[YAVP] VSBr^Makh, Unleash Destruction spawm build

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Morgue file

Reasons

Vine stalkers spread any damage they take between their health and their mana. Losing mana from big damage spikes is horrible on most gods as you need mana to cast your “save me” abilities. Some of the gods don’t care about mana at all but they also give you no incentive to train skills that will raise your mana in the first place.

And then there’s Makhleb. Their abilities cost health instead of mana (and their costs take a percentage of your maximum health so frail Vine stalkers are on discount!) and they love high Invocations skill that will bring your mana to respectable levels. To add to this, Vine stalkers have a naturally fast health regeneration so they can spam Makhleb’s abilities more often.

How it went

So, after brainstorming this build, I wanted to win with it. And, after 3 unsuccessful attempts, I did exactly that.

This build has two central points: Unleash Destruction and Antimagic Bite.

Unleash Destruction is Makhleb’s ability that costs a fraction of your health and… nothing more! It’s completely spammable - as long as you can survive spamming it of course. And oh just how spammable it is on Vine stalkers! Why fight enemies one by one when you can destroy them with your burning/freezing/draining/corroding hatred? Get your enemies victims in a hallway and shoot your hellish lasers or whatever!

As it is a full range penetrating beam, it can manage summoners and the shining eyes very well too. So, while it’s usefulness caps at Shoals and Swamp, it will still be useful all the way to Zot.

Antimagic Bite is a Vine stalker’s special. You hit an orc wizard with a swift but weak dagger and they lose half their health and their voice can’t cast the spells anymore for some reason. This is the reason Vine stalkers rule. Naturally, you want to maximize bite’s damage potential by triggering it more - thus the need for a fast weapon. I started this run with an assumption that I will go with short swords and rapiers but the game had its own plans…

8096 | D:9 | Encountered Amaemon

Demon whip is no joke. While it’s not as fast as a quick blade it has a higher base damage and it scales with strength which is exactly what we need. Also no “20 skill to reach mindelay” nonsense lmao.

And this is a big deal as Vine stalker’s aptitudes aren’t great… take a look at our main skills:

  • Fighting (-1) and Evocations (-1)
  • Armour and Dodging (-2), Shields (-1)
  • Invocations (0)
  • Maces&Flails or Short blades (-1)

Sure, it’s not Mummy-level bad but still quite meh. What do you mean “you have 10 Dodging in Crystal armor”?? That’s… that was very important…

So anyway, some other stuff this build has or should get online:

  • Infernal Servant: Makhleb’s second ability and a glorious “meh whatever” from me. Demonic friends are nice early on but they don’t scale well into late-game. Wow, a green death?? Well thank you it’s poison will surely help deal with liches and orbs of fire! I HAVE MAX INVO MAKH YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE!!! …If you see a mark that replaces Infernal Servant don’t hesitate you won’t miss it.

  • Marks: while we’re at it, let’s talk marks. Makhleb gives you a choice of three marks once you reach their final rank. Marks can never be rerolled so you’re stuck with what you’re given for the entire run. Here’s my thoughts on the four marks I’ve gained on my attempts:

    • Mark of Atrocity: the obvious. Makes Unleash Destruction extremely strong… and extremely costy. The moment you get it, you must stop spamming it. It proved to be too hard to manage for me so I splattered because of it.
    • Mark of Execution: as if your bite wasn’t enough. You were already great at melee but now you’re a beast. The mark has no downsides too so you can pick it if you’re afraid of others’ costs.
    • Mark of Annihilation: no more demonic friends. And now you have Orb of Destruction with explosions! Pretty nice I’d say. Highly situational as it doesn’t do well with hallways but it can deal with crowds just fine.
    • Mark of Celebrant: what enables the stupid (me) to win. The closest you get to a panic button on Makhleb. If it activates you are in trouble and must figure out how to survive. I won with this one.

  • Lupine talisman: this build rests on two tenets: spend health and hit really fast. Being a werewolf makes you regain your health quickly and stack up a fixed bonus to each of your attacks. C’mon 50 damage per whip’s swing, you don’t wanna? You aren’t even risking much with your Will already being so high. Footwear is overrated anyway…

I still hate guardian spirit btw :)

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Interesting build. I’ve played a few vine stalkers, winning once with Okawaru, and it turns out I’ve taken Makhleb on them twice, once before the rework and once after. The earlier run was a pre-Lair death, while the other took the Mark of the Fanatic and died in the Crucible before getting a rune. I’m not one to force gods, but I would definitely consider Makhleb on any melee character with a good Invo apt (+0 is technically below average, but it’s not a dealbreaker), and I can see the synergy here.

Infernal Servant ignores Invo above 18 unless you have Mark of the Tyrant, which removes the cap and adds a chance to buff one of your servants when you kill a monster. I agree that the ability is more useful early when taking a different mark.

I found a pull request that buffs every mark except Celebrant (the one you won with) and Carnage (which doesn’t impress me, but sdynet thinks it needs a rework rather than a simple buff): Makhleb Marks balance pass and quality-of-life improvements by sdynet · Pull Request #5183 · crawl/crawl · GitHub

As for lupine talisman, I haven’t had a chance to try it yet. It melds all aux armor and requires 12 Shapeshifting skill, so it’s normally quite expensive for a melee character. I feel like keeping the auxes and spending the XP elsewhere will generally be correct on a normal melee build, but I can see why this build would want it, as it benefits more from slay and regen than most builds.

As for guardian spirit, the amulet generally feels weaker than regen or reflection for a melee character, though I’ll wear it early if I find it before those amulets. On a vine stalker, it comes with the territory.

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I had a similar first experience with the mark! Used it in Orc to see how it works and was destroyed in the Crucible.

Infernal Servant ignores Invo above 18 unless you have Mark of the Tyrant, which removes the cap

As far as I can tell, even with the Tyrant and 27 Invo it can still summon a green death that’s completely useless in many situations. Even at 18 Invo having a summon that’s nearly useless in late-game is so lame.

Mark of the Celebrant having twice the win rate of all other marks

Something something having panic buttons is actually nice

It melds all aux armor

It doesn’t anymore - it was buffed! Now it only melds gloves and boots while giving you rC+, regen+, slay stacking, Howl and Takedown, +3 to strength and dexterity and claws 3 for unarmed fighters. Well worth it on melee chars who can stack some Will+ from equipment. I usually get it online around S branches.

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It doesn’t anymore - it was buffed! Now it only melds gloves and boots while giving you rC+, regen+, slay stacking, Howl and Takedown, +3 to strength and dexterity and claws 3 for unarmed fighters. Well worth it on melee chars who can stack some Will+ from equipment. I usually get it online around S branches.

Apparently, the wiki wasn’t updated, because it used to also meld helmets and cloaks. I’ve fixed that now. The tricky part is finding the talisman early enough (talismans being too rare is a common complaint I’ve seen, though the devs have started addressing this). I typically ignore Shapeshifting on characters with full slots because melds tend to be overpriced, and I’m more comfortable training defenses, evo, and invo if necessary on melee characters. I’ll certainly be on the lookout for lupine talismans in the future.

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I never would have guessed Mark of Annihilation can be worth picking, because even if they are a bit meh, summons are good. 3 Invo 19 Mahkleb summons do make a difference against an OoF, and it’s not like you have much otherwise to spend piety on with Mahkleb.

Unleash Destruction in contrast is hardly worth using anymore by the time you get to Zot, (the hp loss to damage ratio is just too bad for most characters,) so I thought the same would apply to the orbs.

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I’ve won with Makhleb 4 times since the rework, and I took Haemoclasm twice, Annihilation once, and Celebrant once. They were all melee characters. Haemoclasm works best with axes, as the mark works best against groups, and cleaving means more chances to trigger an explosion when the chances are higher. This means that in a big fight, if you can kill a few enemies, you’ll eventually trigger a chain reaction that finishes off the group. One of those wins was a monstrous demonspawn that finished with 29/12/0 defenses, so a glass cannon can benefit from the mark as well.

As for annihilation, if you use it at long range, the explosion is quite powerful, but I do agree it’s somewhat situational, so it’s something I would want on a strong melee character more than anything else. Celebrant is statistically the best mark as previously mentioned.

I checked my Unleash Destruction uses for my Makhleb wins, and the usage rate does go down at high levels. Even at 27 Invo, the damage is only 3d23, so if you’re not enhancing the servants with a mark, leaving Invo at 18 and spending the XP elsewhere makes sense. The only post-rework Makhleb character of mine to get Invo to 20+ did so mainly for a title.

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3 Invo 19 Mahkleb summons do make a difference against an OoF

Vine stalkers don’t really struggle against the Orbs, they struggle against huge groups of enemies (especially ranged) and with berserked melee threats like orb guardians.

Globe of Annihilation is better than summons against groups, and Unleash Destruction lets you remove moths of wrath quickly no matter your position. Indeed, I got through the entire Slime Pits without ever suffering a mutation, all thanks to Unleash Destruction.

I thought the same would apply to the orbs.

A bit of a niche pick (as it’s rather unlikely to happen) but the Globe turns into a mass corrosion if you get the brand of Dis - which is good even in Zot. Admittedly, other brands have more niche effects.