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Thread: Lithium for dummies

  1. #1
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    Default Lithium for dummies

    So, I was looking for some challenge games, and decided to try lithium as it is frequently described as "easiest". So far it was surprisingly hard, a lot harder than a normal game. A lot of things taken for granted - guarantied teleportation, mummy artifacts, chaos removal etc. isn't available anymore. Started with candle drake barbarians and lost all of them in forest or DH. First drake farmer managed to get to D:38 only to be killed by mimic hivemind (why did I melee it without para resist? Why did I melee it at all??? oh well...).

    Gardening is awesome and so is double carry capacity, but farmers don't have anything useful on higher levels, terrible skill increases and bad crowning gifts. What classes and races have better chances? Drakes look a bit risky without unlimited speenweed. I am trying dwarven monk at this moment. Talents - PV line and immune to pain for ToEF? How much gold do I need for crowning as a dwarf, and does crowning cost depend on level?

    In normal games I always go through DH, but without teleportation and magic mapping LF seems the only option. With 60/20 it is more or less safe but getting 20 PV at this stage is problematic. One drake passed through with 11 PV, 2 prayers and PoEH but never made it back. Monks get a nice tunnel by level 13, which is useful on the way back. I might try getting smithing to 100 and make a tunnel with pick axes.

    Alignment - N seems to be the only sane option, as mystic reward is the most likely source of chaos resistance. Also N crownings are easier. So dwarven altar needs to be generated neutral and I finally find some use for for all those cockroach traders.


    Overall it is a lot of fun. Have to do lot of things I would never do in a regular game, such as giving steel amulet to something in a dark room, because there are no resources to dispel dark or identify amulets. Exiting from mystic room by eating displayer beast. Running away from a titan (not even greater) because resources are at a premium and XP is simply not worth it. Killing chaos wyrm with magic missle wands (surprisingly effective as it turns out). Talking to every square on car lord level because there is no way to see invisible.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by yhal003 View Post
    So, I was looking for some challenge games, and decided to try lithium as it is frequently described as "easiest". So far it was surprisingly hard, a lot harder than a normal game. A lot of things taken for granted - guarantied teleportation, mummy artifacts, chaos removal etc. isn't available anymore. Started with candle drake barbarians and lost all of them in forest or DH. First drake farmer managed to get to D:38 only to be killed by mimic hivemind (why did I melee it without para resist? Why did I melee it at all??? oh well...).

    Gardening is awesome and so is double carry capacity, but farmers don't have anything useful on higher levels, terrible skill increases and bad crowning gifts. What classes and races have better chances? Drakes look a bit risky without unlimited speenweed. I am trying dwarven monk at this moment. Talents - PV line and immune to pain for ToEF? How much gold do I need for crowning as a dwarf, and does crowning cost depend on level?
    If you're a fan of melee, perhaps a beastfighter would be better than a barb. They start with healing and don't need weapons. Crowning gifts are also epic. Orc, dark elf, drake, all make good choices. Archers are good for this sort of thing, too, as long as you're prepared to rely heavily on rocks, especially early on. Paladins also have healing and good crowning gifts. Dwarf paladins are quite strong and have massive starting PV (I've rolled 20+ PV, 10-15 is typical). They also make competent casters. Crowning is independent of level. It costs 25% less to gold crown a dwarf, which would be ~50k. Hurthling might be easier with cooked corpse crowning scummed from Big Room. If you don't mind a caster, priests are quite strong and detect item status is a godsend when your inventory options are minimal.

    For ToEF, it might be worth considering the Rolf set for 2x fire resists and nice damage. You lose your SoCR and RoI from mystic though, so it depends on what other resources you have.

    In normal games I always go through DH, but without teleportation and magic mapping LF seems the only option. With 60/20 it is more or less safe but getting 20 PV at this stage is problematic. One drake passed through with 11 PV, 2 prayers and PoEH but never made it back. Monks get a nice tunnel by level 13, which is useful on the way back. I might try getting smithing to 100 and make a tunnel with pick axes.
    AF/DH is tricky for this game, yes. I'd at least check to see if the DH stairs are close by. If you pay attention to the design first room or two in a level, it is often possible to predict where the stairs will be with pretty good accuracy.

    Alignment - N seems to be the only sane option, as mystic reward is the most likely source of chaos resistance. Also N crownings are easier. So dwarven altar needs to be generated neutral and I finally find some use for for all those cockroach traders.
    Lawful might be better for crowning for the reduced corruption, despite the extra difficulty.
    Hoping to win with every class, doomed. Archer, Barbarian, Bard, Beastfighter, Druid, Elementalist, Farmer, Fighter, Monk, and ULE Priest down.

  3. #3
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    Done early enough, L+ is the easiest crowning with an almost guaranteed whip dropping from a goblin slavemaster.
    Like JellySlayer said, it helps against corruption. It's also safer and faster than livesac on neutral altars.
    Also, you can still talk to mystic as N, then crown as L later.
    Dwarven paladin with that PV and an early justifier crowning would be pretty amazing since it covers your weapon needs for the rest of the game.

    As for DH, I agree with Jelly - there's a high chance of getting well placed staircases and thus worth a shot.
    DH1 usually doesn't generate very nasty stuff upon entering; my experience shows it's doable with almost every char.
    Wands of digging really make DH a piece of cake, especially if blessed and maybe supercharged if resources permit.
    DH2 is really the more dangerous of the two levels, especially if you linger around for too long.
    In my games, out of 3 or 4 characters, one has the staircases either in adjacent rooms or on the same side of the level, which speeds things up.

    Another thing worth noting - on banshee level, look for invisible stalker corpses for an easy see invisible intrinsic.
    I had two in one of my last games which not only gave me see invisibility but also invisibility itself.
    Maybe even take banshee to DH for some easy wyrm/ancient dragon loot.

    Smithing at 100 may reduce the chance to break a pickaxe but you still can't repair it and doing that in dwarftown costs way too much to be feasible.
    I'd say the skill is quite useless for non-weaponsmiths.
    "Hell is empty and all the devils are here."

  4. #4
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    Beastfighters are next on my list, once a few more monks are dead. Right now I have this ridiculous monk with 3 altars, 2 vaults, 4 herb levels, 2 shops, a river and a beehive (bees on D:1, really?) generated all before Khelly. It is like a star killed his long lost brother or something.

    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
    It costs 25% less to gold crown a dwarf, which would be ~50k. Hurthling might be easier with cooked corpse crowning scummed from Big Room.
    Took me closer to 60k... One thing I never appreciated before is excellent prices in dwarftown shop for kin.

    Quote Originally Posted by JellySlayer
    For ToEF, it might be worth considering the Rolf set for 2x fire resists and nice damage. You lose your SoCR and RoI from mystic though, so it depends on what other resources you have.
    Yeah, one of my chars cleared d:50 with this combination. Too bad those SoCRs are so valuable. Is lawful crowning sufficient to save me from corruptions at least up to casino?

    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
    As for DH, I agree with Jelly - there's a high chance of getting well placed staircases and thus worth a shot.
    DH1 usually doesn't generate very nasty stuff upon entering; my experience shows it's doable with almost every char.
    Frost giant jarl is nasty enough for me. But yeah, I try to find stairs to DH:2 as well. Helps to backtrack later when another staircase is seen from the other side.

    Quote Originally Posted by Blasphemous
    I had two in one of my last games which not only gave me see invisibility but also invisibility itself.
    That one was very lucky, getting invis from corpse this way is very rare, even when stalkers are in abundance like in Ice Queen domain.

  5. #5
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    Ok, the usual "what to wish for" question. I have a 19 lvl monk standing on D:46 with 50/28 DV/PV on normal, fists as weapons, burning hands and knock in spell book, 4 SoCR, bracers or regeneration and ring of elemental mastery, few charges of m.missle and acid wands, 8 charges of poison wand. Some undead and dragon slaying ammo, more ammo in casino. 2 charges in teleport wand. Believe it or not, I haven't found a single potion of booze or scroll of charging up to this point. No penetrating weapons, no death or para resistance. 3 PoEX, 2 PoUH (not blessed but I have water for that).

    There is great fire vault (two artifacts of type "armor"), tension room of great blue wyrms, small black dragon vault. One pissed but neutral cat lord. Oh and a dozen or so ghost kings on the way back to casino.

    I really need to level up, but don't want to fool around much. Partially because of limited SoCR supply, partially because of nice turn count so far . Most "fat" monsters I cannot kill anyway - cannot scratch greater molochs, don't think fists are going to work in earth temple either. I was thinking of wishing frost bolt books and clearing the vault. Alternative is wish for phase daggers and try earth temple. Or get to mana temple and wish for amulet of death resist if I don't find one on the way there. With alertness of 100 I think there is a fair chance against archmage. But I don't have light source and wands of trap detection.

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by yhal003 View Post
    Ok, the usual "what to wish for" question. I have a 19 lvl monk standing on D:46
    wow...i mean WOW. lvl 19 and d46....do you have scrolls of monster aggravation? if so, mana temple is easy...stand on the stairs and read it...nuuragwaan will appear..kill him. make sure you are not standing in a str8 line with him else he will blast you with death ray. ofc you need a light source. i STRONGLY recommend you do the greater vault....what is your race? if it is drakeling, the vault is a piece of cake for you....just make sure you stay close to full hp at all times! wands of death are absolutely devastating for greater blue wyrms (drink potion of invis and blast them in a str8 line)...however, you dont have booze to recharge wands...at any rate, i think you need a couple of lvls b4 you even think of doing d50. p.s. wands of fireball are pretty good in the earth temple! best of luck.
    btw, i just plyed a drakeling barbarian...lvl 18 and below the casino, a mixed tension room featuring an ancient karmic wyrm....i tried to tremendous blow him to death...oops dead!
    .

  7. #7
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    Well, there is a bit to do before I can even enter D:50 . This is dwarf monk, so no easy fire vault unfortunately. I do not even know how many wyrms are there, no means of monster detection . Do ancient dragons/wyrms see invis ? I have invisibility ring. Monster aggravation and mana temple - does it work in p23? And single archmage is not going to solve my EXP problem. On the other hand, with those meager defences, those jellies are going to corrupt him like hell.
    Last edited by yhal003; 06-24-2015 at 08:17 AM.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by yhal003 View Post
    Well, there is a bit to do before I can even enter D:50 . This is dwarf monk, so no easy fire vault unfortunately. I do not even know how many wyrms are there, no means of monster detection . Do ancient dragons/wyrms see invis ? I have invisibility ring. Monster aggravation and mana temple - does it work in p23? And single archmage is not going to solve my EXP problem. On the other hand, with those meager defences, those jellies are going to corrupt him like hell.
    i think monster aggr works...no harm in trying...i will suggest you meticulously scout and kill every lvl from the eternal guardian down (i assume he is not dead) and build your lvls and inventory that way....air temple can also be done using monster aggravation. i must say monks and beastfighters are a poor choice since the former requires a lot of exp to come online and the latter imho tapers off in the late game alltogehter..i feel the best 3 classes for lithium run are...barbarians, wizards (who are not terribly unlucky) and assassins (especially one wielding a decent melee weapon)...(assassins in particular can feed on shopkeepers for exp/loot cause of backstabbing, all the better if you have means of cursing and a stack of potions of invis)

  9. #9
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    Problem is, any level past the guardian can generate things I cannot deal with. "You hit titan with full force and slightly wound it. Titan hits you. Titan hits you. Titan hits you...". Ancient dragons from greater vault turned out too much, but there was smaller fire vault on D:45 that helped to get to level 23 or so and collect a lot of useful junk including scrolls of charging, potions booze, amulet of death ray resistance and wand of trap detection. UL:3 had an altar so there was no need to mess with elemental altars.

    With death ray amulet I though I had everything to deal with mana temple. No light source was annoying to say the least, but there was a bigger problem. I didn't have any way to actually kill Nurgy. So after 3 prayers, some stat draining and lots of wasted acid wand charges I used RoDS to wish for humanoid slaying ammo. 3 more prayers (it is good I was conservative in the past), more stat drains, lots of wasted light wand charges, one SoCR spent and all 20 arrows flying somewhere in the dark my monk finally killed Nurgy in melee. Stats are surprisingly well preserved, although with Pe 9 suprises are waiting behind any corner. Char is wearing amulet of eye now . Ironically he got level 25 ability to swap with hostile monsters, that would help a lot against that bastard, just after the fight.

    Earth temple was easy, thanks for wand of fireball advice. Now just summoner and D:50 left. With 2 SoCRs left, those balors are going to be a lot of fun.

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by yhal003 View Post
    Problem is, any level past the guardian can generate things I cannot deal with. "You hit titan with full force and slightly wound it. Titan hits you. Titan hits you. Titan hits you...". Ancient dragons from greater vault turned out too much, but there was smaller fire vault on D:45 that helped to get to level 23 or so and collect a lot of useful junk including scrolls of charging, potions booze, amulet of death ray resistance and wand of trap detection. UL:3 had an altar so there was no need to mess with elemental altars.

    With death ray amulet I though I had everything to deal with mana temple. No light source was annoying to say the least, but there was a bigger problem. I didn't have any way to actually kill Nurgy. So after 3 prayers, some stat draining and lots of wasted acid wand charges I used RoDS to wish for humanoid slaying ammo. 3 more prayers (it is good I was conservative in the past), more stat drains, lots of wasted light wand charges, one SoCR spent and all 20 arrows flying somewhere in the dark my monk finally killed Nurgy in melee. Stats are surprisingly well preserved, although with Pe 9 suprises are waiting behind any corner. Char is wearing amulet of eye now . Ironically he got level 25 ability to swap with hostile monsters, that would help a lot against that bastard, just after the fight.

    Earth temple was easy, thanks for wand of fireball advice. Now just summoner and D:50 left. With 2 SoCRs left, those balors are going to be a lot of fun.
    Wow, thats impressive.
    Yes ancient dragons are not joke, even with immunity you want to use range for them.
    Regarding Wyrms, even with really powerful melee characters I want slaying ammo for them.

    Edit: While I'm pretty sure HPs are an issue, how are you weapon skills?
    Maybe that doesn't matter that much regarding +hit/dam?

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