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[Damiac]

Aren't chainsaws actually pretty low in damage, despite how they look?

My best damage dealer ever (sort of) was on a quadfire laserhose... with always-cast acid trail. I grabbed the perk at the final Holy Temple, looked at the spell it gave me... paused, shrugged, and fired it straight down into the boss. It pretty much vaporized, and my save file corrupted itself when it crashed. 

Well, chainsaws do "Slice" damage which supposedly does full damage to the boss, where he has 0.2x projectile damage, so the 14 damage the chainsaw does is better than an 60 damage "projectile damage" spell.  But yeah, chainsaws are not terribly damaging on their own.

Although to be honest, when heavy shot adds 44 damage, the base damage just doesn't mean that much. It's better to stack more cheap spells than to have a few big hitters when you're adding 44 to each one.  Of course if you can have the same amount of spells, more damage is better.  But in my experience you're always trying to keep mana cost low, so you don't need as many +mana mods, and therefore have more open slots for more spells.

There's another complication though, when it comes to multi-projectile spells.  Triple shot costs 25 mana, but you get 3 projectiles, so they're only 8.33 mana a piece, and you save 2 slots.  Infestation gives 6 projectiles according to the wiki, for 40 mana, so 6.66 mana per projectile and you save 5 slots. However infestation can damage you, so at the very least you'd have to be a lot more careful about firing the wand.

That's basically the current state of my wand sciencing, which is pretty basic compared to some of the stuff I've seen but don't really get, like accelerating shot making some projectiles much more damaging.  I won't be one shotting any 33 orb bosses with this approach though, since I'm limited to a geometric progression of damage and 26 slots is the max. 

I did find a spells to mana modifier though, I know that's another one of the ways to deal absurd damage.

[Damiac]

After a long break from the game I am playing again, the new update from march added quite a bit!

So after dying a lot of times, once even in the temple of the art, I have a god run going, with all the important ingredients in place except tinker with wands everywhere, which would be nice...

Early on, I got some chainsaws and triple shot, and a high regen wand, so I have a fairly rapid fire shotgun.
The perks were great, Corpse explosion(immunity to explosions), immune to fire, immune to melee, immune to lightning, no more shuffle(lie!), and.... more love. Oh well, can't win 'em all.
Then I got an even better wand for an even rapider fire shotgun.
Then, in the ice caves, I got: 2x increase mana, heavy shot, horizontal arc. Putting those, some double casts, chainsaws, and the horizontal arc on the end I ended up with a max speed automatic shotgun that uses no mana. Each pellet does something like 22 damage, which is weird since heavy shot is supposed to increase damage by 44 but eh it doesn't matter, it melts everything. The only thing it didn't do well is shoot upward. Until I swapped out horizontal arc for linear arc, which only triggers on every other triple shot.

The recoil is hard to manage, but gives me a method to move pretty fast.

That alone got me down to temple of the art. However, along the way I found:
A broken, spilled ambrosia flask. I was able to get about 40% of a full flask of it, that's enough to get me to some parallel worlds.
Luminous drill w/ trigger, along with another increase mana, along with spiral arc. Long range laser hose that will dig through anything and can fire endlessly. No regular luminous drills this run so far, but with the increase mana it doesn't really matter.
A wand with always cast healing bolt. Holy shit, I've never seen that before. Throw a spark bolt with trigger on it, along with the larpa orbit I got from the dragon in jungle, infinite (albeit slow and awkward) healing.
A wand with teleport bolt. Critical for parallel worlds along with ambrosia and digging.

I also have a black hole, and a zeta spell (copy a random spell from another held wand), so I have a (tedious) method of infinite black holes, although I have to dedicate 2 wands to it to make it work. Probably will just stick with luminous drilling until I get tinker anywhere.

I stuck my teleport bolt onto my always cast heal wand. Healing is annoying this way, but works, and I don't lose a wand slot, as I need at least one open for dragging wands back to the mountain until I get tinker anywhere.

So I have 3 dedicated wands, main auto shotgun of death, laser hose of digging, and heal/teleport wand.  I've got 500 health or so max (lots of extra health hearts found).

So it's time to visit parallel worlds and get all the perks, as well as hopefully finding a less tedious healing method and some more ambrosia, or a way to tunnel through cursed rock fast enough to tank the damage. My healing wand cannot even come close to keeping up with cursed rock damage.

I plan to visit parallel worlds, become godly, collect 10 orbs total, and go into new game plus an absolute god, followed by a 33 orb win. Probably I will gib myself long before that, but it's good to have goals.

I've never been to parallel worlds in the current version, I know there are bosses lurking on the surface now, but I should be able to teleport past them or outright blow them up with my death wand. The alchemist terrifies me now though, with terrain deletion, on top of his deadly spells and reflective shield.

[Damiac]

Triple post... Noita's not too popular around these parts I guess. Weird, because with the amount of losing that happens in this game you'd think DF players would find it extremely !FUN!

The funny thing is, if you've only played around a bit and gotten to the ice caves or so, you don't even realize how little you've seen and experienced of this game.  Which is tough, given that it's a difficult roguelike.  In my experience there are really 3 phases of the game, and you can 'beat' the game without ever leaving phase 1.

Phase 1. The state you enter the game in. You are in constant danger, you have little health and are vulnerable to everything, and your offense isn't powerful enough to be considered a defense. You're balancing exploration (With the goal of increasing wealth and offensive power) with resource management (Your health).  The game is like a survival horror in this phase. You can beat the game like this.

Phase 2. Your offense is powerful enough to be a good defense. Enemies still can hurt you, but you generally kill everything before it has a chance to try. Typically this involves a machine gun wand that can litter the whole screen with projectiles, or sometimes a luminous drill setup. Basically, you hold down the attack button if you think enemies might be nearby, and everything dies. However, you're still vulnerable to environmental damage like fire, toxins, ice mist, lava, etc.  You can pretty well explore where you want at this point, as long as you don't wander to enemies where your offense can't keep up.  The game is kind of like a FPS here, except for the lack of first person perspective or shooting.  This is typically your power level when you beat the game.

Phase 3. You're practically invincible.  You've explored parallel worlds and acquired most/all of the immunity perks, plus maybe some damage reduction. You've got healing on demand. As long as you don't fall into a puddle of polymorphine you're safe. Your offense is balanced around not making the game run too slow while killing everything.  You have the greek letter spells and thus infinite black holes. 


A problem is, the game isn't really equipped to challenge a player at phase 3.  You've got more to worry about regarding not paying attention and doing something dumb rather than losing a fight.  It's fun to see the crazy stuff you can do... but what do to with the crazy stuff?  I can go hunt for all 33 orbs, I guess. But wow, that's a lot of playing a game I'm already in the win state for. But it's not practical to do the 33 orb ending without entering phase 3 in the process.

It's fun when you come up with a cool wand that shoots black holes at machine gun speed, teleports you across the map in moments, and heals you in the process, but the problem is you basically already won at that point.

[heydude6]

The Binding of Isaac also has this problem, and very rarely Gungeon. In those games, you can also acquire enough loot to become an indestructible demigod and trivialize the rest of the content.

I think what Noita does right compared to those other games is that this extra power actually has a purpose (ie. the 33 orb victory), rather than it being used to tackle the same content as you would in phase 1 (like you do in those other games). You can make the argument that 33 orb is a bit too drawn out (I think parallel worlds were a mistake, 11 Orb should have been the highest achievement), but it's better than no orbs at all, even if the implementation is flawed.

It's a step in the right direction, but it's still something that another game can improve on.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

yall get past phase 1? Normally when I become powerful I blow myself up

[heydude6]

I only ever made it to phase 2, but I usually die in some embarrassing way when I’m there. Piercing shot and bouncing shot make a terrible combo.

[MrRoboto75]

The Binding of Isaac also has this problem, and very rarely Gungeon. In those games, you can also acquire enough loot to become an indestructible demigod and trivialize the rest of the content.

Isaac tries to counter it by giving most of the endgame bosses some form of scaling damage reduction.  Which I generally hate, especially for greed mode.  Greed mode gives you a lot of power then renders it irrelevant since the final boss will still end up taking several minutes to kill.

At the very least with Isaac the game tends to breeze by if you get powerful enough, and more often than not the power's the reward for doing well in the first place (devil/angel rooms).

On the other hand, the noita subreddit seems to think even if you get to phase 3 the game will probably still have some clever way to one-shot you regardless of how overconfident you get.

[Vivalas]

Triple post... Noita's not too popular around these parts I guess. Weird, because with the amount of losing that happens in this game you'd think DF players would find it extremely !FUN!

The funny thing is, if you've only played around a bit and gotten to the ice caves or so, you don't even realize how little you've seen and experienced of this game.  Which is tough, given that it's a difficult roguelike.  In my experience there are really 3 phases of the game, and you can 'beat' the game without ever leaving phase 1.

Phase 1. The state you enter the game in. You are in constant danger, you have little health and are vulnerable to everything, and your offense isn't powerful enough to be considered a defense. You're balancing exploration (With the goal of increasing wealth and offensive power) with resource management (Your health).  The game is like a survival horror in this phase. You can beat the game like this.

Phase 2. Your offense is powerful enough to be a good defense. Enemies still can hurt you, but you generally kill everything before it has a chance to try. Typically this involves a machine gun wand that can litter the whole screen with projectiles, or sometimes a luminous drill setup. Basically, you hold down the attack button if you think enemies might be nearby, and everything dies. However, you're still vulnerable to environmental damage like fire, toxins, ice mist, lava, etc.  You can pretty well explore where you want at this point, as long as you don't wander to enemies where your offense can't keep up.  The game is kind of like a FPS here, except for the lack of first person perspective or shooting.  This is typically your power level when you beat the game.

Phase 3. You're practically invincible.  You've explored parallel worlds and acquired most/all of the immunity perks, plus maybe some damage reduction. You've got healing on demand. As long as you don't fall into a puddle of polymorphine you're safe. Your offense is balanced around not making the game run too slow while killing everything.  You have the greek letter spells and thus infinite black holes. 


A problem is, the game isn't really equipped to challenge a player at phase 3.  You've got more to worry about regarding not paying attention and doing something dumb rather than losing a fight.  It's fun to see the crazy stuff you can do... but what do to with the crazy stuff?  I can go hunt for all 33 orbs, I guess. But wow, that's a lot of playing a game I'm already in the win state for. But it's not practical to do the 33 orb ending without entering phase 3 in the process.

It's fun when you come up with a cool wand that shoots black holes at machine gun speed, teleports you across the map in moments, and heals you in the process, but the problem is you basically already won at that point.

After reading this I realize how far I am from being good at this game. Today I was excited because I finally got past Hiisi Base with a really good setup, and then I got overwhelmed in Jungle, but it still felt like I had made considerable progress since I began. But 33 orbs? Greek letter spells? I don't think I've ever even found one orb, and I'm not sure I want to know how far I am from completing the game after getting to the Jungle, since it takes a looooong time for me to get there at all. (I suppose, in metrics of playtime, it's only taken 9 hours of total experience for me to reach the Jungle, which I suppose isn't a whole lot but I play on and off and it still feels like getting to the Jungle takes about an hour or so for me.)

The biggest problem with this game is the random bullshit that kills you. I suppose this fits in with losing is !!FUN!! but for me it's kinda  a turn off because I feel like I have no control over it. Usually I get some really good combo, get excited, then get too aggressive and die.

When you do get a good set-up going, this game feels amazing though. Mixing and matching, picking up useless wands to deconstruct them and put their spells in other places, etc., the "character building" aspect of the game is golden. But for me I just love chaos, action on the screen and everything dying: and I think that's where Noita's biggest negative lies for me, the game seems to actively punish having fun or experimenting. Trying out a new wand in holy mountain? Nope, prepare to be killed by an OP temple guardian. Barely escape a level with 1 HP? Well a worm ate the portal area so now the temple guardian is going to come and kill you, and you can't do anything about it. I understand wanton chaos should have consequences and I enjoy that aspect of the game: actions DO really have massive consequences in Noita. Sometimes not looking closely enough at a wand you pick up can be the difference in a good run or being one click away from obliterating yourself.

I've definitely gotten to Phase 2 a number of times though. I don't know enough about the meta of this game at all, I don't think, but Angry Ghost seems like, by far, the most OP thing to ever exist. Double DPS basically instantly and it's always an instant pick for me when I find it.

I will now take a moment to list some of the favorite builds I've ever gotten:

1. Machine Gun energy orb (the ones that float and "zap" out of existence) with speed, machine gun wand, angry ghost, and faster wands (one-off) perk. Everything in front of me was dead.
2. Energy bolt (forget the name, the Z thing that arcs into most enemies and basically instantly kills them then jumps to the next) coupled with some always casts that caused little firework explosions everywhere the bolt went.
3. Machine gun spitter bolt with trigger with some explosion spells, basically was like firing a Mk19, infinite explosions are awesome.
4. A whole bunch of wands that have nothing but explosives + repulsion sector. If you fire a bomb through a repulsion sector it acts like a ghetto grenade launcher, couple with lots of different bomb wands of different flavors crafted nicely and it's pretty nice.

And my all-time favorite run so far:

I was lucky to pick up a wand with an always-cast oil rain mod. This meant infinite oil, as every time I cast the spell it rained flammable liquid everywhere. Coupled with my extremely lucky find of oil blood in the next temple, I turned into a literal napalm factory when I added a fireball to the oil wand. I basically ran around the level covering everything in flammable death. It was glorious.

And then I died to the guardian in the temple because worm.

So yeah I love Noita, love the chaos and entropy of the game, but I'm a pyro at heart and to me the biggest downfall of the game is it doesn't give players enough freedom to just cause chaos without putting themselves in an adverse amount of danger. Or maybe I just need to get better, who knows.

[heydude6]

On the other hand, the noita subreddit seems to think even if you get to phase 3 the game will probably still have some clever way to one-shot you regardless of how overconfident you get.

They are right though. Polymorphine always remains a threat. I’ve only died to it once, but it’s a pretty frustrating way to go. As result you can never leisurely stroll though noita and quickly finish the run like you can in Isaac, which I think creates some frustration.

I think we can conclude two things at least. Polymorphine should be removed and the endgame content should be shortened.

*snip*

It’s funny that you say that because I always felt like the point of Noita was to control and minimize chaos in a world that was always on the verge of collapsing into it.

The moment you lost control was the moment you were at risk of dying to explosions or fire or acid or lava. Any explosive crate that you left undetonated had the potential to end your run 5 minutes later.

Thus the decision to leave the crate intact so you could lure enemies into it was a calculated gamble that could reward you with double the gold compared to killing them normally or it could take out a massive chunk of your health.

It was thrilling, but you couldn’t do it all the time. Sometimes when your health is low, you just had to suck it up and admit to yourself that it wasn’t worth the risk. At the end of the day, chaos isn’t your friend in Noita.

[Frumple]

Hold up, not even one orb? Several of those things aren't exactly hard to find (to the point it's hard to consider mentioning them to actually be a spoiler, since you'll trip over them if you do more or less any exploration); the two easiest to reach are basically just hold right from the start, one over land and up the pyramid and the other through the starting biome and across the bridge. The third easiest is basically just straight up the starting mountain, then up a bit more just kinda' hanging out.

e: Also grabbing a few early on is usually a super good idea. It makes the final boss harder, but makes getting to it a fair bit easier!

[Nirur Torir]

There are some orbs you can find very early game if you know where to look, giving you more max HP. They're helpful.

If you want it to be a fun game about chaotically exploding things, get mods. I'm particularly fond of the following mods:
No More Worm Destruction - Worms stop angering the gods, because they stop digging.
Edit Wands Everywhere - Getting back up to edit wands isn't usually a problem, just a waste of time. Let me have my fun editing wands.
Passive Regeneration - It starts slow, then speeds up as long as you're not hit, healing up to 75%. There's still plenty of ways to die, and I try to treat it more as a chip damage mitigation and not sit around healing. I've only gotten a basic game clear a few times, even with this.

[MrRoboto75]

but Angry Ghost seems like, by far, the most OP thing to ever exist. Double DPS basically instantly and it's always an instant pick for me when I find it.

I've found him once.  It's not obvious, but he can also copy nearby enemy projectiles as well, which isn't always a good thing.

On the other hand, the noita subreddit seems to think even if you get to phase 3 the game will probably still have some clever way to one-shot you regardless of how overconfident you get.

They are right though. Polymorphine always remains a threat. I’ve only died to it once, but it’s a pretty frustrating way to go. As result you can never leisurely stroll though noita and quickly finish the run like you can in Isaac, which I think creates some frustration.

I think we can conclude two things at least. Polymorphine should be removed and the endgame content should be shortened.

Poly is good for one thing, if you exit the mountain shrines as anything other than a player character, it doesn't collapse behind you and you can still use it as a wand tinker zone. (although admittedly these days I play with "tinker anywhere")

It’s funny that you say that because I always felt like the point of Noita was to control and minimize chaos in a world that was always on the verge of collapsing into it.

The moment you lost control was the moment you were at risk of dying to explosions or fire or acid or lava. Any explosive crate that you left undetonated had the potential to end your run 5 minutes later.

Thus the decision to leave the crate intact so you could lure enemies into it was a calculated gamble that could reward you with double the gold compared to killing them normally or it could take out a massive chunk of your health.

I'm in the Nuclear Thone mindset that explosives are never my friend and must be detonated on sight.

I think the only time I really get the double money is when I get lucky and spawn with the explosive crystal wand instead of the traditional bomb stick.  Honestly past the first level or two there'll be enough enemies about that you'll end up with "enough" money just by having to deal with them.

[Vivalas]

Naah I'm just full pyro. When I saw Noita was a game about killing monsters in basically a large very beautiful rendition of Sandbox, that was my first and initial strategy, and I still embrace chaos every run.

Funnily enough, after posting that last post, I decided on "one more run through" for today and almost made it past jungle. I got incredibly lucky with 4 very OP wands and one I handcrafted myself which was very satisfying.

Wand 1: 2 slots, 2 holy bombs. I didn't know what these did so I launched one and walked far enough away (or so I thought) and almost died at the start of ice caves. After Hiisi Base I found exploding corpses which was great mix with the holy bomb, although it also slowly attrited my HP, so maybe I see the point of "chaos is bad for you" 

Wand 2: Incredibly OP wand with fast recharge, increased damage, triple shot, long distance cast, and 3 bouncy shot. basically, at around 4m from me it would spam triple shots of these very high damage bouncy projectiles that would basically shred everything inside an enclosed space. bonus of being able to cast it through walls without exposing myself.

Wand 3: Probably the best wand of the run, 3 energy lance with homing. This thing would one shot almost everything until jungle and it also was homing. Also had a nice secondary electrical effect which I was careful to note and made sure I didn't use this while standing on metal.

Wand 4: Sea of acid + egg. Sea of Acid is so incredibly destructive, used it a few times when things were shooting up from me from below. The main downside of this as I realized the worm thing is that if there's a portal below you, you gotta find another one since it basically kills the portal it does so much damage. This now makes me wonder if there's an alternate ending that occurs if you destroy every portal in a level.

I got up to 1500 gold and got to the bottom of Jungle before I died to fire, and so far this is my best run, and I ended up with perks and wands that synergized so well, that my downfall was grinding the levels so hard just to see everything die that I died to fire not watching my HP. Perhaps I got a little cocky. And perhaps I'm getting much more better at this then I think I am. Noita is in that cool genre of games were knowledge is the best weapon in the game. Reminds me in that aspect of Outer Wilds somewhat, in that just knowing good combinations and which hazards to avoid and how to tackle everything you come across makes it much easier to progress regardless of what build you have. In either case, I think for better or worse I will be embracing the school of the Chaosmage. If I ever beat the game this way, I dunno, but I'm sure having a lot of fun melting entire levels.

[MrRoboto75]

I had a decent run, my "best" yet, to about midway through the jungle. (Edit wands anywhere mod)

I got the glowing lance spell, a bolt with a heavier arc to it, which does decent damage and can pass through some terrain.  I also got the +projectile speed and laser pointer (more projectile speed) perks, so it became easier to use.  It one shots most of the enemies, and what it doesn't kill it'll knock back a fair distance.

My second wand was the old bomb wand, with the starting purple shot.

Third one was a teleport wand, teleports to whereever its shot lands.  Honestly saved me too many times.  Also almost all the exits from the mountain temples were "hot" so I could tele back into the exit shaft and snipe from there.

Fourth was various explosive wands, ended up with split shot magic missile.  It would one shot any mechanical enemy I ran into.

Died mostly because the exit into the jungle was, of course, hot with a metal spearman and some sort of giant spider.  It took me a few hits to the face to realize the spearman is "mechanical" and needs magic missiles.  Missiles also one shot the spider.  So I essentially entered the jungle with 40hp instead of some 130hp.  The general enemies and hazards whittled me down to exactly 1 hp, then I stepped in poison pixels and d i e d.

[Bralbaard]

but Angry Ghost seems like, by far, the most OP thing to ever exist. Double DPS basically instantly and it's always an instant pick for me when I find it.

It definitely killed me on some very promising runs. It is dangerous and not worth the risk IMO.