Dark Gyffte/Strategy

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Revision as of 16:37, 5 March 2019 by imported>Volc (Added a preliminary skills overview section. Will rearrange / clean things up shortly.)
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Work in progress

This guide will provide some additional information to aid with a Dark Gyffte ascension. It is a work in progress as such.

Pre-Ascension Preparation

When outside of Ronin/Hardcore, having the Warbear induction oven in your workshed will duplicate the first consumable cooked. Having a warbear high-efficiency still in your workshed will occasionally save you a blood bag when making drinks, allowing you to make an extra food/drink item. Carefully crafting and switching between the two can lead to many extras.

Astral Consumables & Equipment

Neither astral consumable is compatible with the Vampyre.

Regarding astral equipment, the Astral belt is likely the best choice. The path does not provide more than +30 ML naturally (and said buff is incompatible with two of the three intristic forms), so the extra stats are always welcome. The extra +20 will make meeting certain thresholds like climbing the Oil Peak and heating the unstable fulminate easier.

For low skill runs, the Astral shield is a possible option, for the damage reduction and HP regeneration improve quality of life substantially. This is less viable for those with either the latte lovers member's mug or the Kramco Sausage-o-Matic™.

Most choices have their uses, though, at least to varying degrees.

Moon Sign

Mr. Store Items

Most of the usual applications for various items from the Mr. Store exist. However, some are more important due to these some items are more important than others under these restrictions, while others have their effectiveness reduced (or, in the case of familiars, are not usable at all).

Vampyre Skills

Unlike previous spring challenge paths were skills are obtained in a linear fashion and need to be unlocked, each skill in the Dark Gyffte path is available to learn immediately, but costs some of your base HP to do so. Skills can be learned and unlearned at will, albeit at the cost of 1 adventure, so knowing what skills are best for each situation is the key to excelling in this path. Non-intristic skills will also be assigned a tier depending on their overall value & usefulness.

Intristic

  • Dark Feast - Deals damage and restores up to 30 HP from monsters with at most 30 HP. Increases to 100 HP with hypnotic eyes. Also staggers the opponent. As most traditional healing items and abilities do not work, this is your main way to remain healthy, especially early on. Becomes less effective later on your ascension.
Note - The HP restoration is independent from the damage, and you will still gain the expected amount of HP even if the damage is reduced to 1.
  • Wisdom of Countless Centuries - Passive +3 stats per fight. Fairly self explanatory, extra stat gains are always nice to have, especially in low-skill runs.

Beastcraft

  • Savage Bite (10 HP, low tier) - Deals double your buffed muscle as damage for 3 HP. Possibly decent if relying on wolf form (since the other combat skills are not usable under such a condition), but the other two forms are more versatile overall, making this a low priority.
  • Crush (20 HP, low tier) - Deals 75% of a monster’s HP in damage for 10 HP, capped at 200 damage. Synergizes with Dark Feast, but requires two combat rounds to work well, during which you are vulnerable if your stats aren’t adjusted accordingly. Also reduces a monster’s HP low enough that dark feast won’t recover very much HP, especially given the cost to use in the first place.
  • Baleful Howl (30 HP, high tier) - Free banish for the rest of the day. Limit of 10 uses, at 30 HP per use (can only banish one monster at a time this way). Costly to learn and cast (and not recommended for low skill runs), but once you have the base HP & regen to support it, it is at the top of its class.
  • Ceaseless Snarl (15 HP, mid tier) - +30 ML buff, costs 10 HP per 20 turns. As an easy source of +ML, it naturally provides considerable substats, but needs to be mixed with other skills in order to handle it properly (and is not recommended for low skill runs). A great asset once you have enough skills to handle it, plus it inevitably speeds up quests that rely on ML modifiers.
  • Wolf Form (20 HP, mid tier) - Intrinsic & toggleable form, +150% Muscle and +150% meat drops. Costs 10 HP to turn on and off. Probably the least useful form of the three forms, it is primarily used for the meat drop bonus to extract more meat from the beefy bat bodyguards (and is important if you want to obtain Torso Awaregness faster for the Makeshift Garbage Shirt). Meat drops are also useful to speed up the nuns / wall of meat.
  • Preternatural Strength (15 HP, mid tier) - Ensures your muscle cannot be lower than your mysticality. It needs to be used with Madness of Untold Aeons to be effective, and makes it possible to use physical attacks with a melee weapon (such as broken champagne bottle) when enemies get tough.
However, as buffed muscle does not affect your HP in this path, this does not actually improve your survivability. If you are fighting scaling monsters (such as sausage goblins), this skill actually increases their defense without improving the stats they yield. Use with caution.
Also makes the NS Lair muscle test much easier.
Whenever you have this learned, focus on buffing mysticality entirely in order to maximize your muscle accordingly.
  • Flesh Scent (5 HP, high tier) - Passive +100% meat drops. The negligible HP cost makes it easy to keep this passive running in perpetuity, doubling your meat gains without much trouble. Especially effective when used to farm beefy bat bodyguards early in a run, and meat drops are also useful to speed up the nuns / wall of meat.
  • Ferocity (10 HP, mid tier) - Passively boosts skill damage by 50%. Primarily useful for bosses with a lot of HP, and also for maximizing cold damage at the smut orc logging camp.
  • Intimidating Aura (30 HP, high tier) - Passive that causes the blood bank to yield two more bags of blood per day. Generates more turns per day, and you only need to have this learned once per day to acquire the extra bags.
Due to the high HP cost, low skills runs will ideally learn this, grab the blood bags and immediately switch to more useful skills. Once you have more base HP, though, you can mix this more into your strategy more naturally.

Haemoturgy

  • Blood Spike (20 HP, mid tier) - Deals mysticality +20 as damage for 3 HP. A solid ability that scales to your mainstat with a low HP cost to cast, it is at its best during low skill runs when you cannot maximize your stats nor HP regeneration very easily. Performs best with Madness of Untold Aeons.
  • Blood Chains (15 HP, mid tier) - Stuns an opponent for 5 HP. This skill is key for making flyering safe, since tanking monsters’ retaliatory strikes, even with mistform and high moxie, can be difficult to recover from.
For general purposes, however, most combat strategies are better off relying on either using a single powerful skill or boosting your moxie so the enemy cannot hit you.
  • Chill of the Tomb (10 HP, high tier) - Deals mysticality +30 as damage & staggers for 7 HP. Due to how the orc chasm works, this skill is incredibly useful for obtaining bridge parts. Outside of that, its low cost to learn combined with it scaling to your mainstat makes it an effective damage dealer if you have the HP regeneration to sustain it (especially with Madness of Untold Aeons).
Note that most bosses in this path are immune to staggers.
  • Blood Cloak (20 HP, high tier) - A buff that reduces combat frequency by 15%, costs 10 hp for 20 turns. Reducing combat frequency is extremely useful for speeding up a plethora of quests, making this vital for many portions of your ascension.
  • Mist Form (30 HP, high tier) - Intrinsic & toggleable form, +200 Damage Absorption, +20 Damage Reduction, +4 resistance to all elements. Costs 10 HP to turn on and off. Despite the high cost to learn, this is vital for low skill runs, making tougher monsters and zones easier to survive. It shines the most versus monsters that have a tendency to hit deal damage regardless of your moxie, such as most of the bosses on this path as well as gremlins.
As a bonus, it is also an easy and effective source of elemental resistance for tasks like the haunted kitchen, a-boo peak and the hedge maze.
  • Hypnotic Eyes (5 HP, high tier) - A passive that increases the damage & cap of Dark Feast from 30 to 100. Very effectively for allowing Dark Feast to one-shot monsters until level 9-10 or so, especially for the trivial HP cost to learn.
  • Macabre Cunning (20 HP, mid tier) - A passive +5 stats per fight. More stat gains are always nice, especially early on in a run, but it takes a back seat to more useful/vital mechanics during low skill runs.
  • Sanguine Magnetism (15 HP, mid tier) - Passively recovers 10% of your max HP after each combat. As it is percentage based rather than a flat source of HP regeneration, along with the fact that it only occurs after combats, it is more effective in situations where you don’t need it as much. For early in a run, as well as low skill runs, seeking out equipment-derived HP regeneration is more effective.

Aesthesis

  • Piercing Gaze (20 HP, low tier) - Deals moxie +30 as damage for 3 HP, while also delevelling. Effectively requiring Sinister Charm and possibly Madness of Untold Aeons to be effective, it could be situationally useful in a low skill run. Running the moxie to make this effective would likely give sufficient moxie that ranged auto-attacks would work just as well.
Note that this is the only damaging combat skill that is usable while in Bat Form.
  • Perceive Soul (15 HP, mid tier) - Makes a target monster more likely to be encountered, similar to Olfaction, for 15 HP. It is as its best to seek out a specific monster in a zone with a lot of less useful options, such as fighting bloopers or bob racecars. Its usefulness ultimately depends on the number of banishers / IotMs you have access to.
  • Ensorcel (20 HP, high tier) - Binds a monster to your service, for 30 HP. Serves as a familiar replacement for this path, and is highly versatile in how it can be applied.
Note that while your ensorcelee will disappear if you unlearn this skill, re-learning it will restore it again.
Also note that ensorcelling a monster counts as a free runaway. Given that it can be cast three times per day, you can use it on two weak monsters solely as a free runaway before binding a third for long term applications.
Some of the best uses include:
Bugs - Some of the late game bugs at level 11 or so can be used to provide a nice +item drop bonus that works in tandem with Batform and Sharp Eyes.
Elementals - Binding a powerful elemental and combining it with Spectral Awareness can be a more effective combination than simply using mistform for boosting elemental resistance.
Goblins - Blocking the first enemy attack of each combat can keep you alive when running a lot of +ML, or versus tougher monsters in general. Unlike other ensorcels, this one does not rely on a monster’s attack, so any of the weak goblins from the outskirts of cobb’s knob will suffice.
  • Spectral Awareness (10 HP, mid tier) - A buff that gives +2 resistance to all elements, costs 10 hp for 20 turns. Inferior to mistform, and does not stack with it. However, it does stack with ensorcel when used on an elemental, which can prove to be a superior combination in higher-skill runs.
  • Flock of Bats Form (20 HP, high tier) - Intrinsic & toggleable form, +150% Combat Initiative and +150% Item drops. Costs 10 HP to turn on and off. Probably the best form of the three, the bonuses are very effective and can be applied to almost every part of your ascension. You will be relying on this a lot.
  • Sinister Charm (15 HP, high tier) - Your moxie cannot be lower than your mysticality. Incredibly powerful in boosting your durability, combining this with Madness of Untold Aeons allows you to use a ranged weapon and fight like a moxie class. This is especially important when relying on multiple forms, for learning & using combat skills can be a problem if they are incompatible with the selected form, while boosting moxie is always reliable.
Also makes the NS Lair moxie test much easier.
Whenever you have this learned, focus on buffing mysticality entirely in order to maximize your moxie accordingly.
  • Batlike Reflexes (15 HP, mid tier) - A passive +75% combat initiative. It is nice to have, but other skills are more important for advancement and survivability. It is at its best when you need to find Modern Zombies or for the NS Lair initiative test.
  • Sharp Eyes (30 HP, high tier) - A passive +100% item drops. Very powerful, and well worth the cost to learn.
  • Spot Weakness (15 HP, low tier) - A passive that weakens enemies at the start of combats. Useful on paper, but it rarely makes a difference in the scheme of things, and other combat skills and passives are more effective at making combat easier.
It is actually detrimental to have this learned while flyering, since progress is dependant on ML upon using the flyer.

Softcore Strategy

Aside from the usual strategies that are viable for ascensions in the ronin phase, some are particularly noteworthy.

  • Vampyre consumables are fully tradeable (even if the blood bag is a quest item) and have do not have a level requirement for consumption. As such, multiples of the blood-soaked sponge cake and vampagne can be pulled to maximize your turn generation.
    • It is possible to generate an obscene number of adventures in a single day by combining these with a spice melange as well as a Ultra Mega Sour Ball, both of which reduce fullness and drunkenness by 3, and stack with one another.
    • For longer runs, a mime army shotglass can serve a similar purpose
  • The wax hand is an accessory that provides +40 max HP in-run at no stat prerequisites and it can be used for quality of life for low skill runs.

General Advice

  • Note that the only ways to recover HP are by consuming a blood bag (not recommended since they are better used for generating turns), using Dark Feast, entering Torpor (whether by losing a fight or through your coffin) and with passive HP Regeneration.
    • Dark Feast with Hypnotic Eyes should cover your combat needs early on. Around level 9 or 10, though, you will have to resort to other combat strategies. If these strategies include combat skills, make sure your HP Regeneration is enough to cover the HP costs.
    • When monster HP exceeds 100, adding Crush to the above line-up will reduce non-boss enemy HP enough to allow them to be fed upon without risk of killing them accidentally. This can be vital for vampires without IotM sources of HP regen late in a run.
  • Even with the possible 8 blood bags per day, you cannot use all of your daily organ space in hardcore.
    • However, dieting pills from the gaunt ghuol in The Defiled Cranny function normally with vampyre foods, so 2 dieting pills will allow you to use all of your organ space in one day. Dieting pills are unlikely to be worth going out of your way for, though.
  • Since the fortune cookie cannot be consumed, you cannot get semi rares reliably.
  • Upon meeting Dr. Awkward for the first time, your HP will be reduced to 0, which will inevitably require a visit to Torpor (unless you sacrifice a blood bag to heal yourself). Time this for when you need to switch your skills anyways.
    • You could weasel your way around this by combining HP regeneration and an action that uses a turn to do (that is still possible with 0 HP). An example of this is cooking the unstable fulminate.
  • Sonofa Beach’s Zerg Rush will be especially problematic since HP regen and restoration is not readily available. This can be handled somewhat by deliberately lowering your base HP while running sufficient HP regen, while increasing your moxie enough that lobsterfrogmen cannot hit you.
  • The Copperhead Club’s passive damage can catch you off guard if unprepared; make sure you have enough base HP & regeneration to survive it, and rely on one-shotting the monsters here. Mist Form form may help as well, but you won’t be able to run Bats Form for the quest-relevant item drops.
  • Chill of the Tomb is especially effective in The Smut Orc Logging Camp, thanks to the relatively new mechanic that causes a vital non combat to occur when sufficient cold damage is done.
  • When using any form, either make sure that your stats are configured for fighting with basic attacks or that you take combat skills from said form’s skill tree.
  • The forms can be toggled on/off at will (but use the casting cost in HP for each toggle). Since forms disable so many other skills, it's generally desirable to only run them when necessary, and fall back to a non-form state for more general-purpose adventuring.
  • Mist Form is especially effective for fighting monsters that deal abnormally high damage, such as ninja snowman assassins, or monsters that can hit and deal damage regardless of your moxie, such as all of the path’s level 11 bosses or the gremlins.
  • Bats Form and Sharp Eyes together yields 250% item drops, which is largely sufficient for general item hunting purposes.
    • You can combine this with using Ensorcel on a high level bug-type monster to boost this further. Level 11 monsters like the black widow and rock scorpion are decent options for this purpose. Wishing for a scaling Black Crayon Beetle or finding a Spant from a high-level Spacegate planet gives you access to potentially more powerful bugs.
  • You don’t need to visit the blood bank with intimidating aura immediately; you can visit it without for 5 bags of blood, then learn intimidating aura later to obtain 2 more at your leisure. Best to do this at the very end of the day, so you can get all 7 bags the next day without reconfiguring skills again.
  • Unlike other avatar paths where you gain more skills with levels, your base HP is dependent on your base muscle. If you want to have more skills active at once, you will need to adjust your leveling strategy accordingly. Muscle substat buffs such as Gunthers are useful for this, at least until you have enough runs done that base HP ceases to be a concern.
  • If you are using Preternatural Strength or Sinister Charm, buff your mysticality exclusively. Your offstats will adjust accordingly.
  • Due to how the path works, Spectral Awareness’ +2 resistance to all elements is not compatible with Mist Form’s +4 resistance to all elements. Don’t rely on combining them for something like a-boo peak. Elemental resistance from Ensorcel-ing an elemental stacks with either of the above, though, and is potentially the best source of elemental resistance.
  • Bear in mind that you cannot easily heal between a-boo peak tests, unless you burn extra adventures at Torpor. It is best to mix these HP-draining tasks with fights versus quest-relevant monsters that you can easily feast off of.
  • Regarding the registration desk, Vampyres can naturally do well in terms of the initiative and off-stat tests, but lack any reasonable sources of elemental damage for the third test. If you have access to a genie bottle, saving a wish for this purpose is recommended.
  • For players with few/no IOTMs doing early runs where HP is at a premium, consider lingering in the Haunted Bedroom a little longer to grab an elegant nightstick. The +30 HP is like getting an extra skill or two for free in Torpor.
Ascension Strategy
Rankings: HC Skills - HC Familiars - HC IotMs
General: Class selection - Familiar usage - Lucky adventures
Paths: BHY - Fist - AoB - BI - ZS - AoJ - BIG! - KOLHS - CA2 - AoSP - SS - HR - Picky - Ed - Random - AoWoL - Source - NA - GN - LtA - L.A.R. - PF - G-Lover - DD
Additional Paths: DG - 2CRS - KoE - PotP - LKS - GG - Y,Robot - QT - WF - GY - JM - FotD
IotMs: Tomes - Faxing - Copying - YR - Garden - Correspondent - Workshed - Tea party - Florist
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