Trouble in underwater ruins

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

My alchemist was going quite swimmingly along through the submerged ruins beneath lake Nur, and I got to the dry spot. Three steps in, I was half murdered by a bunch of luminous horrors in a single turn. Those things suck. My bombs won't do squat since they resist fire 100%, they pop damage shields often, and there are usually two or three at once. Basically, if not for my golem saving my hide and a stick which currently does ~110 darkness damage on them, I'd be hosed. They're a rather rude awakening from the traditional enemies I was used to facing up until now. I survived that fight with 1/3 health and an almost dead golem, AFTER fabricate was used on it some turns ago. Those things hurt. What can I do to mitigate their apparent strength in combat? Or should I cut my losses, escape the ruins, and head out to the Sandworm tunnels instead? If the other things down there are half as nasty as these things, I'd rather lose some equipment.

[phantomglider]

Luminous Horrors are one of the scarier early-midgame enemies. There's two main tricks to dealing with them. The first is to diversify your damage types; fire is one of the more commonly resisted elements. Alchemists do this with the Infusion skills; Acid Infusion is my favorite. The second is to lure them around corners. If you can get in the following situation, or an analogous one involving other corners:

Code: Select all

#L##
#.L@
####

where L is a luminous horror, @ is you, and # is a wall, then you will only have to deal with one horror at a time.

[Frumple]

Basically that. Alchemists are one of the few classes heavily reliant on something luminouses are immune to that have an easy solution -- I second acid infusion, but any of the infusions beyond fire will usually make short work of them. Two or three bombs at best, if you're properly bomb spec'd and have a decent gem (amethyst or something third tier), usually. A point or two in golem resilience might help, as well, so you've got something to tank while you're dropping bombs.

The other thing to remember when fighting luminous horrors is to make sure you're not sitting in the middle of a stack of searing light's lingering effect. Trying to limit the amount that can get you in firing range at once, as in that diagram, helps with that, but you'll usually fix the problem just by being a bit mobile; step off the tile you're on if you notice you're taking multiple fairly low bites of light damage in a turn. That means you're sitting in a pile of searing light, and the damage adds up pretty fast.

Luminous horrors, oddly enough, don't really hit that hard, individually. The big problem is they'll happily stack searing light on your head, which gives them both a notable burst effect and a deceptively painful lingering effect.

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

I decided to stick it out using this advice, and with a little difficulty, managed to clear the floor. But after that, however, I escaped to the sandworm tunnels and killed the queen. I ate the heart and got some stat points and a new talent tree. That dungeon's gimmick almost took me by surprise though. I now have a point in acid infusion, so I'm not totally buggered the next time.

What else is left to do? I did clear out Daikara, but I didn't fancy running into the temporal rift. I am at level 22 now, is it a good idea to go in there now?

[Mewtarthio]

You could do the rest of Lake Nur. The reward is quite nice. Alternatively, you could go ahead and tackle Dreadfell (the game should be directing you there already if you've cleared "Into the Darkness"). If you want to try something safer, hit autoexplore on the world map. Most of the optional dungeons are short affairs with no particularly dangerous bosses, with the exceptions of Mark of the Spellblaze, the ancient elven ruins, and the crypt with all the chanting.

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

Will do, I guess. I haven't got anything else outstanding that's left.

[SageAcrin]

I'd do the rest of Nur.

The reward is really worth it, from a convenience perspective, and if you have Acid Infusion you should be okay to clear it out. Just take it slow, and for the boss, let your Golem beat him up for a bit, get him a bit closer to the stairs, then go back up and heal, before seriously trying to take him out. It helps a lot.

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

I found some good equipment for my golem off the corpses of an adventuring party recently, so I'm set for that. I can deal a considerable amount of damage with my staff and its cone projection, and use heat if needed. If I can isolate the boss one on one he's going to die. That's pretty much the case so far. Does this boss have any gimmicks I should concern myself with, though?

[SageAcrin]

He can eat buffs and heal himself with them(Don't go in with any sustains on, optimally, though this is fairly minor with most classes, Alchemist included). He has a barrier that blocks X amounts of hits, not X damage, so lead off with Staff Channelling until his Bone Shield is depleted rather than leading with a bomb. And he has Bone Grasp, which can suck a target right up to him, so try to keep your Golem between you and him so that he doesn't try to do that to you.

I think that covers the major stuff. With Alchemist, you shouldn't need too much advice, though, it should work out fine.

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

I posted a character dump in the relevant section if anyone wants to comment on further character development.

[Sradac]

also, halfing ruins is a good place to do before dreadfell, so is the ruined dungeon and the hidden compound. and elven crypt if you are feeling brave.

[jenx]

The other trick for lake nur is to go in about lvl 15. If you are over lvl 18 or so, the spawns are worse. This is also with dreadfully, which now I like to tackle at about lvl 22-23

[Roguelike Enthusiast]

I managed to beat the boss. He was actually something of a joke, since he died in about 6 turns and barely did any damage. The encounter with three luminous horrors, two blade horrors, two bloated horrors, a level 40 Worm That Walks, and several trash mobs in a large room was actually worse. What's so bad about worms that walk anyway? other players don't seem to like them very much. To be frank, I had slightly more trouble with the headless horror a few rooms away rather than this boss.

[Mewtarthio]

The Weirdling Beast isn't as scary for alchemists as he is for other classes. His Bone Grab lets him bring ranged opponents into melee (and he often pulls them right into their own projectiles to rub salt into the wound). Alchemists have Golem Portal, assuming he even grabs them and not the golem in the first place. He has two dispelling effects--Corrupted Negation and Taint of the Devourer--which makes him a serious game-changer for sustain-heavy classes. Alchemists really only need to sustain the elemental infusion for their current element, and the default non-sustained fire infusion works as well as anything. He has acid for blood, which makes engaging him in melee a painful experience. Alchemists never need to make melee attacks against him (or just about anything else, for that matter). He has some ridiculous healing abilities: Many times, I've gotten him down to the red only to watch him throw up a 500-point shield and negate all my hard work with 800 points worth of healing between his healing and regeneration infusions (it's also worth noting that you will never find inscriptions as good as the Weirdling Beast's inscriptions). Alchemists have a consistently high damage output based on a low-cooldown, inexpensive talent, so they can just try again (and that's without using Stone Touch to keep him from doing anything, including healing).

So, yeah, if you're an alchemist, the Weirdling Beast is basically just a corruptor that doesn't have diseases. Every other class in the game has to take special precautions.