Double headed ESPer, the ONE who rules the world of Qud!

How good and easy can a ESPrer build be?
Tricks to earn as much frash water as you wanted?
ESPer build starts with an Axe in your hand with only 18 Ego, does it works?

We may find out.

What status affect the most in Qud?

Yes, not a really long playing time when comparing with some of you guys, but I did spent 105.5 hours in this game, playing and studying really hard in the last 2 weeks.

And I have just discovered, that ESPer build could be the one which can really rule this game, breaking through every very single wall the game presented, to become invincible, not only in both physical and mental strength, but also economically.

There are broken mutations for ESPer, so broken that melee just don't stand a chance, I know some of you may not agreed, but I will explain why I say that.

There are many mechanisms in Qud, your need water to trade, you can't carry too much without some Str, you don't have much Hit point without enough Toug, but what is the one status appears to change the most?
I will say Ego.

Ego affects the levels of all Mental mutations,
Ego affects the price when you sell items to merchants,
Ego affects the price of items you buy from merchants
Ego even affect the successful rate of Proselytize, which is one of the not-many-ways to give you an ally, and this is such a key feature in the current version of game.

What makes it so different between building a ESPer and a Melee

Melee and Mental mutations level-up in a totally different ways, when playing as a Melee, you must invest your mutation points (MP) into your core mutation every 2 level, and in most cases, you should have at lease 2 or more core mutations to become a great melee build.

And if we play as a ESPer, you won't need any investment to upgrade mental mutations, since their levels will just be boosted up by you Ego to be strong enough in most cases of your journey.
So ESPer can spend their MP on equipping new mutations every 4 levels.

For example, when we are around 15lv, which is almost when you have to leave the starting zone and head out for some better EXP source, a Melee mutants should have 2 core mutations in level 7 - 8, and 2 or 3 secondary mutations in just level 1;
at the same time, ESPer will have his starting mutation kits + 4 new mutations, all in level 8.

This is already a huge gap isn't it? But this is just the small part.

Other than mutation level and quantities, Ego also affect the price you buy and sell items, not in a lovely minor impact way, by a 10 Ego melee will have to pay over $24 for a single water-skin, when ESPer with like 22 or 24 Ego is only paying $5 to $7 for the same thing. Not to mention the same issue also happens when you sell items, the gap is not just doubled, but instead Multiplied!

Melee needs good weapon for early game, and better armor mid-game. While the items you need for mid-game is not that much related with merchants since you should always find something better underground, the poor trading ratio just make it really difficult and depends hardly on luck for the Melees' starts.

Way to be rich? Beguiling and Dominaiton wins.

Ok, what are we up to now? Do you think the above part is all for what brokes Melees' game play? Not at all.
Remember about we say Str affects how heavy you can carry at the begining?
So basically, should Melees be able to bring more back to merchants for sell, right? Answer is "No", not in Qud.

Having the high Ego, ESPer will always be able to learn the skill "Proselytize" under Persuasion tree, or, simply just pick the "Beguiling" mutation to begin with.
Both provide you the ability to change nearby creature to become friendly to you and follow you.
The fact is, you can always trade anything you want to your followers, they have unlimited weight capacity whenever they are under Ai's control, which means they are the best mobile storage.
But if you are a melee, your way to gain any ally will be very much limited to relay on Water Ritual, which is again a little bit kind of luck depending.
And that isn't even the worst part, thing is, ESPer has enough room for the mutation "Domination", which allows you to control you own followers to spend their skill pts, MP and status pts, where Melees just won't have the extry capacity to do that, their ally will not have any upgrades and die pretty easily.
IF ESPer lost his ally, he can just catch anything nearby and temporarily help him carry his items home, but if you are playing meele? You better can remember where did you lose you last ally at the time when you finally gain a new one.

But this is still not all the tricks on "Proselytize" or "Beguiling"...
The best part is, you can always sell all you have got to any NPCs in wild who maybe selling one or two things, or even a Monkey with some stones in their hands, than Beguiling them, take back everything, and Beguiling someone else, the last NPC will than be released, you can again sell all you have got to him, and so on and so on.
Go it? With enough Ego to "Proselytize" or "Beguiling" wild NPCs, means you will have unlimited money! I mean water.
Water may not be that important for this game some how, but is just breaking the game economy.
And you may even "Domination" these NPCs to pick off all their equipments, or take all the books (which sell for crazily pricey) they have and trade for EXP to boost you and your ally up.

We have two heads and four faces

I expect all of us who are reading this post should now understand how I feel the importance of Ego to this game. Now let's talk about the way how easy is Ego can be stacked.

To my knowledge, equipments stacking Ego appears to always be related with head-gears, where the most easily found one would be the "Knollworm Skull" sometimes weared by the snapjaws, which is a simple 1 AV helmet.
Just 1 point? What's the big due, are you kidding me? Stay cool, guys, there is a mutation called "Two-headed", which was placed in physical mutation page, but it actually affect the energy spent of mental mutations.
So you have 2 heads, you have 2 "Knollworm Skull"s, you gain 2 Ego, that is 1 bonus Ego point, boosting all mental mutations for 1 level, giving even higher discount to you on buying and selling. It is the 1 point making big difference.

And as I said head-gears, I didn't mean only helmet.
You have got 2 slots on your head, one for the helmet, and one for face.

Face is the slot where Ego can heavily stacked. The reason is, there is a Tinker I mod for helmet called "Two-faced", which allows you to wear 2 faces item on 1 head.
When you have "Two-headed" and helmet modded with "Two-faced", you have 6 slots on you heads, OMG.
Ended? Not yet. Six Slots on head does not represent 6 Ego, but believe it or not, every face gear can boost 2-3 Ego in a single slot!
All you need to do is just go "Dismember" some Slumberling or legendary monsters.
There is even an idea I have got here but not tested out yet, was planing to "Beguiling" a legendary monsters, than "Dismember" it to get a face without killing it, than "Domination" and learn "Regenaration" for it, so it can has it's dismembered face grow back, and I will just cut-it-off once again untill I got all four faces I want. Sound crazy? I believe it will work out well.

Dismember, the key to your Ego super boosters.

Someone may say, without some mid-to-late game gaslight-weapons, ESPer should not have enough Str to penetrate those strong monters to "Dismember" their facese for 2-3 Ego boosts.
Although you may just simply "Proselytize" or "Beguiling" a pet, I mean ally with high Str to do the job for you...

Here, let me introduce to you one more choice, another god-like mutation for ESPer: "Ego projection".
This skill gives you a temporarily Str / Agi / Toug equal to 2 times of your bonus Ego, if you have 30 Ego, bonus would be +7, which means you will be having 14 extra Str or Tog when using Ego projection, which should give far more than enoguh Str to penetrate and land your Dismembers, or give you over a hundrad extra Hit points in dangerous situations which is way much better than healing skill or any item.
You may even combine "Ego projection" with "Mass Mind", so you will be able to stack casting "Ego projection" and become invincible physically.

With all these tricks on the head and face slots, you will be able to easily gain a 6-10 Ego boost at early game, and 14 Ego for mid game or later.
I found no way I can stack the same amount of Str or Toug in this game, even Agi is somehow can be stacked a bit, but not like Ego, not that easy, not that early.
Not to mention "Two-headed" for Mental mutants is only a 2 points mutation, where "Four-handed" or "Four-Legged" for physical mutants cost 4 and 5 points.

Build up your Ctrl+S function.

Maybe you will question, I've mentioned so many op mautions for a ESPer build, obviously my starting points will not be able to learn all these mutations, and once a run starts, I can only choose 1 of the 3 random mutations on the cost of spending 4 MPs, and I even picked "Two-headed" of the physical mutation tree, which means I must have given up "Esper" Morphotypes, how would I be able to collect such a full list of OP mental only mutations? It doesn't make sense!

Yes, it doesn't, not until the following mutation is presented - "Precognition", Peer into your near future when activitied.
Guess which key do I bind this mutation to?
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"Ctrl+S", SAVE.

Your guess it right, this skill SAVE your current progress, you can use it right before spending MP for new mutation, and once you found the pop-out list is not what you wanted? Load the game backwarks with "Precognition", and your MP will be back into your pocket.

Let's build, start and test it!

So here is how I build my ESPer.
Str 14
Agi 18
Toug 18
Int 18
Will 18
Ego 18

Seriously? ESPer without 24 Ego starts?
Yes, serious. Remember how easy we can earn early extra Ego, we actually don't even need that much to get started.
I always make it around 18 to begin with and this should be fairly enough.

The main point here is, when you over place any statu to above 18, the cost for each point is doubled, but once you are into the game, the cost of all status will be aligned to 1pt instead.
So if you MAX out one status on a new char., you will be losing a total of 6 status points at the time when the char. is created, and since every status is important as hell in Qud, we should try our best to prevent start our game with 6 points weaker, which equals to the total extra status points given by leveling up when you hit Level 33.

For "Calling", as I say, we need "Dismember" to chop off everyone's faces, but our build is 14 Str, far away from the requirments of "Dismember", so the simple way to get it done is, just pick "Marauder" as your calling, who was born with "+2 Strength", "Axe proficiency", "Dismember", "Butchery", "Charge". This provide almost everything we needed, the extra Str to help better penetrate in really early game, Axe proficiency to help you land your physical attacks, Dismember which is the key to succeed, Charge do help you approch the monsters in some cases, and please just forget Butchery which won't help much. You are even born with an Axe, and are ready to get your job started from the very first croc you will meet.

For mutations, I pick these:
1. "[-4] Narcolepsy" in Mental Defects, it gives you 4 extra starting MPs, and it doesn't really metters even if you fell asleep sometims, we have 18 starting Agi and Toug, you won't be 1 or 2 hit killed in early game, and once you get hit, you will wake up. For sure, Defects are something personal, you may pick anything you like.
2. "[2] Two-headed" of Physical tree, already explained, just too good a mutation it is to be bought with just 2 MPs.
3. "[4] Precognition" of Mental tree, the one and the only one you must must must must pick at the begining. Gain access to time, gain access to your fate.
4. "[2] Mental Mirror" of Mental tree, you will need this, once Ego started to be boosted really high, those ESPer assassins will start to trace you where ever you go.
5. "[2] Ego Projection" of Mental tree, already explained, Godly OP mutation.
6. "[3] Beguiling" of Mental tree, find it difficult in looking for water? Pick it.
7. "[2] Clairvoyance"of Mental tree, crappy in early game, but once you have your Ego and Will high enough, this mutation will shines like diamond.
8. "[1] anything", I pick "Night Vision" in most cases, the best of all 1 MP mutation.

So, no ESP attack power, ya, not yet, you won't need it early.
Beguiling the very first croc you met, head out and look for those white goat-like tough guys (not the brown one), Ego projection, Charge, Dismember, Sprite and run away, just let them bleed to die, you earn 375 exp without any difficulty.

Once the time came to the first new mutation random pick, remember to save you game with Ctrl+S or "Precognition" I mean. If the list looks bad, load the game with you skill, move 2 tiles on the world map so the mutation CD is ready, save the game and re-pick, repeat the process until "Domination" appears. You are now completed. The rest is up to you, try in anyways you like and discover.

[IRID1UM]

I just sumbled over this guide and much of it is outdated by now, so any new readers beware :)

[Killroi]

2 headed maraudesper is a lot of fun even without precognition, but the total points on character creation makes it not doable with current costs

[RedPine]

You can still re-roll mutations by cooking with Eaters Nectar. My strategy is to go Salt Panning, then CTRL-S every time I get hungry and need to cook.

[Appa Rat]

they fixed the save spamming for a good mutation in the tomb of eaters update:(

[Ryan Dorkoski]

This is a really interesting guide, thank you. Could use some better structure, but the content is strong.

[ObsDi]

Shame on you for save spamming, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Exactly what I'm gonna do right now. :D