YAVP: First win FeSu^Kiku/Jiyva 3 rune

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1

Morgue file

This is my first time I have gotten something that is not a MiBe far.

0.31 Followed Onei’s guide.
I got a lot of the necromancy spells very early on (before Kiku), so I was contemplating not worshipping Kiku, but ultimately I just picked him as I was missing some spells (Anguish, Animate dead and Infestation), and wouldn’t have Unearth Wretches, and I felt too clueless to follow the rest of the guide (esp the slime raid) without them.

There wasn’t much interesting during early-mid game. A few deaths here and there, but always had an extra life in stock and regained a life fast. Smooth sailing until Zot:1, where there was a horde of monsters surrounding the gate.

I always had trouble with dealing with situations where there was a swarm directly around the entrance gate (and swarms of powerful monsters in general, even with this necromancer build), since I didn’t really have any spells that were helpful in dealing with them. As a result, I tried staircasing a bit, got constricted, didn’t realise and tried to go upstairs twice, and died. I should have been more careful and death’s door/dispersal’d. When I respawned, it was on an outer boundary, and I tried going to the downstairs immediately (there were like 8 of them which were in this circular room), but then got swarmed by killer klowns, silenced, panicked and didn’t use cancellation, and died again. Upon respawning, I just blinked my way into the downstairs, praying for a good spawn, and fortunately I got one.

The next floors were fine: Zot:2 was in this hallway with two hallways next to it containing monsters, and a downstairs: I just cleared this room and went down. Zot:3 was very sparse, so I full-cleared, and Zot:4 was also easy due to hallways. In Zot:5, I just abused Haunt and Maxwell’s Capacitive Coupling to clear the whole place, then I fumbled a bit in the orb run as I didn’t realise I hadn’t picked up the orb after apporting. Otherwise, the rest of the run was pretty peaceful.

I feel like the main problems I had was a lack of direct firepower and lack of mana, even after Jiyva swap. When meeting a group of enemies, the only real way to start building an army was to spam Haunt, and Infestation, but this drained my mana quickly and eventually the enemies would overpower my army and I’d have to retreat and try to pick them off through attrition. I’m not sure if I’m just playing this completely wrong.

3 Thanks
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This is a devastatingly good combo. Congrats on the win.

Your strategy of retreat and attrition is perfectly valid with that spell set. At a macro level, the points spent in infestation could have gotten some other crowd control spells online, but infestation gives you meat shields too.

3

Blessed win.

When meeting a group of enemies, the only real way to start building an army was to spam Haunt, and Infestation, but this drained my mana quickly and eventually the enemies would overpower my army

I personally like to keep Anguish for the whole game and to spam it (it’s the spell I put on “p” to quiver spam it) as the reflection makes a chain reaction in tandem with Haunt and Infestation. It’s true that late game mobs start to resist it though.

I feel like the main problems I had was a lack of direct firepower and lack of mana, even after Jiyva swap.

This is why I like Infestation + Maxwell’s, it’s very mana efficient and starts the snowball quite well.

4

I almost had this win (Thank you Onei) but blew it all in Zot5. It had been too long since I read the guide and I was clearing Zot instead of diving, including trying to clear Zot5. Drained all my consumables. Jiyva ate all my dang spellbooks too, so no good end game spells though I did have the best possible Kiku luck. By the time I tried to do it right (One spare life, no scrolls, Electric Charge was only movement spell) I finally ate it looking right at the orb.

Congrats! I’m jealous