Speedrunning Immortality

[johannhowitzer]

Did some more testing and number crunching, and I believe if I move Ice Kobolds to level 16 instead of 13, I can oneshot them all with maxed Fireballs under LL and Identify. This should be a 95% chance to kill with GSF Evocation, the advantage over COD is that there's no hit dice limit. I don't think there was any reason for me to be doing Ice Kobolds so early, the trip is entirely separate from the Rat King trip and can be put anywhere.

Firebrand is surprisingly weak even when maxed here, since it doesn't benefit from Lore. It falls 3 damage shy of oneshotting the archers. Except I forgot about their 50% fire vulnerability, heh!


So now I need to test the Rat King enemies and see if I can do without COD there. Then I can almost certainly trade out Necro focus for Evo focus, possibly bar Necro instead of Enchantment...

And I'm also starting to doubt the worthiness of Empower Spell in the pre-reinc build. The only thing offhand I can think of that it's going to be that useful for is Emp-IGMS, used at Zerya and possibly MOC if I do her pre-reinc. Zerya could be hit by something else on level 8 slots... Emp-IGMS is strong, but not necessary, Rebuke or Greater Orb of Force could be used there, need to test those spells.

Looks like a pretty big feat shakeup is coming.

[johannhowitzer]

Made a map of the trips I will be doing from 18 to 28, the lines are quest prerequisites.



The left column are trips that can be done at any time under the tag cap, as they have no quests.

[johannhowitzer]

Starting to do route formation now. I expect this second phase will take a much shorter time to plan out than the first phase did.

For Zhentarim opening grind, I gain just over a level by clearing the cave before the outpost. It takes four Timestops, and the Weird luck is a bit sketchy. I need to bring Bigby spells to control survivors, and a quick way to dispose of them, possibly Evards.

At 19 I take Black Blade. This makes gathering enemies much more reliable, and gives me a non-Oltum way to dispose of lower level enemies without using spells. I can optionally also clear the center room of the next Zhentarim map on one Timestop, but I'm leaving that off for now and seeing how the XP fares otherwise.

When that first grind session is done, I have some options. Kardkildontar wants level 21 after all for Wall of Stone door bypassing, but I can do Minotaur Maze, Corpse Lord, or maybe Lava King now. I'm not sure yet how kills at Lava King will work, I might want Orb of Cold, which I didn't take yet. Maxed Orb of Cold guarantees kills in the Lava Pit without a Lore boost, as long as the Giants don't use Elemental Shield right away. I should have enough slots to clean the path to the King that way.

So I went to Mino Maze first since it's near-zero XP yield and has to be done at 19. Max Ice Storm killed Berserkers as predicted. The killcount doesn't seem too strict. I also tested Gate here, which right now has a 40-yard range with GSF Conjuration. Here's a map of my work with Gate.



I use the same destination each time as there was never any point to altering it. My teleport range is barely long enough to reach the first teleport, and it was not long enough to jump from the north wing straight back to the south - I'm forced to walk again from the start area. Four Gates are worthwhile here as indicated.

The best tactic I could come up with for the boss room, which causes silence, was to set two Evards, damage shields, and run out and tank everything under Premo. I'll want to Ice Storm a few packs of Shamans first, which hopefully will work fine with Legend Lore, they have more health than Berserkers. Otherwise they just stand and cast Doom and other harmless spells for a while and block the Chieftain from getting to my death trap.


Something I didn't think about - I may be able to mitigate the 15-second timer penalty per Timestop per map, if I use Gate and Wall of Stone as a stand-in. There are many places in Zhentarim where I could use such a strategy to avoid stacking more delay on Timestop, I'll give it a try when I get that far.

[johannhowitzer]

Done a lot of work today! I just simulated the experience route from 18 to 30, and the great news is that it seems like it will only require two grinds at Zhentarim - or even just one grind that's twice as long, to avoid a revisit. The first grind is only the cave, so I could just extend it into the first proper outpost map and call it good.

From there, I did test the kill XP at Hendron, but the rest of my simulation was done without gameplay and I assumed zero kill XP, even at Razhid, which I hopefully will do at level 22. I reach level 31.5 entirely on the back of quests and Zerya's books. So this means as I test the route, I will be cutting out some quests, and pruning kills down to clean killcounts. I even have a revisit to Zhentarim later on for two quests, so there's a failsafe built in if my XP is short somehow by then.

Here's my simulation notes:

pastebin.com/1PZXuvGY

The quest turn-ins are indented, the number before the quest is the lower number of the quest's level cap or my current level - so it tells you how much XP I'll be getting for the quest. In this shorthand I've divided the quest XP by 250, I call this "quest levels" - you need [current level] * 4 "quest levels" to level up. Then after the quest, you'll see something like "23+87/92" - the 23 is actual level after the turn-in, and the 87/96 is "quest levels" until next level, so in this case I will then need nine more. You can read this as a fraction added to the level 23, so if it read "20+40/80" I would be level 20 and forty 80ths, or 20.5.

Breaking things down into these "quest levels" made the math a lot less headache-inducing and easy to read at a glance.


Other things...

- One problem I've been running into - enemies often ignore my summons, just standing still like idiots while I run ahead and grab more enemies. This was a problem in both Zhentarim and Strange Tower. As I may not be revisiting these areas, the solution is probably just to use more Timestops and rests, and not count on being able to mass half a map at once.

- Hendron, by the by, is vulnerable to Sonic damage. I wonder how many people knew this? I certainly didn't. Going to test Maxed Orb of Sound on him, see if I can oneshot!

- Weird is not used in my route outside of Zhentarim except for the Render Queens and a few Cave Trolls before Spawn of the Deep One, since those trolls have Evasion. As such, ESF Illusion at 21 looks unnecessary, it's after the second Zhent grind and the Renders and Trolls are already killed easily enough without it. So at 21, ESF Evocation looks like the best choice, helping greatly in Razhid. GSF Illusion is even enough to get one-round GV at level 21, and two-round GV is impossible until after reincarnation.

- Haven't tested early Razhid yet, but I don't foresee many problems. Spawn under GV, set Wall of Stone for the Zombies, grab the Spectres, the Guards I'll use negs, Disp, and Premo, should be fine. Can timestop any troublesome spawn, plus the dragon and Razhid himself. Razhid kill is just timestop > mord > grab > soup, then IGMS spam. Timestop kinda makes a chump out of him. For the trash, Sunburst kills at 55% chance after beating Turn Resistance - their TR is only 25 so CL21 should be enough with two racks of Sunbursts.

[condude]

Raz at 22 will be giving a TON of xp. Definitely not negligible. IIRC the mobs there give more than Zhents.

[johannhowitzer]

I doubt I can oneshot Hendron with any spell. He is vulnerable to Sonic, but it's only like 10% and he's concealed on top of it which reduces orb damage, and he's immune to other elements. So Orb of Sound does 158 maximized when it hits. Shout is lower base damage, and Thunderclap can't be maximized. Max IGMS deals 240 damage which is just over half his health, but deals its damage in many hits, giving him time to chug a heal as his health is dropping. Seems in order to kill him quickly, I have to Timestop, and the three Mutant Creatures have to be dead already or IGMS will spread. But Timestop is the best way to deal with them too, and I'll have used Timestop a few times to kill other enemies on the map.

I do remember having spawned just the creatures before, without also spawning Hendron. If I can do that, I can kill them along with the group at the entrance to the boss room. Then just GS, spawn him, Timestop, max IGMS twice. That's the best idea I can come up with.

[condude]

No luck with empowered T.claps? I remember reading that empower, on average, hits about as hard as maximize.

[johannhowitzer]

Empowered Thunderclap should do about 168 damage on average at max Lore, with a max of 288, while Max Orb of Sound will do 256 base damage at max Lore before vulnerability. If Hendron's vulnerability was 50%, Max Orb would do enough at zero concealment, while Emp Clap would have a slim chance to do enough. I did a test just now with Shout and found his vulnerability to be 25%... even at max Lore, an Emp Clap that rolled maximum damage would fall just short of killing him at casterlevel 19. Based on the damage Orb did to him, it looks like 50% concealment.

Hendron is a level 23 tag, meaning I could do him at casterlevel 22 instead. At that level, Emp Clap would have a slim chance to oneshot him, assuming reflex save doesn't reduce the damage like it does with Shout. But it's not worth changing my trip order - I go to Hendron early to get extra XP from the kills there to reach casterlevel 20 for Wall of Stone, which saves large chunks of time for the Formian and Kard trips.

Also, I did find a way to spawn only Hendron without the creatures. Going to test it to see how precise I have to be, then I can just Timestop > IGMSx2 him. I only cast Timestop twice on the map before engaging him with current strategies.

[johannhowitzer]

Does Turn Resistance only use a D10? I have yet to see a roll over 8. Need to roll a 5 to turn enemies at Razhid. Am considering just trying to run damage spells there instead of Sunbursts.

EDIT: Razhid is looking really impractical at 22 with old build. I don't have any characters to 18 yet with new build so I'll get that done soon - the difference is ESF Evo in new build. Then I think waiting until 24 is ideal. I shouldn't need the XP for Deep One, and after Deep One I have enough quests saved up to land on level 24 before Blood Moor and do Razhid first. Level 24 means very little to no Turn Resistance issues, and 2 more INT mod for DC. I can have 65% chance to kill things instead of apparently like 15% right now with the wrong build.

I'm also having trouble with Wall of Stone on the first zombie spawns, there will be some problems later on too in more open rooms, so I will probably have to alternate GV and Sunburst at those points, or wall and close the gap with a blade.

[johannhowitzer]

A neat trick when I hit level 18 - I scribe Weird with a little overflow XP, delevel immediately, go back into the Farm House, run to the last room, and nab a second Wizard's Circle ring, then drop a couple kids with damage shields while setting up equips. This lets me learn Timestop, Weird, and BBOD at level 18 and already have two slot rings.

[chirality]

Feb 2, 2017 22:32:29 GMT johannhowitzer said:

Does Turn Resistance only use a D10? I have yet to see a roll over 8.

it's a d8

[johannhowitzer]

Ran through my level 1-18 route section tonight to get an Evocation build character for 18-31 testing. I was able to tighten up a lot of the route and also figure out exactly how the transition to the 18-31 section has to work. Deleveling for a third level 9 spell at the same time as I see a big equipment update is pretty efficient. It's also kind of hilarious killing a few Children of the Corn with only three pieces of equipment on my character - the 10/- bludgeoning belt, +4/10 Cloak of Premonition, and the flag for autohaste.

I actually had some minor XP problems due to not being able to kill some Sekines in the farm cellar - it wasn't a new server, so I had to trade in a Farm House key, and didn't go to the Store Room. This made XP pretty close a few times, but somehow, in the end I still had a full quest's worth of extra XP and the delevel cost me 6000 XP, was expecting it to be much less. I need to be paying more attention to my XP as I do the final quest turn-ins to hit 18, so I can save a quest for after the delevel if I'm able.

[johannhowitzer]

I've done a full run from level 1 up through level 22 so far today, and worked on my notes, which are now complete up through the Dracolich trip.

Upcoming are Spawn of Uro, Grey Renders, Deep One, Razhid, Blood Moor, some side trips to Tower Ruins and Drow Tunnels for quests, possibly Gaobin and a return to Zhent for quests, two Zerya kills, and Asimathas. Not sure I can get this all done tonight, and it's time for a break and some food. I think I can get the 18-31 section route in a complete state in the next few hours of working on this.

I also need to be looking ahead to post-reincarnation, it may be necessary to scribe a few scrolls for the transfer. The reincarnated build will only get two level 9 Wizard spells for free. Tags at level 30 post-reinc are Mother of the Corn and Cave Troll King; I think Bigby 9 is wise, perhaps also Timestop and Gate. I will take level 31 on the way to Lithiucshas.

I'm finding some places where I can do two or even three tags in a row without resting, prepping spellbooks with enough efficient spells for several trips. Also dovetailing trips together, where I may rest during a trip, but on my last rest in that area, setting up some spells for a shorter follow-up trip. If anyone's curious where that might be happening, take a look at the current notes in the Google doc:

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XYwcLgvGhuMZ42MUCy8g-7CRFfuIr50UeNupcDfaaE0/edit#gid=0

[condude]

Hmmm, you can't find any scrolls to learn? I know that both strange tower and AK (might have to wait until later, since it's a lvl 40 tag) have a fair number of scrolls. IIRC, even strange tower had some relatively high level scrolls.

Also, could you not scribe scrolls pre-reinc, and then read them after reinc to get those spells back?

[johannhowitzer]

That's what I'm planning on doing - if necessary. There's a chance I won't have to scribe anything, which would be faster. And I do have a Strange Tower visit in my route already - I go there to get Greater Stoneskin before the first POW trip.

However, looking at my notes right now, it looks like I don't need this trip at all. The Belt of Guiding Light is only used for Beholder safety, but it's safe enough without it as nothing ever gets a chance to attack me; and the only scrolls I use from there are Greater Stoneskin and Gate. I can postpone Legend Lore one level to fit Greater Stoneskin, and I don't need Gate until level 19, when I do Minotaurs.

So thank you! Your question drew my attention to some obsolete stuff in my route.