops/blacksmith because of the potions for instance). You can get mega high health with the potion that converts current health to 30% more max health (especially multiple of them) in combo with the healing rooms. So potions are freaking gold (especially if you luck out with the relic that gives a 30% chance to get another potion when you use a potions. Combine that with the +max hp/mp when you drink a potion for awesome results hehe.

I ALWAYS take the relic door (unless i'm sitting on potions to boost max health or coins or something and a fountain/health door shows up). Since relics are the hardest/most important things to get. Worst runs are when I don't get +relic choice (especially) and relic rerolls fairly early on. If you get the relic choice options early, it makes all your future relics more likely to be awesome/useful and by chapter 5 you are insanely strong.

Even re-rolling for a poison build etc, by act 5 I usually have 300+ coins and direct damage isn't even a major factor in that build (nice for the evil sword boost, but 400x5 from evil sword attacks kinda pales in comparison to the 30k poison per tick from thunder circles heh).

Anyway, i really suggest you revisit how useful the blacksmith can be. I do use the shop as well (with re-rolls it makes it likely for you to get the base spells you want, and you can get some very useful specific wands that you like (but they are expensive after the first few stages). The wand that boosts all wands regen, wand that boosts all wands area etc, all are awesome, and work great for auto-cast/summon etc backup wands (just usually want 2 primary wands that I switch between manually (not always but that is my goto).

Didn't realize for the longest time you can switch between wands with the mouse wheel. Never looked at the controls and was too lazy to use the number buttons. Once I found I could switch back and forth instantly with the wheel, it made a huge difference. Now I can spam 10 thunder circles, hit the wheel down and be using evil sword to eat up any bullets etc (and do extra damage) right away:)

[HellSlayer]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Ow wow that is some horrid luck. Also not all runs actually gain much from the gold relic (especially if you are going with a poison build). Poison builds especially gain a ton from gambling since you want as many poison, duration, Area and cost reduction spells as possible. Also all the +slots you can get.

If you have not tried one, there are a buncha spells you can use to put out a FREAKTON of poison fast. The thunder circle spell is super easy for instance. Then you take any wand with decently fast cast speed and toss in as many of the +3 slot spells as you can get (don't upgrade them, you lose out on slots that way!!

That gives you all the space for non-upgraded area, duration, poison etc spells (mimic spells non-upgraded as well). Try and toss in a fast cast, lower cost (even though it reduces duration it's still worth it, upgrade the low cost if you can though), and get at least 1 split (awesome if you can get + or ++ on it). That'll destroy everything and the gambling room is key to making that work.

For poison builds (with the poison chick) I like to go with 1 primary poison ability (thunder, boomerange with circles etc) and 1 evil sword (for blocking spells direct damage). Another option is to do either of them (with plenty of duration etc) and use the spell that turns you into lightning with duration on it as well. If you are not using circle for boomerange, you can use circle for the duration on lightning. Then you just lay down a ton of thunders (using all the mana very fast maybe with the cast 20 time buff or the fast cast etc) use lightning and everything is dead before you can be damaged.

Anyway there are tons of other uses for the gambling room that is just one example. One thing to note is getting 3 of ANYTHING lets you upgrade it,and then gamble the upgraded spell to get other upgraded spells (instead of trying to gamble for just 1 spell 3 times to upgrade it). Way more efficient.

Evil sword is great to have upgraded for instance, so is the crit star one once you get enough crit on a wand/run that it always does 150% damage (don't even need to charge it, but still can). The multiplier stacks btw with final damage on wands and of course with large crit multiplier from relics and can get insanely huge with enough slots.

Another slot I use is summoning, a great one for auto-cast or even better the semi-auto cast that doesn't reduce your mana regen but casts based on other spells you cast (which works great for summons since you only need to cast a set number of them (other than cutholu). I like to set up the summons with the upgrade and merge combo and then use my highest damage spell and duet (hopefully at least +) to pump them up. Can get some crazy high damage summons that follow you from room to room.

Anyway, I do sometimes go all in for saving money as well, but you can get fairly lucky and get 5% of coins (up to 10) per door, and chance for enemies to drop coins etc early on. You can also get potions that give you a freakton of coins (totally worth taking the relic that always gives the bonus room for shops/blacksmith because of the potions for instance). You can get mega high health with the potion that converts current health to 30% more max health (especially multiple of them) in combo with the healing rooms. So potions are freaking gold (especially if you luck out with the relic that gives a 30% chance to get another potion when you use a potions. Combine that with the +max hp/mp when you drink a potion for awesome results hehe.

I ALWAYS take the relic door (unless i'm sitting on potions to boost max health or coins or something and a fountain/health door shows up). Since relics are the hardest/most important things to get. Worst runs are when I don't get +relic choice (especially) and relic rerolls fairly early on. If you get the relic choice options early, it makes all your future relics more likely to be awesome/useful and by chapter 5 you are insanely strong.

Even re-rolling for a poison build etc, by act 5 I usually have 300+ coins and direct damage isn't even a major factor in that build (nice for the evil sword boost, but 400x5 from evil sword attacks kinda pales in comparison to the 30k poison per tick from thunder circles heh).

Anyway, i really suggest you revisit how useful the blacksmith can be. I do use the shop as well (with re-rolls it makes it likely for you to get the base spells you want, and you can get some very useful specific wands that you like (but they are expensive after the first few stages). The wand that boosts all wands regen, wand that boosts all wands area etc, all are awesome, and work great for auto-cast/summon etc backup wands (just usually want 2 primary wands that I switch between manually (not always but that is my goto).

Didn't realize for the longest time you can switch between wands with the mouse wheel. Never looked at the controls and was too lazy to use the number buttons. Once I found I could switch back and forth instantly with the wheel, it made a huge difference. Now I can spam 10 thunder circles, hit the wheel down and be using evil sword to eat up any bullets etc (and do extra damage) right away:)

Thanks.. well.. so far ive done:

going for invisibility + summoner chick. That lets me survive the most until, some poison flower boss or fire boss there, but my dmg lacks extremely. I will try poison build, its just no matter what i can never get the spells i want.

Also.. there is that i CAN DISABLE fountain, which i always do so that it doesnt waste room.

But somehow i cant disable octopus spell activation bundles. If i buy them, thats it, they will permanently stain the spell pool. Using other girl to block some spells is just not worth it. You get more useless spells than you can block.

Game too high rng unless i spend all currency just to block spells manually which is...ehh.... not fun. :)

[wulfster42]

Unless you are insanely overpowered (which you can totally get), the fountains are clutch (almost mandatory) in stage 5. I think you always get 3 choices before the final boss (shop/blacksmith/fountain), but A: you can luck out and get them between elite fights and B: If you keep a randomize door/shop potion (although they are soooo good for potion shops) you can re-roll any but the last boss door and get an extra room (it's usually shop, but it can be a fountain).

Fountain though is actually the BEST option along the way if you have any of a bunch of potions. The 30% of max health is converted to coins option is insane. Use it in combo with double all the coins/keys etc on the ground (or better yet more than one!!) and you can get an INSANE amount of coins. The 30% of current health is added to max health when used before a fountain actually give you more health afterwards than you had, along with 30% more total health. Being able to do that a few times (only can use 1 potion per fountain) can net you more health than any other method (say you do it 3 times, once at 200 health (adds 60), later you do it at 400 health (adds 120) and then right before the boss you do it at 600 health (adds 180), and BAM you have 780 freaking health lol (I if you have fountains on I think you always get one before the last boss, and it's VERY likely for you to get at least 2 of them before that).

Do disable the short cuts though, they totally suck.

As far as using the other girl to block spells, you get free ones (think it's 12 total?), more free ones the more spell things you have unlocked (last I think is at 8 or 9). On top of that you can buy more (20 more? Not sure), with mana crystals, eventually you don't need them for upgrades anymore,so what else are you gonna spend them on. You not only get them every run, you get the cores and the other currency which can all be transformed into mana crystals, so you could literallly block EVERY rare you don't want (spell that is) and still have plenty of non-rare blocks you could snag if you wanted. There are a decent number of useful rare spells though, and with the rare spell % boost maxed, it gives you a good chance to get whatever rares you don't have blocked (making it very easy to 2+ them. Evil sword, autocast etc (think there is like 4 really useful rare ones I leave unblocked). Strangely enough the ones I need the most are all normal not rare or epic. Area boost, duration, most of the spells I use offensively etc, they are all normal, so dropping down the ones I don't use (butterfly,lasers,wisps etc) helps a ton on ensuring a run goes well.

If you just go poison none of that is really necessary especially if you upgrade the poison chick (100 orbs I think it is?). With her upgraded you get poison stacks over 10k easily and don't even have to worry about aiming etc, so turn down spell/summon transparecy (so you can see everything easily) and focus on dodging and using evil sword to block bullets etc. Very safe/easy way to play through without relying on rng too much (seriously use shop with rerolls and blacksmith to get thunder circle and as many area,poison,duration spells as possible and you don't need ANY specific relics to finish the game. I usually focus on defensive ones as much as possible (still getting relic re-rolls/extra choices as much as possible). Dodge (44% or so is great), 25% less damage, any that boost max health (+max health/hp per potions), bonus potions (33% chance of another potion when you drink one), bonus chests etc.

Coin to damage is still great though so I always take that, but poison doesn't rely on base damage and it gets so high (many ways to quickly hit things (I like circle boomerage with the shoot 20x and split boosts for instance....it doesn't need area upgrades so you can focus mainly on poison/fast cast (just need 1),reduced mana cost (level 2 is 50% reduction which works REALLY well with the shoot 20x upgrade (which boosts cost by 5x (for 20 of them).

Boomerange though will not continue to shoot if you are in lightning form, but with the 20x shoot thing, you can literally pump all your mana out in a second and then pop back into lightning safely. That lets you save your area spells for evil sword so it can hit the whole sceen hehe.

Sword btw rocks and it's damage can get very high. You want multi-cast upgrades on it (2 of them at level 2 is great) along with Area boosts (more the better but 2 level 2 ones are enough to keep you really safe). Sword is always nice to have on switch for any build, unless your using lightning form to just avoid damage all together.

The crit star (charge for more crit) is also amazing, but it's a trap if you try and charge it (other than when first getting it). It works GREAT with the relic crit multiplier upgrades. All you need is the min amount of crit chance for it to boost final damage (after crit and all other damage modifiers). So at level 1 you just need 33%, level 2 is 66% and 3 was 100%. Anyway level 3 is an insane 281 base damage and with 100% crit rate (which is the only reason you'd upgrade it to 3), it DOUBLES the final damage (and that stacks with any bonusus on the wand btw. So with a base 400x (4x) crit multiplier from relics, and say 3x base damage boost (from coins/relics, spell buffs etc), you basically do 300 base damage, which becomes 900 after normal spell damage boost, that gets multiplied by 4 by crit, so 3600 damage, whichgets multiplied by 2 (final damage 200% multiplier), for 7200 damage per shot (and THAT would get multiplied by 1.5 if you have the right wand) Basically can be shooting for over 10k a pop with it many times a second (one way to get more damage output than poision, much faster (As it doesn't have to build up) but you won't be hitting the whole screen at once with it like with thunder circle.

I highly recommend shining star with the semi-auto cast one (Resonance rune) that reduces/negates the cost of casting (since shining star is expensive to cast). Long term I prefer resonance runes to the autocast ones, especially if i'm spamming one wand mainly. At level 2 it has a 50% chance to fire that other wand everytime you cast a spell (so if your spamming that is alot of times) and a 30% chance to not cost any mana as well!!). The auto cast fires...well autonamously .....but...it HALVES the wands mana regen (at least at level 2 it's only 80% of normal). Huge diff though since at level 2 resonance actually gives a 30% chance of no cost (effectively boosting regen by 30% in a way).

Anyway love this game, there is so much to do and play around with, so many good builds and spells. I have TONS of different combos to try still lol. Even after finishing the game I am still really enjoying it.

[HeraldOfOpera]

Originally posted by wulfster42:

Unless you are insanely overpowered (which you can totally get), the fountains are clutch (almost mandatory) in stage 5. I think you always get 3 choices before the final boss (shop/blacksmith/fountain), but A: you can luck out and get them between elite fights and B: If you keep a randomize door/shop potion (although they are soooo good for potion shops) you can re-roll any but the last boss door and get an extra room (it's usually shop, but it can be a fountain).

It's not luck. Stage 5 is mostly fixed, with that choice at the start, after three fights that are always the same three fights but in a random order, then after the half-time show there's two more fights that also always the same but in a random order.

[wulfster42]

Ahh, makes sense. Never paid enough attention, but it's good to know.

Def happy to keep fountain though because either A: I'm too powerful to care about other options by that point and am destroying the elites without taking any damage or B: I need them to top off my health.

Up until fairly recently that stage was really harsh to me, just elite after elite whittling down my health. The fountains were literal lifesavers lol.

Now, well, I have more stuff unlocked/upgraded, but more importantly I know how things work together better, and I know which relics are good long term etc. It's a pretty huge difference to be honest as so many relics are pretty meh long term, but if you take all the good ones, the keep adding up and working together so you end up WAY stronger at the end.

Dodge works even on boss attacks etc for instance, and the 20% more damage belt or whatever isn't even noticable at all if you end up with coins to damage (for that matter most damage buffs are meh because of it, although the 2% bonus damage per 1 point of lost health (especially upgraded) still matters alot. Crit multiplier bonus relics get better as it levels and again is a huge boost late game, etc.

If i'm really lucky I get coins drop from enemies and 5% coins per door asap, I don't need the coins to damage till later (if I'm even bothering with damage), I want all the long term relics asap. I of course also always take any +relic choice or re-rolls (well generally just 1 re-roll) asap as well.

Anyway, love this game:)