[Gaming, Tangledeep] Starter Run Budoka Guide

Recently I got Tangledeep, a cool little roguelike that’s bursting with character and a beautiful SNES aesthetic. I wanted to talk about it a little, so I’ll be doing a little guide on making your first run through the underground.

Tangledeep, although a roguelike at its core, does have permanent progression elements and things you can carry forward between runs. While I deeply appreciate this (it lessens the burden of rng on preparation if you set things up diligently, and provides a nice feeling of satisfaction as your work accrues), it does mean that you are never weaker or more ill-prepared than when you first boot up a new save file.

How we can get around this is by playing as the Budoka. As an analogue to the standard monk classes of other rpgs, the Budoka’s main weapons are their fists of fury – and what weapons they are! We don’t need to replace or upgrade them at all in our time through Tangledeep, and they’ll be providing more than enough damage and auxiliary effects to keep us occupied. Now, that doesn’t completely sort our Budoka out offensively, but it goes a very long way towards it – more on that later.

Disclaimer: these are starter level tips only, and you’re encouraged to make your own conclusions as you head deeper into the game! (Guide written for the 1.00 release of Tangledeep.)

Budoka Skills

Here are the abilities for the Budoka class, with a little breakdown:

Hundred Fists (16 Stamina, 8 turn cooldown): Attacks an enemy for 140% of weapon power as Physical Damage, and does 110% of weapon power as physical damage to any enemies adjacent to them. The Budoka’s fists tend to be very powerful weapons, and they have (surprise, surprise) two of them, which contributes to the damage. This can be strong enough to oneshot mobs without any softening up beforehand, and provides relatively good AOE opportunities. Probably one of the first things you should take.

Palm Thrust (15 Stamina, 7 turn cooldown): Targets the space in front of your character plus the two spaces either side of it (this is rotatable, don’t worry), knocking enemies away and stunning them for a turn. Does 100% of Weapon Power as Physical if they hit something while flying. While not an “escape”, per se, it does fulfil a useful function of getting an enemy out of your face for a little while, and usually forces that enemy to approach again, which allows you more time to soften them up with ranged weaponry. A good second pick, but you’re not using it for the damage, which is mediocre and conditional.

Tornado Stance (25 energy, 14 turn cooldown): Sets a buff that flings enemies away and does 110% physical damage when they hit you. Not a bad choice if you’re feeling overwhelmed, but it does cost a turn to use and doesn’t actively increase your defence, and won’t be all that useful in making breathing room if you’re in a tight area geographically. Not a huge priority, but nice to have.

Vital Point: Pain (Passive): Every time you hit an enemy, you have a chance to inflict a debuff that makes them take 15% more damage. If you use a Budoka technique such as Hundred Fists, it will also inflict them with Confusion. The cheapest of the Vital Points, this is a high priority get since it enables synergy with your main damage techniques and buffs your damage in general. +15% flat means you’ll probably be making some big hits. As a Budoka, you put out a lot of hits per bump attack, so you’ll see this proc fairly frequently. Get very early, alongside Hundred Fists.

Iron Breathing (15 energy, 8 cooldown): Removes poisons and bleeds, then heals you for 100% Spirit Power plus Level x 5 if any statuses were removed (provided they weren’t inflicted by a Worthless tier enemy). While healing is always appreciated, Bandages do something very similar as a consumable and anti-status meds are cheap and available at the start of the game. Fairly low priority, but later poison will get to be very scary and you’ll be glad to have this.

Vital Point: Bleed (Passive): Chance to inflict Bleed when hitting an enemy, doing 30% of Weapon Power as Physical per turn; if you hit the enemy with a Budoka technique, the bleed worsens and spreads to other enemies. Again, synergistic with your Budoka moves and is essentially free damage, so worth going for.

Qi Wave (18 energy, 9 cooldown): Attacks an enemy 3 spaces ahead of you for 140% of your weapon power and 50% of your Spirit power as Lightning damage; can crit. While Spirit isn’t actually something a Budoka specialises in, that’s still a lot of damage to be doing at range. However, the range is very specific and much less flexible than a ranged weapon might be. Low priority, at least in my opinion, but prevents you getting completely walled by Physical Resist if that’s a thing.

Vital Point: Explode (Passive): Apart from being a funny little Fist of the North Star reference, has a random chance of marking an enemy on hit; when the enemy dies, they explode for 150% Weapon Damage as Fire in adjacent squares (you’re immune to this). If you hit them with a Budoka technique, roots them in place. This is very expensive in terms of JP and feels very much like a ‘win more’ ability – that is, if you’re already killing things, this lets you kill them even harder for not that much effect. It doesn’t really have a use against enemies you’d struggle with anyway. While the 150% fire damage is useful AOE in a class that isn’t swimming in it, and can set up for some really cool flashy moves (mark something, then Palm Thrust it into a bunch of other mobs for the kill and take out the others with the explosion), I think this is more icing on the cake than a hugely necessary skill.

Two Finger Catch (Passive): Flat 25% chance to catch and throw back a ranged attack. Useful for the Budoka – 25% to not get nickled and dimed by ranged attacks is always going to be good – but realistically, the Budoka has a lot of passives they really like and this might not get a slot. Where I can see this ability being excellent is for an Edge Thane, Paladin or Swordmaster who are trying to build Parry chance as a defence – Parry chances are reduced by half against ranged attacks, and this addresses that weakness by adding another layer of defence. If you can pick it up before the Spiny Maze it’ll serve you well there.

Steel Resolve (Passive): You cannot be Stunned or critically hit. Very expensive, and probably worth every single JP. Stuns tend to be extremely dangerous in roguelikes, and random criticals will claim a lot of lives. The RNG mitigation is absolutely worth it.

Tier 1 Passive Bonus: Makes your fists dual wieldable and makes them do extra damage; this is what makes the class work. Other classes can get this on an accessory, but you get it for free. Gives bonus Strength, Swiftness and Discipline.

Tier 2 Passive Bonus (spend 1000+ JP on abilities to unlock): If not wielding something in your offhand, get a third attack when bump attacking. More attacks = more Vital Point procs = your class doing more of what it should be doing, plus more damage. Worth shooting for relatively early.

Tier 3 Passive Bonus (unlock all abilities): Double chance to hit Vital Points. More synergy, but isn’t super essential – the Vital Point proc chance doesn’t seem all that low to start with, and with three attacks on bump, you’ll see them often enough. Obviously really nice to have, though you don’t need to rush it down.

You start the game with 250 free JP to spend on abilities; as a single-classing Budoka, I would spend it on Hundred Fists, Vital Point: Pain and Palm Thrust. However, you have the option of starting the game as another class to dip their abilities and then spending your initial 100 gold to change to the Budoka having spent your 250 JP elsewhere. If you feel like that, here are a few standout tools from the other classes:

Brigands: Brigands have quite a few mobility tools, and synergise quite well with Budoka in general. A starter package of Smoke Cloud, Escape Artist and Cloak and Dagger uses up all your 250 JP and gives you an offensive crit chance multiplier, an escape tool (very useful for the Budoka, who has few natural escapes) and a repositioning aid that also happens to do very good damage and does more in a smoke cloud. Very good choice; Sleep Traps are also a very nice stand alone tool.

Floramancer: I’d go for Summon Floraconda, Conjure Vine Wall and (with a little extra JP from the tutorial) Vine Swing here. Unless you’re using a lot of Qi Blasts or Tornado Stances, you usually don’t have all that much use for your Energy, but your Spirit isn’t all that good as a Budoka either, so direct damage will probably be less than satisfactory. You do get bonus Discipline, which synergises with the Floraconda summon’s HP; the summon can help provide damage, tank aggro while you run, and is all around a nice tool to have that doesn’t require any huge stat investment from you. Conjure Vine Wall helps you control the battlefield, and Vine Swing gives you a mobility option (again, as a class that has few to start with).

Sword Dancer: Most of their abilities are useful with yours, but not in a huge, groundbreaking way; none of them require a sword to use. Flame Serpent gives you something to do before the enemy closes with you and functions as a good overall damage buff, especially with how strong your fists will get and how many attacks you’ll be pumping out; Wild Horse does decent damage and skips right to the hitting things, although it’s less useful than a standard escape (and you should probably be firing arrows at stuff anyway). Perhaps the best option is Hold the Moon, which does a small amount of damage, stuns the enemy and moves you a space away, which gives you chance to apply a buff of some sort (like Tornado Stance, or possibly Flame Serpent).

Paladin: Not the best pickings for poor Pally, I’m afraid; their focus on shields and block chance is at odds with your need to keep your off hand free for damaging punches and proc chances. Smite Evil is a decent take, at least; Righteous Charge isn’t too great, especially in comparison to escapes the Brigand gives you. Radiant Aura is garbage for you, and you’re unlikely to ever have the wrath charges necessary to make Divine Fury work out regularly. Not the best dualclass option.

Hunter: Hunter is usually a good dual class for any physical character, since almost all of them want to use bows in some way, shape or form. Grappling Hook is a very, very good escape and mobility tool, and is the obvious standout; if you want to take Hail of Arrows to enhance your bow techs, you’re almost certainly wanting to take Bear Traps to hold the enemy in place so you hit, although Bear Traps is pretty effective by itself. You can get all three with JP from the tutorial.

Spellshaper: Heavy magic synergy? Yeah, probably not what we’re looking for as a very powerful physical damage class. Delayed Teleport, however, is a very powerful escape option and you might consider dipping later just for that.

Edge Thane: Some possible synergies, but Edge Thanes require a bit of investment to make work. You’re not using a shield or a sword, so you don’t get a huge amount of benefit from Song of Endurance a lot of the time. Song of Might, however, has some synergy with your abilities, particularly if you get it to level 3, where it not only can inflict its own Fear debuff (as well as being straight extra damage) but can also give you more swings to proc your Budoka debuffs. If you’re taking Song of Might, you may as well take Verse of Suppression too. Highland Charge isn’t a super fantastic mobility tool because of how conditional it is. Might be something that can work later, but I haven’t played around with it too much.

Soulkeeper: Summon Soulshade and Spiritwalk are probably your best bets here. Summoning a mob to help you out will never be a bad idea while you’ve got the extra Discipline, and Spiritwalk gives you a strange psuedo-escape, but I think the Floromancer is probably better at providing you what this class can give. One use for Spiritwalk is using it to give you time to heal up with food or flasks. I haven’t played around too much with this class, however.

Keep in mind, these dualclass opinions are only for right at the start of the game, and considering a budget of roughly 250-300 JP. For more long-term dualclassing, you'll have to do some thinking by yourself!

Weaknesses of the Budoka

If you read through the suggestions above, you’ll notice a common trend: I keep mentioning escape and mobility options. This is because the Budoka has none to choose from in their own class. One of the first lessons you learn about roguelikes as a genre is that, while doing damage is very nice and good, there is nothing more important than being able to extricate yourself from a situation that will kill you. While the Budoka shouldn’t feel fragile, they do need to keep this in mind, and it is a very good idea for them to consider dipping into other classes for escapes at some point. If you’re dedicated to the idea of a single class run, however, you do have some options because of your weapon specialities.

Both Unarmed and Bow specialities, the two weapon classes you’ll use most as a Budoka, have level 1 moves that can be used to move around in a pinch, and I would encourage you to pick them up once you have Vital Point: Pain and Vital Point: Bleed online. While you do so much damage with your fists that using other weapons is often a large downgrade, don’t be afraid to keep some options on your hotbar so you can use their weapon speciality techs; the Budoka isn’t any worse at using them than most other classes. Of particular note are Axes and Daggers. The Lightning Jab ability in the Dagger tree probably won’t do too much damage, since you don’t usually spec Guile that much, but it’s an instant hit that could proc your Vital Points so you can capitalise with your Budoka techniques right away. Cleave, in the Axe Tree, allows you to close distance and debuff enemy defence, and Axes in general could provide some ‘emergency’ AOE if you’re being closed too hard to do anything about it. The Katar’s Berserk might be useful, but in general you have too much synergy going on to want to seal your Budoka techs. Spears do the same thing Palm Thrust does but worse. Maces don’t have any special synergy with the Budoka, but the stun effect is very nice anyway, and you can use it to retreat.

Feat Choices

You get two feats at the start of the game, and almost all of the initially available ones are very good. For me, though, the standouts are Toughness (more HP will never be a bad thing) and either Scavenger or Entrepreneur, with honourable mentions to Quick Step, Thirst Quencher and Food Lover. For the purposes of a first run, we want to use the Budoka to store away some cool equipment to make life easier for other classes who can’t rely on their fists, which Scavenger and Entrepreneur will help with; Quick Step is great tactically, but it’s better for a ranged class, who need to create distance for safety. We don’t mind being in the melee as much, and if we do need to create distance, we want to create a lot more than a single space. It’s very nice for buffing, though. Thirst Quencher and Food Lover are healing options in case you’re very nervous about your survival.

Equipment to look out for

While the Budoka has two very powerful weapons in their fists, that doesn’t mean they don’t need good equipment. Like any other character, they want to find a good ranged weapon as soon as possible. With extra Swiftness, a bow is ideal, but their Discipline means they can use a staff almost as effectively if you find one. Despite starting in Robes, the Budoka doesn’t really have any dodge synergy and finds themselves up close and personal enough to warrant a higher level of protection – Light armour at least, if not Heavy, and as soon as you can find it. Shields are an afterthought, but worth pairing if you’re using a Staff or stuck with Slingshots early on, or if you’re dipping into Daggers or Axes.

In terms of accessories, they’re not super confined as to what they want. Sturdy Shoes early on will allay mud and mobility concerns, but drop them later when mud becomes less frequent. Keep your eyes peeled for a Sheriff’s Belt, since the midgame is ripe with Bandits and 20% damage reduction is incredible. Rings of Surestrike are great, since the Budoka can do a lot of damage with crits; Specatacles are an early substitute. Rings aren’t a huge priority since you don’t really do elemental damage, although lightning will boost your Qi Strike. Pendants of elemental resist are worth keeping in your inventory for when you need them – Poison in particular becomes very threatening later on, although with Iron Breathing, the Budoka isn’t as threatened as other classes might be. As for traits/bonuses on equipment, anything that adds extra Muscle or Swiftness is lovely, but don’t be afraid to go for extra Stamina; you burn through it quite a lot since you’re heavily incentivised to use Hundred Fists and Palm Thrust a lot for their synergies. If you find a Judo Belt, definitely keep it, as it’ll help you mitigate the damage drop from not having class specific weapons when/if you multiclass.

As you go through Tangledeep, keep an eye out for stuff you want to vault for other characters, especially if it’s your first run. Here are some suggestions on what to look out for:

1) Equipment with the Fencer attribute will be very much appreciated by Sword Dancers and Edge Thanes, who have abilities to boost Parry, as well as Paladins (who like anything that ups their defenses). In general, anybody with a sword will love it.

2) For Soulkeeper and Floramancer, equipment with the Familar trait will buff their summoned pets, which will make them quite happy indeed.

3) Good bows and staves will always be useful to somebody, and shields will be useful for almost anybody but the Budoka or the Hunter. Remember that even among physical classes, both the Paladin and the Budoka can use staves for ranged damage quite nicely. Swords are also a good ‘default’ weapon selection, since they increase survivability.

4) Chemist traits can help to buff your consumables, which although not vital, can help your class do things they wouldn’t normally be able to do.

Gameplay

Budoka gameplay is pretty basic, if we’re honest. When you see an enemy coming, plink they with your bow or your staff as they come to you. If they’ve got a Vital Point debuff on them by the time they hit ranges for your Budoka techs, go to town – you don’t need to be too sparing with them, since powerups will keep you topped up with stamina and food can be used for that if not. Your big tests will be bosses and ranged enemies who don’t necessarily want to sit there in your face and get destroyed. If you can, use the Unarmed Flying Kick technique to close distance on ranged foes, since you’re likely to invest in it anyway – don’t be afraid to use it if you can’t hit the enemy. Although the damage is valuable, you have more than enough from your Budoka techniques. Against big melee bosses, engaging Tornado Stance and judiciously applying Palm Thrusts can give you room to breath and a little time to heal or buff before getting back into the fray, or just time to plink more with your ranged weapons. If you’re surrounded by a group, both Hundred Fists and Palm Thrust have some area management elements to them, and Tornado Stance can help to get them off you as well. If you have Vital Point: Explode active, one kill might be all you need to take the pressure off. Be a little wary of using your mobility skills to initiate, though – you really don’t want to end up in a situation where they’re on cooldown when you need them.

Closing

While I’m sure there are much deeper strategies to be found and discussed about Tangledeep and the Budoka, this should do for an introductory primer. I’m not an expert by any means, but I hope the information and opinions here at least prompt some thought and discussion, and hopefully this will make somebody’s first run just that touch easier, and help them get into what I believe is a deep and fantastic game.