Doomed Yeek Thoughts

[Sirrocco]

So... Doomed have hard early games. Yeeks have hard early games. That means tehy go together, right? I got a little tired of running dwarves and decided to run a Doomed Yeek once or twice, and here is what I have learned.

- Your two major issues are going to be the underwater dungeon and the Ritch queen. The Ritch caves themselves are quite doable, and it seems that Murgol himself is also reasonably easy to handle (or at least he was the time I got to him). The issues in more detail...

- As far as I can tell, shadows drown. That means that having shadows up and running in Murgol's lair is a quick way to have no hate, and having no hate will kill you. If you want to go shadow, hit the lair first, and don't bother with them until you come up for air.

- Electric eels can and will kill you. Their lightning power has no cooldown, they love to use it, and it can two-shot you. Your first stats go into con, no matter what you might want, just to make sure that they can't *one*-shot you. While in the water cave, you need to move cautiously, and check every eel you see as soon as you see it (because if you move a step closer to the eel, you are already dead). As soon as you see an electric eel, duck behind the nearest corner, one step back so that you it has to get close to see you, and willful strike it as soon as it steps into view. Yes, waiting for it to come to you will cost you both hate and air. Deal.

- Hate and air are both precious and decaying resources, but they are available in sufficient quantity if you are reasonably careful with them. Be aware of all three of your bars at all times, and take steps to have them full or reasonably close to full whenever you have the opportunity.

- There are a lot of disabling effects (blind, immobilize, daze, etc) in the first couple of dungeons that you can't really afford. On the bright side, they're all physical, and they're all solitary (as opposed to that sun infusion thing). Yeeks lean on that starter wild infusion more than most.

- Until you get your feet under you, yaech mindslayers can also be pretty scary. They're just as durable as the other yaech, if not more, and then can kill you in 2-3 rounds if they close to melee. Worse yet, you can't back away to buy time if they're adjacent, as much of their damage is dealt automatically based on where they are at the end of their turn. Everything else is a lot easier to handle (read: will take enough time to kill you that you can react.) Yaech psions looked like they might be trouble, but if you take on Murgol before the Ritches, you likely won't see many of them. Also, their main threat likely won't be able to one-shot you, and has a reasonably heavy cooldown.

- You will want at least one point in both Willful Strike and Reproach from the beginning, and you will want to invest a point in feed and use it proactively, so that you can afford to spam them as they come off cooldown. Note that reproach is psychic damage, and the Yaech actually have fairly good mind saves. Your mindpower won't be all that special to begin with, meaning that willful strike is a lot more reliable against them than reproach is. I wound up dumping two points in each, and that juiced them up to the point that the one-two punch could kill most yeaches I ran into (at a significant cost in hate). That was helpful. (everything that is not a yaech will die much easier)

- You'll want gestures, too. You'll need that melee.

As for the Ritch queen - I'm not sure what skill she has, but she can spawn with attacks that have a lot more range than yours, and if she does, the one that deals blight damage *hurts*.

Once you're out of the tunnels... well, it's funny. You're both overpowered and underpowered. if you Rod of Recall from the stairs, then you'll be able to hit the Shady Cornac and then tag your first escort-capable dungeon at level 9. At that point, it's no longer so much of a challenge to keep your escorts alive, which is great. On the flip side, you're pretty badly undergeared for your level, and you're a bit weak for your level in general, which means that if you're silly enough to try taking on an adventurer pack (especially if you're low on hate when you do it) your chances of dying are a *lot* higher than normal.

So... why would you do this to yourself?
- Want to play Doomed. Want to get to the good bits as quickly as possible
- First dungeon really *quite* thrilling
- As noted, excellent setup for making sure that your first few escorts live through the experience
- Great stats for Doomed and +15% global speed.
- the idea of having 127% confusion resist before gear amuses you
- The idea of being frustrated by the stat requirements for tier 1 leather armor amuses you.

Personally, I did it for the speed boost and the guaranteed shot at solipsist. My luck with the volcano hasn't been good.

[Sirrocco]

Actually, as it turns out, I am incorrect. Shadows don't drown after all. They must just have been wandering off and getting themselves killed at high rates.

[Frumple]

Also, the electric eel's talents do have a cooldown. Thing is, they have both lightning and chain lightning, and, as you mention, they're pretty capable of two-shotting you. Nasty little buggers, but at least they glow now. That's something. Few versions back you usually wouldn't know they were there or which direction they're coming from until they blew away 75% of your health bar.

Queenies long distance attack is spit blight, and yeah, it tends to do around 50-60 damage flat (and I'm pretty sure it can crit so yeah). It's actually sometimes a better idea to finagle things so you can get into melee before she gets that attack off and hope that buggers up the AI enough she won't use it on you.

[Sradac]

yeek doomed are freaking amazing. Thats my thoughts on them.

Also, you left out MIND CONTROL!!! Best yeek talent. Makes those yaech mindslayers pushovers. Just dominate them.

[kazak]

Just throwing this out there, because they don't show up so much in the character vault. Ghouls make really interesting doomed. Shadows and creeping darkness seem to make up for the global speed penalty (shadows aren't affected by your speed and creeping darkness gives you a speed boost), but the best part is Retch. Especially when coupled with Mental Tyranny: Heals you, your shadows, but not other undead, and can proc Madness.