Magic Research 2 - Guide to Final Exam on D2 straight from D0 (NG+)

Very-Spoilery Approach to NG+

By Leximancer.

This is a guide JUST for clearing the Final Exam on D2 straight from D0 without any other powerups.

Cliff Notes:

2/2/1 or 2/1/2 Boons
Clear up to Final Exam
Rearrange furniture for mana generation and wizards before the fight, then
Swap into Bear using a high mana regen gear set
Wait for your mana to refill
Swap to the combat set in screenshot
Start fight
Spam heals
Kill Giselle

Longform:

I went from 101% D0 -> D2 and had some trouble. I spent all day today trying to find the right setup to win. The trick is that I did not wish to do any world-hopping for extra boon points, and I definitely did want to go to the 2nd depth immediately without doing a D1 run first. I also did not want to have to do a retirement before I ever got out of training. That would be sad. And last, I did not want to wait forever at the Wall of Giselle until the relevant elements hit level 20. Nobody’s got time for that.

It was tricky. Apparently, some changes made to Sheer Power before I started playing rendered the oft-advised 1/2/2 setup a lot less viable (apparently it used to apply to base storages, which matters a lot because a 50% increase to gold cap opens up a lot of options pre-instructor.) I tried a wide variety of setups, including cheese-swapping my loadouts immediately before taking a hit – to see if it was possible. It didn’t help as much as I thought it would, and that’s good: I really did not want to have to cheese anything just to get through here.

What I’m going to post here is a couple of screenshots of the loadout I used. I chose Mind to get through here, and that was also sorta-deliberate. I wanted to be sure that other Primary choices could do it without necessarily choosing optimally (like Water for cheaper healing.)

There a lot of stuff I tried that did not work. But you’re here because you want to know what did work, so here it is: Boons 2/2/1 out the gate. You need 2/x/x to be able to craft a Mixed Plate (it lets you get storage up to 15.4k,) which was essential. 2/1/2 should also work fine, though.

The biggest challenge was finding a spell rotation that let me survive and still do enough damage to take down Giselle. With Shapeshift Bear manually casted right before starting the fight, I was able to manually cast Droplet of Healing as my only spell all fight, whenever it was needed. This would be easier if I had gone Water Primary, but I wanted to show it’s possible without.

It’s really important that Shapeshift Bear, Mixed Plate, Potion of Toughness, and Potion of Healing are equipped. The Water Wand is also required to have enough mana to support this setup.

The last important thing is my Furniture: because you absolutely need enough mana regen and wizards to support these permacasts. Modern game mode is important, because you get to hit higher building thresholds and micromanage your available Land to get only the buildings you need right this moment maxed out. If a single spell on permacast drops because you’re one wizard short, or if you run out of mana, it’s gg game over. I sold a bunch of stuff before the fight, you can use whatever setup until the Giselle fight as getting there is relatively easy.

The only really important mana capacity threshold to hit was 1500 for Bear form, and you could go with even less (750) if you started with Life Primary. Mana requirements are lower with Life or Water primary, and might allow you to get a little faster DPS by casting Sear and Strength or something. I did it without them.

Final Note: I’d love to see any build that can do this with 1/2/2 Boons going in. The biggest thing for me was the need to get defense from Mixed Plate, and specifically NOT wanting to do extra Worlds before D2, and NO retirements before beating Giselle. If you can do that I’d love to hear about it! Good luck, Magicians!

IGNORE the Safes and Steamers, I took these screenshots right after the fight when I’d unlocked them. I could also have sold the Experience Catalyst and Researcher Desks for this fight if I needed more room for something else, so you’ve got flexibility here: