User:Strlikecrazy

General Info

In-Game Username: Strlikecrazy

Character ID: 2186

Favorite Class: Elemental

Current Level: Retconning!

Multi's: Strlikecrazy Jr, Strlikecrazy Jr Jr, Billy Idol, Oxinthebox, Biffy Clyro. They are used for spading purposes!

Retcon as an Elemental

When retcon first appeared, the majority of active players dropped what they were doing to experience this new system. When choosing a ‘starting’ class, I opted for the Elemental! Why? ‘Cause being an elemental served me well. The high damage this class is capable of dealing, and the passive skills which restore and allow for more PP were brilliant. Along with the vast amount of TNT that I used, as an elemental I reached level 161. So it was an easy option. Oh, and breathing underwater is cool. I soon realised that with only limited pulls and without maxed skills, the class was a lot harder to use than I had anticipated. But with a little practise, you can have an eventful, beneficial run – resulting in a good experience and some awesome skills to carry around with you.

• The Outset and the Skills

We all set different limitations upon ourselves. No pulls, some pulls, all items, various caffeine and sugar restrictions… the list goes on. Some players stick to their planned limits – others drop them. Unless it’s really boring you, try sticking to your plan – you’ll learn from it in the long run. It’s also good to have your eyes on a skill that you want to ‘perm’, or learn permanently. Here is a list of the elemental skills in order of level: Proper grounding and Throwing sparks (both Level 1), Air shield, Ice bolt, Groundquake, Proper Hydration, Lightning bolt, Fire Shield, Stone Armour, Tornado, Lifeblood Manipulation, Metalmorph, Firestorm, The Fire Within (Obtained at level 14 – there currently is no level 13 skill), Sundowner Breeze. (There isn’t yet a level 16 spell either)

• The Issues

From an outside standpoint, there are a couple of issues with this class. The first is low HP, which is fine – unless you’re facing a boss who can hit hard! The second would be lack of low level healing. Whilst Lifeblood Manipulation when maxed is awesome, it’s no good to you at level 4. The next problem I’ve encounter is the amount of damage I receive.

• Issue 1 - HP

Whether you deal with these issues is your call. Pulling Max HP modifier items, such as the Box Pill, would be a waste of a pull to anyone with pull’s, and isn’t an option for someone who has a complete pull restriction. If you’re allowing skills you’ve picked up, then Aura: Vigor, the level 12 Psion skill can help. Maxed, it gives +30% Maximum HP and regenerates 5 HP per turn. If you don’t allow skills, then it’s no good to you. And another downside is playing as a Psion! :P The best way to overcome this is simple: don’t get hit! Use Air shield and Stone Armour to boost defence, and try to kill things before they kill you – max out a spell! Lightning bolt is a good bet for that.

• Issue 2 – Low Level Healing

For the next issue, the lack of low level healing, there are a few solutions. Again, these only apply if they fit your limitations. The most obvious, and accessible, would be to ‘perm’ First Aid (a gadgeteer skill). It’s cheap to use and can be cast inside or outside of fights. Or ‘perming’ Starfish Regeneration (a Naturalist skill) passively restores HP between turns. Resting is free, but costs time! The hospital is an option, it costs no time, but does require valuable chips! Or if you’re lucky enough to own one, using the Gigaguy cannon can help, as it drops restoratives, both HP and PP. As with the first issue, it’s up to you whether it’s something you are worried about. The next area is damage received. My favourite way to combat this to boost initiative and spell damage, and kill the thing before it has a chance to kill you! There are so many items, strategies and ideas that conflict on this idea, so I’m not going to add mine to the mix. However, an all-round solution would be to ‘perm’ Battle Armour (Gadgeteer), Premonition (Psion) and Sniper (Gadgeteer), which are all passive, boosting defence (BA) and initiative (P+S). Stone Armour, an elemental skill you’ll learn at level 8, can help reduce hits taken and boost against various elements. Ready to make the jump? I know you’re bored after ready my ramblings (heck, you’ve probably just skipped it!) but hold on before you dive in - unless you want to do a maso run – ‘cause you can’t pull anything anyway! Because I’m lazy, and because there is a Retcon guide kicking about, they discuss pull selection deeper. I won’t until I’ve experimented more with limited runs, I don’t want to be a hypocrite!

Elemental Gear

• The Talisman

You start with Ember in a bottle. If you’ve already completed a run as an elemental, you’ll have the Thunder in a bottle – which is better. Why? Spells cost less. And more max PP. Although the Ebon Eye of the Deep gives +15 spell damage, it’s a pain to find, fairly expensive to buy, and not too beneficial at high levels. So I’d value the Thunder over it. There is the Bowler’s sticky wicket or Tempest’s brooch (different name, same bonuses), with a whopping +30% Intellect, +20% spell damage and +5 damage absorption. Downside? Yes. +20% spell damage has little impact until you get further into the game. Similar situation for the intellect. Oh, and it has a -15% defence tagged on. If you’ve maxed Lightning bolt and beyond, this is epic. If not, then it’s not so good. So my personal opinion would be to use Grimm’s Bulwark/Rake's Garden Trowel. Why? It nullifies two of the problems – it restores HP (and PP!), so less chips spent healing, and more PP to play with. It gives a nice +20% to defence and resistance to all elements. The offense cost (-15%) is worth the benefits in my opinion. The major downside is the 5 star cost.

• The Equipment

I’m biased towards Wok items, because I have them. I understand however, that other players don’t. So based on that, I’m not going to list past Iotms, because if you have them you’ll probably know if it’ll help or not (and if you don’t know, send me a message or ask someone in game – there are a lot of helpful players!). So, here are some options:

• Helmet – There is one item which is easy, almost free, and is half given to you – the Filigreed Foil Hat. Remember that Gold foil you were given? Assemble it with a

baseball cap (grab one for 20 chips in Pilant’s hardware and software store in Somerset). No pull required and +3 spell damage. Once you get to level 8, the Foyal Crown with good power and +7XP is awesome, and would be a great way to level faster.

• Main Hand – This is a weak area. Picking an early weapon is difficult for casters.
  • At level 6, combing a big honkin’ hammer (Which is easy to obtain from Zion tears headquarters!) and a xelor watch (easy drop from the casinos) to make Hammer time. The -5 seconds to turn duration is very helpful.
  • Archron's staff is a pain to get, and can only be used from level 8, but does give +10 spell damage and reduces turn duration by 5 seconds.
  • Another option is Fall's staff (also level 8 required) from fighting in the cube. It’s +10% spell damage isn’t as good, unless your damage is more than 100, but isn’t hard to find (unless the RNG hates you).
  • For a lot of damage, +25% to be precise, is Mento's fleshraker wand. Requires level 9, but worse, meeting one specific wandering villain, which isn’t easy.
  • The Pandimensional scepter requires level 9, gives a nice +10 spell damage and -1 cost of combat spells.
  • You may pick up a Staff of meeting during the level 11 quest, and is good, but can’t be equipped before level 10.

• Shirt/pants/full body – With a level 6 requirement, the Gothy black dress is a safe bet. Kill the neighbouring and neighbourly’s static villain for this item. It gives 5% spell damage and 15% intellect. Before then, if you’ve got two gold foils, the Gold plated poncho and Gilded leggings between them give + 2 PP and +2 HP per turn. However, if you’ve completed a run as an elemental, and have unlocked the shirt, go for that from level 9!

• Gloves – Not much choice. Use whatever. You’ll pick up force gloves at level 7, so they’re always an option.

• Boots – You get given a pair of boots during the level 3 quest, the skeptic sandals. After this, Biff Socko's socks (level 5 requirement) for some defence. Stamped boots of stamping, made using gold foil again, require level 7 but are a really useful item.

• Accessories
  • Requiring level 6 and 30 crime buster IOUs is the karma charm. A seriously good item, with +20% spell damage and -1 spell cost.
  • At level 9, the Aquamarine ion stone gives +10% spell damage.
  • Before then, I’d recommend the Embossed Emblem. Again the gold foil is useful, combining with a seventh of nine to give a nice +4 XP per combat, and giving the opportunity to stun.

• Transport – The paradime device and Lexura Infinides D-8 are both great transport items.

• Offhand – If you want to use any of the Crime buster store items, including pre-pared skill points, then the Black Box. But for pure Elemental spell stuff, the Number one fan is the way to go. With +6 spell damage, a nice +3 PP per turn and no level requirement, Throwing sparks suddenly becomes useful against foes, killing those elderly bowlers with ease. Plus more PP is great later on. Or for noncombat, which speeds up quests, the Rolled Doll Dahl.

Slaying the Mick as an Elemental

The Mick is easy to kill as an Elemental once you know how. One word: Tornado.

Max this level 9 skill out (so either save 10 skill points, or save 6 and use the bonuses from the trout master, or use crime buster IOUs to buy skill points) for some destruction. Importantly, Tornado shreds his to hit chance, so after 3 or 4 uses – he’s generally pretty useless. That doesn’t been he can’t hit, so if you’ve you got the PP, I recommend killing him solely using Tornado – it does enough damage to finish him in a few shots.

Permanent skill selection

Rewards? - SKILLS! In destroying the Mick, speaking to Rand and then to Susan – you have the device set-up in your hideout. Whilst you could choose to carry on – there’s farming and higher level content amongst other things out there- If you feel like, you can start all over again. But this time, you’ll have learned a new skill, which your character will permanently remember!

So choose the class, various restrictions etc... That you want. After checking through the limitations, right at the bottom of the page is a scroll down box. From this little beauty, you can choose the skill you want to ‘perm’! What do I permanently learn though? Whatever makes you happy. People annoy me sometimes – they’ll say skill x or skill y isn’t very good, but if you like it, who cares? If it makes you happy, and makes the game more enjoyable, then choose it. However, here are some skills you could consider and reasons why you could choose them:

• The Fire Within – When maxed, this will passively boost spell damage by 10%, and max PP by 20%. With no points invested, it still gives a nice +10% Max PP boost. Downsides: The spell damage and PP doesn’t help low levels too much, because the amount of damage Throw Sparks does is so low - but obviously it’s better than nothing. It requires you adventuring to level 14 to earn it, which isn’t really a problem, but is annoying if you’re like me – lazy! Other than the PP, there isn’t much benefit for Naturalist and Gadget class – unless you’ve got Firestorm permed, and are blasting foes with firestorm as a naturalist (which would be quite cool!)

• Sundowner Breeze – What does it do? It’s a buff that gives +50 foe toughness. In more basic lingo, that’s 25 XP. Per turn. What’s not to like about that! Well, +50 foe toughness isn’t easy! It in essence gives your opponent Performance Enhancing drugs, Speed, RAGE and fearlessness – they hit seriously hard! Even the little old lady in the neighbourhood gets mean. See the problem? That’s tough for a low level to handle. Very tough. Oh, and a 30PP cost to use the buff is tough on resources. I like this skill though, especially in the middle levels.

• Firestorm – As a high level offense spell, this is as good as it gets. Massive damage. It’s easy to obtain, only requires level 12 to obtain it and 14PP to cast. That’s cool. Downsides? Can’t see too many. Other than if you don’t want to use spells in other class runs, then it would be pointless. But it’s a useful weapon in your arsenal!

• Lifeblood Manipulation – When maxed, it gives a full heal for 15 PP. That’s nice. Problems? Not great for low levels. However, this is useful for any class.

• Tornado – This is the Elemental’s Mick slaying skill. This maxed is a useful tool against any boss as any class. A 10 PP cost isn’t too bad either!

• Stone Armour – A nice buff, a good bit of resistance and defence. I like it a lot. However, if defence is what you’re after, Battle Armour (a gadgeteer skill) provides much more defence. So this makes a nice supplemental defence booster. And the resistances are good too.

• Fire shield – This makes being hit slightly more acceptable. This can hit 25, and is very useful against bosses. If you did tornado the Mick, chances are he got 3 or 4 hits on you. With this running, that could be extra 75-100 damage. It all adds up folks!

• Lightning Bolt – A nice spell, not too cost effective, but still powerful enough to cause some harm. Another tidy elemental spell for the arsenal!

• Proper Hydration – Passive skill, regenerates PP. If you haven’t got fancy regenerating items, and you like spamming spells and buffs, this is your friend. When maxed, this regenerates 5 PP per turn.

• As a first skill, I’d go for Proper Hydration. It helps with every class!

• Note: I will at some point introduce a pull/equip table!

About Me

I'm English - I work and am a part time student.

Merit Badges I Dont have (that can be obtained and are known about!)

T.H. Accomplishments

• 2nd to find a boomstick!
• Reached Lvl 161 before retcon was introduced
• Was one of the founders of the League of Zeroes
• Third most kills in S7G
• Third player to complete a retcon
• First player to get the Grandmaster of Retcon badge

Items of the Month I Don't Own (I'll pay alot for these!)