Struggling with Scaling and Progression in Noita

[MHplays]

Today, I got past the Hissi Base for the first time, making it all the way to the Temple of Art. In the Jungle, enemies already started to require a lot of hits from my wands, and things were becoming impractical. Beyond the Jungle, the enemies were so strong that they felt almost immortal, taking so many hits that it would take several minutes to kill them. Eventually, I just switched my strategy to rushing for the exit as quickly as possible until I inevitably died in the Temple of Art.

I’ve played some roguelikes before where enemy health scales the further you progress, but I felt like the scaling in Noita was way too extreme.

I didn’t manage to make a ridiculously overpowered wand during this run, but I tried my best to upgrade my wands and spells throughout the game. It became harder to do so in the later areas since I was killing fewer enemies and earning less gold, but I still made an effort. However, I’m starting to worry that Noita will prevent me from progressing further unless I heavily optimize my runs and create some insanely overpowered wands.

Am I missing something? Perhaps I’m neglecting an important aspect of the game? I thought about backtracking to easier, unexplored areas like the Fungal Wastes to the left of the Coal Pits or exploring alternative areas like the Snowy Wasteland or the Desert on the surface. But I couldn’t find an obvious way to backtrack past the Holy Mountains without angering the gods. Did I miss something?

What are your thoughts and tips for dealing with this situation?

[The Creep]

The one of the biggest turning points in noita, I think, is the realization that health is a resource. I usually try to explore as thoroughly as possible until I reach about a quarter health, and I *start* each area looking for the alternate areas. I'll make a beeline for the fungal wastes, and if I have an explosive wand I'll scale the mountain and go to the desert very early on. I won't spoil what is over there, but there should be a structure with a health buff.

What sort of wand builds have you made so far? What areas and secrets have you run into? If you don't care too much about spoilers, there's a couple things you could try that might help your runs I could point you towards.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by MHplays:

I couldn’t find an obvious way to backtrack past the Holy Mountains without angering the gods. Did I miss something?

Snowy Depths is essentially as far as you can go without if you don't have a means to break Brickwork or Dense rock. However from snowy depths, you can use the lengthy shaft that will bring you back up to the Lava Lake just outside the Mines.

Getting back up the surface and exploring will likely give you the answers you seek.

[Chris]

There are tricks you can pull that are kind of arbitrarily hidden. I won't go into much detail due to spoilers but there is a way to get 250k gold at the start of a run on surface level. It takes a good chunk of time however so wasting 15 minutes can suck but this is a good way to not worry about cash. Youtubers are a great resource as well.
For a fun wand combo try a homing modifier with summon rock.

[MHplays]

Originally posted by The Creep:

The one of the biggest turning points in noita, I think, is the realization that health is a resource.

I kind of already play with that mindset, always trying to explore the entire area and its adjacent biomes to collect as much gold and extra maximum health as possible. However, health is a resource that depletes quickly, especially in cursed biomes like the Fungal Wastes and others. Health potions and healing spells are very rare—I don’t find them often. Because of this, I inevitably have to head to the Holy Mountains sooner or later.

Originally posted by The Creep:

What sort of wand builds have you made so far? What areas and secrets have you run into?

I tend to build two wands for DPS—either rapid-fire “machine gun” wands or heavy hitters—and I look for blue, gray, and purple spells to upgrade them. I also carry two utility wands with spells that help me with various tasks, like digging, teleporting, or creating liquids. These utility wands are expendable, so if I find a wand with better stats than the ones I’m using, I swap them out and tinker with the new one in the next Holy Mountain.

As for secrets, I’ve avoided watching any videos or tutorials so far, so I’m playing completely blind and trying to discover everything on my own. I’ve found the floating island above the mountain and always aim to grab the health orb if I can find a levitation or polymorph potion. If I find an invisibility or acceleration potion in the Mines, I use it to grab the orb beyond the lava lake and escape the boss before it kills me.

I also know about a few secret and alternative areas. For example, I always explore the Collapsed Mines. I venture a little into the Fungal Wastes, but not too deep because the enemies there are very freaky. There’s an area to the left of the Snowy Depths whose name I can’t recall, and I’ve never explored it because I’ve never had enough spare health to risk it. I’ve visited the Pyramid and collected the orb on top. However, when I tried to explore the inside early in the game, I got completely destroyed by the enemies, so I decided to save it for when I’m stronger and can backtrack.

On my last run, I found a glowing projectile wand in the Mines, which allowed me to get past the flooded tunnel to the left of the Collapsed Mines. However, I didn’t have much health left, and the enemies there looked really cursed, so I went back to the Collapsed Mines to avoid dying. I know about the Desert past the Pyramid and the Snowy Wasteland beyond the Giant Tree, but I’ve never explored them. Perhaps I should try venturing into those areas before entering the Mines in a future run? Overall, I think I’m doing a good job discovering things in Noita by myself, but maybe I’ve missed something here and there.

Originally posted by Jimmy Hunter:

Snowy Depths is essentially as far as you can go without if you don't have a means to break Brickwork or Dense rock. However from snowy depths, you can use the lengthy shaft that will bring you back up to the Lava Lake just outside the Mines.

Getting back up the surface and exploring will likely give you the answers you seek.

That’s very useful information—thank you! I’ll try exploring those challenging areas that I’ve avoided so far due to lacking the power to handle them at the time.

[(⌐■_■)]

After hisi base , in terms of progression, most enemys have different weapon type resistences, if an enemy barely takes damage it is because you are using the wrong type of modifier and/or damage type (e.g heart mage is immune to explosion damage, spiders are fire resistant but take extreme slash/sawblade damage, some enemys are only damageable with piercing, poison,

However, If you get lucky and can build a base "airblast+ any homing+spawn rock+"greek letter" wand you have a nice end-game weapon. All of those spells are pretty common. In addition you get twice as much money because rock counts as enviromental damage like kicking items

Have fun :)

[Prodeses]

I'd like to point out that Greek letters are not "pretty common" for a player who has just gotten to Temple of arts. Fortunately Unlimited spells perk does the same job here.

Also you might have found out that there are some very dangerous "static projectile" spells that kills you when you try to cast them. That's why you have trigger/timer spells.

Also remember that modifiers are applied to all spells in cast. Damage plus + Double cast + 2 spark bolts will cast two Spark bolt each dealing base damage + 10 point from DMG plus.

This information can be combined. Penalties in cast time/recharge time are ignored if spells/mods are placed inside trigger/timer spell. Mana cost is not ignored so be careful with low mana wands and high cost mods while playing with these payload wands.

It's totally plausible to build a wand that one shots final boss from things you find during normal gameplay.

[anabasis]

Parantajahiisi + flask of pheromone = infinite healing.
Hiisi base is right above the jungle where gold and powerful wands are in abundance.

So, the strategy is obvious - breaking out of the Holy mountain and going back and forth between the jungle and Hiisi healers, grinding till you become powerful enough.

Look up how to deal with Stevari and what spells can dig through brickwork of the Holy Mountain. Also, how you can escape Holy Mountain without breaking it in general.

Also, killing dragon boss in the right side of the jungle unlocks powerful orbiting spells, which I recommend to make your life in the beginning of the run easier.
Another thing - there are greek letter spells that allow to infinitely cast copies of limited spells, like black holes, and you can obtain them early in your run by going left past the great tree, digging through the snow down to the alchemy lab and killing the Great Alchemist boss. Greek letters are a must for longer runs.

[leaferreefer]

i'd say after Hissi base if you don't have any modifiers on a fast shooting wand then you're gonna have a bad time. at least a freeze shot can hold you over until you get another damage booster to help up your DPS

[Prodeses]

Originally posted by leaferreefer:

i'd say after Hissi base if you don't have any modifiers on a fast shooting wand then you're gonna have a bad time. at least a freeze shot can hold you over until you get another damage booster to help up your DPS

Rapid fire wands are not the only solution to look for. Some may be a tad bit dangerous to caster as well but hey, damage output overweight risk, right?

[1337Dude]

It helps to have a few good wands by the time you're further in. Otherwise you'll want invisibility or some way to sneak around safely until you can procure a better wand.

There are secrets that you can learn on your own which enable you to farm for high end wands (e.g. self-healing) from the beginning of the game, but you need to be willing to explore.