Perfecting my TeAE early game gave me the keys to unlock the rest of the dubious spots in the essential combos. Miscast protection is huge for gish armor and melee viability. And the +1 range is great for Shock bounces.

The trick to TeAE is to embrace the randomness of Shock - its variable damage and unreliable to-hit, and the luck-influenced opportunities for bounces. Take a fighter-bomber's perspective - sorties are devastating but incompletely destructive relative to the ability ground forces to root out opposition. The solution is just to fly more sorties while avoiding damage. Strafe the three stairs serially. Open with Shock to start MP regen. Then fall back, opportunistically taking shots, towards the stair. Unload his MP when safe retreat is guaranteed. Break contact before overwhelmed. Maybe pull 1-2 up and finish them. Then switch stairs while regenning.

Whittle down packs. Failing to get any kills on a run is no problem, you'll get one next time. Kill the weak first. No need to finish the pack. Even if the stair gets camped, time spent on the floor strafing the other stairs will cause those packs to wander away, both through noise and random movement. Bypass OOD fights with stealth and speed.

Worst case, if all stairs are camped, take a hatch and rely on Veh's MP on kills to sustain the engagement. Pick a bouncy killhole, and retreat away from the directions bringing adds, towards an edge and corner.

Puzzled about MfIE post-Fedhas. Ultimately the answer was same as OgAK: polearm+throwing keepaway with Bend Space compensates for poor AC. MfIE Lug corrupts quickblades for flat-damage-brand relevance and rapid dismissal of unwanted adjacent monsters. Uses cold hexes - Ensorcelled Hibernation and Metabolic Englaciation. Latter synergizes with polearms, former with short blades. Dragon Form synergizes with Ozocubu's Armour and Ring of Ice. Average .5 apt for Statue Form and Necromut. 15 Str for Shadow Dragon Scales is doable by assigning all but two level up stat increases to Str. On average get an extra 1-2 from random stat increases. So can safely pick Int or Dex for the first three levels ups. First two should be Int until get melee gear going, then maybe Dex.

Should be able to do Crypt earlier than normal. Bring corpses from Vaults. Gourmand OP. Lig for Torment. Fedhas AoE abilities make Lig survivable. Thematic. Plants vs Zombies! MfIE Fed is a confusion stabber/polearmer.

The early game is the best lab for testing essential builds. The rest of the game is too noisy and easy. Too much going on, too many secondary abilities. Early game makes the difference between good and best build salient, which reveals fundamental truths about game mechanics that apply to the entirety.

I believe I'm done with early game build experimentation, so my interest in the rest of the game is rising. Before it was merely a tedious distraction from the important questions.