Vicious Gaan-Telet

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Even when the old northern desert empire still existed, this structure was considered both ancient and unassailable. Tackling a souped-up version of the tower is nothing short of madness. Dungeon veterans, give this one your best shot.



Vicious Gaan-Talet is the ultimate dungeon in Desktop Dungeons. It is a souped-up version of the Dungeon: Tower of Gaan-Telet Tower of Gaan-Telet, and is unlocked by completing the Quests#Oh, Horatio! quest.

Overview

The exterior of Gaan-Telet contains the shops, glyphs, and boosters of a normal dungeon. There are no altars (on the outside), and there is no normal subdungeon, although the Smuggler's Den will appear if you prep it. Ordinary monsters from level 1-7 appear on the outside; there are no level 8+ monsters or bosses on the outside. The inside of the tower begins revealed.

To complete Gaan-Telet, you must enter a series of special subdungeons inside the tower. Once all enemies in each level are defeated, the next becomes available.

Monsters

The dungeon will host all unlocked basic monsters except bandit and goat in the courtyard. In the tower the dungeon hosts no zombies either. Monster difficulty on the courtyard (main map) level is 100%.

The towers get progressively more difficult, each having a cumulative +10% difficulty. i.e. first tower is +10%, second is +20%, all the way to +90% in tower 9 of Vicious Gaan-Telet. Towers do not host zombies, but some special monsters are there. (See below)

If you prepare the Vicious Token, it will overwrite all of these monster stat bonuses with the usual +60% Attack / +100% Health, making the courtyard and the earlier towers significantly more difficult; but later towers not necessarily so. Horatio only gets the attack boost, his health remains unaltered even with the Vicious Token.

Boss

The final boss is the Monster: Goat Goat-shaped Horatio the Immortal. Despite his form, he does a relatively modest 75 damage; however, he has 5000 HP, Physical and Magical resistances of 50%, and Berserks at 50%. He only gets attack bonus from Vicious Token, bringing his damage up to 120, or 180 if berserked.

Special Rules

The stairs to the first tower subdungeon are accessible from the start. However, in order for the stairs of the next tower to be revealed, all five monsters must be defeated in the previous tower.

Each of the nine altars are accessible once the stairs to its respective tower is revealed. Any altars prepared (or granted by the Martyr ability) appear in the courtyard as an extra copy of the given altar. Furthermore, a special copy of the currently worshipped altar spawns close to the tower entrance. So it is possible to have up to three copies of the same altar. Any deities not yet unlocked will not spawn an altar (their tower will still show up, just without the altar).

Subdungeons

Unlike the Hard version of the dungeon, the Vicious version has all 9 towers; and each must be cleared to access the tenth tower where Horatio resides.

Each subdungeon is a small level, initially unexplored, containing several tough monsters (one of which is exotic), an altar, and a exotic, useful item. This means that every unlocked altar will eventually be available. To make life even harder, most levels will give you some kind of penalty when you first enter. (A few, including the first, do not.) You can travel freely between the current subdungeon, previous subdungeons, and the exterior.

The first, second, and third subdungeons contain monsters of level 8, 9, and 10, respectively. The 10th level monsters are not bosses, simply scaled-up monsters (for instance, the 10th level Goo Blob has Physical Resistance of only 50%, not 75%). Subdungeons 4-9 also have 10th-level monsters; on each level, the monsters get a progressively larger Health and Attack bonus.

The monsters in the subdungeons are - similarly to bosses - immune to the instant kill effects of Item: Slayer Wand Slayer Wand, Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL or God boon: Absolution Absolution.

Penalties

These will occur in a random order when you first enter each subdungeon.

  • The subdungeon is completely revealed when you enter, providing no exploration healing.
  • All monsters in this subdungeon gain Trait: No Experience No Experience.
  • All monsters in this subdungeon gain Trait: Bloodless Bloodless (Lifesteal doesn't work, and they don't leave a blood pool.)
  • All monsters in this subdungeon gain Trait: First Strike First Strike.
  • All monsters in this subdungeon gain Trait: Retaliate: Fireball Retaliate: Fireball.
  • You are afflicted with Trait: Poisoned Poisoned, Trait: Mana Burned Mana Burned and one stack each of Trait: Weakened Weakened and Trait: Corrosion Corrosion.
  • You gain three stacks of Trait: Cursed Cursed.

There are also (up to) three subdungeons that do not give any penalty. So there are a possible 10 penalty events (the 7 penalties and 3 no penalty results), and one is chosen for each tower. Which means that in a lucky case, one of the penalties listed above will not be encountered. The first subdungeon will always have a "no penalty" event.

Exotic Monsters and Items

Again, these will occur in a random order; however, the monsters and items are linked.

  • Monster: Goblin Miner Goblin Miner (Knockback, Mana burn) with 2 Wall Crushers. The Wall Crushers may be used to break edge walls to give access to 2-3 extra tiles, or may be converted for 25 CP each.
  • Monster: Dancing Blade Dancing Blade (1 Death Protection/level, Blink) with the sword "Penance". Penance grants 2 base attack and 1 base mana, but grants a penalty of 1 base attack and mana if you convert it from inventory. Converting right from the ground does not induce the penalty.
  • Monster: Burn Viper Burn Viper (Blink, Mana burn) with a Cracked Amulet (when consumed, 5 XP).
  • Monster: Golden Statue Golden Statue (1 damage only, but has No XP, a lot of hit points, Weakening Blow, and Corrodes) with the Long Rant (when consumed, afflicts 3 stacks of Corroded on all enemies on the level).
  • Monster: Gelatinous Thing Gelatinous Thing (Retaliate: Fireball) with Nom Nom (when consumed, poisons you but acts as a health booster).
  • Monster: Bridge Troll Bridge Troll (50% Physical and Magic Resist, Fast Regen, Berserk at 50%) with a Sensation Stone (convert for 150 CP). The Bridge Troll is one of the more difficult monsters, but it drops a second Sensation Stone, making this a mixed blessing level.
  • Monster: Dragon Elite Dragon Elite (50% Magic Resist, Poisonous, Curse Bearer) with a Compression Seal
  • Monster: Illusion Illusion (50% Physical Resist, Weakening Blow, Retaliate: Fireball) with the Ritual Scroll (when consumed, +1 Mana and +5% Physical and Magic Resist, but 3 stacks of Cursed).
  • Monster: Immortal Yin Immortal Yin (Bloodless, no XP) with Yang's Sword (small, +3 damage, consume for a level of Death Protection). This is one of the best pairings to find, because Yin is not difficult and the item is small provides a good power boost.

Strategy

Although Vicious Gaan-Telet is similar to its hard version, it requires a unique strategy. Vicious Gaan-Telet has a number of challanges unique to this map, and a successful strategy will have an answer to all of these:

  • There is a shortage of blackspace. An average tower will have maybe 40 black tiles, and require you to defeat five very tough monsters.
  • The monsters in later towers can deal very high damage. For example, a tower 9 Warlock will deal 191 damage.
  • You will be afflicted several times with Trait: Poisoned Poisoned, Trait: Mana Burned Mana Burned, Trait: Weakened Weakened, Trait: Corrosion Corrosion and Trait: Cursed Cursed.
  • The final boss is very durable - without bypassing its 50% resistances, it takes 10 000 points of damage to kill it.

So all things considered, Vicious Gaan-Telet is an endurance run that requires you to be able to defeat lots of very tough monsters with very limited resrouces and several malicious afflictions. So most successful builds will have high Trait: physical resist physical resist; Trait: sanguine sanguine; and high damage.

Race

The recommended races are Race: Human Human or Race: Orc Orc. These races allow you to boost your damage, which is essential to reducing the number of hits you need to take from monsters. Race: Dwarf Dwarf can also work for some builds, though are generally more difficult to play. Unfortunately the other races don't have much to offer in this endurance environment.

Class

The easiest class to beat Vicious Gaan-Telet with is the Class: Vampire Vampire. Other good picks include the Class: Crusader Crusader who can ignore a lot of the malicious afflictions; and the Class: Rogue Rogue whose Trait: Dodge Dodge and Trait: First Strike First Strike trait make her surprisingly efficient in melee. Class: Monk Monk has high resist cap and starting physical resist, efficiently regenerates between fights, and has good synergy with certain items such as Item: Martyr Wraps Martyr Wraps or Item: Vampiric Blade Vampiric Blade, but he suffers from the golden statue. Class: Paladin Paladin also has a natural physical resistance and start with most useful glyph God: HALPMEH HALPMEH but should be dedicated a mono pantheon plus Pactmaker. All of those are proven to have enough power to beat VGT with Vicious Token, which is considered as one of the hardest badge to obtain in the game.

Worship

The best deities to worship in Vicious Gaan-Telet are:

  • God: Taurog Taurog is a surprisingly good initial deity, because his boons can provide both resistances and bonus damage. However the gears will eat up your inventory spaces; only pick up 2 or less gears.
  • God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian offers bonus damage and health through God boon: Humility Humility (and is often worth converting through just for that one boon); though he also offers God boon: Cleansing Cleansing and God boon: Protection Protection, a few shots of which can help a lot in dealing with mana burn / poison and giving a little extra help for a level-up. If you plan to use glyphs a lot at the start, you can pick him as an initial deity. If you do not carry Item: Really Big Sword Really Big Sword, cleansing can help dealing with the Monster: Goo Blob Goo Blob or especially Monster: Illusion Illusion with ease.
  • God: Dracul Dracul is arguably the single best deity for Vicious Gaan-Telet, offering both Sanguine and resistances. While his quirkiness makes him better to convert into late-game to reap his many benefits, he is the most critical of the deities.
  • God: Binlor Ironshield Binlor Ironshield can function as a generous source of piety, and can therefore be used in conjunction with the God: The Pactmaker The Pactmaker to build a high level of resistances if used as the initial deity. This is the recommended approach for the Class: Rat Monarch Rat Monarch, who finds it difficult to keep a lot of resistance-increasing items in their inventory. On the other side, if you are facing Horatio and you can't erode his resistances, you can convert to Binlor to get Stone Soup and Stone Form. Two wallbreakers means easy 30 piety.
  • God: The Pactmaker The Pactmaker offers God boon: Body Pact Body Pact to round up resistances as needed, though it is more expensive than either Tarog's or Dracul's boons. If you carry Item: Patches the Teddy Patches the Teddy and Item: Dragon Shield Dragon Shield you can hit the resists cap without the help of the Pactmaker. If you take the body pact mid-run, only get it when you will not lose too much piety on it, and be careful about losing the chance of free 50 piety. Otherly, you can begin the run with Taurog/GG/Binlor or any piety-friendly god and body pact if you meet the Pactmaker at the first tower.

A successful VGT run can easily use all of these deities (for example, starting in God: Taurog Taurog for his resistance/damage boosts; then tripping through God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian for God boon: Humility Humility; then ending up in God: Dracul Dracul for God boon: Blood Shield Blood Shield and God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe; and taking God boon: Body Pact Body Pact when needed for extra resists). Because you will likely have Item: Burn Salve Burn Salve, desecrating the altar of God: The Earthmother The Earthmother is often a good move at the lategame.

Shop Items

Some items to keep an eye out for in Vicious Gaan-Telet:

  • Item: Soul Orb Soul Orb is really useful to avoid Mana Burn.
  • Item: Viper Ward Viper Ward is only needed if you don't have HALPMEH. But in that case it can be very useful.
  • Item: Tower Shield Tower Shield can give much-coveted physical resistance, and can help get close to the resist cap.
  • Item: Platemail Platemail is a good item to increase durability, though bear in mind that damage reduction happens before resistances are considered.
  • Item: Vampiric Blade Vampiric Blade gives you a layer of Lifesteal without having to sacrafice maximum resistances.
  • Item: Martyr Wraps Martyr Wraps helps immensely with the boss fight.
  • Item: Stone Sigil Stone Sigil can give a steady piety flow thanks to the large number of monsters available.
  • Item: Troll Heart Troll Heart, if purchased early, can give a bit of extra help, and then a bit of extra CP when converted at L10.
  • Item: Gloves of Midas Gloves of Midas can help earn more gold to purchase more conversion fodder.
  • Item: Dragon Soul Dragon Soul extends the amount of spells the character can cast.
  • Item: Fire Heart Fire Heart allows to kill debuffing or high attack monsters without regen-fighting.
  • Item: Piercing Wand Piercing Wand is a viable choice if you don't have other method to erode Horatio's resists.
  • Anything that increases damage - like the Item: Fine Sword Fine Sword, Item: Hero's Helm Hero's Helm or the Item: Badge of Honour Badge of Honour - is worth a consideration.

Other than these, items that give a good conversion value can become useful purchases.

Preparations

Alchemist

Bazaar

  • The extra Apothecaries preparation is a prudent safeguard against the many afflictions of VGT.
  • Quest Items may be worth it for some builds as most of the items that are really good for VGT belong to this group.

Blacksmith

  • Item: Perseverance Badge Perseverance Badge gives damage bonus for a small slot item, and is arguably the best blacksmith preparation for VGT.
  • Item: Bear Mace Bear Mace takes up more space and its use is more conditional, however the damage bonus it gives is also greater.
  • Item: Really Big Sword Really Big Sword is a reliable way to pierce Horatio's resistances, however not all builds can afford the drawback of having slow strike and a big inventory occupant.

Church

  • God: Taurog Taurog is a good starting deity for most general strategies.
  • God: Glowing Guardian Glowing Guardian is a good alternative for more glyph-dependent builds, especially those that start with high resists.
  • God: Binlor Binlor can be a choice if the build relies heavily on knockback.
  • God: The Earthmother The Earthmother can be worth in some cases because preparing her altar means two separate altars will be present on the map, and both can be desecrated.

Guild

  • Item: Dragon Shield Dragon Shield is the most commonly used preparation thanks to the huge resistance bonus it gives.
  • Item: Platemail Platemail is a good alternative for those builds who don't mind having slow strike.
  • Item: Draining Blade Draining Blade is an interesting choice; although it requires an immediate corrosion clear, it leaves open the possibility of finding a Vampiric Blade, which together give the character two levels of Lifesteal without having to compromise on resistances.

Mage Tower

  • Extra Attack Boosters is almost always the best preparation.
  • If your character's bonus damage is already very high and you plan to depend on Trait: Sanguine Sanguine later, extra health booster can be a better choice.

Thieves Guild

  • Item: Patches Patches introduces a degree of randomness that is not welcome, occupies a big inventory space, however the benefits it gives can be huge, so most runs will risk taking him.
  • An alternative can be Black Market, because there are lot of items good at VGT, at least given how money can buy more conversion points.
  • Builds relying heavily on blackspace may benefit from Smuggler Den instead.

Witch

  • Item: Burn Salve Burn Salve and Item: Fortitude Tonic Fortitude Tonic are very useful given the amount of afflictions present in VGT.
  • Item: Can of Whupaz Can of Whupaz shortens the boss fight considerably.
  • Item: Schadenfreude Potion Schadenfreude Potion will almost always be useful, though the basic Health and Mana potions should also not be underestimated for their ability to clear Poison/Mana Burn.

Glyphs

Most glyphs will end up being converted thanks to the shortage of inventory space, and the need for extra damage. There are some glyphs that can be very useful, though, and picking the right glyphs to keep can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Direct Attack Glyphs

  • Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ is an effective way to round up damage and finish a monster; and it is especially useful against the Dancing Blade. It is recommended to keep it at least until that monster is defeated.
  • Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH greatly extends melee potential, and can also cure Poison. One of the best glyphs to keep until converting into Dracul.
  • Glyph: GETINDARE GETINDARE is a really effective way to finish monsters, and is a great way to conserve resources. Excellent glyph.

Assist Tools

  • Glyph: BYSSEPS BYSSEPS is not very useful during most of the run, but can be very effective in stripping Horatio's resistances. It is often worthwhile to keep it on the floor, and pick it up for the boss fight.
  • Glyph: WONAFYT WONAFYT can be used on the bigger tower levels to conserve blackspace. It can also take off some entrance blocking lower level monsters.
  • Glyph: LEMMISI LEMMISI can also find the enemies in the bigger levels. Builds relying heavily on blackspace can access a few extra tiles with it.
  • Glyph: CYDSTEPP CYDSTEPP is a bit expensive, but can be used to land a killing blow.
  • Glyph: APHEELSIK APHEELSIK can also help before getting some significant resists or sanguine that you need to rely on regen fighting.
  • Glyph: WEYTWUT WEYTWUT can help builds relying heavily on knockback. It can also take the monsters off of the hallways.
  • Glyph: IMAWAL IMAWAL will bring some extra XP in the leveling phase.

Other glyphs can be converted on sight.

Playing Tips

Blackspace

Blackspace is very short in this dungeon, and the player is required to be skillful at efficient exploring. This is the list of types of blackspaces, arranged by how important it is.

  • Tier 1. Current Tower, until everything is discovered

This is the blackspace which you should explore as soon as possible. If there's a blinking monster (Monster: Dancing Blade Dancing Blade, Monster: Burn Viper Burn Viper) in the tower, every tile belongs to tier 1 except walls. After every monsters and item are discovered, the tiles left are not important. Be aware of the piety sparkles you step on though, they can be important later on. If you think the item isn't very important (like Item: Penance Penance or Item: Wall Cruncher Wall Cruncher) you don't have to find it soon.

  • Tier 2. Courtyard except the walls, but important tiles should be stepped on anyway

The courtyard contains many things to discover. There should be 8 shops, 1 apothecary, 5 glyphs, 3 potions each, 3 boosters each, and several gold piles on the ground. Because these things can power you up significantly, you should explore the yard anyway. Shops and glyphs are probably the most important ones. Count the number of things you discovered, especially the shops; you should plan to use your gold carefully. Of course if the important tile is right next to walls, that wall tiles unwillingly belong to tier 2. If possible, try to explore in a way that you can always access just a single blackspace. If you prepared Smuggler's Den, it also belongs to tier 2.

  • Tier 3. Previous Towers & Courtyard Walls

This blackspace has no use except for regeneration. If possible, try not to step on the piety sparkles, and leave the bloodpools alone outside of blackspace so that you can access bloodpools without exploring blackspace.

When to use bloodpools

Trait: Sanguine Sanguine is very important trait here. Whilst it's doable without sanguine, the bloodpools can heal you several times over. The most efficient timing is not the boss but enemies in tower 7-9; especially the ones dealing high damage or have debuffs. Especially Monster: Warlock Warlocks, Monster: Serpent Serpents and Monster: Wraith Wraiths are quirky to regen-fight. Oppositely, Horatio deals very low damage and mana is required to erode his resistances, so a lot of blackspace is required to fight against him. If you have knockback, you can attack two monsters at once. Using bloodpools is very efficient because they won't heal anyway.

Bloodpools can be also used to avoid Trait: Poisoned Poisoned, Trait: Mana Burned Mana Burned debuffs. You can endure the debuffs and fight debuffing enemies by drinking bloodpools until you level up, and the enemies should be dead by then.

But be aware bloodpools are limited resources; if you tap on bloodpools too early or use them inefficiently, they could be all consumed before reaching Horatio. Also if your magic resist is not very high, purchasing 4+ God boon: Blood Tithe Blood Tithe might reduce your health pool too much that you can't tank a single hit of tower 9's Monster: Warlock Warlock which deals 191 damage.

How to deal with Horatio's resistances

The most efficient method is using Glyph: BYSSEPS BYSSEPS. In most runs BYSSEPS isn't very helpful during the run, so leaving it on the courtyard and picking it up for the boss fight is a very good idea.

Item: Really Big Sword Really Big Sword is another good way, but to maximize its efficiency you should erode his resistances by 15% with other methods.

God boon: Stone Form Stone Form + Glyph: ENDISWAL ENDISWAL is one good method. If you use ENDISWAL, you should first aim for the tower's walls which hides blackspace; then piety sparkles; then other walls. You should never aim the walls in courtyard; God boon: Stone Heart Stone Heart or God boon: Stone Skin Stone Skin can be used. The major drawback of this approach is that you should prepare enough piety if you want to convert into God: Dracul Dracul. If you worshipped Binlor during the run, you can buy Stone Form before converting into other gods, keeping the buff. However using 25 piety for Stone Form may not be a best choice if you found BYSSEPS. Only buy it when you have a good wall knockback chain so that you can recover the piety cost.

Item: Piercing Wand Piercing Wand and Item: Martyr Wraps Martyr Wraps are not very efficient, but it's still better than nothing.. Like picking up BYSSEPS, you should plan the budget and buy it just before the boss fight. But for Piercing Wand you should not convert Glyph: BURNDAYRAZ BURNDAYRAZ even though you have Glyph: HALPMEH HALPMEH.

External Links

[1] : a useful online tool to track the floors, monsters and penalties of Vicious Gaan-Telet