Castle Magus

Finally did it. Forget all that other shit I said before. If you want to make it fairly simple to get to greater than level 200 with Toastie, just take the Divine Bloodline (IX) Arcana at the start. Then, if you get hit (which you will), as long as it doesn't outright kill you and as long as you have enough time to let the life refill before you get hit again, then every time you get hit, you gain maximum health. You still don't want to play carelessly, and you still want to go for good weapons/passives, but gaining health every time you get hit goes a long way toward mitigating Toastie's shortcomings, especially since the longer you play as him and the more you get hit, the less likely it is that you'll outright die, which seems ass-backwards, of course, but it is what it is. Granted, the Divine Bloodline arcana wasn't in the game when I tried getting to >200 with Toastie before, but whatever. And the Victory Sword was super helpful, too, especially once I got the Sole Solution to go along with it.

Anyway, I made it to 40 minutes (normal speed, not "Hurry") on Gallo Tower before I just gave up and quit. I think that all those Deaths would have eventually killed Toastie, but judging by how slowly his life bar was going down, it would have taken probably several real-world hours for it to finally happen. And that's assuming that I'd just stood there and let it happen, rather than triggering Gold Fever and refilling my life with coins, since I took Disco of Gold (XV) as my final Arcana pick. I also have no idea if I managed to kill any of the Deaths in turn, since I could hardly tell what the fuck was going on by the end with all the screen clutter.

Anyway, here are the obligatory screenshots, which show what all weapons/passives I took, with links because I know Google Photos will shit the (em)bed, sooner than later. As you can see there, I didn't even bother to take the Laurel or the Tiragisú or the Awake (IV) arcana. Also, maxed out Torrona's Box and Skull O'Maniac didn't cause much of an issue. The only reason I didn't max out the Gold Ring and the Metaglio Right was due to running out of enemies to kill at the 30 minute mark, as they were the last items I picked up (even though I didn't really have a reason to do so, in the first place). Anyway, despite all of that, I never died once.

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First time I've played Vampire Survivors in probably a week or more. I played it when 0.9 dropped, whenever that was, and got the update items/characters/achievements/etc., but then left off again.

And... just spent way too much time this evening trying to make Toastie work, continually telling myself "this is the last try" at least a half dozen times, before finally for real saying "fuck this, I'm out."

I think the potentially winning strategy with Toastie could be as follows, if I could just get RNG to cooperate:

First of all, play on Gallo Tower (level 4). Second of all, try to get the Song of Mana and get it leveled up as quickly as possible. Also get the Ebony Wings for eventual evolution purposes (since Toastie starts with Peachone so may as well try to synergize/maximize that shit, I guess). Beyond that, since Tiragisú is probably a must for Toastie, get Phiera Der Tuphello and Eight The Sparrow for Phieraggi eventually. And the fucking Laurel, of course. Lastly (not in that particular order), I'm thinking King Bible. Either that or the damn Pentagram (since the ultimate goal is to get Toastie to level 200 before 30 minutes, so Gorgeous Moon would be nice, since I'm usually taking Crown anyway). However, if Toastie survives long enough to evolve to both Phieraggi and Vandalier, that opens up two weapon slots, so at that point I'm thinking Whip and Vento Sacro for Fuwalafuwaloo (since Hollow Heart is also probably a good idea for Toastie), which would free up another weapon slot afterward, so who the fuck knows at that point. Maybe Santa Water since I'm usually taking Attractorb anyway, I dunno, or whichever I didn't take between King Bible and Pentagram. I very rarely survive long enough with Toastie to evolve anything, let alone multiple things.

As for passives, I'm trying to (not necessarily in this particular order) go for Crown and Attractorb for quicker leveling purposes, Tiragisú, Hollow Heart, and Armor for survivability purposes, and Empty Tome for quicker, more consistent damage dealing, which helps somewhat keeping Toastie from getting surrounded or cornered as much. That would also leave the possibility of additionally getting Spellbinder and/or Bracer as stage drops (along with the hidden shit, but I'm not sure having to deal with those item bosses on top of everything else with Toastie is such a good idea).

As for Arcanas... hell if I know. I've tried starting with Gemini or Beginning since they make Peachone better right off the bat (and Gemini improves Ebony Wings, Vandalier, and the guns as well). I've tried starting with Awake to get the additional Revives (and stat increases on using them). I tried Mad Groove a couple times, but that means dealing with all four item bosses from the start, which is a terrible idea with Toastie. I very rarely survive long enough to get another Arcana drop.

Also, I didn't bother to refund and disable the PowerUp store Curse shit, which was making it probably harder than it needed to be. But then, again, more enemies means more xp and faster leveling, if you can consistently kill them. So... maybe I need to disable that shit before trying this again. >_>;

I think the thing that pisses me off the most is the thing where when you level up or touch a chest, it kind of fucks with the controls for a split second after the upgrade window goes away. That shit has gotten me killed as Toastie far too often.

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(EDIT, next day 7:00pm) Well, I finally managed to last a full 30 minutes as Toastie, but I only managed to get to level 109 by the end of it, which is nowhere remotely near 200. That was on Gallo Tower, with Song of Mana, Vandalier, Phieraggi, Gorgeous Moon, Laurel, and (because I already had Empty Tome... and kind of panicked since I was already around the 25 minute mark at that point), the Holy Wand. It really didn't matter at that point what I took, since the other weapons were already more than adequate and keeping shit away, and I already knew by then I wasn't going to be getting to 200, regardless. Passives were Attractorb, Crown, Armor, Tiragisú, Hollow Heart, and Empty Tome. Didn't even bother trying for any of the stage items. My Arcanas were... hmm, I don't really recall off hand, other than I started with Awake that time. I think I took Gemini and then Twilight Requiem. Oh, and I did refund and rebuy all the PowerUps except the Curse ones, prior to that run.

So, when you get to level 100 with Toastie, it does massively increase your health. Your max health. Not your current health. Basically the life bar just becomes completely black, and I saw maybe a sliver of red, through use of floor chicken and passive regeneration... until Death killed me once and I revived with half health. But then, of course, since I was only above level one hundred, not two hundred, Death almost immediately killed me again.

So... yeah... Toastie still sucks liquid shit through a swirly straw. Some strats I saw are saying to take Awake and then intentionally die as many times as you can right off the bat (including after getting Tiragisú), to get all of the stat boosts as early as possible. But... I'm pretty sure I don't care to bother trying that any time soon. Probably won't bother playing VS at all, at least not until whenever the next update happens to be. (/EDIT)

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Never heard of hololive before watching this video. Apparently it's some vtuber thing, and, as such, I probably won't be watching it any time soon. Similarly, never heard of HoloCure. But, apparently, HoloCure is the best Vampire Survivors clone available as of now. Might try it, even if I have little interest in the inspiration for it, I dunno.

(Also hadn't heard of any of the other Vampire Survivors clones which Pat said weren't all that good and which I don't even remember the names of now.)

(EDIT) Okay, HoloCure is pretty cool for what it is. Like Pat, I don't get any of the references or whatever, but on the basis of being a cutesy Vampire Survivors clone, it's not terrible. I played a run as the gun girl and then the scythe girl. Not sure how much more I'll get into it, though, given that, you know, I already have Vampire Survivors and all. *shrug* (/EDIT)

(EDIT 2) Honestly, in a parallel timeline/dimension where there is some weirdo version of me who actually gives even the slightest shit about doing anything at all related to streaming or Youtube-ing or whatever, I'd guess that that version of me would probably be more likely to be a vtuber than just a straight up streamer. In other words, if I were ever going to do that shit, which I'm most assuredly not, I'd probably rather do it behind virtual avatar (one that looks like Kane Magus, naturally), as opposed to my own dumb, real-life face being in front of a camera or whatever. ¬_¬ (/EDIT 2)

No spoilers (at least not until after the screenshot [behind the cut]); I'll just say this. Pick the strongest character or the one you're best with, play on Cappella Magna (level 5), find the best weapons and passives you can, then... just wait for the 30 minute mark. That is all.

I'll just leave a screenshot here (and hope Google Photos doesn't shit the bed yet again):
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Really, though, before looking at/reading any of that, just do a Cappella Magna run, then do any other run after that, with the new option you get from that turned on.

Okay, just completed what was probably the craziest run I've ever done, and one which I will be very unlikely to ever top. I'll just show a couple of screenshots to start with:

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So... yeah, that was one screwy run, that was.

(Just to note, this here is not one of the series of posts that I am still planning to complete at some point. This one is all its own thing that just kind of snuck itself in here.)

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So, speaking of those clicker/idler games...

I bought and started playing Vampire Survivors right around five days ago. It is an Early Access game (yeah, yeah, I know, I said I was done with those, but I made an exception here, for this), and it costs $2.99 USD. Vampire Survivors, on first glance, kind of does look like a clicker/idler game. Pat even calls it a clicker/idler game in the above videos.

Vampire Survivors, however, is not a clicker/idler game. Or, at least, I don't see it as one.

When I first started playing it, it seemed pretty lame (even for a clicker/idler game). Your first dude has the whip. All you can do is move him around. He attacks with his whip, horizontally, in the direction you're facing, automatically, once every couple seconds or so. You don't actually have any real control over when he (or any of the other characters) launches an attack. I was like "What the fuck is this shit?" But I kept playing it.

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And so on and so forth, yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah. I left out a whole shit-ton of other stuff that happened, of course.

Steam says I've played Vampire Survivors for 21.9 hours so far, as of the writing of this post.

As of the current build, via looking at the wiki for the game, I know I still have at least one more character and associated weapon to unlock that I haven't done yet, and I know there's some crazy passive item you can unlock if you somehow manage to have all six of your chosen weapons become evolved in the course of a single run, which I also haven't done yet. However, who knows what other new shit will be added to the game the next time it is updated? Yeah, this game is fucking crack. But, unlike most clicker/idler games, this one requires way more attention and strategy. You're not just clicking the mouse randomly, and (if you want to fucking stay alive for more than a minute or so) you're not just moving around at random, either. Pat says he is able to just park a character and walk away and come back later to find them still alive or whatever, but I have not quite reached that point yet. I'm pretty sure I could fairly easily make a build that could achieve that, but I haven't done it yet, and I'm not really sure it would interest me to do so. Because, honestly, if I ever reached the point where the game started playing itself, that's probably when I'd lose interest in it.