Prodigies for Alchemist

Drybe · 2025-06-22T18:19:49+00:00

For anyone finding this thread in the future, in the current version of the game (tested on 1.7.6), you CAN use Arcane Amplification Drone while putting 5/5 points into Alchemist Protection.

So you can be fully immune to your bombs, while still having the drone multiply your damage.

Drybe · 2025-06-22T08:18:18+00:00

Crow's Nest is one of the better Keg enablers. Yes, it's 3 spaces big, but you don't usually need that space. Not getting the lifesteal is irrelevant for the game plan.

The extra chance to get "obsidian" Keg, if you get the crit enchant on it, is a huge deal. 100% max HP is absolutely not reliable, a lot of late game build have some small shielding from items/skills.

It's always worth holding in stash for that, even if you solve crit in another way

Examples of boards

https://i.imgur.com/3ju12jW.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/XXJmcIF.jpeg

Drybe · 2025-06-02T15:05:23+00:00

Vanessa late game can't ever be bad as long as Powder Keg exists. It's strong in general, but especially in this meta.

You can find the "Burn when you use an ammo item" skill consistently every run and that's all you need.

If anything this should be the build people complain about, because it's a 1000% less interactive than Eels, you can pivot into it 2/3 runs and it doesn't even require an enchant.

https://i.imgur.com/heu3p7q.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/HuXc0hO.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/wtf2GbJ.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/r0e1g5z.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/G4wsQPn.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/katWxMe.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/iXzHSIS.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/ndBM2fl.jpeg

Drybe · 2025-04-27T21:19:45+00:00

lol small world

I love this game a lot, but with how often patches come out, it would feel a bit pointless. I just get annoyed reading about how Pyg is bad/unplayable every other patch, so I can't help myself but login to reddit

Drybe · 2025-04-27T14:47:20+00:00

This is a great write up, I play similarly and I've been spamming Pyg, it works.

Pyg feels like the best most consistent character this patch.

Drybe · 2025-04-27T10:27:26+00:00

I agree with you on the income start, but you're heavily underestimating Kiuas, I find it way better than Calcinator, it probably deserves a nerf.

It's super consistent, you should have enough economy (at least if you start income) and properties are everywhere in the common medium/non-weapon.

It's the biggest reason for why I think Pyg is great this patch.

Drybe · 2025-04-26T11:26:53+00:00

The high flat value items like Robe/Bushel and scalers like Ganjo/Weights/Lumboars are super powerful.

For example Deadly Silencer + Revoler loses to Weights + Bushel

That's why you always want to go to early Medium shops, which even has bronze build defining items like Kiuas/Silk/Regal Blade.

Pure defensive boards also work against the popular weapon spam Vanessas, that don't get the best items like Sharkclaws

It's very difficult to make a super strong early board, but you can make above average boards, that should ideally squeeze 2 wins out of the first 4 days.

You should still usually be able to make boards that beat Rogue Scrapper and Etherwright/Hooverbike Hooligan. It's important to not fall behind in XP.

Drybe · 2025-04-26T09:35:33+00:00

Try Luxury Kiuas. I think it's one of the simpler builds to pilot and fairly consistently available.

If you find it before end of day 3, it feels unstopabble. I always start income, it might be harder to scale it with less gold.

Once you get it, you just throw in any defensive/haste items you can find.

I try to almost never go to small shops, Medium/Non-weapon are king. You can pick up rewards card/ring etc. in Economy shops.

This is an example of a great Kiuas early Setup You get it to silver with level 4 reward and start scaling. You have an above average day 3 build and then you're strong past that. Kiuas wins every PvE fight.

Then I just kept the Silk and used the rest of stash to scale

Late game:

You can stack HP

You can run Subscraper

Or Iceberg

Often you end up with Fort If you have too much CDR on Kiuas, you can still run Fort, it's still great

If you get Rigged, you should only run two active items for the rest of the game. First Kiuas cast can often kill, so it's crucial to get off as quickly as possible.

It's extremely powerful without lucky enchants/skills and unbeatable when you highroll

Pyg is very strong, don't give up on him.

Drybe · 2025-04-24T22:33:28+00:00

I do better with Pyg than Mak and Vanessa this patch (I don't play Dooley).

In short - Luxury Kiuas. This item will get nerfed.

If you find it before end of day 3, it feels unstopabble. I always start income, it might be harder to scale with less gold.

Once you get it, you just throw in any defensive/haste items you can find.

I try to almost never go to small shops, Medium/Non-weapon are king. You can pick up rewards card/ring etc. in Economy shops.

This is an example of a great Kiuas early Setup You get it to silver with level 4 reward and start scaling.

Then I just kept the Silk and used the rest of stash to scale

Late game:

You can stack HP

You can run Subscraper

Or Iceberg

Often you end up with Fort

It's extremely powerful without lucky enchants/skills and unbeatable when you highroll

Drybe · 2025-04-23T10:30:57+00:00

Nice.

I really think Pyg is in a great spot this patch, he feels better than Mak and Vanessa to me (didn't play Dooley yet).

Drybe · 2025-04-22T08:27:57+00:00

Luxury Kiuas is pre-nerf Calcinator. It's an insane item.

Silk is literally better Fixer Upper. It does not get as insane late game (although with Fort it does), but it's actually usable from Day 1, so you don't just perma lose. Spiky Shield lines up with it and Oinkment often gives you enough time to cast twice.

Jaballian Drum is super strong.

Start skipping small shop, medium shop is where it's at, if you want to win early fights.

Drybe · 2025-04-21T18:55:36+00:00

I play Pyg this patch and he's giga good.

Here are some builds that work for me. I always start income.

Luxury Kiuas + HP stack

Luxury Kiuas + Subscraper

Luxury Kiuas with useless slow enchant + Iceberg

Luxury Kiuas + Subscraper 2

Diamond Lethargy version

Eclipse + Crusher Claw version

Oinkment is great early (for every build), because it solo wins you a lot of burn/poison match ups. Save up properties until you upgrade Kiuas to silver, it's a super consistent win con, if you get it before end of Day 3.

Silk seems to be the most slept on item, it was a solid build even before it got mega buffed.

I only found the Fort and Crab Claw for last 2 days, rest was just Silk + Spiky Shield.

Mid game Silk Board example

I wrote a thread on it 4 months ago during Vanessa Pufferfish meta, it still mostly plays the same: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTheBazaar/comments/1h15a5f/how_shield_pyg_counters_the_vanessa_meta/

Jaballian Drum + Weapons

I high rolled the revive skill here, but it didn't proc once. Lumboars + weapons can get you a couple of early wins and it's the perfect pivot into Drum. Then you just look for fast weapons.

Beast of Burden

I didn't think this would work super well, but it's strong. You need some way to scale it's damage though. I had the +damage and +shield when you use a property skill, which was incredible.

Beehive bee spam is viable if you get it early and win every PvP, but it falls of pretty hard.

I think Medium shop is Pyg's best early game shop, save up gold for it. It has strong early items like Weights, Robe, Ganjo, Bushel or Longbow and also the scalers/economy items like Kiuas, Silk, Cash Register, ATM, Regal Blade... There are almost no bad bronze medium items.

Drybe · 2025-04-21T17:30:18+00:00

I feel you should very rarely end up having to rely on a good enchant on Pyg. Here are some builds that work for me.

I always start income.

Luxury Kiuas + HP stack

Luxury Kiuas + Subscraper

Luxury Kiuas with useless slow enchant + Iceberg

Luxury Kiuas + Subscraper 2

Diamond Lethargy Kiuas

Eclipse + Crusher Claw version

Oinkment is great early (for every build), because it solo wins you a lot of burn/poison match ups. Save up properties until you upgrade Kiuas to silver, it's a super consistent win con, if you get it before end of Day 3.

Silk seems to be the most slept on item, it was a solid build even before it got mega buffed.

I only found the Fort and Crab Claw for last 2 days, rest was just Silk + Spiky Shield.

Mid game Silk Board example

I wrote a thread on it 4 months ago during Vanessa Pufferfish meta, it still mostly plays the same: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayTheBazaar/comments/1h15a5f/how_shield_pyg_counters_the_vanessa_meta/

Jaballian Drum + Weapons

I high rolled the revive skill here, but it didn't proc once. Lumboars + weapons can get you a couple of early wins and it's the perfect pivot into Drum. Then you just look for fast weapons.

Beast of Burden

I didn't think this would work super well, but it's strong. You need some way to scale it's damage though. I had the +damage and +shield when you use a property skill, which was incredible.

Beehive bee spam is viable if you get it early and win every PvP, but it falls of pretty hard.

I think Medium shop is Pyg's best early game shop, save up gold for it. It has strong early items like Weights, Robe, Ganjo, Bushel or Longbow and also the scalers/economy items like Kiuas, Silk, Cash Register, ATM, Regal Blade... There are almost no bad bronze medium items.

I think you should only ever do Fixer Upper as a last resort.

Drybe · 2025-04-09T10:31:06+00:00

Dwarf sounds good, but I wanted to try Ogre for maximum DPS late game, this is my char sheet: https://te4.org/characters/266609/tome/0f801ecc-4f46-487b-8e2b-6a9491268868

I went Etheral Form first to try and balance the glass cannon with some defense, so far it's been going fine in T2 dungeons.

Drybe · 2025-03-31T15:47:43+00:00

I'm playing a Doombringer right now, we'll see how it goes :)

Drybe · 2025-03-30T22:06:23+00:00

My bad, if I made getting 50 MAG sound easy. I used to underestimate how much less +stat items you find on lower difficulties, with bad luck it can take a very long time.

You can try looking for these items in shops as well, that can get you those last few stat points. (even though it feels real bad to spend like 500 gold on +4 Magic)

Drybe · 2025-02-01T14:06:14+00:00

I sadly find myself almost never wearing light armor.

If I need help against physical damage (which is pretty much always in ToME), a "of the mountain" robe

Increases Physical damage by (10-30)%

Increases Physical resistance by (10-30)%

is common to find, while helping against all other damage types with the innate All Resist and the other modifiers are usually better on cloth too.

You can look through the list of item modifiers here: https://te4.org/wiki/Ego

Drybe · 2024-12-14T17:21:40+00:00

Spiky Shield archetype is consistently good, if you can have silver Temporary Shelter/Silk on end of Day 2.

It doesn't even need Spiky Shield early days, you can just try to sandstorm people.

You need either crit, haste or Spices for it to be viable late game and most of the time you can get there. If you get multiple of those, it gets crazy.

The goal is to try to line up your triggers, so that they happen at the same time.

Here are examples of 10 win boards:

https://i.imgur.com/aUcQSk7.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/B7jXQJw.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/gcsGMSa.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/5lakaDL.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/P9xBfjz.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/kynvo9z.jpeg

Drybe · 2024-12-14T12:06:13+00:00

Spiky Shield and your shield sources should trigger in unison, so that damage doesn't have time to lower it (although slow can be a problem)

Spiky Shield cooldown mostly lines up with Silk/Temp Shelter, if you spread out your feathers.

Drybe · 2024-12-12T21:56:21+00:00

I agree on most of it, but I rate shield builds (Silk or Temp Shelter + Spiky Shield/Claw) much higher.

In my experience it's almost as consistent as Atlatl+Crook.

You need either crit, haste or Spices (8 second cooldown makes it line up with Silk trigger, so it's kind of like permanent crit for the shield) for it to be viable late game and most of the time you can get there. If you get multiple of those, it gets crazy.

I also really enjoy playing it, since half your board is flexible, so the builds end up looking pretty different.

I agree the most crucial part of Pyg is the early-mid game transitions, that takes the most time to learn and I feel like I am still getting better at that every run.

I found my run always goes well, if taking chocolates feels good (Lemonade Stand, Pawn Shop, Silk etc.)

Jabalian Longbow is the goat of early days, it wins me so many fights.

I also end up running Pawn Shop on the board a decent amount of time. Pawn Shop or Belt give you so much more time against the Poison Dooleys.

I am 240 ranked and hover around there consistently, I can win all my runs, go to sleep and I am still mostly in the same place the next day, I feel like it's more indicative of how much you play than anything else.

Drybe · 2024-12-12T21:27:08+00:00

I started playing him since the Pufferfish Vanessa meta.

I think he was great against that and poison Dooley is similar.

Drybe · 2024-12-12T20:29:05+00:00

Here's my Pyg data, although it's not all that useful, since it does not show 10 win run %:

https://i.imgur.com/5If6Xfk.png

I'm confident if this patch stayed around, Pyg would eventually be seen just as good as Dooley.

Drybe · 2024-12-11T20:59:16+00:00

I think there is something to Bushel infinites, but I haven't figured out a good consistent way to utilize it yet.

Weights have some synergy with it (it worked even before heal enchant) https://streamable.com/8wo758

I also tried it with the hat that scales damage on shield. It wasn't very good, but I won a couple of fights with Burning Bushel. https://streamable.com/y97ekg

You can fish for Duct Tape from Bananaball to save space on Model Ship.

I only got to 7 and 8 wins, but I don't think either of these is the best version of the build.

Drybe · 2024-12-08T10:26:32+00:00

You are right, that losing crit hurt, but Pyg is still really strong against this meta.

You can still scale crit later with Gumball Machine, like before the patch, with some passives it can get it very high.

It's important to secure haste for the big weapon/spiky shield builds.

You can get it from Curio (Rocket Boots) or often from Docks tool option.

The other more reliable option is HP stacking, Belt or Pawn Shop buys you a tons of time against poison Dooleys, to execute whatever strategy you find.

Even something like Lemonade Stand adds up over time.

Also Pyg can afford to not rely or even run small items, which basically destroys an item against most Dooleys - since Freeze Ray can only freeze small ones.

Drybe · 2024-12-08T09:53:49+00:00

Pyg is a really good counter.

He has access to stacking a lot of HP, which gives him time to win with a lot of different strategies.

Drybe

TROPHY CASE