So far I have not managed to get Monk through Demon halls with the fourth challenge.

I am getting closer with a highly upgraded Greatshield which blocks 0-26 damage combined with a cloth of anti-magic.

On one hand the Greatshield feels like cheating on the challenge, on the other I could have gone "Champion" instead of Monk and any secondary weapon would be overkill.

But I want to be the monk with huge shield.

I used one SoU to get enchantments and got the one I did not want on the shield: blazing.

Should have stayed with the Camouflage jacket and the Blooming enchantment but is late to retract.

On arrival to Demon halls I have spent already 3 healings and wondering why are succubus hitting so hard?

Running with 4 challenges the lack of proper armor makes things real tough from level 16 onwards.

Now I am thinking, perhaps investing on Evasion would compensate... Then what about the glyph of Stone?

Any other tips to survive with poor armor?

Bought a plate after defeating the dwarf king. Damn it, I should not have transformed the armor before reforging!

In recent runs, I am not finding 40 dark gold ore without a LOT of digging around the crystal caves. Is it intended?

Finally I find a tier-5 weapon in yesterday's daily. Given by the altar near the Troll. Very generous +3 with an interesting Dazzling curse. After making it +10, and applying an enchantment stone found long above, it got lucky! I might be saved for this run 🙂

For the nth time I got stuck on a (dead) crab web while heading for a door, when a diagonal move would have avoided it. At least the movement should stop before stepping on visible nasty things.

The strategy has been to save all upgrades for the first tier 5 weapon, then use Twin Upgrades and Swift equip to enjoy a variety of weapons.

Somehow I cannot manage "On Diet" challenge with duelist, I might need a lucky start for it.

Elemental Blast is very cool too, I love its crowd control effects like blasting many baddies around with that elastic shield. I forgot to use it on Yog where it would have really shined!

Battlemage with HoP, Mystical Charge and Shield Battery talents.

Not leaving the Crystal Cave until all artifacts are fully charged, health restored and plate armors identified.

For FREE.

(And a little patience)

The new troll rewards system is very nice, though the most expensive "Smith" option is rarely useful for armor.

The player can have the Blacksmith smith 3 items for them. They always get to choose from 2 random weapons and a random armor generated using Dwarven Metropolis tier distribution. The items have 15%/55%/20%/5% chance to be upgraded to +0/+1/+2/+3 respectively and are never enchanted or cursed.

At this stage of the game we are usually looking forward to a plate armor, and may have one at +0/+1. Often enough we can upgrade and reforge for 1500 favor and come out with +2/+3 plate.

Now the Smith option, for 2000, has a low chance of producing such an armor and often only produces a Scale mail, rarely a novelty at the troll's level.

Perhaps the armor item should be guaranteed to be a plate?

Using the Recycle spell on 2 scrolls produced 2 scrolls of Identify. Then on 2 potions, 2 potions of Healing. Is the randomness broken?

Pretty good Mage start with a +3 projecting spear (ghost gift), a +3 leather armor of brimstone (no SoU spent on them, only stone and stylus) and Unstable Spelbook. Now I am considering to imbue but I am no fan of fireblast or disintegration tbh. I should have taken the Blast wand for that... What would you do? Go with the flow and FIRE away?