Guide to the Golem Warrior

This is a guide to how to get started in Elona with a Golem Warrior, from character creation to Zeome. It is meant for an Elona player who has gone through the tutorial, played for a bit and read the help section created by pressing ?, but at the same time is for beginners and thus emphasizes ease throughout rather than maximum-speed completion. It also contains a number of helpful tips for all characters in general. Additionally, it assumes no gene and thus no Heirship. Each applicable section will have a section assuming one is willing to save-scum (close the window without saving when things go wrong) and one assuming that is not the case. As another note, this guide assumes Elona+ v1.26. A few things were done in previous versions, and may have changed, but the overall guide is up to date.

Character Creation

When you first start Elona, there are a number of choices you can make, starting with your race and class. Many see the Golem Warrior and think they've found the perfect fighter. Well, they aren't entirely wrong, but perfecting your character takes a little bit of knowledge during creation.

Building your Character

Your first choice with a gameplay effect, after Race and Class, is your attribute roll. The important thing to notice is your "locks" - these allow you to keep an attribute at the value it has rolled when you roll again. In general, you can hold down "b" to reroll continuously to see what your maximum value is, or you can find the values for race and class on this wiki and add the maximums. To save some time, for Golem Warrior, your maximum Strength is 20, and maximum Constitution is 24, and these are the scores you will want to lock. For the rest, you'll want decent Will and overall decent other statistics - a total of 25 for the rest is probably good enough, though 30 is entirely achievable if you're patient.

Next, you have feats. I would choose Agile (which is a large speed boost at first), Fire Breath (a fair amount of damage and a useful AoE, in addition to impromptu cooking), and Natural Leader (a vital buff to your mount and other pets). However, Hypnotist (for pickpocketing and combat utility), Sexy (to get more pets sooner for escorts) and Exorcist (to make dreams a lot less annoying) are all reasonable.

Finally, you have to finish off your character. Watch "Combat Rolls" carefully and reroll repeatedly. For your "Melee1", 2d10+3, 3d7+1 and 1d15+2 are all good (though the 1d15 should come with 70+ accuracy) - this is the stat that matters most, and the one you should watch. For your "Dist", it doesn't matter too much, but if you get one with lowered hit rate but around tripled damage, that's always good. Finally, your "Prot" doesn't matter too much either, but if you get 15%+, that's also good. If it's under 9%, it's not a good sign, but you can consider keeping it if you have really good stuff for the other two.

Getting Started

To start your adventure, you have two decent options. One involves killing those who saved you, and the other is the more mundane start.

Killing Lomias and Larnierre gives you two powerful artifacts and possibly other nice equipment, with little cost to you. However, it means you have to avoid Vernis for a significant amount of time, and earn 12000 gold.

The mundane start is the way things are "meant" to be, where you enter Vernis and go from there. It is somewhat easier but leads to a more strenuous mid game due to the lack of the artifacts, and the inability to get them before you can kill the two in a Party Time mission.

Mundane Method:

Start in Vernis and pick up a little girl. Then, go to the pub where you can find Shena the Draw. Buy any glass gear you can, then go and complete the quest - it should be easy. Go back to Shena for a monster ball, 1500 gold and 2 pp. From there, take any I Want It! or Birthday quests you think you can do, then go to Yowyn. There you should find a number of Harvest Time quests. Buy some glass gear (possibly stopping by Palmia for more) and then harvest to your heart's content. Due to your high strength, gathering/burden shouldn't be a problem, but your speed slows you down. Be sure to clear out enemies before starting on what you're harvesting - bats are especially annoying and often have to be drive to the sides of the map. Also grab "I Want It!" quests and "Birthday" quests that you can do, especially ones looking for junk you can find in the wild.

Save Scum Options: If you enter a city and there are few good quests, save scum to get better ones. When harvesting, do a scouting run to find the biggest and closest things to pick, then save scum so you know where to go. Save before starting to harvest, then save scum if you are interrupted.

Once you hit 15 pp, pick up Riding from the Yowyn trainer and buy a Wild Horse. This will massively increase your speed, which is what makes Golem Warrior a powerful build.

Killing Lomias and Larnierre:

If you decide to start this way, finish the tutorial without telling Lomias to get out of your house and go to Yowyn without entering Vernis. Once you have 12000 gp, it's time to go murdering. Go to Derphy and find Noel, buying a Nuke for 12000 gp. Go home (preferably not dying from the crushing weight, but if you do, it's a free teleport home - unless it drops, in which case you need to pick it up and keep walking) and set the nuke by Lomias and Larnierre. Stay and watch the explosion, and probably die in the process (but since you are under level 6, you don't lose much). Then take all the stuff on the ground. Follow the normal start the rest of the way through.

Note: This does not work every time. If it fails (or only kills one of them) you can simply get another 12000 gold, or continue on the mundane path. However, even one of the weapons (and the accompanying miscellaneous gear) is worth far more than 12000 gold, so it is still quite worth it if you are willing to spend a little extra time to start.

Making Money

While any of the methods on this wiki can be effective for making money, this is one of the more real-time efficient methods that doesn't involve cheating. Go to Noyel, picking up any quest that ends there with a reasonably long length (6 days to Palmia is safe). There, pick up any escort/delivery quests you can and complete them. You may have to abandon your Little Girl to do escorts - if you do, take her gear beforehand. These quests give ludicrous amounts of money on occasionally reasonable timers, and will jump start your wealth. Do this repeatedly - you may have to wander the snow to refresh quests if there are no reasonable ones, but time passes very quickly in snow travel. If you have enough money, you can buy cargo to weigh yourself down (a Christmas Tree and two Snowmen will do it), in addition to burdening yourself with snowmen off the ground and/or tiring yourself by grabbing snow off the ground.

Save Scum Option: You can save scum for these quests too. Additionally, you can take "Beauty and the Beast" quests with much, much less danger, thus making them viable. Save every few squares you move in the map (I save every 5), and save scum if you are caught by assassins.

Speeding Up Travel

There are a number of ways to increase your travel speed, and thus make more profitable quests within your reach. The easiest way is to ensure you are unburdened and not tired or sleepy - coffee may help with the last one. Additionally, glass equipment on your horse will help further increase speed. Finally, quaffing from wells may give you a wish, which you can use on Seven League Boots which more than double your travel speed. The Holy Well in Noyel gains available drinks very slowly but has an increased chance of a wish - the base is 1/100.

Save Scum Option: Drink from fountains (Palmia has two, making it especially viable) until you reach a permanent penalty (bad mutations), the well runs dry, you reach a permanent bonus (a good mutation you want, namely Strength, Constitution, Charisma, and Speed), or you get a wish. If you get a bad mutation or the well runs dry, save scum and try again. This gives you a much better chance of a wish and will net you good mutations, which is a nice boost.

Psuedo-Cargo Drop

Once you gain a few levels, another good way to make money is a sort of Cargo Drop - while Elona+ makes it impossible to Return when overloaded with cargo, Lumiest is fairly close to Noyel and buys Noyel's cargo for nearly double price. Build a storage house next to Noyel and stock up on Christmas Trees and Snowmen, then walk over to Lumiest and sell them 50k at a time. This will take awhile in-game, but will double your money in less than ten real-life minutes. You may have to lower your fame to do this, as rogue bosses will very frequently attack with so many goods. However, if you have decent equipment you can deal with them - just drop all your cargo in one turn with the * button and then attack. This will also get you the occasional Blue Capsule Drag (a blue pill when unidentified), 3 of which will get you a mount better than any horse you can get, even at max level. If you do get 3 capsule drags, go to Noyel during the 12th month and talk to the Kaneda Bike, next to Moyer.

Save Scum Option: You can do this earlier by saving every few squares on the world map and then save scumming when you are accosted. Additionally, you can protect your cargo by save scumming if it gets burned by a Rogue Wizard's fire bolt.

Building Your Strength

The other thing you need to do while questing is build up your fighting capabilities. There are a number of easy ways to quickly get the fighting power you need.

Pets

Getting a Gold Bell or two will make your life much easier, as their massive speed means they can mow down enemies many times your level. To catch one, buy several bottles of poison or dye at a magic store. Then, next time you see a Gold Bell (occasionally, they will ambush you, but they can be found more frequently in low level dungeons), throw the poison or dye at it. The bell will be poisoned and very quickly have its health drained, allowing you to throw a Monster Ball at it and catch it.

Save Scum Option: Save before poisoning the bell, as poison damage is random when used on low health enemies. Repeatedly try to catch it, save scumming if it dies. Alternatively, you can save each time a turn passes and it doesn't die from poison, allowing you to get to it's near-death state easily.

To train your pets, just drop ores/money for them to pick up. In the case of money, you can put money in the Noyel kitty bank (near the misc shop) and then bash it open, letting your pet pick up the cash. They will then spend the money on training, making them more effective in combat.

A properly equipped and trained bell can do wonders. Not only does it kill enemies extremely quickly, but with a good weapon it also lays down debuffs and draws attacks. Additionally, using it in the Pet Arena can quickly earn you rare treasure balls for more equipment and increase your salary significantly.

Gene Engineering

An easy way to improve your pets is Gene Engineering. Finish the Ambitious Scientist quest (you may have to use poison to weaken the low level monsters, or equip a very weak weapon), which will give you an extra Monster Ball and a Strange Machine (A Gene Machine once identified). Then you can graft things onto your pets, particularly Bells. Grafting any gunning slave (particularly Yerles Machine Gunner) onto a bell can give it the Firearm skill, allowing it to use guns - Laser Pistol in particular is useful. Note that you can use an energy cell with a regular gun and a bullet with a Laser Pistol. Grafting any nonhuman with rings onto your horse will give it a ring slot, letting you add Speed Rings for even more speed.

Fighter's Guild and Fighting Style

The Fighter's Guild opens up special training, cheaper identification and important skills. If you have an easy target for the quest, this can be open right away, otherwise you're out of luck. If it is open early, consider dual wielding for extra damage - otherwise you may have to go with two-handed style or shield and sword. Choose early and focus on that skill for the rest of the game. Similarly, choose what type of weapon you're going to use - Longswords and Shortswords are excellent and have a fair variety, while if you want to be really tanky and have extraordinary constitution Spears are rather nice.

Save Scum Option: Save before asking the watchman for your quest, then save scum for an easy one.

Equipment

To get the most use out of your skills and your pets, you need decent equipment. A mutated horse should get Speed Rings and Ether, Spirit Cloth or Glass equipment. A Bell should get a good bow (possibly the Bow of Vinderre) and rubynus equipment. You should get high PV armor - Steel and Gold are the best cheap(ish) material, whereas high quality gem materials, metals and Dragon/Griffin scale is good later on. Look for helms, feathers, and other heavy armor in these materials. For weapons, you want Perl or Gold early on (though Metal, Steel, Obsidian, Glass, Scale and Silver are all decent), while superior metals and gems plus spirit cloth are all good choices later on. The easiest way to get advanced material type effects is actually Moyer the Crooked in Noyel - his shop starts at rank 0 and thus investing 50 times at once only costs 11000 or so gp. Then he'll start selling all sorts of nice quality rings, even the occasional speed ring. Alternatively, you can go into dungeons for this purpose. Once you have the money, you should also invest in a blackmarket vendor 50 times - it'll cost a hundred thousand or more, but you'll have a nice place to buy decent gear for the rest of the game.

Be sure to keep an eye out for things "of (element)", and buy them if they're within your means and provide decent resistances. Many bosses can be defeated with ease simply by equipping gear that resists the elemental damage they deal. Fire, Nether, and Darkness are particularly important. Additionally, things that render you immune to debuffs, particularly Confusion, Blindness, and Paralysis are also extra good.

Consumables

Part of your adventuring gear is, obviously, consumables. Be sure to pick up Magic Device as a skill when you can, and train it. Rods/potions/scrolls of Silence and Weakness are both important for bosses, and rods/potions/scrolls of Speed, Heroism, Contingency, Incognito, Teleport and various healing are all important assets.

Save Scum Option: If you've invested in a shop and you really need an item, you can save scum to get it.

Religion

A big part of your build is going to be your god. As a Golem Warrior, your best bet is Opatos, due to nice bonuses and easy faith building. To build faith, simply pick Junk Stones off the ground and offer them - each offering gives 25 faith, or 125 if converting an altar. Once your faith gets high enough (be sure to keep potential up so your Saint dreams can be utilized fully), you can pray, giving you good pets, powerful weapons, and possible special feats. Additionally, high faith with Opatos gives you more PV, which you can never have too much of.

Properties:

Properties can make money and get you stronger, sometimes both at the same time. They are generally worth buying, if you're prepared. Each of these have your own page, but below are a few specific tips.

Shops: These are expensive but let you sell gear for much more than you would at a shop - easily 10% instead of .5% of the buying price. As a golem warrior, if you go dungeon delving frequently this turns your random junk that normally just slows you down into a nice sum of cash.

Ranch: These are not too expensive and let you raise monsters, as pets or as food. Good choices are Putit (for Charisma, if you still don't have enough ally slots), Hand of the Dead (for Strength), and Lame Horse (for Constitution). If you get this, get cooking too.

Farm: These are generally not worth it, but give you a place to plant your seeds. With good seeds (artifact and unknown, mostly) this can get you decent returns but generally not worth it.

Museum: These are not too expensive and make you money if you have a lot of cards/figures. After you beat everyone except Zeome, these will help for the grind until you can finish the first part of the game. They may be worth it even before that, but generally they're not a huge waste or a huge asset.

House: You don't really need a better house, but what is important is your servants. A maid will let visitors in, which in turn lets you trade (and rob) more adventurers, get gifts, train, restore karma and other miscellaneous things. Shopkeepers in your house provide another place to buy from, which can be nice for earlier equipment hunting.

Miscellaneous Tips:

• Try to sleep in the King's Bed in Palmia for better dreams.
• When going through dungeons, be careful not to overextend and get trapped with high level monsters. Clear the floor before moving on, and slowly work your way through the dungeon so you can't get cut off from the stairs.
• Eat corpses when you can - look up the creature and eat it if it's good. Cooking and the cooler box from Puppy Cave help with this.
• Kill Big Daddies. Once you hit around level 20, this is totally possible and gives you a huge corpse to offer, a precious/godly item and a pile of random equipment. Be sure to carry around at least two Mechanical Balls when dungeon delving.
• Kill Gwen the Innocent repeatedly. Free equipment (including engagement jewelry and magic gear), plus a chance for a Secret Treasure of the Innocent, which can get you a tax break with good karma.
• Hunting quests are often easy experience and free gear. Party Time quests give you an opportunity to kill named NPCs for their card/figurine and possibly precious items. Farming quests train skills well.
• Killing nobles (notably in Party Time quests) can get you Shena's Panty, which is pretty much your go-to ranged weapon. Killing hermit crabs can get you the Unknown Shell, a good defensive necklace. Killing archers can get you the Arbalest, a good ranged/offensive necklace. Killing the four-armed monsters Asura, Mitra and Varuna can get you the Twin Edge, an excellent offensive necklace, especially for dual wielders. The Ring of Steel Dragon and Gloves of Vesda are both good quest rewards, as is the Dal-i-thon if you don't have seven league boots, and the Palmia Pride if you don't have an aurora ring (or are willing to switch in combat).
• Always use your treasure maps. They drop good equipment, frequently better than what you have mid game.
• Open chests in the 666 danger fortresses, for better drops.
• Get as many potions of Cure Corruption as you can from the casino.
• Learn pickpocketing with incognito/thieves guild, but watch out for Sin the Guildmaster as he'll see through your ruse and is really strong. Teleport if necessary.
• Use Shadow Step and Swarm frequently, as well as MakouKen and Fire Breath when needed.
• Buy healing potions/rods to heal your horse between fights, as if it dies you are screwed.

Save Scum Tips

• Save before going down dungeon stairs for favorable layouts and easy bosses.
• Exit the casino every time you win, and save scum every time you lose.
• In extreme cases you can save before each attack so your mount is never injured against really tough enemies.
• Never die! Save often.
• Save before an Etherwind, then travel, saving every few steps. Once you hit a disease, save scum unless it was hatred or a heavy carapace.
• Save before sleeping or eating unknown foods.

Quests

The main purpose of all of this is to finish quests, particularly the main one. Here is an approximate order of quests to do, and some golem warrior specific tips on them. See the quests on this wiki for more information.

Beer Barrels: See Getting Started - this is an easy quest, but make sure to stay in the hallway so the robbers can only attack you one at a time (minus the throwers, but they're mostly nuisances).

Lesimas, floor 4: Fairly easy, around Puppy Cave level. Gets you a treasure map which can be great.

Lost Puppy: Once you've done a Noyel run or two and have geared up, Puppy cave is easy. Grab a leash so Poppy doesn't kill himself as much and return for easy money and portable corpse storage.

Putit Attack: Make sure to Acidproof your weapon and get wings/feather for this quest.

Womanizer: This is optional, but if you give a bunch of engagement jewelry to a random monster ally you caught, marry them, take it back then hand it off to Raphael, you get some free stuff. You can also make a gene while married so you can give things to your future characters.

Novice Knight: Should be easy.

Kamikaze Attack: See the quest's page. You might want to give the cheese to a bell.

Mother's Illness: With a few good gambling rounds this is easy. Be sure to unlock Ebon to get the mother's card and figure before she dies.

Red Blossom in Palmia: Optional. At high levels you can survive the nuke without contingency, which is badass.

Mia's Dream: This is really just take it and catch the next silver cat you find. Most easily done with Cat House since Cacy is almost certain to make a silver cat at some point.

Note: The rest of these are actually somewhat difficult and may be harder for certain builds.

Lesimas, floor 17: Not too hard, but train a bit first. Approx level: 10-15.

Tower of Fire: Hilariously easy with fire resist. Approx level: 0, whenever you finish Lesimas.

Crypt of the Damned: Also not too hard, be sure to Shadow Step up to Issizzle. Approx level: 15-20.

Ancient Castle: As above, but Shadow Step up to King, then Queen, then clear out the rest of the easy chess pieces before dealing with Wynan. Be sure to get Blind resist or you won't be able to Shadow Step to him when he teleports. Approx level: 15-20.

Defense Line: Not too difficult. Be sure to use Shadow Step, Swarm and Fire breath to their full potential.

Sewer Sweep: Shouldn't be too hard with blind/confuse resistance if you can 1-hit kill the Mass Monsters.

Pyramid Invitation: Not super easy but doable. With good damage you can mow down Tuwen before Death Word even triggers.

Major General: Not hard at all.

Little Sister: Big Daddies aren't too hard if you're well equipped and uninterrupted. Steal their shotgun if you can, otherwise just beat their face in. A weapon that "allows remote attack", especially in your offhand when dual wielding, can help as shotguns only do 30% damage at 3 squares away.

Lesimas, Final Stretch: You probably want to do the rest of Lesimas in a few chunks, going in again after you get bored of grinding. It shouldn't be too hard to reach Zeome, but killing him is a different story.

Nightmare!: While technically the "hardest" quest, it's doable. Shub Niggurath is easy to Shadow Step onto and kill. Gagu aren't that strong, and The Great Race of Yith is tough but killable at level 25ish with good equipment. Might be harder than Cat House, but I found Cacy's ridiculous speed more annoying than the swarm of mid-difficulty monsters.

Cat House: The boss, Cacy the Cat Tamer, is really fast and hits hard. Don't take this unless you have a suite of buffs and debuffs as well as good equipment and skills for you and your pet.

Lesimas, Zeome: The final boss and a big challenge. See his page for more details, but a Quickling Archer with a Rubynus Longbow (nonmagical!) and Eye of Mind took him down quickly - he healed repeatedly but slowly healed less and less.

Once you kill Zeome, you have beat the original game! South Tyris is now open for exploration. Enjoy the rest of Elona+.