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James Fung
United States
Berkeley
California
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Powerless Wizard
Of all the classes, Wizard is probably the most dependent on what glyphs they find. They start with a -25% damage handicap. While they can usually take out level 1 monsters with melee, pretty much every level 2 is out of the question. Therefore Wizards will live or die by their glyphs, and a natural choice for race is Elf, which give +2 max MP per glyph converted.
Because they depend on what glyphs they find and how soon they find them, playing a Wizard can be luck dependent, though knowing the location of all glyphs at the start of the game helps. If it takes you several tries to win with the Wizard, that's okay. It happens.
And sometimes this happens: we find that every exit is blocked, no way to level up, no item to power us out of here, no teleport glyph to jump out of here, and no amount of potions will help us either. This is actually a separate issue from what I mentioned above, as this can happen to any class. Dungeon generation isn't perfect, and sometimes we're stuck and just have to retire and start another game.
Okay, this is better. First order of business is to check out that nearby glyph. It's a WEYTWUT teleport glyph. It's not useful right now, so let's just leave it on the ground. That shop is selling a mana potion for 12 gold. As a heavy glyph user class, mana potions are handy, but we can hold off buying it until we really need it.
Pop-quiz: which way would you explore now? Okay, going for a glyph would be a good idea. There's 2 about equally far away, a cluster of two at the bottom, and one off in the corner. What I would do is head south and see which of the closer ones we're more likely to reach.
Recall in our last game, the map is mostly made out of corridors. The shortest path between any two points is generally done by connecting hallways. Therefore, when we moved south and saw a wall to the east, I figured there probably isn't an east-west corridor leading to the right glyph, otherwise we would probably see a door there.
Instead, I continued down and turned to west when we drew level with the left glyph. This hallway very likely leads to the glyph, but there's a goblin in the way we have no way to defeat. We've been blocked, but do you see why I suggested going south?
Pop-quiz: what would you do here? Find an alternate route to the left glyph or head right? I think both are about as likely and will take about as many revealed tiles. For now, let's head east.
We found a north-south hallway and, sure enough, there's an east-west hallway leading to the right glyph. So I was wrong. And this way is also blocked. Remember what I said about the Wizard being luck dependent? Yeah.
Pop-quiz: now what would you do? Find an alternate route to either of the nearby glyphs or head south? It's fairly likely the door to the south is a hallway leading to a glyph (when tiles line up like that, it's not unlikely), but it might not. I think it will probably take fewer revealed tiles to find an alternate route, but some others may disagree with me.
This is what happened: first I tried finding a path to the right glyph from below, until we ran into the boss: a level 10 meat man. There are ways for a Wizard to deal with that. Then I tried finding a route to the left glyph from below. But immediately we find a north-south hallway with no idea where the next door to the west would be. When exploring, remember your goals and constantly re-evaluate whether what you're doing still falls in line with those goals. Then I tried finding a route to the left glyph from above and ran into a level 3 meat man. Then I tried accessing the right glyph from above: success! Just a level 1 gorgon blocks the way. We smack it out of the way with our staff.
It's a WONAFYT glyph. Frac this. Let's head south.
And this time a level 2 meat man blocks the way. You know, there probably is a north-south hallway running parallel to the one we're currently in, just to the right, but I've had enough of getting pushed (well, blocked) around. If we level up, we should be able to take care of this punk.
How do we level up? First we kill that level 1 warlock, but we'll still need 1 more XP: WONAFYT. For 6 MP (-1 to 5 MP because Wizards cast spells cheaper), it summons a random monster of our level to us. This is why we kill the level 1 warlock first, because it doesn't help if it gets teleported to us.
Think ahead a little before using WONAFYT or any glyph that changes the map. Because the monster gets teleported to a random non-wall space around you, for most classes it's sufficient to check that the monster won't block a hallway you might need to use. This is especially true for Gorgons (yes, you can unlock gorgons as a playable class), since their kills get turned into stone. Assassins will want to make sure they can see all the way around the monster in order to get first strike. Bloodmages will not want to teleport a monster onto an existing bloodstain, since they won't stack.
There's one more thing I want to mention: monsters that give status effects, like this wraith, are bad news. It's okay right now since, when we kill it, we'll be mana burned but then level up, which will remove the mana burn. However imagine the following scenario: this wraith wouldn't level us up. If we kill it, we would be mana burn'd and not be able to summon another level 1 monster to level up. If we try to cast WONAFYT again, it might summon the same wraith and waste MP. (Okay, wasting 5 MP isn't that big of a deal, and WONAFYT is unlikely to summon the same wraith since every map starts with 10 level 1 monsters.) In general, you want to kill monsters that inflict status effects when you're leveling up. Otherwise, you may have to waste a potion to clear the condition.
We kill the level 2 meat man, but then this happens:
This map just doesn't like us. I say head right and see if we can get at that cluster of glyphs. I should also remind people that, since we're exploring at full health, we should put that healing to use by killing some monsters.
Finally, the map gives us a break: not only do we find a way through this wall, we have found the altar to Jehora Jeheyu. Jehora is one of my favorite gods because he works well with most classes and makes it easy to rack up piety. Basically, Jehora likes it when you deal damage and take damage, and his boons are to improve the amount of damage you deal and take. Because he removes first strike and dodge, he is not recommended for Rogues or Vampires. He also doesn't like GETINDARE or CYDSTEPP (a death protection glyph we haven't seen yet) users, so he's not good for Warlords either. Actually, since spell casters tend to avoid damage, they don't earn piety as fast with him, but he's still pretty good. I think if any god gets nerfed, it'll probably be Jehora. But who knows, maybe we'll find fireballs and Mystera Annur, so let's leave the altar for now.
Jackpot. Okay, first we're going to sign up with Jehora. Then we're taking this map down.
I have the power!
Okay, first I'd like to discuss what are the alternatives for a Wizard if we don't find fireballs. One alternative is BYSSEPS, preferably backed up with GETINDARE and/or poison. Because Wizards cast glyphs for 1 MP cheaper, BYSSEPS costs 1... and cancels out the Wizard's starting damage penalty. Another alternative, which we haven't unlocked yet, is HALPMEH, the Paladin's glyph which restores HP and cures poison. For a Wizard, it cures 3x level HP for 2 MP and turns the Wizard into a meat shield. It is seriously sick to see a full-on melee Wizard going. Glyphs like CYDSTEPP which go from 10 MP to 9 are still useful, but they don't synergize with the Wizard's abilities as well. Wizards like spells with low MP costs.
First, we turn this warlock into a smear. When we picked up the fireball, we also found a MP bonus. By converting WEYTWUT and WONAFYT, that gives us 15 MP: 3 fireballs. Technically, Jehora likes it if we cast WEYTWUT, but we have better uses of that mana: toasting monsters.
The best way to take this wraith down is one fireball and 2 attacks: Jehora likes it when we take damage. We're going to be fully healed anyway when we level up. Also, recall that we should take care of condition inflicting monsters when we level up. Also, recall that Jehora doesn't like GETINDARE, so we'll convert it too.
Level 3: We can finally kill that level 4 goblin that was protecting the glyph: it's LEMMISI. That also gets converted. Next up is the level 5 wraith. The funny thing is the monster that should be the bane of Wizards, since it causes mana burn, goes down easily to fireballs since it has low health and no magic resistance.
Level 4: Down goes the level 5 zombie, though we had to reveal 1 tile to get in the next attack and fireball. Pop-quiz: where is the best place to explore 1 tile? I would do it in the open area we started in, since that's most likely to find non-wall spaces.
It will take us a while to recover MP (Elves and anyone with high max MP will find they will need to spend a lot of tiles to recover between battles), but we want to see what's the last glyph: ENDISWAL. That gets converted too. Now we're at 21 MP: 4 fireballs.
Link to OotS comic that isn't displaying properly
We have exceeded 15 piety. For 15 Piety, Jehora grants Bolstering: convert 1 health potion to +15 max HP. In any economic game you've played, you establish your income before spending your earnings. Otherwise you'll find yourself strapped for cash later in the game. The same applies here: It is generally a good idea to establish your source of Piety so you'll have lots to spend on boons from your patron god. Like with the Bloody sigil, I would only get Bolstering if that 15 HP would make the difference. If not, I would save the Piety to get Madness (25 Piety, +5 damage).
Level 5: Down goes a level 6 meat man, level 7 goblin. Get Madness.
Level 6: Kill level 9 gorgon, then we end up in the position above. I actually made a mistake here. I thought we could take down this level 8 zombie, but we can only get it down to 20 when we run out of HP and MP. Pop-quiz: what do you do? Finish it off? How? Or pick a different target? I think I chose wrong: we have 20/66 HP, so I thought one health potion would buy us one more attack to finish it off. But one health potion heals us to exactly 46 HP. One more potion does the trick, but it seems like a waste.
Level 7: A much better idea would have been to fight a running battle, which is exactly what we do against the level 9 zombie. The reason why is Jehora smiles when we deal and take damage, and in a running battle we'll be healing in order to do both. We kill a couple level 4 goblins (since their first strike interferes with the level up trick) and a level 5 zombie. This sets up a level up trick against the boss.
Endgame
My word, it has a lot of HP. After the level up trick, it's only down to 708 HP. There's not enough monsters showing to do the level up trick again. Luckily, since it only deals 43 damage, we can do a running battle. Luckily, our patron god likes running battles. We get Retaliation: 30 Piety, gain a Mana shield, which causes 1x level damage to a monster that hits us. Mana shield is very handy against animated armor (which we won't encounter until the Factory), since they count as a separate attack. Right now, just think of it as bonus damage that doesn't augment first strike.
It uses a lot of map, but we finally take him down. Good thing we were efficient in exploration.
Okay, that wraps it up for the Wizard. This was our first character that was pretty dependent on the fireball glyph, but when we're an elf, boy do we get a lot of mileage out of that one glyph. The character didn't really take off until we found the right glyph. We also covered my favorite god, Jehora Jeheyu, and how allows us to steamroller most monsters. Until next time.
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Chris
United States
Newark
Delaware
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If you could make the avatar's robes red I'd forever think of him as Rincewind. I can't wait to see you make some more Discworld references. Or not. I'll just read these.
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Joe Wasserman
United States
Portland
Oregon
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ColdFrog wrote: If you could make the avatar's robes red I'd forever think of him as Rincewind. I can't wait to see you make some more Discworld references. Or not. I'll just read these. 
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Duncan
New Zealand
...
Thank you so much. Next please
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You could change the tile set to appear any way you like, But I'm not sure about the big character picture in the top right corner
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James Fung
United States
Berkeley
California
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ColdFrog wrote: If you could make the avatar's robes red I'd forever think of him as Rincewind. I can't wait to see you make some more Discworld references. Or not. I'll just read these.
Nah, Rincewind would click Retire as soon as he entered the dungeon. 
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Posted Tue Apr 5, 2011 4:43 am
