Vlish AI

[Rupert]

I'm having a relatively (completed the original a half dozen times or so but haven't been read any tips beyond max mechanics/leadership needed for this version) blind first playthrough on a melee Guardian without making any creations on torment difficulty. I've more or less cleared up to Kazg at this point.

 

I'm finding that the difficulty of enemies so far has mostly been about what I'd expect, with the exception of vlish. For some reason they seem to spend about 90% of their turns blessing/cursing, even when they're already blessed/you're already cursed. This would be fine if they were in a mix of enemies, but when they're on their own, it makes them entirely trivial. Although the dip in difficulty when you first encounter them in Pentil Woods compared to the thahds and roamers you encounter before doesn't seem too jarring to begin with, the "stronger" ones underneath the woods don't end up being any more difficult, just taking a couple more hits. Similarly, when you get to the spectral vlish in the Buried Cells, it feels like they should be quite dangerous given that it takes several hits for me to kill them, but they did not attack at all.

 

Not sure if anyone else has found this/if anyone else has any other thoughts with how it relates to other difficulty levels or general balance, but I do feel that if there's a v1.01, they could do with a slight tune up.

[Randomizer]

Most of the time the vlish aren't too hard because of what you mentioned. However if you ever get hit by the terrify you can sometimes find out how nasty they when they now chase you down and do damage while you can''t act.

 

The vlish in the Junkyard are more coordinated in attacking.

[Rupert]

That would be true and likely grounds for a reload (often the case when you're not using creations and most enemies will kill you in ~3 hits at most), but on the rare occasions I've seen a terror vlish attack, terrify hasn't proc'd as it seems that you get a base mental resistance of 75% in this game.

 

Edit: managed to get through the Junkyard without being terrified once - was similarly easy. Did finally get hit by terrify for the first time in Barrens Research shortly afterwards though.

Edited February 27, 2021 by Rupert