[b42] First Win: Skalchemist the Skeleton Alchemist

[magelike]

I can't imagine any character being easier to play than a Skeleton Alchemist with Celestial/Light.
Link to this Roguelike-difficulty winner: http://te4.org/characters/7931/tome/6e6 ... 67de51b49f

This character was plagued by bugs, unfortunately. Zone connections were disappearing from my world map for some reason, so I had to edit my save file to teleport myself to where I needed to go towards the end of the game, which unfortunately invalidated my save's legitimacy. I didn't alter my character or my items or any other part of my save in any other way. The character is legitimate.

I picked up celestial/light pretty early on (before level 12, I think), which made me beastly in combination with my 500+ point shield from bone armour. I also had Premonition from a Seer escort. I ended up putting a category point in the Skeleton tree so I could have the detrimental effect reduction increased (and the healing/shield increase didn't hurt either). Initially, I maxed my acid infusion and used that for about 60-75% of the game, but I ended up with a bunch of +fire damage and +fire penetration equipment, essentially forcing me to put points into fire infusion. It worked out well though, because my bombs were hitting for over 2k at the end of the game and ticking for a good amount as well.

Nothing in the game really challenged me or even brought me close to death (unless I wasn't paying much attention). Even the Room of Death and far portals were easy (I did around 15-20 far portal runs). I did, however, have one very avoidable death inside of a lava-floor vault on High Peak due to some fire balrog type of creature (I forget the name, but it's the top-tier version of that line of creature). If I wasn't so cocky about my ability to take damage (I had 70% fire resist and around 1.5k hp at the time) and dish it out, I wouldn't have needed to burn my Ring of Death. Had I known that it was possible to teleport out of the vault, I would've been able to avoid that death. I thought that teleportation magic was entirely disabled inside of a vault, but that's not the case. You just can't teleport to any grid inside of a vault (even with gem portal). Lesson learned.

I completed the Charred Scar run successfully, so the last part of the game was really easy (though I don't know how not completing it makes it harder). At the end, I wasn't wearing my Cloak of Deception, so Aeryn turned on me, but I didn't even notice her as my golem took on her, Argoniel, and Elandar while I threw bombs from relative safety. I didn't bother closing the portals with the various orbs, because my bombs killed the creatures before I even saw them spawn.

After that, I bought my fifth lost merchant unique item and I decided to give Atamathon a try. Big mistake. He slaughtered me (ending my final two lives) with his 1k+ damage per round and insane speed. How are you supposed to defeat him?

Off the top of my head, the only thing that I'd change about this character is swapping out my Manasurge rune for a Teleportation rune (or using that category point for the bomb tree), because after I decided to apply the Manasurge rune, I never saw another enemy with Mana Clash again (which is all I needed Manasurge for anyway).

[jenx]

Congrats!

On defeating Atamatathon, it is entirely about teleportation and speed in my experience. You basically have to hit him and then run and repair. two teleport runes, shielding rune, high movement speed, and distance attacks. I've only done it once, using a Cursed. Fiery Choker helps.

[magelike]

Thanks! Regarding Atamathon, I suspected as much. I guess controlled phase door and my psychoportation torque just weren't enough.

[Urist]

Hi Magelike, after reading your post i abandoned a lvl 30 dwarven alchemist and built a Skeleton Alchemist with Celestial/Light as you suggested.

I got Celestial/Light on my first escort quest and took that as a great and good omen. Which it was. Its took about a week of playing a few hours every day and for the first time ever i had 4 lives left on entering the sanctuary. I might have helped that I had boosted dex/wil about equally on the way there cause what happened next was completely mindboggingly insanely cool ... and i'm posting it here 'cause i really just have to tell someone ..

I was prepared to blow every last life on the fight, but for the first time ever, i didn't need to, i didn't even need to heal once! I had 2 controlled teleport runes with range 12 that allowed me to use the 4 orbs of command without anything bad happening. i got cornered in the last corner but i'd just respawned the golem so i didn't get hurt, instead i managed to trigger my phasing boots which luckily let me escape out of sight into the opposite corner of the room. the golem was now dead so i figured i'd just wait for the bosses where i was while it came off of cooldown. i waited and waited and they never came. ... so i went after them .. throwing about ..oh .. 30.. 40 lightning infused bombs into the corner where i had last seen them should .. i thought .. have gotten them to come after me, but instead they killed the melee guy .. and another 15 or bombs later the other one fell. 'lil buddy and i peeked around the corner once just to make sure he was there .. one more bomb and i had a winner.

Maybe this was due to me splitting points into dex, cause i really didn't know where besides wil i would have wanted them once mag/con were maxed, but getting the bosses stuck into a corner and being able to bomb them to death from out of los really made my day. and Celestial/Light really made getting there as easy as you had made it out to be. ... i did have 1 point in golem portal and a 20% speed boost so i was able to leave him behind and swap places with him once i'd autoexplored myself into danger. then healing and supercharging 'lil buddy as i came up to acid nuke from behind worked really well. .. so your pointer toward acid really worked for me. i only went to lightning on the final map. ... the golem had a great shield and +attrib gems. i never used it to explore and it never died too fast; speed, swapping places with it and controlled phase door to get to the battle in time really made this run a lot of fun. ... anyway, thanks again!

[magelike]

Awesome, I'm glad you liked it. I went with Cunning as my third stat choice. I had quite a lot of crit chance towards the end of the game, which I found to be very worthwhile, but I can easily see where the extra range on the bombs from dex would've been useful. Celestial/Light is just so insanely powerful for certain characters that I almost wish it wasn't an escort reward, because it really makes or breaks games.