The Enduring Priest-Tank

[Slawbug]

Well holy frijoles, Enduring Shield and Enduring Armor are REALLY GOOD. As it turns out, the descriptions to many of the protective spells lie, in particular Protection which doesn't increase dodge rate at all. Enduring Shield and Enduring Armor both increase it by 1-2% per point of priest skill (/spellcraft/magery), plus a base bonus of about 10% for Shield or about 18% for Armor. While it's possible there's a maximum cap on shield strength, I haven't been able to find one. Also I've only tested with one level of the spell learnt.

 

What does this mean? For our singleton tank, that opens up THREE new stats which increase dodge rate by 1.5% -- with no 10-cap! Once your main dodge stats hit 10, that makes these skills a better defensive investment than Defense or Luck, and likely better than Dex and Gymnastics since they will be cheaper. But even better, they also increase the strength of priestly offenses like Repel Spirit and Divine Retribution.

 

With this discovery, a singleton almost begins to seem easy to me:

• Nephil and Divinely Touched, plus your Dex investment, provide enough points in bow skills to make you a passable archer for free

• A moderate investment to Str, Dex, Defense, Luck, and Gymnastics gives you a great natural dodge

• After that, you can pump Priest Spells, Spellcraft, and Magery like crazy, with help from DT and Pure Spirit, to further boost your dodge via enduring spells, while also providing a very good priestly attack

 

As for other skills:

• I prefer Pure Spirit to Natural Mage. Even if you DO go for Dispel Barrier, you'll get more skill point value out of Pure Spirit, since you are also pumping priest skill manually. If you forego any armor to be able to cast, say, Haste, the enduring bonus will likely make up for it.

• Mage Spells: 19 points gets you Haste, 26 gets Slow, 42 gets Unlock and Augmentation. The latter is really unnecessary since potions can replace it. I'm almost certain that Unlock will give you access to equipment making it well worth the 16 points beyond Haste and Slow, which seem like a pretty reasonable investment. You can pay 91 points total to get to Dispel Barrier, but I'm skeptical that that's worthwhile.

• Arcane Lore: Investing 10 skill points will get you all the relevant spells if you're patient. Probably worthwhile, as your spell stats will eventually reach this range and the lore provides more bonuses to your key spells than a single magery point.

• Nature Lore: I suspect that a certain investment might pay itself back eventually, but I guess it's not worth it given the tardiness of Strine.

 

With this efficient character design, I believe I'm now ready to join Synergy in the singleton crusade. Happy new year!

[Synergy]

Once again, good work, Your Slartiness.

 

If I were to reconstruct my singleton anew, I would also choose Pure Spirit over Natural Mage. The SP savings in additional Priest Spells are well worth it, as well as more effective spells. If you use the Emerald Chestguard, as I am, then encumbrance isn't even an issue with haste. The Divine Priesthood rules for the singleton, the lonely path of divine smiting holiness unto completion.

 

I'd still like to know the diff between level 2 of spells and higher levels. This would answer whether or not Arcane Lore is worth investing in at all whatsoever. I have 2 levels of any spell I have at all. Maybe Magery/Spellcraft/Priest or Mage level add up to much more than spell level learned.

 

I'd probably forego Tool Use for Priest power, defensive power, and/or Arcane Lore.

[Delicious Vlish]

This explains why my Slith Priests did so well. First thing they did was cast some sort of armor.

[Dikiyoba]

Nice sig, Delicious Vlish.

 

Edit: Dikiyoba forgot to put on Dikiyoba's own sig. How embarrassing.

[*i]

"There he goes again..."

 

-- Ronald Reagan referring to Jimmy Carter in a US presidential debate in 1980.

[Slawbug]

Enduring Priest Update: As with Synergy, the opening sections of the game have been pretty easy. I'm through Fort Draco now. I was a little stingier with my skill points, so high dex has given me a dodge rate of 80-99% against pretty much everything. No First Aid, but that's been fine; I've just been picking up all the food on the cave floor (there's a LOT) and using it.

 

Magic items are A LOT better when you're a singleton. The 3 AP cost basically means you get a free action out of them, and when you only have one action per turn, that's a much greater difference. I've been saving every magic item, and healing potions, Ice Bolt scrolls and the like have actually been fairly helpful in the stickiest situations -- the Fire Lizards under Khrosoth come to mind. They don't sell for much, anyway, and gold is *clearly* not going to be an impediment in this game. Otherwise, Acid Spray is definitely the most important spell for me right now.

 

The most annoying thing has been not having any Tool Use and having to wait until after clearing the Haunted Mines to get Unlock Doors! I've been making a list of all the locked doors and boxes, and I'm not sure how many I'm going to go back for. There are some that I was really mad about, though, especially the storeroom in Grindstone with the huge piles of loot, including two Piercing Crystals. None of the traps have stopped me yet, though some have come close; they will probably stop coming close once I get better armor and pump luck some, so FEC resists are higher.

[Synergy]

Care to give a breakdown of how you allocated your original skill points and what you've been pumping up so far?

[Slawbug]

My original skill points went, IIRC:

• 3 to Priest Spells (making 5 with the Pure bonus)

• 5 to Mage Spells

• 4 to Luck

• 2 to Dexterity

(3 skill points remaining)

 

After that I pumped Dex up to 8, Luck up to 7, and (once I got to Formello) Mage Spells to 6. (Yes, there are items much later that boost Mage Spells but I'm not insane enough to wait THAT long to get Unlock Doors...) With the exception of Nephil and Nephar Archers, who get a very annoying 30% bonus using bows, this minor investment into dodging skills gave me ratings of no more than 20% against pretty much everything.

 

I'm undecided on what to pump now. I can pump Dex and Luck further, but those returns get halved once I get their boost items -- and the Clover Boots aren't far off. Similarly, if I go for Gymnastics, the Nephil bonus plus item bonuses will eventually halve the value. The first few points will be cheap -- unless you figure in the cost of 4 points of Strength, which makes them very expensive. I could just pump Priest Spells in anticipation of Enduring Shield.

 

I think I may just save up my skill points and put them all into Defense after I get to Silvar, with leftovers going to Magery (hi, Cecil).

[Slawbug]

Enduring Priest Update: I've now completed most of the Eastern Gallery. Well, not the chitrach tunnels. Ugh. I think I'll take those out with Bolt of Fire. Even if I have to go back to town once to restore MP, that's better than sitting through each bug swinging and missing five times in a row.

 

I'm at level 20, and the game has become *laughably* easy, a lot like singleton play in Exile, except slower. It's still fun though, or at least it is in the areas that have more than 1 or 2 types of enemies repeated ad naseum.

 

I have been switching around the difficulty a bit, to see how challenging the higher levels are... they aren't challenging at ALL. Counting item bonuses I have 10 Dex, 10 Luck, 3 Gymnastics, and 6 Defense. Enduring Shield gives me an extra bonus of 40% or so, and rising as I start buying Spellcraft and Magery. On the higher difficulties things will hit sometimes, but still infrequently enough that all my MP (I bought up to 6 Intelligence, for Magery of course) makes them easy enough to take care of.

 

The game does become more tedious on the higher difficulties, though.

 

I haven't missed Tool Use at all. After getting Augmentation, I haven't met a trap that can stump me. (Except that *blasted* town alarm trap in Grindstone, that really pissed me off.) Unlock Doors is fine for doors.

 

I will probably buy some Arcane Lore (4 points of it, to get to 6, or 12 with equipment) but not till I find a good spellbook. Kelner's Dispel Barrier spell only requires 5 arcane lore, by the way, Synergy... not a stretch at all.

 

If I really wanted to buy Nature Lore (or more Arcane lore, or Tool Use) it wouldn't be a problem. Not on Easy or Normal, anyway. Having 20 fewer skill points would not make a big deal to me right now, and passing up the next 20 would really not be a problem.

[Contra]

Speaking of Enduring Armor, Enduring Shielf, Protection and all that crap..Have you a clue what and how much Arcane Shield boosts?

[Lilith]

Arcane Shield gives blessing, shielding, mental shielding and elemental resistance all at once.

[Contra]

So it's like War Blessing, Protection and Prismal (sp?) Shield in one? Does it give any added bonus if you do all the previouse spells first, and then Arcane Shield?

[Lilith]

Nope, no added benefit. Arcane Shield is the only spell in the game that gives mental shielding, though. (Except for Mindshield, which is in scroll form only.)

[Slawbug]

Arcane Shield is, however, the only spell that will give you mental shielding.

[Student of Trinity]

Prismatic Shield claims to protect from freezing solid (though this protection seems to be partial at best: I've had PS'd characters get frozen). Does AS do this too?

[Slawbug]

PS only claims to give a chance at preventing such freezing. I'd guess it's based on cold resistance.

[Lilith]

The only status effect Prismatic Shield gives is elemental resistance, which Arcane Shield also gives, so if the former does in fact reduce the chance of being frozen, so should the latter.

[Slawbug]

Update: Well, I discovered one roadblock (Nociduas) and the one element of the game which pumping dodge a lot doesn't make very easy: area effect spells! You can't dodge 'em at all. This may become frustrating later in the game. It is making me glad that I cut off Dex and Defense at 8 and 6 respectively, as the priest points give me more power for Steel Skin. I *am* starting to wish (pre-emptively) that I could access Prismatic Shield. Hmm. If I'm going to get Dispel Barrier *anyway*... oh geez.

 

Vlish, I don't know what the Tower Colony encounter is that you were so worried about, as I've finished that area and nothing was any trouble. The nasty upstairs was annoying, but not too hard to take down.

[Slawbug]

Update: As expected, getting past Almaria gave me a big boost in power, most importantly from the Cryos Spear allowing me a natural 10 AP, but also from Steel Skin and Divine Fire. The natural 10 AP is nice as it makes dealing with regular enemies much less of a chore.

 

I went and mopped up Nociduas, who was pretty easy, although I did have trouble the 10% of the time that his demon pal hit me -- for the first time since the goblin caves, I had to use healing potions (an elixir, in this case) to stay alive. I probably should have cast my own Enduring Shield rather than using the fountain's Enduring Armor, which had a weaker dodge effect. Oh well. Sort of a pointless victory, since the Emerald Chestguard isn't useful for me.

 

At the moment, I'm dealing with my frustration at finding ANOTHER big system of tunnels under the Great Cave. Those chitrach tunnels really made me hate tunnels forever. The Honeycomb didn't help, either. All these tunnel systems are making it increasingly unlikely that I'll play through the game a second time.

 

Soon, I should be able to grab an Enchanter's Robe from the necromancer (I don't want to craft one, as that Mandrake is gonna turn into knowledge later), and then I'll have my +3 to Mage Spells earning me Dispel Barrier. Then I get to go loot my list of 26 unpierced barriers.

 

Oh, yeah. The Sulfurous Flats dungeon didn't ruffle my feathers at all. I don't know what all the fuss is over. (Well, it didn't ruffle my character's feathers; I'll admit to being a little annoyed by all the Searing Geneforge Creature Clones... honestly, if you're going to copy the graphic, at least change the !@#$ adjective!)

[Lattan]

Edit: never mind, I found it.

 

Quote:

At the moment, I'm dealing with my frustration at finding ANOTHER big system of tunnels under the Great Cave. Those chitrach tunnels really made me hate tunnels forever. The Honeycomb didn't help, either. All these tunnel systems are making it increasingly unlikely that I'll play through the game a second time.

Try breaking them up a bit...there's not really any need to tackle any underground map before you come to its (on-map) entrance aboveground.