MidBoss Walkthrough

Walkthrough

Walkthrough

There will be spoilers.


Normal game mode:
Floor 1 is a pregenerated floor.
Floor 2 will be slightly smaller than a normal floor.


You can afford to possess or soul drain every enemy to remain fully healed. Lost mana can be regained by resting for 1 turn. You can defeat most enemies unscathed by kiting, either by:
a) using a longer ranged ability, such as life leech or dive attack
b) defeating a slower enemy at close range, by watching the timebar to ensure that you get a second move before the enemy does.

It is easier to kite the enemy if you have a higher Speed value, and Speed value is generally king partly for this reason, however there are other ways to stay ahead of the enemy. One of these is the Scurry ability. Endgame, Scurry is the strongest tome in the game, since it allows you to move or drink a potion for free.


Mastering forms cheaper & faster:
Later forms share skills with earlier forms. Master the early forms that cost less FP to level up and you will reach mastery in all forms quicker.


Getting the first strike:
Enemies will not attack you first if they don't detect you, or your Stealth is higher than their detection rating. This usually puts you at an advantage, and allows you avoid being swamped or engaged with an enemy you're not equipped to deal with.

Certain actions do not make an enemy hostile or detect you. These are the Possession spell, Vessel, and missing. This means that you should always cast possession first on an enemy, in case you need to posses it or heal, and after that, you can optionally lead with your strongest attack, such as body slam, because if you miss, the enemy won't react.


Neutrals:
Plague rat, Larva, Vampire Bat, Magic/Lighting/Acid Bat, Flying Shield. These will never attack you first. Everything else is potentially hostile.

Traps: Floor 2 and onwards:
From floor 2, suits of armor and weapon racks can be trapped. The best way to deal with these is to attack the suits/racks from a distance, so that if it is trapped you are not instantly damaged. Weapon racks have every weapon mastery at once, which means they can potentially attack you 3+ times a turn, for high damage. Treat traps as dangerous and flee as necessary, however traps provide an above average amount of XP and form points, you can potentially max out mastery on all of your forms on nearly traps alone.

Detection ratings Floors 3-4:
You should gain 25 stealth right away from Imp's Imposter as long as you remain in a form.
If you keep your stealth above 51, zombies, flaming swords, skeletons & cultists will not detect you. There is a possible chance to encounter a mortipede on floor 3, so you may need 61+ stealth.
Minitaurs require even more, you'll need around 81+ stealth to remain undetected.

Floor 4 has mortipedes, ghosts and minitaurs, which are imo the first potentially lethal enemies in terms of not making mistakes. Mortipedes will fear you at distance, but they do not have scurry, which means you can kill them even in melee range, as long as you move away before they get a chance to hit you. Do not let them attack you at range 1, as the poison will kill you. Ghosts can have very high resistance to damage, and they have both weapon & armor mastery that can cause you difficulty, kiting them may take a while. Minitaurs should provide your first major challenge, they are more difficult to kite as they can charge you at range 4. At the first point you engage them, you most likely won't have Magic Missile or Acid Reflux which can outrange them, unless you have tomes (which is an option).

Therefore as you may not be able to kite them, engage the minitaurs last of all if you cannot sneak around them. If you look at the Ghost, he has a lot of strong abilities. Weapon Master & Heartstrike are strong if you are physical based, Armor Master & Ethereal are strong for everyone. Beware that Ethereal can reduce you to 0 MP, but in that case it probably also saved your life.


Floors 5-7:
Warlocks have a higher detection rating than minitaurs, you'll need 86+ stealth. At this point if you are relying on stealth, you can go up to 100, or 125 if you want to depossess and lose Imposter. This will be high enough to remain undetected and get first strike.

From this point on, mage type enemies will possess Magical Missile. That amounts to the warlock and aether bat for the most part. Magical Missile is important to know about, because it has a range of 6, is piercing (autocrit essentially), and hits 3 times. Because the damage is spread over 3 attacks and each attack is reduced by resistance, if you have high resistance, magic missile can be less threatening, but if you have a normal amount of resistance, it's going to hit very hard.
If you have stealth, you can engage warlocks & aether bats at melee range. He will mix up melee with magic if you stay close. If you do not, then assuming you have less range, you will want to engage them at a corner with reduced LOS where they are forced to be closer, and then either charge or move up. Aether Bats can potentially trigger the Ethereal ability from the Ghost, which will raise a shield. It's currently bugged and they may not take further damage from attacks, but when it is fixed it will still make them a formiddable opponent.

Aether Bat form when mastered, will provide Imp form with a 1.5x Spirit modifier, the highest in the game, giving you more more mana points if you need them.

You will also encounter the Hellrat. They are very fast (speed 7, which is base 5 + 1 from being small and +1 from being agile), and they potentially have an ability called Explosion that will let them deal over 100 damage to you. I have not seen them use it yet, just treat them as potentially deadly. Damaging them should reduce the potential for Explosion.

If you encounter the Glitch Door around here, it can be opened. As far as I can tell, it merely teleports you to Floor 15, or somewhere random.


Floors 8-9:
Ghouls and Reapers are encountered here. Reapers have a comparably low detection rating (<70) and Ghouls have the same problem as Mortipedes in that their main attack happens at range 1. People have died to Ghouls, but as long as you kite them, they should not be able to hurt you. They are speed 5 (1 more than Zombies, which have base 4), so make sure you have speed 6+. Ghouls have around 300 health and can deal high damage. If the Reapers detect you, they are essentially harder minitaurs, instead of charge, they have a half-damage attack called bone spear that will drag you towards them.

Physical users will benefit from Reaper's scythe, which adds 1 range to physical abilities. Imp form can benefit from mastered Ghoul, which has a 1.4x Constitution modifier, the highest in the game.


Floors 10-12:
You'll encounter Wraiths, Rot Worms and Megataurs. Wraiths are just a standard harder enemy, Rot Worms are mortipedes with scurry and acid reflux, so you'll want to keep your distance from scurry & enveom, and acid reflux is long ranged. Chances are at this point you'll be strong and experienced enough that they won't be a problem. The real problem is Megataurs. They have a lot of health and they can charge you over 100 in damage. If you're a mage, kiting them at this point is probably easy, otherwise deal with them last and safely. If necessary, you can kill your first Megataur while in Imp form and potion buffed to master it and grow stronger before dealing with the rest.

Walkthrough Part 2

Floor 13:
As soon as you open the door, you'll be forced into a boss battle, so prepare thoroughly. You have several options:
a) Imp form with your favourite forms.
This has the benefit of decent stats with a high number of innates and abilities.

b) Merchant form from floor 12 with one other form.
You will have less innates & abilities but your stats will be very high because of Merchant's innate (Noatun's Inventory, buffs your stats higher than the enchanted buff).


The Lich Lords will attack you one at a time, after the previous has died, but you can attack the others early and fight all three at once to get an achievement.

The first, Fool, is a jester whose ability is Juggle which lets him use any skill in the game, at random. The skill is pre chosen so the Fool has to get within correct range first. He also has a couple of tomes which he can presumably use, but I haven't noticed, he is easy to defeat.
He will drop several tomes, including a Tome of Scurry with 15 charges, which is the best consumable in the game.


The second, General, has counter & kick mastery, and his ability is Phantom Strike, which deals an insane amount of damage (over 300). Even with Ethereal/Mana Shield this will hurt. I believe he does not have Scythe, so the range is 2.

With Scurry, Dive Attack and Scythe you can out range him, same with magic. Stomp will push him away out of PS range. The problem is, none of these attacks will get through his defense. If you are physical user, you are forced to go toe to toe with him and use heartstrike. Good luck, he has around the same hp as the Fool and a Ghoul, which is around 300, but he's more dangerous than a Ghoul or Megataur. Since kick attack can activate on Charge, the only safe way to deal with the General is magic missile & acid reflux unless you are confident. It's a good idea to use Acid Reflux even if you are a physical user because Force damage penetrates defense 100%.


Once you have defeated the Fool and the General you will learn their abilities. If you are a physical user, you should win easily now, as you now have Phantom Strike at your disposal.


The third Lich Lord, Monarch, has an ability called Conscription which summons enemies. He will also use Magic Missile. As long as you buffed your resistance up this shouldn't be a problem, it has the same downside as before where resist applies to it three times. Once you defeat him you gain his ability.


There are a few other things to know about this battle that can make it easier:

When it begins, a few monsters will come out of side rooms and attack you (stealth does not help). If you flee straight backwards, this will be 2 hellrats. If you stay longer, it can be a ghost, 2 mortipedes, and 2 warlocks and possibly more (which will join the monarch/general otherwise). If you flee to the sides, you will aggro more potential enemies.

Therefore it's recommended to flee backwards when the battle begins to trigger the least additional enemies, especially if you intend on taking all three lich lords at once.
You can also drop potions in the starting room of floor 13 before opening the door. Taking potions with you into the battle along with tomes of scurry to drink them if necessary is also recommended.


Floor 14:
Is a pregenerated floor. The cratefish king and final merchant is here. Stock up and possess the merchant if you feel that is best.


Floor 15:
First of all you'll have 2 encounters with a lineup of 9 wide by 3 deep enemy groups. With the lich lord skills or your previous abilities this should be easy. After this, you'll encounter the skeleton and zombie from the tutorial, who will attempt to flee. If you step immediately beyond them, you'll be locked in a tiny room with a final boss. By locked I mean there will be portcullis on both sides, unlike the lich lord battle.

Simply use the lich lord skills and the final boss shouldn't present a problem. I assume that if you allow him to get close, he can deal a lot of damage. He is an amalgamation of most forms in the games, and overall likely has every ablity, except the ones that really count, the lich lords. He may have phantom strike, I did not let him get close, but he did not appear to have conscription so I assume not. Also there are suits of armor and weapon racks, every single one is trapped.


After you defeat him, you get the option to end the game. You can take the opportunity to explore, pad out your inventory here, but this is pretty much it. NG+ will allow you to keep your items and forms.



God Shrines:
I'll think about adding this to the walkthrough. They're somewhat random and solving them would take a lot of work.

Controls

F1/F2 keys = Imp's possession abilities.
1-9 = Imp's other abilities (you can activate these by selecting a target and pressing 1 twice instead of 1 + click).
G/NUM0=get nearby items
You can mouseover item to see what you're getting first.
CTRL = highlight items on ground (you can turn this off to click on individual items in a pile, like potions).
I = inventory
RMB/DOUBLECLICK=equip/use.
G/NUM0/drag outside=drop item.
SPACE/NUM5 = pass, recover Mana, single turn. Can use to wait for enemies to move around.
R/NUM+ = rest, recover Mana, until full.
LMB=travel, you can hold down LMB to travel around quickly and easily.
TAB=move map corner/centre screen and back, you can see almost the entire map this way.

[Citizenmecc]

Can confirm. Rat exploded into my face. Face is severely burnt. Still alive though. Had Ethereal up. *phew*

[Nj0rd]

Thank you for writing this guide. We appreciate the time and effort you put into it and I'm sure that other players will find it useful.