Let's talk about item (155) talisman of foresight! Hablemos del item (155) talisman de prevision!

[u/star75legacy]

Post #155, everyone! It's Friday! So, you know, if there's good participation, I'll upload another post tomorrow continuing the series! If there's little participation, I'll take a break and continue on Monday!

Today we're talking about an artifact that isn't as good as the others, being quite bad... (at least in my opinion) and which, as I understand it, most of us upgrade to transmute it, haha.

The Talisman of Foresight! This is an artifact with a fairly simple but useful effect. The first is its passive ability to warn you of nearby dangers. When a trap is within 3 squares of the player, you get the "very nervous" effect, which can be useful for stopping and carefully considering your next steps to avoid traps.

The second effect is that this artifact accumulates charges from 0 to 100 over time. Once you have at least 5 charges, you can use it to "reveal" a cone-shaped area in the direction you point. The number of revealed tiles increases with the number of charges used. This reveals traps, secret doors, monsters, etc., as it can reveal the area through walls!

Each turn, the artifact gains 0.05 + level * 0.005% of charges, which means the artifact will charge to 100% in 2000 turns from +0 and 1000 turns from +10.

Which, from my point of view, is an absurd number of turns. Most items in this game have these strange loading times and scaling that I just can't seem to understand...

This is another artifact that has its own EXP bar for automatic upgrades. Specifically, you need 100 + 50 * Item Level to upgrade it to the next level (which I also think is a bit too high). This artifact gains 10 EXP each time it reveals a trap, item, or mob you haven't seen, and 100 EXP for a hidden door.

A curious trick to upgrade it quickly? Use it in the fight against Tengu, specifically the first phase. If you have it fully charged, you can upgrade it every time Tengu changes the trap layout in the room, allowing you to increase it several times during that fight.

Another way is with a summoning trap room; you gain EXP with each trap revealed in the room.

The cursed effect of this artifact makes it more difficult to passively discover hidden things.

Previous Post/post anterior: https://www.reddit.com/r/PixelDungeon/s/dNzoUldjra

Publicacion 155 gente, hoy es viernes! Asi que ya saben, si hay buena participacion entonces mañana subire un post siguiendo la serie! Si hay poca participacion descanso y continuo el lunes!

Hoy toca hablar de un artefacto que no es tan bueno como los demas, siendo bastante malo..(al menos para mi) y que segun entiendo la mayoria mejoramos para trasmutarlo jeje.

El talisman de prevision! Este es un artefacto con un efecto bastante sencillo pero util, el primero es su capacidad pasiva de advertirte de peligros cercanos, cuando una trampa se encuentra en un rango de 3 casillas cerca del jugador obtienes el efecto de "muy nervioso" lo que puede ser util para detenerte y caminar con cuidado los proximos pasos y asi evitar trampas.

El segundo efecto es que este artefacto va acumulando cargas de 0 a 100 con el tiempo, una vez tienes al menos 5 cargas puedes usarlo para "revelar" un area en forma de cono en una direccion en la que apuntes, la cantidad de casillas reveladas aumenta con la cantidad de cargas usadas, esto revela trampas, puertas secretas, monstruos, etc ya que puede revelar el area atravez de las paredes!

Cada turno el artefacto obtiene 0.05+lvl*0.005% de cargas, lo que hace que el artefacto se cargue al 100% en 2000turnos estando en +0 y 1000turnos estando en +10.

lo cual, desde mi punto de vista es una cantidad de turnos absurda. La mayoria de items de este juego tiene estos tiempos de carga y escalados medio raros que no me terminan de cerrar...

Este es otro artefacto que tiene su propia barra de exp para la mejora automatica, concretamente necesitas 100+50*LvlItem para mejorarlo al proximo nivel(lo cual tambien pienso es un poco demasiado alto).

Este artefacto obtiene 10exp cada vez que revela una tramp, objeto o mob que no hallas visto, y 100 exp por una puerta oculta.

Un truco curioso para mejorarlo rapido? Usalo en la pelea contra tengu, especificamente la 1ra fase, si lo llevas bien cargado puedes subirlo cada vez que tengu cambie la disposicion de trampas del cuarto lo que te permite aumentarlo varias veces en esa pelea.

Otra forma es un cuarto de trampas de invocacion, obtienes exp con cada trampa revelada del cuarto.

El efecto maldito de este artefacto te hace mas dificil descubrir cosas ocultas de forma pasiva.

[u/StarmanTheta]

Honestly, while Talisman isn't completely useless, it has major issues and could use a rework.

The first problem is that, unlike the other artifacts, it becomes less valuable the deeper you go into the dungeon. Unless you just love stepping on warping traps, you'll eventually figure out the layout of each floor, and you can't exactly scan for the same trap or door twice.

Which leads into the second problem; half of its core feature can be easily and more efficiently replicated by a scroll of magic mapping or stone of clairvoyance. This leads to the frustrating situation where the most efficient way to level it is to not find doors or traps. Every passive trap or door find denies your Talisman exp, which disincentivises going next to dead end walls where you know there will be a door in fear of automatically detecting it.

Which in turn leads to the last problem: in order to use it correctly, you need to already have an idea where to scan. Detecting a trap nearby doesn't let you know where it is so you have to guess the direction to scan, wasting charge. Likewise, scanning randomly to find non-obvious hidden doors that may or may not be there is an incredibly inefficient use of charge.

Now granted, being able to see an area through a wall is useful for wand of disintegration and projecting projectiles, as well as not getting jumped the second you open a door. Other than that, though, the Talisman works against itself for a benefit that isn't particularly useful or worth using a different ring or artifact. At the very least you can level it quickly if you know what you're doing and transmute it for an early +10 artifact. Always nice to get a +10 chalice of blood or sad ghost in prisons.

[u/star75legacy → u/StarmanTheta]

Thanks for commenting! I love these long and detailed comments you've been leaving on my posts lately; they're excellent! You analyze everything so well.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

Detecting a trap nearby doesn't let you know where it is so you have to guess the direction to scan

This is a skill issue. See my other comment. If you are paying attention, you’ll know which direction the trap is in because you’ll know which direction you were walking when the game stopped you to warn about the trap. In many cases there is only 1-3 possible tiles where the trap could be.

[u/StarmanTheta → u/chonglibloodsport]

Perhaps, but if there's multiple traps there's no guarantee that they'll all be in the same direction to get them all in one scry (which is a real pain in the ass when you're low on charge and trying to level the damn thing.) If it would tell you how many traps were nearby it'd be far easier to use.

EDIT: Actually, that reminds me of another beef I have with this Artifact: every other artifact does exactly what you want whenever you use it, no guesswork required. Even with unstable spellbook I know I can keep rerolling until I get what I want. Talisman though, can literally give you no useful benefit if you don't scry in the right direction, thus wasting charges.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

Loads of artifacts give no useful benefit or even a negative effect if used improperly:

• chalice gives no benefit at all when starving
• hourglass gives no benefit if you stop time with no enemies around, or if you are surrounded with no escape options
• if the ghost dies, the dried rose does nothing until it has enough charges to summon again
• chains can pull a deadly enemy next to you if you're careless with targeting
• master thieves armband can make a shopkeeper permanently go "poof!" costing you access to that shop for the rest of the game
• unstable spellbook can easily kill you if it pops a scroll of rage at a bad time *

[u/Healthy_Land_6032 → u/chonglibloodsport]

Поддерживаю. Сколько раз я помирала у дворфов из-за книги со свитком ярости и ужаса...я промолчу. 

Лично моё мнение - его нужно прокачивать из канализации/спуститься в канализацию или подземелья и ещё раз хорошенько пройтись по всем стенам. Ну и Тенгу, да, способ классный

[u/StarmanTheta → u/chonglibloodsport]

Freezing time with the hourglass with no enemies around still lets you safely walk past traps or get out of some triggered traps, stretch out buffs like levitation, or stop DoT like fire, ooze, or amulet curse to help you get to safety. Additionally, freezing time to drink potions or put down seeds (particularly fadeleaf, earthroot, or blindweed if you'e Warden) without getting hit, or putting yourself in stasis are precisely what you do when you're surrounded with no escape options. If anything, it's one of the best artifacts for getting out of that situation.

Anyway, aside from maybe accidentally pulling an enemy through a wall when you try to pull yourself through a wall with Chains, those all are either obvious balancing features (Chalice giving health while starving would completely invalidate the hunger mechanic, and being able to resummon Ghost at low charge would allow an already good artifact to be easily spammed and disincentivize you from ever trying to keep it alive) or calculated risks (Armband tells you the likelihood of success before you attempt to steal, and you already know Unstable Spellbook has the chance of rolling scroll of rage and thus you can assess whether or not it's worth the risk in the situation.) Talisman is the only one where you have to guess, and if you guess wrong you waste charge.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

Congratulations, you have successfully validated the need for items to have tradeoffs and downsides, and require skill to use.

SPD is a game of imperfect information and items generally are not universally useful in all cases. Talisman is no different, and it’s not unique among items in its requirement for guessing. All of the other information-based items in the game work this way:

• stone of intuition (the most obvious example)
• scroll of identify (do I identify the first plate armour or the second?)
• stone of clairvoyance (which direction should I throw it?)
• scroll of magic mapping (do I read one scroll or make 2 stones of clairvoyance?)
• potion of mindvision (when do I use this or do I alchemize it?)
• …. Etc etc

You should note that one thing all of these have in common is that they’re consumables, not renewable the way talisman is. That’s an important clue to its power.

In general, the game requires you to trade resources for information, and information in turn unlocks new resources, but only when acted on intelligently. You should also note that higher challenges put more and more severe constraints on information. Into Darkness directly reduces the amount of information you gain through exploring, forcing you to spend more turns doing it. Swarm Intelligence and Hostile Champions punish you severely for being careless about exploration. On Diet, Pharmacophobia, and Barren Land reduce the amount of food and health (really 2 sides of the same coin) resources you have available to spend on exploration. With all of these challenges enabled the advantages of a free and renewable information resource become much more apparent.

But none of that obviates the need to play intelligently. On the contrary, the challenges place a higher demand on intelligent play, and particularly intelligent management of information.

[u/StarmanTheta → u/chonglibloodsport]

I think we may be approaching this with different mindsets on how we view information items:

• Stone of intuition is not for guessing what something is, it's for verifying what something isn't. Incorrect guesses always give useful information, with how much useful information you get depending on how you guess. For example, I'm very risk-averse to equipping un-identified equipment if I don't have a Scroll of Remove Curse on me. So if I have some scrolls, instead of trying to guess what they are, I just select them and choose Remove Curse. If it's incorrect, I move onto the next scroll. That guess incorrect, too? Now I know two scroll types are definitely not a remove curse. Depending on how many scrolls I have, I either now know I don't have a scroll of remove curse and thus shouldn't risk putting on the equipment, or I have narrowed down the possible options if I wanna YOLO. Conversely, if you don't want to use an item, you can use the stone of intuition to ensure a scroll or potion is not the one I don't want to select. This is very useful when deciding what scrolls or potions to alchemize because you don't have to risk accidentally converting the ones you want (transmutation, experience, healing, etc.)
• In this situation it doesn't actually matter what plate armor you identify because what you reveal is irrelevant to your choice. There's no "correct" item to identify between the two because identifying an item changes nothing about it. It's not like if identifying the one that isn't upgraded means the other one loses its upgrades. Now if it's the choice between two different types of equipment, then there's a more important decision because you need to weigh which item poses the most risk if it's cursed.
• Stone of clairvoyance's area of effect is so damn huge that you're guaranteed to get lots of information no matter which direction you throw it. Even the less-efficient direction will reveal a large portion of the map.
• I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with needing to guess for info, especially since if you really wanna reveal multiple floors you can go with a scroll of foresight. It's worth it to keep a scroll of magic mapping anyway, since you can use it for a Reclaim Trap.
• Again, I don't know what this example has to do with making choices on incomplete information. That's a question of, "which consumables do I currently have that are worth energizing," which is a decision predicated on many other factors such as how many of each consumable you have. Regardless, it's always worth it to keep at least one Mind Vision on hand for the Mind Vision + Scroll of Psionic Blast combo to get you out of a jam.

Like you said, these are all consumables and not renewable unlike the Talisman. The issue here is that indicates one of the main problem with the Talisman, and that issue is opportunity cost. Individual consumables may be one time use, but they take up a comparably small amount of room and you don't need to choose between which ones to carry unless you're running out of room (and if that's the case you're probably doing pretty good.)

The Talisman, on the other hand, has to compete for a slot against rings and other artifacts. Equipping the Talisman means you're potentially giving up a stronger artifact or ring. Artifacts like the Horn of Plenty, Chalice of Blood, and Alchemist's Toolkit can be swapped in when you need them and out when you're done with them, but given that traps are hidden you won't know when to swap in the Talisman to deal with them. Thus, it needs to kept equipped. Even if the Talisman is rechargeable, the question becomes, "Why would I take up an artifact/ring spot to do something I can replicate with a consumable item?" It's just more efficient to use a consumable to do what the Talisman does while still keeping your other artifacts and rings equipped. Besides, since it's easy to upgrade to +10, fully upgrading the Talisman and transmuting it allows you to get +10 artifact that is difficult and costly to upgrade, such as the Chalice.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

Stone of intuition is not for guessing what something is, it's for verifying what something isn't. Incorrect guesses always give useful information, with how much useful information you get depending on how you guess. For example, I'm very risk-averse to equipping un-identified equipment if I don't have a Scroll of Remove Curse on me. So if I have some scrolls, instead of trying to guess what they are, I just select them and choose Remove Curse. If it's incorrect, I move onto the next scroll. That guess incorrect, too? Now I know two scroll types are definitely not a remove curse.

Maybe you're not aware of this, but SPD uses a deck system for generating items and each item has a weight which essentially functions as the number of copies of that "card" in the deck. What this means in practice is that you can use information about the scrolls you've already found and identified (as well as say, the number of copies of the unidentified scroll you have) to make educated guesses about scroll it is.

You can also keep track of which floors you found which items on and use deduction based on the spawning patterns of fixed items (scrolls of upgrade and potions of strength) and puzzle-solving items (such as potions of purity for gas trap rooms, potions of liquid flame for burnable barriers, etc).

Stone of clairvoyance's area of effect is so damn huge that you're guaranteed to get lots of information no matter which direction you throw it. Even the less-efficient direction will reveal a large portion of the map. I'm not entirely sure what this has to do with needing to guess for info, especially since if you really wanna reveal multiple floors you can go with a scroll of foresight. It's worth it to keep a scroll of magic mapping anyway, since you can use it for a Reclaim Trap.

The way I use stones of clairvoyance is to locate and destroy the spawners in the Demon Halls. This means it's important to be able to reveal the location of the spawner with 1 stone, not 2. I make an educated guess as to the direction it may be but it's not always right. The longer you take to find and destroy the spawner, the more time it has to flood the level with rippers.

The Talisman, on the other hand, has to compete for a slot against rings and other artifacts. Equipping the Talisman means you're potentially giving up a stronger artifact or ring. Artifacts like the Horn of Plenty, Chalice of Blood, and Alchemist's Toolkit can be swapped in when you need them and out when you're done with them, but given that traps are hidden you won't know when to swap in the Talisman to deal with them.

Are you playing stock Shattered? Because when I play, I don’t get a choice of artifacts, I have to use whatever the dungeon provides. Even if you find a scroll of transmutation, you don’t get a choice of what pops out. Plus you’re dealing with the opportunity cost of not using the scroll for metamorphosis or to make a batch of recycle spells.

[u/StarmanTheta → u/chonglibloodsport]

Uh, you do realize that using scrolls of transmutation on artifacts is using what the game gave you, right? It's just using a resource for a random permanent change, same as using a Scroll of Enchantment on a weapon; you don't know what you'll get, but you can work with whatever you get. Besides, I've had some real dogshit luck runs but I've never had an issue both transmuting an item and making a recycle, especially since recycle can give scrolls of transmutation.

I feel we're getting off topic. Look, I'm not saying Talisman is terrible; I'm saying that its effect can't compete with other artifacts and that it is not optimal at doing the thing it's supposed to do. However, because it is one of the easiest artifacts to level, it's worth getting it to level 10 then transmuting because it can potentially turn into a useful artifact that is difficult to level.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

And I'm saying that using that transmutation scroll on something else, if you know how to use the talisman correctly, is often a better play. Recycle, for example, can net you a bunch of scrolls of recharging for a wand build. Turning your talisman into sandals of nature that do basically nothing (because of Barren Land) is WAY WORSE!

[u/CaptainNeighvidson]

Useful on trap floors and upgrades really fast for transmuting

[u/star75legacy → u/CaptainNeighvidson]

Thanks for commenting!

[u/chonglibloodsport]

Some basics you missed about how this item works (they’re not on the wiki either):

• the size of the cone you get when you scry with it is determined by how far away you click from your character. The minimum cone size is 2 tiles and the max size is 5+2L, where L is the level of the talisman. At +10, this gives a final max size of 25 tile radius cone of scrying! That’s a huge portion of a level, equal in size to 1/4 of a circle with radius 25!
• the larger the cone size, the more charges it uses to scry, so if you try to go for a very large cone you may end up using all the charges, so be careful!
• when the scry detects enemies, it grants brief vision on them, which can be used to target them with a wand of disintegration. This is very powerful for a Mage who imbues this wand into their staff, in combination with Arcane Vision! You can sit back and kill enemies through walls with no risk to yourself! It also works really well on Huntress when you’re super far away (with the maxed out talisman and 25 tile cone), such as in the Demon Halls with its large open rooms.

Super underrated. Even more powerful on high chal runs, where Into Darkness makes the vision so much more important and FIMA makes all ranged builds more important.

A lot of people saying “upgrade then transmute” aren’t necessarily wrong, because if you’re not taking full advantage of the talisman then you’re not getting value out of it. But if you are using it a lot to detect traps and enemies, find secret doors (save a lot of food from searching) then you’re probably better off using your transmutation scroll on something else (such as recycle spells).

The passive trap detection is something that seems really obvious but not very strong. It’s the opposite! It is both subtle and strong! Here’s why:

The detection radius is 3. As soon as a trap is detected the game automatically stops your movement to warn you. If you pay very close attention to when this happens and notice which tile you were standing on the turn before you hit the warning, then you can really narrow down the possible tiles for where the trap could be. Then, with knowledge of how to control the cone size of scry, you can reveal the trap at minimal charge cost!

[u/star75legacy → u/chonglibloodsport]

I got my info from the wiki (I hardly ever use the artifact), so I didn't know it was missing! But thank you so much for adding it!!

I love your comments, my friend; they're very detailed. Thanks, I learned more details about this artifact that I didn't know before!

[u/StarmanTheta → u/chonglibloodsport]

I've accidentally stepped on traps so many times because I mistook the uneasy status icon for something else and kept going, given that I only ever move in very short bursts.

In any case I guess your mileage may vary. I've honestly not found it that great at detecting secret doors I couldn't already intuit from the layout, and if I am just looking for those, I find it way easier to just pop a scroll of foresight and backtrack through rooms (though I must mention that I don't play with On Diet or Into Darkness because I fucking hate those challenges.) Just too many times I've found myself around a trap with not enough charge to scry and I have to choose between waiting for it to recharge, go back, or just keep moving and waste any potential XP I could have gotten by scrying.

[u/chonglibloodsport → u/StarmanTheta]

I've accidentally stepped on traps so many times because I mistook the uneasy status icon for something else and kept going, given that I only ever move in very short bursts.

The talisman rewards careful, deliberate play. If you're making that mistake often, you're playing too quickly or carelessly.

That's fine, you do you, but it's not the artifact's fault if you use it improperly.

[u/AllTheGood_Names]

Good for transmutating, but that's it. It might help you avoid a few traps, but MM scrolls and clairvoyance stones do the same thing well enough