Posted June 28, 2013
Hey folks. I've beaten two bosses so far (castle + forest), and am currently pulling in 2-6k on a typical run (unless I botch it totally). Here's what I've learned so far:
*Money spending:
----- Return on investment really varies between everything. Some things that can only be upgraded 5x are usually worth it every time you can afford it: potion buff, gold buff. The gate toll upgrade isn't worth getting more than once until super late. Your base stats all need to be pumped together, as they synergize with each other, but individually hit diminishing returns: health, mana, INT, STR, armor, crit chance, crit damage. Weight limit can of course be leveled as needed depending on available gear.
------ Going just melee or just mage with your keep upgrades doesn't seem to work. The way costs escalate, it's a lot cheaper to raise your stats together and use a combined approach that can more easily deal with a variety of circumstances. Both types of damage have enough synergies that they seem to scale well into NG++.
------ After starting over, I've figured out that you don't need to rush to unlock all of the classes. They're more about variety than they are about raw power. Miner in particular is much too weak if you unlock it too early, and Lich similarly doesn't seem to be worth it until late. Shinobi isn't too bad, though, and that pathway eventually unlocks the very important armor bonus; Spellblade unlocks crucial upgrades for Mage users. If you pump health, damage, and enough carrying capacity to wear a full set of Tier 2 gear, then you might want to start thinking about expanding the keep some more - at this point, it's reasonable (but not necessary) to look into Miner and Lich.
------ Runes all cost the same, and get more expensive as you buy more of them. Think carefully before buying a rune you aren't too thrilled about! You probably want an extra jump, a dash, and possibly vampirism. I don't really like the balance runes because it's more flexible to have runes for vamp and siphon separately.
Character building:
It will be a while before you have enough runes/equipment to make any meaningful character building decisions (other than choosing the offspring).
------ Balance health with vampirism. Once you get enough vamp sources, a good balance to me feels like, say, being able to restore your max health in about 10 kills. If you're healing much more than that, then you probably have a dangerously large number of blood items equipped! If you have extra ones, choose which ones to leave out based on which stats are gained and how they'll help that class. You'll probably stop using Blood items altogether around the time you start collecting Tier 3 stuff.
------ Armor is one of the best stats! It synergizes with everything, especially Vampirism and health. Health has good synergy too, since chicken heals 10-15% of your health. (You also need some health upgrades if you want to wear blood items without getting one-shotted)
------ Damage is good too. Sometimes being able to reliably one-shot things dramatically increases your odds of not getting hit in a room.
Boss runs:
------ You'll want to get to the boss and then lock down the castle and teleport in for the boss fight. This way, you won't have to waste slots on vampirism (there is a boss who spams minions, and vampirism is acceptable for that boss, though)
------ Shinobi is nice because you need only play flawlessly for half as long to seal the deal. Knave/Assassin gets amazing free crit damage, so if you can increase your crit chance a bit, they'll probably do more damage than Shinobi in an extended fight. Barbarian King/Queen has a nice special ability, but it's sort of mana hungry and I don't really like it (maybe New Game + is different?)
------ Mages might work for some bosses. Spamming DPS things like Chakram can give you tons of damage per mana, but I haven't tried it yet.
------ Mages benefit from being tiny, while melee classes might have an easier time if they're gigantic. In particular, a Giant standing on the ground can slash away at the first boss while standing on the floor. But if you find it too hard to dodge as a giant, feel free to stick to ordinary size in melee.
Farming:
I don't have this quite worked out to a science yet, but here we go...
------ The safest class for farming out an area is the sturdiest one which can one-shot everything. For earlier areas, this could be barbarian or paladin, while for later areas, this is probably a Shinobi with good stats/equipment. Archmages and/or dwarves can sometimes pick up fairy chests which would be impossible for other characters.
------ I didn't have much trouble killing the second boss soon after the first. After that, the castle and the forest become relatively easy farm, granting 1-8k most runs, depending on setup and whether you mess up and die.
------ If you're doing well in the castle and forest, but not in the tower, consider using Miner and/or Curse to up the challenge/reward of these areas for some more farm. Also try to unlock all the blueprints in these two areas for further power. Sometimes earlier blueprints can drop in later areas, which can be disheartening - if you collect them all, this won't happen anymore.
------ You don't have to kill everything. Usually the gold isn't that great. Often killing things is the safest way to get between places, though.
------ Certain fairy chests can only be gotten by certain types of characters, such as with the right spells/runes or with Dwarfism. Use the architect if one of these really bugs you!
------ Fairy chests aren't really that exciting once you have as many runes as you need, but keep trying to get them anyway. Once you have a complete set, fairy chests start dropping stat buffs instead. (Equal to 1/2 of a manor upgrade in power)
------ The top and bottom areas are SUPER DANGEROUS when you first find them, but try goosenecking just in case. If you're super lucky, you'll stumble into an unguarded chest with a lot of gold or maybe even a game-changing upgrade! At the first sign of danger, run! When jumping up to the tower, try jumping high enough to change screens, but not clear above the floor for a quick coward's glance at the room. Going down into the darkness is a lot more dangerous, as you could just plain fall into a fireball and die.
Gamepads:
I have the Logitech equivalent of an X-box 360 controller. It has made this game significantly easier, though I was able to finish one run with just keyboard. Recent patches supposedly make other types of controllers usable as well.
*Money spending:
----- Return on investment really varies between everything. Some things that can only be upgraded 5x are usually worth it every time you can afford it: potion buff, gold buff. The gate toll upgrade isn't worth getting more than once until super late. Your base stats all need to be pumped together, as they synergize with each other, but individually hit diminishing returns: health, mana, INT, STR, armor, crit chance, crit damage. Weight limit can of course be leveled as needed depending on available gear.
------ Going just melee or just mage with your keep upgrades doesn't seem to work. The way costs escalate, it's a lot cheaper to raise your stats together and use a combined approach that can more easily deal with a variety of circumstances. Both types of damage have enough synergies that they seem to scale well into NG++.
------ After starting over, I've figured out that you don't need to rush to unlock all of the classes. They're more about variety than they are about raw power. Miner in particular is much too weak if you unlock it too early, and Lich similarly doesn't seem to be worth it until late. Shinobi isn't too bad, though, and that pathway eventually unlocks the very important armor bonus; Spellblade unlocks crucial upgrades for Mage users. If you pump health, damage, and enough carrying capacity to wear a full set of Tier 2 gear, then you might want to start thinking about expanding the keep some more - at this point, it's reasonable (but not necessary) to look into Miner and Lich.
------ Runes all cost the same, and get more expensive as you buy more of them. Think carefully before buying a rune you aren't too thrilled about! You probably want an extra jump, a dash, and possibly vampirism. I don't really like the balance runes because it's more flexible to have runes for vamp and siphon separately.
Character building:
It will be a while before you have enough runes/equipment to make any meaningful character building decisions (other than choosing the offspring).
------ Balance health with vampirism. Once you get enough vamp sources, a good balance to me feels like, say, being able to restore your max health in about 10 kills. If you're healing much more than that, then you probably have a dangerously large number of blood items equipped! If you have extra ones, choose which ones to leave out based on which stats are gained and how they'll help that class. You'll probably stop using Blood items altogether around the time you start collecting Tier 3 stuff.
------ Armor is one of the best stats! It synergizes with everything, especially Vampirism and health. Health has good synergy too, since chicken heals 10-15% of your health. (You also need some health upgrades if you want to wear blood items without getting one-shotted)
------ Damage is good too. Sometimes being able to reliably one-shot things dramatically increases your odds of not getting hit in a room.
Boss runs:
------ You'll want to get to the boss and then lock down the castle and teleport in for the boss fight. This way, you won't have to waste slots on vampirism (there is a boss who spams minions, and vampirism is acceptable for that boss, though)
------ Shinobi is nice because you need only play flawlessly for half as long to seal the deal. Knave/Assassin gets amazing free crit damage, so if you can increase your crit chance a bit, they'll probably do more damage than Shinobi in an extended fight. Barbarian King/Queen has a nice special ability, but it's sort of mana hungry and I don't really like it (maybe New Game + is different?)
------ Mages might work for some bosses. Spamming DPS things like Chakram can give you tons of damage per mana, but I haven't tried it yet.
------ Mages benefit from being tiny, while melee classes might have an easier time if they're gigantic. In particular, a Giant standing on the ground can slash away at the first boss while standing on the floor. But if you find it too hard to dodge as a giant, feel free to stick to ordinary size in melee.
Farming:
I don't have this quite worked out to a science yet, but here we go...
------ The safest class for farming out an area is the sturdiest one which can one-shot everything. For earlier areas, this could be barbarian or paladin, while for later areas, this is probably a Shinobi with good stats/equipment. Archmages and/or dwarves can sometimes pick up fairy chests which would be impossible for other characters.
------ I didn't have much trouble killing the second boss soon after the first. After that, the castle and the forest become relatively easy farm, granting 1-8k most runs, depending on setup and whether you mess up and die.
------ If you're doing well in the castle and forest, but not in the tower, consider using Miner and/or Curse to up the challenge/reward of these areas for some more farm. Also try to unlock all the blueprints in these two areas for further power. Sometimes earlier blueprints can drop in later areas, which can be disheartening - if you collect them all, this won't happen anymore.
------ You don't have to kill everything. Usually the gold isn't that great. Often killing things is the safest way to get between places, though.
------ Certain fairy chests can only be gotten by certain types of characters, such as with the right spells/runes or with Dwarfism. Use the architect if one of these really bugs you!
------ Fairy chests aren't really that exciting once you have as many runes as you need, but keep trying to get them anyway. Once you have a complete set, fairy chests start dropping stat buffs instead. (Equal to 1/2 of a manor upgrade in power)
------ The top and bottom areas are SUPER DANGEROUS when you first find them, but try goosenecking just in case. If you're super lucky, you'll stumble into an unguarded chest with a lot of gold or maybe even a game-changing upgrade! At the first sign of danger, run! When jumping up to the tower, try jumping high enough to change screens, but not clear above the floor for a quick coward's glance at the room. Going down into the darkness is a lot more dangerous, as you could just plain fall into a fireball and die.
Gamepads:
I have the Logitech equivalent of an X-box 360 controller. It has made this game significantly easier, though I was able to finish one run with just keyboard. Recent patches supposedly make other types of controllers usable as well.
Post edited July 08, 2013 by mothwentbad
