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Post by johannhowitzer on Feb 26, 2017 20:01:22 GMT
Was finally able to run through the 1-18 section again today now that the Children of the Corn saga is over, and cleaned up the notes a lot and cut a lot of unnecessary things out. I may do a new 1-18 demo video soon, but this time I'd like to put in some practice first so I can really nail the execution and show what the route can do. I've reduced quite a few rests, and stacked tasks in more clever places so there will be less downtime and rushing.
Tangent to the Children of the Corn discovery, remember how I said the kids had started to behave like the Zhentarim mobs, randomly standing there and ignoring me sometimes? On a hunch, I decided to mess around with differently-aligned summons for decoying in Zhent. Rather than Summon I or BBOD, both True Neutral, I used Greater Planar Binding, which calls a Celestial Avenger, Lawful Good.
Sure enough, every Zhent mob glommed onto him immediately. He didn't live very long, but it's a step in the right direction. I can either use him as a starting point to get the Timestop clump a little closer together, or I can try to shore up his defenses a bit, mostly Displacement. The Sentinels hit him for 200 a pop and he fell instantly, all I need is a tiny bit of extra time to draw over the furthest enemies. Could even summon him further back and do a running gather instead of spawning and then trying to draw to a point, that might help him dodge hits for a bit.
Since it's a level 8 spell, this does mean some very nice things - I don't have to sacrifice Timestop/Weird slots for it, I may not have to do the delevel trick at 18 to get three level 9 spells, and like Summon I, I have a bunch of charges per rest versus BBOD where I have one. I bet this strategy works in Hendron's dungeon, where I was having the same problem, and I think I will also try other summon spells, like Create Undead, something that may be more resilient even if it has to be Evil aligned.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2017 4:55:08 GMT
have you tried out the lesser planar summons survivability wise, in my experience the celestial avenger comes off as incredibly squishy and slow to act (although he hits much harder and can be buffed to hell), maybe the lesser forms will be more useful as lures
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Post by johannhowitzer on Feb 27, 2017 21:26:02 GMT
The search for a resilient summon has failed. Five Wizard spells yield a non-Neutral summon - Lesser PB, PB, Greater PB, Animate Dead, and Create Undead. The latter two summon Evil creatures, and the first three can summon Evil creatures if you're Evil, but Evil seems to have the same issue as Neutral with not provoking Zhent mobs.
Of the Good creatures summoned from PB spells, we have the Celestial Avenger, Hound Archon, and Lantern Archon. The Hound Archon can take a couple more hits than the Avenger, but only about 4-5 hits total; the Lantern Archon falls just as fast as the Avenger. So it looks like my best bet is to use the Hound Archon, and immediately Displace it in the hopes that the clump of enemies will have a better chance to fall within the radius of a Weird spell.
It's a real shame Neutral and Evil don't provoke enemies well, as every summon with crit immunity falls in those camps - the Undead spells and the elementals from Summon Creature VII-IX, as well as the invincible BBOD and maybe Shelgarn. The Summon Creature spells call some pretty robust creatures in general, too. The Badger from Summon I is rather sturdy. So I guess what I want to do is summon a Hound Archon, then follow up with a Badger or another Hound Archon if things don't collapse narrowly enough for Weird.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 2, 2017 3:37:57 GMT
Here's a chart showing when I'm getting quest items and turning them in. Red quests involve a usable item to get the quest item, like the wand to get Xendi's locket, and thus these quest items can't be re-acquired after they've been acquired for the first time. What I'm trying to do is find new places to pause the run. I'm not always able to sit down and chug through a full quarter of the route, and with quest items spoiling on me, it means if I want to pause in the middle of a section, I have to re-acquire the quest items I had when I log back in. This will also help with practice, since it's more beneficial to practice smaller sections repeatedly than run through 18 levels of full route once in an evening. Right away I see I can pause after the opening shopping trip. Shop quest items also do not "spoil" like other quest items do, so I don't have to worry about the wine, still, potion, gem, or vellum. ---> First pausing spot: level 4, skip getting Teacup, keep Wine and Still The locket is the biggest obstacle in the 4-18 section, so if I break this part of the route up, I would either turn the locket in early since it's very little XP, or postpone getting it until resuming after the pause. Level 15 looks like a nice place to break this up, since it's where a bunch of things get turned in. ---> Second pausing spot: level 15, turn in Locket early, keep Strange Wardstone ---> When resuming, get Teacup, go through Sewer to kill a Slime, and kill Hive Mother for crystal ---> Third pausing spot: level 18, all quests will be turned in here Level 22 looks really good for the second section. The only quests carried over here are the spellbook and peppers, both are very quick to get again and require no fighting. ---> Fourth pausing spot: level 22, should only have two quest items, discard them ---> When resuming, get Peppers and Spellbook And then again, at level 27 we have a strong pausing spot before the Tower Ruins. Unfortunately, this does force getting the Troll Skin again, which is a long detour, but Zerya 1 can be practiced without doing this, and that's the only quest interfered with. ---> Fifth pausing spot: level 27, before Tower Ruins, should only have Troll Skin, discard it ---> When resuming, can practice Zerya 1 isolated, otherwise get Troll Skin So that breaks the run into much more manageable chunks, I think. [Level 1-4] Opening loot, shopping, town quest turn-ins [Level 4-15] Oltum tags and all major early grinds [Level 15-18] Remaining tags before wiping quest slate clean [Level 18-22] Early 20s tags, many short trips [Level 22-27] Deep One, Razhid, Blood Moor [Level 27-30] Two Zeryas and the Drow Tunnels
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 2, 2017 21:14:12 GMT
Got plenty done today.
First, I've been making a bunch of characters and getting them up to the level 4 pausing spot, with their names ending in stuff like "S01 N03" to tell me which bunch of characters I'm looking at. I need sets of characters at the same point in the run so I can practice starting from that point for a short arc.
This is also how level 30+ routing is going to get started. I already have two characters set up post-reinc at 30, I'm going to collect as many as I can now while I continue to clean up and practice stuff at 1-30. The run is cut in half conceptually, there's almost nothing that carries over through reincarnation so I can route the two halves almost completely separately. This is really nice, as it means making major route changes in the 1-30 section probably won't ever mean having to scrap all my collected level 30 post-reinc characters as obsoleted. If there happen to be changes in the route that change what items the level 30+ characters have to start with, that's easy enough to fix.
Second, I did some more menuing optimization, and will continue doing this gradually up through 30, and while making these level 4 practice characters, I of course was able to practice the 1-4 route, it improved pretty strongly. I'm able to correct very small things and get them into memory when I'm going back over the same tiny piece of the route repeatedly like this, and each time it gets faster. That's a really nice thing about speedrunning - the better I get at this game, the less time it will take out of my life.
Third, a minor improvement, it occurred to me that I don't need to confirm every single convo option at the questgivers. Say I need to accept a starter quest, complete it, skip the second quest, and accept the third:
Old version I would press something like 223, click NPC, 12, click, 234, click, 223. New version I press 22, click, 1, click, 23, click, 22, then 3 while walking away.
This doesn't seem like much, but it does allow me to zip between quest givers quite a bit faster, and with the full route probably turning in over 75 quests, it will add up.
Going to do more work today as well, I need to find a spot between 4 and 15 to break up the run one more time, 11 levels is a bit much for a practice segment. I think level 12 can be a good pausing spot, although it does require me to get the Cask, Boar, and delay picking up the Fennisroot. The Mother crystal can thankfully still just be saved for the resume at level 15.
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Post by condude on Mar 3, 2017 17:22:04 GMT
Isn't the hive mother a lvl 10 tag? Doesn't that mean it's horribly inefficient to do do the corresponding quest at 15?
I'm probably missing something.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 3, 2017 18:32:40 GMT
This is just for the purposes of practice - if I practice the level 12-15 section like ten times, on ten characters, I will have ten sets of a few quest items that will spoil as I will not have time to continue to 18 and turn them all in.
It's how I've done things in the past for my XP route planning when I'm short on time - I get up to a certain point, write down which quest items I'm carrying, log out, then when I come back and continue, I go get those quest items again first. This is just in a more planned manner, leaving stuff in my permanent notes about it so I can do all this automatically and not have to think ahead every single time.
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Post by condude on Mar 3, 2017 23:37:32 GMT
Ah, gotcha, I thought you were just picking up from where you were every time. Of course you can grab the quests again. Stupid me.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 5, 2017 15:47:30 GMT
Streaming practice today. www.twitch.tv/johannhowitzerEDIT: Okay that wasn't the best idea to do this on Sunday. Trying to juggle four servers while most of them have people despawning the Oltum, groups around my level conflicting with areas, etc is not ideal, I should be practicing on quieter days / times of day. Maybe a little later today I'll do some offline planning work. The Oltum is also a major segmented practice roadblock. I may just be stuck with a 4-15 practice segment, it's early in the run anyway so I'll be doing it a lot. Just need to pay very close attention and make notes on things I need to watch out for in subsequent practice iterations so I don't keep making the same mistakes. One thing I've been trying lately that's helped a lot in keeping control of the Oltum - when I drag it past a group under invis, then have it attack while I'm far enough away to avoid thunderclaps, it really helps if I do Stand Ground > Attack instead of just Attack. If I only do Attack, sometimes he forgets and decides to run to me; the Stand Ground seems to override that. He "remembers" that he was supposed to stand ground.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2017 10:29:35 GMT
i noticed randomly the other day that bb9 doesnt break my gv/sanc even when it does dmg, not sure if this is still relevant
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 10, 2017 2:34:06 GMT
Having a little burnout lately on this project, so I've been working on other things, and just chipping away when I feel like it. Not really done any major routing, but I went back and put together some info for myself, in order to see where I can trim even more from the route. Opening shopping has actually been depending on random drops for some time - my purchases amount to 1.2 million gold over what I'm guaranteed to get from the first looting trip. However, not all of these items are used early on; quite a few expensive items are saved for hitting level 18. In fact, that nearly accounts for the gold deficit by itself. I also made a chart of my equipment changes throughout the run. There are surprisingly few places where I change equipment. - Before the Crypt, equip low slot staff, child slot rings, +2 INT helm for extra invisibility. - East Road equip AE gloves and ring for Oltum, plus I equip Acid Robe around here, which will last me until 18. Sash of Shimmering as well to help with Kuo-Toa grease, but considering dropping this as grease usually hits me anyway, really just in the Chief's hut. - For the Wilderness, Underdark, and Goblin Camp, I put on the Cloak of the Ghost, upgrade my child ring to a minor ring, and use some ice necklaces. My notes also put the Rhiannon boots on here, but I don't see a use for them during these trips as I am either tossing ice necklace Ice Storms, or invisible. - At the Farm I switch to brawling belt and striding boots for kids. Also Staff of Command and Cold Amulet, both of which stay on until 18, and upgrade to a lesser slot ring for Extended Mestil's Acid Sheath. - For the first POW trip, I upgrade to epic AE gloves, Premo cloak, and +6 INT helm, plus adding the epic flag and having to use Nine Lives rings. - By the sewer, I am able to put on two Rings of Wizards. ------------------------------------- Looking at shopping, I can postpone the 18 stuff until I hit 18, but it looks like I can cut some other things as well. - Clarity potions can be replaced with the spell, which can be extended for greater safety and speed against the kids. - It seems I can drop one Lesser ring, as I was only using it for a second Mestil against the kids in the basement, and one is lasting long enough these days. - Neg potions aren't used until 18. - I'm not completely convinced I will ever need Rhiannon boots, I guess potentially in places like the Blood Moor and Ogres if knockdown is present there. Needs testing. - If I can manage POW without a lesser slot ring, I can drop Epic AE gloves. - I am not convinced that Amulet of the Wizard will ever be useful, in which case I may get a +4 CON amulet. This will save heal usage at kids, and save buffing time after 18 in some places. - It should be possible to drop the Prankster's Staff. Right now, it's only helpful at the very end of the Crypt and crossing the East Road (probably not necessary), and in the Wilderness, Underdark, Goblin, and Farm trips - I am currently doing ALL FOUR of these trips on a single rest, which stretches the invisibility a bit tightly, but I haven't been using empowered invisibility. I have more slots than I've been using. - Certain spells I buy as scrolls could be learned while leveling. Melf's Acid Arrow is only used for Bison, Firewall is first needed at level 20, and Stoneskin isn't used until 30 for the Zerya killcount, when I may be wearing the epic robe that blocks use of Greater Stoneskin due to having base armor above zero. - Acid Robe is only a safety item for POW, for when Energy Buffer falls. I've been doing better there at avoiding damage, and it only helps for two of the spawns, so I might just be wearing the blank starter robe until 18! (And since I have the Torch to absorb the potential item loss when I die at the end of the looting trip, I could even just do the first 18 in underwear.) Incorporating all of these changes will need to be done soon, and then the opening shopping needs to be re-routed for inventory management. I may also drop three Bags of Holding, giving the first page more space; the other bags were always empty and are really just there in case I get some amazing random drop that also happens to be heavy, like Big Blue or a Mammoth Plate. If that does happen, I can just use the bag I'm using to store my level 18 items that I likely won't be buying until 18 now. Then I can start planning the money to afford the stuff at 30 that I'll be transferring through reincarnation. EDIT: After shopping changes described above, here's what equipment looks like: That's equipping for the entire first half of this speedrun. Really sleek and efficient!
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 11, 2017 7:03:27 GMT
Ran a test of new shopping and other inventory stuff today. Invisibility seems to work even with less casts, as long as the Oltum doesn't decide to attack stuff at the start of a map out of invis, like when leaving the disciple's tower. If it becomes a problem, I can put the Prankster's Staff back in without any trouble; might do so anyway just for safety.
I really need to move on to 18-30 and fix all my notes there. Hopefully will get to that next week.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 12, 2017 13:11:42 GMT
Completed a full 1-18 run to get a character ready for 18-30 testing, with the route changes I've made. Route functions well, notes look up to date, money doesn't seem to be an issue. Farm enemies drop 10,000 gold guaranteed, and often double that; if I somehow don't get enough money from that and all the quest turn-ins, I can re-loot the Fang Blade at POW grind trip to cover the difference.
To finish solving the money route, all I've done is postpone buying four of the level 18 equipment set's items until I've hit level 18 - and they're all in Rips, so I only have to go into one shop.
Some little neat tricks to mention, some of it is new, other stuff I've been doing for a little while and dunno if I've mentioned it.
- At the Ogre Lord, there is one Rogue Spectre. Obviously it would be really bad if it stole something important, and I don't have GS yet to get past it safely... plus there's a boss right there that I have to kill. I need a reliable way to kill it without getting into melee. U2D I've dropped from the route, and it wasn't reliable anyway, plus it wastes time since it does nothing to the ogres. What do?
Well, a single Max Ice Storm can't kill the Spectre, and if I cast Legend Lore, it WILL kill the ogres that are blocking the Spectre for me. So... just don't buff with Legend Lore! This way, two Max Ice Storms will kill the Spectre - and everything around it. I think this is 100% safe.
- I may have mentioned this before, but Max Fireball is better than COD at Ice Kobolds. At 16 with max ranks and Legend Lore, it oneshots everything but the King 95% of the time, and has no hit dice cap.
- The Golem Sanctuary can be traversed much more quickly if you cut one corner. Going through the right side path, an early part of the path goes ONE square away from the end of the path. Running through one wrong door only inflicts about 80 damage to me, and I have about 110 HP unbuffed. This appears totally safe. Damage boooooooost!
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Post by condude on Mar 12, 2017 21:21:31 GMT
About the rogue spectres, I believe it's Xendi's second or third quest that gives you a ring with high spot on it. That should boost the skill high enough to avoid rogue spectres and quicklings. IDK if you have that quest yet though.
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Post by johannhowitzer on Mar 12, 2017 21:43:58 GMT
Charged ahead with 18-30 routing today, got through Uroboros and Renders before I felt like calling it a day.
I've started putting serious Gate usage into the route. Here's what it looks like so far!
- Cesspool kill heralds my ability to take level 21. This gives me Wall of Stone just in time to skip two doors in Formians with the glitch. It also gives me ESF Conjuration. Formians are also the last use of Necromancy in the run until level 30 when I do Zerya's killcount.
- On return to town, I specialize in Conj, bar Ench and Necro, and leave my Gate spot at the docks.
- Go kill Kardkildontar, Gate back to docks, set Gate there again.
- Turn in the Toad quest to Amir, teleport to town, go get the Peppers.
- Gate back to docks, turn in some more quests, exit the Sooty Crow, drop Gate spot.
- Go kill Dracolich, gate back to docks, go kill Uroboros, skipping two doors with Wall of Stone.
- Teleport to town, use Rainbow Stone, leave Gate spot by the temple, go kill Renders.
- Teleport to town, turn in some quests, Gate back to Anduin's Temple, rest just inside, on the way to Deep One now.
You should have a pretty good idea now of how much time Gate will save by itself. Also, I'm killing Kard and Dracolich on the same rest, same for Uroboros and Renders. Less rests = less sadness.
That's her first quest, for the flowers. I haven't been doing that one, but I could. So far, this is the only thief enemy I have to manage to kill before it gets to me; everything else I invis past. There will also be the two Rogue Spectres by the Deep One, but a Max Ice Storm oneshots them since my level is higher.
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