combat strikes again...

wait there's a second!!!

yes! it even has another lovely free demo!

I only had enough progress in Magic Research 1 for one item out of three... Maybe I will open it back up but Tournament of Magic was kicking my ass. Pouch potions in MR2 are gonna be a lifesaver

Loadout for Giselle fight

mutated fish fight I was going freaking crazy... I stubbornly beat it with Battle Axe and Stone Mail (swapping with MP loadout) once I unlocked the Guard earth spell. took several tries to get the timing right

loadout for the avian elephant...! My strategy was eagle eye + imbue flames + landslide for first half of the fight, droplet of healing + true strike for second half of the fight. guard as well as blur according to my discretion

I'm forcing myself to retire more because in the first game I was getting soooooo bored with some of the later retirements since I'd pushed too hard too early. Ideally once a day but so far I haven't been active enough to think that's quite right. the burial chamber monsters are too strong for me and I'm also getting prism storylines where I can

only make earth prisms, so maybe I should retire now

oh but wait. I should at least try to beat the Sphinx first.

UGH I FORGOT TO SPEND MY TIME SHARDSSSSSSSSSSSS

wait it saved my time shards THANK YOU

tbh start-of-run time shards can almost be more useful anyway

I didn't try to beat the sphinx but meh

what I'm really hoping for is the run that makes Mind stat permanent anyway

water spells with lower MP cost are REALLY fun

lmao I forgot shard diligence... it's behind the first chambers upgrade I think...?
I've been roughing it with bastard sword / elder wizard robe / wizard hat

it is very funny when mage enemies use droplet of healing because it's so much less effective for them as having higher hp

me going nuts farming the vemon powder for the automatic antidote, I almost went back before I realized I got the venom powder costs for that and venomous brew mixed up

LMAO I STILL HAVE ONLY 5 VENOMOUS POWDER BUT THEN IT DROPPED VENOMOUS BREW... THANK YOU FOR REWARDING MY PATIENCE

well I beat the mutated plant pretty easily, that's good. mmm, do I want the tunic of good health or the evasive garb? I guess the evasive garb for the desert bosses. but dang I actually don't have enough cotton haha. I will check if desert enemies drop it and if not, I'll farm a bit in earlier regions first.

I've been babysitting this new run for 90 minutes lol

STOCKPILE OF SHARDS FUCK YEAH

MMMMMMMMMMM I can almost handle sand dweller but I'll close just to be safe....

I couldn't sleep. I've been playing about an hour now

I beat the avian elephant but the mobs are super hard somehow haha

OK, I've got a decent autobattler setup that's beating the sphinx protectors. it's Blur, Earth Shield, Imbue Flames, Stoneskin, Longevity, Enchant Mana Steamers, Sear, Frost, Droplet of Healing, and Channel poison for the sewage system. I needed to build that to have enough elements for Earth Shield and Imbue Flames.

I occasionally need to take breaks when those elements run low.

Unfortunately this setup STILL is not beating. Oh, I'm using Copper Gauntlet, Archwizard's Robe, and Ring of Regeneration. Might as well use the high water exp items when I can.

^ there's a stream of healing in there too

I think I'm gonna need armor to deal with the burial chamber...

EQUIP TWO ACCESSORIES AT ONCE... I deda

at least I can autobattle sphinx protectors with soul stone???

lmao... I became an adept in water... and ALMOST autobattled the burial boss. incredible

YEAH MANA CLUSTERS UNLOCKED LFG

LOL NICE

Yesterday I made the difficult decision to stop fighting the elven master on my air retirement and start a new life retirement. this is working out pretty well with the reduced cost of healing spells.

I only just found out that identical potions like potion of evasion don't stack, they could only be used to get a new duration of the same effect... I now feel very silly

lmao I didn't realize enhancements like superheated steamers were toggleable--

I beat the headmaster in six minutes which was very "ohhhhhhhhhhhh so close!" with the five minutes challenge lmao. I WILL get it next time. I think I'll do Mind Main that time so hopefully I can get Ancient Power Poison before my actual Poison Main run

Last time I was in the Lost Forest and fought the Eleven Thief, Brute, and Ringmaster. this time I was in the Mysterious Woods and fought the Spookist, Flaming Bones, and Vlad the Vampire. Vlad the vampire was a WILDLY FUN DPS check because of the absorption in the vampire bite as well as the high dodge of the bat form.

the battle actually lasted so long that my 300 second potions wore off and my antidote potion was used all 8 times

GOD DAMN IT! NO! FUCK MANA SPOUTS!

I was muddling through with Bastard Sword and the inherited Cactus Armor, Wizard Hat, Mimic. then at some point I made the tamer's wand and the silver plate mail. the gloves of spell fluency helped me a LOT because my preset spells were based on that. with the help of preexisting boss presets, I've muddled through pretty automatically

stone strike and air blast were very useful

NOT HAVING TO HUNT FOR POTION INGREDIENTS... FUCK YEAH...

i also uh. somehow failed to actually turn my wizards on. so I accomplished all that with just the rapier. lmao. yeah I turned the computer back on to get the level 32 burn storyline

I only just realized the buttons on the home screen are color coded by your current primary element lol.

Mind is a rough primary element because so many of its spells are meta... but well the white dragon in my previous Life playthrough was SO easy that it gave me confidence for this one

got mind to level 38 and unlocked the hint for time element LFG

unfortunately delayed bash is not useful against white dragon in specific since the delay counts as a status effect.

give it up for stone strike, let's hear it for stone strike

da heck.

Oh snap, my cobra at some point learned Psychic Slam. now I gotta level up my other Cobra to get it into that state

still hasn't learned psychic slam, hot damn. level 40 is such a nice round number and everything

I did a short poison retirement in the middle of this

that familiar casting poison and frail is pretty epic but it was so useless against white dragon smh

YEAH!!!!!!!! FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LIGHTNING FAMILIAR LEARNING LIGHTNING BOLT AT JUST LEVEL 40!!!!!!!

I BEAT THE ETHEREAL PUPPET. I DIDN'T THINK THAT WAS FUCKIN POSSIBLE

Even though I was actively hunting for it and using major time dilation I didn't think it would ACTUALLY WORK

Getting nythril armor from a chest was so real... This is going to be a very long retirement and I think I have a path towards the "duality" (?) storyline too

managed to complete duality... it wasn't just 38-45, it was 43-45

Beat ethereal eel primarily with the rune of stunning, and ethereal mantis by directing sap health onto familiar. Djinn is proving slightly harder but I'm hoping he'll fall soon enough

I beat enough school grounds mobs to face the boss but am holding myself back. especially cause I ground a bit more to get +2 mythril armor

I only realized there was a small head up top much later. a helmet if you will

I have +3 mythril armor now

LORE!!!

I like how there is ONE option

To defeat the etheral djinn I finally realized I could use Frost for the Chill effect and cast it multiple times to mitigate the dodging. and I finally discovered spell catalysts lmao. doesn't matter if they reduce your max mana when you can't cast most spells and already have reduced max mana. and I crafted Gloves of Spell Fluency

enough to get Paralysis within the 800 mana threshold

I've also gathered the materials for Exclusive Lesson, but won't be turning them in yet. I can still use that equipment for my own purposes. I'm taking a bit of a break. then I can continue to pursue this new aberrant path area. I killed one wolf at least.

MY LEVEL 50 DRONE IS OUT HERE SURVIVING ONE WIDE SHIELD SLICE. I AM SO PROUD

THIS IS SO FUNNY. WHAT'S THAT MEME DARK GOOGLE SHOW ME THE DARK IMAGES

it's kinda wild, I would have made myself retire today if I hadn't partially unlocked Death because permanent unlocks in this run have actually been kinda few, more like just bonuses. but now I think I get to keep trucking until I permanently unlock Death. we will see.

thought they passed on. thought we just killed them

they're telling me girl please rest

screaming. electric was my primary in the previous run, so using gloves to get paralysis down to 800 MP won't work... getting back up to the school grounds has kind of been a pain

NEW LORE

omg

so THIS is what I need

meteors

NICE

I've been struggling with the aberrant abomination for some time but I finally beat it!

LITERALLY NO UNIQUE REWARD, JUST SECOND BOSS FIGHT WITH LETHA
I'm hopeful I can beat it but wtf...

nice

I just fuckin retired, that exasperated with struggle to beat Lytha

I'm grinding on the chaotic path by now. It seems like ritualist is gonna be SUCH a pain.

I BEAT... LYTHA...????????????? I HONESTLY DID NOT THINK I WOULD GET THIS FAR. thank you ring of cocooned familiar.

i'm forcing myself to wait so I have something to look forward to in the morning...

and spend my time pieces on already well known enhancements instead of exploring the plains of peace

it's literally just heaven

I MADE A LOT OF PROGRESS TODAY!!! I finally acquired the jewels for the ritualist class! (Though I'm not sure it will be necessary...) I beat Lytha fairly easily and I have a good engine for making Divine Scripts! I actually got a lot of the upgrades already!

I'm still only beating Mana Shell and sometimes Nine-Tailed fox in plains of peace, haven't gotten the knack for the Divine Wolf yet either, though I got pretty surprisingly high DPS against the All-Seeing once. maybe it's possible

Homestuck

holy layout

omg???

DUN DUN DUN

cursed bun you are gonna be subject to necromancy ritual

SECOND bun

I was losing my entire mind

I'm trying to use expert pajamas and stoneskin+. It finally came to my attention that diamondskin doesn't stack with stoneskin so I had to go manually turn it off

I'm doing 7M out of 10M damage with no special actions other than knocking out holy judgment, so I think it's just a matter of time to win

I am just now in month 4 of my journey

and got the To Save A Life ending

never noticed this one before, hehe

I beat the Pouchless challenge today. I ended up needing two strategies. The first was Divine Masher (I got lucky. it could be Divine Spear in a pinch), Expert Pajamas, Ring of Cocooned Familiar, Synergizer. but try as I might, I could not stun my way out of Big Bang. so I used Staff of Resonance and Toga of Leadership.

the basic requirements were Poison 57 for Expert Pajamas, Death 64 for Blood Attack+, and Holy 62 for the Holy Carrot.

however 56 for all elements would have made this a lot easier.

I got stubborn. lol.

LMAO HIRED WIZARD WAS SUCH A CUTIE THIS WHOLE TIME