Hafiza, L47 L+ mist elf wizard - archmage

[nanomage]

this isn't technically a YAVP, but I don't think I intend to ever finish this game, and there's no YAA board it seems. If there is, I apologise and request this post to be transferred there.
I am finally finishing this after countless (well, more like dozen) mist elves broke their necks in pits, including one on 18ish experience level. With the penalties for using mana orb cut as they are it is now much easier to obtain infinite wishes than in the days of yore. recharging with the orb and spending every second wish on SoCR will keep you going at 99 Mana indefinitely (or close enough to indefinitely to not matter).
With a mist elf, I only had to tap into HP for the first dozen wishes for power or so. PP amount those guys get is ridiculous. No scumming was needed either, just more or less normal play as if going for an ultra. I took treasure hunter though, but usually do with casters anyway.
To sum up, 1.2 has made archmaging really accessible to everyone. mist elves end up with easily 1800+PP by level 50, and using the orb with gauntlets is now just below 2 corruptions, so you actually can keep your mana at 99.

I'm so glad i've finally done it that I'm writing this post without the save on hand. I'll attach it later when I get back to my adom laptop.

Here she is:
Hafiza.zip
I am standing on an L altar
first kill was bandit, not that it matters anymore.
cat ring I lost when clearing GUV in Haggar's place.
all the wands on the floor have already been double drained, the ones in inventory haven't yet.
Crown and Medal are on HMV staircase
robes and whirlwind are crowning gifts, don't sacrifice them.
There's just 1 cast per recharge yet.
5 hours of silvernight remain - she'll have to take a break until the next one likely, or maybe it's possible to ramp up her speed and rev up the PP to be able to cast throughout the month idk.
I savescummed to see how many readings the Wishbook can handle - turned out it's only two, so don't read it again.
I am so glad to get her of my hands and finally play something other than ME wizards.
They're crazy powerful though, when they don't break their necks in pits

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Hafiza        St: 1  Le:23  Wi:14  Dx: 7  To:16  Ch:38  Ap:17  Ma:99  Pe: 8 L+
DV/PV: 29/30   H: 216(216)    P: 3(2659)     Exp: 47/18748719  PC: 2  Sp: 119
Blessed Burdened
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[Kyreles]

Nicely done, but to truly be an archmage you should be able to bookcast with 1 in all stats (and not just on silvernight).

But building that type of archmage is seriously tedious (and not worth it).

[nanomage]

Well that's exactly the thing I wanted to point out - that old 1 Ma/To restriction is in fact outdated now - your mana will not go down from 99 ever if you use the mana orb to recharge, and the corruption cost of using the mana orb allows to use only every second wish or so for scrolls and water

So while she doesn't qualify for the "bookcasting indefinitely with 1 in all stats" requirement, it's no longer necessary to have 1 in all stats to just "keep bookcasting indefinitely".

I would actually be interested in learning what the official developers' stance on the possibility to obtain infinite wishes in game is - they seem to have closed the ring-dipping path but at the same time they've made bookcasting massively easier (perhaps inadvertently?) by cutting the mana orb corruption penalty.

[Kyreles]

Well that's exactly the thing I wanted to point out - that old 1 Ma/To restriction is in fact outdated now - your mana will not go down from 99 ever if you use the mana orb to recharge, and the corruption cost of using the mana orb allows to use only every second wish or so for scrolls and water

Could you clarify this? I'm not totally up to date on all the changes. Wish still drains stats, I assume, but what has changed exactly?

[nanomage]

wish still drains 10 in random stat, yes. [U]sing the mana orb still gives you full PP and +3 Mana on top of that as before. What's changed is the corruption penalty for using the orb (all orbs, iirc). Now it gives you about 1-2 corruptions if elemental gauntlets are equipped (about 1.5 in my rough estimate), small enough to be countered by reading 1 scroll, worst case 2 scrolls.
So, on average casting wish drains 10/9 Mana (as there are 9 attributes to drain randomly), and using the orb to recharge gives you full PP, 3 Mana and 1-2 corruptions. Casting two times with one wish spent on scrolls brings this to -20/9 (-2.(2)) Mana from casts, +6 Mana from recharging and net zero corruptions worst case(3 corruptions for recharging and -3 for reading 2 scrolls, scrolls are generated 2d2).
This is (on average) a net positive in both mana and scrolls, and one wish to spare. Essentially it means that if you can bookcast once, you pretty much can bookcast indefinitely.

[Booster]

I can attest to this being true - I've won with an archmage fairly recently and used the mana orb + Elemental gauntlets to wish for SoCR, and eventually (once I had enough SoCR to keep corruption at bay for awhile) wished for power. The end result is that you are gaining copious amount of PP (and +3 Mana per orb use) that would still allow you to cast at Mana 1, although with certain items your mana will never really drop below the 30's.

Even when doing this, and gaining enough PP for 3 wishes on a non-silvernight, my Mana never dropped below 30 Base so it was more like 60-70 after item boosts.

[nanomage]

...

Even when doing this, and gaining enough PP for 3 wishes on a non-silvernight, my Mana never dropped below 30 Base so it was more like 60-70 after item boosts.

Even this looks like extremely bad luck to me. Hafiza started with 50s in all stats and around 80+ (base 60 or so) Mana initially, and after a few dozen rounds her Mana jumped to 99 and never went down even as the other stats were getting drained. TotRR alone gives you a nice +24 buffer in case it's Mana that's got drained, complementing that with the crown and the orb is staggering +46(or 44). I didn't even bother to bring the crown from hmv in my game.
edit: or maybe its +44, don't remember if the crown is +12 or +10. anyway, it's so much that it's irrelevant

[Blank4u47]

Also you could wish for scrolls of power after you gain 3 times the pp needed to bookcast, because a blessed scroll of power gives you 33% of max pp. so at some point you get 1 wish per scroll, and 2-4 scrolls per wish.