Dracul

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Dracul
Dracul.png
Initial worship
  • +2 Piety for each killed non-Trait: Undead Undead enemy
Punishment
Prep penalty
  • 25% of enemies are bloodless
Likes
  • Attack with Trait: Life steal Life steal (once per monster, xp-valuable only): +1 Piety
  • Kill a non Trait: Undead Undead monster: +2 Piety
  • Drink a blood pool: +1 Piety per stack of God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe
Dislikes
  • Kill an Trait: Undead Undead monster: -5 Piety
Boons
God boon: Blood Curse Blood Curse Single use
Cost: Increases level by 1 (no stat increase, no HP/MP fill, cannot be chosen at L10)
Effect: +20 Piety
God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe Multiple use
Cost: 10 (+15) Piety
Effect: Grants Trait: Sanguine Sanguine 5%, or boosts +5% to Trait: Sanguine Sanguine if you already have it, - 5 Max HP, +1 Base damage
God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger Multiple use
Cost: 20 (+25) Piety
Effect: Trait: Life steal Life steal +1, -20% to maximum resistances, +1 Base damage
God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield Single use
Cost: 40 Piety
Effect: Trait: Physical resist Physical resist +15%, Trait: Magic resist Magic resist +15%
God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell Multiple use
Cost: 20 (+10) Piety
Effect: Restore all HP, +1 Trait: Cursed Cursed

Dracul is the unholy deity of death, undeath, evil... your archetypical Lord of Darkness. Dracul's boons are well suited to brawler-type characters, and with only a few very narrow exceptions is largely useless for spellcasters or striker-type attackers such as the Class: Rogue Rogue.

Dracul is unlocked in a subdungeon to the east. When you enter this subdungeon, you will be pitted in combat against a doppelganger of yourself. However, there is a known bug where the subdungeon exit doesn't seal itself off until you move one tile. If you adjust the visible tabs, you can leave the subdungeon and avoid unlocking Dracul in this fashion.


Boons

God boon: Blood Curse Blood Curse

Never purchase it at low level! The purpose of existence of this boon is getting quick piety gain at endgame. Dracul is very petty with your piety, and 20 Piety is incredibly valueable to you. The perfect timing of this boon is when you purchase God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe for two or more stack. It will be described below.

This boon synergies with regen-fighting, God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger, God: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ and God: HALPMEH HALPMEH (only for Class: Paladin Paladin) since this features use your level, not the power of your character. Also note that Trait: Life steal Life steal ability gets doubled versus lower level monsters than you.

As you cannot levelup above 10, purchasing blood curse will limit you at level 9 effectively, in the sense of maximum HP and base attack. While this is not a problem for most dungeons, for some longer dungeons which most important fights happen at level 10, you should never purchase this boon.

God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger

If you are worshipping Dracul on early-mid stages, it is very hard to rack up piety without desecration. Purchasing this boon will greatly increase your piety gain, from 2 Piety per monster slain to 3 Piety. Having a Item: Vampiric Blade Vampiric Blade is equally good, though having both does not increase your piety gain. In order to increase your piety influx, Item: Stone Sigil Stone Sigil works on top of the Trait: Life steal Life steal. After you get life steal, you can attack some monsters but avoid killing them to gain some quick piety. Converting Item: Health Potion Health Potions or desecrating some harmless altars are often a good way to start with Dracul.

For characters who can raise their resistances substantially above 45% you should virtually never purchase the God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger boon, although some expert players can carefully manage the drawback. Only one stack of this boon is preferred at most cases. If you purchase this boon twice your maximum resistance would be decrased into 25%, which is nonsense for resistant-stacking characters. Also 45 Piety is too expensive under Dracul. With this much piety either God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield or God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe is preferred.

If you happen to get 2x life steal, especially with Item: Platemail Platemail, some lower level monsters' attack will be actually weaker than healing from life steal. Attacking these monsters will heal you instead. If you avoid killing those monsters they can heal and you can steal life from them again. They are called bloodcows, and is one of the healing source that Dracul can provide. Class: Vampire Vampire has his playstyle completely build around this feature.

You can overheal from life steal. Because God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe nor God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell can heal you above your maximum HP and blood tithe decreases your maximum HP, sometimes you cannot even tank a hit from the boss. Of course not making those situations is the best. But if it already happened, life steal is often the only way to deal with it.

God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield

Another powerful boon of him. Because of this boon, God: Taurog Taurog into God: Dracul Dracul is a very powerful conversion chain. Taurog's easy piety generation lets you convert into Dracul with nearly full piety, and his armor pieces combine with God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield for a very easy way to get 30%/30% resists, making the chain one of the best ways to stack resistances. Combine with Item: Patches the Teddy Patches the Teddy and the Item: Dragon Shield Dragon Shield and baby, you've got a stew goin'.

Even without resistance stacking it synergies with God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger very well. If you can still raise your piety after purchasing this boon, this boon is very good choice for your mid-late game approach. Resistances will increase the value of your health bar, which would be refilled several times afterwards under Dracul in endgame phase.

God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe

The most powerful boon of Dracul, and also the real reason why Dracul is the king of the endgame spike. You don't actually need this boon halfway through the dungeon, and you don't want to accidently waste your bloodpools. Unlike God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger, only one stack of blood tithe is not very efficient for the usage of limited bloodpools. Drinking bloodpools with one stack of blood tithe will not heal you much and give you mere 1 Piety. When you reach 25 Piety to get another stack of blood tithe, your bloodpools would mostly be depleted. In order to avoid this inefficient movement you want at least two stacks as fast as possible, favorably even before consuming any bloodpool. This is the perfect timing which God boon: Blood Curse Blood Curse kicks in. Because you would be facing the boss around then, exp is not a problem and blood curse doesn't actually have any drawback. Collecting piety sparkles you've saved, killing popcorns, desecrating some altars, or taking God boon: consensus consensus from God: The Pactmaker The Pactmaker are also some great moves here.

Each stack of blood tithe also reduces your maximum HP, and since blood tithe and God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell heals a certain percentage of your maximum HP, it's better to find a way to raise your maximum HP to compensate and it will cost a significant amount of piety. This usually means you'll need to convert into Dracul's religion with a large amount of piety already accrued, and found some way to increase your hit points. The need for improved hit points means God: Jehora Jeheyu Jehora Jeheyu, God: The Earthmother The Earthmother or God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian all make excellent deities to worship prior to converting to God: Dracul Dracul. Followers of God: The Earthmother The Earthmother should take note that God boon: Plantation Plantation will remove bloodstains. Followers of the God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian must tread carefully with God boon: Absolution Absolution; removing a monster will also prevent you from harvesting its blood after you convert. God: Jehora Jeheyu Jehora Jeheyu is difficult to manage, as most players will want to use God boon: Chaos Avatar Chaos Avatar before converting out, which may leave you with insufficient piety, but this combo is very powerful when you do have enough piety to pull it off. Preparing additional health boosters, being Race: Dwarf Dwarf or purchasing some items are also a great options.

Note that if you leave Dracul and convert back, you only get 1 piety from drinking a bloodpool no matter how many blood tithe you have purchased.

God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell

After you consume all your bloodpools, you'll probably at 3-4 stacks of God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe and plenty of piety left. You can choose to consume health potions or convert into other religeons like God: Tikki Tooki Tikki Tooki, now. This boon is one another way to leverage with remaining piety. If you have any resistance or damage reduction you want to kill popcorns to remove curses. You should think carefully and conserve right amount of popcorns when racking piety to take stacks of God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe in this cases.

Strategy

Dracul is difficult to gain piety with under most circumstances. There are only four ways to do so: killing non-undead monsters, converting a "holy" glyph (Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP or Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH), converting a Item: Health Potion Health Potion, and using a Trait: Life steal Life steal ability. For most characters, the only way to get a Trait: Life steal Life steal is with one of Dracul's boons, which means it's imperative for Dracul worshipers to purchase either God boon: Blood Hunger Blood Hunger or God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe as soon as possible to begin racking up real piety.

Dracul's boons all grant ways to restore your hit points or (in the case of God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield) prevent incoming damage. This gives a Dracul follower greatly increased staying power in combat, and Dracul often makes an excellent last-ditch choice in the end-game since none of these are dependent on exploration space.

When combined with the Glyph: BLUDTUPOWA BLUDTUPOWA glyph, Dracul becomes an awesome force for spellcasters. God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe and God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell boons can be used to farm hit points, and then Glyph: BLUDTUPOWA BLUDTUPOWA can be used to convert them into mana. This allows Dracul to fuel some of the most powerful spellcasting spikes in the game, turning any character into a Class: Bloodmage Bloodmage. However, without this glyph he offers no synergy with spellcasters.

Overall, Dracul is a very difficult diety to consistently worship, but is by far the best diety for a late-game health spike. With even a moderate store of piety, Dracul can fully heal most characters several times over with God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe and God boon: Blood Swell Blood Swell. While he is rarely a good choice as a first diety, his incredible late-game power is nearly essential in Dungeon: Vicious Gaan-Telet Vicious Gaan-Telet and can be incredibly impactful in other difficult dungeons as well. Just be sure to drink your health potions and kill off any Monster: Wraith Wraith and Monster: Zombie Zombie popcorn before converting.