Can anyone explain how to play Morlock?

[Ouroboros]

I can't actually survive long enough to get all the pieces I feel like I need for a Morlock build. I don't just want to fill up my armor slots and completely negate what makes Morlock unique, but it feels like that's the only way to actually survive. 20% Max HP is, a /lot/, and the rewards just don't feel worth it.

Things I've tried:

1. Go for Horror Form ASAP, mostly investing in the blood tree. Blood tree doesn't provide any healing on dealing blood damage to yourself, build falls apart.
2. Morlock + Phoenix, go for fire synergies. Divine intervention burst of flame activates before revival, meaning that the heal from Flame Healing is useless, which is what I was really banking on to make this work.
3. Morlock + Hoplon, use the final prayer to get an absurdly strong weapon. Fell apart shortly after getting access to the final prayer.

Like, is this just meant to be the 'challenge race' or something? It feels extremely punishing for not enough payoff. The sacred skins aren't particularly strong, and you can literally get 3/4s of the Morlock's maximum prayer benefit with no downside just by playing priest.

[Draken]

I just tried it bit and it's definitely a tricky culture.

I did manage a first cycle win, which not all my first try builds can manage:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3250275297

You definitely want some kind of healing but the Morlock benefit is adjustable. If your build isn't complete yet, just slap a couple more armor pieces on until you are ready. You can decide between 0 to 80% damage at the start of a map and 0 to 4 prayer charges and summons.

You could take Morlock + Zealot + Phoenix and fire off a Divine Intervention every time you enter a map with less than 80% health. Then you could go for a Death Knight or Executioner to heal off of the kills you get from that.
Death Knight would work well with Cursed Flesh to further heal of dying enemies as well as get more armor from Master Doom or boost your Sacred Skin with Dread Legion.

Angra with Blood Drinker as advanced class might also work well. Morlock could let you quickly boost up the charges of the first prayer of Angra, then use the third one 3 times at the start of the map to give every enemy 150 stacks of Sickness and Bleed. 225 if you go with Priest as base class. Then Poison Skin and Blood Drinker would allow you to heal off of that.

My build went the Plaguemancer route and I used the extra charges to use the second prayer of Takahl to boost up my max life. Then just healed up with Poison Skin, Cursed Flesh and Gala. Gala in particular seems very good for Morlock in general. The healing and ally support means that if you get your max life high enough, your Sacred Skin are very tough and heal up completely every time you stand still. 4% Max life heal each time standing still is a lot. Though you have to be careful. The Sacred Skin summoning damage scales off of max health, so don't raise your health higher than your current healing can support. You might adjust and slap on some more armor until you get enough levels/skills/items.

[hideyourluck]

I did it on fourth cycle with Summoner/Ninhurs as Ice Shah. Early on the Ice Familiar is a strong carry, Ninhurs gives you some healing and later on the Free Charges of Morlock (I tried to maintain two empty slots) let you summon the very strong Ninhurs T3 Pet every screen. Ice Shah with the entangle/freeze combo and high vinemancy gives your pets huge speed disparities as well. The advantage of Morlock is that it's a culture giving free charges (and 25% all phys resistances too) so you can play summoner as your class.

[CrabNicholson]

I haven't really tried out the Morlock but I would see one of two ways you could use it:

1. Use your extra prayer charges to heal up, that way their ability gets you essentially 4 "free" summons. Probably make a prayer-based build (chant) off of this.
2. You actually want to die (IE because you're a phoenix apostle) and this helps you die faster and makes sure you don't accidentally survive a level without being killed.

Still, it's not very often I'd want to be naked and at 20% HP, especially on a higher cycle.

[CrabNicholson]

Here is a mini-me build. The goal was to have a bunch of overpowered familiars.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3251542886

It failed in its goal and was only carried by powerful items through the final few levels. On the highest difficulty there's nothing you can really do to prevent your familiars from being one-shotted. Still, look at that repulsion tho.

[Strange Yogurt Juices]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3251607788

[Strange Yogurt Juices]

I've found that Morlock is really good at self-damage and sacrifice builds. I used bat form for healing, which triggers immediately because of Morlock's self damage at entry. It can be very tanky, but what you choose to use for damage is up to you. I dumped a lot of points into Willpower to boost the astral damage from Apostle's sacrifice.

[Ouroboros]

I eventually managed to figure this out; weirdly enough, I wound up in a summoning build based around Mardok. Wasn't using the helm, wasn't using the encumbrance synergies, I was just taking advantage of the ability to make and buff a whole bunch of familiars.

[ShroudedInLight]

Makes sense - I just won with one for the Path of Life achievement - lots and lots of plant ant familiars.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3251786616

[Draken]

Overgrowth is very good if you want to keep your summons or familiars alive. The + percentage maxhealth can quickly outscale a lot of damage. Especially the Tugar from the Stran culture becomes very tough with Overgrowth and a prayer based build as it's hp keep scaling up and it heals 25% hp on prayer.

Overgrowth also entangles everything that attacks your familiars or plant summons and slows them down, and with Vinakinsis you can deal a good bit of poison damage back.

[Foolswalkin]

I did a Blood Mage Worm Apostle for Cycle 10., farmed Blood Familiars. Worm builds Prayer 2 very easily, especially w Projection, and then you can spam your extra copies of Prayer 1 for even more self-damage and send some friends out to do work. Innervate is needed to not kill them instantly.