YAVP: 20... no wait, 21 Felid Streak

The Tavern YASD! YAVP! CIP!
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Three months ago, I decided to try and walk the Velvet-Pawed Path to Immortality. I’d played and even won felids before, and I’d greatly enjoyed reading Onei’s guide, but I had never followed his advice. Figured it was high time to rectify that. I resolved to follow Onei’s gospel to the T. Alas, despite my best intentions I did not manage to cleanse myself of fear. I was hoarding lives, and didn’t dive into the Slime Pits at XL 14, because I’d spent too much Kiku piety in Orc. Luckly, Onei himself appeared to me, spectating in my hour of need. Instructing me to die more. To play like a cat, not like a spriggan with a broken leg. If not for his divine intervention, I’d probably have lost the run. It was fun, and terrifying, and I didn’t dare go for Extended. I wasn’t ready for the true FeSu experience. Yet.

And afterwards I wondered. Our guides are basically polar opposites. Where’s the middle ground, a true crossover? What if I tried to play a felid like a lil’ repo troll with shorter claws and a broken shield-arm? And streaking felids appears to be a thing. I decided to try and streak all 0.31 felid backgrounds.

For some reason, I thought 0.31 great felid was 20 backgrounds. But it’s actually 21. FeCK was to be the grand finale, but then I noticed that I’d forgotten to replay FeFE, which I’d already won one time before the streak. And now, my great felid streak is complete.

Stats
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I basically cheesed it all with Wu Jian and Shapeshifting. Except for that first run (Kiku to Jiyva) and Trog, and Xom, whom I didn’t dare abandon. Xom was tough early on and in mid game, but surprisingly strong late game. FeAE came closest to ending the streak, with some very tense 0 lives left moments.

Turns

Time

Deaths

I didn’t really expect to get this far, and I haven’t deviced where to go next. I’m tempted to try and continue the streak with other species. Now that I have great felid, I need great troll, too. And great demonspawn would surely be fun. But I’m also scared of playing species with just a single life now. And I’m also tempted to go mess around in trunk for a bit, with all that exciting new stuff.

Thanks for reading, and happy crawling everyone!

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holy cow this is impressive.

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I think the rechargeable lives make Felids more resilient than you’d think. It basically solves the early game squishiness problem, and even mid-game weakness. As long as your build makes deaths a rare event after the S-branches things are good.

I recently completed a FeCj of Ru that leaned on spells until I found a granite talisman, then went in to UC. I purposefully went off both the Repo Troll and Velvet-Pawed paths, sacrificing love (companions) and devices (evocations) to get Ru piety up early. Most of the game was Lesser Beckoning followed by PUNCH!

Was I as tanky as a Repo Troll? No. Did I have a simple answer for everything like an Onei Velvet-Pawed of Jivya? Nope. But I did exit the dungeon with 4 runes, 2 lives, and 6 deaths.

Had I found storm form, a few more mutation potions, and a few more scrolls of amnesia, and I might have taken this guy into extended.

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Love the after action report and the different style notes! Truly locked in, but at the same time always learning more - a good lesson to all of us. Thanks for sharing!

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This post inspired me to play the game for the first time in about 10 versions, and beat it with a FeSu. Thanks! Took me 2 games, and I died 8 times on my win, but still had a life left over.

The reasons for my death were largely preventable, and here are the ones I remember.

  • Opened a door to a room in D10-ish with 2x Centaur Warriors! I could have closed the door, but I didn’t think to, and they harassed me every time I ran by the floor; 2 deaths.
  • Tried to burn up my Kiku piety in Slime without Death Channel, and then respawned in an area that required me to go through floor 2 to get back to floor 1 and the exit. That was the end of run #1.
  • Kiku wrath took me to 1 max hp while in Spider, with those smiter guys around.
  • Then Kiku wrath took me down to about 30 max hp again, and it didn’t take much to kill me. Luckily, after death #2, and back down to about half max hp again, Kiku was gruntled, and I switched to the relative safety of Swamp to burn off the draining. Moral of the story is that rN+ is important for the god change, and I had none.
  • Forgot that I had scrolls of blinking in Vault 5, and also underestimated how much those death elves with the little spirits that resurrect things would roadblock my snowball. I should have stayed on the outside longer and killed carefully.
  • Tried to do some early Zigs floors, but had no way to deal with statues, and got flooded. When I blinked to the stairs, the next floor had the same 4 statues + regular spawns (bug?) and I had to blink more to escape and said goodbye to the Zig.
  • Decided a good place to get rid of a rF-- transient mutation would be the vestibule to hell, and also didn’t realize I could leave the way I came in.
  • Didn’t realize Titans had airstrike, and my 55 dodging did nothing, and that I was standing in the open with 3 of them around. I could have DDoor’ed but I just didn’t see them as threatening for some reason.

Otherwise, Maxwell’s Capacitive Coupling was a real MVP late in the game, and really good choice for a place to put my extra XP.

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