What the heck si this bug? Came back to continue my run and the game is unplayable. Can't move items nor open the map. I was on floor 38 so this really hurts
I didn't realize someone did the same build, but this build is broken just before endless mode
first image is my build where I one-shotted the king. Idea is to charge up the arrows to do mega damage (around 250+ per energy)
2nd photo I died to the panda.... I got too arrogant with my build. At this point, my arrow could do 400+ damage per energy but the boss kept spawning so frequently. I tried to look for the ring of rage but oh well
At this point, it was super laggy to charge up the ring. idk if it's because it's in webGL but overall super addicting
The save state starts to fail for games after you die. Hence I wasn't able to save this game.
I have to spam the whetstone before attacking because otherwise it would take forever, plus he will not hurt me either because he is not programmed to, and his summons only ever add spikes, they do not do anything other than that.
Besides that, I wanted to make a Keg build, but I was really not lucky on the boss relics, so I dropped it eventually. I had a golden bow and a pig to make me rich, but no matter what I tried I could not find the spice relic which would have made this build pretty broken rather than underwhelming, therefore, they both bit the bullet before the Keg did.
At the very least it came in handy several times within endless whenever I was about to die.
You are the first person to mention that the M key must be pressed once the game starts loads. I thought it had to be pressed in the title screen. Thank you very much, what a complicated system.
The pick axe is insanely powerful. Hitting 52 damage with this build and easily beating the game. The hover is incorrect as it doesn't show the +7 from the pick axe adjacent bonus itself.
Beat the game on the first try with a bunch of cleavers and the stopwatch - I'm guessing I got pretty lucky.
Was a lot of fun though, some feed-back:
Text loaded way slower than I would have liked, maybe 15sec per dialog when I would have like <1
A lot of the interactions feel clunky at this stage
Some bugs:
Items end up in odd spots, like over the character or across the top of the screen at times (top of screen was exclusively from chests, I think)
The wheel spin event bounced back and forth after stopping and didn't let me claim my 'prize' (a curse) or progress
At one point I lost the 'End Turn' button, possibly when using the golden whetstone. A couple of other times it wouldn't respond until I interacted with something else
The way the chest drops its items is not a bug, it was in the game since the first time I played it. For enemy encounters and the shop it was changed, why it was changed is anyone's guess, but I do empathize with you.
I think Jaspel should make the chests' drops behave the same way as enemy encounters' drops and shops for the sake of consistency.
Hmm, it might not have loaded properly the first time - a second play through ran much smoother, though this time it failed to save. Still a bit slower than I'd like on dialog, but much better.
Finally managed to beat the game after ~6 hours, an earthblade carried me early and and I managed to get a cleaver setup together by the time I hit max level.
Never once got any mana regenerating non-consumable item or other offensive staves. Used up my mana too soon got stuck against a mob with too much defense to scratch through. Staff did about 315 damage at that point. Wizard tower build was fun though!
I don't understand why this helmet is being penalized when its condition is "if there is a space above this" and there is no space above it: https://prnt.sc/tX7bLynIDTkm
This is a really neat take on roguelikes, although I did beat it first try with the absolutely broken assassin's dagger which scales infinitely and I got lucky getting it 2nd floor. That combined with the whetstone for 200% damage and two flasks to get stupidly huge energy supplies killed the final boss in one turn. That being said, there's clearly potential for cooler combos and it isn't like I only needed the dagger to progress. The needler carried me early and the armor set drops allowed me to tank almost every hit. Looking forward to seeing the kickstarter succeeding and hope for smooth development for Jasper.
So I just did my luckiest run ever with shield spirit+cleavers (stopped at floor 62), and here is little collection of bugs I've encountered on my way:)
First, you can change between backpack and the map while attacking in combat (cleavers take quite some time to do their things), and when you do so, "End Turn" button disappears. It will return if you go to the map and back again once you finished attacking though. By the way, I can't even tell for sure how many times I've accidentally clicked End Turn instead of actually making my turns, can't help but click this sneaky button sometimes, not even sure if its positioning or its look or what else:)
On the floor 40 I somehow got scammed for my key, opening a door on Floor 39 and expecting The Swamp on 40-42 segment, but got into the Caves instead. Maybe that was my missclick although Im almost sure I picked the right one, but maybe.
SFX volume option resets after refreshing the page, while still showing the old position of the slider. So things are getting loud until you move it back and forth a bit:)
There is also a bug I've mentioned here before, with relics sometimes stop applying their effect after reorganizing during combat.
Sometimes map can generate a healer (I don't think I've seens the chest like this but might also be the case) with a locked door you don't have to open because there is a free passage from one of the other sides:)
Now a couple thoughts, of course everything in the endless run is not supposed to be perfectly balanced but it still shows some flaws imo.
Poison has mediocre effect when used by players, even if you manage to find multiple poison arrows in an archer build, but completely destroys players with no reliable way to counter that (other than OTK anyone with poison). The fact it stacks and doesn't really go away means pretty high numbers eventually, but for monsters and their life pool its far from being effective compared to direct hits of certain builds, and for players its 1 to 3 turns before you die even with max life of 200 which takes like 50 floors to build:)
Burn is something players don't even have access to, but also destroys a lot of builds that are not block-heavy or have too much damage to care:)
Character max life in general seems pretty weak as you progress, even in regular magma core its already pretty non-existent with monsters damage numbers in there, you yet again need high block or damage. Ways to recover life are also a bit limited, but there are some in case it would be relevant at some point:)
Vampirism counts as a separate hit on weapon use, so you take damage from spikes twice. This feels pretty bad in general, there is not too much sources of this stat and it would be nice if it ignored spikes like the arrows do.
I'd really like to see some gold-based weapon at some point (to scale your damage by hoarding more gold), even without piggybanks and other stuff you eventually have hundreds of gold:)
Swamp area is good because you have a chance for badger forge events here, which otherwise you can only find later in the magme core. But it is pretty frustrating sometimes to not have a single one in multiple swamps, like it took more than 40 floors for me to find second rage upgrade for a weapon and it wasn't even a swamp :D Would be nice if you'll have a guaranteed forge once per swamp if you decide to go there, as its also has harder enemies than the caves imo.
Overall game is great, can't wait to see and try more stuff (and I still have plenty to experience, game just doesn't allow me to become a mage yet for example :D).
I've definitely seen the chest one multiple times, with not having to unlock the door as I can just go through the other end! I also am pretty sure I had the glitch with the swamp too, I had it after floor 3 where instead of getting to the swamp the post-key stairs took me to the caves instead.
Yeah, then its probably level generation bug and not just me not paying attention:) Also it was just the healer when I noticed it multiple times, think I just didn't pay attention when it happened with chests:)
Ah so suddenly your thorns build that you were so eagerly spamming in the comment section before does not help you out at all so far into the game? What a surprise!
If you want to get past that area you either need to kill everything in one turn which is difficult without a bit of good luck or have both moderate damage output, plus moderate defense output. I would recommend you stack on armor pieces and aim specifically for the archangel armor and the paladin's plate because one adds +2 haste and the other gives you 8 armor which makes a difference since early on enemies can not hurt you at all, but once you arrive at the Magma Core it effectively reduces enemy damage by 1/3.
For Snakes and bats, you will either need a cleansing rag + heartstone gem combo or a My First Wand to counter the poison.
When it comes down to what type of weapon you should use, aim for a bow, a wand, cleavers, shivs or accessories that increase your damage output.
The Ring Of Doom is very potent in that department, and, with the assumption that you have a considerable amount of mana stones, you can dish out over 30 damage per hit easily which should kill anything under 3 turns. Spend money at a shop to buy one if you can.
It is an excuse and a bad one at that. I am decently certain you picked up 6 spiked helmets because you believed that thorns would carry you, which meant afterward that you would not have enough space to put in any other useful item.
The My First Wand build is so easy because you are almost guaranteed to find a mana stone after each battle, I think it is a 50% chance average and the wand itself is a common. Even when I did not need it I came across this item at least once per run.
I had one or two spike helmets a cactus and 3-5 roses over like 10 different runs dude. Actually I wasn’t spamming it I was telling people it would help with stuff like blademaster or axemen. Having 6 spike helmets would be bad because they would all cancel each other’s block out and I would be screwed.
Also by magma core I mean floors 6-9 and whenever I pick up an item to try and do a cool build with it and I drop it for something better like I drop an arrow for a cool sword and then I get the other thing needed for that build.
I have seen archangel armor ONCE and never seen paladin armor. Are you talking about plated armor with that one or is it some entirely different op item.
3-5 roses, are you crazy?! They are worse in every aspect compared to the spiked helmets! At least try to get good thorns items like the scales or the coral, not roses!
Christ, I feel like you are a total noob rudely talking over veterans on the contents of the game because every single time you comment you say something completely absurd and occasionally inane. Just block me already, you are getting on my nerves.
Enemy poison and burn is far too strong, you should add ways to deal with it besides the one potion that purges debuffs and the rare stone that removes 1 stack per attack, it also feels like if you don't go cleavers or bow you can't win, which is a shame cuz this a unique game that I want to see grow. I think if you make the snakes poison an attack it would balance it out, plus it would make sense as snakes bite to inject venom.
You definitely can "win" (beat regular 9 floors) with more than just cleavers or bow. In fact thats what I was doing most of the time, and usually breakpoint was Magma Core+ (F16-18) for most of the setups. Yes you can get unlucky with either drops or the enemies / events, but thats how the game work.
Regarding poison and burn, I agree. Poison is simply cannot be survived after regular floors anymore, burn can be mitigated by block but on high values you also start having problems (like you cannot build more than 999 block for some reason and will die eventually).
with each stack of luck you get one item to be rarer
if you have 4 luck rings the rewards from winning battles will always have a legendary and if you have more than 4 you will get multiple things to be not a common
pretty sure it doesn't work like that, the luck rings specifically state that they increase luck after the combat, which would mean that the luck stat is increased permanently no matter if you have that original luck ring or not
also I'm pretty sure thejaspel stated in another comment that legendary items wouldn't be guaranteed based on luck
Bows and arrow are op, they ignore thorns. There are different types of cleavers that sinergize with each other doing incredible amounts of damage. Haste, rage and dodge are op atributes, if you can find items that give that atributes then pick them. Lastly look at the pictures of people that comment here and see what kind of builds they have, there are really good players here.
If you are new to the game I would suggest you to disregard the other suggestion since it requires heavy foresight, luck and preparedness which is difficult to follow through for newer players.
Although I have played the game for over a month, I only ever got a cleaver build running once, an archer build running 8 times (6 out of those 8 times were thanks to Matthew), so my recommendation would be to stack up on armor pieces because enemy spikes and burn become irrelevant anyway with a hefty block.
The archangel armor and the plate armor are both very good, the former gives haste, the latter adds 8 block which is massive! Then, there is a bug that causes the ninja suit to add armor instead of removing it if you are affected by haste which again the archangel armor provides.
Your last concern should be poison because right now you are practically invulnerable.
To counter poison you can use a combo of both a cleansing rag, plus either a vampiric gem or a heartstone gem. Alternatively, if you run a mana-based build a my first wand will always recover all the health you have lost due to poison.
As for damage, I recommend a full-on magic build, it is an easy build to get going for newbies because wands deal extra damage on top of your action turns which you can use to refill on mana thanks to the spellbooks.
Although yes, an archer or cleaver build is objectively superior and will always get you farther in endless, it is difficult to build. Then again, as a long-time player, I struggle to get those builds going because they require lucky drops and foresight. Even when I did get the build running, it would not scale well in endless because I stop findind the items I need. For cleavers, I had like 9 of them queen, king, golden and normal in my inventory, and yet, I could not progress farther because that was as powerful as my character was gonna get by the end of the day.
Didn't realize it before it was too late but almost an invincible build (only thing that could really harm me before I could take it out was anything with constant generation of spikes)
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bow + haste stacking (+1 haste shield and guarding band)
bow op
What the heck si this bug? Came back to continue my run and the game is unplayable. Can't move items nor open the map. I was on floor 38 so this really hurts
I met the same problem too :(
Oof sorry! We are working on fixing saves!
I didn't realize someone did the same build, but this build is broken just before endless mode
first image is my build where I one-shotted the king. Idea is to charge up the arrows to do mega damage (around 250+ per energy)
2nd photo I died to the panda.... I got too arrogant with my build. At this point, my arrow could do 400+ damage per energy but the boss kept spawning so frequently. I tried to look for the ring of rage but oh well
At this point, it was super laggy to charge up the ring. idk if it's because it's in webGL but overall super addicting
The save state starts to fail for games after you die. Hence I wasn't able to save this game.
looks like a furry made this game....
but do you like the game?
it has promise
cool
defense is the most powerful attack, so is poison
Although I agree, just be careful in endless. Poison does not scale well because the enemies have way too much health to tank the damage.
I just dead in endless, enemies are way too strong, lol.
I made the most annoying archer build possible.
I have to use the Ring of Rage 21 times each battle.
how much damage did it do?
exploding arrows seem to work better imo
they scale better with no spaces in front of them
But they only get half power from rage, which also means it scales slower.
They would also be weaker against bosses.
790
What does it mean for an item to be conductive? I've seen it pop up a lot but I can't figure out what it means
Conductive items allow mana to flow through them! Useful for magic!
Unfortunately couldn't get it to scale past 550ish per shot so couldn't do a full round in endless mode
Archery is insane. The Longbow and regeneration kept me alive.
Cleavers are hard to get going but once they do they just keep on keeping on. 3rd go around and still no signs of stoping
first ever cleaver build, worked well and was able to get to endless. was then murdered by two sables
What do the lightning bolts do? I’ve never seen those before.
They add +1 damage to connected weapons
oh nice
Does anyone know what biome the fox can spawn in?
Like any other event in the game, every single one of them, but he is exceedingly rare.
I have spotted him once as early as floor 2.
Thx I've only found him twice but said i was a friend the first time.
Pickaxe build was doing around 92+ damage and gets stronger after each use. Plus heals you. Over Powered
ayo, Anyone got a good way to lvl faster? also, do the luck rings stack?
They do stack!
Oh, good to know!
This is the worst boss fight in the entire game.
I have to spam the whetstone before attacking because otherwise it would take forever, plus he will not hurt me either because he is not programmed to, and his summons only ever add spikes, they do not do anything other than that.
Besides that, I wanted to make a Keg build, but I was really not lucky on the boss relics, so I dropped it eventually. I had a golden bow and a pig to make me rich, but no matter what I tried I could not find the spice relic which would have made this build pretty broken rather than underwhelming, therefore, they both bit the bullet before the Keg did.
At the very least it came in handy several times within endless whenever I was about to die.
he can summon other flowers that give you poison
Also using a high damage build is good because you can just kill the flowers when they spawn
pickaxe build v2
the elder mage is pretty easy if you have the windmill and a weapon that does 8 or more damage
What happened to Matthew?
Press M on the loading screen
You are the first person to mention that the M key must be pressed once the game starts loads. I thought it had to be pressed in the title screen. Thank you very much, what a complicated system.
Spikes and poison are a big problem. Getting a whetstone and a good stalling defense is a godsent combo.
The pick axe is insanely powerful. Hitting 52 damage with this build and easily beating the game. The hover is incorrect as it doesn't show the +7 from the pick axe adjacent bonus itself.
Beat the game on the first try with a bunch of cleavers and the stopwatch - I'm guessing I got pretty lucky.
Was a lot of fun though, some feed-back:
Some bugs:
The way the chest drops its items is not a bug, it was in the game since the first time I played it. For enemy encounters and the shop it was changed, why it was changed is anyone's guess, but I do empathize with you.
I think Jaspel should make the chests' drops behave the same way as enemy encounters' drops and shops for the sake of consistency.
Finally managed to beat the game after ~6 hours, an earthblade carried me early and and I managed to get a cleaver setup together by the time I hit max level.
forget about snakes
Never once got any mana regenerating non-consumable item or other offensive staves. Used up my mana too soon got stuck against a mob with too much defense to scratch through. Staff did about 315 damage at that point. Wizard tower build was fun though!
This the best game even u have been playing it for the last 4 hours
first kill i got this +jade axe from spiner dude (i died cuz i pick bow route)
I don't understand why this helmet is being penalized when its condition is "if there is a space above this" and there is no space above it: https://prnt.sc/tX7bLynIDTkm
It doesn't need to be an empty space. So the space with the sword still counts
This is a really neat take on roguelikes, although I did beat it first try with the absolutely broken assassin's dagger which scales infinitely and I got lucky getting it 2nd floor. That combined with the whetstone for 200% damage and two flasks to get stupidly huge energy supplies killed the final boss in one turn. That being said, there's clearly potential for cooler combos and it isn't like I only needed the dagger to progress. The needler carried me early and the armor set drops allowed me to tank almost every hit. Looking forward to seeing the kickstarter succeeding and hope for smooth development for Jasper.
So I just did my luckiest run ever with shield spirit+cleavers (stopped at floor 62), and here is little collection of bugs I've encountered on my way:)
First, you can change between backpack and the map while attacking in combat (cleavers take quite some time to do their things), and when you do so, "End Turn" button disappears. It will return if you go to the map and back again once you finished attacking though. By the way, I can't even tell for sure how many times I've accidentally clicked End Turn instead of actually making my turns, can't help but click this sneaky button sometimes, not even sure if its positioning or its look or what else:)
On the floor 40 I somehow got scammed for my key, opening a door on Floor 39 and expecting The Swamp on 40-42 segment, but got into the Caves instead. Maybe that was my missclick although Im almost sure I picked the right one, but maybe.
SFX volume option resets after refreshing the page, while still showing the old position of the slider. So things are getting loud until you move it back and forth a bit:)
There is also a bug I've mentioned here before, with relics sometimes stop applying their effect after reorganizing during combat.
Sometimes map can generate a healer (I don't think I've seens the chest like this but might also be the case) with a locked door you don't have to open because there is a free passage from one of the other sides:)
Now a couple thoughts, of course everything in the endless run is not supposed to be perfectly balanced but it still shows some flaws imo.
Poison has mediocre effect when used by players, even if you manage to find multiple poison arrows in an archer build, but completely destroys players with no reliable way to counter that (other than OTK anyone with poison). The fact it stacks and doesn't really go away means pretty high numbers eventually, but for monsters and their life pool its far from being effective compared to direct hits of certain builds, and for players its 1 to 3 turns before you die even with max life of 200 which takes like 50 floors to build:)
Burn is something players don't even have access to, but also destroys a lot of builds that are not block-heavy or have too much damage to care:)
Character max life in general seems pretty weak as you progress, even in regular magma core its already pretty non-existent with monsters damage numbers in there, you yet again need high block or damage. Ways to recover life are also a bit limited, but there are some in case it would be relevant at some point:)
Vampirism counts as a separate hit on weapon use, so you take damage from spikes twice. This feels pretty bad in general, there is not too much sources of this stat and it would be nice if it ignored spikes like the arrows do.
I'd really like to see some gold-based weapon at some point (to scale your damage by hoarding more gold), even without piggybanks and other stuff you eventually have hundreds of gold:)
Swamp area is good because you have a chance for badger forge events here, which otherwise you can only find later in the magme core. But it is pretty frustrating sometimes to not have a single one in multiple swamps, like it took more than 40 floors for me to find second rage upgrade for a weapon and it wasn't even a swamp :D Would be nice if you'll have a guaranteed forge once per swamp if you decide to go there, as its also has harder enemies than the caves imo.
Overall game is great, can't wait to see and try more stuff (and I still have plenty to experience, game just doesn't allow me to become a mage yet for example :D).
I've definitely seen the chest one multiple times, with not having to unlock the door as I can just go through the other end! I also am pretty sure I had the glitch with the swamp too, I had it after floor 3 where instead of getting to the swamp the post-key stairs took me to the caves instead.
Yeah, then its probably level generation bug and not just me not paying attention:) Also it was just the healer when I noticed it multiple times, think I just didn't pay attention when it happened with chests:)
Here is the setup I had that got me through Magma Core for the first time.
I cannot figure out at all how to get to the new Swamp stuff!
You need to bring a key after the first boss!
I think mine glitched then, as the stairs after the key took me to the caves.
do you guys have any tips for magma core?
the area just seems unfair
I could only get through there by playing aggressively, focusing on attacking and getting as much damage per attack as possible.
Ah so suddenly your thorns build that you were so eagerly spamming in the comment section before does not help you out at all so far into the game? What a surprise!
If you want to get past that area you either need to kill everything in one turn which is difficult without a bit of good luck or have both moderate damage output, plus moderate defense output. I would recommend you stack on armor pieces and aim specifically for the archangel armor and the paladin's plate because one adds +2 haste and the other gives you 8 armor which makes a difference since early on enemies can not hurt you at all, but once you arrive at the Magma Core it effectively reduces enemy damage by 1/3.
For Snakes and bats, you will either need a cleansing rag + heartstone gem combo or a My First Wand to counter the poison.
When it comes down to what type of weapon you should use, aim for a bow, a wand, cleavers, shivs or accessories that increase your damage output.
The Ring Of Doom is very potent in that department, and, with the assumption that you have a considerable amount of mana stones, you can dish out over 30 damage per hit easily which should kill anything under 3 turns. Spend money at a shop to buy one if you can.
One more thing to say. I have some of the worst luck in the universe.
It is an excuse and a bad one at that. I am decently certain you picked up 6 spiked helmets because you believed that thorns would carry you, which meant afterward that you would not have enough space to put in any other useful item.
The My First Wand build is so easy because you are almost guaranteed to find a mana stone after each battle, I think it is a 50% chance average and the wand itself is a common. Even when I did not need it I came across this item at least once per run.
I had one or two spike helmets a cactus and 3-5 roses over like 10 different runs dude. Actually I wasn’t spamming it I was telling people it would help with stuff like blademaster or axemen. Having 6 spike helmets would be bad because they would all cancel each other’s block out and I would be screwed.
Also by magma core I mean floors 6-9 and whenever I pick up an item to try and do a cool build with it and I drop it for something better like I drop an arrow for a cool sword and then I get the other thing needed for that build.
I have seen archangel armor ONCE and never seen paladin armor. Are you talking about plated armor with that one or is it some entirely different op item.
That it the end of this response. Goodbye.
3-5 roses, are you crazy?! They are worse in every aspect compared to the spiked helmets! At least try to get good thorns items like the scales or the coral, not roses!
Christ, I feel like you are a total noob rudely talking over veterans on the contents of the game because every single time you comment you say something completely absurd and occasionally inane. Just block me already, you are getting on my nerves.
Cleaver build and have healing and some spike
Enemy poison and burn is far too strong, you should add ways to deal with it besides the one potion that purges debuffs and the rare stone that removes 1 stack per attack, it also feels like if you don't go cleavers or bow you can't win, which is a shame cuz this a unique game that I want to see grow. I think if you make the snakes poison an attack it would balance it out, plus it would make sense as snakes bite to inject venom.
You definitely can "win" (beat regular 9 floors) with more than just cleavers or bow. In fact thats what I was doing most of the time, and usually breakpoint was Magma Core+ (F16-18) for most of the setups. Yes you can get unlucky with either drops or the enemies / events, but thats how the game work.
Regarding poison and burn, I agree. Poison is simply cannot be survived after regular floors anymore, burn can be mitigated by block but on high values you also start having problems (like you cannot build more than 999 block for some reason and will die eventually).
does the luck potion actually do anything?
with each stack of luck you get one item to be rarer
if you have 4 luck rings the rewards from winning battles will always have a legendary and if you have more than 4 you will get multiple things to be not a common
pretty sure it doesn't work like that, the luck rings specifically state that they increase luck after the combat, which would mean that the luck stat is increased permanently no matter if you have that original luck ring or not
also I'm pretty sure thejaspel stated in another comment that legendary items wouldn't be guaranteed based on luck
Finally complete my build on floor 118 :D
I'm thinking whether to go deeper
Does anyone have any tips for this game?
Bows and arrow are op, they ignore thorns.
There are different types of cleavers that sinergize with each other doing incredible amounts of damage.
Haste, rage and dodge are op atributes, if you can find items that give that atributes then pick them.
Lastly look at the pictures of people that comment here and see what kind of builds they have, there are really good players here.
If you are new to the game I would suggest you to disregard the other suggestion since it requires heavy foresight, luck and preparedness which is difficult to follow through for newer players.
Although I have played the game for over a month, I only ever got a cleaver build running once, an archer build running 8 times (6 out of those 8 times were thanks to Matthew), so my recommendation would be to stack up on armor pieces because enemy spikes and burn become irrelevant anyway with a hefty block.
The archangel armor and the plate armor are both very good, the former gives haste, the latter adds 8 block which is massive! Then, there is a bug that causes the ninja suit to add armor instead of removing it if you are affected by haste which again the archangel armor provides.
Your last concern should be poison because right now you are practically invulnerable.
To counter poison you can use a combo of both a cleansing rag, plus either a vampiric gem or a heartstone gem. Alternatively, if you run a mana-based build a my first wand will always recover all the health you have lost due to poison.
As for damage, I recommend a full-on magic build, it is an easy build to get going for newbies because wands deal extra damage on top of your action turns which you can use to refill on mana thanks to the spellbooks.
Although yes, an archer or cleaver build is objectively superior and will always get you farther in endless, it is difficult to build. Then again, as a long-time player, I struggle to get those builds going because they require lucky drops and foresight. Even when I did get the build running, it would not scale well in endless because I stop findind the items I need. For cleavers, I had like 9 of them queen, king, golden and normal in my inventory, and yet, I could not progress farther because that was as powerful as my character was gonna get by the end of the day.
Didn't realize it before it was too late but almost an invincible build (only thing that could really harm me before I could take it out was anything with constant generation of spikes)